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ninjas and comics
20 may 2026
my pal ellie hosted a party recently where the theme was childhood dream job, and obviously i went as a ninja. another guy went as a taekwondo instructor, so i guess it's not just me who had their priorities straight.
when i was in primary school, half of my friends did karate, and i was deeply jealous and bitter about it. to let this energy out another way, i watched lego ninjago with my little brother, and tried to get him to play pretend with me that we were training in a dojo together.
when i was a bit older (maybe 11?) i had a new dream career: comic book artist. i have no idea why this was the case because i barely read comics, but i thought the idea of them was cool and a boy in my class was really good at drawing manga and i was once again very envious.
these two ambitions, plus a heavy dash of weird british kids' isekai1 media like through the dragon's eye, inspired this absolute masterpiece:
the chronicles of krakonia (original)
there was a second page, but i can't find it and i don't care. there's so much here that i'm obsessed with that i don't even really know what to say about it.
anyway, i found this in my parents' house in 2020 and got inspired. i don't want to be a comic book artist anymore, i absolutely don't have the patience for it, but i enjoy it in small doses.
i wanted to flesh the characters out a bit more than my younger self did (which isn't hard), and also to try my hand at a webtoon-like scrolling format. here's the result!
the chronicles of krakonia (2020)
i'm really happy with how this turned out. i hope you enjoyed it too!
something i like about it, which i don't remember if i planned or not, is that it reminds me of how webtoons often start in a simple black and white style, but the art style becomes more colourful and time-consuming as the artist improves. you can see this in paranatural, which i was really into at the time.
i think remaking childhood ideas has a lot of potential. wish i'd come up with more material at the time...2 maybe there's a lesson here about just making the thing before you forget it, even if it doesn't live up to your vision.
until next time,
mzw☆
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1 if you're not already familiar, an isekai is a fantasy story where a protagonist from the real world gets whisked away to another world, lives out a whole story there, and comes back forever changed. think sword art online, or the lion the witch and the wardrobe. here's a short one.
2 despite popular demand i'm sure, the dance adaptation of molly moon's hypnotic time-travel adventure that i sketched out costumes for in year five will not be remade.