*

Last night I dreamt that I was a little black cat and that I wanted to replace the devil.

I sang a little song that went like this:

“I wish, I wish to be
The Enfant Terrible,
Terrible, terrible me.
I’m so tiny, little me,
But I hope to wish to be
The one who ends this world,
Ends it as I please.”

And then a year passed. And I turned into a cabbage.

Stupid dream.

I hate cabbage.

-Rikki
*Art by Tavisha and I. For a thing. A THING!

Wasn't going to do it, but somehow ended up driving to Anime Expo on Saturday. Ended up at the Edison Bar. Was given absinthe and instantly transported to 1930 Paris, France. There I took to chain smoking rosewood tobacco, writing manga in bug-chittering bistros and slowly evolved into August Strindberg while Henry Miller and George Orwell argued about the socialist themes in Naruto. Tavisha became Helium. It was all very Kawaii.

-Rikki

Saved a baby rubber boa snake. It was wiggling for its life in the barren gutter up the hill. It was 8:30 PM and still 95 fahrenheit, so it may have got lost while searching for water. Tavisha coaxed it into my shoe with a chopstick (she's Japanese — she always has chopsticks). We got it into a moist patch of brush and it settled into the twigs, bedding down in a pile of adorably delicious sow bugs. It was a magical moment, and I know that when that rubber boa grows up all big and happy, it'll remember us and let us ride him into space.

-Rikki

Good God, I've got to lose sixty pounds someday. And get a new pair of Chelsea boots. And some Russian tanks:



-Rikki

A Beebo from ShutterBox. Bigger, stronger, more hydrocephalic than ever.

Their heads jiggle with head-fat!

I don't know why this is sped up, but I sure do like it better.

What did you make?

SHARE!

-Rikki

Maxis has released the free trial version of Spore's creature design system, called Spore Creature Creator.

Tavisha and I have the following observation. You may call it Simons' Law if you like:

Build a beautiful, sophisticated engine with nearly unlimited creative potential for the world, and the world will make you a dick.



-Rikki

Above is the final cover for the fifth ShutterBox book. I like it very much. Yellow rarely works out.

More on Tokyopop: Publisher's Weekly reports that the company has announced restructuring. They are splitting the company in two, laying off 39 people, and cutting the number of books they publish in half. I haven't heard otherwise, so I am assuming that ShutterBox is not part of the cut. In fact, we signed our schedule for ShutterBox Book Six last month, which requires that we turn in the first 25 pages by July 5th of this year. This was only surprising to Tavisha and I because we usually aren't given a schedule for a new book until a few months after we finish the previous book. This is the first time Tokyopop has rushed a schedule to us a full month before we turned in our current project. I suppose this means that this restructuring has been in the works for some time, and that if they were planning to cut our book, they wouldn't have sent a schedule at all. So we'll just do as the new schedule says, unless we're told to stop.



In other news, Tavisha and I signed a two year agreement with GoComics to distribute our old Super Information Hijinks: Reality Check! digitally. The whole thing will be transferred to their site and they'll also be setting it up for mobile phone distribution. I suppose I should say things like, "we are excited to announce" and the like, but I hate writing up that sort of bloat. I'm never excited about anything unless it's cute and round and artificially intelligent or on the menu at a Cold Stone Creamery. So I'll just say, "Should be neato! I hope!"

There are no new Reality Check! comics in the works at the moment. This is just a way for the old series, as Tavisha puts it to me, "To stay relevant." But all I keep thinking about is that this also means that I have to take the whole thing down from tavicat.com in the next few weeks and I will, once again, have to completely recreate the tavicat site.

I'm making that sound my cat makes when she gets her claw stuck in a rug.

-Rikki

I know that editors and higher-ups at Tokyopop read my journal, and out of respect for our publishing relationship I don't usually post my feelings about Tokyopop's policies here. But if you haven't seen it already, dear Tokyopop staff, you should probably read what the Internet has to say about your new Pilot Program. I recommend you read the links too.

I know the first thing that some at Tokyopop will think when they read that link: the majority of people screaming about this program don't draw in a style that will make any manga fan pick up their book at Borders. Like a Goth knowing the difference between Bauhaus and Christina Aguilera in black, manga fans know the difference between manga imitation and someone who naturally draws in the style. You do have to make something an authentic manga experience if you want to sell on a manga shelf, and Tokypop's audience still wants this from Tokyopop's creators. Tokyopop will lose nothing by non-manga creators blowing them off and TP sees this. But every year the number of people who really understand the style grows and Tokyopop will lose out when their friends talk them out of the Pilot Program. They will lose their next Tavisha, they will lose their next Svetlana or Queenie Chan long before a submission happens. This is happening right now.

