Critics Roundtable: Derek Kirk Kim (original) (raw)
Pages 1|2Derek Kirk Kim A Critics Roundtable Conducted by William G. Introduction:Within the last year, Derek Kirk Kim has done what few in the world of comics, web or print, have done: He has won the triple crown of a Harvey, Eisner and Ignatz for his his print collection of web-based comics "Same Difference and Other Stories". And he did it all with a Xeric grant and a bucket full of talent.So, we here at the Webcomics Examiner thought it would be a good time to get together and take a look at Mr. Kim, his works, and his achievements. Joining me are Neal Von Flue, Shaenon Garrity, A. G. Hopkins, Mike Meginnis, Michael Whitney, and Joe Zabel.Personally, my interest in Derek Kirk Kim came after reading his short piece "The Shaft". I emailed him about how much his story reflected my own experiences teaching English in Korea, and how he inspired me to start making my own webcomics. He very kindly emailed me back offering a lot of information and encouragement.At the time I had little idea of just how popular he was, and in retrospect, I was lucky to receive that level of feedback from him. From all reports Kim is just that sort of keen guy. I always appreciated that he took that time to help a nobody like myself. For that reason, I suggested this discussion topic to the staff here. _As we go on, you may see a few provocative remarks from me. They're just there to stimulate discussion, don't take them seriously. --William G._-------- William G.: One of the problems in discussing Derek's art is that he one of the more gifted artists working today. One can see this in the various bits of off the cuff sort of pieces by him. His current sketchy-looking works are more solid than most webcartoonists "A" material. One gets the impression that if he really wanted to, he could eat all of us for breakfast at the art table and spit out little eraser bits. Which, for me anyway, makes it hard to critique the visual aspect of his work.If there's any true flaw I can see, it's that there is a massive reliance on pity for his characters. They're all losers. As well, there is a tone of cynicism (that is almost fury) that runs through everything he does. Even in the more humorous works like Half Empty, and Ungrateful Appreciation there's a lot of anger. But this has never been more clear than in his post Same Difference work. The Ten Commandments of Simon, for example.So, this leads me to ask, is Derek Kirk Kim a one trick pony? Do you think he relies on this too much in his work? It's been quite successful for him thus far, but do you think it could become a weight around his neck? Joe Zabel: I suspect you're just trying to provoke a healthy debate with the 'one trick pony' line, Bill. But submerged anger is an important aspect of Kim's work, I think. Last issue I wrote about what I thought was submerged anger towards the Maiden in Kim's comic The Maiden and the Water Spirit.In other stories like The Shaft and My Sistine Chapel, Kim owns up to resentment of the opposite sex in a straightforward way that wins our sympathy. One of the convenient things about auto-biographical work is that it puts things in a real context where we can judge them appropriately. The way "Kathy Witherland" exploits him in My Sistine Chapel is credible, and his anger is proportional to the crime.But a symbolic story like The Maiden and the Water Spirit can be far more troubling because you sense something beyond the consciously-recognized anger. There's a mystery to it-- you don't know how deeply that anger is felt, or whether there's any forgiveness swimming around down there. One story in particular is a really interesting take on submerged anger -- Hurdles. The character (presumably Kim himself) is confronted by a racial slur aimed at him by his track coach. But he doesn't react directly to it-- he simply departs from the playing field and heads home. One hopes that the coach comprehends his quitting the team as a slap in the face, but there's probably little chance of that. Instead, the closing line, 'I jump hurdles every day,' suggests that racism is just another obstacle that the character must overcome in order to get on with his life. Mike Meginnis: I think that something we have to consider in this instance is the autobiographical nature of the majority of Kim's work. When an artist is working with characters who resemble him so strongly, I think it's natural that they end up sharing a lot of his character flaws, and in turn, the trials and tribulations that brought these flaws about.J.D. Salinger made an entire career of doing this with white, spiritually frustrated, manic-depressive, wildly idealistic WASPs -- an unlikely combination indeed! If he can do that and be hailed as one of this century's greatest literary minds, it would feel a little odd to criticize Derek Kirk Kim for repeating himself thematically in this way. At least his repetition is plausible: if he's going to be telling stories about young, sensitive, intelligent, Asian men in America -- and I hope he is -- then probably most of those stories are going to have an at least somewhat bitter undercurrent in common.Having to deal with anti-intellectualism, human insensitivity, and racism on top of all the shit everybody on Earth has to deal with does not sound like my idea of a good time.In recording the experiences of a marginalized subset of the population, you're bound to see repetition. So I don't see Kim as a "one trick pony." He's working within limitations he's set for himself, is all. That's certainly a legitimate decision. So far the results have been almost uniformly compelling. I think -- or I hope, it's difficult to tell the difference when it comes to forecasting the future -- that he will have the good judgment to distance himself from this kind of repetition before it becomes stale. Joe Zabel: Well, to some extent I do think his recent work has been repetitious in hitting upon this can't-get-a-date theme. What I