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 Interview: Felipe Smith on MBQ and Manga
Written by Adam Volk
VOLK: The book definitely seems autobiographical. How much inspiration have you taken from your own life in terms of developing the series?
SMITH: The story is very closely related to my own personal life. 5 out of the 6 main characters in MBQ are people I know. Most of them go by the same name they go by in the book. Others have different names, to protect their identity [laughs]. The story’s backdrop is L.A., the city I reside in, so I often draw real locations. It’s exciting to see people recognize grocery stores, buildings and karaoke bars I frequent and have drawn in MBQ.
VOLK: It seems only recently that manga has made the transition from a medium that was strictly Japanese to becoming adopted by western artists and writers. What do you think of the current state of American manga and where would you like to see it go from here?
SMITH: I like what’s going on with Manga in the U.S. I hope more artists will bring their own personal experience and esthetic sensibilities to the medium. If that happens, the U.S. has a chance to equal Japan’s quality in content and art. I’d like to see more stories dealing with western culture and everyday life. It’s time to make western manga rather than eastern manga drawn in the west.
VOLK: For a lot of unenlightened North American and European readers, manga is often considered to be nothing more than cute furry animals and hot cyborg-chicks with giant eyes. Of course those of us who read it know there is much more to it than that. How would you define contemporary manga?
SMITH: Contemporary manga deals with anything and everything. From school girls to businessmen, to chefs, to gangsters to Olympic athletes to astronauts to harpoon fishermen to boys in love to karate champions to school teachers to sadomasochists to blue, ear-less cat shaped robots from the future who teach kids life lasting lessons.
There’s a manga out there for everyone. I do mean everyone, even non-comic book readers. The reason people stop reading comics is that comics at some point in their life lost their interest or began to insult their intelligence. Kids need books for kids, and adults need picture books for grown-ups. I’d have to say there are probably very few people in Japan who have never read a manga book. Comic book readers range from kids to adults on the island, and they read on a weekly basis; the reason for this is the variety offered by the industry. The U.S., unfortunately, has not reached that level of diversity yet, not even with the classic comic book. It’s not an impossibility though, it just takes people’s realizing there are other kinds of books out there, and that they’re not all for “nerds”.
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