Tag: interviews

Smash Pages Q&A: Stephanie Graegin on ‘Super Manny Stands Up!’

The young picture book artist talks about the backstory of the greatest superhero story of 2017.

In recent years, artist Stephanie Graegin has established herself as one of the best young picture book artists. If anyone wasn’t convinced of her talents, this year saw the release of three picture books that Greagin illustrated, including one based on the Elvis Presley song Love Me Tender, two novels that she illustrated, in addition to her debut as a writer and illustrator, Little Fox in the Forest.

The sheer volume of work she’s able to draw is impressible, but she is also very good, and there is so much detail and nuance in her work to pour over. From a day in the life of a city park to what it means to have a relative suffering from Alzheimer’s to the nature of being a collector to the small joys found in everyday, Graegin finds a way to blend a playful style with the profound in a way that brings these humanistic stories to life. Moreover she does so with such care and detail, as though each page is a world.

This summer saw the release of Super Manny Stands Up! which was written by Kelly DiPucchio and illustrated by Graegin. It is a story about the power of imagination and the way that it can influence and change lives, and is, quite simply, one of the best and most important superhero stories of the year. Super Manny is the hero we need and thankfully Stephanie Graegin is one of the artists we have. She answered a few questions about how she works, and how her superpower seems to be not sleeping.

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Smash Pages Q&A: Kim Dwinell on ‘Surfside Girls’

The animator discusses her first graphic novel, surfing, the ocean and more.

Kim Dwinell has been teaching and working in animation for years, but this years she’s written and drawn her first graphic novel, Surfside Girls, Book One: The Secret of Danger Point. The book, which is out now from Top Shelf, is a beautifully painted young adult mystery/adventure story. Two 12-year-olds, Samantha and Jade, live in the sleepy beach town of Surfside and become involved in s series of strange occurrences that include the titular Danger Point, ghosts, the town’s history, and a group of boys who find what they think is a baby pterodactyl.

There’s a timeless quality to the adventure, but Dwinell is also threading other more complicated stories in the background, stories of the town, of the history of California, and the result is a book that manages to capture some of that spirit and energy found in Scooby Doo and a lot of other old mystery stories that so many of us fell in love with as kids, and establishing a rich setting. This is Dwinell’s debut book, but the way she uses design and layout throughout show just how much she understands about how comics work. Summer is over, but I reached out to Dwinell to talk about the book, her background in animation, and the ocean.

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Smash Pages Q&A: Étienne Davodeau on ‘The Cross-Eyed Mutt’

The French creator discusses his latest graphic novel from NBM, a very serious comedy about a security guard at the Louvre.

Étienne Davodeau’s graphic novel The Cross-Eyed Mutt, recently published in a translated version from NBM, has a hilarious premise. Fabien is a security guard at the Louvre and when he meets his girlfriend’s family, they tell him that they have a painting from their ancestor. “Would our ancestor’s painting have a spot in the Louvre or is it an insignificant piece of crap?”

The book is the latest in a series of graphic novels published with the Louvre, and Davodeau uses the situation as a chance to tell a story that, like his Lulu Anew and The Initiates, manages to both poke fun at eccentrics and deeply honor unusual ways of looking at the world – sometimes simultaneously. It is a book that is profound and joyful and very funny about what we love about art and museums, about what we remember, how we see ourselves, and in the end, how we live our lives.

The Cross-Eyed Mutt is in short, a very serious comedy, and it is one of the year’s best books. Thanks to Terry Nantier and Stefan Blitz at NBM, I had a chance to speak with Davodeau about spending time in the Musée du Louvre, his own thoughts on art, and whether we might be able to get my great-uncle’s work into the museum.

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Smash Pages Q&A: Janice Macleod on ‘A Paris Year’

The author and painter discusses her ‘comics-adjacent’ books on the City of Lights.

Janice Macleod doesn’t make comics, but her Paris Letters are clearly comics-adjacent. For years she’s been painting images of Paris and elsewhere and combining it with text, a story or her own observations about the place or events. She detailed the story behind how she ended up in Paris, crafting these letters and selling them through etsy in her bestselling book Paris Letters. The book is essentially a how-to guide for leaving your job and becoming a flâneur in Paris, a description she enjoyed.

