Virtual Memories Show 236: Mimi Pond returns!
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Android | RSS
“I felt more of a sense of empty nest when I finished this book than I did when my children left home.”
Cartoonist and humorist Mimi Pond makes her third appearance on the show, this time to celebrate publication of The Customer is Always Wrong
“I liked Archie comics because it was a look to an adolescence I hoped I would have. It turned out to be a crushing disappointment. There was no Pop’s Soda Shop! I didn’t get to date a guy with hashmarks on the side of his head. Most importantly, there was no Jughead!”
“The dark, ugly secret of comics is that just about everyone successful has a partner behind them, supporting them in some way.”
Enjoy the conversation! Then check out the archives for more great episodes!
Lots of ways to follow The Virtual Memories Show! iTunes, Twitter, Instagram, Soundcloud, Facebook, Tumblr, and RSS!
About our Guest
Mimi Pond is a cartoonist, illustrator, humorist and writer. Her graphic memoir, The Customer is Always Wrong
Pond has created comics for the Los Angeles Times, Seventeen Magazine, National Lampoon, The New Yorker, and many other publications too numerous to mention, along with five humor books. She has also written for television: her credits include the first full-length episode of the Simpsons in 1989, and episodes for the television shows “Designing Women” and “Pee Wee’s Playhouse”. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, the painter Wayne White.
Credits: This episode’s music is Nothing’s Gonna Bring Me Down by David Baerwald, used with permission from the artist. The conversation was recorded at Mimi’s friend Ann’s east Village apartment on a pair of Blue enCORE 200 Microphones
, and her Cass Neary novels: 
, 
, and 
!
, 
, 
, 
, 
, and 
, and the Cass Neary novels, 
. Her fiction has received the Nebula, World Fantasy, Mythopoeic, Tiptree, and International Horror Guild Awards, and her novels have been chosen as notable books by both The New York Times and The Washington Post. She has also been awarded a Maine Arts Commission Fellowship. A regular contributor to The Washington Post Book World and the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, she lives with her family on the coast of Maine.
!
, 
, 
, 
, and 
.
: A Horror Writers Association anthology (with Lisa Morton), and 
(stories inspired by Alice’s Adventures in in Wonderland, and Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There).
(Ramble House)!
in 1984 but the majority of his career has been spent as an editor. After a brief internship at Bluejay Books in 1986, he began working at St. Martin’s Press in July 1988. He worked there for 12 years, during which time he worked with such authors as J. G. Ballard, Jack Cady, Bradley Denton, George Pelecanos, and Kate Wilhelm. In 1997, he succeeded Kristine Kathryn Rusch as editor of 
. In 2017, we mute our iPhones to talk about his new book, 
(Graywolf Press). We dive into the impact of digital technology on perception and identity, but also get into the way life becomes a thematic puzzle in middle age, why he stepped down from his role directing the 
, 
, and 
. He recently stepped down as director of the Bennington Writing Seminars, and he also edits the journal 
. We get into the cultural impact of Playboy (the clubs, resorts and jazz festivals, not just the magazine), my own history with same, the process of becoming friends with one’s interviewees, gaining access to Hugh Hefner’s immense archives, combining comedians and cartoonists into a single volume, the amazing work Hef did as a cartoon editor, how she swung from business deals to entertainment history, and more! 
!
!
, created the Eisner-nominated comic books 
and 
, and has taught comics at Cornish College of the Arts since 2002. She grew up in Philadelphia and has lived in Seattle, Washington since 1989. Ellen swims and does yoga, and fixes things with rubber bands and paper clips.
