Making comics truly is a journey. The time it takes to read never really reflects the months and years in the making. It’s something I never fully appreciated before becoming a creator.
New Manga: Super Fun Social Ark
The start of 2017 has seen us start work on a new manga, our first in collaboration with another organisation. This is a totally new venture for us, and we’re excited to take on the challenge!
Be A Creative Character
As the co-founders of mayamada, a Japanese inspired character brand, we’ve naturally got big ideas on creativity. We believe everyone is creative but not everyone realises it. We want that to change!
New Year, New Comic: Hot Lunch
The release of our second manga, Serious, was a big step to growing the mayamada universe. In 2016, we’ll be taking it several steps further with a regular release of titles over the year.
Capture Every Creative Moment
If you’ve been following mayamada you’ll know that we believe in the power of creativity to make things better, and more fun too.
That’s why we’re happy to announce the release of our new “Be Creative” range of mayamada notebooks!
Serious About This Comic
We’ve had a great response to the Samurai Chef comic since we released it last year. After hitting our Kickstarter target to get the book printed, the amount of positive feedback has been so appreciated. It even got a 4 out of 5 star review in Neo Magazine!
Easter Chocolate Design Competition
Easter is on its way and that means chocolate….lots and lots of chocolate. We’re calling on you to get your creative hats for a brand new, chocolate covered design competition.
Earlier in the year we teamed up with chocolate makers Cybercandy to launch a range of Samurai Chef chocolate bars. Now you have the chance to design your own packaging using your choice of mayamada character.
All you have to do is design your own label using at least one mayamada character for one of the three flavours; Crunchy Noodle, Cherry Blossom or Green Tea.
Check out the full competition details and stay tuned to our blog to see the entries. We can’t wait to see what you come up with!
Kickstarter Characters
As part of our Samurai Chef Kickstarter campaign, we rewarded our top three backers with the opportunity to be included in their own personalised Samurai Chef comic.
Each backer would be able to describe their own chef characters that will make a meal to face off against the Samurai Chef in a one-off story called “Ambush”.
We’re happy to say we’re making good progress on the comic and can reveal the three characters (and their teams) that will be in the comic:
“Mr Samuels’ Steak Shack”
Mr Samuels is the Steak Shack’s head chef. A tall and proud lion with very fashionable twin puma assistants.
Highly idolised and well-respected, failure is not an option for Mr Samuels so you can expect him to put up a fight against the Samurai Chef.
“Sharvan’s Okonomiyaki Stop”
Head chef Sharvan is an Asian Black Bear and is backed by very confident looking bulldog and alligator chefs. Watch out for the dish that gets cooked up at the Okonomiyaki Stop.
“Twice the Spice”
The inspiration for head chef Eeson came from the photo of a backer’s husband. We hope she’s happy with the look!
We’ll be sending the comic out to our top three backers later this month. The comic will then be available for a limited time in 2015 also so stay tuned!
A Very mayamada Christmas Card
When we began our Christmas Card Design Competition, we were looking forward to seeing other people get creative with the mayamada characters. Luckily you didn’t let us down as we had several fantastic entries using different characters in all sorts of Christmas settings.
Thank you to everyone that took part. Not only did we get creative for the festive period, but we also helped to raise awareness of a worthy charitable cause.
The winning design will be turned into an official mayamada Christmas card and sold to raise money for Aid For Japan. This organisation continues to provide long-term support for children orphaned by the Great East Japan Earthquake and subsequent Tsunami in 2011.
We can now reveal the design that will be available for sale at Hyper Japan this weekend and through our online shop later this month.
Congratulations again to Hannah for her entry and everyone that took part. We look forward to running this competition again next year too!
Christmas Card Competition Winner
Drum roll please…
After reviewing all the entries, we can reveal the winner of the Christmas Card Design Competition is…Hannah Ffytche, aged 12.
We were impressed with Hannah’s entry and have chosen her design as the winner of this year’s Christmas card competition. She picked the Samurai Chef and had him chopping Christmas dinner with an arrangement of decorations around his hat which made us laugh. The chef hat Christmas tree ornament was a nice touch too.
Well done Hannah!
We’ll now turn the winning design into an official printed Christmas card in time for Hyper Japan to raise money for Aid for Japan.
And we’ll also be giving a copy of the new Samurai Chef manga book to the winner and runner up design too. That honour goes to Luana Venuti who picked multiple characters in a very festive setting.
Congratulations to both Hannah and Luana!
