It's Time to Get Things Started

An interview with Illustrator Amy ‘Mimi’ Mebberson

Part 1 of 2 (link to Part 2)
Click on any image to largify

Something amazing happened at the end of the 1960’s. Now I apologise to all of you that reached the last months of this epic decade perhaps at an age above 6 and as such maybe have a slightly different take, but please bear with me. You see, until that time, the highlights of my life had been receiving my first collection of plastic dinosaurs (which drove me to not only be able to name them but also recite their Latin designations ... and of course employ them to attack and destroy all the Cowboy and Indian figurines which to that time had been my play-time staples); the moon landing that July that was SO COOL if for nothing else because I got to stay up late to watch it live (which drove me to want to be able to travel to the stars and back ... with my dinosaurs in tow, of course); and the shocking realisation a little over a year earlier that my parents were actually going to keep my new-born sister and not return her to the hospital (which drove me to so much anguish that I can’t even begin to describe it all here).

It was in mid- to late 1969 when quite a buzz was moving among the local parents and teachers. Even we wee ones were hearing that the evil device known as television was going to try something radical, something unheard of ... it was going to try and help kids learn in a non-commercial, even wholesome environment. This widely anticipated moment came then on November 10th, 1969. My family and I crowded around our 15” black and white TV to watch history unfold before our eyes, namely the premiere of none other than Sesame Street. The show, of course, included an amazing combination of the great Jim Henson's Muppets, who not only had their own quirky ways but also interacted with real humans. It was for my 6-year old brain like a great lightning bolt from the heavens had charged into me and opened up a gateway to a new world!

Those first few shows were crammed full with animation, live shorts, as well as culturally relevant references galore. According to the modern fo(u)nt of knowledge, Wikipedia: ‘It was the first pre-school educational television program to base its contents and production values on laboratory and formative research, and the first to include a curriculum "detailed or stated in terms of measurable outcomes".’ By its 40th anniversary in 2009, the phenomena that is Sesame Street had grown so that today it is broadcast in over 120 countries with an additional 20 independent international versions being also aired.

And more importantly to me, after that first show, the Muppets became my obsession. Though I understood somewhere deep inside that they weren’t ‘real’ living things, their humour, their ability to express themselves and the limitless variety of forms they came in caught hold of every fibre of my imagination.

My respect for the genre and especially the brilliance that Jim Henson and those that followed him shared with us all remains unshakeable through to today. I still find my eye automatically drawn to anything that was or is even in the most remote fashion influenced by these creations. I include here such examples as the amazing interactions of characters in movies such as ‘The Dark Crystal’ and ‘Labyrinth’; or the wide range of ‘Star Wars’ creatures that owed their existence if not in total (Yoda) then in part to this method; or even ultimately so much of the stop-motion and CGI effects of today’s films, ranging from ‘Toy Story’ to even the more dark ‘9’ or even ‘Coraline’. And it is especially true when someone has the talent to bring such vibrant characters to life through illustration.

Amy Mebberson does just that. Amy – or ‘Mimi’ as she is often known as on-line – is an ultra-busy artist working on both Muppet and Pixar comics for BOOM! Studios. Even though BOOM! has not been on the scene that long, it is already gaining a very strong reputation in the market, putting together an impressive list of titles, with top-quality graphics and stories. Their commendable focus is ‘simply’ to bring back comics to kids, with stories written that seek to achieve the same targets as those started back in 1969, namely engage, enchant and enrich audiences’ lives. And if that weren’t enough, Amy is also very well-known in illustration circles and beyond for her expressive and spot-on style, which ranges from the sultry and sexy to the uniquely imaginative, often even with a strong nod to some of the greats of animation throughout the past decades.

We were very fortunate then to catch Amy between deadlines and the high demand on her regular appearances at comic-cons everywhere!

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Hi Amy, welcome to the show (or is it Mimi ... and if yes, why Mimi? Just curious, my step-mom is also ‘Mimi’ but in her case it’s short for Marjorie).
My on-line name of Mimi goes back to my music study days, when I first joined the ‘net. ‘La Bohème’ is my favourite opera, so I borrowed the name of its rather fragile heroine, having sung a lot of it by then.

Speaking of journeys, can you describe how you came to focus on a career in illustration?
I have drawn about as long as I could hold a pencil. My mother has the picture I did when I was 21 months old to prove it.

Still, I never got a lot of encouragement to seriously pursue it as a child. I guess my parents figured I drew so insatiably that I needed no encouragement and I was managing just fine under my own steam (laughs).

In fact, during my last 2 years of high school and my first year of University, my career choices went from vet to animator to classical singer. I settled on classical singing and got my degree in music.

However, further study in London convinced me that an opera diva career wasn't for me and I went back to what I'd done all along, which was drawing. I returned to Sydney and spent five years at Disney's animation studio there, which I loved. After the studio was shut down in mid 2006, I relocated to the States with my husband and switched over to comics.

You mention in your on-line profile that you’re ‘just a Sydney girl living in Oregon, making a living drawing funny pictures. I want to be Charles Schulz or Brad Bird.’ Other than these gentlemen, who are / were your biggest inspirations, even from other walks of life in the arts (fine arts, not-so-fine arts, etc.)?
That's tough. I really don't have a list of people who have guided me to where I am in terms of inspiration.

I admire the greatness in anyone who has made a difference in the world, whether it's saving countless lives or just making people laugh. Jim Henson, Charles Schulz and Chuck Jones tend to be near the top for me because of the fortuitous circumstances that ALLOWED them to create their great bodies of work.

