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Interview With Kiki-sama
I was extremely fortunate to have the honor of interviewing an extremely busy Kiki-sama, the writer and illustrator of Pienemien's Ray, a manga about a group of teens all from different backgrounds coming to meet each other in a psychiatric home. She is my inspiration behind this comic, the one reason I began to work in manga and doujinshi. I asked her questions pertaining to manga in general, as well as some questions about Ray. To read Kiki's wonderful manga, visit http://www.kiki-kay.com.
Interview
H: You recently had your 3rd anniversary of Ray. Before Ray, did you try making any other manga?
K: With a friend I drew hundreds of A4-sized comics about a music band. It was just after the whole Spice Girl hype and we figured we could make some interesting girl characters, based on them. We drew them for years, it was hilarious. That's the whole base of Ray as well, but I can explain that in a later question.
The comics that I made with my friend were simple and all with the same shape of frames. But it helped drawing funny jokes and funny personalities. After the Music Band comic we made a comic of ourselves and another friend, which all happened in space, with all kinds of aliens, which was hilarious as well.
Before Ray I wrote more stories than I drew stories. I did draw a lot, but not deep manga comics. I attempted a story of American McGee's Alice when I had just played the game and I was so wild about Alice absurd fantasy, because of her collapsing mental state.
But I figured that I hadn't developed my Alice enough to make it interesting. After that I drew a little DBZ-manga of my sister and her fried, fighting Vegeta as a teacher. And I also started a Weak Link (that's a tv-game) with DBZ characters, which was actually pretty hilarious, but I never finished it, mainly cuz I used the wrong paper and pens at the time and it annoyed the bananas outta me. Maybe I should redraw it, but I don't have that much time. Too bad.
H: How long before Ray did you work on the story and characters?
K: This brings me way back. To the time when my friend and I started to draw those Music Band comics. We got a bored with just the comics and we started to write stories about them as well (we also made magazines and newspapers of them) and then, after it was a little milked out, we decided to continue with our favorite characters' children. We wrote about her and her whole life (a real girl story, with girl problems and a bunch of girly stuff which would make me gag for sure now - plus we had zero writing skills, which is also a main factor in the gagging). But when we got tired of her, we continued with HER daughter, and with her daughter. And out of the roughly 40 characters we went through (which is quite a lot, figuring we started in 1999 and sort of ended in 2002 - well, she got bored, I loved to write. After 2002 I was the only one writing stories, she just read them) we only had 2 male main characters. What a waste, cuz guys are fun to write about.
When writing about one character, I already thought of a new story for the next character. I was thinking way ahead, my enthusiasm to blame. So, in the summer of 2002, I drew a little ugly pumpkin-shaped headed group of boys. In the back of my mind was the movie Basketball Diaries (with Leonardo DiCaprio, such a good movie), where especially in the beginning was this group of boys who, in my eyes, were a little alienated, or at least felt alienated. Without real parental support and strict supervisors at school. I loved this whole idea of a couple of boys just being on their own, feeling like it's them against the world and the world against them.
So there I had 4 characters, with way different personalities than I have given them now. And Ray, the one with the dark long hair, was going to be the most interesting, I figured, since I used dark hair with most of my main characters. I just love dark hair, ever since I was little and watched the Addams Family movies.
I named Ray and Mike, but the other two remained nameless. I named Ray, Ray, because my friend, at whose camping I was staying when I drew the sketch, was currently obsessed with Rayman. When I thought of it, I figured I really like the name Ray. And the blonde guy next to him, just screamed Mike!
So I made up some characters for a 'story I was gonna write in the future', but since I was always ahead in thinking up stories, I had already made up other stories I had to write first. I was working on a story called Rizz that time and I never wrote one and a half year about one character, but I loved Rizz, she was awesome, so... the story got a little super long and Ray was in superdelay. Cuz after Rizz I wanted to write about Heather first, Ray's mom, and then go on about Ray. (interesting how technology did not develop whatsoever in my story, cuz it would be a pain thinking all that stuff up)
In the meantime Ray was developing in story in my head. And when I had seen a yaoi doujinshi for the first time with the Gundam Wing characters Duo and Heero, I got all wild. I wanted to make a yaoi-story! I wanted to write about a gay couple, instead of all those straight ones! I was all hyper about it. So, after thinking about Ray for a year and I had just started writing about Heather, I finally developed a mangastyle that I could draw and felt confident with. That made me more wild about drawing my Ray stories, instead of writing them.
I had seriously adjusted their personalities and during my school 'career' (I studied to become a teacher) I had learned a lot about kids with disorders, such as autism, ADHD and borderline. I'm not a pro, but I knew enough to make an interesting story and interesting characters. Plus the idea of a Psychiatric Center had really made me even more excited, because I had 'experienced' a case in where someone close to me had to go to a place like that. Except I didn't make my Center as strict as her Center was, in sake for the flow of the story.
