Genre: Western Drama/Romance
Status: Finished (2003)
Pages: 16 pages
Type: Prologue to a longer story

This was written way back in November 2003, for the Manga Academy competition - the prize being to win a trip to Japan, and to get published at a Japanese doujinshi convention. Because this competition had rules that limited the number of pages to be sent in, there were some stories that I couldnt do because of length. Therefore, I chose a segment out of a far longer story I have planned - called “N. S. E. W.”, to turn into a short 16-page vignette. It ended up getting a runner-up in the competition. which is fair enough.

The aim of this manga was to be… highly emotional. I tried to express emotion as much as possible in the story; not so much in the story itself or in the dialogue, but in the panelling, linework and toning. And boy, is this manga toned or what - this is probably the first time I’ve used tones so extensively (this piece was done before “GreenHouse”). It was a good experience however, and I learned something about my art - that it’s good enough to stand alone with or without tones. Overall, I was pleased with this story. For once, things actually turned out the way I wanted it to.

This reads in the Japanese way, from right to left.

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