Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
WORK TITLE: Demon, Vol. 1
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE: 1976
WEBSITE: http://www.shigabooks.com/
CITY: Oakland
STATE: CA
COUNTRY: United States
NATIONALITY: American
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_Shiga http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=24638 http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2010/04/take-your-pick-with-meanwhile-by-jason-shiga/
RESEARCHER NOTES:
LC control no.:
no2007148674
LCCN Permalink:
https://lccn.loc.gov/no2007148674
HEADING:
Shiga, Jason
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__ |f 1976
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1_ |a Shiga, Jason
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__ |a Oakland, Calif. |e Oakland, Calif.
374
__ |a author of comic books |a inventor |a mathemetician
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__ |a male
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__ |a eng
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1_ |a Shiga, Jason, |d 1976-
670
__ |a His Bookhunter, 2007: |b t.p. (Jason Shiga)
670
__ |a Meanwhile, 2010: |b last p. (author of more than twenty comic books, inventor of three board games,puzzles and mazes; graduated from University of California at Berkeley with a degree in pure mathematics; lives in Oakland, California)
670
__ |a Lambiek.net, WWW, Feb. 9, 2011: |b (b. in Oakland, California in 1976)
PERSONAL
Born 1976, in Oakland, CA; son of Seiji Shiga.
EDUCATION:University of California, Berkeley, B.Math., 1998.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Cartoonist and author.
MEMBER:Xeric Award, 1999, for Double Happiness; Eisner Comic Industry Award, 2003; Ignatz Award, 2004, for outstanding story; Stumptown Comics Award, 2007, for best writing; Ignatz Award, 2014, for outstanding series.
WRITINGS
Author of “Phillip’s Head,” 1997; “The Adventures of Doorknob Bob,” 1997; “Mortimer Mouse,” 1997; “The Family Circus,” 1997; “The Last Supper,” 1997; “Grave of the Crickets,” 1998; “The Bum’s Rush,” 1998; “The Date,” 1999; “Meanwhile …,” 2001; “Hello World,” 2003; and “Bus Stop,” 2004.
SIDELIGHTS
Jason Shiga initially found his footing in the mathematical field before making his switch to comics. He earned a degree in the former subject from the University of California at Berkeley. Shiga has never lost his interest in math, despite his shift in careers. It now informs much of his work in the industry, which has grown extensive since his debut in the late 1990s.
Meanwhile: Pick Any Path. 3,856 Story Possibilities is one of Shiga’s earlier works and is targeted specifically toward children. The book seeks to engage its audience by offering an assortment of choices at various junctures throughout its narrative. Some of these choices seem run-of-the-mill, while others blatantly and severely morph the finale of the story. Wired contributor Jonathan H. Liu wrote: “Meanwhile … is unlike any book I’ve ever seen.” On the Telegraph website, reviewer Tim Martin stated: “It’s safe to say that no other comic like this exists.” Library Journal contributor Neal Wyatt remarked that the artwork within the book “seem[s] simple at first but lend[s] a lighthearted tone.” A writer in Kirkus Reviews commented: “This is a truly ingenious graphic novel in its construction.” One Publishers Weekly reviewer felt that the book’s audience “will likely spend hours finding new ways to wend a path through the pages of this innovative book. In an issue of Booklist, Ian Chipman expressed: “It’s maddening and challenging, all right, but that’s precisely what makes it so crazy fun.”
Empire State: A Love Story (or Not) is aimed at an older audience. It features Jimmy, a young man who’s a bit down on his luck and has yet to take any steps to change things for himself. It is the departure of his love interest, Sara, that persuades him to try to turn things around via a road trip to the state of New York. Sara has moved there for the sake of chasing her dreams, which involve working in the publishing industry. Jimmy hopes that by meeting up with Sara, his dreams of a romance between them will come to fruition, but what unfolds goes beyond either of their anticipations and desires. In an issue of Voice of Youth Advocates, Jamie Hansen remarked: “Older teens who like quirky and offbeat graphic novels, especially coming-of-age stories, will identify with this account of one innocent pilgrim’s melancholy progress.” Booklist contributor Ian Chipman felt that, despite the book’s target audience, “readers well on either side should also find plenty that speaks to them.” A Publishers Weekly reviewer expressed that Shiga “displays a wicked sense of comic timing, which is equally effective at portraying awkward pauses and slapstick physicality.”
Demon, Volume 1 centers on Jimmy Yee, a man who has hit rock bottom at the start of the book. He has managed to live through a severe accident; however, he also no longer has a family. Devastated, Jimmy takes the steps to follow his family in death, but his efforts fail. In fact, no matter how many times he tries at suicide, none of them work. Another life is always sacrificed in his place, and over time he comes to the conclusion that death is an impossible feat for him. Furthermore, he isn’t even human. Rather, he’s become some sort of specter that claims the bodies of the deceased in order to continue surviving. Each time he tries at suicide, he possesses another life and pushes out their own. At the same time, he is also being hounded by a mysterious organization that wants to use him for their own purposes.
Voice of Youth Advocates contributors Marla Unruh and Ty Johnson remarked: “The reader who appreciates the author’s deliberately over-the-top-depraved humor will have quite a journey through this volume.” In an issue of Booklist, Peter Blenski wrote: “This is fresh, with plenty of potential, and definitely a series to watch develop.” Library Journal reviewers Martha Cornog and Steve Raiteri felt “Shiga’s … childlike, blobby characters create an effect that’s both unsettling and engaging.” One Publishers Weekly contributor expressed that Shiga’s “story will prove just as addictive for readers finding it in print.” Nerdist reviewer Benjamin Bailey commented: “It’s bizarre, sick, funny, and more than a little depraved, all of which is part of its charm.” He added: “If you like your comics weird and immoral, you’ll love Demon.” On the Comics Journal website, Rob Clough stated: “Beyond the mostly utilitarian quality of his line and use of color, the real visual treat here is Shiga’s page design and pacing.” He also said: “He takes his time on page after page, maximizing the eventual impact and payoff of each scenario.” New York Journal of Books writer Jake Bible claimed: “If you are a fan of over the top violence mixed with some sharp humor and tight storytelling, then Demon, Volume 1 is the perfect graphic novel for you.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, January 1, 2010, Ian Chipman, review of Meanwhile: Pick Any Path. 3,856 Story Possibilities, p. 81; March 15, 2011, Ian Chipman, review of Empire State: A Love Story (or Not), p. 29; December 15, 2015, Sarah Hunter, “Comics Squad: Lunch!,” p. 40; October 15, 2016, Peter Blenski, review of Demon, Volume 1, p. 35.
Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books, September, 2010, April Spisak, review of Meanwhile, p. 43; July-August, 2011, April Spisak, review of Empire State, p. 540.
Kirkus Reviews, February 15, 2010, review of Meanwhile; November 9, 2015, “Readers on the Rise,” p. 60; November 15, 2015, Jennifer L. Holm, review of “Comics Squad #2.”
Library Journal, January 1, 2014, Neal Wyatt, “Let’s Get Graphic: Creating Comics in Novel Ways,” review of Meanwhile, p. 150; September 15, 2016, Martha Cornog and Steve Raiteri, review of Demon, Volume 1, p. 70.
Owl, March, 2010, review of Meanwhile, p. 38.
Publishers Weekly, February 1, 2010, review of Meanwhile, p. 52; February 7, 2011, review of Empire State, p. 42; September 5, 2016, review of Demon, Volume 1, p. 65.
Voice of Youth Advocates, August, 2011, Jamie Hansen, review of Empire State, p. 278; December, 2016, Marla Unruh and Ty Johnson, review of Demon, Volume 1, p. 79.
ONLINE
Boing Boing, http://boingboing.net/ (March 25, 2015), Laura Hudson, “Astonishing Comics That ‘Save Your Game’ When You Turn the Page.”
Comics Alliance, http://comicsalliance.com/ (May 23, 2016), Ziah Grace, “Morality Is a Social Constuct: Jason Shiga Conjures His ‘Demon,’” author interview.
Comics Beat, http://www.comicsbeat.com/ (July 29, 2016), Zachary Clemente, “Jason Shiga on Mysteries, Angoulême, and Demon,” author interview.
Comics Journal, http://www.tcj.com/ (July 25, 2014), Rob Clough, review of Demon, Volume 1; (June 20, 2016), Jeanette Roan, “‘I Love Second Acts in Comics’: An Interview with Jason Shiga.”
Comics Review Journal, http://www.tcj.com (7/25/14), review of Demon, Volume 1.
Kirkus Reviews, https://www.kirkusreviews.com/ (December 23, 2010), review of Meanwhile.
Nerdist, http://nerdist.com/ (August 17, 2015), Benjamin Bailey, “First Second to Publish Jason Shiga’s Demon,” review of Demon, Volume 1.
New York Journal of Books, http://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/ (October 3, 2016), Jake Bible, review of Demon, Volume 1.
Paste, https://www.pastemagazine.com/ (March 2, 2017), Hillary Brown, “Cartoonist Jason Shiga Multiplies Math with Murder in Demon,” author interview.
The Set Up, https://usesthis.com/ (October 6, 2016), Daniel Bogan, author interview.
Shigabooks, http://www.shigabooks.com (June 7, 2017), author profile.
Telegraph (London, England), http://www.telegraph.co.uk/ (March 23, 2010), Tim Martin, “Tim Martin Looks at the Best Comic Books, from Jason Shiga’s Madcap Meanwhile, to a Brilliant CIA Thriller, The Losers by Andy Diggle,” review of Meanwhile.
Time, http://content.time.com/ (November 1, 2002), Andrew D. Arnold, “The Puzzling World of Jason Shiga,” review of Meanwhile.
Wired, https://www.wired.com/ (April 3, 2010), Jonathan H. Liu, “Take Your Pick with Meanwhile by Jason Shiga,” review of Meanwhile.
Hi! I’m Jason Shiga. I’ve been working as a cartoonist for the past 15 years. I studied mathematics in school and consequently many of my books have a mathematical or geeky side to them. I’m probably best known for my interactive comics but I also like to alternate between them and more straightforward narratives usually in some genre framework like police procedural or romantic comedy.
I’m archiving my older comics like Fleep and Bookhunter here. But mostly, I’m using this space to serialize Demon my newest and most ambitious project to date. If this is your first time here, a good starting point is page 1.
You may recognize some of the characters from Demon. The main character Jimmy Yee, has been the star of my last few books including the Choose Your Own Adventure style children’s book, “Meanwhile…” If you are a child, please do not read Demon. The characters use a lot of profanity and deal with some very adult themes such as murder, camel sex and drug use. Also stay in school.
But if you’re an adult, oooh, let me tell ya, this story is gonna be hella tight! You will not believe all the completely depraved mischief Jimmy gets into… and out of. Ooooh. He literally has no limits. He does not! I really want to tell you everything but I hate spoilers myself so for now the less said, the better.
In case you couldn’t tell, Demon is a different kind of series, both in form and content. But at the end of the day, it’s personal. Ultimately, Jimmy is me. When he leaps in front of a semi-trailer, it’s really me who secretly wants to do that. When he acts in a deliberately amoral and antisocial manner, that’s me too. And when he expresses his feelings about the universe being a meaningless and chaotic miasma and consciousness as the ultimate cruel joke on humanity, he’s really speaking for me.
Anyway, hope you enjoy the comics. I’ll be using this site in the future to post movie and book reviews, offer dating advice, art and writing tips and of course answer questions. That’s where YOU come in! You can email me at jasonshiga@gmail.com or feel free to post something in the comments of the news section of the site.
Thanks again for coming!
Jason Shiga is an Asian American cartoonist who incorporates puzzles, mysteries and unconventional narrative techniques into his work.[1]
Contents [hide]
1 Early life
2 Career
2.1 Techniques and materials
3 Awards
4 Bibliography
4.1 Books
4.2 Self-published minicomics
5 References
6 External links
Early life[edit]
Jason Shiga is from Oakland, California.[2] His father, Seiji Shiga, was an animator who worked on the 1964 Rankin-Bass production Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Shiga was a pure mathematics major at the University of California at Berkeley, from which he graduated in 1998.[2]
Career[edit]
Shiga is credited as the "Maze Specialist" for Issue #18 (Winter 2005/2006) of the literary journal McSweeney's Quarterly, which features a solved maze on the front cover and a (slightly different) unsolved maze on the back. The title page of each story in the journal is headed by a maze segment labeled with numbers leading to the first pages of other stories.
Shiga has also drawn and written several comics and illustrated features for Nickelodeon Magazine, some of which feature his original creations, and some starring Nickelodeon characters such as SpongeBob SquarePants and the Fairly OddParents.
Shiga makes a cameo appearance in the Derek Kirk Kim comic, Ungrateful Appreciation as a Rubik's Cube-solving nerd.
Techniques and materials[edit]
According to the rear credits page of Empire State: A Love Story, Shiga, who was inspired by an actual Greyhound Bus trip from Oakland to New York to create that story, pencilled it with a yellow No. 2 pencil on copy paper. He then inked it with a lightbox and a 222 size Winsor & Newton brush, and lettered it with a Micron 08 felt-tip pen. The colors were applied digitally by John Pham.[2]
Awards[edit]
2014 Ignatz Award winner: Outstanding Series, Demon.
2014 Ignatz Award nominee: Outstanding Webcomic, Demon.
2012 Harvey Award nominee: Best Letterer, Best Inker, Best Writer, Best Artist, Empire State.
2011 Harvey Award nominee: Best Original Graphic Publication for Younger Readers, Meanwhile.
2007 Eisner Comic Industry Award nominee: Best Graphic Album, Bookhunter.
2007 Ignatz Award nominee: Outstanding Graphic Novel, Bookhunter.
2007 Stumptown Comics Award winner: Best Writing, Bookhunter.
2004 Eisner Comic Industry Award nominee: Best Single Issue or One-Shot, Fleep.
2004 Ignatz Award winner: Outstanding Story, Fleep.
2003 Eisner Comic Industry Award winner: Talent Deserving of Wider Recognition.
1999 Xeric Award winner: Double Happiness.
Bibliography[edit]
Books[edit]
Double Happiness, 2000 Shigabooks
Fleep, 2002 Sparkplug Comics
Bookhunter, 2007 Sparkplug Comics (French translation, éditions Cambourakis, 2008)
Meanwhile, 2010 Amulet Books
Empire State - A Love Story (or Not), 2011 Abrams
Demon, Volume 1, 2016 First Second
Demon, Volume 2, 2017 First Second
Self-published minicomics[edit]
Phillip's Head, 1997
The Adventures of Doorknob Bob, 1997
Mortimer Mouse, 1997
The Family Circus (parody), 1997
The Last Supper, 1997
Grave of the Crickets, 1998
The Bum's Rush, 1998
The Date, 1999
Meanwhile..., 2001
Hello World, 2003
Bus Stop, 2004
References[edit]
Jump up ^ Arnold, Andrew D., "The Puzzling World of Jason Shiga", Time.com November 1, 2002
^ Jump up to: a b c Shiga, Jason. Empire State: A Love Story (Or not) Abrams Comicarts; New York: 2011
External links[edit]
Official website
Fleep, the collected comic
Time article on Jason, web exclusive
Asian Week Article (February 2001)
Comixpedia
Cartoonist Jason Shiga Multiplies Math with Murder in Demon
By Hillary Brown | March 2, 2017 | 12:00pm
COMICS FEATURES JASON SHIGA
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Cartoonist Jason Shiga Multiplies Math with Murder in Demon
If you didn’t dig arithmetic in grade school (and presumably don’t enjoy crunching numbers now), hearing that cartoonist Jason Shiga’s comics stem directly from his math training might give the wrong impression. But don’t be mislead. Shiga lays out Gordian-Knotted plots with an NBD attitude, exemplified in early works like Meanwhile, a YA choose-your-own-adventure story for those who want to see every possible path.
Demon2-covRGB.jpg
Shiga’s webcomic Demon is being released in print via First Second through four volumes, the second of which released last month. It is decidedly not aimed at all ages, full of horrific murders and red ink. All of Shiga’s work, however, springs from the same nimble mind and manages to combine rigorous organization with a breezy, insouciant attitude. Demon speeds along a good 15 miles over the limit with the tale of a man, Jimmy, who attempts suicide through multiple means only to wake up unharmed. The book anticipates the clever reader’s quibbles and queries before crushing them under its wheels. It’s disarmingly fun.
Shiga’s already at work on his next Rubik’s Cube of a book (The Box), and he’s been busy in Angoulème, France, as an artist in residence, but he put up with a lot of emailed questions from this math dummy and provided some insights about his various interests and how they fit together.
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Paste: So you studied math at Berkeley, right? How did you end up in the relatively disreputable (and low-paid) field of comics? Did you decide you hated math? Graduated at a time when it was hard to get a job? Quarter-life crisis?
Jason Shiga: I’ve always enjoyed math and puzzles and I still do. I don’t see science and art as opposites. On the contrary, my favorite authors and artists, like MC Escher, usually had some sort of math or science background.
Paste: I see you describe yourself in your Twitter bio as a magician. Like an actual magician (the kind who does card tricks, not like Dumbledore or whatever)? Expand! And do you like those dumb Now You See Me movies, as a combination of genre (heist) and magic?
Shiga: I like inventing highly mathematical card tricks. I’ve got one where someone riffles a deck twice then starts counting off cards from the top. After analyzing a set of turned cards, I have a way of predicting the color of the next card. I haven’t seen Now You See Me but the premise seems pretty interesting. I wish they’d gone with casting actual magicians though.
Paste: Who’s your favorite magician?
Shiga: Persi Diaconis.
Demon_Volume2_pp1.jpg
Demon Vol. 2 Interior Art by Jason Shiga
Paste: When did you figure out that you really liked math?
Shiga: It’s something I’ve always enjoyed. But I think the first book that got me really interested was a Raymond Smullyan book called Alice in Puzzleland.
Paste: Smullyan’s first career was stage magic, looping us back around. What do you see as the connections between math and magic?
Shiga: There’s a fairly large genre of mathematical magic that I enjoy. But aside from that, maybe it’s the idea of finding surprise in the mundane, whether it’s proving something beautiful but unexpected out of some very obvious axioms, or performing some minor miracle with a deck of cards.
Paste: Have you ever competed in a puzzle event?
Shiga: Oakland Math Olympics, 1986. I was in the problem-solving division.
Demon_Volume2_pp2.jpg
Demon Vol. 2 Interior Art by Jason Shiga
Paste: Did you major in math just because you enjoyed doing it?
Shiga: Yes. It’s also probably the easiest of all the university majors. There are no papers, no labs. You don’t really have to remember too much, either. All the definitions and theorems just follow from whatever it is you’re trying to do. People are always shocked when they hear that the South Park creators majored in mathematics, but to me that’s the slacker major.
Paste: Are you the mathiest comics creator out there?
Shiga: I think that crown might go to xkcd or Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal.
Paste: What did you think your career would be?
Shiga: Honestly, I wasn’t even thinking that far ahead. It’s just a subject that I enjoyed.
Paste: Did you take art classes in school?
Shiga: No. I probably should have, though. I always feel that art is my weakest point as a cartoonist. And it’s the part that’s most easily identifiable when you look through someone’s book. If I was a D&D character, I’d say I’d have very uneven stats.
Paste: Re: D&D—so, like high intelligence, low dexterity?
Shiga: Something like that. I’d maybe call it rigor instead of intelligence. And I guess none of these qualities is intrinsic to a person. We can always learn to draw or develop our intelligence.
Demon_Volume2_pp3.jpg
Demon Vol. 2 Interior Art by Jason Shiga
Paste: Did you grow up drawing? Making comics?
Shiga: Like a lot of kids, I loved drawing and making up stories, but I got a late start with comics. Part of it is I just never had a superhero phase as a kid, though I feel these days there’s so much more available, a budding cartoonist can completely bypass that set on influences. I got interested in comics when I was in college and took an extra credit course called “Comics as Literature.” Once I made my own comic, I was pretty much hooked.
Paste: What did you read in that class?
Shiga: Our first two books were Maus and Understanding Comics. Pretty great, huh?
