The IKKI invasion of America is something without precedent—or so it might initially seem. But the truth is that seinen manga had already begun making inroads into the States more than a decade ago. At the vanguard of the movement was a seinen magazine that was way too early, way too insane, and way too cool for its time. The magazine was called PULP. It was like a mad scientist’s lab where countless unbelievable manga experiments took place. This was during the hard-core anarchist phase of VIZ Media, which is something not widely known today. So, why are we bringing up such a thing from the past? Because IKKI and PULP seems to share a karmic bond, one that becomes more apparent the deeper we look. From the perspective of Alvin Lu, the G-1 American manga reader and editor who later became the second editor in chief of PULP, we looked at the past and the future of “Manga for Grown-ups” in America.
–Misaki “Slave of Manga” Kido
The IKKI UNDERGROUND is your fastest connection between Japan and America's Manga Evolution. For easy travel and trip planning, access Transit Map from here.
The very first issue of PULP.
M: Recently I got into your stash of old PULP issues at the office. If I were to use the Japanese cliché, it seemed to be something with “blood flowing through it.” Or “bleeding edge,” to use the English cliché. Tell me about your experience with PULP.
A: Yeah, it was a pretty wild concept. One of PULP’s attempts was to fight against the preconception that only a certain kind of person reads comics, like limiting it to “that geeky guy who reads comics.”
M: Wait, weren’t you one of them? I know I totally fit into that profile…
A: Unfortunately, yeah. We all basically fell right into that category. That was sort of the paradox and stigma. But the truth is, we felt comics could do better than that. It was a way to find out how to reach the audience that manga hasn’t reached yet. Also, it was an attempt to forge an organic audience during the pre-internet time.
M: I heard that you guys even had fans in the prison system.
A: [Laughs.] We did get a lot of fanmail from the prisons too. It was an attempt to put together an alliance of different interest groups.
M: Like what kind of interests?
A: Like fantasy. People who were reading edgy indie comics, people who were into Planetary/Authority, The Invisibles. People who were into D.I.Y magazines, who had an appreciation for the stuff we did in terms of the punk rock aspect of manga.
M: So how did you get into PULP?
A: PULP was established in ’97 and I wasn’t a part of it at that stage. Then I wrote a cover story about it for The Guardian.
M: Was that your debut as a writer/editor?
A: Yes, that was my first real job. I was an editor for an insane Asian pop culture column called “Tiger on Beat.” I did a lot of coverage on things like Hong Kong films and the old Chinatown theaters. And that’s how I got to know VIZ people like Patrick Macias.
M: I assume anime was a part of it too?
A: I was the anime writer, but I was never all that into it.
M: So you were into manga first?
A: One of the big differences in the manga fandom between today and ten years ago was that back then it was rooted in American comics culture. Most of us involved in PULP were more from an American comics background. Originally, I was more of an American comics fan than a manga fan.
M: What?! Traitor!
A: I had a monthly subscription to The Amazing Spider-Man for ten years. And I read them religiously. I was Marvel zombie for a really long time.
Look at this classic Spider-Man!
M: Wasn’t it also around that time that the American comics scene started to change a lot?
A: You can pretty much figure out my age if I say this, but I’m very much from the Watchmen and Dark Knight generation. We had exposure to fantastic American comics that people still read and talk about to this day.
M: Akira was also from around that time.
A: Akira was a big thing for me, because it was released from Marvel in a flipped and colorized version. They really did a great job with it, and it was one of the best manga adaptations ever released. It was colored, but not in bright colors, more like the muted colors that old comics had. It was beautiful… VIZ itself was founded during that time. So it was pretty important to comics in America that so much was coming out at the same time. Bringing manga to the American audience was a part of that wave.
M: So even the mainstream comics publishers in America were already trying to package manga in a format that American comics fans were familiar with.
A: We took up that movement in PULP. We tried many techniques; it was basically an experiment lab for manga adaptation. I really hope no one at Shogakukan looks at any of the PULP copies, or I’ll be fired.
M: I think I already gave a copy to Egami-san. [Both laugh.]
