Adam Pasion, American-gone-Nagoyan illustrator and author of the comic annals Sundogs (perhaps you remember him from a few months ago?) has just added editor, compiler, and Kickstarter champion to his credentials. Aftershock, a response to the March 11th disaster, is a collection of over thirty comics by artists all over the world, created in homage to this influential country, Japan. With the book on the brink of seeing itself in print (available digitally for now), Axiom caught up with Pasion to find out more about the book and where he stands in post-shake Japan.
First, for those just hearing about you, why don’t you tell us about how Aftershock came together?
The idea for the book first came about a week or two after the disaster in Tohoku. I had a really restless feeling that I needed to find someway to help, and I realized that I wasn’t the only one who felt that way. I felt like this book would be a good chance to capture that feeling while it was still fresh and raw. I was also disappointed by the fickle nature of the press and the way people give to charity. It all comes in quickly, bottlenecks in a couple of inefficient ad hoc agencies, and then everyone forgets it ever happened. I wanted to make something that would generate money the right way – small amounts, collected slowly over time. At the time I was selling my previous books to raise money, but I couldn’t see myself doing that forever. That is when I got the idea of making a book specifically dedicated to the Tsunami, both in content and in purpose. I am certainly not the first person to think of something like this – in fact I just bought a lovely book the other day, which was a compilation of British cartoonists responding to the disaster. I think there are still a few compilations regarding 9/11 out there generating money for victims as well, 10 years later!
It’s great you were so proactive. And beyond—the quality of the book is extraordinary. The comics that make up Aftershock are truly diverse not only in style but in story; did you have diversity specifically in mind when your appeals to artists went out?
Actually I didn’t have anything in mind when I sent out the call. At first I guess I envisioned it being less than 5 people making the whole thing. Most of the contributors found me, not the other way around. The diversity of stories adds a layer of depth to the book as well, because it shows just how far reaching the influence of Japan is on the rest of the world.
So, the fact that the thirty-five contributors were almost wholly non-Japanese—was that intentional?
I think there are two main factors that made it difficult to recruit Japanese people on the project. The first is that a lot of Japanese creators shy away from writing anything in English and using the left-to-right format of western comics, which is comparable to learning to drive on the opposite side of the road. Also, regrettably I do not have many Japanese artists in my network. In hindsight I think we got lucky and struck the right balance. Jeffrey Brown’s reaction to the book sums up my thoughts on it well:”[Aftershock has] people I’ve heard of and people I’m not familiar with, and just the right mix of styles – not too much manga, not too much indie.”
I agree with that, and as it’s about the influence of Japan on the world, it works. Now, before I get more into the philosophy of the book, do you have a preferred way of referring to the March 11th… happenings?
The subtitle of the book is “Artists Respond to Disaster in Japan” which is generally the way I refer to the events. I almost never refer to it as an earthquake, because without the resulting tsunami, the quake would have been little more than a seismologist’s wet dream. The tsunami is haunting – absolutely, bone-chillingly terrifying. Sometimes I walk around my neighborhood and look at the buildings that are three stories high and try to imagine a wave that high swallowing the entire city. I live near a fire station and during the recent typhoons and flash flooding in Nagoya, they ran the evacuation sirens, which are the same sirens you hear in all those videos of the tsunami. It brought all those memories up and made me sick to my stomach. Maybe disaster is the only word that sums up the extent of it, since it includes the ongoing man made disaster as well.
So, disaster. I’d like to touch on a comment in Sean Michael Wilson and Michiru Morikawa’s ‘Reaction to Disaster’ that pointed out the schism between Western and Japanese media portrayal of the disaster—excitement versus playing down. For you, an American with a wife and kids in Japan, what was that like?
I know the Japanese press came under a lot of criticism for downplaying everything here, but I don’t know if that is fair. What a lot of people in the west do not realize is that the Japanese public in general feels differently about their press than other nations do. At least it seems that way to me. People here tend to believe what the news says, and it also tends to be their only source of information. They do not have the luxury of checking how other countries are reporting about the events because Japan is the only Japanese-speaking nation. In general people do not get their info from blogs nearly as much here. Schools do not stress critical thinking in the same way as other nations do either. For all of these reasons, I think the news has the added responsibility of keeping order and making people feel calm, because if the news says everything is okay, people will actually feel better.