liked so much about Same Difference was that it explored the personal lives of several characters who were quite different from each other; and it dealt with morale choices, rather than the frustration of things in life we can't do much about, like anxiety about our body shapes. One should exercise caution in assuming that Kim's work is autobiographical. For instance, in Half Empty, the character drops out of art school, applies unsuccessfully for a job at Marble Comics, then sits around watching TV until his parents lose patience with him. But from his website essays I gather that after Kim dropped out, he immediately launched into six months of intensive work to produce three issues of Cells for Antarctic Press. And on his message board, he takes pains to debunk assumptions about The Ten Commandments of Simon: "Hey, guys? Could you do me this one little teeny tiny favor? STOP CALLING ME SIMON!!! Me= Derek Kirk Kim. Fictional character=Simon Moore. All clear? Cool."Mike Meginnis: Let me append the autobiographical statement, then: there are varying degrees of autobiography. Coming from a music writing background, I tend to forget people don't think of these things the way I do. Derek Kirk Kim is certainly creating fictional characters, but he does it in the way that most singer/songwriters tend to -- these fictional people are characters who he could effortlessly portray in a stage-play. The ambiguity inherent here, the inability to tell where the fictional character exists on its own and where it is building on the life of a real person, lends Kim's work a distinct authenticity. If a one-shot character so much as looks vaguely like him, we catch ourselves mistaking them for a real person.This may be intentional. This may be why he makes his characters look and sound so much like his portrayal of himself. It may be a problem created in our perceptions of his sometimes race-oriented work as participants in a racist culture. I'm not sure. Shaenon Garrity: Also, Simon is a virgin. Heh heh.Despite this, I can understand the confusion, since Derek's protagonists tend to be a LOT like Derek. William G.: Ooo! Shaenon's got dirt! Dish sister, dish! Seriously though Shaenon, since you actually know him, how much of him does get put on paper? Is he just basing his characters on aspects of his own experiences like Mike suggests? Personally, I can't see a good looking fellow like that as being unable to get a date. Shaenon Garrity: Augh! I can't dish dirt on Derek! He'd find out and totally get embarrassed! Even though he completely got up my nose last night by giving us the wrong address for the pizza place he wanted to go to because he's too lazy to walk like FIVE BLOCKS to North Beach, and we ended up wandering all over the Union Square neighborhood looking for the damn restaurant, which he couldn't remember the name of. And then when we got there he spent most of dinner talking about underpants and teabagging.Ahem. What were we talking about? Oh, yeah -- whether Derek is anything like his comics.I think, more than anything, Derek uses his work to exaggerate his own negative qualities. In reality he is popular, sociable, and charming, and he does occasionally have girlfriends. As any cartoonist who knows him can attest, he does a lot to support people in the comics community, and he's equally active in the local Asian-American arts community. He's a perfectionist who works intensely hard at the things that are important to him. None of these features are apparent in Derek's comic-book version of himself, that nerdy, antisocial slacker who never gets laid. However, Derek shares his protagonists' intelligence, their bizarre and cynical sense of humor, and, above all, their endless neuroses. Many elements in his comics do seem to stem directly from his life. Random example: I saw "The Two Towers" with Derek, and afterwards he commented that he and Gollum had the same body. A few days later, "The Ten Commandments of Simon" featured a panel of Simon with a grotesque "Gollum-like physique." And, brother, anybody who looks like Derek and can say with a straight face that he thinks he resembles Gollum has some serious issues.I do worry that he'll eventually end up like Robert Crumb and degenerate into his own self-caricature. Not that this would be really bad for Derek. But we'll miss him when he moves to his villa in France to do art books of sexy Emo girls. William G: Let's go with the Crumb comparison for a minute. What is it about Derek Kirk Kim's work that has kept him from having accusations of hating women thrown at him like it has been thrown at Crumb? We can agree that there is anger in his work, and it seems to revolve around women.Is it that sense of restraint and perspective that Shaenon points out? Is it his damned fine art skills? Simply not being as famous as Crumb yet? Is it just that the modern comic audience are able to separate the artist from the tales they tell? Joe Zabel: Regarding the Crumb comparison, Kim's work is entirely different in tone. Crumb portrays women as sexual objects, to an extreme extent that seems aimed at parody but apparently is also sexual gratifying for the artist (by his own account.) Crumb's women typically don't have fully-developed characters. They do sometimes have, however, a fearsome power-- his 'Devil Girl,' for instance, could no doubt break him in two and dribble him like a basketball.Kim, on the other hand, is portraying women more or less realistically, although sometimes as if they're viewed from afar. In Half Empty, the fashion art students the boys watch at the next table may be somewhat stuck up, but maybe they just have good taste. There's one panel in the sequence that shows one of the illustration students' fantasies about the fashion students as anime girls with stereotypical asian come-ons like "Me love you long time." But that's a case of Crumb once-removed; we're observing a guy having a Crumb-like fantasy.Furthermore, Kim often portrays women as