Johnson, R. Kikuo 1981-

PERSONAL:

Born 1981, in Maui, HI. Education: Graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design. Hobbies and other interests: Playing the ukulele.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Brooklyn, NY. E-mail—rkikuo@seabread.com.

CAREER:

Writer and illustrator of comics; SPX: Small Press Expo, 1998, writer, penciller, inker, and letterer; SPX 2003, 2003, writer, penciller, and letterer; Beasts!, for Nickelodeon magazine, 2006, penciller and inker.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Russ Manning Promising Newcomer, Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, 2006.

WRITINGS:

Night Fisher (graphic novel), Fantagraphics (Seattle, WA), 2005.

Also wrote the comics SPX: Small Press Expo, 1998; SPX 2003, 2003; and Project: Superior, issue 1, 2005.

SIDELIGHTS:

R. Kikuo Johnson was born in 1981 in Maui, Hawaii. He graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design, and from there moved to New York City, settling in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn to pursue his passion of writing and illustrating comics. Johnson developed a love for the medium at a typically young age. He was eight when he first saw the cover for Wolverine, issue one, by Frank Miller, and was immediately drawn in by the grittiness and the violence of the imagery. Johnson already liked to draw, and so he decided to try his hand at creating his own comics. The ease and shortness of the form appealed to him at that time. He told Dana Kurtin in an interview for the Theme magazine Web site: "More than anything, what I liked about comics was that I could take three pieces of paper and staple them together and make my own." His earliest efforts were based heavily on the comics he loved to read, with his preferences for characters such as He-Man and Inspector Gadget shining through his creations. His interest in comics and drawing continued all the way through high school. However, as he grew older, Johnson was less willing to embrace the medium as he once did, concerned that his enthusiasm made him a nerd. So when he left Hawaii to go to college, he attended the Rhode Island School of Design where he could study art and graphics on a larger scale. However, he soon found that he missed the narrative aspects he found with drawing for the comics, and that the more individual work he did in school felt incomplete without that additional feature. By the end of his first year, influenced very much by his reading of I Never Liked You by Chester Brown—a very realistic, down-to-earth, coming-of-age tale about a young man's experiences with girls and bullies and a parent suffering from mental illness—Johnson knew that he wanted to pursue a career in comics. He told Kurtin: "It just seemed so much richer in terms of the medium, and in terms of its potential, than the alternatives that I was studying."

Johnson began working on Night Fisher during his senior year at Rhode Island School of Design. Inspired by the autobiographical elements in Brown's work, he delved into his own life for the framework of his new project, and what emerged is a story that features a friendship that is faltering and the melancholy results of drug use. The book took him approximately three years to complete. When he was ready, Johnson submitted his effort to comic publisher Fantagraphics, which immediately purchased it. The result was Johnson's graphic novel debut in 2005, a work that received critical praise from all corners and was well received by most comic fans. Some readers categorized the book in the "art comic" genre, as opposed to labeling it as a purely traditional comic, but for the most part, the reading public embraced Night Fisher. Bill Baker, in a review for the Bookslut Web site, remarked of Johnson that "he and his work are the real deal. Miss this one, and you're needlessly depriving yourself of a sublime and arresting reading experience. Night Fisher is a debut of stunning power, delivered with more than a dash of real authority." A contributor for the Graphic Novel Review Web site labeled Johnson's effort as "a first novel by a talented young author, with all the limitations, and all the strengths, that one would expect from such a thing." Booklist reviewer Gordon Flagg declared that "seldom has an artist's initial graphic novel been this accomplished and rewarding."