For Tak Toyoshima, being an artist wasn't about making a political statement for the entire Asian American community originally but as his entry into the comic strip world started he soon realized that he had things on his mind that he could express through the Secret Asian Man (S.A.M.). Now his comic is read by many and he even has his own line of S.A.M. clothing courtesy of BlackLava. This issue of the A-Profiler we get in depth with the man behind the Secret Asian Man.

Your Site URL
http://www.secretasianman.com

Where were you born and raised?
New York City, right on the corner of Canal Street and Broadway.

What generation?
Second.

Where did you go to college? What did you study?
Boston University. Got my degree in Advertising on the art side of the business.

What languages do you speak?
English, basic Japanese and Spanish like a slow first grader.

How long have you been drawing?
Since I was pretty young. I've been drawing knowing that I wanted to get better at it since elementary school. I started freelancing in high school and decided I could make somewhat of a living doing it in college.

Where in Boston do you live? With who?
Savin Hill in Dorchester, about 5 minutes south of Boston with my wife and son.

What's your political affiliation?
I've always voted independent. This year may be different.

What are your hobbies?
I used to collect lots of comic books but they're getting way too expensive to keep up with. Now I just have a very small collection of books I really like.

Are you a realist or a dreamer?
A realistic dreamer. My goals are somewhat lofty but I figure out realistic ways of achieving them.

What hidden aspect of yourself do you express well in art?
On paper I'm a lot more aggressive with people and a lot more vocal. There's a part of me that is sheer aggression - borderline violent. But there's another part that keeps me in line. Maybe it's my wife and kid.

When did you start drawing S.A.M.?
Summer of 1998. It started as a monthly 2 page strip in a local arts mag that a friend and I started up with my wife and a few other writers, musicians, artists ...called Shovel Magazine. It had a circulation in the low thousands and we did all the distribution ourselves, store to store.

How did you market S.A.M. in the beginning?
I didn't really think of marketing the strip. It was just a platform for me to express how I felt about certain things. The earlier strips were a lot more brutal. I got a lot of heat for some of the things I said like saying "Fuck God" right after 9-11. I'm not saying that I take it back but I've since come to realize that it is a lot easier to get people to hate you than it is to get them to like you.

How long does it usually take for you to draw a strip? Do you work on your comics full-time?
From concept to finish - anywhere from an hour to 2 days. It really depends on the subject and how I feel like handling it that week. The monthly ones used to take about a week. I work full time as an art director for an alternative news-weekly called Boston's Weekly Dig. We produced Shovel Magazine for a few years and it morphed into the Dig. We are now at a circulation of about 30,000 every week. Now we have a distribution company getting the papers out there. I work on the strip every week on my own time which includes things like trying to get the strip into more papers, dealing with merchandise and doing PR.

You have encountered some media pressure to make your comic more mainstream and less "Asian-theme focused." Did your fan response to this proposal influence you to stick to your current style? If your fans had pushed for you to go mainstream instead, would you have done so?
Fan response to that strip was phenomenal. People from all over the country (even a couple of international responses) from all walks of life wrote in supporting the strip and saying I should stick with my guns and keep the strip the way it is. I pretty much knew that I was going to keep the strip the same but wanted to see what other people thought.

It's easy to get caught up in your own thoughts. I wanted to make sure I wasn't closing doors on myself. The response just further reinforced my belief that the strip needs to stay the way it is in order to accomplish what I want to do with the strip, which is to bring a distinctively Asian American voice to newspapers across the country. And not just to an Asian American audience, to everyone.

If the response was overwhelmingly in favor of going mainstream I have to admit that I would have thought about it. Again, it's easy to convince yourself that what you are doing is the right thing, even if it might be the wrong thing to do. I think the half-way compromise would have been to change the name to S.A.M. and keep the content of the strip as is. At least that way when it gets plopped on an editor's desk, it won't immediately turn them off with a big ol' "Asian" right in the name.