I thought of e-mailing Stu Levy about it — to explain to him that this is not a contract I'd ever sign for any future series. But nothing ever changes when you take that approach, in fact, if anything Tokyopop's contracts only get worse, even after they are scolded for the last one. I don't know exactly why this is. I have theories. Actually, just one very strong theory, supported by facts. I'll just quote Heidi MacDonald:

"A cynical observer might think, looking back at the OEL generation, that this was just an attempt on Tokyopop’s part to cheaply produce IP that could be turned into movies or TV shows, or all that other stuff that actually makes money in the comics industry."

That's not cynicism, Heidi. It's just true. The fact that they have become the number one publisher for bringing in new blood is a positive side effect of a very cynical reality. In fact, if you ask them, they will tell you they are not a publisher.

I have this warm little spot behind my left eye. I named it Tokyopop quite a few years ago because it seems to heat up the most when I think too hard about my publisher. It's a sort of feeling similar to cognitive dissonance, like trying to tackle a Rubik's Cube missing a yellow square, but still ignoring the fact that I can't solve all six sides. People do this with religion all the time. They believe in Religion X because it is a religion for free men but they are still okay with slavery — but even that simile is a sort of misnomer because the only thing I'm trying to solve is my time. I'm trying not to waste it. That is, I'm trying to finish my six volume book series, now with only one volume left to go, while trying to ignore the sort of guilt by association people seem to levy against anyone who publishes with Tokyopop.

But I have to stop feeling the guilt and remind myself that everyone takes their chances.

I am a private entrepreneur. I do not work for Tokyopop. I am published by them, that is all. I care first and foremost, as the saying goes, about what happens to my own works — and if you ask me what I think of creators of comics outside of maybe thirty people I cherish, I will tell you most of them act like douchbags. And yet I'm in a strange position. I don't like to even see douchbags get squashed. I don't have the stomach for it. And the noises they make as the boot-heel slowly lowers! Christ!

I realize that Tavisha and I are one of the lucky ones when it comes to Tokyopop contracts. Correction. Our contract wasn't luck. We're just sometimes smart. It's not the best contract in the world, but it certainly doesn't give away our "moral rights" or our copyright. It could be better though. I see that Tokyopop recently trademarked the title "ShutterBox:" http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=osv4vv.2.1 . Our contract doesn't give them this right. But I would bet how it happened: they tend to blanket trademark everything in their catalogue. Always assume negligence before malice when it comes to Tokyopop. They're sort of like the government. But that is neither here nor there. I know that if I challenge them on this, they will have to remove their claim. If Tavisha and I had signed one of those contracts where Tokyoppo "shared" their copyright with the creator, we wouldn't have any leg to stand on. So too with this new, refreshingly horrible Pilot Program.

Given all that, I suppose the question goes, why did Tavisha and I publish with Tokyopop? Why did we sign our (better) contract with TP in 2003 instead, as one Star Blazers douchbag once put it to me, "go with a real publisher?" Because, my Dear Mr. Bag, however Hollywood Tokyopop wants to be, they were then, when we signed our contract in 2003, and still are, a real publisher. They pay a $21,000 advance for each book that I create with Tavisha. We keep our copyright and allow them use of the copyright while they are publishing us (granting them licensing power). We can tell them goodbye and take our book elsewhere if we ever pay back, or when our sales finish paying down, the advance. In the mean time, they get our books into regular bookstores. I am not looking for a movie deal. I am a writer of illustrated books. This, to me, is justice, and for thousands of authors the world over this kind of agreement has been justice for more than a century.

Publishing is the last medium on Earth where a creator can make something that truly represents their own personalty, without interference, for better or for worse, to take credit for their own mistakes, to not have to put their name on someone else's mistakes, and get paid an advance for it. Even $20,000 is not enough to have someone contract you to publish their mistakes at your expense. You don't live long enough to live down an awful book with your name on it. Giving up your moral rights doesn't fix this problem either, because you can never recover your lost time, and comics take so much time. Oh, God, so much time.

So I conclude, Tokyopop, my Tokyopop, you would benefit, and I say this as someone who wants to see you make good, who wants to see you prosper under a system of justice — dump this Pilot Program and instead issue real contracts like the one you gave Tavisha and I in February of 2003.

