Tag: interviews

Smash Pages Q&A: Ethan Heitner

Heitner discusses co-editing this year’s volume of ‘World War 3 Illustrated,’ this year’s contributions, working with cover artist José Muñoz and more.

Ethan Heitner may not be the most well-known contributor to World War 3 Illustrated, but he’s co-edited this year’s volume of the long-running anthology with co-founders Peter Kuper and Seth Tobocman.

World War 3 Illustrated is one of the best comics anthologies of recent decades and the new volume, which has the theme “The World We Are Fighting For,” is more evidence of the artistic scope and skill of the publication, but also of the depth and power of the work. It shows how important and powerful political comics can be. The best work is not about what happened yesterday but has history and perspective, and offers ways to think about the past, present, and the future in new ways.

It’s a great project and Heitner was kind enough to answer questions about the book and the process of assembling it, and his own work.

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Smash Pages Q&A: Chuck Brown

The co-creator of ‘Bitter Root’ and ‘On the Stump’ discusses both projects, his background, the Harlem Renaissance and more.

2020 has been a big year for Chuck Brown. Bitter Root, the Image series he makes with David Walker and Sanford Greene, wrapped up its second story arc and received an Eisner Award for “Best Continuing Comics Series.” Brown also launched On the Stump, a new series from Image Comics.

Since it first came out, Bitter Root has been acclaimed as one of the best American comics in recent years, but for Brown its the culmination of many years’ work, and a long friendship and collaboration with Sanford Greene. The two have worked together on different projects like Rotten Apple at Dark Horse and 1000 on Webtoon. That’s in addition to Brown’s other comics work including The Quiet Kind, Godstorm: Hercules Payne and Trenchcoats, Cigarettes and Shotguns.

Bitter Root: Rage and Redemption, the second volume of the series, is out this week. And the first week of November sees the release of the collection of On the Stump. Brown and I spoke recently about his career, these two different books, and using history as setting and subject.

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Smash Pages Q&A: Ryan North and Albert Monteys

North and Monteys discuss how they approached adapting Kurt Vonnegut’s ‘Slaughterhouse-Five’ into a graphic novel.

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut is one of the seminal novels of postwar America. Part science fiction tale, part story of World War II and the firebombing of Dresden from the point of view of American POWs, the story of Billy Pilgrim was an immensely important novel and for many their introduction to the late, great novelist Kurt Vonnegut. It is also not an easy book to adapt and defies adaptation in a number of ways, which makes the success of the new graphic novel all the more impressive.

Ryan North is the person behind the weekly Dinosaur Comics, the writer of Marvel’s The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl and the writer of How To Invent Everything. This isn’t his first time tackling literary legends after writing Romeo and/or Juliet and To Be Or Not To Be (both with the help of William Shakespeare). Albert Monteys is an artist and illustrator know for his work on the weekly magazine El Jueves, the series Carlitos Fax and the monthly publication Orgullo y Satisfacción, which he co-founded. His comic Universe! was published online by Panel Syndicate and nominated for an Eisner in 2017. 

As someone who has read almost everything Vonnegut ever wrote and has always held the book in great regard, the graphic novel manages to capture and reinvent the spirit and the substance of the book in ways that are shocking, making the story a new experience, even though I knew the text so well. I had to ask the duo a few questions about how they worked and their own relationship to the material.

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Smash Pages Q&A: Pia Guerra

Comic artist turned political cartoonist Pia Guerra discusses how her work has changed, the current political climate and more.

Pia Guerra is best known among comic book readers as the artist and co-creator of Y: The Last Man, but in recent years she’s spent much of her time and energy writing and drawing gag cartoons and political cartoons for The New Yorker, The Nib and other publications. In 2018 a collection of her political comics titled Me the People was published by Image Comics.

Guerra is living in Vancouver and I reached out to ask about how her work has changed, inking and what she’s working on now.

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Smash Pages Q&A: Matt Lubchansky

The associate editor of The Nib discusses their work on the recent anthology ‘Be Gay Do Comics.’

Matt Lubchansky is the Associate Editor of The Nib and there, in their webcomic Please Listen To Me, and in New York Magazine, Mad Magazine, and other outlets, they create deeply and overtly political comics that are also absurd and satirical.

Lubchansky cited The Far Side as one of their great influences, and that sense of absurdity and play can found in all their work. Earlier this year Lubchansky was a finalist for the Herblock Prize, and The Nib and IDW have just published a new collection Be Gay Do Comics. We spoke about their career, coming out, autobiographical work and the upcoming anthology FlashForward.

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Smash Pages Q&A: Michael Avon Oeming

The award-winning writer and artist discusses his latest work, ‘After Realm,’ the influence of Norse mythology on the story and much more.

Michael Avon Oeming is the award-winning writer and artist of books like Powers and The Mice Templar, Takio and Hammer of the Gods, Bastard Samurai and The United States of Murder, Inc. In recent years he’s drawn Cave Carson for DC’s Young Animal imprint, and wrote and illustrated Dick Tracy Forever at IDW. His current ongoing project is After Realm, which comes out quarterly from Image Comics.

