Virtual Memories – season 3 episode 22 –
Pete Bagge: The Least Insane of Cartoonists
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Spotify | TuneIn | | More
“I was asking not to be taken seriously, but I was also getting annoyed that I wasn’t being taken seriously.”
Peter Bagge, the comics legend behind Hate!, Neat Stuff, Apocalypse Nerd and Everybody is Stupid Except for Me, joins us to talk about his new book, Woman Rebel: The Margaret Sanger Story. We have a great conversation about why he chose to write about the founder of Planned Parenthood, how he made the shift from fiction to nonfiction comics, who his favorite “pre-feminist feminists” are, why he decided to stick with comic books over paperback books (and why he came around on the latter), what the strangest sketchbook request he ever received is, and how he feels about being a comics convention prostitute.
We also talk about how he never got a word of approval from his dad or his editor, how his libertarian politics got him ostracized after the 2008 election (and how some people seem to be coming around on that), why he doesn’t draw elbows, and what it felt like to be considered the “least insane of cartoonists” by R. Crumb.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Spotify | TuneIn | | More
Enjoy the conversation! Then check out the archives for more great episodes! Related conversations:
Follow The Virtual Memories Show on iTunes, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and RSS!
About our Guest
Peter Bagge‘s newest book is Woman Rebel: The Margaret Sanger Story. He is best known for the 1990s comic book series Hate!, which followed the exploits of slacker ne’er-do-well Buddy Bradley (collected vols. 1
, 2
, and 3
). He is a contributor to Reason magazine, which led to the collection Everybody Is Stupid Except For Me, and Other Acute Observations
, and his work has appeared in Weirdo (where he served as managing editor), The Stranger, New York Press, Entertainment Weekly, Details, Seattle Weekly, Screw, and more. He is also the author of Peter Bagge’s Other Stuff
, Reset
, Apocalypse Nerd
, Other Lives
, and Bat Boy: The Weekly World News Comic Strips
, among other works.
Credits: This episode’s music is Hateful Notebook by the Descendents. The conversation was recorded at the Bethesda North Marriott during SPX 2013 on a pair of Blue enCORE 200
mics feeding into a Zoom H4n recorder
. The intro and outro were recorded in my home office on a Blue Yeti USB microphone
. File-splitting is done on a Mac Mini using Audacity. All editing and processing was done in Garage Band. Photo by me.