Her new book is A Paris Year, which is an artist’s book, a datebook-like volume of drawings, photographs and stories about the city.

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Smash Pages Q&A: Gale Galligan takes on ‘The Baby-Sitters Club’

The artist discusses her work on the popular graphic novel series as well as her recent Garfield fan comic, ‘Jon.’

A lot of comics readers know Gale Galligan for her webcomics and short comics like Patbird and Galesaur, 12 Days in Ireland, and Weeb, but this month her first full length graphic novel comes out from Scholastic’s Graphix imprint, which will likely introduce her to a whole new audience. The Baby-Sitters Club: Dawn and the Impossible Three is the fifth book in the graphic novel series. Galligan is taking the reins adapting and drawing the series from Raina Telgemeier.

Already hard at work on the second book in the series, Galligan isn’t slowing down at all, and showed up to this year’s SPX with a new minicomic, Jon. We talked about writing for kids, finding her own style, and Garfield.

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Smash Pages Q&A: Jennifer and Matthew Holm on ‘Swing It, Sunny’

The duo discuss their followup to 2015’s ‘Sunny Side Up’ from Scholastic’s Graphix imprint.

Jennifer and Matthew Holm have been collaborating for years now on two series of graphic novels for kids, Babymouse and Squish. The two have also made board books and a picture book together, and separately worked on other projects. Matt co-wrote and drew the recent Marvin and the Moths and Jennifer is also a Newbury Honor winning author of prose novels like The Fourteenth Goldfish and Turtle in Paradise.

In 2015, Scholastic’s Graphix imprint published Sunny Side Up, a stand-alone graphic novel about girl spending the summer with her grandfather in Florida. Sunny is back in a new book Swing It, Sunny, which picks up where the first book left off with Sunny facing middle school. I reached out to the duo by e-mail and we spoke about the book’s autobiographical elements, how they work together and what the heck swing flag is.

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Smash Pages Q&A: Catel Muller and José-Louis Bocquet on ‘Josephine Baker’

The duo discuss their work on the biography of the actress, dancer and Civil Rights activist.

Catel Muller and José-Louis Bocquet have been working together for a number of years, though American readers likely first read them in 2012 when SelfMadeHero/Abrams released Kiki de Montparnasse, which was awarded the Audience Prize at the 2008 Angoulême International Comics Festival. Bocquet is a writer, editor and former journalist with a long list of credits both in and out of comics. Muller, who goes by “Catel” has received a number of awards for her solo work and her collaborations including the 2005 Audience Prize at Angoulême for Le Sang des Valentines, and the 2014 Prix Artémisia for Ainsi soit Benoîte Groult.

The two have set out to tell the stories of great women and their most recent book is a biography of and tribute to one of the great figures of the 20th Century, Josephine Baker. Perhaps more beloved in France than in her home country of the United States, she was a dancer and actress. Baker fought her whole life for Civil Rights and was a member of the French Resistance. At the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, she told the crowd, “I do not lie to you when I tell you I have walked into the palaces of kings and queens and into the houses of presidents, but I could not walk into a hotel in America and get a cup of coffee.”

The result is Josephine Baker, a lengthy book with more than a hundred pages of bibliography and supplemental material. It is also a visual masterpiece and perhaps Catel’s most inventive work to date. The two were kind enough to talk about the project and answered their questioned together. Thanks to Maya Bradford at Abrams for arranging this.

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Smash Pages Q&A: Eli Valley on ‘Diaspora Boy’

The political cartoonist discusses his first book from OR Books.

Eli Valley has been making comics for just over a decade. Unlike most political cartoonists, though, most of his work aren’t single panel comics, but rather long page-size comics intended for a broadsheet publication. In The Forward, +972 Magazine, The Nib and other publications, Valley has been skewering politics and individuals in hilarious, grotesque and inventive ways.

In these longer comics, which show the influence of EC Comics and other horror artists, Valley shows himself a gifted artist, though sometimes his own exaggerations aren’t nearly as grotesque as the actual words spoken by actual people that he’s skewering. Some of his comics have their own shock and awe, as Valley is not afraid to offend people or worry about people’s sensibilities. This has led to problems with some editors, he’s been denounced by individuals, but he refuses to shy away from controversy.

