Bill Kartalopoulos was on to talk about his first volume as series edit of the Best American Comics series from Houghton Mifflin books. For the first volume, he worked with renowned cartoonist, Scott McCloud in crafting a very smartly constructed anthology of wide ranging critically good and important work published in the year covered. Bill is also the programming director for SPX, MOCCA and a number of other comics project, including excellent critical writing on comics and cofounder of the very important and missed Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival.

New York artist Ron Wimberly aka D-Pi joined us for an interview during our trip to the big city. We had a hard time finding a quiet enough place to do the interview, so apologies for the noise. His latest book is the great Prince of Cats which came out from vertigo. Ron has interesting approach to his own creative work and well worth keeping an eye on.

During our time in NYC we caught up with Simon Hanselmann. I’ve interviewed Simon before a number of years ago and really enjoyed talking to him. His latest book, Megahex from fantagraphics is one of the years best in a year of incredible comics. Simon was just beginning a month long tour across America with Patrick Kyle and Michael Deforge.

We met up at the St Regis in Manhattan. Brandon wanted to go their because Dali used to hang out there to look at the amazing Maxfield Parrish mural.

After talking to the artist of This One Summer, it feels only right to catch up with writer, Mariko Tamaki. Mariko has been keeping busy with a number of different writing projects, but her latest was the topic for the day. We also talk about her short film, Happy 16th Birthday Kevin, which I loved! I was also joined by a couple of my coworkers on this interview.

Nurse Nurse and Operation Margarine cartoonist, Katie Skelly was our first visit in New York. Brandon and I are both big fans of Katie’s work and this interview was a long time coming. Her latest work is the flashy webcomic, My Pretty Vampire.

I really enjoyed Mimi Pond‘s book Over Easy. A story about her time as a waitress in a very charming diner in Oakland. Mimi’s work in comics includes stints at the Village Voice, National Lampoon and much more. Her comics have fresh breath of life to them. I really really enjoyed her book.

Mimi will be in Vancouver for Canzine West in Vancouver on November 8th at 149 west hastings st.

Brandon and I have wanted to a late night podcast slumber party after a day of grueling comic festivaling for quite a while. On the Sunday night at SPX, we met up with two creators making comics right now. Emily Carroll‘s new book, Through the Woods is perfectly timed for reading right now, a dark book of mysterious spookiness. Eleanor Davis‘s How to Be Happy is an equally impressive collection of short stories. I can’t say enough about how much enjoy the work of these fantastic cartoonists.

This Inkstuds was sponsored by Stuff Said.

Brandon and I wanted to interview Farel Dalrymple while we were in Portland, but hadn’t read the Wrenchies yet, so we waited until Farel came up to Vancouver to do a signing.

The Wrenchies is by far, one of my favorite comics so far this year. Farel has been working on it for many years, and it shows. It’s beautifully drawn with a fully realized story exploring a range of ideas and emotions. I highly recommend checking it out.

This Inkstuds was sponsored by Stuff Said.

Image stolen from http://www.brokenfrontier.com/spx-review-small-press-expo-ignatz-awards-bethesda-alternative-comics-show/ please visit them to see their own tour report.

The first day at SPX was capped off with our panel, a live conversation with Simon Hanselmann, Patrick Kyle and Michael Deforge. The three of them were on the beginning of their month long tour across America. I am a big fan of all their works and was really happy for Brandon and I to be able to do something with them in the middle of our own tour. The panel was a bit of a trainwreck but everyone else seemed to think it was great, so maybe it was great. I was really happy to do it, and would do so again, and we do it again later in the week with Gary Panter.

This Inkstuds was sponsored by Stuff Said.

UK cartoonist and illustrator, Stephen Collins, joined me to talk about his new book, The Gigantic Beard That Was Evil. His other work includes a collection of comics called Some Comics and brilliantly drawn illustration work. Stephen’s style is fascinatingly versatile. I really enjoyed Gigantic Beard and look forward to more longform work by him.

 

This Inkstuds was sponsored by Stuff Said.