The Telegraph profile Marjane Satrapi: Making Persepolis – which is hand-drawn by a team of 90 animators – took three years. Satrapi acted out all the roles for them, down to the family dog. “As a cartoonist, I am very solitary,” she says. “For the first six months, I felt like killing everybody at the studio every day. In front of them I was, like, ‘Hello, how are you doing?’ and as soon as they were gone it was, ‘Die, die, die!’?” + Joel Turnipseed, guest blogging for Kottke.org, interviews Reading Comics author Douglas Wolk: “Why would an influx of public attention, talent and money possibly mark the death of comics? If people start buying books by Jaime Hernandez and Megan Kelso because they’ve seen their work in the Times Magazine, I’m all for that—believe me, there’s nobody who’s attached to the idea of the best cartoonists remaining some kind of subcultural secret.” + Occasional Superheroine visits a Brooklyn (chain) bookstore and is not only disappointed with the comics section, but has some advice on how they should sell them: “27 shelves—3 entire shelving units—plus 3 racks and 1 & 1/2 tables were taken up by manga. Manga dwarfed everything else, which was certainly not news. But to see traditional capes and cowls books so marginalized was shocking….Superhero comics seem to be a relatively smaller chunk of the entire graphic novel selections for the standard bookstore. Does this mean that superheroes don’t play well outside of the direct market? Or do they need to be marketed differently?” [GalleyCat]
Devin McKinney reviews Schulz and Peanuts: A Biography: “Although Peanuts eschewed the frank surrealism and anti-joke ethic of George Herriman‘s Krazy Kat – darling art strip of the High Modernists – Schulz early on declared his dedication to modernism’s clean line and undramatic voice. His comic sense was influenced by the funny pages and radio shows of his youth, but he was instinctively in tune with a later generation: the subtle anti-authoritarianism of Peanuts dovetailed perfectly with the social revisions of the 1960s, making Schulz a counterculture hero and his characters unlikely poster art in dorm rooms and crash pads around the world. But what this biography demonstrates is how much of Schulz’s work came directly from his own life: the artist’s neuroses and irritations were his own richest vein of material.” + Alison Bechdel on Schulz: “I guess you sort of expect poets and writers to be tortured souls, but it’s jarring to think that someone who draws a comic strip could be just as angst-ridden.” + Craig Taylor reviews three graphic novels, including The Three Paradoxes: “Paul Hornschemeier‘s latest stunning graphic novel is short but chock-full of ideas. Five stories drawn in distinct styles weave together to turn a young man’s trip home into a meditation on memory, stasis and the progression of a life. Nothing much happens.” + Little Nothings by Lewis Trondheim and pictured above [via / via]
The National Post intervew Adrian Tomine: “I don’t even want to look at recent stories. It’s like looking at old family photos or something. It’s just too personal and too embarrassing for me.” + In the Comics Journal, Paul Gravett talks to Posy Simmonds about, amongst other things, Tamara Drewe and Gemma Bovery: “I had a great structure, the best: Flaubert‘s structure. I felt it shouldn’t matter if the reader didn’t know Flaubert’s book, but if he or she did, they’d get just a little extra out of it.” + NY Daily News talk to Jeffrey Brown: “The ex-girlfriends I’m basically not in contact with, so I don’t know. I’ve never written a book with the intention of winning someone back or getting back at someone or anything like that. It’s always just been about thinking about life and how relationships fit in to what life means. So in a way, even though it’s really personal and intimate, it’s at the same time almost not really about these people. It’s just about these general ideas that we run into in life.” [Forbidden Planet] + Dogs in space, the Daily Cross Hatch interview Nick Abadzis: “Laika, the book, is really a piece of historical fiction. I guess that’s the best way to describe it. So I’ve been at pains to point out that, although it’s broadly true, there’s a section of it that’s out of my head, which is Laika’s early life.” + Greenlight this, graphic novels that should be films [Largehearted Boy] + More 3 Paradoxes. + 5 positive stories about comics. + A la Radiohead, a pay-what-you-want graphic novel. + Finally, BoingBoing consider Winsor McCay.
