Yuri Week: Interview with Erica Friedman from ALC Publishing

[Floating_Sakura]

In celebrating yuri week, we've got a line up of interviews. First, we have Erica Friedman, founder of ALC Publishing, the only all yuri publisher in North America.

Manga Jouhou: Hi Erica, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Erica Friedman: Starting with the least interesting bit, huh? LOL.

By day, I am a mild-mannered online researcher for a large pharmaceutical firm. I hold a Master's Degree in Library and Information Science, and I was, for many years, a teacher of martial arts. Now I dedicate an untenably large portion of my life to Yuri. And, after seven years, I'm still enjoying it! I'm a voracious reader (not just of yuri) and a fan of pop culture in all its permutations, though not ever likely to be a fad follower.


MJ: Where did the idea of starting an "all yuri" publisher come from?

EF: It came out of a conversation with Rica Takashima over lunch. We both had gotten into creating Yuri, me as a writer, she as an artist, because we weren't finding stories that really reflected what we wanted to see. Rica and I agreed that we'd really both like to see stories of already out women just having lives - buying refrigerators, playing house, etc. She had created "Rica 'tte Kanji!?" to reflect what she wanted to see, I had written "Shoujoai ni Bouken" and we both wanted other people to be able to enjoy stories where "coming out" wasn't necessarily the point. We wanted more "happily ever after" and less "what is this I'm feeling?".

ALC published "Rica" as our first book in 2003, becoming the world's only all-Yuri publisher. To this day, we're still the only company that focuses exclusively on Yuri. I'm incredibly proud of what we've done – and I look forward to what we will do.


MJ: Can you tell us more about ALC Publishing since it started and how it has progressed?

EF: Like so many of my good ideas, lol, it's snowballed. Originally, I wanted to bring some good, original Japanese manga and doujinshi to America – women writing for adult women (and men); stories that focused on lesbian life, not just on lesbian sex or schoolgirl crushes. Our first two books were translations from the Japanese, "Rica 'tte Kanji!?" and "WORKS" by Eriko Tadeno. Somewhere in there I had an idea for an anthology, which would allow ALC to bring out not only translated work, but also proved a venue for new artists. So, the "Yuri Monogatari" series was born. Right now, that's where most of my time and energy is going, because I think it has a lot of potential.


MJ: Can you give us a definition of "yuri"?

EF: Here's Yuricon's official definition, from www.yuricon.org/essays/whatisyuri.html:

"Yuri can be used to describe any anime or manga series (or other thing, i.e., fan fiction, film, etc.) that shows intense emotional connection, romantic love or physical desire between women. Yuri is not a genre confined by the gender or age of the audience, but by the *perception* of the audience. We can, if we want to, differentiate between shounen Yuri - written by men for a primarily male audience; shoujo Yuri - written by women for a primarily female audience and what we at Yuricon like to think of as "pure" Yuri - written by lesbians for a lesbian audience...but it's still all Yuri.

In short, Yuri is any story with women in love (or lust) with other women"

That's what I use as a definition.


MJ: I was wondering if you would like to tell us the difference between "Shoujo ai" and "yuri"?

EF: Funny, I had actually included a whole long thing about that, but pulled it out.

There is no difference. There is no such thing as "shoujoai."

In the late 90's, fans of what is now called "Boys Love" who also liked romance between girls were loathe to say that they liked "Yuri" as that was presumed to be porn for guys. (This despite the large body of work being done by women, but these fans were unfamiliar with that.) So they made up "shoujoai" as an analog of the word they (incorrectly) were using for their interest, shounenai.

Because these fans would not admit to liking "porn" they created an understood rating system, by which shoujoai was considered to be "romantic" while "Yuri" was considered to be porn. Since the word "Yurizoku" was originally coined to represent lesbians as a whole, and as lesbian stories range across the entire spectrum of human emotion, I felt that this rating thing was not only silly, but inaccurate...and pretentious. So, as a lesbian, I reclaimed the word "Yuri" and applied it to all stories of two women who love one another, from young crushes to long-term relationships and everything in between. You know, like life.

I've done a fair amount of work publicizing this usage, and as the genre I love is now referred to "Yuri" here, I think I've succeeded. :-)


MJ: I know that yuri is traditionally targeted to female audience, but I'm starting to see a change in that; what kind of audience does ALC intend for its reader?

EF: This strikes me as funny, since when I began Yuricon in 2000, the overwhelming assumption was that Yuri meant "porn for guys." I (and all the folks associated with Yuricon and ALC) have worked so incredibly hard to change that perception for the last seven years. The fact that you even ask me that means I've succeeded. In fact, I'm a little choked up at it. LOL.

