Nina Sachie Matsumoto, better known as “SpaceCoyote” on the Net, knows full well the power of Internet buzz. A Japanese manga-style rendering of “The Simpsons” traveled from social networks to office bulletin boards to the desk of Matt Groening himself, who just happens to be her hero, who just happens to be her newest boss.
Manga, for the uninitiated, is a style of art popularized by Japanese graphic novels. As of Groundhog Day, 22-year-old Matsumoto’s online comic, “Saturnalia,” will be five years old. In that time, Space (as she now will be known) found a home in the online comic community, and at deviantART.com.
If there are any manga-devotees at the office, you may have seen her work as a computer screen background, or her cover art for the novella “Sass Girls X.” But those triumphs are small compared to when the Internet got a hold of “Simpsonzu,” an intricately illustrated manga version of the megapopular Fox series, “The Simpsons.”
The title “Simpsonzu” mimics a Japanese accent that generally avoids ending syllables with consonants – a native Japanese speaker would very likely say “seem-psan-zu.”
Space tells murdok that before Simpsonzu reached the audiences of Digg.com, Fark, Drawn.ca, and ABC News Australia, her deviantArt page had amassed 70,000 page views in four years.
“A couple of days after putting up Simpsonzu,” says Space via email, “that number doubled. It’s been less than three weeks now, and as I write this, the page view count reads 389,407.”
Digg.com users took all the credit, but Space says it was the Internet as a whole, with its avalanche-like word-of-mouth quality, that she thanks for the recognition.
“I’d never been to Digg before. The person who submitted the pictures may have never seen my art before, for all I know. I have deviantART to thank for the quick exposure.”
Other than deviantART, how does she market herself online?
“I don’t!” she says. “I believe the best publicity is word of mouth. The more appealing my work is, the more it’ll be exposed through people telling other people about it.”
Yes, that has been the elusive golden goose for scores of marketers – that buzz thing, which once again leaves them scrambling for something authentic and compelling.
But it wasn’t any of these social media sites that caught the attention of “The Simpsons” creator Matt Groening, who had been looking for a manga artist to his specifications but hadn’t found one.
Simpsonzu , along with Space’s tribute to “Futurama,” were posted at work by employees of Bongo Entertainment, Groening’s comic publishing company, and at Fox.
Apparently, Groening saw Simpsonzu and “loved it.”
“Even if he hated it and called me a hack and how dare I ruin his characters, I still would’ve considered it an honour, knowing he saw my art. That’s how much of a fan I am.”
Space landed herself a job with 20th Century Fox designing art for Futurama merchandise, and is now in talks with Bongo Comics about developing a Simpsons manga.
“Why all this sudden success? Why are my childhood dreams coming true? This is madness,” she writes on her blog.
For the rest of us, “why” doesn’t really matter, nor is the question that perplexing – but then again, it’s not happening to us.
Simpsonzu will be published in this week’s ZOO Magazine in the UK; the Toronto Star introduces Nina in Canada; and next month’s issue of ImagineFX will run a story about hot new manga artist Space Matsumoto.
But murdok is the first to know her real name, which, by the way, has its own prophetic quality. Her middle name, Sachie, means “lucky picture.”
If I had made that up, you wouldn’t believe it.
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