Broken Frontier

Earlier this month, Michael Golden, Joe Jusko and Teddy Kristiansen came to Belgium as part of an art tour to bring the ideals of American and European art together. On May 12, the threesome opened a gallery at Mekanik Strip, located in Antwerp and one of the finest—and biggest—comic book stores in the country.

“One day, I got an e-mail from Renée (Witterstaetter, Michael Golden’s art agent – ed.) asking if I wanted to join the tour,” said Jusko. “I was excited because I thought my pairing with Michael and Teddy formed enough of a break-up between styles to make this a very interesting experience.”

“It goes back to last year, actually,” clarified Carl Wyckaert, original art fan and main organiser of the tour. “That’s when we invited the artists and contacted Renée to help set things up. Then we had to find a comics store where we could also set up a gallery, and that’s how we ended up at Mekanik. 

“We also got the Flemish government involved to sponsor the tour; the goal is to use this tour as a launching pad for doing future U.S. art shows here and to bring Belgian artists over to the States.”

The artists where very enthusiastic about Belgium, and its art scene in particular. Of course, for Kristiansen, it wasn’t the first time he’d been to the country, and as a Danish artist, he’s very familiar with the Belgian comics canon. “In Denmark, I’ve always had access to Astérix, Tintin, and loads of other stuff as well—the whole European market is very accessible where I live.”

Joe Jusko, Teddy Kristiansen, Linda Torfs (Mekanik store owner), Carl Wyckaert (show organiser), Michael Golden, Bart Nauwelaerts (show organiser), and Renée Witterstaetter

For Jusko and Golden, the story is a little bit different. “I’m familiar with what made it over to the other side,” Jusko adds. “I check some of it out, and I’ve of course picked up a stack of books to take back home with me. As far as influences, though, I’d say those come from a lot of places, from other areas than just comics too… anything outside the genre.

Golden: “I was exposed to Hergé’s Tintin when I was table-top high. I wouldn’t consider him an influence, but then again, I’d probably have to since I’ve always loved to draw in the open-contour line. Tintin was probably one of my first exposures to any kind of graphic storytelling in general.”

Of the three, Kristiansen is probably the most qualified to compare the U.S. and European markets since he’s been active in both industries. “One big element, obviously, is that the major line of stories they’re telling in the US, is superheroes, which doesn’t exist here.

Back in the day, around the time of the Epic line, there was a big group of US artists that was influenced by European art, and a wonderful kind of comic storytelling came out of that. Afterwards, the focus in the US shifted to Japanese storytelling a bit more, when the effects of manga started to trickle in. And now that genre is dominating a lot of what’s going on.”

“I think that’s not so much by the type of product they produced but by the amount of product they brought onto the market,” counters Golden. “They’ve just got so much stuff, everything is readily available, and cheaply accessible; the licenses are relatively easy to get, etc.”

Jusko: “And the animation didn’t hurt either.”

Golden: “That’s just it; they’ve got all the bases covered.”

Everybody agreed that manga was also very good at reaching out to a generation of readers that both of the western markets have missed out on, though more so in the States than in Europe.

Kristiansen: “That’s exactly what manga has done. Manga has captured a whole new generation of readers that haven’t been exposed to comics before. And, now, because of that, they know nothing of graphic storytelling beyond manga.”

Jusko: “And in part, that’s also because American comics in particular now are really hard to jump onto these days. When we were young, most of the books that came out were self-contained issues, whereas nowadays the story cycle goes on for five years, so to speak, and often over several titles too. Back in the day, you could jump onto a book and immediately get a good grasp of the story.”

“There was virtually no decompressed storytelling then either. If a kid goes into a store today and picks up an issue of X-Men, he would have absolutely no idea of what’s going on, and he wouldn’t be able to find out either, unless he went on to buy the book for several months. They don’t nurture the readers.”

       

Asked about their thoughts on decompressed storytelling, none of the artists voted in favour of the mode. They feel that spinning things out doesn’t give artists more room to show off their skills and draw more cinematically.

Golden: [Emphatically] “It allows the writer to indulge himself more in the story, not necessarily to the benefit of the artist, or the story for that matter.”

