Thursday, May 7, 2009

Reminiscing - My first brush with yaoi

A friend asked me if I would help her letter a new book that she had just been asked to do, and I said "Sure!" (Before this, I'd been helping her with shonen titles with lots of guns firing and explosions everywhere.) My friend went on to explain that this new title was a yaoi series. "What's yaoi?" I asked. What she did was to send me a link on wikipedia with the definition of yaoi. This was very informative, but I still didn't get it. Why would women want to read about two men having sex with each other? Wasn't yaoi just for gay men? All I could think about was too sweaty hairy men going at it. Little did I know how beautifully drawn the men in yaoi were, or how sweet and endearing the characters were. The more I read, the more I understood the appeal.

Romance. Check.
Mournful longing looks. Check.
Accidental brushing of hands. Check.
And I thought, "Wow, why haven't I heard of yaoi before?"

About a year later, we started a new hardcore line of yaoi books, and I realized the true potential of yaoi: Initiating new employees to the nuances of yaoi. *ebil laugh* One of the questions we always asked of our new victims, er, I mean employees was "Would you mind working with sexually explicit material?" If they answered "yes", we'd clap our hands and set to work.

One of my jobs was training out new recruits, so on one of my newbies first lettering assignments, I gave him our most sexually explicit book to work on. To his credit, he barely flinched. I was impressed! Everything was pretty straightforward until he got about 1/3 of the way through the book. Hmmm... how many ways can you letter SPLCH, SQSH, and SHLSH?? By being very very creative! My brilliant pupil delivered, but not without a few horrified looks and squints at his monitor. I did notice that a few of the other men in our office avoided his cubicle while he was working on those pages. I wonder why??

A few months later, we hired yet another person of the male persuasion. And, to my delight, Meg had him sitting on the other side of the wall of my cubicle. All I had to do was raise my arms, and I could show the person on the other side anything I liked, which included lots and lots of yaoi. Hmm... "OMG... is this a cell phone in a condom???" "Wow! I didn't realize that you could put 2 pens in there like that!!" Luckily, the new hire was a very good sport.

Ah... unfortunately, every job I have from now on will pale in comparison. *sigh* Good times.

~Allie

P.S. OK, my grammar is terrible. But, hey, I'm editing Engrish manga. Give me a break. LOL
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3 comments:

amy said...

Aw, yaoi and shounen are the same! There are still firing guns and explosions in yaoi, just of a different sort. =D

Allie said...

@Amy - You're right!! I'd never thought of it quite that way. ;)

aoi_aka said...

Leave it to Amy to be a total perv. Sometimes I wonder if she's a wheezing old man, sitting in a darkened room, living off his WWII pension and trolling for pr0n. Anyway.

You could totally write a book about the manga publishing industry. Then we could stalk you to get you to tell us who those male employees. XD

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