| January
2008 |
Yuichi Yokoyama, New Engineering (PictureBox Inc., 2007). $19.95, paperback.
by Ryan Tokola
I normally like to take
art on its own terms. You know, the whole ‘death of the
author’ thing. Artists often seem to be the worst people to
talk about their own stuff. Have you listened to a
commentary track on a DVD lately? Was it helpful? No, it
wasn’t. I also don’t really care what other people say
about art, especially before I’m done experiencing it for
the first time. I try to avoid reviews of things I haven’t
seen yet because I have a weak mind and I’ll be hopelessly
biased. You, dear reader, may at this very moment be asking
yourself, “Does this guy realize that he’s writing a review
of a book which I have not yet read, thus permanently
coloring my perception of the book when I eventually read
it? Is this not exactly the sort of thing he, himself,
avoids?” The answer is yes. Yes I do, and yes it is. I am
comfortable with this for two reasons. First, I’m beginning
to rethink my ideas about isolating art from the commentary
of other people, and second, any right-minded person, even
without having read this, would agree with me anyway. New
Engineering is simply, irrefutably, fantastic.
New Engineering is a collection of short comics by Yuichi
Yokoyama. They are weird. I know, weird manga is no big
shock. There is a long, fine tradition of Japanese cultural
products that Western audiences find strange; but seriously
folks, these are freaking weird. First, the people are
drawn all funny. Like many iconic characters in cartooning
they’re made with simple lines, but these look…strange. I
want to say that they are drawn with childish hand and eye,
but it’s all too carefully considered for that. Basically,
the way people are drawn is not the way people see people.
There is an architectural coldness to everything, too, so
it looks like an alien drafter was assigned to illustrate
this book about humans. Next, there’s not much plot. These
comics are not about telling traditional stories. Some of
the comics are fight scenes completely devoid of context.
Others show improbable structures being elaborately built
with mysterious machinery for unknown purposes. Also, this
alien drafter doesn’t seem to distinguish sound from
vision. Sound effects, drawn in Japanese characters, are
plastered all over nearly every panel, to the point that
the sounds and images form a cohesive visual unit. The
overall effect is confusing, especially to an uncultured
American such as myself. Fortunately, there is help.
This edition of New Engineering, which was prepared for
English-speaking audiences, contains elements that are
presumably absent from the original, individual publication
of each of these comics. There is an interview with
Yokoyama, short discussions of each of the comics, a
panel-by-panel dissection of one comic, and, at the bottom
of every page, an English translation of the sound effects.
This is where I get back to my hang-ups about people
talking about the art I’m looking at. When reading the book
for the first time I tried, briefly, to ignore everything
but the comics themselves. I didn’t want to taint my
viewing with distractions and preconceptions. However,
before too long I was sneaking peeks at Yokoyama’s
descriptions and the sound effects translations. I
eventually realized that I had started reading too
narrowly: the artwork is the entire book, and it’s okay to
flip around a bit. The interview with the author actually
helped my reading. Or at least made it much more
interesting. He says, “I am really striving to communicate
something new…that can be viewed several hundred years
after its production by people of other civilizations, and
people from any place on earth, and still be enjoyed for
the new discoveries it offers.” His comics are not, in his
words, humanistic. He is consciously trying to make comics
that address ideas outside the realm of humans and their
experiences. They are exceptionally, overwhelmingly,
impersonal. They are also superbly interesting.
I don’t think Yokoyama is giving us the whole story,
though. He claims that he is trying to convey new
information, but he is not very concerned with
communicating these ideas clearly. At times he seems to be
deliberately toying with the reader. He knows that his
comics are difficult. He begins his discussion of “Garden
of Battlefield”: “This piece is difficult to understand,
because I drew a story, which should be told over several
pages, into four panels.” It is, indeed, often hard to
figure out exactly what is happening. The panel-by-panel
discussion of “New Engineering 3” raises serious questions
about the authority of the comic. His description of panel
13 is strange: “The view from the ground at this time is
thought to be something like this” and the description of
panel 81 is downright bizarre: “A marker that works on any
surface is revealed. It looks to be blackish.” How can
somebody (especially the author) know that this marker
writes on anything, but not know the color? You can see it.
It’s just black. There’s some cognitive dissonance in the
sound effects, also. The characters are mostly
expressionless, and you get the feeling that during the
fight scenes the only sounds would be things breaking and
maybe a little grunting. However, it is very common (mostly
in the fight scenes, but sometimes in the construction
scenes) for the panels to be overflowing with the “Sound of
people screaming.” Who is screaming? I have no idea. There
is a real tension between what we “hear” and what we see,
what we know and what is speculation, what we can
understand and what we must accept as incomprehensible.
Yokoyama seems to be very concerned with the act of reading
a comic, how we understand it, and what we accept as fact.
By the way, all this is a good thing. New Engineering may
not be as immediately entertaining as Naruto, but it’s
doing some real work. Good work. The kind of work you wish
you could get paid for. The book is not a simple collection
of stories. It’s careful documentation of Yokoyama’s
explorations. The sound effects translations, the notes,
and the interviews are essentially footnotes and
annotations to the work. Reading New Engineering is
conducting research. It’s academic cartooning without the
scholarship. Yokoyama’s labor is vigilantly expanding the
comics medium. I’m not sure what, exactly, he is
communicating to the people of other civilizations, but
it’s great watching him talk.
