Inkstuds Radio

I have decided to post a pdf of the inkstuds book online for sale at Gumroad. You can purchase it here.I have been hosting inkstuds for nearly 8 years with around 500 interviews posted on the site so far.

If you like what i do and want to support, i suggest checking out the Inkstuds book. I have posted it online for sale in digital form for $5 and you can pay what you want above that. I am really proud of the book. It came out in the fall of 2010. Collecting a wide selection of really interesting interviews with fantastic cartoonists.

If you want to pay by paypal, you can do so here.

I make no money doing the show, all the massive downloading bandwidth, hosting, and long distance calls to guests comes out of my pocket. And that’s fine. I do this show because i love it. All I ask, if you love it too and want to support the inkstuds, buy the book. I will be your best friend forever.

If you still want a hardcopy. i have a few left that I am selling them for $25 including shipping.

About the book –

Inkstuds is a collection of thirty interviews with North American alternative comic artists taken from the impressive archive that Robin McConnell has built up over the past 5 years on his radio show of the same name. The interviews focus on the creative process and influences, but the subjects discussed often branch off in surprising and interesting directions. The artists chosen cover the range from the older generation of underground cartoonists to the new generation of the comics avant garde. This book is an invaluable resource, not just for comic enthusiasts but anyone interested in the artistic process.

Featuring interviews with: Kate Beaton, Gabrielle Bell, Marc Bell, Jonathan Bennett, Chester Brown, David Collier, Jordan Crane, Rebecca Dart, Kim Deitch, Mary Fleener, Sammy Harkham, Jeet Heer, Jaime Hernandez, Jeff Lemire, Jason Lutes, Billy Mavreas, Françoise Mouly, Dan Nadel, Marv Newland, Anders Nilsen, Joe Ollmann, Gary Panter, Joe Sacco, Seth, Tom Spurgeon, Ted Stearn, Barron Storey, Jillian Tamaki, and Carol Tyler.

My Saturday at TCAF started really early. I was stuck watching the table for Alternative comics for the morning, so had to get up to the second floor of the Library before the 9am opening. I got to say high some folks from my spot, including the always Excellent, Lacey Micallef. Here she is holding a copy of XOXO.

I was flanked on one side by Leigh Walton and Top Shelf Comix and on the other by Kevin Czapiewski, who had a really great rack of comics, including a bunch by Liz Suburbia. Kevin was kind enough to watch my table for me while I ran out for a couple of minutes, here and there. I got to help out Francoise Mouly as she was trying to find a way to a panel. I like being able to help out someone great like that. By noon, i was free of the table and would not return. Sorry if folks were looking for me there. I don’t like sitting behind a table if I don’t have to.

Downstairs, is where i spent most of time. The comics seemed to be split with the more arty stuff that i am into downstairs. That’s not a comment on quality, just what I enjoyed. Chris Pfizer had a nice selection of goods including this hardcover edition of Jim Rugg’s SuperMag. You can always tell an AdHouse book, because of the attention to detail in creating a really well designed book. We talked about the upcoming Farel Dalrymple artbook. A collection that is a long time coming. He was playing host to Boulet, selling his only solo english work, The Noirness.

Boulet did an amazing sketch for me. spending a lot of time on it, much to the delight of the folks in line behind. Thanks Boulet!.

Roman Muradov had a mock up of his new book from NoBrow. that’s another great looking goody. Roman’s going to come on the studs when that book is out.

I got a sketch from TAGAME! I picked up his collection, which is as extreme and intense as one could imagine. I will not be leaving it out for guests, or maybe I will be. He was joined by book design superstar, Chip Kidd.

Here is Nina Bunjevac talking with Dave Collier. Two tremendous Canadian cartooning talents.

Hey, it’s Dash Shaw! His new book looks amazing. I already had a copy that Brandon had brought back for me from Stumptown. Dash is one of those guys doing really great/important work and is only getting better with each release. I am frightened to see what 40 year Dash puts out. I went out for dinner with Team Fantagraphics, Jen, Jacq, Dash and Ulli Lust. I explained furries to Ulli, who had not heard of them in Berlin. their loss.

