Meet MinoMiyabi, the artist behind Lisa’s ‘Alter Ego’ graphic novel
The illustrator is known for adapting his style to the needs of his clients, which include Gorillaz, BoyWithUke, and now Lisa
MinoMiyabi illustrated "Alter Ego," the companion comic book for Lisa's latest album.
Courtesy of MinoMiyabi
Words by Andy Crump
Everyone has a side hustle in the gig economy, even internationally successful and high-profile musicians. Gorillaz produced Gorillaz Almanac in 2020; Yungblud dropped The Twisted Tales of the Ritalin Club 2: Weird Times At Quarry Banks University in 2020; Alison Wonderland’s Loner came out in 2022. And recently, Lisa, lead rapper of K-Pop giants BLACKPINK, who requires no introduction but gets one anyway out of journalistic courtesy, released Alter Ego, the companion comic to her debut solo album of the same name. The record premiered in February, while the comic hit shelves in March.
Maybe these performers each harbor a wistfulness for pursuing careers in music. Their ancillary works are graphic novels. That’s the first characteristic they share in common. The other, more important one, is MinoMiyabi, the artist responsible for bringing their visions to life on the page. Born in Yokohama, Japan and based in Los Angeles, MinoMiyabi got his start in the industry as a concept designer for Walt Disney Imagineering, before pivoting to comics, a la “The Chronicles of Noodle,” his contribution to Gorillaz Almanac; in between that and Alter Ego, he’s worked with a range of musicians that also includes BoyWithUke and Poppy, lending his distinct style to the stories they want to tell on the page instead of with sound.
A MinoMiyabi comic marries vivid liveliness with undergirded grit, as if acknowledging reality while accentuating it at the same time. In Alter Ego, that manifests through the outline; each character—Roxi, Kiki, Sunni, Speedy, and the protagonist, Vixi—represents a side of Lisa’s persona, with the secondary quartet coming to Vixi’s rescue when a gang of ne’er-do-wells trap her in virtual reality. It’s a classic premise out of the sci-fi playbook, given a fresh perspective (and a fresh coat of paint) by Lisa, certainly, and especially by MinoMiyabi, who I had the chance to speak with about the process of adapting his style to the needs of his clients, and vice versa.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Andy Crump: Do you think about projects like this in terms of adapting your style to suit the subject or adapting the subject to suit your style? Are there areas where you're doing both?
MinoMiyabi: Basically, each musician has their own preference of style, or storywise, or any part of the project. So I listen to their demands first. That’s the first basis. Then I will just try to add as much originality as I can. I feel like I’m just the artist, so I have the most privilege. “MinoMiyabi style” is a mixture of styles, and could be a very adjustable or changeable style. So I always try to add this taste a little bit on top of everybody's demands, and then try to mix with them, like a chemical reaction. That's what I'm always heading for.
AC: With that being the case, what specifically in Alter Ego, and Lisa, did you connect with? Where would you say the chemical reaction started?
MM: So, the script was actually written by Josh (Frankel, CEO of media company Zero Zero Entertainment) and the other writers, but the basic concepts all originated from Lisa. She herself portrayed herself into a basic story, characters, and concepts, and then Josh embodied everything into a specific idea for me to visualize. So it's very clear for me that it actually came from the written document. That's how the script goes—there’s no visuals or mood boards. (Josh) told me that it’s my job to visualize it.
So it's completely from scratch to 100 percent, and it's kind of tough. Sometimes, like with BoyWithUke, it's pretty hard for me, especially for the scene and the setups, and Gorillaz, if I look back, was just a few key words that Jamie Hewlett and the team provided me. It was challenging for me. So overall, I just added everything up that I’ve learned so far to establish Alter Ego’s concepts and styles. It’s a summary of everything I’ve picked up from five or 10 years ago.
AC: It sounds like you have an amazing role because you have so much freedom. At the same time, it sounds like you have a terrifying role because you have so much freedom. Is it a blessing or curse to have that much leeway? Ultimately, as you brought up earlier, you're trying to satisfy the client, but you're also trying to be you.
MM: Yes. It depends on how the client goes. Luckily I've worked with many clients who have been very flexible with me. They’ve already seen (my work), on my website or Instagram, and they’ve reviewed it. They think I have a variety of styles, so they feel like they’re offering me a chance to be creative, myself. It's kind of like being enclosed like livestock, running around in the meadow. So it's pretty much whatever I want.
