Joe Matt was one of ‘The Toronto Three’ in the 90’s; he was a no-holds barred autobiographical cartoonist who, with his friends Chester Brown and Seth, ushered in the first wave of Drawn and Quarterly work. Matt drew attention for his sense of humor as well as exposing the depraved corners of his life, including […]

This week, an interview with Frank Santoro, who writes for the Comics Journal, teaches comics creation (mostly through the Web), and has published several graphic novels, including Storeyville and Pompeii. We discuss using geometry to design a comics page, the artists he draws attention to on his Comics Workbook page, the reason Pompeii is in […]

How would you feel if someone you went to high school with showed up on the news as a murderer? That’s what happened to the cartoonist Derf Backderf, who was acquainted with future serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer when they were teenagers in the ’70s. Backderf looks back on this experience, and the warning signs missed […]

Anthropomorphized cats in a Pulp Fiction-style shootout; a tiny man found sleeping in the grass; two people hiding in an abandoned restaurant during some catastrophic event. These were some of the one-page, where’s-the-rest-of-it scenes in Ian M‘s Square 11, discussed on Critiquing Comics last year. This week, Ian tells Tim what he was going for […]

Yoshihiro Tatsumi, although he was a somewhat influential figure in the manga of the 1950s and ’60s, is largely forgotten in Japan today. However, within the past 10 years he has gained some belated fame in the West, thanks largely to the efforts of Adrian Tomine and Drawn & Quarterly. Tatsumi passed away last month, […]

This week Rob Guillory joins Tim to give his side of the genesis of Chew (following on John Layman‘s side a few weeks ago), describe how he had trouble finding anyone who wanted him to draw in his own style, recall the shock of realizing that drawing could actually be a paying job, and more.

Our 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 […]

Now that we’ve set the stage, it’s time to get down to business and really look at the Batman show — and where else to start but the beginning? We talk about how the series made its way to the air, and the pilot story arc Hi Diddle Riddle and Smack in the Middle, starring […]

By now you’ve no doubt read or listened to several reviews of Scott McCloud’s The Sculptor — and perhaps you’ve read the book itself. Mainstream-media and average-Amazon-user reviews have been adulatory; reviews in the comics media have ranged from a hesitant thumbs-up to vitriol-fests. But, it seems to us, all of those reviewers are missing […]

Years ago, when the Scott Pilgrim series was only half-finished, Tim and Brandon discussed it on this show. Since the series was completed, we’ve discussed Bryan Lee O’Malley’s other books (Lost at Sea and Seconds), causing Tim to reconsider Pilgrim, what O’Malley did right (and wrong) in the series, and what it all means. This […]