After dinner, it was off to the Doug Wright awards. As a Canadian comics journalist this is a pretty important event for me to go to if i am in the proximity. I was very excited, because Scott Thompson was hosting that night. I grew up a huge Kids In The Hall fan. I still love them.

The ceremony was delayed by about 30 minutes of horrible fire alarms going off. Here’s Scott, Seth and Brad Mackay talking about it behind the scenes.

Here’s Joe Ollmann and Julie Delporte before the ceremony. They were both on the jury for the awards and were going to speak about the winning works.

Here are all of the nominee’s that were in attendance that night.

And here’s Scott Thompson. I had a pretty craptacular view, but it was great to see Scott! 

Dave Collier was the first winner. Seth gave a stirring reflect on Dave’s work as a cartoonist. I can think of many folks that would count Dave as one of their favorite cartoonists and he deserves any accolades he receives. Dave got very embarrassed by Seth’s appreciation, at first cover his face with a seat cushion  followed up with assaulting Seth with said pillow. Dave would go on to give his own passionate lecture on the eating ability of Canadian cartoonists vs Australian cartoonists in a passion speech that seemed to go one for an hour.

Here’s Dave with former Vancouverite Serena McCarroll. 

And of course Dave would draw on the box for his award. That’s Dave. 

Caitlin was probably twice as excited as i was to see Scott Thompson. She really wanted to meet him, so Brad Mackay introduced us and Caitlin got the photo!

Here’s a couple of digressions on the Wright Awards for that night. I like what they do for the most part. But it’s still a very east coast event. The Jury is made completly of Montrealers, and the large majority of nominated work is from east of the prairies. There is still some work to do on that front, to really get pan-Canadian. The Ceremony itself could still use some tweaking with most of the audience tuning out or leaving when they covered the work of Albert Chartier.

Down to the bar we all went. Here is my old friend Robert Dayton. I like Robert. 

And here is Jacq Cohen from Fantagraphics and Hip-Hop Historian, Ed Piskor. Everyone ended up at this restaurant at some point. Turns out that Joe Ollmann’s daughter was bar tending, so we had great service. This was the kind of scene you would have at a show like this. Chuck Forsman on side of the photo, Boulet and Kate Beaton in the middle, and over there, it’s Seth and Spiegelman. I had seen Kate earlier that day very briefly, having enough time to exchange, a good to see you high-five. TCAF is busy.

Here’s Seth with his wife Tania. The collective agreement among all, is that they are by far, the most styling duo in the room. Any room they were in that weekend. 

Gilbert Hernandez met Robert Dayton. 

Brad was slow to arrive, after he had gone upstairs in the hotel to change out of his award outfit. I waited a long time for him. Brad, why did you take so long. Here he is with Ivan Brunetti. I like anything Ivan does. Anything. And I met Gilbert.

I caught up with my roommates back at the hotel. They realized that they did not get a photo of them in their outfits. We went out in the hall to take photo’s, since the hotel room was kind of a mess and not a great backdrop. We ran into my publisher, Andy Brown and stylin’ Joe Ollmann. Brad Mackay was watching us from down the hall. It’s TCAF. Everyone is everywhere.

Sunday was not as much fun for me. After getting to bed prety late, I woke up at 630 in the morning. Tried but couldn’t get back to sleep, finally getting up at 8am to sit on the floor where no one could see me and kill time checking my email and other web crap. I had a horrible stomach bug that beat the shit out of me all day. It really sucked and explains why I hardly took any photos. I tried to take it as easy as possible.

The talk on everybodies lips was that Tom Spurgeon was singing Bette Midler at Karaoke the previous night. Here’s Tom with Justin Hall. Justin had sold right out of No Straight Lines. The queer comics anthology that he edited for Fantagraphics. It’s pretty great when a book like that is such a success. As far as I know, it has sold out at the publisher level. Congrats Justin.

Conundrum brought Chihoi all the way from Hong Kong. I think this is their first non-Canadian release, and it’s a strong one. And Dave Collier was very proud of his Pigskin Peter’s award hat.

