Wrapping up our Creator Interview series of March, we've got Queenie Chan, mangaka and artist behind Women Who Were Kings, Fabled Kingdom, and The Dreaming. I recently met Queenie Chan on social media last year, and she's been a wealth of knowledge. Whether it's technical manga knowledge, publishing, or industry how-to's, Queenie Chan is someone all aspiring mangaka should be following and taking notes from.
With that intro out of the way, let's begin!
GlobalComix: Tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got into making manga.
Queenie Chan: My name is Queenie Chan, and I was originally born in Hong Kong, who then moved to Australia when I was 6 years old. I’m a manga-style comic book writer-artist who’s been creating professionally since 2005, so close to 20 years. I do mostly manga-style artwork and I write my own stories, though I’ve also worked as an illustrator for other writers, major publishers and magazines.
My first published work was with TOKYOPOP in 2005, which was a 3-book series called “The Dreaming”. It’s a young adult (YA, so for 13+) supernatural mystery-thriller about a pair of twin sisters who go to a remote boarding school in the Australian bush, who then learns that the school has a history of vanishing schoolgirls. They also start getting strange dreams about the past of the school, and they discover the true reason of why these vanishings happen. In 2024, it’s been republished by IPI Comics, in a revised edition with some alterations to allow for a sequel and a side story (which I’m currently working on). You can see the changes listed on my website here.
After that, I illustrated some middle-grade (MG, so for ages 9-12) graphic novels for a well-known thriller author called Dean Koontz with Del Ray (Randomhouse Penguin), and a comics-prose hybrid prequel for an Australian Chinese-fantasy author called Kylie Chan (Harper Voyager). I then self-published a 3-volume hybrid comics-prose series called “Fabled Kingdom”, which is a fairy-tale inspired fantasy series, and did a bunch of short stories as well. I then went on to create a series of non-fiction biographical graphic novels on famous historical queens called “Women Who Were Kings”.
I’m finishing a PhD at Macquarie University at the moment, which is about Capitalism, the labour of Comics Creators and Digital Comics. After that’s done, I’m getting back to work on the side story for “The Dreaming” series, for which the story is already written.
From "Women Were Kings"
GlobalComix: How did you get your first publishing deal?
Queenie Chan: I started drawing manga in 1997, just when the internet got started. At the time, I started putting my work online and talking to other people drawing manga/comics on the internet. None of it went anywhere since it was hard to get any kind of payment back then, since payment systems were kind of non-existent. However, by chance in 2002, when I was wondering what I could do with my life after I graduated from university with a programming degree in the middle of the dot-com bust, I happened upon a notice on the internet asking for international submissions to a US manga company.
That company was TOKYOPOP, and since I saw the notice early, I managed to get my foot in the door and get noticed. However, unlike most of the other artists who submitted to TOKYOPOP who got their first pitch approved, mine was repeatedly rejected (3 times) until they finally said to me “draw us a haunted school story for 14 year-old girls”. I only had a week to do it, and it wasn’t even what I wanted to do, but I created “The Dreaming” from that.
At the time, I’d wanted to show the US audience an Australian story rooted in Australian culture, and in particular, a feminine version of Australian culture rather than “Crocodile Dundee” or Steve Irwin. So “The Dreaming” is basically that—based off “Picnic at Hanging Rock” and the vanishing of a classmate of mine in the bush.
GlobalComix: Do you have a favorite project that you’ve worked on so far?
Queenie Chan: Not really. I put a lot of effort into my works, though my level of enjoyment may vary. Even when I’m working as an illustrator for something and I’m not super-enthusiastic about the project, I do the best that I can, since I get paid for it. When you get paid, you owe the person commissioning you the best effort that you can give them, in my opinion, regardless of how you personally feel.
For my own work, I do the best I can. Writing, drawing and completing a manga is such a massive undertaking that there’s no reason to even do one unless it’s going to be of very high quality. If I commit to a manga, it’s going to be at least 1-2 years of my life, so I don’t commit to such projects unless I can produce something that can hold up (in terms of art and story) for years to come. It’s impossible to predict these things of course, but that’s what I aim for.
GlobalComix: What sort of anime, manga, comics, or cartoons have inspired your artistic journey?
Queenie Chan: The work of Rumiko Takahashi from “Urusei Yatsura” and Watsuki Nobuhiro of “Rurouni Kenshin” is what got me drawing manga. Osamu Tezuka’s “Black Jack” blew my mind open as a teenager. I also love Togashi’s work on “Hunter x Hunter” and “YuYuHakusho”, and also Hirohiko Araki’s “JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure”. Hagio Moto was the first shoujo manga artist I really got into, and I feel I owe a lot to her. And I wouldn’t be as obsessed with manga as I am now if it weren’t for “DragonBall”. There’s many more creators out there, but these are the ones that spring to my mind immediately.
GlobalComix: What is the comic and manga industry like in Australia, and what sort of challenges does that present to you?
Queenie Chan: Australia is a small country with only a population of 25 million. It’s also an English-speaking country, which means that usually we get swamped by entertainment produced in the US or the UK. The small population and remoteness of the place makes it hard for Australians to produce their own stories, not least because US or UK culture is considered higher quality by most people here, but also because larger English-speaking markets like the US or the UK consider Australian stories to be too niche or irrelevant to their interests. This means that most Australian comic creators need to either follow US trends, or actively work in the US market for them to have a sizeable audience.
Australian publishers also don’t have the money to fund a lot of Australian comics creators either, since graphic novels are so expensive to produce (they haven’t shown any interest in publishing manga, even though the top 10 best-selling comics in Australia is manga). Most, if they fund them, tend to be Middle Grade or YA graphic novels in the same vein as those produced by the US market (for ease of international sales), and rarely do they have Australian culture in them since it’s not something that helps sales. “The Dreaming” is unusual because it’s specifically Australian-themed with its references to Australian cultural touchstones like “Picnic at Hanging Rock”.
