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Speaker 1: Dear listener, if I may be so bold, ac For

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Speaker 1: the last six episodes on this podcast, we've been taking

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Speaker 1: a look at how Kathy Comics and Kathy Guyswit's work

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Speaker 1: at large comments on the issues of its day in

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Speaker 1: a far more insightful and occasionally infuriating way than most

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Speaker 1: have ever given it credit for. On my end, I've

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Speaker 1: been waging war with my Cathy sleep paralysis demon Hi

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Speaker 1: who at this point it basically embraced as a part

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Speaker 1: of my life. I'm Hailey, Joel, She's dead, Bruce, We're

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Speaker 1: freaking Tony Colette out. But other than that, things are fine.

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Speaker 1: Every day I'm growing stronger. I would die for you,

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Speaker 1: I would kill for you, and I would die for you.

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Speaker 1: But that is not what the penultimate episode of this

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Speaker 1: show is about. What it is about is the legacy

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Speaker 1: made by risk takers in comics, people who made autobiographical comics. Specifically,

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Speaker 1: many of these artists, as we've discussed in past episodes,

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Speaker 1: got a lot of pushback for speaking on their own

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Speaker 1: experiences in their day. But what we haven't gotten as

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Speaker 1: much of a chance to do is track how work

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Speaker 1: like Kathy Guisewites and other pioneers who we've talked about,

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Speaker 1: your Aaron mcgruder's of the Boondocks, your Jackie ORMs is

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Speaker 1: your Alice and Bechdel's and on and on. We haven't

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Speaker 1: yet taken a look at how those legacies have influenced

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Speaker 1: artists who are working in autobiographical comics now. So today

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Speaker 1: we're going to talk to twelve artists. That's also the

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Speaker 1: name of the episode, Very clever, and all twelve of

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Speaker 1: these artists are right now making some of the funniest,

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Speaker 1: sometimes saddest, sometimes most bizarre, sometimes most engaging and interactive

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Speaker 1: work out there. Some of them are fans of Kathy comics,

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Speaker 1: some of them aren't. Some of them have never read

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Speaker 1: a single strip of the comic. Some of the twelve

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Speaker 1: artists work in zines, some work in web comics. Some

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Speaker 1: address their identity and their bodies and their lives, while

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Speaker 1: some talk about movies and politics that they like. A

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Speaker 1: few things carry through here. All of their work is distinct,

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Speaker 1: All of their work is personal, their careers to some extent.

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Speaker 1: Oh to the pioneers and comics that we've been looking

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Speaker 1: at throughout this series, and I really like them, and

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Speaker 1: I'd like for you to know more about them, I

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Speaker 1: could draw a comic. Oh yeah, let me see it.

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Speaker 1: Oh my god, Wow, this is violent. Kathy? Is that

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Speaker 1: dog Bert? I can't say what it is, but I

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Speaker 1: legally have to say that whatever is happening to him,

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Speaker 1: it's in minecraft. Yeah, that'll hold up in court. A

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Speaker 1: start a Patreon, baby, let's get this thing go wang

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Speaker 1: and without further ado, please enjoy twelve artists. It's she's

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Speaker 1: at what, She's out on dates and she don't like

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Speaker 1: politics from Mama and Urban two with feminist friends, and

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Speaker 1: she's fighting all the stands with chocolate and hand Kathy,

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Speaker 1: she's fighting back. She's stressed with success. Let's cut her.

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Speaker 1: Oh Kathy, Makathyn Cathy, she's gotta like go in all,

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Speaker 1: be honest with yourself. When was the last time you

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Speaker 1: picked up the Sunday Funnies? Exactly today, we're gonna be

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Speaker 1: exploring the journey that influential comic strips took from the

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Speaker 1: heyday of the funny pages in the eighties and nineties,

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Speaker 1: two mediums like the zine were artists Number one of

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Speaker 1: our twelve artists began working in But before we get

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Speaker 1: to them, what am a zine? Zines tend to be,

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Speaker 1: although there are no hard and fast rules, and that's

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Speaker 1: part of what makes it fun. But they tend to

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Speaker 1: be self published or from independent small publishers. They tend

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Speaker 1: to be relatively short, small circulation, sometimes hyperlocal, and affordable,

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Speaker 1: if not completely free. They can be about anything. They

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Speaker 1: can be researched, or they could just be a collection

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Speaker 1: of scribbles. They can be by one person, they can

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Speaker 1: be by a collection of people. They could be political,

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Speaker 1: they could be about a very specific pop culture property.

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Speaker 1: And in fact, a lot of pre Internet fan culture

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Speaker 1: was built around zines. Whether your passion was like Star

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Speaker 1: Trek or Wu Tang Clan or Jonathan Taylor Thomas, those

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Speaker 1: are the first three things I thought of. The people

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Speaker 1: are fans of zines can be very easy to find

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Speaker 1: and unfind. It's a very of the moment kind of media,

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Speaker 1: and they also lent themselves to building real life communities

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Speaker 1: of artists around them. Personally, I was lucky enough to

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Speaker 1: make some of my first friends in Los Angeles with

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Speaker 1: this amazing zene press called Devastator Press shout out Amanda

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Speaker 1: and Jeffrey r Ip Devastator and met some of the

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Speaker 1: first empathetic and cool people that I've ever met in

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Speaker 1: the city through making zines. And if you haven't had

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Speaker 1: the pleasure of reading a zine made by someone you

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Speaker 1: know or someone you don't know, I cannot recommend it enough.

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Speaker 1: Zene culture transcends generation because there's something so human about them.

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Speaker 1: They're tactile, they're brief, they're passed from person to person,

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Speaker 1: and they tend to get really personal and it's in

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Speaker 1: that area of the medium where we're going to be

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Speaker 1: hanging out today. In the US and the UK, zines

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Speaker 1: were most popular among gen xers, after Boomers, before millennials

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Speaker 1: born in the late sixties and seventies. Winona Ryder is

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Speaker 1: like a big deal for them, and for some reason

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Speaker 1: they take like easily the worst selfies of any generation.

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Speaker 1: This is my favorite joke of all time from my

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Speaker 1: favorite comedian of all time, Chris Fleming to my gen

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Speaker 1: xers with love, Why the up angle with the selfies?

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Speaker 1: Even boomers got like that hold the camera above your

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Speaker 1: head my space angle going, which is it's not great,

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Speaker 1: but it's at least sort of flattering. But when gen

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Speaker 1: x takes a selfie, it's like that the camera is

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Speaker 1: in a bucket that's between that's on the on the ground.

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Speaker 1: Why did they do this? Like, no one wants to

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Speaker 1: be at your funeral in the future looking at a

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Speaker 1: picture of you that's angled up your nose like it

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Speaker 1: was taken by a stray cat that was walking past you,

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Speaker 1: and I will conceide that millennials take very embarrassing selfies

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Speaker 1: as well, too much going on two posed, two staged.

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Speaker 1: The philosophy is like I need to fit my entire

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Speaker 1: shitty personality into the space of one square. We should

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Speaker 1: just go extinct anyways. Zines Zines were most popular when

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Speaker 1: jen Xers were coming of age, but their existence dates

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Speaker 1: back to the nineteen thirties. Sci fi fans led the charge. Originally,

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Speaker 1: the Science Correspondence Club in Chicago started a zine called

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Speaker 1: The Comet in the nineteen thirties, followed by other titles

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Speaker 1: like Fantasy Commentator. These made way for a wave of

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Speaker 1: star magazines in the sixties, most notably a title called

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Speaker 1: Spokenalia Incredible Name. These fanzines gained the attention and support

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Speaker 1: of the stars of the show, and a fan letter

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Speaker 1: writing campaign organized via zines literally saved Star Truck from cancelation.

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Speaker 1: In the late sixties, zene culture expanded even more in

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Speaker 1: the seventies and eighties, primarily because the technology that was

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Speaker 1: needed to make them, that is, decent and affordable copy machines,

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Speaker 1: became more widely available. In an earlier episode of this series,

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Speaker 1: we talked about the underground comic scenes, where artists like

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Speaker 1: Trina Robbins, Alison Bechdale, Alien Kaminsky, Crumb, and many others

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Speaker 1: copied and distributed their own comics about sex, their bodies,

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Speaker 1: their politics. Many of these comics were self distributed, and

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Speaker 1: while their work survives and continues to be influential now,

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Speaker 1: most scenes are more of a flash in the pan,

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Speaker 1: not meant to last forever, and rarely going past a

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Speaker 1: couple of printings. In the eighties, the punk scene embraced zanes.

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Speaker 1: The music of once obscure bands like Blue Oyster, Cult,

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Speaker 1: Joy Division, and The Ramoons were recommended, discussed, and disseminated

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Speaker 1: through zines. Popular titles included Punk Slash and my personal favorite,

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Speaker 1: Sniff and Glue. So punk came and went, and that

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Speaker 1: wave of zines shut down, only to be revitalized again

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Speaker 1: with the riot girl movement of the ninet nineties. We've

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Speaker 1: discussed riot girl music in past episodes as it was

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Speaker 1: a really important musical element of the third wave of

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Speaker 1: American feminie is um, though it remained pretty firmly white.

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Speaker 1: And what was interesting about Riot Girls ZNES is that

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Speaker 1: they weren't just made by fans. They were made by

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Speaker 1: the actual bands as well, and not just to promote

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Speaker 1: their music, but to promote their political platform. Here's a

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Speaker 1: section from an early Riot Girls ZNE by Kathleen Hannah,

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Speaker 1: the front woman of Bikini Kill. Complain, Complain, Complaine, at

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Speaker 1: least you don't have it as bad as a women

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Speaker 1: used to be, people of color, see women in other countries.

