Look, it’s Major Kovar’s grand daddy.

From Eroica With Love is my favorite manga of all time. I was deliriously happy to see it snag an honorable mention on Publishers Weekly’s 2008 best graphic novels of the year. It is published in the USA by CMX manga, which is a division of DC Comics.

From Eroica With Love was the first manga I ever saw, and it is one of the best. Many manga don’t have stories strong enough to sustain the pretty pictures. From Eroica with Love is a manga in which the story is as strong as the art.

Take a flamboyant gay thief, team him up with a cranky, repressed NATO officer, and you get one of the funniest, and most entertaining manga of all time. From Eroica With Love is a classic of the shuojo genre, but the writing is sharper and wittier than the usual fare.

The translations in the American edition are quite good, though the NATO Major’s epithets appear to be toned down somewhat. I think he’s really screaming “You faggot!” at Eroica, but this edition has him running around screaming “You degenerate!” Doesn’t quite have the same bite, and the verbal barbs are half the fun of the series (don’t worry, this book is not a gay bashing fest. It’s just that the Major has issues.)

Usually I am disappointed with manga imports because I imagined the writing would be a lot better when I finally got to read my favorite picture stories in English. Sadly, my imagination has done a lot of favors for bland manga, and I’ve lost interest in books I loved in Japanese. Eroica is actually better in English.

For first timers, you may want to skip volume I. It has no resemblance to the rest of the series and is so insanely goofy it may turn you off to the work entirely. Any book with characters named Sugarplum and Leopard is suspect. Those characters never appear in the series again, and good riddance. The series is quickly taken over by the infamous thief Eroica, and it’s a roller coaster from there. I have the first 10 or so. The art style is very 1970’s, so for kicks, play the soundtrack of The Velvet Underground while reading.

This series was a huge influence on A Distant Soil (see pic above…that’s not Kovar, it’s Klaus), but there is no resemblance between the two books beyond that character’s haircut. A Distant Soil was already in publication before I saw From Eroica with Love, but I was getting a lot of flak from my publishers about my aesthetic taste, my inking style, and my deconstructed storytelling. After seeing From Eroica with Love, and realizing that everything I was trying to do had not only been done, but was common in a comic book land far across the Pacific, I stuck to my guns and stopped letting myself be bullied by my publishers.

The oddest thing about that was that one of my US clients claimed to be quite fond of manga, but whenever my own work showed a hint of manga-esque style, they tried to get me to stop. Weird. I think they may not have liked the competition. Manga was a pretty esoteric field of interest back then (1980’s), and I’ve noticed that some people get proprietary about their interests.

Anyway, there was no manga influence on the development of my book, so I am always surprised when people call A Distant Soil Amerimanga.

The above image comes from a limited edition Eroica art book. It came with an interactive cd that no longer works with my computer. Only works on OS 9, drat! However, this screen saver of Kovar is the desktop theme on my laptop.

Major Kovar was such a popular character when I first introduced him into A Distant Soil that I got no less than six claims of ownership from six different fanfic authors, all claiming they had created a character just like him and I had stolen him from them. That’s some feat, stealing the same guy from six different people. Especially since every A Distant Soil fan knows I was inspired primarily by a character from Yasuko Aioke’s From Eroica With Love. Heh. I deliberately changed Kovar’s hair from blonde to brunette just because I liked Klaus’s haircut. But, you know, you can’t copyright a haircut.

If you are interested in the series, here’s a few links to get you going.

Here is the CMX official webpage for From Eroica With Love.

This site by fans and for fans is pretty comprehensive.

This livejournal is a terrific resource for Eroica fans. It has links to interviews with the creator of Eroica, and lots of other cool stuff. She also uses a picture of Major Kovar in there! Funny!

Yes, that is a woman dressed as Klaus in a few of those pics. I seem to recall some plans to create an Eroica musical with the all female Japanese review Takarazuka, but I may be mistaken. That could just be from a Takarazuka photo shoot.

Because Major Klaus is German, this inspired the vacation plans of many Eroica fans. An interesting tidbit from the website:

Incidentally, the popularity of Eroica in Japan caused a marked increase in Japanese tourism to the towns of Bonn and Eberbach. The tourist board investigated why, and when they found out, they made Aoike an honorary citizen of Bonn.

Yasuko Aoike’s official website can be found here. It is in Japanese, but there’s still some fun stuff to be had.

I hope you will check out this series. It is one of those books I enjoyed so much I bought extras for friends. You may actually want to start out with Volumes 2 or 3. The first volume kind of runs off and goes in directions that are quickly abandoned by the creator.

