For the last three months, I stopped all my other art investigations and turned my attention toward making a hybrid of manga, comics, and fine art, exploring just what it meant to incorporate all of the phases of my art experience, from high school to experience in fine art. I’m very excited about this series. Marvel color artists really imspried me as well, researching current comics in Spider Man and X Men.

Along with researching Appleseed and 80s- early 90s comics, I used the abstracted series of technological components to build the technical backgrounds, using strategies I learned from Gundam and the simplified style of Osamu Tezuka, who I had studied in art school. This was the most important investigation for me, bringing all my influences together for the first time. Sketching and inking are done completely analog with ink and nib pens.

A Section of the Novel I”m working on right now, Memory of a Distant Fire looks at the lingering effects of conflict, war, and PTSD, and the protagonist, Athena, realizes the fighting has ended and she has returned home, which is in ruins. The rest of the story follows the recovery period of a post-war society in peacetime, where new strategies must be developed to rebuild.