Interviews Conducted by Robert J. Beck

Who do you think has influenced your style of art?

I don't know if I can pin-point just one or two influences
on my art. I grew up reading comics like Conan and
X-men and later read a lot of shoujo manga. Some of
my big influences in the past decade have been Yuu
Watase and Chiho Saito. In the last year my figure
drawing classes have been my biggest influence.
 
When was it you realized your comic would be able
to support you financially?

It wasn't just Red String, but also commission work
that helped me do this. I was able to slowly do less
hours at my day job because I was replacing it with
income from my art ventures. That was a couple years
ago and now I am making most of my money from
Red String. I think it takes a good five years to really
build a webcomic from the ground up... unless you get
lucky and are an overnight success.
 
What is the process of actually making a strip?

I don't just do one strip at a time. I do an entire chapter at a time, so generally I start with a summary and then script out the chapter. From there, I create small scale thumbnails of all my pages for that chapter, so that I can see how the page layouts look. Once I am happy with those I pencil my pages on 10x15 paper and ink it by hand. Then it's off to be scanned, cleaned up, and lettered in Photoshop. The last part of what I do is add screentones (those tiny dot patterns you see in manga).
 
Do you have a favorite strip that you've done?

I don't know if I could choose just one, but one of my favorites is the following: http://www.redstring.strawberrycomics.com/?p=1113
I like this one mainly due to the lower panel. There was something really fun about drawing it. The pages coming from the book and closing in around the character reminds me of when I get into a good story. It's like you are swallowed into the book in a way.
 
Do you ever find it hard to come up with a new idea for a story?

Red String's story is planned out to the very end of the series, but there are a lot of little details and sub-plots. Sometimes I do have trouble fleshing out some of those littler parts. Getting around this problem usually entails talking it out with a couple friends who are privy to the full series details. Sometimes just getting the thoughts out of my head helps with that sort of thing.
 
Your comic is currently published by Dark Horse Comics, how did this come about?

Everyone seems to think I had some special trick or there was a magic combination of tasks I performed, but the truth is they came to me out of the blue. I didn’t submit anything to them or show them my work. They read Red String online and asked me for permission to be published by their company. I suppose you could liken it to an actor being discovered in a coffee shop.
 
Are they going to be publishing more?

No, but I want to start by saying that Dark Horse was excellent to work with and we parted on good terms. The first book sold very well and they contracted me for the next two. I think a lot of things could have had
an impact on the sales of the second and third volumes. Some of those were a need for more marketing of the book, bookstores cutting their graphic novel orders by 50% around that time, and the later two books being released too close together. Whatever the case, I had decided I could sell the books on my own at this point. I had to sell a lot less books to break even. So far it seems to be working out okay. I have self-published the fourth and fifth volumes on my own. I have managed to get past just breaking even on the costs which is excellent and with my convention schedule for this year I plan to sell more.