They had the charisma and talent and the right settings to keep their unique creative voice in spite of working for major corporations.
(ZN: for the ‘influence map’ illustrated here, Amy says ‘The bigger areas are the real life-changers. The things that marked major milestones in my evolution as an artist. The smaller squares are influences most precious to me right now.’)

‘In spite of working for major corporations’? What do you mean by that?
I hate the divide and attitude that exists among artists, namely, that so many think that if you work for a company, you're a sell-out and that only by sweating blood for years on completely independent art is the only way to be a 'legitimate' artist. There are plenty of fantastic artists working in studio systems right now and the great ones know how to produce great work despite creative restrictions.

During my research, I very much enjoyed going through the nice collection of your ‘variant’ covers for several titles. However, I’m not quite up-to-speed on the concept of what a ‘variant’ cover is or why it’s done this way, especially when if I understand correctly, all of the versions are released simultaneously. Can you help a novice out, please?
A variant cover is simply a piece of cover art produced in limited quantities and often by commission from a single comic retailer. Sometimes a particularly high-profile artist might be commissioned to produce a variant.

They exist for their exclusivity and are aimed at comic collectors more than casual readers. The comic collector market is immense and publishers producing limited variants is standard practice for certain retailers, conventions etc.

(ZN: the examples provided here being ‘A’ and ‘B’ variants then for the same issues... neat!)

As you’ve just mentioned you obviously have an enormous amount of respect for the works of Chuck Jones and many others. But to be a bit – I don’t know – confrontational: since you are a lady of the female persuasion (huh?), did you have specific female artists that you respected or wanted to emulate growing up? Or otherwise put, did it ever discourage you that there has been a rather sparse selection over the past 50 to 60 years of female illustrators to choose from?
Absolutely not. I have never categorised myself as a female artist trying to make it in a historically male field. I am a cartoonist and I expect my work to be judged on equal terms to any other cartoonist, male or female.

I have never felt marginalised as an artist who happens to be female or encountered anything like a glass ceiling in my career. Okay, maybe that’s because I tackle my work never expecting to find one. But clearly, my gender does not define my work.

What you project in terms of confidence and artistic identity can sometimes have an impact on what kind of obstacles you might encounter.

What is your allure with the ‘pin-up’ as a subject (having noted you ‘love Disney and (you) love pinups. Easiest math in the world.’)?
Like many artists, I find the female form pleasant to draw and aesthetically pleasing to look at. I would draw princesses when I was a little girl and I still draw them now, for fun.

I think sex and eroticism in mass media has really lost its sense of humour in many ways. If you look at mid-century burlesque dancers and strippers, sure a lot of the routines and costumes are cheesy and silly. But not only do these women still take their skills as entertainers VERY seriously, you can tell they are really having fun with it and at the same time, not taking it too seriously at all.

For me, there's such a palpable sense of fun in old school pinups and vintage Playboy cartoons and the like. There is a lot of comedy in sex and I see no reason why a sexy girl can't be also be a clown. I'd much rather see a real woman in pasties doing silly things with bananas than some Photoshopped, tanned model looking dull-eyed and surly.

It must be a nice break from the world of Kermit, Nemo and others when you draw these alluring pin-up pieces. But do you ever worry that doing the latter may in some way threaten your work with the former? Please bear with me here (I am originally from the ‘Bible Belt’), but I’m just wondering if there’s either concern that someone might complain to ‘management’ about the artist that’s drawing her little one’s comics is also posting some tasteful but still provocative pictures up somewhere else?
Oh not at all. Even in my pinup art, I never do anything that could be called pornographic.

A naked breast is about as risqué as I get and again, the context of the genre (vintage-style cheesecake) makes it pretty clear that my pinup art is all good clean fun and not lascivious or demeaning in any way.

Continued in Part 2!!

It's Time to Get Things Started

An interview with Illustrator Amy ‘Mimi’ Mebberson

Part 2 of 2 (link to Part 1)
Click on any image to biggerize

Amy, while we’re on the subject of your pin-up work, I really enjoyed your Disney selection that also got a lot of attention on the Internet recently (see more below... oh Edna, you naughty little minx!).

Are all of these characters really Disney based (that is, did I see King Kong in there, too)?

Also, I hope you find this to be a compliment – which I mean it to be – but your Cinderella from this set reminded me so much of the sexy girl from Tex Avery’s Droopy!! Classic!
Yes, they're all Disney canon characters.

The girl in the gorilla hand is Jane Porter from Disney's 'Tarzan'. And yes, my Cinderella is a deliberate nod to Tex Avery's Red Hot Riding Hood.

You mention that you have an interest in ephemera, where you seem to not only collect images but often include such stylings into your own sketches of characters, including those of actors from days gone by. Why the fascination with these retro views of life and other artefacts from the past (I love old ads myself!!)?
I'm interested in ephemera as a mirror of everyday life in the past. I especially go after cheap, disposable stuff like flyers, pamphlets and periodicals.

Old magazines made a business of covering topics relevant to society at the time and it's really fascinating to see how things were back then. Yes, old print ads present a very sanitised view of past eras, but they were simply using the life people aspired to as an alluring selling point. That's ‘Advertising 101’ to this day. Even something like an old Women's Home Journal provides endless information on what life was like for the average woman, just by looking at the sort of products and services the ads offer.