Moselle Green wrote to let me know that she has faboo pics of the all-female theater group Takarazuka cosplaying Eroica. This is the sort of thing that delights me, and makes me giggle like a madwoman. Go see it here.

Portions of this post were cribbed from the old website. Thanks to Leslie Sternbergh for introducing me to From Eroica with Love and all things manga!

Sorry to upload this again so soon, but there have been many searches for it and requests to get this back online.

In the 1950’s and 1960’s, Walter Keane was famous for his paintings of big-eyed, weeping children. The paintings look a good deal like manga art to me.

The Keane paintings became popular on the West Coast about the same time shoujo manga was taking off in Japan. I’ve often wondered if Keane Kids made their way across the Pacific and infected the shoujo manga scene, or vice versa.

Many early shoujo manga didn’t have the big eyes we now think of as a manga staple. The earliest magazines for young girls generally featured heavily illustrated prose which showed a Western art influence, and had photo covers.

Disney art was the biggest influence on the big-eyed manga look. Osamu Tezuka, the God of Comics, acknowledged this. Later, Disney was heavily “influenced” by Tezuka, most notably on the film The Lion King (but that’s another matter entirely.)

It’s probable that Western cartoon art influenced both manga and the Keane look simultaneously, resulting in a kawaii (cute) look with similar appeal for each culture.

Here’s an article from a book on the history of shoujo manga which mentions the development of Tezuka’s art and the influence of Disney. The top image is from an early anime, and the bottom from a Disney film.

After Tezuka’s Princess Knight, first published in the 1950’s, shoujo manga was dominated by the big-eye look. Princess Knight is considered by many to be the first true shoujo manga, and it established the look and feel of girl’s comics for decades to come.

While I was not able to find any sources that directly linked Keane to the development of manga, some contemporary artists, such as Reiko Sakurai, openly embrace the Keane appeal.

This essay on Miyazaki’s Nausicaa touches on the Keane look, mentions that it is “analogous” to manga, but does not call it an influence.

While it is easy to understand why kawaii images are popular with young children, the reason they are appealing to teens and adults is puzzling to some. The rise of uber-cute is, possibly, a rebellion against female empowerment, or even sexual development. Young teens embody the safety of childhood and the power of adult sexuality simultaneously.

Reassuring images of childlike females proliferate in manga, even when masquerading as a girl power construct.

The paradox of girl power is that girl power focuses on empowering femininity, but restricts itself to patriarchal constructs of what it means to be feminine. The primary restrictions of girl power in patriarchy are the body type favored within the girl power construct, the style of representation, including clothing styles that are appropriate for girl power practitioners, and the constant stereotyping of hyperfeminity and youth. Girl power suggests a means for personal empowerment and independence to the practitioner, especially in terms of personal pleasure. However, the nature of girl power prevents the practitioner from fully developing an independent nature. The girl power body itself is a site of negotiation between these contradictory values.

Craig McCracken, creator of Powerpuff Girls, is said to have been inspired by Keane kids when developing the look of the cartoon, which also seems to owe a lot to anime/manga.

When I was doing consulting work for Bandai, the marketing folks for Sailor Moon wondered why Cartoon Network execs told them that Sailor Moon could not be more popular. Bandai was informed the cute, cartoony, big-eyed girl character designs were unattractive to Americans. I just happened to have a copy of The Licensing Book (an industry magazine) with me, and on the back cover was a huge ad for Powerpuff Girls. It seemed obvious that a lousy time slot had a lot more to do with Sailor Moon ratings than big eyes.

While big-eyed weeping children hardly seem a source for female empowerment, the backstage saga of the Keane kids is a real life girl power tale, though perhaps more in a second wave feminism sense, as defined in the above article on Sailor Moon.

The famous divorce trial of Walter Keane and his wife revealed that the true artist behind the sad-eyed tots was actually Margaret Keane, who sued her husband for credit for her works.

At the trial, Margaret challenged her husband to sit in court and paint. He showed up with his arm in a sling, claiming he had a hurt shoulder and was unable to create. Margaret sat down and painted a Keane original before the judge and jury, which awarded her all rights to her work.

“It had been going on for two years by the time I found out he was telling people he was the artist. And by then, it was hard to change everything. Plus he said he’d learn to paint if I’d teach him, and I wanted to believe him.”

Back in the day, it was not uncommon for women creators to take male names or hide behind a male partner who took all credit. Mr. Keane was, by many accounts, a huckster who then battled Margaret Keane in court for a decade in an effort to seal the steal on her work.

Perhaps marriage to this man was the inspiration for the miserable kids in those paintings. After the divorce, many of the Keane kids wept no more. Her later works depict big-eyed, softly smiling faces. Here, a Keane kid looks happy to be dressed in a kimono.

