Deconstructing Comics Podcast, published every Monday, features comics creator discussion and comics reviews.
One of the most highly-regarded English-language strips of all time is George Herriman’s “Krazy Kat,” featuring the odd love/hate triangle of Krazy, Ignatz, and Officer Pupp. Why was Krazy so gender-ambiguous? How did Herriman’s (somewhat mysterious) racial background influence the strip? Tim and Kumar discuss this and much more.
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In Deconstructing Comics #303, Tim talked to Tom Rasch about how he was monetizing his comics project Black Alpha, a superheroes-in-space story. Now he’s asked Tim and Mulele to critique the first issue. They find that, while it’s a nice-looking comic, it has some issues…
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Waaay back in episode 250, Tim talked to Thomas Negovan about the Kickstarter project for a comic called Cursed Pirate Girl. Negovan was the publisher of the single issues of the series, and was handling media inquiries while the comic’s creator, Jeremy Bastian, put all his time into the comic’s insanely detailed art.
The first three issues are now out in a fancy hardcover from Archaia, and this time Jeremy himself comes on the show to talk to Tim about what’s happened since the successful 2010 Kickstarter project, and what to expect from here.
Plus, Tim and Brandon review the book!
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What happened on that night eight years ago? An experimental drug was tried by four friends, leading to widely contrasting outcomes for each. That’s the premise of Shattered with Curve of Horn, by Max Miller Dowdle. Tim and Mulele critique.
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A near-future scenario where contractor-employed soldiers are administered a certain drug before going into battle… Tim and Mulele take on Utopiates by Josh Finney and Kat Rocha. Will they get addicted, or have a bad trip?
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It’s a 15-week comics course in 78 pages! Ivan Brunetti’s Cartooning: Philosophy and Practice is about comics creation, but it’s less about technique or how-to than about shoving aside any preconceived notions and looking at the very basic pieces of sequential storytelling – or even boiling down an entire novel into a non-sequential single panel. Tim and his brother Paul use the book as a launching pad for discussing various comics-philosophy ideas, like: is there a difference between a “cartoonist” and a “comics artist”? What can you learn from a “bad” artist? Is it valuable to learn comics creation, or anything else, the old, low-tech way before digging into the modern, digital way?
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Kumar and Dana get together — in the same room! — to discuss Paying For It, Chester Brown’s chronicle of his decision to punt “love relationships” and hire, er, escorts instead. What does the book have to say about relationships? Is love simply a social construct? Is Brown persuasive in his arguments for decriminalizing prostitution?
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A tale of responsibility and loss; Tim and Mulele discuss Burden by Cole Munro-Chitty.
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Sales of digital comics have grown by leaps and bounds the past couple of years. Interestingly, this hasn’t hurt sales of paper comics, and may even have helped it. But is buying these comics really “buying” them? What considerations go into the pricing of them? What other issues, such as digital rights, still remain to be sorted out? Tim talks with cartoonist and writer Shaenon Garrity about all this and more.
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Mulele bought a print comic from one of his favorite online artists, the mysterious creator of the Tanglefoot page on Tumblr. The comic, Dime a Dance, is a fun silent story with dynamic art. Too bad it doesn’t have more room to breathe.
Tim and Mulele also look at:
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