MANGA ICHIBA: MY EXPERIENCE, WHAT YOU CAN TAKE FROM IT TO FURTHER THE DOUJINSHI AGENDA, AND OTHER THOUGHTS ON NURTURING DOUJIN CULTURE OUTSIDE OF JAPAN
By now a lot of people who attended the event will have already shared similar thoughts, but I still wanted to write down my observations and opinions on what made Manga Ichiba a success. My motivation is, of course, that I hope others around the country & the world hoping to organize similar events and grow more spaces for “doujin culture” outside of Japan can take something of value from this! For people who are really context thirsty, I’m going to write down a bunch of details about the event, but if you were there or just want to get to the good part feel free to skip right to TL;DR: WHAT WAS THE MAGIC SAUCE?
Because I know I’m going to write way too much, I want to say upfront an enormous thank you to the organizer Tiara, to anyone behind the scenes at Fanime who helped them make this happen, to the volunteers there that weekend, and to all artists and readers who came together for DOUJIN!!
I may also write up a Part II which is not a dissection of Manga Ichiba and how to make a Big Event happen, but just some thoughts/questions about possible alternative spaces for doujinshi I’ve been mulling over recently.
FACTS
Manga Ichiba was part of FanimeCon 2026 in San Jose, CA. Tabling fee was only $20, but you had to purchase your badge for Fanime separately. (This seems to apply to the main artist alley at Fanime as well, though that table fee is something like $300.) Manga Ichiba was held over 3 days (Friday-Sunday.)
It was located in the Doubletree hotel, which hosts other Fanime programming, but is some distance away from the convention center where the main events of the con are held. There was a free shuttle bus that would take people between the convention center and the hotel (about a 15-20 minute trip.) Notably, the “Night Market,” an 18+ version of the artist alley, is held at this same location from 6PM onwards, and the Manga Ichiba tables were set up in the lobby/hallway basically right in front of that hall.
Each day of the event was split into a “daytime” and “nighttime” slot, and each artist/circle was assigned one of these slots. If you were exhibiting 18+ artwork, you were placed in a “night” slot. 2 slots x 3 days = six different rounds of artists!
Promotion of the event beforehand: There was an informational page on the Fanime website leading up to the convention, but it was very much a description of what the event was conceptually, with few practical details for fans hoping to attend. I believe they officially promoted the event a few times on Fanime social media accounts. And eventually, we got a very cool list of circles up on the website, with useful filter options. This page went up a little more than a week before the con. Artists also did their best to promote not only their own presence but spread the word about the event itself beforehand. Very noteworthy were tomatobird’s flyer and unofficial guides, which were extremely informative!
When you attend Fanime, you also get two handy booklets that list all the programming info. Manga Ichiba was listed in both these booklets, so any attendee of the con flipping through could learn about it on the spot. I will say one wrinkle is that because it was a halfway 18+ event, and hosted at the Doubletree where all the 18+ programming is sequestered, its placement in the program did make it seem like a completely adults-only event, and you’d sorta have to read the fine print to see that it wasn’t. I don’t think this had much of a negative impact on the show, but just was one of the ways in which balancing all the logistics and complexity of the event was a bit tricky.
MY EXPECTATIONS
I knew it was a first-time event. I read about the event being a shuttle ride away from the con proper, and combined that with the fact that there would be SIX separate waves of artists at different times. I did not fully understand, having never been to Fanime before, that Fanime is sort of spread out over a few locations and people might be kinda used to hopping around. And even if I had understood that, I still thought no one but a few die-hard nerds were gonna get on a bus and leave the main con multiple times in a weekend. So to be honest: I went into this mentally prepared for this event to be nothin’ but crickets. But STILL! Something in my heart told me I HAD TO BE THERE!! FOR DOUJINSHI!!
(Oh, and I also thought “this event is trying a little too hard to do everything the way a Japanese event does it. I admire that idea, but we need to adapt things to what people are used to here, right?” Spoiler alert: wrong.)
TURNOUT
It was awesome!
First of all, as tomatobird put very well, it’s not like “selling the max amount of books” is the full picture of what makes a doujin event a success. I personally thought that the way this event brought together “seasoned” doujin-slingers, first-time comic makers, and everyone in between was really beautiful. Because each section was fairly small (you could probably get a good look at everyone’s table within 15 minutes) it didn’t have the overwhelming, overstimulating feeling of big artist alleys. I felt like people were often approaching artists and chatting with them/picking up their books even if they had no clue what their fanart was for, and that was pretty special. There was so much willingness to strike up conversations with artists, tons of interest in both people’s art and the overall concept of the event, and lots of time to chat with enthusiastic people (especially after I sold out of all my books & was just sitting there LOOOOOL ahem)
So yes, I sold out of every single book I brought. I think many people did. Now, lest we get carried away by our hubris, let me point out: because this was a new event and we were managing expectations, most of us did not BRING that many BOOKS. We were all DEEPLY UNPREAPARED for the enthusiasm and attendance. So “selling out of everything” in a matter of hours is not necessarily a shocking data point on its own. I don’t want people tragically overdoing it next year, lmaooo. HOWEVER!! It was an almost universal sentiment that both the amount of people who showed up and the amount of books they bought exceeded expectations. Speaking for myself, I sold in just a few hours what my circle usually sells at a whole weekend-long show that goes “pretty good,” and I would have sold a lot more
That’s actually the part I want to stress the most: several of us who frequently table at other anime artist alleys/indie comics festivals observed that we usually do not sell as many books as fast or as thoroughly as we did at this show. Often, we do not sell *THE SAME EXACT BOOKS* as fast as they were snatched up at this show, when we have taken THE SAME EXACT BOOKS to other shows repeatedly in different contexts. So clearly Something Was Working.
TL;DR: WHAT WAS THE MAGIC SAUCE?
Limitations on what you could sell and how you could display it kept the focus firmly on comics/zines.
Tabling fee was cheap.
Being attached to a larger, established event was a game changer…
…However, some friction/separation narrowed that huge audience down to those who actively wanted to seek out doujinshi, or were predisposed to be interested in it.
People just really really want this and are ready for it!!!
Ok now allow me to yap about each of these points.
KEEPING THE FOCUS ON BOOKS & CREATING A PLACE FOR “DOUJINSHI”
Everyone who got excited hearing about Manga Ichiba had the same THING burning in their heart. It’s not like there’s no other way & no other avenues to share fanbooks and zines and whatnot in the U.S. But we do not yet have a place to celebrate and nurture THIS specific KIND of artist-and-fan-practice. If you get it, you get it! And so the number one thing you have to do if you want to make a space for it is to really laser focus onto that practice.
Manga Ichiba achieved this by
1. Doggedly sticking to the lingo & structure of a Japanese event, effectively sending out the bat signal to the doujin-obsessed
2. Limiting what could be sold & displayed by participants.
I’m not going to explicitly report on all the exact rules, and honestly for this first go-round they were kept a little loose and honor-system anyway, but it boiled down to this:
You were not allowed to have too many “merch” items. People were allowed to have stickers, charms, prints, etc only in proportion to the amount of books they were accompanying.