Paste: Even though Demon started off as a webcomic, it seems fairly handmade. Is that accurate? And, if so, why?
Shiga: Yes. Demon is penciled and inked and lettered the old fashioned way (on paper). I used Photoshop to color it, but who doesn’t these days. I see webcomics as a method of distribution, not an art style. So they can range from very computery looking comics like Diesel Sweeties to very handmade looking strips like Skin Horse.
Demon_Volume2_pp4.jpg
Demon Vol. 2 Interior Art by Jason Shiga
Paste: Why do you prefer drawing comics on paper?
Shiga: I don’t have anything against digital art. But for me right now the computer technology doesn’t seem to match what I can do with paper and ink, especially when you figure in cost. I’d rather just draw on cheap copy paper and have the extra $2,000. That said, I suspect the technology will surpass paper within a decade or so.
Paste: One of the things that Demon makes me think of (other than Groundhog Day, which I saw you’ve mentioned as an influence) is programming, in that there are a lot of trial and error as Jimmy tries to figure out how this thing works. Do you have any experience with writing code?
Shiga: A little bit. And when I did, I definitely fell into the trial and error camp, which I know is considered bad practice. For example, I’d get to a spot where I wasn’t not sure if I needed to round some variable up or down. I could think about if for 10 seconds and figure it out. But usually I just tried rounding up and then ran the program to see if it worked.
Paste: How do you feel about this constant tinkering that seems to be part of our lives these days? Like when you get yet another notification to install an iTunes update, do you curse at your computer and ignore it, or do you eagerly install it to see what the new features are?
Shiga: Remind Me Later.
Paste: How much time do you spend on the drawing of your books versus the planning?
Shiga: It’s about half and half. It can be a little discouraging when I’ve worked a year on a project and don’t have anything to show for it except reams of mathematical scribblings and 20 flowcharts.
Paste: Obviously, you have a pretty analytical brain. How does that affect the ways in which you approach daily life? How do you think it affects the art you make?
Shiga: I think one of the curses of having that sort of personality is it’s hard for me to let some things rest. For example, as a kid because no one could tell me how cable cars turned around corners—an adult would just say, “I dunno. Some set of gears and pulleys.” And it would drive me bonkers. With my stories, I almost never do any hand-wavy explanations. I try and think through every logical possibility and consequence.
Demon_Volume2_pp5.jpg
Demon Vol. 2 Interior Art by Jason Shiga
Paste: And how does it affect your moral philosophy, which seems to be utilitarian (maybe even more so than nihilistic)?
Shiga: I wouldn’t shove a fat man in front of a runaway trolley. I don’t even know if I could kill baby Hitler. Maybe I’d give his dad a condom or something. That said, I don’t think utilitarianism is incomparable with nihilism.
Paste: Is the comics medium—with its balance of words and pictures that can conceivably tell the reader different things—particularly appealing to an analytical mind?
Shiga: Yes. But I’d like to think comics are appealing to all sorts of people. For me, one of the great strengths of comics is that it can take you right into the worldview of another person in a way that almost no other medium can. I think Art Spiegelman said we think in comics, and if that’s true, then a good personal graphic novel is about as close as you can get to reading someone’s thoughts.
Paste: How old is your son these days?
Shiga: He recently turned four.
Paste: Do you read comics with him?
Shiga: We’re reading Barnaby Bear, Peanuts, Ben Hatke’s Little Robot, Petit Poilu, Polo and Nancy.
Paste: Do you find most other works of art—which can be less complex in their plotting or planning—boring? Or does your brain need time to rest and you can just chill out in front of a James Turrell or a Rothko?
Shiga: I feel there’s actually a ton of analytical work under the hood of the even the most mainstream Hollywood romcom. Something like Maid in Manhattan is a very lean piece of machinery. The only types of narrative I can’t get into are more stream-of-consciousness memoirs like On The Road, even though I know it’s a classic.
Demon_Volume2_pp6.jpg
Demon Vol. 2 Interior Art by Jason Shiga
Paste: You clearly have a soft spot for genre work. Do you think that’s because it’s inherently satisfying and/or because it tends to consist of a formula that’s pleasurable, both when it sticks to what it’s supposed to do and (even more so) when it departs from conventions?
Shiga: Yes. All those things. I’m not sure if this is right, but I feel genre is about emotional power chords, not tropes. I need the final girl to survive, not because I’m a stickler for the formula but because it’s emotionally satisfying. Once you start framing genre like this, you can reclassify all sorts of stuff. For me Star Wars is as much a western as it is sci-fi, even though there’s no horses.
Paste: What’s your opinion of David Foster Wallace (also mathy, also complex in his plotting, also with an appreciation of genre)?
Shiga: I haven’t read his fiction but I loved his math book, Everything and More. It was one of the best of that series (Great Discoveries) and it was an amazing series. The book on Godel by Rebecca Goldstein was a particular standout.
Paste: Are you still in France right now? I read that you were going to do the Angoulème residency. And, if so, do you think you’re coming back to America? What’s it like over there? Is it as fucked up as it seems to be here? Or are you a little insulated from the insanity due to all the delicious bread and butter and wine?
Shiga: I’m honestly a little worried about my cholesterol. I’m basically going through duck and butter like it was tap water. I am coming back to the states this summer (assuming the nation hasn’t been covered by a giant glass dome). I make fun, but I guess I should say France has got its own isolationist candidates. In a few months we’ll see if Brexit and Trump are part of a larger worldwide trend.
Paste: Duck and butter sounds like a pretty good coping mechanism.
Shiga: The butter is hella good here.
Jason Shiga
Cartoonist (Meanwhile, Demon)
Published October 06, 2016.
cartoonist
Who are you, and what do you do?
I'm Jason Shiga. I'm most well known for the children's book Meanwhile, an interactive comic where the readers make decisions that lead them through different story paths and endings. My newest comic is Demon, about an actuary who checks himself into a filthy motel room in Oakland to kill himself but then discovers that he cannot die. The first chapter is available on my website for free.
What hardware do you use?
I pencil with a Paper Mate ballpoint pen on normal letter size copy paper; I enlarge the "pencils" to ledger size on a photocopier and then ink over them on a lightbox using a Windsor Newton size 222. Again on copy paper. I letter by hand with an 08 Micron by lightboxing over computer lettering that I printed out ahead of time. I go through pens, brushes and paper like Kleenex so for me it's about using the cheapest crappiest materials and getting them to look as good as possible.
For printing, I use a RISO RP3700 Risograph Duplicator that I bought off Craigslist a few years ago. Getting that machine to work is like alchemy. There's always something misregistered, faded or some weird red stripe going down the middle of each page. But I guess that's the charm of it too.
And what software?
Photoshop for the coloring. These days I'm doing mostly 2 color coloring. I have a palette of all the different combinations of red, white and black. After everything's colored, I use the Pelt plugin to flatten my colors for printing. Then I separate them into a red layer and a black layer using a ridiculously long Photoshop action I set up long ago.
What would be your dream setup?
A drawing desk 3 feet deep that stretched 10 miles long and a pedal-powered chair that rolled along a track.
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FEATURES
“I Love Second Acts in Comics”: An Interview with Jason Shiga
BY JEANETTE ROAN JUN 20, 2016
Shiga author pic
Jason Shiga is an Oakland-based cartoonist perhaps most well known for Meanwhile, a Choose Your Own Adventure-style comic that allows readers to make decisions that influence the narrative of the story. He received a Xeric grant for Double Happiness, and has won Eisner, Ignatz, and Stumptown Comics awards. Other published works include Fleep, Bookhunter, and Empire State. He recently completed his self-published twenty-one issue serial Demon, which was picked up by First Second and is scheduled to be released in four volumes starting in the fall of 2016. I first met Jason at a book-signing event at Fantastic Comics in Berkeley, California in May 2013. The interview below is a condensed version of three conversations that took place between July 2014 and April 2016.
BEGINNINGS
Jeanette Roan: Could we begin with how you got started? Did you grow up drawing?
Jason Shiga: I actually did draw a lot when I was growing up. I went to an arts magnet school from kindergarten all the way through ninth grade. A lot of magnet schools have different themes, like music or science, and I ended up going to one focused on arts. I remember a typical assignment would be to read about Roman baths, and then draw a picture of what you think that they would look like. It was super fun going to an arts magnet school, and it was just great to hand in pictures or illustrations for class assignments.
Did you ever do a comic for an assignment?
Oddly, no. I do remember there were kids who were into making and reading comics, but for whatever reason I wasn’t one of them. It wasn’t really until college that I got into comics.
In the past you’ve mentioned the influence of the Choose Your Own Adventure books. Do you think of your life in terms of critical moments when your decision to do one thing or another could lead to very different kinds of outcomes? Is there such a moment in your life in regards to becoming a cartoonist?
I do, all the time! In relation to becoming a cartoonist, it’d probably be taking a DeCal class called “Comics as Literature” at Berkeley taught by José Alaniz. [The DeCal Program consists of student-run courses offered at the University of California, Berkeley on topics not addressed in the traditional curriculum.] We read Understanding Comics and Maus in that class, and a number of selections. We also made our own comics. After that semester I wanted to do another comic, and then another one…
What do you think it was about comics that made you want to keep making them?
It was fun to make, and there’s something about having drawn it one day and then literally the next day you have the book in your hand and it’s on the shelf at the comic book store. I wasn’t too serious about it until I met up with Dylan Williams [founder and publisher of Sparkplug Books]. This was before I graduated from college, so I was already pretty serious about comics by the time I graduated. After graduating, I started meeting up with other local cartoonists. I began hosting drawing nights at my house called Art Night and that was when I started taking comics even more seriously. But I don’t think I necessarily had it in my head that I was going to be a professional indie cartoonist, because at the time that just didn’t exist. In fact, I remember having a conversation with Gene Yang. I said something like, “I’m going to be a security guard.” That way, when I’m at the front desk, I’ve seen these guys, what they’re really doing is just reading a book. What’s to stop me from bringing some paper, some pens, and a lightbox I could plug in, and just doing that, and potentially getting paid to draw comics? And maybe foil the occasional robber.
So from pretty early on you were thinking about how to support yourself while also finding the time to make your comics.
I actually tried to make a go of it as a professional artist after I graduated from college. I did comics for a newspaper called Youth Outlook, I had a strip in the Examiner. I’d just take any sort of paying gig that came along. But it was really tough to cobble a living together that way. So after six months of that, I got a job at the Oakland Public Library. I kind of gave up on the idea of being a professional artist at that point.
Art Night at the time would have been Derek Kirk Kim, Gene Yang, Jesse Hamm, and Lark Pien, though it would become much larger in later years?
That sounds about right.
How did gathering together on a weekly basis with other cartoonists for Art Night help you develop as a cartoonist, especially at a time when there weren’t a lot of formal institutional spaces for that kind of community?
I’d like to think that art, and comics in particular, can be created in a social vacuum. That idea appeals to me because I wasn’t always the most social person, especially during my teenage years. I feel you can learn comics on your own, but having that social atmosphere can accelerate your learning. I think Gene talks about Art Night as if it was his comics schooling. There are actual comics schools these days, like CCS [Center for Cartoon Studies] or SCAD [Savannah College of Art and Design, Sequential Art Program]. I think for me, all the critiquing of each other’s stuff, asking Derek what kind of pens he uses… You can learn all these things in a really fast way that would just take forever to learn on your own.
Meanwhile cover
Was there a moment in your life when you felt like you had indeed become a professional cartoonist?
When Art Night was at its full swing, that’s when I first started doing books for Sparkplug. I was working on Double Happiness, Fleep, Bookhunter, and Meanwhile. I was working at the Oakland library for most of this time as well. I’d say the summer of 2008 is when things started to change for me. That’s when I got my advance for Meanwhile. 2008 was an interesting year. I think it was around this time when Persepolis, American Born Chinese, and Fun Home all hit. A lot of traditional book publishers were just opening up comics imprints, so I think 2007, 2008 is the year that a lot of alternative cartoonists were scooped up and offered book deals, and I guess I was part of that. Abrams decided they wanted to release Meanwhile as a children’s book, so I quit my job at the library, which was very bittersweet because I had been working there for ten years. It wasn’t like, “Take this job and suck it!” I started as a library aide, and by the end of it I was working in computer services at the main branch. I just loved my co-workers, but it had always been a dream of mine to work full-time as a cartoonist, and that’s what I did.
You weren’t worried about what would happen after this one advance was gone?
Well, I was a bachelor at the time. I thought I could stretch this out over three years if I ate beans and rice for every meal. In three years, I could make another three graphic novels, and I’d only need one of them to sell. I also had a back-up plan. If two of those graphic novels didn’t sell and I was down to my last year, I could always live in a van and stretch out the advance even more. Another back-up plan was to move to the Philippines. I remember someone telling me that they were able to rent a room in the Philippines for seven dollars a night or something, so I remember doing the mental calculations. I figured I could stretch out my advance for ten years! In that amount of time I could make ten graphic novels, and return from the Philippines with ten graphic novels, and sell each one for ten more advances!
That’s great that you thought all of it through so carefully [laughter]. Practically speaking, what did you do after receiving the advance?
I decided that since it was going to be my first big published book, I would do it up nice so I basically redrew and colored Meanwhile from scratch since my art style had changed a lot from when I first started working on it. During that time, I wrote another graphic novel, Empire State. I was able to get an advance for that, and I figured I could keep that cycle going, so after I got the advance for Empire State I started working on Demon, and that is where my luck ended.
But then it sort of picked up again.
But then it picked up again.
Demon 1
DEMON
Congratulations on the First Second book contract for Demon, that’s very exciting! Did you plan for this to happen: build an audience online and through subscriptions, then land a book contract with a major publisher?
Well, I submitted Demon to publishers maybe two years ago, and honestly I was kind of unreasonable about it. I had a number of demands. It’s a serial, so it must be released as pamphlets! They should be monthly 24- or 32-page pamphlets, because Demon is an homage to the old superhero comics or 1990s alternative comics. (Those are some of my favorite comics, like Hate by Peter Bagge.) I also refused to remove anything. There’s a scene where the main character constructs a shank out of dried semen. There’s another scene where the antagonist farts semen into the main character’s face. There’s camel sex. I was like, “I will not change a single panel!”
Also, a lot of the issues were insane. Issue seven was four pages long, and I insisted it must be four pages long. There’s another issue that has no images in it, but I think it might still be a comic and I insisted this issue must exist as well. I was like, “These are my demands: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven…” Not surprisingly, publishers passed on it. I was indignant. I was like fuck you all! I thought to myself, I got my start self-publishing mini-comics, and there’s no reason I can’t go back to doing that, so I bought a Risograph printer, started printing up issues, and then I figured I would try to release it as a webcomic as well, because, you know, that’s what all the kids are doing these days. I had been kind of a webcomic skeptic for the longest time but decided I’d stick my toe in. I’m a webcomic convert these days. I love webcomics! A few months in I started a Patreon campaign. The basic model is there’s the webcomic, and if you want to buy a subscription, the books run about a month ahead of the comic, so you get to read a month into the future. It’s a pretty basic model that’s worked out well for me.
Demon 2
How did you get the idea for Demon, in particular the idea of being able to die and possess other bodies?
I’m a huge fan of ’80s body-switching comedies, like Vice Versa and 18 Again! with George Burns. I also liked the recent Community episode that was an homage to the body-switching comedies. That’s always appealed to me, being a person but inhabiting another body, and I always wished that the premise had been a little more fully explored in those films. So I decided to try to explore every little corner of that premise. But it’s not a new premise that I came up with.
Demon 3
I really enjoyed the parts when Jimmy was trying to figure out how this actually works, what happens with what kinds of bodies, what transfers over and what doesn’t, all of that was fun.
I’m also a big Death Note fan. That was a big influence on the book. I love Light Yagami’s very rational and systematic approach to figuring out exactly what the book can and can’t do.
Why did you choose Risograph printing for this series? What is your process like?
I bought a Risograph printer because I wanted to do a two-color comic and it’s the cheapest option. I do also like the way it looks. It has that really warm, organic feel to it. And when the registration is just a little off, it looks really sweet. I do my penciling with ballpoint pens. If I make a small mistake I’ll just write an “x” through the line and draw another one. There’s no need to erase it since it doesn’t show up in the finished art anyways. I draw my pencils on letter size paper, I blow them up to ledger size on a photocopier, and then I lightbox those and ink them with a brush and a pen. That’s pretty much it. For lettering I print out the letters in Photoshop so I can adjust all the kerning and get that right, and then I just trace over that with a Micron. Then, I do my coloring in Photoshop and call it a day. Something that’s always attracted me about comics is that you can buy all the raw materials you need to get started for five bucks. There’s no reason you cannot be a cartoonist!
Did you develop this process pretty early on, or over time?
I developed it over time. I used to pencil with pencils, but I like the feel of pens better. With pencil I usually press down too hard and my fingers get tired. With ballpoint pen you don’t have to press down very hard in order to make a dark line. I think when a lot of cartoonists start out, they read How to Draw the Marvel Way, and maybe the Jessica Abel and Matt Madden book [Drawing Words and Writing Pictures], and they’ll buy the Ames lettering guide, a blue pencil, all the tools that the pros use. I remember when I did all my lettering with a Rapidograph, because that’s what the pros use. Those are hell to clean up. But as I did more and more comics, I’m just like you know what, I can do it this way, this way’s easier, and with comics, a lot of it just comes down to what’s easiest, what can allow you to do it the fastest.
Even at its fastest, it’s still incredibly slow and labor-intensive.
Yeah, but I think one of the advantages of comics over a lot of other mediums is that one person can put out a lot of comics in a way that’s difficult in a lot of other media. I feel comics are designed to be drawn quickly. A cartoon is basically a paring down of reality into the most basic forms and shapes and lines.
With Demon, you’re printing and sending out hundreds of booklets each month, right? How are you doing that?
After I’ve got all my pages colored, I separate them out into red and black. I print a red layer, that is, I print the whole issue in red, and then I replace the ink cartridge, and then I just feed those printed pages right back into the machine. I use Kelly brand copy paper—it’s the cheapest they have. Feeding the printed pages back into the machine, that’s what gives it that weird, slightly off-register quality. Then I go to San Francisco to cut the books. I rent a little guillotine cutter. To activate it you have to press a two-man switch, so you put your thumb on one side of the machine and you have to put your other thumb on the other and press both of the buttons at the same time so there’s no danger of your fingers being anywhere near the blade. It’s a clever design. I love the whole process of Riso printing. I love the way Risograph printing looks. The Risograph works on a different technology than photocopiers. It’s actually wet ink that’s being pressed through onto the pages rather than the way regular copy machines work by catching this powder called toner which gets heated up and turns from dust to become fused into the paper.
Demon 4
What’s going to happen with the First Second version? They’re not going to use a Risograph printer.
No, but they’re going to print it in two colors. I might stick in some intentionally mis-registered parts to get that slightly off-register feel.
They’re also going to put it out as four books. Why not just one giant one? Didn’t you say you wanted to make Demon one page longer than Craig Thompson’s Habibi?
Yes! I don’t know why First Second is doing it in four volumes, you’d have to ask them. I’m a little bummed that Craig Thompson will have a larger book than me. I might hire a bookbinder to take all four volumes and stick it into one hard cover. Actually, I might have them make two, one for myself and then one I can mail to Craig Thompson.
Do you have a little rivalry thing going with Craig Thompson? Does he know about this?
Yeah, I told him. He knows my plans.
I saw that you recently put out a question on social media about whether you should dedicate Demon to your son. Have you come to a decision yet?
I want to, but my wife is against it. The day I put it out to Facebook was the same day Jimmy and Hunter were having their naked sex fight in the webcomic. So that didn’t help. In my defense, however, I want to say the cum shank sequence was very tastefully done. You never actually see Jimmy ejaculate. It’s all done off-camera, through implication.
What about the naked sex fight scene?
OK, that maybe not so much.
Now that you’ve finished Demon, what kinds of reactions have you been getting from your readers? You’ve written that there were moments when you wanted to give up. How does it feel to complete such an ambitious project?
