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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:

alt text: a comic entitled 'the chronicles of krakonia'. a school bus rolls across a hill. 'it was an ordinary tuesday morning. jack and lucy were on a trip to stonehenge.' jack and lucy are revealed to be two children wearing primary school polo shirts, who suspiciously resemble ben and gwen tennyson. 'i wonder why the stonehenge was built', muses jack, foreshadowingly. 'maybe it was a sort of calendar?' offers lucy. 'i don't know...' jack insightfully adds. 'hang on, what's this?' jack exclaims, extending a mangled looking hand towards a small green rock. 'uh oh...' jack begins to feel the narrative pull of the story as the rock eminates a glowing light. 'help!!!' they both exclaim, as they are dragged by swirling ninja magic through one of the stonehenge gates. the children land in a forested landscape, with perfectly triangular mountains and a red dragon flying overhead. 'jaack, this is all your fault!' yells gwen i mean lucy. jack, however, asserts his separation from ben ten by muttering a pathetic little 'oops'. 'YOU got us into this mess, so YOU have to get us out!' before this argument can continue any further, an old man appears abruptly from the trees: 'lucy! jack! i have been waiting for you...' he looks exactly like obi-wan kenobi. in fact, he may actually be obi-wan kenobi. 'please can SOMEONE tell us what's going on?' exclaims jack. 'come with me', says the old man. there's an actually quite nice cut to the exterior of a small cave. the old man's voice echoes from within: 'you two children were brought here for a reason. you are guardians - children who must protect krakonia. it is your duty to protect the world from the forces of evil.' 'cool!' says lucy, which is a very reasonable response. 'but how? we're only kids...' says jack, which is also a very reasonable response, but the old man is unpeturbed. instead, he bribes his child labourers by offering them sick ninja outfits. 'take these.' the children dramatically pose in a two piece gi secured with a leather belt. jack's is green with a golden sickle, and he looks like a stupid little christmas elf. lucy's is red with two cutlasses, and she looks like a stupid little christmas elf. 'COOL!' they both exclaim in all caps, and all concerns about their short lives being cut even shorter have been forgotten. later, we hard cut to a dojo with some training mats and an archery range. there's just a normal fucking man in his 30s standing there in a gi with a black belt. next to him is a small white haired child who probably harbours some dark secret. he has an outfit like the other two children but in white, and a bow on his back, indicating that he is the gay one. 'jack, lucy, this is luke,' says karate man. what an inconvenient name to add to this rather small cast. 'he is a guardian like you. i'm matt, by the way.' luke chimes in: 'you're in the house of life - home of the guardians, and our new home for now.' and on that thrilling cliffhanger, the comic ends.

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!

alt text: the comic cold opens with a line of figures thanking a bus driver. one of them turns around; a girl with a ponytail. 'i HATE school trips. don't you?' the girl hops off the coach, followed by a boy with overgrown hair who jumps off from the top step. 'i dunno...' the boy opens a flip phone and takes a picture. 'this one doesn't seem so bad.' there is a wide shot of the sun shining through stonehenge, and the title is revealed: 'the chronicles of krakonia'. a pair of hands are breaking daisies and punching holes in them, threading them through one by one to form a daisy chain. 'don't you think we should start the worksheet?' asks the boy, looking over at the girl, who is covered in every possible kind of daisy jewellery. 'what? nahhhh.' her eyes narrow, and she throws the new flower crown onto the boy's head. 'HEY!' he casts it off violently, where it lands on a glowing green stone with a 'fwuff' sound. the children gather around the stone, their faces bathed in green light. 'um,' 'uh'. 'what is that... THING.' the rock keeps glowing, in a laughing at them sort of way. 'it looks weird. SUSPICIOUS. HMM.' lucy breaks the ice first. 'i'm going to touch the magic rock.' 'YOU CAN'T JUST TOUCH THE MAGIC ROCK! you might get isekai'd!' pay no attention to the fact that british primary school children would not know this word. lucy throws her hands up. 'ok, fine. let's both touch it together.' they both extend a single finger towards the rock, eyes shut, wincing profusely. poke. 'AAAAA!' a huge green portal opens up, swirling them into one of the stonehenge arches like a plughole. the green light slowly fades to white, and eventually the magic clears, and we float gently downwards onto a forested landscape with dragons circling overhead. the children lay dazed in a field of white flowers, perhaps some more daisies? they have been isekai'd. an voice out of frame says, 'ah! jack! lucy!' i've been waiting for you!' the speaker is an old man with a greying beard wearing a brown cloak. the children exclaim 'OBI-WAN KENOBI?' and the comic ends.

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☆

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.

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