Interview with Steven Yu

Steven Yu wrote to me after finding one of my favorite interviews done over the last 23 years. It was with artist Ashley Wood, and he was funny, dark, clever and revealed some of his inner workings. It was nice to hear from someone who liked the interview as much as I did. Years later I got a friend request on Facebook, and he had been posting as a storyteller with his own art and various perspectives on stories and life.  I like his work, find it rather intuitive and the storytelling follows a story that works emotively and straight forward. I asked to interview him, and here it is... (My questions regarding Taiwan is a nod to ongoing events, and trying to allow readers to see that current events are valid for more than just embassy staff.)

(Btw all images are copyright the respective owner and this fair use as does not imply ownership.)

Hello Steven.  I am so happy to be interviewing you. We met chatting over an Ashley Wood interview, and then you found me on Facebook, and I really appreciate that.

First off, since I mentioned Ashley Wood, in art he is my spirit animal.  Does he stand as a great influence upon you.

Ash's work was a great influence on me when I picked up drawing again. My earliest influences were Yoshitaka Amano (Final Fantasy) and Yoji Shinkawa (Metal Gear Solid). Funny enough, Shinkawa was influenced by Amano, and eventually, Ashley Wood would collab with Shinkawa on some Metal Gear art. Things just go in full circle, eh? 

Their works helped me to answer some fundamental art issues I was facing. Amano's ink and paint works taught me that art was a spiritual practice as well as a technical one, Shinkawa's concept art taught me that mood was just as important as details, and Ash's paintings taught me that what made a piece bold and powerful was understanding how to utilize contrast. 

For me, Ash, Shinkawa, and Amano are my Triforce of Power. Ash's works represent raw, elemental power, Shinkawa's works represent precision and chaos, and Amano is spiritual and introspective. Their works act as an aesthetic guide for me. 

Where are you from, and did you attend university? Are you married? 

I studied graphic design briefly in college at CSU Hayward before being guilt-tripped into transferring to an Economics major, haha. Asian parents! 

I was born in Taipei, Taiwan in the early 80's and moved to the East Bay at 5 years old. My Taiwanese heritage is a heavy influence on my work. It may not be apparent, but it's embedded in there.

I am married to my lovely Rachel! We have two cats, Jiayi (named after the county in Taiwan), and Shinji (named by his previous caretakers from Neon Genesis). 

How did you enter the illustration world? Was it by self teaching, or did you attend art school? Or some other path?

After graduating, I was hungry to get back to drawing again. I really wanted illustration to be a career. Not sure where to go, I went back to my junior college, Diablo Valley College, to study animation from the great Arthur King. First day in that class I remember he held up a sketchbook and said, "you will live in this book everyday." It was really inspiring. The sketchbook is where we live. It's where we can experiment, learn skills, or express ideas. From that moment on, I knew I just wanted to draw for the rest of my life. 

After Arthur's class, I started to patch together my own educational roadmap. The amazing James Gayles taught me his unique approach to watercolors, Suzie Ferras helped introduce me to oil painting, and reading comics/manga/graphic novels was the best education on how to put together your own story. 

But ink became my ultimate love. I actually studied a bit with a calligrapher and that translated into my illustration work. It was through learning how to write traditional Chinese characters that I learned how to develop my style. 

As an artist, who do you have as influences upon your art, and in general, who do you like, but not directly are influences on you?

Like I mentioned before there is Ash, Amano, and Shinkawa, but that was from an earlier time of my life. These days it's a mixture of what I see in technique more than a specific artist's body of work. Sometimes I see the thick to thin ink lines of Paul Pope or the flowing line work of  Nicolas Nemiri and that teaches me something new. There's also a Chinese artist whose works I like to study, Zao Dao (早稻) who has sublime draftsmanship. 

Some additional influences: Kazuto Nagazawa, Jamie Hewlitt, Katsuhiro Otomo, Jim Mahfood, Peter Chung, Robert Valley, and Daniel Warren Johnson. 

What comics have been your go to comics, growing up, and to the present? Which comics made you greatly desire to create your own?

When I was a kid, it was a lot of the Marvel and DC stuff, but then it switched to the Image comics of the 90's. As I got older, I started to read more Heavy Metal Magazines and manga. My go-to genre is more in the martial arts realm, stuff like Takehiko Inoue's Vagabond and Hiroaki Samura's Blade of the Immortal. 

Samura's work on Blade of the Immortal is what ultimately inspired me to want to make comics. Just for the record, I use the term "comics" as an umbrella term for all works that fit under the sequential arts territory. Manga and European comics often get mis-classified as "genres", but that's incorrect. Is there a unique, cultural way that each country's creators illustrate and tell their story? Sure, but manga isn't a genre, it's just the Japanese word for comics, much like bande dessinée (or BD). 

