When Kendylife meets HJ Story

Hello everyone! I am back!!! How is everyone doing? Sorry for the lack of updates! Recently I was busy with my work and I traveled a lot of places (I will be blogging that pretty soon!). But today I meet an awesome friend and one of the famous artist on the web, HJ Story!

1. What’s your name? 
My real name’s Andrew 🙂 I usually go by nJoo on the internet though.

2. Where were you from and where are you based now?
I was born in Canada, and raised as a kid in Hong Kong, then back to Canada, and now living and working in South Korea.

3. What is HJ Story? 
HJ-Story really just started out as 1 minute doodle to my girl-friend(now wife) while I slack off at work. HJ is the initial of her Korean name, I swear at the time I thought it was kinda cheesy and it was only meant to be a temp. name cuz I couldn’t think of anything better.  But soon I got use to it, and ppl didn’t seem to mind, so I just kept it as is.  HJ-Story are short comics and messages about our relationship and also a reminder for us all to not forget about the brighter side of life.

4. What inspires you to draw?
I think the previous question basically answered that, it’s dedicated to my wife, Kate.  As time passes and more and more people support HJ-Story, all the fan has became a big motivation for me to draw!

5. I would like to congratulate you on your recent success at kickstarter! How do you feel after the success?
Thanks! Not many people know, it was a big success but I actually ended up going over the fund.  Especially on the packaging and shipping cost estimates and other little factors.  But when I started kickstarter, I had the mindset of going through with making the books whether or not the funding succeeded or not. I think there wasn’t anything specific that helped the success other than the pure support of the fans.  Over the years, the awesome supporters slowly built up, and all came together to help out.
Now that kickstarter is over, the first thing that came to my mind was that I need a break 😀 In fact I still have a bunch of commissions leftover. But it feels great that I’ve accomplished a big task!

6. Any challenges faced?
For any artist, I think the challenges will be how to expand your audience.  Also, since I have a full time job and HJ-Story is just a side hobby, another big challenge is finding the time to do everything that I want.

7. What are your future plans?
There’re lots, most of the still in brainstorm.  I probably have to start getting ready for Vol. 3 of the book probably near the end of the year.  I’d eventually want to create an artbook for HJ-Story as well (not comic episodes but more poster and illustrations oriented).  I want to get more involved in the art scene, like conventions, meeting other artists,etc.  As I mentioned, because of time constraint, there’re many things that I still can’t do.

8. What is your message to all the readers?
A big big thanks to everyone that’ve supported HJ-Story in the past many years.  I’ve received a lot of heartwarming emails from a lot of readers and it made me realized that just maybe little small drawings can make a little difference to the world, even if it’s just bringing a smile to someone’s face on a gloomy day.  I want to let all the readers and fan also know that they’ve made a difference to my life as well, and thank you all from the bottom of my heart (and Kate).

Once again thanks HJ Story for taking your time! It’s an honor for me to chat with you!

Dear readers, if you want to visit his page you can visit his FB page. If you want to follow his love stories to get love inspirations you can visit his comic strips at Tapastic.

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