But to answer the question – our audience is anyone who likes to read our stories. The stories themselves are *mostly* written by women, but not exclusively. And our audience has been almost even split between men and women since the beginning. As I like to say about Yuricon, it's a celebration of lesbian stories and images in animation and comics – and we don't care who buys the drinks! LOL.


MJ: I know that every year, ALC has a Yuri Monogatari, a yuri anthology that publishes OEL (Original English Language) stories. Can you tell us more about that and where did that idea come from?

EF: "Yuri Monogatari" is actually not OEL, as the manga publishing industry defines it. It is an anthology of original yuri stories [translated to] English, not just stories originally written in English. Some of the stories are created by western artists from various countries, while others are translated from the Japanese. In fact, we have 5 incredible stories from well-known Japanese Yuri artists coming for "YM5."

I'm not entirely sure where the idea for "Yuri Monogatari" came from. I think it was a natural expression of the whole ALC mission – trying to bring stories of lesbian life and love to a worldwide audience. About the time we were working on our first volume of "YM" in 2003, in Japan "Yuri Shimai" was launching, the first Japanese all-yuri manga magazine since MIST in the late 90's.

I guess it was a case of "it's about time that someone do this, and it might as well be me." LOL. I'm not a big believer in waiting around for other people to do stuff.


MJ: Do you have any advice for people who wish to draw their own yuri manga?

EF: Stop talking about it and draw. That goes for writers, publishers, dancers, boxers, what have you. Stop waiting for someone to do it for you – just go do it and look back in about five years.


MJ: Do you think the OEL yuri manga differs from the "traditional" yuri from Japan?

EF: That's an impossible question to answer, of course. LOL. I just finished reading "Ode to Kirihito" and with a few exceptions, Tezuka's style looks decidedly what we would now consider "Western." So when people criticize western artists whose styles are manga-informed, I ask them to step back a bit and read more widely.

Certain magazines that are popular in Japan have certain styles that people associate with what manga is "supposed" to be. But not all manga looks the same – not if you're really reading manga and not just reading "Shounen Jump" manga, which will, of course, have a certain feel.

I read everything from kid's stories, shoujo, shounen, seinen, josei and who-all knows what other kinds of manga. And there simply is not one single style. Good artists, like Rica Takashima and Akiko Morishima, can differ hugely from the general standards, but their work is still manga.

In terms of stories "Yuri Monogatari" focuses not on "manga" stories, but on "lesbian" stories – the goal is to represent many facets of lesbian life and love. So there's no real issue of "western" or "eastern", just of life and experience. Every artist will have a different take on this, through her or his art and story. But I think that a lot of themes are just universal...the joy of buying home decorations with your lover, the pain of having your heart broken. Western or eastern, those will always be the same.

In a more general way, OEL stories are different because in the west and in the US particularly, there's a different take on things like teenage sex, religion and violence. So of course points of view will be different...but isn't that an excellent reason for western artists to tell their stories their way?

Many OEL manga artists are young, as artists and writers. The whole idea of OEL is new and like language, art is always changing. I imagine that ten years from now, manga styles and fashions will have changed and people will all be arguing about something else. ;-)

I'm pretty sure that that didn't answer your question at all, did it? LOL.


MJ: I know that you were recently in Comiket in Tokyo to sell Yuri Monogatari 4, how did that go? What did the Japanese people think of yuri manga from foreigners?

EF: It was great! ALC has been represented at Comiket for the past several years by Rica, but this is the first time I had a chance to join her for the event itself. I attended Comiket in winter 2002, but this was...what a blast. Compared with American events, it's very laid back – everyone is polite, there's a script everyone just knows to follow. We had our best sales ever, but I think that had something to do with the fact that my wife is so cute and pink and round, like Jigglypuff. With no Japanese at all, she was our best salesperson for the day. LOL.

I can't answer for all "Japanese people" but I think the general reaction was the same as being the only Yuri publisher at an American event. Some people are intrigued because it's unique (rare hunters), some people are genuinely interested, some people are repulsed and some are just...otaku. LOL.

We learned that people thought it was okay for foreigners to be behind the table, but if I attempted to speak to them, they'd bolt. Its okay for the dog to be riding the bicycle, but if it speaks, too...whoa! LOL.

I called Comiket "an amusement ride made of people" on my blog, Okazu (http://okazu.blogspot.com). I think its something every hardcore western fan ought to experience at least once. Being on the selling side of the table was an incredible honor – and it was a bit of a buzz, too, when at one point I realized that there was a line for our table. Yay us.


