Siple question really... who else is writing manga? ^_^ Technically, you can't really write manga, as manga is a drawing style, but... you know what I mean.

So... Calling all manga writers/artists! Show yourselves! Don't be shy! ^^

I'm writing manga! Hopefully I'll have time to draw it out when I finish my script.

I would consider manga a writing style as well, just compare the structure of stories of Western comics with manga. Manga clearly flows differently, well this also depends on the genre. Anyway, I'm doing a manga as well, though I can't draw to save my life, which will be a shonen, medieval, steampunk, action, adventure, fantasy.

The biggest influence for the manga I'll be writing is One Piece, basically throw in whatever I want and make an excuse so that it'll make sense. I'm sure there were cyborgs in the middle ages >.>

I belong here. Last year I wrote the script to my long-planned project Spanner that I'll have to completely rewrite yet again. This year, I'm adapting my '07 NaNo novel prequel Bad Company, which I'm currently editing. However, my style's changing some. Whereas in Spanner I'm throwing in all the cyberpunk craziness I can, in Bad Company I'm using all the realistic background techniques in the manga arsenal. My layout style will remain the same, however: shoujo-influenced layouts, seinen-influenced content, cinematic storytelling approach. My earliest manga influences include Mikimoto, Shirow, and Clamp, but if you ask me for a list of all the cartoonists (Japanese, American, and European) who have influenced me since 1992, I won't be able to give you one because the list is all but infinite. I can tell you that my latest major influence is Takeshi Obata.

I'm drawing all my own stuff, of course.

Just realized I need a name for my manga; have everything else completely thought out but it is always the name that gives me a hard time. I actually didn't give a summary of my manga, which I have done in another topic, so I'll put it here as well. I've had some opinions about my idea though they were basically just "good idea" without any specifics of what they like and didn't. Again, the following is just a basic outline...

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Okay, my script will basically be in the style of a manga, so it is a mixture of a lot of genres including but not limited to: medieval, steampunk, maybe some cyberpunk, action, adventure, drama, possibly romance, etc... If you want to think of a reference, probably One Piece is the biggest influence. The story is a shonen meaning that the main demographic is teenage boys and is action/story driven. Also, because it is based on shonen manga, physics are crazy, clothing is rather modern despite setting, and some swordsmen use katana despite the setting being pretty much European based. But, it also hits some relatively important themes; mainly personal religious experiences. Though, it is a fictional religion it does touch upon universal problems and secular themes such as war and friendship as well.

This world is basically a medieval European-based fantasy setting, though with varying levels of technology based on mentioned genres. The gimmick is that everyone has their own personal God/Goddess that resides in the "Realm of Gods" which is split into Paradise and Torment. A new deity is created with every birth, and it's impossible for someone to not have their own deity even if they don't believe in them. From creation the human is fated to go to either Paradise or Torment, which is up to fate and has nothing to do with how they acted in life. When the human dies they go to the Realm of Gods to be with their deity for eternity. If going to Paradise they will live in peace with their deity forever, but if in Torment they will be tortured by their deity forever (though, these deities are not actually evil, they are obligated to do so even if they do not want to).

Another important plot element is that of "Gifts." Basically a deity can grant their human a special ability on their whim. Usually, they will grant a gift if they end up being impressed by their human or it can be without reason just to see what will happen, depending on the personality of the deity. Each deity is a deity of something (ex: God of Death, Goddess of War, God of Candy) which can be either be for serious or comedic purposes. Usually, the deities affiliation reflexes something about the character (ex: if a person's deity is a Goddess of Kindness, they will most likely be very kind themselves) though there are always exceptions.

The plot of the story is that the main character, Gash, was given a gift by his deity that actually did more bad than good. So, he and his friends, with others along the way, must try to find a way to get to the Realm of Gods while still being alive. Once there they plan to ask Gash’s deity to take away the gift. This plot is long term, so the actual story is more about the adventure getting there and character relations than actually achieving the goal.