I also collect current ephemera, like promotional postcards, gift cards and business cards, to chronicle how graphic design changes over the years. Maybe they'll fascinate someone else fifty years from now.

I also wanted to ask you about your rather, um, clear stance on using your images. Perhaps I’m a bit sensitised as well to this subject (I’m reading a Jack Kirby biography and we know how much it STILL means to his family), but what is it like as someone who makes their living from images and really must post them to get exposure to have to try and then protect them at the same time?
It's a bit of a win-lose situation. There is really nothing to stop people stealing work, except the knowledge that the law is on your side. I have to post stuff to promote it and the nature of the Internet means that yes, it risks being ripped off.

I just have to keep trying to get famous enough that people won't TRY to pass my work off as their own. And use lots of watermarks!

You’ve worked in various media obviously but have recently done some terrific sketches using brown paper and often white pen. What attracted you to this wonderful albeit often more expensive type of 'canvas'?
I love my brown paper sketchbooks, even though they're hard to find. And yeah, they’re often expensive as well. But I like the dual freedom of not only using conventional shading but being able to highlight as well.

I have tons of different types of sketchbooks and pads lying around, from smooth Bristol to heavy water-colour, tinted Canson, Sumi-e paper, photocopy paper, newsprint, craft cardstock in pretty patterns and regular old black-bound sketchbooks.

But I usually end up coming back to the brown paper. I don't know why. I guess I'm just comfortable with it. Plus, character designer Nico Marlet and the guys in the LA Drink and Draw Social Club – who are all huge inspirations to me – use similar paper in their work.

I’ve got to know: after having lived and/or worked in Switzerland for 20 years, what pray tell is a ‘Swiss Army animator’? (I’m going to feel stupid here aren’t I?)
Swiss Army Knife = lots of tools and functions. As an assistant animator/in-betweener at Disney, I did a bit of everything.

I did animation, I did assistant animation, I did cleanup... I did then as well what I call the in-betweening work, adding special effects and tones, and even what we called ‘take 2 fixes’...

Who’s the ‘11’ guy that keeps showing up here and there in your collection? I get a serious ‘Chris Isaak’ or even ‘David Byrne’ vibe, but that happens relatively frequently anyway...
That would be Matt Smith, the Eleventh Doctor in the iconic BBC series 'Doctor Who'. He is awesome.

Also, I go from one description you give in your FAQ section (I read it, I promise!!) about essentially trying not to come across as a bitch and then I have this mental image of what I always envisioned as the very calming activity of knitting. Seriously, knitting? Or when no one is looking, are you really practising your nunchuk skills?
No, I really do knit. I like making socks, gloves and scarves and sock yarn is my crack cocaine. I also do cross-stitch and play a lot of Rock Band.

Plus, the dog ate the nunchuks.

Almost finally, I’ve got to know: what’s your favourite kind of beer?
If I am in a brew-pub I've never been to before, I usually aim for the IPA (ZN: = Indian Pale Ale... I think... either that or it has something to do with the International Phonetic Alphabet). That and my love of barley-wine ales means I'm obviously a bit of a hop-head.

It took me a while to get used to ales, coming from a predominantly lager-loving nation, but I was helpless in the face of Oregon's countless microbrews.

Finally, a couple of ‘what if’ questions:

If you could get a hold of any project you could imagine, what would it be and why?
I would like to story-board or concept-art at one of the big animation studios, that would be a dream for me.. even if only for a little while on one movie.

I just love animation concept art and collect ‘Art Of...’ books obsessively. Most of the artists currently working that I actively fangirl are the animation artists - Chris Sanders, Nico Marlet, Nate Wragg, Lou Romano, Stephen Silver, Shane Prigmore, Joe Bluhm.

So I'm steadily honing my writing and storytelling skills with my comic work and I hope some day I might be able to use it in animation pre-production.

You’ve just won the Super California Lottery, and you’re richer than Bill Gates. What becomes of your illustration career and why?
I would dedicate my time to producing art-books and self-publishing, I think. I have a massive laundry list of all the art things I'd like to do but never have the time.
(ZN: shown here is Amy’s first published sketchbook ‘On Air’)

What is a super cool fact about yourself that you would like to (or can) share without getting arrested, beat up in a dark alley or even worse, being forced to vote for Sarah Palin in 2012?
I have perfect pitch, can cut keys and have an entire brain lobe dedicated to huge slabs of memorised British comedy.

However, in the interests of my own personal safety, I refrain from reciting Monty Python in public places.

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As Amy recently pointed out on her blog: ‘My artistic epiphany took place when I saw Belle dancing with the Beast in that ballroom. I'd always loved Disney, but THAT'S when I knew I wanted to be a Disney artist. Muppet Babies and Sailor Moon each inspired several years worth of artsy bollocking around in my younger years. I drew Jill Barklem-esque mice constantly when I was 11. I still have the sketchbooks (eek).’

Well, obviously she’s come a long way since then! A former animation artist for Disney and LAIKA, she has also paid her artistic dues with 2 graphic novels for Tokyopop, not to mention her own list of releases, including the latest collection of her sketches, ‘Stacked’, which we can only assume is a set of pictures depicting books neatly piled on top of each other.

Amy was born as many Australians are that are from the same region in Sydney and currently resides in Portland, Oregon – or as she affectionately says the ‘Home of the Weird.’ Her work with BOOM! Entertainment ranges from work in the present or the past on such titles as Monsters, Inc., The Muppet Show Comic Book and other BOOM! titles. She has also drawn, created/co-created and produced her own web-comics including Thorn (2007-2009) and As If! (2001-2004). To try and list a selection of her biggest fans ‘out there’ would take a while, but ZN can highly recommend these interviews, including one from a really true-blue Muppet fan found here as well as a good overview by Disney Comics Worldwide.

