Sweaty Batman

So here's another entry from the "recent happenings in the press" file, as well as a few more pictures from the "what I did on my summer vacation" files, in case anyone is keeping track.

When I was at ComicCon in July I did an interview with Brian Heater for his podcast RIYL. It was a great conversation ranging from questions of authenticity and the artist's sketchbook to how brains work to what it means to make art from grief. Also there's a parade of pedi-cabs and cosplayers going by the whole time, a few of which we describe for the listener. Peter Pan with a lightsaber? Check. Sweaty Batman? Well... he came later. More images from ComicCon below. 

Michael Deforge wasn't in costume, but he did have rabbit ears that he could move using his brain waves.

As an aside, this last picture notwithstanding, I noticed more gender-bending in the cosplay this year than I have before. There were several lady Captain Americas, a lady Han Solo and a lady Spiderman (not the same as 'Spiderwoman', that's a different character/costume, if I remember my Marvel Universe correctly). I noticed little or no crossover in the opposite direction (maybe next year?) but it was cool to see, and bodes well (maybe?) for where the culture is headed.

Happenings in the press

BOOOOOOOM just put up a little interview with me on their site and they managed to make my book look very attractive. I think I might start requiring people to gather a nice rock, some tea and a bit of crochet before reading my work. Also there has to be a bit of sun coming in the window. How good does that look? Damn. They are also giving away a couple of copies of the book to people who leave a favorite poem in the comments section. I managed to shout out some favorite people in Chicago and elsewhere, and work in a little thing about how Benjamin Franklin supposedly had to be naked to get any writing done.

On Hellenism

I'm doing a live, on-air interview with Bill Buschell on his show Graffiti on WNYE tomorrow evening (Thursday), 7pm Eastern. Should be streamable, here.

Empty Words

The revised and expanded edition of The End is now out for real. Today a little interview I did about the book with It's Nice That went up, with some excerpts. I'll probably do a few posts of outtakes and process things – the book's own biography that I mention. But first I'm going to take the moment as an opportunity to remember Cheryl. She made tons of little hand-made books of all sorts: sketchbooks, her own work and in this case a sort of reconfiguring of a selection from John Cage's Empty Words. She made several versions of this (I actually made a small screen printed edition the year after she died). More of her work is here.

breaking news from the interbleb

This interview I did went up a week or so ago at The Long & Shortbox of It, a comics blog.

Discussed:
-Finishing Big Questions
-What you get when you cross Tintin with Daniel Higgs
-A fully painted strip I'm about to self-publish (more on that soon)
-the New Chicago Comics show that was at the MCA in January

Also blogged recently at D&Q was a deeply satisfying comparison between the upcoming, aforementioned Big Questions and Yoshihiro Tatsumi's A Drifting Life, John Porcellino's King-Cat Classix, and the Chicago Manual of Style.

And lastly, here is a post at Busy Beaver Buttons' blog about another button mural I did recently in a private residence, using about a century's worth of family photos as material.

Comix Claptrap interview

I did an interview last week with Rina Ayuyang and Thien Pham of Comix Claptrap, which they just put online in time for Christmas. Subjects covered include which of the Holy Consumption members gets made fun of the most, which professional cartoonist is the greatest skateboarder (let's just say I throw down the gauntlet), and whether a collection of small colored squares may in fact be considered comics. And a bunch of other crap. Pour some bourbon in your eggnog, gather around the fire and listen in. By the way, the interview starts around 22:45...