Main Characters:

Gash Perry, is the main character of the series whose personal deity is a God of Death named Paratha. He is 17 and the son of a tea merchant, but his life was changed when he was 12 and was given a gift by his deity for apparently no reason. The gift given to him was the ability to see the death of a person by looking in their eyes, which horrified him greatly. In order to avoid seeing such terrible things he gouged out his eyes with a knife, but a part of his gift is that over time his eyes re-grow. So, he constantly has to go through the pain of either cutting them out or dealing with the horror of seeing the deaths of everyone he meets. After he had come of age, he decided that he would gather any of his friends willing to assist him and try and find a way into the Realm of Gods to ask Paratha to take back the gift. He appears with modest clothing probably more similar to that of the medieval time period than anyone else.

Sologon Ed, is Gash’s best friend; whose personal deity is a God of Metal named Istabbi. He is 20 and is known as the greatest blacksmith that their village has ever seen as well as being an accomplished martial artist. Sologon was also given a gift by his deity, but unlike Gash his ability is a great asset. He has the ability to turn parts of his body into liquid metal and reform them however he sees fit, also this allows him to produce high quality steel just using his own body. Because of this ability his smithing has been known internationally, but he gives up on his success to help his friend, Gash, find the Realm of Gods. Sologon’s appearance is more punky and inspired by metal music.

Charlotte Kingsworth, is another one of Gash’s friends and possible love interest whose deity is a God of Secrets named Isaac. She is 19 and is an apprentice witch who specializes in the types of magic that deals with seals, including alchemy. Charlotte does not have a gift from her deity, but instead her deity is a rather rarity. Isaac chose to leave the Realm of Gods to actually be with Charlotte in her mortal life, taking the form of a raven that acts as her familiar. He is basically the group's mentor and guide to find the Realm of Gods. She did not want to join Gash at first, but eventually she decided to go by the encouragement of Isaac. Charlotte’s clothing style is gothic in nature, with dark colors and anything else that’ll catch her interest.

Babylon, was hired by Sologon (who is rather wealthy) to act as a swordsman bodyguard for the group, but ends up becoming friends with them as well. He is the oldest in the group at the age of 29, though he is probably the least mature. His deity is a Goddess of Candy, Sweets, and Sugar named Kia, and there are hints that Babylon may be in love with her. While he does not have a gift from her, the reason for his deity’s affiliation is obvious as he loves anything sweet and will refuse to eat anything if it is not sugary. His sword style is known as Seiyaryu (Holy Night Sword Style) and his sword is a katana. The katana is a white color with red stripes to imitate that of a candy cane. The hilt of the katana is a light green color which matches the light green color of the sheath. The sheath is decorated with prints of holly and mistletoe. Strangely, when unsheathed the katana smells of peppermint. His appearance is rather different as he wears a black suit with green lining, white shirt, red tie, and black dress shoes. Also, he wears heavy make-up and has pink colored hair tied up with pins. It is revealed that 5 years before the beginning of the series that Babylon (actually not his real name) was part of a rebellion against the monarchy that failed, so he went into hiding with the appearance he uses now. He acts as the comedic relief as Babylon often gets in bad situations and his personality is rather childish; and you can probably tell he is my favorite character.

count me in.

I'm reworking my Nano novel to GN form and the manga drawing style and storytelling style is much more appropriate for it than the western comic style. I'm not going SD with them anywhere, it's just that I don't need 8million word balloons to explain what a series of silent panels mean. If you know what I mean :-)

I've been doing more character sketches at work. I have them down pretty well by now. I don't see myself drawing it but I'd like to think I could make a rough approximation if I needed to.

Three days left, everyone! Good luck! Ganbatte!

Wow... I thought I posted here...

Anyway, I guess you could call what I'm doing "manga". It's actually going to be the start of a webcomic. Info is on my profile, I don't feel like copying it to here right now.

