News, Press & Reviews

Finally. We have an interview with Buzz Dixon, the creator of Serenity: Bad Girl in Town.

Realbuzz Studios:
Realbuzz Studios is an international enterprise creating exciting and entertaining original stories, art, and video content and related products for the family, tween-to-teen, inspirational, and Christian markets. Founded in 2000, the company is at the forefront of the new blend of American and Asian talent into breakout contemporary media.

Author bio:
BUZZ DIXON is the founder of RealBuzz Comics. A veteran of the comic and cartoon industry, Buzz has worked with Stan Lee of Marvel Comics, and on numerous projects ranging from Precious Moments to Tiny Toons to G. I. Joe. Buzz and his family live in southern California.

Principals include Buzz Dixon, a veteran comics and animation writer of such shows as Tiny Toons, G.I. Joe, and the Precious Moments specials; and Marlon Schulman, who has served as an attorney and creative executive producer for such companies as Bandai, Orion, and Walt Disney.

Illustrator bio:
MIN “KEIIII” KWON is responsible for penciling and inking Serenity. Although primarily a manga illustrator, the recent Rutgers graduate works in many different forms of visual art.



Sally: Buzz, I hope it's OK for me to call you Buzz because I just love that name, the first thing I want to know is, who wrote Bad Girl in Town? I see that you created SERENITY, and I see that Min Kwon did the artwork, but it is not clear to me who wrote the book. Is there a group sitting around a table littered with stale pizza crusts and cold coffee, flipping ideas back and forth? Or is that some stupid idea I picked up from watching sitcoms?

Buzz: SERENITY is a collaborative effort, with a lot of feedback coming in from all levels of our creative team and with our publishing partner, Barbour. While I conceived of the concept and shaped the general overview of the SERENITY storyline, I can also say I have neither shame nor pride when it comes to creating SERENITY: Any member of the Realbuzz Studios team is free to suggests ideas or changes, and if they’re better than what was originally proposed we’ll go with that.

The stale pizza crusts and cold coffee image is accurate when it comes to staff writing for a TV series. Realbuzz Studios operates almost exclusively in the digital domain, however. While our main offices are in Los Angeles, our primary artist on SERENITY lives in New Jersey, and we have used colorists and other artists all the way from Canada to Brazil to the Philippines. Usually the feedback comes via phone calls, e-mails, and uploaded art concepts, though we do occasionally arrange business travel so we can confer with Barbour or have Min come out for the San Diego Comic Con.

Sally: I felt I was at a disadvantage when I reviewed this book, since I am not very well acquainted with manga. In my ignorance of the genre am I the typical Christian mother, or am I more out of the loop than most?

Buzz: You’re probably more familiar with manga (Japanese comics) and anime (Japanese animation) than your realize. Japanese cartoons have been shown on American TV since the 1950s with KIMBA THE WHITE LION. Other popular series in the 1960s and 70s were ASTRO-BOY, SPEED RACER, and BATTLE OF THE PLANETS. And of course, more recently there’s been the extremely popular SAILOR MOON and DRAGONBALL series. Currently, “anime style” graphics and visual direction can be seen in otherwise totally American (or for that matter international) films, TV shows, and music videos.

While some manga was being imported into the U.S. in the 1980s, almost all of it was either sci-fi or martial arts stories for male audiences. SAILOR MOON introduced manga to tween to teen girls and once they discovered romance and girl adventure manga, they became the ones who have really been driving the demand since then.

Sally: Oh, I am familiar with manga, afterall. KIMBA THE WHITE LION and ASTRO-BOY were my favorite cartoons when I was in first grade. But how do you plan to educate the poor mothers who don't know how great manga are? What about the mothers who think of Pokemon when they think of manga, and they're kind of worried because they associate manga with new age stuff? How do you convince them that manga is fine for kids and is worth buying?

Buzz: Manga is a style, not a genre. You can have sweet, soft children’s stories or hard hitting samurai tales and still be manga. While American comics place more emphasis on the action in the story, manga tends to emphasize the emotions and character relationships. This is why they tend to use exaggerated eyes: It’s a means to help convey the emotions of the characters.

And while there’s a lot of great manga that I would be happy to recommend to anyone, there’s also a lot of stuff that requires some discernment. In this sense manga is no different from prose fiction: You can walk into a bookstore and find both Jan Karon and Mickey Spillane. Fortunately, most secular manga publishers make an effort to list appropriate reading age levels on their books.

