Continuing our Creator Stories series, we have another Guest Article, this time from VictoryDrawsManga, creator of the series Past Blazes Future Path. Victory started posting their series to GlobalComix earlier this year and has been an incredible force in the community spending lots of time featuring other creators on their social media. With a series doing well, we wanted to offer them the spotlight to talk about their experiences as a comic creator.
Heyo everyone! It’s Victory here, speaking- On a GlobalComix article!?
Yeah, it’s me, in a GlobalComix article for real! GlobalComix has given me an amazing opportunity to talk about my experiences as a comic creator and artist. I am seriously so honored to be here and to be granted this amazing chance! My journey as a comic creator from the beginning to who you know me as now- That weird anime artist whose got way too many fanchildren OCS and fanseries works for her own good, who is also constantly supporting other creators. As I always say, let's go!
My experience as a comic creator started way farther back than you might believe. One might think my comic creating journey began in early 2021-2022 when I began making Webtoons series, or even in early 2023 when I released my hit fanseries “Past Blazes Future Path” right here on GlobalComix on my birthday, March 16th. But that actually isn’t true- As my webcomic journey goes years back, to around 2017-2018.
My first comics were on paper, inspired by anime, games (such as "Kings Raid, Food Fantasy", a bunch of anime RPG) and two manga books of the series "A Certain Scientific Railgun" (whose anime I also watched and adores to this day) that I bought from a Barnes & Noble store. My 5th grade self at the time was only beginning to consider art as a serious thing to pursue as a career, comics were the last thing on my mind. Despite this, I eventually evolved my comic making from pencil and paper to digital art (as I switched from traditional to digital art, my comics went that same path with me).
My first years of comic making were mostly obscure. I worked on a Danganronpa fanseries called “Danganronpa V4: Game Of Imposters” as I was inspired by the golden age of fan games and series for the original games- And the entire thing started off as a inside joke between me, myself, and I. “Hey! I ship characters, I enjoy shipping a couple in games- What if I combined them, what if they had kids that lead a new generation?” I would think to myself, and I did it. I made fanchildren OCS, and my first fanseries was born.
Despite this new age of me discovering I have a thing for making fanchildren, taking canon media and bending it to my will, I fell out of favor with "Danganronpa" and discontinued "Game of Imposters" as soon as I began to move on from the games. I cannot say that my beginnings as a comic creator was like me making a series and managing to continue it, as me making a series and discontinuing it soon after is a common theme for my journey being a comic creator - A theme that I don’t want to hide, even if it isn’t the best thing to show.
My next few years of being an artist was a limbo period. It didn’t even include me making comics at all. I mostly focused on doing digital art such as character design, fanart, etc/ All while feeling like I didn’t have a place nor purpose in the community, I just did art and shared it. But I felt like I lacked any sense of having a place in the art community, lacking a purpose, lacking the feeling of belonging somewhere, somehow.
This period of being in a strange, weird limbo with art would end when a friend I met in March of 2022 introduced me to Webtoons and their self publishing platform of Webtoon Canvas. This friend of mine helped me to kickstart my Webtoon webcomic journey with a tutorial they made themselves, as they are a well established Webtoon creator. Following that tutorial, I created my first Webtoon series called “Jojo’s Record Raid” - A combination of three media I was obsessed with at the time: "Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure", "Magia Record" and "King’s Raid".
The creation of "Jojo’s Record Raid" (JRR) started off similar to Game of Imposters- Starting off as a joke, me creating fanchildren, and an entire story was born. But much like my previous fanseries, "JRR" would meet the fate of being discontinued as I fell out of favor with all medias- The difference is that "JRR" was the beginning of me in my era of actively promoting my comic works more, connecting with others, and finding my place in the comic community. From early on, I met amazing fellow comic creators who were supportive of my story and others- I joined webcomic groups that were groups of support filled with creators who are my friends too this day.
The “JRR era” began my era of being the creator you likely know me as today. That weird anime artist who also actively promotes and supports other creators. As I bonded with my fellow creators, learned more about creating webcomics, and grew even after discontinuing "JRR"- I began to feel like I belonged in a community that welcomes me and my works with open arms, I have a purpose in this community, and I feel like I can do something for this amazing community.