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Speaker 1: And it's out of this scene that a lot of writers, artists,

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Speaker 1: and publications that are still influential today originally came out

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Speaker 1: of Miranda July came out of zines. Bitch magazine came

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Speaker 1: out of zines, Bust magazine came out of znes, and

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Speaker 1: many of the artists I spoke with for this episode

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Speaker 1: came out of the zene culture of the nineteen nineties

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Speaker 1: and early two thousands, using the medium to explore their

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Speaker 1: own identities and build communities through cartooning. So this first

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Speaker 1: group of artists began their careers by making tactile Zanes

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Speaker 1: and then went on to migrate their work to either

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Speaker 1: full blown books or the Internet. Artist number one, this

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Speaker 1: first person is an icon of the semi autobiographical genre

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Speaker 1: and an author and illustrator of one of my childhood favorites,

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Speaker 1: Marissa Moss. Marissa is an artist of the boomer generation

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Speaker 1: who first broke through to the mainstream with the Amelia's

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Speaker 1: Notebook series that ran from the nineties all the way

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Speaker 1: through the two thousand tens. I loved these books growing up.

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Speaker 1: They were advertised in the American Girl Catalog, and so

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Speaker 1: girls who couldn't afford an American Girls All because they're

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Speaker 1: too expensive would get an Amelia ragdoll with an Amelia book.

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Speaker 1: Marissa Massa's work was almost certainly the first graphic novel

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Speaker 1: I had ever read. Her books follow Amelia, who, at

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Speaker 1: the beginning of the series is a fine year old

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Speaker 1: moving to a new town with her family and journaling

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Speaker 1: about it in a composition notebook. Amelia's Notebook is that notebook.

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Speaker 1: It is a literal composition notebook with the blue lines

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Speaker 1: and handwriting, and kids have to turn the book to

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Speaker 1: the side to see Amelia's doodles. In side comments. There's drawings,

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Speaker 1: there's crossouts, there's things paper clip to the pages. It

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Speaker 1: was this really cool tactile experience that threw you into

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Speaker 1: the world of this character. If you know a nine

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Speaker 1: year old, I recommend it. It holds up. But for

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Speaker 1: our purposes, it's a zine made by a fictional character

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Speaker 1: that introduced that format two kids. Marissa Moss's career is

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Speaker 1: most popularly defined by the Amelia books, but she's continued

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Speaker 1: to challenge and expand on the format as her career continues.

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Speaker 1: Her more recent work is even more personal and has

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Speaker 1: had a huge impact on people about the process of

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Speaker 1: caretaking and grief. She published the graphic memoir Last Things

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Speaker 1: in about her husband's a l S diagnosis, the stress

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Speaker 1: of suddenly becoming a full time caretaker, the adjustment her

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Speaker 1: family went through, and the loss of her partner less

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Speaker 1: than seven months from his diagnosis. It also covers the

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Speaker 1: aftermath and is an absolutely heart wrenching and important story

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Speaker 1: that is so beautifully told by Moss's signature art style.

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Speaker 1: We spoke about it a little bit in our interview here.

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Speaker 1: It is, but it's pure graphic novel, so there's not

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Speaker 1: a big chance of text. Familia Um it's called back Days.

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Speaker 1: And um, that book connected me. It's a book about

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Speaker 1: my husband's diagnoses, books, als, and death. So it's the

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Speaker 1: dial with someone also gus to these a horrific So

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Speaker 1: I wrote this really was the polic I also understand

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Speaker 1: if I wrote this graphic novels to understand what happened

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Speaker 1: to us as a family and how do we survive this?

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Speaker 1: And um, and it connected me with the whole community

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Speaker 1: that I didn't even know existed, called graphic medicine. It's amazing,

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Speaker 1: it's graphic novelist and you have this kind of the

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Speaker 1: whole community is supporting each other using graphic novels to

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Speaker 1: tell top stories. Because well, I actually try to write

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Speaker 1: this story about my husband for years. I went straightforward nowhile,

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Speaker 1: but it was too heavy into the nest thing. Publisher said,

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Speaker 1: you know, give it a happy ending, while you know

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Speaker 1: spoiler if he dies, I can't give it a happy ending.

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Speaker 1: That made it more accessible, and I added humor where

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Speaker 1: it could, because that's how I deal with difficulties in life. Um,

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Speaker 1: you have to have I think that when I were

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Speaker 1: a kid, I had to use humor to see the absurdity,

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Speaker 1: because why you have to U was driving party back

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Speaker 1: from a doctor's appointment. He was on a ventilator at

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Speaker 1: that point, and the vender way the battery dies. I'm

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Speaker 1: gonna realize, oh my god, I have to pict from

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Speaker 1: somewhere because she's not going to often. I'm driving into

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Speaker 1: a gas station. Took them up to the side of

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Speaker 1: the gas station. You know, you're poking up a partial

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Speaker 1: gas station and the intendant is looking at me. Luck,

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Speaker 1: what are you doing? Did you talk's a cure about it?

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Speaker 1: Your hair? Yeah? Absolutely, what Chris? Because doctors treat body parts,

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Speaker 1: and graphic novels show them. The governmentication novels show them

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Speaker 1: for people behind these symptoms and these problems, and you

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Speaker 1: need to realize you're you're doing with whole families. If

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Speaker 1: you haven't read Last Things and know someone who might

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Speaker 1: benefit from it, I'll be linking it below these days.

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Speaker 1: Marissa has also been working on a series about women

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Speaker 1: who have gone unsung or misunderstood by history. I think

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Speaker 1: famous rower Ida Lewis, Think Confederates By Sarah Emma Edmunds,

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Speaker 1: Think pioneering pilot Harriet Quimby. She is amazing, and I

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Speaker 1: think a really cool example of an artist of the

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Speaker 1: boomer persuasion who introduced confessional zine style art to kids

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Speaker 1: and found huge mainstream publishing success in the process. Artist

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Speaker 1: number two, our next artist, began in the tactile world

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Speaker 1: of zines during the two thousands, only to cross over

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Speaker 1: into autobiographical work in other formats. I'm talking about Malika Gharib,

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Speaker 1: who isn't just a graphic novelist. She's also an accomplished

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Speaker 1: journalist currently with NPR as a health and development correspondent.

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Speaker 1: She's literally who I wanted to be when I was

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Speaker 1: growing up, and it was her who both drew inspiration

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Speaker 1: from and recommended that I reach out to. Marissa mas

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Speaker 1: Her debut graphic novel, I Was Their American Dream, was

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Speaker 1: released in twenty nine and follows Malika's journey growing up

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Speaker 1: as a first generation Filipina Egyptian American. The book is

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Speaker 1: written in her handwriting in a very confessional, funny style,

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Speaker 1: with all of the margin notes, doodles, and even pull

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Speaker 1: out activities that touch on growing up between cultures, including

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Speaker 1: the American friends and schooling system she grew up with.

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Speaker 1: It explores her falling in love and figuring herself out

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Speaker 1: as a young person, and she looks back on her

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Speaker 1: time in the zine community very very fondly. Here's some

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Speaker 1: of our interview. My name is Malica Gharib, and I

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Speaker 1: am a cartoonist, journalist and a writer. I'm based in Nashville, Tennessee.

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Speaker 1: Your work is so autobiographical. Uh, tell me a little

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Speaker 1: bit about your background and how you first got into, um,

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Speaker 1: into drawing. So I actually come from the zine community. UM.

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Speaker 1: I've been making zines and mini magazines since i was fourteen.

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Speaker 1: So in high school I had when all about music, um,

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Speaker 1: and then you know, and when I got to the

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Speaker 1: real world and I did a zine about food, UM,

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Speaker 1: and then just started branched off doing zines about my

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Speaker 1: own personal life. This is a genre in zines called perzy.

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Speaker 1: I think in in my twenties I started to really

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Speaker 1: think about what, um, why I was so drawn to zines,

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Speaker 1: And I think it's the economy of what you're trying

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Speaker 1: to express. So, you know, in a zine, it's like

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Speaker 1: in very few pages. In comics is very few panels,

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Speaker 1: and you have to use visuals and texts to sort

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Speaker 1: of express the maximum emotion in a very very small space. UM.

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Speaker 1: It's kind of like writing a high coup. There's something

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Speaker 1: really challenging about about that format. All those constraints, like

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Speaker 1: comics were almost like like a cousin or sister too,

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Speaker 1: making the zine, having somebody enter your world through these pages.

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Speaker 1: So I really really like to push the boundaries on

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Speaker 1: on scale and economy of line and just make things

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Speaker 1: like that are like, like my my illustration style is

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Speaker 1: very light in area, like to use the least amount

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Speaker 1: of lines. I think once I cracked that nut, I

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Speaker 1: was like, yeah, I think I could draw, and it

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Speaker 1: like started drawing about my life or you know, adapt

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Speaker 1: essays that I've written into comic form because it just

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Speaker 1: so much more um dynamic and more expressive when when

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Speaker 1: I do it that way. I started doing like very

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Speaker 1: personal comics, like it's actually pretty new in s after

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Speaker 1: after I started hearing all this like anti immigrant rhetoric

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Speaker 1: and then in the news, I actually were was drawing

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Speaker 1: comics like spot comics like almost every day as a

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Speaker 1: reaction to what I was hearing, and I wanted to

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Speaker 1: correct false narratives that I thought were based on stereotypes.

