RiYL

It had been a while since I’d last spoken with Sara Varon. At the time, the artist had a handle of comics and kids books under her belt, including most notably — and recently — Robot Dreams, a delightful wordless buddy comic about a relationship between a robot and a dog. Since then, Varon’s been plenty busy, adding several more titles to her bibliography and teaching printmaking at her alma mater, the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan. She also has a trio of books already planned for publication over the next two years, including a reissue of her 2003 short story Sweater Weather, a book about an anthropomorphic donkey for First Second and President Squid, the tale of a giant squid who runs for president. Varon and I sat down at her studio in Gowanus, Brooklyn surrounded by shelves of children’s books to discuss quitting her day job, writing for kids, and a failed TV pitch about unicorns. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Like many of roughly my age bracket, my first exposure to Usagi Yojimbo was as an action figure — a badass samurai rabbit that fit in perfectly in world where Ninja Turtles roam the streets of New York at night. It’s one of those perfect sorts of synergy, anthropomorphic superheroes trained in Eastern forms of combat born out of the small press black and white comics revolution of the mid-80s. But Usagi’s roots are far deeper than his gritted toothed action figure implies. Stan Sakai has been telling the samurai rabbit’s story for 30 years now, writing and drawing one of the most complex works in all of comics. It’s a work deeply tied to the cartoonist’s early obsessions with his heritage, bits and piece of Japanese culture he poured over in his formative years in Hawaii. Conducted on the show floor of this year’s Baltimore Comic Con, Sakai and I discuss the roots of his beloved creation and how he manages to keep Usagi’s story fresh three decades in. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“The head space for a lot of people post-any kind of cancer is ‘I gotta get going,’” Jennifer Hayden explains with the positive energy of an all-star slugger holding a World Series trophy aloft. Whatever it is, I’m gonna jump on it. Everything is doable, everything is wonderful, thank God I’m still here.” When she was diagnosed with breast cancer at age 43, the struggling artist turned to comics for the first time in her adult and found a medium that had changed dramatically from the Archie Digests she grew up on. In comics Hayden discovered the perfect form in which to tell her memoir. Released last month by Top Shelf, The Story of My Tits is a book ever bit as bare as its title implies, forming her biography through the titular body parts into a work that is, in turns, both serious and silly, much like Hayden herself. What follows is a mediation on cancer, creativity and the healing power of comics. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This one gets pretty raw. No surprise, really, given the nature of Sam Zabel And The Magic Pen, a semi-autobiographicalish comic that deals with the nature of and relationship between creativity and depression, kicking things off with a chapter titled “Anhedonia,” an inability to experience pleasure that arises from melancholy states. Of course, it’s not all gloom and doom. When New Zealand cartoonist Dylan Horrocks stopped by my office in lower-Manhattan, we conducted a long and wide ranging conversation that hit upon pieces from throughout his career, from the beloved 1998 graphic novel Hicksville, to his sometimes controversial run on the DC comics series Bat Girl. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“It's a good story,” Joe Biel wrote in an email from a few weeks back. “It’s our 20th anniversary book and my big reveal is that I have Asperger’s.” When Good Trouble comes out from Microcosm in March, it’s bound to cause a stir in the company in which Biel’s publishing has played such a central role over the past couple of decades. It’s deeply personal to a fault, exploring Biel’s work, relationships and the role his diagnosis has played in both.  Not that the deeply personal is anything new in the small press world, but the writer takes care to offer as much insight into his own development as possible, learning important lessons about himself in the process. It’s a fascinating look at self-publishing, punk ethos, and the nature of autism.  In a followup to our wide ranging conversation from earlier this year, Biel and I hopped on Skype for a bonus conversation about his diagnosis, the process of writing the book and where he goes from here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