I agree with Lionheart, manga is most definitely a writing style. I've seen several western comics with the artist drawing in typical manga style, but it didn't have half of the feeling of manga. Western comics tend to be more plot-driven, while manga pays more attention to the characters. It's not just black and white versus color here.

In any case, what I'm writing happens to be manga. In it I'm chasing a couple of cliches: The story is set in high school, where the heroine transfers into a new school, falls in love with the school prince, and ends up joining the school basketball team to pursue him. And of course, the prince has absolutely no interest in her, though he persists in saving her whenever she gets in trouble.

But the cliches don't impair the story in any way; I end up turning almost every cliche introduced on its head by the story's end. (Laughing the whole way.) I'm really looking forward to April.

Yay for manga!! I don't draw manga my partner does I do the inking XD It's not great but we're new at this. Anyone know if we need to format the frames in any specific way?

I'm also doing a manga! I'm really looking forward to it. Its a shoujo fantasy, my favourite genre...you know, About a girl in love with a boy from school and one day she follows him after school and gets caught up in an odd situation, next thing she knows shes in a completley different world! Kinda cliched but I'm throwing in my own twists so this is going to be fun. ^^

I'm writing a manga as well! It's going to be a shojo story about Dracula (a totally different Dracula than normally portrayed) and his illegitimate half-human son. Hopefully it'll end up being more of a comedy than a drama, but I don't know how that'll turn out. XD Also, I'm not going to draw it. There was someone interested in drawing for the story, but I haven't been able to contact her consistently and have nearly given up on her drawing for it. Too bad, because she's an awesome budding artist.

I'm planning to write a manga series.
In fact I've written a few when I was younger.
When the whole manga-boom came to America,
I kind of lost motivation to write.
A lot of my ideas were already taken,
and I always thought 'then what's the point?'
I want this Script Frenzy event to be a new beginning.
I want to write a manga series that's original.

That's what I hope atleast.

I look forward to meeting other manga writers. =]

I'm in.

I'm thinking of writing five 24page comics so that I can work with how little story arcs work inside the bigger story arc. Or maybe even five comics on different topics. I've had great fun doing 24 hour comic day and want to do more!

I definitely love and am influenced by manga.

I'm thinking about doing teen story of a belrog named Sneerglow who joins up with some adventurers in a D&D sort of adventure.

I'm also playing with the idea of doing a telling of the medieval tale of the Fairy King, including elements of little known legends surrounding the holy grail stories.

Good luck everyone!

I'm not sure what I'm writing, but it will be shojo, most likely of the mystical type. Possibly of a novel idea of mine concerning an incompetent vampire slayer.

Bad Company is definitely driven by plot -- the plot of the evil Dictel Corporation to take over America by force! (Oh yeah, I'm also adapting my novel. There are some Japanese precedents for that...)

Otherwise, plot for me is simply what the characters do, and especially the logic of their conflict. Plot, for me, is character-driven. At least that's how I learned how to write it. That, and using a more dialectical approach.

Anyway, I just won NaNoEdMo, but still have some work to do on BadCo before I can start adapting it. Also, I want to bang out the movie script first, and that should take about a week or so at the blazing speed I write (and I'm assuming about 150 pages of movie script, and it may be less). I'll dedicate the rest of the month to the graphic novel.

Now, after I draw it, how will I release it? Probably as a webmanga; the release schedule will depend on how long it takes me to draw, ink, letter, and tone/color each chapter. Actually, I should start looking for a graphics tablet; that will eliminate the need for inking...

I might as well be doing a manga. Anime and manga are my main drawing and storytelling influences (not that I can draw worth a damn but whatever XD) and my story is basically ripping off a lot of magical girl/adventure tropes like in Magic Knight Rayearth. This story has been bugging me for years now and this is an excuse to actually get it down on paper.

