Mitzi Akaha
ABOUT
I just love to draw. Memories of schooling between the Midwestern US, Northern California and Japan are mostly of me hunched over my desk drawing teachers and the back of classmates' heads over and over again, and of course of the time when I was nine that I famously stole 300 dollars from my brother to dole out as prizes in art class. To my realist-school father's chagrin, I've always been obsessed with line work, the more tedious the better, and after sneaking in an art minor under a parent-approved creative writing-and-Japanese double major, I spent a half-decade toting my Micron 005s and textured postcards between smoky Tokyo cafes indulging my guro-kawa complex (that's guro for grotesque and kawa for kawaii, meaning cute). I'm now in New York where I've not only succumbed to but grown deeply appreciative of the digital medium, which has opened up a world of color and its potential subtlety, as well as moving (animated) objects and, most recently, sculpted objet.
At the demand of my friend at Japanese comic book press Big Ugly Robot, I've also published a graphic novel, Kuzu, which Broken Frontier calls "A comics debut of style and confidence." It tells the story of Card, an ornithofecal (bird poo) expert on a tiny island nation called Bomei, who becomes consumed by a new species of plant. As his wife Lott grows restless and unhappy, can his marriage survive island superstitions, invasive plants...and bird shit?
It sold out, got a second (small!) pressing and sold out again, so while you can't hold it in your hands, it is wholly viewable on my website if you click Kuzu. Should you wish to own any of my work, there're a couple of zines (So Lo, a full-color 60-page book of portraits of fictional humans, known and reimagined actresses and historical figures, a child's limerick and even a midday martini recipe; and The Pocketbook of Pretty People, 44 black and white pages of my prettiest portraits, sized to fit perfectly into your pocket or hip little (hip) bag when there's nothing nice around to look at), and postcards aplenty. I also take commissions, should you wish to have a portrait of your own very special cat. Message me!