So I just came from ComicCon yesterday and had a fun time giving away doujinshi, grydscaen graphic novels and A Storm’s Coming manga, as well as rubber bracelets, campaign buttons, trading cards and bookmarks. There was a lot of traffic at the table. I think some of that was because everything was free. I also gave away free ebook downloads for The Alchemist’s Ranger. All in all my first ComicCon experience as a featured author was a positive one. But one thing did come out of it. The fans want more doujinshi which means there is more fanart and fanfiction in my future.
Cover of the Saiyuki Doujinshi
Now I did the Saiyuki doujinshi with the SanzoxGojyo pairing and the SanzoxGoku pairing. There were 5 stories in the doujinshi and a mini manga. Since I really enjoyed Saiyuki which is the story and art by Kazuya Minekura, I wanted to do some fanart for the series. There are 20 pages of drawings in the book and a full mini manga. The work was created about 10 years ago and I just two weeks ago found a box with about 20 copies left over from when I first printed it and decided to bring it to con as something I could give away for free.
The artwork in the doujinshi looks like the Saiyuki characters so that means that I was right in the thick of watching the anime and being able to relay the story in pictures. I love with story about the foul mouthed monk who drinks and smokes on his way to the west with his companions in their jeep fighting the demons. This story inspired me to take Buddhist Bohdisattva vows and to shave my head as an initiate in 2005 when I became ordained as a priest, which is just one more of those crazy things about me. I am a practicing Buddhist and I meditate every day in Zen practice. Anyway, back to the doujinshi. At the con I sold out of the 10 copies of the doujinshi I brought in about 2 hours. The books was really popular, more so than the grydscaen comics which I also sold out of by the end of the con. Two of the people who got the book came back to me later in the day that they wanted more and couldn’t wait for the second volume. Which means that I need to go back in and read these stories and start writing part two and drawing more fan art. I have been away from Saiyuki for years. There was a new volume of the story Saiyuki Reload Blast that came out last year but I have not seen the pages. Also there was a Japanese anime of the latest series which I also can no longer watch because my DVD player does not play Japan region DVDs. I have seen the story twice when I was able to see it so I do remember the premise but I would really like to see those volumes again. Which means I would need to get a multi region DVD player which I might end up doing some day since it would be worth it I think.
Back to the doujinshi. Since writing grydscaen I graduated from writing fan fiction and had decided when I started penning grydscaen that my days of fan fiction were over. With the interest at the con, this has shifted my view on it. Now this means I have to get back to watching Saiyuki again so that I can get back into the story. I may also have to seek out more of the manga which has to have come out since I stopped buying the series. Maybe it is available online. I will have to check.
The fans at con were interested in yaoi. Luckily the graphic noiz series is yaoi and there are two books out now. The graphic noiz manga is in the works and I will start on book 3 when the manga is done and printed then I will put it up online as well. It seems yaoi is popular. Since graphic noiz is my first venture into yaoi I wanted it to be young adult and not too racing even through shonen ai can be tame but yaoi can be explicit. I wanted to keep graphic noiz to a YA audience so I kept the sex behind the scenes.
Back to the doujinshi. Well, I guess there is more fan fiction in my future which means I need to read up on my Saiyuki. I have all the English anime volumes for Gensoumaden Saiyuki and I have the Japanese version for Saiyuki Reload and Saiyuki Gaiden. I have only seen Gaiden once but I like that since it has Konzen Douji which is featured in one of the fan fiction stories. Sanzo is in the others with Hakkai, Goku and Gojyo. I wanted the pairing to be SanzoxGojyo because they both have tragic childhoods and that pairing is more rare. I wanted to challenge myself a little with the Kappa and the monk. The stories focus around some of my favorite episodes of the anime.
Hopefully in the fan fiction when I pick up where I left off I can make the work cohesive so it doesn’t seem like there is a 10 year jump in the timeline from firstwriting the stories to the new versions for volume 2. Also I will have to see if the print shop can re-print the original volume since I don’t have the files or the artwork for it anymore since it got damaged in a flood in my apartment. I would either have to retype the stories or scan the images from the book. I will call the printer tomorrow and ask them if they can recreate the book from a completed one or maybe they still have the files in their system since I have been going to that printer for years since I first went to art school. When I did this book I was right in the thick of art school so my drawing ability is a little better than it is now because I was drawing every day. I was inking them as well which I have forgotten how to do. I have a different inking technique now that also works but the original files for this doujinshi were inked and the lines look pretty good.
So we have some doujinshi in our future it seems. I hope I can start where I left off. This will mean I need to read these stories multiple times and watch the anime again to get the feel for the characters. I love the Sanzo character so much that I even cosplay as him and have won awards for my 4 Sanzo costumes at anime conventions. I think I have my work cut out for me to come up with another yaoi story and artwork. Well, I guess I add this new doujinshi to my list of things to do this year along with: publishing volume 1 of The Seer of Grace and Fire, publishing grydscaen: desecration, writing more novellas in the graphic noiz series and finishing the graphic noiz manga. I got some work ahead of me it seems. Wish me luck.
Saiyuki, Saiyuki Gaiden, Saiyuki Reload and Saiyuki Reload Blast are all copyright Kazuya Minekura including the characters Sanzo, Gojyo, Hakkai, Goku and Konzen Douji.