2023 came around after a few months of me working on a project that would become a hit compared to my other works. They say the third time's the charm, and I think in this case- The third webcomic series I have worked on has become the charm! Past Blazes Future Path, my fanseries for the work Dai Gyakuten Saiban / The Great Ace Attorney released here on Globalcomix on my birthday of March 16th in 2023. For once I began to actively promote and share my fanseries work (even deliberately picking the release date to be on my birthday) with others, and I truly didn’t expect PBFP to get the amount of love it has gotten from the webcomic community and GC itself.
My experience as a webcomic creator is now much different than compared to the past- I have plans, a purpose, and a calling that I go by as I create comics. For PBFP specifically, I really wanted to continue the great story that is TGAA (after two games, the series ended with an ending that I will never get over) with a new generation (of you might be guessing- Fanchildren OCS!) while also telling the experience that I live through everyday. An experience that I never found much media growing up that tells the experience of being Asian American- Specifically on what it’s like living the life of a kid born to immigrants, being a first generation kid.
As a Chinese American born to parents from China on U.S soil, I want PBFP to tell the experience of being the kid of immigrants and the “first gen experience” while taking canon and bending the story to my will. Telling the experience of what it’s like growing up in a family as a first gen, the experience of having to deal with you’re identity as being born American to parents from another country, the day in the life of someone who possibly is a human translator and dictionary for their parents whose first language isn't English. PBFP is only in it’s beginning , but we got a lot more contents, themes and story plots that have yet to see existence- Beyond my many google docs, but we don’t talk about that.
Alongside PBFP, I am also creating a Honkai Starrail fanseries called “Generation Protostar” - A short comics (following but also not completely stuck to a plot) series where a group composed of a new generation of Trailblazers (yes, you guessed it! HSR fanchildren!) who call themselves “Generation Protostar” (founded by the MC Ai-Jiahao, who probably isn’t supposed to exist- Yet is existing, defying against canon? Yes.) . GP also has many of the themes I want to tell, but represents the side of me where I plan to actively collaborate with other creators- Generation Protostar exploring new worlds and universes like Trailblazers do! Explore, connect, maybe mess around and screw something up? Yes! GP is definitely a series where it’s more like a side project, but I plan big things for this fanseries where collabs are definitely going to be a very normal thing- A thing where I can uplift other creators while GP gets to go around the worlds of other comic series and have fun!
While creating projects like PBFP, I also want to actively promote and support fellow comic creators- As I am always told by my family, the world is a competitive place. It is hard to grow as an artist or creator in the world called social media- For comic creators, it can be a huge pain to have to create comics while also having to constantly promote your work, often by yourself. I want to help relieve that pain for fellow creators, actively promoting others' works that deserve to have a larger audience while growing as a creator myself. To connect with others , actively find creators of all sizes, telling different stories- This is my greatest calling as a creator, and this is what drives me forward to constantly support others! I don’t really know how I can find the time nor energy to constantly shout out to others- But I suppose living off of a few cups of coffee, funny memes and tiktoks, shitposts and supporting my friends and beyond is my secret? Who knows, even I don’t know-
But I really want to thank GlobalComix, all my friends and mutuals, the readers / fans of mine plus many others' works, and the webcomic community as a whole. I've been talking about myself this entire time, but can I talk about you for once? In all honesty, I wouldn't even be here if it wasn't for people like YOU- Fans who support me, fans who I support back, the amazing team and existence of GlobalComix, fellow creators who support me and others. It is really thanks to you guys that I am where I am today. I always emphasize this, and I will yell about this again: It is thanks to YOU that I as a creator plus my works are existing and going, it is YOU and YOUR support that continues to keep me going!
So truly, thank YOU so much! I appreciate every bit of support from my entire being- I don’t know (nor will I ever know) how to put my appreciation and love into words, but I love you all!
Now enough of me talking, I probably have rambled for too long- You can catch me via the links below, see you and thanks for reading! I hope my story has informed or inspired you, you are amazing!
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