Where Art Nouveau Meets Manga
May 15, 2008By:
Indie comics are currently experiencing a huge renaissance and accumulating respect for their artistic value. Once considered a “low” art form by the larger art world, work from this genre now demands exhibits in leading museums.
Robert Crumb, the father of underground comics, is the first artist in this area whose drawings have commanded more than six-figure earnings at auction.
Students in art schools and university departments around the world today take the graphic-novel and comic genres very seriously and integrate elements, if not the entire discipline, into their work.
Local comic book artist and professional illustrator Hushicho works with an unusual fusion of art forms once airily dismissed and refused acknowledgment as fine art. He has stylized his line drawing in the manner of Art Nouveau masters Aubrey Beardsley and Alphonse Mucha — both of whom were once decried as merely decorative — with just a tiny bit of the best of Manga, the much-beloved Japanese style of comics art. His elegantly drawn characters live in languidly developed stories, based on both ancient Biblical and pagan mythologies. Knoxville Voice recently visited with Hushicho to discuss his work.
KV: Do you consider yourself more of an illustrator or a comic book artist?
H: I just say artist because I do so many things. I like to do illustrations for ads, and I like to do writing. I’ve published two novels so far and occasionally write articles for publications. I have a small studio where I do for-hire work.
KV: When I look at your work, I can see this battle between Art Nouveau and Manga.
H: I absolutely adore Art Nouveau. The first piece of art I ever fell in love with was by Alphonse Mucha. I think it is a real shame that Art Nouveau doesn’t get the attention it deserves in art history. I’ve also studied with some Japanese comic book artists — that was after I studied under an American one who was an inker. Japanese sequential art has a huge history that goes back for centuries. There is a lot of work that is seen in the West that are like archetypes, but there is also so much that is never seen by Americans that is really extraordinary, and there is no one, single style. It is really diverse.
KV: Where do you get your storylines? They aren’t like the classic American comic book “12-year-old boy fantasies,” about flying through the air and having powers and kicking someone’s butt who’s been picking on you.
H: Yes! And the girls with the huge hooters that defy gravity! In the 1990s, the idea of comics telling a deeper story really sort of hit. There were comics before then that were different and not all superheroes, but a lot of them were marginalized. Most of mine are based on traditional folklore or legend, but I try to give it my own personal twist. My Pandemonium Renaissance series is a leisurely paced comic adventure that is supposed to relax the reader. The premise is that what we know as hell is actually quite a nice place. But unfortunately, the last 2,000 years of PR have been very bad for their tourist industry.
KV: No spandex, capes and violence?
H: Oh, definitely not!
KV: Tell me about your process and what media you use.
H: I usually use a good stock of paper and a mechanical pencil for most of my basic sketches. I’ll set down the pencil, and it will be kind of rough, and then I’ll ink over it. I usually do colors on the computer with a graphics tablet. The individual strokes you use are like painting it. I have (the file) set to different layers. I’ll do, say, the hair on one layer, and other parts on another layer. If they were all on the same layer, they would interfere with each other too much. The graphics tablet, I’d say, is the best investment I’ve made. It’s an older one: a Graphire lll. I got it cheap — about $60. It was worth every penny.
KV: You also do Tarot readings. Have you ever wanted to design Tarot cards?
H: Yes! I have wanted very much to do that, but I just haven’t found a good place to print them. One day, I will!
KV: What would you say is the erotic level of some of your work?
H: I’m not sure — some of it can be erotic, but a lot of it is more sensual, and I think that is a distinction that has been lost in the modern world.
Hushicho often displays his work at Temple, Knoxville’s alternative dance night, where he also does his Tarot readings. His work is also online at www.hushicho.captainn.net.
