Selected Writing and Talking on Comics

    Selected Writing and Talking on Comics

    Selected writing and talking about comics.

    I co-edited Comics Comics from 2006 until 2011, and in my writing, I gravitated to artists and projects I hadn’t really explored before, which was a bit of the CC mission. I wound up fascinated with modes of drawing in adventure comics, as well as the lives of the men who drew them.

    An interview with Laurence Hubbard of Real Deal (2009).
    Gary Panter and Peter Saul in conversation at the Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival, 2009 (audio).

    Back in 2009 I went to the comics festival in Lucerne, Switzerland and brought Frank Santoro, CF, Lauren Weinstein, and Yuichi Yokoyama along with me. Here’s the transcript of a panel discussion.

     A lengthy biography of Wally Wood (2010).
    Trying to understand Alex Raymond as a cartoonist (2010).
    Getting annoyed at a biography of Jerry Robinson (2010).
    On Vince Colletta and hacking it out. (2010)
    Stray thoughts on one of the best comics of the 21st century, Wally Gropius (2010).
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    I co-edited The Comics Journal from the spring of 2011 until the fall of 2017. Here are some of my better contributions:
    On Jaime Hernandez’s masterpiece, The Love Bunglers (2011).
    And interview (conducted with Tim Hodler and Frank Santoro) with Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez (2012).
    Various thoughts on a kind of drawing (2012),
    David Mazzucchelli’s Daredevil: Born Again Artist’s Edition (2012).
    Wally Wood’s EC Stories: Artist’s Edition (2012).
    And finally, my favorite thing we published during my tenure as co-editor of The Comics Journal: Kim Deitch’s remembrance of cartoonist Roger Brand (2011), which wound up generating a virtual reunion of 1960s and 70s underground cartoonists and bohemians, all sharing memories of Brand. To my mind, it’s one of the best raw sources of info about what the world was like.

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    Favorite odds and ends:

    An essay for Prince Valiant Volume 3, 1941-1942 (2011). Download.

    My all-time favorite “in conversation” gig was this chat with Daniel Clowes, during which we talked exclusively, and with no visual accompaniment, about obscure cartoonists. Alternative Comics Expo, San Francisco, 2010.

    Also very enjoyable for me: I interviewed Dash Shaw at The Strand about his rather amazing book, Cosplayers (2016).