Yuko Shimizu

Newsweek Japan July 8 issue has came out today with a special feature titled: 100 Japanese People the World Respects. Surprisingly, they chose me to be one of them. I am extremely, extremely, honored…I left Tokyo in the summer of 1999, exactly ten years ago. Since then, I had gone back to school for four years and now working as an illustrator and teaching at the school I studied, I now fortunately have clients all over the world and travel around for lectures and workshops, except for, well, in Japan. So, it really means extra special to me. And, I will try my best to live up to it… You can read the full article here (Japanese). The very special thank you goes to: Colin Joyce, the writer for Newsweek and the person who decided to interview me and convinced the Japanese editing team that I will make a good article (and he really did write an amazing article, which make me look 10X better!), photo-editor Hideko Kataoka, and editor Atsuko Koizumi who happened to be my high school classmate and we ended up having this serendipitous reconnection through this article.Also, Jason Treat of The Atlantic who gives me gallery page in the magazine every month through which Colin first found me, SooJin Buzelli of Asset International and my studio-mate Marcos Chin who made really kind comments about my work, and of course, everyone else who has supported me and be kind to me through out the years.

Thank you thank you thank you.

While I am in the midst of working on the third cover and the first issue not yet published, The Unwrittenis already getting some good press.The first cover was picked as the best of DC’s may release by Comic Book Resources. And the writer of this new series, Mike Carey was recently interviewed by News a Rama.

The first issue comes out from DC Vertigo in about a month.

Wow. I was on the front page of Diario De Xalapa (newspaper of Veracruz region) in Mexico. When do I get to be on a front page of a newspaper? Obviously not often! You can read the article here on their site (in Spanish).

OK, so I had posted that teaser before, but it is now official. The Unwritten, by Mike Carey and Peter Gross, the new series all the graphic novel fans have been waiting for, will be released in May from DC Vertigo.I am teaming up with this genius duo, along with the fantastic editor Pornsak (he was also my editor for The Sandman series), to create covers for the series. The first cover is also on the cover of the latest PREVIEWS (right). You can see it in the comic book stores near you.I have just finished the second cover and got the approval today (yay!), and just about to start working on the third cover. In the meantime, Peter is about five pages to get the third issue done. (I think he is working on the best scene of the issue right now!) I have read about five issues worth of script now, and I have to say it is really gripping. I am hooked. I bet you will be too.