Jusko: “Yeah, it does, it allows the writer to draw stuff out. And comics aren’t about splash pages and giant panels—it’s a storytelling medium, and that’s why a lot of the best storytelling is done in small panels. As an artist, your primary concern is to tell a story; it’s not because a writer uses twelve issues for a story that could’ve been told in two issues ten ago, that it ends up being a better story.

“Everything has to be epic now, and everyone tries to write the great American novel of comics, and that involves a lot of cross-purposes of what the medium is, or should be about.”

Golden: It’s tricky though to say that editorial controls everything. It depends on the editor, the creators, the type of project, etc. American comics aren’t done the same way as European ones are done. I have the sense that the creative insight is a little more part of the package that Europeans produce. In America, they pay a lot of lip service to that, but in many instances, that isn’t the case.

“Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to say that all American comics are production-line trash—quite the opposite, because there’s a lot of great work being done, when everyone is onboard and plays by the same rules.

So, I wouldn’t say that any of the different parts of the machine have a hidden agenda or priority, because the production depends on a lot of things, though there doesn’t seem to be a particular reason for that either.” [Laughs]

   

Since Jusko and Golden are true industry veterans, how do they look at current trends, and the market’s overall evolution from 20 years ago up to this point?

Jusko: “I think comics are still going to be published, but I think now they’re simply used as a vehicle to keep a lot of characters in the public eye for merchandising purposes. You know, there was a time when the majority of Marvel’s revenue came from publishing, while today, it’s only like ten percent or five, even. Merchandising brings in all the money now.

“They’re not going go the way of the dinosaur, but I don’t really know where the market is going to be ten or twenty years from now. I don’t think comics will go completely online, because most people like to hold them in their hands.”

Kristiansen: “What will go extinct though, in my opinion, is the newsstands. They will continue to slowly disappear, but that’s a process that’s been happening for years and years now.”

Looking at the evolution of the medium, Jusko went on to add that he feels [compressed] storytelling isn’t solely being killed by the writers themselves. “In the U.S., lots of artists are looking at designing their pages with the original art market in mind, whereas that wasn’t the case before. Now, you’ve got guys thinking how much they can get for a page after it’s been published.”

Golden: “That process already started in the eighties.”

Jusko: “Storytelling started to suffer greatly—every page has to be saleable now. That’s really at cross-purposes of what you have to do to really move the story along. My primary work now is private commissions; I love to paint and there’s not a whole lot of painted work in comics these days, it’s all digital. I like the schedule [of doing commissions] better, and I can really take my time and challenge myself doing them.”

       

Because of the tour, both Jusko and Golden became so enamored with the European market place that they’re now looking into doing work there.

Golden: “We’ve been discussing this repeatedly during this trip. It has opened my eyes to a lot of it—I had a whole production agenda in mind before I came here, which I totally scrapped. Because now, I’m thinking I’m now going to pursue things with the European market absolutely in mind.”

Jusko: “I have a really bad taste in my mouth. I did that big Tomb Raider book, and I spent four years on that in between other jobs. When it finally came out, some of the pages were too dark, some where blurry, and three pages were even printed backwards. You know, that’s probably some of the best work of my life, and it was treated shoddily and with no fanfare.

“I like the fact that European publishers care about the product, it’s always beautifully packaged, and beautifully colored. I love the European artists because their craftsmanship seems to be on a higher level than a lot of what’s happening in the U.S. Because my work is so labor-intensive, I’d rather work for a European publisher where I know it’ll be treated well.

“What’s also a factor is that I prefer to do subject matter that’s not superheroes—like reality-based stuff and genre-specific—but there’s no market for that in the U.S. at this time. If I wanted to tell a detective story, I’d have a really hard time trying to get it published.”

Golden: “You can do a detective or a western or whatever, but it better have someone in tights in there somewhere that can shoot lightning out of his eyes…”

       

So, does what Jusko and Golden are saying imply that what a lot of what independent publishers are doing nowadays all comes down to a futile effort in the end, especially in terms of reaching a wide audience through genre-specific material rather than just superheroes?

