Each new twist and turn had me fully captivated - I literally could not put it down till I’d read every last page! The art is vibrant and energetic […] Every detail adds realism to this spectacular world, and each character stands out as important and unique - each with a story to tell. […] The story is compelling and entertaining with an excellent flow that makes it fun and easy for such heavy topics of death and sadness.
# read the full review

Thanks Sheena!

Because of the look of “The Clarence Principle” and the trends of this publisher this book is going to be pigeonholed as gothic fairytale. I can see a lot of people describing it as a dark twisted Alice in Wonderland. I don’t see this as an insult or a disservice however I see this book as having many influences ranging from gothic books and films to Jeff Smith’s “Bone”.

I would say that if you like the idea of Donnie Darko meeting Alice in Wonderland and they go for a drink in a Tim Burton Film then give this book the attention that it deserves - you won’t regret it.
# read full review

I love that bit in bold text right there. what a great visual.

Thanks Steven!

A preview for our latest short comic ‘The Forgotten Incident of San Sabian’ is now online. The first 16 pages are available for your viewing pleasure. This comic is featured in the 2007 Best New Manga anthology, due out in October.

In other news, Shari is redesigning her personal site again, sharii.com. She’s setup a new blog on there, check it out.

Clarence wakes up in a bloody bathtub, victim of his own depression. On the mirror is a cryptic message: “Find me”. Discovering himself to be in the strange and twisted world of the afterlife, he must search for meaning in his death. Along the way, he encounters a host of bizarre and compelling characters, all of whom seem to be struggling in a similar way.

Of all the western manga tales we’ve read, this one stands head and shoulders above the rest as an offering which is not only visually outstanding, but is also thematically complex and altogether fascinating.

Reading The Clarence Principle is very much like watching a Tim Burton movie - it’s grotesque, it’s gothic, it’s morbid, and yet it’s gloriously inventive; a window to a peculiar new world which feels worth exploring. That’s not to say that The Clarence Principle feels particularly derivative - in many ways the world created by Said and Chankhamma is deeper and more thought provoking than those presented in, say, The Nightmare Before Christmas or The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. The world of The Clarence Principle is as much a part of the plot as the leading characters - a place which is somewhere between hell and purgatory. It is this world that Clarence must explore in order to unlock the secrets behind the mysterious note left for him on his bathroom mirror; and the events surrounding his suicide.

After wandering from his bathroom, Clarence happens upon a multitude of characters who are making what they can of their strange existence in the afterlife. The man in the moon is one of the first characters he happens upon, and it’s here that he finds a sense of purpose - to discover how the dead can die in order to relieve the moon man from his 236 years of suffering. Many of the characters Clarence meets have a sense of dark humour about them, from the argumentative judge in the lift to the tailor who seems to be much friendlier than he turns out to be. The juxtapositioning of this humour and joviality with the gloomy surroundings tinges everything with a disturbing edge and drags you that much deeper into Clarence’s world.

Visually, the story is a breath of fresh air - borrowing much from the world of manga without feeling plagiaristic. The cute round eyed character designs are very Japanese, but Chankhamma has imbibed them with a new lease of life thanks to some stylistic touches around the eyes and ears. The supporting cast are as interesting in design as they are in character; particularly the man in the moon (who brings us right back to Burton’s Jack Skellington) and the macabre tribe of clock worshippers who provide a grisly diversion early on in the story. It’s this originality and detail in the character designs that makes Clarence such a fantastic read, and means that you’ll want to dip back into it time and time again.

With elements of myth, fairy stories, dark humour and age old themes, this compelling and beautiful story is a must for fans of gothic fiction and western manga alike. Like all the best manga and anime, it tackles philosophical, moral and emotional themes, but ultimately leaves the final conclusion down to the individual reader. Deep, dark and striking, this standalone novel deserves huge success - and Said and Chankhamma are a duo to look out for in the future. More of their work can be found in the upcoming Best New Manga anthology from Mammoth.

We thank you NEO for this amazing review. It’s great to read feedback like this, it makes all that hardwork worthwhile.

I’ll be uploading a preview of our short story ‘The Forgotten Incident of San Sabian’ later today. We’ve been told that the new Best New Manga anthology will be out in October. Well worth your time picking that up, it’s even better than the first book!

In other news, we’d like to give a shout out to a fan we’ve stumbled upon while browsing YouTube. She’s made an AMV for our book XD how cool is that? You can watch it below:

Signing Schedule
11:00 am to 12:30 pm
03:00 pm to 04:30 pm

Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

See you there!!

The extra books I’d ordered arrived last night. These are for selling at cons here in the UK. First one being JapanEX which is in about 2 weeks time now. I won’t be there, as I’ll be flying out to the US a few days before, but the books will be on sale at the Sweatdrop stand.

Now the question is, how the hell do I get these to Cambridge O_o they’re heavy!!

The building itself was amazing. It’s been years since I’ve been there and I’ve totally forgotten everything about it. As soon as we walked in, we felt like we were on the set of ‘Night at the Museum’ haha I dragged Noon to the Dinosaur exhibit first ^___^ I love Dinosaurs. Lots more photos of our day out are here.

