I know it’s hard to imagine, but there was a time when manga and anime were not popular in America. As a matter of fact, there was a time when they were unheard of.
When I was in Jr. High, manga was just about to take off. There was a comic book store near my house where I could pick up copies of early translated imports from Eclipse, Studio Proteus, and Dark Horse, such as Bubblegum Crisis, Ghost In The Shell, Dominion, and Venus Wars for as little as 25 cents a book. Everyone was too busy reading mainstream American comics to really notice the new foreign style manga brought. Eventually Viz, the American arm of Japanese publisher which many would say damn near means “manga” in America, broke loose onto the scene with a flurry of titles that ushered in the first large generation of anime and manga fanboys that, while perhaps past it’s prime, still lives on strong today.
Large companies, however, weren’t the only ones getting in on the act. Lacking the financial backing to deal with things like licensing, translation costs, and publishing, the new genre of American manga was born out of fans looking to replicate the Japanese manga style, creating a unique blend of Eastern style meets Western perception of Japanese culture. Zines from small-time publishers popped up here and there, with amateur attempts at creating fresh manga on American soil, the most popular of which was Antarctic Press.
Antarctic Press was founded around 1984 in Texas by Ben Dunn, who was also the company’s first artist. Their first really popular comic was Ninja High School, which, though created by Ben Dunn, became a springboard for all the other artists who worked under the company’s name, such as Fred Perry, Ross Espinoza, and, the focus of this piece, Robert DeJesus.
You’re probably asking yourself, “Who the hell is Robert DeJesus?”, and with very good reason. My first experience with his work was in the first issue of “Small Bodied Ninja High School”, a spinoff of the original title. However, after deciding that this American-born manga artist had an ill-style, I couldn’t find a single thing else he’d ever done before, or since. How could someone so talented do one single issue and then never do anything else ever again? I was a little obsessed for a while, and the last year I went to Comic Con in San Diego, I asked Ben Dunn personally, “What ever happened to Robert DeJesus?”
I think the two at the booth were Ben Dunn and Fred Perry. They kind of looked at each other, I would say almost uncomfortably, and Ben said, “Yeah… we haven’t actually really heard from him in a while…” Awesome. Not only is he talented, but he’s also a wild maverick. He’s so good that he can do one book when he feels like it, and not have to do a single thing ever again to win adoration from legions of fan-boys. Hey, it worked for Duchamp, right? Why not him? Awesome. A rogue artist comes, makes something awesome, and disappears into the night. Definitely my kinda guy.
And then, the internet. It seems that after Robert DeJesus walked away from Antarctic Press, for whatever reason, he decided to go out on his own. I remember finding out that he was doing illustrations for GamePro magazine, and after checking out a few issues, I was pretty disappointed. The stuff he was doing was nowhere near the caliber of the Small Bodies Ninja High School days. Oh Robert… how the mighty have fallen…
That pretty much brings us to present day. I hadn’t really thought about Robert DeJesus and Antarctic Press, and for that matter American manga. I only read a very small few comics these days, and the manga I do read, I read in Japanese. But, as I was going through some boxes, I found all my old comics from back in the day. The first prints of Ranma 1/2 from Viz, Image’s first few issues of Witchblade, a random parody on then-popular-and-now-popular-kinda Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles called “Adolescent Radioactive Black-Belt Hamsters”, and of course, my old Antarctic Press titles. Going through the old issues, I found that one book Robert DeJesus did, and I found myself wondering:
What ever happened to Robert DeJesus?
Well it turns out that after working for Antarctic Press for a few years he did in fact go out on his own. After doing some stuff that popped up in GamePro, he ended up creating a mascot for Playstation Magazine. He went on to create a company with his wife, Studio Capsule, that I think will be selling “self-created doujinshis, portfolios, posters, calendars, t-shirts, and so on”. He maintains a website or two or three that, between all of them, it’s possible to gather what’s going on. He is also booked to appear and give panels at various anime conventions across the US throughout 2005 and into 2006, so people, I’m happy to learn, still recognize his talent!
The following is a list of links to his current-day work:
Ai Candy Gold: The main site of Robert DeJesus, with news, art work, convention schedule, and more.
Robert DeJesus at LiveJournal: Seemingly more current in news than his main site.
How To Loathe Drawing Manga Style: The cute and funny “reality” web comic by Robert DeJesus.
So, for those of you who read this far, your burning curiosity has been quenched! Now we can all sleep well at night knowing…
WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO ROBERT DEJESUS?
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