RiYL

We sit down on a pair of chair in the First Second booth, smack in the middle of a crowded New York Comic Con show floor early on a Saturday. Nidhi Chanani is still high from the release of her debut graphic novel, Pashmina, which only hit store shelves a few day prior. The book tells the sort of a young Indian-American girl’s fantastic journey, as she reconnects with the homeland she left at a young age. There are certain parallels to Chanani’s own life, though the author’s earlier attempt at straight autobiography had been scrapped sometime before starting on her debut. It was a false start at a first comic that taught her a lot, but perhaps hit a bit too close to home. “Every bad drawing is going to teach you something,” she explains. “So 200 pages of bad drawing is definitely going to teach you something.” Pashmina, on the other hand, has garnered a warm reception in the intervening months, particularly among schools and libraries. In this conversation, we discuss cultural identities, the artist’s struggles with art school and the pains and pleasures of putting a book out into the world. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Founded in 1990, Tales of Blarg became one of the longest running and most influential zines out of the East Bay punk scene that gave the world Lookout Records. Over the years, the it published the work of such Northern California punk rock luminaries as Aaron Cometbus, Iggy Scam, Lawrence Livermore and Robert Eggplant. Janelle Hessig (née Blarg) hasn’t published an issue since 2006, but the writer/cartoonist is still strongly invested in the world of independent publishing. (And inspired a song by Bratmobile along the way.) For years, she worked for Last Gasp, and these days publishes other artists’ work through her own publishing house, when she’s not on the clock at San Francisco PBS affiliate, KQED. In 2014, she published The Cruising Diaries, a collection of writer Brontez Purnell, which Hessig also illustrated. Next year, Gimme Action will publish Rotten Philosophies, a personal collection of work from Hessig, who spent much of last year battling breast cancer. Hessig recommended a local San Francisco bar decorated with work inspired by outsider artist Henry Darger for this conversation, which touches on the importance of self-publishing, the downside of the internet and living day to day with a life threatening disease. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“My life makes no sense,” Mimi Fischer says with a laugh. The 64-year-old comedian recently put on her first solo show, “A Late Bloomer” at the PIT theater in New York City. She is, of course, the titular late-bloomer, discovering the world of hoop dancing in 2007, after years of bouncing from job to job. In 2011, she entered the comedy world, at age 58, enrolling in an entry-level course at UCB. It’s all clearly being a liberating experience for Fischer, after years spent in everything from commercial art to Wall Street. Her fascination with hula-hooping captured the attention of comedian Chris Gethard, who made her a fixture on the Chris Gethard show, where she earned the nickname Mimi on the Hoops, fitting in perfectly with the program’s controlled chaos. Just before embarking on her first solo show, Fischer sat down to talk about her journey, and why it’s never to late to discover your true passion. “I’ve been too told, I’m too fat, but i’m f*****g going to do it this time,” she explains. and if i fail, at least i tried once in my life to do something.” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“I don’t want to go back to the bird shit,” Simon Hanselmann explains, reminiscing not-so-fondly about about jobs past. From all appearances, life is pretty good for the Tasmanian cartoonist. He’s making a living with comics, living in a nice Seattle home he shares with his wife, Jacq, a dog and a basement full of recused rabbits they lovingly refer to as “the bungeon.” His series, Megg, Mogg and Owl has been the subject of multiple award winning collections on Frantagraphics and has drawn interest from television production companies looking to turn his stoner trio into a series. His work appears regularly in magazines and anthologies, and when I arrive, he’s in the middle of preparing his work for an exhibit at a prestigious French art gallery. So naturally, he’s looking to mix things up. Hanselmann is beginning to embark on his most ambitious work to date, a multi-volume set that explores his own family history through the lens of Megs and Mogg, uncovering some early stories that his family would likely prefer stay hidden. It’s a deep and extremely personal story, he’s been meaning to tell for some time. “Once I started became successful in comics,” Hanselmann says with a laugh, “I stopped needing to see therapists.” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Blush’s debut album is the culmination of nine years worth of songs. Singer Maura Lynch spent the last decade playing in bands and working day jobs for startups like Kickstarter and Birchbox, all while writing music on the side. What sort as a solo project ultimately coalesced into a proper group, a collection of long time friends (and a pair of siblings) turning those demos into proper songs. Bass player Andrew Chugg stepped in to produce, attempting to retain the home recorded charm in the process. Ahead of the album’s December 8th debut, Lynch and Chugg sat down to discuss beginnings, collaboration and the upside of not quitting one’s day job. