I greatly enjoyed doing 3 events with Art Spiegelman this fall for my book tour. He is truly one of my heroes. I don’t have too many of them. It’s safe to say I might not be doing comics at all if it weren’t for RAW and Maus. In his presence I’m aware of how much of a beginner I still am at doing comics and talking about what I do intelligently. I think I did fine during our conversation at Barnes and Noble, our panel in Philadelphia and on “Radio Times” on NPR. But I was taking mental notes. The man has this stuff down. It’s no accident he’s as successful as he is. It’s quite something to behold. NPR show is archived here. Transcript from the Philly event here.
This is a terrific video narrated by Ivan Brunetti and animated by John Kuramoto about the latest Yale comics anthology. I have an embarrassing number of pages in the book compared to other people my age. It was nice to have both “Portrait of My Mom” and “Portrait of My Dad” housed in the same collection. Ivan has done another great job of pulling together a selection that feels essential in some way. I have a feeling the 2 Yale books will stay in print forever and will have a life in and outside college classrooms for as long as comics remain on the cultural radar. I always refer people to them whenever anyone is curious about the broader landscape of “literary” or “art” comics or whatever you want to call what people like me make
Here’s Dan Clowes’ great cover:
You can buy at Powell’s or at amazon.
Just uploaded all my photos to Flickr from my recent west coast tour and Philadelphia Free Library event. Author? Tourist? Both?
Here’s my dad singing “People Who Need People” and “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” in our living room in 1989. I recently got him to sing back-up vocals on “My Brain is Hanging Upside Down.” Here’s hoping we get to do another song together soon.