Ivan Brunetti gave me some comic anthologies that his students had put together. They are excellent.

I was on a panel with a group of UK publishers. It was a bit weird, as I didn’t know exactly who would be on the panel until Friday evening (leaving me little prep time), and the panelist’s themselves weren’t told I was their moderator until I mentioned it to them over the weekend. I had heard from others that had similar story of last minute challenges. How can you prepare images for panel about a visual medium if you’re told about your panel while on a plane to said event? With what is normally a pretty smooth operation at TCAF, the programming felt rushed. I was only on one panel which was fine, but would of liked to do something with creative folks, since I don’t generally tend to talk to publishers on Inkstuds.

I did not record the panel, but I think someone in the audience did, so if I get audio of it, I will be posting.

Seeing Matt Forsythe was an unexpected surprise.

I stopped by the tail end of Bryan Lee O’malley’s panel. That guy is so generous and kind with his fans. It’s pretty great to watch the enthusiasm they have when they meet him and how that experience is really good, so they leave feeling any better. I have had shitty experiences with folks, whose work I greatly respected, so this was nice to see. I know Brandon Graham tries to do the same thing.

TCAF had a limited signing, with only 75 folks allowed, but Bryan was fine with going until whenever. I got to look through his original art for while he was signing and getting his picture taken. This was marked as not for sale, since it was his favorite page from Lost At Sea.

At the end of the show, while everyone is exhausted and ready to head home. The Beguiling will by comics from the exhibitors. This has to be one of the coolest things they do. Everybody lines up and brings what they have left for the Beguiling to pick through. While watching the line move, it seemed that everybody sold something to the store. My favorite moment was Scott Campbell trying to move a stack of boxes and out of nowhere, Chris Butcher sends a swarm of volunteers to help Scott move his boxes. It’s a smooth operation.

I was wiped by the end of the day, and went for dinner with Jacq and Jen again, who seemed to be stuck with me. We were joined by Jaime Hernandez. It’s really neat to hear him talk about life and family and see how important is wife and mother are to him on mothers day. I went back to the hotel and was asleep by 930 at night, while everyone else was out enjoying the final night of TCAF partying.

The next morning I was bright and ready for a final day in Toronto. I ran into Rutu Modan in the lobby, who I talked into joining us for breakfast. We were also joined by William Cardilini and Brazillian cartoonist, Murilo. We next went off to the Beguiling, joined by Theo Ellsworth. I bought some good stuff. The Elfquest is for Brandon. The Beguiling on Monday after TCAF is crazy. I had to sit down out front because it was so busy. While i was out front, the Wowee Zonk and Closed Caption Comics Collective showed up.

Jen and Theo joined by on the steps. It was nice to sit and relax. We ended the day by going to the Taiyo Matsumoto show. I had already seen it, but no one else had. While we there, Matsumoto was at the foundation, having on last look and goodbye before heading home. Jen somehow got her photo with him. She can talk. When we were leaving out front, the staff were taking photos of him and asked us to be in a photo as well. I took that opportunity to get the travel buddies with him too.

Theo gave Matsumoto a copy of one of his minis. Here is he is going to shake Theo’s hand. It was a pretty sweet moment and amazing way to end the weekend on top.

It was off to the hotel and then the airport. I barely made it to my plane on time, with the flight taking off 10 minutes later. Ack.

And here is a look at my haul!

I really enjoy the Toronto Comics Art Festival and try and attend every year. Because of some personal financial stuff, I wasn’t able to attend last year. Inkstuds is work I do out of passion. It doesn’t pay, so going to these shows is something I would like to do more often, but have to be pretty financially selective about what I can attend.

For me, this show was well worth the plane and hotel expense. In my first 2 hours of being in Toronto, I was standing in a hotel lobby being introduced to Frederik Peeters, David B, Boulet and Judith Vanistendael. I was down there to meet fellow Anglophone, Glyn Dillon to go to the Cartoonists being translated get together that Peter Birkemoe from Beguling was hosting at the Pilot Bar around the corner from the Marriott that everyone was staying at. The event was just announced a couple of nights before, so there was only a handful of folks in the bar beyond the guests themselves. Not that I was complaining. It’s not often that you get such a high talent to fan ratio. Peter interviewed each of the international guests for a couple of minutes about translating their works as they tagged off on at a time.