As to why manga is worth buying, well, that’s ultimately an individual choice. Scott McCloud has written – drawn, actually – a wonderful book called UNDERSTANDING COMICS which explains why reading comics or manga is a different kind of experience than reading prose or watching a movie. Comics and manga reach their audience in a different sort of way, and the synthesis of visuals and text offers levels of expression and subtlety that other media can’t duplicate. (In fairness, other media can do things than manga can’t; there is no single perfect art form.)

Ultimately, people read and buy manga for the same reason they buy prose novels or listen to music or go to movies: Because something in the experience speaks to them.

Sally: I read a fascinating interview you did at Manganews.net, and felt like I'd fallen down a rabbit hole into a completely foreign world. This is apparently big business. Do you think that many current manga lovers are Christians? Or do you think you are taking a new style, or art form, and offering it to a group of people who haven't been exposed to it? To put it another way—are you delivering Christian teens to manga or are you redeeming something they are already involved with?

Buzz: One way or another, teens are already involved in it and with it. According to the 2000 census, 80% of the United States identifies themselves as Christian to one degree or another, so Christian teens are already buying the bulk of popular media. And while it would be presumptuous to say we were “redeeming manga” as a whole, we are doing what has already been done repeatedly in manga: Create a popular genre that attracts fans and readers, in this case Christian-themed stories.

Sally: I'm wondering if by opening up manga to Christian kids, they might go looking for more and find some that is not good for them—kind of like the adult swim cartoons on the Cartoon Network. Are manga rated in any way? Can kids buy pornographic manga?

Buzz: Manga is a style. As an analogy, MARY POPPINS and MYRA BRECKINRIDGE are both big budget Hollywood movies, but I don’t think being a fan of one automatically leads to being a fan of the other.

Again, the manga section of a large bookstore reflects what can be found in the rest of the bookstore. Some of the stories are appropriate for all readers, others aren’t. The secular manga publishers are acutely aware of their responsibility to consumers – both younger readers and their parents – and make an effort to label their product accurately for specific age groups. Many of them go so far as to shrink wrap certain titles to prevent younger readers from even being able to browse through them in a book store. Recently one American importer edited and toned down certain scenes in one title to make it accessible to more readers even though this outraged many otaku (i.e., manga fans/geeks).

Can kids buy pornographic manga? They shouldn’t be able to, and if they do, some retailer is either deliberately or unintentionally violating the industry’s guidelines.

Sally: I noticed that SERENITY has already made an appearance on the CBA youth best-sellers list. This floors me since fiction almost never appears on that list. I'm sure you were hoping for a bestseller, but did you think it would happen this fast and to what do you attribute these sales?

Buzz: SERENITY is a comedic teen soap opera about an unhappy girl who finds a happy ending. We try to tell a story that involves moral and spiritual values in a context that our readers can relate to, as opposed to a squeaky clean Bobbsey Twins tale or a ham-fisted sermon. I’d like to think Serenity is an interesting character and readers want to see what happens next in her life.

Sally: Are you selling the book only in Christian bookstores? Where can I get copies?

Buzz: We are selling SERENITY in ever venue we can find, from Christian bookstores to comic book shops, from large secular bookstore chains to Wal-Mart. And we can always be found online through Amazon or any Christian book sale website.

Sally: How many books are going to be in the SERENITY series? Or do these manga go on forever until they quit selling? Once Serenity is converted to Christianity will the series go on?

Buzz: We have enough material to go twenty to twenty-four volumes in our current format (i.e., 90 pages). That will take us up to the beginning of Serenity’s young adult life. We have some very broad ideas for what happens to her in her adult life, but let’s get her through her teen years first!

We are anticipating a couple of spin off titles, some of which may continue indefinitely. Serenity formally becomes a Christian at roughly the halfway point in the series. The second half of the series will focus on how she struggles to grasp a complete understanding of the Christian walk and how she ends up becoming a positive influence in the lives of others.

Sally: I'm glad SERENITY is in color. Kids who watch anime on TV are used to color and probably wouldn't be thrilled with black and white pictures on newsprint. I imagine the color printing and the glossy pages add quite a bit to the cost of production, though. So how does SERENITY compare in retail price with other manga? Is she more expensive or are manga buyers used to paying eight to eleven bucks for a hundred-page book?