-Rikki

Love, Rikki

George Orwell, a very English gentleman, believed that Americans thought that "success equalled virtue." He writes about this in his essay on Mark Twain. This is probably true, and, if it is, then I think we have the English to thank for it — for, if we travel back to our European influences, especially our British influences in the nineteenth century, we can mark for the origin of "success equals virtue" the very Victorian (and in some sense feudal ) English idea that "virtue equalled fulfilling the expectations of your class."

The transition from the British ideal to the American one is one of a translation of class evolution in the United States. We are a country, in theory but not in practice, without a nuanced class system, and so we made money our class marker, since no civilization seems to be able to comprehend itself unless there is some understanding of division in thinking amongst its populace.

Now, the English loved money just as much as any American. This was true as much in the nineteenth century as it was today. But there is a very old English idea that a gentleman can be a gentleman, or a middle class person can be above a working class person even if they are both flat broke. The working class man was born working class, and no mater how rich he gets, that is who he is. Meanwhile, the American who is born without any ipso facto class grows up to believe that his class is transitional and that his wealth and his status sway together with his ability to make a wage for himself (or herself — but you knew that).

"Success equals virtue" can lead to the following dilemma: when the American is down and penniless he (or she, but you knew that) feels he is only so because he has been stupid, or worse, negligent (and thus sinful). Whereas, when he is successful and prosperous he has been responsible and and therefore virtuous. Now, we don't really use words like "virtuous" to define ourselves these days. Probably the closest equivalent would be "awesome" — and thus the modern 21st Century American probably thinks that "success equals being awesome."

Kurt Vonnegut once wrote something to the effect that: over the door of many American diners, you can find a sign that reads, "If you're so smart why aren't you rich?" and he uses this as an example in Slaughterhouse Five as to why there are no stories of the wise poor man in American literature. He then sets out to show why the British seem to respect the poor and what it means to be poor for the average American: that it is shameful to us. But I think his view is a misconception. Reading Orwell's account of what it meant to be a middle class gentleman with no money, raised in a snobbish public school in the early twentieth century, demonstrates just how off Vonnegut is. But Vonnegut's mistake only stems from the fact that he was not exposed to that side of English life. His confusion stands out as an almost wistful Anglophilia — and yet he is not entirely wrong. The difference, again, is in the translation, and the transition, from the Victorian's "fulfilling the expectations of your class is virtue" to the American frontiersman's "success is virtue" to the modern Westerner's "success equals being awesome." And I say "the modern Westerner" now because I think it's clear that "success equals being awesome" has spread back to the English, indeed over all of Europe and perhaps Asia. The future of the world now embraces little more than an off the rails English classism, and now falls in step with "success equals being awesome." And to not be awesome, is to be shameful — and having no money is not awesome.

You can see where this has lead us, can't you: why even some of our most humane citizens are prone to cash out and become idle, or, if they are an artist of some type, to become a shadow of their once great self, their output dwindling and their ideas becoming soft — because the temptation to believe that one who has become so wealthy, and thus so successful, is now living proof of his own virtues — or awesomeness — and thus he need not try so hard to be clever or good any longer. Because he already is awesome/virtuous: he is wealthy/successful.

And this is why I expect the new Indiana Jones will suck when I see it later today.

That and the CG monkey.

-Rikki

Walking into Tokyopop yesterday, we had this conversation with the security guard at the desk. He stands at a security station that, for the past 5 years, I thought was just a valet station.

Me: The elevators don't seem to be working for us. We need to get up to the 20th floor.

Guard: Are you a visitor? Visitors can't use the elevators unless that have clearance. I'll need to see your IDs.

Tavi: What? When did you start doing that?

Guard: Oh, Mam that's a measure that's been in place since September 11 (2001).

Me: Really? We've been coming to this building almost monthly since 2002 and we've always used the elevators.

Guard: No this has been a standard policy of the entire Los Angeles area since September 11.

Tavi: No it hasn't. We've never been stopped before.

Guard: Yes, Mam. Where are you going?

Me: We're going to Tokyopop.

Guard: Tokyopop, Tokyopop ... I don't see your names on the list of expected visitors.

Me: Well, if you call them and tell (giant list of Tokyopop people) we're here, they know who we are.

Tavi: We've never had a problem entering before.

Guard: We've had this in place for some time. I wouldn't feel safe in a building that didn't do this.

Me: Since when did you start this? We've been coming here since 2002 and never have we been stopped.

Guard: Well, uh, in this building we started March 3rd of this year.

