Mikiko Ponczeck (born February 2, 1984, in

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

) is a

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

comic book A comic book, also called comicbook, comic magazine or (in the United Kingdom and Ireland) simply comic, is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are of ...

and

manga artist A is a comic artist who writes and/or illustrates manga. As of 2006, about 3,000 professional manga artists were working in Japan. Most manga artists study at an art college or manga school or take on an apprenticeship with another artist be ...

Early life

Due to her father's line of work, Mikiko has moved a lot in her childhood, which resulted in her growing up learning many languages and living in places such as

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

and

Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...

. She is fluent in German, English, Japanese and French.
In 1999 she moved to Germany, where she finished school.
Until August 2016 she lived in

Düsseldorf Düsseldorf ( , , ; often in English sources; Low Franconian and Ripuarian: ''Düsseldörp'' ; archaic nl, Dusseldorp ) is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in th ...

, Germany. Currently she lives and works in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

Career

In August 2007, Mikiko published her first graphic novel ''Lost and Found'' at an indie publisher called The Wild Side. This, as well as her following

artbook Artists' books (or book arts or book objects) are works of art that utilize the form of the book. They are often published in small editions, though they are sometimes produced as one-of-a-kind objects. Overview Artists' books have employed a ...

was released under her early online handle, Zombiesmile.
Mikiko was hired as a

graphic designer A graphic designer is a professional within the graphic design and graphic arts industry who assembles together images, typography, or motion graphics to create a piece of design. A graphic designer creates the graphics primarily for published, ...

at the Wild Side Publishing for a few years, where she was learned graphic design for packaging and

lettering Lettering is an umbrella term that covers the art of drawing letters, instead of simply writing them. Lettering is considered an art form, where each letter in a phrase or quote acts as an illustration. Each letter is created with attention to d ...

. She also translated English manga into German. At the release of her artbook ''BLUE'', she gave a detailed interview to the Koneko magazine (issue 33, July/August 2009).
In 2010 she was approached by the German branch of

Tokyopop Tokyopop (styled TOKYOPOP; formerly known as Mixx Entertainment) is an American distributor, licensor and publisher of anime, manga, manhwa and Western manga-style works. The German publishing division produces German translations of licensed J ...

, to participate in an

anthology In book publishing, an anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler; it may be a collection of plays, poems, short stories, songs or excerpts by different authors. In genre fiction, the term ''anthology'' typically categ ...

project as an ''hommage to the Grimm's Manga'' series, which has been published in July 2011. With her contribution of ''

King Thrushbeard King Thrushbeard (german: König Drosselbart) is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm (KHM 52). It is of Aarne–Thompson type 900. Origin The tale was published by the Brothers Grimm in the first edition of ''Kinder- und Hausm� ...

'' her work is published alongside famous German comic artists such as Anike Hage (

Gothic Sports ''Gothic Sports'' is a German manga-styled book created by Anike Hage. The protagonist is a young girl named Anya, who is adjusting to her new school. When Anya tries to join various sports teams, she is repeatedly rejected. Because of this, she ...

), Anna Hollmann, Inga Steinmetz, Nina Werner and Reyhan Yildirim. Early 2010, she was active as an online tutor for the Comicademy for their 'Scribble Club' course. In the same year she was hired as a

colorist In comics, a colorist is responsible for adding color to black-and-white line art. For most of the 20th century this was done using brushes and dyes which were then used as guides to produce the printing plates. Since the late 20th century it is ...

for ''Rombies'', a comic written by

Tom Taylor Tom Taylor (19 October 1817 – 12 July 1880) was an English dramatist, critic, biographer, public servant, and editor of ''Punch'' magazine. Taylor had a brief academic career, holding the professorship of English literature and language a ...

and illustrated by Skye Ogden, for

Gestalt Publishing Gestalt Publishing is an Australian independent graphic novel publishing house. They primarily publish Australian graphic novelists, and have an ethos of supporting and developing emerging talent. History The company was officially founded ...

. Shortly after she also illustrated M.I.D.A.S. in collaboration with Taylor (writer) and Justin Randall (cover) which was finally released in 2016.
Throughout her freelancing years she has contributed various work for Subway (franchise),

Animexx Animexx is a German voluntary association (''Eingetragener Verein'') for promotion of Japanese popular culture, in particular anime and manga. It was founded on 30 January 2000 in Munich when two other groups, 1. Sailor-Moon-Online-Fanclub and An ...

(German anime community), and Fireangels Publishing. In 2011, she participated in a charity-auction organised by the German branch of

to raise money for the

2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami The occurred at 14:46 JST (05:46 UTC) on 11 March. The magnitude 9.0–9.1 (M) undersea megathrust earthquake had an epicenter in the Pacific Ocean, east of the Oshika Peninsula of the Tōhoku region, and lasted approximately six minutes ...

victims. At the end of the year, she was featured in an episode of Aufgezeichnet.tv, reviewing manga and graphic novels for the first time, and is now working as a presenter and

reviewer A review is an evaluation of a publication, product, service, or company or a critical take on current affairs in literature, politics or culture. In addition to a critical evaluation, the review's author may assign the work a rating to indic ...

on a regular basis for their online channel. In July 2012, her profile on

deviantArt DeviantArt (historically stylized as deviantART) is an American online art community that features artwork, videography and photography, launched on August 7, 2000 by Angelo Sotira, Scott Jarkoff, and Matthew Stephens among others. DeviantArt, ...

reached one million pageviews. ''Grimms Manga Sonderband'' won the ''AnimaniA Award'' for Best National Manga in the same month, while her debut ''Lost And Found'' came in second. Starting in February 2013, she hosted an online

livestream Livestreaming is streaming media simultaneously recorded and broadcast in real-time over the internet. It is often referred to simply as streaming. Non-live media such as video-on-demand, vlogs, and YouTube videos are technically streamed, but no ...

show called ''J-MAG'', which airs biweekly on

MyVideo MyVideo was a German video hosting service website, provided by Magic Internet based in Bucharest, Romania and later in Berlin. It was available in German (myvideo.de, myvideo.ch, and myvideo.at) until April 2016. According to Alexa Internet, th ...

, a German video portal similar to

YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...

. The show revolves around

Anime is Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside of Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, in Japan and in Japane ...

Manga Manga (Japanese: 漫画 ) are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long prehistory in earlier Japanese art. The term ''manga'' is u ...

, Japanese culture and popculture. In 2015 she worked for

Nintendo is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto, Japan. It develops video games and video game consoles. Nintendo was founded in 1889 as by craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi and originally produce ...

, providing cover artwork for the EU release of Fossil Fighters: Frontier and Teddy Together in 2016. 2016 in may, she was invited to the German educational children's show

Tigerenten Club Tigerenten Club is a German children's television programme. The programme involves a mix of games, quizzes, cartoons and outside reports from the presenters and children, with the aim to educate and entertain. It is produced by SWR in co-operatio ...

along with popsinger

Jamie-Lee Kriewitz Jamie-Lee Kriewitz (; born 18 March 1998), better known by the mononym Jamie-Lee, is a German singer and activist. Born and raised in Bennigsen, Hanover, she performed as a member of the German children choir Joyful Noise before auditioning for ...

for a guest appearance, soon after she won the prestigious German

Max & Moritz Prize The Max & Moritz Prize is a prize for comic books, comic strips, and other similar materials which has been awarded at each of the biennial International Comics Shows of Erlangen since 1984. It is open to all material published in Germany. 1984 ...

for her comic Crash'n'Burn. 2018 Mikiko's short story 'Crimson' appeared in the anthology Traces of the Great War alongside

Bryan Talbot Bryan Talbot (born 24 February 1952) is a British comics artist and writer, best known as the creator of ''The Adventures of Luther Arkwright'' and its sequel '' Heart of Empire'', as well as the ''Grandville'' series of books. He collaborated ...

, Mary Talbot,

Ian Rankin Sir Ian James Rankin (born 28 April 1960) is a Scottish crime writer, best known for his Inspector Rebus novels. Early life Rankin was born in Cardenden, Fife. His father, James, owned a grocery shop, and his mother, Isobel, worked in a schoo ...

Dave McKean David McKean (born 29 December 1963) is an English illustrator, photographer, comic book artist, graphic designer, filmmaker and musician. His work incorporates drawing, painting, photography, collage, found objects, digital art, and sculpt ...

Charlie Adlard Charles Adlard is a British comic book artist known for his work on books such as '' The Walking Dead'' and ''Savage''. Career Adlard began his work in the UK on ''White Death'' with Robbie Morrison and '' 2000 AD'' series including ''Judge Dre ...

Juan Díaz Canales Juan Díaz Canales is a Spanish comics artist and an animated film director, known as the co-creator of '' Blacksad''. Biography At an early age, Juan Díaz Canales became interested in comics and their creation, which progressed and broadened ...

, Victoria Lomasko and more international artists. This project was released in October in both the UK and France, for the centenary of the First World War to remember the impact it has had across cultures and borders to this day. In the same year she began working for

Adobe Adobe ( ; ) is a building material made from earth and organic materials. is Spanish for ''mudbrick''. In some English-speaking regions of Spanish heritage, such as the Southwestern United States, the term is used to refer to any kind of e ...

on social media as a promoter and regularly appears on stage at comic shows such as MCM London and

Leipzig book fair The Leipzig Book Fair (german: Leipziger Buchmesse) is the second largest book fair in Germany after the Frankfurt Book Fair. The fair takes place annually over four days at the Leipzig Trade Fairground in the northern part of Leipzig, Saxony. I ...

Work

* ''Lost and Found'', 2007 August / ''The Wild Side'' / * ''Manga-Mixx 5'', 2008 / ''Animexx'' (Coverillustration) * ''BLUE (Artbook)'', 2009 September / ''The Wild Side'' / * ''Grimms Manga Sonderband'', 2011 July / ''Tokyopop'' / * ''Rombies'', 2011 / ''Gestalt Publishing'' * ''Lost and Found'', 2011 September/ ''Tokyopop'' / * ''BLUE (Artbook)'', 2011 Oktober/ ''Tokyopop'' / * ''Grimms Manga Sonderband - Perfect Edition'', 2013 January / ''Tokyopop'' / * ''Crash 'n' Burn'', 2 volumes, 2014 / ''Tokyopop'' / / * ''Scars'', 2015 November/ ''Pyramond'' / *''miki's mini comics,'' May 2017/ ''Pyramond''/ *''Traces of the Great War,'' November 2018/ ''Image Comics/''

References

Mikiko's websiteMikiko's webcomicsMikiko on deviantART

Tokyopop Germany

Max & Moritz Prize page

External links

Aufgezeichnet.tv

J-MAG on MyVideo
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ponczeck, Mikiko Claire 1984 births Living people German comics artists German female comics artists