sympathetic, three-dimensional characters. Why I Love Helen #42, for instance, portrays the tomboy fantasy of his best friend. In half empty, the red-headed girl, Yumi has an amiable and assertive personality that we get intriguing glimpses of. The scene where they arm-wrestle over a jar of gesso is a shrewd snapshot of sexual politics-- he has the greater physical strength, but she cunningly lays down the rules in a way that insures her victory.And don't forget Nancy from Same Difference-- the story is basically half hers, and she is portrayed as funny, intelligent, reckless, cruel and yet compassionate. She's not a sexual object-- in fact, the story implies that she has trouble attracting boys. William G: Joe, do you think it's the level of sexualization that makes a difference?Joe Zabel: No, I think it's the characterization that makes the difference. I'm not sure how to define 'sexualization'-- do you mean exaggeration of anatomy in order to excite the male viewer? Kim's female characters are more three-dimensional and more sympathetic. I'm not sure that they're 'sexualized' at all. William G: Well, I don't mean sexualization in the simple manner that the female characters have large breasts. More in the attitude that a woman is there for a man to drop off some DNA, and not useful for much else. Mike Meginnis: When Kim writes a comic where a girl is giving oral sex to a man, he ejaculates, and the semen shoots out of her nostrils in cartoonish jets, the comparison will be something to worry about.Until then, there's a quote I like deploying every now and then, lest we forget what kind of world we are living in. As Mr. Gone would remind us, with his teeth clenched, a guttural growl rumbling through their tight, tiny gaps, "EVERYONE HAS A PROBLEM WITH WOMEN!!!" Shaenon Garrity: That [comic] would be totally awesome. The thing is, he'd make it look cute.I'm still waiting for Derek to come out with his "My Troubles With Women," since sex seems to be one of the central problems of his life and work (but isn't that true of everybody?). The closest he's come has been "The Ten Commandments of Simon," but even that self-indulgent meditation on striking out lays most of the blame for Simon's problems at Simon's own feet. Derek shows a series of women harshly turning Simon down, but they all have legitimate reasons -- one's in a relationship, one's eight years old, and there's those adorable 69-ing lesbians -- and the point of the sequence is that Simon's at fault for deliberately seeking out unattainable women. Another perceptive bit shows Simon ending a relationship himself, then playing guitar in a cafe and singing a sad song about the woman who "left him." We've all known guys like that. Hell, at some point we've all *been* guys like that. Beyond that, Derek is amazingly good at writing women. Handling characters of the opposite sex is usually difficult for writers (especially, it must be said, male writers), but it's one of Derek's major strengths. His female characters have distinctive voices and personalities, not to mention a lot of charm. Most people would probably agree that Nancy is his most memorable and fully-fleshed character to date. I told Derek once that he wrote great female characters, and he answered, "I just write them like men." I don't think that's strictly true, but it gets to the heart of why Derek is so good at handling female characters: he approaches them with the same thoughtfulness, curiosity, and humor as the male characters.In general, Derek's work doesn't come off as angry at women, but more at his own inability to deal with women in the way he'd like. Sometimes his characters are angry at women, but the authorial voice generally has a sense of perspective. I hope that he continues to develop this sense of perspective, rather than slipping into self-denigration and/or misogyny, like Crumb. A. G. Hopkins: I thought Joe had sufficiently debunked the 'angry at women' concept with Kim, so I didn't reply. Shaenon has also, to my mind, sufficiently debunked it as well.Just to go on record though, I don't think Kim is angry with women, nor does he draw or characterize them as any more evil, mean-spirited, bitter or shallow than his male characters. William G.: Is there anything in his work that he needs to improve? A. G. Hopkins: I'd like to point out something minor which I've noticed. Shaenon touched on it briefly, but I thought it was worth more attention.Derek's work in Same Differences especially, as Shaenon noted, is cinematic in nature. He does like making his work like a Woody Allen movie, as she says, and as he has stated elsewhere. Kim's backgrounds are so much more an active part of the work than any other comic artist out there that I can think of. They aren't just detailed, although the detail is amazing and meticulous. They play along with the actors and the story. The details speak to the reader about the story and provide atmosphere and character. The close-up shot of stacks of Lucerne Sour Cream give the character of the grocery store, and even of the small beach town better than any amount of exposition, even the wide angle shot of Pacifica, which is so perfectly captured with those delicately lined clouds. The various shots of the sun during the day play to the characters emotions.So many times backgrounds are little more than filler. Just something to give a little depth to the strip, areas to fill in with something, anything, or perhaps an opportunity for the artist to show some in-jokes, or little jabs or credits to other artists. Kim's backgrounds are almost as important to the story as his characters are. Part of what makes his work so incredible is his complete and competent use of every tool at his disposal. Mike Meginnis: His art is more or less perfect, so I guess he could improve his writing. But while he's not a perfect writer, his deft execution generally leaves little room for complaint. This is disorienting -- I'm usually so good at thinking of things I don't like about