Inkstuds

Colin and I were delighted to be joined by Chris Ware and Jeet Heer to discuss the great works of Frank King. King’s work with Gasoline Alley, a strip dating back nearly 90 years is still felt on some of my modern favorite cartoonists. From Shulz to Matt, King masterful craftsmanship and storytelling have influenced many. Not only is Gasoline Alley excellent, it is also the longest running real time comic strip, ever. Under the title of Walt and Skeezix after the main characters, Drawn and Quarterly have published 3 collections of his daily strips, as well as the ginormous Sunday’s collection from Sunday Press Books. This has been one of my most favoritist shows in the 2 years of doing the Inkstuds, and you will enjoy it as well.

In the course of doing the Inkstuds show over the last two years, I have been able to talk to some of the most interesting, talented and important cartoonists working today. This week I am taking a side step in normal programming, and talking to one of my cultural hero’s. Genesis Breyer P-Orridge has been doing art and music for well over 30 years. From his early days in the art performance group, Coum Transmissions, to the pioneering music group, Throbbing Gristle and his expansive work with Psychic TV, Genesis has been pushing new boundaries in the way people understand music. Even if you haven’t heard of him, you have listened to someone who was influenced by his work.

With his latest incarnation given the monicker, PTV3, Genesis is revisiting his roots of the psychedelic rock of the 1960’s and created the album Hell is Invisible/Heaven is Here. Its great mix of psychedelia with a blend of acareer’s worth of variety thrown into a nice soup.

PTV3 will be touring the west coast later this month with dates in –

Seattle – August 22nd

Portland – August 23rd

San Francisco – August 24th

Los Angeles – August 25th

Phoenix – August 27th

San Diego – August 29th

They will be doing a full tour in November, and you can be sure to see at the Vancouver performance, grinning like mad. I apologize for the quality of the recording. Unfortunately, Inkstuds is recorded at a non-profit college radio, and some times our facilities can be in disrepair. Meaning that the phone recording lines was screwed up when I did this. Please listen and enjoy.

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Luke Ramsey and Jim Stoten joined us to talk about comix art and fun. Jim is a cartoonist from England that has come to town to partake in Luke’s artist residency project on Pender Island. They are both super talented artist and are doing some really nice looking work. Check out Luke’s ongoing collaborations at the Islands Fold site.

Eddie Campbell is one of the Inkstuds favorite creators. He is one of the few creators that all hosts involved with the show, can agree upon his awesomeness. Colin and I were lucky enough to be able to chat with Eddie about his latest book, The Black Diamond Detective Agency. We also talked about his past comix goodness and his future projects as well.

Barron Storey is one of the most influential people that I have had the pleasure to talk to. He has been teaching for many years, and counts some of the top creators in comix as former pupils. Those that have had the fortune of being students of Barron, include, Kent Williams, George Pratt, Peter Kuper, Seth Tobocman,  and many more. His new book, Life After Black, is a reproduction of one of his incredible personal journals. It is an incredible testament to his talent, and well worth checking out.

Gary Groth and Kim Thompson are the guys that brought us the Comics Journal and Fantagraphics. Together, they have injected a critical attitude towards the wonderful world of comix, pushing it forward as an artform. Fantagraphics has published some of the best in alternative comix and continues to be a very important publisher.

Ed Piskor is a new guy on the scene, making some awesome comix. He is currently collaborating with Harvey Pekar on a couple of projects. He was in the American Splendor, Our Movie Year collection, and illustrated the forthcoming Macedonia book and part of another book that Harvey is doing about the Beats that will be out early next year. As well, Ed makes some great mini’s.

Joe and Sean are a couple of talented kids destined for greatness. I have been a fan of their prospective works for quite sometime, and you should be as well. Sean does the fantastic Marooned web comic, and Joe has an incredible amount of goodness to check out as well as some awesome books coming out. Sean will also be a part of Warren Ellis’s upcoming web comic project, so be sure to check him out, so you can say you saw his stuff way back when.

This week, we were joined by Dennis P. Eichhorn, author of alternative comic staple Real Stuff. Dennis’s work is awesome, and extremely influential in the world of autobio comix. And the man has more great tales than you can imagine. His work is unfortunatley out of print, but Dennis still has some copies of his collection, and you can contact him at dennispeichhorn @yahoo.com. I highly recommend to check his stuff out if you haven’t. Name a comic artist that you like, and chances are, 9 times out 10 they are in the Real Stuff collection, and if they aren’t, then there is something wrong with them. You can get the collection of his Wild Man Fischer stories from topshelf.

I feel kind of humbled and honoured by getting the chance to interview Ralph Steadman. Ralph is one of the premiere artists of the 20th century. His work as artistic companion to Hunter S. Thompson in the fine world of Gonzo Journalism is only out done by his incredible solo work. I was joined in the interview by Chris Clarke of Pulp Fiction books for a very fascinating hour of chat with Ralph. He was an incredible guest and a true gentleman. He is currently promoting his latest book, The Joke’s Over, Ralphs memoirs of his time with Hunter S. Thompson, leading upto his untimely death. We also talked alot about Ralph’s artwork and whole lot of other stuff. This was one of my favorite interviews that I have ever done.