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Description
The work I have created, "Sweet Like Icing", is my own rendition
of a Japanese manga. It is a short, forty-four page, greyscale graphic
novel with structure similar to a traditional manga, incorporating
elements of Korean manwha and my own style. I love Eastern culture
so I wanted to base my project around it. It is based on a genre called
Josei, which is romance that is usually targeted toward young adult
women.
I used the program Procreate on my iPad to draw the manga then
Adobe InDesign on my Mac laptop to organize it for print, and finally I
made it into a digital PDF to make it accessible for others to read
online. Through this process I hoped to gain a better understanding of
my art style and strengthen my artistic capabilities.
Growing up and learning how to navigate relationships is difficult,
especially since there is no one way to do things. Unfortunately, naive
people can become victims of abuse and not realize until it is too late.
While my manga’s genre is romance, the story highlights the signs of
being in a toxic relationship while exploring mature themes like
domestic violence and mental health. I want people to know what a
healthy relationship looks like and show the importance of going to
therapy for healing someone’s past trauma. The main character is
resilient, confident, and a woman that starts to overcome her personal
obstacles with gradual self-acceptance.
Readers tend to gravitate toward certain genres to fulfill a desired
want. A lot of romance readers want to fill a void in their soul, and as for
my romance manga, the readers who feel lonely will live through my
characters to have hope that they will also find love. Whether someone
is looking for love or not, this manga shows that love comes when least
expected. My hope is the reader will fall in love with the story as much
as I have while drawing my manga.

Description
The work I have created, "Sweet Like Icing", is my own rendition
of a Japanese manga. It is a short, forty-four page, greyscale graphic
novel with structure similar to a traditional manga, incorporating
elements of Korean manwha and my own style. I love Eastern culture
so I wanted to base my project around it. It is based on a genre called
Josei, which is romance that is usually targeted toward young adult
women.
I used the program Procreate on my iPad to draw the manga then
Adobe InDesign on my Mac laptop to organize it for print, and finally I
made it into a digital PDF to make it accessible for others to read
online. Through this process I hoped to gain a better understanding of
my art style and strengthen my artistic capabilities.
Growing up and learning how to navigate relationships is difficult,
especially since there is no one way to do things. Unfortunately, naive
people can become victims of abuse and not realize until it is too late.
While my manga’s genre is romance, the story highlights the signs of
being in a toxic relationship while exploring mature themes like
domestic violence and mental health. I want people to know what a
healthy relationship looks like and show the importance of going to
therapy for healing someone’s past trauma. The main character is
resilient, confident, and a woman that starts to overcome her personal
obstacles with gradual self-acceptance.
Readers tend to gravitate toward certain genres to fulfill a desired
want. A lot of romance readers want to fill a void in their soul, and as for
my romance manga, the readers who feel lonely will live through my
characters to have hope that they will also find love. Whether someone
is looking for love or not, this manga shows that love comes when least
expected. My hope is the reader will fall in love with the story as much
as I have while drawing my manga.