Inkstuds

Nate Powell, joined me for a chat about his latest books, Silence of Our Friends, due out in the new year and his recent release from Top Shelf, Any Empire. This was a really interesting discussion on values and artistic representation. Nate is a very smart creator and puts together some fine books.

Geof Darrow’s work can be described as a forerunner of the Fusion that Frank Santoro and I like to talk about. His work is a mix of Moebius mixed with the frenetic energy of the finer Japanese Manga. I first got into his work, like most, with the excellent Hard boiled. He always grabs me with images that are full of the most ridiculous ideas that under most hands, would probably be a mess but Darrow is able hold it all together. The work available by Darrow is few and far between, but his impact as a cartoonist can be found in the work of many young cartoonists that would stare transfixed on a given image studying every nuance.

This interview was conduct back in February of 2011 when he was set to appear at the Emerald City Comicon and was originally aired on the Inkstuds radio show. When we did the interview, he was pretty close lipped about Shaolin Cowboy. Since then it has been recently revealed that Dark Horse will be publishing future volumes of the series.

Special thanks to Charles Bottomley for continued support in providing excellent transcriptions. Charles also did the transcription work on the Inkstuds book.

Robin McConnell: I guess to run down the comics work, Hard Boiled, Shaolin Cowboy, Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot, Bourbon Thret, as well as a plethora of other goodies that came out in France that I have not been able to get my hands on.

Geof Darrow: [laughs] That’s about it, to tell you the truth. There’s a lot of fake titles I came up with that people seem to think exist but never ever…it was joke.

They’re kind of … hopes? Comics you want to do one day, you just know you’ll never have a chance?

No. It was just a joke. The first book I ever did over there…I always liked the Tintin books, because on the back they had this nice drawing of all these titles of Tintin you could buy. So on the first I did, I put all the titles of books of these books that didn’t exist, so it seemed like the character existed as long as Tintin. But you read any of the titles, I can’t believe anybody would think they actually existed. But people didn’t! People would try to order them. The bookstores were kind of annoyed that I’d done that, because they were getting orders for these things. It was funny. I thought it was funny.

Was that something you were doing with Bourbon Thret (said en francais) as well as …

Yeah yeah yeah. Bourbon, actually.

Okay. Sorry, I was trying to be all proper.

No, it’s okay. Bourbon Thret actually is The Shaolin Cowboy in England.

So it’s an earlier incarnation of it or is it the exact same character?

Yeah. It’s basically the same guy.

I want to get a little background on you, because in the time I’ve been putting together this interview, I couldn’t really find very much on you as far as info online, interviews, so I don’t know your background and what got you into comics and what excited you about comics.

Well, like anybody, I grew up reading them and I wanted to draw them because I just loved…I mean, I grew up reading, well, the beginning of Batman and Superman. I was into dinosaurs and stuff, so I used to buy anything that had a dinosaur or monster on the cover. Then I discovered … actually, it was by mistake, because I was at the dentist and next door there was a pharmacy and they only had about three comics and one was like Sugar & Spike or something … some girlie comic. The one they had was a superhero comic that was the Fantastic Four annual where Sue and Reed get married. So it was the whole Marvel universe in one book and I had no idea what that was and I bought it and I became a huge fan of Marvel comics, especially Jack Kirby. That was actually the launching part of my great passion for comics.

I think Kirby’s a good launching point.

Yes, he is and I was fortunate enough to work for him at Hanna-Barbara.

I was going to ask about that.

Gracious! He would come in and just the sweetest man. Just a really sweet guy who should have been treated way better than he was by Marvel and th[...]

Canadian artist Jason Mclean is part of an amazing well of talent out of London, Ontario. Some of his contemporaries include Marc Bell, Peter Thompson, Keith Jones and more. Jason is currently exhibiting in a show called Not Bad for London along with Marc, Peter, Amy Lockhart, James Kirkpatrick, Jamie Q and Billy Bert Young. I very fond of Jason’s work and see a lot of cross over between what he explore and larger idea of storytelling through a single image.

Fellow podcaster Mike Dawson and I sat down for a chat about not only comics podcasting, but also his great book from those fine boys at Secret Acres. Troop 142 is a fine collection and shows Dawson’s growth as a cartoonist.

Mike is doing a comic book club talk at Midtown Comics in Manhattan on Fulton on tonight, Friday the 18th of November.

This week, we have two different interviews. The first is with Mark Atomos Pilon, Luc Latulippe, and Dacosta! to discuss the Moonbase Gallery art show opening tonight November 10th at the Interurban Art Gallery at 1 East Hastings in Vancouver.

Second off, I am joined by Kelly Froh, Eroyn Franklin and Jenny Gialenes in regards to Saturday’s Shortrun Small Press Festival in Seattle. The show is free and looks great. I am travelling down from Vancouver just to check it out.

Also, there are some other cool things happening in Vancouver this weekend. Jim Mahfood are in town for a convetion at Heritage Hall on Sunday, but more importantly they are also doing a fundraiser for the Comic Legends Legal Defense Fund on Friday night. Also on Sunday is Canzine West. There will be a bunch of comics folks there as well.

Touring buddies, Joe Ollmann and Pascal Girard joined me for a team up talk from Joe’s mansion in Montreal. They both had excellent books out from Drawn and Quarterly over the last year; Midlife for Joe and both Reunion and Bigfoot for Pascal.

Blot cartoonist Tom Neely returned to the Studs to chat about his latest book The Wolf as well as his collaborative project, Henry and Glenn Forever. And don’t forget that awesome mixtape that Tom did a couple of years ago.

Canadian illustrator Oscar Cahen had a brief but impactful career in the 1940’s and 50’s before passing away at the young age of 40. Canadian art historian Jaleen Grove has been exploring his work and was involved in putting together a show of his work at Illustration House in New York. I was joined by Jaleen, Roger Reed from the Illustration House and Oscar’s son, Michael Cahen to discuss Oscar’s work. The illustration House is showing his work for the rest of October. I highly recommend checking it out. Really amazing work.

Here is an interview I did with Dylan Williams back in April of 2008. Dylan passed away this past weekend. I really liked Dylan and the work that he published and promoted with Sparkplug comics. He did a really great strip about Alex Toth for Austin English’s Windy Corner. I highly suggest reading that. It feel especially poignant right now.

Craig Thompson and I sat down for an extended conversation about his new book Habibi, as well as a larger discussion of comics in general. We also touch on his previous works including Blankets, Good-bye Chunky Rice and Carnet De Voyage