Buzz: We’re getting all sorts of feedback on the color. Some otaku (those manga purists mentioned above) are outraged that we call ourselves “manga” since we’re not in black and white. The average reader, however, seems to enjoy it.

It does add to the production cost, but not prohibitively so. Price wise, we’re a good value for an original manga or graphic novel. We’re competing with imported titles that have already made their money back in Japan so any American sales are pure profit and hence can be offered at a cheaper price, yet we’re still able to go head to head with them at the retail level. While there may be changes in certain titles’ formats in the future, Barbour always places value to the consumer as a high priority.

Sally: You deal with some serious issues in the book. Teen sex, for one. What has been the reaction from kids and parents?

Buzz: Min Kwon, our primary artist, is a Korean-American young woman in her early 20s, so she is not far removed from our target audience. She tells the story with a feminine eye, so she is focusing more on the characters’ emotions and expressions than in eye candy for boys. She does an excellent job treating our story points matter of factly, not in a titillating or exploitive manner. And we still got a complaint from one Christian broadcaster who thought a panel that showed Serenity’s foot stepping into a pair of cutoff jeans was too provocative!

We also received a few complaints from people who didn’t like our “taped” euphemisms in Volume One, Bad Girl In Town. (For readers who haven’t seen the book yet, Serenity’s apparently salty language is covered over in the dialog balloons with what looks like labeling tape; one of Serenity’s friends breaks her of her bad language habit in the first third of the book so we never have to deal with it again.)

Sally: Oh, I loved the way you dealt with the sex. You didn't really delve into it too deeply, but what was there was realistic without being raunchy or titillating. I get the idea that you are going to deal with it on an ongoing basis and we'll see more about why premarital sex isn't an option for Derek. I liked the shot of Derek taking the cold shower, and I think you nailed the teen girl's desire to be desired. But I see Amazon has the suggested age as being 9-12 and that seems a bit young to me. Are the little girls in the world really growing up this fast or do you expect SERENITY to sell to the older end of that group?

Buzz: Unfortunately, we live in a highly sexualized media world. In our local mall there are two clothing stores for teens across the way from each other. One specializes in beach and swim wear and despite the skimpiness of the outfits comes across as fun and wholesome. The other offers jeans and tops but makes one feel like they’ve just crawled out of an x-rated theater. Sexuality is used to advertise all sorts of products, and too many people in the pop culture world mistake shock value for talent. Kids can’t escape this sexual saturation, so it’s pointless to pretend it doesn’t exist. What we can and should do is be honest and open about what they’re exposed to and the feelings they are experiencing themselves.

Yes, there will be a lot more about Derek’s personal history and why it has made him acutely aware of individual responsibility. And we have just begun to scratch the surface regarding the other girls and boys in the series, and how they feel and think about all sorts of things that real teens face daily.

We think Amazon’s suggested age range is a bit low and have tried to get them to raise it but thus far without success. That being said, today’s teens and preteens are growing up way too fast – and I say that as somebody who was that age during the turbulent 1960s and came away thinking my own generation grew up too fast.

Sally: Yes, I agree. We grew up way faster than our parents and now our kids are growing up even faster than that.

I understand the manga are about relationships and they are ongoing stories. Readers are supposed to become attached to the characters. I am already attached to these kids and want to see what happens to them as the story progresses. Derek is my hero. I'm a little worried about Kimberly. I'd like her to be wholesome and honest and loving and bright. I'd like her to shine against the backdrop of Serenity's depravity. (Great job with her clothes!) I'd like boys reading the book to find that Christian girls are more exciting and desirable then rough little girls like Serenity. But I've read that girls are the big buyers of manga and I've noticed that you are marketing this to girls.

Buzz: Oooooh, are we gonna give you some sleepless nights regarding Kimberly! Kimberly is a fascinating counter-point to Serenity: She was raised in a good, stable, moral Christian home and she’s had nothing but the best influences in her life, yet at the same time she’s never really been tempted to take any moral or ethical shortcuts before. Now Serenity barges into her life and threatens to upset her relationship with Derek, and so she’s going to wonder if maybe she shouldn’t up the ante in order to keep Derek interested in her.

Conversely Serenity will be going through the opposite sort of feelings. She’ll be seeing that her old self-centered, amoral point of view hasn’t made her life better and that perhaps there is something to this Christianity stuff she keeps hearing.

And both of them will be learning what true love is – not just puppy love or infatuation or physical desire, but genuine, deep-rooted, from the heart love.