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Speaker 1: While Maliko was working for NPR in a journalistic capacity,

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Speaker 1: she realized that her passion for personal illustration and current

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Speaker 1: events actually had some pretty significant overlap, and that her

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Speaker 1: art could be used to help others tell their story

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Speaker 1: in an engaging, inaccessible way. I definitely hadn't done comics

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Speaker 1: for NPR until very recently, like in the past two

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Speaker 1: years since my book was published. UM. I think that,

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Speaker 1: you know, there's a lot of there's rigorous standards, like

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Speaker 1: you have to apply the rigorous standards of journalism to comics, um,

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Speaker 1: when you're doing comics journalism. So for example, I interviewed

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Speaker 1: somebody who was in a refugee who was working in

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Speaker 1: a refugee camp in Bangladesh with Rohinga refugees, and I

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Speaker 1: had him send me like forty pictures of like where

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Speaker 1: do you work, where does what does? What does your

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Speaker 1: house look like? What does your wife look like? What

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Speaker 1: does your kid look like? And I use all of

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Speaker 1: these to make the story of him. Malca Gharib is

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Speaker 1: currently working on her second graphic novel about her own life,

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Speaker 1: this time honing in on the summers that she would

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Speaker 1: spend in Egypt with her dad. It's called It Won't

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Speaker 1: Always Be This Way and it comes out in two

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Speaker 1: You know, I think personal comics are kind of like

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Speaker 1: adjacent to keeping a diary, and it's just sort of

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Speaker 1: an illustrated form because I feel like when I draw,

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Speaker 1: it's like I'm writing in a diary and trying to

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Speaker 1: tease out how I'm I'm actually feeling at any given moment.

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Speaker 1: Artist number three, someone I'm a huge fan of who

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Speaker 1: makes me laugh all the time. That's really this entire

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Speaker 1: episode Jamie being a fan. But the artist in question

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Speaker 1: is Joey Allison Says, whose story of migrating from the

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Speaker 1: zine scene in Oakland to a thriving career in web

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Speaker 1: comics really illustrates the differences between the mediums and platforms,

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Speaker 1: as zines gave way to web comics as the prevalent

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Speaker 1: form of independent comic distribution during the early two mid

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Speaker 1: two thousand's. Today, she lives in Oakland with her wife

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Speaker 1: and two kids, but grew her love of comics reading

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Speaker 1: the newspaper and working on early znes with her dad,

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Speaker 1: then going on to start making her own during her

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Speaker 1: teen years. Here's a bit of our interview um Joey

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Speaker 1: Allison Sayers and I'm a cartoonist living in Oakland, California.

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Speaker 1: Music was kind of like my big love for for

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Speaker 1: a lot of that that era, like the my adolescence UM,

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Speaker 1: and I really thought that's where I was gonna take

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Speaker 1: my creativity um and become a concert clarinetist. But um,

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Speaker 1: that was my bigea symphony. Yeah. So but I for

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Speaker 1: a variety of reasons, that kind of that fell by

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Speaker 1: the wayside. But um, what always did with me was

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Speaker 1: drawing and creating visual art. So UM. And then when

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Speaker 1: I was in my twenties, I got excited to start

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Speaker 1: really sort of trying to do comics again. I I

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Speaker 1: basically UM, I like to say I independently invented the

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Speaker 1: medium of mini comics um because I didn't know what

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Speaker 1: they were. I didn't really know zines were anything like that.

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Speaker 1: But I had the idea of like creating a photo

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Speaker 1: copied bound collection of some drawings that I had done, UM,

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Speaker 1: and I was like, oh, wow, this is cool. I

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Speaker 1: invented this new thing. Um. And so I took it

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Speaker 1: to the local comics store and they're like, that's great,

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Speaker 1: we have tons of these, and like here's some other

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Speaker 1: people that make them that work here at the store,

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Speaker 1: and you should get to know them. And so that

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Speaker 1: kind of got me on my path to UM doing

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Speaker 1: comics more seriously. Once in her twenties, Joey dove into

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Speaker 1: the zine community in Oakland in earnest, developing her own

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Speaker 1: voice and beginning to write and illustrate more personal material. UM.

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Speaker 1: I had been living here for UM, I don't know,

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Speaker 1: probably by that point, about five or six years, and

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Speaker 1: UM I got hooked up with UM Comic Relief, which

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Speaker 1: was a really big comic bookstore here in Berkeley. UM,

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Speaker 1: and it's just like a local hub or was. I mean,

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Speaker 1: it doesn't exist anymore, But I just met UM all

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Speaker 1: kinds of great cartoonists UM who kind of that was

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Speaker 1: our our sort of common thread. And so we started

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Speaker 1: drawing comics together, and I co created a like a

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Speaker 1: get together a comics group where we would meet up

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Speaker 1: UM once a week and draw comics UM at a

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Speaker 1: local bar. And we were just like you know, shared

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Speaker 1: ideas and crack jokes, and it was just a really

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Speaker 1: great creative hot bed. I was very intentionally avoiding any

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Speaker 1: sort of autobiographical work at that time. UM. I was

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Speaker 1: avoiding basically any form of introspection at that time in

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Speaker 1: my life. I was just deeply unhappy UM and and

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Speaker 1: not fully self actualized, and I didn't want to be

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Speaker 1: fully self actualized and so um. So in a in

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Speaker 1: a sort of almost stereotypical way, I I turned humor um,

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Speaker 1: which had always been my great the great deflector um

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Speaker 1: of sincerity. And so yeah, I was like, I just

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Speaker 1: wanted to make people laugh and maybe then I wouldn't

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Speaker 1: think about me and who I was so and that

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Speaker 1: I'll boils down to the fact that I'm trans and

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Speaker 1: at that at that point in my twenties, I wasn't

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Speaker 1: I wasn't out um, and I hadn't transitioned in any way. So,

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Speaker 1: but it was it was when I started to transition UM,

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Speaker 1: I realized that I didn't have to be afraid of

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Speaker 1: myself any longer UM, and I didn't have to be

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Speaker 1: afraid of people seeing who I was. Looking more deeply

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Speaker 1: at myself, I realized that I wanted to talk about

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Speaker 1: it and I wanted to share the things that I

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Speaker 1: had gone through, mostly because you know, at the time

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Speaker 1: when when I transitioned, which was in the you know,

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Speaker 1: mid oughts, UM, there there wasn't as much there wasn't

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Speaker 1: as much information out there, there wasn't as much dialogue

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Speaker 1: going out about the trans experience. I mean, we're really

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Speaker 1: lucky now. I mean, I know there's still a long

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Speaker 1: way to go, but I want I kind of wanted

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Speaker 1: to talk about the good things, um And at least

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Speaker 1: for me, my life just improved immeasurably. Joey's work online

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Speaker 1: is extremely versatile. Sometimes it's personal, sometimes it's informational, sometimes

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Speaker 1: it's political, and a lot of the time it's just

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Speaker 1: funny as fuck. I'll be linking to her work in

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Speaker 1: the description. But part of what I find so interesting

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Speaker 1: about artists that made the leap from tactile to digital

404
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Speaker 1: medium is how the way that they received feedback changed.

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Speaker 1: For the most part, in her early career, Joey would

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Speaker 1: never learn what a reader of her sins thought unless

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Speaker 1: she knew them personally. But the Internet is the Internet.

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Speaker 1: It was it was almost almost exclusively positive UM. And

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Speaker 1: I heard from a lot of people earlier in their

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Speaker 1: transition who um, who did see it for what I

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Speaker 1: hoped it would be, which was just kind of like

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Speaker 1: a positive beacon, um for those people who were intending

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Speaker 1: to go on that journey UM or who were heading

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Speaker 1: out on that journey, and just to see that it

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Speaker 1: wasn't all darkness and um and horrible nous. And I

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Speaker 1: also UM talked to a lot of sis gender people

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Speaker 1: who for who it taught them a lot about what

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Speaker 1: it was like to be trans and what the experience

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Speaker 1: was like and UM and and and just to understand

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Speaker 1: that side of things. UM. And I mean I think

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Speaker 1: a key thing was at that time, UM, most of

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Speaker 1: it was an online I mean I put little bits

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Speaker 1: here and there, but but online was just a different place.

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Speaker 1: So almost everybody who who encountered that comic UM either

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Speaker 1: ordered it directly from me or bought it from me

426
00:26:51,920 --> 00:26:55,600
Speaker 1: at a UM like a comic show. I would like

427
00:26:55,680 --> 00:26:58,520
Speaker 1: to see the shift, the shifts that are currently happening.

428
00:26:58,520 --> 00:27:01,240
Speaker 1: I'd like to see them continue. In particularly I'd like

429
00:27:01,320 --> 00:27:04,639
Speaker 1: to see UM, you know, more and more diverse voices

430
00:27:05,240 --> 00:27:08,920
Speaker 1: out there. UM. And I'd like to see the I

431
00:27:09,000 --> 00:27:12,240
Speaker 1: feel like there's been a greater shift towards empathy UM.

