Inkstuds

Ball Peen Hammer illustrator, George O’Connor and I discussed his latest book and as well as his work in children’s books and his future in the world of the Olympians.

J Bradley Johnson has a handfull of comics out there, but if you can hunt them down, they are great. His work can be found in great anthologies like Kramers Ergot, Snake Eyes, Hotwire Comix, and Ivan Brunetti’s first Graphic Fiction anthology.

Here is the audio results of the panel I was a part of at TCAF. I was joined by my fellow nerds, Robert Dayton, Frank Santoro, Dash Shaw and Dustin Harbin for a discussion on mainstream comics and the influence that they have had on alternative comics. It’s not the most focused panel, but we had fun and got some good discussions going with the audience. The idea that Frank and I had going into this, is to look at comics in the context of a literary tradition and to create an understanding of how comics of a continuum of influences. I guess my big thing right now, is that in some way’s there can be a revisionist look at influences, that seems to recognize work that may be more appealing now, or cool, but does not hold the same power that something less modern and currently aesthetically popular would.

It starts out about a minute into it, with Frank Santoro well into a rant about his love of Jack Kirby. Some of the audio from the audience is hard to hear, I tried to make it as loud in parts as I could, but somethings are impossible. I have added some images below, and will add more later, that reflect the panel.

CF aka Christopher Forgues aka Kites and some other musical projects, sat down with me for a chat about comix. His series from Picture Box, Powr Mastrs has been getting alot of love and I have really enjoyed it so far as well.

Pete Bagge joined us in promotion for his visit to Vancouver on Sunday as part of the national Canadian event, Word on the Street. He will be signing books and doing a Q and A at 2pm downstairs at the Vancouver Library. For the first half, Peter and I talk comix(including his new project for Vertigo) and Politix. In the second half, we talk music. founding member of the Action Suits, Eric Reyonlds came on for round table discussion of music and some of the new musical projects that Pete and Eric have been involved in recently. Eric has Fox Hollow, and you can find out about Peter’s project near the end of the show.

Robin Enrico is one of the folks putting out some fabulous self published goodies. His storytelling is really smooth and fun to read. I picked up one of his books at Stumptown and inhaled it. You should read his stuff as well.

In our continued look at Canadian cartoonists, David Collier joined us for our most Canadian show yet. David has creating some great biographies of folks in Canadian history. Ranging from his own grandfather to little known sports figures, he always goes beyond the duty in his research in creating some great comix. Joe Sacco, and Chris Ware both cite David as a big influence, and you can really see it when you sit down with his work.

Billy Mavreas is in Vancouver involved in a million interesting projects, and I managed to get a couple of minutes out of his day to discuss his new book, Inside Outside Overlap. Billy will be doing a book launch on Saturday June 7th at Lucky’s comix at 3972 Main st. in Vancouver and in Toronto on June 25th. While Billy is in Vancouver, you can check him out at the Helen Pitt Gallery, with an opening reception on Friday night and then Billy will be in space doing art and talking to folks checking out the gallery tuesday to saturday this week and next week during business hours. Its a good weekend to be in Vancouver.

Listen to Art Spiegelman talk about Philip Guston. Original work can be seen at the Vancouver Art Gallery in the Krazy Exhibition.

Fresh in time for a new book coming out this summer, Art Spiegelman stresses the importance of Jerry Moriarty as a preeminent artist. Original pages and paintings by Jerry, can be seen at the Vancouver Art Gallery, Krazy Exhibition.