Tanaka Keeps Time
This story originally appeared in PW Comics Week on April 1, 2008 Sign up now!
By Ian Brill -- Publishers Weekly, 3/31/2008 4:25:00 PM
1-2-3-4. 1-2-3-4. No, Leslie Feist hasn't made her way to comics. Veronique Tanaka has takes the pulse of a metronome and used it for the rigid pacing of her book, Metronome, published by NBM. Thus far, the French-Japanese artist's career has been in fine arts, but this is her first graphic novel. Within the pages lies a story of a couple who relate to each other only on a sexual level. The look of the book is part manga, part European, but it's mostly the rhythm of the comic that grabs the reader. Tanaka explains her approach.
Publishers Weekly Comics Week: You have a career as a conceptual artist. Why did you decide to do a graphic novel project?

Veronique Tanaka: Because once I get the idea, I think about it a lot and develop it. I think that it was different from any other comic I've seen. I am an artist. I produce any art I can in the way I see it in my mind. I love comics and at last thought of an original way to approach this medium.
PWCW: The story of Metronome is about a relationship based around sex and nothing else. Was that an inspiration to use the 4/4 rhythm? Sex, like comics, can have a musical rhythm to it.
VT: No, it was based on music. I made the man in the story a musician. I think sex is more like 2/2 time! In the book, I have sometimes single beats for an image, or [two, three or four images per 'beat'] I do body-pump exercise twice a week. It is like aerobics with music and works on a 4/4 rhythm. For example, you can do a bicep curl three beats up, one down, or two up and one down, or singles. I think this is where I get the idea of presenting the images in 4/4 time.
PWCW: The characters and objects are created from simple lines and designs, closer to the European Tintin look than the photorealistic look some American comics have. Was this choice due to the fact that you were working with 16 small panels per page?
VT: I wanted the readers to spend about the same amount of time looking at each panel, to set up a beat, a rhythm. To achieve the effect I wanted, simple images are best. They are like symbols and are easily recognized at a glance. That was the idea, though I don't draw in a photorealist style anyway.
PWCW: There's animation on NBM's site that really drives home the hypnotic feel of the book. Whose idea was that?

VT: It was the idea that Bryan Talbot had when we were talking about the book. He said that it would work as an animated movie. I had sent him all the files on disk so he could find me a publisher, and he animated the whole story at one second each panel. I think on NBM, there is only a short section that ends before the first erotic sequence. The whole movie is here.
PWCW: If you're doing another graphic novel in the future, will it follow a similar storytelling style?
VT: I have started working on one and am still designing it. I have done some individual pictures, but have not decided on the format yet. It will be in my computer drawing style, but will be displayed in a different way from Metronome. I have done the Metronome style once, and there was a reason in the story to use that style. I won't use that style again.

