I graduated last month, so my PhD is over and done! I'm also going to Thailand in May for a holiday. I've also submitted 2 short stories to the publisher Viz, and while both were accepted, the editor thought one had better potential, so that's what I'm working on doing the storyboards for right now--a fantasy action-romance. The problem is the other story, which was actually a simplified version of "The Dreaming" v4-5. Doing this simplification process was a huge challenge for more than one reason, because after I submitted it and was accepted (if not approved, since I'm doing the other story), I went back and re-read all the layouts I did for "The Dreaming" v4-5 and realised... they weren't good. One thing about turning a 500pg story into a 50pg one is that you're forced to cut off all the boring bits and focus on the most exciting and emotional parts, and after I did that in the short story (and am happy with the results), I found that the long form version is... full of talking and exposition. The thing is, it's not a problem with the PLOT--the plot remains as intriguing as ever. It's a problem with EXECUTION. I realise that the plot for "The Dreaming" v4-5 is still good, but the WAY it was being told was NOT. The story as it is now sets up a mystery, but the revelations come at the end of the story when it should come at the midpoint. I've already storyboarded 250 pages of it, but having done the short story version, I now realise it needs to be completely junked and started over. So I'm back to square one on this--on writing paragraph summaries for a plot outline. However, I'm concentrating on the approved short story first. In other news, the Viz one-shot stories are now all available on Bookwalker, a Japanese ebookstore, and you can read mine here.
My short mystery manga "The Mystery Cases of Sister Holmes" is now up on Viz for you to read online. I worked with former Shonen Jump head editor-in-chief Hisashi Sasaki to produce (now at Viz's One-shots program), and you can read it here or on BookWalker.
All 3 volumes of "The Dreaming" is now available in print/ebook, via Amazon and Barnes and Noble. It's also available to read onine from Global Comix, a wonderful creator-friendly e-comic site! Covers and revisions are listed here!
Free Reading: A short mystery story "The Mystery Cases of Sister Holmes" (67p) on Viz
A mix of artwork from School Magazine, from Issues #1 and #2 in 2023. The stories are “The Visitors” by Bill Condon, “Battle of the Four Seasons” by Cara Krenn, and “The Voice in the Forest” by Karen Wasson. It’s always fantastic to be working with all these great writers!
Part 2 of my story “Beating the Loneliness Monster” is here, in Youkie Magazine‘s January 2023 issue! Its 4-parts in total, and the story is actually by my 11 year-old niece Kelly Tao (I helped a bit). Excited to see Parts 3&4 come out in the next 6 months!
I’ve been doing a fair amount of School Magazine artwork for the year of 2021-2022, and apart from my previousposts for 2022, this is the art I like the best from the second half of 2022. My favourite is definitely the first one, which is a Greek mythology-themed story – always good to be able to experiment artistically due to the theme of the story.
“The Dreaming” is being republished in 2023 by IPI Comics, an imprint of Australian publisher IFGW Publishing! This story is a Lovecraftian take on the Australian classic “Picnic at Hanging Rock”, about twin sisters who attend a remote Australian boarding school where schoolgirls have been known to disappear.
The original story will have some minor rewrites/updates to suit a more modern audience, so it’ll have some new pages and redrawn art. There will also be a vol4, which will be a standalone story set in the same universe involving characters connected to some of the original characters, and hopefully the main storyline can continue in a part 2 after that.
Here is an interview with Soda and Telepaths about this, thanks to Anthony Pollock.
Here’s an interview with me from a while back, by Bettina Burger who is researching Australian Speculative Fiction. This interview was done before the rights to “The Dreaming” left the previous publisher, so what I say about “The Dreaming” will be different now that the circumstances are different.
I have an interview up with ALIA CYS Scoop, a newsletter for librarians. It’s on my work and also the Australia Comics & GN Database that I set up, and which is managed by ALIA librarians. Many thanks to Petrina for organising the interview and putting it up!
I have an interview with Jun Sugawara-san (and his translator Garrett Hudspeth) of Animator Supporters, who are a charity that supports underpaid animators struggling in the anime industry. Underpaying animators has been a long-time problem with the anime industry, to the extent where the industry could collapse, so here is Jun-san explaining why that happens.
This interview was conducted with a pre-prepared, bilingual Q&A document, so here is the full transcript with the original Japanese text. We didn’t cover the political aspect of underpaid Japanese animators, but that’s in the transcript. This interview was also hosted by the ACA, at their yearly Stanley Conference, many thanks to them.