What inspired DREAMERS

Hi, my name is Zasfian. I am an independent author of a self-published graphic novel called: DREAMERS. A fiction, action, adventure, romance title. 

DREAMERS was published online in the year 2021 first on Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) and also on the DREAMERS official online store via Payhip.

If you want to support my work, you can do so by visiting the SUPPORT / DOWNLOAD page. You can follow the DREAMERS official Instagram and also purchase an eBook or PDF copy of the DREAMERS graphic novel from there. (Thank you in advance).

DREAMERS is a very special project to me. For it began with an idea that came from the mind, but was influenced from the heart. 

It was the year 2003, and I was 17 years of age and almost at the end of my high school years. During a day in the classroom while in recess, a school prefect came up to me and asked me: "May I know what is your race?" I was born a mixed race person, so I understand why she'd be curious since I stood out differently from most of the students in my local high school. I gave her an answer and told her that I was of mixed race. She suddenly became quiet and immediately walked away but in a friendly manner. I don't know if it was obvious to her, but in fact I actually had a crush on her at the time. I would notice her around the school grounds from time to time and we would occasionally walk pass each other.

A few nights after our first and only face to face meeting, I had a dream while in my sleep. In that dream, we met face to face for the first time again but this time we were actually having a conversation, a funny one too. I can tell from the wide smile and laughter expressed by her in the dream. When the dream ended and I awoke, I remember thinking to myself: "Wouldn't it be great if that really happened instead of that awkward meeting we had a few days ago. What if it did really happen, but it took place in another reality... That would be nice, at least for me in this reality..." Then I started thinking more about that idea and started asking myself: "What if that event I dreamt really took place in another reality and I had somehow seen it through the vision of my other self..." At the time, this idea sounds fascinating to me, so I kept it in mind.

In the months that follow, I began to gather a lot of inspiration from CGI animated movies, especially the ones from Japan. I wondered how cool it would be to create my own fictional story and have it be animated in CGI movie quality. As a creative person, my mind began to flood with ideas. Soon I began to draw my own original characters on paper and drew them in a scene filled with drama and action, just like in those CGI animated movies I saw and loved. And that's when my "vision of an alternate reality through a dream" idea merged with my passion, and I began to envision the world of DREAMERS and it's characters. But I know I wouldn't be able to make a CGI animated movie like the ones on television or in theaters at the time, so I settled with a pencil and paper instead to express the scenes and scenarios I had already imagined as if they were a cut from a movie that's constantly playing and changing in my mind.

After graduating college, I had the opportunity to participate in a local mangaka competition in the year 2011. For those who didn't know, Mangaka is a person who creates Manga. Manga is a style of Japanese comic books and graphic novels, typically aimed at adults as well as children. My reason for participating in the competition was to find out if I had what it took to create a good comic. So I submitted a six-paged comic titled: GHOST GUITAR and was surprised few weeks later when I was informed that I became champion in the competition. It was truly a proud and insightful moment for me as a creative person. That event had motivated me further in continuing the DREAMERS project I still had in mind.

The years pass by, and it was 2013. I had a job and was busy doing photo editing and graphic design for various goods for a local company. But during my free time, I would invest myself in the DREAMERS project. It was in the middle of that year when I came up with the concept design for the DREAMERS main title logo. I envisioned the logo to be simple yet cool-looking, blending the fonts with a pattern that represented a pare of closed eye lids, indicating a person in the state of slumber and dreaming. The main title logo has seen little changes in the years that follow, when the final design was eventually used in the graphic novel as well as in various other medias such as this website.

In the year 2017 I finally found a way to express my passion project, thanks to online publishing platforms such as KDP on Amazon which led me to create DREAMERS in graphic novel format. Though I would love to see DREAMERS as a high-quality CGI animated movie, unfortunately I was lacking the budget and resources for that to happen. So publishing it online as a graphic novel was the next best thing for me. And so from there I started to write a script for DREAMERS.

It was early 2019, and I had already written several scripts in the past year due to the changes in ideas for characters and scenarios within the storyline of DREAMERS. While writing the script, at times it felt as though the story was writing itself. Different scenarios and events that take place within the story would play-out in an almost natural and poetic way. It felt as if I was guided by an invisible force in my writing of the story, and when I eventually read it back, everything just connects. And so after I was satisfied with the last script, I later began drawing rough sketches for the page-layouts of my graphic novel.

In the fall of 2019 and throughout the early and middle of 2020, I started work on hundreds of background drawings as well as thousands of character drawings which I later on colored through the fall of 2020. I began digital editing in the beginning of 2021, and in May of that year I self-published my finished graphic novel online on Amazon KDP.

This is a project I have grown to love over the years since it was concepted from the influence of love itself. A dream inspired from a dream. Something that I am definitely proud of. I hope whoever reads this will support the DREAMERS graphic novel by reading it in its entirety and love it just as I do, and maybe even gather inspiration from it as well. And if you already have, from one dreamer to another, thank you.