Lots of people want to be manga creators, the same way lots of people want to be movie directors or be musicians in rock bands. Unfortunately, most of those people don't have the will to actually try it, let alone the drive and the imagination to keep doing it for over ten years. Tavisha and Rikki Simons are two creators who put so much passion and dedication into their work that one could easily believe they'll always make their own very unique kind of manga...even when they become full-time residents at their beloved Merridiah University.

~Rob Tokar, Editor

Megan was a young photography student attending Santa Monica Community College. She began having very real and troubling dreams the night she saw a suicidal young man named AJ Crandall walk fully clothed into the ocean and vanish in the fog. Since then, Megan's curious therapist, Petier Troia, seemed to provide little comfort from Megan's dreams, dreams where she visited with the deceased AJ in a tranquil summer-set meadow. Events took a turn for the bizarre during one troubled sleep in which Megan found herself enlisted as a living ShutterBox exchange student at Merridiah University of Spiritual Education (or M.U.S.E.). She returned to Merridiah University on December 25th to begin her education as a living Muse. When she once again met the brothers AJ and Dane, she also learned that her therapist, Petier Troia, was in actuality Headmaster Petier Troia, probably the most important Muse in all of Merridiah.

With help from the ghost who lives inside her camera, the secrets behind the great gothic castle that is Merridiah University began to unravel for Megan the night she peered through the shutter of her camera lens, opening a mystery inside a mystery, inside a mystery, inside a mystery...

Tavisha and Rikki Simons met at Disneyland in February, 1990 and were married on October 31, 1994. Tavisha and Rikki create manga under the studio name of Tavicat along with Tavisha's invisible, belligerent muses. They currently live in Los Angeles, California.

TAVISHA:
An American-born artist of Japanese and German descent, Tavisha first started drawing in the anime and manga style when her grandmother plopped her down in front of a television showing Kimba the White Lion and said, "This cartoon is Japanese, just like you." Tavisha feels a deep cultural connection with anime and manga and has always strived to be an independent artist with an original vision.

RIKKI SIMONS:
Writer and artist on such books as Sushi Girl, Ranklechick and his Three Legged Cat and Reality Check, Rikki has also done voice-overs and background color design on TV's Invader Zim.

Megan Amano
Eighteen-year-old Megan has been transported from the plane of Earth to a university in the afterlife called Merridiah. Merridiah feels more like home to Megan than Earth...though, perhaps the brothers AJ and Dane have something to do with that...

Adrien Jay "AJ" Crandall
Although he has been reincarnated over 500 times, AJ has never allowed himself to live past 18. With every suicide, he finds himself back at Merridiah University.

Damien L. "Dane" Crandall
Known as the Angel of Death Unbalanced, Dane lives to be inscrutable. He can reincarnate himself at will and often only does so to interfere with the lives of his brother, AJ.

Petier Troia
Headmaster of Merridiah University and Megan's therapist on Earth.

Thomas
AJ's theatrical, flamboyant, cross-dressing, roommate.

Dagny
Megan's best friend on Earth, Dagny is also attending Merridiah University...but how?

Caroline
Caroline is a hateful, spiteful, cunning, selfish diva of a muse...and those are a few of her better traits.