Tag Archives: manga

Happy Release Day, Hourglass! Let’s do this, an origin story.

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And just like that, Flye Gee Comics is born. LOL. Mainly because, like everything else I do, it’s with a “just go ahead and do it” mindset (I didn’t steal that from Nike, btw, I’ve been like this for a while now).

It’s really funny the way this came about, though. The origin story is important in comic book lore, so here it is in a nutshell. I fell in love with manga (My Hero Academia in particular). It reminded me of reading comic books. I started thinking how cool it would be to have my stories illustrated that way and realized I always have a vision in my head while writing anyway. And those visions are often not scenes, exactly, but like a particular aspect of a scene. For instance, I might write a scene about two people having a serious conversation while one drinks water, and the picture in my head is of when that character sets the glass down. The ripples in the top of the water.

Like a comic book frame.

Not being an artist (at least not a really good one), I started wondering if I could do at least part of my comic book with photo manipulation. Yeah, that could work. I’ve been playing around with the concept of poetography (a poem paired with a photograph) for some time. And if I based my comic book story off some of my poetry, I could incorporate three or four things I love in one thing.

Okay then. Let’s just go ahead and do it, I thought.

I’ve shared some of my journey on here. You’ve seen early versions of the illustrations. I’ve improved some of those. I worked really hard to format it into a book. I treated each page like an individual work of art. I finished the ebook version first, then fought my way through the formatting of the print version. I proofread and marked up and printed and proofread again. I corrected margins and found odd marks on some of the illustrations that I swear I didn’t put there. I removed those. I learned how to do speech and thought bubbles. I played with different fonts and ended up using three different ones. I finally decided it was good, so I ordered author copies. And yesterday a box full of them arrived about two weeks early.

So I decided I’d just go ahead and do it.

And that’s the origin story of Flye Gee Comics. I’m playing around with ideas for Issue 2. Stay tuned because chances are I will go from concept to publishing with little warning.

Let’s do this.

Poem: Craving Heart

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Photo by Michelle Garren Flye

Sometimes I’m attracted to a particular thing or sound or food/drink for no particular reason that I can name. My craving may attach itself to something I’ve known about and/or liked/loved for years. But all of a sudden, that’s all I want in my life.

What is this? It’s like a pregnancy craving. With my first son, I wanted milk all the time. Great, right? With my second, I wanted sweet tea, which sucked because I was living in Maryland at the time, and the only place to get good sweet tea was Bojangles. Thank God for Bojangles! My daughter was a different matter. I craved protein—in the form of hamburgers and steaks.

While I was pregnant, I figured cravings were trying to tell me something. I figure the same thing about these life cravings. Right now, all I want to listen to is Lifehouse and all I really want to read is manga/comics. I prefer drawing to writing, unless it’s poetry. What is my body trying to tell me?

Maybe it’s my spirit. Maybe it’s a type of spiritual pregnancy craving. I’ve completed my comic book (I’m moving away from calling it a graphic novel on my son’s suggestion), so it’s not that, but I can’t escape the feeling that my cravings relate to what’s happening in my creative life. In some way I can’t honestly name.

Craving Heart

By Michelle Garren Flye

Amorphous at first, like the moon’s touch,

Then filling the mind and life.

What is it you long for, want so much?

Sometimes sharp as a knife

Other times soft…you’d never hurt.

Give it to me, you whisper,

Give, and it’ll quench your thirst.

Resist you? Oh, that, I’d never!

I know how you get, my craving heart,

When I attempt to ignore

The insinuation of your persistent art.

No, I’ll surrender to wanting more

Of whatever you say I require.

I’ll see where this craving leads,

I’ll follow the road of desire—

And allow the nourishment of your needs.

Graphic Novel Update: More Pictures!

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It seems I just can’t NOT share my excitement about this ongoing project. I’m up to about eighty pictures now, and I’m still going strong. I’ve been experimenting more with drawing people as well as places and things. I think it’s working out…

“What do you do with a gift?”

Of course, my strength remains in the words, but I have had fun experimenting with drawing things like fire, too.

“Why would you think all the fire in the world is yours?”

I know, of course, that my pictures will not be the works of art I see in other graphic novels. I am not truly an artist. Most of what I’m doing is photographic manipulation. My strength is really in the five poems that are in this book. And the story I’ve woven around the poems and pictures. I am hopeful that they will find a place in the hearts of readers.

A New Creative Path?