You were not allowed to construct a display above a certain height. The tallest and most complex displays were people like me, who brought upright wooden book stands to help display several books on one table, or a few modular panels to hang signs on. Still quite simple. Plenty of people just set the books out flat on the table along with a few info signs! [Example, Example, Example, Example]
Limitations like this kept the focus on books, with guard rails against people feeling like they had to sink time, effort, and money into “competing” against more established artists or more elaborate displays. Even Manga Ichiba’s insistence on using Japanese lingo, using terms like “circle” for each artist/group of artist – which one could argue is a little goofy to do at a U.S. con – I believe all served to create the right expectations for the event, and attract people who were looking for this specific experience.
Because the tabling fee at ManIchi was extremely cheap compared to Fanime artist alley as well (see below) I can also see these rules becoming important in the long run to make sure that there is no incentive for artists who *aren’t* truly prioritizing books to try to use it as an alternate tabling option for cost-saving purposes, which would eventually dilute the focus of the event.
TABLING FEE WAS CHEAP
This was quite important imo. First of all, this makes it easier for any artist with the drive to share a comic to participate. You shouldn’t have to be a con-circuit pro, and you shouldn’t have to have already built up a lage catalog of books.
Also, if it’s affordable to participate, it becomes acceptable to risk, expect, or even intend to sell your books at a loss. I think that’s pretty essential for a proper doujin ecosystem, and it’s one of the biggest barriers in both a practical and cultural sense to doujin stuff fitting in to existing U.S. fan market… places.
IF YOU BUILD IT, THEY WILL COME, BUT IT’S EASIER TO GO WHERE THEY ALREADY BUILT IT
By being attached to a large, well-established, pre-existing event (FanimeCon) Manga Ichiba was able to have amazing attendance despite limited promo beforehand, and logistical obstacles at the con itself. I think it’s a no-brainer for anyone hoping to start a similar event in their area to look at whatever established anime/comic* conventions are near you, and start by trying to work with them.
*In the past I would have thought it definitely needs to be an anime con, but anime/manga/manhwa is so mainstream now, the lines are all blurring, nerds are converging, it’s a whole new world baby who knows
QUALITY OVER QUANTITY!!! OF GEEKS!
Even within general nerd/otaku world, doujinshi and zines are something that depend on all parties “getting it.” If I had set my table up in the middle of the main Fanime artists alley, thousands more people would have physically walked by me all weekend, but I don’t think I would have sold all of my books, and I certainly wouldn’t have had such a positive experience.
The thing that I had assumed might throttle this event – having to take a shuttle 15 minutes away from the main convention – I believe actually served to focus the attendees. Basically, the majority of people who bothered to come out there came BECAUSE they heard “doujinshi” and said “SIGN ME UP!!” and/or (for the nighttime timeslots) they were people interested in the Night Market (essentially a NSFW-focused Artist’s Alley) in which case they may not have been there for doujin/comics specifically, but still had a good chance of being familiar or interested in doujin... for a variety of reasons. Namely that most people here first learned about doujin via the porn ones, lol.
This “insiders only” vibe is something essential to the “culture” of doujinshi, but even I had underestimated it, or perhaps I simply assumed it was too abstract and touchy-feely to be actively worked into event planning. But I’m now here to tell you that it IS part of the magic sauce and you CAN try to control certain factors with this in mind. So if someone does succeed in setting up a similar event attached to another existing anime con, I think it is actually key that there is some physical separation from the “normal” artist alley. Finding the balance of what is too far away depends on the layout of the event. But I believe that simply trying to direct the maximum amount of traffic to wander by is NOT an ideal setup, counterintuitive as that may seem.
THE PEOPLE ARE READY, THE PEOPLE ARE HUNGRY
What was shocking to me was that so many different tables seemed to have a pretty amazing response. Allow me to explain why my mind was boggled so bogglingly.
At doujin events in Japan, tables are sorted by fandom/pairing, and that information is well known ahead of time. This typically holds true whether it’s something massive like Comiket or a smaller event. At a giant event, there will be a whole section of the hall for [fandom] and that will then have sub-groupings of [pairing] etc etc. Or you might have “only” events where the entire thing is organized around one fandom/ship/etc. Sometimes these are events-within-events. The point being, at such an event you can kind of EXPECT people to just walk up to your table and immediately buy your newest book, or everything you have, with no hesitation. They came there FOR that stuff and maybe even specifically for you and your book. This is also why these events are packed into a way shorter time period, and why you’ll see artists packing up and posting on social media about their delicious post-event meal celebration with friends at like, 2pm. Everyone comes and buys the books in a frenzy for a few hours, and then you call it a day!
It stunned me that we replicated a similar experience at Manga Ichiba when a) the event itself was relatively small b) there wasn’t too much in the way of grouping tables, and c) there wasn’t a ton of promo. The organization that did exist was: obviously anyone who had 18+ works were grouped in a night slot. And there was an unofficial attempt at sorting *a lot* of the BL and *most* of the yuri onto certain days. But there was still tons of overlap! There was a totally ecclectic spread of fandoms and pairings, of fanwork and original work. There were tables with only original work. There were tables with nothing but 5 books of the same OTP. There were tables with like 5 different fandoms (me.)
And yet, people from all these categories managed to sell books. I even sold all (ten) copics of shmuffalo’s Yuri On Ice rarepair doujin about the American and Chinese skaters working out their gay bi feelings. We usually have to explicitly point this book out to DIEHARD YOI fans at other cons, and most of them still don’t pick it up. What this tells me is, people were showing up just THIRSTY AS HELL to support DOUJINSHI IN GENERAL and to get their hands on whatever cool art caught their eye. I certainly was!! And damn… ISN’T THAT FUCKING COOOOOOL
OTHER THOUGHTS… YEAH SORRY I’M GOING TO KEEP TALKING YOU CAN LEAVE NOW IF YOU WANT
HANDLING R18/ADULT ARTWORK
As I mentioned, artists with 18+ works were all scheduled for the 6pm-start “night” slots, which overlapped with the “Night Market.” At that time, Fanime volunteers would be posted at the entrance hall that led into all Manga Ichiba tables/the Night Market/other 18+ Fanime programming, to check IDs and distribute wristbands.
How an event handles a mix of general audiences & adult books is always going to be a unique decision that depends on the laws where you are, the rules of the venue you’re at, the rules of the con if you’re hosted by a bigger con like Fanime, etc etc. Manga Ichiba itself was far from perfect; though I don’t think they suffered too much for it, the daytime-slot exhibitors may have been at a disadvantage because they didn’t have the traffic of the thirsty hordes of people coming over there for the night market. But I definitely think splitting the event up geographically would have been a terrible move, so all in all I think the right compromises were made.
I just want to reflect that this was my first time tabling at a space that was totally adult-restricted, and it was pretty freeing haha. Usually we sell a mix of comics at shows where the responsibility is on us to check IDs before people browse or buy our 18+ books. It’s always fine, but it just takes a bit of mental energy and vigilance to stay aware of who is reaching for what. So that was neat for me!
WHAT MAKES A U.S. DOUJIN EVENT DIFFERENT FROM AN INDIE COMICS EVENT?
