Inkstuds

Wilfred Santiago’s comic biography of Roberto Clemente is a great look at a specific time in not only baseball, but also touching on mid century american racial and political tones. Wilfred skillfully tackles a range of issues in this great collection. It was a delight to discuss this great book with him.

Dave Mckean is on that short list of cartoonists whose work really changed how I understand comics as a young teen many years ago. He has been creating some really fascinating and forward thinking work in books like Cages, Signal to Noise, Pictures That Tick and Violent Cases.

His latest book is no exception. Celluloid, fresh out from Fantagraphics, is a remarkable work exploring pornography through a very particular lens. Needless to say, it is fantastic.

Welcome to the inaugural Inkstuds Book Club. I was joined by seven enthusiastic comics folk for a discussion of Jason’s Isle of 100,000 Graves. This is the first time we have tried it out, and I think it worked out. Thanks to Michael, Brandon, Steve, Roman, Nolan, Chris and Andrew for taking part. I would like us to be able to continue the discussion of the book here.

If you had a chance to read it, please tell us what you think.

The next Book Club will be on July 2nd at noon pacific time. We will be discussing Frank Miller’s early work, Ronin.

Young cartooning upstart Blaise Larmee sat down for an extended chat about art, comics and identity. His latest book is  Young Lions as well as publishing Gaze books. Blaise is doing some interesting and challenging work. I am really curious to see where his cartooning is going to take him.

Edie Fake’s Gaylord Phoenix is one of my favorite books of the past while. Edie is able to touch on something very personal and explore in a way that reaches far and succeeds. I think that Gaylord Phoenix is an important work on sexuality in a way that few have been able to successfully approach in an abstract way. Thanks to Edie for having such an open conversation with me about it.

Ex-pat Canadian cartoonist, Mark Kalesniko‘s latest book, Freeway explores some of the idea’s around his move to LA and working into the animation industry. Mark was on the show for the first time, many years ago when I was still getting my grips on what I was doing with Inkstuds. As with the last time Mark was on, Colin Upton joins us as well.

Julia Wertz was on the show a couple of years ago, and had since gone through some pretty important changes in her life. Since that time, her book, Drinking In the Movies came out from a big time New York book publisher, and much more. This was a really great catch up conversation with Julia that touches on some pretty important subjects.

Image stolen from Kevin Boyd and the Shuster Awards blog. http://joeshusterawards.com/2011/05/09/my-tcaf-thoughts-2011-day-1/

Here is the audio from the panel on Canadian Cartoonists Working in the Mainstream from TCAF. I have a hard time summarizing it down to a particular topic, mostly we discussed Canadian identity. The guest list was a bit of a superstar showcase. I was a lucky host. Ray Fawkes, Darwyn Cooke, Jillian Tamaki, Stuart Immonen and Kathryn Immonen are all fantastic talents, and thanks to them for taking the time to answer my questions and also thanks to Ken Steacy for allowing me to call him out in the audience.

 

Also, someone filmed the panel. So you have that as an option too. Part 1 of 4

This interview is a little different. Keith Jones is one of my favorite people, as I have stated several times on this blog. He is about to go move to New York to be with his new bride, the very talented Lizz Hickey. Lizz thought it would be fun to have the two of them on together, and I have to agree. It was awesome. Enjoy.

Hive editor and publisher of Grimalkin Press, Jordan Shiveley was kind enough to answer my call for interviews when I had some last minute cancellations. I was really happy to talk with Jordan, since he has been putting out some really nice books that could use some more eyes pouring over them. He is also publishing books by a couple of young guys I think the world of, Phil McAndrew and Noah Van Sciver.