Sequential Heart

In this episode of Sequential Heart, Sean and Eric sit down with Monstress writer Marjorie Liu. Her addictive ongoing comic, published by Image and illustrated by Sana Takeda, weaves a massive fantasy tapestry anchored by one woman, Maika Wolfwolf, surviving through a post-war landscape on the brink of implosion, while also wrestling with a literal demon seeking to escape from her flesh. Liu discusses the comic's sprawling scope and the weighty themes of ethics and racial identity under its skin. Also: lots of cats.

This week, Sean chats with Box Brown on the bustling floor of New York Comic Con about his latest graphic novel, Tetris: The Games People Play. A layered examination of pixellated nostalgia, politics and philosophy, the graphic novel embraces the same obsessive research and personality as Brown's previous OGN, Andrew the Giant: Life and Legend.

In this episode of Sequential Heart, the multi-talented Vera Brosgol stops by to chat about her new charming picture book, Leave Me Alone, as well as dive into the Russian folktales and culture that inspire her oeuvre, which also includes the YA chiller Anya's Ghost. Ms. Brosgol also hints at her next graphic novel, an autobiographic look at one memorable summer camp experience from her childhood.

Ethan Young, who netted Paste's best comic of 2015 with the historicalsucker punch Nanjing: The Burning City, debuts two new projects this month set in the sci-fi arena. Pilgrim Finch is the dialogue-less narrative of one creature's journey through the cosmos while The Battles of Bridget Lee updates the folktale of Mulan in an industrial, interstellar battlefield. Young stops by the podcast to discuss these two projects, his illustrating process and his plans for New York Comic Con.

Cartoonist extraordinaire James Kochalka brings his vibrant, hilarious energy to this week's Sequential Heart. The auteur behind the sublime daily comic strip American Elf and the excessively more juvenile (but occasionally sublime) comic/cartoon SuperF*ckers, Kochalka discusses profanity, his creative process and catharsis through comics.

In this episode of Sequential Heart, Eric and Sean descend into the world of Matt Kindt, the veteran writer and illustrator of high concept genre epics including 2 Sisters and Mind MGMT. His current project, Dept. H, plumbs into the watery abyss of a murder mystery set on the ocean floor, colored with striking fluorescents and steely grays by Sharlene Kindt. Matt discusses his influences for the book, the frightening sea fauna he's concocted and the twists and turns that await future stories.

The Wicked + The Divine has remained one of the most intriguing, trail-blazing comics to engage new audiences in the last decade, unfolding one hell of an ambitious story of belief. A cutting analysis of pop culture and devotion, the title follows a reckless group of kids imbued with the divinity of various multi-cultural deities. Instead of cultivating lasting change with their followers, the new gods fight, fornicate and perform grand musical ceremonies. In other words, you can put the almighty in a teenager, but you can't take the teenager out of the almighty. With this sprawling epic wrapping its first in-story year, Sean chatted with the creative team of Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie at this year's San Diego Comic-Con about religion's relationship with music, how the fictional cast matches against their real-life equivalents and the perils of working out at convention hotels.

Sequential Heart is proud to announce this week's guest, writer and illustrator Nate Powell. Aside from crafting some of our favorite DIY punk tunes of the past decade, Nate is the illustrator of the March trilogy, a graphic novel autobiography of Congressman John Lewis' journey through the civil rights movement and beyond, co-written by Andrew Aydin. Nate dives into his process of articulating these events with emotion and gravitas with the release of the concluding entry this month, as well as the books' new status as educational milestones. Also: a new comic about princesses who eat onions.

After taking a two week unplanned break (sorry everyone!), Sean and Eric invite Hip Hop Family Tree mastermind Ed Piskor onto the line to explore his history of music and comics growing up in Pittsburg. They also dive into Ed's five favorite hip hop albums of all time and the cartoonist's unannounced future projects about computing and hacking.

Eric and Sean visit Jeff Smith at his Cartoon Books headquarters in the latest Sequential Heart. The cartoonist behind RASL and Tuki Save the Humans will release a new chapter in his sprawling, industry benchmark fantasy, Bone, next week with a special Coda chapter to celebrate its 25th anniversary. The trio discusses revisiting this timeless comic, the status of a planned movie adaptation and the second year of Smith's Columbus-based cartooning festival, CXC.