Who
is... Donna Barr? Donna
Barr has been drawing since 1954, writing since 1962, published since 1986,
and publishing since 1996.
She has a Bachelors' Degree in German, and
is a veteran of the United States Army (1970-1973).
Readers worldwide
follower her THE DESERT PEACH, STINZ, BOSOM ENEMIES, HADER
AND THE COLONEL, among others.
She is recognized by her peers as
a pioneer in the field of drawn books and their use in new technologies of distribution
and reproduction. She is a contributor to the world's largest webcomics site,
moderntales.com, and its affiliate
sites.
She achieved her lifetime career goal in 2004 when her life's
work -- past, present and future -- has been accepted as part of the San Diego
State University's Library's Special Collection, and will be available to students
and professors for research, and to the public for exhibits.
She can
be emailed at barr at stinz dot com (remove spam barriers). She answers. Keep
the sentences short.
Mobile Suit Quondam (Or: She's Got Betty Boop Eyes) By Donna Barr
Barb Lien, author of Gun Street Girl and I got onto a long email volley over manga.
(Before we do anything else, if you want to decide if what I do is Manga or not, go here and order a copy. That's my latest book, Bosom Enemies #4, "Bridgework." I'll even autograph it for you fanvolk. Ain't I generous.)
I shamelessly took these email conversations all apart, because Barb said she was going to be writing her own article about manga. She'll be saying what a lot of other writers will be saying about it -- that it brings in girls, that it's new and different, and that everybody "from housewives to businessmen" reads it in Japan.
At first I thought of approaching the question as though it were for today – but it done come to me that I could make the point – and have a lot more fun, which is, after all, the point – by pretending this is far in the future, maybe the middle of the century (oh, like I'm going to live that long).
And I'm introducing a new term here, to cover a new art-form that is taking over the American market. I dunno – let's call it Solyanka (It's a Russian word for a kind of stew, and means "confused," "mish-mash," "Put in any damn thing and boil it.").
Welcome to 2042:
Solyanka – it's a form of violent monotone semi-web political 3-D storytelling from Eastern Europe, known for its hunch-backed big-headed characters who seem to float while they walk -- and it's taking over the commie book world.
Where did Solyanka come from? It's been said that the original artist, Solveg Yanka – hence the punning nickname – based his drawing style on smuggled copies of the British sci/fi puppet show, Thunderbirds, and his story-telling on Sesame Street after it had been taken over by the Fox network, and reworked for an American audience that found Big Bird "too tolerant."
I asked Neil Barb, of Fun Fleet Girl, about a space-age naval prostitute and detective:
Is Solyanka a just another cookie-cutter mainstream? Is going Solyanka just falling out of manga into another mass-produced form -- the same safe old trap?
(We both kind of prefaced our stuff by saying No We Don't Hate Manga – but we sure as hell hate having it shoved down our throats as our only choice. That's a paraphrase.)
I think the word "Solyanka" is being used to mean EE-style-books-that-aren't-Sailor-Moon. At least in Freedomland and Jesusland (what we used to call the USA).
So... are we looking at this from a Mainstream vs. Mainstream NOT viewpoint – which is just a marketing question -- or are we looking at it as an original artists and writers – an artistic question?
At what point do you realize you don't HAVE to be part of a group - or are you only remaining part of that group for marketing purposes? And how long do you get to be part of a group if an editor decides you don't fit? A lot of people don't fit into the narrow parameters of Girlamatic.
Neil (all the italics):
The problem here for me is not defining Solyanka, but defining "mainstream". If "mainstream" is "the new thing that the majority seems ready to accept," then maybe. But when has "mainstream" meant "new" first and foremost? Hasn't "mainstream" meant "trying desperately to tinker with tiny changes to the rather old" for some time now?
I have to answer that question. Manga was new back in the '90's. Will somebody say Solyanka was new back in the '40's?
We have an old mainstream. Solyanka is growing. Solyanka will be better than what the Manga mainstream has been for years. Why? Because Solyanka is unafraid, and in fact that's what people like about it. It's the product preferred by those who like books that make them think. And look-- they're winning.
Donna: I have to add here that the Jesusland Prime Fuehrer just won. While the "market" in Freedomland hated his product, and wouldn't have bought it if you sprinkled it with lapis meth.
Neil:
As to the question "What's Solyanka?" The "obvious" answer: EE comics and/or an art style made popular by EE comics, typified by what is popularly known as "float foot " (as Manga used to be called "big eyes."). Let's call the American Solyanka-influenced comics "Amiyanka", for lack of a better term. Of course, this is a generalization and leaves out great Mongolian comics such as Lone Horse and Yogurt and Saddles of the Immortals.
The young people that are reading Solyanka are also DRAWING it because it's not that hard to learn. This may someday break the stranglehold of prejudice amongst some comic book readers that the only "professional" comic book art is the stuff that looks exactly like manga art. And, even if it doesn't, we'll be getting a whole new generation of DIY storytellers -- and many of them will be college graduates.
