[APPLAUSE] >> Hi, I'm Mari. I'm a cartoonist and I've been making comics
for more than 20 years. Mostly autobiographical. I also have a podcast and I'm going to talk
about this other thing I do, these databases that I made and this is my love/hate relationship
with them. Growing up as a half-Japanese girl in a very
white town, as I did, I saw very few faces like my own. Sean Lennon, Yoko Ono's son, was the only
half-Japanese public figure that I even knew about and he's younger than me. There were no experiences like mine in the
stories I read or saw on TV and movies. It was very alienating. I used to stare at myself in the mirror trying
to imagine what someone like me might look like as they get older. That's me! On the one occasion when I was a teenager,
I actually saw someone who I believe was half-Japanese, she was a couple years older than me, and
I was trying really hard not to stare but it was impossible. I craved to see people like me. One time, when I was working in the videogame
industry, which I did for a long time, I sat in on a meeting and gave a suggestion and
my boss turned to me and said Mari, your opinion doesn't matter, you're not a guy. I was so mad! She was right from a corporate standpoint,
but angry 22-year-old me was like, why isn't my money as spendable as the next guy's? When I wanted to write and draw a comics memoir
about being half-Japanese, my publisher at the time turned it down because my story was
not "universal" enough. I don't know if that was code for not white
enough, but I've always kind of wondered? The book eventually got picked up by someone
else and did really well. Thank you very much. [Applause] Thanks! [Laughs] I can't tell you how many instances
I've seen of people in power when they're accused of giving the best platforms to white
men using the defense that A. White men were the only people available for the job or B.
They didn't know where to find women or people of color. Damn it, I swore I wasn't going to cry. It's too early in this. Damn it. Sorry. [Applause] [Cheers] All right. Damn it. I knew I shouldn't have worn eye makeup. [Laughter] So I worked in games and comics since the '90s and it's been a constant battle just
to be seen. When I came across a listicle, and I don't
like to use that word because it sounds like testicle... [Laughter] One day in 2014, it was titled
something like "two dozen female cartoonists who draw themselves naked," it felt like a
small victory because finally there was acknowledgment that women make comics. [Laughter] Maybe I also felt a little professional jealousy because I wasn't involved in that. My first book was a comics memoir about my
sex life. That's me naked, I drew myself naked a lot. So I enviously scanning the roster of my colleagues
who had been invited to participate and I noticed something jumping out at me. All of them appeared to be white women. That was the moment I twat my one and only
rude tweet ever to a stranger, because I don't do that. It was the author of the article, and I said
you left out a word in the title, it should read "two dozen white female cartoonists who
draw themselves naked." She didn't respond. Of course, why would she? That was the moment I snapped. I was sick and tired of feeling invisible,
of not seeing diverse representation, of hearing that there weren't diverse creators out there,
which is something I suspected was bullshit. It inspired me to start writing about race,
which is a topic I had been avoiding ever since I'd been told my story was not universal
enough a few years back. Around this time, an old friend of mine asked
me to read her manuscript, to give her some notes. One thing that struck me was there were no
people of color in her novel. We had both grown up in a very white town,
it's true, but her closest friends growing up were a half-Mexican girl and me, half-Japanese. So I asked her why she made the cast all white,
and she admitted she felt awkward writing other people's racial experiences and was
worried she was going to mess it up, which is valid. So I decided to write an article about this
complexity and how to overcome the self-doubt that authors can feel when writing about a
person of a race that isn't their own and how not to fuck it up. It's a tricky subject, so I didn't want to
do it alone. So I decided to consult some fellow cartoonists
of color with the intention to spotlight their work, in addition to sharing their advice
and helping people out. I don't know a lot of people. I'm not really network-y. And many of the comics people that I knew
and knew of were actually white people. So I made a wish list of my favorite cartoonists
of color, but it was a pretty short list and I wanted more, so I took to the internet. A quick Google search didn't give me what
I wanted. The most relevant site I found was an article
about five black dudes who drew superhero comics. Five men. I didn't know a lot of people, but I knew
for a fact that there were more of us out there. So I started to ask around. I reached out to my friends, Twitter, Facebook,
I crowdsourced as the kids call it and it wasn't long before my list of a dozen people
turned into a list of 30 and then 50 and then 100, because there's a lot of us apparently. I had no idea! There's me having a meltdown up there. Crying! I thought why hasn't anyone created a database? Someone should really do that! Then it hit me that I had the list and if
I didn't do it, no one would. I'm a busy person. I have deadlines I'm constantly juggling. And a runny nose, excuse me, stupid tears. I'd been working on a young adult graphic
novel trilogy, and a graphic memoir, and a graphic novel for adults, a collection of