Jusko: “Superheroes have taken over the American market, and that’s there to stay. They won’t relinquish the top stop. You’ll see a niche book every once in a while that pops up and does well, but never lasts forever.”

Golden: “You know, it just seems to be part of the American mentality. It goes beyond the publisher, actually. It’s the only work that really exists to a lot of people.

Jusko: “Part of the problem is that comics are still considered juvenile in the States. The media treats them as a joke—any time comics make it into the news, there’s some humor and a condescending tone right around the corner. Here, they’re an art form and considered actual literature.

Kristiansen: “I read this survey not so long ago where they were taking the population of each country and compared it with the amount of money that was spent on comics per capita. The country that came out on top, you’d expect it to be Japan, but it wasn’t… it was Norway. And America was one of the last—per citizen, Americans spend only 50 cents or so per year on comics.”

Golden: “I’ll take the conversation back a little bit to the original art market. Here in Europe, if you put original art on the wall, it’s acknowledged as art. As far as the U.S. original art market goes, well, it’s an example of what I was talking about earlier: there’s an overall mentality that isn’t totally acceptive of the art form—if you have a superhero in just one panel on the page, it will sell more than something that just is an incredible piece of artwork, but doesn’t have a superhero on it—or big boobs.”

Jusko: “Or Wolverine.”

What then is necessary to accomplish the shift in mentality in the American market, and to get comics accepted as an art form by the general public? Jusko for one doesn’t think that’s going to happen. “People go see Spider-Man 3 and most of them will never pick up a Spider-Man comic because it’s just considered juvenile. The movies are considered a separate form of entertainment.”

Kristiansen, Jusko, Golden, and Wyckaert

Golden: “I don’t think it’s really a case about changing the mentality and the public. You have to change the product you produce. You should be able to produce material for kids, or you produce a war book and get it published by someone who specialises in that.”

Jusko: And see, that’s something that’s not going to happen, and that’s why you’ve got to somehow change the mentality. For decades and decades comics have been considered outright juvenile. Things are getting a bit better now that comics are in book stores a bit more—it wasn’t too long ago that those wouldn’t even touch comics.”

Kristiansen: “One of the biggest problems it that there aren’t any proper books produced for the kids. I’m not talking about teens—you have to catch an audience when they’re very young and turn them onto comics to keep the influx of readers coming generation after generation.”

Isn’t part of the problem then that a lot of all-ages books aren’t really just for kids. Marvel Adventures: Iron Man, for which Golden is doing the covers, for example has to be attractive to both young and old readers alike.

Golden: “To a certain degree, that’s correct. It’s just like the Looney Tunes mentality: when they produced them in the 40s and 50s, they were adults telling cartoon stories. The point is that you don’t have to think in terms of: “If I was two years old, how can I make it so innocuous a kid would like it?” When I say ‘niche mentality’, you have to understand the market you’re trying to attract and to still address your audience in on a level that will lead them to the next step.  

“It’s been tried many times, but in mainstream comics for sure, there’s no editorial or financial basis for that to really succeed.”

        

Kristiansen: “In Denmark we had the same problem where we went years without producing material for young readers, so we weren’t building a new generation to nurture and point them to the next level.

“So, when these people became adults, and went to the shop with their kids, it wouldn’t come natural to them to pick up the newest Donald Duck, for instance, for their kids. Those would just be left on the shelves.”

Jusko: “And, of course, there are so many other distractions for kids these days than just comics—you’ve got video games, iPods, the internet, etc. Plus, their attention span is very short, and then there’s the financial aspect: why give $4 for a comic that you’ve finished reading in 15 or 20 minutes, when for $20 you can buy a CD or DVD and play it over and over again?”

Golden: I think that there was an opportunity for growth when the whole manga explosion first happened. Young readers went to pick up those books, but U.S. comics didn’t change the product to accommodate to the needs of that particular audience. They didn’t change the product to accommodate—too many of the known commodities are still about the never-ending story, with 50 years of back-story and limited accessibility.

Jusko: “And there’s the format: European comics are produced to stay in print, while the single editions in the U.S. are published as monthly throwaways.”