A New Amateur Manga in Town: Seraphim

<p>Jessica Kings is an artist in training&comma; and a very good friend of mine&comma; who enjoys to put the worlds and stories crafted in her mind on paper&comma; in the form of a manga&period; Her work is quickly growing in popularity over on http&colon;&sol;&sol;comicfury&period;com&sol; and so I thought I would showcase her work and grab her for an interview&period; She also develops games&comma; draws for people and draws in all kinds of different styles from pixel art to digital masterpieces&period; This is the cover of her current manga&colon; <em>Seraphim<&sol;em>&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><a href&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;theseraphim&period;thecomicseries&period;com&sol;comics&sol;1&sol;"><img class&equals;"alignnone" src&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;theseraphim&period;thecomicseries&period;com&sol;images&sol;comics&sol;72&sol;3800dc0849aba300df38a7c868dd24af1187059731&period;jpg" alt&equals;"" width&equals;"707" height&equals;"1000" &sol;><&sol;a><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>You can check out&comma; rate and subscribe to Seraphim over at <a title&equals;"Seraphim" href&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;theseraphim&period;thecomicseries&period;com&sol;" target&equals;"&lowbar;blank" rel&equals;"noopener noreferrer">theseraphim&period;thecomicseries&period;com<&sol;a> which gets updated three times a week&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>If you want to support Jessie as she doesn&&num;8217&semi;t have a lot of time to do what she does you can go to <a title&equals;"Patreon" href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;patreon&period;com&sol;JessieK" target&equals;"&lowbar;blank" rel&equals;"noopener noreferrer">www&period;patreon&period;com&sol;JessieK<&sol;a> where the higher the pledge you make you can get an awesome personalised reward&excl;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>And you can keep up with her wit by following her on Twitter at <a title&equals;"Twitter" href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;twitter&period;com&sol;JessieKingsK" target&equals;"&lowbar;blank" rel&equals;"noopener noreferrer">twitter&period;com&sol;JessieKingsK<&sol;a>&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>To learn more about Jessie and her manga <em>Seraphim<&sol;em>&comma; I present our interview&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><strong>Hello Jessie how are you&quest;<&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>I&&num;8217&semi;m grand thanks for asking and yourself&quest;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><strong>I&&num;8217&semi;m great and that&&num;8217&semi;s fantastic to hear&excl; I&&num;8217&semi;ve seen lots of examples of your work and I have to say I really enjoy your art and I believe you are very talented&period; When did you first start getting into art and think that this is what you want to do&quest;<&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Well thank you very much&excl; It&&num;8217&semi;s always very nice to hear comments like that&comma; I started drawing just casually for a couple of minutes a day when I was very young like 7 &&num;8211&semi; 8 and it was probably around 10 or 11 when I really started spending long periods of time just doodling in books&period; I think I decided art is what I wanted to do when I was about 14&period; I was being pushed in school to go towards things like history and geography for my options which meant I couldn&&num;8217&semi;t take art as a subject and I found myself getting very upset at the notion of not being able to do it or study it any further in school&comma; which is when I got the push I needed from my family to really follow what I wanted to do&comma; mainly because I was completely useless at a subject if I didn&&num;8217&semi;t really want to be there as I think most people are at that age&period; I think once I got my highest grade in school in art as a subject&comma; I was like &&num;8220&semi;Yeah I can do this this is something I can do well&&num;8221&semi;&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><strong>Aww that&&num;8217&semi;s great to hear that your family help you pursue it&excl; And the outcome is so far looking very promising&comma; I know you are currently at Uni but you also have projects going on including your newest comic&sol;manga Seraphim&comma; can you tell me a bit about that and how it started&quest;<&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Of course&period; So Seraphim is based in a medieval fantasy world&comma; where humanity is in a constant battle to be at the top of the food chain with a species called the &&num;8220&semi;Drey&&num;8221&semi;&semi; huge 8ft creatures who are kind of a mix between a bear and a gorilla but primarily hunt and eat humans&period; The story follows a girl called Lilith as she joins the military group who are given the job of controlling the Drey population called the Seraphim&period; The idea came about when I took a long look at my previous project Cursed and realised I wasn&&num;8217&semi;t happy with the direction it was taking&comma; it was too loose with it&&num;8217&semi;s story and too focused on moving characters from one action scene to the other without really setting anything up&period; It also had horrible writing issues after I re-wrote the thing 4 &&num;8211&semi; 5 times and had notes and documents all over the place&comma; so I contacted a friend of mine James Roughton to help me come up with a new concept for a story where I could adapt the art style I had already been using for Cursed to create a darker more story&sol;character focused Manga without missing out on the action scenes that I personally enjoy creating&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><strong>Wow sounds like a lot of work has gone into it&comma; and I have to say so far it&&num;8217&semi;s rather good&comma; with already some dark even shocking panels that make me want to read more haha&period; Is there anything that inspired Seraphim or in turn inspired Cursed which is now why you have created Seraphim&quest;<&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>I really enjoy dark&sol;more serious anime and manga&comma; off the top of my head I would say I was heavily inspired by shows like Attack On Titan and Claymore when creating Cursed which as you said inspired the creation of Seraphim&period; I think my main inspiration was to avoid the Anime&sol;Manga cliches that pop up all too often and try to use the style to create more realistic looking settings and characters like the two mentioned shows did&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><strong>Ah some fantastic mangas to inspire you&excl; What would you say to anyone who hasn&&num;8217&semi;t read or seen those or your manga to entice them into getting onboard with yours then&quest;<&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>If you&&num;8217&semi;re interested in seeing stories that deviate from the norm when it comes to setting and are unpredictable like Game of Thrones where no characters have plot immunity&comma; but with a faster moving plot with more action heavy set pieces that add real tension as you have no idea who might die&comma; I would highly recommend checking out the shows I listed above and my own manga&comma; it&&num;8217&semi;s an interesting change of pace that I don&&num;8217&semi;t think we have quite got the hang of in the west yet&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><strong>Now that&&num;8217&semi;s a clincher&excl; I wish you the best of luck with Seraphim and look forward to reading more of it&period; Before we finish is there any other projects or things you would like to inform the readers of&quest;<&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Well right now I am working on a few projects like a turn based collectible game and working on the design side of an upcoming FPS but none of those projects are at a stage where I can discuss them in great detail&comma; I&&num;8217&semi;d love to be back to chat about them when they are though&period; Other than that I hope anyone who checks out my Manga enjoys what they read&comma; it updates twice a week right now and I hope to be able to update much more often in the future&comma; if you happen to enjoy Seraphim and you really want to help support its production I have a Patreon page at https&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;patreon&period;com&sol;jessieK&period; Everything raised there goes right back into making Seraphim the best it can be and the more money raised the more content I can produce&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><strong>Sounds like a lot of work&excl; I sure hope you get all the support you deserve&comma; and of course we&&num;8217&semi;ll be happy to talk to you again in the future&period; Thank you for taking the time to talk to us Jessie &colon;&rpar;<&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>And thank you for having me on&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;