Where the Story Came From

Jugemu is classical piece in Rakugo, a form of Japanese spoken entertainment. This piece roughly talks about a story in which a monk gives a name to a newborn. The parents want a very long name, because that means good fortunate. So they give the monk a long list of blessings and wish him to put them into the full name as much as possible. However, the newborn is unfortunately dropped into water. He is drowned before the monk ever
finishes speaking of the long name.

I hate this story, although it is supposed to make fun. It sounds very cruel to put death on a newborn.
In the environment I’ve grown up, people go to the temple and prey for good fortunate and a protection from the Buddha. In Japan, a country that inherits the Buddhism from China, people have the same beliefs. All kinds of temple, large or
small, scatter in the streets and lanes of Japanese cities, to carry people’s sincere wishes.
Jugemu’s parents have those wishes. They go to the temple for a name filled with the Buddha’s blessing. They sincerely wish such a name could bring Jugemu health and longevity. However, the Buddha gives them a black humor – the life of Jugemu is even shorter than his name.

Process

I planned to create a story in which Jugemu, after his death, found his name in the hell and came back to the man’s world. In this story, after looking up for references and visiting monks, he figured out that the hell is not the only world after death. In Buddhism, people believe that one has to experience six rounds
of cycles after death, to rotate among ghost, deity, animal and human, over and over again. These six rounds would match, one by one, with each of Jugemu’s names. Influenced by the movies directed by Shuji Terayama, I placed the story in the social context of Old Man Generation. Finally, in the story I wrote of Jugemu, He woke up in a deep ocean, travelled through the heaven, a fish’s stomach, the forest, and the hell, before he went back home. Eventually through a portrait of the Buddha, he found that he was actually a doll in a toy box.

To conceive this story like writing, I drafted the scenes and images that popped up in my mind on a sketch book. Then I created many shots to connect those scenes. I rearranged the shots to make the whole story rational, logic and
fluent, until they were connected as a dummy book. In the book, the
only words I used were Jugemu’s names. To make the story meaningful and understandable, I revised the script many times.

Technique exploration

For composition and characters’ design, I referred to classical European paintings and the works of Mark Ryden. The delicate composition and figurative images of Mark’s works enable his works to be holistic and full of stories. I tried to integrate my orientation towards details into my own works. Although what I created was a short story with a relatively simple structure, many details could successfully enrich it.

I planned to create black-and-white images. Thus, in terms of materials, I focused more on the textual effects. I like the granular sensation generated by Lithography. But after trying one page with Lithography, I realized the insurmountable workload and the instability for print. So I changed to other media. For similar reasons I also passed etching and ink painting. Finally I returned to the materials I am most familiar with – pencil and watercolor. To look for the best effects, I tried a number of different combinations. I experimented with pencils of different graphite concentrations, and examined the dying effects on paper of a number of watercolors.

Problems & Struggle

After completing the dummy book, I once thought of making another version of a zine, because a zine has more flexibilities in form and it is very relaxing to draw. But after a second thought, I realized that the pursuit of the new form would
cost me the original meaning and value of creating this story. Instead of following each of my new ideas, I decided to stick with the dummy book and complete the whole comic book.

I picked a few of my favorites from the comic book. In reference to my preferred works of graphic design, I made a few independent posters and printed them out using silk screen.

Final product

This final product is a comic book of 36 pages. All illustrations, book design and
making were accomplished independently. I put in many of my personal tastes and thoughts. Thus, I like the work very much.