Source: GosuAnime
Rachta Lin, the artist behind the manga The Wonderverse Saga, sat down with GosuAnime in an interview about art, career, and the wonderful world of manga.
Rachta Lin has made a name for herself in the world of comics and art through the years, working as an artist for companies like DC Comics and Magic the Gathering. But beyond her many collaborations with well-known brands, she’s also created an all-original manga of her own: ‘The Wonderverse Saga’, a dystopian dark fantasy superhero story that’s been years in the making.
So, how did Lin end up creating art full time? It’s quite a relatable story; something that any frustrated artist could attune themselves to. GosuAnime sat down with Lin to talk about her career, her love for anime and manga, and the future of The Wonderverse Saga.
It all started with a magical girl anime
When asked about the beginning of her art journey, Lin recalled the first time she ever picked up a pen to draw.
“I was around 4 to 5 years old,” she mused, “I was watching this anime on TV, and somehow I was extremely taken by [the] anime.”
“While I was watching [it], it was like, wow, this is really cool!” She continued to recount, “I really wanted to draw just like that.” Lin proceeded to detail how she picked up her school notebook and started scribbling fan art of that specific anime. For Lin, the memory is still vivid even years later, because to her it was “the beginning of everything.”
“I was drawing. It’s a magical girl genre. I was drawing the powder pact that the main character was using.”
The anime she mentioned, although she did not divulge the title in the interview, was ‘Himitsu no Akko-chan’, one of the earlier entries to the magical genre that first aired in the late 1960s to early 1970s, and received two reboots in the late 1980s and in the late 1990s. The story centered around an elementary school girl who could transform into anything she chose thanks to a magical compact mirror.
“That’s what brought me here today,” she affirmed.
But Lin didn’t become an independent artist outright. Before she decided to pursue art fulltime, Lin was actually an art director for a software company, mostly taking charge of the graphic design and user interface of the company’s software.
Lin then found herself at a crossroads during the peak of her career, and was torn about the future she needed to choose in her profession.
“I remember actually checking up on some MBA courses,” Lin recalled, “because at that time I thought to myself, ‘OK, I have become an art director already. Where to go [from] now on, right?’ So I was like, OK, maybe next step: I would learn some management skills and go on to become a manager.”
Lin however, felt a sort of dissatisfaction with that direction.
“At the same time, I was also having this kind of voice [behind] my head or something telling me: ‘OK you know what? Last time, you had this passion. You want to draw manga. That’s what you wanted to do. All your life, you always wanted to do that.’”
It wasn’t an easy decision to make. To Lin, it was sacrificing a stable corporate job to the uncertainty of independent manga making. But her desire to pursue her passion won in the end. “I chose to gamble in my passion,” she laughed, “and [yes] this is how I ended up here with you guys in this interview.”
The process behind creating art
Lin also detailed the thought process she undertakes when drawing for her personal art, or for her client’s commissions.
“I guess all projects are not the same,” she explained, “but generally I’ll have a few things that I’ll consider before I draw anything.” Lin enumerated her considerations as: what the character is as a person, the audience for her art, and herself as an artist.
“So I’ll kind of try to determine the [character’s] range. Like, who are they as a person? What’s their range? What could they do?”
Lin’s introspection of her subjects and her anticipation of her audience lends to the type of art she will produce, “...what would the audience want to see from this character? […] he’s really tough-looking, so they might want to see him in an action pose, looking very powerful, [so] on the flip side, let’s say it’s a girl, then I might have to draw them differently.”
When it comes to herself as an artist, Lin is particular with what she can be capable of showing to her audience. “As an artist, who am I as an artist, right? Because the audience comes to see the character and the artwork, but at the same time, they also come to see me in a way that they are curious [about] - what’s my take, right?
“So I kind of like, impart a bit of myself in the work. How do I see the world? How do I see this character? It’s kind of like a three-way factor, like the character themselves, the audience, and myself.”
But Lin does not only limit herself to these 3 factors, in fact, sometimes she has to consider one factor more than the other, or even throw another additional factor into play.
The Wonderverse Saga
When talking about Lin’s original manga The Wonderverse Saga, she is direct when asked why she decided to make it.
“Because I was born to do it.”
She continued, “Okay that sounds dramatic, but yes [...] I mentioned that my passion was to become a manga artist, right? I guess I’m one of those weird people.”
Lin was very determined since her youth to make a manga of her own as a professional manga artist. “Whenever the adults [...] ask me what I want to become, that would be my answer. You know, it’s always this same answer every time. So I guess in a way, that is what I have always wanted to do.”
For Lin, this passion was the center point of everything she had done throughout her life and career. Her hobbies and interests revolved around manga making. To her, it simply felt like it was something she had, and wanted, to do.
“I have a story in my head that I want to share with the world,” she divulged, “and I guess I have always been intrigued with the story.”
Lin attributed this desire to certain moments in her childhood when she was an “awkward, nerdy kid” who didn’t really know how to get along with most people. To her, the storytelling in manga was what uplifted her during those times. “When I feel bad, I have a bad day or something [and then] I get into a good story [...] It lifts me up.
“Another reason is I also want to do the same thing to someone else.”
Lin spent over a decade developing The Wonderverse Saga, including research and editorial meetings. To her, the experience has been quite a journey, having to start with research and building the world of her story from the ground up. However challenging it may be, Lin found it to be extremely rewarding.
“I get to learn so many things. It’s a lot harder than expected, but because I have faced all these challenges, I feel that I also have learned a lot as a person.” Lin also highlighted the people she met along the way as she created The Wonderverse Saga, “if I didn’t decide to do Wonderverse, I wouldn’t get to meet all these amazing people.”
The Wonderverse Saga tells the dark tale of main character Phynnix, a ‘subhuman’ born in an oppressive world where ‘superhumans’, people with special powers, rule. The manga features Phynnix’s adventures and struggles through his dystopian reality in almost 100 pages of meticulously hand-drawn art by Rachta Lin herself.
Rachta Lin’s journey into the world of manga is an inspiring testament to staying dedicated to doing what you truly love. From scribbling magical girl fan art as a child to crafting The Wonderverse Saga as a professional manga artist, her unwavering passion has been the guiding force behind her success.
As she continues to bring her dark, dystopian world to life, Lin hopes to inspire others just as the stories of her childhood uplifted her. For Lin, The Wonderverse Saga is more than just a manga; it’s a testament to following one’s dreams, no matter how uncertain the path may seem.
And for fans eager to immerse themselves in her meticulously crafted universe, this is only the beginning of what promises to be a saga worth following.
