Felipe Smith: Working with my editor, we definitely made an effort to balance those things out, to make sure that the reader will see that both sides. I showed some dark sides of Japan, and I showed the dark sides of the U.S. too.
So looking back, I think I tackled a really big subject; dealing with pop culture, and the general culture of the two countries and the characteristics of different age groups in those countries — a lot of things. I think I managed to wrap it all up by Peepo Choo Volume 3, tying it into a semi-nice knot to satisfy people. (laughs)
I'm pretty happy about it, but it was really, really hard. I'm really grateful that the editors were there who understood what I was trying to do and helped me out. Definitely, the readerships are different in the different cultures.
There are different ways of telling a story and having it understood. It was a learning process, not only in terms of deadlines, drawing and just getting my art to be appealing to people in Japan, while at the same time trying to keep it interesting enough for people in the U.S. to read and find attractive.
PITCHING POST-PEEPO CHOO PLANS AND OFFERING ADVICE FOR ARTISTS
Q: So now that you've completed Peepo Choo in Japan, can you share a little bit about what you're working on now?
Felipe Smith: I've been pitching a couple different things, completely different genres. I want to do something different, just to not only try something different, but also try to reach different audiences and also to show that I can do things other than people cursing and beating each other up or girls with big boobs running around. (laughs) And mind you, not all the girls I draw have giant boobs!
I'm not that kind of guy, you know? I'm not really a violent person either. I'm not my characters 100%. There are all sorts of people in the world, so it would be really a waste to just write one kind of person in your stories. But I want to take a shot at other genres too.
Q: Right. Except maybe shojo manga? (laughs)
Felipe Smith: Well, you know, I would not say anything is a no-go for me.
Q: Really?
Felipe Smith: You know, it just depends. Theme-wise, I've been pitching everything from horror to sci-fi... But the pitching process takes time. They really put you to the test when it comes to pitching stuff. Even if they're interested in it, they still want more. But that's how you grow as an artist. So, nothing has been set in stone in terms of my next series.
Q: Could you offer any advice to any aspiring comics artists who would like to follow in your footsteps, and be published in Japan?
So if anybody wants to do this, definitely be ready to deal with this; be ready to keep going. Just be ready to have people tell you that you have to do and re-do things over and over. Before this experience, I was never really told to redo stuff.
When I was working on MBQ, when i turned things in to my editor Luis, he would sometimes say, 'Hey, we need to kind of change this around." But I was never really told to do a whole chapter all over again.
But with Peepo Choo, I've been told to do that three times. By the third version, it's really strong. That's why you're doing it. That's why you have to do what they ask.
The editor's not doing this to be a malicious person. He's just doing it to help you out and also he's doing it because they definitely expect a certain quality in their magazine. If it's not up to par, it's not up to par and they're not going to put it out there. So, if you want to draw for a manga magazine in Japan, you've got to be ready to redo stuff a lot of times.
My advice is, get ready to work a lot and make sure that this is definitely what you want to do. If you want to be an illustrator, you need to remember, this is just comics. It's just stories. It's doing pages. It's not drawing characters and that's it. It's storytelling.
Q: Be ready to know how to tell the story with pictures, panels and words, not just drawing pin-ups, right?
Felipe Smith: It's storytelling. And, yeah, that's it. Sometimes you got to draw when you don't want to. There's going to be a lot of that. Most of the artists I've talked to, and especially the veterans who've been working and are still working, 20, 30 years in the business, they say that there's going to be times when you're going to want to cry sometimes, out of the stress. They'd explain how frustrating it is to not be able to do what you want to do sometimes because the editor understands that what you want to do isn't going to work.
There are some artists who are really lucky, in that whatever they turn in is on point. They know their audience or they have a definite audience, and that's great. I'm definitely not that kind of artist. I'm still working toward finding and creating my audience, and having people understand what I'm doing. But I'm used to fighting. When I was working in the States, I've always had a lot of detractors, a lot of people against what I'm doing, and that's fine. I know I'm going in a certain direction.
Just be ready to fight, because the toughest people are the ones who last the longest in the comics in Japan. I hope I'm tough enough to do that, because it's really hard. A lot of people stop and end up hating comics in Japan. I'm talking about Japanese artists here. They learn to hate comics because they've had a lot of tough breaks.
So, anybody who wants to do this, good luck, try hard and definitely be you when you're doing your work. Definitely do something that's you, because that's what people are looking for, they're looking for different stuff.
In Japan, it's gotten to the point where the industry is so developed that it's just people copying other people; it's just people influenced by other artists and generations of artists influenced by the same artists. So they want something new.
Anyway, it's not like I can give a lot of advice, I'm still working at it.
Q: That's awesome advice. I think you nailed it. Thank you very much, and good luck on your next series. I'm looking forward to seeing what you'll do next.
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- Read Shaenon Garrity's review of Peepo Choo Volume 1
- Visit Vertical's webpage for Peepo Choo
- Want to get published in Japan? Enter the Morning International Comics Competition.