an artist's work.I guess I'd like to see him doing more stories like Super Unleaded and Pulling now that he's a better writer. The aforementioned stories were smart, good, powerful stuff, but they were a little stilted, too. You could feel him pushing them along as a writer even though they were meant to be very natural, gradually forming narratives like our own lives. His writing definitely improved with Same Difference, but ever since he hasn't really challenged himself the way he used to. The Maiden and the River Spirit may be artistically miles ahead of anything we've seen from him before, but on the other hand, it was probably the easiest thing he ever had to write. Black Harvest had good ideas, but it seemed to rush through them rather quickly -- almost like a recap of a story he had already told us. It's difficult to resolve little details like the Garfield strip the comic mentions with the narrative's breakneck pace. Joe Zabel: Finding fault isn't the best way to go about assessing somebody's work. It's better to form an understanding of the heart and soul of a work and its greatest strengths, and only then to try to figure out how it may be getting compromised by some poor choices the artist makes. That said, I find Half Empty to be Kim's least satisfying work. It attempts to be a long-form work, but it's focused too narrowly on the Andy character. It introduces a cast of school friends for Andy, and then abruptly he's dropped out of school and doesn't see them any more. The story even has to resort to a flashback to explain the background for Andy's interest in the redheaded girl.And then, of course, the entire story so far is discarded as Andy is apparently abducted by aliens! I'm assuming that Kim wrote this scene to effectively kill the story and put it out of its misery.I find the more cartoony style he uses here a bit off-putting, especially since he indulges in a lot of over-the-top scenes that shatter any sense of verisimilitude. That scene where he discovers that the redheaded girl likes him is like something out of a Jim Carrey movie!The story is insightful about Andy's situation, though, and contains many memorable scenes, particularly the scene I mentioned before where the redheaded girl arm-wrestles him for the gesso. And you gotta love the skewering he gives the superhero industry in the "Marble Comics" scene. Shaenon Garrity: "Half Empty" is supposed to go in a completely different direction than the installments so far indicate. I don't know if Derek will ever finish it, though; he was trying to sell it to a print publisher a while back, but I think that fell through. It's actually one of my favorite DKK comics, despite the whiplash changes in focus, largely because of the charming cartoony art and the fact that it's very different from his other work. Oh, and he drew characters from my comic into the background of one panel. That sort of thing is liable to win me over.It's fairly ambitious in its scope and in the variety of material Derek would have to draw, and he might not be ready to tackle something this lengthy. He's never finished any comics project longer than "Same Difference." A. G. Hopkins: I want to comment briefly on the 'women as bitter/evil,' in regards to The Maiden and the Water Spirit. Joe and I have different ideas about this particular story. My particular fancy is that Derek has gifted the Water Spirit with a terrible naivete. While the Maiden is materialistic and greedy, she isn't particularly evil. Also, one character does not make a theme. So, I still hold to my position that Kim is just really good at writing characters with flaws.Someone mentioned that Kim's biggest failing is his lack of polish in writing, even though that failing is minor. I think this is best shown in the Water Spirit and the Maiden, and to a lesser extent in SD, in that the intent is not as clear as we would perhaps like it to be. It's possible for Joe and I to each have fairly widely differing opinions about the two main characters, and be essentially unable to resolve the difference without commentary from Kim. Unless this is done specifically to leave the tale open to interpretation, it is a failing of that most basic element of writing; clear communication. In SD, it's widely assumed that Nancy is, in fact, fessing up to her part in the deception, but it is also arguable that she's merely continuing it by writing as Sara, and ending the relationship to let herself out, and to release Ben. While this failure to communicate the preferred vision clearly can be seen as a failure, it can also be one of the most enjoyable aspects of a good story. I think a large part of Kim's appeal is the mystery of his stories, and the possibilities for discussion they present. Joe Zabel: A. G., I don't agree that the ambiguousness of The Maiden and The Water Spirit is a failing. I think it's the story's greatest strength.I also don't agree with Mike M. earlier that the script was an example of facile writing. Kim obviously labored over the script to create a convincing replica of storybook phraseology. "As she knelt by the water's edge lamenting her loss, the River Spirit appeared and asked her the cause of her distress." That kind of lingo doesn't come naturally to a streetwise kid from Korea.Personally I think the story is one of his finest pieces. Proceed to Page 2Read This ComicHomeFeaturesGlossaryForumRSS