432
00:27:13,880 --> 00:27:15,800
Speaker 1: You know, I want to say society wide. And I

433
00:27:15,920 --> 00:27:18,320
Speaker 1: know that's maybe a little bit of a product of

434
00:27:18,400 --> 00:27:23,000
Speaker 1: me living UM where I do. UM, but you know,

435
00:27:23,280 --> 00:27:27,720
Speaker 1: I do think like the like specifically in humor and

436
00:27:27,800 --> 00:27:30,960
Speaker 1: humor comics. I feel like we've moved away. UM. A

437
00:27:31,040 --> 00:27:32,760
Speaker 1: lot of a lot of people flewed away from that

438
00:27:32,840 --> 00:27:37,359
Speaker 1: sort of punching down um, which you know used to

439
00:27:37,400 --> 00:27:41,960
Speaker 1: be really popular. UM. And yeah, I just I want

440
00:27:42,000 --> 00:27:46,080
Speaker 1: to see I'd like to see humor uh continue to

441
00:27:46,160 --> 00:27:50,439
Speaker 1: evolve and be a place that actually is filled more

442
00:27:50,480 --> 00:27:55,680
Speaker 1: with love. UM. Not to sound cheesy, but Joey Allison

443
00:27:55,760 --> 00:27:59,840
Speaker 1: Sayer's career continues to thrive in the web comic space,

444
00:28:00,240 --> 00:28:04,680
Speaker 1: with ongoing series for the NIB and for the Universal

445
00:28:04,760 --> 00:28:08,359
Speaker 1: Press indicates website where many web comic artists have found

446
00:28:08,400 --> 00:28:11,720
Speaker 1: their home. And speaking of web comics, we need to

447
00:28:11,760 --> 00:28:14,440
Speaker 1: take a quick look at that medium's history as well,

448
00:28:14,760 --> 00:28:17,800
Speaker 1: because for many of the twelve artists that I spoke with,

449
00:28:18,160 --> 00:28:21,680
Speaker 1: it's where they first became inspired by the independent comics

450
00:28:21,720 --> 00:28:41,000
Speaker 1: scene and where they distributed their early work. The beginning

451
00:28:41,000 --> 00:28:44,760
Speaker 1: of web comics is pretty intuitive. It's the beginning of

452
00:28:44,840 --> 00:28:48,600
Speaker 1: the Internet. During the mid nineties into the early nineties,

453
00:28:48,800 --> 00:28:51,920
Speaker 1: there were a couple of web comics. There was a

454
00:28:52,000 --> 00:28:55,680
Speaker 1: Wizard of Oz parody called Witches and Stitches, and one

455
00:28:55,720 --> 00:28:58,800
Speaker 1: of the first regularly updated comics was called Where the

456
00:28:58,880 --> 00:29:03,280
Speaker 1: Buffalo Room In by Hans br Doll. But during this era,

457
00:29:03,560 --> 00:29:08,360
Speaker 1: web comics were way outnumbered by zines. For reference, about

458
00:29:08,520 --> 00:29:12,360
Speaker 1: forty thousand znes were in circulation during the early nineties,

459
00:29:12,600 --> 00:29:14,840
Speaker 1: but as the nineties went on, a lot of college

460
00:29:14,920 --> 00:29:18,960
Speaker 1: newspapers and music websites started to bring their comics online.

461
00:29:19,160 --> 00:29:22,320
Speaker 1: The Boondocks by Aaron McGruder would later make the leap

462
00:29:22,480 --> 00:29:25,800
Speaker 1: to the syndicated funny pages and even to TV, but

463
00:29:25,960 --> 00:29:29,200
Speaker 1: it started on a music website called hit list dot com.

464
00:29:29,600 --> 00:29:32,719
Speaker 1: Web comics began to surge in the late nineties as

465
00:29:32,800 --> 00:29:36,560
Speaker 1: the Internet surged into American homes. According to a Pew

466
00:29:36,640 --> 00:29:41,160
Speaker 1: research paper from the largest uptick in American home computer

467
00:29:41,240 --> 00:29:45,160
Speaker 1: ownership was between ninety four and ninety five, with many

468
00:29:45,320 --> 00:29:48,760
Speaker 1: lower income American families not getting them until the late

469
00:29:48,880 --> 00:29:52,600
Speaker 1: nineties into the two thousands, when more affordable models became

470
00:29:52,640 --> 00:29:57,240
Speaker 1: available Gateway Gang Baby. Some of the strips popular during

471
00:29:57,280 --> 00:30:00,480
Speaker 1: this time were net Boy by Stafford h lu and

472
00:30:00,800 --> 00:30:04,240
Speaker 1: Argone z Arc by Charlie Parker. These artists began to

473
00:30:04,480 --> 00:30:08,600
Speaker 1: experiment with the form of webcomics, using shapes and dimensions

474
00:30:08,680 --> 00:30:11,600
Speaker 1: that were unique to the Internet and couldn't be printed

475
00:30:11,680 --> 00:30:14,680
Speaker 1: in the parameters of the ordinary funny page, and as

476
00:30:14,800 --> 00:30:17,800
Speaker 1: much as I hate to hand it to Dilbert, it

477
00:30:18,000 --> 00:30:20,920
Speaker 1: was in fact this future right wing Donald Trump addicted

478
00:30:20,920 --> 00:30:23,880
Speaker 1: antagonist Scott Adams to be the first funny page artist

479
00:30:24,040 --> 00:30:26,920
Speaker 1: to find that their strip did better in print when

480
00:30:27,000 --> 00:30:29,680
Speaker 1: it was also made available online. By the end of

481
00:30:29,720 --> 00:30:33,280
Speaker 1: the nineties, there were hundreds of independent web comics available,

482
00:30:33,520 --> 00:30:37,240
Speaker 1: with the only barrier, and not an insignificant one, being

483
00:30:37,560 --> 00:30:40,920
Speaker 1: reliable access to the Internet, and once the medium was

484
00:30:41,080 --> 00:30:45,160
Speaker 1: firmly established, web comics migrated from social media platform to

485
00:30:45,240 --> 00:30:48,400
Speaker 1: social media platform pretty easily. There was a web comic

486
00:30:48,480 --> 00:30:53,200
Speaker 1: culture on live journal, on Tumbler, on blogger, via email newsletters,

487
00:30:53,560 --> 00:30:56,680
Speaker 1: on YouTube, on their own websites, and more often than

488
00:30:56,760 --> 00:31:00,320
Speaker 1: not now on Instagram. Many of these strips aim the

489
00:31:00,400 --> 00:31:04,920
Speaker 1: stuff of legend and addressed intimately personal subjects. One that

490
00:31:05,000 --> 00:31:08,640
Speaker 1: always stands out to me was Ali Brush's Hyperbole and

491
00:31:08,720 --> 00:31:12,320
Speaker 1: a Half, whose commentary on depression and mental health remains

492
00:31:12,320 --> 00:31:15,720
Speaker 1: a classic to this day. Nowadays, there are artists who

493
00:31:15,880 --> 00:31:19,480
Speaker 1: started in web comics who then worked backwards to start

494
00:31:19,600 --> 00:31:22,920
Speaker 1: making tactile znes I did this myself as well, after

495
00:31:23,040 --> 00:31:25,440
Speaker 1: starting to publish work online, and I think it's a

496
00:31:25,480 --> 00:31:28,960
Speaker 1: pretty interesting switch that is unique to Internet natives. For me,

497
00:31:29,080 --> 00:31:31,920
Speaker 1: it came down to a few things. First, publishing and

498
00:31:32,000 --> 00:31:35,160
Speaker 1: sailing zines was one of the only ways to monetize

499
00:31:35,200 --> 00:31:37,800
Speaker 1: your work. And then there's the fact that the tactile

500
00:31:37,920 --> 00:31:40,760
Speaker 1: nature of it was really novel and exciting. And the

501
00:31:40,840 --> 00:31:44,160
Speaker 1: self publishing process, which for me was staying late at

502
00:31:44,240 --> 00:31:46,800
Speaker 1: my job at Playboy and using their printer and also

503
00:31:46,880 --> 00:31:50,080
Speaker 1: their mailing supplies and also their stamps and also their mailbox,

504
00:31:50,400 --> 00:31:53,680
Speaker 1: felt cool. And then there was the appeal of the

505
00:31:53,800 --> 00:31:56,680
Speaker 1: different feedback model. The idea that the work that I

506
00:31:56,840 --> 00:32:00,160
Speaker 1: made wouldn't invite instant commentary like I was to do

507
00:32:00,280 --> 00:32:03,280
Speaker 1: on the Internet was something I was really eager to experience.

508
00:32:03,560 --> 00:32:06,640
Speaker 1: I mean, someone having to sit with your work instead

509
00:32:06,720 --> 00:32:10,040
Speaker 1: of spewing whatever collection of words came to their head.

510
00:32:11,040 --> 00:32:14,640
Speaker 1: Our next artist took this same route, beginning with artist

511
00:32:14,800 --> 00:32:19,800
Speaker 1: number four, Sophia's Arterers, whose work ranges from the hyper political.

512
00:32:20,120 --> 00:32:22,400
Speaker 1: They've done some really cool work for the Long Beach

513
00:32:22,480 --> 00:32:26,560
Speaker 1: d s a solidarity baby, to pop culture commentary with

514
00:32:26,800 --> 00:32:31,560
Speaker 1: zines about problematic pop stars and spotlighting women and trans filmmakers,

515
00:32:31,720 --> 00:32:35,200
Speaker 1: to hyper personal web comics with their work like Our

516
00:32:35,320 --> 00:32:38,760
Speaker 1: Lady of Cacaphoney and Jesus Freak, which both examine and

517
00:32:38,840 --> 00:32:42,160
Speaker 1: comment on her time in Catholic school. They're a versatile

518
00:32:42,280 --> 00:32:44,920
Speaker 1: and curious artist, and I was so excited to talk

519
00:32:45,000 --> 00:32:48,440
Speaker 1: with them about growing up on the isolated internet then

520
00:32:48,600 --> 00:32:53,920
Speaker 1: finding community through zines. What were you drawn to in

521
00:32:54,120 --> 00:32:57,720
Speaker 1: terms of subject matter and how did that kind of evolve? Um?