Have you ever drawn something that caused an outpouring of criticism from your fans? If so, can you elaborate?
I mentioned the "Fuck God" strip. That one caused a lot of response, but I suppose not from fans. Basically it was a strip about how sick I was at hearing "God bless America" right after 9-11. Let's face it, the "God" in "God bless America" is not Buddah, it's not Krishna, it's not Yahweh. It's the big bearded white dude in the clouds. It sent a shiver down my spine. If you're not with "God" you're with the terrorists. I got death threats, I'm-gonna-kick-your-ass threats, advertisers pulled out of the paper ... all sorts of stuff. One thing I've gotten criticized over is the fact that there isn't a "Secret Asian Woman" to speak up for the Asian American ladies out there. I can only write from my own perspective, that's why a lot of my strips are deeply personal. I can't represent the females because I'm not one. That's what Angry Little Asian Girl is for.

Do you feel pressured from other Asian Americans to be a "spokesperson" for the Asian American community? Tell me why.
In the beginning, no. I only felt an obligation to myself. After a few years of doing the strip, meeting people, getting in touch with AA organizations and such and speaking at conferences, I do feel more of that pressure. As far as I know, there's never been an Asian American comic strip that has been printed as widely as Secret Asian Man. That can be a pretty heavy load. Every week I feel like I have to show all those people out there that this strip is good enough to earn the space it is printed on. Then on top of that comes the Asian representation thing. If I mess up, I feel like I mess up for a bunch of people, not just myself anymore. I would never outright say that I am a representative of Asian Americans as a whole, but I am an Asian American and I can't deny the fact that a lot of Asian Americans read the strip. And from the support I get from them, I can only assume that they want the strip to be as successful as I want it to be.

What made you decide to extend the S.A.M comic into an apparel line?
It seemed like a natural thing to do. Merchandise gives readers an opportunity to support the strip directly. In turn it also helps to spread the word of Secret Asian Man. I guy in a band wearing a SAM shirt is huge. A sticker on a turnstile of a major subway station is huge. Exposure is key in the success of creative endeavors. The more people see it, the more people know about it, the more people want to read it.

Do you think Asian people would be offended if a non-Asian person had created the Secret Asian Man shirt?
Probably. I find the Asian American community can be pretty sensitive. The Abercrombie debacle is a good example of that. I was thrilled to see pissed off Asian faces in the news. You just don't see that. I did a strip thanking Abercrombie for making those shirts and bringing a little media spotlight on the Asians. Asians are no doubt getting more vocal. Sometimes I just think that we get vocal at the wrong things and tend to over-react. But I feel this way about most races, not just Asians. Things are as racist as we make them out to be. Not every race related remark is racist. We have to be able to get ourselves to a place where we can talk about these things openly and without apology in our own words, not just with a select group of approved terms and accepted labels.

Secret Asian Man on: July 4 (a.k.a. Identity Crisis Day) stood out to me. In this comic, a boy reflects on why he is categorized as an Asian American, not just an American. Why do you think this kind of racial categorization exists? Do you think Asian Americans themselves perpetuate it? Do you think that some Asian Americans would feel just as uncomfortable being labeled an American instead of an Asian American?
Racial characterization is natural. Our brains need to categorize things in order to make life easier. It's a visual cue. Unfortunately this phenomena tends to generate stereotypes, which are almost always based on some form of truth. In the case of Americans having to label themselves as something- American our government basically makes us do it in the form of a census. In a way that information can be handy but in a much more devious way, that information can be pretty dangerous. But in our everyday lives I think it's a choice that we make. I call myself a plain ol' American all the time. People ask, "But where are you from?" I tell them, "New York City." It's only when I started getting in touch with all these organizations that I became of all the different division even within the Asian American community. Hmongs, APAs, AAs, hapas, SEAs ... it kind of ridiculous.

We perpetuate it insofar as we are proud of where we are from. We like to throw that in there even though chances are the person you are telling is quite aware that you're a slanty bastard. I'm sure there are Asian Americans who would feel uncomfortable being labeled simply American. It strips away a piece of their identity.

