Inkstuds

Joseph Lambert is near the top of my list of favorite cartoonists right now. His Annie Sullivan book was an amazing work for his first long form story. Be sure to also check out his collection, I Will Bite You from Secret Acres . And for Vancouver listeners, the Cartoon College documentary we discuss, is playing at this years Vancouver International Film Festival and is the screening is sponsored...

Australian cartoonist Pat Grant joined me for a nice and thorough discussion of his book, Blue. Pat has been doing some really great theory work with his comics, understanding the narrative tradition he is working in.

Joseph Remnant joined me to chat about his latest work, Cleveland, a collaboration with Harvey Pekar that was initiated before his passing. Joseph’s other work includes Blindspot and the upcoming graphic novel that he will be serializing online called Cartoon Clouds.

Brooklyn cartoonist and musician, Leslie Stein , joined me to discuss her collection from Fantagraphics, Eye of the Majestic Creature . She can also be found in the band, P rince Rupert Drops .

The Montreal cartooning crew of Sophie Yanow , Francois Samson-Dunlop and Alexandre Fontaine Rousseau came live into the studio in the midst of their tour of the west coast . Sophie has 2 issues of her In Situ comics out from Colosse and Francois and Alexandre were on to talk about their Pinkerton book.

Molly Colleen O’Connell ‘s new book, Difficult Loves , is one of those comics that get’s me really excited about where comics are at right now. It is a visually beautiful challenging read. Her work with the Closed Caption Comics crew has been fantastic and well worth checking out.  

This weeks guest is London, Ontario cartoonist Jesse Jacobs . Jesse has come out with 2 great books encompassing an amazing knack of style and formalistic delights. His latest release from Koyama , By This You Shall Know Him, is working with some really interesting big ideas, and I look forward to seeing where his work progresses.

GB Tran’s Vietnamerica is an amazingly crafted history of his families multi-generational saga of surviving the conflict in Vietnan. For his first big work, Vietnamerica is very ambitious and satisfactory. I highly recommend checking it out. It was great to catch up with GB and talk about this work.

Justin Hall was in town in support of his new book, No Straight Lines , an anthology looking back at 40 years of LGBTQ comics. It is a fantastic survey of work that heartily recommend. Justin knows his comics and has picked some great work. Because the show was done live in the studio, I had Ken Boesem join us as well. Ken has been doing a lot of work documenting and research Canadian queer comics...

Charles Forsman has been heavily active in the comics community since graduating from CCS. His Snake Oil series of comics have impressed me quite a lot. His latest endeavor is the Oily Comics publishing. Charles is offering a special subscription service for the series of mini’s that he is publishing by himself and other folks. The offer runs out on July 31st 2012, so get on while the going...

Prolific New York cartoonist, Josh Bayer joined me to talk about his work including the Suspect Device anthology series, Raw Power and much more. Josh has been doing some really great primal work.

Simon Bisley was one of those creators that had a profound impact on me when I was in my teens. Coming across his work in Slaine was amazing. It was violent, over the top and extreme in all the right ways. Simon has continued to make work and seems to never slow down. We cover a million different things in this interview, but somehow don’t even discuss what he is working on right now.

Mathieu Christe is one half of the Geneva comix publisher,  B.ü.L.b comix . They produce some amazing artifacts that feature an amazing array of international creators, from Mat Brinkman and Charles Burns to Nicolas Mahler and François Avril.

Malachi Ward has been making some pretty excellent comics of late. His series, Expansion, a collaboration with Matt Sheean is some pretty forward looking sci-fi comics work. I am really enjoying his work. He is able to craft some great subtle stories that exist in a larger world that show’s a lot of promise.

I caught up with Providence artist and musician, CF aka Christopher Forgues about his latest comic work. He has been pumping out mini comics over the last couple of months, through his twitter feed . They have been pretty great, showing different directions that he is taking his work. CF also has a new book coming out in the fall from Picture Box called Warm Genetics House.

In promo for his Freak Scene art show , Keenan Marshall Keller came on the studs to talk about not only the art show, but also his own Galactic Breakdown series an the Drippy Bone Books publishing endeavor.

Providence cartoonist, Mickey Zaccchilli came on the show to chat about her RAV series of mini’s as well work in bunch of different anthologies like the Thickness, Root Rot , Monster and Sundays .

Austrian cartoonist Nicolas Mahler , joined me for a transatlantic phone call about his comics, including the newest from Fantagraphics, Angelman . We also had an interesting discussion about the current state of the mainstreaming of “graphic novels”, comparing between North America and Europe.

Ninja Turtles co-creator and Heavy Metal bigwig joined me to discuss a range of different comics topics. He has recently returned to drawing the green guys that made him famous and is celebrating the 35th anniversary of Heavy Metal publishing in the North American market. I was a huge Ninja Turtle fan as a kid and lately, I have been reading a lot of Heavy Metal editions of translated European wor...

Ryan Sands is one of the most progressive indy comics publisher’s going right now. In his anthology, the Thickness, co-edited with Michael Deforge, they have brought together some of the most vital cartoonists and some of their most personal and forward thinking work, all in the pages of a porn comic. The 3rd issue will be debuting this week, and will be well worth checking out. I am always...

Baby’s In Black creator, Arne Bellstorf joined me to discuss his latest and longest work, looking at the relationship between Astrid Kirchherr and Stuart Sutcliffe. It is really beautifully put together book.

It’s time for another roundtable, and that means 2 hours of studs. I was joined by a heavy weight crew of comics critics. To be honest, that there were points in this conversation where I lost track of where I was, because I was so into the others and what they had to say. This time I was joined by Tom Spurgeo n, Paul Gravett and the always scrappy, Joe McCulloch . Each guest chooses 2 title...

Toronto illustrator and cartoonists, Maurice Vellekoop joined me to talk about his new book from Koyama Press, Gloria Badcock. It’s a filthy good time to be had. Maurice’s work is very lush and beautiful.

I moderated a panel at the inaugural Vancouver Fan Expo . It was hilariously called the Rock Star Comic Creator Super Panel, which I am still struggling to find out what that means. It basically featured a bunch of headliner guests talking about comics. It sounds very much like other panels I have done, except for the name. The guests were Greg Rucka, Kathryn and Stuart Immonen, Yanick Paquette an...

Sammy the Mouse cartoonist/publisher/printer, Zak Sally joined me for a comics talk that goes into some interesting directions. We cover his latest book, as well as variety of funny book topics.