Two Chosen Ones. Two merboys whose fates have been tightly intertwined by a prophecy where one has been chosen to be the guiding light for his people and the other was chosen to kill said guiding light to save his people. This is the plot to Wendy Martin‘s CASTLE SWIMMER, which launched on January 5, 2019, on WEBTOON and has reached close to 330 million views.
Here’s its premise:
When Siren, the shark prince, comes face to face with Kappa, the Beacon whose death will free his people from a terrible curse, he finds himself unable to kill him. As the two hatch a plan to find a way to save Kappa and Siren’s people without any bloodshed, the two merboys fall in love with each other but will their destinies allow them to be together?
CASTLE SWIMMER has received overwhelmingly positive reviews with many praising Martin’s expert storytelling, beautiful artwork, and handling of complex themes about fate, free will, and the pressures society has on a singular person to save the world. The Beat spoke with Martin on the release of the print volume of Castle Swimmer and her creative process on writing the story.
This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
HILARY LEUNG: Congratulations on the print version of Castle Swimmer! How does it feel to have a physical copy in your hands?
WENDY MARTIN: Kinda weird. I actually never thought it would be a physical copy because when I got hired by WEBTOON and I was going to do a scroll format, I was like, “Alright, scroll format; it’s online forever and it’s never going to be a book.” I don’t know why I just decided that. The whole transition process into a physical book seemed like such an ordeal that I didn’t think it was going to happen. So the fact that I’m at this point is very cool.
LEUNG: What was it like to compare the scroll version versus the book format?
MARTIN: When I was transitioning to the book, I had a chance to make some small changes. At this point, I consider this as the best version of the story. When you’re working on the update schedule with WEBTOON and the scroll format, you’re just trying to get it done as fast as possible because it was due two days ago. But working on the book, there’s a little bit more time and I had people helping me. I can go back and go, “This little panel here has always been bothering me. I can go and fix that.” Little things here and there, within reason, because you never want to be redrawing your entire book. I’m sure most readers don’t know this but there’s always those little things that kind of bother you and you go, “Man, I wish I could go back and change that.”
LEUNG: How did your love for storytelling and art begin?
MARTIN: I’d say at a pretty young age. I was always interested in making comics. It started with the little strips of newspaper and I just got into graphic novels, manga, every form of comics. When I was younger, I read a lot of books, but stories from video games, for whatever reason, really inspired me to make comics. That was a really big inspiration for Castle Swimmer and anything else I worked on.
LEUNG: Any video game in particular?
MARTIN: It was always the artsy games that people argue is just a game. I really liked Journey and ABZÛ. They’re kind of the PS2/PS3 era. They’re one of those artistic immersive games. Shadow of the Colossus, for some reason, was a big inspiration for Castle Swimmer. I didn’t know if people could put that together but that was a big one.
The idea for Castle Swimmer sparked from the Kingdom Hearts video game, the “Little Mermaid” section. It’s funny because I wasn’t actually inspired by The Little Mermaid but the Little Mermaid within Kingdom Hearts.
LEUNG: I saw that you have another webcomic in the works and it’s another fantasy. What is it about the fantasy genre that pulls you in?
MARTIN: I’ve always been into fantasy. One small thing I would say, kind of as a joke, is that if I’m doing a fantasy, I don’t have to do as much fact-checking, studying, and history and stuff. It’s fantasy so whatever I say goes. But I think the bigger thing for me, more than the fantasy, I’m just obsessed with human characters that are half-animal/half-creature. I’ve always been interested in that, and they always happen to have a fantasy setting. I really love world-building, and post-apocalyptic worlds are super fun.
LEUNG: What was the creative process of building this world? How did it all come together? How did you plan this all out?
MARTIN: I planned it very chaotically. I would probably be more organized in the future. I tried making this webcomic earlier–this is my first webcomic so there’s an early version of it out there. I’ve tried making this comic a few times, and through trial and error and so much time working on it, I just know a lot of the things that I want to do. A lot of these ideas are ingrained. Sometimes I’ll make dramatic changes on the fly but for the most part, I’ve been constructing this world about mermaids underwater and their whole little society for a long time in my head.