I was very excited to meet Ulli Lust. Whom I had just interviewed the night before. here she is talking to Peter before he started the event. Sorry I got you with your eyes closed Ulli! She was by far, one of the most styling people of the weekend.

Here is Boulet, Frederik and Judith.

and I seem to think Boulet is very photogenic, so here he is with David B. I am a big fan of David B’s work. I hope to interview him one day.

All the European creators had flown in that day, and were on a very different time schedule. Boulet has been travelling through North America for the past month, so he was not ready for bed at 9pm. We managed to talk Glyn Dillon into staying up a little longer, but the next morning, they were off to Niagara Falls with the large faction of the international comics contingent, as a part of the generous hosting of the Beguiling. We were also joined by French comics Journalist, Xavier Guilbert.

After going back to the hotel room and doing some tweeting, Vancouver buddy, Brian Fukushima texted me, wide awake as well, so it was back out for one more pint then off to bed to start my first full day of TCAF madness.

I was woken in the early morning by Seattle friends and hotel roommates, Jen Vaughn and Jacq Cohen. They had come in on a red eye flight, so I took off for the morning to go shopping while they crashed out.

The Silver Snail comic store is in a new location in Toronto, on Yonge street, and it features a connected coffee shop called Black Canary. It was weird.

Here is a peak at my shopping for the day. I was very excited to find that Searle book. It features drawings he did during World War 2 including time in a Japanese POW camp. While waiting for roomies to wake up from epic nap, through the magic of twitter, I met up with Xavier again and the always great to see, Tom Spurgeon. Tom approved of my stack.

With roomies awake and a city to see. Our first cartoonist that we ran into was while getting coffee at Snake and Lattes. It was excellent to run into Steve and Leslie Wolfhard. I love those guys.

Former Vancouverite and now Beguiling employee, Chris Eng joined me for the day, it was great hanging with him. Here he is with Theo Ellsworth. I could just hang out there the day before and day after TCAF and get photo’s of every great cartoonist you could imagine. They are standing in front of an original Winsor McCay strip.

Like Noel Freibert and Edie Fake.

We went around the corner to check Honest Ed’s and ran into Michael Deforge and Saicoink. Jacq did not like who farted joke.

From here, I split ways with Jacq and Jen as they went off for fancy dinner, while Chris and I went to the Taiyo Matsumoto opening. I did not take any photos while there. We had enough time to see the show and then run off to the talk between Tom Spurgeon and Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez. Gilbert was very kind to pose for this photo.

I finally got to meet the extremely talented Roman Muradov and his wonderful wife, Sophia Foster-Domino. I saw Roman and ran to give him a big hug. I don’t think that went over well. Here he is in his best TCAF gothic pose.

After the talk, everyone was at the Pilot. I rest for a while to catch up another Vancouver ex-pat, Dr. Benjamin Woo, he was joined by Jason Turner.

I caught with my other roomie, Caitlin McGurk and Jen.

Gay comics represented by Justin Hall and charming friends.

Upstairs on the top floor, Billy Mavreas, Conundrum publisher, Andy Brown, Joe Ollmann and everyone’s favorite funny comicker, Michael Kupperman.

It was good to catch up with Paul Pope, who was showing up a galley of Battling Boy. It looks great. Ivan Brandon was flipping through it, saying something about it being beyond comics, which made no sense to me. What’s wrong with comics? He had some other weird theories that made even less sense to me. It’s neat how spread out comics are, that you can come from very different directions. (I apparently miss-quoted Ivan. but we were drunk, so who really knows what happened. Paul could of been quoting Shakespeare while I was beat boxing.)  

Back at the hotel, Seth was holding court with some great stories. I also got to catch up with Jaime Hernandez. The work he is creating right now, is some of the most important comics being published today. Every time he has a new story out, everybody is talking about how amazing it is. From here, it was off to bed for me, to get my energy together for a busy day of comic shopping.

