Mark Crilley’s Manga

July 8, 2010

If you guys don’t know who Mark Crilley is, you should really visit his website and Youtube page!

He’s an awesome artist/illustrator/cartoonist/author and the creator of the manga series Miki Falls and Akiko. His Youtube page currently has 100 videos that give advice to artists on how to draw manga, including topics like “How to Draw ‘Realistic’ Manga,” “How to Draw a Female Body, Manga Style,” and “Manga Boby Proportions.” His “How to Draw a Realistic Eye” video has almost ONE MILLION VIEWS! If you’re looking for advice or inspiration, watch one of his (free!) video tutorials.

And if the words “Miki Falls” and “Akiko” mean nothing to you, here’s a summary of each of the series. Anyone out there a fan?

Miki Falls is about high school senior Miki Yoshida who falls for Hiro Sakurai, the new boy in school at Fukuyama Har Dand High in Fukuyama Har Dand, Japan. At first Hiro rejects Miki’s attempts to become his friend, so Miki spends most of her time following him around. Their eventual friendship gets the duo into several complicated situations. Turns out he’s a “Deliverer,” a being sent to earth to try to preserve love, which seems to be dying. Rumor is that Paramount Pictures and Brad Pitt’s Plan B have acquired the rights to adapt Miki Falls into a feature film.

Akiko follows the adventures of a Japanese-American girl and her life on planet Smoo. Originally an Eisner-nominated comic series, Akiko has been adapted into a children’s book series. The series has been described as a blend between The Wizard of Oz and Star Wars.

Although Mark’s from Michigan, the series are truly inspired by Japan. Mark’s time spent teaching English in the Far East (in Japan and Taiwan) after graduating from Kalamazoo College in 1988 led to the invention of Akiko. He also drew heavily on the beauty of the Japanese countryside to illustrate Miki Falls.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 8th, 2010 at 11:21 am and is filed under Comics, Fantasy and Sci-Fi, Manga, Tutorials. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

One Response to “Mark Crilley’s Manga”

  1. My Blog Title Says:
    September 1st, 2011 at 5:17 pm

    cool blog – keep up the writing sytle….

    This is a great post – best I’ve seen today….

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Comics, Fantasy and Sci-Fi, Manga, Tutorials