#284 Doug TenNapel: from Neverhood to Ghostopolis

Power UPDoug TenNapel’s name is known in a wide variety of media in the U.S., from video games to animation to, of course, comics. His Neverhood game is worshiped by, among many others, our own Kumar. His graphic novels have won acclaim but also some controversy, in part because of the statements on spirituality that are made in some of them, such as Black Cherry, the most spiritual book that you’ll never see in a Christian bookstore. (Could it be the nudity and F-bombs?)

Tim takes an hour of Doug’s scant free time to discuss storytelling media, how each fiction genre tends to tell certain stories, and inconsequential alien landings.

Web comic: Ratfist

YouTube: Making Comics with Doug TenNapel

#283 Eddie Campbell on “Alec” and more

AlecEddie Campbell is best known to many as the artist on Alan Moore’s From Hell, but throughout his career he has been putting out book after book of his autobiographical Alec comics. In 2009, much of his Alec work was compiled into the massive Alec: The Years Have Pants omnibus. Kumar catches up with fellow Australia resident Campbell for a chat about Alec, The Birth Caul/Snakes and Ladders, From Hell, and more.

Campbell to appear at Sydney Graphic Festival

#282 Higgins & Main: “Myriad” and more!

MyriadIn episode 273, we sang the praises of “Expectations Fail”, the story in the first issue of the mini-comic series Myriad. Writer Steve Higgins publishes various types of stories in Myriad, with various artists. This week he talks with Tim about “Expectations Fail” and subsequent issues, plus St. Louis-area comic anthologies he’s participating in.

Then, “Expectations Fail” artist Nick Main talks about his collaboration with Steve and his ongoing comics projects “Tom Bisk” and “Father Blank’s Roadside Confessional“.

#281 eComics in Japan: G2 Comix catches the Big Three napping

Real MaidWhile the American comics publishers, and publishers in general, are making more and more content available digitally, the situation is quite different here in Japan. The traditional manga publishers — Shueisha, Kodansha, and Shogakukan — have been very slow to embrace the digital market.

This week we meet Masanori Kinomiya, whose company offers services to convert print comics to digital formats, and has created the G2 Comix line of original manga titles. G2 is doing well in Japan (where 80% of ebooks are comics!), and around the world in a variety of languages. So why are the Big Three (and Japanese publishers in general) still putting out little or no electronic content? Kinomiya-san explains to Tim.

Read G2 Comix company profile PDF, including statistics on ebook readership in Japan and a look at some G2 Comix titles.

See photos below the jump.
Continue reading #281 eComics in Japan: G2 Comix catches the Big Three napping

#280 Comics for Kids! No, really!

While comics continue to register in the American consciousness as being inherently “for kids”, conversely, the “Wednesday stack” crowd wring their collective hands about an apparent lack of comics readers under the voting age. There are comics out there for kids, but where can you find them? And, is anyone reading them?

Tim investigates these questions and more, with three guests: Buddy Scalera, author of Comics from Start to Finish and now a writer on the new Richie Rich title; Rashad Doucet, creator of My Dog is a Superhero; and Brent Erwin, Co-Publisher and General Partner at APE Entertainment.

#279 Do your comics skills match your ambitions?

Just starting your comics career? Got a story to tell? Are you starting big — maybe too big? Or are you starting really, really small — say, a comic about guys who like to get small?

Tim and Mulele discuss comics from listeners that go to these extremes: City of Walls v. 1 by Shaun Noel and Abede Lovelace, and Hippy Jonny by Ryan S. Dodd.

UPDATE 6/2/11: Here’s a PDF with selected pages from City of Walls. Thanks to Shaun Noel for providing!

#278 “Jimmy Corrigan”, the Densest Comic Book on Earth

Jimmy CorriganChris Ware‘s Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth started as a jokey, weird, serialized comic and evolved into a densely packed tale of betrayal, loss, and recovery. Not only that, but Ware’s extraordinary cartooning captures the mundane moments of everyday life as well as it utilizes symbolism on multiple levels. And not only that… Well, unlocking everything gathered into this 380-page tome is a task that can’t be completed in a one-hour podcast, but Tim and Kumar do their darnedest to cover all the bases.

#277 “Daytripper” & Mike Maihack (“Cleopatra in Space”) interview

A double-header episode this week!

First, Tim and Brandon discuss Fabio Moon and Gabriel Ba‘s Daytripper. No, it’s not a time travel story (is it a story at all?); it’s a reflection on life and death. Is it fantastic, or trite? Depends on your point of view…

Then, Tim talks to Mike Maihack, the talented creator behind Cleopatra in Space, about motion lines, Web comics as a business, and more.

#276 Two Emerald City Exhibitors: A Closer Look

Hominids and Over the SurfaceNot wanting to leave Emerald City Comicon behind without giving a closer look to at least a few of the creators he met there, Tim chooses Web comics by two of those creators to critique with Mulele: Hominids by by Jordan Kotzebue, and Over the Surface by Natalie Nourigat. Plus: Panels for Primates (link is to Tim’s favorite selection), and the Web comic creator Tim regrets overlooking at Emerald City!

#275 Slott Super Stories

Amazing Spider-Man 655This week we veer off into the superhero lane, as longtime webhead Tim compares notes on recent issues of The Amazing Spider-Man with Kumar, who hadn’t read ASM in years & wondered what all the fuss was about over Dan Slott’s ongoing run. Slott does his best to stick to the axiom that “every issue is someone’s first”, so you have to make the bones thrown to fanboys understandable to newbies; how did Kumar fare? Also discussed are the wisdom (or lack thereof) of trying to explain the unexplainable, e.g. “spider sense”, and other things that did or didn’t work for us in ASM 654-657.

Plus, a shoutout to Gerry Alanguilan, author of the newly published Elmer.