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ron Turner is running late. It’s impossible to find parking in North Beach this time of night. I’m nursing a whiskey upstairs as Cafe Vesuvio, the historic San Francisco bar, best known as a famed beat generation water hole. The crowd’s already getting noisy, but the founder of the legendary Last Gasp publishing house couldn’t have chosen a more perfect location for our conversation. An unfamiliar face waves hello, hands me copy of Last Gasp’s latest catalog and sits down at the table across from me. He introduces himself as Winston, a local artist. It slowly dawns on me that the man is Winston Smith, the collage artist who helped create the house style for San Francisco hardcore band, The Dead Kennedys. Suddenly it’s a group interview. Our conversation is wide ranging and occasionally on topic, fueled by multiple rounds of libation. There’s talk of working on the Bakersfield/Fresno train line, Cary Grant’s love of LSD, sending comics to John McCain and Fidel Castro, and how Allen Ginsberg indirectly helped kickstart Robert Crumb’s career. And, of course, the ever-changing face of San Francisco. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Toward the end of our conversation, Nicole Georges takes a moment to point out that her latest book, isn’t the downer this interview might have made it out to be. But then, when you start down the road of dog deaths, it’s a bit hard to the right the ship. Which is to say, the subject matter of this episode gets pretty heavy, pretty early on. But like Fetch itself, the interview provides plenty of important reminders of why we need pets in our lives, even in the face of the knowledge that we’ll almost certainly outlive them. It’s a good talk, with a friend of the podcast, making her third appearance on the show. And, as is tradition with every one of her episodes, there’s a camera from an adorable dog, roughly halfway through. This time out, it’s the cartoonist’s trust chihuahua side, Ponyo, who provides yet another reminder of why dogs are the best. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“As long as one can walk one can protest,” Trina Robbins explains, over the white noise of a nearby espresso machine. “And as long as i don’t have to take too many hills, I can still walk.” The cartoonist’s assessment of the current political climate is equally pessimistic and hopeful, as the actions of the Trump administration have caused many Americans to loudly declare their support for women’s rights, while taking to the streets in protest. Robbins has been outspoken about her values for decades, even when it her opinions made her unpopular with many of her peers, as one of the first women in the underground comics community. But the artist and her have persevered, from the Last Gasp all-female anthology, Wimmen's Comix, to her stint in the early 80s as the first woman to draw Wonder Woman. This year, Robbins looked back on her career with the memoir, Last Girl Standing, an insight into her love affair with comics, struggles in the industry and reconnecting with her father’s writing after his death. We sat down at a cafe near her San Francisco home to discuss her long career and hope for the future. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The last time Anders Nilsen was on the show, we were huddled on a patch of grass out behind the San Diego Convention Center with pedicabs carrying cosplaying show attendees whizzing by, playing top 40 songs at maximum volume. Thankfully, things are much more subdued this time out. The Big Questions artist joined us in New York, during a mini-tour for his new series, Tongues. The first issue of the series arrived over the summer, part of Nilsen’s plan to self-publish it in floppy serial form, with Pantheon collecting the series as a single volume, when all’s said and done. The new series retells the myth of Prometheus, exploring the Titan’s relationship with the eagle tasked with ripping out his regenerated innards every day. The story is an outgrowth of the cartoonist’s 2007 book Dogs and Water, aiming to address some lingering questions about the doomed deity. Nilsen joins us in a pedicab-free office to talk religion, self-publishing and taking the first steps into a new story. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“Every once in a while,” James Jackson Toth explains, “you make a record and it feels like the message in the bottle sinking before it gets to the other shore.” Between official Wooden Wand albums, CD-Rs, online releases, records issued as a full band and the occasional under his own name, something’s bound to fall through the cracks every once in a while. But even with the constant flux of musical approaches, record labels and naming conventions, the singer has been quite consistent in quality, as one a member of a long, proud history of enigmatic troubadours armed with little more than a guitar and a memorable voice. After all these years, he seems a bit exhausted by live performance. Or maybe it’s just the pre-show jitters as we take a pair of chairs on stage at Brooklyn’s Baby’s All Right. Touring’s tough on any musician, and these days it can seem like a downright crapshoot whether on not you’ll be able to fill the place. There’s always fulfillment in the music making process, however — and new ideas and sounds to exploring on ever subsequent record. He describes his latest, Clipper Ship, as ‘exploded string band music,’ a description I find myself still attempting to wrap my head around.“If you don’t have anything new to say,” Both explains, simply, “don’t make a new record.” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.