Woodbury High School alumnus Ethan Johnson spends anywhere from four to 35 hours creating one page of his manga. Photos: Chris Emeott
A natural gift turns author and illustrator into a social media sensation with a bestselling manga.
At first glance, Ethan Johnson might seem like any other 23-year-old. But scroll down his Instagram, TikTok or YouTube channel and you’ll quickly discover his hidden talent—and his growing audience. The Woodbury High School Class of 2020 alumnus is the creator of Dishonor, a self-published manga (Japanese comic book) series inspired by samurai films, Japanese mythology and a lifelong love of storytelling and art.
“I’ve always been into drawing and writing stories ever since I was a kid,” Johnson says. “And during quarantine, when COVID-19 was at its peak, I got back into it. I was drawing the characters for it, and eventually I thought, ‘Why not actually make the story and not just have it be something in my head?’”
Some of Johnson’s earliest memories are of drawing. “My earliest memory was drawing stick figure images for my dad to post in his workshop. I could have been 2 or 3 years old,” he says.
In the third grade, he discovered manga. “My friend gave me a copy of Dragon Ball Z. And then I started reading One Piece and Naruto as well,” he says. Over the years, his creative influences expanded. “I loved superheroes as a kid. I originally wrote a superhero-inspired story. As I got older, I got into movies and especially mob movies and gangster movies like Goodfellas and The Godfather.”
What began as a superhero story evolved into a mafia movie script. Then, during the pandemic, Johnson rediscovered manga and anime (Japanese cartoons). “I transitioned the movie script into a manga story, and from there it completely took off. I pulled inspiration from all the things that I loved,” he says.
Ethan Johnson
Those things include samurai films like Harakiri, which Johnson describes as “anti-samurai and critiques a lot of the samurai ways,” and Chungking Express, which captures “the vibe of a condensed, overpopulated city,” a key element in Dishonor. He also credits the TV show Better Call Saul for its intricately woven web of character development and plotlines.
Also as intricate is the artwork. Johnson’s gift propelled him to popularity on social media with more than 500,000 followers on TikTok. “The first video I posted blew up overnight. It got over 1 million views,” he says. Encouraged, he expanded to Instagram and YouTube Shorts. He also launched his first YouTube video, where he breaks down the process behind writing, drawing and self-publishing manga.
The work is meticulous. “It’s a lot more work than people realize,” he says. “I’ve had a lot of people comment on my posts and say, ‘Why can’t you make one chapter a week?’ It’s a complicated process. It’s writing a story, writing an entire script for a chapter and then storyboarding the entire chapter and then actually drawing the pages for each chapter. And the final step would be scanning those physically drawn pages to digital and then adding all the extra edits and dialog in Photoshop and then publishing it.”
Each step in the process can be long. “Some pages can be as quick as four hours. I’ve had other pages take me as long as 35 hours to finish,” he says. Storyboarding is the most challenging part. “Laying out essentially on the page like a mock-up of where I want everything to go … that whole storyboarding process is by far the hardest and takes me a really long time for each chapter.”
Dishonor is Ethan Johnson’s first self-published manga.
While he knows the full arc of the story, Johnson only writes a few chapters at a time. “I keep most of it in my head. I can remember every single important detail that I want. If I think of a really great idea, I’ll make sure to jot it down. I only actually write out the dialogue and the word-for-word events two to three chapters in advance before I make them. I don’t want to put anything too set in stone in case things change,” he says.
Johnson publishes each chapter on Manga Plus Creators, a Japanese platform for international manga artists. For the physical book, he uses Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing for print-on-demand publishing. “I just upload the files for the page and the covers, and they take care of the rest,” he says.
Despite the painstaking nature of the work, Johnson finds joy in the process. “I love how I can share this, and people are enjoying it. That’s really cool,” he says. Once nine more chapters are completed, he’ll compile them into the second volume of Dishonor. Johnson hopes to keep the series “between the 15 to 20 book range,” acknowledging the intense workload.
He may be his toughest critic. “Artists are never really satisfied with their own work,” Johnson says. But there’s one image that stands out. On the back cover, his main character sits on the hilt of a samurai sword, looking off into the distance in deep contemplation. “I’m proud of the back of the book. I like the pose and the look it has,” he says. “When you think of Dishonor, that’s the image people will think of.”
Dishonor by Ethan Johnson
Instagram: @ethanjohnson81
