Ingrid Ochoa
Ingrid Ochoa is the author and illustrator of the online comic “The Kiss Bet” featured on Webtoons. Her journey toward millions of followers for her story and art began with a typewriter in Honduras. Her family had moved from Mexico when her father, Adrián Ochoa was called to preside over the San Pedro Sula Mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Her school in Honduras required her to learn how to type on typewriters. “I would write on a typewriter for summer because we had to learn how to type. And I was the fastest one in my class,” Ochoa says. She wrote “thick stories” on that typewriter and soon the stories became something others wanted in on. “But all my classmates would pass it around and read it and then I would bring them the next chapter and the next chapter.”[1]
A few years later, at the age of 17, she discovered that she could also draw. From there she combined her skills and created comic-like stories and uploaded them on websites.
“Nothing ever took off,” Ochoa says. “But that's one of the valuable lessons that I learned is you need to try and try and try and try and try again until you become successful.”[2]
After she was called to serve a full-time mission in Taipei, Taiwan, she put her creative mind away to concentrate on her service. After her mission concluded, and after she went through a breakup, her mind turned back to daydreaming of story lines. She began creating a story based on the events and people from her own life. The idea for “The Kiss Bet” was born: an 18-year-old girl who hasn’t yet experienced her first kiss. She makes a bet with her best friend to kiss a stranger.
She started uploading weekly chapters of her story on Webtoons. She also entered the 2018 Webtoons competition and received honorable mention. “I got 100 followers the first time I posted and then I was like, ‘Ah, I found something.’” Ochoa says. “I remember when I went to bed, and then when I woke up, I had 100 more [followers] and then 500. And then suddenly, I had 1,000 [followers].”[3]
Before her work began to draw a salary, her parents expressed concern for her career and income. She was able to be hired in the communication department of the Church of Jesus Christ. During her first week of work she received word that Webtoons wanted to feature her story. So she began to work full-time at both jobs. “The Kiss Bet” became a Webtoon original, she gained more than four million weekly readers, and knew it was time to decide between her two careers. Through fasting and praying, she received a clear answer, which came directly through the support of her family. So she continues to write, illustrate, and upload her comic for millions of fans throughout the world.
“Heavenly Father has been a huge guide,” Ochoa says. “He's not going to make me quit my dream job if He knows that it's something that I love and brings me so much passion. . . . And I also realized that I want my story to be clean, family content for anybody to enjoy and there's not a lot of stuff [like that] out there at the moment. … And I think Heavenly Father trusted me that he wanted to help me with that. So He wants us to do what we love.”[4]
Ochoa currently lives in Utah.