We couldn’t make up our minds what we were going to do after, whether we were going to eat out or catch a movie or what. So we retired to a near by coffee shop to grab some drinks and just relax a bit. Noon got to read ‘Clarence’ as I brought my copy along with me to show her. She’d been wanting to see it for weeks. She read it in 45 minutes flat (it is a quick read, but it’s the kind of book you’ll want to read twice or three times, really, ‘cos there’s just so much to take in art-wise). She really liked it and thought it was quite clever and immediately saw how thought out the story is. She could see all the little links between all the scenes that lead up to the end. I was quite pleased to hear that.

After finishing our drinks, I decided we should just buy some groceries and head back to my apartment and I’d cook us dinner. I made some chicken with noodles in a thick sauce and some fresh salad. As always, I could never finish my plate if I’m the one who cooks the meal! Noon complained that I always do that and I make her feel fat cos she cleans her plate off XD

We were going to watch a movie after, but it was getting late for that, so instead we killed time watching an episode of Scrubs and then Criminal Minds. We started discussing serial killer scenarios and what we’d do if we were serial killers or lead off by someone who might be a serial killer. We watch far too many crime dramas O.o we’d have been watching CSI but we’ve both seen every episode twice or three times already haha

In other news, Sweatdrop Podcast #02 is up. It’s really worth a listen, even if it is over an hour long.

Michael May (whom I owe a column! eep!) reviews The Clarence Principle by Fehed Said and Shari Chankhamma at the Blog@Newsarama. He has praise for both the story and art:

Chankhamma’s art is as poetic as the story it tells. Her depiction of the afterworld is affecting: dark at times; hauntingly lovely at others. And the people who inhabit it are sometimes funny, sometimes spooky, sometimes beautiful, but always expressive and real. All of which makes visiting The Clarence Principle an engrossing event.
# read full review

To go back a little, what made you choose drawing/comic drawing a medium to tell stories?

Fehed: I’m letting you answer this one first.

Shari: I chose to draw comic before I chose to tell stories, does that make sense? I’ve drawn comic long before I realized that it’s a medium meant to tell stories. I don’t think I know why, it’s just something I do, and I discover that I do it alright and I enjoy doing it, so I keep doing it. Kind of like reading. I don’t know why I wanted to read, but I do.

Fehed: For me, I used to write a lot of prose when I was younger and one day thought to myself, it would be cool if these stories were somehow portrayed visually. Shari gave me the chance to pursue this when she agreed to work with me on a few stories. I went from writing prose, to writing things in panel form, to finally writing stories as screenplays, which I found works best for both of us.

Do you think that some themes can only be negotiated via comics and/or graphic novels? What are themes/ideas that you like to explore?

Shari: Comic is a very broad medium and also very flexible, but I don’t think that there’s any story that can only be told in this medium, nor any story that wouldn’t be able to be told in comic form.

Fehed: We have a new book that just got released, titled ‘The Clarence Principle’ which is a perfect example of a story that works as a stand alone graphic novel, as opposed to a series of pamphlet comics. Not all stories work in small chunks. I’ve always had a taste for the darker elements in stories. A common theme both Shari and I share.

Shari: I like to draw story with a lot of action, or larger than life theme, the end of the world, that sort of thing. Mundane stories bore me haha

Do you, personally, distinguish between comics and graphic novels?

Fehed: I’ll let Shari tackle that one. She’s very passionate when it comes to ‘THAT’ question.

Shari: all these terminology confused me, personally, I did what I did, and whatever you wanted to call it is fine by me. Be it comic, manga, sequential art, graphic novels, I don’t give a damn.

Fehed: I agree. I used to look at things differently, but only in terms of the ‘length’ of content, not so much the content itself. At the end of the day, a comic is a comic. Graphic novel to me is just a way that lets me know it’s a big story and not a 20 pager.

If you wouldn’t be making comic books/graphic novels, how else would you share your vision of the world?

Shari: I wouldn’t.

Fehed: Shari is a one trick pony it seems haha but then, so am I. I don’t think I’d get anywhere with the stories I write without someone drawing them.

Do you work through a script before you start drawing? Please tell us a little about the process.

Fehed: It depends on the story. If it’s a story we’re both writing, we both tend to brainstorm ideas which I later clean up and attempt to put into script format, before running it past Shari to discuss rewrites. If it’s a story I myself am writing, I usually jump straight into the scripting process and poke Shari later to give me feedback on what she thinks of it so far. One thing I try not to take for granted is that, she’d never draw it unless she liked it. Drawing comics is tedious work and you have to love the story to put up with the stress of working on it.

Shari: Yes, Fehed will write the script and we will discuss it further, then I’ll draft, which is a way of saying that I do a very, very rough version of the whole comic, to see the flow and keep the page count under limit. This process might take a day or two or up to a week, depends on how many artist’s block I get. After that, we will discuss the draft and then I’ll sketch each page out in detail, discuss sketches, ink, discuss inks, then do the finishing touches, discuss it some more (you get the idea), have a whole lot of arguments, but in the end, we get something good that we both like.

