Adinda from Avianista

Grace Flowers from Avatara

Andrés' winning entry at Silent Manga Audition 2017

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Hello Andrés Zerpa, you’re already part of the team of MBB but can you please tell us a bit about yourself for those new readers?

I am 22 years old, I live in a city called Mérida in Venezuela, and I am 100% Christian. I decided that this is what I would do for life, so I started getting serious about drawing Manga since 2012. There have been ups and downs along the way (many more downs than ups) but I have continued giving my best despite all the circumstances. I see myself drawing for ever, with wife and kids, maybe in my country or in Japan drawing for one of those big and prestigious magazines, well... unless The Lord has other plans for me.

Could you tell us about the implications of being an artist in your country? 

Being an artist in my country is like riding a bike... but through burning lava. In Venezuela the situation is really delicate, in the economic aspect having the current highest inflation in the whole planet; in terms of security one of the most dangerous countries and not having a good leader to try to fix things up, really limits an artist work because almost nobody is interested in buying art, but staple foods, medicines and basic items. But thanks to The Lord and because I did not give up and continued straining, I am currently hovering over the lava, working for Manga Big Bang, winning SMA contests and designing characters for someone overseas I have been able to live of my drawings.

We know you’re a manga artist, but are you planning to write your own stories in a future? if so, what would you like to write about and why?

Oh yes definitely!  I would like to write a "shonen" story like Saint Seiya wich is my favourite series. A story where the hero continues to fight up against really powerful enemies, that may look impossible to defeat in order to save the earth, but by the power of the will and the support of brave friends he can overcome all and defeat them in the most wonderful way. That! is the type of story I would like to draw.

Tell us about the process of being the manga artist for Avatara

​It has been wonderful working in the Avatara project, thanks to the stories of my friend David Thomas who portrays the scenes in the script in such way that manga panels in my mind just start to flow like a river! Also with the advices of a pro Mangaka such as Miss Vivian (Dr. Vee), my brother in Christ and editor Ricky Hardjono and the help of my very talented assistant Alcula. I have to say it is hard to draw an action story with few people, but with them its not impossible.

On 2016 you won along with David Thomas the Excellence Award from Silent Manga Audition, with the title “Clowning Around” and this year 2017 you won for the second time the same award with the title “Boogy Boogy”; talk to us about this contest, award and the experience of competing with other artists around the world. 

Winning a Silent Manga Audition award was my dream since 2012, its one of the most prestigious world wide contests on the planet with very talented judges. This been said, obviously the competition is hard, there are exceedingly talented Manga artists in the most unthinkable places. Despite the "easy" guidelines for the silent manga, it is difficuld to portray the story without words but it is the essence of Manga; the text is suplementary, Manga should be like a silent movie on paper, to be able to entertain the reader with performance is the heart of Manga, what makes it unique from the other type of comics. This contest has taught me all of that, I am not saying that I am an expert or a proffesional in the field of Manga, but I will continue to work hard in order to fulfil my dream.

Impressive enough, Alcula, assistant to Andrés Zerpa, also got a nomination this year in SMA with the title “Spicy Love”. Alcula also happen to be a member of Dr.Vee Mangaka Club, online manga mentoring program founded by Dr.Vee the chief editor of Manga Big Bang! and is currently studying at level 7. We have included a brief interview with Alcula below.

From Alcula's nominated entry, Spicy Love

Dr. Vee, The editor in Chief of Manga Big Bang!, the creator of MBB's manga series The Rose of Buckingham Palace along with co-author and musician GA for Little Rigatoni and the Revolution of the New Food Pyramid was invited as special guests to the second Tunisia Comic Con on 7th-9th July 2017.  
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Dr. Vee as Special Guest of Comic Con Tunisia 2017  

​What not many people know about Tunisia, a country bordering the Mediterranean Sea and Sahara Desert, is that it is a melting pot of different cultures and is far from the conservative image that is sometimes portrayed in outdated travel websites. Another interesting fact is Tunisia has 12 locations where George Lucas' Star Wars film was shot, as well as Indiana Jones film sites. The most iconic one being the Lars homestead featuring the home where Luke Skywalker grew up in and the landscape of planet Tatooine. 
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Lars homestead is a distance away from Tunis. Star Wars Tunisia is organising guided tours to visit the sites. Dr.Vee and GA selfie-ing at Star Wars Tunisia exhibition booth.
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Concert was held by local Tunisian band along with mass singalong of anisongs

​Comic Con Tunisia was held for the first time in 2016 and it is the first comic con ever held in North Africa. The founders, Mariem and Abdul Oueslati belong to the Star Wars Tunisia organisation, a group of Star Wars fans who restored the abandoned Star Wars film shooting sites, organize tours and campaign for its awareness and preservation. The idea of comic con started from there, and they started running smaller pop-culture events, discovered that there is a huge interest on everything related to comics, manga, cosplay, games, and films that eventually snowballed into a big convention.

