Inkstuds

Anya Davidson joined me to chat about her new book from Fantagraphics, Band For Life. It’s an amazing complex look at relationships and people under the guise of a story of a punk noise band. I really enjoyed this book and was quite taken by characters. I highly recommend checking it out. Her other new work is Lovers in the Garden from Retrofit. A much smaller work than Band for Life, but uses the shorter form to zero in on characters in an extreme situation.

Anya’s work has a great humour to it as well, that keeps the flow of the work humming along at a great pace.

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Photo by Whit Spurgeon

My second interview at CXC in Columbus was a conversation between Noah Van Sciver and Seth. It was a blast to do. We threw it together last minute at the end of the day on saturday. It was neat to bring these 2 great talents into a room together. You can tell a lot of these seasoned comics vets have a lot of respect admiration for Noah and it comes through in this. Noah’s latest work is Blammo 9 and Disquiet. You can find the documentary, Seth’s Dominion from the National Film Board on the site for his publisher, Drawn and Quarterly.

We had a lot of folks coming by to check out what was going on. it would be neat to do something like this at a con where folks can listen or watch from another room, but not by on display like panel. I like this dynamic much more. it felt free and comfortable.

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Vancouver cartoonist, Troy Nixey joined us for a chat before he moved off to Alberta. Troy’s probably most known for his collaborations with Mike Mignola on writing duties, including the stellar Batman story, the Doom Came to Gotham as well as Jenny Finn.

More recently, Troy has returned to comics after directing the movie, Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark. His most recent story The Black Sinister, is written by Kaare Andrews and is being serialized in Dark Horse Present. This was a really great conversation and thanks to Brandon Graham for joining me interviewer duties.

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While at the CXC comics show in Columbus, I did a couple of interviews in these weird little pod study rooms just off of the festival floor. It was very convenient to have and easy to use.

My first interview was with Sean T Collins. Sean has been involved comics criticism since the early 2000’s. He has been on the inkstuds before for a critics roundtable many years. I don’t see Sean very often, but I thought since we would be at the same show, it would be a good chance to catch up.

Sean has stepped away from directly focusing comics criticism to the greener pastures of tv show reviewing for many high profile entertain sites. He recently he posted a list of 33 favorite graphic novels for the Thrillist.

Sean’s next upcoming comics related project is Mirror Mirror 2 from 2d Cloud. An anthology that he is co-editing with Julia Gfrörer. The contributor list is aces and I am really looking forward to checking it out when it comes out in the new year.

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Last month, I had a privilege to host a panel on Comics with local Vancouver cartoonists and artists for the Canadian book design recognizing, Alcuin Society. I was joined by Sarah Leavitt, Nick Bantock and Johnnie Christmas. It was a fun conversation.

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Tillie is a cartoonist from Austin, Texas who has released three books over the past two years from the UK publisher Avery Hill. The first was THE END OF SUMMER, a gorgeous story of a family who is about to lock themselves into a giant, maze-like mansion at the beginning of a three-year winter. I would’ve been curious to talk to her based on that dream-like family epic alone, but then she released two follow-up books in short order. I LOVE THIS PART, a short, gutwrenching story of two friends in high school who find and lose love that feels like you are reading the comics version of a whistful pop song. For this year’s TCAF, Walden released A CITY INSIDE, a dreamy comic that manages to feel loose and airy, while displaying her trademark laser-guided drawing chops and almost feels like a guided meditation through the artist’s mind. We also talk about her upcoming book for First Second, tentatively entitled SPINNING, a 400pp memoir of her experience as a competitive figure skater through grade and high school.

She also recently started a Patreon where she does intricate and beautiful, dream-like daily diary comics, which you should absolutely check out. She also has a new webcomic starting soon, which you can check out here – http://www.onasunbeam.com/

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Cartoonist and publisher Kevin Czap joined me to talk about the new Kickstarter for his 2017 releases by other artists.  His latest book Fütchi Perf is a fantastic collection exploring some really forward looking story telling techniques. It’s a fantastic book.

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I talked to Lawrence “Rawdog” Hubbard about his new collection from Fantagraphics. Real Deal collects the first seven issues of his self published series Real Deal. Originally concieved with writing partner, HP McElwee aka “RD Bone”, Real Deal is one of the most intense visceral comics I have read in a while. Coming out the early 90s in LA, Real Deal is a violent masterpiece. Not for the easily upset. Fans of Ben Marra should check this out.

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Powerhouse cartoonist team, Leslie Hung and Bryan Lee O’Malley, join guest host Sloane Leong at SDCC to talk about their new debut comic SNOTGIRL! Leslie is an elegant illustrator and consummate cartoonist and Bryan’s virtuoso comic storytelling voice rings out strong as ever in this unique comic collaboration.

What happens when two cartoonists go for smoothies and talk comics. While Becca Tobin was in town for Vancaf, occasional Inkstuds co-host Brandon Graham met up with her talk about her great comics and paintings. Becca has a book from the great Frontier series out of Youth In Decline. Becca has since returned to the UK and continues to do amazing work.

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