Introduction: Within the last year, Derek Kirk Kim has done what few in the world of comics, web or print, have done: He has won the triple crown of a Harvey, Eisner and Ignatz for his his print collection of web-based comics "Same Difference and Other Stories". And he did it all with a Xeric grant and a bucket full of talent. So, we here at the Webcomics Examiner thought it would be a good time to get together and take a look at Mr. Kim, his works, and his achievements. Joining me are Neal Von Flue, Shaenon Garrity, A. G. Hopkins, Mike Meginnis, Michael Whitney, and Joe Zabel. Personally, my interest in Derek Kirk Kim came after reading his short piece "The Shaft". I emailed him about how much his story reflected my own experiences teaching English in Korea, and how he inspired me to start making my own webcomics. He very kindly emailed me back offering a lot of information and encouragement. At the time I had little idea of just how popular he was, and in retrospect, I was lucky to receive that level of feedback from him. From all reports Kim is just that sort of keen guy. I always appreciated that he took that time to help a nobody like myself. For that reason, I suggested this discussion topic to the staff here. _As we go on, you may see a few provocative remarks from me. They're just there to stimulate discussion, don't take them seriously. --William G._-------- William G.: One of the problems in discussing Derek's art is that he one of the more gifted artists working today. One can see this in the various bits of off the cuff sort of pieces by him. His current sketchy-looking works are more solid than most webcartoonists "A" material. One gets the impression that if he really wanted to, he could eat all of us for breakfast at the art table and spit out little eraser bits. Which, for me anyway, makes it hard to critique the visual aspect of his work.If there's any true flaw I can see, it's that there is a massive reliance on pity for his characters. They're all losers. As well, there is a tone of cynicism (that is almost fury) that runs through everything he does. Even in the more humorous works like Half Empty, and Ungrateful Appreciation there's a lot of anger. But this has never been more clear than in his post Same Difference work. The Ten Commandments of Simon, for example.So, this leads me to ask, is Derek Kirk Kim a one trick pony? Do you think he relies on this too much in his work? It's been quite successful for him thus far, but do you think it could become a weight around his neck? Joe Zabel: I suspect you're just trying to provoke a healthy debate with the 'one trick pony' line, Bill. But submerged anger is an important aspect of Kim's work, I think. Last issue I wrote about what I thought was submerged anger towards the Maiden in Kim's comic The Maiden and the Water Spirit.In other stories like The Shaft and My Sistine Chapel, Kim owns up to resentment of the opposite sex in a straightforward way that wins our sympathy. One of the convenient things about auto-biographical work is that it puts things in a real context where we can judge them appropriately. The way "Kathy Witherland" exploits him in My Sistine Chapel is credible, and his anger is proportional to the crime.But a symbolic story like The Maiden and the Water Spirit can be far more troubling because you sense something beyond the consciously-recognized anger. There's a mystery to it-- you don't know how deeply that anger is felt, or whether there's any forgiveness swimming around down there. 
One story in particular is a really interesting take on submerged anger -- Hurdles. The character (presumably Kim himself) is confronted by a racial slur aimed at him by his track coach. But he doesn't react directly to it-- he simply departs from the playing field and heads home. One hopes that the coach comprehends his quitting the team as a slap in the face, but there's probably little chance of that. Instead, the closing line, 'I jump hurdles every day,' suggests that racism is just another obstacle that the character must overcome in order to get on with his life. Mike Meginnis: I think that something we have to consider in this instance is the autobiographical nature of the majority of Kim's work. When an artist is working with characters who resemble him so strongly, I think it's natural that they end up sharing a lot of his character flaws, and in turn, the trials and tribulations that brought these flaws about.J.D. Salinger made an entire career of doing this with white, spiritually frustrated, manic-depressive, wildly idealistic WASPs -- an unlikely combination indeed! If he can do that and be hailed as one of this century's greatest literary minds, it would feel a little odd to criticize Derek Kirk Kim for repeating himself thematically in this way. At least his repetition is plausible: if he's going to be telling stories about young, sensitive, intelligent, Asian men in America -- and I hope he is -- then probably most of those stories are going to have an at least somewhat bitter undercurrent in common.Having to deal with anti-intellectualism, human insensitivity, and racism on top of all the shit everybody on Earth has to deal with does not sound like my idea of a good time.In recording the experiences of a marginalized subset of the population, you're bound to see repetition. So I don't see Kim as a "one trick pony." He's working within limitations he's set for himself, is all. That's certainly a legitimate decision. So far the results have been almost uniformly compelling. I think -- or I hope, it's difficult to tell the difference when it comes to forecasting the future -- that he will have the good judgment to distance himself from this kind of repetition before it becomes stale. Joe Zabel: Well, to some extent I do think his recent work has been repetitious in hitting upon this can't-get-a-date theme. What I liked so much about Same Difference was that it explored the personal lives of several characters who were quite different from each other; and it dealt with morale choices, rather than the frustration of things in life we can't do much about, like anxiety about our body shapes. One should exercise caution in assuming that Kim's work is autobiographical. For instance, in Half Empty, the character drops out of art school, applies unsuccessfully for a job at Marble Comics, then sits around watching TV until his parents lose patience with him. But from his website essays I gather that after Kim dropped out, he immediately launched into six months of intensive work to produce three issues of Cells for Antarctic Press.