LEUNG: You posted a first draft of Castle Swimmer years ago and then you stepped away for a couple years because you felt like you needed to grow as an artist and as a storyteller. What kind of things did you do during that time and how did you grow?
MARTIN: I used to consider myself a slow learner. I think the reason is because I would get fixated on these stylistic things that I would do for character shapes and proportions and they would stunt my learning of actual anatomy. So when I stepped away from that comic, I realized I was stuck. I put in the effort to start learning anatomy, better proportions, and really studying.
I think it was more of an art block and I think when artists reach that point, you have to take a break and start doing something differently. It’s a lot of experimenting. It was mostly with my artwork and my art style but I think I did improve in storytelling without realizing. I was writing a bunch of fanfiction for a lot of shows I was into; I just happened to be practicing that without noticing. Sometimes when you’re working on a comic and you feel stuck like that, the best thing to do is to step away, reevaluate, or restart.
LEUNG: When it comes to LGBTQ+ stories or stories that have the main characters in a same-sex relationship, that always becomes the focal point. Sometimes it’s on purpose because it’s a romance and sometimes inadvertently. The romance is not that prevalent in the first volume. How did you balance the romance, their individual growths, the world building, and the themes?
MARTIN: Part of the original inspiration for the story is…I was leaning more towards Avatar the Last Airbender vibe, that kind of journey for the characters to go on. I’ve always seen those stories when I was younger and wondered, “Why can’t they be gay?” and I’ll be writing fanfiction on the side. I’ve always had this idea in my head of a fantasy-adventure that you typically see and they just happen to be gay. But I also want to put a focus on the romance because I like the romance.
I think, just the fact that I work in fantasy settings, helps a lot with that, because there’s so much intrigue when you make up this fantasy world that people are already curious about like, “How does this work?” or “What’s going on with the cast? How do they live their lives in this underwater world?” Just the setting alone helps explore those things on top of the romance.
I remember, during Season 2, I decided to split them up and it was not a popular decision. It went on way longer than I thought. The fans were very upset with me and I understand. If I was a fan, I would also be like, “Why can’t they be together yet?”
Part of me was very happy with that decision because the original reason was to make sure that they both had their own growth and individuality aside from the relationship, even though the relationship is very important to them and important to their characters. Maybe I’d do it differently if I did it again, maybe a little shorter time apart, but I really wanted to make sure that they, as characters, existed outside of their relationship. The romance, the relationship itself, was very easy to write. I was definitely into romance and I could get into the angst and the romance between them. I think it was just finding ways in between that. Whenever nothing romantic was happening, we can explore the growth and the world building.
LEUNG: You were mentioning that you weren’t quite expecting them to be separated for that long. Was that one of the things when you were writing that kind of surprised you? Maybe you planned a character to be a certain way or the story to go a certain way but it didn’t go as you wanted?
MARTIN: Yes. Definitely. All the time when I’m working on the webtoon. Everything always just took so much longer than I though it would. This is my first time really committing to a long form story. I want to have all of these adventures within these few chapters but instead it takes a year for me to finish. And it just kept going on and on and I just thought, maybe I should cut out some of these extra things that I was originally going to do. Part of that was a learning experience for me.
LEUNG: Did you have a character who changed from the original draft version?
MARTIN: Definitely. I feel like that happens with every single character I’ve created actually. As soon as I’m drawing in the story, their personality changes. For example, Siren and Kappa’s personalities were originally swapped. Siren was a little more sassy and confident, and Kappa was more self-conscious and angsty like Siren is now, which as I’m writing them and drawing them interacting, it fits so much better. It almost happened naturally without me knowing it. Their personalities totally swapped. And it was like, “This is perfect. This is how the characters should be.”
LEUNG: Where was that decision to switch them?
MARTIN: I feel like when I made the first draft, a lot of the dialogue wasn’t working. I think that’s the bigger indicator. I know this scene is going to happen, and this is the conversation they’re going to have, so those scenes still happen but the dialogue ended up being so different. This character is less confident now, this character is now more flirtatious and I’m like, “Oh this really fits.”
