How I made The Zen Buddhist Monk Cartoonist
More wisdom from Sengai and the process that brought the comic together.
Sometimes, a person’s story captivates you, and you can’t get them out of your head.
Reading about Sengai Gibon’s life in the book Folk Tales of Japan by Kyota Ko made me reread the few pages about him repeatedly and then research more online.
Needless to say, I was obsessed.
My creative juices needed to pour some article or artwork out about this phenomenal creative person. If you haven’t read the comic essay I made about Sengai, check it out here, then come back and see how it all came together.
Getting Sengai Gibon onto paper
After the first ink drawing, I decided to see if drawing what I thought he might have looked like would be fun. Too many of my attempts looked too much like how I draw myself as a cartoon—probably because of the bald head.
Since he lived during the 1700s, there are no photos of him, and any drawings I searched up looked like a generic bald monk. If I could figure out an enjoyable style to draw him in, my creative energy would power me up enough to illustrate a story about his life.
Even if an idea seems great in your head, you never really know until you start seriously drawing if you want to put a lot of time into it.
Drawing Sengai Gibon with a round head and pointy chin connected with me for some reason, so I explored expressions and how his Zen temple might have looked.
Once I settled on his look, I cracked open the book and started piecing together the parts I would share.
At first, I planned to draw only a few illustrations and mainly write out his story. Then, I thought it would be cool to illustrate it as a comic essay.
For the written story part, I write it all out first, edit it, and then I feel confident enough to think about which parts I’ll illustrate and how to compose it as an essay comic. Since the writing part is done, I can paste the text into Clip Studio Paint software to draw the comic digitally and space out the paragraphs to add the drawings.
If I need to move the type around or make the drawings different sizes, it’s relatively easy at this stage. It becomes a mix of writing, drawing, and graphic design for each page.
I do very little sketching and tend to draw straight in black pen and adjust where needed so the art has energy and feels loose. Of course, after the drawing, I color in some areas with light blue for highlights. Boom! A comic essay is done.
I post it here on Substack, then share it on Facebook and Twitter, and cut up the panels to post them on Instagram.
When I shared the comic on Linkedin, I tagged the author Kyota Ko (who I follow). He read the comic, commented on his excitement under the post, and then shared it with his followers.
It felt pretty darn good!
It’s had over 900 views on Linkedin, and I hope more people check it out.
Sengai Gibon on the joy of aging
In the book, the author Kyota Ko translates one of Sengai’s last poems, written right before he died. It lists everything that can go wrong with you as you age. It sounds depressing. Apparently, at the poem's end, Sengai drew six men looking happy instead of angry or upset.
I couldn’t find Sengai’s drawing, but I wrote the poem below for you and created my own illustration after it to hopefully give a similar feeling to the message he wanted to send to us all.
Wrinkles form moles form, your back bends,
your head balds, your hair grays.
Your hands shake, your legs wobble, your teeth fall out,
you hear less, you see less.
You wear a hood; you hold a cane and glasses, carry around a
hot water bottle or heated stone, a urine glass,
and a back scratcher.
You’re nosy, you’re clingy, you’re lonely, twisted, and greedy.
You’re preachy, you’re offended easily, you complain
readily, you interfere, you meddle.
You give kids the same praise you gave them before,
and you brag the same brags, making yourself unwelcome.
I think he’s saying we accept these negative parts of aging as the price we pay for getting a chance to live long, contribute to society, and experience a full life.
We should have a positive outlook on aging.
Do you agree?