More of Amy’s fantastic plethora of art and words of whimsy can be found at her website, her blog, and on both Twitter and Flickr. You can also check out many more of her illustrations at either her deviantART page or at the GirlsDrawinGirls site (updates pending) and much more!!

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All pictures, videos and other media are used with written permission of Amy Mebberson or are available in the public domain (noting copyright and other restrictions, accordingly). No further reproduction or duplication is permitted without contacting the artist directly.

Some pictures have been modified slightly or combined only for the purpose of space limitations. And we’re serious about copying. She will find you and stab you repeatedly with her knitting needles if you mess around.

After all, one doesn’t draw Miss Piggy over the years without picking up a little attitude ... and quite possibly some kick-ass karate skills as well...

Mad Scientists, Manga and More – An Interview with Shaenon K. Garrity

This may be a slightly somber start, but I first came across Shaenon K. Garrity’s wide assortment of artistic and writing endeavors shortly after I learned that my all-time favorite author, Terry Pratchett, had been diagnosed with a very virulent and quick-striking form of Alzheimer’s (so-called “early onset”). You see, Shaenon had done something really wonderful, that is, from almost half a world away she organized a bit of a fund-raiser for Alzheimer’s research to compliment Terry Pratchett’s own large grant. Her approach was really unique, where she helped raise money by offering original panels of some of her own web cartoons in exchange for a donation to the same grant. Great stuff and no doubt something that will grant her a free pass out of at least a few year’s worth of purgatory. [ZN: which is where YOU will have to go if (a) you have to ask who Terry Pratchett is and (b) do not rush out immediately to add his entire set – including his books for “children” – to your collection. Well, don’t just sit there, off you go! Oh, and don’t forget to donate, too, we did.]

And as is so often the case in the web-o-sphere when delving into one subject, there were other links and references to Shaenon’s talents that I found along the way. So I began to do my usual “Homeland Security” grade research and other patented nosey delvations. Along the way, I found out very convincingly in fact that Shaenon is not only quite knowledgeable about the wonderful world of illustrating and cartooning, but is also busy in a professional kind of way with the specific area of what is commonly referred to as “manga” (which I was admittedly at first surprised to learn is not a kind of tropical fruit).

Now, only revealing that I currently live in the same country as where the Coneheads claim to be from, I had noticed myself about this same time (coincidence? never…) that not only were there several TV channels dedicated to manga (some of which a responsible parent like moi had to screen pretty closely to avoid having Ziggy Jr. get a quick un-chaperoned lesson in certain “things”), but that also almost every super-market, book-store or many other shops in the area had literally rows and rows of the stuff available, but could barely keep it stocked quickly enough to match what was obviously a rabid demand across a very broad generational spectrum. Heck, I’ve even found that the free magazine provided at our local “popular-American-fast-food-restaurant-which-I-can’t-name-here-owing-to-trademark-stuff-oh-what-the-hell-its-McDonalds” contains about 30 to 40% manga related inputs, be it in the form of reviews or other insights into the latest magazines, books, videos, games, etc.

Even with my college-day experience in a book-shop – which was in many ways a front-runner in my home area for the comics-only stores we are all (?) familiar with today – I had never seen such interest in this genre. So, despite my genetic laziness, I decided to learn more and even worked out some questions to run by the talent SKG herself. The following then are the wise words from La Artiste herself, which I hope you’ll enjoy as much as I have (yes, it’s a bit long, but I obviously don’t have the same editorial skills as our guest… Whaddya want, I’ve got an Organic Chemistry degree! Kind of…):

ZN – Hi Shaenon, welcome to the show. I’ve noticed that you seem to have a real passion for "classic comics". You have mentioned in various articles some of the greats that I even grew up with including 'Pogo', which for it's time was amazingly adept at balancing entertainment for all ages (and comprehension on all levels) as well as a poignant view on the world around it (esp. the Nixon [Richard that is, no relation] years, Vietnam, etc.). Can you explain how you came to this interest in more classic comics?
I love comics in general, and that includes old comics. I probably do have a special fondness for classic newspaper strips, just because it’s an area that produced a lot of amazing work, especially given the limitations of the daily schedule and newspaper space even in the heyday of the form.

Pogo is one of the comics every cartoonist should study. It’s got the clever political commentary, of course, but also a lot of heart and character humor, plus a rigorous devotion to the highest quality of craftsmanship at every level. Walt Kelly managed to pack a lot of visual and verbal play into every strip. The fonts alone are unsurpassed.

There are tons of other comic strips I love. My current passion is the Moomin comic strip Tove Jansson drew for a British newspaper in the 1950s. Drawn and Quarterly is putting out the collected strips, and they’re blowing my mind. She was a fantastic illustrator and cartoonist, completely unique. I’m also big on E.C. Segar’s Thimble Theater (in which Popeye first appeared in early 1929), Crockett Johnson’s Barnaby … lots of strips.

Do you think that someone "younger" can really appreciate the messages many of these comics portray? For example, I've recently shown a colleague some of my old "Bloom County" collections and they totally failed to comprehend it (vs. say, “Calvin and Hobbes” or “Farside”).
Well, Bloom County is very much of its time. I don’t think its aged as well as some strips, although I have all the collections and still enjoy re-reading my favorite sequences. Pogo has some of the same trouble, just because of the political content.

