Misako Takashima (高嶋美沙子, known professionally as Misako Rocks!ミサコ・ロックス) is a Japanese

comic strip A comic strip is a Comics, sequence of cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often Serial (literature), serialized, with text in Speech balloon, balloons and Glossary of comics terminology#Captio ...

artist and writer/illustrator of

children's book Children's literature or juvenile literature includes stories, books, magazines, and poems that are created for children. In addition to conventional literary genres, modern children's literature is classified by the intended age of the reade ...

s, known for her illustrations in the column "

Savage Love Savage Love is a syndicated sex-advice column by Dan Savage. The column appears weekly in several dozen newspapers, mainly free newspapers in the US and Canada, but also newspapers in Europe and Asia. It started in 1991 with the first issue of t ...

" and other features in ''

The Onion ''The Onion'' is an American digital media company and newspaper organization that publishes satirical articles on international, national, and local news. The company is currently based in Chicago, but originated as a weekly print publication ...

'', and for her appearance in the

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

documentary ''Story of Drawing''. She has also published work in the United Kingdom

manga are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long history in earlier Japanese art. The term is used in Japan to refer to both comics ...

anthology ''Manga Mover'' and has signed with Hyperion Books to publish manga in the United States.ICv2 - Hyperion to Publish Manga
According to art critic

Andrew Graham Dixon Andrew Michael Graham-Dixon (born 26 December 1960) is a British art historian, art critic, author and broadcaster. He is chief art critic at ''The Independent'' and ''The Telegraph'' newspapers, and presents art documentaries for the BBC, as w ...

, she is "an artist who follows many of the ancient visual and narrative traditions from which

has evolved, but at the same time brings them into the modern world and gives them her own deeply personal interpretation." A shy child, she has said that she spent her childhood drawing, and hiding. "I just wanted to put my fantasy world on paper."''Andrew Graham Dixon on The Secret of Drawing''. BBC TV

Career

Misako Rocks! developed a love for comics and manga at an early age and drew her first comic at the age of 13."Bio"
. Misako Rocks!. Retrieved November 23, 2012. She moved to New York in 2001 and worked as a puppeteer, face painter, animal balloon maker, and art teacher while still developing her comics own work. Her entry into the industry came when ''

'' decided to use her illustrations for their weekly "Savage Love" column. Misako Rocks! was influenced by the work of

Daniel Clowes Daniel Gillespie Clowes (; born April 14, 1961) is an American cartoonist, graphic novelist, illustrator, and screenwriter. Most of Clowes's work first appeared in ''Eightball (comic book), Eightball'', a solo anthology comic book series. An ''E ...

, which she encountered while living in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

. "I picked up a copy of '' Eightball'' and thought What's this! It's so good! Who did that! - his humor - so cynical , and so great." Like her character, ''Biker Girl'', "she seems to embody the very spirit of manga, on the one hand she's introverted, full of the Japanese work ethic, but she's also got this manic wild child energy, which comes out after dark, when she puts away her sketchbook and jumps on stage in nightclubs."

References

External links

*
Homepage

George Gene Gustines,

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

, December 28, 2004. Manga artists Living people Year of birth missing (living people) {{Manga-artist-stub