I'll have some MBQ with my Peepo Choo

No, this blog is not going to be just about Devil's Wake and Zuda-related promo-ganda. No siree. This particular post will be about another artist. Maybe some of you have already heard about this guy, but I found him completely by accident: browsing my fine local Half-Price Books (where, surprisingly, books and comics can be bought for a pittance of half the cover price), I found volume one of Felipe Smith's MBQ. Published by TokyoPop several years ago as one of their OEL manga line, its a frantic and fantastic depiction of fast-food life in America, done in true manga style. Writer Jason Thompson has written an insightful review of MBQ on his blog which I would recommend reading if you are unfamiliar with Felipe's work.

I'm excited to discover that Felipe has made good on his talent and is now publishing for Kodansha, one of the largest publishers in Japan. I remember vividly the one time that I met with Kodansha editors at one of the San Diego Comic-Cons in the nineties (Yes, I'm an old man that remembers when grunge was the crazy new fad that all the kids were into...) Anyway, the Japanese editors were very nice when I showed them sample pages from my comic Athena, but the very first question they asked has always stuck with me since then:

"What is your character about?"

Now, before you jump out of your jammies and tell me that its not a very surprising question, let me say that by that time, I've been to numerous "talent searches" and talked to numerous professional editors and artists. I had always heard a variation on the same theme: Work on your anatomy and backgrounds, tighten those pencils, practice still life drawings and just plain get better at drawing, dammit. No one, not a single person that I talked to, had ever asked me what I was interested in creating comics about. What kind of stories do I want to write? What kind of characters?

To me, that single question showed the incredible gulf between the industries, especially back then when "manga" was still a dirty word whispered in back alleys where third-gen VHS fan-dubs of Maison Ikkoku were traded. The American industry wanted artists first and foremost, the next Todd McFarlane or Jim Lee that can sell millions of copies of Generic Man based on their art alone. The Japanese industry wanted storytellers, people who had something to say with their stories and their art. They wanted comickers.

Its not surprising that talents like Paul Pope and David Mazzucchelli began to get published by Japanese companies back then. Idiosyncratic creators whose creations are unmistakably theirs. Its not a revelation to say that I was nowhere near as good as those artists then, and I never made the cut with Kodansha. I did leave the meeting, however, with an armful of gift manga and an inspired attitude to create comics that is my own.

Athena ended up lasting fourteen issues, a fact that I'm still proud of. Various factors in my life kept me from pursuing comics full time after that. I guess that a part of me will always wonder, if I had the tenacity to keep going, would it be possible for me to draw fifty comic pages a month in Tokyo like Felipe Smith? Would I even want to? I don't know. All I know is that I wish Felipe the best of luck and if you haven't checked out MBQ yet then you should. And if you happen to be in a Japanese bookstore, pick up Morning 2 magazine and check out his new work Peepo Choo. It looks awesome, from what I can tell.