There was a bit of discussion in the event planning Discord about requiring books to be “manga”-like or manga-inspired. The intention as I understood it was to ensure books desperately looking for a place to belong found it, and books that already have a place at indie comics fests don’t take up those spots.
My 2 cents on that topic is this: It only matters that the way an event is described by the organizers helps guide the right people to find it & come into it with the right expectations. But I don’t think much good can come of maintaining rules that attempt to scrutinize an individual artists’ style. And for Manga Ichiba, being attached to an anime con, my feeling is that this is probably a non-issue. As someone who straddles the fanart and original-indie-comics world myself, I know there’s a ton of overlap with artists walking both “worlds”, and what makes a doujin a doujin is less about the visual “style” of the artwork and more about the “style” and intention of the book itself… in a way that is hard to define. Obviously any book that is fanwork, or any artist who has a large percentage of fanwork, is likely going to fit in great, regardless of what their art looks like. And when it comes to original work… I guess I don’t expect too many people to be clamoring to get into an event like this if their comic is a total vibe mismatch. And if they are a total mismatch, they probably just won’t have a great turnout or an incentive to come back.
So I think if an event is juried, it’s best to be clear about event priorities but vague about art-style specific “rules”, keep an open mind and “know it when you see it.” And if an event is not juried, it’s fine to trust that the people who think they belong probably do. Shrug!
JUST BECAUSE JAPAN DOES IT, DOESN’T MEAN IT’S GOOD
I mentioned that I went into this thinking “we can’t just COPY a Japanese event like that, it won’t necessarily WORK HERE” and I was WRONG and I now see that it was actually IMPORTANT to use Japanese-event terms and structure in order to attract people who understand it already, and thereby SUMMON the spirit of a different kind of event into being.
But that being said! I do still think that while we are nourishing a new budding subculture, we have an opportunity to pick and choose what we are missing, what we admire, and what works best. Both logistics and culture wise, some things might need adapting. And thats okay. Just wanted to put that out there lol
DOUJIN AND LEGAL STUFF
I’m not going to go into this deeply because I am by no means informed enough to educate other people. But I really want to bring this up as something that too often gets left unsaid when people start conversations about “man, why can’t we have Comiket too!”
When it comes to selling and/or exhibiting fanwork, there is always going to be both a legal and cultural landscape determining what you can do. In as general terms as I can put it, not only are doujin artists in Japan operating under different copyright/IP laws than your country probably has, but perhaps more importantly, they are operating under a set of different expectations about what is cool and what is crossing the line. What people new-ish to doujin may not realize is that these expectations are not always even unspoken ones, and that events like Comiket AND individual IP holders have a variety of guidelines that artists are expected to follow and basically self-enforce. And because it’s in Japan… they do.
So I just wanna say: don’t be afraid, be free, make transformative art, because it rules and it should always exist. But stay smart, protect yourselves and the wider community of fanartists, and always keep some humility when you’re making creative work with other people’s characters and ideas. And be aware that doing this stuff in the U.S. right now is more or less the wild west (heh) simply because it’s too small and niche to rustle anyones feathers. If things were to grow significantly, feathers will surely be rustled, one day.
Oh, and one practical PSA: You may notice that JP doujin often have a boilerplate disclaimer in the back of the book that says stuff like “don’t redistribute or post this online.” It’s also standard to write something like “[xyz] unofficial fanbook” as a subtitle on the front or back cover. Can you “Disclaimer: I don’t own this” out of trouble? No. But should you do these things anyway? Yes. It makes your intentions clear, which a) helps people who are new to doujin understand what they are looking at, and b) removes any ambiguity that you are trying to pass your book off as “official,” which definitely helps keep you out of hot water. PUT THAT SHIT ON THERE SOMEWHERE
MONEY MONEY MONEY
How much you sell fanwork for, or if you even “sell” it at all, is always a complicated topic. My general view is, it’s pretty clear at a glance who is doing something out of passion and who is trying to grift off of whatever IP is hot right now. By and large, the latter won’t get a warm reception from real-ass nerds, and the former can do whatever they feel is appropriate based on… what I can only describe as “the organically-formed community-agreed upon ethics of the nerddom they reside in.” Personally, I tend to price my fanbooks a bit lower than original work of a similar length, and/or offer them digitally as “pay what you want” either simultaneously or at some point after I start taking them to shows as physical books. There’s a ton of different philosophies on this and the unique situation around each artist and their project also factors in a lot. My hope is that we always give each other grace and good faith, and only keep an eye out for people who ignorantly/recklessly put everyone at risk. I want to shout out this event report by faiell for sharing thoughts on pricing and its effect on the overall culture and health of doujin events. I especially want to draw attention to it because the push to keep doujin affordable and profits slim, which I strongly agree with, runs counter to deep sentiments in the *cartoonist* community that artists are harmed by under-valuing their own work, which I ALSO strongly agree with! Doujin in the U.S. is currently in an awkward spot because it has had to make a home in general “comics” spaces, and therefore be treated the way we want “comics” to be treated. Big thanks for opening up this discussion.
MY FEEDBACK / HOPES FOR MANGA ICHIBA SPECIFICALLY
While my doubts were thoroughly smashed, it WAS a big hurdle that there were *six* separate slots of artists at a location physically removed from the rest of the con. Even I, who came specifically to participate and support this event with my whole ass, missed a few groups entirely because I had to like… go eat food and stuff. I think it might be best if ManIchi was condensed down to a two-day event with only four rounds, if there was a feasible way to fit a greater number of tables into those days. From what I can tell each individual group still had a good turnout, but as an attendee it’s a shame to have to miss any section of artists completely!
Being camped outside the night market was pretty major. So moving away from that hallway in search of a more wide-open area to stuff more tables in (upstairs?) also has its drawbacks. But hey, maybe after a year or two of establishing the event, that trade-off will no longer be so important!
The more artists and organizers can coordinate to sort into groups by genre/fandom beforehand, and get their info out about what books they will have on what day, then the more attendees can prioritize when they absolutely gotta make it there. I gotta say again that that filterable circle page is rad. And it only works if we artists SEND IN OUR SHIT haha
Since I wasn’t tabling until Sunday night it worked out fine for me, but it would definitely help people out if they could pick up their badge for Fanime at the same time & place as checking in with Manga Ichiba.
This year you could only do a full table. I thought this would be an easy win for the future re: fitting more artists in less time, but honestly, having now confirmed the size of the Doubletree’s tables (a normal 6 feet) I’m not so sure. Half tables would work out ok for those artists who only have a few books each! But when the crowds and lines were at peak, it would have been really hard to manage. Like, it does suck if a ton of people want your neighbor’s book and are blocking off your table for hours, and I can see that becoming an issue were we squished more tightly together. It was actually really nice that multiple people could browse and flip through without obstructing the whole table. Still! Everything is a trade-off. I think it could be a good option for some percentage of artists if ManIchi has the organziational bandwidth to pull it off in the future.
