Saturday, what does that remind you of? Week-ends, time off, illustrations, parties, drinks, cops... Cops? Oh, you've been naughty again haven't you? Well, for those of you who are still clear headed and innocent, it's a good thing that you're here, our role is to prevent you from making any mistakes that could get you into trouble… and also to make you laugh, it's not incompatible. Please, welcome our new policewoman: Nina Matsumoto also known as Spacecoyote !

Winner of the "Best New OEL Manga" for Yokaiden, winner of the "Outstanding Science Fiction Comic" in 2004, nominated "Best Short Story" at the Eisner Award of this year for Murder He Wrote, this 24 year old artist keeps surprising us. You may also know her thanks to her stunning cover of the Simpsons, which was on the front page of deviantART. It spread over the internet and finally ended up in the hands of Bongo Comics, owned and founded by Matt Groening. She now does pencil work for a short manga style version of the Simpsons! Plus, she's still working on her personal projects:

"I don't go to school and I work from home! Last year I released the first volume of my original English language manga series, Yokaiden. Right now I'm planning on attending San Diego Comic-Con for the first time. I was going to go next year, but my plans changed when a short story I did the artwork for ("Murder He Wrote" for The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror #14) got nominated for an Eisner Award. The award ceremony takes place at SDCC, from the 23 to the 26 of July.I am pretty much living my dream!"

She's a busy artist as you can see, and when she's not enjoying Simpsons DVD commentaries, she’s working again! When we asked her what she enjoys the most about drawing, she says it’s drawing the things she sees in her head for others to see, telling stories through pictures, and providing entertainment for anyone who's bored at home or work. Oh, providing entertainment for bored people, that reminds us of a website…

Speaking of websites, she’s been running one since 2002, she created it for her online comic, to help further her new career. That purpose being now long gone, you can now see what she’s been working on. Her website does actually update regularly, you can see for example that her next project is to release the second volume of Yokaiden! And if you're lucky, she'll put up unpublished work just for you...

Here's the last question for Nina (who swears she's never gone to jail before, clearly having no time for that sort of thing...):

Why did you choose this FML?
- As soon as I read it I could picture it as a comic strip. The ambiguity of the ending is perfect -- there are so many ways to fill in the blank and I prefer that (hence the big time skip I put between the second and third panels). Whoever wrote this anecdote has good comedic sense.

 

Heard that ShamedJP? You may be in jail but at least you have a good comedic sense!

Thank you Nina for your great work, we wish you all the best for your next project!

Clic Clic !

Don't forget to visit her website: http://spacecoyote.com/

And her Deviant: http://spacecoyote.deviantart.com/

Okay what's going on here? Why aren't you sending an email right now to be our next published artist? The email contact is alice@fmylife.com, do it now.