The personalities changed. Ray went from an arrogant guy, to a very insecure boy (and an alien, cuz...yeah...it made it all a bit more outcast than normal) and Mike went from a I'm-teasing-everyone-just-for-fun to a arrogant, misunderstood guy. I made up Ryan's character, partly after being inspired by the book Walk Two Moons, by Sharon Creech, where the main character's classmate Phoebe is convinced her neighbourlady is an axemurderer and that icky diseases could strike any moment. But Phoebe wasn't an upbeat character. I liked it how Phoebe was convinced of murders, while there weren't any and that I wanted to use with Ryan. Death, murder and disaster everywhere, but at the same time he had to be happy and careless. And Matt, I figured he wouldn't do anything. He'd sit and stare. I thought about making him move and talk a little, but then I figured: Why? Why react on others when it doesn't benefit you really? Eat when your hungry, sleep when your tired, that's all there really is to life. So that's Matt. Stripped of all the things you do in life, except the highly necessary ones.
And then, on january 2004, I started to draw Ray, not knowing if I could draw out a whole story (if I couldn't, I figured I'd just stop drawing and continue writing), but on Fanart Central, a community art website, where I put the pages on, people were all excited about it and before I knew it I had reached a 500 pages (more now) and developed my style beyond expectations, making me able to join a dutch doujinshi group, so I could re-draw the first pages of Ray and make it into my first 80-pages long graphic novel.
H: What Inspired you to create your own manga?
When writing about one character, I already thought of a new story for the next character. I was thinking way ahead, my enthusiasm to blame. So, in the summer of 2002, I drew a little ugly pumpkin-shaped headed group of boys. In the back of my mind was the movie Basketball Diaries (with Leonardo DiCaprio, such a good movie), where especially in the beginning was this group of boys who, in my eyes, were a little alienated, or at least felt alienated. Without real parental support and strict supervisors at school. I loved this whole idea of a couple of boys just being on their own, feeling like it's them against the world and the world against them.
So there I had 4 characters, with way different personalities than I have given them now. And Ray, the one with the dark long hair, was going to be the most interesting, I figured, since I used dark hair with most of my main characters. I just love dark hair, ever since I was little and watched the Addams Family movies.
I named Ray and Mike, but the other two remained nameless. I named Ray, Ray, because my friend, at whose camping I was staying when I drew the sketch, was currently obsessed with Rayman. When I thought of it, I figured I really like the name Ray. And the blonde guy next to him, just screamed Mike!
So I made up some characters for a 'story I was gonna write in the future', but since I was always ahead in thinking up stories, I had already made up other stories I had to write first. I was working on a story called Rizz that time and I never wrote one and a half year about one character, but I loved Rizz, she was awesome, so... the story got a little super long and Ray was in superdelay. Cuz after Rizz I wanted to write about Heather first, Ray's mom, and then go on about Ray. (interesting how technology did not develop whatsoever in my story, cuz it would be a pain thinking all that stuff up)
In the meantime Ray was developing in story in my head. And when I had seen a yaoi doujinshi for the first time with the Gundam Wing characters Duo and Heero, I got all wild. I wanted to make a yaoi-story! I wanted to write about a gay couple, instead of all those straight ones! I was all hyper about it. So, after thinking about Ray for a year and I had just started writing about Heather, I finally developed a mangastyle that I could draw and felt confident with. That made me more wild about drawing my Ray stories, instead of writing them.
I had seriously adjusted their personalities and during my school 'career' (I studied to become a teacher) I had learned a lot about kids with disorders, such as autism, ADHD and borderline. I'm not a pro, but I knew enough to make an interesting story and interesting characters. Plus the idea of a Psychiatric Center had really made me even more excited, because I had 'experienced' a case in where someone close to me had to go to a place like that. Except I didn't make my Center as strict as her Center was, in sake for the flow of the story.
The personalities changed. Ray went from an arrogant guy, to a very insecure boy (and an alien, cuz...yeah...it made it all a bit more outcast than normal) and Mike went from a I'm-teasing-everyone-just-for-fun to a arrogant, misunderstood guy. I made up Ryan's character, partly after being inspired by the book Walk Two Moons, by Sharon Creech, where the main character's classmate Phoebe is convinced her neighbourlady is an axemurderer and that icky diseases could strike any moment. But Phoebe wasn't an upbeat character. I liked it how Phoebe was convinced of murders, while there weren't any and that I wanted to use with Ryan. Death, murder and disaster everywhere, but at the same time he had to be happy and careless. And Matt, I figured he wouldn't do anything. He'd sit and stare. I thought about making him move and talk a little, but then I figured: Why? Why react on others when it doesn't benefit you really? Eat when your hungry, sleep when your tired, that's all there really is to life. So that's Matt. Stripped of all the things you do in life, except the highly necessary ones.
And then, on january 2004, I started to draw Ray, not knowing if I could draw out a whole story (if I couldn't, I figured I'd just stop drawing and continue writing), but on Fanart Central, a community art website, where I put the pages on, people were all excited about it and before I knew it I had reached a 500 pages (more now) and developed my style beyond expectations, making me able to join a dutch doujinshi group, so I could re-draw the first pages of Ray and make it into my first 80-pages long graphic novel.
