The first time I did a reading/signing thing at Cody's, the woman who did the introduction said something like that, and I wasn't the only one cringing. I remember looking out into the audience and seeing people's faces and people whispering to each other, and thinking like "Ugh, can we just cancel the whole thing? I can't go out there after she said that."
That partially due to the world of media and commerce, the idea of a comic book has been lost in the ghetto, whereas the graphic novel is now being held up as something to aspire to and as something that's respectable for adults to read.
I think there was a point in the past when I felt that my options as an artist were either to make race a nonissue and deny its impact on life and just say, "Don't think of me as an Asian cartoonist. Just think of me as a cartoonist."
And with this sort of increased visibility, there's more money going around in the industry, and it changes a lot, in terms of who gets into the business as a creator, who sticks with it, and who gets pushed out. And I do think it's sort of too bad that what once was a safe haven for truly eccentric, outsider artists is no longer that thing. But there are definitely pros and cons. You could also look at it as bringing in a more diverse crowd.
I think in terms of getting new artists who are not in that sort of stereotypical teenage boy demographic; there's been a lot of progress recently. And I shouldn't make a definitive statement about this, but my impression is that the main impediment to progress in that regard is the number of people who are choosing to make a go of it.
Just in terms of being able to be a professional artist, but also it's nice to not have to dread introductions. "What you do for a living?" It used to be easier just to tell people that I was a magazine illustrator than try to explain that I did comics, but not the kind of comics that they were used to, and no, it's not pornography, etc. And now people even of our parents' generation are familiar with the term "graphic novel," which is kind of amazing.
Without fail, every cartoonist that I asked advice from bent over backward to be helpful and encouraging. It took many forms: some of it was just an implicit acceptance, like being invited along to the dinner with all of the good cartoonists, or sitting down at a drafting table with an artist and him showing me how to draw backgrounds and perspectives.
I think it's harder for each generation. Even I just feel completely separate from teenagers today who have access to the Internet. And I'm amazed that this interest in video games has never gone away. It just keeps growing.
Underground and alternative comics existed in a vacuum for years, where money really wasn't an issue. No one would get into doing a black-and-white comic because they thought it might be a route to riches.
There are some people who may not like precision in their art. They may like it to be grittier and more gestural, more of a direct expression in the way that a painter would put his strokes on canvas.
I do think it's getting more and more rare in this country to raise a kid with the attitude that creativity is something valuable. The idea of trying to make the effort to produce something, to put something out into the world, rather than just taking in all the stuff the world's putting out at you.
And also, as a consumer now, it's weird that when I used to go to a book signing I would leave with a stack of pamphlets people had made to show off their work, and now I just leave with business cards where people have the URL to their websites.
I think a lot of the bells and whistles that become available to you would be impossible to resist for some people, so it's just never going to be a real stand-in version of your comic. People will have to take advantage of the ability to have sound, or zoom in and out, whatever it is.
I guess there's just a part of me that's not very enthusiastic about finding myself ten years from now halfway through a story that may or may not be any good.