The Eastern Edge

When Kentaro Takekuma entitled his parody of the Japanese comic book industry "Even a Monkey Can Draw Manga" and discussed the "Shonen Manga Plot Shish Kebob", I wonder if he knew that his analogy of the shonen comic book plot formula as an endless line shit-on-a-stick would eventually apply to the entire comic book creative process?

It's bad enough that so many of the latest serials, both boys comics and girls, look like they were done in Comic Studio in a lab by the same group of art school students following the same manual. But even the title of the parody "Even a Monkey Can Draw Manga" has become an eerily prophetic because now we have ComiPo! - where their motto is that comic creation is a breeze “even if you can’t draw!”
That's right, your don't have to draw - or shade, colour or even trace. The software does it all for you!
They call it a tool to allow "anyone to create high level comic books". I call it a computerized connect the dots for dummies and the bane of an industry that is already shockingly tolerant of boring, derivative, and sometimes downright horribly bad comics.

ComiPo! literally automates every single aspect of the creative process, including character design, plotting and sequencing. In other words, you don't have to have a creative bone in your body to squeeze out a big steaming pile of digital comic book pages.
There isn't any English on the website, but these videos say it all.

Call me old fashioned, but ComiPo! looks more like ComiFaux! to me!!

It's ironic, yet forehead-slappingly appropriate, that Takekuma was brought in by the ComiPo! developers as a consultant to help them create the software that will help further stifle originality, and undoubtedly make it possible for point-and-click trained monkeys to actually make comics.
Takekuma has been pimping ComiPo! and his involvement on his blog heavily, writing again just yesterday and linking to some pages produced with the ComiPo! beta on a moe blog.
That's Takekuma's business and there is nothing wrong with promoting your activities, but it makes his famous parody ring hollow to me now.

Despite what I may think of it now though, the hard truths in Takekuma's parody are still just that, true! Comics, especially those targeted at young boys and girls, are largely shit on a stick. But I think that just makes the good ones shine that much more brightly. Comics have survived relatively well and real creators never tapped out to the industry Juggernaut's relentless formula ground and pound.
However formula and derivative most comics may have become since the 80's, creators and their staff at least have still had to physically draw their comics. Sure many comic creators shamelessly trace backgrounds and use way too many speed lines, screentones and other bullcrap to get around drawing any detail. Sure some abuse every cliché manga motif in the book to cover up a lack of artistic chops too, but at least they still had to draw something!
In fairness - although I don't buy it - it can be argued fairly successfully that the lack of backgrounds and other detail is deliberate to put the emphasis on the characters. I'm not going to even get into that because there is too much to be said on both sides of the argument. However, whatever you happen to believe about that, at least these guys had to work hard to plot, write, design their characters and draw, ink and sometimes colour their comics, regardless of how skilled they were or whether they were following a formula or not. I think we can all agree on that.
If a creator was good their artistry would eventually shine through the confines of formula and they could earn the freedom to do what they really want to later. I think that's the case with comic books anywhere.

Although computer tools like Illustrator and everyman software packages like Comic Studio have made short cuts easier and opened the door for even more wannabe scrubs to get their foot in the door, I think up to now computer tools have been a good thing. Computer tools have made comic creation more accessible to people who have talent but maybe not the resources to get something off the ground, and saved artists hours of time on some of the more mundane and time consuming aspects of their work. There is a lot of crap pumped out of Comic Studio, but I think most people can still tell when someone is really good or is leaning on software to prop up a lack of talent. (And I should know, because I am currently experimenting with Comic Studio for that very reason! Although, I won't be trying to my work off as anything other other than me goofing around on my computer.)

More and more comics, both in Japan and North America, are beginning to have that glazed over look that computers tends to give art. I'm not a fan of the digital look for most comics, but I still think computer tools have been a good thing overall. However, like Piggy's glasses in Lord of the Flies, once clever, useful technological tools are rapidly becoming a means for talentless hacks to take the artistry out of the art of comic book creation and weaken it for the kill.
It's like someone pulling a gun in a fist fight and getting away with it when point-and-clickers who only need know the right mouse button from the left are even talked about in the same breath as artists who still put pen to paper. It's nuts that fast food crap like ComiPo! is being accepted so widely - and if you don't think it is, come to Japan and look around! Garbage pop-art that looks just like ComiPo! is everywhere!!

I admit that although I haven’t been much of an artist since junior high, I'm one of the first to bitch about shitty art in comic books. It is a graphic medium, after all. But as a former wannabe artist I'd support unpolished, mediocre or formula art that someone did their best to draw over some slick, computer processed cookie-cutter piece of shit belched out of a ComiPo! template any day!

Artists, please shoot this crap down with a salvo of originality and put the scrubs back in their places! I still believe the real comic book fans will eventually be on your side. For those of you who can write but can't really draw, please don't go down the ComiPo path to creative purgatory. Find an artist or just write regular books - you know, the kind without pictures. Remember those? Writing is an art too, albeit an under appreciated one.

Please! Just say "No!" to ComiFaux!