522
00:32:57,960 --> 00:33:03,560
Speaker 1: What first, I did a lot of Um they're almost

523
00:33:03,640 --> 00:33:09,200
Speaker 1: like diary comics, and I would just kind of make them,

524
00:33:10,280 --> 00:33:14,480
Speaker 1: ah whenever I was just going through a hard time,

525
00:33:14,560 --> 00:33:17,600
Speaker 1: I guess, um, and looking back at them, they're kind

526
00:33:17,640 --> 00:33:21,480
Speaker 1: of like cringe E. I guess um. I think now

527
00:33:21,600 --> 00:33:26,840
Speaker 1: I'm a lot more uh, like I keep my cards

528
00:33:26,920 --> 00:33:32,720
Speaker 1: close when it comes to those things. Um and so yeah,

529
00:33:32,880 --> 00:33:35,800
Speaker 1: like I would directly drop my experiences and whereas now

530
00:33:36,080 --> 00:33:40,200
Speaker 1: I think, Um, I think I'm better at writing and

531
00:33:40,280 --> 00:33:42,880
Speaker 1: better at storytelling where I can create characters that like

532
00:33:43,360 --> 00:33:48,480
Speaker 1: experienced similar things. But um, I'm more interested in like

533
00:33:49,160 --> 00:33:52,600
Speaker 1: telling those stories. When I first started making those really

534
00:33:52,640 --> 00:33:58,600
Speaker 1: personal ones, it um it coincided with like like right

535
00:33:58,680 --> 00:34:02,160
Speaker 1: before I started going to therapy, be I mean I

536
00:34:02,280 --> 00:34:04,840
Speaker 1: kind of started on Tumbler, the first couple of zine

537
00:34:04,880 --> 00:34:09,000
Speaker 1: fest that I did. I feel like they were pretty

538
00:34:09,960 --> 00:34:16,279
Speaker 1: white or they were like this sounds so preposterous, but

539
00:34:16,360 --> 00:34:21,000
Speaker 1: like big names in the zine community UM or the

540
00:34:21,120 --> 00:34:24,880
Speaker 1: in the comics world. And I think in the last

541
00:34:25,160 --> 00:34:30,880
Speaker 1: couple of years people have been more aware of the

542
00:34:30,960 --> 00:34:34,759
Speaker 1: different people that are tabling. It's funny like right after

543
00:34:35,120 --> 00:34:39,040
Speaker 1: I graduated high school, like the summer between high school

544
00:34:39,040 --> 00:34:44,640
Speaker 1: and college, I UM started writing the script for a

545
00:34:44,719 --> 00:34:49,879
Speaker 1: comic UH that ended up becoming Jesus Freak UM, which

546
00:34:49,960 --> 00:34:53,719
Speaker 1: is like on hiatus right now, but UM that was

547
00:34:53,800 --> 00:34:56,640
Speaker 1: really influenced by my high school experience. Even though it's

548
00:34:56,640 --> 00:35:02,880
Speaker 1: about like kids who UH use a weedie board and

549
00:35:03,160 --> 00:35:07,960
Speaker 1: a ghost haunts them for the rest of the comic UM,

550
00:35:09,000 --> 00:35:14,359
Speaker 1: but it's like it channeled a lot of my UM

551
00:35:15,600 --> 00:35:21,319
Speaker 1: frustration with Catholic school and frustration with just like being

552
00:35:21,400 --> 00:35:25,920
Speaker 1: a teenager. Definitely with comic arts l A, I'd say

553
00:35:26,000 --> 00:35:33,239
Speaker 1: that it's there's more smaller creators that are UM given

554
00:35:33,239 --> 00:35:38,600
Speaker 1: the opportunity to show their stuff. Sophia's work absolutely rocks.

555
00:35:38,880 --> 00:35:40,880
Speaker 1: I've learned so much from it. I have laughed a

556
00:35:40,960 --> 00:35:43,279
Speaker 1: ton from it. By up there scenes now because they're

557
00:35:43,320 --> 00:35:45,719
Speaker 1: going to be worth a lot Someday. Web comics have

558
00:35:45,880 --> 00:35:49,360
Speaker 1: also provided a platform for established artists who work in

559
00:35:49,440 --> 00:35:54,120
Speaker 1: animation to get their individuals, stories, and styles out. That's

560
00:35:54,160 --> 00:36:00,359
Speaker 1: the case for artists number five, the wildly talented Katie Rice.

561
00:36:00,760 --> 00:36:03,960
Speaker 1: Katie's artistic influence and sense of humor can be felt

562
00:36:04,200 --> 00:36:10,320
Speaker 1: all over influential millennial cartoons, specifically underappreciated jewels about women

563
00:36:10,360 --> 00:36:13,120
Speaker 1: and girls. Shout out to her past work on shows

564
00:36:13,200 --> 00:36:16,640
Speaker 1: like The Mighty b shout out to DC superhero Girls,

565
00:36:16,840 --> 00:36:24,520
Speaker 1: shout out to my life as a teenage robots While

566
00:36:24,640 --> 00:36:28,000
Speaker 1: working on larger productions like that, Katie also built a

567
00:36:28,080 --> 00:36:31,200
Speaker 1: huge fan base with her personal work, which lived online

568
00:36:31,320 --> 00:36:35,520
Speaker 1: and ranged from commentary on childhood like camp we Don't

569
00:36:35,520 --> 00:36:38,319
Speaker 1: Want You too deeply personal stuff that she made while

570
00:36:38,400 --> 00:36:41,760
Speaker 1: processing her own experiences. Here are some of our interview.

571
00:36:42,840 --> 00:36:46,720
Speaker 1: I actually did start a very short lived autobio comic

572
00:36:47,360 --> 00:36:50,880
Speaker 1: a few years ago that was specifically like autobio comics,

573
00:36:50,920 --> 00:36:52,440
Speaker 1: and I didn't do very many of them because I

574
00:36:52,520 --> 00:36:58,600
Speaker 1: got very vulnerable and I'm not especially comfortable being publicly vulnerable. Um.

575
00:36:59,800 --> 00:37:02,799
Speaker 1: But like the first comic I committed to was back

576
00:37:02,920 --> 00:37:06,520
Speaker 1: in two thousand and eight, and it was not not

577
00:37:06,680 --> 00:37:10,360
Speaker 1: a biographical at all. Um. But then as it was

578
00:37:10,400 --> 00:37:13,359
Speaker 1: going on, people would sometimes comment and be like, oh,

579
00:37:13,520 --> 00:37:15,560
Speaker 1: is this about you? And I'd be like, no, what

580
00:37:15,640 --> 00:37:17,600
Speaker 1: are you talking about? This character is nothing like me.

581
00:37:17,760 --> 00:37:19,320
Speaker 1: And then they'd be like, oh, well it's this, this,

582
00:37:19,520 --> 00:37:23,799
Speaker 1: this and this, and I'm like, oh okay. Like, um,

583
00:37:23,960 --> 00:37:25,959
Speaker 1: So I think I think I have a weird habit.

584
00:37:25,960 --> 00:37:28,359
Speaker 1: And it's so my husband always sees it before before

585
00:37:28,400 --> 00:37:30,480
Speaker 1: I do too, But like, I do have a tendency

586
00:37:30,640 --> 00:37:34,880
Speaker 1: to personal things in my work without realizing it, and

587
00:37:34,960 --> 00:37:37,160
Speaker 1: then later on because it's like, you know, my first

588
00:37:37,200 --> 00:37:40,080
Speaker 1: comic is a comic called Skatie, and the main character

589
00:37:40,280 --> 00:37:43,879
Speaker 1: is is loud and demanding and she's gross and she's

590
00:37:43,960 --> 00:37:47,319
Speaker 1: strong and nobody can defeat her. She's not anything like me, um,

591
00:37:47,880 --> 00:37:50,799
Speaker 1: but she's in this like she's in this like war

592
00:37:51,120 --> 00:37:53,279
Speaker 1: with her like god. Like she has a god that

593
00:37:53,360 --> 00:37:55,839
Speaker 1: she's trying to do quests for and he's a ship

594
00:37:55,960 --> 00:37:58,520
Speaker 1: head and he sucks, but she just wants his approval.

595
00:37:58,800 --> 00:38:02,440
Speaker 1: And I had I had that sacked sort of relationship

596
00:38:02,520 --> 00:38:05,320
Speaker 1: with my mentor growing up. I had this shitty, horrible

597
00:38:05,440 --> 00:38:08,640
Speaker 1: mentor that I would have liked done anything for, and

598
00:38:08,719 --> 00:38:12,040
Speaker 1: I was always treated like complete ship and people started

599
00:38:12,120 --> 00:38:15,319
Speaker 1: making that connection like way before I did. At one

600
00:38:15,360 --> 00:38:18,560
Speaker 1: point in her career, Katie felt very burned out in

601
00:38:18,680 --> 00:38:21,640
Speaker 1: animation and went to the woods to make something with

602
00:38:21,800 --> 00:38:26,560
Speaker 1: her husband, fellow artist Adam Wallander. That something became Camp

603
00:38:26,719 --> 00:38:30,560
Speaker 1: We Don't Watch, a truly classic web comic that oscillates

604
00:38:30,640 --> 00:38:35,520
Speaker 1: between full on cartoon humor and quiet, empathetic storylines about childhood.

