IMPROVISATION by Keith Giles

A short story about finding your inner voice.

Words by Keith Giles. Pictures by Jeff Spokes
Copyright 2007, Plastic Animal Studios
**
IMPROVISATION

By Keith Giles
Art by Jeff Spokes


Smoke dances on the bell of my horn

There’s the smell of patchouli and rosemary in the air


My first teacher told me once,

“You can’t teach someone improvisation,” he said

“Anymore than you can speak a language before you know the words.”

Benny on the stand-up slaps the upbeat

Melvin starts to play a smooth riff on the keys.

Jay taps out a warm groove on the skins

His brushes sound like a windstorm building in the distance

The mouthpiece is cold to my lips


I miss my intro measure and the guys cover for me.

I struggle with what to play..

“It’s like intuition,” my teacher said.

“Like the will of God or a woman’s glance from across the room.”

“You can never be sure until you’re sure,” he said.

“You’ve just got to feel it, boy”


“The sweetness is deep, like the bottom of a well. Sometimes you drop the bucket down…”

“You come up dry..”


“But, sometimes, you hear that splash and reel in the sweet water…”

“And it tastes like rain on your tongue.”

Random notes, possibilities, fly across my mind


Something swells in my heart, like a songbird spreading her wings.

I close my eyes.

“It’s all about the context, son,” I hear him whisper.


“But the trick, if there is such a thing, is to never go back to the same well twice.”

He told me about the young Mozart, improvising at the piano before he could climb a tree.


And a young Beethoven, fingers trembling with anticipation, intoxicated with this same burning,


..playing every note before it could diminish in his mind, chasing it down.

“It’s letting go, and it’s being in complete control,” he said.

“Like automatic writing, speaking in tongues, and falling in love.”


Brahms, he told me, carried his Intermezzi around for over two years
Comitting them to paper only under protest


Loving the sense of danger, the high-wire act, the walk along the razor’s edge



This is the opium of my soul, the same elusive spirit Mozart exhaled, the same burn that seared the soul of a young Beethoven, fingers trembling at the keys, eyes closed, head swaying, tears along the corners of his face…


And here I stand…

Who am I?

Not Mozart…

Not Brahms…

No one to you..

No one to them…


But the burning…the seething thing in my spirit…pounding in my chest…filling up my lungs, leaps from my mouth

Into the horn


Moves my fingertips like some invisible spider’s silk

Cries out in the darkness of the night


“You can’t teach improvisation,” he said to me.

“But you can learn it, son”


Benny turns the rhythm around, Jay follows his lead,


I step down the key on a wild eighth note run, swirling the melody like a whirlpool, pulling the connection between us taught, daring them to follow me down.


We slip into a riff that sounds like a Coltrane joint.


Jay reaches down and pulls out a rain stick, he starts pounding it on the floor of the stage, flipping it to let the rain sounds sizzle like gristle on a hot stove


I chop out the notes, swelling the end of each measure like a mournful wail before I relent and set it free.

Benny takes a run on his bass while Jay slips up the beat. He’s down on the three, then the one, then the two.


“There ain’t no wrong way to cut it loose,” he would say.

“There ain’t no right way either.”


I start a slow progression along the edge of Benny’s pulsing bass line, then I let out a single wail along the circle of fifths that is just a hair flat, right up until Jay hits the next measure and Benny’s next note catches up with me.



I take that moment to start blazing down the scale like a banshee.


Jay paradiddles now and the momentum builds. Benny scoops and slides his notes until I expect his fingers to start to bleed.


Everyone’s head in the courtyard begins to bounce.


On my last day of class, the old man gave me his horn.

“Miles Davis once played this horn,” he said.

I knew it was probably a lie, but it felt good.


I take a stab at the empty spaces between the staccato rhythm the guys have going.

My notes pierce the sky at random points along the curve, taking flight, riding the updrafts, soaring on wings of color and sadness.



My horn begins to weep between the mesh of drum and bass. Seeping through like rain against a screen door.

I breathe through the instrument that the old man placed in my hands that day.

The day he died.

