Interview – Deconstructing Comics

#697 “Everyone is Tulip”

Most people have some dreams of fame and fortune. A certain portion of those people make their way to Hollywood in hopes of getting that big break. But how much are you willing to give up to achieve that goal? And what if the fame isn’t as great as you expected? These are the questions arising from the forthcoming graphic novel Everyone is Tulip, by Dave Baker and Nicole Goux. This time, Dave and Nicole tell Tim about their collaboration style, how comics writers are (often unfairly) seen as more important than artists, why rejection doesn’t really exist in the publishing field, and more.

Then, Tim and Jason review Everyone is Tulip!

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#696 Sequential Potential and “Minamata”

Sequential Potential and Minamata

Comics, of course, are not just for entertainment. They’re a great medium for educating. This week we feature two examples:

Sequential Potential is a company which helps academics get their points across in comics form. Co-founders Darick and Emily Ritter walk us through the process of conversion from dry, boring text to eye-catching comics.

The town of Minamata is one of several well-known examples of industrial waste leading to a massive tragedy visited on a community in mid-20th century Japan. That is, well-known in Japan. Sean Michael Wilson and Akiko Shimojima have set out to draw more attention from English speakers to the human cost of the Minamata mass mercury poisoning, with their new book The Minamata Story: An Eco Tragedy. Tim and Adam review.

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#695 Zander Cannon talks “Smax”!

Smax

A comics series that’s sadly hard to find these days is Smax by Alan Moore, Zander Cannon, and Andrew Currie. Emmet has been waxing nostalgic for this spinoff of Moore, Cannon, and Gene Ha’s Top Ten, so this week he calls up Cannon to chat about it – the meaning of the handprint on Smax’s chest, how the collaboration on this book (and Top Ten) worked, controversies in the fantasy genre, and more.

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#692 “Stan Lee and the Rise and Fall of the American Comic Book”

Raphael/Spurgeon book on Stan Lee

Tim and Emmet begin a series on Stan Lee biographies with the 2003 book Stan Lee and the Rise and Fall of the American Comic Book by Jordan Raphael and the late, great Tom Spurgeon. What’s the tone of this book, and how does it portray Stan? How much of the Marvel Universe is he actually responsible for, and what were his motivations for taking more credit than he deserved? We discuss, and then Tim gets some background on the making of the book from co-author Jordan Raphael!

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#690 “Dragon Age: Dark Fortress” and “Haha”

HAHA and DRAGON AGE

Nunzio DeFilippis and Christina Weir, following up on their appearance in episode 653, are back on the show to discuss their upcoming miniseries Dragon Age: Dark Fortress. How does the Dragon Age fan base compare with other ardent fan bases? How is Christina and Nunzio’s relationship with Dragon Age artist Fernando Heinz Furukawa? They discuss this and more with Emmet.

Then, Emmet and Tim discuss another miniseries, Haha, by W. Maxwell Prince with a variety of artists. The first two issues feature Vanessa DelRey and, a favorite of ours from episode 674, Zoe Thorogood!

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#688 Jed MacKay interview

Black Cat

Candian Jed MacKay is rising through the ranks at Marvel with some stellar books starring secondary characters — the Black Cat, Taskmaster — and now the Avengers in mech suits (Avengers Mech Strike). In this episode he talks with Tim about why Taskmaster portrayals have become goofier, how he treats Black Cat as sexy but not cheesecake, how he manages his writing time and more.

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#686 Con Chrisoulis interview

Con Chrisoulis has been on the comics scene since 1996, releasing comics in his native Australia, in Greece, and in the UK, as well as comics on the web. He’s best known for Tales of the Smiths, Rebel Rebel: The Graphic Biography of David Bowie, and King: The Graphic Biography of Jack Kirby. In this episode, he talks with Emmet about all these works, and the pushback on political commentary in some of his work.

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#685 Hilary Barta interview

Where Monsters Smell

Hilary Barta has been drawing (and sometimes writing) comics for decades, for nearly any publisher you can name. He even worked with the great Alan Moore on “Splash Branigan.” In this week’s show he talks to Koom about working with Moore, his Plastic Man stint, and his new humor story with Doug Rice “When Monsters Smell” in Marvel #4. And, the utility of drugs to the creative process is debated.

HilaryBarta.com

Hilary Barta on Patreon

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#683 COVID comics and graphic medicine

COVID comics

There have been plenty of comics made about the current COVID-19 pandemic, both instructional and autobiographical ones. In this episode Tim talks about about some of these with graphic medicine expert Alice Jaggers, a contributor to graphicmedicine.org, as well as other comics on health issues… one of which is none other than Fullmetal Alchemist!

The Graphic Medicine Database

The Lancet on COVID-19 and comics

COVID comics by NPR staff

Then, a talk with comics journalist Josh Neufeld, who recently did a piece called A Tale of Two Pandemics, exploring the myth that black people are immune to many illnesses. This idea popped up during both the 1918 flu pandemic and the current pandemic. Josh also talks about his comics journalism career and the experience of working with Harvey Pekar!

Josh’s story Supply Chain Superhero

We first met Josh at MOCCA 2016!

Help Tim move away from the apartment he’s allergic to

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#679 Mark Russell

Mark Russell has been one of the standout comics writers of the past five years, in part because he’s possibly the only mainstream comics writer doing satire (or, he would argue, fables). Since he burst on the scene with Prez and The Flintstones, he’s written a number of comics for several publishers that aren’t just comedy or action, they express his views and have deeper meanings.

This time, Tim’s interview with Mark. How did he get into comics, and start out in a Big Two book? Why did he use ’60s Hanna-Barbera character Snagglepuss to tell a story of gays in the 1950s? How do you “punch someone in the beef”? What inspired his latest, Billionaire Island? And how does he feel about being the only writer of his kind in mainstream comics?

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