Episode 354 – Peter Kuper
Episode 288 – Ken Krimstein
Episode 238 – Shannon Wheeler
Virtual Memories Show 238: Shannon Wheeler
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“Cartooning for The New Yorker is like being in a jazz club, and you don’t go into a jazz club and play the Ramones.”
It’s late-night podcast-action with cartoonist Shannon Wheeler! We get into the history of his Too Much Coffee Man comics and his new book, Sh*t My President Says: The Illustrated Tweets of Donald J. Trump
“Liberals can be some of the most conservative people you’ll ever meet.”
Enjoy the conversation! Then check out the archives for more great episodes!
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About our Guest
Shannon Wheeler is the Eisner Award-winning creator of Too Much Coffee Man, who has appeared internationally in newspapers, magazines, comic books and opera houses. He has contributed to a variety of publications, including The Onion newspaper and The New Yorker magazine. Wheeler currently lives in Portland, OR with his cats, chickens, bees, girlfriend and children. He publishes a comic every day at tmcm.com.
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 an undisclosed location on a pair of Blue enCORE 200 Microphones
Episode 194 – Bob Eckstein
Virtual Memories Show #194: Bob Eckstein
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“This book has three things I love: bookstores, painting and name-dropping.”
Artist, writer, humorist and cartoonist Bob Eckstein joins the show to talk about his wonderful new book, Footnotes from the World’s Greatest Bookstores: True Tales and Lost Moments from Book Buyers, Booksellers, and Book Lovers
“I got paid the same amount of money doing pieces for the New York Times in 1982 and 1983 as I get paid now.”
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We also talk about the collapsing economics of illustration, cartooning, and pretty much every other field Bob pursues, doing seven years of research on The History of the Snowman
“Every bookstore is thousands of peoples’ dreams, either fulfilled or unfulfilled. Everyone’s life project is on the shelf. And it’s where people’s dreams are going to get triggered.”
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About our Guest
Bob Eckstein is an illustrator, writer and cartoonist. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal, among many other publications. He is also known as the world’s leading snowman expert and is the author of the holiday classic, The History of the Snowman
There’s a much more extensive (and funny) bio of him at bobeckstein.com.
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 stately Virtual Memories Manor on a pair of Blue enCORE 200 Microphones
Episode 139 – Derf Backderf
Virtual Memories Show #139:
Derf Backderf
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“My art has become good enough to tell the stories I want to tell. I’m a broken down punk rock geezer, but I’m still a relatively young cartoonist. I’ve only been doing long-form comics since 2010.”
Live from CXC! Derf Backderf made a mid-career course correction, going from alt-weekly cartoons to full-length graphic novels like My Friend Dahmer
“The most surprising and one of the most personally satisfying thing to me has been the success I’ve had in Europe, especially France. . . . I walked around Paris last week just laughing; I can’t believe my luck.”
We also talk about the glory days of alt-weekly comics, the mental gymnastics necessary to write Jeffrey Dahmer as a human being, Derf’s observations and adventures in the French comics market, why he decided not to do a book about his cancer experience, how he made more cartoonist-friends after Joyce Brabner kicked him in the ass about being a recluse, and why it’s so much fun to develop good characters who can drive a story. Go listen!
“I did an interview with a big national newspaper in France . . . and the opening question was, ‘We know the rust belt for three things: LeBron James, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and you.'”
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About our Guest
Derf Backderf was born and raised in a small town in Ohio, outside of Akron. He began his comix career as a political cartoonist, first at The Ohio State University, then at a dying daily paper in South Florida. He was fired for, as the editor put it, “general tastelessness.” Derf then gravitated to the free weekly press where his cranky, freeform comic strip, The City, appeared in over 140 papers during its 24-year run. As weekly papers began to wither, Derf moved to graphic novels, starting with Punk Rock and Trailer Parks
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 the Cultural Arts Center in Columbus, OH during Cartoon Crossroads Columbus in October 2015 on a pair of Blue enCORE 200 microphones
Podcast – Our Lady of Organized Vituperation
Virtual Memories Show:
Mary Fleener –
Our Lady of Organized Vituperation
“I was so excited to get an issue of Weirdo in the mail. I ran up my driveway and saw my neighbor and said, ‘Look! I got a letter from Robert Crumb!’ And he said, ‘Who’s that?’ And I thought, ‘Here’s my introduction to the mainstream appreciation of underground comics.'”
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Viva Cubismo! Mary Fleener joins the show to talk about her career in cartooning, her love/hate relationship with LA (mostly hate now, but there was a little love in the early days), the Zora Neale Hurston story that made a cartoonist out of her, the story of how Matt Groening accidentally derailed her career, her past-life regression while attending the King Tut exhibition in 1978, the roots of her Cubismo comics style, the joys of simplifying her life, the new book she’s working on, the horrors of The Comics Journal‘s message board, and more! Give it a listen!
