firehose

In the overwhelmingly male comic book industry, it has been a challenge for some editors and readers to see the ever growing number of talented women currently trying to make a name for themselves. With that in mind, ComicsAlliance offers Hire This Woman, a recurring feature designed for comics readers as well as editors and other professionals, where we shine the spotlight on a female comics pro on the ascendance. Some of these women will be at the very beginning of their careers, while others will be more experienced but not yet “household names.”

This week, our featured cartoonist is Jane Mai.  Mai has a BFA in Illustration and has published Sunday in the Park with Boys with Koyama Press and Pond Smelt with Peow!  On her projects, she does everything from writing to lettering (and everything in between).

ComicsAlliance: Which is your preferred form of creative output?

Jane Mai: I like painting. Technically it’s just inking but I like doing dry brush with ink.

CA: Do you work on paper or digitally?  Why?

JM: Staples has these cheap cardstock in packs of, like, 500 sheets and they come in pastel colors and neon colors and plain white and I have a whole bunch of them that I draw on, because I like the texture. I feel like ink brushstrokes are hard to capture in photoshop brushes and look really inorganic. But I like to color in photoshop because I can usually never make up my mind about anything and it’s easy to switch things around.

CA: What’s your background/training?

JM: I went to Pratt Institute and got a BFA in Illustration.

CA: How would you describe your creative style?

JM: Lethargic.

CA: What projects have you worked on in the past? What are you currently working on?

JM: Sunday in the Park with Boys was my first book with Koyama Press, and recently Peow! published Pond Smelt. I’ve been told both are really sad.

CA: Approximately how long does it take you to create a 20-page issue?

JM: It really depends on what materials I’m using and how I’m coloring it, if at all, and prepping it for print.

CA: What is your dream project?

JM: A really, really, really hefty book. About anything. Just something really substantial to hold in your hand.

CA: Who are some comic creators that inspire you?

JM: I think the most apparent inspiration is David Heatley. You can really tell in my older comics. Lately I’ve been really into Jason’s stuff, work with really clean line work. Michael DeForge has really nice line work. I also really like Shintaro Kago because he’s ridiculous. I think knowing a lot of people that draw comics helps a lot, seeing them producing and working all the time makes me want to not be lazy. I have a full list of people on my Tumblr.

CA: What are some comics that have inspired you either growing up or as an adult?

JM: I’ve read a lot of Amazing Spider-Man and Batman and Superman when they were still kinda goofy dudes and it kind of gave me this bearing on pacing action and dialogue, since so much stuff happens in every page. Then I started to buy random back issues of superhero comics when they were on sale, like five for a dollar, and read them all in an hour and just toss them in a corner. I can’t really get into it now. I really liked Tintin, though. The lettering is really nice. But I think mostly I’m inspired by David Heatley, who draws these really toilet humor things, and guro manga, which on the other hand is really horrible but beautiful.

CA: What’s your ideal professional environment?

JM: A cabin in the woods hundreds of miles away from everybody. I would live there with a bunch of cats and just draw comics and put them on the internet.

CA: What do you most want our readers and industry professionals to know about your work?

JM: Not all of it is sad! But also not all of it is gross.

CA: How can editors and readers keep up with your work and find your contact information?

JM: I have a website and a Tumblr. I also tweet a lot of nonsense.

So its been a while but I rediscovered my physical copy of Blue Rose -- and then I rediscovered my PDFs of it and the subsequent books...

Is anyone still playing this game ( or perhaps I should say is anyone still 'living' in the Blue Rose universe. I love it, and what it stands for but hte overly squeeky clean white washed Aldis made my teeth hurt. ( it took all the things I... felt sometimes Romantic fantasy does WRONG- i.e. overly Politically Correct, turns it up to 100, and then says 'The other places are 'not nice'..)

Anyone else want to de-white wash it and maybe play a game of Blue Rose? Perhaps dirty it up a smidgen, or run it through from sepia filters? Or perhaps create a new similar universe that's less... 'clean in one place' but mimics the more modern idea of Game of Thrones-- where everything is shades of grey?

Maybe introduce a bit of HeroQuest or Hillfolk?(the Robin D Laws version?) Or draw from it and create something unique on its own?

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Friday's report that RSA received $10 million to make an NSA-favored random number generator the default setting in its BSAFE crypto tool aren't yet creating any problems on Wall Street, with stock for parent company EMC rising two percent on Monday. That doesn't mean the revelations don't have important public relations fallout for the encryption software maker.

On Monday, Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer of Finland-based antivirus provider F-Secure, publicly canceled the talk he was scheduled to deliver at the RSA Conference USA 2014, which is slated for February. A highly sought-after security researcher who regularly speaks at Black Hat, Defcon, Hack in the Box, in addition to the more mainstream Ted and South by Southwest conferences, Hypponen said his cancellation was in protest of the recently revealed $10 million contract to make the NSA-influenced Dual EC_DRBG BSAFE's default pseudo random number generator (PRNG). Hypponen also cited RSA's decision to keep Dual EC_DRBG the default PRNG for more than five years after serious vulnerabilities were uncovered in it and Monday's non-denying denial from RSA in response to Friday's report from the Reuters news agency.

"I don’t really expect your multibillion dollar company or your multimillion dollar conference to suffer as a result of your deals with the NSA," Hypponen wrote in an open letter to Joseph M. Tucci and Art Coviello, the CEO of EMC and the executive chairman of RSA respectively. "In fact, I'm not expecting other conference speakers to cancel. Most of your speakers are American anyway–why would they care about surveillance that's not targeted at them but at non-Americans. Surveillance operations from the US intelligence agencies are targeted at foreigners. However I'm a foreigner. And I'm withdrawing my support from your event."