He calls it “the curse of being multi-talented” and insists that it is, in fact, a curse. Musician, author, politician, comedian, and all around gadfly, Kinky Friedman is one of the those rare multi-faceted artists who is arguably equally well-known for several of different endeavors. Reflecting upon his singular career at 70, Friedman hesitates for a moment, invoking the curse with the suggestion that he may have found more fame, had he simply buckled down and focused on aspect at the expense of all others. But in 2006, for example, the call for public service trumped the rest, as the self-proclaimed Original Texas Jewboy threw his 10-gallon hat in the ring, challenging incumbent Republican candidate Rick Perry for the role of governor of the lone star state. Two decades prior, he penned a long string of hard-boiled detective books inspired by the likes of Raymond Chandler. This year Friedman returned to music with The Loneliest Man I Ever Met, his first studio album in 35 years, a set of songs that caught critics completely off-guard, trading acerbic standards like “Asshole From El Paso” and “They Ain’t Makin’ Jews Like Jesus Anymore” for restrained and musically minimalist covers of arts like Tom Waits and Dylan. Though, as our half-hour together can happily attest, all the reflection in the world can’t stop Kinky from being Kinky. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When I asked for interview suggestions for my five day work trip to Berlin, Comics Reporter Tom Spurgeon suggested Olivier Schrauwen, heaping praise upon the Belgian expat and categorizing him among the top living cartoonists.And indeed, the trip halfway around the world afforded a rare opportunity to speak with the Arsene Schrauwen cartoonist, who, in spite of growing acclaim within the comics literati, hasn’t granted all that many interviews over the years — particularly with the English speaking press. Schrauwen agreed, meeting me at Modern Graphics, a wonderful independent comics shop located in the German city’s Kreuzberg district. He arrived on his bicycle after I’d just finished spending some ungodly number of Euros purchasing an armful of comics and minis. We found a sidewalk cafe on the corner and drank beers as trendy Berliners passed by on their way to do some afternoon shopping. An ideal setting for an utterly fascinating conversation with a singular cartoonist. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It had been eight or so years since I last interviewed Raina Telgemeier. After a few years spent adapting the beloved young adult series The Babysitter’s Club into a handful of graphic novels for Scholastic, the cartoonist was getting ready to branch out on her own. Telgemeier was understandably nervous ahead of the book’s debut, unsure whether or not she would even be able to find a publisher. As of this week, Smile has spent an astonishing 173 weeks on The New York Times’ Graphic Novel Best Seller List, since joined by three more Telgemeier titles, to monopolize four of the list’s top ten spots at last count. The word “phenomenon” doesn’t quite cut it. No other single YA cartoonist comes close — an really, one would be hard-pressed to find any one cartoonist who has experience so much success in such a brief period. Naturally, Telgemeier can be a bit tough to pin down, but after months of trying to meet up, we finally managed to carve out some time to sit down over some Greek food in our mutual neighborhood of Astoria, Queens to discuss her meteoric rise on of comics’ most beloved artists. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“It comes down to a lot of educated guessing and trying to handle it like a grown up,” explains Jaime Hernandez. We’re seated on a curb outside the San Diego Convention Center and the subject of the Love and Rockets cartoonist’s propensity for strong female protagonists has come up. For Hernandez, writing women is second nature. Writing men, on the other hand — that’s where things get difficult. ”I guess because I am a guy, I would get very self-conscious when I write men. The very first time a woman told me they liked the way I write women, I was gone, man. No holding back.” The cartoonist is kind and candid discussing the 33 year history of alternative comics’ most beloved series. No question is off limits as we sit somewhat uncomfortably watching costumed foot traffic and loud pedicabs pass by. It’s a terrific conversation that’s as wide ranging as it is casual about superheroes, keeping things interesting after three decades, and why that new Mad Max movie wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I first encountered Ed Piskor’s work through the cartoonist’s collaborations with the legendary Harvey Pekar. The duo released the book Macedonia in 2007, highlighting The American Splendor author’s work to push non-fiction storytelling forward in the medium by highlighting cultural struggles in the Republic of Macedonia in comics form. It was no doubt a formative experience for the cartoonist who would rise to even greater fame in the indie comics community half a decade later with the release of the first volume of Hip-Hop Family Tree, a sweeping on-going series highlighting the music’s rise from the streets of the Bronx to the driving force of international popular culture. Also recorded at San Diego Comic Con back in July, part two is a chat with cartoonist and fine artist Marc Bell, who hilariously explains why his attempts to tell a straight forward story with his latest book, the delightful Stroppy on Drawn & Quarterly, went so horribly wrong.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.