Haha, sorry, where was I? Right. Samura's works are amazing. The way he tells a story with his use of angles, draftsmanship, and angles is absolutely mind blowing. The use of close ups in multiple panels that eventually leads to a wide reveal of the action is effing delicious. I'm not always a fan of his subject matter - look at his "erotic" art book (I use that term erotic very, VERY lightly) or his Bradherley's Coach - and you're going to find some really crazy, disturbing stuff. But it's his way of telling a story that captivates me. And the fact that he can tackle almost any genre, from historical action to disturbing horror, or slice of life stories to romantic comedies, is what makes me admire his work, and ultimately inspire me to want to make my own comics. 

Where did your path take you from amateur to want to be professional? Did the ability to publish it decide the genre in which you work?

To be honest, I'm still trying to figure out how to make a living as I focus on my own self-publishing endeavors. I freelance, teach workshops, mentor, and when work dries up, I turn my attention to other gigs here or there. 

I think there was a period where I thought "making it" meant getting paid for your work, but as time went on that thought process changed. I don't think there's anything wrong with that, but it's become the only thing artists can think about. I've always championed for artists to do their own projects, find the spirituality in your creative practice, but oftentimes I hear, "but how am I going to pay my bills?!!" And I have to fight through that thought process and gently remind people that I'm not saying, "forget your responsibilities," but I am saying, "take care of your needs, but once that's met, how will you fulfill your creative spirit?"

And so that's where I've been for the past 8 years. Look, I'm grateful for all of the freelance experience I've had and currently have, but I also know that I need to tell my own stories. I need to do this before my soul leaves the earth, or at least before I cannot do this anymore. My father passed in 2018 and COVID happened 2 years later and fucked with a lot of things in my life. I know this sounds drastic, and maybe it's just anxiety talking, but I sometimes feel like there's a ticking time bomb and I need to do what I was meant to do before that bomb goes off.  

The need to tell my own stories is like the need for me to breathe air, eat, fuck, live. That is what guides my creative career. I'll tell you the same thing I told my wife when we first met and we were talking about life goals: I can see what the end of my life looks like, because it looks exactly like the way it does now - me at a drafting table drawing and writing stories. There is no other path other than this one. 

Do you see comics as a largely "done" genre or format, in that, bigger or smaller in basic size, it might scare buyers off. If you do a largely wordless work, the readers often claim that it was not enough, when for the work done, it might be complete?

Yeah, that's weird right? I mean, weird in how people and the market perceive work. I'm in a really different group of comic buyers, and maybe it's because I've always been an illustrator who just happens to do comics. But I tend to buy comics regardless of any of the market segmentation that corporations might impose on them. So for example, I know in the US there is a huge market for cover art and then there's a market for interior work. I think maybe a few times there have been people asking if I have variant covers for JOAN, and I had to mention there are pinup works in the book done by various artists. To be honest, I don't understand this buying behavior, maybe because I grew up reading comics from the East and the West, and all those books have had covers done by the same interior artist. I remember buying a Judge Dredd comic back in the early 90's and how utterly confused I was when I found out that the interior was not the same as the cover! I don't think the Europeans do this, right? 

And size of comics is of no matter to me. I recently bought two Japanese comics, one was standard manga format and the other was in large book format. Both are amazing to read and look at, but I can understand the larger book was done in that size because it was hand-painted. But honestly, I would have bought it anyway if it was in standard manga size. 

Funny that you mentioned wordless comics, because I think they're awesome. I've played around with some wordless comics and doing them is just as natural as doing ones with text.

10 years from now, where do you see yourself?

Finishing my JOAN series and possibly working on another project. I might even leave the pop culture stratosphere for a while and focus on building a body of fine artwork. I've been thinking of doing a young adult graphic novel that is loosely based on my historical research of Taiwan. There are so many things I want to do, but I just don't want to be boxed in. Yes, I am that hipster artist that tries to rebel against the man, but the man here is just anything that prevents me from having the freedom to creatively express. 

There was a time where I use to stress fame and fortune as a priority, but now I just want to carve a space for myself and my work. I don't want the stress these famous comic artist suffer from to the point of hospitalization. I want to do my art, but I also want to spend time with my wife and my two cat kids, Shinji and Jiayi. Because that's what it means for me to live my life.

Tell me a bit about the comic, and beyond your comic creation, what is it about Joan of Arc that grabbed your attention? Friends who have read my poetry and prose, know that I believe Joan was divinely sent, and for a purpose of world concern. Why her, what is it about her that we should all know about? Have there been other humans that you've noted that have done similar things or acted in similar causes?

The Joan in my comic is not the same as the historical Joan of Arc, that is to say she is loosely inspired by the real historical figure. The Joan I wrote shares a similar fate with her historic predecessor, but this Joan is an existential protagonist. I'm sure Joan of Arc towards the end of her life had some doubts about her own faith, especially when she was on trial; but this comic Joan's dilemma is an existential one.