His first book Diaspora Boy has just been released by OR Books with an introduction by Peter Beinart. He took time out to talk about the book and how his work has changed in the past year.

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Smash Pages Q&A: Alberto Ledesma on ‘Diary of a Reluctant Dreamer’

In his first book, Alberto Ledesma combines comics, illustrations and essays to examine what it means to be undocumented in the United States.

Alberto Ledesma’s first book, Diary of a Reluctant Dreamer: Undocumented Vignettes from a pre-American Life combines comics, illustrations and essays to examine what it means to be undocumented in the United States. It’s a deeply moving book that is very personal, but Ledesma is also interested in using his own story as a springboard to discussing other topics and towards a larger conversation. Ledesma has a love of comics, and makes clear in the book that keeping a sketchbook is key to how he works. It is a deeply felt, very political book that eschews narrative and seeks many ways to think about these political concerns and the artistic approaches of combining text and art.

The book is the first of a new imprint, Latinographix, part of Mad Creek Books at Ohio State University. Ledesma holds a doctorate degree from the University of California, Berkeley, and works there today, but he’s very interested in starting a much wider conversation around these issues and how they relate to questions of American identity.

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Smash Pages Q&A: And ‘Now’ … Eric Reynolds

The associate publisher of Fantagraphics discusses his new anthology project, which launches this month.

Eric Reynolds is the associate publisher of Fantagraphics, which means that he’s edited some of the best comics in the world. Throughout his career though he’s had a special interest in anthologies.

His new project is Now, a three-times-a-year anthology with cartoonists well known and not, working in a variety of styles from all over the world. The first issue features work by Gabrielle Bell, Noah Van Sciver and a long story by Eleanor Davis in addition to a number of cartoonists people might not know as well. Reynolds wanted to create a relatively cheap ($9.99) project with a feel and approach he didn’t see anywhere else.

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Smash Pages Q&A: Glynnis Fawkes on ‘Greek Diary’ and more

The creator discusses working as an illustrator on archeological digs, co-editing a new issue of ‘The Strumpet,’ upcoming projects and more.

Earlier this year Glynnis Fawkes published Greek Diary, a collection of comics about the previous summer that was spent working on an archeological dig in Greece and a trip through the Greek islands. Fawkes has been working since art school as an illustrator for archeological digs, and has illustrated a number of scholarly books including Three Stones Make a Wall by Eric Cline and Kinyras: The Divine Lyre by her husband John Curtis Franklin. This interest can be seen in a lot of Fawkes’ comics work like Corinthian Diary, Time Out in Palestine and Alle Ego, which was given a MoCCA Art Festival Award of Excellence in 2016.

When it debuted at this year’s MoCCA Arts Festival, Greek Diary received the Silver Medal for Long Form Work. This year also saw the release of Reign of Crumbs from Kilgore Books, which collects many of Fawkes’ diary comics that have appeared in Mutha Magazine, The New Yorker.com and elsewhere. Fawkes has also been in both of issues of Resist!, and is co-editing and contributing to the new issue of The Strumpet coming out this fall.

Fawkes will be at the Small Press Expo, or SPX, this weekend in Bethesda, Maryland. You can find her at SPX table I7B and will have copies of Cinderbunny and the “spanking new” Strumpet 5, as well as Reign of Crumbs and Greek Diary.

Fawkes and I spoke after she returned from this year’s trip to Greece.

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Smash Pages Q&A: M.T. Anderson on ‘Yvain: The Knight of the Lion’

M.T. Anderson has written everything from picture books to young adult novels. Anderson received the National Book Award in 2006 and he’s written contemporary stories, historical ones, fantasy and science fiction novels including Feed, The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, and the recent Symphony for the City of the Dead: Dmitri Shostakovich and the Siege of Leningrad. His first graphic novel, Yvain: The Knight of the Lion, illustrated by Andrea Offermann, is out now from Candlewick Press.

The book is a retelling of a 12th Century epic poem by Chrétien de Troyes. Though not well known today, de Troyes is considered one of the greatest and most influential medieval writers. Anderson and Offermann made a number of striking and inspired artistic choices as far as how they approached and presented the story, which is both very much about the 12th-13th centuries, but also very contemporary in some ways.

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