And on his message board, he takes pains to debunk assumptions about The Ten Commandments of Simon: "Hey, guys? Could you do me this one little teeny tiny favor? STOP CALLING ME SIMON!!! Me= Derek Kirk Kim. Fictional character=Simon Moore. All clear? Cool." Mike Meginnis: Let me append the autobiographical statement, then: there are varying degrees of autobiography. Coming from a music writing background, I tend to forget people don't think of these things the way I do. Derek Kirk Kim is certainly creating fictional characters, but he does it in the way that most singer/songwriters tend to -- these fictional people are characters who he could effortlessly portray in a stage-play. The ambiguity inherent here, the inability to tell where the fictional character exists on its own and where it is building on the life of a real person, lends Kim's work a distinct authenticity. If a one-shot character so much as looks vaguely like him, we catch ourselves mistaking them for a real person.This may be intentional. This may be why he makes his characters look and sound so much like his portrayal of himself. It may be a problem created in our perceptions of his sometimes race-oriented work as participants in a racist culture. I'm not sure. Shaenon Garrity: Also, Simon is a virgin. Heh heh.Despite this, I can understand the confusion, since Derek's protagonists tend to be a LOT like Derek. William G.: Ooo! Shaenon's got dirt! Dish sister, dish! Seriously though Shaenon, since you actually know him, how much of him does get put on paper? Is he just basing his characters on aspects of his own experiences like Mike suggests? Personally, I can't see a good looking fellow like that as being unable to get a date. Shaenon Garrity: Augh! I can't dish dirt on Derek! He'd find out and totally get embarrassed! Even though he completely got up my nose last night by giving us the wrong address for the pizza place he wanted to go to because he's too lazy to walk like FIVE BLOCKS to North Beach, and we ended up wandering all over the Union Square neighborhood looking for the damn restaurant, which he couldn't remember the name of. And then when we got there he spent most of dinner talking about underpants and teabagging.Ahem. What were we talking about? Oh, yeah -- whether Derek is anything like his comics.I think, more than anything, Derek uses his work to exaggerate his own negative qualities. In reality he is popular, sociable, and charming, and he does occasionally have girlfriends. As any cartoonist who knows him can attest, he does a lot to support people in the comics community, and he's equally active in the local Asian-American arts community. He's a perfectionist who works intensely hard at the things that are important to him. None of these features are apparent in Derek's comic-book version of himself, that nerdy, antisocial slacker who never gets laid. 
However, Derek shares his protagonists' intelligence, their bizarre and cynical sense of humor, and, above all, their endless neuroses. Many elements in his comics do seem to stem directly from his life. Random example: I saw "The Two Towers" with Derek, and afterwards he commented that he and Gollum had the same body. A few days later, "The Ten Commandments of Simon" featured a panel of Simon with a grotesque "Gollum-like physique." And, brother, anybody who looks like Derek and can say with a straight face that he thinks he resembles Gollum has some serious issues.I do worry that he'll eventually end up like Robert Crumb and degenerate into his own self-caricature. Not that this would be really bad for Derek. But we'll miss him when he moves to his villa in France to do art books of sexy Emo girls. William G: Let's go with the Crumb comparison for a minute. What is it about Derek Kirk Kim's work that has kept him from having accusations of hating women thrown at him like it has been thrown at Crumb? We can agree that there is anger in his work, and it seems to revolve around women.Is it that sense of restraint and perspective that Shaenon points out? Is it his damned fine art skills? Simply not being as famous as Crumb yet? Is it just that the modern comic audience are able to separate the artist from the tales they tell? 
