INTERVIEW: Andi Watson
All about Andi, by Christopher Butcher.

Jamie S. Rich has confided in me that, at first, he didn't know if Andi Watson was a guy or a girl. That's okay, at first I didn't know if Jamie S. Rich was a guy or a girl either. Apparently Andi gets that a lot, the same way that Strangers In Paradise creator Terry Moore does. I'm not surprised because, you see, Andi creates these brilliant, intimate stories about girls and women trying to find a place in the world. No fight scenes, no scantily-clad, big-breasted vixens with swords. Just intelligent comics like SKELETON KEY and GEISHA featuring strong and developed females in leading roles. A rarity, and one that causes some confusion. I'd take that as a compliment, though. With the first issue of Andi's new book from Oni Press, BREAKFAST AFTER NOON recently on stands, I caught up with the esteemed Mr. Watson to find out what makes him tick. And maybe shed a little light on that confusion thing too...

How did you get involved in comics?

I got back into reading comics at about the age of nineteen. I eventually decided I wanted to try making my own, so the final show for my degree was SAMURAI JAM, my first attempt at writing and drawing and printing the thing. Naturally being an arts graduate meant unemployment followed, but I had the comics bug and I continued doing them.

What was your first published work?

That would be Samurai Jam #1 printed by Slave Labor mid 1993. I'd done three self published issues before Dan kindly took me on.

What do you count among your primary influences for the comics you create?

Art wise? Los Bros, Avril, Chaland, Dupuy and Berberian, Seth, Jean Phillipe Peyraud....Matisse, Degas, Ingres, Hiroshige, Utamaru, Kuniyoshi, Early German and Flemish painting, Byzantine art, Roman painted vases, Indian painting...lots of stuff.
Storytelling? Mitsuru Adachi, Seizo Watase. Writing? No one in particular...some writers work attracts me but I wouldn't say they influenced me...Henry James, Austen, Alice Munro, Nancy Mitford, Hammett.

Warren Ellis has described the difference between British, American, and Japanese creators as (essentially) the amount of space they cram into a page. Japanese comics move at a leisurely pace, American comics are still working (essentially) from Jack Kirby's 6 panel grids, and British comics are somewhat claustrophobic in their detail. You're a British creator with a strong affinity for manga, being published primarily in North America. How have you managed to balance all of these different cultures in your work?

There hasn't been a British comics industry for some time now. Brit creators almost inevitably work within the American industry so they pretty much share the same comics language. And I guess I'm part of that! As far as finding a balance I think you take what you think works, and put it into the mix. I like manga and Euro and indie stuff and it probably shows on the page.
I think the "amount of space" explanation isn't the full story. Cultural and economic differences have a great affect on formats. For example I think there's a different narrative tradition in Japan that values "enjoying the journey" to "reaching the destination." This leads right back to the "Tale of Genji" which and might seem to the western reader to be plot-less and episodic. This is translated into longer forms of comic storytelling. With the added bonuses of a huge and supportive readership, much longer stories are prevalent in Japan. Having said that there are epic manga stories with as "cramped" a panel/page count as Tintin or Hate... Nausicaa for example.

Well, Miyazaki has constantly derided his work on Nausicaa, and the more "compressed" method he chose to tell that story. And he was (admittedly) heavily influenced by European artists like Moebius.

Miyazaki strikes me as a perfectionist so I'm not surprised to hear that. The quality of the work is there for all to see. It's an interesting work for melding the manga and Euro "schools." So many panels per page but not confined to the usual 50 page format of the Euro Album. Regardless of the formal aspects it's rare in comics to read a work so sympathetic to it's characters and that exudes a faith in humanity.

Have you made a conscious decision to gear different projects towards different demographics? Indy stuff at SLG, Euro stuff at Oni and manga stuff at Fanboy?

Not consciously. I think the first GEISHA series I did is the most manga of all my stuff and so far with Fanboy I've only done shirts and whatnot. I've only relatively recently been re-reading the Tintins I picked up as a kid and so the Euro thing has started to filter through.

A lot of creators dig in and get "married" to publishers. But you've done different and specific projects for Dark Horse, Slave Labor Graphics, Oni, and now Fanboy Inc. Why haven't you consolidated all of your projects at one publisher?

I guess that makes me a serial bigamist ;) I like working with different people, not because I think one company is better than another. I'm friends with each of the publishers, they all have great people working for them so it seems to work out.

Where's your favorite place to work? You can tell us ;).

I love 'em all!

Skeleton Key, your seminal work from Slave Labor Graphics, is a very different type of story than what's usually found in the comic market. How did it come about?

Well, my original intention was to do a book that you would typically find in the market! Sam Jam was cancelled after 4 issues and I was wondering how I could do something that totally pleased myself, wouldn't put off y'r typical comics buyer and would work for anyone unfamiliar with comics. I wanted to do a regular series with continuing characters and the image of the skeleton suit kicked it all off. Looking back, no wonder it didn't appeal to regular comics fans...two girls who kept their clothes on, talked a lot and didn't get into fights...who was I kidding?

Do you feel that Geisha an outgrowth of your work on Skeleton Key?

At the time it was more of a reaction against it. I'd been doing 20+ issues of SK and really wanted to do a story with a beginning, middle and end. So the four issue mini series was my way of doing that. Content wise I guess it does share a some aspects...characters groping towards some form of independence.

You've moved to doing Skeleton Key as a series of mini-series as opposed to it's previous ongoing nature. Have you grown to prefer mini-series?

I like the mini-series as a tidy format. You get a complete story for the reader and as a creator it's not a life's work. You can finish it, have a break and then continue. Having said that I do like the idea of long stories. Writers like Wodehouse, James and Dickens wrote their novels as serializations for magazines...it's just that in comics right now the audience and the economics lean towards shorter series. Seems like people lose interest and there's the baggage of the collector that accompanies comics... it's easier to keep selling number ones!

What are your feelings on original graphic novels? With the likelihood of trade paperback collections almost a certainty these days (particularly from Oni), why serialize your work?

I'm not sure that the market can sustain original graphic novels right now. Getting people to try a new comic is hard enough without expecting them to "risk" shelling out ten-fifteen dollars on a new GN. It's such a financial risk for publishers too. You're several grand in the hole as soon as the book's printed and it'll be awhile before you can hope to recoup your investment. For indie books it seems there's not a significant enough reader base. DC might be able to make it work by releasing PREACHER or whatever directly as a GN.
Serialization is a good way to get people to try your book and a good indication from sales for the publisher to decide whether to collect it. I'm all for original GN's but I wouldn't want to see publishers go out of business in the process.