As far as Pogo goes, a great starter collection, if you can find it, is Ten Ever-Lovin’ Blue-Eyed Years with Pogo (ZN: here’s a good blog description of same), which includes copious notes from Kelly explaining the then-current events that inspired various strips and storylines. But of course the great comics remain relevant, even if the political or pop-culture references get dated (how many fans recognize the names of any of the professional skaters mentioned by the late, great, hockey-mad Charles Schultz in the old Peanuts strips?).

You note as well that some artists have been able to achieve a more "permanent relevance" with their work. In your eyes, what helps make a strip more "timeless" vs. others?
Damned if I know. Even if comics don’t include specifically dated material, they’re going to be obviously of their time. The only way to survive the test of time is simply to be great.

My impression is that you must spend "at least" 24 hours per day writing, including for your own blog, regular features for various on-line or print magazines, etc.. How do you balance the other aspects of your life with what seems to be a very prolific writing agenda?
I work fast. And I get bored when I’m not working. That’s about it. It’s not really that hard.

Writing and drawing are what I do for fun, so of course I do those things as much as I can. I’m not really all that prolific. Think of all the manga artists churning out 20 pages of comics a week. Sure, they’ve got assistants, but they’ve still got to be constantly thinking and writing and drawing comics. I don’t know how they do it.

All of your on-line biographies start with "...best known for her web-comic 'Narbonic'" (I include a few of my favorite here, click to enlarge). Okay, without giving you too much shameless self-promotion time, at least for now, what for you is the challenge in general of keeping up a daily web-comic vs. a "printed" format?
It’s probably not all that different. I write and draw as much as I can, and fortunately I draw pretty quickly (as you can probably tell from the quality of the art, which alas, doesn’t get any better if I slow down), so I can keep to a daily schedule without too much trouble.

I like the rigor of a daily strip. I also like to keep about the same amount of buffer as I would for a syndicated print strip, that is, having stuff ready usually four or five weeks in advance. I take Sundays off now, though, and just put up sketches or guest art. Doing the Sunday features for Narbonic before it ended was always a pain for me.

Is there an advantage of print work vs. on-line publishing?
Oh, sure. I certainly enjoy doing print work, especially when it pays, but I find web comics a lot of fun. I like the informality of the Web, the spontaneity, and the close back-and-forth relationship you can develop with readers. Although that last part can get a little intimidating sometimes.

Do you see web comics as the wave of the future or what trends should we be looking for in the next years?
It’s more the wave of right now. I think what we’re going to see in the future, and what we’re already seeing a lot of today, is more blurring of the line between web comics and print comics.

Lots of web cartoonists are published in print now. Lots of print cartoonists do work on the Web. And lots of print publishers are currently trying to establish a Web presence and find a way to profit from the massive readership the most popular web comics enjoy. I have no idea how successful they’ll be. But it’s nice to see the various branches of comics notice each other and start to cross-pollinate.

Granted my exposure is somewhat limited, but your strips seem to feature several female characters, with – how do I put this gently – a great deal of attitude or at very least "unique" personality traits. Is this reflective of your own personality or did you see this more as a "missing element" in the range of comics available today, namely a lack of strong women characters or even strips "aimed at" women?
As it happens, I’m a lady person of the female persuasion myself, so of course I like to write about lady people. That’s about all there is to it. I mean, who doesn’t like reading about cute girls? Crazy people, that’s who.

Still, despite your impression, most of my comics have about a 50:50 male:female ratio. It’s interesting how many people perceive that as female-dominated. Of course, the female characters are often more in charge, but that’s just the way I was raised. All my female relatives are smart and bossy.

Looking at another perceived trend in your strips, did you in fact want to be a mad scientist when you "grew up"? I know I did (my mom loves to show folks in my little kiddy album where I wrote this at age 5 …and it came true for a while!! Sigh…I do hope one day they’ll let me back on campus…)
I did, more or less. I started out majoring in biology in college, but I was terrible at it so I switched to English. I’m all right at understanding the concepts, but I don’t have the kind of inquiring mind a scientist needs, nor the patience. I’m better at just making crap up than I am at figuring out how the world really works. I still enjoy reading up on science, especially biology.

You also seem to "collaborate" on a number of strips. How does this affect your process vs. working alone?
It definitely changes the dynamic. Narbonic is the only one of my comics that’s 100% mine; on the others, I’ve had either artists or co-writers. I like working solo, but I also enjoy exchanging ideas with another creator and seeing what comes out of it. I guess that’s my own brand of mad-science experimentation.

Usually I work with artists rather than writers because I’m a lot more confident in my abilities as a writer. I have a co-writer on Skin Horse, Jeffrey Wells, because I specifically wanted to work with him on a project, and Skin Horse seemed like something he would find interesting.

I notice that a couple of your strips are listed as "completed" e.g. Narbonic and Trunktown. How is it that a strip can be completed? What I mean here is that you either have the death of an artist (e.g. Peanuts, which lives on – thank the gods – in well-preserved reprints) or it just gets so crappy it's eventually dropped by everybody (ref. what happened with Berkeley Breathed and those damn cockroaches… hello?!?!! Not funny!!).
Well, if you read the comics, you’ll see that they have set story arcs and do eventually reach an ending. Actually, in the case of Trunktown, Tom Hart and I originally intended to do more; what we have is a self-contained story arc that was going to be the first “season” of Trunktown, but we haven’t gotten around to doing a second “season.”

