{"id":14838,"date":"2021-11-16T08:52:52","date_gmt":"2021-11-16T13:52:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/?p=14838"},"modified":"2021-11-16T09:13:30","modified_gmt":"2021-11-16T14:13:30","slug":"episode-460-rutu-modan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/episode-460-rutu-modan","title":{"rendered":"Episode 460 – Rutu Modan"},"content":{"rendered":"

Virtual Memories Show 460:
\nRutu Modan<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/traffic.libsyn.com\/secure\/virtualmemories\/Episode_460_-_Rutu_Modan.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div>

Podcast: Play in new window<\/a> | Download<\/a><\/p>

Subscribe: Spotify<\/a> | TuneIn<\/a> | RSS<\/a> | More<\/a><\/p>\n

“I don’t feel that I finished everything I want to say with comics. I feel like comics are my way to express myself and tell my stories.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>With TUNNELS<\/a> (Drawn & Quarterly, tr. Ishai Mishory), Israeli cartoonist Rutu Modan<\/a> has created a fantastic, thoughtful, wonderful, hilarious, complex, cinematic thrill-ride of a story about a search for the Ark of the Covenant in modern-day Israel and the West Bank. We get into the true-life origin of the story, the otherwise boring results of Israeli archeology, the research that went into TUNNELS<\/em>, and what it taught Rutu about her own upbringing and how the Bible is taught to Israeli children. We talk about her cartooning and storytelling influences, her less obvious tributes to Herge, her use of actors in costume for drawing reference and how they influence the characters in her books, TUNNELS<\/em>‘ use of location as protagonist, and what it was like to draw a book with so many outdoor scenes, instead of the urban settings of her previous books, Exit Wounds<\/a> and The Property<\/a>. We also get into the growth of the Israeli comics scene over the course of her ~30 years in comics, her time with the Actus Tragicus<\/a> comics collective and her secret origin as a cartoonist (she comes from a family of doctors, so being an artist was not an easy path), whether she considers herself an Israeli cartoonist or a cartoonist who happens to be from Israel, why she tries not to think of her audience beyond one trusted reader, her first pandemic trip to . . .Siberia (!?), our flashback to when I interviewed her in 1998, and more! Give it a listen!<\/a> And go read TUNNELS<\/a>!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

“Do you ever feel like you belong anywhere? In Angouleme, I feel like I’m in the right place, that I want to be part of this world.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n