Ki-Chan on State Street and a lesson from Hadagi and Panti

As I type this, I am wiping away a rare tear of joy. The little girl from Chicago that resides in my heart is cheering.

Folks, it is my privilege and honor to tell you that you can now order both Ki-Chan: Demon Hunter books from Barbara's Bookstore @ Macy's on State Street in Chicago.

Barbara's Bookstore is located at:
111 N. State Street
Chicago, IL 60602
And the phone number is 312-781-5257.

This location is known today for being Macy's flagship Chicagoland store, but when I was growing up, it was the site of Marshall Fields, department store that was the retail anchor in Chicago, known for their annual Christmas animatronic doll displays and for their Frango mints, which I am told are still being made at the State Street location. This store was every child's dream in the Chicagoland area for generations, and the general consensus is that if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere. Barbara's Bookstore has been a strong Chicago store since 1963, and at the State Street location, they have hosted a who's who of literary greats in author events and autograph signings. To have Ki-Chan, let alone my name listed with the legends, is an honor I cannot even begin to tell you about how excited this makes me!

And it comes on the heels of a lesson I recently learned from Hadagi and Panti.

Now it may seem crazy to think that I could learn anything from characters from my own book. After all, it's not like you'll see your favorite authors talking to their own characters or anything like that. But here I am, having just learned a lesson, at least in relation to my own demons.

So a few months ago, I entertained the idea of looking into another publishing house. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the independence of seeing my books through Koriander Publishing, but there was another company that was offering something that at the time, I did not have, but I have now.

Google Play Books.

Now of course, you see the blue link, so obviously Ki-Chan is there now and in multiple formats, so it looks like Koriander Publishing was strong enough to make this a reality after all, but this past summer, that was not the case, so when I saw another company had that ability, I decided to reach out.

The feedback was a little disheartening. The other publisher balked at the artwork.

"Anime is for kids."

Now of course, this is wrong, and hasn't been the case at all since at least the 1960's if you don't count the WW2 era shorts and movies, and it totally ignores incredibly adult anime classics like Devilman, Akira and even B-level rentals like Project A-Ko, not to mention current adults only mainstream fare such as Kill La Kill, but then this is a publisher that caters more to the 50 Shades of this is coercion and not consensual sex and I really think the police should be involved  crowd than to the I-grew-up-watching-Toonami crowd I usually talk to, so if you haven't grown up with it or (and this is common) you live in an area where anime isn't readily available without the internet, I can understand the confusion. Here is a book about hunting demons, alien gods and PTSD where F bombs are being dropped haphazardly, and all you see is from your vantage point, a badly dressed man about to ki beam a Pokemon trainer in the face, and you probably can't tell if I'm being serious or not.

For the record, no, Ki-Chan is not a Pokemon trainer, but for most people, if they see a short anime character in a baseball cap, this is the first thing that comes to mind.

I deal with self doubt a lot more than I want people to know, so I tried an experiment with my shape shifting demons, Hadagi and Panti. I drew brand new art with a heavy emphasis on realism. Gone were the 1992 pointy anime noses. In their place were carefully crafted noses, slimmer eyes and cheeky half smiles.

I even changed up the outfits. I replaced Panti's chain-link "EVIL" belt for a pearl one, and for Hadagi, I said "fuck it" and just removed his shirt and cape. Then I uploaded both to my DeviantArt account and waited for the responses.

*chirp chirp* cricket cricket........

Okay... what the fuck? I mean, I'm getting "some" likes, but not to the level I had with them before. What's going on, what am I missing here?

So I ran a poll on the official Ki-Chan: Demon Hunter Facebook page, and here are the results:

Turns out, you liked the anime artwork better than the more realistic stuff!

I asked my friend Bill Treadway what his take was on this, and he pointed out that people are getting too bogged down with the "gritty realism" of media these days. So many comics, movies, tv shows and video games are so dark, edgy and "realistic" now that people - many of whom are swimming through depression at an alarming rate - are getting sick of seeing everything they like get a darker, more moody reboot.

There is darkness in Ki-Chan, always has been, but I temper it with comedy, hope, and I let my characters try to find solutions in a timely manner. Some of you have pointed out that the sense of friendship and comradery has made you love Ki-Chan's little rag tag group of misfits, and it's given me the courage to get back to working on Book #3.

In changing Hadagi and Panti (and then in changing them back) I learned what it really means when we say things like "to thine own self be true" or "be yourself" and that these cute, pillow catchphrases go beyond the notion of just not being a copycat. For me, it means that once you have your own style of art, you should own it, not change it, and that by doing your own work and not trying so hard to follow the crowd, you can create something that your people, the people who stuck by you when you were still struggling, will like all the more.

So as you saw before, Hadagi and Panti have gone back to their original anime style, and you can look forward to seeing more of it in the next book.