Narbonic was planned from the beginning to last about five years; it ended up running for six and a half, which is a good run as far as I’m concerned. Skin Horse was also planned with a story arc and will eventually have a beginning, middle and end. I’m not interested in doing strips that can run forever. I like doing serial strips with on-going plots, and when you do that type of strip I think there’s only so long you can go before the characters reach the natural conclusion of their development and it’s time to move on to new characters and a new story.

Focusing a bit on manga for a while (excuse me if I group in manga with anime or other related genres): how did you get started in this area and even eventually gain the status needed to be referred to as a "major mouth-piece" for this style?
I’m not sure if I’m a major mouthpiece; that’s probably my friend Jason Thompson, author of the mammoth Manga: The Complete Guide (to which I contributed reviews). But I am certainly happy to blather on endlessly about manga.

I got into manga and anime in college, like so many nerds of my generation. After college, I managed to land a job at Viz Media in San Francisco, one of the biggest and oldest manga publishers in America. I was supposed to fill in at the front desk for two weeks; I’m now a freelance editor and have been working for Viz for eight years. Go figure.

In terms of your work as editor for manga offers for the US (or is your work for the overall "English speaking world"?): what does this entail?
In terms of our markets, it’s mostly for the U.S. and Canada, although we now have some sales presence in Britain as well. As an editor, my job is basically to coordinate the work of the translator, letterer, graphic designer, and other people who work to transform a Japanese-language comic into an English-language comic. I also do a lot of re-writing and copy-editing. It’s pretty simple, to be honest. My favorite part is writing the back-cover copy, which was something I always wanted to do for books when I was a nerdy kid.

I have to admit to not being overly "versed" in manga. Growing up the "youth" of our time was either very evenly split down Marvel or DC lines, with the possible exception of a few shows available on cable like "Speed Racer." Has manga "caught on" more in the past years in the United States and if so, why do you think that is?
It’s caught on like crazy, yeah. In America, as in many parts of Europe, you can walk into a bookstore and see kids crowded around the manga section, feverishly flipping through the books. It took a long time for manga to become popular in America, though. Viz has been around for over 25 years, and for most of that time it was a small, struggling publisher.

Interest in Japanese pop culture started growing in the 1990s, especially with the Pokemon phenomenon (aside ZN: don’t remind us, we’ve had to recently take a second job to support our son’s Pokemon trading card addiction). About ten years ago, manga really took off, largely because the publisher Tokyopop started putting out cheap trade-paperback editions and focusing on manga for girls (Sailor Moon was their first big hit).

There are a lot of factors behind the manga boom. A big part of it, I think, is that the American comics industry wasn’t putting out much to interest either grade-school children or girls of any age – but it turns out that this group liked comics (and had a certain degree of disposable income), and they eventually discovered manga that catered to their interests. Add to this a growing interest in Japanese pop-culture in general – as you said, it used to be limited to maybe a couple of anime series on TV, but now it’s everywhere – and you’ve got a trend.

Again, it took manga over 20 years to be an “overnight success” in the U.S. Most of the rest of the world caught on way before we did. For example, my colleague Jason Thompson was recently in Bhutan, and he just posted on his LiveJournal about trying to explain what he does for a living (he’s a manga editor like me) to a fellow American tourist, but with absolutely no success. On the other hand, he had the same conversation with a Bhutanese guy and they immediately got into an excited conversation about Dragonball, which Jason edited. There’s Bhutan, one of the most culturally isolated countries on earth, and even they love Dragonball.

How would you explain the popularity of this form around the globe?
The Japanese comics industry is like the American (or Hong Kong) film industry: it’s designed to produce great pop entertainment. Not necessarily great art, but definitely great entertainment. The artwork is simple and strong; the character designs are appealing. The stories are, at least when well done, instantly and easily engaging; the visual storytelling is, generally, technically superb.

It’s easy to get into manga, especially if you’re a kid. It’s popular because it’s designed to be popular. That’s what it’s for.

At the risk of getting "shot down" again, do you feel its more the "retro" design* or the often "risqué" story-lines or even artwork?
(*ZN: the last time I asked a designer/illustrator – who shall remain nameless (not) – about "retro" their response was, quote: "I find the term "Retro" to be a condescending expression, used by those who have not had the opportunity nor interest in exploring the history and evolution of design." Ouch, part 1 ...)
I don’t find it condescending, but I don’t understand what you mean by “retro.”

Obviously, something like Speed Racer looks “retro,” but that’s because it was created 40 years ago, so it really is retro (ZN: please do not confuse the cartoon with the recent dud of a movie). Recent anime and manga series don’t look old-fashioned to me, unless they’re deliberately trying for an older style. But as someone who works closely with manga, I’m attuned to the changing trends in art style and design, which I guess might not be apparent to someone who doesn’t read a lot of manga.

It always baffles me when someone says that all manga art looks the same. Often I hear this from fans of superhero comics, which I think have a much more uniform look than manga of any genre.

Do you think that the popularity of manga has affected other areas of art or design throughout the world? Certainly we see so much cross promotion of any creative media throughout all aspects of "commerce" these days (take for example the work of James Jean for PRADA, which we originally found here).
It used to be that the fine art world would troll the commercial art world for material to use ironically or as “found art” (the elitist assumption being that nobody actually created the artwork in comic books, or on soup cans, or whatever – it simply existed in anonymity for the fine artist to discover and elevate to the status of art). Nowadays, I do think we’re seeing more cases of commercial artists, including cartoonists, being taken more seriously as artists and given credit for their work.