Since this week is TCAF (I am actually flying out tomorrow morning), and I usually try to do a lot to document the trip, I realized that I hadn’t done anything in a while to cover recent comics events I have attended. It’s been busy up here in Vancouver.

Starting out with the very massive Art Spiegelman retrospective at the Vancouver Art Gallery, Co-Mix. It’s massively impressive show. the exhibition takes up the whole 3 floor of the gallery, which is no small accomplishment. Curated by Rina Zavagli-Mattotti, she is able to compact a really voluminous amount of work into an easily navigable story covering one of the biggest names in comics. She was in town for the hanging out the show, I am really bummed that I didn’t try to get an interview with her. The work she does with Galerie Martel is amazing. One of the high points of art in comics. If I ran a gallery that focused on cartoonists, that is what would be my base of inspiration. Also, her husband happens to be one of my favorite cartoonists and guests I have had on the show.

I loved being able to see what the original work looked like. Spiegelman’s really formalistic underground work like Don’t Get Around Much Anymore really stands out to be in particular.

Oh hey, some porn.

I am a sucker for process. I rather own a stack of work that leads up to the final drawings, than the final itself. It gives you an idea of how that work was created. In most cases, very close to printed versions. The sketching process is the unseen work that informs the final.

Oh hey, yeah, just the original art to the cover of Raw issue 1, no biggy.

Can someone get me a Raw t-shirt?

Speaking of process, the middle of the Raw section of the show, featured eight stages of developing the cover to the 7th issue of the series. A great glimpse into the production of what is to me, one the most important works in modern comics coming to where they are today.

The largest section is dedicated to Maus. The first book was lined around the room with reproductions of each page with an accompanying process sheets that help to inform how Spiegelman would slim down the reading process.

I loved the little mice they put in these display cases.

Here is the second book of Maus on one wall. If you look near the ceiling, you can see a small speaker with a cone over it, directing the sound so you would only really hear it if you were below. It featured excerpts of recordings of Spiegelman’s father from when he was collecting the family history for his research. During the press preview, some reporters were complaining about the sound getting in the way of being able to hear Spiegelman talk about the work in the room. I found that odd and compelling. Honestly, we can hear Spiegelman anytime, he was one of the best documented modern cartoonists, I think there was a great irony that the other reporters really failed to grasp onto. 

Here was the feeding frenzy of reporters getting their 4 minute sound bites. I got one question in. I think it was a good question with a good answer, I will find a reason to use at some point soon. But being in this situation is really an antithesis of what I like to do with the studs. I feel the show really works, when I am able to get personal with the guests and it’s seems as though no one else is listening. It’s just us. Being in scrimmage of reporters is just not enjoyable, I don’t want to fight over a soundbite. I am sure I could of gotten a couple of more questions in, but I just can’t be that guy. I did not end up getting an interview with him. Am I am disappointed, yeah, but I also wondered about what could I bring to the conversation that’s new? I have some specific directions in mind that I will keep to myself if the opportunity arises, but until then, there are a lot of other cartoonists that have not been in Time Magazine that have plenty to say.

The show is really amazing, if you have a chance to see it, please do. This is only a small sample of it. If you don’t make it to Vancouver for this show, please do check out the catalogue, Co-Mix, which will be published by Drawn and Quarterly in the next couple of months I think.

and yeah, Chris Ware on TV in a really beautiful gallery. it’s good show indeed.

And now on to Emerald City. This show isn’t completely my bag, but i still like to go, because they put on a fun show and it’s only 3 hours drive from Vancouver. I traveled down with Emily Carroll and Brian Fukushima. Every time i tried to take a photo of Emily, she slapped the camera out of my hand, so I took this on the sly. They were not impressed with me.

We stayed a couple of blocks up hill from the convention center. It was fine walking to the show, since you got to go through this park were people would be doing their cosplay photo-shoots. I am a sucker for taking photos of furries. I just love the passion people have for it.

The very funny KC Green was one of the first folks I talked to. he was very excited to see Brian Fukushima, me not so much.

