"A sweet and quirky romance sure to set hearts racing"- Kirkus Starred Review
Hex Americana is a graphic novel written and drawn by me, to be published by Iron Circus Press in October 2023.
"A boy-meets-ghoul story at 100 miles an hour!
Ken Takamoto is a wannabe racer stuck at home for the summer, with only his mother for company.
Dante Willow is a ghost stuck in the car he crashed while racing his rival twenty years ago.
When they meet by chance, Ken has the answer to both their problems: enter the local racing league Hex Americana and
win the annual Grand Prix. If they win, Dante can pass on to the afterlife and Ken can keep Dante's fixed-up car to go anywhere he wants. What starts as a simple plan becomes a wild summer full of witches, gnomes, feelings, magical chickens, and more as they prepare for the big race.
Will Ken and Dante finish first? Can they even make it to the finish line? And more importantly, what happens when this racing duo blooms into something more?
Find out in… Hex Americana!
Near-final book cover.
Sample pages from the final book.
Hex Americana is, without a doubt, the most difficult project I've ever completed. It's not only my longest comic yet at 357 full-color pages, but the most technically complex, full of action-packed racing setpieces.
Because so much of the book is about the cars, I taught myself Blender 3D in order to design and model the vehicles and sets. This way, I could maintain visual consistency and speed up my production time (although it was still ultimately a five-year journey to the finish line!).
