Monkey Punch created the LUPIN III manga that the anime was based on. He’s got some neat views on comics in The Future.
His work was discovered by an editor of Futabasha, the company behind Weekly Manga Action, for whom he created the Lupin III series, loosely based on the Arsene Lupin novel series and 007 movies. The artist’s strange pseudonym, he explains, was given to him by his editor, who compared his characters’ faces to those of a monkey.
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Monkey Punch began using computers in his work nearly two decades ago.
“Digital technology allows me to look closely at the details [of the images] and easily change minor things several times. This means, though, that it’s sometimes hard to give up the details and complete [the images].”
Cooperating with famous mangaka, including Machiko Satonaka and Tetsuya Chiba, Monkey Punch established the Tokyo-based Digital Manga Association five years ago to explore and develop manga content for the Internet.
“I thought it would be a waste not to utilize the Internet, since it allows us to directly communicate with people around the world,” the creator said.
“Japan’s manga culture is drawing international attention, but we don’t even have an archive containing information about all the manga published here,” he said. “I want to find a way to set up such an archive, getting cooperation from other mangaka and relevant experts.”
