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Jason Shiga: Genius? Or Madman?
Underground minicomic
artist wins $5,000 grant for his graphic novel Double Happiness.
By Victor Vazquez
 Jason Shiga
is a genius.
While majoring in mathematics at UC Berkeley, Shiga decided to take a class
called "The Graphic Novel as Literature." He chose the class out of a vague
interest but soon found out that he loved cartooning.
Within five months he had made five full length comic books. He also began creating
strips and distributing them through various youth publications, and now has
started making a regular strip in the San Francisco Examiner. Using his
crazy math skills, he has further expanded the horizons of comic strips, making
"choose your own adventure" style comics.
One minicomic entitled The Last Supper is about a boy who must eat one
last brussel sprout on his dinner plate before going for ice cream. The reader
can choose to eat the brussel sprout or hide it in various places. The comic
is folded and cut so that it can unfold into four different endings.
Another comic entitled The Date is a palindrome. It starts out as two
people on a blind date making small talk, but when it reaches the middle, the
conversation changes dramatically when it is repeated backwards.
Shiga even made a comic equation. He drew seven Polaroid photographs of different
scenes happening on seven consecutive days. He promises a free comic to those
who can put the photographs in the right order to tell a story. It looks deceptively
easy, but by the end you'll be whipping out the pencil, paper, and magnifying
glass.
He has one project which has been going on for five years. It is called Little
Jimmy: Kid Detective. It takes place in San Francisco, Berkeley, Oakland,
and Manila and will include every major street and bus route. It is a 300 page
long interactive comic that he says is only 5% finished.
One may ask: "If Jason Shiga is such a genius, why has he been photocopying
homemade comic books for the last five years?" This is the same question the
Xeric Foundation must have asked when he applied for a grant from them. The
Xeric Foundation has been giving hundreds of thousands of dollars in grant money
to comic artists since 1992. They probably saw Shiga's work and realized that
there was nothing they could do but give this guy $5000. (Incidentally, another
Xeric grant winner, Adrian Tomine, creator of Optic Nerve, was in the same "Graphic
Novel as Literature" class as Shiga.)
With his grant money, Shiga republished and redistributed 2,500 copies of the
graphic novel Double Happiness. It has a spine with a glossy color cover,
as opposed to the previous 80 copies which were made at Kinko's. He's moving
on up. He even has his own website: Shigabooks.com.
 Now, Shiga is planning to do a full length "choose your own adventure"
graphic novel entitled Meanwhile. Hopefully, he's gained enough momentum
from Double Happiness to gain the attention of publishers.
Despite all of this fancy-pants publishing, Shiga has not turned his back on
grassroots Kinko-style publishing. "Minicomics can be their own art form," says
Shiga "I see it as a really intense hobby."
Unfortunately, making minicomics remains a hobby - and not a profession - for
most artists and writers. Thien Pham, friend of Shiga and creator of E-Z
Cheese Comics, says, "The cost of living today is so high, you can't support
yourself by photocopying minicomics."
Even famous minicomic and zine publishers like John Porcellino, creator of King
Cat and Aaron Cometbus, creator of Cometbus are far from rich. In
fact, Pete Jensen, creator of the popular underground zine Dishwasher
is homeless.
Popular belief today is that an underground comic artist must either lead a
life of poverty or syndicate and "sell out." Shiga doesn't believe this has
to be true.
"Charles Schultz," says Shiga, "he's one of my favorite cartoonists, and in
his later years he was like, completely insane, his comics didn't make any sense,
he'd gone off the deep end completely, and he syndicated. They put this mad
man in this huge broad market."
Reading some of Shiga's work, it's easy to notice some subtle insanity similar
to that of Schultz. One could even call him a mad man. So is Shiga planning
on infiltrating the syndicated comics world and spreading the insanity? Well?
Is he?
"It takes about 30 years of building a loyal consumer base before you can go
insane," he says with regret.
—Victor
Vazquez is an intern writer and artist for Youth in Control. He does his
own comics and various written things. Check out his website: fully
functioning shrimp magnet.
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