Oh, it’s been so nice! My patronis [Jason’s term for his Patreon subscribers] have been emailing me thanking me for the series and congratulating me. It’s been great getting all these kind words from my readers and friends. And I feel great! It’s amazing! You can quote me on this, it’s like I took the largest dump in the world! Relief, fatigue, triumph… all the emotions you would expect when taking a really big dump. Honestly, being a cartoonist is a very solitary profession, so it’s not like in the movie Chasing Amy, where, you know, I’ve got a double desk with Ben Affleck or whatever. I’d say almost every cartoonist I know is really good at being able to sit down in front of a drawing desk for eight hours and just pound out the pages. That’s probably the most important trait for a successful cartoonist, even more than something like artistic ability or writing ability… [laughs] It’s been great finishing because I’m getting to spend more time with my family and my friends. Man, when you have a kid, it’s crazy, you really have to pick and choose what you do with your time. I want to be a good dad, I want to be a good friend, I want to be a good cartoonist, I want to be a good husband, and have interesting hobbies, but realistically, I can probably do only two of those things—maybe three, if I cut down my sleep to five hours.
WEBCOMICS
Why were you skeptical about webcomics before, and what converted you?
Well, part of what I like about comics is the physical experience of holding a book in your hand, flopping down in an armchair, and thumbing through the book. For me, that’s always been an important part of reading comics. The iPad kind of changed my opinion. I tried reading some Kazuo Umezu titles on the iPad and I found that really pleasurable. That changed my mind a little bit. I hate to say it, but a lot of the reason I wasn’t more open to webcomics was I hadn’t found a lot of webcomics that I liked. I had the experience of asking where to start, and then someone would recommend two or three titles. I would check them out and not understand why the person liked them. I think one thing about webcomics is a lot of them are very niche, so they’re about subjects like video games, for example—that’s a popular genre of webcomics—but if you don’t play video games or know too much about them, it doesn’t make any sense. I’m also more interested in longer stories rather than four-panel strips, but those are weird to get into because when you check out a longer webcomic series you’re thrown right in the middle, and you don’t know who the characters are or what the story is.
You could go back and start at the beginning.
When you go back and start at the beginning, sometimes it turns out when the guy started the webcomic, he was thirteen years old and the comic looks like a bunch of stick figures that are crudely drawn and then you don’t want to read it. Also, there’s just so many of them, it’s really intimidating. Though I’ve been drawing and reading webcomics for a couple of years now, I still don’t know how big it is. You could tell me there’s ten thousand webcomics or you could tell me there’s eighty thousand webcomics. I have no idea.
Now that you’re a webcomic creator, what have you enjoyed about it?
I like the immediacy of it. Interacting with the readers is pretty fun. It goes back to the 1990s. It reminds me of the old Eightballs or Optic Nerves. I just love those letter pages, when Dan Clowes or Adrian Tomine would print letters from people writing in, and respond to them. It’s just this fun way to interact with the readers, which is sadly kind of absent from graphic novels. But webcomics are kind of perfect for that; everything old is new again.
The comments on your webpage where you put up Demon and also on your blog are really interesting sometimes. In the pamphlets you include a mailing address and encourage people to correspond with you. Have you actually received any letters in the mail?
No. These days it’s all through the webpage. It’s 2016—who’s going to write a letter?
For a beginning cartoonist, would you recommend webcomics as a way to get work out there?
A friend of mine who had an idea for a book once asked me whether he should try to submit the book to a publisher, or try to self-publish it as a webcomic, or try to get something going through Patreon. My advice was, why does it have to be one or the other? Given the First Second contract for Demon, the money I’m getting from Patreon is essentially like a second advance. Maybe in the olden days people might have been worried about webcomics taking away sales from a published book, but I think First Second has been pretty smart and savvy about the opposite being true. I think webcomics can actually help build an audience and publicity for an upcoming title. So I would definitely recommend webcomics or Patreon as a route to go for making cartoons. I don’t need to tell anyone that. I think that the younger generation of cartoonists pretty much does most of their work online these days.
That’s their default, where they go first?
It’s funny, when I talk with teenagers, I’ll ask, “What comics are you reading?” They’ll list seven webcomics that I’ve never heard of. But it makes sense. When I was a teenager, I didn’t have that much disposable income to plop down on comic books every Wednesday. I would have totally read free comics online. Anyway, I’m not a pioneer in webcomics or Patreon. I am merely copying a well-established model of webcomics that has been going on for ten years.
Bookhunter cover
BOOKHUNTER
I’m assuming your job at the Oakland Public Library gave you material for one of my favorites of your books, Bookhunter.
When I used to work at the library, I spent a lot of time shelving books and it was kind of boring. I thought, wouldn’t it be more exciting if a huge crime happened and I had to use all my knowledge and skills as a library worker to solve this crime? I had read about the case of a historical bible that was stolen from a display at a library, and I thought it would be a plausible case to base the story on, so that’s basically where the idea of the story came from.
Did you have to do research about library systems, book forgeries, and authentication?
Yeah, a lot of that was actually really fun. I could just ask older librarians about how things worked in the ’70s. They didn’t have computers, so how would they keep track of patrons? Once I had a pretty good understanding of how they catalogued and kept track of every single book and patron, and which patrons had which books, all without the aid of computers, I designed a crime around that.
So all of the information about the databases and how they could be accessed, all of that is real?
I made a lot of it up, but it’s all sort of based on reality.
Bookhunter 1
Special Agent Bay in Bookhunter looks like an older version of Jimmy Yee, who’s in many of your stories. Is Bay Asian American? His racial or ethnic identity isn’t marked explicitly.
Yeah, he’s Asian, but it’s not mentioned explicitly. This is actually really important to me. When I was growing up, whenever there was an Asian person on TV, it was always a major event, you know, bring over Mom and Dad, there’s an Asian person on TV. There was George Takei as Sulu from Star Trek, Pat Morita in Happy Days. Pat Morita was also very briefly given the starring role in his own police drama, called Ohara. I remember when that came on TV it was life changing. I was like, “Wow, the Asian is the star of the show, solving crimes. This is crazy!” So anyway, I want to say every protagonist of every one of my books has been Asian.
GENRE
Your stories are often set up as a kind of puzzle or mystery to be solved, and there is a proper outcome. There is an answer that can be arrived at.
A lot of genre fiction does follow certain rules or tropes. Bookhunter resolves very cleanly, but you could say that about most detective stories in general. And I love genre!
Do you have a favorite genre?
Science fiction. I love science fiction. I don’t appreciate stream of consciousness type storytelling. I’m not super into diary comics, or more nebulous types of stories.
Trying to figure out a puzzle or mystery reminds me of your earlier work Fleep and also the recent book The Martian by Andy Weir. I thought of you when I read that book—have you read it?
The Martian is fantastic. I love it! It’s probably one of the best sci-fi novels I’ve read in the past decade. One of my favorite space problem-solving movies was Apollo 13. My favorite scene was the part where they cut to NASA and they’re trying to solve a challenging problem. They dump out what the astronauts have to work with, and it’s something like a three-ring binder, a roll of duct tape, and some tubing for a fuel vent. They just have to MacGyver a solution. The Martian is essentially an entire novel of that scene.
Have you done what you would consider a science fiction comic? If not, do you want to do one?
I want to do one. I haven’t done one yet.
You don’t think any of your works count as science fiction?
Demon might be science fiction.
I also recall that you are extremely fond of romantic comedy.
Yes, that’s another one.
I think I can see what you like about science fiction, but what is it that draws you to romantic comedy?
I never really put too much analysis into what exactly appeals to me about the “rom-com,” as they say. They’ve been around since at least Jane Austen’s time. It’s an unbeatable formula. I do like looking at rom-coms from different eras because they reveal little differences in attitudes or prejudices about relationships within that era’s zeitgeist. They’re revealing about a society’s norms in a way that old Buck Rogers movies aren’t necessarily, although those are fun too.
Do you have a favorite era of romantic comedies?
I like the late ’80s, early ’90s era.
It’s the time of your teenage years.
Yes. There’s that old joke, “What’s the golden age of science fiction? Is it the ’40s, the ’60s, or is it thirteen?”
Empire State cover
EMPIRE STATE
This discussion of romantic comedies makes me think of your book Empire State. I can’t remember exactly where you said it, but you once said that it was your favorite of your books. You described it as an ugly child that nobody loves but that you love all the more because of that. Is that accurate?
I just feel very protective of it. It’s my most personal book, but also, probably the least well-regarded critically. It’s also one of the books I’m most proud of.
Was it a stretch for you? It does seem very different from the other books you’ve done.
Yeah, it wasn’t puzzle-based, it was more character-based. There are a lot of things I would change about the book if I were to do it today. It’s not a perfect book. I think an important thing for an artist is the idea of trying to grow and try new things rather than perfecting the type of story that you’re really good at. Those experiments don’t always turn out well. I’ll be honest, I was kind of bummed at the critical reception of the book.
Empire State 1A critic’s job is to evaluate the work and give his or her opinion of it, but when it’s a work that you created, that you’re very invested in, and it’s also semi-autobiographical, I can imagine it’s hard to hear negative responses because it doesn’t seem like just a criticism of the work, it can also seem like a criticism of you as a person.
Yes! How dare you! I’m still mad at those guys! No, I’m just joking. I’d like to think that some of the stuff I tried in that book I will be able to repurpose for future books, for example, trying to make my characters a little more complex and nuanced. Characterization has never been my strong suit, so it’s kind of about trying to exercise those muscles. That’s always good for me.
I think as an artist if you keep doing the same thing over and over again, you might perfect that one thing, but you don’t really evolve, you’re just repeating yourself.
I love second acts in comics, or in any medium really, but comics is the medium I know best. I love David Mazzucchelli. I love how he had this whole mainstream career that preceded just knocking it out of the park in terms of alternative titles. Shannon Wheeler is another one. He could have made Too Much Coffee Man for the rest of his life, but for whatever reason he really wanted to get into The New Yorker, and he’s doing great work over there. I play this game a lot with other cartoonists, which is which career would you most like to have. For me it’s Yoshihiro Tatsumi because that guy, he didn’t just have a second act, he had a third act. He did the kids’ comics, he did Black Blizzard, he developed a lot of contemporary manga vocabulary when he was like twenty years old, and then in the seventies he was doing all that stuff for gekiga. And then there’s the stuff he did in the past ten years or so, those great auto-bio comics.
Empire State 2
There’s something exciting about that kind of level of vitality.
Yeah, he was in his seventies, and he was still trying new things. That guy’s got a really inspirational career so that’s always my answer when I think of a type of career I’d like to have.
I recall seeing a video of you at The Escapist comic book store in Berkeley talking about a marriage proposal in Empire State. Is there really a marriage proposal in the book?
Well, I don’t want to say too much because I don’t want to spoil the surprise for people, but I’ll say this. Somewhere in the end papers of Empire State there is a marriage proposal to my wife, and that is how I asked her to marry me.
You created Empire State, waited for it to be printed up, and then used it to propose to your wife? You have to tell this story!
Right before I left for a long trip to India I submitted the manuscript for Empire State with the proposal in it. My plan was after I got back from India I would propose to her. India gets crazy, I don’t want to go into all the gory details, but I almost died. There was a terrorist bombing, and I almost died there, and I almost died again when I got lost in the woods. I lost seventy pounds.
If would have been terrible if you died over there and you had this proposal waiting in the mail!
It would! Honestly, I don’t think she would have been able to find it. After my return we got the proofs of the book back, and I just put the book on the coffee table. I told her there was a hidden message somewhere in the book. She tried to find it but was unsuccessful. So I gave her a hint, and told her it was in the endpapers. She still couldn’t find it. I said I’ll give you another hint, it’s in the back endpapers, not the front ones, the back ones! At this point she’s like, just tell me already, I hate these puzzles! I said no, you must find it yourself! After, gosh this must have gone on for like three months…
Oh my god, you made her keep trying for three months?
Yup. Well, I hate spoilers myself, so I didn’t want to give too much away. I wanted her to have the feeling of accomplishment that comes from solving a puzzle. So yeah, every week I’d give her another hint. She got closer and closer, although I think by the third month she was just like I give up, I don’t care anymore, just tell me, it can’t be that important. And then we were traveling up in Canada, and I thought, today, she’s going to figure it out.
You brought the page proofs with you to Canada?
Yes, I brought the book with me to Canada. When we were packing, my wife was like why are you bringing the proofs with you to Canada? I said, I don’t know, so you can work on the puzzle some more? Anyways, I decided I wanted to do this on our last day in Canada. We went to a park for a walk, and I brought the copy of Empire State with us so that she could work on the puzzle some more. I think she was getting really irritated by this point, but then she solved it, after a bunch of hints, and a bunch of prodding. I tried to time it so that she’d be using the sunset—there’s another hint for my readers—to help solve the puzzle. She said yes, and I guess the rest is history.
FAMILY MATTERS
On the inside back cover of issue fifteen of Demon, in a review of Bryan O’Malley’s Seconds, you wrote something I found very moving about how you wish your father had lived to see your comics career take off. How did your parents feel about you going into comics, and what do you think your father would make of your career now?
I don’t know what my dad would think of my career, but I can always speculate. My dad was an animator in Japan, and he was very supportive of my pursuit of comics. He worked on a bunch of Japanese titles from the sixties that you might not know. But he also worked on Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Did I tell you about the second version of Rudolph they made? In the original version of Rudolph, Yukon Cornelius died and all the toys got left on the Island of Misfit Toys because Santa never rescued them. It was a really dark ending. All the kids were deeply troubled and disturbed by it. They had to go back and reshoot a bunch of scenes, like the scenes where Yukon Cornelius pops back and says, “Bubbles bounce!” or the scene where Santa Claus picks up the misfit toys. Anyway, my dad worked on the revision parts. You know, he lived long enough to see a lot of my earlier books like Fleep and Bookhunter get published. He saw me on French TV. Kind of a bummer he didn’t get to see Meanwhile get picked up. He died just a few months before I got the advance from Abrams. Such is life.
My mom died the following year, but the week before she died, we got the proofs for Meanwhile so she got to see that. After my mom passed away I was going through the house and I found one of my dad’s travel journals. I guess before my dad met my mom, he had a family in Japan, he went kind of AWOL, he just left them and wandered through India for a year and kept this really interesting travel journal. It was in Japanese so I had to get it translated, but after my parents died I thought it would be an interesting idea to go follow my dad’s route when he was India. This is the trip I went on after submitting the Empire State manuscript. He kind of used his journal as a sketchbook so it was really emotional for me going to a new city and seeing a temple or something that he had drawn, and then getting to see it with my own eyes and thinking oh my dad probably stood right here.
You mentioned this trip at the back of issue number eighteen of Demon, but I didn’t know what led up to it. What do you think your dad would have thought about some of the racier parts of Demon?
I think he would have liked them. Before he died, my dad gave me his old sketchbook. One of them was a drawing of a vagina. Inside the vagina was another vagina. And inside that one was a smaller one. And they kept going on in an infinite recursion. It was like a vagina fractal. So yeah, who knows, maybe he would have loved the comic!
So your parents didn’t suggest that since you were studying math in college that you should become an engineer or something like that?
I know a lot of Asian parents are very pushy when it comes to academics. But my dad was an artist. My parents were always very supportive of what I chose to be. Ultimately your parents just want you to be happy. Have you read Gene Yang’s and Thien Pham’s Level Up? That’s one of the themes of Level Up. That was one of my big realizations when I had a kid myself. Before I had a kid, I remember thinking that if I became a successful cartoonist my father would be really proud of me. Now that I have a kid, I just want him to be happy, I want him to be a good person. I don’t care what he does. As long as he’s happy and he’s a good person, I’d be just as proud.
I think anyone who manages to raise a child who grows up to be a happy and good person has done a fantastic job.
NEXT UP: FRANCE!
I believe you wrote that you were giving yourself six months to rest after finishing Demon, and then it’s back to the grindstone. What will you do in six months’ time?
In six months, our family will be moving to Angoulême, in France! I applied for a cartoonist residency, and we got it. We’re moving there in August. I’m not sure, but I think we’re going to take the apartment that Jessica Abel and Matt Madden are currently living in. They’re the current Angoulême cartoonists-in-residence. Sarah Glidden’s been a resident, along with a bunch of French cartoonists. They’re setting us up with an apartment, and a studio for me, and preschool’s free over there.
What are you going to work on while you’re there?
While I’m in Angoulême I’m going to work on my most ambitious project to date. It will be another choose-your-own-adventure comic, like Meanwhile, except that Meanwhile was only seventy pages, whereas this one is going to be five hundred pages. It’s going to be split into two books, and the two books will be joined together along a third spine. The pages of the book will be facing each other so that you can essentially open the book from the middle. It’ll use the same tab system that Meanwhile uses, except that in addition to tubes taking you to different pages, that is, different tabbed pages within one book, tubes will also cross the middle spine into the second book. The most exciting part is that when you’re reading one book, the pages in the book that you’re not reading can basically store states, meaning you could be reading the same panel in one book, but depending on the page that the other book is flipped to in the book that you’re not reading, the next panel in the sequence could be totally different. The long and short of it is the book you’re not reading will be able to store memory, almost like a computer. The story that you are reading will be able to access the memory in the other book and feed you sequences of panels depending on what’s in the memory.
You explained something like this in your California College of the Arts talk. You compared it to a video game where you have a knapsack in which you can store tools, gold coins, potions, and weapons, as you go.
Yes! So for example, one thing you could do is you could go to a store that sells a lamp, a map, a rope, a ladder. You have enough money to buy two items from the store. You go off on your adventure, and depending on which two items you brought along with you, when you get to key junctures in the story, you can take those items out and use them to help complete your adventure. That’s something you wouldn’t normally be able to do in a choose your own adventure book.
What is the title of the book, and what is the story about?
It’s called The Box. The idea is that it’s two stories. Without getting too specific, one’s a maze or a dungeon that you’re trying to navigate, and the other story takes place in one room, but it’s one room that has many different objects inside the room so you can use the objects in many different ways and combinations. The maze doesn’t have that many objects, but it has a lot of pathways.
Intriguing. And a little confusing. Is this something that you’re going to make and then send to publishers, or have you already worked out that part of it? The making of this book sounds like it could be very complicated.
I haven’t worked out the publishing part of it. It could very well be unpublishable.
Jeanette Roan is an Associate Professor in the Visual Studies Program and the Graduate Program in Visual and Critical Studies at California College of the Arts.
FILED UNDER: Jason Shiga
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Jason Shiga's ambitious projects leap from one medium to another—and unite them.
For most of his career, Jason Shiga has been creating comic books that push the limits of the form—not only through the tales they tell, but through the physical shape they take. His illustrated choose-your-own-adventure stories often seem to defy the paper they're printed on, unfolding both literally and figuratively into tales so complex that it's hard to believe they can exist outside of a computer. Indeed, his most mind-bending comics bear many of the familiar hallmarks of video games: tutorials, secret codes, multiple endings and even the ability to "save" your "game."
The first time Shiga blew my mind was with an interactive graphic novel called Hello World. The story is simple enough: You're a little boy sent to the store by his mother with a grocery list of items and a suitcase to carry them home. But the moment you open the cover, it's obvious this is unlike any comic you've ever seen before.
Every page is sliced in half, separating the comic into two parts. The top half is where the story unfolds, while the bottom half displays the contents of your suitcase. The two sides are connected by an intricate system of page-turning: When you see a number inside a square, you flip to a page in the top half of the comic, advancing the story; when you see a number inside a circle, you flip to a page on the bottom, adding and removing items from your suitcase.
That's when you realize that this isn't just a choose-your-own-adventure story: It's a comic with a functional inventory system.
Shiga has been making comics since he was 20 years old and a pure math major studying at UC Berkeley. A life-long fan of Choose Your Own Adventure books and interactive fiction games, Shiga took a class called "Comics as Literature" and decided that it was time to make comics of his own—ones that would let him to craft multiple paths for the reader.
"I think a common frustration for a lot of writers is that they have too many ideas about how a story could go," says Shiga. "One of the cool parts of doing interactive stories is saying, I can do all these ideas! I don't have to choose."