short stories in comics form. I'm promoting my books, going on tours, travel
to speaking engagements like this one, making merch, and other projects. My point being, I had no free time, at the
time. I didn't even take weekends off, which is
something I'm trying to start doing. At least one weekend day. But this really needed to be done, so I made
time and shoved all my other stuff aside. I gathered up my list of 100 plus names and
I started doing some research. I made decisions. If I were to share my list with the public,
what information would they want? What would it look like laid out on a web
page? I created this logo that I should probably
update. I bought a domain name and I paid for web
hosting and I figured out a way for people to submit information without making my brain
explode, because I would have to cut and paste all that into an HTML file, which is the extent
of my technical capabilities. I asked my techie husband to help me with
some of that, because I am kind of a Luddite. And voila, a billion hours later, we had the
Cartoonists of Color Database. Or, just a list of people on the web. The page had this following information when
I could find it. The name of the person, their ethnicity, their
location, gender, birth year, the genres they worked in, the titles they have worked on,
other comics, web link, job titles, and a sample image when possible. Later on, I added pronouns, more link options,
and contact information. It wasn't fancy, but I draw comics. I'm not a programmer. Once I had the system down for the Cartoonists
of Color, I decided to use my newfound superpowers for good and created a second list, this time
for Queer Cartoonists. It wasn't easy of a decision. I didn't have a lot of time and it would take
a lot of extra work. Also, I didn't want to out anybody. This seemed like an important thing too, so
I took queer anthologies that were in my library and culled information out of that, because
I figured those people were already out in their queerness. I made another form for people to submit,
but they could only submit for themselves. They couldn't submit other people, like with
the Cartoonists of Color. It was slower going, but I could sleep at
night knowing I wasn't outing anybody or infringing on privacy. Less anxiety. As the lists grew, they got more attention. I was deluged by well-meaning people with
very time-consuming ideas on how I could improve the databases. Some people even offered to help me with this,
with their free services to make the databases prettier and searchable, which is really important. But I was reluctant because I knew it would
be a lot more work to turn them into actual databases. It would suck up a lot of my time. I had work to do that I'd been avoiding. I realized I had to do this sometime. It couldn't stay in its original form, so
I ended up giving in and accepting the offer of a man named Cameron Decker, who is a straight,
white cisgendered programmer, who has no vested interest in the subject matter other than
he just wants more diverse comics to read. So, yay, Cameron. We put together this lovely new site. We spent a lot of time working together to
iron out the kinks. And after many many many hours of me re-entering
everyone's information into this system, we finally had a beautiful and functional database
where you could look up people by location, etc. So this is what it looks like now. Every month, I feature a handful of creators
who catch my eye and who I think have interesting bios and good work all over the map. You can see you can select genres, ethnicities,
roles, etc. This next slide is what the Queer Cartoonists
Database looks like. Very similar, different colors. I also have featured people up there. Sometimes if I feature someone who's in both
databases, they'll show up in both databases featured. If you're ever looking for new comics to look
at, this is a good place to go. This next slide, please. There is rough stuff about this. For one, which is kind of why I didn't want
to do this talk to begin with. It's so boring. The work that I do is so mind-numbingly boring,
creating and maintaining databases. Also, it costs me money to keep them going. It's all my own personal funds. I don't make money off the databases. I don't want to make money off the databases. I've spent time applying, but I've never actually
won a grant, so I stopped applying for grants because I was wasting so much time I could
have been doing other stuff with. It costs so much time. I've spent hundreds of hours in front of the
computer screen, which is my least favorite place in the world to be, researching people,
doing data entry, fixing errors because apparently no one knows how to follow directions when
they fill out a form, ugh! [Laughter] It's really emotionally exhausting. For some reason, I catch a lot of white guys
trying to sneak their way into the Cartoonists of Color Database. Like I'm not going to notice. And the more visible the project gets, the
more trolls I get. It's exhausting. But after the revamp, after we made it all
nice, the intensity of the work calmed down a little. I was able to spend just a couple hours a
month updating the databases. Then as they grew, those couple hours became
a whole day. The last update took an entire weekend. It consisted of data entry, proofreading,
promoting the sites, and finding creators to feature and then writing up little bios
and stuff. Basically, the more successful the databases
get, the more work I have to do. It's a Sisyphean task. I don't recommend putting that word in a talk
