The story of Mayasan Maru: finalisation and home-publication

I worked on this BD on and off for a couple of years and got the pages of the main story how I wanted them. 

Page 5 of the story

Page 9 of the story

It was only after I had prepared “Ulysses et Polyphème” for publication in the summer of 2019, that I got the idea to do the same for “Mayasan Maru”. So, in summer 2020, working with the same print shop in Galicia in Spain where was born and where I usually spend my holidays, I designed a front and back cover, and the flyleaves.

I’ve sold some to friends of friends of the 50 copies I had printed and also given a few copies to friends and family as presents.   

The story of Mayasan Maru: how I made the comic

My representation of the story of Mayasan Maru first began in 2016, as a course project while I was studying in the United Kingdom. The story is about a reporter seeking information from survivors of ships sunk with great loss of life during the Second World War.

Original design of the third page of the story

At the same time I was making this comic, I finished an animation involving another ship with great loss of life by the name of “Tamatsu Maru”. It is made through a type of “stop motion” animation, because it involves characters and object made of paper being moved little by little in each frame. You can watch it at:

This project meant a lot to me because I didn’t know much about these tragedies at sea during wartime. I faced a few difficulties making this comic because, when I was doing the colouring, my aim was to put all the pages in colour for the presentation of the project, but I unfortunately I ran out of time and I was only able to expose two pages of the project. Even so, I was proud of what I did for that day.

Original design of the sixth page of the story

The Pacific War at sea: the setting for my comic called “The story of the Mayasan Maru”

The idea for making a short story on the “Mayasan Maru” came to me from my interest in naval losses during the Pacific War.

The Pacific war is mostly remembered as victorious US marines fighting against the Japanese and big naval battles like Midway. However, little is known about allied submarines which wrought havoc against Japanese shipping throughout the Pacific War.

From 1942 till the end of the war, allied submarines, mostly American, sank over 2,000 Japanese merchant ships and naval auxiliary ships in which about 35,000 Japanese seamen lost their lives.

The Japanese army also commandeered many ships for troop transporting duties and after submarine torpedo attacks many of the soldiers on board had little chance of survival. Of an estimated 230,000 Japanese soldiers who had been sent overseas to help reinforce upcoming campaigns, more than 100,000 of them were killed on ships.

During the onslaught of the Pacific War, many Japanese civilians also got involved. Many were simply fleeing the war and others helped in the war effort.  More or less 35,000 Japanese civilians had been reported to have died during the Pacific War, making it the largest lost of life none combattants at during war.

Unfortunately, many of the civilians were also among military passengers so the exact number of civilians who perished in the Pacific, was never fully identified.

These facts moved me to think of making a comic to tell the story of one Japanese ship called the “Mayasan Maru”.