I think that’s also part of being a newer creator; this is the third major comic project I’ve worked on. So I think a lot of these changes happening are just a part of me figuring things out.
LEUNG: Siren has a very complicated relationship with his mom. What was the thought process behind the creation and development of their relationship?
MARTIN: From the start, I really wanted to explore more complicated relationships like that. I had this idea of a complicated problem where we want to kill this character to save these other characters. If I made one of them unlikeable it would’ve been an easy decision for the reader. But I attempted to make everyone kind of likeable and you understand where they’re coming from. So I applied that to Susca, Siren’s mom, and I really enjoy writing more complicated dialogue between characters, especially family members. I think everyone has had heavy conversations with family members here and there or complicated relationships with certain family members. I know I have. I really wanted them to still have a somewhat positive relationship but how do you do that when there are still all these issues that have come up?
Sometimes when I write my characters, I pretend I’m talking to someone in my real life. If they did these things, how would I talk to them? How would I react? What would I need from them to move past this and still have a relationship?
I try to balance that because sometimes that’s a lot to put on these little cartoon mermaids in this little fantasy story. But I do this to approach these more complicated relationships. I like to put myself in these characters’ positions, like if my family member did this, how would I react? How would we go forward? So I try to explore that especially in the main characters and their relationships.
I really like doing parallels with characters. There are little moments like Susca giving Siren a lot of time to do this and letting him procrastinate and she herself is procrastinating because there are things that she has to talk to Siren about that she’s been putting it off. You can kind of see how they’re related and part of their flaws in approaching this situation.
LEUNG: I read the bonus story and I loved it. What was the decision behind writing that particular story?
MARTIN: The reason why I thought of that immediately is because that was originally going to be a scene in the first season of the webtoon. But we were talking about the pacing, and it was dragging on in certain parts. My editor suggested that we cut out this scene so we can get back to the main stuff, which I think worked out. But I also really liked that scene so I’m really happy I got to put that in the book.
LEUNG: What can you tell us about your new Bird Boy work? I saw that it’s on hiatus.
MARTIN: It’s been tough. You’re at this point in your career where you wish you had more time to just work on both of these stories at the same time. I’m so inspired for one and so hyped for this final season of Castle Swimmer. I cannot wait to jump into it. I’m also so inspired by this new story. On days off when I’m supposed to be resting, I’ll be drawing all the Bird Boy stuff.
I’m very excited about this new story. It’s a fantasy romance but in this one, I wanted to explore poly relationships between multiple people. So we have these three bird boy characters that are going to be romantically entangled and they travel with this female hunter character and she has multiple relationships with different women traveling across the world. There’s a lot of things I’m still sussing out. In terms of the romance, that’s what I want to explore: these poly relationships between multiple people. I think it would be so fun to write relationships involving more than one people and how to balance that. How do they interact? How do they figure things out as a group? So I’m really excited about that.
As far as the setting, it’s a post-apocalyptic world taking place in the sky. There are chunks of Earth around and people have to fly planes. Basically, I knew I wanted to make a story about bird people and I need to give them a reason to fly around all the time, so why don’t I just break up the Earth so they literally have to fly everywhere. Everything else, like the angel creatures, it was like, let’s expand upon that theme that enemies can also be these winged characters so that’s where my mind is at this point. It doesn’t have a name yet; there’s still a lot of things to develop. But I’ve been having so much fun and I’m so happy that I have readers who are already interested even though it’s not a complete story yet. It’s super encouraging.
LEUNG: One final question. What can the readers expect from the final season of Castle Swimmer?
MARTIN: Without spoiling anything, it’s every big thing that I’ve been preparing for and building up towards in the other seasons. When I look at this season, this is a crazy season with all of this stuff that’s been happening. There have been some big moments in the past seasons but by comparison, it just kind of feels like they’ve been hanging out. I’m very excited to get into it. I’m pretty confident that the readers are going to really enjoy it.
Castle Swimmer Vol. 1 published by Ten Speed Graphic, collects Episodes 1 to 19 of the webtoon. The print version of Vol. 1 will release on Oct. 22, 2024.
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