In Secret Asian Man on: TV Asians, you point out that there are few, if any, Asians on television. What I've noticed is that when there IS an Asian in a movie or on television playing a non-stereotypical role, other Asians are still quick to criticize how this person looks or acts. What are your thoughts about this?
I agree. You just can't please everyone. Mostly that kind of criticism comes from people who have a set idea of what an Asian American should be like. The way I see it, there are Asian American scumbags as well as computer geniuses. I recently did a workshop with a group of Asian American high school students and one of them said that he hated the Asians in his school that were all about the import car scene. He thought they were stupid and made other Asians look bad. I told him that he should be happy that there is a wide range of Asians in this country, that we are not all the same or think the same. We are individuals. Love them or hate them, they are Asian Americans and if you say that you want to support Asian Americans, you better support all of them.

I enjoyed going through EPIC SAM: The Origins of Secret Asian Man. What inspired you to do this? Did it really take you a year to complete this project? Where did this epic run in?
I did a strip a week for a year. It was something I felt I needed to do on a personal level but I also thought it was crucial that the readers learn where I am coming from in order to understand a little better what I'm writing about now and why the strip even exists. My goal was to develop a body of work that I could look at the end of the year and read straight through as a continuous narrative. I also wanted to have a longer story for when the SAM book finally comes out. Still working on a publisher. It ran in it's entirety in Boston's Weekly Dig, AsianWeek and a paper in California called Nikkei West. It's also on a few Web sites.

I've noticed that you've created a lot of comics based on a child's perspective. What was your awareness of race and race relations like from a young age?
I was pretty aware of being "different." There's nothing like being the only Japanese kid (besides my brother) in a school that was 99% Chinese. Talk about confusion. I think a lot also has to do with the fact that when I started doing the comic, I was a teacher at a pre-school. Every day I saw things through kid's eyes and adapted to their reasoning and logic. There's a bare beauty to a child's mind that combines pure truth with an unspoiled imagination. Children don't hold back their feelings. We as adults learn to repress our feelings. I think we can learn a lot from little kids.

How did you get selected to be in the book, Attitudes 2: The New Subversive Social Commentary Cartoonists?
Ted Rall, the organizer of Attitudes 2, runs his comic strip in the Weekly Dig as well. That's how I initially came into contact with him. He's a pretty outspoken comic strip artist himself. I knew he had done the first Attitudes book, which was mostly political comics. He just e-mailed me out of the blue. It'll be nice to be in the same book as artists ike Aaron McGruder (Boondocks) since SAM has been compared to Boondocks on several occasions. I'm hoping that Attitudes 2 will expose SAM to a whole new audience. Available now at Amazon.com!

Do you have a book with just S.A.M comics out?
Nope. Not yet. I'm looking for the right publisher.

Where do you see yourself 10 years from now?
Hopefully not still looking for a publisher. I'd like to have the strip running in a lot more papers. I'd love to develop SAM in other mediums like animation, video games, toys ...

Who are your favorite artists/illustrators?
Geez. There are literally scores of them. Sam Kieth, Frank Miller, Bill Sienkiewicz, Dave McKean, Frank Frazetta, Simon Bisley, Katsuhiro Otomo, Hayao Miyazaki, Moebius, Robert Crumb, Bernie Wrightson, Gustav Klimt, Alan Lee, ... I could go on for hours.

Aside from S.A.M., what's your favorite comic strip and why?
Aaron McGruder's Boondocks for bring up racial issues on an otherwise bland sunday comics page. Mike Shapiro's Book of Sick for going there. Wiley Miller's Non Sequitur because it's beautifully rendered.

What kind of music do you listen to?
I'm all over the place. Metal, punk, rap, hip hop, electronic, hardcore, dance, Bjork ... Everything except country.

What kind of food do you like?
Again, all over the place but I must say Asian foods are my favorite.

What do you like the most about living in Boston? What do you like the least about living in Boston?
I love the annual influx of new young ideas that come with all the college students in town. I hate the fact that it is one of the most segregated cities in the country. Both socially and geographically.

Is there anything else you would like to add or share about yourself?
I think that'll do it.

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This issue of A-Profiler is brought to you by the gracious and dedicated Cynthia Cheng.