From what I’ve seen of the James Jean Prada designs, Jean was hired not specifically as a comic book artist, with whatever assumptions and cultural baggage that carries, but as a gifted artist with an excellent sense of style who just happens to work in comic books. We’re also seeing more comic art in serious gallery shows, like the amazing “Masters of Comic Art” exhibition that toured America recently.

It’s a very interesting development. On one hand, I’m delighted to see cartoonists get the recognition they deserve as artists. It’s a definite step up from, say, the infuriating 1990 “High and Low” show at MOMA contrasting “low” art like comics and graffiti with the worthier “high” art it inspired. On the other hand, I have to admit that part of me loves the grimy, outsider status of comics. It lets us get away with more.

You’ve mentioned that "it's a fair assessment that the literary/artistic end of the industry is less well developed in Japan that it is" in America. Can you expand on this please?
Well, design, fashion, etc. are not manga. Manga is a thing onto itself. Actually there is a fair amount of good underground/alternative/artsy manga out there, but it’s not as huge a part of the industry as it is in America.

The American comics industry has reached this weird state where it’s almost evenly divided between superhero comics and “art” comics, with surprisingly little plain old pop entertainment. Manga is mostly about pop entertainment, with everything else on the fringes. But the industry is big enough that the fringe is pretty big. If you look through my Overlooked Manga Festival entries, you can get an idea of the range of work that’s out there.

Also, even if most manga is genre work of some kind, the range of the genres included is huge. For example, cooking manga is a pretty popular genre. If you think about it, comics about cooking and food ought to be a no-brainer, since it’s so easy to demonstrate recipes in comics form. Every culture should have cooking comics. But only the manga industry realized this. They’ve got tons of cooking manga.

Looking at promoting manga to a wider audience: you yourself have put in a mild disclaimer below your regular feature that :
"some (images) are mildly NSFW. Exercise caution when viewing manga which may contain nipples or swears. Keep out of reach of children."
With that in mind, how would you – hm, how to say this exactly – "convince" someone who is a bit skeptical or adverse to such things to try out the media?
I wouldn’t, because I don’t want to convince someone to read manga. I mean, for the sake of my job, it’s good that people enjoy manga, but I don’t personally care about evangelizing manga or even comics in general. If people want to read it, it’s there. I enjoy talking about it and sharing my likes and dislikes, but I’m not interested in cheerleading for it.

In terms of various images or actions you might find in some manga, I don’t think for example that drawing a short skirt on a female character automatically makes her a slut who wants to sleep with all the hot boys, nor do I think there’s anything wrong with her if she does want to sleep with all the hot boys. I mean, c’mon, they’re hot!

Some people do find offense as well by the occasional caricatures of Caucasians (white people, especially Americans, are most often drawn with wavy blonde hair, big noses, and freckles). On the whole, I think white people can take it. Even the minstrel-show caricatures of black people you sometimes see in manga (especially older manga), although they disturb me, are usually just the case of an artist copying what he or she saw in old American cartoons.

Actually, the portrayals of other Asians, especially Chinese, are often much more stereotypical and offensive than the portrayals of non-Asians, which are generally drawn without malice. But this is only true of some manga. There’s no way around it: Japanese pop culture has a somewhat different idea of what’s appropriate in comic books.

That said, the Japanese do worry about the content of manga, too. A while back the Japanese PTA voted on what it considered the worst manga magazines for children, with the venerable Shojo Comic coming in first. Interestingly, Shojo Comic is not especially shocking, and seemed to attract ire mainly because it’s the most mainstream girls’ magazine that includes characters having sex (usually couples making out discreetly under the covers or off-panel). Those short-skirted girls sleeping with the hot guys again…

It’s funny – fifteen years ago, the common stereotype about manga or anime was that it was pornographic, because a lot of porn anime like Legend of the Overfiend had made it to America. Nowadays, the stereotype is that it’s all for kids, and people are often shocked by even mildly questionable content, like teens smoking or a shot of a boy’s naked butt in a girls’ manga.

What kind of trends do you see in the areas with which you are involved or deal with on a daily basis – including color, or media, message, etc.?
In comics, design and style trends are all over the place. I’m personally very fond of a lot of the current art based on 1950s modernist design. I co-curated a recent Cartoon Art Museum show on Disney concept artist Mary Blair, who exemplifies that school of illustration, and it opened my eyes as to what can be done with simple shapes, colors, and contrasts. I really dig the sleek, simplified look, and in general I think less is more when it comes to cartoon art.

There are exceptions, of course, but I deeply admire cartoonists who can say a lot with a minimum of lines. 1930s-40s magazine cartoonists are another favorite of mine, guys like Gluyas Williams. I’m seeing more contemporary cartoon art based on that aesthetic, too.

In the introductory picture above, who is this simply divine character based on? She is so refreshingly authentic (no bony bits or overly silicated parts either) and reminds me very eerily of the one girl in my life that I consider "the one I let get away". I find myself quite enamored with her in a definitely manganistic way (ahem):
Heh. Thanks. That’s Helen Narbon, the main character of Narbonic. She’s not based on anyone in particular, although she’s inevitably a little like me.