But he didn't just want to play with the structure of the story; he also wanted to play with the structure of the physical paper itself. His earliest comics are like narrative origami, engaging the reader with panels of intricate polygons that literally fold and unfold in different ways, depending on the choices you make. "I've always been drawn to math and puzzles, paper folding and paper geometry, so it seemed like a way to combine all my interests," says Shiga. "I don't know how to describe it. I just think it's super fun."
Shiga's creations are often difficult to describe, and far easier to experience. One of his first minicomics, Jimmy's Lamp, begins as an accordion of paper that you open downward, revealing a single image of young man named Jimmy acquiring a genie's lamp. By unfolding the stack left or right, you can choose to make either selfish or altruistic wishes, leading to four different endings. (Shiga has a tutorial here for a making your own project in the same format.)
Over time, his interactive comics grew more even more complex, including stacks of panels that you read by locking and unlocking different sections with pegs, and others where moveable parts shifted images around in troughs. Although these comics were incredibly clever and unique, each had to be created by hand, turning them into boutique items that were impossible to digitize and difficult to mass-produce. Shiga sometimes created less than a hundred copies of each, limiting their audience to the several dozen readers lucky enough to stumble across his table at a comic book convention.
His experiments reached their apex with a comic called Theater Eroika, which involved a series of five overlapping wheels that would spin together to reveal different sequential images. "That one was so crazy that I only made one copy of it," says Shiga. "I was like, I've reached the pinnacle of complexity. This is just insane. This is too nuts."
Shiga's early diagrams of The Box
Shiga's early diagrams of The Box
Perhaps that's why Shiga's most recent project has taken him in a direction that couldn't be more different from his prior artisanal, analog approach to comics: the web.
He's currently working on a crowd-funded webcomic called Demon, about a malevolent, serial-killing spirit. Although it's a linear story, it still bears many of the hallmarks of Shiga's work, particularly its mysteries and puzzles. Although you don't solve them yourself, reading often feels a bit like watching a Let's Play video. It's also definitely a story intended for mature readers; at one point, a serial killer trapped in a jail cell solves his "locked room" puzzle by fashioning a shiv partially out of his own semen.
The web has provided a lot of things for Shiga that hand-crafted minicomics couldn't: instant feedback, easy access for all readers, and more than $1,800 of monthly support through his Patreon account. But webcomics also appeal to him for the same philosophical reasons as his earlier work. "The DIY self-publishing ethos is part of my soul at this point," says Shiga. "It's been really fun to see how that's transferred over to the web." Although he's found both joy and success in the digital realm, Shiga hasn't totally abandoned his love of papercraft. Lately, he says he's been experimenting with flexagons: paper shapes that can be flexed or folded to reveal different sides.
He sends me one of his latest experiments by mail, an octo-tetraflexagon comic titled The Box. At first glance it's a square, four-panel comic about a man who finds a sealed parcel on the ground. Each time you make a choice, you open the comic along a vertical or horizontal seam, revealing a new, four-panel comic. All in all, The Box has a total of four endings, all contained within a single piece of intricately folded paper. And because it's a cyclic flexagon, when you finish you simply have to fold it one more time, and it'll reset itself back to where it started.
Most amazing of all, this little marvel of papercraft was an original invention by Shiga. Although he'd played around with hexa-hexaflexagons, their gem-like shape didn't really lend itself to comic book panels. He wanted a square canvas to work with instead, "so I made a flexagon of my own creation," says Shiga. "According to Google, the octo-tetraflexagon didn't exist before, so maybe I invented it."
Entering the mad scientist's lab in Meanwhile
Entering the mad scientist's lab in Meanwhile
If you want to snag one of Shiga's multi-path printed comics but don't see yourself stopping by a small press comics convention, never fear. Meanwhile, Shiga's most labyrinthine tale to date was released several years ago by a major publisher, and it's a beautiful, brain-melting thing to behold. (There's an iOS version developed by Shiga and Andrew Plotkin if you want to go digital.) Meanwhile stars a little boy named Jimmy—yup, the same character from Jimmy's Lamp—who gets access to three wonderfully dangerous items in a mad scientist's lab: a memory transfer helmet, a doomsday device, and of course, a time machine.
You make choices by following color-coding trails off of each page to protruding tabs that lead you to other pages, for a total of 3,865 different story possibilities. What starts as a simple decision between chocolate and vanilla ice cream becomes a race across time and space involving the end of the world, quantum theory, buried memories and—in some endings, at least—the darkest time travel nightmares this side of Primer.
Eagle-eyed readers might notice something special buried in the pages of Meanwhile: a picture of the protagonist joyfully riding a giant squid. But if it seems impossible to find your way to that ending, that's because it is: There's no absolutely way to reach it through the story. But rather than a trap, Shiga sees this as its own sort of puzzle—or perhaps an invitation to break the rules and hack the game.
"I was inspired by a Choose Your Own Adventure book called UFO 54-50 by Edward Packard. This was a key moment in my childhood. You're trying to find a planet that was a utopia, and flipping through the book, I could see little illustrations of this planet. I exhausted every possible choice to try and get there. At one point I got so frustrated that I said screw it, I'm just going to flip to that page. I remember to this day how the entry started out: 'You made it to the planet. You did not get here by choosing. You thought outside the box.'"
The time travel code in Meanwhile
The time travel code in Meanwhile
Rather than just starting over from scratch each time the story ends, Shiga also wanted the reader to be able to build on their experiences in Meanwhile—to do new things with the knowledge and experience they acquire."It's really difficult to have save states in a book, whereas in a computer game you can have a character pick up objects or have inventory or change something about the environment," says Shiga.
So he added a twist: secret codes. For example, in order to travel back in time further than seven minutes, you need to learn the correct series of shapes that will unlock the time machine. Once you find the path that teaches you the code, you have to remember it; that's the key that opens up not just the time machine but far more exciting adventures that lead both forwards and backwards in time.
And Shiga's most ambitious comic yet is still on the horizon. Although he's played with similar ideas before with the inventory system in Hello World and the secret codes in Meanwhile, he says his next work will take the idea of "saved games" to an even more exciting place.
After he finishes Demon, he plans to focus on an untitled graphic novel about a young girl visiting her hometown. Shiga describes it as part escape-the-room mystery and part dungeon crawl, alternating between two stories that seem unconnected but ultimately converge. But what really makes it special is his latest innovation, a new page-turning system that will allow the interactive comic to remember items, locations, even conversations.
"When you're reading it, it'll be almost like reading one of those text adventure games from the '80s like Zork, except it'll be a comic," says Shiga. "I'm going to have a maze that moves around as as you're walking through it. You'll be able to pick up items and go places and the story will actually keep track of it where you've been, which characters you've talked to, and even bring up a different character to talk to so you're not repeating things. Oh my gosh. It is going to be crazy."
shiga-photo
Jason Shiga on Mysteries, Angoulême, and Demon
07/29/2016 3:30 PM BY ZACHARY CLEMENTE LEAVE A COMMENT
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Halfway into a pleasant Oakland morning I met up up with Jason Shiga in his family home. At a nearby cafe, we talked about his recently completed comic Demon, his approaching yearlong residency in Angoulême, France, and a variety of other topics over breakfast.
Comics Beat: Right now, when people think of Jason Shiga they think Demon, unless they’re kids. Demon recently wrapped up, about April?
Jason Shiga: Yeah, that sounds about right.
CB: And it’s being published by First Second in four volumes?
JS: Yup!
CB: When I started reading Demon back around when it started and when I recently finished it something that I found very exciting was the consistency of the panel structure, in which the need to fill the page with illustration seems not to be a priority. What’s important to you when you approach laying out a page?
JS: So I approach it from a very utilitarian point of view. The number one priority is readability. I want my readers to be able to figure out what’s going on and what order to read the panels. I’d say that is more important than aesthetics, what looks pretty. What’s it – form follows function?
Once I’ve got the rough layout I can fiddle with it a little bit. I guess the overall philosophy with my layouts is that bigger panels represent a larger amount of time. I don’t think it’s that different from your average Marvel or DC comic, I think they abide by those same rules.
CB: I’ve never heard that specifically put into words, but it clicked as soon as you said it. It makes sense to me. That’s interesting to me because as a reader I enjoy being challenged by a layout – not in a way that’s difficult to read necessarily. I didn’t specifically get that from Demon, but it challenged me to read slow and make sure I wasn’t missing things.
CB: So I have my timeline right, from page one upload to page 760 was about two years or so, yeah?
JS: Yeah, just about two years.
demon_02
CB: How long was Demon kicking around in your head? Where did it all start?
JS: Before I uploaded the first page, I had the entire thing penciled out and that took about three years. From there I was basically inking, coloring, and uploading as I went along. Every once in a while I’d make little corrections to the pencils, I think I rewrote the last chapter…two times. But yeah, pretty much the whole thing was more or less penciled by the time I posted the first page.
CB: To me, that sounds pretty unique as far as webcomics go. In my experience, most webcomics don’t have a significant chunk, let alone all of the story in such a complete state when started.
JS: Well, if I had done it that way, there’d be no effin’ way I would’ve been able to update 7 days a week. Theoretically I could do it that way but I don’t know, I like to spoil my readers a little bit. I don’t want to update once or three times a week. I’m sure like you I grew up with daily strips and I like the idea of a serial you can come back to every day to read something and think: “Oh, what’s going to happen next? I’ll wait ‘til tomorrow.” So that was important to me too.
CB: So you spent a total of five years on this project?
JS: Yes.
CB: Well, alright.
JS: So I can see why most web cartoonists don’t do it that way because I can see if you’re to do it that way, you’d have these gaps in your website where you’d be penciling something for three years and your site wouldn’t get updated at all.
CB: Yeah, back-to-back series that way must be really tough, keeping readers between a three-year nothin’.
[Both laugh]
CB: But you worked on Demon in conjunction with your other projects? I’m trying to put a timeline together.
JS: I don’t know how in the weeds you want to get with this, but as you probably know, after you submit something to a publisher, there’s about a year between the submission and when it hits the shelf. Usually within the year, I’ll spend it working on my next project, probably penciling it, maybe inking it. So by the time the first project hits the shelves, I’ll have a new one to submit.
While I was waiting for Meanwhile to show up on shelves, I was working on Empire State. While I was waiting for that to hit the shelves, I was working on Demon. So that’s the rough timeline I think.
CB: What was the reason for Demon going the webcomics route instead of going to publishers directly like Meanwhile and Empire State?
JS: I actually submitted Demon to my publisher Abrams who did Meanwhile and Empire State, but I also had, along with the submission, I crazy of list of demands. This is what’s called hubris. I’m not going to go through all of them, but some of them were: they had to print it in issues.
CB: [Laughs] I don’t know if Abrams has ever done that before!
JS: I don’t know if anyone does that anymore! I’d say most comics publishers don’t even do that.
But yeah, they had to be in issues. Also, the issues had to be irregular page numbers. Some issues were 60 pages long, some issues were four pages long. There was one issue that was all black, there wasn’t a single image in the whole thing.
CB: Very conceptual.
[Both laugh]
JS: Other demands were that it had to be two colors and I wouldn’t budge on any content changes. The cum-farting, the sperm-knife, the camel sex – I wouldn’t budge on any of them. Those are just a sample of the whole list of demands that I gave to Abrams.
demon_chapter17
CB: And these were preemptive demands? Not in response to any of their feedback?
JS: Oh, no, this was along with the submission.
CB: [Laughs] Oh, good!
JS: So understandably, they passed. At that point I was a little upset and indignant but in retrospect their response was perfectly reasonable.
CB: You did kind of stack the deck not in your favor.
JS: Yeah, it stung a little, but I remember thinking “I got my start doing minis and self-publishing, I’m gonna get back into it!” I was going to publish Demon in those series of issues. I bought a risograph machine and started printing up my own issues and even though for the longest time I was a webcomics skeptic, it was what all the kids were doing those days and I thought I should dip my toe in it and started uploading pages in conjunction with the issues.
There was some really good bits of timing when I started. The website Patreon hit a few months before I launched the website so I got on that really, early on and it was super successful. By the end, it was up to $2,000 a month.
CB: Wow, that’s really excellent.
JS: Yeah, it was fantastic.
CB: That’s a livable wage.
JS: And, here’s the kicker; the Patreon and webcomic were successful enough to get some nibbles from some other publishers who wanted to publish it with all the camel sex, cum knives, and everything. In the end I went with First Second.
CB: Well, the folks there are wonderful people, it’s a great little office.
JS: Yeah I gotta hand it to them, they have a lot of guts to be the publisher of Zita: The Space Girl and Demon at the same time.
CB: First Second never fails to surprise me with their lineup. They’ll dig in for YA and kid-oriented work but they’ll turn around and put out The Divine with the Hankua twins and Boaz Lavie. I think First Second is a good space for Demon.
JS: [Laughs] We’ll see! I have my fingers crossed.
CB: First Second doesn’t really do issues, so how did the four-book model come about?
JS: So the plan is that they’re splitting it up the full story up into four volumes and my idea was – and they really pulled it off – is that I want it to almost look like a manga series. Kind of like the way Scott Pilgrim was designed to look like a manga series, but early, pre-Tezuka manga.
We’re doing it with two-color printing, in black and red like a lot of early manga. They’re splitting it up into these really gorgeous paperback volumes. No french flaps, just regular cover and really nice paper.
CB: What about that era and style of comics printing excites you?
JS: I think it comes down to comics as pop culture versus comics as art. I’m definitely on the pop culture side of things – in Japan it was TV before TV. It’s hard to put a finger on why I love it so much but it’s just the accessibility of it, the portability of it, also being affordable is a huge thing. How old are you?
CB: I’m 26.
JS: So if you talk to kids 10 years younger than you who are super into comics and ask them what they’re reading, they’ll rattle off a whole bunch of webcomics and maybe some manga series. It makes sense, when I was a teenager I didn’t have 60 bucks to spend on a comic series. But yeah, to me being accessible is an important stage of a piece of art. You might disagree, but I think – and there’s a lot of exceptions – the best and also my favorite works of art pass through that pop culture stage in their life. I’m hoping Demon will pass through that phase as well.
CB: What’s one of your examples of that?
JS: I guess classic ones are Charles Dickens or Mark Twain, you know they were popular in their time but are considered classics now.
CB: So you want Demon to be read in schools five years from now?
JS: Yes.
[Both laugh]
demon_chapter02
JS: But yeah, if we’re talking about comics, manga’s the big example of pop culture that, in my opinion, rises to the level of art in the case of Tezuka or Kazuo Umezu, he’s probably my favorite mangaka. Anyways, that’s how I feel about that.
CB: I like how Tezuka’s work is making back into the US, like the Vertical’s printing of Black Jack.
JS: Yeah, write about what you know.
CB: Oh yeah, he was a surgeon before he did comics!
JS: Talk about a career change.
CB: For real. Shifting back, something I really enjoyed about Demon was how your sort of set in a potential future but it didn’t really look or act all that different than our current world. There weren’t flying cars but instead just taller buildings. What drove that design choice?
JS: So I’m in the minority on this. I’m thinking we might’ve reached our technological peak. I know people have been saying that every year for the past thousand years and I’m sure there was some medieval guy who saw some trebuchet and said “we’ve reached out technological peak, this is it!” I think this really is it, at least if it isn’t it, I think there’s been technological stagnations like in ancient China during a 500-year period where all technological progress sort of leveled off.
When I read science fiction from the 60’s about the year 2000, I’d say the biggest mistake people make is assume that the growth curves are going to be continuous all the way into the future. In 1960, they had gone from the Wright Brothers inventing the airplane 50 years previous to landing on the Moon. So of course to them they’re thinking in another 50 years in 2010, we’re going to sending rocket ships to Jupiter or manned missions to Europa. I think the natural curve of technology is to shoot up then level off.
I think after the introduction of computers and communications in the 60’s, everything sort of leveled off.
CB: Are you referring to things becoming iterative instead of innovative?
JS: Yeah, a lot of things like that. I remember I was watching some Star Trek movie or episode where at one point someone had a spoon but it was like a future spoon. But the thing about the spoon is that’s been the same for 1000 years, there aren’t improvements we can make on the spoon. Or a door! Star Trek doors open vertically but it’s kind of the perfect form already. I think doors are gonna look the same in 1000 years. I can’t imagine a design improvement on the door or the spoon or the table or the chair.
CB: Funnily enough, I’ve seen a neat one specifically for the spoon. It’s definitely an iteration that serves a very specific purpose. It’s an attachable handle designed for people with Parkinson’s where it compensates for the shaking to allow easier use of the spoon. Progress is progress no matter how small?
JS: No, I think building sizes are going to get taller, computers and communications will continue to get faster for a while before they level off.
CB: Cocaine will get purer.
JS: [Laughs] Yup, cocaine will get purer. But yeah, for the most part this is it.
CB: If that’s the case, it’s not so bad technology-wise, just gotta make it accessible.
JS: Yeah.
demon_chapter13
CB: In preparation for this interview, I polled a couple friends who had introduced me to Demon to see if they had any specific questions for you and the one they settled on was what satisfies you out of writing mysteries or mysterious stories? Both Demon and Meanwhile had that going on and it seems like your next work The Box will as well.
JS: Well, it’s one of my favorite genres for starters. I’m going to try to get a little cosmic here for a second; I’m going to say “life is a mystery.”
[Both laugh]
JS: The world is a mystery. I don’t know, the process of learning about the world, discovering how things work is the greatest mystery of all. You know, I have a 3-year-old named Kazuo and he’s starting to ask me questions about…why it’s nighttime in France but it’s daytime here or why does a big boat float on the water while a little stone will sink? All these mysteries of life that as an adult we sort of put in a box that some scientist will figure out.
CB: We don’t need to know how it works, it just does.
JS: Yeah. There’s this thing I called the “why tunnel” where Kazuo will ask a questions and when I give him an answer, he’ll say “why?” and then keep asking. One thing I wanted to do, before I was a parent, I made a vow to never say “because I said so.” If Kazuo asks me a question, I’m always going to give him my best answer, my best and most honest answer. So he started asking all these Why questions so I knew the big one was coming up; “why is the sky blue?”
So I researched it. It’s an interesting answer about light being diffracted but I knew if I just told him that shorter wavelengths of light were scattered or not scattered as much as much as longer wavelengths I know his immediate follow-up question would be “why?” So I had to research that and already – two questions in – you’re getting into quantum mechanics. Anyways I kept researching it as thoroughly as possible, branching out all the possible Whys he could ask, going deep down, going into the most complex and contemporary physics. And I was just waiting for “why is the sky blue?” to unleash this storm of information and give him the most thorough response.
So we were at the kitchen and he got that twinkle in his eye. “Oh, it’s coming” I thought and he goes “Daddy, why is this cup blue?” And I told him that there’s pigment on the cup and the pigment is blue. “Daddy, why is pigment blue?” I don’t know! I have no idea why pigment is blue!
[Both laugh]
JS: So back to Demon and mysteries, I guess these days I’m super into the scientific method which is essentially a way of asking questions in an answerable way. Asking Why questions in a way that can be tested or at least answered more or less definitively. I don’t know what it is about the human brain but when you have a mystery or a question and you see a really satisfying explanation it’s great. It’s like our brains have a mystery-shaped hole in it that you can plug right into and it’s really satisfying.
CB: Did you have a specific question when you were working on Demon that you wanted to answer?
JS: Well I guess the big theme of the book is the meaning of life or what is it that adds value to your life and I think for most of us when we’re younger, it’s about survival of a sort. You want to make money, you want to meet somebody, you want to make friends but then you become middle aged and you have all those things. You have a stable job, you’re married, you have friends, you have a house and then you start going through some sort of existential crisis and wonder “what’s the point of it all?” That would be the theme of Demon and my answer, in case you don’t want to read the book.
Maybe I’m a bit of a nihilist, but surprise. Why should there be any meaning to anything? If you’re religious, I suppose you would think everything has to mean something, but for those of us who aren’t we’re just a bunch of atoms floating around in this universe that’s gonna explode or implode or go through a heat death – who knows? Whatever happens, it’s all gonna be gone one day. I’ve heard it argued that the meaning of life is to try to be a good person and do good deeds but that’s horse shit.