New Manga Big Bang! merchandises were created for the event.

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On the second day Dr.Vee presented by MC Karim spoke about the importance of staying faithful to one's dream while introducing Dr.Vee Mangaka Club, the manga mentoring program or manga school that she founded in 2012 as well as Manga Big Bang!, English language manga magazine based in UK. There she spoke about the need for the world to learn the high techniques in comics creation employed as artists in Japan, where the industry is matured while communicating their own cultural identity to show different perspectives. Manga Big Bang! is aiming to unite the world in using the world's lingua franca, the English language to tell stories by creators from all over the world to audiences from any background.

MC Karim, a renowned Tunisian TV Presenter/rap musician and Dr.Vee
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Manga Hela, Tunisian concept artist who is known for drawing manga inspired wall murals
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Dr. Vee were also featured as a judge for cosplay competition where the contestants dresses up in their own chosen character from comics, manga,  game, animation, or film. There are two other juries who are cosplayers themselves and the contestants are judged based on the physical likeness to the character, quality of the costume and the acting, which needs to portray the character while captivating the audience. There are many powerful performances e.g. spiderman crawling around the stage to exquisite costumes with fantasy animal prop. The performances were both entertaining and impressive for the audience.

First prize goes to Aymen Maghraoui as Sunwell Hunter, blood elf from World of Warcraft, second prize to Anouar Bouzrati as Reinhard Overwatch and third prize to Hichem Korbosli as Optimus Prime Transformers.
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​Other special guests include David Mack, an American comic book artist and writer, known for his creator-owned series Kabuki and for co-creating with Joe Quesada the deaf Marvel Comics superhero Echo, Amr Hussein, the CEO of Koshk Comics, an Egyptian mobile phone app to read comics,  Chakib Daoud and Seif Eddine Nechi, Tunisian comic artists and evangelists. On the third day comic book talk was held as discussion panel between guests from different fields on where the future of comic book lies and the importance it plays today in spreading ideas and uniting the world. 
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Image reference: https://www.facebook.com/Comic-Con-Tunisia-315855438757558/

Left to right: MC Karim, Seif Eddine Nechi, ​David Mack, ​Amr Hussein, Chakib Daoud, Dr.Vee

Comic Con Tunisia have succeeded in planting the seeds of opportunity for the creative talents of Tunisia and we are looking forward to see the movement spread throughout north Africa.

I sometimes wonder what a newbie thinks about when they hear the word Gundam, and knows nothing about it. Do they envision the iconic RX-78 Gundam, a group of teenage pretty boys, Gunpla (*Gundam plastic model), those people who dress like Nazis at anime conventions (*the uniform of fictional Autonomous Republic of Zeon which is modeled after Nazis uniform), or do they just get confused? Most convince themselves that there are a trillion Gundam series out there in anime land, so there is no point starting now. Back in the day I felt the same way; but do not fret, I’m here to help. Let us start with the basics first. What is Gundam? ​​
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Gun + Dam... !??

Because it was the first to break away from the over-the-top silliness that mecha anime of that time was known for. Instead, the robots in Gundam were just another tool used during war, like a tank or airplane. It was an attempt to make a realistic robot anime, using science as their bricks and motor instead of hot blood. Though 30 years later part of this concept has been lost, but we will get to that at another time. In conclusion, Gundam was the first real robot show. ​

Characters

The story goes that EVANGELION’s creator came up with this show after a four-year-long bout of depression, so that ought to give you an idea as to where these characters are coming from. Everyone's got some kind of emotional problem, and some fans have actually taken the characters to represent specific psychological disorders. ​

Due to budget problems and censorship threats Gainax suffered while producing the series, the studio hasn’t always gotten to properly execute its original intention.  As such, they’ve gone back and re-done parts a few times, creating a number of different versions. For clarity, you should get the Platinum Collection DVD box set instead of the Perfect Collection, as it includes “director’s cut” versions of key episodes with additional scenes and key alterations that really are necessary to understanding the show as a whole. You can skip DEATH & REBIRTH, as it’s just a condensed series recap, but you need to watch END OF EVANGELION. That isn’t negotiable. You are absolutely going to hate this series as whole if you stop watching with the last TV episode. Gainax ran out of money by the time they got around to making that finale, so it's an entire episode about the characters talking about their feelings and psychological hang-ups that leaves major points of the series unresolved. Think of END OF EVANGELION as the deluxe-sized final episode and be sure to check it out.  ​

​Image taken from Ai Mai Mi

​Image taken from Ai Mai Mi

​As she grew older and reached middle school, the ‘real world’ was starting to take control. As most parents would do, Dr. Vee was pressured into academics and safer, more by-the-book pursuits of a career. Becoming a mangaka is a risky game and can often take the form of an all-or-nothing pursuit. After a countless number of arguments with her family, Dr. Vee eventually decided to go with the flow. At the age of 15, Dr. Vee was sent to the USA and UK to attend prep schools in hopes of getting into a med school.