I don’t know if this is at all feasible for Fanime to support, but if people stay as thirsty for books as they were, and if this event starts GROWING and getting even THIRSTIER, then being able to ship books directly to the con ahead of time starts to become a much-needed option for artists!
let's go to fanime. pt. 1: limited reader's viewpoint
This was originally going to be in the same post as my reflections on attending Fanime, but then I thought, you know what, I don't think it's fair to make people suffer through my maudlin ramblings if they're just interested in knowing how the doujin were.
So here are some reading notes on the doujin I bought at Manga Ichiba, loosely arranged by time slot! (The little red fujoshi octopus sometimes appears in pictures to hold a cover down. You can buy your own here.)
"Smoke," by kan and ico
I struggled at kan and ico's table for so long because I wanted to buy ico's beautiful Neon Genesis Evangelion artbook but was reminded by my friend that I should stick with what i came for (doujin and original art). Having seen an example of their upcoming Persona artbook, I can only say, you MUST buy their goods if you love paper. I tweeted a while back that American readers simply do not have the appreciation for paper that we should, and when I saw kan and ico's work I was reduced to repeatedly saying "this is so fucking cool" because I was clearly standing in the presence of people who do appreciate paper. The Persona artbook has special translucent pages with foil accents!! The cover of the Eva artbook is lightly textured around the character outlines!! You just have to touch their books to get it. There is so much care and attention to detail.
"Smoke" is an OC oneshot and is relatively short, with very little background given about the characters (except in the profiles at the end). But it has the air of a fanfic from a practiced writer, with a conceit about deaths from cigarette smoking (one of the characters is a forensic pathologist) and withdrawal symptoms that is classic bl fare. It's moody and atmospheric, clearly calling out for a longer work, and of course the bonus photocards are unexpectedly delightful paper products, featuring a luxurious matte finish that you'll want to run your hand over.
As of this writing, "Smoke" is not available online or for purchase.
Two doujin from halveablock.
"Beacon" (Gundam Witch from Mercury, SuleMio)
Reading this made me realize I don't remember as much of the anime as I thought I did, but I was so thrilled to see any Witch of Mercury doujin at all…! The opening pages, with a wordless dream sequence that starts with Suletta floating in space before waking up in her hospital bed are particularly memorable. It is neither a requirement or even always desirable for a doujinshi to hew closely to the canon designs, but here I was impressed with how close Xed kept the art to what you see in Witch from Mercury's anime. No small feat given that Suletta and Miorine both have frankly unreasonable amount of Anime Hair.
"Happiness" (Land of the Lustrous, with sketches from Elien/@_neile)
Xed's comic shows that they have a really strong grasp on the shoujo paneling tradition, with lots of organic movement that carries you across the page, and it makes the moments when they return to square/rectangular panels particularly powerful. The whole fancomic portion is an ode to Houseki no Kuni's complicated and deeply conceptual ending. It feels like a prayer for a kinder world, one that doesn't exist, that may never exist, that we nevertheless want to exist, if not for ourselves, then for others, except a dream like this always contains in it a kernel of selfishness, a desire that the better world we worked hard for had existed for us too, so that we need not have ever learned the importance of striving for that better world. That's what Phosphophyllite's happiness means to me and, I think, to Xed too.
You can order physical copies of Xed's doujinshi from their website!
Three original comics/doujins/zines.
"When the tide returns," by vivinhun
Caught me instantly with the vision test imagery in the opening, so i knew I had to have a copy. What awaited me inside is a wonderful exercise in elision. Minh, a memory worker, is told that he has been "processing too many memories" and should see a specialist, Dr. Rivera, who lives in a lighthouse. He brings along two kids (Kamon and Luka), whose relationship to Minh is never explained. The comic depicts a simple outing: collecting shells by the water, making a meal with friends, a quiet conversation, but there's a sense of something disquieting just outside the four corners of this oneshot. What is a memory worker? What is Dr. Rivera a specialist of? Is it so bad for our memories to soften over time, so that it is hard to tell what are our real memories and what are stories others have told us? Even the art hides mysteries. Though the images look at first like loose pencil sketches, the more you read the more you realize they aren't the first draft of a storyboard but rather fully formed and planned panels that are then re-rendered in pencil (a suspicion collaborated by the artist in the afterword).
Incidentally, prior to this trip to San Jose, I had just finished a video essay exploring the origins of the images used in the autorefractor machines, including the red barn image with which vivi opens "When the tide returns." The video essay creator talks about having bad eyesight all his life and developing a personal connection with the red barn test image. When he discovers that it was based on a real, still-standing structure, he makes a pilgrimage to the farm on which it is located. Everything about it is different now. There are no fences, and the barn isn't even red (it's likely the red was added to the photograph for the autorefractor image). But he is still excited to be there. "It's real," he keeps saying. "It's a crazy feeling to be here."
I don't know if vivi has watched this video too, or if they, the video essayist, and I all have bad eyesight and an affinity for this red barn image, if this is all just a coincidence, random threads I am tying together to make meaning. But I can't stop thinking about how photographs are like a memory someone else has of you which you then internalize as your own memory, that every image is real, and not real (just like the pencil sketches in this comic are real, but not real), that a place can be "realer" in your memory than in reality, that sometimes we have to live and breathe and feel in the present to be able to properly "see" the past, that every reality is reconstructed. When I read vivi's afterword, many things fell into place: this is a story about navigating transience, how to make peace with becoming a cracked vessel for the experiences and memories we accumulate and, inevitably, lose hold of.
You can preorder this comic from vivi's website.
"Transient Solids," sketches from ketsal
In case you can't read it from the picture, the blurb on the front says:
drawings from sketchbooks (physical)
that were edited (digitally)
and then printed (physically)
… which really felt like a sign of the times! So many works at Manga Ichiba feel like they exist in that in between space of paper and digital. These days, digital distribution is easy, and we could technically have a digital only doujin event (and you do in fact see this all the time, both in the English-speaking and non-English speaking spaces), which would cut out all the issues that go into printing and flying into a physical space and tabling. But that friction is part of the appeal, isn't it? Picking up a book, feeling the weight of cardstock, commiserating about ordinary home printers that aren't up to the task, the thrill of getting something that may only be printed and available physically this one time—I understand this appeal now!
Anyway, I picked this book up because the first page I flipped to was a doodle of a bowl of chazuke, which ketsal mentions they first tried because it came up in "Run with the Wind." I do that too, making food because it comes up in a series I am reading, so it made me feel great kinship to them. Imagine my surprise when later that evening, I turned the page only to find that ketsal had also doodled some characters from Sugiura Shiho's "Silver Diamond," which is their #1 manga and one of my all-time favorites as well! It's these little moments that made Manga Ichiba so fulfilling to me. ketsal, if you are reading this, I hope you know there are dozen of us Sugiura fans! Dozens of us!!
"I will teach you how to fish." by halveablock
My absolute favorite of the halveablock doujins I bought, and weirdly in dialogue with vivinhun's "When the tide returns," with themes of memory and disorientation... the letting go of something you were trying to grasp of the past so that you can be the "you" of the present... and fishing.... Most of the action focuses on main character Mael trying to gut a fish that has been infected with something called barnacle sickness, which causes it to grow eyes all over its body.
