Gigi Murakami

My name is Gigi Murakami, I’m an award-winning manga artist & illustrator, and content creator at the intersection of horror media, Japanese manga and anime, and alternative and nerd culture. My work overall blends Japanese manga art, vintage grind house poster art, and pulp comic aesthetics, while thematically focusing on the dark, dramatic, fantastical, and often introspective.

Colloquially known as “Queen of Horror Manga,” I have a handful of both traditionally published and self-published works, but am most recognized for my supernatural horror manga, RESENTER, which had a one-shot published with Viz Manga.

I’m currently working as art lead and executive producer with the anime company, NLite, on their sophomore film “WEBE”, operating my membership program, Midnight Cult, online store, Gigimurakami.store, and creating content on my social media.

Some fun, notable achievements:

In 2025, I received the Cartoon Crossroads Columbus Emerging Talent Award, presented by Bone creator Jeff Smith and partner Vijaya Iyer. I’ve also worked with numerous brands for social media campaigns, including VIZ, Kodansha, Wacom and more. Another cool thing was being able to be a judge for the Brooklyn Horror Film Fest and facilitate a giveaway between BHFF and Kodansha for lovers of both horror film and manga, like myself.

What was your favorite book as a child?

Probably Corduroy by Dan Freeman. It was actually quite scary for me as a child, but I loved it so much. I think Are You My Mother? by P.D.Eastman is the same for me as well.

What is your favorite food?

I really love Unagi Don–sweet eel over rice! I’m a sucker for fries as well!

Who or what inspires you the most?

I’m highly inspired by mangaka, such as Naoki Urasawa, Junji Ito, Katsuhiro Otomo, and Satoshi Kon. I find all of these creators to be fantastic. Their work has completely blown me away and has pushed me to create better stories.

Available for School Visits:

I’ve mostly been to Art Colleges. I went to the School of Visual Arts a few times, Parsons and the Queens Library. I’m always available to talk to schools and, especially, libraries–libraries were my sanctuary growing up.

Awards and honors:

SPX Ignatz Award 2024 (Nominee)
Cartoon Crossroads Columbus Emerging Talent 2025
Harvey Awards 2025 (nominee)
ALA Outstanding Graphic Novel for Children Awards 2026 (Honor)

Creative Process:

My process for making manga / comics involves creating a short outline of the story. From that outline, I’ll use a Japanese writing structure called “Ki Sho Ten Ketsu” to organize the main beats of the story and thats about as much as I’ll do for the writing process. I have hyperphantasia (vivid mental imagery), so I want to get to the draw stage as quickly as possible so I don’t lose the scenes (and hype) that I created during the outlining stage.

Everything in this part of the process is done in Clip Studio Paint. Once the writing is done, I’ll create a few sketches of the main characters and get their designs settled before moving onto storyboarding. I create the dialogue, character blocking, panels, and panel composition all at the same time— just trying to transfer what’s in my head onto the storyboards. During this process, the whole comic is thumbnail size, but is large enough to cleanly add dialogue and everything else I need. Once I finish, I’ll screenshot each of the pages onto my large size, manga work file, and just trace over my initial sketches and finalize.

My process for illustration is roughly the same, minus the story outline.

What do you love to do for fun?

I enjoy watching movies, reading manga, gaming (although, I don’t have so much time to game these days), and traveling.

Location:

Brooklyn, NY

Published books:

The Sinister Sisters and Other Terrifying Tales – Are You Afraid of the Dark? Graphic Novel #2 (Abrams, 2024)
RESENTER (VIZ, 2024)
Hello Darkness #16 (Boom Studios, 2025)
RAZORBLADES (Tiny Onion, 2025)
Paroxysm Vol V (Mysto Press, 2025)

Forthcoming books:

Mediums:

I started my career primarily using traditional tools, but now use mostly digital tools, such as Clip Studio Paint with my 24-inch Wacom screen display for making manga and comics. For illustrations, I move between digital, watercolor, or Copic markers to get the job done.