Joe Zabel: Regarding the Crumb comparison, Kim's work is entirely different in tone. Crumb portrays women as sexual objects, to an extreme extent that seems aimed at parody but apparently is also sexual gratifying for the artist (by his own account.) Crumb's women typically don't have fully-developed characters. They do sometimes have, however, a fearsome power-- his 'Devil Girl,' for instance, could no doubt break him in two and dribble him like a basketball.Kim, on the other hand, is portraying women more or less realistically, although sometimes as if they're viewed from afar. In Half Empty, the fashion art students the boys watch at the next table may be somewhat stuck up, but maybe they just have good taste. There's one panel in the sequence that shows one of the illustration students' fantasies about the fashion students as anime girls with stereotypical asian come-ons like "Me love you long time." But that's a case of Crumb once-removed; we're observing a guy having a Crumb-like fantasy.Furthermore, Kim often portrays women as sympathetic, three-dimensional characters. Why I Love Helen #42, for instance, portrays the tomboy fantasy of his best friend. In half empty, the red-headed girl, Yumi has an amiable and assertive personality that we get intriguing glimpses of. The scene where they arm-wrestle over a jar of gesso is a shrewd snapshot of sexual politics-- he has the greater physical strength, but she cunningly lays down the rules in a way that insures her victory.And don't forget Nancy from Same Difference-- the story is basically half hers, and she is portrayed as funny, intelligent, reckless, cruel and yet compassionate. She's not a sexual object-- in fact, the story implies that she has trouble attracting boys. William G: Joe, do you think it's the level of sexualization that makes a difference?
Joe Zabel: No, I think it's the characterization that makes the difference. I'm not sure how to define 'sexualization'-- do you mean exaggeration of anatomy in order to excite the male viewer? Kim's female characters are more three-dimensional and more sympathetic. I'm not sure that they're 'sexualized' at all. William G: Well, I don't mean sexualization in the simple manner that the female characters have large breasts. More in the attitude that a woman is there for a man to drop off some DNA, and not useful for much else. Mike Meginnis: When Kim writes a comic where a girl is giving oral sex to a man, he ejaculates, and the semen shoots out of her nostrils in cartoonish jets, the comparison will be something to worry about.Until then, there's a quote I like deploying every now and then, lest we forget what kind of world we are living in. As Mr. Gone would remind us, with his teeth clenched, a guttural growl rumbling through their tight, tiny gaps, "EVERYONE HAS A PROBLEM WITH WOMEN!!!" Shaenon Garrity: That [comic] would be totally awesome. The thing is, he'd make it look cute.I'm still waiting for Derek to come out with his "My Troubles With Women," since sex seems to be one of the central problems of his life and work (but isn't that true of everybody?). The closest he's come has been "The Ten Commandments of Simon," but even that self-indulgent meditation on striking out lays most of the blame for Simon's problems at Simon's own feet. Derek shows a series of women harshly turning Simon down, but they all have legitimate reasons -- one's in a relationship, one's eight years old, and there's those adorable 69-ing lesbians -- and the point of the sequence is that Simon's at fault for deliberately seeking out unattainable women. Another perceptive bit shows Simon ending a relationship himself, then playing guitar in a cafe and singing a sad song about the woman who "left him." We've all known guys like that. Hell, at some point we've all *been* guys like that.
Beyond that, Derek is amazingly good at writing women. Handling characters of the opposite sex is usually difficult for writers (especially, it must be said, male writers), but it's one of Derek's major strengths. His female characters have distinctive voices and personalities, not to mention a lot of charm. Most people would probably agree that Nancy is his most memorable and fully-fleshed character to date. I told Derek once that he wrote great female characters, and he answered, "I just write them like men." I don't think that's strictly true, but it gets to the heart of why Derek is so good at handling female characters: he approaches them with the same thoughtfulness, curiosity, and humor as the male characters.In general, Derek's work doesn't come off as angry at women, but more at his own inability to deal with women in the way he'd like. Sometimes his characters are angry at women, but the authorial voice generally has a sense of perspective. I hope that he continues to develop this sense of perspective, rather than slipping into self-denigration and/or misogyny, like Crumb. A. G. Hopkins: I thought Joe had sufficiently debunked the 'angry at women' concept with Kim, so I didn't reply. Shaenon has also, to my mind, sufficiently debunked it as well.Just to go on record though, I don't think Kim is angry with women, nor does he draw or characterize them as any more evil, mean-spirited, bitter or shallow than his male characters. William G.: Is there anything in his work that he needs to improve? A. G. Hopkins: I'd like to point out something minor which I've noticed. Shaenon touched on it briefly, but I thought it was worth more attention.Derek's work in Same Differences especially, as Shaenon noted, is cinematic in nature. He does like making his work like a Woody Allen movie, as she says, and as he has stated elsewhere.