The story of an elf named Oona, After Realm takes place after Ragnarok. Oeming has been using Kickstarter to help fund the series, but other readers can pick up the third issue this week. It’s a story of battling trolls and other creatures, a tale of exploration and crafting maps, of rediscovering what has been lost. As Oeming and I discussed, Oona is very much a hero for this moment, in ways that he never could have anticipated. We spoke recently about epic fantasy, how the meaning of myth is in the telling and the personal nature of a story that might seem anything but.

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Smash Pages Q&A: Greg Anderson Elysée

The creator of Is’nana the Were-Spider discusses the new volume of the series, which is currently up on Kickstarter.

Greg Anderson Elysée is the creator of Is’nana the Were-Spider, the award-winning horror-fantasy series. Over the course of three volumes, the story has managed to navigate a world that’s mundane and also features the character interacting with mythological and folkloric characters from Africa and the diaspora. The new volume of the series, Showtime, is a change of pace for the series, a more playful story, but also a darker one, as the main character has to deal with what it means to be a young black man in America today.

Elysée is kickstarting Showtime, which runs through the end of the month, and he was kind enough to talk about his mythological influences and how he writes characters.

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Smash Pages Q&A: Rob Kirby

The creator and editor discusses his new Patreon, his graphic novel ‘Marry Me a Little’ and much more.

Rob Kirby is the acclaimed creator of the long-running comic strip Curbside and many other comics. He’s a critic and interviewer for publications like Publisher’s Weekly and The Comics Journal. And in a series of anthologies like QU33R, The Book of Boy Trouble, The Shirley Jackson Project and What’s Your Sign, Girl? has demonstrated that he’s one of the best comics editors around.

Kirby recently launched a Patreon, and I reached out to ask about his current project, Marry Me a Little; why he decided to make a graphic novel after all this time; taking advice from cartoonist life coach MariNaomi; and our shared dislike of “romance.”

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Smash Pages Q&A: Monalesia Earle

The scholar and researcher discusses her new book, ‘Writing Queer Women of Color: Representation and Misdirection in Contemporary Fiction and Graphic Narratives.’

Monalesia Earle is a British based scholar and researcher and the author of the new book Writing Queer Women of Color: Representation and Misdirection in Contemporary Fiction and Graphic Narratives. Her analyses of comics like Sexile/Sexilio and My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness are insightful and thought provoking, finding ways to consider not just representation but the depictions of power dynamics, elision and how comics can illuminate and depict liminal spaces.

It’s an incredible work of scholarship, and Earle was kind enough to answer a few questions about the book.

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Smash Pages Q&A: Lonnie Nadler and Jenna Cha

The writer and artist of ‘Black Stars Above’ discuss the Lovecraftian horror tale, the tone and texture of the tale, and more.

Black Stars Above is a comic by Lonnie Nadler and Jenna Cha, which was just collected by Vault Comics. Set in 1887, this Lovecraftian horror tale is set in the Canadian frontier, and the story itself is this eerie, atmospheric horror story. You can read the complete first issue right here on Smash Pages.

But what fascinated me most was the small details in how both Nadler and Cha told the story — from the artist’s details that went into capturing the feel of the period to the language and the journal entries to the landscapes.

It’s a stunning book, and the two were kind enough to answer a few questions about the project, what they took from Lovecraft and more.

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Smash Pages Q&A: David Pepose enters ‘The O.Z.’

The writer of ‘Spencer & Locke’ and ‘Going to the Chapel’ discusses his latest project, which is now up on Kickstarter.

Most online comic fans probably first knew David Pepose as a reviewer for the comic site Newsarama, where he contributed to, and eventually took over, their Best Shots review column. He recently left that position to pursue a growing career as a comics writer, having written two Spencer & Locke miniseries and the excellent Going to the Chapel miniseries, all with publisher Action Lab.

For his latest project, Pepose is taking a new path, as he branches out into crowdfunding and self-publishing. Much like he did with Spencer & Locke, Pepose is taking a beloved, iconic property — in this case, The Wizard of Oz — and remixing it with another genre. The O.Z. stands for Occupied Zone, and features the granddaughter of Dorothy Gale, a war veteran, entering the war-torn land of Oz. Pepose is joined by artist Ruben Rojas, colorist Whitney Cogar and letterer DC Hopkins on the project.

The O.Z. Kickstarter is now live. I spoke with Pepose about his first crowdfunding project, L. Frank Baum and more.

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Smash Pages Q&A: Remy Boydell

The artist of ‘The Pervert’ discusses his latest, ‘920London,’ which is out now from Image Comics.

Remy Boydell’s new book, 920London, will remind a lot of readers of The Pervert, the book that Boydell made with Michelle Perez that was published by Image Comics in 2018. 920London establishes very early that this book may look similar, but it has an approach and tone of its own.

920London is an intimate love story that is raw and emotional, and will remind many of their 20s. It features a couple who see the apocalypse just over the horizon. Boydell’s great gift is the skillful mix of funny and unsettling, as the two main characters are searching for something. It is beautiful and sad and funny and painfully relatable, and Boydell was kind enough to answer a few questions about the book.

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