In previous drafts of the comic, the world of Joan included demons and angels. God and Satan were to battle it out on Earth, but it was turning into a huge project that was straying from what I was trying to say. I removed all the spiritual elements, and decided to put them into the background. So without God's interference, how would our Joan go about her life? 

Joan has always been a way to channel my own angst about the indie art/comics life.  I wish there was someone, maybe a God of art and comics per se, but the best we have is vets and peers who have questions themselves but are supportive enough to want to help out. This Joan is my existential hero. Without the interference of the ethereal and the corrupt monarchs and holy-men that influenced her previously, she will have to figure out what is true to her. This rings true to me. Without the influence of what's trending in pop culture or corporate pressure, how do I do the art that is authentic to me? That's the real heart of what I've been trying to write. 

Your ancestral roots, Taipei, Taiwan is in a place of earth where the focus has risen recently, and especially danger and events could happen leading to a greater war, and a greater disaster in terms of nuclear weapons. Do you think from what you've studied and learned, is Taiwan going to change the world forever?  The first multi party nuclear war would certainly change the status quo. Would that be artistic fuel for your story telling? Can such grave topics be addressed in fiction without diminishing its power?  As creative do it, do they reduce the truth or sensitive  

depths by entertaining with such a catastrophe?

I can't speak about the politics of Taiwan as that's a complex issue that I think there are better people suited to address it, but from a place of my craft, I can say the issues do fuel and influence my work. Taiwan's history is a complicated issue that I think is hard for Westerners to understand, because Taiwan is constantly eclipsed on the world stage. 

Real Taiwan is indigenous. It was the arrival of the Han Chinese, led by General Koxinga that turned the tides and it was what made Taiwan, "Chinese" so to speak. But that population assimilated and blended in with the native culture. My father's ancestors descended from China and my mother's people are of the Truku tribe. It's crazy because when I studied this I realized for the first time who I am is a direct result of that history. If not for the arrival of Koxinga (for better or for worse), I wouldn't be here.

But that history doesn't end there. It's further complicated by the fact that the Imperial Japanese took over Taiwan for 50 years. Then, after WWII, the Japanese left and it was taken over by the Chinese KMT party, an opposition to Mao's Communism. Now there's the Democratic Progressive Party that leads the government and is supposedly fighting for an independent Taiwan.

As a child my Taiwanese Chinese great grandmother on my father's side and my Truku indigenous grandmother on my mother's side lived during the Japanese occupation. They couldn't speak mandarin as it was banned from being spoken in public, so when they first met each other they spoke Japanese.

Was that confusing? Yeah, well that's Taiwan. A country that's trying to find its real identity for hundreds of years. That's how I've felt artistically. Do I keep drawing Batman and Daredevil? Or should I draw the things I'm really trying to say? Is there a place where different types of art can blend together in the comic industry? Is there space for someone like me? Maybe it doesn't matter, because just like Taiwan I keep going. I keep pushing forward in hopes that one day I have my own footing and gain the respect I deserve.

In 2028, will comics have morphed into a new format, so that single issues, ebooks, and other formats I am too old to figure out yet, meaning, you know more about making comics than many I know, do you perceive it all changing just from an art or story telling view?

Even though I make comics, I don't think I have a pulse on it like other more savvy business-minded folks do. But I can tell you that together with the internet and conventions it does feel as if being an indie comic creator is a legit path to go down. That's not knocking the traditional route, as I feel that's a whole other animal, but indie creation for me makes sense because it aligns with my life goals. I think that's the new path for creators. I think it used to be, "how do I make money doing comics" and now it's, "how do I make a living and how will comics be a part of my life". That last question opens up a myriad of possibilities for the artist. 

Are comics in fact selling as well as ever, but there is a malaise in the market from people saying I don't need immediate tpbs, 12 incentive covers, day one release digital copies and more?

Is that a problem or an opportunity? Why for either view?

I think the economics of comic making will always be in battle with the craft of comics making. According to my wife, with my own projects I tend to be more "European" with my approach, haha. I guess what she means by that is that I tend to create on a slower volume, choosing instead to focus on the quality instead of the quantity. And I definitely agree with her assessment.  Whether it's tbps or floppies, I create because I have a story to tell and I base the format on what I think is appropriate for the story. I'm sure there's better men out there who can make a more precise business decision on what the right format will be, but that exhausts me. For me, everything comes down to servicing the story. For example, I am working right now on a project with a friend and we've been talking about the business around it. At some point I stopped the conversation and asked, "I think we have a lot of options, but which one really helps us with creating this story?" That is more of my take on it.

Thank you Steven Yu!

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