TOKYOPOP'S OEL MANGA PIONEERS: RIKKI & TAVISHA SIMONS

[MattBrady]

by Benjamin Ong Pang Kean

If TOKYOPOP is leading the manga revolution with their successful Rising Stars of Manga series of talent-scouting competitions, then Rosearik Rikki Simons and Tavisha Wolfgarth-Simons are the pioneers in creating Original English Language manga (OEL) in North America.

The creators behind ShutterBox are not past winners of Rising Stars. But they sure made the industry, particularly TOKYOPOP, sit up and take notice with their original manga work in 2003.

“It was due to the success of our book ShutterBox that TOKYOPOP decided to begin offering book deals to new and up-and-coming American creators,” Rikki Simons told Newsarama. “Tavisha and I have a long history with TOKYOPOP, going back to 1998 when Stu Levy first began publishing under the name MIXX Entertainment. MIXX later became TOKYOPOP. At the time, in 1998, Stu hired Tavisha and I to write, illustrate and color a comic series called Sushi Girl, which he created significant parts of. We did 100 pages of Sushi Girl, which were published in 10 installments in MIXX's Smile Magazine, and the full 100 pages of which were collected into a graphic novel.

“Back then, we were working with both Stu Levy of MIXX and Hikaru Sasahara of Digital Manga. Often, we were asked our opinions on what we believed would best serve manga in America. We told both of these men that we thought it best if they tried to get manga into regular book stores like Borders and Barnes and Noble, to make sure they keep it "unflipped" in order to preserve its foreign appeal, and keep it small to meet a greater legitimacy. We also insisted on bringing manga tones to the US in order to give American artists access to the same tools as their Japanese counterparts. We are surprised to this day just how literally they took our advice.

Before Sushi Girl, both creators used to publish a full color comic series called Super Information Hijinks: Reality Check! with Sirius Entertainment. “We became embroiled in a contract dispute with Sirius over Reality Check!, which is why we stopped work on Reality Check! in 1998 to work on Sushi Girl for Stu Levy,” he said. “We then stopped work on Sushi Girl in 2000 because three things happened. 1) we lost interest in Sushi Girl, 2) we began work on our new comic called Ranklechick and His Three-Legged Cat (due out this November from Slave Labor Graphics), and 3) I was hired by Jhonen Vasquez to paint backgrounds on his new show Invader Zim. I was also hired as the voice of the character Gir on Invader Zim. In 2002, after Invader Zim was finished, Tavisha and I were approached by Stu Levy at Anime Expo and he asked us to return publishing with him, now under TOKYOPOP.”

It was then that they pitched their idea for ShutterBox to Levy and the latter then agreed not only to publish ShutterBox but also to republish their two-volume black and white Reality Check! series as well.

“By December of 2003 when Volume One of ShutterBox was published, we were well on our way working on Volume Two, TOKYOPOP had published black and white versions of Reality Check! and we were told by TOKYOPOP President John Parker, Managing Editor Jeremy Ross, Stu Levy and our then editor Mark Paniccia that ShutterBox Volume 1 was considered such a great success that TOKYOPOP had decided to try to find at least 50 new creators and that the Original Line, of which Rising Stars would be a part of, would be the company's new priority. That was quite exciting.

“At the time, there were two other books along with ShutterBox by American creators: @ Large and World of Hartz. Both of their titles were also published in 2003, although it's unclear to me if they were successful.

“But if you go all the way back to Sushi Girl, then yes, we were the first Americans published by TOKYOPOP (MIXX owns TOKYOPOP).”

ShutterBox is a six-volume, shoujo manga influenced graphic novel series co-written by the husband and wife team, although it was Tavisha who came up with the original story concepts and is also the artist. “Tavisha is the first Japanese-American woman to publish a shoujo story here in America,” Simons said. “Apart from writing duties, I create 3D backgrounds for Tavisha, and all of the toning and I paint the covers. Volumes One through Three have been completed, with Three available in August of this year. The first volume took us four months to complete (150 pages), the second, which is far more detailed took us eight months (176 pages), and the third took us a year (192 pages) — and these lengthening amounts of time spent on each book are primarily due to the fact that we have no assistants and do everything ourselves (writing, illustrating, toning and coloring, lettering, layout in Quark or in Design (Japanese creators have as many as eight or more assistants (as Monkey Punch (Lupin III) once explained to us)), we deliver a complete book to our publisher and then all TOKYOPOP has to do is the final proof reading.”

ShutterBox tells the story of Megan Amano, a truth-seeking – and power seeking – 19 year old American girl of Japanese and British descent who discovers that her vivid dreams are actually a window to an afterlife of muses in a land called Merridiah. “Here, her special abilities as a ShutterBox are revealed. As a ShutterBox exchange student, Megan is to be trained as a living muse at the paranormal university called M. U. S. E. (Merridiah University of Spiritual Education).