This doujin is beautifully produced, with a striking cover that has a cutout window so you can see the risograph page inside. The limited uses of red and blue, sometimes purposefully offset from the black outlines, add to the sense of unease. There's a feeling in the story like you are clearing your head after being punched, and you know you have a few screws knocked loose in your head, but you don't know where they are and what they used to hold together. The style, both art and paneling, feels more like "western" comics, maybe a little touch of the Vertical imprint, and I say this as a compliment. You know I love a metaphor that's all about fish death, and this delivered in spades. Fantastic execution — creepy, murky, kind of "Blue Submarine No. 6"-ish.
You can, as mentioned above, get physical copies of Xed's doujinshi from their website, but a digital version of this comic is also available for purchase!
Collection of doujins from durian soda / Lina.
I'm lucky enough to claim Lina as a personal friend whose art I have always admired, so naturally I am biased when it comes to talking about her work. She is not only enormously talented but also prolific and had so many books (and fans!!) at her table that visiting her during the Friday night session felt like being in the presence of a minor celebrity. She draws so much, it's disgusting (I say this with a beatific smile). I already purchased "Bad Luck Angel" when Lina first released it on her website, and I bought the Haikevah artbook for a friend, so I'm really only reviewing two of the works below.
"Lucky": I am the only fujoshi in the world for whom "Heated Rivalry" did not hit (or at least that's what it sometimes feels like), but I love Lina's continued dedication to pushing out multiple storyboards where all the characters do is fuck, beautifully and a little athletically. Ilya's voice here is very good, punchable but sweet, and I love her super hot anime-boy rendition of Shane, who is so extremely uke-coded in this that you are tempted to join in with Hudson's deranged fantasies of a sex scene where he tops his own character. My favorite detail is how large and round Lina drew Shane's thighs during the blowjob, which are exactly the kind of quads that made specialty tailors for hockey players a real thing. The only thing that could make this better is if Shane also got a beautifully rendered sparkling asshole, a la nocori. Next time!
"Hot New Thing": If you know Lina irl you know that she is a raucous tumbleweed of irreverent humor, so it's no surprise that I love this doujin so much because it is outrageously funny. There is a sequence here where one of the characters has a cinematic daydream about his Labubu avatar getting cucked and it may be my favorite two pages from this haul. Shun, the main character, is such a devilish virgin(?) bottom who accidentally sows enormous chaos in the heart and mind of his best friend Take who has had the misfortune of being in love with him. They are idiots and I wish them a happy life together. Side note: Shun's idol is an Ayer-senpai who I think maybe a crossover from Lina's other original doujinshi, "Bad Luck Angel!"
You can get ALL of the doujinshi pictured and more!! from Lina's website.
"Craving," by juliegg
I love Julie carrying on the great doujin tradition of writing a special issue for a doujin event that's just their own OCs fucking. This is a very important ritual and with it, we baptize Manga Ichiba properly. Breeze once wrote in their report that there is a characteristic "fujo-grin" that one sees on the face of a reader who is enjoying something very perverted. If someone had seen me after I finished reading "Craving," I suspect I would have had just such a wicked fujo-grin on my face. To be honest, I am not a cat boy aficionado, but I bought this on the strength of Julie's own enthusiasm, and I loved flipping to the author's notes afterwards, because all of her favorite parts were my favorite parts, including and ESPECIALLY the part where Rui rubbed his tail on Kouta's tip. Julie… perhaps you are a genius…..
You can buy "Craving" online at Julie's website.
"Possession Session," by faiell
Vincent is a shaman with a crush on an influencer (?) named Sydney, whose girlfriend Mira died in a freak car accident. Vincent offers to take Sydney on as a client and let Mira possess his body, nominally under the banner of grief counseling, but Sydney (and Mira-in-Vincent's-body) choose to use that time to have a marathon sex session.
This doujin features my hands down favorite cover—the color combination, the striking placement of the title, the placement of the earring across Vincent's face suggesting that he is perhaps levitating sidewise, the hands (his own? Sydney's?) by his neck as if threatening strangulation. I love that Vincent's tongue is almost split by one of the letters and I am exercising great restraint into trying not to read too deeply into that design choice. Sydney is such an unrepentant scumbag that of course he's also a livestreamer, like bro please stop streaming your girlfriend's funeral?! His utter indifference to showing any care or decorum for Vincent is tragic, and flipping to the end where Fai writes that Vincent is "the type of guy who mistakes lust for love" felt like the sudden sense of doom when you realize you've accidentally eaten expired food. Poor Vincent, you are too gorgeous and slutty and lovingly designed by your creator to suffer this asshole, no matter how much his appearance may remind me of a Gen Z Char Aznable!!
You can preorder a copy of "Possession Session" at Fai's website!
"forever and always" by arestinnia (Jujutsu Kaisen, Fushiguro/Itadori)
This is a post-canon/Modulo!era Megumi/Yuji doujinshi and one of the ones I was most looking forward to buying from Manga Ichiba when the circle cuts came out. Arestinnia's style is so accurate to Akutami's own, especially in the very opening page where Maki is scolding Yuji for not accepting a compliment and a fabulous middle sequence where Yuji is eradicating cursed spirits but is caught by Megumi, who has come in his child form to fetch Yuji. It's of course a wonderful tribute to the sequence in the manga where Yuji tells child!Megumi that it is lonely without him, but with a bittersweet twist (Megumi accepts that he cannot bring Yuji with him, as Yuji is determined to remain on earth and do good). I'm always sad when I think about Modulo!Yuji, who will have to experience the death of everyone he has ever loved, but I wonder if in arestinnia's world, spirit!Megumi will come and sit with Yuji occasionally, get ice cream with him and get scolded by Maki with him and just be not alone. It might make the many years Yuji has left go down more easily.
As of this writing, "forever and always" is not available for purchase, but arestinnia has indicated they will put it up on pixiv!
"Sorcery Fuck", by Some Mollusk (Jujutsu Kaisen, Todo/Itadori)
Incredible premise that is based on the artist's own fanfic (!!): Todo and Yuji are sent to Tokyo Bigsight where they have to get rid of some cursed spirits, among which is the Comiket Curse, which immediately traps them in a fujoshi domain expansion where they can only leave if they have—and this Yuji and Todo test exhaustively—fully penetrative penis-in-asshole sex.
Y'all this doujin is HUGE in size (and surprisingly lengthy in page count too!). I know there was some discussion about the expectation of how big a doujin "should" be, but "Sorcery Fuck" is the largest of all the books I bought, so big that I was able to fold up my "Happy Birthday Kim Dokja" poster from BeAl2O4EA08 in it. I love the concept of a Comiket curse that instantly traps any two hot men standing five feet apart (and thus, of course, gay) into a "fuck or die" room, and I love Some Mollusk understanding the assignment and bringing that as their Manga Ichiba offering.
