Mike Dawson called me on the computer and talked with me about comic books and jobs. Lots of rambling color commentary from your friendly neighborhood blabbermouth – little ol’ me, Frankie Dee. Frankie D. Wop.
Hello and welcome to ComicsComics weekend edition. This week I am presenting a slew of interviews I conducted with a plethora of cartoonists who exhibited at this year’s Pittsburgh Indy Comics Expo. Some of the names may be well known to you while others may be appearing on your radar for the first time. I had a lot of fun doing these interviews. It felt very old world fandom or something. Thanks to everyone who participated for putting up with my antics. And if I missed you this year, look for me next year.
The marquee interview of the show – Kevin Huizenga and Jim Rugg – is archived here at Inkstuds. All other interviews are presented after the jump. Check it out! (more…)
Hello and welcome to Comics Comics weekend edition. I am your host, Frankie The Wop. In an effort to promote more crossover blog warfare, I have asked Mr. Robin McConnell over at the beloved Inkstuds to host the audio portion this week’s program.
I spoke to Mr. Kevin Huizenga and Mr. Jim Rugg at the Pittsburgh Independent Comics Expo (PIX) back in October of this year. Organized by Copacetic Comics and the Toonseum of Pittsburgh, PA, this event may be the beginning of something special. Very laid back, very beautiful location and all the indy comics you could hope for in western PA, it was a successful show. I think it may pan out to be an important show for midwesterners as there aren’t too many indy shows for regional creators. (Pittsburgh is basically halfway between Chicago and New York for those who can’t imagine it on a map)
I also spoke with many of the exhibitors and attendees at PIX. I will be posting those interviews hopefully in the coming weeks. Truth is, I’ve had some difficulty with the audio files and am trying desperately to preserve them. So, if I did interview you or your friends at the show, please forgive the delay in making them available. Thanks.
Click on the link below and head on over to Inkstuds. Make sure to open another tab while listening to the audio and check out Robin’s tour diary where he visits Al Columbia, Steve Bissette and others. Sounds like a fun trip (I’m jealous!).
Kevin Huizenga and Jim Rugg in conversation. Annoyingly moderated by Frank Santoro.
Neglected Masterpiece?
Last Saturday at APE I mercilessly grilled Dan Clowes on Don Martin, Curt Swan, Wally Wood, and other pressing topics. No summary can do justice to the gravity and seriousness of this discussion. Clowes was wily and wise and took the day. Evidence is here:
Dwight Macdonald: one of Gary Groth's heroes
On the Inkstuds program earlier today, Gary Groth, Ben Schwartz and I talked about comics criticism with Robin McConnell. The pretext was Ben’s recent anthology of essays and interviews on comics. You can listen to the show here. The discussion ran all over the place. Among other topics discussed:
1. The transformative role played by Gil Kane in getting people to talk about visual storytelling as well as literary narrative, and in general Kane as a spark for comics criticism and enthusiasm about comics.
2. The difference between art and entertainment.
3. The importance of destructive criticism (with discussions of the relative merits of Mark Twain, H.L. Mencken, and Dwight Macdonald). I wish I had remembered to mention John Metcalf, who belongs in this tradition.
4. The seductive dangers posed by Mencken’s style. Again, I wish I had remembered Christopher Hitchens’s great sentence about the impact of Mencken on some of his dimmer imitators: “No wonder, then, that in his ill-tempered and misanthropic shape, [Mencken] has been adopted as a premature foe of ‘PC’ by the rancorous crowd of minor swells who put out the American Spectator. ”
5. Why Mark Beyer, David Collier and Kim Deitch need critical champions (although Gary mentioned that there is an essay by Gary Giddins on Deitch’s work. I had no idea that this essay existed and will now have to track it down).
6. The reputational status of Eisner and Spiegelman.
If you are interested in these and related topics, listen to the show.
1. In 1947 Stan Lee was virtually unknown, except to the few perverse readers who paid attention to the credit lines of 3rd rate knock-off comics. But Marshall McLuhan, who himself was years away from fame, had a great radar for what was happening in popular culture. He noted a 1947 issue of Writer’s Digest where Lee wrote an article arguing “There’s Money In Comics” (which turned out to be very true for Lee, although much less true for Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko). In his 1951 book The Mechanical Bride, McLuhan used Lee’s article as a jumping off point for talking about middle- and low- brow art.
ACTION THWUP! Howdy and welcome, True Believers, to Comics Comics’ weekend edition, I’m your host, Frankie the Wop. No review of a comic or a soapbox rant from me this week cuz I spent most of the week swimming. And also preparing for a radio interview over at Inkstuds. Mr. Robin McConnell was kind enough to ask me to participate on a show about “fusion comics” where we could talk to two of our favorite fusion guys, Brandon Graham and Michael DeForge. What is fusion? We’re not really sure, but if you listen to the show, you might get an idea of where Robin and I are coming from. What follows are my notes that I looked at while on the air. There were a lot of riffs that I didn’t get to, so I thought I’d share them here. For ideal readers only. (more…)
Michael DeForge, Brandon Graham and our own Frank Santoro do some fun comic shop talk with Robin McConnell on the latest Inkstuds podcast. Consider this a CC-approved way to procrastinate from whatever life is imposing on you right now.
In 1991, the Santa Monica radio station KCRW broadcast an adaptation of American Splendor. Dan Castellaneta (a.k.a. the voice of Homer Simpson) was part of the performance, doing the voice of Harvey Pekar.
This Friday at 7:30 PM Pacific Time, KCRW will re-play this adaptation. Unfortunately, they won’t be able to archive it or put it on their website as a podcast. If you want to listen to this, there is only one shot. If you live in the Santa Monica area, you can listen to KCRW. If not, you can go their website and listen to it as a livestream. KCRW’s website can be found here.
Our own Dan Nadel spoke with Chris Marshall over at
Collected Comics Library. Check it out, True Believers-
slack off at work early with this one. Why are you at work anyways? It’s summer!