From "The Dreaming"
GlobalComix: How have you worked to overcome those challenges?
Queenie Chan: I just do my own thing and focus on creating the best work that I can. I’ve long given up trying to chase whatever trend the big publishers are into this year—I think they’re not interested in manga anyway, so there’s no point in me trying to appeal to them (or whoever). Instead, when I produce my next work, I think about what it is that *I* want to read, and that I can’t find out there unless I go and make it. I focus entirely on quality and what I want to see out there, and that’s it.
That’s hardly the best way to sell books, because self-publishing means you have very limited means of distribution and much lower sales, though you earn a lot more per unit sale. But pretty much all my original work was produced that way, and most of it have managed to sell. I created “The Dreaming” for TOKYOPOP because I wanted to do an Australian story for the US market (and it’s still being read today, 20 years later), because I thought there wasn’t any stories out there like that. I did a fairy-tale adventure story “Fabled Kingdom” because I wanted to read one. I did the non-fiction biographical series “Women Who Were Kings” cause that’s what I wanted to read.
All these stories have found audiences, to my bafflement. I honestly never expected any of it to sell because it was SO not like the other stuff in the market. I’ve worked as a manga illustrator purely for money and it’s a joyless experience (almost anything else is better pay for less effort), so these days, I just do what I want and let stuff take care of itself. Sometimes opportunities come along, like when foreign publishers take an interest in your work and license it, which always makes me happy.
GlobalComix: What have you done or been able to do to learn more about making manga, and do you find it difficult to find resources and mentors?
Queenie Chan: The only thing I’ve done to learn about making manga is reading manga (I also read classic fiction, and watch classic movies recommended by the late movie critic Roger Ebert). I started drawing manga in 1997, imitating my favourite artists like Rumiko Takahashi and Watsuki Nobuhiro. It was before the internet was widespread, and the only anime magazines I could find were on producing anime, so I really had nothing. For that reason, my most formative years were entirely self-taught. I don’t consider it a bad thing, because the context I created in meant that my audience wasn’t really Japanese, and so I never worried about whether my work was comprehensible to a Japanese audience—so long as people I showed it to in real life (or the internet) understood it.
I think that if I had a group of friends or a bunch of books to tell me how to do manga in the “right” way, I might have struggled a lot more, because I would constantly compare my self to the books/friends and beat myself up if it wasn’t “just like” them. But because I didn’t, I felt free to experiment and development my own sense of pacing and art style. My art style, in particular, has a specific, unique look that seemed to have come out of this—as early as 2002 I’ve had manga readers tell me they can pick my work out from a bunch of 100 manga. However, when I tell people that the artists I imitated were Rumiko Takahashi and Watsuki Nobuhiro, they can’t really see it. I think this only happened because I spent my formative years in relative isolation and didn’t even talk to any fellow artists until I’ve created a bunch of short manga and put them online. I don’t think artists these days can do what I do though—it was very different times.
From "Small Shen"
GlobalComix: What advice would you give to others who want to make their own manga, publisher, or magazine?
Queenie Chan: Becoming a publisher or starting a magazine is a big responsibility that I have no experience in, so I will only talk about those wanting to make their own manga. I always give the same advice—which is to start with short stories, finish projects, and to keep thing small and manageable.
I call it the 2-4-6-8 project, where you do a series of short stories that are multiples of these numbers—so a minimum of 8 pages (2x4) or a maximum of 48 pages (6x8). Also, do it in four different genres—romance, horror, fantasy/scifi, action (humour and mystery/suspense can also be mixed into it). Doing this will give you a huge amount of experience in creating different tones and setting reader expectations, and also the experience of working on a reasonably long story.
At the end of the day, being a manga creator is about being a writer-artist. Even if you’re a team, the burden of visual storytelling falls more on the artist than the writer, so you need to know how to bring out the best and most interesting elements of a scene/story. Likewise, working in genres you don’t like or know much about isn’t fun, but it’s actually a great way to learn new skills.
GlobalComix: What is your dream project?
Queenie Chan: I don’t work on a story unless I really like it anyway, so my life is one long string of dream projects, or at least projects I want to do for the next few years. Currently, my dream project is the side-story to “The Dreaming” (the revised version), which I’ve been sitting on for a while, but which I like very much because of the strength of the characters and story.
GlobalComix: What’s next for you? Any new projects that you can tease the readers with?
Queenie Chan: It’s the side-story to “The Dreaming” (the revised version), which I’ve already roughed out 100+ pages of. The story is fully-written, so I’ll be fully focusing on that next—it’s gonna come out no matter what because it’s been kicking around in my head for too long and refusing to vacate. It’s looking to be 2 volumes at the moment.
After that, I’d like to see if I can get “The Dreaming 2” out, which looks to be another 3 book series and is a direct sequel to the original starring many of the same characters, 13 years after the originals story happened. This is the segment of the story which builds on a lot of the stuff that happened in part 1 (ie. Books 1-3) of “The Dreaming”.
We’ll see what happens!
Thank you so much for this interview Queenie Chan and for sharing your knowledge with us! Don't forget to check out our GlobalComix Connects on Friday at 4 PM EDT as we sit down and have a chat with Queenie Chan! It will be the perfect time for any questions! We can't wait to see you there and you can click the "Notify Me" button here to make sure you don't miss our Podcast.
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QueenieChan 1 year ago
Thanks for interviewing me, it was a really fun interview. :D