“Being so far removed from Earth would be ruinous for most girls Megan’s age, but being a natural introvert, Megan seems to just calmly flow from one dimension into the next. What’s stranger still for Megan, when she cares to think about it, is the fact that Merridiah University feels more at home to her than her house in Santa Monica, California. Perhaps her otherworldly feeling of comfort in Merridiah stems from her ancient connection to the afterlife of Merridiah and to the young man who never grew up, Adrien Crandall (Merridiah title: Angel of Childhood's End). The left sided twin to Damien, Adrien (A.J.) is the earthbound spirit caught in a perpetual cycle to remain forever young. Before, the age of his adult maturity, AJ succumbs to untimely death by way of suicide.

“Usually somehow inspired by his twin, Damien. As a result, over the centuries AJ has lived, and killed himself 504 times. Despite that one tragic part of his existence, AJ still maintains a fun, impish attitude and usually muses artistic children, teens and aspiring scientists. His unlimited imagination relates to them in inspiring ways. He shared a short lifetime twice with Megan on earth. As the Angel of Childhood's End, Adrien's sense of responsibility has been removed from his and has manifested as a green dragon named Phaa.

“Then there’s Damien Crandall (Merridiah title: Angel of Death Unbalanced). The right sided twin to Adrien, Damien (Dane) is the muse of untimely death to his most unfortunate clients. His fastidious, arrogant and controlling demeanor keeps all his dearly beloved family close at hand either dead or alive whether they like it or not. Dane is mainly the muse of political business which also includes the fashion world. He mostly resides in his fashion boutique located in Imiserriah, far beneath Merridiah. Unfortunately, Dane has a distaste for earth and its annoying humans after having a bad experience as one. He shared a tragic lifetime once with Megan on earth in the early 1900's. As the Angel of Childhood's End, Damien's conscience has been removed from him and has manifested as a crow named Khaa.

“Thomas Jenkins is M.U.S.E.'s Student Disembodied President. The eternal friend to Adrien, Thom is always there at their shared dorm for his homecoming at the end of each of Adrien's lives. Thom has a very light and innocent air about him and primarily muses those young people in theatre, and poetry. He often serves as the middleman between the conflicts of AJ and Dane, and is known to dress in drag as his eccentric alter ego "Thomisina."

“In Volume Two of ShutterBox, Megan awoke from a dream to find that she was back in Merridiah University and now attending the afterlife school as a full-time, living exchange student. She also learned that there are certain rules that must never be broken. She soon discovered that Damien is out to get her expelled--and in the afterlife, expulsion carries a frightfully heavy price, beginning with the death of her best friend, Dagny, and possibly ending at the end of her own eternal life.

“For a ShutterBox exchange student, expulsion means having one's soul erased from existence, a terrible demise that Damien is all too eager to see Megan come to. It would seem he has some issues from their past he wishes to settle with her.

“Now, in Volume Three, Megan must undo the mistake she made when she first entered Merridiah — when, in Volume One, she accidentally released a Banshee by talking to it. In order to face and capture the terrible Banshee now lurking inside Lewis Carroll's urn, the Angel of Childhood's End, Adrien sends Student Disembodied President, Thomas to help. What Thom and Megan aren't prepared for is the release of an eternal entity once thought lost with Merridiah University's heart.

“Forever transformed by the encounter, Megan now seeks to discover the dark secret Damien has walled up inside his boutique in the deep, dark realm far below Merridiah before Adrien is once again forced to be reborn on Earth.”

As a Japanese American, creating ShutterBox is part of Tavisha Wolfgarth-Simons’ tribute to classic shoujo manga. “Being a yonsei (4th generation Japanese decent) and living in Los Angeles where Little Tokyo was ever present, I grew up with reading and collecting so many inspirational manga. Manga has influenced me as an artist throughout my entire life,” she said. “I've seen the change of style and growth, the trends, the fads all come and go within this art movement for decades. Over the years I've tried to let my art grow along with it all, but still keeping the precious elements that I loved the most. Shoujo manga will always be my greatest influence as they taught me fluidity, poise and delicacy in my artwork.

“I guess ShutterBox is my small contribution to help preserve those influences I gained from that corner of tradition I grew up with and loved. I see the rapid growth and change in the comic industry both here and in Japan and with it I see certain traditional techniques such as water color painting and hand screen toning being replaced by the modern techniques of computer programs. I am completely for progress but I am a preserver of traditions as well. Before TOKYOPOP was formed, I saw screen toning change from "analogue" to digital first and I urged companies like Digital Manga to bring over and introduce real tones to the new breed of American artists who didn't even know what Japanese tones were. I knew if a new generation of artists were to develop and be influenced by the traditional Japanese manga style, then the concept of screen toning needed to be introduced in order for them to achieve similar visual effects found within the pages of manga. Luckily, Digital Manga listened and set themselves up as the first import distributor for real Japanese screen tones. Digital toning programs such as Comic Works soon followed.