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CB: How so?
JS: I think if that makes you happy, sure go for it but I’d say the worst villains were in history weren’t nihilists, they were super moralistic and judgmental people. Anyways that’s sort of what I going for with the end of Demon, I guess we should give some sort of spoiler warning now.
One of my favorite, favorite movies about the meaning of life is Groundhog Day which from the first 30 pages of Demon seems pretty obvious, but one thing about that movie that never sat right with me was the very end where Bill Murray starts doing good deeds and breaks the karmic cycle and continues on with his life.
CB: You didn’t want a happy ending?
JS: Well, why? It doesn’t make any sense! I heard in the original script there was some sort of gypsy curse making him live the same day over again until he found true love or something bogus. That would’ve made more sense. I’m glad they dropped that plot point and I wish they’d gone further and dropped the ending where he decides to become a good person. I guess one thing I was going for with the ending of Demon was that, just from a narrative point of view it’s fun to see characters change, see Jimmy attempt to become kinda of a “better person” but in doing so he fucks over humanity. He triggers the apocalypse 8 and dooms all of humankind. That’s more in-line with my thinking.
CB: Let no selfless deed go unpunished?
JS: [Laughs] Anyways I’m not trying to talk you out of being a good person and doing good deeds but just so you know, you’re not doing a lot.
CB: [Laughs]
JS: Whatever makes you happy at least. Either have a kid or go to the zoo and watch a bunch of monkeys fighting and you’ll realize the human race is completely doomed.
CB: Do you think we’re more or less doomed than the solar system we exist in?
JS: I want to give you an honest answer to this question. Getting back to mysteries, there’s one that I can’t imagine science ever solving which is the mystery of consciousness. Why do we have consciousness? Why do we have awareness? I’m pretty sure the solar system doesn’t have awareness, it’s just a bunch of atoms but somehow when the atoms are collected into this structure we call a brain, it produces our experience of the world – memories, perceptions, the color red. Who knows what the heck that is.
CB: Is your use of the flasticle in Demon a way of trying to talk about that mystery?
JS: Yeah, so the flasticle is basically my idea of a completely materialist explanation for the soul. Obviously that wasn’t meant to be taken seriously as a scientific hypothesis that I’m floating out there.
CB: Oh sure, I found it an enjoyable device to think about this stuff.
CB: To shift gears pretty substantially, how did the Angoulême residency come to be?
JS: Oh man I wish I had a more exciting story for you but I just applied for it and got it.
CB: What drove you to apply and what excites you about it?
JS: I’m trying to think of a way of saying this without coming off as super snobby. I always liked to travel. I’ve been to Angoulême twice and I loved it – three of my books have been translated into French. France has such a comics-rich culture so I’ve always enjoyed my time there and I’ve liked all the people I’ve met there, they’ve been very welcoming of myself and a lot of cartoonists I know.
With the residency, it’s just gone above and beyond. They’re setting me up with an apartment, a studio, a school for Kazuo. You probably don’t know this but preschool in the US is hella expensive – at least $1000 a month, but in France it’s free, it’s a public service there. I’ve felt super welcomed by the culture and people there so far. It would also be a great opportunity for Kazuo, who’s three, to pick up another language since it’s much easier to do at that age.
CB: You and your family will be there for a year?
JS: Yes, we’ll be there for a full year. It’s a gift that I want to give him; the opportunity to be bilingual. My wife was bilingual when she was growing up and I noticed picking up new languages is super easy for her. Even if Kazuo doesn’t keep up with his French, just having that level in his mind unlocked is good.
CB: Are you bilingual?
JS: No, I’m monolingual. Just having that achievement unlocked for him will be a great gift I can give him and it’s something I wish I had myself.
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Angoulême, France
CB: You’ve lived in Oakland you whole life?
JS: Yes.
CB: How has being Asian American influenced your life and your work? A question I like to pose is the delineation between the subconscious and active choices towards representation by a creator in their work. For instance, Jimmy in Demon is Asian but it’s not overtly discussed more than once or twice.
JS: This is one of my big things. Well you’ve likely heard the controversy with the casting of Ghost In The Shell or the casting of Doctor Strange.
CB: I have.
JS: Those two are funny because I think they came out the same day or week?
CB: If I recall correctly, it was two days back-to-back.
JS: It was very memorable because there was a cluster of them. If you think about it, it’s not just those two isolated incidents, it’s sort of the whole pervasiveness of it that makes it a problem. I honestly feel that if there were a healthy dose of Asian roles and Asian actors – big Hollywood blockbusters and featured Asian people as the lead, no one would care about Scarlett Johansson starring in Ghost In The Shell. It’s just the consistency of it that’s the real bummer.
I feel kind of whatever, it’s Hollywood. They’ve got their own system and it doesn’t seem like there’s a lot one person can do. They’ve got a few things working against them; there’s a lot of money involved, people are super gun-shy when it comes to trying new things, a lot of the executives and directors are white. It seems like for that to change, there’s at least five separate problems that need to be solved.
But! For comics, especially independent comics, I feel that all you have to do is have an Asian American main character. I feel like there’s a lot of Asian Americans working in comics and right there, you’ve got most of the problem solved. You’re not dealing with some huge system. If you’re a single creator it’s something you can do, a choice you can make to make your main character Asian. It’s free to do, you don’t have to worry that Scarlett Johansson is going to bring in more box office money.
And yet! I feel that even when everything is working in our favor. You’ve got an indie title, you’ve got an Asian American creator; still I feel like half the time an Asian creator will choose a white character by default.
CB: There’s a whole mess of societal unlearning needed there first.
JS: I used to do that too when I first started out as a cartoonist. You read comics, you read superheroes or watch James Bond or whatever – that stuff gets in your head.
CB: Yeah, over time we’re socialized to see white as default.
JS: Yeah, so later on when I want to write a detective story I think “of course he has to be white!” If he’s Asian, there has to be a point for them being Asian.
CB: You’d have to be making a statement with it or something like that.
JS: I’m trying to think about a moment when I realized that white characters didn’t have to be default. When you’re young and want to make it in the comics industry, you think that no one would want to read about an Asian main character; you want to be successful or whatever. I guess at one point I just though “F it.”
I remember when I was a kid being super excited whenever I’d see an Asian person on TV. I remember Pat Morita got his own cop show (Ohara) once and I burst into the kitchen going “Mommy there’s an Asian guy on TV and he’s the star of his own show, what’s going on?!” I remember how special that was to me growing and thought it’d be great for kids today to be able to read how to make a knife out of semen and thinking that one day too, they’d be able to do that.
[Both laugh]
CB: Hey, be the chance you want to see in the world. It’s something I’ve been more cognizant of recently, but it’s a little weirder because I’m mixed.
JS: Oh yeah, I feel like it’s especially tricky for mixed creators because you’ll always be asked how legitimate you are. People will be “Choose! Choose a side! Your character must either be white or Asian!”
I don’t know if you saw X-Men: First Class, there’s Mystique in a movie where she can pass for human when she’s actually a mutant. I remember talking to my wife about it, asking if she identified with Mystique in the movie. When I asked her I expected, in this analogy I was creating, that Asians were the mutants and humans were the white people, but the way my wife saw it was reversed – she grew up in San Francisco and wanted to fit in with the Asian people but she was always questioned by people whether she was truly Asian or not.
CB: That’s tough but I get it.
JS: I always thought about it from the other way.
CB: I wonder about that kind of thing with other mixed folks. I spent a long time attempting to interface with exclusively “white culture” and the sea change that allowed me to not do that came much later.
Back to your work. You’ve lived in Oakland all your life and Demon takes place in Oakland, what is the spirit and voice of this city that you wanted to include?
JS: I was born and raised here, it’s my home. You know, John Waters has Baltimore and I’ve got Oakland. I think every single one of my comics that I’ve made has been set here in Oakland, it’s just the city I know best.
CB: Well alright. While in Angoulême you’ll be working on your new comic The Box.
JS: Yes!
CB: To set this question up, here’s an analogy: whenever I start working on something I give myself a “lego box” of pieces that I can form into whatever I’m working on. What do you consider the foundational pieces you’re excited to investigate, break apart, and build up for The Box? I’m curious as to what you’ve planned out for the process of making it.
JS: So there’s a few things I’m trying to do with The Box but before I get into that I should describe it! The Box is going to be another interactive comic, similar to Meanwhile except about seven times as long (about 500 pages) and the special thing about is that instead of one spine with a series of pages, it’s gonna have three spines, tabs, and two sets of pages – the tabs of which will be facing each other. The reader will be able to traverse the third spin where the tabs meet each other but also go within the pages of the other spines. It’ll be able to store memory, similar to one of my other interactive comics experiments called Hello World. Yeah, it’s something I’ve always wanted to do but has always been seen as super uncommercial and maybe even unprintable.
It’s going to be my most ambitious project to date and there’s a few goals I have for this book. One of them is that I want to revisit Fleep. When I first wrote Fleep, I wrote it as an interactive comic but I just didn’t have the nerve or skill to pull it off as I wanted so it just became a very straight-forward story. I want to try revisiting that idea except make it truly interactive with an inventory system, memory – just make it almost like a video game.
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Meanwhile by Jason Shiga
CB: Something I’m not clear on is how the memory storage is achieved.
JS: So when you’re reading panels in one set of pages, the other set of pages that you’re not reading will be able to store that memory. Same thing for storing inventory, states, and things like that.
I guess the other half is that it’s going to be a little more character driven. Contained within the sprawling maze hopefully it’ll end up being kind of like a city you can explore, wander around, and get lost in every little nook and cranny. There are two stories being told and at the end you discover their relationship to each other. That’s the idea.
CB: With the inventory management and memory storage – at what point is that a challenge for yourself or an interest in what a book can achieve? Why try to create a system of memory in a book – what interests you there?
JS: So there are a few ways to record memory without doing it automatically. For instance, in Meanwhile, there’s a system of codes. When you remember or write down the codes and then input them in later, you’re basically telling the book that you’ve already been to certain parts. I’m never super happy with those types of mechanics; I feel that they should be done automatically even though I know there’s a long tradition of doing it that way. I just wanted to make something more akin to a game or computer. Like you said, there’s the challenge of figuring out that mechanic as well.
CB: Well I’m completely tapped! The first of four volumes of Demon hits shelves in the fall?
JS: Yup and a new volume every four months.
CB: Thank you so much Jason, I appreciate you taking the time.
JS: Alright, thank you.
shigahimself
Jason Shiga is a cartoonist living in Oakland, CA where he was born and raise (though he will be in a yearlong residency in Angoulême, France). He is best known for his comics Meanwhile, Empire State, and Demon. His next work is called The Box and very well may be unprintable – we’ll find out.
If you want to read Demon online as originally posted, you have until August. After then, only the first chapter will remain online for free as the whole comic will be released in print from First Second.
Morality Is A Social Constuct: Jason Shiga Conjures His ‘Demon’
by Ziah Grace May 23, 2016 12:00 PM
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Demon, the webcomic about a nihilistic body-jumping killer from the twisted, brilliant mind of Jason Shiga, recently wrapped up its 720-page, five-days-a-week schedule with an announcement: First Second will publishing the complete work in four voumes rolling out this year. To accompany the reveal of the cover to volume two, ComicsAlliance sat down with Shiga to talk about panel layouts, morality, and planning ahead.
ComicsAlliance: Demon is a story that deals with some pretty heady moral issues, but it’s also got a consistent humorous tone. What’s your water cooler pitch for the story? How do you describe the story to people that are interested?
Jason Shiga: Before I get to the moral implications, I usually just start off describing the premise of the story: An actuary checks himself into a filthy motel room in Oakland and hangs himself from a ceiling fan, but immediately wakes up in bed a few feet away without a scratch on his body. Using only his mathematics training, he eventually figures out what’s going on and becomes the most powerful man in the world.
CA: The comic’s been running as a webcomic for years, updating a page at a time digitally, so how do you manage the pacing? You’re publishing a print edition of the whole run with First Second, and you’ve put out self-published volumes earlier, so how did you conceive of the pacing of the work? Page-by-page, a full issue, or more off-the-cuff?
JS: I tried to design it with the pacing of a serialized pamphlet in mind. You probably noticed that each issue ends with a shamelessly gratuitous cliffhanger. I was initially worried how it would translate to webcomics and eventually the graphic novel form. In the end I feel they work even better reading them in larger yet still discrete chunks. First Second is breaking up the entire run into four volumes, and to me they almost work as a perfect little quadrilogy, like the Rambo series.
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CA: And speaking of pacing, let’s talk about your layouts. Demon‘s got a really fascinating use of the page; panels slide down negative space, occasionally isolated, occasionally structured in more traditional grids. How do you go about planning these out?
JS: There’s no real formula to my layouts, but in general larger panels are meant to represent longer stretches of time. I’m not sure how in-the-weeds you want me to get, but I feel at its core the medium of comics is about turning space into time. The stuff inside the panels are the illustrations, but to me the negative space or gutters between the panels are the comics.
CA: One of the things that I would always use to sell people on Demon when I would talk about it was the progress bar running across the top of each page. It was always reassuring to know that you had a sense of how long the comic would run, and made the time jumps and body-hopping twists mean something different in the context of a larger work. Did that restrict you from messing around on certain jokes, or did you allow yourself some time in your overall plan? Basically, how much of Demon was planned from the start when you give yourself these (public) restrictions?
JS: I had the whole story penciled (all 720 pages) before I inked a single page. I tend to do my writing backwards, last scene first, and then the sequence of scenes I need to get there again in reverse order. I know it’s not the best way to do characterization, but when you read Demon you’ll understand why I had to write it that way.
I did end up improvising, expanding on certain ideas and cutting other ones here and there; the webcomic ended up being 15 pages longer than the penciled version. But the bones of the story were all largely laid out months before the webcomic debuted.
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I’m really proud of that progress bar by the way. It was all done with php and html. I didn’t use a single line of javascript or flash.
CA: There’s a twisted sense of morality at the core of Demon, so what does good and evil mean to you?
JS: Well, I’m more of a nihilist, as you may have guessed from reading Demon. I don’t have a very strong sense of right and wrong or justice. Since having a kid, it’s become clear that morality is all just a social construct, like money, or states.
When my three-year-old asks me why he has to share his toy, I’d always say, “Because sharing is caring.” But recently he’s started asking me about the value of caring. I couldn’t lie to him any longer, and told him that he could parlay the appearance of being a caring person into friendship, influence and eventually power.
CA: We’re seeing a lot more recognition for webcomic artists as more mainstream publishing houses and tools have become available, from Kickstarter to your deal with First Second. Where do you see the relationship with online comics and print comics going?
JS: It’s all very exciting, and I feel really honored to have been a part of it. Just a generation ago, to self publish you needed about $5,000 to get your first issue printed. And a generation before that, self publishing wasn’t even a realistic option. These days, literally anyone with a pen some paper can make a webcomic! And you might not even need the pen and paper.
The revolution isn’t just on the creator side, but on the reader’s side too. Whenever I talk with a youngster who likes reading comics, I always like to ask them what titles they’re into. It’s never “Building Stories” or “Kramer’s Ergot,” but rather a list of pirated manga or webcomics that I’ve never heard of. It makes sense; when I was 17, I didn’t have $60 to spend on a books either.
CA: I always ask artists what their influences are, but it’s always more fun to hear what inspires them outside their home medium. What non-comics have inspired your sensibilities?
JS: Outside of comics, the biggest influences on Demon were the movie Groundhog Day, with Bill Murray, the TV show Quantum Leap, and the novel Memoirs of an Invisible Man, by HF Saint.
CA: So, what’s next for you after Demon? You’ve made a webcomic about an immortal, somewhat-amoral body-hopper that ran for years, you’ve done the most complex Choose-Your-Own-Adventure comic I’ve ever seen in Meanwhile. What’s your next project?
JS: I’m going to try and top myself with an even more complex Choose-Your-Own-Adventure comic called The Box. Meanwhile was 75 pages, and took me a year just to plan out. The Box will be over 500 pages and be able to store memory.
Demon Volume 1 goes on sale in October, with Volume 2 to follow in February 2017. Check out more preview pages below:
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Read More: Morality Is A Social Constuct: Jason Shiga Conjures His 'Demon' | http://comicsalliance.com/jason-shiga-demon-volume-2-interview/?trackback=tsmclip
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Print Marked Items
Shiga, Jason. Demon: Volume 1
Marla Unruh and Ty Johnson
Voice of Youth Advocates.
39.5 (Dec. 2016): p79. From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2016 E L Kurdyla Publishing LLC http://www.voya.com
Full Text:
3Q * 2P * NA * A/YA * (B)
Shiga, Jason. Demon: Volume 1. First Second/Macmillan, 2016. 176p. $19.99 Trade pb. 978-1-62672-452-5.
Definitely for a select audience, this graphic novel begins with the author's statement that this title is his "gleeful homage to the lurid and pulpy entertainment rags that make up the detritus of our childhoods." He continues with a tongue-in-cheek warning to children to put this book down and walk away. And so, the young adult reader is pulled into the story of Jimmy Yee, who has been in a horrific accident that took the lives of his wife and daughter. He tries to kill himself time and again, but always wakes up to find that someone else is dead. Finally, he realizes that he is a demon that simply takes over the nearest living body every time he kills himself. Then there is the Dick-Tracy-look- alike agent pursuing him, wanting him to work for the OSS.
Part science-fiction story about living forever and part bloodbath depicted in reds and grays with Shiga's round-headed, round-eyed characters, the plot revolves around Jimmy's efforts to successfully commit suicide. In spite of blasting bullets, spewing blood, and headless bodies, the story has its funny moments. The reader who appreciates the author's deliberately over-the-top-depraved humor will have quite a journey through this volume, as well as the rest of the four- volume set. There is a promise of a bloody ending in the last book.--Marla Unruh.
This book is absolutely bizarre. It is definitely meant for mature readers who find sick humor funny. The book is short, a thirty-minute read. It has a wonderful story, but lots of disturbing and strange stuff happens. Jimmy Yee, the main character, is quite twisted but smart and an interesting choice for a protagonist. A story about a suicidal mass murderer who is also a mathematical whiz and a demon is not the kind of story to which just anyone will relate. 3Q, 3P.--Ty Johnson, Teen Reviewer.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Unruh, Marla, and Ty Johnson. "Shiga, Jason. Demon: Volume 1." Voice of Youth Advocates, Dec. 2016, p. 79.
PowerSearch, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do? p=GPS&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA474768012&it=r&asid=3ec838bc4076bf5d7edc9905c4a762b1. Accessed 8 May 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A474768012
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Demon, v.1
Peter Blenski
Booklist.
113.4 (Oct. 15, 2016): p35. From Book Review Index Plus.
COPYRIGHT 2016 American Library Association http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist_publications/booklist/booklist.cfm
Full Text:
Demon, v.1. By Jason Shiga. Illus. by the author. Oct. 2016. 176p. First Second, paper, $19.99 (9781626724525). 741.5.
Jimmy Yee has a rather unique problem: he cannot die. After a botched bank robbery, Jimmy decides to take his own life, only to continuously find himself alive again shortly after his death. What seems to be a terrifying curse turns out to be a macabre superpower of sorts, as Jimmy soon must evade government agencies (by killing himself, of course!) to avoid capture. The premise is as gruesome as it is original, but those willing to stick around will be floored by the absurdity of the concept and lured in by the surprising, suspenseful turn of the second half of the piece. Dark humor abounds in Jimmy's straightforward thinking through his morbid problems, as his flippant willingness to die in a variety of ways quickly becomes comically disgusting. Shiga's simplistic cartoon style helps soften the blow; with his characters' bug eyes and rounded structures, murder and suicide have never looked so adorable. Like Jimmy's new lease on life, this is fresh, with plenty of potential, and definitely a series to watch develop. --Peter Blenski
Blenski, Peter
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Blenski, Peter. "Demon, v.1." Booklist, 15 Oct. 2016, p. 35. PowerSearch, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=GPS&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA468771286&it=r&asid=eb4adb1dae373d2b880a84e43e7984a6 Accessed 8 May 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A468771286
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Graphic novels
Martha Cornog and Steve Raiteri
Library Journal.
