{"id":15710,"date":"2022-11-29T12:22:26","date_gmt":"2022-11-29T17:22:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/?p=15710"},"modified":"2022-11-29T12:22:30","modified_gmt":"2022-11-29T17:22:30","slug":"episode-516-drew-friedman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/episode-516-drew-friedman","title":{"rendered":"Episode 516 – Drew Friedman"},"content":{"rendered":"

Virtual Memories Show 516:
\nDrew Friedman<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/traffic.libsyn.com\/secure\/virtualmemories\/Episode_516_-_Drew_Friedman.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div>

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

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

“The underground cartoonists are not serious people, which is appealing. You want to be around people who are funny.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>Artist Drew Friedman<\/a> rejoins the show to celebrate his wonderful new book, Maverix and Lunatix: Icons of Underground Comix<\/a> (Fantagraphics). We talk about his mind-blowing portraits of the legends of the Underground era, how he pared his list of subjects to 100 (from ~3000), why he decided to paint everyone in their prime years rather than present-day old (and the good stuff his subjects have said about their portraits), the research that went into writing biographical sketches of his subjects (and the challenges in getting photo reference for some of them), this book’s departure from his Heroes of the Comics<\/a> and Old Jewish Comedians<\/a> paintings, and why he’s not<\/em> planning to do another book about Alt-comics artists of the ’80s & ’90s. We get into how Robert Crumb convinced him to draw people he doesn’t like, the griping Marc Maron made about writing the foreword, how he came around on certain artists while working on the book, and his complaints about having to paint so many men with ’70s era long hair and shaggy beards (and why he wants his next book to be all bald men). We also discuss how painting changed him as an artist, how he wound up recreating his early stippling effect with the brush, his realization that he was over a lot of his youthful grudges and resentments, his bucket list of people he hasn’t gotten around to drawing, why Harvey Kurtzman is his most controversial subject in the book, and a LOT more. Give it a listen!<\/a> And go read Maverix and Lunatix: Icons of Underground Comix<\/a>!<\/p>\n

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(And go listen to my 2013<\/a> and 2014<\/a> conversations with Drew!) (While you’re at it, you should also listen to my episodes with his brothers, Josh Alan<\/a> and Kipp<\/a>, and my conversation with their dad, the late, great\u00a0Bruce Jay Friedman<\/a>)<\/em><\/p>\n

“I don’t like drawing foreheads, because they’re mostly the same. Except for old people. Old people are interesting because you see the history of their lives etched into their faces.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n