Artist Interview: Mangatellers

Hello, fellow MangaHelpers!

I'm Farfalla and along with Bugzee, we present you the new Artists Interview Project!
We're starting it with the spotlight set on a big name here on MH: Mangatellers! They are responsible for great series displayed here, such as Mythos and R.u.N., and provided us an interview full of amazing experiences and tips. I hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

1) Tell us a bit about yourselves. What brought the two of you to MangaHelpers and what do you like to do here?

We are Mangatellers, the Greek team that creates original webmanga. We are the screenplay writers, Raphael Voutsidis and Kariofillis – Chris Hatzopoulos. Our main artist is Manos Lagouvardos, who is a professional comic artist here in Greece. He has already published his own comic, called Galaxia and he has participated in different comic conventions, such as London Super Comic Convention. We are the creators of the shonen sports web manga series, R.u.N. (Remember Ur Nature) and the oneshot, WiFi Wars. The Japanese Embassy in Greece became interested in our works and has invited us to participate in a number of cultural events, such as Let’s Talk About Japanese Pop Culture, organized by the embassy.
We came across Mangahelpers while checking for translations for some manga chapters of Gintama. Along with the translations we found a lot more than we had been looking for. An active community and a fan based encyclopedia about manga, which was really fascinating.
When we found that Mangahelpers had a thread about Art, we wanted to post some information about our work here. We had never expected that a lot of members would like our works so much and we really appreciate it.


Mangatellers Team in the Japanese Embassy's Event "Let's Talk About Japanese Pop Culture" in Athens.
From left to right
- Raphael Voutsidis (screenplay writer)
- Manos Lagouvardos (artist)
- Kariofillis - Chris Hatzopoulos (screenplay writer)
- Nikitas Efimidis (3D artist)


Mangatellers (Kariofillis - Chris Hatzopoulos & Raphael Voutsidis) during their lecture about Manga in the the Japanese Embassy's Event "Let's Talk About Japanese Pop Culture" in Athens.


Manos Lagouvardos in London Super Comic Convention 2013 with a commissioner.

2) How do you guys see your journey as manga writers so far? Are you standing, running or sitting back and taking it all in!? xD

It isn’t a simple journey. In order to write an original story, first of all you must spend hundreds of hours researching and analyzing works of other authors and tutorials about different methods of writing, because writing for comics and manga is a lot different than writing a novel. It isn’t sufficient to have an idea only, but also to find a proper way to present and make it interesting for the readers. Ideas come and go, but new methods of presenting them are always develop, especially nowadays with so many high quality manga in the mainstream industry. So while we write our stories we continue studying and expanding our imagination. We can tell you that the journey is tiresome, but rewarding.

3) How do you guys feel about the MangerHelpers Art Section as a whole? Is there something in particular that you would like to see added or changed? (you guys can be honest about this. We won't delete your account 8D)

The art section is really well organized. We don’t think that anything in particular needs to be added or changed. It meets with all the standards of other forums regarding amateur manga. What we would like to see is more members who are artists to be more confident about their projects and show more of their works here, so that they can share their ideas with everyone. ^^

4) As manga writers that have attracted the attention of a range of members, feel free to give us a broad point of view.

Being an independent team of artists we find it hard to promote our works, since we don’t have a marketing department or a manager. Forums and social networks are the only way to share our work or make it known. The Self-promotion of our projects through forums and social network is viewed by a number of users in a negative way and it is opposed against. Some others simply get to know our works and some others support our cause. The users of Mangahelpers so far have given us positive feedback and we really appreciate their support. The truth is that we ourselves have found in the art section interesting works of other independent artists, who didn’t hesitate to share their ideas with us.

5) Now tell us a bit about the works you two have displayed here. What was the inspiration and techniques to create them?

R.u.N. is our ongoing web manga series which focuses on Parkour. We were initially inspired in 2008 when parkour first became known in Greece. It was impressive to watch the traceurs perform using all those techniques. We wanted to create a manga series that would promote and support the culture and mentality supporting Parkour because the media presented traceurs as simple stuntmen and tricksters. Moreover we wanted our manga series to be a shonen mainstream manga and for this reason we decided to combine Parkour with the daily highschool life in Japan.





6) Apart from your work that can be found here on MangaHelpers, is your current profession in the field of art? Does it support your artwork in anyway? Or is it a goal that you guys wish to fulfil in the near future?

Both of us have made studies in Finance. Our post graduate studies are on Information System Technologies and Applied Accounting and Auditing, respectively. We work as accountants in our country and screenplay writing is our hobby. Our main profession provides us with the necessary financial support for our art work. Our studies have helped us not only expand our horizons and our views of the world, but also develop our imagination. Our goal for the near future is to complete four more chapters of R.u.N. in 2013.

7) What are the difficulties of being an artist here, and out there

As we have already said, being an independent not yet well known team it is difficult to attract readers’ interest on your work. This hardship is faced by almost all independent artists. We can simply count on people’s love and support. This is why our works are free to all to read and enjoy. A major drawback is that production of the manga is really slow due to limited budget.

8) What are the obstacles you guys face as manga writers in general?

It is quite hard to maintain the smooth flow of the plot within the 20-25 pages of each chapter. Within these pages and the limited number of panels we need to compress the plot flow as well as the emotions of our characters and some cliffhangers in the end, so as to make the next chapter more interesting.

9) What would be your advice to aspiring manga writers?

Research combined with deep interest in what you want to do, lots of studying, originality and a lot of imagination. Complete devotion to the ideas you want to bring to life and to the characters of the story.

10) Now, please, use this space to add other words you'd like to share with the readers!

Thank you very much for your support. We feel honored to be the first ones you have chosen to interview for your interview series. The users of Mangahelpers have supported us wholeheartedly in our task and we hope to prove with our work that we are worthy of our trust and support. The fifth chapter of R.u.N. will be released by the end of May so stay tuned. :D

Thank you for the time you dedicated to our project, and for the important information you brought to us! It was great to interview you guys, 'cause you're not only very talented, but also very nice people. I wish you all the best and you can count on MangaHelpers to keep supporting your work!

For those who'd like to see more about Mangatellers' work, you can visit their website, and if their words inspired you somehow, please let them know here!

Até a próxima!