Fantagraphics is celebrating its 40th anniversary and holy crap have I interviewed a ton of their cartoonists and writers:
- Peter Bagge • mp3
- MK Brown • mp3
- Ivan Brunetti • mp3
- Jules Feiffer • mp3
- Mary Fleener • mp3
- Drew Friedman 2013 • mp3
- Drew Friedman 2014 • mp3
- Josh Alan Friedman • mp3
- Kipp Friedman • mp3
- Bill Griffith • mp3
- Glenn Head • mp3
- Dylan Horrocks • mp3
- Kaz • mp3
- Jonah Kinigstein • mp3
- Peter Kuper • mp3
- Michael Kupperman • mp3
- Roger Langridge 2014 • mp3
- Roger Langridge 2015 • mp3 (brief)
- Roger Langridge 2016 • mp3 (brief)
- Lorenzo Mattotti • mp3
- Paul Mavrides • mp3
- Tom Spurgeon • mp3
- Leslie Stein • mp3
- Carol Tyler • mp3
- Jim Woodring (2015) • mp3
- Jim Woodring (2016) • mp3
That last one with Woodring has the most Fanta-40th-related conversation, so check it out.
feeding into a 
digital recorder. I recorded the intro and outro on a 
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and a 
. All processing and editing done in 
. Photo of Mr. Koren by me.
, the joys of drawing with a six-foot pen, just what Art is there for, and more! 
in 1992. A newer collection of these comics was published as 
.
in 2004. The 2010 Frank story 
won The Stranger’s Genius Award and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for that year. Woodring has published two more FRANK books, 
, and 
. His newest book is 
in 2005), and the sculptures, vinyl figures, fabrics and gallery installations that have been made from his designs. His multimedia collaborations with the musician Bill Frisell won them a United States Artists Fellowship in 2006. He lives on Vashon Island with his family and residual phenomena.
, published by Narrative Magazine. Some of her other books are 
, 
, a history of the women who drew cartoons for the magazine, 
and 
(with Michael Maslin). Donnelly’s book, When Do they Serve the Wine? was optioned by Mark Gordon Studios for an hour long comedy for television; and the book she wrote with her husband, Cartoon Marriage, has been optioned by Jennifer Garner for ABC Studios. Donnelly has written and illustrated numerous children’s books for Scholastic and Holiday House.
. Malcolm is the author/editor of eight books including 
, named by the San Francisco Chronicle as one of the hundred most important books of the 20th century by a western writer. His essays and articles have appeared in a number of periodicals including The Nation, Small Press, National Parks, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the Los Angeles Times. He retired from his role as publisher at Heyday Books this year.
digital recorder (because I screwed up with my main recorder). I recorded the intro and outro on a 
joins the podcast on way too little sleep to talk about transgressing borders: national borders, panel borders, and familial borders. We talk about Diary’s hybrid structure and why it would have been unpitchable to a publisher (luckily, she had a two-book contract), the tightrope of portraying a 15-year-old girl’s affair with her mother’s 30-something boyfriend without making her strictly a victim or “asking for it”, and some audiences’ obsession with “the facts” of the book. We also get into her ongoing, decade-long multi-media project to recreate a life in Juarez, Mexico, her place in the comics scene (too young for the undergrounds, too old for the alternatives), her unrepeatable approach to making art, and more! 
, as well as many short stories, illustrations, and comics which have appeared in a variety of publications over the last 25 years. She has a master’s degree in Biomedical Communications from The University of Texas at Dallas, and was an undergraduate at San Francisco State University. She also studied at Charles University in Prague and L’Unversité D’Aix-Marseille in France. She was the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2008. Phoebe is currently working on a multi-media novel based on the lives of several families living on the outskirts of Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. She has traveled frequently to Juárez over the last 10 years to research the project.
feeding into a 
digital recorder. I recorded the intro and outro on the same setup. Processing was done in Audacity and Logic Pro. Photo of pissed-off Phoebe by me.
(Fantagraphics). We sat down at her home in Cincinnati to talk about her perspective on the book now that it’s in her rear-view mirror. We also talk about the glass ceiling for female cartoonists, what it means to be a parent first and cartoonist second, how her dad’s PTSD affected so much of her life, how she drew the last part of Soldier’s Heart in hospital rooms, going on food stamps in the midst of this project, her struggle to retain her hippie-ish enthusiasm during a period of heavy loss (4 family members and 3 close friends in 4 years), and how she broke into a frat-house to steal post-party empties for recycling. It’s a fun, deep conversation with a master cartoonist (even when it borders on Gil-as-therapist), so 
(1993) and 
(2005), all with Fantagraphics Books. Professor Tyler teaches Comics, Graphic Novels & Sequential Art at the University of Cincinnati and is also a Residency Artist with the Ohio Arts Council.
. Processing was done in Audacity and Logic Pro. Photos of Ms. Tyler by me.
– Peter Kuper
– Peter Kuper
– Peter Kuper
– James Romberger, David Wojnarowicz, Marguerite Van Cook
– Eric Drooker
– Alan Moore, David Gibbons
– Riad Sattouf
– Marjane Satrapi
– Anthony Doerr
– Andy Weir
– Bill Nye
– Elizabeth Kolbert
– Philippe Squarzoni
– Haruki Murakami
– Haruki Murakami
, and an adaptation of Franz Kafka’s 
!)
(Top Shelf, 2011), was excerpted in the Best American Comics 2013 and named one of “the best comics by women” by DoubleX. She is a member of 
(which the Boston Globe called, “A virtual bible for artists and day jobs”) and 
. Her writing and art have appeared in The Rumpus, Hobart, The Nashville Review & Booth Literary Journal, among other places.
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