Kim's backgrounds are so much more an active part of the work than any other comic artist out there that I can think of. They aren't just detailed, although the detail is amazing and meticulous. They play along with the actors and the story. The details speak to the reader about the story and provide atmosphere and character. The close-up shot of stacks of Lucerne Sour Cream give the character of the grocery store, and even of the small beach town better than any amount of exposition, even the wide angle shot of Pacifica, which is so perfectly captured with those delicately lined clouds. The various shots of the sun during the day play to the characters emotions.So many times backgrounds are little more than filler. Just something to give a little depth to the strip, areas to fill in with something, anything, or perhaps an opportunity for the artist to show some in-jokes, or little jabs or credits to other artists. Kim's backgrounds are almost as important to the story as his characters are. Part of what makes his work so incredible is his complete and competent use of every tool at his disposal. Mike Meginnis: His art is more or less perfect, so I guess he could improve his writing. But while he's not a perfect writer, his deft execution generally leaves little room for complaint. This is disorienting -- I'm usually so good at thinking of things I don't like about an artist's work.I guess I'd like to see him doing more stories like Super Unleaded and Pulling now that he's a better writer. The aforementioned stories were smart, good, powerful stuff, but they were a little stilted, too. You could feel him pushing them along as a writer even though they were meant to be very natural, gradually forming narratives like our own lives. His writing definitely improved with Same Difference, but ever since he hasn't really challenged himself the way he used to. The Maiden and the River Spirit may be artistically miles ahead of anything we've seen from him before, but on the other hand, it was probably the easiest thing he ever had to write. Black Harvest had good ideas, but it seemed to rush through them rather quickly -- almost like a recap of a story he had already told us. It's difficult to resolve little details like the Garfield strip the comic mentions with the narrative's breakneck pace. Joe Zabel: Finding fault isn't the best way to go about assessing somebody's work. It's better to form an understanding of the heart and soul of a work and its greatest strengths, and only then to try to figure out how it may be getting compromised by some poor choices the artist makes.
That said, I find Half Empty to be Kim's least satisfying work. It attempts to be a long-form work, but it's focused too narrowly on the Andy character. It introduces a cast of school friends for Andy, and then abruptly he's dropped out of school and doesn't see them any more. The story even has to resort to a flashback to explain the background for Andy's interest in the redheaded girl.And then, of course, the entire story so far is discarded as Andy is apparently abducted by aliens! I'm assuming that Kim wrote this scene to effectively kill the story and put it out of its misery.I find the more cartoony style he uses here a bit off-putting, especially since he indulges in a lot of over-the-top scenes that shatter any sense of verisimilitude. That scene where he discovers that the redheaded girl likes him is like something out of a Jim Carrey movie!The story is insightful about Andy's situation, though, and contains many memorable scenes, particularly the scene I mentioned before where the redheaded girl arm-wrestles him for the gesso. And you gotta love the skewering he gives the superhero industry in the "Marble Comics" scene. Shaenon Garrity: "Half Empty" is supposed to go in a completely different direction than the installments so far indicate. I don't know if Derek will ever finish it, though; he was trying to sell it to a print publisher a while back, but I think that fell through. It's actually one of my favorite DKK comics, despite the whiplash changes in focus, largely because of the charming cartoony art and the fact that it's very different from his other work. Oh, and he drew characters from my comic into the background of one panel. That sort of thing is liable to win me over.It's fairly ambitious in its scope and in the variety of material Derek would have to draw, and he might not be ready to tackle something this lengthy. He's never finished any comics project longer than "Same Difference." 
A. G. Hopkins: I want to comment briefly on the 'women as bitter/evil,' in regards to The Maiden and the Water Spirit. Joe and I have different ideas about this particular story. My particular fancy is that Derek has gifted the Water Spirit with a terrible naivete. While the Maiden is materialistic and greedy, she isn't particularly evil. Also, one character does not make a theme. So, I still hold to my position that Kim is just really good at writing characters with flaws.Someone mentioned that Kim's biggest failing is his lack of polish in writing, even though that failing is minor. I think this is best shown in the Water Spirit and the Maiden, and to a lesser extent in SD, in that the intent is not as clear as we would perhaps like it to be. It's possible for Joe and I to each have fairly widely differing opinions about the two main characters, and be essentially unable to resolve the difference without commentary from Kim. Unless this is done specifically to leave the tale open to interpretation, it is a failing of that most basic element of writing; clear communication. In SD, it's widely assumed that Nancy is, in fact, fessing up to her part in the deception, but it is also arguable that she's merely continuing it by writing as Sara, and ending the relationship to let herself out, and to release Ben. While this failure to communicate the preferred vision clearly can be seen as a failure, it can also be one of the most enjoyable aspects of a good story. I think a large part of Kim's appeal is the mystery of his stories, and the possibilities for discussion they present. Joe Zabel: A. G., I don't agree that the ambiguousness of The Maiden and The Water Spirit is a failing. I think it's the story's greatest strength.I also don't agree with Mike M. earlier that the script was an example of facile writing. Kim obviously labored over the script to create a convincing replica of storybook phraseology. "As she knelt by the water's edge lamenting her loss, the River Spirit appeared and asked her the cause of her distress." That kind of lingo doesn't come naturally to a streetwise kid from Korea.Personally I think the story is one of his finest pieces. Proceed to Page 2 
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