Monstress artist Sana Takeda dives into the emotions, the origin, and yes, the monsters of her and Marjorie Liu's hit comic

Compared to how highly readers and critics think of her work on the steampunk fantasy series Monstress for Image Comics, it’s hard to fathom that Sana Takeda still feels she has so many opportunities to grow as an artist.

Maybe that’s because Takeda, who became known in the US primarily due to her work on X-23 for Marvel Comics, originally didn’t set out to become a comic book artist at all. Back in Japan, where she grew up and still resides, she was not involved in the local manga scene, but instead did character design work for SEGA.

Several Eisner, Hugo, and Harvey Awards for Monstress later, Takeda must confess that she, together with writer Marjorie Liu, is onto something at the very least. What Takeda does admit, is that she wouldn’t be here if not for her perseverance and her good fortunes of striking collaborative gold with Liu, her partner in crime ever since the two bumped into one another on X-23 almost a decade ago.