Meet the Intern Making a Comic About Deforestation

Foundry10 high school intern Hong N. is creating a comic to raise awareness of our impact on the environment.

We are excited to introduce you to foundry10 high school intern Hong N.! Hong is a student at Glacier Peak High School in Snohomish, Washington with an interest in drawing and the natural world.

Describe your summer intern project.

I’m currently working on a 60 pages black and white comic project (in Japanese format). The story follows the journey of a boy when he discovered a forest spirit during his visit to the forest near his village. The story highlights the impact of humans on our environment, especially targets the issue of littering and deforestation.

What do you like to do for fun?

In my free time, I love to draw, either traditionally on paper or digitally. I draw all sorts of things such as my imaginative world and characters. It is fun to see how my ideas come to life through just a few quick strokes.

What have you enjoyed most about working on your project so far? What has been the most challenging part?

I enjoy the progress of bringing my ideas to life and experience how a mangaka typical workday feels like. The most challenging part for me is figuring out the correct posture and placement of characters in my story in a way that does not mess up the flow of the comic. I need to consider which frame needs more attention, and how to control the reader’s eyes to follow the path of the story without confusing them.

If you could only listen to one song, watch one movie, read one book, and/or play one game for the rest of your life, which ones would you choose?

For game, I’d like to play Sky: Children of the Light for the rest of my life. This game is not like any game I have seen before. It promotes friendship, care, love, while presenting a lot of adventures to the game world. There are many memories and emotions that this game targets and one of them is childhood — something that adult usually forgets. For song: Star Sky (By Two Steps From Hell) is the song I always listen to when I’m feeling demotivated and want to give up on something.

If you could design your own school, what would it be like?

If I can design my own school, then we will only have 5 classes per day. Six periods are really long and tough, especially since each period is approximately 1 hour. All classes will be students’ choice, with the exception of Math and English. My school will offer a lot of real-life skills classes, since I notice nowadays that students lacking a lot of life skills when they graduate.