Seeking Jakarta in Senggol Jakarta

DEAR EDITORS, on the umpteenth night, with a pile of comic books by my side.

Reading the three comic compilations of Senggol Jakarta (Bumping into Jakarta, 2007) published by Akademi Samali is akin to munching a piece of sugarcane devoid of juice. It’s bland. Honestly, I don’t know what to write, or where I should begin.

They say everything begins with a word. But of course not. Everything begins with an action. Some action might be repeated and subsequently become important; some might give rise to desired results and therefore become important, and thus tradition is born. That is what I believe.

When writing about the comics in Indonesia, one should actually begin with tradition. But as the story of the Fiddler on the Roof shows us, tradition is rather elusive. Values change. What we consider important, valuable, or useful also changes. Sometimes I think it is enough as long as the fiddle is still being played, although sometimes the tune is melancholy, often out of tune. Sometimes the fiddler stumbles, and at such times I regret for not having paid enough attention to the last tunes, as perhaps it will take quite a while until the violin sings again.

That’s the reason we still have hopes, isn’t it? Our comic artists are still playing their fiddles, and by paying attention to the tunes, we can yell out our protests, clench our fist in protest at the discordant tunes. Therefore I still hope that there are noteworthy beginnings in the Senggol Jakarta compilations.

If one wishes to talk about the relationship between comics and the city and turns to the history and tradition of comics, one will see that comics had indeed been born by “railing” against the city. It was by fulminating against the city that Yellow Kid comic was born. The comic Lagak Jakarta was, I think, born through the same means. Through the mass media, comics laugh at the citizens’ visages.

Historically, comics and the city have been inseparable. Early on, comic strips talked about a tiny part of the city. When the comic strip gained greater popularity, in the Sunday paper it started to present a larger portion of the city. Cities have been borrowed to give rise to cities of dream; New York was turned into Gotham or Metropolis; sometimes by changing the era, many Japanese mangas turn Tokyo into Neo-Tokyo or Post-Apocalyptic Tokyo. The dream cities of the comics have also been borrowed and used in real urban architecture.

These were the reasons why I took a look into the three compilations again. Comics certainly have great potentials to talk about the city. They were born because of the urban environment. Armed with such belief, I present the following essay.


YOU MAY JOLT, BUT YOU MAY NOT BUMP
Akademi Samali has published three comic compilations depicting Jakarta. Comic works by young comic artists, which had been stored in Akademi Samali’s library, were compiled for this objective. Alongside two other comic compilations—Jakarta Senggol Dikit (A Tiny Bump into Jakarta) and Jakarta Senggol-senggolan (Bumping around in Jakarta)—the collection of Jakarta Senggal Senggol (Jakarta Bumping) was made with the objective to portray the atmosphere in Jakarta, to show things that are “truly Jakarta.” The compiler wrote that he “felt many things around us serve to remind us that Jakarta does indeed exist.” With the same belief, I try to look for Jakarta in the comics.

In this collection, I find Achtung (Picture 1), a comic made in a naïve and simple style. The compiler chose Achtung because of “its fluency to use silly languages.” As for myself, I am more interested in the way Achtung arranges time in equal units. From Monday to Saturday, in “a week full of terrors,” the day goes without any changes in the panels and their arrangements—only the days change. Simple, with Beavis and Butthead’s style of laughter.

Meanwhile, the comedy Jackass: an extreme form of slapstick presents characters with minimal expressions and highly cartoonized, far-from-real figures. This makes the violence presented in Jackass seems benign and unreal, and in keeping with the simplistic narratives that do not say anything.

Is this Jakarta?

The comic Bunga Liar (Wild Flower) offers “a bitter story about dreams of the people who start to feel inconsequential due to the hardship that Jakarta presents.” The lines are harsh, indeed. The story begins with a moral message that can be pleasing, but as the story ends with the phrase “…like it or not, it’s finished…” I begin to suspect that perhaps the artist lacks the ability to tell stories.

Concerning the issue of violence, I think the “series of comics arranged as one” in this compilation manages to show how the violence in the comics is “violence with no evil intention.” Smashing someone’s head causes no pain; someone can die and live again; and even means of violence can be made fun of. Mobs might attack Ondel-ondel,[1] bottles, bajaj,[2] and horse carts, making violence seems funny.

