Manga created using Google Docs™ - Showcase
Projects created with Mangaplay Studio For Google Docs.
Being Salaryman
Two American friends mysteriously transported to Japan, reborn as office workers. Uses the isekai "Truck-Kun" trope for cross-cultural comedy.
Origin
Salaryman was born from a casual conversation about leaving America. The premise flips the typical power-fantasy on its head - there is no magic system, no demon lord, just the quiet grinding absurdity of Monday-morning commutes in a country that is not yours.
What This Project Showed
Salaryman was always meant to be a prototype, not a standalone story. The bigger project it feeds into is the Enemy of the State universe, which is my ongoing attempt to build a connected world of characters who keep getting moved between cultures, time periods, and bodies they didn't ask for.
The skill I was really practicing here was transplantation - taking a character who is firmly rooted in one place and making them function somewhere completely alien. If you can make that feel real in 10 pages, you can do it across a full arc. I'm still working on making it feel real.
Salaryman is the earliest public record of that experiment. It's rough and the ending is basically just a shrug, but as a test of whether the core idea holds up? It does. Two Americans stuck in Japanese office life with no exit is a premise that has more mileage in it than 10 pages can carry.
# PAGE 1 INT. AMERICAN MUSIC STUDIO
Caught up in fancy interview, an upcoming artist interviews his rival. Panel 1 [GROUP] BADDIE That's nice, BADDIE Now tell us how you do it, Panel 2 BADDIE Cid
Our Baby Is Strange
It's JoJo's Bizarre Toddlers. Born into a Korean family, but he is a little special. A shonen one-shot with comedic undertones.
Origin
Isekai plots are getting out of hand, what if I put my friend in a manga but he's just a baby?
What This Project Showed
It turns out that it is possible to setup the plot of a story in less than 5 storyboard / manga pages.
The whole thing took maybe 15 minutes to write out then the rest of the day was spent thinking out where to go with the story.
# PAGE 1 EXT. WESTERN FLORIDA - NEIGHBORHOOD - NIGHT Panel 1
Fireworks pop and crackle across the sky above a quiet neighbourhood. NARRATION It's July 4th, Florida, United States, on a hot summer day... NARRATION Hot dogs fly. Panel 2
A man throws his fist into the air, beer in the other hand, grinning wide as fireworks light up behind him. DEQUAN Yahoo!
A Boy Named Dorothy
Dorothy is a wanted man ("Enemy of the State") investigating illegal human replication. A dark fantasy seinen manga.
Origin
A lad, a lady and a llama walk into a bar to kill 12 gods living amongst mankind.
What This Project Showed
I may have it, whatever it is. I wrote a 200 page screenplay for the original "Enemy Of the State" that follows a really bad day for a group of superhumans stuck on an island.
By the end, Mangaplay Studio was finished and Chapter 1 for Enemy Of The State was storyboarded but without marketing or a clear entry point, this whole world will sink into the garbage that is drowning all content platforms.
So, enter Dorothy, a more focused work that gives the option of being a one-shot or prequel.
# PAGE 1 EXT. SUNBURY TOWNSHIP - AUTOMATON HIGHWAY - DAY Panel 1 [BLEED] [L]
It is neither a utopia nor dystopia, only infrastructure. A landscape continuously built for their children before leaving them behind. NARRATION The United Kingdom; 2845 AD; Current Population 112,900. NARRATION Somewhere in the Sunbury Township. NARRATION The Machine does exactly what it is told.