I mainly spent the time hanging out the table for Simon Roy, Farel Dalrymple, Joseph Bergin III and Brandon Graham. I dont know if you can tell from this photo, but Brandon’s table was a mess. At one point I snapped and cleaned it up for them. Those guys are doing something good on Prophet. Real good. Simon was having a hell of a time that weekend, as you can tell my the state of his pants.

I am always happy to see the smiling face of Zack Soto. Here is joined by the rest of the Family Styles crew, Francois Vignault and Jason Levian. They all do great stuff. Jason’s been a bud for a while and I am glad that comics has a guy like him organizing great stuff in Portland. Francois is ok.

Simon got some amazing food. Joseph was selling off some sweet prophet prints he made for the show.

Furries. yay.

Simon Bisley, need I say more?

Here’s Matthew Southworth trying to get a deal at the Fantagraphics table. this photo is full of people I love to talk to. Jen Vaughn, Larry Reid right in front of me, and Zack and Jacq Cohen talking about in the back ground. Larry was telling me his version of stories of fantagraphics in the olden days, that i had heard different versions of from some local cartoonists. Lots of great history. I hope Tom Spurgeon’s book about Fanta comes out one day!

Speaking of Spurgeon, talking to him is always a highlight. I wish I was half the interviewer he is. I probably annoyed him to no end with terrible jokes and questions, but i appreciate him taking the time. Sunday morning, we went for a good breakfast of comics gabbing with Tom, Emily, Brandon and Simon. Brandon and Simon were late, I don’t know why, but I expected it.

Brandon is too generous some times. Someone asked him to draw on his bass guitar, so he carried it around all weekend. Ask Brandon his joke about being a bass man now.

I really felt weird about the tattooing at a comic convention behind boxes of back issues.

It’s Sloane Leong and Charmaine Verhagen, two ridiculously talented women. Sloane has been posting a ton of great stuff lately. check her out.

Farel sat behind the table painting this amazing Prophet cover. When his book,  Wrenchies finally comes out, it will blow people away!

I got really creeped out by this photo section. It was just a bunch of dudes taking photos of scantily clad women. It felt like I was walking by the stage at a strip club. And in a way that’s fine. It has it’s place, but the comics guy in me get’s frustrated and weirded out.

On the other hand, this Sweet Tooth cosplay was a million types of adorable.

Jen Vaughn was very excited to meet She-Ra.

The Neal Adams table, doing it for the fans…

This women had a little mustache that she was placing on things. I didn’t really understand it.

I went to one panel. I think it was on whats wrong and whats good about comics. Brandon Graham, Colleen Coover, Bill Willingham and Terry Moore were the panelists with Chris Roberson moderating. Some of it was interesting, and some was horrible. Bill made a lot of pretty deplorable comments, which seems to be what he is good at. Basically stating diversity is fine in comics, because there are comics out there he does like, and some that he doesn’t. yeah, whatever. There was also some weird entitlement from audience members, i didn’t get it. not my scene. I liked most of those folks on there. ok, almost all.

On the other hand, Jen was delighted.

Emily wanted me to get a photo of this Hawkman with the opening wings. Happy Emily?

Yay, it’s Phil McAndrew. Phil has a new book coming. it’s going to be great! He better come on the show, or else.

And now onto Fanexpo Vancouver. This was a busy show, it’s second year running, but still has a lot of kinks to work out. I spent about 45 minutes waiting to get my press pass. At Emerald City, it takes me less than 5. The show attracts a lot of cosplay and people excited to get their photo with Tia Carrera. I think I bought 3 things. One of them being art off of Rebecca Dart.

Seeing Gareth Gaudin is always great. We have known each other for almost 20 years. Gareth runs a very excellent comic store called Legends in Victoria. It is well worth going to. He brought a copy of Amazing Fantasy for Stan Lee to sign.

After talking to some artists, checking out what was for sale, I mainly spent my time helping out at the Comic Legends Legal Defense Fund table. Free speech and censorship are pretty important issues and I am always happy to help out this cause when I can.

BMO!

And here is my cat. she’s pretty great too.