Looking a bit more closely at the artwork, this illustration as well as the one here seems to incorporate a style very reminiscent for example of Mucha's works or even the so-called "Glasgow Boys" crowd (McIntosh et.al.). Was that intended or....?
Yeah, the first illustration is a Mucha riff, obviously. I did it as a commission for a reader and ended up using it in a lot of promotional art because it’s about the best color illustration I’ve done.

The illustration on the right, like all the artwork on www.shaenon.com , is loosely inspired by the menu for the “Tahitian Terrace” restaurant that used to be across from the Enchanted Tiki Room at Disneyland. That may sound obscure, but it’s a really great menu. Shag’s entire career is based on that menu.

I've also noted that a some point in the past you seemingly felt somewhat "picked on" when asked about the, um, "hand-made" lettering style for your strips. Well, I promise I won't do that (hint: I'm lying). However, how did you chose this gods awful lettering for your cast profiles, namely with all the curly bits and even (gasp) heart shapes?
I just have tacky taste. For Narbonic, I used a lot of pink and hearts and frilly designs, because it fit the tone of the strip, which is all about cuteness and evil (ZN: hm, sounds a lot like my kids: cuteness and evil wrapped together). I even got a pink heart tattoo to commemorate finishing the strip (for examples of this crazy cast, see below and also here).

For Skin Horse, it’s all manila folders and blue typewriter fonts. And that’s about as far as I get with anything resembling design theory. Whaddya want, I’ve got an English degree.

Shaenon, if you’ll allow me, here are some additional random thoughts for your consideration:

"Match it for Pratchett". Go:
Earlier this year, I sold original art from my strips Narbonic and Skin Horse and donated then all proceeds to the Alzheimer’s Research Trust. As you mentioned, this was part of the “Match it for Pratchett” campaign, in which fans wanted to raise money to match the very generous donation to the trust made by author Terry Pratchett. You can find more details here, where of course further donations are always welcome for sure.


Frankly, I liked getting my strips out of the house and into the homes of people who might hopefully have some use for them. They really pile up when you draw a daily strip.

If you could do anything else UNRELATED to your current works, what would it be and why? Go:
I’d like to do more straight-up writing without pictures. I do from time to time, but not enough.

What would you absolutely hate doing and why? Go:
Oh, any number of things. When I was in high school, I had a summer job working at a phone bank, doing push polls for political candidates. That was the most horrible thing I’ve ever done. I guess I’m lucky that I haven’t been forced to do anything more miserable for a living, but it was precisely the worst job for someone with my personality, not to mention my hatred of phones.

Is it extremely annoying to ask a question and then follow it with "Go:"? Go:
Less annoying than putting random quotes around your words. (ZN: Ouch, Part 2…)

This space for blatant self-promotion or anything else you want to add:
I think I’ve done all the self-promotion I can get away with at this point, although I should also mention www.ModernTales.com , the anthology web comics site I edit. It’s pretty good.

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In her own words, Shaenon K. Garrity grew up in Ohio, being born as many people about her age were in the mid-1970s. The education bestowed on her by her parents was apparently expensive, athletic and prolonged but she did eventually get a degree in English at Vassar. She moved to San Francisco after college to take an internship at the Cartoon Art Museum and a job at Viz Media. She currently works as a freelance manga editor for Viz, overseeing about a dozen manga series. She also continues to volunteer at the Cartoon Art Museum, where her husband, Andrew Farago, spends his days making the world safe for comics working as the museum’s curator and gallery manager (but later his nights drawing William Bazillion, which by his own admission kind of cancels out the whole do-gooder thing) (additional from ZN: this entry by Andrew had us on the floor howling with laughter, and we include it here as part of our concerted effort to continually taunt our conservative cousins).

In her spare time, Shaenon writes and draws comics, mostly for the Web. Her current offerings include the daily Skin Horse, which is co-written with Jeffrey C. Wells and drawn by her, and Li’l Mell, written by her and drawn by various artists, including the very gifted Neil Babra.

As a cartoonist - which most of you have realized by now - Shaenon is probably best known for the daily web comic Narbonic which ran from 2000 to 2006. She’s also done some print comics work as a scriptwriter, mostly for Marvel Comics. In addition, she also contributes what can only be called a fair amount of writing on comics, including reviews for Otaku USA magazine and Manga: The Complete Guide, a biweekly column for www.comixology.com called “All the Comics in the World,” as well as her mostly weekly blog mentioned earlier (when its not on hiatus) called the Overlooked Manga Festival.

If you’re willing to believe what you read in Wikipedia, in 2005, Shaenon won the Outstanding Writing category of Web Cartoonists’ Choice Awards, and at the same ceremony was also nominated for Outstanding Comedic Comic. She has also been named co-Lulu of the Year by the Friends of Lulu – a national nonprofit organization whose purpose is to promote and encourage female readership and participation in the comic book industry. Plus, after just scanning her rather well-maintained journal, we see that back in April she won the Stumptown Comics Festival Trophy for Outstanding Small Press for Skin Horse . And no doubt, jealousy will rule throughout the lands owing to the cool trophy that came with it! If you don’t believe us, just go to her April 30th, 2008 entry.

Oh, and she seems to like the word “gobsmacked”, which we eventually had to look up (again, we did not major in English; for clever usage examples of today’s word, see the same link as before or even here again, where we think one of the guys in the picture at the bottom of the page is her husband, Andrew. We’re guessing it’s the guy smiling in the back but still, it looks like she did good either way…).


All pictures used by very kind permission of either Shaenon K. Garrity or Viz Media. All image, copyright and other trademark protections apply.