But the thing is that we go back to the artist or musician before approval, so they can see my work in progress, and they come up with a new idea: “Oh, can you do this?” and then, “Can you do this more?” I shouldn't save myself from expressing it. Expressing too much to clients creates a burden for myself. It's not sometimes wise to do. At the same time, I have a way to offer them visual suggestions, right?
AC: Well, they're coming to you for a reason. They clearly know your work, and that’s why they want you for the project, which feels good. What about your work drew (Lisa) to you to begin with?
MM: So, she’s with Lloud, her new label, and Lloud contacted Josh at Zero Zero Entertainment; it was completely away from me, and from Lisa. Both of us just sat back to see what they were cooking. [Laughs.] We just come up with the outputs. So I know what to do, and she knows the position she’s in, and whether to add to the story or not. It was pretty much automated for me when Josh presented me with the opportunity.
But I still remember the first time that I heard about the project. Josh talked to me, and said, “Hey, there’s a new gig that might change your life.” I’ve worked with a few big musicians, musicians with big names, like BoyWithUke, and Gorillaz, and Poppy, and Yungblud, and Dance Gavin Dance, and Alice in Wonderland, from Australia; I thought, “They already started changing my life, so what will change my life more?” I couldn't believe that. It’s not about the level that the musicians are at, but how big the project that they're thinking of is. Lisa's is pretty big, so I’m experiencing a surprising time right now.
AC: Lisa and BLACKPINK are in their own separate galaxy. That must be a lot of pressure; now you're putting your work out for a fanbase that’s enormous and demanding. Did that influence the way you approached the work? In a case like this, I think the fans are harder to please than the client.
MM: Yeah, exactly. I agree with that. It’s another chemical reaction. At the same time, Josh is very good at handling the clients and the artists, so even thinking about the scale of the project, Josh doesn't care how big it is; he’s not trying to over-excite the artists. Otherwise, they’ll be happy before I’ve even finished it. For him, it’s about knowing what strings to pull. If I’m over-active, he'll say, “Finish this way, the deadline is this date.” It’s very constructive, the way he talks. He specializes in shaping projects, and I’m really appreciative that he brought me into this world.
AC: Is there a particular piece of (Alter Ego) that you’re particularly proud of?
MM: If you ask me about the exact composition from panel to panel, pages to pages, the comic is like a chained work, with the expressions, the sentences, chained to other sentences. I literally visualized each sentence first, like I’m storyboarding. I never think about the other pages, or any cliffhangers. I would just put up any storyboard panels to connect to each other, so that it goes smoothly in the flow of the story. At the same time, I tend to start adding myself into the original story. That’s my bad habit. So I try not to get away from the script. Instead, I try to adjust what they actually wrote in the script.
There's some magic about the comics. The end of the pages (in Alter Ego) hint at the next pages, something that makes us wonder about what's going to happen next. I would say it's just like a cliffhanger, and after connecting the storyboards to pages, then I start, exaggerating the cliffhanger, whether through the establishing part at the beginning (of the page) or any intonation through the accents and sentences. It's like a conversation, if I think about the intonation of the story.
AC: You're approaching the work holistically, from the very first panel. Do you often plan ahead? I know you're following somebody else's blueprint here, but do you think about going from page one to page two, and page two to page three? Or, when you're on page one, are you already thinking about page 10?
MM: There's no complete fixed answer about this; it's really a case-by-case basis. Josh provides a script based on the panels and pages. He names each list of the panels and the descriptions on the panels. I'm sure this is very basic for comic scripts, but I will always read the entire script first. English is not my mother tongue, so I read through as much as I can in my comprehension, and try to understand, overall, the entire flow of the story, and if this is a finished story, or if there’s something more to go with it. Then I'll start thinking about whether there has to be a big cliffhanger at the end. If there is, then I have to come back to each page, and look for a big transition for the story. It clicks most of the time with Josh’s script, because Josh has mostly the same chemical reaction I have to the storyline. So it's very smooth and easy work, I have to say.
I always add something that’s in the level already, something that enhances a dramatic situation. That’s how the audience is moved by the story. But it's pretty much based on the client’s vision. It would be like a violation to move away from what they told me to do. So it can be tough to find the freedom to express myself, because they may want me to stick closer to the story. It would be like gambling myself into the project.
Published on May 22, 2025
Words by Andy Crump
Bostonian culture journalist Andy Crump covers movies, beer, music, fatherhood, and way too many other subjects for way too many outlets, perhaps even yours: Paste Magazine, Inverse, The New York Times, Hop Culture, Polygon, and Men's Health, plus more. You can follow him on Bluesky and find his collected work at his personal blog. He’s composed of roughly 65 percent craft beer.