141.15 (Sept. 15, 2016): p70. From Book Review Index Plus.
COPYRIGHT 2016 Library Journals, LLC. A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
http://www.libraryjournal.com/
Full Text:
BLACK LIVES MATTER In July, the Hennepin Public Library, MN, released reading lists to educate children and teens about Black Lives Matter, an "ideological and political intervention" against violence and injustice directed toward black people (blacklivesmatter.com). The teen list includes the March trilogy (Bk. 1, LJ7/13; Bk. 2, Xpress Reviews, 1/22/15; Bk. 3, Xpress Reviews, 9/2/16), Congressman John Lewis's much-praised graphic autobiography about activism for social justice during the civil rights movement. A number of other comics titles also take up these refrains. Assess them for your catchment area, and get set to stock up.
In The Silence of Our Friends: The Civil Rights Struggle Was Never Black and White (LJ 3/15/12), Mark Long tells ofhis white journalist father covering and assisting in civil rights protests despite opposition from locals and lawmen. Younger and more iconoclastic than Long or Rep. Lewis, satirist Keith Knight has compiled 20 years of his searing yet funny strips about police brutality into They Shoot Black People, Don't They? (kchronicles.com). More reportage than satire, APB: Artists Against Police Brutality (LJ 11/15/15) collects short comics, essays, and fictional pieces to get people talking about deadly police oppression, the (injustice system, and civil rights. Proceeds go to the Innocence Project, which works to exonerate the wrongfully convicted and reform the criminal justice system.
That system itself comes under intense critique in Sabrina Jones and Marc Mauer's Race To Incarcerate (LJ 3/1/13), which analyzes disparities and toxic effects of U.S. imprisonment practices since the 1970s. The Real Cost of Prisons Comix, from the Real Cost of Prisons Project, also denounces outcomes of mass incarceration.
Compelling fiction includes D.C. Walker and Bruno Oliveira's When the River Rises (LJ 1/16), about prisoners escaping Hurricane Katrina; Incognegro (LJ 7/08), featuring a black journalist passing as white in the 1930s South; and Marvel's Captain America: Truth, inspired by the infamous Tuskegee experiment in which federal government health workers allowed African Americans to suffer syphilis while withholding treatment and lying about it.
Two new projects underway include Kwanza Osajyefo's Black (see Kickstarter campaign) and the Black Lives Matter: Comics Anthology, a collection of webcomics on Facebook from various creators.--MC
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Altes, Steve (text) & Andy Fish & Veronica Fish (illus.). Geeks & Greeks. Relentless Goat Prods. Mar. 2016.184p. notes, bibliog. ISBN 9780996350440. pap. $19.95. F
Altes, a three-degrees MIT alumnus and humor writer (If YouJam the Copier, Bolt!), drew on memories plus published accounts to craft this amusing romp about brainy Jim Walden, who hoodwinks his way into MIT and gets caught up in fraternity "hack" culture. MIT's (very real) hacks are elaborate pranks, such as sneaking an uncannily real-looking police car up onto the campus dome. The beleaguered Jim must balance this mischief-making with MIT's daunting academics as well as his romance with the intellectual Natalie, who works at a local sperm bank-- which recruits MIT students as donors. The inventive dialog effectively juxtaposes outrageousness with hyperacademic geekery, like the "millihelen" measure of beauty, the insult "nanophallus," and a football cheer based on pi. Fish's (Dracula's Army) colorful art intersperses near-realism with cartoonier drawings, which can be disconcerting yet conveys a "prank" ambiance. VERDICT Great fun for college-age readers and adults.--MC
Beaumont, Henny. Hole in the Heart: Bringing Up Beth. Pennsylvania State Univ. (Graphic Medicine). Oct. 2016.288p. ISBN 9780271077406. pap. $24.95. MEMOIR
The title of this deeply affecting memoir by British artist Beaumont clearly refers both to the heart condition that her third daughter, Beth, is bom with, and to Beaumont's struggles with loving the girl, who also has Down syndrome. Beaumont is revealing, even blunt, about the emotional turmoil she and husband Steve undergo during Beth's early years: the questioning; fears of the future; the many awkward moments around parents of typical kids; and the traumatic encounters with doctors and other professionals. Particularly difficult is their decision whether to continue dealing with the inclusion-without-engagement of Beth's mainstreamed early education, or to send her to a special school. Beaumont's artwork, in a black-and-white watercolorlike style with many shades of gray, can become starkly expressionistic at times of dread and more realistic at calmer moments, achieving some striking images and powerful visual metaphors. VERDICT With an ultimate message of hope and love, this adult work will resonate strongly with parents of children with special needs.--SR
Clowes, Daniel. Patience. Fantagraphics. Mar. 2016.177p. ISBN 9781606999059. $29.99. SF/R0MANCE
Patience and Jack are happily married and expecting a baby. But both have secrets-- she has a dysfunctional past they haven't discussed, and he's not the office worker he claims. Then Patience turns up dead, apparently murdered by a former boyfriend. Devastated, Jack wonders if he can do anything now for his wife and child. And years later when he happens on someone with a time-travel device, he does do something. The award-winning Clowes (Mister WonderJut) sets his cast of unsophisticated characters into a high-tech premise but keeps the focus on the people rather than the science. Indeed, the contrast among the characters, their deep and universal emotions, and the sf trappings is jarring. Clowes's stolid, almost frozen drawing style captures a humanity caught in its unmet needs, powerless to understand or find satisfaction. The fall coloring recalls classic superhero comics, edging over into psychedelic hues for futuristic sections. VERDICT This parable of enduring love, leavened with noir-tinged humor and quirky dialog about existential dilemmas, will appeal to aficionados of literary graphic novels and those who enjoyed Bryan Lee O'Malley's Seconds.--MC
Cornell, Paul (text) & Tony Parker (illus.). This Damned Band. Dark Horse. May 2016.160p. ISBN 9781616557799. pap. $17.99; ebk. ISBN 9781630080990. graphic novels
In this fantastic tale of 1970s musical excess and madness, guitarist Clive Stanley leads the hard-rocking English band Motherfather, who only flirt with devil worship--or so they think. After a possibly psychedelic but potentially genuinely demonic incident at Japan's Budokan arena, the band's lead groupie, the idealistic and mystical Summerflower, feels real darkness closing in. At an apparently haunted chateau in France where the band is recording and relationships are fraying, she takes action--and then things get really weird. Prolific Doctor Who writer Cornell fills the book with knowing detail from rock music lore; band manager "Mr. Browley" is clearly based on notorious Satanist (and Jimmy Page influence) Aleister Crowley, and there's in-joke gold in the book's bonus extras. Cornell and Parker have seemingly modeled Motherfather's members at least partly on musicians from The Who, Led Zeppelin, and Spinal Tap. The last two of those bands are most relevant to the story, which goes a bit over the top. But what band back then didn't? VERDICT With sordid sex and drug-taking, this mature-readers occult comedy will easily win over
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fans of classic British rock.--SR
Girard, Pascal. Nicolas. Drawn & Quarterly. Sept. 2016.112p. tr. from French by Helge Dascher. ISBN 9781770462625. $14.95. MEMOIR
First published in 2006, Girard's (Petty Thejt) poignant memoir of his younger brother's death is here enhanced by an afterword updating the story. Throughout childhood and into mature adulthood, Girard's grief emerges unexpectedly in different ways, like sharp bits from a broken, beloved toy uncovered in fits and starts throughout the house. And similar to those bits, the book itself appears in fragments: brief accounts of anger, sorrow, frustration, callousness, helplessness, stupidity. The author's childish reaction after the funeral is "I'm bored," but a few years later he breaks down when hearing that Nicolas endured grueling medical treatments so as to see his big brother afterward in recovery. This work was one of the first Girard drew, yet these simple, freehand black-line cartoons (he credits Jeffrey Brown as influence) work perfectly. VERDICT This new edition of Girard's ode to a treasured relationship, forever ruptured, will appeal to adults and teens who may be grieving themselves and who are open to the humor and pathos his honest portrait evokes.--MC
* Jackson, Shirley (text) & Miles Hyman (illus.). Shirley Jackson's The Lottery: A Graphic Adaptation. Hill & Wang: Farrar. Oct. 2016.160p. ISBN 9780809066490. $30; pap. ISBN 9780809066506. $16. F
A well-known short story often assigned in literature classes, Jackson's "The Lottery" slowly unveils the grim details of a yearly ritual in a small community in rural America. The ritual's origins are forgotten, and other towns have given it up, but these villagers keep the tradition out of habit, superstitious expectations for a better harvest, and paradoxical benefits of group cohesion despite a deadly outcome. How much cruelty, asks Jackson rhetorically, do we cause out of habit or peer pressure? The Salem witch hunts, pogroms, "queer-bashing," and Internet bullying all have commonalities with this odd lottery that seems to draw more from ancient practices than from the modern world. Hyman (The Black Dahlia), Jackson's grandson, imbues realistic characters with a blocky stoicism in full-color panels flooded with sun-parched orange light. Much of the rendition is wordless, the art carrying this tale of quiet horror. VERDICT This standout work featuring a violent and inhumane tradition within a mundane setting will get readers thinking about causes and effects of our actions. For general readers as well as educators and librarians working with teens and adults alike.--MC
Johnson, Crockett & Ted Ferro (text) & Jack Morley (illus.). Barnaby. Vol. 3:1946-1947. Fantagraphics. Jun. 2016.372p. notes. ISBN 9781606998236. $39.99. comics
This often-brilliant newspaper strip created by Johnson (of the children's classic Harold and the Purple Crayon) stars five-year-old Barnaby and his kindly, portly, pinkwinged fairy godfather, Jackeen J. O'Malley, a charlatan, blowhard, and master mooch. Barnaby's parents have never seen O'Malley and don't believe he exists; neighbor girl Jane wisely regards him as "dopey"; but Barnaby trusts him implicitly. At its best the strip is hilarious, with a satirical bent (one of O'Malley's preposterous exploits gets him elected to Congress in absentia) and erudite, literate humor, exemplified by O'Malley's far-out-of-date cultural references (helpfully explained here in endnotes). The winningly absurd supporting cast includes Atlas the pygmy giant, talking dog Gorgon, and Gus the timid ghost. Unfortunately, Johnson has turned the strip over to others here, and while Morley provides a fine replica of Johnson's endearingly simple and clean artwork, Ferro never masters either punchline crafting or O'Malley's loquacious boasting. But near the end of this volume Johnson returns to writing chores, remaining until the strip's 1952 conclusion. VERDICT The first two volumes of this series are neglected masterpieces; buy this third of a planned five for completeness.--SR
* Schulz, Gabby. Sick. Secret Acres. Jun. 2016.84p. ISBN 9780996273916. $21.95. GRAPHIC NOVELS
"To be or not to be?" Channeling Shakespeare's Hamlet via Hunter S. Thompson, Schulz (Monsters, as Ken Dahl) expands the premise from a focused pessimism of personal illness into a rumination on the futility of human life. In bed alone for weeks with high fever, bloody diarrhea, and gut spasms, the uninsured nebbish of a narrator obsesses in brilliant graphic metaphors about suffering, U.S. social inequities, his legacy of exploitative male privilege, and humanity's planet-wide destruction. And every self-critical memory comes boiling out as monstrous, dribbling faces that talk back to him. Primal doom has been done before in comics, but probably only rarely so glorious in grotesque
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detail. The squishy, viscerally reddened balls-to-the-wall horror draws wry fascination as well as dread-- think cartoonist Gahan Wilson not being funny. Schultz's art must be his own personal answer, for to create such a gorgeous, sardonic work of real-life terror is surely reason to live. VERDICT Schulz tears down the curtain shielding us from the often nasty realities behind our joys with fabulous beauty. Those interested in social justice, horror themes, and art styles will find much here to stimulate thought.--MC
Shaw, Dash. Cosplayers. Fantagraphics. Sept. 2016.116p. ISBN 9781606999486. $22.99. f Seven loosely connected stories follow the ventures, successful and not, of cosplayers Annie and Verti, who film amateur web videos of scenarios with unwitting bystanders by hidden camera, attracting comments--some caustic. Then at a manga convention, they don't win the cosplay contest but meet an inappropriately besotted fan of their various productions. Everyone has illusions: the cosplayers, the admirer crushing on Annie, and a selfodubbed "anime expert" convention speaker. Annie and Verti, however, rebound from setbacks and decide that creativity can be its own reward. Unfortunately, Verti's budding romance in the first story is not followed further. Shaw's art intercuts cosplayer cameos and collage pages among the stories, which are drawn in simple yet realistic outlines with muted full color. VERDICT These complications and contradictions of fandom, told with pathos and humor, will resonate with readers interested in the pop culture fan world. For adult and teen collections.--MC
* Shiga, Jason. Demon. Vol. 1. First Second. Oct. 2016.176p. ISBN 9781626724525. pap. $19.99. GRAPHIC NOVELS
At the literal end of his rope, Jimmy Yee has lost his family in an accident and commits suicide. Yet he wakes up alive. He tries again with a revolver, then with pills. Eventually, he figures out why he can't die--and so does the clever agent Hunter, who wants Jimmy to work for him. This is Jimmy's idea of a fate worse than death, and he sets out to best his adversary with murder, mayhem, and impromptu weaponry. Shiga's (Bookhunter) childlike, blobby characters create an effect that's both unsettling and engaging. Many simple, almost wordless two-color panels invite readers to scheme along with Jimmy, an amoral character who yet inspires sympathy and chuckles. Three more volumes are coming, so expect many more paradoxes (Shiga has a math degree), twists, and corpses as two brilliant minds try to outfox each other. VERDICT Shiga knows how to run a premise into the ground with supreme goofiness, and crime buffs looking for something completely different will be drawn into Jimmy's conundrums. Plenty of adult content makes this for older teens and up.--MC
Martha Cornog is a longtime reviewer for LJ and, with Timothy Perper, edited Graphic Novels Beyond the Basics: Insights and Issues for Libraries (Libraries Unlimited, 2009). Steve Raiteri is Audio-visual Librarian at the Greene County Public Library in Xenia, OH, where he started the graphic novel collection in 1996
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Cornog, Martha, and Steve Raiteri. "Graphic novels." Library Journal, 15 Sept. 2016, p. 70+. PowerSearch,
go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do? p=GPS&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA463632480&it=r&asid=1a37567857758c94ef9cadc2bc145dcc. Accessed 8 May 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A463632480
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Demon, Vol. 1
Publishers Weekly.
263.36 (Sept. 5, 2016): p65. From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2016 PWxyz, LLC http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
* Demon, Vol. 1
Jason Shiga. First Second, $19.99 trade paper (176p) ISBN 978-1-62672-452-5
Suicidal Jimmy Yee's multiple attempts at killing himself result in a Groundhog Day--like resetting of where he began, but with bodies piling up with each try. To say any more would spoil intriguing revelation after revelation, as Jimmy begins to sort out what's happening and comes to a startling conclusion--one that solves the mystery but adds a new layer of horror. What can be said is that Shiga (Meanwhile) has woven a tight and tense narrative that keeps readers intrigued and guessing along with Yee, as he endures the mind-bending ramifications of his situation. Shiga's art style is a perfect accent to the story, largely due to its resemblance to clip art and the aesthetic of Sesame Street. The rounded, cartoony cuteness adds a perfect icing of incongruity to Shiga's rich cake of twisted tension. As with Shiga's other books, there are puzzles, aplenty to solve, with an added layer of urgent narrative drive. Originally serialized as a webcomic, the story will prove just as addictive for readers finding it in print. (Oct.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Demon, Vol. 1." Publishers Weekly, 5 Sept. 2016, p. 65. PowerSearch, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=GPS&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA463513584&it=r&asid=d2988a77c45047ff0d3d13a239c94d08. Accessed 8 May 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A463513584
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Comics Squad: Lunch!
Sarah Hunter
Booklist.
112.8 (Dec. 15, 2015): p40. From Book Review Index Plus.
COPYRIGHT 2015 American Library Association http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist_publications/booklist/booklist.cfm
Full Text:
Comics Squad: Lunch! Ed. by Jennifer L. Holm and others. Jan. 2016. 144p. illus. Random, paper, $7.99 (9780553512649). 741.5. Gr. 2-5.
Jennifer Holm, Matthew Holm, and Jarrett J. Krosoczka have rallied a heaping serving of comics greats for this collection of minicomics about lunchtime. Cece Bell kicks off the volume with a funny story about a little girl whose nut allergy might lead to true love. Fan-favorite Babymouse channels Robin Hood in a battle over a table in the lunchroom, but will her love of cupcakes ruin her scheme? Nathan Hale recruits characters from his acclaimed Nathan Hale's Hazardous Tales series to recount the true story of WWII sailors who fought off a Japanese sub with potatoes. Jason Shiga offers a choose-your-own-adventure time-travel mystery in an ingenious format. The other entries are just as entertaining, and the cheery yellow palette coloring each artist's signature style makes for a welcoming through line. With so many familiar names, it will be a piece of cake to get this collection into little hands, and while they are perusing their favorites, they might find some new ones.--Sarah Hunter
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Hunter, Sarah. "Comics Squad: Lunch!" Booklist, 15 Dec. 2015, p. 40. PowerSearch, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=GPS&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA439362624&it=r&asid=384de6d740038d0152ec3467672a0f8d. Accessed 8 May 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A439362624
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Holm, Jennifer L.: COMICS SQUAD #2
Kirkus Reviews.
(Nov. 15, 2015): From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2015 Kirkus Media LLC http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Holm, Jennifer L. COMICS SQUAD #2 Random House (Children's Fiction) $7.99 1, 26 ISBN: 978-0-553-51264-9
The Comics Squad moves from Recess! (2014) to an even more popular theme with a fresh set of minicomics created by a (mostly) fresh slate of artists. Most of the eight entries at least start in the lunchroom: the Holms' Babymouse and friends defend their accustomed table (unsuccessfully) against rivals in a dodgeball duel; Cece Bell's "Crazy Little Thing Called Lunch" features a boy-dazzled picky eater whose courage is goosed by a hallucinatory episode; Krosoczka dishes up a Lunch Lady origin story with "Lunch Girl" battling a bully. Further afield, Nathan Hale retells a true World War II battle tale involving a Japanese submarine and hurled potatoes, and Jeffrey Brown follows a pair of adolescent Neanderthals gathering ingredients for "Cave Soup." A multistranded detective tale by Jason Shiga is hard to digest, as it is presented in many small, out-of-order panels linked by arrows and so requires much flipping back and forth. But the real bomb comes from "Peanuts Worldwide LLC" (the actual creators are named only in the closing author notes). Reading like a clumsy sendup, it features Snoopy creating lunchroom chaos with a mop while making silent comments like "The Head Beagle values cleanliness... / but won't cross the unions!" One can imagine what Charles Schulz would say. One rotten apple aside, a second helping of tasty treats. (Graphic anthology. 7-12)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Holm, Jennifer L.: COMICS SQUAD #2." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Nov. 2015. PowerSearch, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=GPS&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA434352382&it=r&asid=dab5ca488f9f05014dd87ae56034fc14. Accessed 8 May 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A434352382
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Readers on the rise
Publishers Weekly.
262.45 (Nov. 9, 2015): p60. From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2015 PWxyz, LLC http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Friendships, gardening, and a loose tooth feature in these books for newly independent readers. Freckleface Strawberry: Loose Tooth!
Julianne Moore, illus. by LeUyen Pham. Doubleday, $12.99 (32p) ISBN 978-0-385-39198-6
In the third early reader featuring Moore's redheaded heroine (following Backpacks! and Lunch, or What's That?), Freckleface Strawberry is eager to lose her first loose tooth--so long as it happens at school, where the nurse will give her a tooth necklace like the ones her classmates have. Moore stages the action over four brief chapters, employing simple sentences and repeated phrases ("She did not want to lose it in her room. She did not want to lose it in the kitchen"). But while Freckleface's eventual decision to take matters into her own hands provides a needed jolt of fun, the story and characters' personalities feel quite muted. Ages 4-6. Author's agent: Brenda Bowen, Sanford J. Greenburger Associates. Illustrator's agent: Linda Pratt, Wernick & Pratt Agency. (Jan.)