the next time you do a talk. [Laughter] There's good stuff too. It feels really good to be trusted with people's
information. It imbues a certain responsibility. I feel really tender towards these creators,
most of whom I've never met and never will. Almost maternal, which is not what I am. And I celebrate their victories. I get to see what people are doing, what the
community is up to. I hear stories that creators have found each
other in the databases, forming friendships and community. It's really awesome. Sometimes people write nice things for me
in the admin comments line, so that's nice. I get to help people. Every time I hear my work has helped someone,
I get all verklempt. Like a past student of mine told me she got
her first gallery show from being in my database. Sorry. I've heard from editors who filled their rosters
with our lineups from work from these people. Convention organizers who mine the databases
to make their events and panels more inclusive. Booksellers and librarians filling their shelves. Teachers teaching. Journalists journaling. I'm not going to lie. When I sit down to update every month, I usually
curse myself for ever starting this thing. I could be outside communing with nature,
I could be out with friends living life, I could be playing with my dogs, or adopting
a pet pig. I could be having sex. [Laughter] With the time I've spent, I probably
could have written and drawn an entire book but I keep going. Recently, I almost had to stop because, contrary
to popular belief, if you're a published author you're not necessarily swimming in pools of
money or any pools, because pools are expensive. [Laughter] A few months ago, I got a huge
bill from the company that was hosting my databases. They possibly maybe just happened to raise
their rates or maybe there was a lot of traffic to the database, I don't know. But for some reason, they were going to charge
me a lot more money and I just couldn't justify the expense anymore. After a lot of whiskey and crying, because
apparently that's what I do, and talking myself into it, I reached out to the internet for
help. I really don't cry a lot. I just want to put that out there publicly. I did cry when I wrote this tweet though. This is what I twat. "I'm desperate for more patrons to help pay
costs for the Cartoonists of Color and Queer Cartoonists Databases. Please consider becoming a patron. One-time donations also accepted." Blah blah blah, thank you. And this was incredibly humiliating. Begging people for money is totally not my
jam, or anyone's really, I guess. I've never been good at even accepting offered
help, let alone asking for it. I wanted to bury my head in the sand. But people stepped up. It wasn't a windfall but it was enough to
keep the databases going for another couple years, like the hosting. And better yet, it showed me that people actually
cared about the databases, which when I'm sitting there on the computer, I don't know
who's using it or what's happening. It was nice they cared about having this resource. They cared about marginalized creators having
their voices heard. All my hard work was being recognized in a
tangible way, so the databases wouldn't die. Not that day at least. And then the notes are not appearing. I will wing it. This place, Hiveworks, sent me an email. They offered to host the databases for free
for at least a year which was... [Applause] I know, it was amazing. Yeah, thanks, Hiveworks! It took a little while for us to sign the
contracts and get it all transferred over and when that finally happened, I made the
announcement and took all the money I had gotten from donations and gave most of it
to Cameron Decker because he deserved to get paid for his work. I was so happy to finally give him something. It wasn't enough, but it was something. Today, there are a lot of people in the databases. Over 1,500 people in the databases together,
which is a lot of folks I have to answer to. Not to mention the booksellers and librarians
and editors who use this free service. But it's more than just a feeling of responsibility
or letting people down that keeps me going, because despite me griping up here, working
on the databases actually does make me happy. I feel good seeing my community grow and I
feel inspired. When I see the beautiful, interesting, relevant
work that people are making, it feels spiritually fulfilling to carve out time where I'm doing
something a little less self-involved than writing autobio comics and promoting them. Recently, a young person came up to me and
thanked me for my community work. They told me they'd been contacted through
the databases and as a result, they got their first ever paying gig, which is amazing. I heard stories about that online, but never
seen someone in front of me say it. I could see the pride and enthusiasm that
they were now officially a professional artist. When they said this, my heart filled up with
joy and love that I get to do this. [Applause] It's nice to have an opportunity
to help other people. Then I cried for a week, or, you know, a year
in this case, because I realized that for better or for worse, this is my calling. Womp womp womp. [Laughter] My hope is that someday somebody,
an institution with employees or interns or students, will take over this for me and give
the databases the ability to reach their full potential, which I alone cannot do. Like improving the search features or giving
out grants, I would love to be able to do that, or putting another an anthology or host
meetups. Until then, I'm going to keep working weekends
and doing my best, because the greater good is more important than me adopting a pet pig. Someday, though. Thank you. [APPLAUSE]
