| Haiku
Circus is a marriage of mediums, a juxtaposition of
words and pictures. While the haiku form has existed for
centuries, Haiku Circus strives to push the boundary
of language by creating works that perhaps only make sense
or are fully revealed when viewing the accompanying drawings.
Ken Yukio Sakamoto was born in Tokyo, Japan and grew up
near Berkeley, CA, USA. His mother is American, his father
is Japanese. He has two Japanese American sisters. He lives
in New York City, teaches yoga and is a freelance artist.
Despite thinking he had dreamed up a clever and original
idea, Haiku Circus is not the first haiku comic strip. Floating
Henry Rollins Head Haiku first appeared
on the Internet in August of 2000 and ran for about a year.
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- FAQ
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Why haikus?
It’s not for a love of the form. It’s more for
an interesting set of restrictions to work within. Similar
to how Garfield is always about Garfield (in addition
to Odie and Jon) or how Dilbert always riffs on
the typical American office, Haiku Circus works
within the traditional poetic form. It can be both liberating
and constraining. It can be a struggle to come up with a
“worthy” 17-syllable idea. For every one comic
strip created, many ideas for comic strips are discarded.
Also, my father used to make us kids write haikus out as
punishment. If they weren’t original or sincere enough,
we’d have to start over. Here is a family favorite
that we later turned into a whimsical playtime song:
| Gum
in sister’s hair. |
| Why,
who could have put that there? |
| Me.
Soap for lunch, please. |
-
Kayo S., age 7
|
What inspires the comic?
Growing up I loved the movie Charlotte's Web and
the book Animal Farm. That's probably where a lot
of the anthropomorphism comes from.
You
have an interesting drawing style.
It’s more sketchy than anything. I’m not the
best drawer in the world but I think I’m an OK sketcher.
Respect to Red
Meat for bringing credibility to minimalist comic
strips.
Don’t you think the old masters would cringe if they
knew how you were bastardizing their poetic form?
No. Haiku was a celebration of nature; haiku was not a celebration
of 5-7-5 syllables. They would, I believe, feel more distress
over what’s happening ecologically (e.g. deforestation,
global warming, over-population, etc.) rather than what’s
happening poetically. Besides, I don’t do haikus.
I do Haiku Circuses.
I’m interested in publishing Haiku Circus.
email. I can
also draw other things, as needed.
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