All Paws on Deck
Jessica Young, illus. by James Burks. Scholastic, $15.99 (80p) ISBN 978-0-545-81887-2 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
There's more than a little Abbott and Costello in the goofy, misunderstanding-laden relationship between two dogs in this first book in the Haggis and Tank Unleashed series. As the exuberant Tank and crustier Haggis embark on an imaginary pirate escapade, Young (the Finley Flowers series) crams their dialogue with "Who's on first?"-style homophones. "That's a tall tale. Stop making up stories," Haggis grumps when Tank spots a sea serpent heading their way. "It is a tall tail," Tank responds. Burks (the Bird & Squirrel series) keeps the book's six chapters zipping along in lively full-bleed images and panel sequences. The dogs' odd-couple antics, loads of goofy humor, and an appealing comics/early reader format make for an all-around entertaining read. A sequel, Digging for Dims, pubs in February. Ages 5-7. Agent: Kelly Sonnack, Andrea Brown Literary Agency. (Jan.)
Timo's Garden
Victoria Allenby, illus. by Dean Griffiths. Pajama (IPS, dist.), $10.95 (48p) ISBN 978-1-927485-84-2
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[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
Allenby (Nat the Cat Can Sleep Like That) and Griffiths (Bad Pirate) explore the perils of perfectionism, following a rabbit named Timo through a week's worth of gardening, as he tries to make it perfect for an upcoming garden tour. Allenby laces her story with alliteration and wordplay ("Gently, he planted some ginger. Gingerly, he planted some gentians"), and Griffiths's color illustrations further add to the cozy atmosphere--there's a whiff of The Wind in the Willows in the dapper outfits he gives the animal characters. It's impossible to miss the message ("I could have tended my friends instead of my garden," Timo realizes, after a rainstorm ruins a week's worth of work), but the easy camaraderie and old-fashioned gentility among these friends exert plenty of charm. Ages 5-8. (Jan.)
Comics Squad: Lunch!
Edited by Jennifer L. Holm, Matt Holm, and Jarrett J. Krosoczka. Random, $7.99 trade paper (144p) ISBN 978-0-553- 51264-
9
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
Comics creators including Cece Bell, Jeffrey Brown, Nathan Hale, and Cecil Castellucci and Sara Varon let loose on lunchtime in this second Comics Squad outing. In Bell's standout story, Elbe's reliance on her same-every-day lunch collides with her crush on a classmate--and what looks like a burgeoning nut allergy. Jason Shiga reprises the multiple- choice format of Meanwhile in a time-travel mystery that will require careful attention from readers. A new Peanuts comic featuring Snoopy as a lunchroom monitor is sadly forgettable, and Nathan Hale, in an offshoot of his Hazardous Tales series, merges the lunch theme with a real-life WWII tale, the difficulty of which he seems to acknowledge ("Throwing potatoes is silly. Hundreds of sailors going to a watery grave, well ... that's not so silly"). Bullies, archaeology, science experiments, and dodgeball combine in a collection that puts less of an emphasis on comedy than its predecessor. Ages 7-10. (Jan.)
Mouse Scouts
Sarah Dillard. Knopf, $12.99 (128p) ISBN 978-0-385-75599-3 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
Dillard (the Extraordinary Warren books) kicks off the Mouse Scouts series with a good-natured story about the gardening travails of a group of young mice who are attempting to earn their Sow It and Grow It scouting badges. Quiet Violet, her more daring friend Tigerlily, and their fellow scouts learn that determination and hard work are essential to creating a thriving garden; they collaborate to gather seeds and, later, fend off pests big and small. Understated pencil illustrations readily capture the mice's emotions, while excerpts from their Mouse Scout Handbook offer a humorous window into their world ("A single pea is a healthy snack," reads one entry). It's easy to imagine children finishing this book with an increased interest in both gardening and scouting. Available simultaneously: Make
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a Difference. Ages 7-10. Agent: Lori Nowicki, Painted Words. (Jan.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Readers on the rise." Publishers Weekly, 9 Nov. 2015, p. 60. PowerSearch, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=GPS&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA434792856&it=r&asid=d1b22068c22e42d20de09f50cebbed1a. Accessed 8 May 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A434792856
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Let's get graphic: creating comics in novel ways
Neal Wyatt
Library Journal.
139.1 (Jan. 1, 2014): p150. From Book Review Index Plus.
COPYRIGHT 2014 Library Journals, LLC. A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
http://www.libraryjournal.com/
Full Text:
Just because comics are usually designed in tiers of panels meant to be read left to right and steadily down the page doesn't mean they have to be. Many innovative creators have experimented with combining words and pictures in amazing ways, as these selections illustrate.
Chris Ware was already known for his inventive, meticulous illustration style before releasing BUILDING STORIES (Pantheon. 2012. ISBN 9780375424335. $50), but as it turns out his previous works were just a preamble. This graphic novel plays with format and presentation in surprising and delightful ways, telling the stories of the inhabitants of a single apartment building in multiple forms, shapes, and sizes. In one piece, echoing the shape of a small children's book, the trials of a bumblebee in the building's courtyard are explored. In another, large dioramas relate the ways architecture influences interaction. In a third, a long pamphlet examines a couple's romantic travails.
Choosing between chocolate and vanilla ice cream has incredible consequences in Jason Shiga's MEANWHILE (Amulet. 2010. ISBN 9780810984233. $15.95), which boasts 3,856 different story lines readers can follow as they move through Shiga's inventive and exciting graphic novel with the help of an intuitive tab system. Do you want to hop in a time machine, read minds, or experiment with the ominous Killitron 3000? Your choice may result in mind- bending paradoxes or the destruction of all life on Earth! Shiga's illustrations seem simple at first but lend a lighthearted tone that complements the formal playfulness and spirit of adventure in the story--or stories.
Readers familiar with Lisa Hanawalt's illustrations from Slate and the New York Times may be surprised by MY DIRTY DUMB EYES (Drawn & Quarterly. 2013. ISBN 9781770461161. pap. $22.95), a collection unencumbered by editorial decree or restrictions on content. Hanawalt's beautiful drawings are offset by her irreverent and absurd sense of humor, and she employs a range of styles and formats--from sketchbook images to illustrated movie reviews to single-panel gag strips.
Richard Stark's (i.e., Donald Westlake) Parker novels had been adapted for film and television before writer/illustrator Darwyn Cooke transformed them into comics. His RICHARD STARK'S PARKER: THE HUNTER (Idea & Design Works. 2012. ISBN 9781613773994. pap. $17.99) turned out to be not just the most faithful adaptation of Stark's crime thriller ever achieved but also a landmark work that emphasizes the "novel" in the "graphic novel" like few others. Instead of softening the edges around Stark's tough thug protagonist, Cooke sticks close, combining pen-and-brush illustrations that range effortlessly between cinematic noir and more cartoony sequences with selections of Stark's inimitable prose to capture the glitz and grime of the 1960s underworld. The resulting hybrid of text and image deserves to be counted as a new standard.
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[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
In Ben Katchor's latest release, HAND-DRYING IN AMERICA: AND OTHER STORIES (Pantheon. 2013. ISBN 9780307906908. $29.95), the author makes good use of its large scale, filling each page with surreal detail and color in his distinctive scratchy style. Katchor walks readers through an imagined world that explores topics ranging from a study of men addicted to the texture of stair bannisters to the story of a skyscraper constructed spontaneously by city dwellers looking for a place to dump their refuse. Katchor overlays text and image, often running captions across the top of each panel as a counterpoint to the action being illustrated. The effect can be dizzying but creates a sense of displacement that draws readers deeper into Katchor's singular vision of the world.
Jeff Zwirek's BURNING BUILDING COMICS (Imperial. 2012. ISBN 9780985875138. $19.95) flips the normal comics presentation on its head, opening lengthwise like a reporter's notebook (so that it resembles the titular building) and taking advantage of the typical tier-of-panels layout so that each tier is a single floor of an apartment building following a different set of characters struggling to escape a raging inferno. With the cartoony look of an early Peanuts comic strip, Zwirek's playful illustration conveys an attention to detail that gives each character's race to escape a visceral immediacy.
Is it autobiography? Collage? An inspirational workbook? A how-to guide? Maybe a little of each? Lynda Barry has been one of this country's top underground cartoonists since the early 1980s but waited until 2008 to release her masterpiece, WHAT IT IS (Drawn & Quarterly. 2008. ISBN 9781897299357. $24.95). Barry combines text, photography, watercolor, and more in a book that asks serious questions about art, self, and the creative impulse. Flipping through, readers will be overcome by images and ideas presented in novel ways that challenge assumptions about narrative and communication.
This column was contributed by Richmond-based Tom Batten, who received an MFA in Creative Writing in 2012from Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond
Neal Wyatt compiles LJ's online feature Wyatt's World and is the author of The Readers' Advisory Guide to Nonfiction (ALA Editions, 2007). She is a collection development and readers' advisory librarian from Virginia. Those interested in contributing to The Reader's Shelf should contact her directly at Readers_Shelf@comcast.net
Wyatt, Neal
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Wyatt, Neal. "Let's get graphic: creating comics in novel ways." Library Journal, 1 Jan. 2014, p. 150. PowerSearch,
go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do? p=GPS&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA355150783&it=r&asid=5948282a7b457373d59731a0d5e865dc. Accessed 8 May 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A355150783
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Shiga, Jason. Empire State: A Love Story (Or Not)
Jamie Hansen
Voice of Youth Advocates.
34.3 (Aug. 2011): p278. From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2011 E L Kurdyla Publishing LLC http://www.voya.com
Full Text:
Shiga, Jason. Empire State: A Love Story (Or Not). Abrams ComicArts, 2011. 144p. $17.95. 978-0-8109-9747-9. 5Q*2P*S*(G) (a)
Naive, socially inept Jimmy drifts through a geek's life in Oakland, California: he works at a dead-end job in a library, likes science fiction (the kind with a rocket ship on the cover), and thinks he is a computer programmer. His best friend and secret crush, outspoken, tough-minded Sara, is planning a life--or at least her version of one--involving an efficiency apartment in Brooklyn and an internship at a publishing company. When Sara moves to New York to fulfill her dream, Jimmy breaks free of his inertia, embarking on a hellish cross-country bus ride, imagining a joyous lovers' reunion in which both profess their love. As is often the case, however, life has other plans for Jimmy and Sara, including a few unwelcome surprises.
Eisner Award-winning graphic novelist Shiga has created a slyly humorous and wistful postmodern tale of unrequited love and contemporary culture. His stocky, minimalist figures with their bulbous eyes are deceptively simple but remarkably expressive. He places them against a variety of simply drawn but recognizable Oakland and New York backdrops of bus stations, suburban streets, parks, and cityscapes. The alert reader will soon realize that the seemingly random use of either red or blue tones in various parts of the story reveals the sequence of events in the nonlinear plot. Older teens who like quirky and offbeat graphic novels, especially coming-of-age stories, will identify with this account of one innocent pilgrim's melancholy progress.--Jamie Hansen.
(a) Highlighted Reviews Hansen, Jamie
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Hansen, Jamie. "Shiga, Jason. Empire State: A Love Story (Or Not)." Voice of Youth Advocates, Aug. 2011, p. 278.
PowerSearch, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do? p=GPS&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA264270236&it=r&asid=61e7b5d8a8e9e086c9a09f33e9e39578. Accessed 8 May 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A264270236
about:blank Page 15 of 23
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Empire State: A Love Story (or Not)
April Spisak
The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books. 64.11 (July-August 2011): p540. From Book Review Index Plus.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Spisak, April. "Empire State: A Love Story (or Not)." The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, July-Aug. 2011,
p. 540. PowerSearch, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do? p=GPS&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA270593682&it=r&asid=b2cced1d42ecf279f9ae4ef852e3cfe2. Accessed 8 May 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A270593682
about:blank Page 16 of 23
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Empire State: A Love Story (Or Not)
Ian Chipman
Booklist.
107.14 (Mar. 15, 2011): p29. From Book Review Index Plus.
COPYRIGHT 2011 American Library Association http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist_publications/booklist/booklist.cfm
Full Text:
Empire State: A Love Story (Or Not).
By Jason Shiga. Illus. by the author.
May 2011. 144p. Abrams ComicArts, $17.95 (9780810997479). 741.5.
Shiga, creator of the mind-exploder Meanwhile (2010) and the hard-boiled, library-cop pastiche Bookhunter (2007), offers a more personal story here. With loosely arranged panels populated by Shiga's distinctive, hunched-over figures, this dialogue-driven comic stars nerdy young Oakland librarian Jimmy, whose blatant inexperience with this whole being grown-up thing isn't limited to just matters of the heart. "I'm an adult. I should have a newspaper subscription. I should be smoking a pipe and attending the opera regularly." When his one friend moves back to New York, he goes on a surprise cross-country trek to see if just maybe he can inspire a Sleepless in Seattle moment with her. The mildly disastrous results might have been soul-crushing if they weren't handled with Shiga's terrifically wry wit and Jimmy's cheery ability to roll with the punches, even when they land a bit harder than expected. Though the sweet spot for this geeked-out graphic novel's readership is probably early twenties, readers well on either side should also find plenty that speaks to them.--Ian Chipman
Chipman, Ian
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Chipman, Ian. "Empire State: A Love Story (Or Not)." Booklist, 15 Mar. 2011, p. 29. PowerSearch,
go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do? p=GPS&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA252847303&it=r&asid=f0d02e221043b1e49789271dd2f6dfc3. Accessed 8 May 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A252847303
about:blank Page 17 of 23
5/8/17, 11(00 AM
Empire State: A Love Story (or Not)
Publishers Weekly.
258.6 (Feb. 7, 2011): p42. From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2011 PWxyz, LLC http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Empire State: A Love Story (or Not)
Jason Shiga. Abrams ComicArts, $17.95 (144p) ISBN 978-0-8109-9747-9
Jimmy's first crush/best friend Sara has moved to New York to encounter the wider world. So Jimmy, a socially awkward man-child who likes reading hard sci-fi (the kind with rocket ships) and has no idea what a latte is, embarks on a perilous bus trip from his home in Oakland to Brooklyn to profess his love to her. He soon learns that the only thing worse than sharing a small bus with random ex-cons comparing notes on their prison experiences is crashing on a couch in a small Brooklyn apartment With Sara and her new boyfriend, Mark. Sara and Mark do their best to welcome Jimmy to the grown-up world, showing him different parts of the city and trying to broaden his limited horizons, but there's a real question as to whether their gentle coaching will take. Shiga (Meanwhile, Double Happiness) walks a fine line between sappy romcom and maudlin love-lost tale, but largely succeeds in maintaining a balanced middle. He's aided by a crude yet geometric penciling style that draws the reader very effectively into Jimmy's point of view. He also displays a wicked sense of comic timing, which is equally effective at portraying awkward pauses and slapstick physicality. (May)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Empire State: A Love Story (or Not)." Publishers Weekly, 7 Feb. 2011, p. 42. PowerSearch,
go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do? p=GPS&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA249310113&it=r&asid=c1e47630355e5f68eff0e768ef612a05. Accessed 8 May 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A249310113
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5/8/17, 11(00 AM
Meanwhile
April Spisak
The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books. 64.1 (Sept. 2010): p43. From Book Review Index Plus.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Spisak, April. "Meanwhile." The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, Sept. 2010, p. 43. PowerSearch,
go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do? p=GPS&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA243757091&it=r&asid=cb195c28fc86ee5e253e1e82237e5941. Accessed 8 May 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A243757091
about:blank Page 19 of 23
5/8/17, 11(00 AM
Meanwhile
Owl.
35.2 (Mar. 2010): p38. From Book Review Index Plus.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Meanwhile." Owl, Mar. 2010, p. 38. PowerSearch, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=GPS&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA220533514&it=r&asid=508a317a3ad89966cf3a488417fcdc8c. Accessed 8 May 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A220533514
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5/8/17, 11(00 AM
Shiga, Jason: MEANWHILE
Kirkus Reviews.
(Feb. 15, 2010): From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2010 Kirkus Media LLC http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Shiga, Jason MEANWHILE Amulet/Abrams (Children's) $$15.95 Mar. 1, 2010 ISBN: 978-0-8109-8423-3
All choices have weight, even the most banal. The beginning of this highly inventive Choose-Your-Own-Adventure-- esque graphic novel prompts its readers to first choose between chocolate or vanilla ice cream--which leads them to endings from the utterly bizarre to the devastatingly apocalyptic. After choosing between the two flavors, Jimmy, the precocious young hero of the story, accidentally stumbles upon a mysterious science lab and the aloof Professor K. The Professor has three machines: a time-travel machine, a mind-melding device and a contraption that can control entropy. Through a twisting, winding maze of tubes and tabs, each choice leads readers to a new page, with unpredictable story lines ranging from the ordinary and unremarkable to the end of the world. Overall, this is a truly ingenious graphic novel in its construction; however, the plots for some adventures can be shallow, confusing or frustratingly circular, leading readers back to the same spot. With a hidden code contained within and flaws aside, this clever book should amuse for hours. That said, make your choice carefully. (Graphic fiction. 10 & up)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Shiga, Jason: MEANWHILE." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Feb. 2010. PowerSearch, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=GPS&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA221151713&it=r&asid=ee63e98e37859f127313bb6df2329242. Accessed 8 May 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A221151713
about:blank Page 21 of 23
5/8/17, 11(00 AM
Meanwhile: Pick a Path. 3,856 Story Possibilities
Publishers Weekly.
257.5 (Feb. 1, 2010): p52. From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2010 PWxyz, LLC http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
* Meanwhile: Pick a Path. 3,856 Story Possibilities
Jason Shiga. Abrams/Amulet, $15.95 paper (80p) ISBN 978-0-81098-423-3
A mathematician/cartoonist whose best works (Bookhunter; Fleep) play with form and logic, Shiga has created both an enchanting graphic novel and a delightful physical object. Building on the concept of the Choose Your Own Adventure books, Shiga allows readers to select among thousands of story lines. The first question is simple: "Chocolate or vanilla?" From there, readers follow thin tubes and tabs in circuitous paths throughout the book, dictated by their choices. Sometimes the story takes a reader right to left through panels on the page, sometimes up or down, and readers' decisions may have them skip forward or backward throughout the text. Plots include time machines, doomsday devices, quantum physics, and a giant squid. The charming, cartoony illustrations, bursting with color and energy, lend a wry counterpoint to the often disastrous outcomes of the many possible plots. In the electronic media era, it's refreshing to encounter a work that makes such unique use of the physical nature of the book. Young readers will likely spend hours finding new ways to wend a path through the pages of this innovative book. Ages 8-up. (Mar.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Meanwhile: Pick a Path. 3,856 Story Possibilities." Publishers Weekly, 1 Feb. 2010, p. 52. PowerSearch,
go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do? p=GPS&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA218599147&it=r&asid=2cedc36d782f3bde2484873c25b6efb8. Accessed 8 May 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A218599147
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5/8/17, 11(00 AM
Meanwhile
Ian Chipman
Booklist.
106.9-10 (Jan. 1, 2010): p81. From Book Review Index Plus.
COPYRIGHT 2010 American Library Association http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist_publications/booklist/booklist.cfm
Full Text:
* Meanwhile.
By Jason Shiga. Illus. by the author.
