SC: It was such a good thing for OEL manga. When I started out, people were saying, "OEL manga is just crap," and now, things have changed.
Q: Speaking of how things have changed, Japanese publisher Kodansha is publishing Fred Gallagher's Megatokyo in Japan in early 2008. Has anyone approached you about publishing Dramacon or any of your other works in Japan too?
SC: Uhm. Not as such. I've been in contact with Japanese publishers and they like my work, but they have so much to choose from, I'm not really their first choice. But I would love to have my work published in Japan, so hopefully one day.
Dramacon has already been published in 10 different languages already so it'd be nice to see it in Japanese.
Q: That's very cool. Which countries?
SC: I forget all of them, but France is the big one. France, Spain, Germany… I believe it will be published in Russia also.
Q: Wow, that's very exciting!
SC: Yes it is! And I think I'll be able to re-write the Russian script for it too.
Q: As I recall reading from one of your bios, you first encountered manga and anime when you were growing up in Russia, right?
SC: Well, manga-influenced comics, yes. I read Elfquest, and that was the big one for me. I really wanted to make something like that, to make people feel like how I felt when I read that comic. It was such an amazing feeling to get lost in that world that was so fully realized, so different.
Q: I know you've mentioned Yumiko Igarashi's Candy Candy as well – I have such a soft spot for that story too….
SC: Oh! I watched that one religiously, whenever I could… I missed seeing the ending, I don't remember why, but a friend told me that Candy didn't marry the guy in the end?
Q: Yup. That’s what happened.
SC: She didn't? Aah! That's unbelievable!
Dee Dupuy (Art assistant on Dramacon and friend of Svet's): I swear, you're the only two people on the planet who've watched that show. You and her!
Q: That's not true!
SC: That's so not true! (We all laugh)
Q: I only mention that because Candy Candy is one of the reasons why I fell in love with manga and wanted to be a manga artist when I was a girl. So I can relate.
SC: I really love that show. It was on at like 7 in the morning. I'd usually have trouble getting to school on time. But waking up to watch Candy Candy and Robotech? No problem! (laughs)
Q: (laughs) Let's get back to Dramacon! Now that the story is wrapping up, is it a little sad to say goodbye to this story and these characters?
SC: I'm very sad! I wasn't sad when I just finished the book, because I was just glad to be able to go to sleep. (laughs) But after that, I started to think, "Aw, there's still so much story left to tell…" Hopefully one day I'll get to pick it up again.
Obviously now I'm busy with my next series, but there's plenty more story to tell. I mean, I never got to pay much attention to the side characters. Like Monica and Hyu-Jeong, they have their story to tell as well. And Bethany's story is far from done. And Raj, I didn't get to pay too much attention to him either.
And we still know nothing about Matt! I mean, he's this guy that we sort of, kind of know some things about, but we haven't seen him deal with other people, really. And Sandra, we know very little about her, so… there's lots left to tell!
Q: I know your degree is in animation, so do you have any thoughts toward making animated feature versions of your stories?
SC: I would love Dramacon to become an anime, but I don't think it's going to happen. Would I want to animate it? Maybe just a little bit for fun, because animation is a lot of hard work. I found that I'm really lazy and I just want to get my story out right away, instead of waiting for people to do a little bit at a time, frame by frame by frame. I'd probably want to be involved with the storyboards and the scripting, but this is wishful thinking here! (laughs)
THE NEXT CHAPTER: NIGHT SCHOOL
Q: So let's talk a little bit about your next series, Night School. Will there be a dramatic shift in tone compared to Dramacon?
SC: I'm still figuring that out. Night School is the story I've wanted to write since I was in high school. It's an urban fantasy adventure. It will be darker than Dramacon, which is fairly dark sometimes, actually.
But I don't think I can ever really let go of humor, because I can't keep a straight face from one page of the script to the next. (laughs) There will be a few laughs too.
Q: How far along are you with this? I know it's coming out next summer in the Yen Press magazine, Yen Plus, right?
SC: How far along am I…? (pauses) Is my editor going to read this? Then I am very far along! (laughs)
Q: Is it a little stressful to think about drawing a story that will be serialized monthly?
SC: It is, and it isn't. It's something that I'm looking forward to, actually. I work like that for my Web comics. I just forge ahead and draw each page with a vague idea of how the story will develop. When I work on a complete book, I have to plan things out, since books need to have a certain amount of pages and tell the complete story within those pages.
That's why sometimes my story feels a little rushed, because I try to cram so much story in there, then I realize that I'm over my page limit! So then I try to condense things, or have to cut a scene here and there. So I talk to my editor and say, "So how about a 300 page book?" (laughs) Well, it would have been 300 pages if they let me!
My books actually got longer with each volume. The first volume of Dramacon was 162 pages, then the second was 183 pages, and now the last volume is 194 pages.
But Night School, I'm soo excited about it. I love urban fantasies. It's like a combination of real life with some magic in it too.
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