SOAR!!! a roller derby manga
and a blog ramble about doing things you thought wouldn't be your jam
I expected comic book school to push me to expand my artistic horizons, but somehow I did not anticipate that that might end up meaning “make a comic book in the style of 1990s shonen manga, genre: sports.”
Almost everyone else in my class is a manga fiend. Then there’s me, whose closest association with manga is that I collected Pokemon cards when I was 10 years old so that I had reference material for drawing comic strips about weird little monsters. Until Tillie gave a whole lecture on it in January, I didn’t even know what the word “shonen” meant. And sports? Hello?? I’m the kid who read a book in the corner at every Superbowl party. My sports knowledge is not exactly expansive.
So I did, admittedly, initially balk at this assignment.
But! I am at comic book school to learn and grow! To try new things! Even/especially things I likely would never have tried on my own!
So I checked out a pile of manga from the school library, watched tutorials on how to use the speed lines tool in Clip Studio Paint, and buckled in for three weeks of being wildly outside my comfort zone.
Then, crucially, I remembered that roller derby is a sport. A sport that I love and know very well, having played it for a few years before deciding keeping my skeleton intact and my brain unconcussed was a higher priority than the thrill I got from strapping wheels to my feet and smashing into people. And lucky for me, my groupmates agreed to my proposal that we develop a story about roller derby for our project, and graciously accepted the ensuing onslaught of roller derby youtube clips I bombarded them with as I tried to explain how scoring and penalties and star passes work.
Dividing up tasks went as smoothly as it can possibly go: Josh, our manga expert and sports fan, wanted to write the story; Gabrielle, who had been looking for an excuse to do figure studies of bodies in motion and loves drawing shoes, wanted to sketch it; and I (who loves the moment when the linework solidifies into its final form) wanted to ink it.
And you know what? I had a great time working on this project. I got to assist with story development without having to do the heavy lifting of, y’know, writing the story. I got to work with page layouts and character designs and staging choices I never would have thought of on my own, but that are dynamic and vibrant and playful. And I got to be part of a team that worked really well together, that was encouraging and communicative and hard-working, that cared about the project and put in the time to make a comic we were all proud of. It was stressful, and it was challenging, and it was honestly so much fun.
Turns out, you can learn stuff and have a good time doing it, even on a project you’re not so thrilled about at the outset, if you’re willing to find the points of contact that play to your strengths and spark your curiosity.
Having a team that’s got your back makes a big difference too.
And here it is.
Script, layout, lettering: Joshua Murdock
Pencils, story editing: Gabrielle Peñalver Dumas
Inks, story editing: me :)