Me: So you felt pretty safe until March 3rd of this year?

Guard: Um, I'll call them and tell them you're down here.

Tavi: Tell them two terrorists want to see them.

Guard (instantly severe): Mam, we don't joke about that here. If my supervisor were here, he'd ... well, I'm calling Tokyopop.

Guard (on phone): Hello, this is security. I have two people requesting entrance. Tavisha and R -- oh, okay. I'll send them up.

Guard (hangs up and escorts us to the elevator): Well, thank you for being decent about this. Some people end up crying when they're stopped.

Tavi: Crying? People cry?

Me: Oh, we never cry. Our first reaction is to always be horribly confused by security.

Guard: Hah! Yeah, have a god day!

-Rikki

I saw a little boy skating in a gorilla costume in Glendale today. One of his friends yelled over to me as I was getting in my car: "Hey! He's dangerous!" I yelled back, "Well, yeah! He's an ape!"

-Rikki

Click HERE to make larger and then never sleep again.

12:00 - Downloaded Second Life. Made character. Wandered aimlessly in filthy Harajuku sex-face district. 23:35 - Deleted Second Life from desktop.

-Rikki

Since I am not a journalist in need of a Get Out of Jail Free Card, I keep my Tweets as far from being relevant as possible — and even farther from causality:

Raised a bull horn to the pilots: "What are you fighting for?" Nap-of-earth, they replied, "A spoiled double entendre!" It's always so.

Don't let Gabe happen to you.

-Rikki

Ah. So I colored an image of Supergirl for Eric Jones and Landry Walker about a month ago. They're making a new all ages Supergirl for DC. I don't know much about Supergirl — most of my DC reading centered around The Blue Devil and Atari Force when I was a kid — but when I colored this image I thought, "Yay! More Eric art!" and "I should color her with pants if she's going to be flying over anyone." And that was about it. But now I come back from Hawaii and find the Internets of Manfistdumb angered that an 8th grade girl is flat chested. Really? Really, Internets?

And they say moe fans are creepy.

Ow, my head.

-Rikki

I'm still exhausted from our relaxing time on Ohau, so for now I will just tell you that the above pictured cat lives amongst the pineapples in the garden at the Dole pineapple plant, and he has the greatest playground in the world.

Here is a message from my Overlords at Tokyopop :

Meet TOKYOPOP Creators at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books!

Join TOKYOPOP creators at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, the world’s largest book festival, on Saturday, April 26, from 10:00 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Sunday, April 27, 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m., at the University of California Los Angeles campus.

More than 140,000 attendees from throughout Los Angeles are expected at the 13th annual event. TOKYOPOP’s talented Southern California original manga creators will be on hand to meet with fans, answer questions, and sign copies of their original manga!

Don’t miss your chance to meet Anthony Andorra (author of Rhysmyth), Jim Pascoe (author of Undertown), Rachel Brown (author of Spy Goddess: Chase for the Chalice), Rikki Simons and Tavisha Wolfgarth-Simons (creators of ShutterBox), Steve Buccellato (creator of Battle of the Bands), Tricia Riley Hale (author of Grand Theft Galaxy), and Wes Abbott (creator of Dogby Walks Alone).

These talented original manga creators will be signing at the Kinokuniya booth (#327) on the following dates:

Saturday, April 26:
11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. Anthony Andora, Rachel Brown
5:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m. Tricia Hale, Jim Pascoe

Sunday, April 27:
10:30 a.m. – 11:30 a.m. Wes Abbott, Steve Buccellato
3:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. Rikki & Tavisha Simons

I will post more later on the subject of beautiful Honolulu and lovely Kawaii Kon — after I finish wringing sparkling blue sea water from my cell phone.

On another note: awwwww, Humphrey Lyttelton! Humphrey Lyttelton, the jazz musician, journalist and radio presenter, has died at the age of 86.



-Rikki

We've landed on an island. The voyage over the water was accompanied by onboard entertainments such as Coca Cola and a picture show called August Rush. I fell asleep near the end and dreamt of Deep Impact's climax and it seemed a fitting finish. I'm glad it all turned out well.

The citizens of this island seem friendly, and upon our arrival, they lassoed us with flowers. I'm not sure of the significance of this. I will check the flowers for a radio transmitter.

My laptop has exploded. This is unexpected and I am writing this entry on Robert DeJesus's computer. Bob's head is shaped like a peanut. I should tell him.

I believe that this is the best place I have ever been to. It is as if all of Los Angeles' Little Tokyo District prettied it