I’ve never been concerned with creating something ‘new’. I certainly don’t consider myself a neophile. Marketers would call me a laggard. In fact, these days, I tend to find myself going the other way – building a vinyl and CD collection, reading physical books, using hand saws over electric ones when I can.
But I’ve recently been watching Juni Ito talk about his work in horror manga and the question he’s been asking himself over his long career strikes me as a lightning bolt, “Why would I want to create something that’s been done before?”
I’ve talked before about the value of mimicry in learning and the fact that people don’t really want original. But now I’m thinking, that only makes sense when it’s a commercial pitch. A publisher doesn’t want to take a risk on something never seen or done before; too much can go wrong. And so, if the goal is always, ‘will a publisher buy this story?’, then the work will never change. It’ll become incrementally derivative – enough for people to think it’s new, even though it’s just a small twist on something old.
But as an artist (with an income stream that isn’t reliant on the art itself), the stakes are different. I’m beginning to agree with Junji on this – why would I do something that’s been done before? Why wouldn’t I spend my short time on earth making a genuinely unique contribution? To spend it any other way seems… less generous.