Inkstuds

Greetings, humble Inkstudians! I’m Caitlin McGurk, indomitable zinestress and head librarian at The Schulz Library of The Center for Cartoon Studies. As many have already recapped, this years TCAF festival was absolutely unforgettable. One of the highlights for me was the opportunity I was given to moderate a panel with Adrian Tomine, Jillian Tamaki, and Lorenzo Mattoti on comic artists who also work as illustrators. Although that’s a bit of a broad, vague, and essential description of all of us in the business- we were able to hit on everything from using time and motion in comics, to the bureacracries of dealing with editors vs. art directors. The choice of panelists made it especially dynamic: Jillian- who typically defines herself as an illustrator, Adrian- who is without question a cartoonist at heart but whose work for The New Yorker reaches a much broader audience as an illustrator, and Lorenzo- whose work visually identifies as fine art illustration but has been conditioned to work quite well sequentially.

Zach Worton‘s The Klondike, is the latest in the fine Canadian tradition of historical narratives. His book is a great look into a particular point in time of what can be described as the Canadian frontier.

One of the panels I moderated at TCAF, was a conversation between Paul Pope, Brandon Graham and Sam Hiti. I really like to pair up artists with contemporaries that are doing like minded work, that is still very different in a lot of ways. Last year, I had Paul on with Dash Shaw, and it was a really great talk. This year, we went in a completely different direction than last year. For the second half of the panel, I posted images and asked for comments on the images from the participants.Those images are posted below, after Hiti’s storytelling tree concept.

Photo courtesy of Jen Vaughn

Here is the audio from the panel I did with Sarah Glidden at Stumptown. I really enjoyed this conversation. Sarah is a really smart creator and comics are better to have her making them. In the panel, we touch on her Cartoon Movement piece.

Jeffrey Brown and I had plans to do a panel at Stumptown, where we discuss comics we grew up reading. The three of got to talking over the weekend, and decided it would be fun to have Brandon Graham join us for a pretty fun geek out over comics with ninjas.

Scott Hampton was in Vancouver to give a talk at a local art school, and I took advantage of his proximity and set up an interview. It’s a pretty interesting conversation about comics vs media property that I wasn’t expecting to get in to. I was joined by Brandon, who mentioned the interview here.

Brecht Evens is by far, one of the most exciting young cartoonists. His debut book from Drawn and Quarterly, The Wrong Place was one of the my favorite releases of 2010, garnering much praise on our year end show. Top Shelf recently released an earlier work by Brecht, Night Animals, another whimsical gem. Brecht is another person that I am very excited about meeting at TCAF.

Drew Weing‘s comics are among some of my favorites. Along with his wife, Eleanor Davis, they craft some amazing objects. Drew’s first book, Set to Sea is a beautifully drawn little book, garnering some well deserved praise. He also has a story in the new issue of Papercutter #15, a must have anthology.

Lorenzo Mattotti has been doing comics for a little over 30 years. Only a handful of work is available in English, but it’s a handful of excellence. His work first gained notice to North American audiences, thanks to a couple of appearances in RAW and his books, Murmur and Fires. Mattotti’s work is that of a creative giant. He breathes a life into comics that utilizes an unparalleled skill set, resulting in stunning works of art. Fantagraphics has recently released Stigmata to a new generation of readers. Mattotti is truly a cartooning master. This interview was conducted over two sessions and makes up to be my longest interview yet, at over 3 hours after I mixed the music in.

Many thanks to Lorenzo for being so generous with his time. For a man whose English is his 3rd language, he was a fantastic talker. Also, thanks to Kim Thompson for playing the connector.

Lorenzo Mattotti will be appearing at the Toronto Comics Art Festival in May. A very rare appearance that should not be missed. His collaborative work with Lou Reed, The Raven will be debuting at TCAF.

Smart comics folks, Dr Bart Beaty and Kim Thompson joined me to discuss European comics scene. It’s a pretty broad subject, but we are able to cover a lot of different points of interest. The amount of amazing comics out of Europe is really more than I can comprehend. Perhaps this will help navigate the abundance.