My teacher…
My Father…
My friend…


I inhale the moonlight, exhale the deep ache of his ghost in me.

I cut it loose.

**
THE END

THE FUTURE OF AMERICAN COMICS

THE FUTURE OF AMERICAN COMICS
By Keith Giles

If you want to see the future of American Comics, you won't find it in the local comicbook shop, and you won't see it at the annual mega-comic convention. If you want to see the future of American Comics, it's in the manga section at your nearest Barnes and Noble or Borders Bookstore.

When I go to the comic shop all I see are men like me who are middle-aged, married with children and working a nine-to-five job. At least most of us are. There are still the occassional comic book geeks who are approaching twenty-five, still living at home, with no girl-friend and who works delivering pizza or bagging groceries to afford their weekly comic habit.

What I don't see are elementary-age children. I don't even see Junior High students. I only see adults who started out reading comics as kids and who are now the main demographic of the American Comicbook Industry.

When I go to Barnes and Noble looking for a graphic novel in the sci-fi section, I see elementary-age and junior high students laying in the aisles, stepping over each other to get to their favorite manga, and laughing with one another about something they've just read. I can see those kids reading the Americanized manga which is shelved just inches away from DMZ, Transmetropolitan, Casanova, and Kabuki. The potential is there for these young, new readers to discover the American comicbook product, if only a little marketing muscle could be applied to move those potential customers an extra three feet.

This is the future of American Comicbooks.

Here's what I think DC, Marvel, Dark Horse and IDW need to do if they hope to be in business another twenty years - Partner with large bookstore chains like B&N and Borders to expand "Manga Café's" where children can sit and read their manga, and their American Comicbooks, on actual tables and chairs in a well-designed and themed-out nook of the store. They already do this for their Children's section with giant wooden Pooh treehouse sculptures, favorite character icons along the walls, a Newbury-Award wall of books, and weekly book readings by authors and characters in costume.

Why not do the same for the comicbook/manga section? The big bookstore chains would make these sorts of changes to their store if the major American Comicbook publishers came to them with the idea, and provided marketing support, and helped to drive customers towards the great product that's out there in a way that everyone makes money. It's called a "Win-Win".

I can see it now. A small corner of the Barnes and Noble is decorated in life-size Trigun characters, and Naruto posters. There's a rotating wall display that features Eagle and Eisner Award winning books and best-selling manga titles are featured every-other month. Those publishers who participate in the program can get featured product on the wall or schedule promotions in the Manga Café calendar. Create a blog, launch a MySpace page or a .Ning group devoted to the scene. Create product aimed at this market, and place it in the environment where your best customers thrive; an environment your company helped to build in the first place.

It's in the best interest of American Comicbook publishers to foot the bill and lead the way in this area. Partnering with the larger chain bookstores makes sense since this is where the new customers are. They're already lounging around in there, and your product, your American Comicbook product, is only inches away on a shelf next to the Manga they're hooked on. If you want to get new customers and expand the comicbook market, go to where those customers are. Identify yourself to them. Introduce your product to them. Market it in the places they are already congregating.

You can forget trying to get them to come to you. But, if you started having your creators appear in those Manga Café's to read their books and give away free samples, drink coffee with those manga-fans, and supported their scene, they'd have a chance to discover your books and become your customers too.

There are already American Comicbook creators whose work would have a natural appeal to this audience. The artwork of Paul Pope, Brian Wood, Becky Cloonan, Skottie Young, LeSean Thomas, Fabio Moon, and a few others would be perfect for a bridge marketing effort like this.
Imagine a Viz/DC cross-over comicbook illustrated by Fabio Moon or an X-Men/Dragon Ball Z one-shot graphic novel illustrated by Skottie Young. Now we're talking.

It's not even a case of "If you build it they will come" because they're already there and the building already exists. It's simply a matter of aggressive partnerships aimed at expanding the market to a younger audience by inviting yourself to their party.

If the American Comicbook industry doesn't start trying to agressively market themselves to the youth of today, their current audience will soon be dead and in the grave. When we die, the comicbook industry dies too.

Here's to the future of the American Comicbook Industry. Long may she live.
-kg