Dr. Vee, editor in chief of Manga Big Bang!®

​Manga Big Bang® is UK’s original manga magazine featuring multiple manga comic series and one-shot manga comics. ​You can follow the Manga Big Bang! manga series by becoming our patron on our Patreon page. Click on the Manga Big Bang! logo:

EACH year, the annual Doha International Book Fair picks a country as a special featured guest. For 2012, that honour went to Japan.
At the event, which was held from Dec 12 to 22 in the Qatar capital, I produced a runway show by “kawaii” fashion brands, a panel featuring voice actors and a cosplay (short for costume play) show. The runway show and panel were the first ever held in the Middle East, while the cosplay show was the first in the region to be held at a public arena.
Right next to the event space was a booth for Kinokuniya’s Dubai store.
More than 4,200 manga and character products were on display at the fair, and more than 3,500 were sold. Among the 2,500 manga on display – all of which were translated into English – 2,300 were sold. Popular series, such as One Piece andMeitantei Conan (Case Closed) were sold out.
There is a strong demand for manga in the Middle East. According to Kinokuniya’s Dubai store, the most popular vendor at the fair, at least 500 copies of English-language manga are sold each week.
“We selected manga that sold well at an earlier Dubai comic convention,” said Kinokuniya Dubai’s Tomoshi Uramoto, who manned the booth for the entire fair. “But we didn’t realise that young Qataris already had many manga.”
Uramoto said he prepared the first 10 volumes of Naruto to target new manga fans. However, he had to shelve the first and second volumes of the series as many fans already owned them. “We should’ve increased selections for hard-core manga fans,” he said.
Meanwhile, box sets of completed series also sold well. Sets of Death Note andVampire Knight sold out on the third day of the event, he said.
Shojo manga, or girl’s manga, dominated the shelves at the Dubai fair.
“In the Muslim world, public pastimes for women are still limited. As a result, there’s strong demand for home entertainment. Manga-loving girls constantly check the Internet and are more aware of the latest manga than boys,” Uramoto said.
“Series featuring school life are particularly popular because there aren’t coed schools here, and these girls are also interested in cultures they aren’t familiar with.”
Kimi ni Todoke, an international best-selling shojo manga, is popular in the Middle East.
At the Dubai comic convention, Uramoto sold a Japanese-language manga to a young female customer because the English version was sold out. She told Uramoto: “It’s OK. I’ll study Japanese (using this manga).”
According to a Japan Foundation survey, the number of people studying Japanese around the world was 2.1 million in 1998. The number increased to 2.35 million in 2003, to three million in 2006 and to 3.65 million in 2009. However, these figures do not include self-taught Japanese speakers, many of whom learn the language through radio or TV, private tutors or textbooks. Many of my Twitter followers fall into this category.
Despite the weakened brand power of Japanese home electronics and cars, more people are eager to study the language. This must be due to the rising popularity of manga and anime, which have become the most powerful ambassadors of Japanese culture. The lifestyles and environments depicted in manga have sparked interest in modern Japanese culture among Middle Eastern women.
At the Kinokuniya Dubai store, books and magazines featuring crafts, hairstyles and nail art are popular, Uramoto said.
“Manga and anime have become a gateway for people’s interest in Japan, and play a crucial role for women, especially in the Middle East,” Uramoto added.
Uramoto said he was overwhelmed by the widespread popularity of manga and anime in Qatar.
“Since it’s hard to obtain information, people here do a lot of research in advance before travelling all the way from Qatar to visit our Dubai store,” he said. “I’d like to open booths at book fairs in other Middle Eastern countries to understand the strengths and weaknesses of Japanese manga.” – The Daily Yomiuri/Asia News Network

Reference:
http://www.thestar.com.my/story.aspx?file=%2f2013%2f1%2f25%2flifeliving%2f12598460&sec=lifeliving

Manga Big Bang® is UK’s original manga magazine featuring multiple manga comic series and one-shot manga comics. ​You can follow the Manga Big Bang! manga series by becoming our patron on our Patreon page. Click on the Manga Big Bang! logo: