#fujishima

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稲荷神社

Issey Fujishima is a German-Japanese comic artist based in Melbourne. He worked on his first graphic novel The Reign of God for three years, finally completing it in 2017.  

Issey Fujishima had not always wanted to be a comic-artist. Originally, he had wanted to be a filmmaker. However, life was not all it seemed. After graduating, he did work in the Japanese film industry, but soon realized that it did not fit according to his ideals. He realized that the film industry was mostly motivated by money, and conflicted with his values. Furthermore, as an artist, he found he did not have an individual means of expression. Therefore, it was because of this he decided to leave.

He decided to go into comic-making as comics “was film but with a pencil-and a piece of paper.” The transition for Issey was not difficult as before film-making, Issey always had an interest in comics. For Issey, the content he was interested in had never changed, but rather its medium. This is shown through the first graphic novel he had created The Reign of God.

When I asked what inspired Issey to create The Reign of God. He said he was inspired by his political beliefs about the bible, as well as the political climate during the time of the Bush administration. He mentioned, as a Christian, he was upset about the way the Bush administration was using theological terms lightly such as “crusades”, to justify going to war with Iraq. In addition to this, he was also inspired by snippets of everyday life, as well as another documentary film Iraq in Fragments. Originally, Issey said that he wanted to make The Reign of God into a series of documentaries, but finding that he had changed his medium he had decided to create The Reign of God into a comic instead.

One of the issues that Issey had while creating The Reign of God was organizing his research. Issey had to read a lot of books ranging from history, theology, culture to research papers, as well as a trip to Israel and Palestine, to determine what information was suitable or not. Issey, through the The Reign of God, aimed to create a story of Jesus that was more human, and much more political than he thought earlier. A major challenge he found was integrating the information about religion, society, and culture, as at the time he found the three topics were more intertwined.

It is through Reign of God, Issey aimed to create a less conventional outlook on Jesus as a character.  Instead of standard biblical doctrines, Issey aimed to focus on Jesus’s struggles, as well as the character drama involved behind each of the characters in the bible.

After completing The Reign of God, Issey mentioned that he had learned a lot about Jesus on a personal level. He was also surprised about the depth and broadness of people’s research into Christianity. Opinions ranging from one side of the spectrum to another. Concluding, he says, he has also learnt about the comic-process a lot more in general compared to when he has started his 30-page pilot on Reign of God years ago.

In the future, Issey plans on completing his Reign of God project that he plans to be a series of 7-8 books.

Fusion: Shortite

A short unstable fusion that acts cute and naive to trick people into a false sense of security.

in my world