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How s2m earned her awesome job, part I
I can't focus on work at all tonight, so I decided to do something I've been promising for a while, and return to detailing my manga method. Or in this case, how I ended up lucky enough to letter manga professionally.
I began to study Japanese back in 1999, and over the course of several years, many pages of manga translations, and 4.5 songs, I had become not-so-bad at it. Sometime in 2002, I opened my own scanlation site. It was nothing like the huge monstrosities of scanlation groups that you find today. I did everything myself, from translation to the html for my pages. /bragging
Anyway, I had proudly shared my scanlation site's pages with all of my internet friends. One of them knew how much I hated my then-current job at Blockbuster, and was doing his best to help me find something so I could escape. In late summer of 2004, he emailed me a link to a job posting at Viz's web site. With much self-doubt, I read the listing for manga letterers and retouch artists. I squirmed a bit, then decided the worst they could do was ignore me, and threw caution to the winds and applied. Wheee! Look out, it's the incredibly rare appearance of daring!s2m!! O=
Obviously they needed to see I was capable of drawing, I knew how to use computers for artwork, was familiar with manga... and I figured my Japanese skills were a big bonus. So I made up a portfolio with a three-ring binder. Inside nice plastic sleeves I placed color/laser printouts of selected artwork. A funny Sailor Moon fanart pic, a sexy Nuriko fanart pic, a sexy Draco-in-anime-style fanart pic, some anime-style expressions on an original character of mine, and most importantly: before and afters of two of my best scanlation pages were in there first. I also polished up the resume--*gags*--making sure to note that I could read Japanese. And then I mailed it all off to the address listed on the site and began to wait.
La la la la....days went by...they'll never hire me....la la la....how incredibly snobbish of me to even think I have a chance...la la la....I'll be stuck at Blockbuster forever...la la la...
And then a few weeks later, I saw an email from Viz in my inbox. O.O Whoa!!! The email contained instructions for submitting sample lettered pages. I was to access a specific folder on the Viz ftp server, chose 4 pages to letter from the 15 or so available, and letter them using the script also on the server. So with many thanks to my various websites for making me extremely familiar with ftp, I logged on and downloaded all the pages and the script.
The pages were all from the same manga: Angel Sanctuary. I had never read the manga or seen the anime, so I was clueless about the storyline. I decided to letter one easy page, one medium page, and two hard pages. At this point in time, the only English manga I owned were some Ranma books I had bought back in the 90s before I began to learn Japanese. I dug them out and did much flipping. I quickly realized that I needed to find comic-book-style fonts. So I googled and found some--one of which is still my main dialogue font today. ^^ Heh.
With fonts in hand and my Wacom drawing tablet ready, I began to letter Angel Sanctuary, volume 2, pages 25, 50, 107, and 177. I was incredibly nervous and not sure what I was doing. I kept one eye on my old Ranma GNs (and was very glad I hadn't sold those when I "replaced" them with the Japanese versions) and one eye on my computer screen. Being the uber-faithful fangirl I am, I did my best to match the Japanese FX style. If the kana were long, thin, and white with a jagged outline, then by the anime no kami, my English version would also be long, thin, and white with a jagged outline. I drew all my FX by hand, as all the original FX were drawn by hand. I spent three or four days obsessing over each page whenever I wasn't at work, and was thankful as well for my two years of scanlation experience. Not to mention being able to read Japanese.
Finally, about two weeks after the email arrived, I submitted my pages by uploading them to the proper folder on the ftp server. I then sat back to wait, completely nervous, and tried to convince myself that it's all in fun anyway. I mean, what chance could I have, right??
La la la la....days went by...they'll never hire me....la la la....at least I was able to kinda-letter manga professionally...la la la la...I made it through the first screening, after all...la la la...they did want to see some actual Viz pages by me...la la la...maybe I have a chance....la la la....oh, who am I kidding, I'm totally screwed...
A few weeks after I submitted the Angel Sanctuary pages, I found another email from Viz in my inbox. Da da DOOM!!!!!! XD And on that fun note, I'll save the rest for later. ^^V
Anyway, I had proudly shared my scanlation site's pages with all of my internet friends. One of them knew how much I hated my then-current job at Blockbuster, and was doing his best to help me find something so I could escape. In late summer of 2004, he emailed me a link to a job posting at Viz's web site. With much self-doubt, I read the listing for manga letterers and retouch artists. I squirmed a bit, then decided the worst they could do was ignore me, and threw caution to the winds and applied. Wheee! Look out, it's the incredibly rare appearance of daring!s2m!! O=
Obviously they needed to see I was capable of drawing, I knew how to use computers for artwork, was familiar with manga... and I figured my Japanese skills were a big bonus. So I made up a portfolio with a three-ring binder. Inside nice plastic sleeves I placed color/laser printouts of selected artwork. A funny Sailor Moon fanart pic, a sexy Nuriko fanart pic, a sexy Draco-in-anime-style fanart pic, some anime-style expressions on an original character of mine, and most importantly: before and afters of two of my best scanlation pages were in there first. I also polished up the resume--*gags*--making sure to note that I could read Japanese. And then I mailed it all off to the address listed on the site and began to wait.
La la la la....days went by...they'll never hire me....la la la....how incredibly snobbish of me to even think I have a chance...la la la....I'll be stuck at Blockbuster forever...la la la...
And then a few weeks later, I saw an email from Viz in my inbox. O.O Whoa!!! The email contained instructions for submitting sample lettered pages. I was to access a specific folder on the Viz ftp server, chose 4 pages to letter from the 15 or so available, and letter them using the script also on the server. So with many thanks to my various websites for making me extremely familiar with ftp, I logged on and downloaded all the pages and the script.
The pages were all from the same manga: Angel Sanctuary. I had never read the manga or seen the anime, so I was clueless about the storyline. I decided to letter one easy page, one medium page, and two hard pages. At this point in time, the only English manga I owned were some Ranma books I had bought back in the 90s before I began to learn Japanese. I dug them out and did much flipping. I quickly realized that I needed to find comic-book-style fonts. So I googled and found some--one of which is still my main dialogue font today. ^^ Heh.
With fonts in hand and my Wacom drawing tablet ready, I began to letter Angel Sanctuary, volume 2, pages 25, 50, 107, and 177. I was incredibly nervous and not sure what I was doing. I kept one eye on my old Ranma GNs (and was very glad I hadn't sold those when I "replaced" them with the Japanese versions) and one eye on my computer screen. Being the uber-faithful fangirl I am, I did my best to match the Japanese FX style. If the kana were long, thin, and white with a jagged outline, then by the anime no kami, my English version would also be long, thin, and white with a jagged outline. I drew all my FX by hand, as all the original FX were drawn by hand. I spent three or four days obsessing over each page whenever I wasn't at work, and was thankful as well for my two years of scanlation experience. Not to mention being able to read Japanese.
Finally, about two weeks after the email arrived, I submitted my pages by uploading them to the proper folder on the ftp server. I then sat back to wait, completely nervous, and tried to convince myself that it's all in fun anyway. I mean, what chance could I have, right??
La la la la....days went by...they'll never hire me....la la la....at least I was able to kinda-letter manga professionally...la la la la...I made it through the first screening, after all...la la la...they did want to see some actual Viz pages by me...la la la...maybe I have a chance....la la la....oh, who am I kidding, I'm totally screwed...
A few weeks after I submitted the Angel Sanctuary pages, I found another email from Viz in my inbox. Da da DOOM!!!!!! XD And on that fun note, I'll save the rest for later. ^^V