My story (which I have been completely unable to title for the last three and a half years D8) goes something like this: Girl gets dragged through a portal and recruited to save the world, except there's been a mix up and she's not actually the hero, she's just some random girl. No magic world-saving power to speak of. Oopsie.

Yeah! I'm making a manga too!
(well, its going to read left to right but oh well)

Yes, I think that I'm definately going to persue my slayer manga idea. This was originally an idea for a novel, but I think that it will work well as a manga. Basically it's the story of Scarlett, a girl born into a family of vampire slayers (though not exclusively vampies- zombies come into play at the climax), and she's pretty bad at it. Her family is a part of this huge slayer network that places its member around the world to protect the people in whatever area they're placed in. This starts when they're in high school, and are placed at a school somewhere. To quote from my novel:

"Boarding schools, it turns out, are actually breeding grounds for vampires. Why? I blame pop culture. Society has romanticized vampires to the point that when people (especially teenage girls) actually meet real ones, they think, 'Ooooh, pretty vampire! Suck my blood and let me live foreveeeeerrrr!!!' instead of 'Ahhhhh!!!!! Vampire- someone kill it!!!!!' At boarding schools, vampires find that they can blend in so long as they stay out of sunlight, and they don’t have to hunt because half the school would probably beg them to drink their blood. It’s ridiculous and creates lots of trouble for slayers."

Anyway, Scarlett is placed at a school that is at low-risk for vampires, however when she gets there, she discovers quite the contrary. Her great-aunt Heather, who was a pacifist flower-child of the seventies, refused to be a slayer, but ironically was attacked by a vampire and turned. Scarlett is surprise that of all vampires, her school is inhabited by Heather, who has a sort of gothic cult following.

So yeah. Incompetent vampire slayer- lots of fun... ^_^

Right now I'm juggling between doing a sci-fi mecha one or a fairy-tale type fantasy one. The mecha one has a lot to do with the manipulation of human DNA. The fairy tale is about a princesses who is trying to save her kingdom from a hostile take over. I rather like all the twists I have planned for the fairy tale one but I really need to work on the plot. Hopefully I can decided on one or the other by the end of today.

My script is a manga, and I plan to do my own drawing, once I have it written. In fairness, I draw a bit when I'm stuck in my writing, but what I've drawn so far is more along the lines of storyboarding, and rough sketching. I'm really excited about this project, and have had fun with it, so far. The plot I'm using has been tugging at my skirt for a few months, and I've ignored it, but thanks to Script Frenzy, I'm giving it the attention it's been bugging me for!

If any fellow manga authors are interested in a new writing buddy, let's keep in touch and help motivate each other!

Heck yes!! I'm writing a comic I planned on doing, but never started, and yes I plan to draw it myself. The problem? I can't draw consistently! The characters will most likely look a little different in every scene, and I also have problems with bodies and poses. Yikes, wish me luck.
Oh well, I can worry about the drawing later.
If it were possible, I would undoubtedly melt into a puddle if CLAMP drew my manga. Anyone love Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle, Cardcaptor Sakura, Chobits, or xxxHolic?

Technically I would need permission from whoever currently owns the rights to Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass to publish mine though.
While it's not necessarily an exact adaptation of those two stories, Alice in Wonderland definately acts as the skeleton for my story, while a lot of my ideas are my own, and a lot of the events in the orginal are twisted a bit to fit my own characters and storyline.

Anyone else planning on doing an adaptation or something of the sort?

As well, anyone want to be a writing/artist buddy?

One last thing. This applies to artists! Anyone know a good online (or book I can buy) tutorial for drawing nice bodies and poses? I really need to improve! I'm hoping this project will really help me to mature in my drawing.

I think I can help you there, Invisibly-Visible. I have similar troubles, but these websites help me out a lot when I need a frame of reference:

www.mangatutorials.com
www.polykarbon.com
www.mangapunk.com
www.bakaneko.com

Also, I only own two of them, but Christopher Hart's books helped me out quite a bit. I've also heard a lot about Hikaru Hayashi's How to Draw Manga books, so you might wanna check those out too. ^_^ Happy manga-ing!

