Salaryman: The 9-to-5 Super Hero

Last year, I entered the Shonen Jump Manga Competition.

I didn't win.

The winning entries were pretty good, so I wasn't too upset. But it's still a defeat nevertheless.

Today is Free Comic Book Day. In the spirit of Free Comic Book Day, I'm posting my entry for the Jump competition right here on this page for free. It was a hellish three weeks drawing it all and I didn't win any prizes but it was a piece I'm still proud of.  I hope you all will like it.

Remember to read it from right to left!

- ray n. (@themistern)

Special thanks to Misaki C. Kido, Hector Hernandez, Lucas Stuart and everyone at Team Jump for their help and encouragement during the creation of this comic.

"SALARYMAN: The 9-to-5 Super Hero" © 2013-2014 Ray Negrón. Used with permission.

MomoCon 2012

I'd have written this post on Friday but stuff came up so here I am writing a late convention report on MomoCon 2012. (March 16-18)

This year, MomoCon went through a lot of changes: it now covers Fri, Sat and Sun; it is now a paid convention; the new venue is at the Atlanta Marriott Marquis, the same venue as Dragon*Con, an annual SF convention held every September.

Like the past 3 years, I only went on Saturday and Sunday. It was a neat trip, but also felt underwhelming and short compared to last year's madness. While it was more organized, there's a sharp drop in activity. It's not hard to see why: it's now a paid con, so there's less kids to run around, and another convention happened about two blocks away, Furry Weekend Atlanta, so there was a bit of a furry invasion.

I did hang out with friends, get a lot of StreetPass hits, finally found the remaining volumes of Dr. Slump (save for volume 9, but that was soon remedied thanks to John B.), I tried out Guinness on tap (so good), and I got to meet Ellen McLain, voice of GLaDOS from Valve's hit game "Portal". Sadly, my favorite artists weren't around at the artist's alley this year, and the place was crawling with Homestuck cosplayers, bronies, and to a lesser (and a lot more tolerable) extent, Touhou fanatics. Also, con food is just unnecessarily expensive. :/

Due to the limited activity, I took less photos than the previous years, but they should still be of decent quality. There were a lot of repeat cosplayers from the previous years--part of me wonders why I never try to befriend them.

Click here to download the MomoCon 2012 photo album. (13.44MB)

I hope you all enjoy the pictures.



PS: Please vote for my bro Tsukento's entry for the Shonen Jump Fan Love Contest. Thank you.

I'm in Shonen Jump Once Again!

I'm featured in the latest issue of Shonen Jump, which also happens to be the last print issue of the magazine. This time, I have a two page comic in the back of the magazine promoting the reborn digital edition of Jump, Weekly Shonen Jump Alpha.

You can try out an issue of WSJ Alpha for 99 cents or subscribe for a year (48 issues) for $26 by visiting http://sjalpha.com/
If you subscribe, you can also score some Yu-Gi-Oh! cards, just like the print edition!


Pick up a copy today and show a brotha some love.


Bless,



SHONEN JUMP and WEEKLY SHONEN JUMP ALPHA are owned by Shueisha & Viz Media.

Image is owned by their respective creators. Image scan courtesy of @ZEROINTELIGENCE.

Jump Festa

Within a short amount of time, I've blogged about Shonen Jump three times. But this time it's not about me, but about a convention and a fan community regarding Jump.

As some of you may or may not know, the North American edition of Shonen Jump is ending as a monthly print magazine in March next year and will be re-tooled as a weekly digital magazine christened "Weekly Shonen Jump Alpha". WSJ Alpha can be rented for 99 cents an issue or a year's subscription (48 issues) can run for $26. With the new weekly digital format, there's talk about more fan involvement (like the Storyboard Contest) and maybe even original manga in the future, so the future could be pretty cool.

Speaking of fan involvement, there's an unofficial group of Jump fans on Twitter called #TEAMJUMP. #TEAMJUMP is composed of international Twitter users who love Jump and its series and occasionally interact with the Shonen Jump Twitter account.

I created six drawings on the behalf of #TEAMJUMP as gifts to the authors of the serialized works that will be covered in WSJ Alpha. I hope they like them, let alone look at them. :P

For Eiichiro ODA/ONE PIECE
click here

For Masashi KISHIMOTO/NARUTO
click here

For Tite KUBO/BLEACH
click here

For Hiroshi SHIIBASHI/NURA: RISE OF THE YOKAI CLAN
click here

For Mitsutoshi SHIMABUKURO/TORIKO
click here

For Tsugumi OHBA & Takeshi OBATA/BAKUMAN。
click here

Why am I posting these images? This weekend has Jump Festa, an annual convention of all things Jump in Japan sponsored by Shueisha, the publisher of the various Jump magazines. A lot of the editors and creators of Jump will be there, so it's pretty much a big deal, not to mention lots of game and toy companies showing off their newest products. If you're there and reading this, then stop wasting your time reading my blog and go have fun--and take some pictures!

Whether you're at Jump Festa or not, try to have fun this weekend. :)



SHONEN JUMP is owned by Shueisha and Viz Media. All characters are owned by their respective creators.

I'm in Shonen Jump...Again!

Shonen Jump issue 107 (January 2012) hits store shelves on Tuesday, December 6.

This issue of Jump contains my entry from the "SJ Storyboard Contest" which won a runner-up prize as well as illustrations on an article about the manga industry. Pick up a copy and help a brotha out. :)

Bless,



SHONEN JUMP is owned by Shueisha & Viz Media.

I'm in Shonen Jump!

It's true.



You see that issue of Shonen Jump I'm holding? It's the December 2011 issue (Issue 106) and you can pick it up from any fine newsstand or comic shop starting on November 1. I have an interview and other material published in this issue and I'll also be in the next one (Issue 107, January 2012 issue), so stay tuned.

Bless,



SHONEN JUMP is trademarked and owned by Viz Media & Shueisha.

I Was at the San Diego Comic-Con!! (Sort of.)

For those of you who don't follow me on Twitter, I have tweeted last month that I was mentioned in the Shonen Jump Mangaka Workshop Panel at this year's San Diego Comic-Con. During that panel, the SJ editorial team and Shueisha's Deputy Director of Shonen Manga (and former Editor-in-Chief of Weekly Jump)SASAKI Hisashi reviewed a few entries sent in from early entrants of Jump's Storyboard Contest. I was among one of the entrants and so my entry was shown on Comic-Con with a critique by Mr. SASAKI. Check it out!


My bit starts at the 35:40 mark.

Transcript here for those of you who don't feel like watching the video: http://shonenjump.viz.com/content/sj-panel-sdcc-recap

Bless,



PS: This blog is now published fortnightly. Ignore the "weekly" part.

Jumparodies

Over the past few days, I've drawn some parody comics and illustrations based on Shonen Jump manga on Twitter. Jump was also kind enough to retweet a few of them, and I'm thankful for it. Yes, it's badly drawn on MS Paint. But people like them and that's all that really matters.

Parodies:

NARUTO: http://bit.ly/hHVFgX
ULTIMATE MUSCLE: http://goo.gl/HelGX
BLEACH: http://goo.gl/sKPXO
DRAGON BALL: http://bit.ly/htqA7H
BAKUMAN.: http://bit.ly/exzlHC