Natalia Batista Swedish manga artist and illustrator, born 1986. ~ My Swedish blog ~ ~ My English blog ~ Example of published work 'Ein Lied Für Elise', manga published by Tokyopop, Germany, fall 2010 'Mjau!', manga published by Kabusa Böcker, Sweden, spring 2010 'KlimatPimpa Din Livsstil', climate comics published by Malmö City Environmental Department, Sweden, spring 2010 'Valborg', published in manga magazine Shojo Stars, Sweden, spring 2009 'A Song For Elise', self-published manga, Sweden, spring 2009 'The Marauders And The Secrets Of The Heart', self-published doujinshi, Sweden, spring 2009 'Lova', published in music magazine Okej, Sweden, during 2006-2007 |
I got the result for Hooked On You, the novel manga I sent to the Japanese manga magazine Ribbon for their rookie competition. I named it 「友達バブル」 in Japanese.
It got the same prize as the Circus Romantique manga I sent them last time, which is the 「もうひと息賞」. But this time, I got a little higher an actually won some money (like 20 000 yen = ~150 euro/1500:- sek).

With the help of

Tomodachi Baburu, 32 pages
By Natalia Batista from Sweden, 25 years old
Story: In the big blue sea lives the mermaid Mina. Other mermaids think that you get strong by eating human meat, but Mina just want to become friends with a human. One day a boy gets thrown into the water, but is saved by Mina...!?
Critique: Just like with the last manga piece, the artwork is on a high level. You take time to do the backgrounds and also succeeding in making it feel like they live in the sea. But then however, the storyline; It doesn't show if this was Mina's love story, or a frinedship story, or maybe a story of her growing up? It didn't show the theme well enough so we disn't understand it. The ending was cut off very suddently. We didn't know if this was a happy ending or not. Please make characters more personally attached to the reader.
Art: 16
Story: 10
Overall feeling: 24
Total: 50 (out of 100)
Great critique as always, I get so many "Aha"-moments when I read their or the editor's comments, while thinking "Why didn't I do it that way?! How could I have been so stupid!?"
I love constructive critique and comments. It makes me grow as an artist, and also realize my own weakness, where my focus needs to be on my next work!
Sadly, this story got only 50 points and the one before got 55. I am analyzing the situation, and I think my next entry will be a more Ribbon-ish story. For once, I know what I want to focus on; a REAL shojo manga love story!
Thanks for reading! <3