Walter Keane, who, apparently, had no discernable talent, had to ride his wife’s coattails in order to achieve the recognition he could not earn for himself. Keane took credit for the work, in part, because he believed that it was his salesmanship which made the paintings popular. Be that as it may, he still didn’t paint them, and Margaret Keane continued to enjoy success decades after she dumped her husband.

I recall someone of this ilk saying, “If you want to get revenge on someone, steal their idea and exploit the crap out of it.” Perhaps resentment and envy toward his wife were as powerful as greed in Walter Keane’s case.

Walter Keane’s son (by another wife), photographer Sascha Keane, was, until recently, posting articles to his website giving his father full credit for the Keane paintings with barely a mention of Margaret Keane. However, the direct link from Sascha Keane’s website to the Walter Keane bio page no longer works. It’s still accessible from an external link. The Life magazine article linked there has a particularly galling quote:

Margaret, it is true, paints eyes a little like those for which her husband is famous. But hers are not so big and belong as unvaryingly to nubile girls as his belong to what appear to be war waifs.

You know, if the little woman paints it, it’s just not quite as good.

Interesting that so many female creators of my acquaintance have similar problems with men imposing themselves on their work. Even J.K. Rowling’s ex-husband tried to claim he was central to the creation of Harry Potter, and had personally edited the manuscript. In fact, they were married for less than two years, and she had yet to create Harry Potter.

This creativity assimilation happens to men too, but the social dynamics of the experience differ, one assumes. How many works of art throughout history were the works of women whose accomplishments were usurped entirely by men in times when divorce and redress in court were not available to these women?

The issue is not whether one likes the work of Margaret Keane: the issue is that the work is hers, and her own husband tried to steal all the credit for it.

Kate Hudson has been tapped to play the painter Margaret Keane in Big Eyes. Big Eyes will be directed by The People vs. Larry Flynt screenwriters Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski. Thomas Haden Church will play her husband.

c

First day off the mountain in months. I’ll pay for it by doubling up on work tomorrow, but my adventures today included an afternoon at a regional book fair. Held in an enormous warehouse in the middle of a wheatfield in the middle of nowhere, this semi-annual event features thousands of remaindered books and book product at rock bottom prices. I walked out with two big shopping bags full of goodies and spent only $60. That includes 2 unabridged audio books by James Owen and Clive Barker, as well as a cute kitty frame, boxes of notecards, hardcovers with dustjackets, a nifty set of design art reference books, gifts for almost everyone in my family. The design reference books retailed at $22 each alone. I bought the boxed set of three.

I don’t know what it says about the state of the industry, but the shelves groaned with manga at 75% off or more. There were more manga in that remainder house than in the big city bookstore where I used to shop. Tokyopop provided the bulk, though there were many how-to art books and some very fine reference books on manga as well.

The children’s section featured even more stacks of manga, and most of it had no business there. Yaoi does not belong anywhere near My Pretty Pony.

Yeah, I know some people swing that way, but I don’t want to hear about it.

Greedy for bargains, I looked for GN’s, but the only two I saw in quantity were the ZOT collection by Scott McCloud, and The Fate of the Artist by Eddie Campbell. Big stacks of them. I wept, because I already had them at retail.

BTW, Shojo Beat from VIZ got the axe today. And reaction links here.

As I wrote, I’m not sure what all those piles of remaindered manga might mean (if anything), but I was surprised to see them.

One art book publisher, Impact Books, had lots of product, including some of their best sellers by authors like John Howe, and those books are recent releases.

Computer how-to books dominated an entire wall of the warehouse. Many Stephen King hardcovers could be had for just a few dollars, and all those unabridged Anne Rice audio books I bought back in the day at $30 were selling for only 99 cents!

It took serious self discipline to walk out of there without buying 10 times what I settled on. I did some major early Christmas shopping.

Anyway, I thought it odd that there were shelves and tables buried in manga and just a handful of US GN’s to be had, though I did see a number of books on the history of comics and comics collecting.

Thoughts?

c

PS: I worked on a teen magazine 2 years ago which was canceled for selling a lowly 100,000 copies per issue (Sweet 16). Shojo Beat was moving less than half that.

(click here to return to the webcomic)

As I continue my march toward Martha Stewart-like organizational bliss, photos of cartoonists and other interesting people from many years of travel are now at my fingertips.

And this lovely blog is just the place to publish them. Almost all my photos have never been published.

Photos are by me and copyrighted by me unless otherwise indicated. Some photos are by goodness-knows-who, taken with my camera.

Anyway, let’s start with a jaunt to Japan in 1996.

Denys Cowan and Jeff Smith marvel at the strange resemblance between Disney’s The Lion King and Osamu Tezuka’s Kimba the White Lion while on a visit to the Tezuka Production offices in Tokyo.

