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Podcast: Semper Fido

Sheila Keenan and Nathan Fox talk Dogs of War on The Virtual Memories Show

Virtual Memories – season 4 episode 9 – Semper Fido

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“We move through a human-centric world as if that is reality, but we’re surrounded by other species, and their species is centric to their world. I’m interested in how that works, not in humanizing other animals.”

In honor of K-9 Veterans Day, our guests are Sheila Keenan and Nathan Fox, the writer and the artist behind Dogs of War, a YA graphic novel about dogs on the battlefield. We talk about their collaborative process and how it developed over the course of this project, as well as the challenges of writing about war for a YA audience, how the trajectory of dog use parallels the development of military technology, and the ways that our empathy for animals can help us better understand the cost of conflict.

“I want the power of time and imagination that resides in the white space between panels.”

Also, find out about their circuitous paths to comics, the alchemy of a writer’s vision interpreted by an artist, why Nathan launched an MFA program at the School of Visual Arts, and how Sheila’s husband wooed her with a page of Love & Rockets!

Praise for Dogs of War

  • Starred reviews in Publishers Weekly, School Library Journal, and The Bulletin of the Center for Childrens’ Books
  • School LIbrary Journal Top Ten Graphic Novels
  • YALSA Top Ten Great Graphic Novels (Young Adult Library Services Association, a division of ALA/American Library Association)
  • ALA Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers

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About our Guests

Sheila Keenan is an established author of books for young people, including As The Crow Flies, a picture book she did in collaboration with her husband artist Kevin Duggan, and Animals in the House: A History of Pets and People. Dogs of War is her first graphic novel.

Nathan Fox was born in 1975 in Washington D.C. Raised from the age of five on the suburban outskirts of Houston, an early addiction to cartoons, commercials and video games led to a lifelong exploration of Narrative Art and the over-stimulation associated with his generation. In the hopes of making such an addiction his full time job, Nathan left Texas for Missouri, where he attended the Kansas City Art Institute. After graduating in 1997, Nathan pursued Illustration from Milwaukee, WI for the next two years with little result. Frustrated with pursuing editorial illustration and working as an offset pressman, he and his wife moved to New York City in 2000 where Nathan attended The School of Visual Arts (SVA) Illustration As Visual Essay Graduate Program. His work has appeared in The New York Times Newspaper and Magazine, Interview, The New Yorker, Rolling Stone, Wired, ESPN Magazine, Print, Entertainment Weekly, Mother Jones, Spin, Mad Magazine, MTV Store Windows and Tshirts, Burton US Open 2009, Instant Winner and REAL Skateboards, DC Comics, Vertigo, Dark Horse Comics, Marvel and many other publications and mediums. In 2011, Nathan designed the curriculum for a new low-residency graduate program in visual storytelling and is now chair of SVA’s MFA Visual Narrative program.

Credits: This episode’s music is Atomic Dog by Parliament. The conversation was recorded at Mr. Fox’s office at the School of Visual Arts on a Blue enCORE 200 microphone (for me) and an Audio-Technica AT2020 Cardioid Condenser microphone (for them), feeding into a Zoom H4n recorder. The intro and outro were recorded on Blue Yeti USB Microphone. Processing was done in Audacity and Garage Band. Photo of Mr. Fox and Ms. Keenan by me.