Derek has a good, solid moral underpinning, but he’s not made of stone as the cold shower panel shows. There’s a lot about Serenity he finds attractive but a lot more that he doesn’t like – her attitude, her behavior, her language, etc. As Serenity grows and changes for the better, Derek will find his feelings for her changing, too.

And we haven’t begun to delve into what’s going on behind the eyeballs of the other kids in the series. Trust me, all of them have complex emotional cores that we will reveal bit by bit over the course of the series. The books are called SERENITY but even though she is the focal character, the stories are actually a rich, detailed tapestry involving all their lives.

As for the girls’ wardrobes, that’s where we are so fortunate to have Min’s “feminine eye” working for us! She uses their clothes as an extra layer of insight into their personalities and emotions.

Sally: Wow, that does sound like a great story you've got going. It does sound like you have a good grip on what drives kids. I will watch Kimberly with interest. So with these fluid characters who sometimes do right and, I take it, sometimes stumble, what do you expect girls to come away with when they read this? What attracts them to Serenity and what can they learn from her? And is there a role model in the books for them? What do you suppose they will learn as they watch Kimberly and Derek interact with each other and with Serenity?

Buzz: I think that the initial attraction for any reader of the series is identification with the whole or aspect of a particular character--whether it is Serenity, Kimberly, Derek, Sally--whomever--this identification comes from seeing realistic teenagers in realistic situations--ones that readers readily identify with. But it is another level--a most important level that may be what ultimately attracts most readers to Serenity--girls and boys--and that is the theme of redemption. We all have things in our lives that we are not proud of or happy with, yet with God’s grace we can find forgiveness and inner peace. Serenity in volume one is no role model, but by volume six readers will be able to see a change for the better in her life, and hopefully realize that they can find this improvement themselves.

I am sure we are going to have readers rooting for Kimberly in the course of the books, and as the other kids’ personalities, backgrounds, and inner conflicts come to light, we will have readers who will identify with them.

I won’t tip off anything regarding the Serenity-Derek-Kimberly triangle other than to say all three of them will come to know the genuine meaning of true love by the time the series reaches its conclusion.

Sally: I can't wait to see how it plays out. And I have to correct something I put in my review. I'm going to go in and change it. But I wrote that my kids weren't too excited about the book. After I wrote that my daughter read the book three times in one sitting and then nagged me to three days about when Buzz would write the next one and when would I buy her the next one and on and on. So I'm sorry about saying the kids didn't like it. Not only am I eager to see how things progress for Serenity and company, my daughter is hooked as well.

But my son wasn't too enthused. So what does a manga for boys look like? I see this sexy looking sci-fi skier girl in the back of the book, with legs up to here, and I hope she's not starring in any upcoming books for boys or girls. (LOL Just thought I'd pass on the concerns of the ogre Christian mother with the pubescent son with the raging hormones, and the pubescent daughter who always wants to look pretty and sexy because she's . . . well . . . a girl. Just in case you cared about what ogre mothers think) But what do you have in the works? Anything for boys? Adults? Can you give us a peek into the future of Realbuzz studios?

Buzz: The space girl was a cover mock-up for a magazine proposal back when SERENITY was first being developed. Originally we planned to do three monthly manga magazines for tween to teen girls: SERENITY, a sports title, and a sci-fi/fantasy/historical romance anthology. When my business partner, Marlon Schulman, came aboard Realbuzz Studios, one of the first things he asked me was if I wanted to spend all my time chasing advertisers or if I wanted to create uplifting and inspirational stories. I said I wanted to do the latter so he persuaded me to drop the magazine format and concentrate on original graphic novels in the manga style.

Our original artist was a male, by the way, who had to drop out due to scheduling conflicts. You can see the difference in the way he approached the page and the way Min approaches it from a young woman’s point of view.

As for our future, we like to tell people SERENITY is just the flagship of a whole fleet that’s ready to sail. We have a few boy titles in development, as well as a title for middle aged female readers, but right now we’re concentrating on tween to teen girl titles. We plan to make an announcement very shortly about the next three series from Realbuzz Studios.

Sally: Middle aged female readers? Now that I gotta see. So I'm going to let you get back to it. Go produce more good stuff.

Thanks for your time. It's been real, Buzz. (Heh heh. Wanna hire me to write for you? Just figured I had to work in at least one stinking pun since my name is Sally.)

Buzz: Ouch! 9D Thanx for asking such insightful and well thought out questions.

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