I also enjoyed comparing these two JJK doujins, because it shows that there are as many approaches to doujinshi as there are creators and fans in the world. "forever and always" hews closely to Akutami's style, down to the lettering, and feels like such a natural extension of the canon, while "Sorcery Fuck" has the romp-like energy of a digital extra at the end of a two-volume bl. Some Mollusk's art style and panelling feels more western and has the miles-of-jokes-per-second rhythm of a very well-edited commentary video. I don't know how to explain, but there are pages where you almost can hear the Vine boom sound effect. I mean this all extremely positively—it's very hard to keep up a constant level of humor and hijinks in a story that's almost entirely porn. Every time I revisit this doujin to write about it, I notice a new punch-line worthy joke that Some Mollusk throws in there like it's no big deal at all: the Comiket Curse dropping an anal plug when it's fighting Yuji, Sukuna giving Yuji the middle finger from beyond the grave, a doodle of Takada-chan in a lab coat explaining time dilation. This time around, my favorite joke is Yuji wringing the neck of a fleshlight and picturing a hamster trying to deep-throat a banana when he sees Todo's, ahem, assets for the first time.
As of this writing, "Sorcery Fuck" is not available online or for purchase.
"Making Peace," by banditry (Metal Gear Solid V)
Val is another personal friend, so again my effusive praise may lack objectivity, but I sincerely believe their work, as shown in this edition of "Making Peace," is on another style level. That they printed and bound the comic on their own, so that they could use kraft paper and Acco fasteners that would be thematically in line with the aesthetics of MGS, is just the beginning. "Making Peace" is for sure more "graphic novel" than it is "manga": each double-page spread features a different wash of color and central image, around which Val has positioned text (sometimes in dialogue bubbles, but usually not). You can take in the comic casually and quickly, letting the artful touches of color, bold images, and measured prose wash over you, or you can scour each page desperately, picking it apart for hidden meaning: the diagetic section numbers, the recurring circle-and-intersecting-line imagery that echoes the individual elements of the peace sign (another meaning to "making" "peace"), the obsession with eyes and glasses. "There's layers," Val writes in the afterword about MGSV, which is the same thing I'd say about their comic.
I am not a MGS fan (for reasons that are too boring to get into, I have basically only played about five video games in my life), and I'm only vaguely familiar with the characters in "Making Peace," but I think there is in both the comic and the making of the comic (and my own experience reading it) something about the theme of having to make peace with one's own limitations, and how our lives are shaped as much by what we cannot do as it is by what we end up doing. To make peace is, inherently, positive: to lay a conflict down to rest, to cast off one's dissatisfaction, to be able to move on. But it is also, inherently, a surrender, an admission that there is nothing more that you can do—if, indeed, there was ever at all. But that struggle may only be legible to ourselves. When we look too closely at ourselves we often only see the flaws. From the outside, one only sees the success of a turmoil ending, an achievement obtained. Just like I from the outside can only see how ambitious, how beautiful, how perfectly formed "Making Peace" is.
As of this writing, "Making Peace" is not available for purchase, but I believe Val will make it available online at some point, so please watch their socials!
"Hitchhiker," by yiyuehua (My S-Class Heroes, guideverse AU, HJYJ)
"Hitchhiker" is an illustrated doujin version of a previously published fanfic, with a special bonus at the end that is in more traditional manga form. The story opens on Yoojin driving in the rain and coming across Sung Hyunje, who derails Yoojin's car and forces himself inside. Hyunje is an S-class esper and injured, and of course Yoojin is an S-class guide (masquerading as an F-class guide and undertaker), and of course they end up fucking, though one could hardly call it good, giving, or game.
To be honest, I was at a loss for a while about what to write about "Hitchhiker," but that is because it is just plain delicious, the kind of old-fashioned meat-and-potatoes slash content on which I grew up and to which I still gravitate. Yiyuehua's writing and art are perfectly tuned to bl novel or webtoon sensibilities. You would, I think, believe me in a second if I told you this was on Publang or Tappytoon, and if it were, I would have subscribed in a heartbeat. Alas, "Hitchhiker" remains regrettably only a snapshot from a much larger story that exists as of now only in Yiyuehua's mind, though there are so many tasty details that I feel like a dying man being drip-fed a mirage. How did Yoohyun die, and is Yoojin capable of necromancy, and oh my god, is his dead brother's body really rotting—or reanimating—in the trunk of his car while he and Sung Hyunje fuck? Many questions that I hope against hope Yiyuehua will one day answer.
As of this writing, "Hitchhiker" is not available for purchase, but with some simple Googling, you can find the fanfic online.
"As You Wish," by saltcheee
"As You Wish" stars Cain, a royal magician, and his pet demon Yohan (Johann, maybe?). One of them has made a pact with a demon for great, perhaps unbearable power, in return for a promise, though who and what that promise is remains a mystery to the reader until the end.
I am not exaggerating when I say that reading this (at times through Google Translate) made me feel like I was dying. Salt, I think you need to get serialized… I think you need to go pro… I think you need to make that your number one priority because every aspect of this doujin fooled me into thinking I was reading the second chapter of a bl manga in a commercial magazine. The sequences with the demon and the promise felt like moments from episode 8 of Sonny Boy, the one with Yamabiko the talking dog, and the overall feel of "As You Wish" reminded me of Bikke's "Shinkuu Yuusetsu," also about two magical not-quite-lovers and not-quite-friends. Though the pages tend to be sparse, lots of white and implied backgrounds with screentones, it's the same kind of movement through space and panels that you'd see in any professional work. Like I truly cannot emphasize enough how much this felt so beholden and in harmony with the technical aspects of Japanese bl!! I also want to give a special shoutout to the character designs. Though a lot of the story feels vaguely fantasy Europe, with vaulted ceilings and tympanums along with the very European names, all the characters are wearing cheongsam-inspired robes inside their hooded coats. A very fun detail!
As of this writing, "As You Wish" is not available for purchase, but you can read a lengthy preview of it on pixiv.
"Game Show," by yanyan46e20 and BeAl2O4EA08 (ORV x MSCH crossover)
I'm sure both artists do not want to hear this from me, but unfortunately I would eat up 20 pages of this. No, 25 pages. No, 50!! Every page had a little something that made me laugh, from Yoo Joonghyuk immediately saying "KIM DOKJA" in an irritated voice when the game show starts (with a footnote that he says it as if this whole thing is somehow automatically Dokja's fault) to Uriel and Yoohyun in the audience cheering on their respective faves to the bonus cute off at the end (PRECIOUS. AMAZING. 10/10). This is short, and silly, and full of warmth for both canons. It is no exaggeration that I wanted to make sure I was early in line for Saturday's evening session just to make sure I could get a copy, and I do not regret it at all. I think the authors should consider letting Bihyung and Newcomer brainstorm more Situations to put our characters in. I think that would bring about world peace, really.
As of this writing, "Game Show" is not available online or for purchase.
"Daydream," by BeAl2O4EA08 (ORV, Joongdak)
The side benefit of having been almost first in line at BeAl2O4EA08's table is that I got to buy a copy of "Daydream." Saturday PM session of Manga Ichiba was perhaps not the bloodbath that Sunday PM became, but it was still busy enough that I didn't linger at the table, so I wasn't able to tell BeAl2O4EA08 how extremely legit everything about "Daydream" is. The binding, the design, the colored end pages, the heft. It is so luxurious and, yes, dreamy. I don't know if BeAl2O4EA08 ever intends to reprint it, but if you get a chance to buy it, please do.