Is this Jakarta?

In Jakarta, violence is real. In the comic Jon Neurotic, it even becomes the “leading role” in the story. The rude beggars, physical clashes, and peeing in just any corner are indeed common in Jakarta. But can those things happen somewhere else? Yes, naturally. Even in a small village.

Meanwhile, the comic Niken (Picture 2) talks about traffic accidents, sexual harassment in the work place, and domestic violence. The story is typical for a big city, and, like Bunga Liar, it is bitter.

Is this Jakarta?

Meanwhile, what is truly typical of Jakarta is perhaps the comic Lagak Jakarta (Jakarta Exploits). The source of inspirations is real. The attitudes are real. Rather exaggerated in the comics, sometimes. But other times what is presented there is actually a fact, like when someone is depicted as wearing a T-shirt with the text of “Ellu-Ellu Gua-Gua” (Each to their own), the artist made a small note, saying that “My friend once wore such T-shirt!” (Picture 3)

What is obvious is that by depicting the street-side food stalls or the ubiquitous warteg, the sidewalks, public telephones, or house maids, the Jakarta atmosphere becomes stronger. By using the language of the Betawi ethnic group, Jakarta might be better recorded. By taking the bajaj, Jakarta might be better explored.

One can perhaps look for the things that are typical for Jakarta through its icons.

The National Monument, bajaj, members of music groups, itinerant singers, transvestites, the National Museum, Ismail Marzuki Art Ground, skyscrapers, and big roads are a series of Jakarta icons that have been used to talk about other things in the Senggol Dikit compilation. These icons are simply borrowed, so much so that one should perhaps not look for Jakarta in this collection.

What are typical of Jakarta might be the problems.

In Jakarta Senggol-senggolan, it is precisely the problems that are being compiled. A series of problems faced in the capital city have been recorded in the comics and are collected by Akademi Samali. Jakarta Senggol-senggolan maps the problems as such: 1. Violence; 2. Violence; 3. Violence; 4. Language; 5. Violence; 6. Violence; 7. Violence, again. No wonder one needs to make fun and laugh at violence in these comic works.

Although it is doubtful that this was a deliberate decision on the part of the comic artists or the compiler, apparently there is another intriguing red thread. There is a theme that appears frequently in the comics, i.e. the theme of the “road.”

The stories about Jakarta presented in the comics often occur on the road. I don’t think this is a coincidence. It is not difficult to agree how in Jakarta life takes place on the street. The idiom of “getting old on the street” is familiar for citizens of Jakarta. And if our comic artists have managed to capture this, it is not too much to say that we have a comic of Jakarta.

But is this true?

It is difficult to say “yes.” Actually, the street only rarely becomes the focus of attention for these artists, as the street merely serves as “a place.” Some artists indeed give special consideration to the street, as we can see in the comic titled Jakarta (by Beng Rahadian), in which the character comments on the Jakarta commuters (Picture 5). The comic presents quite a daring statement about what Jakarta is. The first page, after the title page, contains the narrator’s comment:



Panel 1
(caption)
This is where I live.

Panel 2
(caption)
Jakarta!

Panel 3
SFX (Sound effect)
BRAK!



From the first page, the narrator has made a relation between Jakarta and its streets and used it as his focus of attention. The car accident, which takes place in the third panel, serves as a dramatic entry. All through the comic, Beng talks about the attitudes of the road users in Jakarta, and manages to lure me to take his side, to agree that his choice to talk merely about the life on the streets of Jakarta constitutes an apt choice to talk about the city. To me, this is one of the comic works that have successfully presented Jakarta.

But there are not many examples of works that have successfully asserted the importance of considering the Jakarta streets in order to talk about Jakarta. A silent comic in the collection of Jakarta Senggol-senggolan talks about the experience of waking up late, hastily going somewhere using the motorbike taxi, trying to catch the train. Typical of Jakarta, indeed, but still is not as specific as Beng has described in his work. Perhaps because the artist there cares more about the technique of silent narratives than about presenting deeper observations in the narratives. If only the comic artist had observed the phenomenon better, perhaps he would realize that there is something funny with the story of people hastily catching their means of transportation in Jakarta. They all go at a fast pace, hurriedly, giving scant attention to others, in order to catch the slow-moving public vehicles. It is funny to think that to take to the street in Jakarta means to be in haste, competing to be the first to enter the slowness.

Such superficial observation is also related with the harsh situation of Jakarta, which often appears in these comic works. With the belief that Jakarta is hard, there is always the thought that violence lurks in every corner of the city. There is thus a tendency to limit one’s domain—to not greet and meet others. It seems as if there is always a certain potential of violence hidden behind the mask of any stranger. “Never talk to stranger”—this seems to be an apt advice for those living in Jakarta.

So, OK, we will accept the assertion that Jakarta is not a safe place. What does this mean? One apparent thing is that in the unsafe city, travels and exploration will only be comfortable if done in dreams. This explains a lot of things, for example why the violence that takes place in the comic works is the violence that occurs in fantasy, where people do not really get hurt.

This also explains why there has been a dearth of portraits of reality, because the effort to depict the reality of the city of Jakarta might be too risky. “Someone might try to rob me!” This justifies the scarce contexts in the stories that use Jakarta streets as their settings, because the streets are the place that one should best avoid. If you can use the bajaj, don’t go on foot. If you can take the cab, don’t take the bajaj. If you can hop on the Transjakarta bus, don’t go aboard the metromini. If you can use your own car, don’t use the public vehicles. If you can stay indoor, don’t go outside. What we have are not equal options, but levels of desire: because the pavement is narrow, broken, and muddy. Because at the end of the alley, a thug is ready to get us, and there is the constant threat of motorcycle accidents that might take our dear life. This explains why experiences about such incidents are often present and depicted in the comics with the view of the narrator who stands at a certain distance from the incident, or by turning them into comedy. It is only rarely that one is willing to face directly the thing that disturbs us. Often the comic artists feel that it is enough to say, “Let’s bring it on!”—on the comic, that is.

The world of these comics is limited. They do not try to create depth and are satisfied with borrowed icons. What is presented here is not a whole report of someone’s experience, but instead is merely play of imaginations triggered by clichéd icons, which becomes even more outdated due to the treatments that the comic artists have taken. If we are presented with a narrative about the metromini public bus, what we have will be the story about the threats posed on the passengers, the violence done by the driver, by the passengers themselves, by pickpockets, food peddlers, and itinerant singers.

All things considered, it seems logical that the comic artists avoid such threats. But comic artists are basically storytellers. “Never talk to strangers” means closing the door on possible inspirations. How can we obtain comics about Jakarta if the storytellers are only willing to half-dip one of their feet to the pool that is the living, throbbing story of their city?

What does it all mean? That to make comics on Jakarta one would need strong guts and steely nerves? Or perhaps we need a journalist who is on a par with Joe Sacco, who has gulped down the nerve of a tiger, enabling him to make a comic of Gorazde? Of course, it would be nice to have such a journalist to tell stories about Jakarta. But, I think, what we need might merely be a more open attitude.

Jakarta does have myriad problems. This only means that Jakarta has a wide array of stories. To avoid Jakarta’s reality, with any possible excuses, simply means avoiding the call of ideas. By closing themselves off, the comic artists can only narrate the stories that exist within themselves. Should this continue, no matter how ingenious the comic artist might be, the stories would run dry. The task of the storytellers is to spare some time to open up and absorb the stories taking place all around them. The comic artists need to realize that Jakarta streets are not merely connections from one place to another. The street is the link between the human beings. On the street you acquire smart. You survive the street long enough, then you can be wise. This only happens if you are open to experiences.

By engaging better with Jakarta, will our comic artists also become better? If you have read the comic compilations and then read this comment, you are bound to ask, “how about Lagak Jakarta?” Does it reflect what I ask from these comic artists? Alas, no. The fragment of Lagak Jakarta, at least what I found in the comic compilation, is indeed full of enchanting materials about Jakarta. Unfortunately, it often talks using the cartoon mode instead of that of comics. It often presents portraits or parallel information, and frequently talks only in one sentence. To understand it, we need to know the contextual background of the words it uses.

