Irene Flores and Ashly Raiti were runners-up in the third Rising Stars of Manga contest organized by TOKYOPOP, and in November, 2005, they saw the publication of the first of three Mark of the Succubus volumes. The story revolves around Aiden Landis, a normal 17-year-old mild-tempered and quite indecisive boy who's never certain about what he wants for himself...until he meets Maeve, a succubus-in-training...

Is Maeve going to make a man out of Aiden?

"Irene Flores and Ashly Raiti were runners up in Rising Stars 3, with a gritty, edgy, post-apocalyptic story called 'Life Remains,' TOKYOPOP editor Lillian Diaz-Przybyl said. "Aside from the great storytelling, what blew us away about these girls (young as they are) was their artistic flexibility and range. 'Life Remains' is part of a much larger piece that they're working on, but what they ended up pitching to us was a more traditional, but impressively inventive fantasy piece. We've got a lot of fantasy stuff in the works, so we didn't accept their initial idea, but then we saw some of their more avant garde noir-ish mystery thriller pages, and suggested they do somewhat of an artistic fusion. What they gave us was Mark of the Succubus, which is about a young succubus in training, Maeve, who is sent to the human world to learn how to interact with people (in order to better seduce them). However, she's a bit of a reluctant demon, and runs into problems when she first falls in love with her target, and then gets caught in a much larger Demon World conspiracy. It's a little gothy, a little shojo-romance-y, a little high school comedy and a lot of fun. There are some of the classic elements of manga present, but the visual style that Irene came up for the book is tremendous. Rather than the sketchy, rough 'Life Remains,' or the very polished fantasy work, Succubus has great character designs, a fantastic use of lighting, with many of the tones done in an almost pop-art style. Combined with Ash's witty and complex writing, this is a book that I'm very, very excited about."

In Part 7 of a series of features focusing on the next generation of manga-kas from the #1 publisher of manga in the U.S., find out if Flores has what it takes to leave her mark on us.

Q: How has it been for you since winning the RSOM contest?

A: WelI, I quit my job hoping to become a full-time manga artist. Good thing it actually worked out.

Q: What brought you to the Rising Stars of Manga contest?

A: Ashly Raiti and I work on this webcomic called 'The Castings,' and one of our readers posted the RSOM info on our forum. It seemed pretty interesting so we decided to enter.

Q: What have you learned from your experience with TOKYOPOP?

A: Deadlines are tough.

Q: What's the release date for Mark of the Succubus?

A: November 2005.

Q: Is Mark of the Succubus an extension of 'Life Remains,' the story that you told in RSOM3?

A: Nope. It's not even in the same universe. Our RSOM 3 entry, 'Life Remains,' was set in this post apocalyptic future (the best kind).

Mark of the Succubus is set in a time and place very much like ours. But not exactly...I mean, there are demons running around in the story, after all.

Q: What went into the creation of Mark of the Succubus?

A: The first series that Ash and I pitched to the TOKYOPOP editors didn't work out. Rob Valois and Lillian Diaz-Przybyl (our current editors) asked us to think of a couple of different story ideas.

There was this random drawing of a girl with tiny wings in my sketchbook and because Ash has this strange habit of giving all of my random characters a backstory, she decided that the girl was a succubus...one that wasn't very good at her job, though. We pitched that idea along with two others to Rob and Lillian. And they chose what finally became Mark of the Succubus.

Q: Who're the stars in Mark of the Succubus?

A: Maeve is the young succubus that doesn't quite fit the mold of the other succubi in the demon world of Erebus. She receives her permit to venture forth into the human world to study her prey...and hijinks ensue.

She meets Aiden, boy who gets pushed around by his parents and girlfriend, and Devin, his conspiracy-nut of a best friend.

Then there are the demons: Veril, an incubus and friend to Maeve, a high-ranking succubus named Sylne, and Junael, a shape-shifting imp.

Those descriptions were pretty vague, but that's what the official website is for.

Q: As a reader, what're some of your favorite manga/comics?

A: I'll try hard to narrow them down. Sin City and The Sandman, definitely.

On the manga end of things, it's a mix of shonen and shoujo... although I've been leaning toward shonen lately. Island, Hikaru no Go, Blade of the Immortal, Saiyuki, Fullmetal Alchemist.

Q: And how much have these influenced you as a creator?

A: Some are more influential than others and a lot of people actually notice the changes in the way I draw. I did a lot of cross-hatching when I was really into Kyung-Il Yang's (Island, Shin Angyo Onshi) art, and then switched to cleaner lines like Takeshi Obata (Hikaru no Go), and I've always loved the stark black and white a la Frank Miller (Sin City).

I've just tried to make all of that influence work together into my own style. I think I'll manage to pull it off someday.

Q: As a creator, what do you hope to achieve with Mark of the Succubus?

A: Wildly popular success. But if that doesn't happen, the chance to keep drawing manga would be pretty awesome, too.

Q: How long do you think it will take to finish Mark of the Succubus?

A: Another two years.

Q: And after that?

A: Probably doing laundry. [laughs]

For more on Flores and her creative partner Ashly Raiti and Mark of the Succubus, go to http://www.markofthesuccubus.net/

This interview originally appeared at http://www.newsarama.com and is used with their permission.