605
00:38:35,800 --> 00:38:39,040
Speaker 1: She describes finding a lot of peace and creativity working

606
00:38:39,120 --> 00:38:41,800
Speaker 1: with someone who she loves and trust. Here's some of

607
00:38:41,840 --> 00:38:45,720
Speaker 1: our talk about that. He was very good at helping

608
00:38:45,800 --> 00:38:48,640
Speaker 1: me from skewing too dark, bringing it back to the light,

609
00:38:48,800 --> 00:38:51,840
Speaker 1: or putting a happy, happy spin on something that I

610
00:38:52,040 --> 00:38:55,680
Speaker 1: was going you know a little, I don't know. Yeah, No,

611
00:38:55,840 --> 00:38:58,640
Speaker 1: it's you need that person, especially when it's like someone

612
00:38:58,680 --> 00:39:02,200
Speaker 1: that you don't know nately trust, and that's that's that's

613
00:39:02,200 --> 00:39:07,560
Speaker 1: such a cool um yeah yeah, Actually, I don't know

614
00:39:07,600 --> 00:39:09,719
Speaker 1: if this is going off topic too much, but like, um,

615
00:39:11,320 --> 00:39:13,799
Speaker 1: uh so I'm one of those people like many who

616
00:39:14,719 --> 00:39:18,640
Speaker 1: uh always dealt with um kind of like sad or

617
00:39:18,719 --> 00:39:22,399
Speaker 1: upsetting stuff with humor my whole life. Um, and I've

618
00:39:22,440 --> 00:39:24,279
Speaker 1: kind of I had quite of just grown up in

619
00:39:24,320 --> 00:39:26,279
Speaker 1: the same environment. I worked in the same environment, and

620
00:39:26,360 --> 00:39:29,239
Speaker 1: so I always got the right reaction that I was

621
00:39:29,280 --> 00:39:31,360
Speaker 1: looking for when I would tell funny stories about my

622
00:39:31,400 --> 00:39:34,840
Speaker 1: own like kind of you know, some unpleasant stuff that

623
00:39:34,880 --> 00:39:37,279
Speaker 1: had happened in my work history or whatever you want

624
00:39:37,280 --> 00:39:40,600
Speaker 1: to call it. And then when I met my husband Adam,

625
00:39:40,680 --> 00:39:44,560
Speaker 1: and I told him all my funny stories, uh, he

626
00:39:44,760 --> 00:39:48,239
Speaker 1: was like, those aren't funny. Those are horrible, Like why

627
00:39:48,320 --> 00:39:50,160
Speaker 1: are you telling that, Like it's a joke. And then

628
00:39:50,200 --> 00:39:53,960
Speaker 1: I was like, man, like, oh my god, I know

629
00:39:54,200 --> 00:39:56,719
Speaker 1: you're right, and so, uh, I have my husband to

630
00:39:56,760 --> 00:39:58,800
Speaker 1: think for me, kind of like taking the first step

631
00:39:58,880 --> 00:40:01,240
Speaker 1: into like Okay, let's deal with some of this stuff.

632
00:40:01,280 --> 00:40:02,879
Speaker 1: And that's like, let's be an adult now and deal

633
00:40:02,920 --> 00:40:05,880
Speaker 1: with some of these things. Katie has also been a

634
00:40:06,040 --> 00:40:10,239
Speaker 1: huge advocate for marginalized voices and animation, a field which

635
00:40:10,480 --> 00:40:14,080
Speaker 1: to this day is a very very white male field.

636
00:40:14,360 --> 00:40:17,040
Speaker 1: She spoke on how isolating that could be and these

637
00:40:17,120 --> 00:40:20,879
Speaker 1: stereotypes attributed to women in that space, and it really

638
00:40:20,960 --> 00:40:23,960
Speaker 1: reminded me of how Kathy Guy's White spoke about her

639
00:40:24,080 --> 00:40:28,840
Speaker 1: earlier years in the male dominated newspaper comic space. I

640
00:40:28,960 --> 00:40:30,840
Speaker 1: just don't know where they were, like I don't know

641
00:40:31,000 --> 00:40:34,239
Speaker 1: where all the women were, uh starting out. And there's

642
00:40:34,239 --> 00:40:36,799
Speaker 1: also just the stereotypes like I kind of mentioned, which

643
00:40:36,840 --> 00:40:41,560
Speaker 1: were you know, women were better suited in assistant roles,

644
00:40:41,960 --> 00:40:46,560
Speaker 1: uh roles that were you know color um, you know,

645
00:40:46,640 --> 00:40:50,080
Speaker 1: which is a super important job. But like I think

646
00:40:50,120 --> 00:40:52,120
Speaker 1: if people see it as like, oh, it's it's adding

647
00:40:52,239 --> 00:40:56,320
Speaker 1: something beautiful to our cartoon, it's um, you know. And

648
00:40:56,600 --> 00:40:59,600
Speaker 1: like personally, I think I think color can be very

649
00:41:00,400 --> 00:41:02,680
Speaker 1: story um and it should get that credit. But I

650
00:41:02,719 --> 00:41:05,040
Speaker 1: don't know that everybody always sees it that way. It's

651
00:41:05,080 --> 00:41:10,239
Speaker 1: more like yeah and yeah, the stories, the stories, the

652
00:41:10,280 --> 00:41:12,719
Speaker 1: story people were always were always guys, and I don't

653
00:41:13,000 --> 00:41:15,200
Speaker 1: I don't know what changed it. Something something along the

654
00:41:15,280 --> 00:41:17,360
Speaker 1: way changed it and I got to be part of it,

655
00:41:17,440 --> 00:41:22,040
Speaker 1: which I feel grateful for. Katie Rice's work across mediums

656
00:41:22,320 --> 00:41:25,560
Speaker 1: is so wonderful. She is a huge role model of mine,

657
00:41:25,719 --> 00:41:29,200
Speaker 1: and you will love her work too. Artist number six,

658
00:41:30,040 --> 00:41:33,080
Speaker 1: One of my favorite genres of web comic artists is

659
00:41:33,280 --> 00:41:36,479
Speaker 1: a person who is making whatever the funk they want

660
00:41:36,640 --> 00:41:38,560
Speaker 1: because they already have a job in a life, and

661
00:41:38,680 --> 00:41:41,120
Speaker 1: so what they're bringing to the Internet is truly just

662
00:41:41,360 --> 00:41:44,520
Speaker 1: what they want to say. That is where artists number

663
00:41:44,640 --> 00:41:47,960
Speaker 1: six pm Jarra mo Bub comes in, and she's a

664
00:41:48,120 --> 00:41:50,400
Speaker 1: very raw kind of funny that just comes through so

665
00:41:50,680 --> 00:41:53,640
Speaker 1: clearly in her web comic work, which is influenced by

666
00:41:53,719 --> 00:41:56,640
Speaker 1: her love of the early confessional web comics of the

667
00:41:56,719 --> 00:42:00,960
Speaker 1: two thousands, stuff like a Softer World by Joey Como

668
00:42:01,080 --> 00:42:05,319
Speaker 1: and artist Emily Horn, like Perry Bible Fellowship by Nicholas Cure,

669
00:42:05,360 --> 00:42:09,440
Speaker 1: which Perfect Stars by Jordan Piantadosi. Like many artists we've

670
00:42:09,520 --> 00:42:13,760
Speaker 1: talked with, Pomarra is also very versatile, most recently serving

671
00:42:13,840 --> 00:42:16,759
Speaker 1: as the co creator of Netflix show Why Are You

672
00:42:17,000 --> 00:42:20,840
Speaker 1: Like This? With Naomi Higgins and Mark Samuel Banano. But

673
00:42:20,960 --> 00:42:25,080
Speaker 1: she developed her comedic voice originally through her autobiographical comics

674
00:42:25,200 --> 00:42:28,680
Speaker 1: while working as a full time law student and now lawyer.

675
00:42:29,000 --> 00:42:31,399
Speaker 1: Some of her strips read like poems, and then there's

676
00:42:31,440 --> 00:42:34,640
Speaker 1: others that are gross or introspective or kind or whatever

677
00:42:34,760 --> 00:42:37,239
Speaker 1: she's feeling, which is what makes it so good. Here's

678
00:42:37,280 --> 00:42:42,160
Speaker 1: a conversation we had about her life in comics at UNI.

679
00:42:42,480 --> 00:42:44,960
Speaker 1: I think, which it's weird that I had that much

680
00:42:45,000 --> 00:42:48,479
Speaker 1: confidence because I was in well, it's always I'm I've been,

681
00:42:48,719 --> 00:42:51,600
Speaker 1: you know, confident outside of my ability my whole life,

682
00:42:51,600 --> 00:42:53,399
Speaker 1: which I actually think is my greatest strength. I don't

683
00:42:53,400 --> 00:42:54,920
Speaker 1: give ship. There' all kinds of idiots doing all kinds

684
00:42:54,920 --> 00:42:58,000
Speaker 1: of stuff. I could be one of them. Um yeah,

685
00:42:59,400 --> 00:43:01,680
Speaker 1: but I I was at Union, I was studying law,

686
00:43:02,000 --> 00:43:05,000
Speaker 1: and I just I don't know why I did. I

687
00:43:05,040 --> 00:43:07,800
Speaker 1: just started putting them on my Facebook, and most of

688
00:43:07,840 --> 00:43:12,320
Speaker 1: them at that time were very um, I don't know,

689
00:43:12,440 --> 00:43:16,960
Speaker 1: like teen oblique, you know what I mean. And I

690
00:43:17,080 --> 00:43:22,439
Speaker 1: remember lots of like men in my classes. I guess

691
00:43:22,440 --> 00:43:25,040
Speaker 1: they were boys. They were eighteen to twenty two or whatever. Um,

692
00:43:26,000 --> 00:43:28,040
Speaker 1: all the boys in my classes would be like what

693
00:43:28,480 --> 00:43:31,239
Speaker 1: what does that even mean? Do just so like you

694
00:43:31,320 --> 00:43:36,520
Speaker 1: like into arts? Are you still working as a lawyer

695
00:43:36,680 --> 00:43:39,759
Speaker 1: from in the day to day sense? I am, yes,

696
00:43:40,120 --> 00:43:44,400
Speaker 1: um weirdly, yeah, it's a bit of a weird situation.

697
00:43:44,520 --> 00:43:46,840
Speaker 1: Like I keep having to run home from what I

698
00:43:46,960 --> 00:43:49,040
Speaker 1: like was late to an interview yesterday because I couldn't

699
00:43:49,040 --> 00:43:51,640
Speaker 1: get out of work on time. I remember actually having

700
00:43:51,640 --> 00:43:54,280
Speaker 1: a whole thing being like, okayple if I'm serious lawyer person,

701
00:43:54,800 --> 00:43:56,880
Speaker 1: I can't be you know, fiddling around with these drawings,

702
00:43:56,920 --> 00:44:01,080
Speaker 1: these like silly doodles um because I woul always getting

703
00:44:01,080 --> 00:44:03,600
Speaker 1: troubling class for doodling before we switched to laptops um,

704
00:44:04,920 --> 00:44:07,400
Speaker 1: and so I remember thinking to myself, I had to

705
00:44:07,400 --> 00:44:08,960
Speaker 1: stop doing it. So I actually stopped for like a

706
00:44:09,080 --> 00:44:11,880
Speaker 1: year or a bit. So I did, and then I

707
00:44:12,000 --> 00:44:13,960
Speaker 1: was just one day I just went fuck itt um.

