Mikiko Ponczeck
Mikiko Claire Ponczeck (born February 2, 1984 in Tokyo) is a German-Japanese comic book artist who is also known under the pseudonym 'Zombiesmile'.
Early life
Due to her father's line of work, Mikiko has moved a lot in her childhood, which resulted in her growing up learning many languages and living in places such as Hong Kong and Brussels. She is fluent in German, English, Japanese and French.
In 1999 she moved to Germany, where she finished school. Together with American concept and comic artist Shaun Healey, she visited the 2010 SMASH! Convention in Sydney as guests of honour.
Until August 2016 she lived in Düsseldorf Germany. Currently she lives and works in London, United Kingdom.
Career
In August 2007, Mikiko published her graphic novel Lost and Found at The Wild Side Publishing. This, as well as her following artbook was released under her pseudonym Zombiesmile.
Mikiko was hired as a graphic designer at the Wild Side Publishing for a few years, where she was responsible for the packaging, lettering and translations into German of various Comics. At the release of her artbook BLUE, she gave a detailed interview to the Koneko magazine (issue 33, July/August 2009).
In 2010 she was approached by Joachim Kaps, the head of the German branch of Tokyopop, to participate in an anthology project as an hommage to the Grimm's Manga series, which has been published in July 2011. With her contribution of King Thrushbeard her work is published alongside famous German comic artists such as Anike Hage (Gothic Sports), Anna Hollmann, Inga Steinmetz, Nina Werner and Reyhan Yildirim.
Since the beginning of 2010, she has been active as a tutor for the Comicademy for their online 'Scribble Club' course.
In the same year she was hired as a colorist for Rombies, a comic written by Tom Taylor (Star Wars, The Authority) and illustrated by Skye Ogden, for Gestalt Publishing.
Throughout her freelancing years she has contributed various work for Subway (franchise), Animexx (German anime community), and Fireangels Publishing.
In 2011, she participated in a charity-auction organised by the German branch of Tokyopop to raise money for the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami victims. At the end of the year, she was featured in an episode of Aufgezeichnet.tv, reviewing manga and graphic novels for the first time, and is now working as a presenter and reviewer on a regular basis for their online channel.
In July 2012, her profile on deviantArt reached one million pageviews. Grimms Manga Sonderband won the AnimaniA Award for Best National Manga in the same month, while her debut Lost And Found came in second.
In February 2013, she started to host an online livestream show called J-MAG, which airs biweekly on MyVideo, a German video portal similar to YouTube. The show revolves around Anime, Manga, Japanese culture and popculture.
In 2015 she began working for Nintendo, providing cover artwork for the EU release of Fossil Fighters: Frontier and Teddy Together in 2016.
2016 in may, she was invited as a guest in the german children's show Tigerenten Club along with popsinger Jamie-Lee Kriewitz, soon after she won the prestigious german Max & Moritz Prize for her comic Crash'n'Burn.
Work
- Lemon Law 1, 2007 September / Fireangels (Illustrations)
- Lost and Found, 2007 August / The Wild Side / ISBN 978-3-939484-04-2
- Manga-Mixx 5, 2008 / Animexx (Coverillustration)
- BLUE (Artbook), 2009 September / The Wild Side / ISBN 978-3-939484-14-1
- Grimms Manga Sonderband, 2011 July / Tokyopop / ISBN 978-3-8420-0236-4
- Rombies, 2011 / Gestalt Publishing
- Lost and Found, 2011 September/ Tokyopop / ISBN 978-3-8420-0341-5
- BLUE (Artbook), 2011 Oktober/ Tokyopop / ISBN 978-3-8420-0343-9
- Grimms Manga Sonderband - Perfect Edition, 2013 January / Tokyopop / ISBN 978-3-8420-0638-6
- Crash 'n' Burn, 2 volumes, 2014 / Tokyopop / ISBN 978-3-8420-0524-2 / ISBN 978-3-8420-0523-5
- Scars, 2015 November/ Pyramond / ISBN 978-3-945943-03-8
References
Mikiko Ponczeck on deviantART
Tokyopop Germany
Max & Moritz Prize page
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