“Hm! How bizarre! What could this mean?”

Photo courtesy Tezuka Productions. I’m afraid I don’t know all the names of everyone in the shot, but pictured are, back row from left: Fred Schodt, author of Manga Manga: The World of Japanese Comics, A guy I can’t recall, Jeff Smith, Jules Feiffer, Takayuki Matsutani, President of Tezuka Productions, Denys Cowan, a very important gentleman whose name escapes me. Front row from left: I don’t know, Vijaya Iyer (Jeff Smith’s wife and the beautiful brain behind Bone), Nicole Hollander, Anita Doran AKA MOM, and me.

Denys Cowan is a very good-looking fellow. I love this photo.

Jeff and Vijaya in love in the gardens of a royal palace.

Takayuki Matsutani in front of a portrait of Osamu Tezuka. Mr. Matsutani is awfully handsome and charming. (I’ve also seen his name spelled Takeyuki. I’m hedging my bets with both spellings here!)

Jeff Smith and I speaking at a press conference. We look very polished, don’t we? Those press conferences were grueling and the reporters and editors sometimes seemed hostile (competitive?). We weren’t really prepared for the kind of reception we got, which was intense, high energy, and heavily covered by reporters following our every move.

I still can’t remember the name of that fellow in the front, but here’s Jeff Smith, Mr. Matsutani, and Fred Schodt at the Tezuka offices. Visiting the Japanese publishers was quite educational. The DC and Marvel offices (at the time) seemed quite dainty by comparison.

Jules Feiffer playfully fits his dainty hand into the molds of cartoon character hands in front of the Tezuka museum in Takarazuka. Papparazzi go wild. It was quite odd to be followed about by a mob of photographers. I have never been more aware of the size of my rear end in my entire life.

Mr. Matsutani in front of a small portion of the Osamu Tezuka section at Kinokuniya Books.

I am off to Charlotte Heroes Con, and off researching a book. Bye.

Colleen Doran’s Cafe Press Shop

For previous posts in this series, hit the VERY BAD PUBLISHERS link.

Comments from the original message board posts are included below. Apparently, it was not hard to figure out who The Woman was, for though her professional life was short, her life in fandom went on…

Also, additional commentary about remaindered books and the accounting for same.

OK, back to our story.

We didn’t quite hit rock bottom on that misery mine yet.

Now, in an ideal world, IF my book with The Woman had been getting an 8% of cover price royalty, it would still have to have sold over four times the 3,000 copies it actually DID sell to earn out the advance. My original understanding was that my advance would have been ammortized equally over the books in the contract (instead of being lumped against the first one) and, of course, I had no idea that the accounts would be cross-collatoralized over all books in the series and all books on contract I had with the company.

Unfortunately, after deductions for net costs, my meagre advance, and slashing half the royalty for sales at discounts of 50% or greater, and cutting another half for holds against returns, there was no way that a 12,000 advance sale on A Distant Soil would bring in any royalties either.

But things get even worse when you realize that, because The Woman was entitled to a half royalty share on the GN I had illustrated for her, I wouldn’t be getting 4% of cover, I would be getting more like 2% of cover, or about 14 cents per copy sold.

Now, to be fair, The Woman took no advance on the book herself which was generous of her, but then, she sure as hell didn’t need an advance, either. She not only got royalties on several books she edited at the company (even when the creators did not), she also got a salary that made her New York editor counterparts envious. She was permitted to work half days at home writing. She often didn’t come into the office until 1PM. The publisher was subsidizing her writing ambitions by paying salary for her to stay home and write at least a half dozen projects only one of which, to my knowledge, ever saw the light of day – the book I illustrated. (EDIT: To clarify, mine was the only FICTION project she had published there, that I know of. I think she had one or two non-fiction projects.)

So, simply to earn out the entire advance which was paid out over the course of a year and a few months (one year’s advance plus a short extension), the book would have had to sell almost 35,000 copies JUST TO PAY OUT THE ADVANCE of $300 a month and that DID NOT COUNT all the net deductions, 50% held against returns, etc. That was just to earn back what I had been paid even though what I had been paid amounted to the worst page rate I ever received in my entire career.

35,000 copies is good sales by any standard and I didn’t see that happening on this book.

To ALSO earn out enough to pay the colorist and letterer – and to pay the writer their 50% share – for me to even begin to see any more money on the project, it would have to sell between 60,000-70,000 copies.

Moreoever, for the entire time the book was earning out at a loss, ANY AND ALL losses would be deducted from profits on A Distant Soil. In the end, A Distant Soil would be forced to subsidize the book I was illustrating for The Woman.

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