Fehed: Yeah, take ‘The Healing’ for example. Due to page limit and deadlines, we had to cut the story short and we rewrote the end because of this. We had a big finale planned, but we had to compromise and re-script, redraft, re-sketch. Still, we’re really pleased with the end results.

For you, how important is the intention to entertain while making these comic book/graphic novels?

Fehed: It means everything and nothing!

Shari: haha – sorry, inside joke.

Fehed: Everything, because it’s the main reason I think that both of us got into comics. We want to entertain people. But also nothing, because we do it for ourselves. We want to tell a story that we enjoy telling, whether people like it or not. It’s a bit contradictory, but isn’t everything in life? The curse of being human.

Shari: I did it to entertain myself first, and if others find it entertaining, then cool, if not, well, that’s too bad.

Fehed: damn, your answer contradicts mine!

Shari: Haha We are quite different .

Fehed: yes.

In your reading and rendering of it, how do you see the moral universe of graphic novels changing over the years? In the sense, how has the sense of ‘good’ and ‘evil’, ‘hero’ and ‘villian’ etc., change over time.

Shari: Is that a trick question? haha

Fehed: Sounds like one to me.

Shari: Morals are subjective. Good is who’s on your side and bad is who is not. I find the idea of hero and villain terribly, terribly simplified, and while super hero comics cling to that idea, I found myself enjoying a broader sense of good and evil that other kind of comics have to offer. Something that isn’t so black and white. People will still want their heroes and villains pre-identified for them and there will always be that kind of story, there isn’t and won’t be much change. But when you look elsewhere, there’s always been an alternative.

Fehed: I’d say we’re a perfect example of morals changing in comics. For one thing, like Shari said, comics are no longer black and white, in a moral sense and it’s all subjective. But, actually, let me disagree with you on one point. We all know life is complicated and, in my opinion, heroes and villains have changed today compared to say, comics from 40 years ago. One example is the birth of the anti-hero. Apart from that though, I agree with everything else Shari said.

Shari: Anti-hero or Angsty hero?

Fehed: Same thing! haha

Tell us about some of your influences. Things, people, spaces that inspire you and find way into your work.

Fehed: I adore Cinema. Movies have always been a huge visual inspiration to me. The cult classics, mostly. The movies that challenge traditional directing and screen-writing. I enjoy all sorts of movies in general, however. Other influences tend to be from the general music I listen to, comics I read, but none get me as fired up about creating a new comic as a good film does.

Shari: My influences are everywhere. What I see, what I read and what I hear, it could be a very random thing, like a picture of a kitten with bread on its head. I’m easily influenced to say the least. Although, I owe a lot to ‘80/’90 Japanese manga artists, and they will always be my main influences.

Do you feel like animating your work, like see it as movie?

Fehed: Yes!

Shari: yes yes yes and yes.

Fehed: Haha - I have daydreams of me and Shari working together on directing our own animated or live action feature. Storyboarding it, directing it, I really think if given the chance, we could create an awesome piece of film.

Shari, do you see yourself as a storyteller first or an artist first? Do you distinguish between the two?

Shari: I don’t distinguish between the two, no. Sometimes, I have a story to tell, sometimes, I draw for the sake of it.

Shari, please tell us about of the themes and styles that you like to explore when you draw.

Shari: Action, fight scenes, dark themes, gore, mutilations and pretty people. Not in any particular order. I love experimenting in various styles and I’m not committed to a specific one.

Fehed, how does a writer-artist relationship work for you, in a graphic novel? So much to say, so much already being said through the visuals, and so little space…

Fehed: Funny you should ask the question like that. Before I started working with Shari, I used to do the typical mistake that most, if not all, comic writers do. Write for the sake of writing without taking into account the art. Shari pointed out a lot of the narration I had in the early stages of my scripts weren’t needed at all. The art is already telling that part of the story. I started to tone down the excessive dialogue or narration for the sake of finding a balance between them and the artwork. It can be tough trying to find that balance. The same balance also translates over to my working relationship with Shari. It’s hard, we clash often, but we tried different working techniques and we now have a system that works well for the both of us. The fights are still there, but the work gets done!

And lastly, how do you imagine your readership. Do you feel you know them intimately? Sometimes, even more intimately than storytellers of prose?

Fehed: I think Shari has far more experience in that area than I do. She was a published manga-ka for years before I entered the scene.

Shari: I don’t really think about that. I don’t think about who would read my stories and who would like it. I like getting feedback, and like to hear how people perceive my works, but the only reader I know intimately is me. I don’t imagine them. I don’t think I would ever know them intimately, if at all.

Fehed: Actually, now that I think about it, because I’m always attending conventions with Sweatdrop Studios, a manga comic group I’m a part of, I do get to meet a few of our readers face to face. Not many mind you. Can’t say I know them intimately, but from what I’ve seen, it’s a mixed pot. Which is awesome! We seem to appeal to a varied crowd.

Thank you both very much.