Donna: But the Solyanka style is easy to learn too – because it's all the same. Solyanka can be learned by anybody who isn't afraid to use a lot of black.
Well, that was fun.
At this point, let's go back to the present (2004) and see how Barb answered a bunch of questions I threw at her. And I was brutal in cutting the answers – I only left the juicy bits. Barb's going to hunt me down at San Diego and beat me with a monkey stick.
HOW DOES ONE KNOW MANGA WHEN ONE SEES IT?
1. Manga characters, in general, have larger eyes, and sometimes larger heads, than the rest of their body. An early guy in the history of manga saw American cartoon character BETTY BOOP and said to himself: Ah! I see what they're doing!
2. Manga stuff is not about the stuff you see, it's about the stuff that's going on. …When it's not relevant to what's going on, we don't bother the reader with stuff like this.
3. Characters in manga do two things a LOT: MOVE and NOT MOVE…. And there's extra shorthand for emotions, like a nosebleed for lust.
COULD BARB'S COMIC GUN STREET GIRL BE A MANGA?
It's fast-paced; it places total emphasis on characterization; it has a loudmouthed, strong, indeed sometimes violent and/or angry female protagonist…
WHAT? Then how come I got thrown off Girlamatic? Boy, they claim they want one thing, then go all nervy when you do it… or was that just Lea being touchy? We got so many touchy people in this industry, and all we're doing is commie books!
…a manga can't be a manga without looking something like a manga.
So we should all get those How to Draw Manga books if we want to stay market hot?
It's a combination of storytelling style AND visual emphasis. So, no, GSG is not a manga.
Now I'm confused. If you put together storytelling and good visuals, you're not a manga? Or did I just mess this volley up with the cut-and-paste? AAAHHHHHHgh. Nobody should have given me a word processor, any more than Dan should have bought me a chain-saw for Valentine's Day (the sweet romantic lad!).
IS THE THE DESERT PEACH A MANGA BOOK?
No, I don't think that Desert Peach is manga, partly because you're not influenced by manga per se (I presume).
I started drawing in 1954. Whadda YOU think?
I'd say no, but it's a difficult question because the newer episodes have a style that isn't all that unfamiliar if you want to market to the manga readership, it wouldn't be a bad fit, actually.
HA! I knew it was all about marketing!!! (Actually, I think Barb's talking about my other work on Moderntales. The Black Manuscript stuff. Old Stinz stories. That was around a lot longer than The Desert Peach. Ya gotta know that I did thousands of drawings and stories before I ever published anything – and I burned 'em. They just weren't good enough. So those of you who get tormented by amateur webcomics (oh, lord, I hear the bitching) can know that at least I'm making the effort.
(See the big blank in here? That's because the paragraph that should be here got cut for a later article – and you can just hit Ralph Thompson in the head for sending me so many good ideas through email).
The story-lines in manga can be about anything, and non-genre.
But the whole art-style is genre. Are there any NON-Genre-art-style "manga." DOES an artist need role models? Or draw in popular style? For any other purposes but a paycheck?
This is about the future of drawn book. Not just which genre gets to rule the commie book market.
Stop and think and TRY to see what I mean by "non-genre." "Independent." "Original." Get on a damn bus and collect your own faces, for crimeny's sake. And stop copying dialogue from HBO.
Is the Peach manga? Well, it's always appealed to the Japanese. An owner of a major comics shop in Tokyo stopped and made me draw the Peach all over – *sob* -- a brand-new reproduction Luftwaffe jacket (par'm me while I stop and get over the anxiety attack about using a gold marker on that much good leather). And now that the POD machines of Booksurge have opened in Australia, I'm getting closer to that market.
Anyway, I think we've very happily managed to make this question of what's mainstream/manga/freebird more confusing than ever. Are you proud of me?
Perhaps I can help the Japanese to begin to break the stranglehold of their OWN mainstream! Can you see Japanese readers, thinking they HAVE to draw them big eyes to get published -- discovering they DON'T? Maybe drawing people as they actually see them on the street, and not imitation white people?
Maybe someday we can all draw Solyanka.
And while I'm at it, if it's simply a question of marketing, then damnit, for purposes of marketing I hearby declare The Desert Peach to be manga – and if you don't believe me, go to http://www.moderntales.com/dbarr/Pithed04LipsMod.jpg You tell me.
And now, a quick note, since somebody asked:
You know, it occurs to me that I don't really know what this "submission engine" is... does this have anything to do with The Panel, or what? Not that it matters... this is delightful publicity...
A Submission Engine is a place on the net that allows you to submit things -- like photos and stuff - to show up on the net.
We were going to call the column Don't Get Me Started, but that had been used a lot already. But the idea of Submission Engine – as a mechanical system that crushed its users -- truly fits what we all go through in the biz.
