YUKON MAKOTO
by Bruce Brenneise
Fall 2004

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I realized when I was researching Web Comics, that among all of my favorite comics and comic artists, there were very few or (more accurately) /no/ examples that I could come up with of female webcomic artists. I'll discuss this trend a little in the article about webcomics.

Following a few links from webcomic websites that I trusted, I came across the comic, /10k Commotion/ by the talented (female) japanese artist, Yukon Makoto.

Yukon Makoto, like many other 'net-entitities' seems to wrap her online biographical information in assorted wit and apropos. This info can be found here. We can, however, make some judgement of who she is as an artist by the beautiful work that she has done on the /10k Commotion/ project.

/10k Commotion/ is, (to quote), "Something like reality TV + Dance Dance Revolution + University of Hawaii at Manoa. The sum of which + 10 kids on spring break + good food + wierd dreams + a boy with an unusual gift..."

Further information on the storyline should be gotten from the website. Yukon Makoto is the illustrator of the script and has made it a personal project of her own. She uses the strengths of the web, in terms of uploading the comic chapter by chapter at her own pace and motivation (which can sometimes be erratic, as Ian McConville of www.machall.com (a relatively well known webcomic) says.

The art of the comic has a very fluid, energized appearance, due to its use of very loose line (the media of choice for this comic appears to be photoshop). The perspective and composition are very strong, I think, and the computer lettering, if less personalized than hand lettering, allows the writing to be consistently legible. The use of color is very interesting, not so much bounded by what the colors of things /should/ be, but by the tones that would make sense, and lend depth to the compositions. The majority of the pages are set in a combination of three colors, green, blue, and black. The cover pages of each chapter, however, allow the use of more colors.

an example of a typical page layout and design.

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