708
00:44:14,160 --> 00:44:17,200
Speaker 1: So I started again, and then I started posting online.

709
00:44:18,239 --> 00:44:21,480
Speaker 1: Home has also worked outside of web comics, illustrating for

710
00:44:21,600 --> 00:44:25,120
Speaker 1: the Australian Broadcasting Company and The Toast, but her most

711
00:44:25,200 --> 00:44:28,640
Speaker 1: popular work is posted to her personal page. Again, I

712
00:44:28,760 --> 00:44:31,960
Speaker 1: cannot recommend Holmes Comics enough and check out Why Are

713
00:44:32,000 --> 00:44:36,080
Speaker 1: You Like This? On Netflix right now. Artist number eight

714
00:44:36,640 --> 00:44:39,880
Speaker 1: is Sena Grace, who was just as well known for

715
00:44:40,000 --> 00:44:44,080
Speaker 1: his autobiographical work in graphic novels like Self Obsessed and

716
00:44:44,320 --> 00:44:47,239
Speaker 1: Nothing Lasts Forever as he is for his work in

717
00:44:47,400 --> 00:44:52,160
Speaker 1: big name comic franchises like Iceman Go Go, Power Rangers,

718
00:44:52,280 --> 00:44:54,919
Speaker 1: gem In the Holograms, jug Head. I could keep going.

719
00:44:55,120 --> 00:44:59,120
Speaker 1: Sena's sense of humor and authorial mark is very consistent

720
00:44:59,280 --> 00:45:01,839
Speaker 1: no matter what genre he's working in, and he's become

721
00:45:01,880 --> 00:45:04,719
Speaker 1: a real pioneer in introducing l G B t Q

722
00:45:04,960 --> 00:45:08,759
Speaker 1: I A plus characters into mainstream comics, even when the

723
00:45:08,840 --> 00:45:14,239
Speaker 1: powers that be Marvel uh didn't always adequately support him

724
00:45:14,320 --> 00:45:17,719
Speaker 1: to make it happen. He's just wonderful and has this

725
00:45:17,920 --> 00:45:21,480
Speaker 1: really comprehensive knowledge of the comics medium, from the funnies

726
00:45:21,560 --> 00:45:24,960
Speaker 1: to the superheroes to the heart wrenching personal graphic novels.

727
00:45:25,120 --> 00:45:27,760
Speaker 1: And it was so much fun picking his brain. Here's

728
00:45:27,760 --> 00:45:31,480
Speaker 1: our conversation. You always want to do the thing you admire,

729
00:45:31,640 --> 00:45:33,759
Speaker 1: So of course when I started, I really wanted to

730
00:45:33,840 --> 00:45:37,520
Speaker 1: do like high concept superhero books, and I was reading

731
00:45:37,560 --> 00:45:39,360
Speaker 1: a lot of these comics that were just about like

732
00:45:40,120 --> 00:45:43,960
Speaker 1: big breasted women who get powers that like make it

733
00:45:44,080 --> 00:45:46,120
Speaker 1: that their clothes get torn off and so. But it

734
00:45:46,239 --> 00:45:48,680
Speaker 1: wasn't until I think I was in college and I

735
00:45:48,800 --> 00:45:51,960
Speaker 1: read this book Blankets by Craig Thompson, and that was

736
00:45:52,080 --> 00:45:55,640
Speaker 1: the It's dope And I had read like graphic memoir before,

737
00:45:55,760 --> 00:45:58,520
Speaker 1: but I think that and this book Pagro and Me

738
00:45:58,640 --> 00:46:02,560
Speaker 1: by Jed Winnick, who was Judd from Real World San Francisco,

739
00:46:02,760 --> 00:46:04,920
Speaker 1: and he hung out with Pedro's Zamora and he did

740
00:46:04,960 --> 00:46:09,400
Speaker 1: a book about his friendship with Pedro and HIV and

741
00:46:09,680 --> 00:46:12,160
Speaker 1: it was just a really beautiful tribute to this guy's life.

742
00:46:12,600 --> 00:46:15,480
Speaker 1: And then I started working at a comic book company.

743
00:46:15,520 --> 00:46:20,239
Speaker 1: I was editing comics for the guy who created and

744
00:46:20,520 --> 00:46:24,160
Speaker 1: that job also drove me crazy. So this book about

745
00:46:24,320 --> 00:46:26,800
Speaker 1: another job that drove me crazy was like my like

746
00:46:27,120 --> 00:46:29,200
Speaker 1: way to like to take care of myself is like

747
00:46:29,239 --> 00:46:31,719
Speaker 1: I would work till like eight or nine pm and

748
00:46:31,760 --> 00:46:34,640
Speaker 1: then go to intelligency on sunset and work till like

749
00:46:34,719 --> 00:46:38,480
Speaker 1: ten thirty or eleven PM on this comic book. Finding

750
00:46:38,560 --> 00:46:42,239
Speaker 1: that he was unhappy just editing comics, Cina began to

751
00:46:42,440 --> 00:46:46,560
Speaker 1: channel his creative energy into telling more personal stories, eventually

752
00:46:46,640 --> 00:46:50,279
Speaker 1: getting several of his collections published. I've done a few

753
00:46:50,640 --> 00:46:54,399
Speaker 1: autobiographical books like not My Bag, and then you've read

754
00:46:54,400 --> 00:46:57,560
Speaker 1: Self Obsessed Um, which was more of a that one

755
00:46:57,680 --> 00:46:59,640
Speaker 1: was more of like to throw anything against the wall

756
00:46:59,680 --> 00:47:03,799
Speaker 1: and sea Sticks book, and and then like once again

757
00:47:03,880 --> 00:47:06,239
Speaker 1: helped me out of a dark phase. But the book

758
00:47:06,280 --> 00:47:09,480
Speaker 1: that I'm most proud of and it was such an

759
00:47:09,520 --> 00:47:13,239
Speaker 1: interesting challenge, was this book called Nothing Lasts Forever Um,

760
00:47:13,719 --> 00:47:17,880
Speaker 1: which was the last auto biobook I've I've done because

761
00:47:17,960 --> 00:47:22,160
Speaker 1: it sort of was it. It's like when I started it,

762
00:47:22,280 --> 00:47:25,640
Speaker 1: it was just journal entries I had gotten sick with this, Um,

763
00:47:27,239 --> 00:47:28,759
Speaker 1: I don't even know what I mean, It's just a

764
00:47:28,800 --> 00:47:31,400
Speaker 1: disorder in my esophagus. And I was like yacking up

765
00:47:31,560 --> 00:47:34,279
Speaker 1: food left and right and losing a ton of weight.

766
00:47:34,440 --> 00:47:38,040
Speaker 1: And I was like super depressed. And then on top

767
00:47:38,120 --> 00:47:40,520
Speaker 1: of that, just dealing with like the every three year

768
00:47:40,640 --> 00:47:44,000
Speaker 1: cycle of being a creative being, like I don't have

769
00:47:44,080 --> 00:47:45,800
Speaker 1: a story to tell, I don't know what to do,

770
00:47:46,440 --> 00:47:50,160
Speaker 1: like nothing sticking like yeah yeah, and then you know,

771
00:47:50,280 --> 00:47:53,960
Speaker 1: also like making the same mistakes with guys over over again,

772
00:47:54,360 --> 00:47:58,680
Speaker 1: and um. And it was just sort of this but

773
00:47:58,960 --> 00:48:02,040
Speaker 1: like the tap Street started coming together and and and

774
00:48:02,160 --> 00:48:04,200
Speaker 1: everyone was telling me it was the book. Like everyone

775
00:48:04,320 --> 00:48:06,399
Speaker 1: was like, this is your book, Like these journal entries

776
00:48:06,440 --> 00:48:08,719
Speaker 1: are your book. Like all this other crap you're trying

777
00:48:08,719 --> 00:48:10,279
Speaker 1: to do is not the book. This is the book.

778
00:48:10,360 --> 00:48:14,120
Speaker 1: So and then this book I actually like reveled in

779
00:48:14,200 --> 00:48:18,640
Speaker 1: its messiness, Like I reveled in like I intentionally made

780
00:48:18,680 --> 00:48:23,080
Speaker 1: it non sequarders happen. I made it dirty, like it's

781
00:48:23,120 --> 00:48:27,200
Speaker 1: all drawn in pencil with like a very limited color palette. Um,

782
00:48:28,000 --> 00:48:30,920
Speaker 1: you know, like I at one point I did have

783
00:48:31,040 --> 00:48:35,680
Speaker 1: to erase um a person's name because he didn't really

784
00:48:35,719 --> 00:48:38,680
Speaker 1: want his name to be in it, and so I

785
00:48:38,840 --> 00:48:41,560
Speaker 1: like but even that you could see like I intentionally

786
00:48:41,680 --> 00:48:43,680
Speaker 1: left the smudges so the reader knows that that's not

787
00:48:43,840 --> 00:48:47,719
Speaker 1: his actual name. Um, there's like a fragility that I

788
00:48:48,360 --> 00:48:51,520
Speaker 1: I love about it and and it's such a delicate

789
00:48:51,600 --> 00:48:57,600
Speaker 1: book about a delicate time. Um, and I love it.

