“One of the reasons I wrote about these three women for my books is that the lives they led give me something to draw.”
Third time’s the charm! Cartoonist Pete Bagge returns to talk about his new comic biography, Credo: The Rose Wilder Lane Story (Drawn & Quarterly), and we get into the thematic ties of his three biographies — Lane, Margaret Sanger, and Zora Neale Hurston — and how he learned the biographer’s art over the course of those works. We talk about how he discovered Rose Wilder Lane’s walk-the-walk libertarianism, her transition in and out of socialism, the likelihood that she co-wrote her mother’s Little House series of books, Pete’s own history with libertarianism and the uncomfortable questions he’d ask his parents, and why his own biography would be a lot less interesting than those of his subjects. We also discuss his writing and drawing process and how he structured these books, why he’d prefer to produce comics in installments and how economics mitigate against that model, how trying to write for TV made his comics writing more concise, and why he’s likely sticking to shorter biography comics for a while. Oh, and we talk about his ’80s/’90s editorship of the anthology Weirdo, how he followed R. Crumb, and the artists he pissed off as well as the ones to whom he gave their first shot, and the memoir he’s written but has yet to draw. Give it a listen! And go buy Credo: The Rose Wilder Lane Story!
“RAW was full of art and artists that I loved, but it was clearly designed to appeal to people that I hated.”
“Something that I’ve been struggling with since I’ve been a cartoonist is to be more concise. I have a bad habit of being too verbose.”
“There are these 400-page graphic novels out there, and by page 50, I just have no motivation to turn another page.”
“Drawing Buddy Bradley over and over at conventions? It beats drawing nothing.”
Cartoonist Peter Bagge is the Harvey Award–winning author of the acclaimed 1990s alternative comic series Hate, starring slacker hero Buddy Bradley, and a regular contributor to Reason magazine. A graduate of the School of Visual Arts in New York City, he got his start in comics in the R. Crumb–edited magazine Weirdo, of which he later became editor. Bagge has published three critically acclaimed books with Drawn & Quarterly: Fire!!: The Zora Neale Hurston Story, Woman Rebel: The Margaret Sanger Story, and the recently published Credo: The Rose Wilder Lane Story. He lives in Tacoma with his wife, Joanne, daughter, and three cats.
Third time’s the charm! Cartoonist Pete Bagge returns to talk about his new comic biography, Credo: The Rose Wilder Lane Story