“When I was going to college, you’d pass the guys selling ‘Muhammad Speaks,’ then you’d run into the Hare Krishnas, then there’d be the La Raza guys, then the Jesus freaks. Everything was in flux. Everybody was getting in cults. Everyone was either asking you for money or trying to convert you.”
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About our Guest
Mary Fleener was born in Los Angeles when smog was at an all time high, Hollywood was still glamorous, and every woman’s ambition was to own a mink coat. Inherited good art genes from her mother and never wanted to do anything else. A collection of her comics was published in 1994 by Fantagraphics as Life of the Party
Credits: This episode’s music is Boomcubism by Brian Eno. The conversation was recorded at Ms. Fleener’s home on a pair of Blue enCORE 200 microphones
Podcast – I Was A Teenage Structuralist!
Virtual Memories Show:
Richard Gehr – I Was A Teenage Structuralist!
“I’ve read enough Roland Barthes and Foucault to know it’s all fiction, man.”
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Richard Gehr’s new book, I Only Read It for the Cartoons: The New Yorker’s Most Brilliantly Twisted Artists
“I love New Yorker cartoons, but they might be the whitest form of art ever conceived.”
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About our Guest
Richard Gehr has been writing about music, culture, and travel for quite a while. He has been an editor for the Los Angeles Reader, Spin, and Sonicnet/MTV Interactive. He currently writes for Rolling Stone, Spin, The Village Voice, Relix, AARP: The Magazine, and other publications. He was a senior writer for the book Alt. Culture: An A-To-Z Guide to the ’90S – Underground, Online, and Over-The-Counter
Credits: This episode’s music is Homesickness by Tsegue-Maryam Guebrou (because I’m on the road for a week). The conversation was recorded at Mr. Gehr’s home on a pair of Blue enCORE 200 microphones
Podcast – Look Day
Virtual Memories Show:
Sam Gross – Look Day
“One thing I tell young cartoonists: a magazine is like going out on a date, and a book is like getting married. If you’re going out on a date, you don’t need a lawyer. If you’re doing a book, you get a lawyer.”
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Sam Gross’ gag panels warped me at a young age, so it was an honor to get him on mic to talk about his nearly six-decade cartooning career. We sat down in his studio to discuss the serious business of gags, how he went from drawing a Saul Steinberg nose to drawing a Sam Gross one, how he continues in his 80s to come up with a week’s worth of new gags for Look Day, how he once got a Vanishing New York tour from Charles Addams, how he revels in the “humor of the handicapped”, and the magazine he misses the most. Give it a listen!
“I don’t know where I’m gonna go next. I’m not a finished product.”
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Enjoy the conversation! Then check out the archives for more great episodes! Related conversations:
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About our Guest
Sam Gross has been publishing cartoons since the 1950s. His cartoons have appeared in The New Yorker since 1969. He served as the cartoon editor of National Lampoon and Parents magazines, and was president of the Cartoonists Guild. He has published numerous collections, including I Am Blind and My Dog is Dead
Credits: This episode’s music is Funny Little Frog by Belle & Sebastian. The conversation was recorded at Mr. Gross’ studio on a pair of Blue enCORE 200 microphones
What It Is: 4/12/10
What I’m reading: I finished Indignation
What I’m listening to: Static & Silence
What I’m watching: The Men Who Stare at Goats, The September Issue, the last round of the Masters, and Treme.
What I’m drinking: Funnily/weirdly enough, I didn’t have a drink from the beginning of Passover to the Friday after it ended, an 11-day span. This weekend, I broke out the Citadelle and Q-Tonic.
What Rufus & Otis are up to: Their first Sunday greyhound hike since mid-January! And, boy, was it a long one: 5+ miles, a chunk of which was plagued by gnats, another chunk of which was sodden and muddy. And then there were the car-sized ticks. And don’t get me started on the C.H.U.D.s . . .
Where I’m going: Tonight, I’m heading out to the Nets’s final home game of the season. Since they’re moving to Newark after this season (and eventually to the land-grab arena in Brooklyn), this’ll be their final game at the Meadowlands. I thought it’d be a good way to honor the memory of my pal Sang, with whom I went to many a Nets game, both when they were losers and when Jason Kidd transformed into the best team in the east. To that end, Sang’s pal Chuck is going to come along, even though he’s not a basketball fan. I’ll letcha know how it goes. These links will be dead in a few days, but here are the NYPost‘s articles (1 and 2) on the (ignominious) history of the arena off 16W.
What I’m happy about: That on the way out of the MoCCA festival, I got to bump into Gahan Wilson. I shook his hand and said, “I just want to thank you for so many decades of wonderful cartooning
What I’m sad about: The only person to call me “young man” lately is 80 years old.
What I’m worried about: Having to learn another niche of the pharma biz so I can write an article on it this week.
What I’m pondering: If basset hounds are really this sad:
