Category: Interview

#805 “Feeding Ghosts”: a story of Chinese history and family trauma

Feeding Ghosts

This week, an interview with Tessa Hulls, author of the graphic memoir Feeding Ghosts. It’s about her Chinese grandmother’s persecution by Chairman Mao’s government, the mental illness that resulted, the effect that had on Tessa’s mother and then on Tessa herself. It’s about Chinese history, trauma, psychology, family relationships, and more. Tim interviews Tessa about the book and how she learned to make comics, and then Emmet joins Tim to review the book.

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#796 Stan Mack and “Real Life Funnies”

Stan Mack Real Life Funnies

If you read New York’s Village Voice newspaper between 1974 and 1995, you are probably familiar with Stan Mack‘s Real Life Funnies. If not, hold on to your hat! A forthcoming book from Fantagraphics collects many of the strips, all ripped from real life, and taking full advantage of the Voice‘s lack of content guardrails. In this episode, Tim gets the scoop from Mack about what went into making the strip, and into choosing the strips for the book. But first, friend of the show and New Yorker cartoonist Joe Dator, a native New Yorker who read the strip in the Voice, and experienced first-hand some of the events it covers, sets the context for understanding what the strip is and how it encapsulates a time in the city’s history that’s gone forever.

See the book on Fantagraphics’ site

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#548 Jaime Hernandez interview

Jaime Hernandez

FLASHBACK! Love and Rockets continues to impress, and in this episode Koom asks creator Jaime Hernandez some burning questions. Hernandez talks about writing Maggie and Hopey, the dynamics of working on something with your brother, why he gravitates toward female characters, his influences and art style, and more.

Also, Tim and Mulele discuss the current state of the US comics market and Marvel’s recent problems.

Originally published May 22, 2017.

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#780 Jim Shooter interview

Secret Wars

Jim Shooter was Marvel Editor-in-Chief from 1978 to 1987, the era of Frank Miller’s Daredevil, Chris Claremont’s X-men, Secret Wars (written by Shooter himself), the West Coast Avengers and more. This week he talks with Koom about his take on modern-day Marvel, the early days of Frank Miller and Ann Nocenti’s careers, why “Little Miss Muffet” is a tool to teach good writing, and more.

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#776 Emily Carrington reveals “Our Little Secret”

Our Little SecretOpenly discussing being sexually abused, particularly if it was during childhood, is not easy. Emily Carrington has stepped forward with her memoir of being abused as a teenager, Our Little Secret, in the hope that others in her position will be moved to get help. The book recently won the Lynd Ward Graphic Novel Prize. This week, she talks with Koom about her struggle, making the book and getting it published, and what’s next. (This episode does contain references to childhood trauma and childhood sexual abuse, and may be triggering for some people.)

Emily on TikTok

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#775 Rina Ayuyang draws (on) her Filipino heritage

Rina Ayuyang

Rina Ayuyang has called on her Filipino heritage in her graphic novels Blame This On the Boogie and, just out, The Man in the McIntosh Suit. This time, Adam talks with her about using historical photo reference, doing comics digitally vs paper, Lynda Barry’s influence on her work, and more.

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#772 Evan McGorray and a translation about being trans

Call Me Nathan

Translation is a topic seldom covered on this show (Kumar has talked about it several times, most notably here). This time Emmet talks with French-to-English comics translator Evan McGorray about translating Catherine Castro and Quentin Zuttion’s Call Me Nathan, about a trans teen.

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#771 Jose Villarrubia on restoring Richard Corben

Den

Colorist Jose Villarrubia had trouble getting work from Marvel because his style was “too artistic” — but then other creators started asking for him, and he’s colored many Marvel titles since then. He’s also done photo art for Alan Moore‘s Voice of the Fire and The Mirror of Love. This August, a new edition of Richard Corben‘s Den, with color corrections by Villarrubia, will be released by Dark Horse. What can Corben fans look forward to in this new edition? And, why do recolored comics sometimes look Gaudy? Villarrubia covers all this in a talk with Kumar.

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#769 Tracy Butler on “Lackadaisy” – the animated cartoon!

Lackadaisy

Back in 2009, Tim talked with web cartoonist Tracy Butler about her beautiful, sepia-toned 1920s-with-cats strip Lackadaisy, and whether she’d ever quit her day job to focus on the strip. Since then, she has gone full-time on the comic, and recently embraced her first love, animation! The Lackadaisy 27-minute animated “pilot” has attracted a lot of attention the past few weeks, and the quality of the production had Tim thinking, “How was this even possible??” So this week, Tracy returns to the podcast to talk about the pilot, the now-full-color strip, and what the future of the title might be.

Watch a video clip from this interview

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