Episode 147 – Peter Kuper

Virtual Memories Show #147:
Peter Kuper

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“The things we were seeing on the lamppost that would wash away, the art on the walls that would get painted over: we wanted to codify that in World War 3 Illustrated.”

Alt-comix lifer Peter Kuper joins the show to talk about his new graphic novel, RUINS (Self-Made Hero), a beautiful book about American expats in Oaxaca, Mexico during last decade’s political upheaval. Peter also talks about co-creating World War 3 Illustrated and the legacy that anthology has left since its inception in 1979 (!), how surprised he finds himself to be teaching at Harvard, how he fights despair over the fight against climate change, the need to build one’s own artistic scene, what it’s like to be one of the only people who actually followed through on the “if Bush/Cheney are re-elected, I’m leaving America” pledge, and more! Give it a listen!

“For me, the safest thing has been doing things I love. I’m an atheist, but I’ve had the experience of putting in the love and the effort and have come to believe that it’ll work out. I know a tremendous amount of it is luck, but persistence and putting yourself in the way of possibility has worked.”

Seriously, Peter Kuper’s a legend in cartooning, and this wide-ranging conversations covers a lot of territory, including his revelations about murals in Mexican art, the wide variety of art-styles he employs, the economics of cartooning, the sink-or-swim experience his parents subjected him to in Israel (and why that led him to do the same to his kid in Mexico), the devaluation of political humor, the GOP candidate he fears the most, and the historical knowledge of comics his students at Harvard and SVA have (or don’t have), so go listen to our conversation and then go buy Ruins!

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“We all draw. Every kid draws. For whatever reason, we give it up. I encourage people to keep it there. Why not sketch for pleasure? Turning it into a career is a whole other bag.”

We talk about some books in this episode. Here’s a list of them:

• Ruins – Peter Kuper
• Diario de Oaxaca: A Sketchbook Journal of Two Years in Mexico – Peter Kuper
• Stop Forgetting to Remember: The Autobiography of Walter Kurtz – Peter Kuper
• World War 3 Illustrated: 1979-?2014
• The System – Peter Kuper
• 7 Miles A Second – James Romberger, David Wojnarowicz, Marguerite Van Cook
• Flood!: A Novel in Pictures – Eric Drooker
• Watchmen – Alan Moore, David Gibbons
• The Arab of the Future: A Childhood in the Middle East, 1978-1984: A Graphic Memoir – Riad Sattouf
• The Complete Persepolis – Marjane Satrapi
• All the Light We Cannot See – Anthony Doerr
• The Martian – Andy Weir
• Undeniable: Evolution and the Science of Creation – Bill Nye
• The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History – Elizabeth Kolbert
• Climate Changed: A Personal Journey through the Science – Philippe Squarzoni
• After Dark – Haruki Murakami
• Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage – Haruki Murakami

Enjoy the conversation! Then check out the archives for more great episodes! You might like:

• Dan Perkins/Tom Tomorrow
• Derf Backderf
• Bill Griffith
• Pete Bagge
• Jonathan Hyman

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About our Guest

Peter Kuper has created over a dozen graphic novels, including The System, Sticks and Stones, and an adaptation of Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis. He is co-founder of the political graphics magazine World War 3 Illustrated and since 1997 has written and drawn “Spy Vs Spy” for MAD Magazine. He has been teaching comics courses for over 25 years in New York City and is a visiting professor at Harvard University. His new book is RUINS.There’s a more extensive bio at his site.

Credits: This episode’s music is Nothing’s Gonna Bring Me Down by David Baerwald, used with permission of the artist. The conversation was recorded at Mr. Kuper’s studio on a pair of Blue enCORE 200 microphones feeding into a Zoom H5 digital recorder. I recorded the intro and outro on a Blue Yeti USB Microphone. Processing was done in Audacity and Logic Pro. Photo of Mr. Kuper by Holly Kuper.