I ask more of comics than of cartoons. I expect comics to create a more complete realm. The experiences must be conveyed using good technical knowledge. Urban Minor by Muhammad Reza is an example of a comic work that has managed to create quite a complete world. Still, something is missing (Picture 6).

In the cases of comics such as Urban Minor and Ahmad Rivai, one can see that the comic artists have not successfully employed comic’s main weapon: the gaps between the panels. The stories told in the two comic works are flowing and well-ordered. Unfortunately, that is not how Jakarta moves. The street users in Jakarta know precisely how Jakarta moves in either one of the three modes: smoothly in droves; crowded and slowly; or totally jammed. There is nary a work in the compilations that has managed to translate Jakarta’s natural movements. Another homework for our comic artists.

Generally to the comic artists whose works are compiled here, the interpanel gap still constitutes an awkward means of communication. As a result, our comics often feel too long-winding, boring, or childish in conveying their messages. The interpanel gap can tell a lot precisely by letting the reader fill in the story and combine one panel with another.

The mastery over other comic elements, such as the selection of font, the format of the medium, and the lay out, is still lacking. On the other hand, the conveying methods are extraordinarily rich. The compilations present, for example, panels in the style of Will Eisner, Kirby’s movement effects, melancholy lines à la shōnen-ai mangas, and cartoons in the style of the Malaysian artist Lat. But have those methods been used appropriately? Often, such techniques are used simply as clichéd borrowings. Naturally, this does not constitute new information among our comic artists. Perhaps I even need to apologize to them for having said this too often. But still the problem remains. At least, that is how I felt when reading the comics. Our comic artists need to be aware that making use of the narrative methods of Japanese comics, for example, means that one also borrows the experience that such comics wish to convey. Have they used the methods appropriately? Using Akira Toriyama’s narrative method is certainly not suitable if one wishes to talk about a village on Java, or about a realist love story in SMA 70 public high school in Jakarta. If we are aware of this, perhaps we can move on from the debates regarding identity and to the question of how best to convey what it is that we want to convey. Japanese, American, European, or Medan narrative methods should constitute a rich trove for the comic artists, instead of a domain where they are debating about which one is better, especially when it comes to the issue of identity.

There. What have I been talking about so far? Only two things, actually: That our comic artists lack experiences in life and therefore suffer from a dearth of stories, and that our comic artists have poor technical mastery and therefore fail to tell their stories smoothly. Ironically, today our comic artists use an abundance of words, but, alas, their grasp on those words has been extraordinarily flimsy. And so this is where we stand. Now, let us talk again about the Jakarta comics, which turn out to be still far beyond our grasp…




Jakarta, December 17, 2008
Translated by Rani Elsanti




ARIEF ASH SHIDDIQ was born in Bandung, November 8, 1978. He started to read under the tutelage of Cypress comic books. After he was able to bike, he started to haunt reading rooms around his house, and around his friends’ houses. Today, after three years of working in Jakarta as the managing editor of Visual Arts magazine in 2005 – 2008, he works as the Operational Manager at SIGIarts Gallery, Jakarta, in order to satisfy his needs to buy comic books every month.



The three comic compilations Senggol Jakarta have been compiled by Akademi Samali, a comic community in Jakarta. Most of the works for the compilations are taken from the comic works by young comic artists, which have been stored in the archive of Akademi Samali’s library. The compilations were published for the first time for the Festival Tanda Kota (City Icon Festival) at Galeri Cipta II, Taman Ismail Marzuki, in November 2007. The exhibition was held by Jakarta Art Council, with Reza Afisina as curator and Ardi Yunanto as assistant-curator (The latter happens to be the editor in chief for this Karbon journal). It was an exhibition about the informal visual icons that constituted new signs in a city, and many artists from a number of cities in Java have participated in his exhibition. Akademi Samali compiled fragments from the latest works that talk about Jakarta. In this edition of “Comics and the City,” the compilations are used as a “temporary guide” for us to view the latest development of comics by the young Indonesian comic artists, which specifically talk about Jakarta.