As for the story itself, it is genuinely one of my favorite tropes, the dream that is not a dream, two lives intersecting at cross purposes, two people who can only meet in a place that operates on dream logic (extra special because it is ORV, of course) and desperately trying to grab onto each other. I know the Mandarin text ("Daydream" is presented bilingually!) is skewing the feeling, but "Daydream" reminds me a lot of Korean webtoons and Chinese manhua, with big panels that move almost exclusively vertically down the page and the frequent use of full-page images to break up the rhythm. My favorite sequence is when Joonghyuk and Dokja kiss in a subway car filling up with water, but, well, I am an "Adolescence of Utena" superfan after all. Reading "Daydream" made me think of the ways Utena and ORV are similar, about the ways we create our heroes and then desire our own created heroes only for them to in turn desire us, the idea of the End of the World as both an ending and the beginning, and the soft spaces in our subconscious where desire reigns, where we cannot turn away from our desire, where we are exposed by our desire, and how harrowing that can be.
As of this writing, I think "Daydream" is no longer available for purchase, though there was a reprint interest check previously. Perhaps there will be a re-reprint interest check!
"Merry Bad End Boy," by mousouhousou/Convenience Store Pudding
So, a confession: when I made a note to buy this, I didn't realize it would be het/NL. That said, this was such uproarious fun that I am very happy I own a copy. Mosouhousou presents most of this story as a series of 4-koma, and it's good to see that The Traditions Are Still Alive. I often joke that a lot of modern tropes I see in bl manga are actually expressions of our desire to escape capitalism (like for instance when a character you pick up off the street turns out to be your perfect housewife who heals your body and soul and that allows you to get promoted and/or escape from your toxic work environment). Here, mousouhousou quite explicitly explores that fantasy in the context of a yandere boyfriend. Naturally, my favorite sequence is "Do you do taxes, too?" where the yandere boyfriend helps the main character get a reimbursement for a client dinner because he knows where all her receipts and bank statements are.
There is a kind of "twist" ending which I will not spoil, but suffice to say, this is such a fun and unintentionally biting look into modern romance. What do today's heterosexual women want their partners to provide? It is not the fantasy of romance, which the main character (and many other heterosexual women like me!) finds in fiction. It is not the trappings of material luxury, like a house or money or a car, which we often can provide for ourselves. Instead, what we long for is a partner who is curious and attentive to us, who sees us both in our public and most unguarded private moments, who is willing to get a little silly with us, who takes initiative and does not wait for our direction or approval. The yandere is the crooked interpretation of that desire, but it is still nevertheless a manifestation of that desire, and "Merry Bad End Boy" understands that perfectly.
As of this writing, "Merry Bad End Boy" is not available, but a digital version of it will be available for purchase soon!
Three "Ace of Diamond" doujinshi by hongslice/tigrbalm.
I hope I did not embarrass/overwhelm Steph at her table by asking for copies of all three doujinshi as well as sticker sheets and a keychain. But it is so unusual to see a KuraMiyu shipper in the wild! Actually while I was at her table, one attendee was explaining to their friend that "usually people ship him (pointing to Miyuki) and him (pointing to Sawamura) together" and I wanted to butt in and shout BUT THAT'S WHY YOU NEED TO SUPPORT HONGSLICE, DON'T YOU SEE? But I am a fake fan who still hasn't fully finished Daiya Act I. Perhaps next year, Steph will come back, and I will act as a proper missionary!
"Where You Are": This is the KuraMiyu doujin hongslice wrote special for Manga Ichiba, featuring university student Kuramochi who is making new friends and professional player Miyuki who is learning that he gets jealous. This is one of my favorite happy-sad sports pairing scenarios too, because I am a sicko and this is essentially forcing a pairing to live through an ersatz breakup. "I am waiting for the day we can play together again" is "Even if you move on, I'll always love you," and "I'll always be cheering you on fron the sidelines" is "it's not you, it's me," but in sports anime/manga terms. I wish for nothing but delicious bittersweet happiness for these two forever.
"A Cat's Interlude": Sawamura fosters a stray cat, and Furuya gets involved, because he loves cats and also he loves Sawamura. I actually put my hand to my mouth when I got to the end of this doujinshi, because Furuya??? Are you OK???? I felt extremely Sawamura-kin at that moment, wanting to yell and hug Furuya in equal measures. You know, maybe only Sawamura could put up with this Furuya's silliness. Congratulations on your marriage.
"A Show of Love": Sawamura and Furuya have been dating on the down low for a while, so as not to impact their professional careers. Furuya wants to go public with their relationship, despite Sawamura's concerns, so Sawamura makes a bet with him: if he can hit a homer off of Narumiya in their next game, then they can announce they're dating. This has the same kind of story beat as the Scott and Kip subplot in "Heated Rivalry" and, well, that formula works for a reason and it works here! As a person who has adopted Narumiya Mei as her patron saint, I too felt bad for him being the unwitting and unwilling catalyst for this bakappuru but some sacrifices must be made. I also feel like this is the most artistically ambitious of the three doujins, with actual!! scenes of baseball!
As of this writing, I don't believe any of these doujin are available online or for purchase, but Steph does have a storefront.
"Quod Ames," by tomatobird
I have been so thankful to Tomato for their continued promotion of Manga Ichiba and unofficial guides to the event which predated the Fanime info dumps for weeks. It is because of them that I was prepared to attend the event at all, and undoubtedly one of the highlights from that weekend was getting to meet them in person and briefly monopolizing their time at the help desk. I had told them previously that I unfortunately was flying out of San Jose before the Sunday PM session and would meet getting a chance to buy their doujin in person, and they surprised me by bringing a copy of "Quod Ames" to the Saturday day session so I could buy an advance copy!
The minute I opened "Quod Ames," I was reminded of a zine I had read a while back, "Best Yaoi Movies of the 20th Century," and I was going to message Tomato about it. But then I did the diligent thing of checking the bylines on "Best Yaoi Movies" and wouldn't you know it? Tomato was a co-author, and was the author of the blurb on "The Lion in Winter." I love when a person has a cohesive aesthetic sense, a throughline of interests and influences which they telegraph loudly, and what little I know of tomato, they seem just such a person.
I too am a fan of "The Lion in Winter" (and "Beckett" and "Lawrence of Arabia"), so unsurprisingly, I am a fan of "Quod Ames" as well, which explores a possible romantic relationship between Phillip II of France and Richard I of England. I love Philippe, who is naive and doesn't know it and, when made uncomfortable, does not hesitate to resort to minor cruelty to regain equilibrium. Much of this first part of "Quod Ames" are Philippe's fantasies, and he has two: one where he allows Richard to bed him, and another where he is a haughty authority figure and Richard, abject and groveling, kisses the edge of his robes. Both are rendered like illustrated manuscripts or stained glass windows, eschewing traditional paneling for a fecund tangle of vines and limbs and memories, a profane iconography that is so unique and fitting for the subject matter. I cannot wait for Part 2, and I hope it is not long coming.
You can buy a physical or digital copy of "Quod Ames"!