MJ: Many people see yuri as the opposite of yaoi, and yaoi has been selling really well in the last year or so in North America, do you forsee a similar phenomenon with yuri?

EF: I certainly hope so!

I'll be honest, since ALC pioneered Yuri in the west, we're unlikely to be the ones to make the big break. Larger companies are starting to move into Yuri and they have more money, better advertising and bigger presences. We'll be forgotten in the crush, a mere footnote in the "Big Book O' Yuri History." But we'll know that we were the ones who made it happen. :-)

When I first began to pioneer Yuri as a genre, there was a lot of resistance to the idea – people refused to see characters as "couples," even when they were quite explicitly shown to be. Now we have the opposite problem – every time there's two girls holding hands, or standing next to one another in an anime or manga, people are screaming "they're a couple!" even when there's no real reason to think so, except for some poster art and wishful thinking. (We call that the "Newtype effect," when two otherwise straight characters are drawn draped over one another in promotional art, so people insist they are a couple. LOL)


MJ: ALC has something called "yuri-con," can you tell us more about it?

EF: Actually, it's the other way around. Yuricon, which I began in 2000, has a publishing arm called ALC Publishing, which I founded in 2003.

I began Yuricon (known then as AniLesboCon) in 2000, when my idea for showing more girls' love at a convention I was working with, was met with derision and a measure of disgust – which surprised me, because they were all gung-ho on showing boy's love. I kind of thought, well, okay, I'll just go off and do it myself.

AniLesboCon was never meant to be a "real" con – it was an online thing. Real contests and a community, but that was it. I changed the name to Yuricon in 2001 to reflect our mission better and give us a single word, with a pretty image to rally around. (There's a joke Rica and I have, about beating the Lily imagery to death. LOL)

Then Canadian artist Katherine Williams joined and she convinced me to do a real-life event, which became Yuricon 2003. When I decided to start publishing Yuri, I chose ALC so I wouldn't lose the old AniLesboCon name. The name AniLesboCon, by the way, comes from a fanfic. LOL. Dreiser's "Scenes From an Elevator" has a scene where Juri suddenly realizes that all the anime and manga lesbians are far cooler, smarter and better looking than anyone around them. So she created "AniLesboCon" the convention for animated lesbians. I thought that was hysterical when I read it, so I asked Dreiser if I could use the name and she gave me permission.

I never meant to do another event, honestly. LOL (Are you seeing the pattern here?) But in 2005, my wife and I planned on going to Tokyo for vacation and I spoke with Rica about doing a small event. Well, Rica went CRAZY and we had an amazing event, with stellar guests, including the man who coined the phrase "Yurizoku" for lesbians, that became the name of our genre, and Natsuko Mori, a famous lesbian essayist and novelist. Along with a host of Yuri mangaka, publishers and press.

I had a talk with my staff last year and we decided that we would do another event in 2007 back in the States, but to make sure we didn't burn out, we're doing a re-creation of the 2005 Tokyo event – one day, everyone mingling in one big room, rather than three days of too many things to do, so people end up sitting in the hallway. We're really looking forward to it. We consider our "Yurisai" a big Yuri party, where everyone is invited.

But Yuricon will never be a repeated, annual, three-day event. We really like doing new things, in new places, all the time. It keeps us fresh and energized. We do lectures, panels and presentations worldwide. We provide a space for scholarly essays on Yuri, and information for people doing panels. Yuricon is more than a "con" – it's a community. A place where people can talk about Yuri in the highest, and lowest, terms and be welcome to do so. We do live events from time to time, because we enjoy that, too. LOL.


MJ: Anything else you wish to add?

EF: That’s the important bits, I guess. :-)

You can get ALC Publishing titles on the Yuricon Shop or Amazon. http://www.yuricon.org/shop/mang.html#ALC

Yuricon has a Mailing List, Yuri news, events, "The List" of Yuri charcters in anime and manga, the most comprehensive Shop for Yuri anime, manga, t-shirts, gifts, and more! http://www.yuricon.org

Okazu is the oldest Yuri-themed blog in the world. It contains reviews of Yuri anime and manga and other things of interest to Yuri fans. http://okazu.blogspot.com –

And once again, let me thank you for your time and consideration. It was a real pleasure. :-)

[Yuricon]

These are totally my own fault, not the interviwer's.

"Katherin Williams" should be "Katherine Williams" and "Deriser" should be "Dreiser."

My apologies to these women for mis-spelling their names!

Cheers,

Erica

[Floating_Sakura]

fixed, thanks. ^^

[kayuio]

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[batateam]

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