UTOPIA DEVICE & the CREATION of the ORCANS

The Orcans have been around long before Azuri herself, they come from an older story of mine called Utopia Device. A single chapter of this story was published in my school's manga club, Shoujo Phonebook, and also self published and sold as a mini-comic at A-Kon 13.

Utopia Device, a story I'm still working on (heh rewriting is more like) is an epic tale of young gods, alternate worlds, and errors in the human soul, told in a very sort of shoujo magical girl sort of way. The Orcans were merely side-characters in a mostly water covered planet, put there to be plot devices and to just generally be really cool looking.

Only Thalo played any major part, he was to be turned human and run around with the main character's gang, be afraid of fire and heights (like any self-respecting merperson) and play the part of an awesome sort of water-ninja.

Mica was in this story too, back then he was a regular Orcan and still best friend to Thalo. He remained an Orcan, doing his part to help from the ocean side of things. I swear I was toying with the idea of giving him a human girlfriend... gosh it's been so long.

Azuri was not part of Utopia Device, but her "predecessor," the character she was based on, was. There was always meant to be a Pale Princess. Shy, quiet, regal, and already the sole ruler of their kingdom, blue-skinned gray-haired Azuri was a far-cry from the playful Azuri of today.

Now you can read Chapter 1 of Utopia Device here! Heh, be warned, these pages are ooooold.

UNTITLED MERMAID PROJECT the pitch to Tokyopop

Click Here to read how I submitted to Tokyopop and landed a book gig!

When my first pitch, a fairy story, didn't go through, suddenly I needed a new story idea before Tokyopop would greenlight a manga deal. I talked with my first editor for about a month in the summer of 2004, I mentioned that I had these cool mermaids from this other story and that they're so awesome they deserve their own book.

Before I knew it we were hammering out a rough outline for a children's manga. Over like a single weekend I drew up some brand new character sketches and sent them in, and a few weeks later I got a call at 10 o'clock at night from my excited editor saying my pitch went through!

Now, for the first time ever, you get to see those very first sketches of the Azuri cast!

(Click each for the full version.)

(Click each for the full version.)

A note about names...

Since Azuri had abruptly been lifted completely out of the world of Utopia Device and given her own story, suddenly she and her friends had to become completely different characters. For a while I renamed the Orcan cast, because trying to use the same names for what amounted to different characters was too confusing!

Azuri was renamed Abeli.

Thalo was renamed Cobel.

Mica was renamed Sabel.

In the end, once their new identities solidified in my mind, I switched their names back. I hung onto Cobel a little longer than the others, which is why Thalo's name appears as Cobel on these sheets.



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