“For ShutterBox, I wanted to blend traditional and professional techniques utilizing both hand-drawn and 3D art toned by both gray scale, and traditional Japanese tone patterns. As a result, the use of both traditional Japanese manga techniques and modern computer techniques helped enrich the overall unique style of ShutterBox by the time we got to Volume Two. We have also innovated traditional use of Japanese screen tones by creating our own patterns as well using Photoshop and Painter and we will continue to innovate as much as possible throughout all our works — save for that cornerstone of tradition I like to keep alive. Working in the US comic market for over 12 years while creating work in a style primarily influenced by Japanese manga wasn't easy. For one, we were never taken wholly seriously in the direct comic market and were often viewed as some obscure fad or trend to ignore — by the US comics industry professionals that is — comics fans were always good to us. But thanks to innovated companies like TOKYOPOP, they at least gave us the chance to create a shoujo styled work that would be accepted by the right distributors to get out to the right audience we've known for years now to have existed. I can only see this as the beginning to a brighter future in comics as we help to pave the way for many more generations of creators and readers.”

“We view our work as not being a part of any kind of "revolution" and we don't call ourselves "manga-ka" — that's just marketing baloney,” Rikki Simons said. “Our Studio Tavicat is an American graphic novel studio, and while many graphic novelists are centered around their influences, whether they be Robert Crumb, Chris Ware, Jack Kirby, Seth, Moebius, Walt Kelly or Sergio Aragones, we simply also have ours. It's just that they tend to often be Japanese. We look at what we do as working to help promote an art movement that we feel very personally tuned to — a Manga Art Movement. This is similar to the commercial Art Nouveau and Art Deco Art Movements of the early 20th century. Like visual concepts of Art Nouveau and Art Deco the visual and story concepts behind manga and anime are so huge now that they have reached cosmopolitan proportions, and all we hope to do is show how much we love this movement by continuing to create works as we have over the years (since 1993) that we hope people continue to enjoy and in turn find inspiration from. As far as where I think the manga side of the graphics novel industry will be headed in the future here in the US, I expect the line to become blurred between indie, European, Japanese, Korean, American art house genre and mainstream genre graphic novels more and more within the next ten years. I also expect titles and publishers to vanish or sell themselves or get gobbled up by other companies and licenses to change hands from one publisher to the next within the next two years, but I won't say which.

“One thing is for certain. Manga is not a fad. It never has been. It's simply comics.”

For more on the creators, visit their website at www.tavicat.com and check out TOKYOPOP’s ShutterBox mini-site at www.tokyopop.com/shutterbox

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[ashgray]

When are all these new books going to slow down. Not enough buyers to consume them. But i love the art on this new series! Good luck!

[Crazy Penguin]

Original English Language manga (OEL) in North America.

Also known as "comics".

[hamsterdance]

I've been keeping an eye on these Tokyopop comics creators. Just ordered Shutterbox from Amazon. If the story is as good as the art it should be a treat.

[J. Allen Harris]

I was wondering when they were going to make more issues of Shutterbox. I enjoyed the first issue a few years back. Glad to see Rikki Simons is more than just the voice fo GIR. Tavisha's artwork is pretty outstanding too. I do enjoy seeing these American manga artists call themselves artists rather than the pompus manga-ka title.

Hopefully I could find these titles. Still waiting for @Large #2 myself.

[Rivkah]

Originally posted by J. Allen Harris
I do enjoy seeing these American manga artists call themselves artists rather than the pompus manga-ka title.

Actually, I don't think that any of us working for TOKYOPOP consider ourselves, "manga-ka." I hear "artist," "writer," and "creator," but I've never heard any other creators refer to themselves as a "manga-ka." It's more something you hear on learning sites and how-to books.

Though "graphic novelist" is always a little funny to say because then people think you write porn. *lol* Even though it is, perhaps, the most apropos.

But hey, people should be allowed to call themselves what they believe their work deseves. Discriminating a book based on how an artist refers to him or herself shouldn't be valid compared to the actual quality of a title. Call it "manga" or call it "comics," a good book should be above labels.

Btw, Rikki and Tavisha, those background are really kick-ass. (: And--as always--I love the clothing designs. I look forward to seeing how this looks in print!

-Rivkah

[J. Allen Harris]

Originally posted by Rivkah
Actually, I don't think that any of us working for TOKYOPOP consider ourselves, "manga-ka." I hear "artist," "writer," and "creator," but I've never heard any other creators refer to themselves as a "manga-ka." It's more something you hear on learning sites and how-to books.

Of course. You cats and kittens at TOKYOPOP are pretty cool from the few I actually talked to. But I do know that there is this huge, big-time American manga artist that dons the pompus moniker like a badge. I say, meh.

Good luck at AX. Sounds like fun, but alas and alack, I am a working poor, a lowly webmaster with way too many anime titles to review and a comic to scan, and CA's oh so far from my familiar confines.