Kannibal: A comic book about growth and flaws in real life

I've always found the stories behind the scenes of media to make that particular piece much more interesting. A horror manga I've loved is PTSD Radio, a collection of very short horror stylized like searching for the right song by turning the dial of your radio, only for these short bursts to be interconnected. Turns out the entire time the creators were experiencing similar ghost horrors in their homes and office. Other pieces of media include games like The Binding of Isaac or Undertale that were meant to be tests that taught the creator how to make games. Kannibal is a lot like that.

January 2024: Fire Ox

The moments leading up to this month were spent idling noodling around in my brain what the concepts that I thought were interesting for the story of Kannibal might be. Scribbles in random notebooks, long outlines in Google Docs, sketches taped to my wall. But this month, I decided was the month I would actually sit down and make the damn thing. I've been told to do it for years and instead I spent all of my free time and energy helping others with their projects, never, not once, thinking about me. According to the Chinese zodiac the Fire Ox is selfish and short-sighted. Well then, now is my time and who cares what comes next!

February 2024: What came next

I spent every single day with my nose in a document writing out what I think would happen in my story and telling others 'no!' when asked for a favor. It felt good. But I also felt incredibly out of my element! I'm not a writer, I'm an artist! And even with that title I didn't feel comfortable saying it too loud. But I did it. Then I re-did it. Then re-re-did it because I always seemed to find plot holes or read a portion only to forget important details such as 'what ever happened to this character?' all of the time. Here and there I would try sketching my characters, because honestly I had NO CLUE what most of them even looked like! I didn't know what I was doing. But I said I was going to do it. I'd rather fail than quit.

Until June 2024: The failure

I finally had a somewhat workable outline, something for the very first chapter. But now it was time to draw, so I was going to do it the only way I knew how. I sketched out somewhat detailed yet horribly drawn storyboards in a sketchbook over the course of a month. Then I realized how awful it was to sketch them in a book rather than loose leaf when scanning them in. I made a Photoshop file for each page, hand drew the borders (all the way to the edge of the page, yuck!), then drew over them. I used VERY textured brushes for my tone and oh yeah, halftones, never heard of them! In April I finished it. But being the very particular person that I am, I wanted to release on a consistent schedule and have a safety net so I wanted to have two chapters done BEFORE I released the first. The problem I had was that the whole process was cumbersome and clunky. SURELY there had to be a better way. Then I actually looked up how to make comics and manga. I realized, I did 70% of it all wrong. So, I got CLIP studio and tried the right method this time around and voila! It was waaaaaay easier and suddenly I understood. Or so I thought. The second chapter was complete in June, but now I had this piece of crap I called my first chapter and it DID NOT look like my second chapter, granted, my art skill didn't improve much anyways.

After July 2024: Jumping on the train

I spent much of July learning how to release my comic, one of the most difficult things of the whole process because there doesn't seem to be a whole lot explaining it. I started with Webtoons, Tapas, this website, and then later added Global Comix to the mix. I didn't get a huge reception whatsoever, nor did I expect to. See, the story behind Kannibal is about seeing the flaws in my work, and growth past it. One day, I will write, draw, and export a really great chapter that can stand on it's own two legs as a 'great chapter' but I will claw and drag my broken and beaten body to that mountain. I will not start the journey as the town's hero, but as the jester no one ever believed had the courage. I stuck to my guns and deadlines for a whole year and let me just say FUCK! It feels so good to look back and see the first two trailheads behind me! I knew I could do it. But it makes a huge difference when you are actually somewhere along the path, albeit still quite early. A journeyman well on his way. I still looked back and saw all of my flaws and the places where I stumbled and fell. But I got up and kept going. As many of you know, it is not the sunny days that make us who we are, it is the storm that truely tests you.

