We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Robert Wollstein a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Robert, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

It started around the early 2010s that I started to realize that my era of entertainment was coming to an end. Shows like psych and MythBusters we’re coming to an end. Then I saw the series teen titans go is when the Epiphany happened. I thought, my God…. This is the worst thing I’ve ever saw. And it is a middle finger to a show I used to like. I was so angry at the show that I wanted to do something else to get my mind off it. So I went to an old idea of why there wasn’t any proper black characters in anime and I was curious to see if it was even possible to have good-looking and approachable black characters. So I went to a very talented local anime artist named Venisha and asked her to draw anime version of my best friend. And then the ideas just kept flooding into my head. and with the help of my two writers John and Leo (they help translate my nonsense) we combined all the good ideas and created Boundless manga.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My name is Robert Wollstein and I go by the pen name Nexik. I chose this name because my real name sounded too white for a black series. lol

I am the author and Creator of Boundless manga. I come up with any ideas I want in the series and my team help flesh it out.

I got into the industry by self publishing the book. OK maybe not “self publish”. BookLogix does most of the legal stuff.

I also go to conventions on my own and try to beg people to buy the book. Mostly anime and comic inventions.

so what makes me so special…. I’m just an autistic guy with ambition, nostalgia withdraw, and rich parents. lol

I am very proud that we’ve got this far. I am very proud that I am still working with Venisha, John, and Leo. I am very proud of my hard work. But most importantly I am more proud of my teams hard work and talents.

As for the main thing I want… I want more people to buy the books! (boundlessmanga.com) and also an anime someday about the books.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

My goal is to make a manga series that is renowned throughout the entire world. and help inspire future creators of fiction (in both anime and other genres) that black characters and other people of color can work really really well in story. I want to make an anime of the series and air it all over the world in different languages (with black voice actors in all languages.) I want my team to be happy. And most importantly I want to the series to be hefty, satisfying and finished. Maybe 500 chapters? (it all depends on Venisha the artist)

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

We just been building this for a few years and I thought of getting Kickstarter a try. I even hired a foreign Kickstarter guy on craigslist to optimize our success…. It ended horribly and I highly NOT recommend Kickstarter or hire anyone who claims to run a Kickstarters. But then we licked at wounds and tried finishing the first chapter anyway. We went to the Atlanta comic convention and sold our first chapter. We sold over 100 books on the first day and we’ve been printing more books ever since. Right now we are at four chapters so far and I’ve been to dozens of conventions.

So here’s my advice for anyone who wants this gig in original series. There are no shortcuts, only hard work. Maybe you’ll get lucky, but most definitely you won’t. Just keep going no matter what. If you have a good idea then just keep the ball rolling and see if anyone is interested. Go to conventions and sell your series. Or maybe even posted online if you just want the attention…. You won’t get any money out of it and you might be invisible for a while, but go ahead. Just don’t give up.

Contact Info:

• Website: boundlessmanga.com
• Instagram: @boundlessmanga
• Facebook: @boundlessmanga
• Twitter: @boundlessmanga
• Youtube: @boundlessmanga
• Other: We have a pilot on webtoons. (boundless manga Pilot.)

Image Credits
The white guy is me. (Robert Wollstein.) The lady is the artist Venisha Penland, the guy staring into the distance is my main writer the Leo Longford. (he also wrote his own book called starlion thefts of the red nights.) And the guy in the hat is my backup rider and fight choreographer for John Miller. aka John Knight. I highly recommend you also interview my team as well. If you want their contact information please contact me again.