I wrote this before I went to San Diego Comicon, but it's still good. (And the next article is going to be a followup on middleman industry schmucks with no sense about hitting on women. And I'm going to name names).
I knew it would happen! I KNEW it! Oh, God, when am I ever wrong? Twenty years ago I came up with a term that more accurately described the economy of the Soviet Union -- State Capitalism -- and now EVERYBODY's using it!
I am always right, I always predict correctly and I've done it again. This time, I'm telling you why, while I like Manga and Anime -- a lot -- I'm declaring the same kind of war on it I have with the strong-suit boys (yes, yes, I know, as Germany did not and Israel seems not to -- you can't win a two-front war -- but that's never stopped anybody before).
I never declare war on anything that doesn't hurt me directly, but this time the Manglettes just bombed my Twin Towers:
Got told by a magazine -- and again, if you piss me off I'm not going to give anybody your name so you get free publicity, ha ha -- that my stuff was just lovely and they knew my work and they were excited I'd contacted them and they'd love to use it but -- BUT -- right now they were doing Manga and Anime and they'd certainly contact me when they were going to put together something more along the line of traditional comics.
Did you get that? Now I'm TRADITIONAL COMICS! Hear that, superhero guys? I'm traditional as a Quilleute grandma, so get used to it. You be careful, or I will do my own version of Superman and when whoever owns him comes after me, I will slap them with a "You stole it in the first place; have you never heard of Nietsche?" lawsuit and make lots of money settling out of court. Or I will do a version in Germany and call it Uebermensch and it will only come out as "Superman" when it's translated here. Better yet, I'll do it for the German community in Australia, because they're not part of the 1979 Barnes Copyright Convention (now watch somebody do this; I want 25% up front for this idea).
I would love to tell those mag people that Manga and Anime are new only in America -- that they are part of a long and very enjoyable tradition in Japan. Hello, ethno- and chrono-centricity from the white people, AGAIN.
Julie Sydor, my intern from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, said: Weird! On the site where it talks about submissions, they give all the "no big eyes/ice-pick nose" shpiel. I wonder if they caved under from pressure, or just decided they want money more than originality. Either way--dumb! They don't know what they had when they turned you down.
...maybe they just don't like guys with body hair? How much cherry blossoms, feathers, solar flares, and big eyes would you have to cram in to gain the right to draw a single chest hair? Ahh, the riddle of manga.
Although, at this point, I'm probably not really one who should talk.
Just as I predicted in: Manga Suit Quondam:
THE GIRLS HAVE FALLEN INTO THE SUPERHERO TRAP!
That's right, everybody draw the same and think the same and fricking goose-step to the same rules and ideas.
And as usual, I'm the weirdo on the outside, and everybody would JUST love to use my work, but it's Not Traditional and it's not based on how-to books and How Dare I try to solve these problems myself rather than just fucking tracing from somebody else's solutions, and How Dare I write stories that scare people and How Dare I yada yada...
I LIKE Manga and Anime, but do I have to DRAW THEM???
What gets me is I have a readership, and one in Japan that is dying to have me, and these IDIOTS at companies can't see that! So what if I don't fit in? If they wait until I fit in nothing will ever happen.
I DON'T FIT IN. That is the POINT. I'm not Chris Ware or his copy-artists, I'm not Neil Gaimond (thank you very much, we disagree -- nicely on panels -- on what you're allowed or not allowed to get away with in fiction), I'm not even Roberta Gregory (although we find each other places to sleep). I'm another artist in this field working in my own style, writing scary political stories disguised as Boy Love (and you'd think the Manga people would go nuts for that).
No, wait. It's not Manga's fault. It's not Superheroes fault. Those are just art forms. It's not the customers or the retailers or even the distributor. Those are people who know what they want and what their own bottom line is.
It's people on the bottom of the heap -- EDITORS.
Do you know the hiearchy? Ahem: Art and writing are highest. Artistocracy is artists and authors. Then come customers. Then retailers, then distributors, then publishers. Way down at the bottom, just before the serfdom of lazy agents and illiterate reviewers, is the editor. Think of the editor as kind of a wanna-be Baronette or minor marquis. They always think they're the most important person in any project. They think "Edited by" means "Master of the Universe who deigned to touch these pages" when what it properly should mean is "Somebody worked their ass off making sure the proofing and page-numbering and layout were clean" and when it too often means "Goes to dinner with colleagues and doesn't research the whole market and misses out on where the market is going and then gets all confused when their book goes into a tailspin and they get shit-canned and have to go back to organizing gaming minis. AND WRITING THEIR OWN COPY."
Damnit, I've got a market, worldwide, and I know I've got one in Japan. The only problem is getting past the no-do, no-work gatekeepers that make everybody else work in little tiny trenches while they reap the benefits.
Where's Commander Perry when you need him?
