Sho Murase

Even as a child, Murase made comic books. "My sister was my first reader, " she recalled.

Growing up in Barcelona, artist Sho Murase often felt like an outsider.

People were always asking, "Where are you from?"

When she went to Japan, her mother's homeland, she felt out of place, too. People were startled to hear Japanese spoken with a Spanish accent .

So when she moved to polyglot San Francisco eight years ago, it felt just right.

She's got an unusual match-up of sensitivity and drive. And her artwork, which she calls a hybrid of European and Japanese influences, speaks to an international audience.

If there is a thematic through-line in her manga, it is storytelling of the heroic kind, identity stories in which a protagonist overcomes hardship to triumph.

Her stories are bound to be an inspiration -- to girls, to young artists. In fact, to anyone aspiring to be his or her own superhero.

Exerts from the article :

"Now 75, sleuth Nancy Drew looks younger, hipper in graphic novels drawn by S.F. artist Sho Murase" by

Heidi Benson, Chronicle Staff Writer