This interview with Véronique Tanaka was originally conducted by Nicola Peruzzi and Antonio Solinas for the Italian comic website De: Code and took place at the Lucca Comics Festival in Italy. All the parties concerned have very generously given their consent for the interview to be more widely disseminated because they'd like more people to be aware of Véronique and her upcoming collection Metronome, which is coming from NBM this spring and which is one of the titles I have been really looking forward to seeing ever since Bryant Talbot first told me about her work in an interview a while back. I'd like to thank Nicola, Antonio, the De: Code team and Véronique for allowing us to reproduce their interview and thanks to Bryan for putting us on to it.
De: Code: Hi, Véronique. Could you please introduce yourself to the Italian readers?
Véronique: My mother is French and my father is Japanese. I was born in Kyoto in 1977.
My work is with contemporary art, mainly installations and events but I also paint. This is my real life.
De: Code: Could you tell us something about your career as a concept artist?
Véronique: Some of my work is what is called conceptual art. I have exhibitions. I live in Brazil a lot. I call myself Véronique Tanaka for my printed work.
De: Code: How did you first get involved with comics?
Véronique: Metronome is my first comic album. I grew up reading French and Japanese comics but only now have done a comic because I have this strong idea and design in my mind.
De: Code: Metronome is coming out in March. Could you please give us a short summary of Metronome?
Véronique: It is sixty-four square pages, sixteen panels each page, four panels each line and is in 4/4 time, like music. And music is a theme. The man in the story is a composer. The individual panels often make designs over the whole page. The book is about one instant and about memories evoked in that instant. It begins where it ends and could be read again after, like a loop. It is a visual poem but there is a strong story under the surface.
De: Code: When did you conceive Metronome?
Véronique: About eight years ago, after reading a short story, La Plage, by Alain Robbe-Grillet. It is an existentialist piece of writing. It is no story.
Some children walk along a beach. They leave footprints in the sand. Seagulls fly off when they get near, fly about and land in front of them. A church bell is tolling in the distance. That's it. They walk, waves come in, the birds fly off, the bell rings. Each thing repeats. It is as if the moment is going on for ever.
It is frozen in time and also taken out of time to exist in its own space. But the atmosphere is fantastic. It made me start to think of a story that could be told in repeated images. Images that at first seem random but all gain significance as the pages turn.
De: Code: Metronome is all about exploring the relationship between rhythm and storytelling. What are the reasons behind such a choice?
Véronique: Yes, the images, the panels are like beats in music. I had this idea first, and thought of the composer afterwards. It gives a reason to why use the rhythm. My story is not existential. It has a well constructed plot. It is the story of a relationship based on sex and nothing else. And so it is doomed.
De: Code: Bryan Talbot is acting like an agent / sponsor for your work. How did you two met?
Véronique: Two years ago I went to the comic festival in Angouleme. I go to it when I can. It is a great thing. Bryan Talbot was signing albums at the tables of his publisher. I have read the French edition of his L'Histoire d'un Vilain Rat (The Tale of One Bad Rat) a while ago and I love it. I love the ligne claire style and the storytelling. I talked to him and we went for a drink together after. I know nothing of the comic industry and he agreed to help me find a publisher after I showed him copies of the pages I had completed.
I don't want to be involved in the comic business. Later, after I finish the book, I posted it to him on CD. He had several copies printed and sent them to some publishers and Terry Nantier of NBM publisher accepted it.
De: Code: Your graphic style blends manga, French and even American influences. Is that correct? How did you develop your style?
Véronique: I have not read many American comics. Only some by Robert Crumb and Art Spiegelman. My style came all out of working on computer. I did all the book in Photoshop. I draw using the pad and then copy and change drawings with the stylus. I build up a library of images that I can adapt and change.
De: Code: Metronome explores themes like love, personal relationships and sexuality.
What were your inspirations?
Véronique: La Plage began the idea, as I say. The story is not autobiographical. It is of the imagination. The two characters, the composer and the woman came from mixing different people I have known. I know a woman friend who has had this violence from her husband. And she left him.
De: Code: On Shadowgallery.co.uk, there's a 17 minute flash animation of Metronome, that works very well because it's hypnotizing, mesmerizing, and sometimes even disturbing. What's the reason behind the choice of the multimedia animation?
Véronique: This was the idea of Bryan Talbot. He said that the comic would also work as an animation at one panel each second. He had the book on CD and so animated it. Cornwell Internet were kind to host the animation for me.
De: Code: There are no pictures of you on the net, and this seems to be a precise choice. Can you elaborate, especially in an era in which image seems to count more than substance?
Véronique: I have another life as a fine artist. I am from a different world. So I like to be anonymous in the comics world. I am quite shy anyway and don't like my picture taken.
De: Code: Do you still read comics? Is there anything in particular you like?
Véronique: I love Bone. I meet Jeff Smith and his wife, Vijaya in Angouleme. He was kind and wrote the introduction to Metronome. Right now I like Exit Wounds and the Rabbi's Cat.
De: Code: What are your current projects?
Véronique: My next comic will be called, I think at the moment, Véronique Erotique, after some prints I made a few years ago. It will recount a piece of conceptual art I did last year in Paris in summer. I walked around the centre of Paris dressed in a full burqa and veil but underneath I was wearing nothing but a corset and black stockings and high heels. It was a very strange sensation to feel, and that was the reason I did it. It was exciting to be completely hidden but sexual underneath. I went to the Louvre and sat down before a painting. This act was inspired by an old illustration by Moebius, who I love.
De: Code: The very last question. Could you please name the three comics that everybody must have on their shelves?
Véronique: I think The Tale of One Bad Rat, Tintin - I grew up with Tintin - and I think three has to be Akira because it made such a big impression on me when I was young.

My graphic novel METRONOME is now an animated movie!

Watch it at http://metronome.shadowgallery.co.uk

 

It is not myself that I show you, but I, moi-meme, will show you what I wish to show - my art.

Kind people are mentioning that I am going to San Diego. It is nice of them. But sometimes they are talking about me, and it is my work I want them to speak of.

Down the Tubes

I like that they call it a poem, that they see it has form as well as formlessness.

Lying in the Gutters

I suppose like abused Oscar, they are looking at the stars. I am not a star in the sky for people to look at. It is my work that shines. I like that they show a sequence that shows just a little of the form, the rhythm. 

Preparing for a new venture, I am told I must at last give out some details. If you attended my second exhibition, this is what you will already know. Perhaps more, plus tard. (perhaps not!)

"Very little is known of her but it's said that this is the nom du guerre of a Franco-Japanese concept artist, used solely for her graphic work. She is very shy and hates publicity, adopting several names to hide her true identity and even avoiding her own exhibition launches. She appears to be of independent means and of no fixed abode, always living in hotels wherever she is in the world.

Born: 1978 Lille, France

Mother French, father Japanese. Rich family. One brother. She grew up in France and Japan and was privately schooled.

This information is mostly taken from the catalogue of her second exhibition.

Exhibitions of prints:

Les Nuages 2003 Paris

Veronique Erotique 2005 Paris, Rome and Milan

Forthcoming work:

?