Artist/Author Spotlight: 69erocento

I have decided to put either monthly or biweekly spotlights on Webtoon/ webcomic artists and authors who I believe deserve some recognition for their art and contributions to the webcomic community.

First off is 69erocento, the creator of :Rebirth. 

 :Rebirth is one of my favorite Discover Webtoons. The story involves time travel, a unique take on zombies, focuses on familial relationships, (specifically parent-child) and has gorgeous art. 

Recently, I found out that the artist, 69erocento, had a blog on WordPress. It’s filled with behind the scenes sketches, beautiful illustrations, and fanart. If you like :Rebirth, you have to check it out!

I’m going to focus on the writing and storytelling aspect of it first:

First, it’s definitely a different take on a zombie apocalypse, based more on the fantasy aspect. Rather than a zombie virus of some sort, (like in most stories), it’s more mysterious and fantastic than that: the zombies, or undead, as they’re called often, started to appear with the appearance of a mysterious eclipse that caused everyone to fall asleep.

However, the plot thickens when it’s revealed that not only do zombies appear after the eclipse, but people who have special powers. So far, only one has appeared, a clairvoyant who can see the future.

But the fantasy meets some unexpected science fiction with this: the main character, Noah, is actually a time traveler. He comes from a very mysterious future-past; we still are unsure of what happened. But we do know that he is very focused on his oldest son, Neo. Neo was clearly very important in the future-past, for reasons we are still unsure of.

However, this opens up another aspect that :Rebirth handles well; relationships. The main relationship in the series isn’t romantic, which is a nice change of pace. It’s the relationship between Noah and Neo, which is very complicated, as Noah sort of ignored Neo for the majority of his life. Needless to say, there’s a lot of bad blood between them, mainly with Neo pushing away Noah’s attempts to reconnect.

Balancing fantasy, science fiction, mystery, and familial relationships may seem like too much, but that is thankfully not the case here. Mainly because each of those genres are actually fairly mild and not pushed too hard; they are what they are. In fact, I think it’s the genre blending and the focus on family that makes :Rebirth such a good Webtoon.

That emphasis on the story not enough to convince you to check it out? Well, :Rebirth also has amazing, gorgeous art. Here are some illustrations:

 

This picture in particular is much lighter than the actual Webtoon, haha.

 

 

Both can be found on the artists’s blog!

To check out 69erocento’s blog, click here: Rebirth Webcomic. It may appear to be under construction, but trust me, just check out the illustrations, showcase, and cast section. You will not be disappointed.

She also has a YouTube channel where she makes music videos and speed paints of :Rebirth! And they’re amazing. My personal favorite is “Hurting for a Very Hurtful Pain”, which is also my favorite song of all of them. While it presents an alternate set of events that could happen in the story (very feelsy events) the song matches the characters so well; it shows what’s going on in their minds, rather than their masks. Although I also love “Grey One”, which represents Noah and Neo’s relationship perfectly. She also created a new one recently with the song “Lost One’s Weeping”, that’s also really good. You can find her channel here: 69Michi

And how could i not include a link to the comic? To check out :Rebirth, click here: :Rebirth

69Erocento is also the creator of another Discover Webtoon, a romance called Heartbleed. There’s only two chapters so far though, I’ll update this when there’s more!