There Are Four Lights

Skepticism Through Manga

The graphic novel market is dominated by sales of manga; the form of comic book made popular by its animated counterpart, anime. Canadian manga creator, Sara E. Mayhew, was featured by the country’s prestigious graphic arts magazine, Applied Arts, as “new talent commanding our attention”. And, indeed, that was what she received—the attention of TED, the annual idea conference of the world’s leading thinkers and doers, who chose Sara to become part of their new fellowship program and attend the TED conference as a 2009 TED Fellow.

Her “idea worth spreading”? Promoting skepticism and passing on her passion for science through storytelling. Manga is the platform she has chosen to tell her stories. In her talk, Skepticism Through Manga, you’ll be introduced to this powerful storytelling medium and to the worlds and characters she has created to inspire readers to embrace evidence-based thinking.

Yes, I’ll be speaking at the Center For Inquiry on March 31st at 8pm in Hollywood! This is CFI’s monthly science cafe, “Cafe Inquiry“. It’s a free event so come on by and hang out with other skeptics, humanists, and science lovers. I’ll be opening the evening with my talk and then a discussion follows.

FREE skeptics talk, available refreshments, open bookstore, AND a geekalicious Canadian mangaka? HOMGosh~tell everyone!

Attending TEDActive was an amazing experience. Just seeing the TED2010 simulcast alone is great—-12 sessions of TED talks in four days. Then there’s the swag; the TED gift bags and the surprise giveaway of Google Nexus One phones for the 1500 Long Beach attendees, 500 TEDActive attendees, and all the TED Associate members. One of the experiences I’m most grateful for in my TEDActive ’10 attendance was the opportunity to give a 3min TEDYou talk, Friday morning, to an audience of a few hundred of my fellow TEDActive members.

I was second to speak, which meant following Sebastian Wernicke‘s amazing talk on how to make an amazing TED talk. My 3mins was dedicated to speaking about why I think the world needs more skepticism and how I’d like to promote that idea through manga storytelling.

What I believe is an idea worth spreading can be summed up in one of my favourite Sagan quotes “For me, it is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring”. The theme of this year’s TED conference was “What the World Needs Now”. My pick for what the world needs is more skepticism, critical thinking, and science literacy.

If we want to distinguish what is true from what we simply want to be true, we will learn to be good skeptics.

TED is a conference of the world’s leading thinkers and doers. What speaks to me the most about the TED speakers is not only that they are at the leading edge of their field, but that their work is driven by a passion to somehow make the world a better place. In my own work, I’m motivated to improve my writing and art from a technical perspective, but my major focus is often to establish what my own idea worth spreading is.

Manga is a hugely popular form of sequential art. Some of the things most appealing to me about it is the diverse readership (people of all ages read manga, including a high percentage of female readers) and the unconstrained storytelling—-you can tell all kinds of stories using manga. My goal in my work as a mangaka is to create stories that show the value in critical thinking and the dangers of mixing power and ignorance. I want to create characters that are good role models as skeptics—-overcoming problems using knowledge and evidence-based thinking.

Legend of the Ztarr is the story I’m writing with these ideas in mind. Currently, the first chapter is available online. My goal for 2010 is to get the series picked up my one of the major US manga publishers.

I had a great time getting my 3mins in front of the amazing TEDActive crowd. It isn’t often I get to talk to others about my work and my passion behind it. My fellow TED 2009 Fellowship member, Tino Chow, posted about my TEDYou talk on his blog, where he covered the TED simulcast.

©tinochow

Last February, I was chosen to be a TED’09 Fellow and attended the TED conference in Long Beach, CA. It was a life-changing experience. This year, I’m headed to TEDActive, in Palm Springs, which is the simulcast of TED. For those of you who live in a cyber-cave, head over to TED.com already!

I did a talk, last year, on the TED Fellows stage, and this year I’ll be doing another little talk—-this time, during TEDActive‘s TEDYou session. I’ve recently put the finishing touches on my slides (example above). My talk will be about skepticism and manga!

For those of you who may not be familiar with anime or manga this rendition of four of the greatest scientists in our history might seem a little odd. For anime/manga fans reading this who aren’t familiar with ‘Charlie, Carl, Albert and Isaac’, this is probably confusing to you as well!

Since we’re celebrating Carl Sagan Day, I thought I’d create a little piece of artwork that has been floating around in my head for a while—-what Carl Sagan, Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein, and Isaac Newton might look like if they were bishounen characters in a manga series.