As an American I am inclined to take any news with a grain of salt. The American and British press in particular tend to take the “shoot first, ask questions later” approach, so they don’t mind misrepresenting the situation and then later printing a retraction. They live on exaggeration and so I felt myself being torn between the two. In a sense it is representative of many of the larger cultural differences between Japan and America. On one hand you have the approach of biting your lip and ignoring the problem in the interest of preserving the peace. On the other you have the “ripping off a band-aid” approach, where people will sacrifice anything to make sure everything is honest and fair.
Do you feel differently about Japan since the earthquake? Do you think others do?
I don’t know if it was the timing for me (I had just finished the HBO series “Treme” when the disaster struck) or the fact that it was so close to home, but this disaster affected me much more than anything else ever has. It was much more personal to me, even more so than something like 9/11 or Hurricane Katrina. It really destroyed me for a while and what bothered me about that was that nobody could understand why. I remember one of my students found out I was donating money from my book sales and she told me “thanks for helping my country.” It threw me off guard because I hadn’t for a moment considered that Japan was not “my country” as much as it was hers. I am raising kids here, (avoiding) paying tax here, and it just surprised me. It was beautiful to see everyone come together in that moment, and forget historical and racial problems, but it was also a slap in the face that I realized I will never just be a normal citizen here. On the other hand I saw all the best things that I have come to love about Japan come to light as well. On a human scale, things would have been worse if that disaster had happened in any other country than Japan. Even just seeing how Tokyo didn’t crumble under one of the largest recorded seismic events, I remember thinking to myself “That is Japanese technology for you. Reliable to the end of the world.”
The way the book came together—embracing so many perspectives—sounds a lot like the way Japan united—despite historical and racial issues—to withstand the damage wrought upon their (our?) country. In that sense, what do you think the book accomplishes?
The way I phrased the project to contributors was “share your thoughts, feelings, memories and experiences about Japan as a sort of message of support.” I knew the types of connections would be quite varied and I think that is what makes it a strong piece. It shows that from the seemingly banal things like video games and ninjas, to something as deep as experiencing the tragedy through the eyes of your Japanese lover – everyone on planet Earth has some sort of tie to Japan. This project is sort of a microcosm of the international response in general – I was overwhelmed by how intimately people feel connected to this tiny chain of islands. It speaks volumes to the caliber of a nation, and I cannot think of another country that is so unanimously loved on the international stage.
How collaborative was the process in its entirety? What did your ‘editor’ title entail?
As editor I compiled the whole book. The only real “editing” in terms of content was to decide which pieces to include and which to reject, although only two pieces were rejected because I felt like they didn’t relate at all thematically. Top Shelf Productions did the proof-reading in house when they were planning to release it, so I didn’t have to pay for that! I did rework images that were not print quality but I tried to do that as little as possible. I did work on some proof-reading as well since that usually requires several rounds to clean out all the mistakes. The main job I did was the layout, and second was all the busy work like registering ISBNs and Library of Congress numbers, coordinating with the printers and running the Kickstarter funding campaign. The most difficult part was preparing the book for release on Kindle and iPad, which has been a nightmare! I have a lot more respect for ebooks now than I ever did before.
In the midst of all this work, were any of the artists able to meet to discuss the earthquake, the book, or the aftermath of either?
Unfortunately I haven’t met the majority of the artists on this project, but I feel so close to them all after this. A few have developed into full-fledged friendships now where we write often and even meet in person occasionally. It’s an amazing group of people that I am honestly flattered to know. Quite a few of us actually live in Japan, so I am hoping we can all get together for the book launch next month. Unfortunately we are pretty spread out, with some as far as Kumamoto and Ibaraki prefectures.
Who’s been buying the book?
Until the launch party it is only available to purchase online and so far I don’t know any of the people who have ordered it. That makes me really happy, because usually the only people who buy my books are friends and family, and even then it is begrudgingly.
