Blending Manga, Art Nouveau and Maryborough Nights

Published on 01 December 2025

Story: Lizzie Macaulay, Bigger Picture Business Solutions. Photo: Cody Fox, Cleva Media

Felix Lewis still has his earliest drawings tucked away somewhere - a reindeer with three toes resembling bird feet, a wobbly texta sketch of Sonic the Hedgehog, and a school Dreamtime story. These childhood attempts may have been "incomprehensible," as Felix self-deprecatingly admits, but they marked the beginning of a creative journey that's now blossoming across the Fraser Coast art scene.

The turning point came around age 15 or 16, when Felix discovered Japanese shonen manga from the 1980s. Characters like Kenshiro from Fist of the North Star and Jotaro Kujo from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure captured his imagination. "I felt a real need to be able to draw characters like that," Felix recalls. Soon printer paper was covered with attempts at these heroic figures, and ideas for serialised stories began piling up in his notes app.

Growing up in Maryborough left its mark too. "Some of my favourite childhood memories come from us driving around town of a nighttime and seeing all these beautiful, haunting, old buildings being very softly lit by the orange streetlights," Felix shares. That eerie quality - simultaneously horrifying and attractive - still influences his work today.

While manga taught him that black and white art could be stunning, Art Nouveau helped refine how he draws female subjects. But his biggest influence? American artist Bernie Wrightson, whose horrific yet beautiful illustrations of Frankenstein remain a benchmark Felix strives towards.

Whilst digital tools and tricks abound, Felix remains committed to ink and pencil. "I think people really appreciate art that was made by hand with real material," he explains, acknowledging it's not always the easier path.

His current project for Story Bank's "Once Upon a Sign" exhibition pairs the Major Arcana with Mary Poppins imagery - 22 cards blending mystical symbolism with P.L. Travers' universe. The World card, featuring Pamela Travers herself, proved most challenging, requiring careful measurement to achieve symmetry alongside the four animals of the wind.

Beyond this commission, Felix dreams of creating mythology-inspired works, particularly a new rendition of Cernunnos, and eventually publishing his own comic series locally. And yes, Sonic and Astro Boy fan art is definitely on the horizon.

Felix Lewis' Major Arcana illustrations can be seen at "Once Upon a Sign: The Magic of Story and Divination" at The Story Bank.

This story appears in the December 2025 edition of Fraser Coast Scene, our monthly guide to What's On across our Cultural Services venues.

The creation of this story and photography was funded by Regional Arts Development Fund (RADF). RADF is a partnership between the Queensland Government and Fraser Coast Regional Council to support local arts and culture in regional Queensland.