This had already been posted on PZ Myers‘ mega-traffic blog, Pharyngula, but I wanted to post it here too, since it is so awesomely nerdtastic!

Carl Sagan – ‘A Glorious Dawn’ ft Stephen Hawking (Cosmos Remixed)

I have some super geeky fan devotion of my own to post; Darwin, Einstein, Sagan, and Newton…all drawn in manga ‘bishounen’ style! No, I’m not kidding—-I have Charlie and Albert sketched already and am inspired to finish & colour all four, after having seen this awesome display of nerdom!

I’ve added three new images to the header rotation…just some quick little Trek doodles.

I have a weakness for the fashion of the online store, YesStyle.com. My closet contains many of their items, which I wear whenever I decide I should get out of my pjs and put on something nice. And what better place to do that then at the TED 2009 conference!

This is my creme-coloured ballerina skirt from YesStyle, which I wore for the first time at the TED Prize Gala back in February. The conference was held in Long Beach. This layered skirt is from the South Korean brand, Ukki. You can still grab it for about $50 US.

I also have this lovely “Flower-and-Vine” zip wallet by Let’s Fly, a Chinese brand. This particular item is no longer available, but YesStyle carries many of the brand’s other cute women’s bags and wallets.

One feature that I like about YesStyle is their “set” section. You can find some pretty affordable outfits in this sections, where items are combined together. I first came across YesStyle while looking for clothing references for my artwork. Looking through the site’s fashion always makes me want to sketch cute manga girls dressed up in their adorable items. So I did!

This set is from the South Korean brand, Beccgirl. It includes a v-neck long sleeve shirt and the check pattern skirt. Several colours are available in both the skirt and shirt, with the option of mix-and-matching your choice. Not included are the boots and the adorable suspenders. I have a thing for suspenders!

There you have it–YesStyle+manga! …And evidence that this geeky mangaka can, occasionally, get all dolled up!

…actually, it was just sitting in the mailbox this morning—-but it should’ve arrived this way! Yep, my very own copy of Death from the Skies signed by the totally awesome Bad Astronomer, Dr. Phil Plait. And yes, he’s lucky enough to be getting a manga goody bag of…goodness. I’m assuming it will arrive via magic ninjas or team of sailor scouts…

Do you want your very own manga goodies by mangaka Sara E. Mayhew? Great! You can get your copy of Secrets of Sorcerers Vol. 1 over at Amazon! Unfortunately, if you want a print copy of Legend of the Ztarr, for now you’ll have to call up Viz and tell them they should publish it…

Obviously, I didn’t have the time or energy to blog about my TED experience while I was actually there. TED is a brain-melting experience that leaves you feeling amazed and overwhelmed at the end of each day. I’m going to have to refresh my memory when the DVD set arrives of all the great talks that were given within just a few days. As a fellowship member, I did a short talk on a mini TED stage to an audience of fellow Fellows. I took advantage of the chance to give a talk to talk about one of the things I love to talk about most—-Legend of the Ztarr, my new manga series!

As a Canadian in the middle of winter, just being in California was nice (though, apparently 12c is “cold”, lol). I was really thrilled to meet all kinds of amazing people; Of course, all of the fellowship members were extraordinary and simply the greatest group of people I’ve been fortunate enough to become friends with. Everyone is doing something amazing to change the world for the better from all corners of the planet.

Though my family was interested in hearing about whether I got to meet Al Gore or Robin Williams, instead, I was excited about getting to meet Dan Dennett, philosopher and one of the ‘Four Horsemen’ of atheism, Brian Cox, physicist at CERN working on the LHC, and Carolyn Porco, head of imaging for the Cassini mission to Saturn (links point to Flickr photos of them and myself). I’m extremely shy, so I probably freaked them all out a bit by being so quiet!

My Twitter followers count has quadrupled since the first day at TED and my inbox has exploded with emails. There are several invites in the works for various talks/workshops that organizations are interested in having me attend. Hopefully, this TED momentum will aid in my current goal of getting Legend of the Ztarr picked up by a publisher. If there’s one feeling that a TED conference leaves you with, it’s that nothing is out of reach, and any idea is possible. TED is truly an inspiring gathering of the worlds leading thinkers and doers, that leaves a lasting impression on the rest of your life.

If you’ve come across this little blog of mine, I invite you to read Legend of the Ztarr and spread the word about it. You can find my collection of TED photos on my Flickr account, follow me on twitter here, and look me up on Facebook/Myspace as well.