H: What Inspired you to create your own manga?
K: The fact that I couldn't write about him yet and that I started to develope my own mangastyle. Plus manga was getting more and more known in my country. We had anime series when I was little, but back then I didn't know it was anime/manga. We just watched Samurai Pizza Cats, Maple Town, Peter Pan and Heidi and we loved it, without knowing it's japanese background.
But when Pokemon, Digimon and Dragonball Z came on tv and I thought it looked so cool, I became aware of the fact that the cartoons I used to love as a little kid, looked the same as Pokemon and DBZ. So I started to investigate, discovered the world of manga, which wasn't know in the Netherlands at all and for the few manga you could buy (if you looked very well in these small dusty comic book stores) you had to cough up 70 bucks. But HALLELUYA to the internet, where I found more attractive manga (more shojo and more for my age). In Germany we found out we could buy manga as well, though it was in German, where I bought my first manga. Loved the way it was drawn, so that inspired me as well, to draw my own manga.
But also the comic W.I.T.C.H. was sometimes that made me want to draw Ray. The comic has a light mangastyle and it's really good. I don't follow the story anymore, cuz my sis lacks to buy them, but I still think his artstyle is really cool. And I wondered if I could ever make such a long series or draw so much and not get bored.
I figure now that I will never get bored of drawing Ray, I can sit and drawn him from sunrise to sundown and even longer.
I also found out about Fruits Basket, just when I was developing my own artstyle and that was one of the biggest inspirations in 'how to tell a story and put humor in serious stories'. I love Fruits Basket, it's one of the best manga ever made and after 3 and a half year it's still my fav.
H: Of all the characters in Ray, who do you relate most to and why?
K: I'd have to say Ray. I mean, I have put parts of myself in all the characters. I can be as quiet as Matt, when I don't feel like talking or listening to anybody at all. Or like Mike, when I get annoyed and bitchy (lol, most of the time when it's too busy and I'm too tired) or like Ryan, when I just wanna see gore stuff (but I really hate horror-movies, I seriously cannot watch Saw or Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but I like good thrillers, ghost movies and stuff. I just hate slashers, with a lot of guts and stuff. I do like good gore art. I like to draw upsetting pics, tho) and creepy unknown-thing and be a hyper sugarbomb, wanting to hug everyone you see, smile and just act goofy. I like it when I go all Ryan, I'm all happy then.
But Ray is maybe the center of myself. The one deepest inside. No matter what I do, I always am aware of what others think (second is if I really care about what they think, which is a character trade I had to develope and now, most of the time, I don't care what people think, as long as I'm happy with what I'm doing), feeling a little alienated from the rest of the world.
Ray is my vonurable side I think, but that makes me love him the most of all my characters.
H: Do you have any tips on creating your own manga?
K: Yup, be patient is the biggest key. It's doesn't work wanting to finish a whole story within a week. Plus drawings are better when you put the time in it that it deserves.
Look at other people's art, they can inspire you. I got inspired by Fruits Basket, but also by art I just see on Fanart Central, DeviantArt and other sides, but also with anime/manga, movies, music, books, happenings in life, quotes. They all inspire me.
Get yourself a notebook and write down what you want to happen. Write down certain conversations. Sometimes it´s better not to have characters say a thing, but just let them do something and let the action speak. - write down things you just came up with, but cannot place in your story yet. - when you read back on what you have written, you can always make changes too.
Draw out the layout of your pages in rough lines, so you know what the pages will look like.
Don't make your characters perfect, cuz that's really a murder. It will kill your characters if your characters doesn't have any flaws. Write down what they like and don't like, what makes them happy, what makes them angry. It makes them more 'real'. Think about how somebody wakes up, if he or she can wake up fast or likes to sleep in. How his or her invironment reacts on this. Don't make them the perfect person, with the perfect looks, but who just can't help it all the bad things are happening to him or her. Even in real manga the 'perfect' people have flaws or act weird sometimes. It makes you love them.
Keep drawing and use tips. Improvement in art and story means you are good. Development is good, if you don't learn you're going backwards.
And last: Do not ever give up! If you want to do something, then do it and do not let other people tell you other wise. Handle comments wise, use them if you can use them, ignore flaming. Do no get discouraged because someone else is better than you. Fact is, there is ALWAYS someone better than you. But at the same time: everybody works in his own way and style. Its hard to compare. Shin Chan is a very ugly drawn manga, but its hilarious and very popular. Just because that mangaka used his strongest points in his manga. - Do not ask for respect of others, you have to earn it, by working hard and showing people how committed you are. This boy in my class 'demanded' respect, he wanted popularity with a story he hadn't even written yet. That's really a no. You cannot ask for respect. Earn it and once you earn it, it rockets you even more to try even harder and improve.
