By Tim Clodfelter
JOURNAL REPORTER
Cartoonist Tak Toyoshima has been taking a comedic approach to touchy issues since 1999. But his strip, Secret Asian Man, has only recently made the jump from independent papers to newspaper syndication.
Premiering nationally back in May, it is the first nationally syndicated strip to feature an Asian American leading character - the titular “Secret Asian Man,” Sam Takahashi. Though he (like his creator) is of Japanese heritage, Sam is frequently mistaken for Chinese. His wife is white, and they have a 3-year-old son. The cast also includes an ethnically diverse mix of characters, including activist Grace, burly Charlie and well-intentioned-but-goofy Richie.
Sam is a cartoonist who makes wry comments about how people perceive Asian Americans and other ethnic groups, and how those people view themselves. He also tackles broader subjects of gender, religion and whatever else draws his attention.
Secret Asian Man will get a month-long tryout in the comics page of the Winston-Salem Journal starting Monday.
Toyoshima took some time away from his busy schedule - as both a daily cartoonist and the art director at a Boston weekly newspaper - for an e-mail interview about his work and what inspired him:
Q. Where did you grow up, and were you drawing from a young age?
A. I grew up in N.Y.C. (Manhattan’s Tribeca neighborhood) and as far back as I can remember I loved to draw. My dad was an artist in Japan, my mom designed clothes. My older brother and I used to play hours of Dungeons and Dragons, drawing our characters, creatures, armor, weapons and treasures. We were allowed to draw on the walls, and the loft that I grew up in had my Dad’s metalworking machines, so I pretty much grew up in a creative environment.
Q. What led you into a career as a newspaper cartoonist?
A. To be honest, it was a series of opportunities that led me down this path. I initially wanted to work in comic books for Marvel, DC or Image Comics. Comic-style illustration was definitely my strong suit, and after years of freelancing and self-publishing comics, I landed a gig as an inker for New England Comics’ hit book The Tick. I worked on that title for about four years as their main inker. It gave me the experience and confidence I needed.
While working on The Tick, I met a guy in Boston who wanted to start a monthly arts magazine. I would be the senior illustrator for it and was given two whole pages to fill with the first Secret Asian Man comic strips. It was a very grassroots operation with a shoestring budget, but we carried on for a couple of years and eventually the magazine grew into an alternative weekly paper, Boston’s Weekly Dig, where I am currently the art director. (http://www.weeklydig.com)
A couple of years in, we started running some comic strips. I started to get the itch to do comic work again and saw the opportunity to start one. It was a very different pace to work in strip format, but I got used to it and realized the great potential the medium had to offer and fell in love with it.
Q. What inspired you to create Secret Asian Man?
A. When I was touring comic book conventions for inking The Tick, it was a huge ego boost to have people come up and ask for autographs. But after a while I realized that it wasn’t necessarily me they were coming to see. They loved the character. That’s when I asked myself: If I were to start a comic book or strip, what would I write about? What do I know about better than anyone else in the world?
And the answer was my life, or more specifically, my experiences growing up Asian American. Stories from my childhood just came flying onto the paper and that’s how the strip started. It was about that time, too, that I became aware of the utter lack of Asian American representation in many forms of mass media and popular culture. There were plenty of exotic images depicting people from Asia, but none were accurate, as far as I felt, portrayals of us Asians born and raised in the States.
At first it was a very bitter and angry strip and served as a venting tool. I relished pushing people’s buttons and getting reactions. As the years went by (I started the strip in 1999) I started to do more research about notable Asian Americans and read about moments in our history. It all inspired me to get the word out about people and events that I was sure many did not know about.
Q. What is your creative process like?
A. Working on a daily strip definitely has its challenges. I also still work a day job and have a family, so it can be even more challenging to find the time, but I’ve developed a pace that seems to be working.
The strips always start as quick observations, punch lines or images. The hardest part about comic strips is the payoff at the end, so I like to start there. The observations come from everyday experiences, events from my past as a child, the news, popular culture, movies, TV political figures, etc. But always with an eye on things that either separate us or bring us together as groups - racial groups, religious groups, male vs. female, gay vs. straight, Republican vs. Democrat.
Once I take note of something, I try and see how I can create a strip that will bring those groups together. I like to think of the strip as a bridging text that doesn’t preach or push an ideology on people but instead presents things to think about for the readers to make up their own minds.
■ Tim Clodfelter can be reached at 727-7371 or at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
So far your trial comics to replace have been awful
jake on 11/09/2007 (10:41 am)
Re Secret Asian Man. I don’t like it at all. First, there are no faces. Comic people are our friends, and I just don’t have any friends without faces, without expressions. And there is a reason: the face and its expressions are the things we so often use to judge both friend and foe. I didn’t like the last new strip you tested, but this one is worse. And I have a question for you: What ages are you aiming for with your comics? I see many that seem to me aimed at adults only, but maybe kids are smarter today. Another thing I find fault with in Asian Man is the very unsubtle social/racial preaching. The best way for him to make me accept and love Asians is to be a lovable character himself. I still want my comics to amuse me, period. Like Zits, Dagwood and of course, Peanuts. Okay?
Joe Haymes on 11/07/2007 (2:10 pm)