A: PULP was cancelled in 2002, and it was the right thing to do because that’s around the time Tokyopop was taking over with what became the standardized form of the graphic novel. Now PULP is like a weird museum of old techniques that are no longer used.
M: Right, kind of like steam punk.
A: Exactly. [Laughs.] Editorially, we learned how to put it on the page. And that’s basically the idea. A lot of what we've learned from it was pretty anarchistic.
But publishing techniques, translation issues, distribution—all that went into Shonen Jump.
M: It’s sort of funny that the final formula to adapt manga was in front of our noses all along. But you wouldn’t have known it for sure unless you had tried it all, had torn apart the structure of manga and understood why it functions in the original form. It’s kind of like manga Frankenstein.
M: So talk to us about PULP and IKKI.
A: I actually remember quite clearly when IKKI was launched and we were looking at the very first issue. Obviously we were all interested because a lot of creators in PULP were in IKKI.
The very first issue of Big Comic Spirits Special Issue IKKI.
Cover of Pulp with Heartbroken Angels by Masahiro Kikuni. He is also currently serializing MaQ-Ken-Otsu in IKKI.
M: Can you name a few of them?
A: Matsumoto Taiyo and Yamamoto Naoki were in the initial launch. And Yamamoto is one of my all-time favorite creators. The Saruman team, Toyokazu Matsunaga…
M: Usamaru Furuya, Masahiko Kikuni’s Heartbroken Angels was my favorite in PULP. I mean, what kind of cool English adaptation is the title Heartbroken Angels? Come to think of it, that is some kind of line-up…
A: When Hyoe was in Japan he worked for Big Comic Spirits with Egami-san. I also remember talking to Hyoe about helping Egami-san, or somebody was asking about what to call the magazine. And the idea we had was PULP Japan. I don’t know what happened to it after that though.
M: Wow, you guys were seriously trying to take over. So all these youngsters came under Hyoe.
A: One of the only reasons PULP is remembered is because its alumni have gone on to do their own things in manga in America. It was like Manga College at the time, with all these amazing minds together. It was interesting to be around so many passionate people at once. And they all became their own semi-famous “Manga Heads.”
M: What do you see in IKKI now?
Do not play with books.
A: It’s an interesting evolution of a magazine. IKKI takes manga that comes from different directions and shapes them in a new way. It points at a lot of different directions of what manga could be. It’s not a self-published thing. But IKKI proves that within the business context, there’s a lot can be done. Another thing that I really appreciate is that there’s a strain of humor in it. Comedy works are such a huge part of manga, but they’re hardly ever talked about here or translated. It’s hard to translate humor.
M: So what’s your favorite IKKI series?
A: I actually really like Blanco a lot. And Bob and…
A: Yeah, I like Bob too.
You can read the legendary baseball manga, Bob and His Funky Crew on sigikki.com!
A: That was probably the first generation of kids who experienced that.
M: I think the American manga audience has gone through a complete cycle of training reading shonen and shojo manga, that they’ve built a strong comprehension of visual cues and understanding of complex plots. They’ve matured as an audience for manga.
A: Definitely we have an entire generation of comics readers who are much more comfortable with the grammar and the design of manga. A lot of the younger audience, let’s say the ones who are reading Shonen Jump, don’t think about the fact that they’re reading comics from Japan. That’s actually a good thing. They’re just getting the entertainment.
M: So there’s no border in people’s minds about manga?
A: That’s very important.
M: Do you think America is ready for “Manga for Grown-Ups”?
A: People are aware of the fact that the growth of the manga market in the past ten years was far beyond anyone’s expectation. From a business standpoint, the bar has been raised. But I think for shonen, shojo, or seinen, the potentials are not fully tapped yet. I think IKKI does have the potential to reach out to people other than the usual comic readers.
M: This is the kind of conversation that I want to have with the global audience of IKKI, and you have set the ground for us today. I am glad that we get to talk to an American audience about seinen manga such as IKKI, and I honestly feel like we owe it to the effort of experimentation with PULP. So thank you.
A: Yeah. Please carry on the fire.
Thank you for choosing to ride the IKKI UNDERGROUND.
Alvin Lu
He is Vice President, Production, of VIZ Media. He was the second editor in chief of PULP magazine, from 2000 to 2002.