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Whatever else 2020 has done for me—to me?—it’s definitely forced me to take a serious look at what I’m doing with my creative life. Do I really want to continue writing romantic fluff for the rest of my life?

Nah.

I’ve got something much fluffier in mind.

Actually, it’s not. That’s the other thing I’ve discovered. I used to adore comic books. During my teenage and college years, I devoured Micronauts. When I was a kid, Richie Rich was the bomb. If I wasn’t reading them, I was rummaging around my older brother’s room looking for his most recent purchases. I stole them quite often and returned them much the worse for wear.

Well, as I mentioned in an earlier post, my daughter recently returned me to this world rather forcefully by introducing me to My Hero Academia, the anime. Binge-watching all four seasons of that (and even writing a fanfiction or two in that universe) not being enough, I also picked up the manga. And something clicked.

Why not do my own graphic novel?

Oh indeed. Why not? Why not paint the Mona Lisa or sculpt Michelangelo’s David? Why not build a suspension bridge or a skyscraper?

For one thing, I’m not an artist. But my daughter is. Hey, daughter, want to draw a couple hundred pics for a graphic novel I’m going to self-publish and probably not make any money off of? For FREEE?

Yeah. That was her answer.

But the itch wouldn’t go away. I have the concept. I wrote the story (which, as a bonus includes some of my poetry). And guess what? I’m now drawing. It’s interesting to say the least. I’m using my photographs, some basic drawing techniques and making a lot of mistakes. My daughter taught me how to use Ibis Paint and is serving as my “Art Director”.

And, as luck would have it, a lovely and talented watercolor artist Barb Williams (http://www.findjoywithwatercolorpainting.com) came into my store shortly after I conceived of the idea. We started talking and she wound up painting the cover illustration for my soon?-to-be graphic novel. I sent that illustration on to my cover designer, the delightful and multitalented Farah Evers (http://faraheversdesigns.com) and I now have this to announce:

More information to come. Stay posted to my blog for sneak peeks and previews. It may be months before I get this whole thing put together!

I wrote a fanfiction. And it’s really good.

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I blame 2020. So in a way, I guess I should thank 2020 for being such a miserable year it froze my creative juices in my veins so that the only way I could continue writing at all was to take up a study of haiku and try to figure out why some 5-7-5 poems are better than others.

Until Boku No Hero Academia, that is.

My daughter introduced me to it. More to the point, I found out she’d been watching anime and reacted like any sensible parent would and demanded she watch it with me. I have a bit of a prejudice against anime and manga due to the way it portrays women. I found some of that in BNHA (a.k.a., My Hero Academia, based on the manga by Kohei Horikoshi), but nothing I felt would scar my beautiful, confident, intelligent daughter.

I did think the anime could use a stronger female character or two, preferably on the hero and not the villain side.

I was pretty sure I could create one.

In mid-July I did exactly that. And then I started writing her story. Then I posted it on a fanfiction site. It’s now up to 22 chapters (I’ve been posting one a day, serial-like), has almost 700 hits, 22 kudos, six subscribers, and one reader who comments every single day. I’m kind of proud of that. It might be the most successful thing I’ve ever written.

After I wrote about ten chapters of it, I came clean with my daughter. She was shocked and, I think, happy. She asked if she could read it. I gave her the link because I’ve rated it “Teen and Up” on the site, and I know it’s okay for her.

She said it was really good.

I asked if it was weird that I wrote it.

She pointed out that most fanfiction is written by kids, so my readers are probably kids and probably think I am, too.

Oh jeez.

That is a little weird.

And still, I know I’m going to finish this story because I can’t not. It’s been pure fun to write. I love the universe, the characters (Kohei Horikoshi’s and mine), and how it’s brought me back to reading the comic books I borrowed from my older brother’s room when I was a kid. He always had the best ones. Richie Rich, Spider-Man, The Micronauts (remember Baron Karza, anyone?), and so many others. I loved those comics.

And I’m not going to apologize for writing a fanfiction based on an anime based on a manga. After all, it’s better than sitting frozen in horror watching our world flame out.

And besides, it inspired my beautiful daughter to draw me this:

My OC (that’s Original Character) from my fanfiction.

I am not going to post a link to my fanfiction because I don’t want to lead any children to my romances. If any of you do find this, my romances are not child friendly. I would refer you to my Shelley Gee account for middle grade children’s books. Possibly my semi-YA Weeds and Flowers. But none of these are set in a universe with heroes and villains and would probably be a disappointment. Sorry? On the other hand, if you know me and want to read the fanfiction to see if it’s really all that, let me know.