July 2025: Lightning strikes twice

'It is with regret that I inform you that...' and I stopped listening. Okay, well there goes my job. I don't really know where I'll go or what I'll do. What made it so scary as opposed to other job losses was that my daughter was going to be born in two weeks. Starting father hood jobless was a scary thought. But the god of thunder and lightning was a considerate sadist, for he made sure the storm took enough away that I never got to experience that fear in this storm by taking away the one thing that made me feel happy and feel useful and feel needed. Some stupid little >50 views comic book didn't fucking matter anymore. No one cared about it but me. Bless those friends who could stand to support me and read a few pages of the first few chapters before dropping it and forgetting about it anyways. So, I took a break. I stopped drawing and writing and decided I who take time to heal. To be with those still with me today. And I learned a lot. I went through the worst pain, the worst thing that could happen to a person, to a parent. And I lived. I learned to smile through the pain and I learned to love without mercy. I cannot give up. There is a saying in my family. 'You gotta take step forwards, there is no alternative.' There was going to be no steps backwards. I wasn't going to quit trying to be a father, to be an artist, to be a husband, to be a friend, to be a son, to be a friendly stranger, to be a man, to be a human, to be me. Why? How can someone move forward like that? Because I know for a fact my daughter would want me to. Her symbol is tattooed on my hand as a reminder. One by one, I got back up and did everything I was doing before. That included drawing.

September 2025ish: My mother always told me if I was hit, to hit back harder

I am not someone who can sink to the ground and wallow in misery. At least not for long. I may have been crushed, but I can still drag myself up that mountain. But if I was going to be smashed to pieces, I was going to stand back up, and stomp my way up that incline that I would atomize the ground beneath me. If life thought it was going to be a bitch to me and get away with it, I was going to UberEats their just desserts straight to their door with a blazing trail. Not only did I start drawing again, fueled by the pain of what came before, but I tried selling my artwork at local art markets, I would also work through online art school, I would make daily videos on YouTube about art and comics, I would work on making a movie trailer company, I would study others, play music, cook dinner, be a good husband, stream my art everyday, learn new art mediums, volunteer to help my friends, network with new people, and share the absolute shit out of my comic. And where did that get me? Well, honestly, not super far in any particular direction, but it got me super informed and let me grow very fast. I knew what was worth my time, what needed a re-attempt in the future and what was working today. If I was going to hit back harder, I had to try twice as hard. So I worked on TWO chapters at once. The next chapter of Kannibal, and I decided I was going to re-do my first piece of crap of a chapter that I love so much.

December 2025: An Ox burns itself alive outside the china shop

Doing so much at once highlights some of what my flaws really are. I am so determined and ambitious that it allows me the unique ability to stay standing while burning. One fifth of the above section is a list of what I was doing. But as I refined my place in this world and utilized my time efficiently, I finally had a chapter done and ready to release. But I felt awful. And when you're unemployed and burnt out, no one ever really seems to feel that. Nor do your complaints match up to their. So, naturally, a human stays silent. I re-evaluated and changed course to focus on my comic and the structures I had already built to support it further. I continued to be bombarded by every employed friend and family with their advice of what they think I should, but I stayed the course. More chapters are on the way.

Kannibal in the future

2026 is shaping up to be a very scary year. But with hands bloody and beaten, I continue my path. Sometimes walking, sometimes crawling. When I turn around, do you know what I feel? I feel proud. I've suffered, I've grown. I've made it this far, and there are strangers and friends who are lightly cheering me on. This blog marks a point in Kannibal, but it is difficult to know what exactly that thing is. It may be the turn in my luck, the beginning of the end, the start of a training arc, or many more things. You can't really pretend to know the moral of the story when you're in the middle of it. But what I can say as this chapter comes to a close is that not one bit of pain stopped me, and I'm proud of that. It changed me, and I can never go back, but it made me 'more.' More of me. More of the Uncle I'd like to be to you, Nibling. Kannibal is a story about Growth and the Flaws of the characters within it. I can only hope to show that beauty in humans on the page if I've been to those places first-hand myself.

Kannibal is in no way based on anyone in my life or myself. But I've been to those place myself. I've cried those tears out of my own eyes. I've laughed through those jokes. I've loved those flaws in others. I've grown from that tree as a seed. And I grew for me. And I grew with you in mind, Nibling.