This past Sunday was the Brooklyn Book Festival, an annual gathering of book publishers and authors held at Brooklyn Borough Hall. Out of all the events taking place on this rainy Sunday, one stood out as a panel of interest for us, “The International Graphic Novel: Drawing from Life.”
The panel consisted of (left to right) Jessica Abel (La Perdida), Matt Madden (Drawing Words and Writing Pictures), Josh Neufeld (A.D.), and Nick Abadzis (Laika); we arrived at the festival in time to catch the last half-hour of the panel. Matt Madden was listed as moderator, but they appear to have chosen to let the conversation flow free-form instead. This may have been a mistake, as the panel wound up bringing up opinions on manga and fiction comics that may have come off differently than they intended. When asked about manga and whether or not it influenced any of their works, the panel as a whole decided to classify manga as a separate, though parallel medium to American comics. Bringing my own opinion into the matter, I think this is a very narrow way of looking at manga. There are tons of manga in Japan, many of which are based on nonfiction events or an author’s life story. Similarly, art styles vary depending on the story; not every manga is going to have big eyes and round heads. The only thing that makes manga different from American comics is that it is Japanese, and American comics are American. If we were to go along with this line of thinking, European comics would be separate but parallel as well, even if they do share similar references and style to what we have here. And yes, manga is usually presented in chapters in magazines before being collected in bigger volumes at a later date, but that is a distribution decision more than a style choice.
Then, there were Josh’s comments about fiction comics. When asked if any of the panel had a desire to do fiction comics, he replied that his imagination doesn’t really mesh with the ability to dream up the kind of science fiction you find in fiction comics. Yet again, genres are ignored here, accidentally or not. Romance comics have been published for years, most of which without any science fiction elements. Crime comics are the same as reading a good Sherlock Holmes novel, only there happens to be art to engage you along with the words. Workplace comedies, slice-of-life books; the list goes on. To group fiction comics simply as the realm of superheroes and science fiction is narrow and belittling. Would Josh be upset if his nonfiction books were to be written off as for children because they are comics? I assume he would be.
As a concession, it is very possible that due to the weather conditions and my overall mood at the time, I took these responses to mean a lot more than they were intended to be. Still, I feel that a panel of creators might want to choose their words a bit better in the future, to avoid any difficulties.
Tags: Brooklyn Book Festival, Jessica Abel, Josh Neufeld, Matt Madden, Nick Abadzis
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Hi and thanks for taking the time to write up our panel (nice photo, too). I do, however, think you are reading a bit too much into some of the remarks.
First, the conversation about manga was in response to a specific question about the influence of manga on these three artists–as it turns out there’s not much visible influence, and in Josh’s case he didn’t seem particularly interested in them. I can assure you we all believe that manga are varied and valuable and are on a par with Western comics, though I grant that our comments on that point may have come across less than clearly (this is, after all, when we had an unstable lady heckling us at the stage!). That said, I think it’s a stretch to say that any of us were being condescending toward manga.
And I’m afraid you are entirely off-base when you suggest that Josh was somehow dismissing fiction comics or any genre in particular. He was simply expanding on the fact that he feels no talent for it.
Finally, you question whether I was really “moderating” since I seemed to take a “free-form” approach to the panel. I introduced the guests, asked leading questions and made sure everyone got a chance to speak, while also fielding questions from the audience and making sure everything wraps up on time. That’s what a moderator does and I believe I did a serviceable job at it.
I realize you’re writing a quick blog summary of our talk so I’m sorry to come at you point by point but I really feel you are misrepresenting the substance and tone of our panel.
yours,
Matt Madden
Hi, Matt. First of all, thank you so much for taking the time to respond to the blog entry. It does actually mean a lot to me when the subject of a post stops by for a rebuttal, and I’m glad you did. You do bring up some good points in your response, and I hope you didn’t take my post as putting any of you down or as bashing, as we did enjoy the panel through the rain. The post was mainly done as a constructive criticism (and yes, the crazy lady didn’t help matters much at all when responding to the audience portion of the panel).
I may have also done you guys a disservice for only hitting on what I disliked, as opposed to doing a complete write-up. I enjoyed the insight into how you, Jessica, Josh and Nick create, your individual inspirations, and the tips given to those looking to create. The post, as a whole, was simply how I interpreted these particular remarks about manga and fiction comics as an audience member, and I did make that clear in the initial post (or at least I hope I did). I was more trying to make a point that statements can come off as blanket statements, even if they are not meant to be, and that sometimes clarifying language might be the correct course of action to avoid coming off the wrong way.
On the moderating front, my only catching the back-half of the panel was obviously the problem here, as I missed the introductions and introductory questions. From what I did catch, and please, take this as constructive criticism more than anything else, there could have been perhaps some repeating of questions for those out of vocal range of the audience members asking the questions, and a few more moderator-asked follow-up questions to fully encapsulate the responses and the points brought up by the panel. Still, different moderators, different styles, and that’s fine by me.
Once again, thanks for stopping by, Matt, and thanks for wading your way through the rainy Sunday to be a part of the panel in the first place. Now that the rainy Sunday is over and I’m a lot less cranky, it’s easier to see where I may have looked too far into some of my issues with the panel. If you’d like to discuss anything in further detail at any point, my doors are always open, and I hope you all had a good time at the Book Festival, as I certainly did.
Best,
Ian
Ian, your point is valid that remarks made in a panel discussion can tend to come across as blanket statements. I think it’s a little endemic to speaking extemporaneously (esp. during Q&A) in front of an audience. I did my best to clarify, especially when we were talking about manga, but obviously it didn’t quite mitigate the confusion for at least some of the audience. At the same time, when you have 45 minutes to talk you can’t spend the whole time qualifying and explaining things—someone’s always going to misunderstand or come to a different conclusion than was intended.
It’s not my style to summarize my panelists’ comments (that can lead to yet more blanket statements and generalizations) but that might be a solution for some. For my part, I’d love to be able to talk longer so that people can expand on their ideas more, but you don’t get that opportunity often at a book fair like this…
Anyway, thanks for the dialogue and the feedback.
best,
Matt