Insurgents

Finished this piece last night, which I dubbed 'Insurgents'. Overall I spent about 8 hours on it (not all at once) which is more than I've spent on any individual drawing. Afterwards looking at it I realized just how much I enjoyed doing art. It's just really... soothing, where I can disappear for a few hours into a world I can shape.

Of course, that's the funny thing isn't it? The things you love to do aren't necessarily the things you plan to do when you grow up, after you graduate. I'm still fully on track for a Political Science/Asian Studies degree, and hopefully a job in the State Department or Foreign Service. I wouldn't say that I've sold out to reality, because I am really interested in these jobs and I feel they would be a very rewarding experience. And yet sometimes I wonder if I've given up on my dreams a bit too quickly.

I remember when I was in Taiwan last summer, visiting friends and my old manga teacher. I felt I wanted to draw something inspiring, something that was profound, that would not only make me think with my head, but also my heart. The manga 'Saikano' was probably the single most inspiring piece that compelled to me to do something. The story was relatively straightforward if weird: Boy meets girl. They fall in love. She gets turned into a killing machine by the Japanese Defense Force, but tries to retain her humanity. The world falls apart. Now the interesting thing is that you know there's a world war going on in the story, you know that things are really screwed up. But for the sake of the story, you don't care. Your eyes are only on the two protagonists and their struggles to live out their lives as happily as possible an a apocalyptic world.

And I really wanted to do something similar about the Taiwan Strait situation. To put a human face on this potential point of conflict. I wanted to draw something that let you put away political ideology and differences if only for a moment; to look into the eyes of the young soldiers, the civilians, the children that would be inevitably killed or maimed in the conflict. To look them in the eye and honestly ask yourself if their deaths are worth 'unification'. I wanted to show the horrors of war through the eyes of a college-aged Taiwanese male, because I most strongly identified with that. But it wasn't meant to be an indictment of anyone, or to demonize 'the enemy'. I just wanted to show people the futility of it all.

The manga format is arguably the best medium for expressing these sorts of sentiments, especially to your target population. The versatility of Japanese manga is simply amazing. Now, I love American comic strips like 'Calvin and Hobbes', 'Opus', or 'Get Fuzzy'. But it just doesn't have the depth that is possible through a long-running manga. It's not necessarily a problem with the comics themselves, it's like comparing apples and oranges. But coming to Taiwan I realized that you could do so much with manga. You can talk about issues that wouldn't be touched in an ordinary newspaper comic. Young people are willing to read something if it's in manga form. It resonates with them, if my own feelings are any indication of the generation.

Thus I wanted to draw a manga about war. It's just that simple. But without the glamour of a Hollywood movie, or the cynicism of a political writer. Just struggles with faith, with love, with survival on an everyday basis through the eyes of an everyday joe, someone that all kids can relate with. And maybe, just maybe it will make them stop and think before they take up rifles to kill.

That was my dream. Yet there were various problems. I couldn't think of a good way to start the story, my art was inconsistent, and I just didn't have the time. My first year in college was certainly gratifying and I would never regret coming to the University of Michigan. But the side effect of a challenging curriculum was that I had little time to draw a regular manga. I draw single panels and pieces because there's no continuity. With manga I want to have a consistent art style but it's hard to do if you're not drawing regularly. And so I had slowly but surely started walking away from the dream of drawing.

Until I finished 'Insurgents' last night. Just the thrill of watching the finished piece, knowing all the time and effort I put into it... it just woke me up again. I don't have to start large, I can start small. One drawing at a time. Perhaps I don't see results immediately, but it does make me feel good, and maybe some day I will be making a difference. One step at a time.