My name is Lars Martinson. I was born in Minnesota in 1977. I am currently in the midst of a foolhardy attempt to eke out a living as a cartoonist.
I was first introduced to comic books in the sixth grade, and I’ve been drawing them ever since. My subject matter and style have changed a lot since then (I mean, one would hope, right?), but my devotion to the medium has remained constant.
I have visited more than fifteen countries as a tourist, and have lived in Thailand, Norway, and Japan. Overseas travel has proven to be a life-defining passion for me, and has afforded me the opportunity to meet a princess, see a five-legged cow, and eat raw octopus eggs.
My interest in travel and comics intersected during the course of my stay in Japan from 2003 to 2006. I was employed as an assistant English teacher through the JET Program, an exchange program sponsored by the Japanese government. The experience had a profound effect on me, one that I thought would serve as an interesting basis for a story.
With that in mind, I began work on a four-part graphic novel called Tonoharu at the beginning of my tenure on the JET Program. I continue to work on it today, and am “already” a quarter of the way through the second part. (Hey, drawing comics takes forever… heh heh…)
I was recently honored with a prestigious Xeric Grant for Comic Book Self-Publishers, to self-publish the first part of Tonoharu. Tonoharu: Part One is now available for sale. See details about that here.
This site is updated every Friday, so stop by again, or subscribe to the RSS feed, for the latest news about my little self-publishing enterprise. Thanks!
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