Here at Beyond TV Safety it's time, once again, to clean out the old mailbox. Thanks to those of you who wrote me with some intelligent questions. And thanks to those of you who wrote me with the list of knock knock jokes. That was funny for about five minutes.

But enough babble (I do enough of that later in this column!), on to the mail!

Dear Mr. Frazier,

Are there any schools in the USA that teach animation, illustration or other art in an anime/manga style?

—Robert T.

Dear Robert,

No. The style and production methods of anime are unique to Japan and there is nowhere outside Japan that you can learn them in a school. For that matter, the anime art style (as it is) is not taught even in Japan. There is no class that teaches you how to draw eyes or anime style fashion—that's purely a design feature. You can learn about drawing the human form but nobody teaches drawing the human form in an anime style, which is as it should be because styles change but the core concept of the human body doesn't. (At least not very quickly.) Thus, the animation training you get in Japan and the USA is roughly the same in an artistic sense and either could be applied to the other. The big difference comes in production methods. The Japanese work with much, much smaller budgets than their American contemporaries do so they have developed a very streamlined production system.
Be very wary of anyone in the West saying that they work in or teach anime style art. If they worked in Japan as a key animator (genga) or higher for more than 4 years in then they would be qualified to teach. I read that there is someone doing seminars or courses on the history of anime and that might be rather interesting.
That being said, there is very little that you could learn in a school that you can't learn on your own. The best you can do in school is to learn about the great artists of the past and their methods and get some idea of what motivated them. It is absolutely impossible to learn to be an artist in a school. Can't happen. You can get access to various materials that you otherwise wouldn't, like lithograph stones and such, but the tools do not make the artist. If you think, "Well I'm not a good artist now but I could be if I went to school," you're doomed from the start. Americans are particularly prone to an unreasonable belief that in order to even approach something someone must take a course about it or go to school for it. Perhaps that's true of engineering and medicine but not of art. If education was to function in all cases to help open doorways then it would be useful but in most cases it does not. This is not so much the failure of the education system as it is of the student not understanding how to learn in the first place.
I never hire art school graduates because most of the time their "education" gets in the way of their creativity and ingenuity. I would much rather hire someone who taught themselves how to draw by copying others artwork and then developing their own style. Most of the really good anime artists did not go to art school.

Gentlemen,
[This one was obviously sent to the wrong place!!! —:SF]

I want to get into the manga industry because manga artists sell a lot more than comic artists in the USA do, they have more freedom to do what they want and they're much more respected in Japan. Please send any information you have that might help.

—Future Manga Guy

Guy,

Although weekly manga can have very high circulation the individual artists do not necessarily make that much. The artists don't really make decent money until the tankoubon (collected volumes) are released. If you have a hit then you can do pretty well but there aren't that many strong hits. And there are a LOT of other manga artists trying for that hit. Keep in mind that in order to get your manga published you usually have to sign the entire thing away to the publisher before they'll consider taking it on.
Manga artists have editors who keep them in line and on track. The editor is almost always assigned by the publisher as they are the owner of the manga product. (Without editors the manga industry would probably collapse under the weight of 750 books a month based purely on odd sexual fetishes being examined in detail.)
As for manga artists being respected in Japan, if they are in the top 10% then perhaps they are. Otherwise your potential in-laws will strongly discourage your potential spouse from even being (potentially) near you. Can't get a visa, can't get a loan, and landlords are very wary about renting to you if you say you're a manga artist.

Dear TV Safetyman,

I can't seem to get a decent batch of chocolate chip cookies made. Everyone harasses me all the time and says they love my (substandard) recipe but there must be something better.

—Martha

Dear Martha,

Back again, eh? We're always happy to see you here. The problem you are having is with vanilla. You should buy decent (pure) vanilla extract and refrigerate it before use so that while cooking the taste doesn't break down, which it will quickly do above 300° F. You could try imitation vanilla which has a much higher evaporation point. More importantly, you need to TRIPLE the amount of vanilla you have in the recipe in your cookbooks. That will give you a much richer flavor.