Mar. 2010. 80p.Abrams/Amulet, $15.95 (9780810984233). 741.5. Gr. 4-9. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
In this graphic-novel mind boggler, Shiga blows the choose-your-own-adventure concept out of the water. Readers play the role of little Jimmy and on the first page make the seemingly innocuous decision of ordering a vanilla or chocolate ice-cream cone. Tubes connect panels in all directions and veer off into tabs to other pages, creating a head- spinningly tangled web of a story (well, stories; the book claims to have 3,856 different possibilities).The crux is that Jimmy stumbles into the lab of an affable mad scientist and is allowed to tinker with three inventions: a mind reader, a time machine, and the Killitron, which obliterates all life on earth aside from the user's. Jimmy's carefree fiddling with the three devices isn't merely a way to lead readers through the subsequent head trip of an adventure; it's also just about the perfect kid-friendly initiation to the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics (no, really), in which each decision and action split reality into distinct parallel universes. It's unfathomably, almost unreasonably complex. Given this book and a distraction-free hour or two, readers will either end up looking like Jimmy on the cover--clutching their skulls in googly-eyed exasperation--or will arrive at a nifty new way of looking at reality. It's maddening and challenging, all right, but that's precisely what makes it so crazy fun.--Ian Chipman
Chipman, Ian
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Chipman, Ian. "Meanwhile." Booklist, 1 Jan. 2010, p. 81. PowerSearch, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=GPS&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA216960097&it=r&asid=4099b5905893d9d68c70632e63e3c6d9. Accessed 8 May 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A216960097
about:blank Page 23 of 23
Take Your Pick With Meanwhile by Jason Shiga
FIRST SECOND TO PUBLISH JASON SHIGA’S DEMON
POSTED BY BENJAMIN BAILEY ON AUGUST 17, 2015 SHARE: TWITTER FACEBOOK GOOGLE+ REDDIT EMAIL
COMICS
Jason Shiga makes labyrinthine comic books. He’s created a grip of graphic novels, 20 comic books, and the world’s second largest interactive comic book. There’s a sense, in his work, of piecing a puzzle together, that he and reader are weaving a tapestry together and that nothing is sacred. Not even the standard structural form of a comic book.
Shiga has been pushing the boundaries of comics for a while now. It’s clear when you read – or experience – his work that he loves math, construction, and Choose Your Own Adventure books. He weaves interactive elements into his graphic novels and comics, allowing readers to shape the story as they go and experience the medium in a whole new way. There’s a punk rock, do-it-yourself esthetic to his comics, a sense that he’s a unique voice with something to say.
It’s this structural insanity that makes us so excited for his latest graphic novel, Demon, which is due from First Second Books in 2016. With four volumes planned for print, Demon started life as a crowdfunded webcomic. It’s bizarre, sick, funny, and more than a little depraved, all of which is part of its charm. If you like your comics weird and immoral, you’ll love Demon.
The story of Demon – which you can check out in webcomic form over at Shiga’s website – is a sprawling one. Shiga has obviously poured a lot into the book, including more than a little of himself. Speaking on Demon’s lead character Jimmy Yee, Shiga said “when he expresses his feelings about the universe being a meaningless and chaotic miasma and consciousness as the ultimate cruel joke on humanity, he’s really speaking for me.” That’s some wonderfully bleak stuff.
Check out some pages from Demon below and read a description of the series from First Second Books. Oh yeah, and buy the graphic novel when it comes out. We need more original voices in comics, people.
“Meet Jimmy Yee, suburban Dad, actuary, math savant and world’s most boring human. The only mildly interesting thing he’s ever done was to check himself into a filthy motel room in Oakland to end his life. And he didn’t even succeed at that.
Meet Agent Hunter, Director of Project Azazel. Under his command stands an army of 800 trained agents led by an elite team of intelligence operatives, devoted to a single goal: to find and capture the nation’s most dangerous man… Jimmy Yee.
What started as a simple suicide attempt has escalated into a 5 dimensional chess match between the two most brilliant sociopaths on the planet, using humanity as their pawns and the earth as their game board. From the streets of Oakland to the bloody finale at Osaka Castle, from the Sultan’s Palace in North Sarawak to a moon colony 250 years in the future, from Jason Shiga, the creator that brought you Meanwhile, Empire State, Fleep and Bookhunter comes the most insanely immoral, antisocial and depraved comic in the history of the medium.”
The Puzzling World of Jason Shiga
By Andrew D. Arnold Friday, Nov. 01, 2002
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It turns out that Jason Shiga is not actually dead, but just living in Oakland, California. This will come as welcome news to comix fans who may have been alarmed at the coda of his 2000 book, "Double Happiness," which explained that he had committed suicide in a mental institution. Shiga has since explained this Puckish bit of misinformation as a marketing ploy which backfired. I'm glad he's still around because his creations, though woefully hard to find, are some of the most fun comicbooks I've read in a long while.
That first book, "Double Happiness" (Shiga Books; 72 pp.; $4.95), self-published through a grant by the invaluable Xeric Foundation begins when Tom, a shy Chinese-American who barely knows how to hold chopsticks, travels from Boston to San Francisco. There he meets a distant cousin immigrant who introduces him to the city's Chinatown. Tom learns to squat on the balls of his feet, wins money at a smoky mah-jongg club, and starts to fall for Li Jian, the cute girl whose karaoke version of "Hey, Jude" is "Hey, Jute." She teaches him to read the fruit merchant's signs that give lower prices in Chinese than in English. (I knew it!)
Written with a mix of phonetic Hokkien dialect and English, Shiga creates a fascinating and little-seen world. In both content and artwork Shiga emulates the style of Lat, a cartoonist with a Charles Shultz-level reputation in South East Asia. Having only started cartooning in 1995, Shiga has an extremely simple, cute and doodley drawing style. But watch out. With the kind of reversal that you later appreciate as a Shiga trademark, two thirds of the way through "Double Happiness" Tom takes an absurdly cruel beating at the hands of some thugs who seem to think he knows something he doesn't. Suddenly the context of everything shifts as Tom discovers all of his new friends belong to an extortion gang. But even this twist has nothing on the bizarre and totally unexpected ending. It is rare that a comic catches me completely off guard but "Double Happiness did it.
The twisty layout of "Meanwhile..."
Radical reversals become literal with the other kind of book that Shiga produces: Choose Your Own Adventure. The first of these, 2001's "The Last Supper," had the user unfold a sheet in different directions depending on what choices he wanted to make, starting with whether to eat a brussel sprout or not. The most remarkable of these books, "Meanwhile...," is a photocopied, hand-constructed wonder. Rather than the usual left to right and top to bottom layout, the panels are connected by a maze of tubes. At some point these tubes lead off the edge of the page to a tab on a different page. You turn to the tab and continue the story until it leads to another tab. Often you choose between multiple tabs, as at the very beginning when the main character decides on a chocolate or vanilla ice cream cone. While vanilla quickly ends with a trip home, chocolate leads to a series of events that may include time-travel, immortality or the death of every human in the universe.
A mathematics major from the University of California at Berkeley, Shiga smartly takes "Meanwhile..." beyond a gimmick by incorporating a theme of multiple universe theory. But even if the design didn't reflect the content, "Meanwhile..." would still be treat to read. More like a toy than a comicbook, it kept me busy for a couple of hours, going back and forth to discover its secrets. Shiga has recently created another CYOA-style book, "Hello, World," which has been cut in half horizontally, allowing the reader to create a story by flipping through either half. It contains a secret code, and if you figure it out, Shiga will refund the $20 price.
Jimmy figures out his location using the Coriolis effect, his watch and a dictionary map in "Fleep"
Shiga's most recent book, "Fleep" (Sparkplug Comic Books; 44 pp.; $5), mixes his love of puzzles with the more straightforward kind of story. A man wakes up inside a phone booth encased in concrete. With no memory of how he got there and slowly losing oxygen, he utilizes scientific principles and the contents of his pockets to discover where he is and how he got there. "By my calculations, the rate of torsion on my pendulum indicates my latitude to be roughly 37 degrees - 49 degrees North," is a typical insight. One setback after another must be overcome with ingenuity. Naturally, as a Jason Shiga book, the man's story proves to be far from predictable. "Fleep" has the kind of ingenious plot that would be worthy of Arthur Conan Doyle.
As a creator of comix that can be at once funny, disturbing, thoughtful, deconstructed and cleverly put together, Jason Shiga deserves wider recognition, and not the kind you get when you commit suicide in a mental institution.
"Double Happiness" and "Fleep" might be found at superior comicbook stores. "Meanwhile..." can be ordered through Jason Shiga's website.
Please note that TIME.comix will return on November 15.
Demon
Jason Shiga
Self-published ,
Webcomic, four minicomics published to date.
BUY IT NOW
REVIEWED BY ROB CLOUGH JUL 25, 2014
demon1Jason Shiga is known for, among other things, having a degree in pure mathematics from Berkeley. That background informs his comics; they frequently play out as problems waiting to be solved. That’s obvious in both Meanwhile and his epic Hello World, which are demented choose-your-own-adventure books that mostly result in characters getting killed off in brutal & hilarious ways. However, it’s true of his other work as well. Bookhunter was notable for its 1970s detective-show setting and the novelty of a “library police” existing in the real world, using the best technology of the day to solve book-related crimes. At its heart, however, the book is devoted to solving interlocking locked-room mysteries. Double Happiness is about negotiating and solving life-or-death matters related to race. Fleep is about a trapped man trying to solve the mystery of his missing memories while finding a way to escape from a rubble-pinned phone booth. Even Empire State, a quasi-autobiographical story about unrequited love, features a character trying to use logic as a method for finding love.
What that last book revealed is that Shiga is perhaps less a mathematician than he is a phenomenologist, observing others in an effort to understand and appreciate them. By phenomenology I mean simply a method of description that involves observing the object apart from its environment and our everyday understanding of the object. This forces the observer to abandon societal shortcuts in understanding an object or person, and in Shiga’s case, there’s a genuine interest in trying to figure out how and why people work. The result on the page is a sense of humor that’s equal parts bone-dry and socially awkward. Shiga sees human relationships in formulaic terms: there are rules, there are axioms, but they all rest upon assumptions that have no underlying proofs. Even though his new series, Demon, is in its form a rapidly-escalating supernatural action series, Shiga notes in the afterword that “at the end of the day, it’s personal. Ultimately, Jimmy [the protagonist] is me… When he expresses his feelings about the universe being a meaningless and chaotic miasma and consciousness as the ultimate cruel joke on humanity, he’s really speaking for me.”
That strain of nihilism has run through all of Shiga’s comics. The endings of Double Happiness and Fleep were quite shocking in this regard. The hero of Empire State does not get the girl. Even Bookhunter, a comic with a happy ending, has a shocking betrayal in its climax. Most of Shiga’s minicomics tend to have something horrible happen most of the time. In Demon, a webcomic that’s also being printed as a risographed minicomic (four issues are available to date), Shiga takes what was often subtext in his prior works and makes it the thrust of the comic. Shiga notes in the first issue that it’s the first of twenty-one. As such, he carefully unravels the main storyline in a slow and deliberate manner, which only adds to the fun, weirdness, and (eventually) the shocks.
note
We open the book with a man (Jimmy Yee, the long-suffering protagonist of Shiga’s kids’ books), thoughtfully writing at a desk in a nine-panel grid. There are few changes in action until we reach the middle panel, when Yee looks up and pauses, then returns to his note. In the final panel, we see that he’s hung himself. It’s a hell of an intro, which is followed up on the next page by nine panels of his body decomposing and gathering flies as the sun comes up. When he wakes up, alive, in the same hotel room, we get the essence of the first issue: Yee trying and somehow failing to kill himself. The first three issues follow him around as he realizes that he’s somehow been mistaken for a different person altogether, until the police show up and arrest him. The fourth issue begins with Jimmy putting together precisely what happens, which triggers an orgy of unexpected but absolutely understandable violence. We also learn why Jimmy tried to kill himself in the first place.
demon2
The clockwork intricacy of Shiga’s plotting is such that I’d prefer not to reveal more details, other than to once again quote Shiga’s afterword, where he says, in reference to his kids’ book Meanwhile: “If you are a child, please do not read any more issues. The characters use a lot of profanity and deal with some very adult themes such as murder, camel sex and drug use. Also stay in school.” The dry and jokey but almost academic tone of this “warning” is omnipresent in Shiga’s comics, which is part of what makes them so funny and why it’s almost shocking when one character says something like “Suck my private sector balls motherfucker” while laying in a pool of his own blood.
demon3
Shiga’s line continues to be wonderfully simple: all circles, squares, and triangles. Hair is usually indicated by sharp angles, and eyes tend to bulge out. Shiga’s characters in profile often are drawn without a mouth, adding a sense of blankness. With his Risograph, Shiga fills out each issue with light pinks and purples–appropriate colors considering how much blood is spilled. Beyond the mostly utilitarian quality of his line and use of color, the real visual treat here is Shiga’s page design and pacing. He takes his time on page after page, maximizing the eventual impact and payoff of each scenario. He uses rigid grids on some pages and shuffles panels around on others to create a disorienting effect that mimics the distress that Jimmy feels. The action panels are surprisingly visceral and fluid for an artist best known for his static images (with Bookhunter being the exception).
Demon feels like Shiga’s imaginary graduate school thesis. It combines elements from virtually every one of his books in terms of both story and art. There’s a formerly innocent character who is forced to become ruthlessly amoral. There are clever action setpieces. There are mysteries within mysteries. There’s squirm humor that gets its charge from violating social norms and expectations. At this point, the reader has just begun to see what Shiga is going to throw at Jimmy, and I’m particularly interested in seeing how a character who’s become as horrible as Jimmy eventually winds up–especially since Shiga is usually less than interested in rote, happy endings.
Demon, Volume 1
Image of Demon, Volume 1
Author(s):
Jason Shiga
Release Date:
October 3, 2016
Publisher/Imprint:
First Second
Pages:
176
Buy on Amazon
Reviewed by:
Jake Bible
"Jimmy Chee cannot die."
Well, that's one way to get the reader's attention. The other way is to write and illustrate one hell of a hilarious, sick, violent, disturbing, so simple every writer wished they thought of it, brilliant graphic novel.
For those not familiar with Jason Shiga's Demon series, it stars Jimmy Chee (a character he's used in other works) who is trying to kill himself. Repeatedly. Seriously. Over and over he tries to kill himself, but each time he is thwarted, waking up in his hotel room fully alive and getting more and more pissed about it.
It's hilarious.
Honestly. The many ways he tries to end his life become more inventive with each panel until you find yourself cringing with glee.
Then things get really strange, but to say more would spoil the reveal.
When it comes to those inventive panels, Shiga's illustration style is simple and to the point, which allows the absurdity and humor of his writing to come out. It is a less is more ethos and the story would probably suffer if each panel were filled with frivolous details.
Shiga makes sure the story is moved along with the illustrated information needed and nothing more. His skill is expressed in the composition and layout of the panels. And the eyes. Shiga is a master at making a simple circle with a dot in the center tell the reader everything they need to know about the character's emotions.
At 176 pages, with each page only partially filled by Shiga's sparse style, Demon, Volume 1 is a quick read. That could be the only legitimate negative of this book. It was too short. Yes, there are three more volumes on their way, but when the reader finishes the first volume they will want more right now. Now! Not a bad thing, but a little frustrating. It's good then that the next volume comes out in early 2017.
In short, if you are a fan of over the top violence mixed with some sharp humor and tight storytelling, then Demon, Volume 1 is the perfect graphic novel for you. Do not miss out on this excellent series. If you do, you'll want to kill yourself, and unlike Jimmy Chee, there's no coming back from that.
MEANWHILE
Pick Any Path. 3,856 Story Possibilities
by Jason Shiga, illustrated by Jason Shiga
Age Range: 10 & up
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KIRKUS REVIEW
All choices have weight, even the most banal. The beginning of this highly inventive Choose-Your-Own-Adventure–esque graphic novel prompts its readers to first choose between chocolate or vanilla ice cream—which leads them to endings from the utterly bizarre to the devastatingly apocalyptic. After choosing between the two flavors, Jimmy, the precocious young hero of the story, accidentally stumbles upon a mysterious science lab and the aloof Professor K. The Professor has three machines: a time-travel machine, a mind-melding device and a contraption that can control entropy. Through a twisting, winding maze of tubes and tabs, each choice leads readers to a new page, with unpredictable story lines ranging from the ordinary and unremarkable to the end of the world. Overall, this is a truly ingenious graphic novel in its construction; however, the plots for some adventures can be shallow, confusing or frustratingly circular, leading readers back to the same spot. With a hidden code contained within and flaws aside, this clever book should amuse for hours. That said, make your choice carefully. (Graphic fiction. 10 & up)
Pub Date: March 1st, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-8109-8423-3
Page count: 80pp
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Dec. 23rd, 2010
Comic Books: review
Tim Martin looks at the best comic books, from Jason Shiga's madcap Meanwhile, to a brilliant CIA thriller, The Losers by Andy Diggle
By Tim Martin12:30PM GMT 23 Mar 2010
Fables: Deluxe Edition, vol 1
Fables: Deluxe Edition, vol 1 by Bill Willingham
Fables: Deluxe Edition, vol 1 by Bill Willingham
by Bill Willingham
264pp, Vertigo/Titan, £22.99
Driven by war from their ancestral homeland, the world’s best and least-known imaginary characters – Goldilocks, the Three Little Pigs, Shere Khan, Baba Yaga et al – are forced to take up secret residence in a neighbourhood of New York. This smart hardback reissue of the first two episodes in Bill Willingham’s series is a perfect place to discover one of the most purely enjoyable comics sagas of recent years: a smart, adult and often very funny take on our best-loved stories that steers its cast of anthropoids, animals and monsters through a wild and shifting mixture of genres, from soap opera to police procedural, from spy thriller to political drama and more. Willingham’s characterisation is deft, his dialogue crackles, and the exasperating political didacticism of later issues, where what the author himself has called his “rabidly pro-Israel” stance begins to intrude, is thankfully absent from these early stories.
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Meanwhile
by Jason Shiga
80pp, Abrams, £9.99
It’s safe to say that no other comic like this exists. Written by a pure-maths graduate from Berkeley and based on the Choose Your Own Adventure series of children’s books, this labyrinthine and cheerfully demented “interactive comic” claims to provide 3,856 possible permutations of story to explore. Navigating between panels by means of the index tabs that bristle from the pages, the reader guides little Jimmy on a journey that could culminate in an encounter with a mad scientist, a time-travelling adventure through multiple worlds, the destruction of all life in the universe or a vanilla ice cream. It’s a truly obsessional piece of writing and drawing, somewhat reminiscent of Chris Ware’s minutely detailed comic strips, but Meanwhile’s madcap premise ought to tickle the stoniest of hearts from pretty much the age of eight on up.
The Unwritten: Tommy Taylor and the Bogus Identity
by Mike Carey and Peter Gross
144pp, Titan, £7.99
Initially resembling a grown-up, satirical take on the Harry Potter phenomenon, the English writer Mike Carey’s erudite and devious new story soon transports the reader into altogether more strange dimensions. Tommy Taylor, the protagonist, is a sort of latter-day Christopher Robin Milne, haunted by a series of bestselling children’s books written by his vanished father, and trying to deal with his feelings of abandonment on the convention circuit. But an obsessive fan wants to blow him up, a centuries-old serial killer is on his tail and Taylor is about to discover that his connection to his father’s stories may not be as illusory as he thinks. Carey’s script is packed with recherché trivia and literary psychogeography, and whips along thanks to Peter Gross’s confident art. It’s not for children, but adult fans of Neil Gaiman and Jonathan Carroll will be right at home here: if the rest of the series lives up to this cliffhanging first volume, it’ll be very good indeed.
The Losers: Volumes One and Two
by Andy Diggle and Jock
304pp, Titan, £14.99
Few Hollywood action blockbusters have been as exciting as this dexterous, tough-talking, politically scathing tale of international espionage and revenge, a situation that the producers of the forthcoming film adaptation are no doubt hoping to address. British comic book artists Andy Diggle and Jock (Mark Simpson) bring sneering cool and non-stop invention to the story of a black-ops platoon that survives assassination at the hands of the CIA itself, then wreaks pyrotechnic revenge on the military-industrial complex in a series of devastating heists. The characters may be genre staples, but tight scriptwriting, brilliantly kinetic artwork and a plot that criss-crosses the oil-stained landscape of international violence and power make The Losers a pretty much peerless slice of crash-bang-wallop. Fans of espionage in any medium should discover it without delay.