What have been responses been like—both in Japan and abroad?
Everybody says it is a great cause and that it came together well. As interviews like this one and reviews start to get published I am becoming more aware of what the project means to the general public, but until now it’s been a pretty internal affair. To be honest what touched me the most were the reactions from the contributors when they first saw the book. I think they all knocked it out of the park, but its great that they think so too. I want them to be happy with their work more than I want the public to adore it.
How about the recipients? You’ve said the book is meant to act as a sort of get-well letter to Japan, so might there be a Japanese version of the book on the horizon?
I would absolutely love to do that. I hope I have the opportunity to release a Japanese version, but I doubt I would self publish it. I would want a publisher to help out with that, mainly because I don’t know anything about distribution in Japan. But I would be willing to put the work into translating the pieces, swapping the art so it reads right to left – all the time that entails. I would be happy to do all that to have a Japanese version.
Wonderful! Toward that end, if I were to ask Japan now if it were genki, what do you think it’d say?
Japan is tied up in the sinking ship of the American (read global) economy, so I think people are more worried about that than anything else. I can’t say if its good or bad, but even the Japanese public has largely forgotten about Tohoku for the time being. Maybe they need to for a while – it was a heavy year for the collective Japanese psyche and all the people like you and me who are tied into all that. Still I think Japan would say it is “genki” but I couldn’t tell you if that is tattemae or honne.
And how about you? You’ve mentioned two future ambitions: publishing more undiscovered talent, and collaborating more with other artists. Have you been doing anything since Aftershock to pursue these?
Here in Nagoya I have started a little community of cartoonists, designers, illustrators et cetera, who get together and draw comics once a week. We do “jam comics” which are based on the idea of Jazz jams. It’s all improvised, very loose and unstructured. One person will draw something, pass it along to other people and let it take off. We give each other challenges to make it more creative, for example telling the story in reverse order, or making each successive panel a zoom-out from the previous panel. It’s a fun mixture of styles and really bizarre, creative stuff. I would love to turn that into a small press sort of zine or something. Maybe give each contributor a few pages to work on their own projects as well. The group is called “uzomuzo” which is a Japanese idiom that means “a group of riff-raff or worthless people.” I feel exhausted after the release of Aftershock and one more book this year, so I want to just take things as they come for a while.
I have to say, with the multitude of endeavors you manage on a daily basis—daily comic journaling, English teaching, magazine illustrating and editing, not to mention father-ing—all at the young age of… how old are you?
I am a 60-year-old man trapped in the body of a 28 year old, going on 18. I am a firm believer in Parkinson’s law, which is that work expands to fill the time allotted to complete it. I don’t ever really feel busy except those few times when multiple deadlines fall on the same day. I know plenty of people who don’t do anything and they constantly complain about how busy they are. I think they feel that way because they pour their time into something they couldn’t care less about, like their jobs, and then they have no time left to do what they want to be doing. I have always had the opposite problem – I can’t force myself to care about a job that doesn’t interest me, like work.
So, you being a fresh 28-year-old, I can’t imagine I’d find anyone better suited to offer advice to the new body of young, aspiring Japanese foreign residents just starting to make their way back into Japan since the disaster. What’ve you got?
Haha, I can imagine a lot of people better suited than me to offer advice, but I am flattered just the same. There are a million ways to get sucked down here, try and avoid them all. A lot of expats are unhappy with the straws they drew and they are a poison that spreads quickly. They want to drag you down and make you bitter and resentful about all-things-Japanese because they feel left out. Also, if you teach English, don’t let your notions about Japanese society and Japanese people be influenced by what your students talk about in lessons. For a lot of people, their only contact with Japanese people is through their job, which doesn’t represent a fair cross section of Japanese society. When I start to feel overwhelmed by the idiocy of some of my students I try to go to a punk show and see all the Japanese kids who are the antithesis of my uptight conservative students. Find what you love about Japan and try not to let that get clouded over. Also read Axiom Magazine.
That is some solid advice.
Digital copies and a preview of the book are available on Amazon.com.