Some miscellaneous small zines:
"Catte," by Eastern Downpour: I have been telling everyone that this is the most important zine I bought the whole weekend. It is so precious and filled with the artist's particular sensibilities. I only wish they had put their socials somewhere on the zine itself!
"Shipping Patterns," by puppetbomb: Perfect execution mimicking the Campus notebook branding and design, and featuring doodles of their favorite pairings throughout the years as if you are flipping through a private notebook. I'm seethingly jealous I didn't think of it myself.
"The Love of the Game," by poxei/nico/vivi: I love all three artists and in fact have bought art from poxei and nico previously/separately. This beautifully printed 8-fold features art from six different sports anime/manga, including Prince of Tennis (!) and 100 Meters (!!). I can't wait to get the OC zine from the half dozen collective later this year!
LOGH pamphlet, by cathartesaurora and cyr: Amazing and inspirational. I am already brainstorming what I could do that's similar for next Manga Ichiba. Every table should have their own pamphlet. I am so serious, we should have a Pamphlet Phest.
Thank you to all the artists who sacrificed their time, sleep, energy, and sanity to make Manga Ichiba the success it clearly was. I will likely talk about this in more depth in part 2, but attending Fanime / Manga Ichiba resurrected all the questions I was brooding on a while back about how to make bl manga a hobby outside of "consumption," or, at the very least, spending money. I don't think I have figured out the answer, but I think there is a role for the reader who takes their job seriously, who wants to form connections with other readers, who understands that in this community and fandom, the readers are often creators as well, that the creator of one doujin may be the reader of another. This may be all I can bring to the table, but at least I am here. At least this is my table. At least I have something to put on it and offer you. And I hope you found something in here for you.
Hellooo I've been so dead the past couple months because I've been working on an original BL doujin for an event this month :) the event is called Manga Ichiba, and it's modeled after big comic markets in Japan. It's the first of its kind in North America! If you're in the bay area, come see me Memorial Day weekend. I'll make a separate post more about the event itself if people are interested.
Here is my promo thumbnail ("circle cut", for the weebs out there) that I made to rep myself for the event... and I'm also showing off the circle cut I made for an event in 2017 I attended in Japan! It's almost been 10 years, and you can kind of see just from the thumb that I've improved.
it's a bit misleading... I thought the book would be dubcon but it's probably closer to noncon lol
Anyways, in the end the whole thing turned out to be 32 pages , and roughly 28 of those pages are fully illustrated b/w comic panels. That's why it took so fucking long. I see doujin as the art equivalent of fanfic, and the effort it took felt pretty much the same as a mid-length fanfic, except most of the time was spent on the actual drawing process rather than fleshing out the story. The story itself is very simple, in fanfic form it would just be a PWP oneshot.
I'll post some preview panels later, but for now, I'll show off the cover and some concept sketches.
I'm quite proud of the cover, not only because of how it looks but because it was designed to be quick to draw. By the time I started it, I had <24 hours before I had to submit my files to the printer, so I opted for something that I was confident in drawing (faces, hands). The typography was fun to do too. If I had more time I would have embellished it with more effects, but maybe it's a blessing that I couldn't bc graphic design is NOT my passion.
The concept sketches are the two MCs' faces from different angles. I kept these images open while I drew them so that their faces would stay more or less consistent throughout. Their names are Vincent and Sydney :) I created Vincent back in 2018, there's some illustrations of him I've done that are floating around probably... oh wait, here. He's evolved a lot as a result of this doujin.
I have a lot to blab about but I'll share more later. WOW it's great to have free time again!!
Rozanov’s big hand takes up a lot of the view, index finger wagging as he audibly counts off every single bird in the park.
“Fifty-one!” The speaker crackles with an ecstatic, huge whoop and the birds panic, shooting off in all directions. Rozanov sounds more pleased than he had the whole time Shane had been on the call with him. “Ha! I win. There is always more than looks like on outside.”
The video starts itself over. So Shane doesn’t have to. He sits cross-legged on the floor and stays inside of it a while.
for @garagepaperback, whose birthday it is today. i love you and have concluded you are the little sister. time isnt real. im older.
Have there ever been any interesting art tips that worked for you and that you’ve since adopted into your art process?
could be as silly as the Among Us eye shine tip or as serious as how to shade cool/warm gradients
anon, you sent me this ask about half a year ago and today i will finally answer
do a color planning layer before you color! this is something i made up where you put down all the colors that things have to be really fast, don't worry about coloring in the lines. i blot in a color for shadows and highlights too especially for the largest areas or shiny objects. then once all the colors are down, post-process that layer to get it to be the vibe that you want (adjust color curve, hue, saturation, layer multiply/colorburn, etc). after this, start actually coloring - use the color picker to get the colors from your color planning layer, or simply use your color planning layer as a base. this helps me bring out the mood of a piece as i color and makes the colors more cohesive to what i'm drawing! i did this for each part of my drarry illustrations here.
i know it would be a lot easier if i included picture examples... maybe i can find some later
so i actually found a video of myself demonstrating this and explaining it that i made for a friend who asked about coloring........... but it has my voice in it (skull emoji) um pls send me an ask if you would like it ig
Have there ever been any interesting art tips that worked for you and that you’ve since adopted into your art process?
could be as silly as the Among Us eye shine tip or as serious as how to shade cool/warm gradients
anon, you sent me this ask about half a year ago and today i will finally answer
do a color planning layer before you color! this is something i made up where you put down all the colors that things have to be really fast, don't worry about coloring in the lines. i blot in a color for shadows and highlights too especially for the largest areas or shiny objects. then once all the colors are down, post-process that layer to get it to be the vibe that you want (adjust color curve, hue, saturation, layer multiply/colorburn, etc). after this, start actually coloring - use the color picker to get the colors from your color planning layer, or simply use your color planning layer as a base. this helps me bring out the mood of a piece as i color and makes the colors more cohesive to what i'm drawing! i did this for each part of my drarry illustrations here.
i know it would be a lot easier if i included picture examples... maybe i can find some later
Something small and white flew out of Malfoy’s mouth like a down feather. It drifted aimlessly until it rested against the crook of his wrist. Malfoy’s laugh caught a hard edge in his throat and broke into coughs. More came out, scattered by the bursts of air.
They were petals. Harry caught some in his hand and felt how soft they were. They were wet with Malfoy’s spittle.
“Oh fuck,” someone said. “Is that…?”
companion illustration for root rot, my 8th year hanahaki gift to @popqorn for the drarry charity event, #santaiscoming2025!
He wanted again to ask Malfoy who it was—no, to pry the answer out of him. He could do it if he really wanted. He was stronger than Malfoy, faster by far. He could even convince himself that he’d be doing Malfoy a favor. That sort of secret was no good, even if it didn’t kill him. But his hand found his wand too quickly, and the wandwood glowed too hot. This was too eager. It shouldn’t have felt like throwing off an imperious, but it did.
chapter 5 is up! which means we are over halfway? maybe? the rest, however, is not pre-written, and i have a busy two months ahead of me so :) this is where it's gonna be at for a while.
By the way, I’ve recently gotten into the Drarry ship again; I’ve always wanted to be able to draw them, but for a long time I didn’t like my style, and even ten years ago, I still couldn’t do it 🤣
