It's old news that shojo is hot. And the corollary, that girls are pushing graphic novel sales, is well known. What's less well known is that young female creators are among the hottest new comics artists. Tokyopop, which publishes Becky Cloonen's East Coast Rising, and Svetlana Chmakova's Dramacon, reports that 60% of its original manga titles are by women.
Young comic talent is so desired now that some young people are getting book contracts right out of college, and many of these newcomers are women. The eight top students in comics and cartooning from Manhattan’s School of Visual Arts class of 2007 were women. At New York Comic-Con this year, veteran artist Colleen Doran spoke of how, when she entered the comic world, men stuck together, but women had to go at it alone. While women creators were once rare amid a sea of slightly misogynistic fan-boys, now they're supported and sought after.
"I don't want to make any gross generalizations about the men," said Mark Siegel of First Second, "but with the women of talent, comics is just a medium to express other things that are more personal. They have a personal voice." Siegel has a bulletin board in his office to which he's pinned the names of young artists he's watching. "About half are women. I've actually made a point of trying to find women artists because of that sensibility I mentioned. I feel it really has a place in graphic novels."
Yali Lin, 23, who is slated to draw manga versions of Romeo and Juliet and The Scarlet Letter for John Wiley & Sons, is one of these young superstars. A slight young woman who came to the U.S. when she was 11, she draws in a willowy manga style. "I lived in Guangdong, in South China, in a village close to Hong Kong. There wasn't a lot of manga in China, but there was this very popular anime, Sailor Moon. When I was eight or nine, I got into drawing the Japanese 'big-eye-girls.' "
Although her family supported her decision to pursue comics, La Guardia High School for the Arts, which she attended, wasn't as enthusiastic. With her big-eyed-girl style, Lin was pushed briefly toward fashion design, but decided on SVA, from which she graduated last year, which styles itself as "the Harvard of comics." While there, teachers Matt Madden and Jessica Abel pushed Lin toward agent Bob Mecoy, who has a strong interest in nurturing young comic talent. Mecoy showed her work to editor Greg Tubach at John Wiley & Sons, and while she was still a senior, Lin was his one and only choice to draw the manga Romeo and Juliet.
"I love that light touch she has," says Tubach. A contract for a manga version of The Scarlet Letter soon followed, and Tubach recently signed her to draw A Midsummer Night's Dream.
While older generations of male cartoonists rarely had a female colleague, which sometimes led to what some have called "the old boys network," the new generation is completely co-ed. Lin is close to another SVA grad, Hyeondo Park, who graduated this year and is also drawing manga for Wiley. And close friends Hilary Florido (class of 2007) and Matthew Bernier (class of 2006) are both working on books for First Second.
Florido is drawing 3rd Horseman, written by JT Petty, and Bernier is drawing Acorn Giant Killer, also by Petty. But the two were almost rivals. Unbeknownst to each other, First Second had asked both artists to submit sample drawings for the JT Petty script. "We actually figured it out," says Bernier, "but we weren't supposed to." Siegel thought Hilary's style was more suited to the 3rd Horseman project, so the two ended up not being rivals. "I love visiting him," says Hilary of her friend, Matt. "He's a wonderful cook." When she moved to Queens, Matt gave her a list of restaurants to visit. "Hilary is absolutely one of my best friends on earth," says Bernier.
Another young artist of interest is Chari Pere. Picked up by Mecoy weeks after graduation, Pere has a goofy, sunshiney style she uses to discover the little ironies of her life, and as a devout Jew, many of these touch on her religion. Her best friend from school, Marguerite Dabaie, writes darkly ironic and lyric comics about the tensions that spring from being a Palestinian Christian in America. Both were among the school’s top eight students, and both received Shakespeare & Co. scholarships toward self-publishing their first books. Mecoy calls Dabaie "someone I'm watching closely."
These young artists are already professional and have an amazing capacity for hard work. Lin, who's known as something of a speed demon, says that when she's really cranking, she can pencil up to 30 pages a week. (Manga is faster to draw than traditional superhero comics.) Aside from her drawing, Pere is part of an Internet startup that's sort of a cross between DeviantArt and Digg.com. Florido and Bernier are both set to draw around 200 pages for their books, and Bernier is also talking to Kazu Kibuishi about doing a story for the Flight anthology. Meanwhile, Florido is looking for a part-time job and thinking about getting back into silk-screening on the side. While none of the young stars yet earn enough to make a living from their art, they're all on their way, and after the problems women in comics have faced in the past, a new day may really have dawned.