Thanks so much Neo-Courtney! I'm liking polykarbon.com so far, and I'll have to look into those books!
Really, I can't thank you enough, I have to work with those references over break.
Ha, Happy Manga-ing to you as well!

There's this great place for poses that I used to know. It's something like posemaniac.com. Try searching for pose maniac on google and see what comes up.

And, yes, I'm doing a manga. I do manga from all kinds of genres, but this one's a shoujo. I had a dream . . .. and it spawned. . . .

I'm writing a manga script! It's pretty much what I do... I have never really read any Western comics (with the exception of some classics) but my shelves are piled with manga, so it's only natural for me. Mine is a shoujo story, which is typical for me (I have a dirty addiction to it), but there are other elements creeping in. It's inspired by my favorite and (Perfume) and stems from a lot of similar things... Think pop idol, technological magical girls. xD;;

Invisibly-Visible - You don't need permission to use stuff from Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. Both of these are considered public domain in most countries.

Edit: Looked in your profile to see what country you are from, and I know for a fact that both of those are public domain in the US. The following website has access to various works that are no longer under copyright laws in the United States.

http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page

Oh, thanks Lionheart_Clan, that's some useful information. I wondered, since references from those stories appear in so many things.

Okay, I must ask.

How does one start?

Man, I've had scenes going through my head for some time now, and I know exactly how the beginning will be, but everytime I sit down at my laptop to start typing....nothing happens......sigh.

Anyone want to give me brief ideas of your beginnings?

Can anyone give me a little advice on how to introduce characters in a manga-style comic? Since I'm doing a shoujo-ripoff, I feel like I should have a voiceover - "Hi! My name is Satsuki! I'm in high school blah blah blah..." - but that feels so lazy and out of character. Do I just...go, and let her introduce herself as the story goes on?

I don't know how much this will help, but here's my beginning (btw, "interior monologue" refers to the narration type thing found in manga):

PAGE 1
Panel I:
SCARLETT is waiting outside of her grandfather's office at the Slayer Network's HQ, leaning against the wall next to his door. She has slightly wild, curly red hair, and is wearing a plain t-shirt and skinny jeans. She also wears a pair of low-top Chucks and a simple vest worn open over the t-shirt. The hallway is narrow and bare, though brightly lit, with white-washed walls and dark carpeting.

SCARLETT (interior monologue):
Vampires exist.
They're not beautiful or attractive.
There are no "good" ones who fight evil.
There are only scary ones...

PAGE 2
Panel I:
Scarlett's MOM opens the office door.

MOM:
Come in, honey.

Panel II:
SCARLETT is sitting inside her grandfather's office, with her GRANDFATHER, MOM, and DAD. The office is old looking with wood paneling, filled bookshelves, and weapons mounted on the wall.

Panel III:
Close up of SCARLETT with her head down.

SCARLETT:
So where are you sending me?

PAGE 3
Panel I:
Slayers in training

SCARLETT (interior monologue):
This is the headquarters of the Slayer Network, an association of people dedicated to the protection of humanity.

Panel II:
Slayer fighting a vampire.

SCARLETT (interior monologue):
We fight a lot of vampires...

Panel III:
Slayer fighting a gruesome demon.

SCARLETT (interior monologue):
...but sometimes other things.

PAGE 4
Panel I:
A sword flying through the air.

Panel II:
Close up of SCARLETT lying on her back on the floor with a sword being pointed at her neck.

SCARLETT (interior monologue):
And I'm really bad at it.

Mstar, the end of your beginning made me laugh. And thank you. I just needed to get a look at how much detail, and that kind of thing, so thanks.
Well, I'm off to actually start up my comic finally. Wish me luck.