Tag: Tom Spurgeon

#462 Usagi Yojimbo

Usagi YojimboOriginating out of the same ’80s black-and-white/anthropomorphic boom that brought us the Ninja Turtles, Usagi Yojimbo is one of the few comics of that batch that are still going today. Stan Sakai’s work combines historical drama, understated violence, light comedy, and even some explanations of 17th century Japanese culture — and he can pack a surprising amount of story into a few pages. Tom Spurgeon joins Tim and Kumar to talk about the long-eared samurai.

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#446 Tom Spurgeon

Tom SpurgeonOur frequent guest Tom Spurgeon this time sits for an interview with Tim, discussing his childhood interest in comics; his lousy pre-Comics Journal job & how he got into TCJ; the Top 100 comics of the 20th Century issue (and why nothing by Dave Sim made the list); his new job, organizing an annual comics festival with the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum; the controversy over a certain recent Batgirl cover; and more.

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#420 Kupperman and Hanawalt: Our guides to the absurd

Tales Designed to Thrizzle and My Dirty Dumb Eyes

Michael Kupperman’s Tales Designed to Thrizzle and Lisa Hanawalt’s My Dirty Dumb Eyes are two books exhibiting bizarre humor and pointed takes on modern life. Tim, Kumar, and Tom Spurgeon discuss.

Bojack Horseman trailer

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#349 Expanding comics’ audience, pt 1

Recently asked on our Facebook group: What would you do if you controlled Marvel and/or DC? This led to another question: How can comics, particularly in the US, gain a larger audience?

No one’s really sure of the answer to the second question, but its a good springboard for podcast discussion of comics evangelism and the state of the industry in general. What role will digital comics play? In the first installment of an occasional series, Tim bounces these questions off our friend Tom Spurgeon.

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#339 “King-Cat”: The Mundane, Re-observed

kingcatIf you’re old enough to remember pre-Internet days (like us geezers who make this podcast), you remember how new comics creators used to get known. No Web comics, Tumbler, podcasts, etc. Like John Porcellino, they hit the “zine” scene, announcing themselves through Factsheet Five and getting placement in a few comics shops. Porcellino’s King-Cat, with its accounts of his pets, his dreams (the sleeping kind), amusing anecdotes, and occasional fiction, drew notice in the comics world for the way it eloquently fed the reader’s life back to him, making note of things the reader might have missed. Drawn & Quarterly is releasing selected King-Cat comics in hardcover; Tim, Kumar, and special guest Tom Spurgeon discuss the first collection, King-Cat Classix.

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#331 The End of the Road for “Cul de Sac”

As Richard Thompson’s strip Cul de Sac ends, Tom Spurgeon joins Tim to bid it a fond farewell. We discuss some favorite moments, compare it with other classic strips such as Peanuts, examine what Thompson (and any other relatively new creator of newspaper strips) has been up against as technology and economics team up against print media, and — Hey! Watch out for the UH-OH BABY!!

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#305 Love & Rockets: Gilbert Hernandez

In episode #300, we took a look at the sometimes wacky and cartoony Love & Rockets work of Jaime Hernandez. This week, Tim and Kumar are again joined by Tom Spurgeon to look at the somewhat darker, more violent and yet rather hard-to-pin-down work of Gilbert Hernandez in his stories of (or, sometimes merely tangentially related to) the isolated Mexican village of Palomar.

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#300 Love & Rockets: Jaime Hernandez

L&R JaimeThe series Love & Rockets, featuring individual works by the Hernandez brothers, started in 1981 as a self-published magazine, but was quickly picked up by Fantagraphics. Over the last 30 years, the brothers’ work has continued to develop & astound. This week Tim and Kumar take a look at the Love & Rockets work of Jaime Hernandez, with special guest (and former Fantagraphics employee) Tom Spurgeon!

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