790
00:48:57,640 --> 00:48:59,960
Speaker 1: I love it a lot for that it seem. Agree

791
00:49:00,200 --> 00:49:03,560
Speaker 1: is such a fascinating figure in comics because the themes

792
00:49:03,600 --> 00:49:06,759
Speaker 1: in tone of his personal work so easily find their

793
00:49:06,800 --> 00:49:09,880
Speaker 1: way into his work for big name franchises in a

794
00:49:09,920 --> 00:49:12,920
Speaker 1: way that feels really effortless. Here he is talking about

795
00:49:12,960 --> 00:49:16,520
Speaker 1: his time working for the Iceman franchise at Marvel for

796
00:49:16,719 --> 00:49:21,360
Speaker 1: non superhero worshippers like myself. Iceman was originally a Stanley

797
00:49:21,520 --> 00:49:25,279
Speaker 1: character from three who's basically like a B side X

798
00:49:25,320 --> 00:49:27,840
Speaker 1: Man X Men fans, Please do not contact me if

799
00:49:27,880 --> 00:49:30,360
Speaker 1: I'm wrong about that. But seen as interpretation of the

800
00:49:30,480 --> 00:49:35,200
Speaker 1: character is empathetic and nuanced and funny. The thing that

801
00:49:35,440 --> 00:49:39,279
Speaker 1: like a lot of the legacy X Men fans were

802
00:49:39,360 --> 00:49:42,359
Speaker 1: upset about, was like, how could ice Man be gay?

803
00:49:43,120 --> 00:49:49,040
Speaker 1: Like he's gone all these years like dating chicks and I,

804
00:49:49,239 --> 00:49:50,840
Speaker 1: you know, I didn't make him gay. I didn't have

805
00:49:50,960 --> 00:49:52,799
Speaker 1: him come out like that happened before me, but they

806
00:49:52,880 --> 00:49:58,120
Speaker 1: hired me to like you know, finesse it and I

807
00:49:58,239 --> 00:50:01,120
Speaker 1: have dated a number of guys is where they just

808
00:50:01,239 --> 00:50:04,920
Speaker 1: haven't come out until there's twenty late twenties, thirties, And

809
00:50:05,400 --> 00:50:10,800
Speaker 1: this isn't like I'm talking like two thousand eighteen whenever

810
00:50:10,880 --> 00:50:13,960
Speaker 1: that like right, like literally, you know, within six months

811
00:50:14,000 --> 00:50:15,960
Speaker 1: of writing that book, like I dated a guy who

812
00:50:16,040 --> 00:50:19,960
Speaker 1: had come out of like thirty one, and I just

813
00:50:21,640 --> 00:50:25,719
Speaker 1: respectfully and like I amalgamated all these narratives, but I

814
00:50:25,800 --> 00:50:29,640
Speaker 1: took these guys truths and I gave it to the

815
00:50:29,760 --> 00:50:31,799
Speaker 1: character because it was just like, that's the only way

816
00:50:31,840 --> 00:50:34,839
Speaker 1: I'm going to get through this is if is if

817
00:50:34,920 --> 00:50:40,200
Speaker 1: this hyper science fiction character's journey is rooted in actual

818
00:50:40,360 --> 00:50:43,040
Speaker 1: things that I can point to haters and be like,

819
00:50:43,360 --> 00:50:45,560
Speaker 1: you don't have to vibe with it, but like this,

820
00:50:46,440 --> 00:50:51,000
Speaker 1: like this is four people I know. I highly recommend

821
00:50:51,160 --> 00:50:53,480
Speaker 1: you check out seeing his work, whether you're a fan

822
00:50:53,719 --> 00:50:56,960
Speaker 1: of big name comic franchises or like me, if you

823
00:50:57,120 --> 00:51:01,600
Speaker 1: like deeply personal work. I absolutely love nothing last Forever.

824
00:51:02,080 --> 00:51:05,520
Speaker 1: Zina often refers to himself as being self obsessed in

825
00:51:05,719 --> 00:51:08,319
Speaker 1: his personal work to the point where that's the name

826
00:51:08,360 --> 00:51:12,120
Speaker 1: of a whole collection he published. Artist number eight talks

827
00:51:12,160 --> 00:51:14,960
Speaker 1: about herself in much the same way, and I love

828
00:51:15,000 --> 00:51:18,319
Speaker 1: her for it. And who is artist number eight? It's

829
00:51:18,440 --> 00:51:21,759
Speaker 1: Gina winn Brant. Gina and I became friends when I

830
00:51:22,000 --> 00:51:24,279
Speaker 1: was a huge fan of her work from Afar and

831
00:51:24,320 --> 00:51:26,920
Speaker 1: wouldn't stop tweeting at her about it, and she eventually

832
00:51:27,320 --> 00:51:30,080
Speaker 1: broke down and became my friend. Her first comic collection

833
00:51:30,320 --> 00:51:32,719
Speaker 1: is called Someone Please Have Sex with Me. It came

834
00:51:32,760 --> 00:51:36,120
Speaker 1: out in and is currently being developed for TV. Like

835
00:51:36,239 --> 00:51:39,080
Speaker 1: many others we've spoken with, Gina started by posting her

836
00:51:39,120 --> 00:51:42,120
Speaker 1: comics online when she didn't see her particular brand of

837
00:51:42,160 --> 00:51:45,480
Speaker 1: horny nous represented, then slowly began to build out a

838
00:51:45,600 --> 00:51:48,279
Speaker 1: full narrative for her book with some of my all

839
00:51:48,360 --> 00:51:52,200
Speaker 1: time favorite commentary on bodies, on wanting to fuck, and

840
00:51:52,640 --> 00:51:57,000
Speaker 1: on peak Justin Bieber. Here's some of our talk. My

841
00:51:57,120 --> 00:52:01,279
Speaker 1: name's Cheetah win Brant and I lived in Cargo and

842
00:52:01,680 --> 00:52:05,160
Speaker 1: I make comics. What were the earliest comics you were

843
00:52:05,239 --> 00:52:08,320
Speaker 1: making about? Yeah, it was definitely always interested in like

844
00:52:08,600 --> 00:52:13,799
Speaker 1: celebrities are wanting to do my I don't know, yeah,

845
00:52:13,920 --> 00:52:16,480
Speaker 1: find a way to like feel like a celebrity doing

846
00:52:16,600 --> 00:52:20,800
Speaker 1: self published comics. I feel like putting in pop culture

847
00:52:21,040 --> 00:52:26,440
Speaker 1: and celebrity stuff is you know, not that's something that

848
00:52:26,600 --> 00:52:31,480
Speaker 1: everyone was doing. Gina developed her work online and got

849
00:52:31,560 --> 00:52:35,200
Speaker 1: involved in zene culture in Chicago, distributing her work at

850
00:52:35,280 --> 00:52:39,560
Speaker 1: independent bookstores like Quimby's and self publishing throughout her early career.

851
00:52:39,840 --> 00:52:41,800
Speaker 1: It didn't take her very long to figure out what

852
00:52:41,920 --> 00:52:45,280
Speaker 1: it was she wanted to talk about sex, pop culture,

853
00:52:45,640 --> 00:52:50,759
Speaker 1: and herself. I've always enjoyed talking about sex, you know,

854
00:52:50,920 --> 00:52:53,960
Speaker 1: in my own personal life, so it just seems natural

855
00:52:54,120 --> 00:52:59,160
Speaker 1: that it would spill over into my comics. Like when

856
00:52:59,200 --> 00:53:01,920
Speaker 1: I my virginity, I was the first one out of

857
00:53:02,000 --> 00:53:04,280
Speaker 1: my friends and I had to tell everyone in brag

858
00:53:04,400 --> 00:53:07,080
Speaker 1: and I'm like very proud that I have sex, so

859
00:53:09,600 --> 00:53:12,279
Speaker 1: uh and people need to know. So that's why I

860
00:53:12,320 --> 00:53:16,600
Speaker 1: can make about But um, even before I did comics,

861
00:53:16,800 --> 00:53:22,000
Speaker 1: I was like exposing myself on the Internet and stuff,

862
00:53:22,040 --> 00:53:25,080
Speaker 1: and like he had an online journal, you know, live

863
00:53:25,200 --> 00:53:31,640
Speaker 1: journals and stuff like that. So I'm used to like

864
00:53:33,200 --> 00:53:36,279
Speaker 1: writing just being you know, being self obsessed and like

865
00:53:37,200 --> 00:53:39,440
Speaker 1: write and look, this is what happened. To Me, You guys.

866
00:53:40,480 --> 00:53:43,080
Speaker 1: Gina's work can be found on two cloud and on

867
00:53:43,160 --> 00:53:46,680
Speaker 1: her website linked in the description, And Someone Please Have

868
00:53:46,760 --> 00:53:49,279
Speaker 1: Sex With Me is one of the best comic collections

869
00:53:49,400 --> 00:54:06,680
Speaker 1: ever published. Deal with It. I've been talking with a

870
00:54:06,760 --> 00:54:10,120
Speaker 1: lot of artists who work in multiple formats, but there's

871
00:54:10,160 --> 00:54:15,600
Speaker 1: many popular autobiographical comic artists who work exclusively online. Our

872
00:54:15,680 --> 00:54:19,399
Speaker 1: next three artists are women whose web comics blew up

873
00:54:19,600 --> 00:54:22,760
Speaker 1: in the past several years on Instagram as they explored

874
00:54:22,800 --> 00:54:27,440
Speaker 1: their own lives, interests, and anxieties while building an audience

875
00:54:27,640 --> 00:54:30,399
Speaker 1: and learning to draw in real time. I think it's

876
00:54:30,440 --> 00:54:33,280
Speaker 1: so interesting how much this is carried through from Kathy

877
00:54:33,320 --> 00:54:35,560
Speaker 1: guys White learning to draw her stories day to day

878
00:54:35,600 --> 00:54:38,239
Speaker 1: in the paper in her early years. Do artists like

879
00:54:38,960 --> 00:54:44,839
Speaker 1: artists number nine Kim ak the Red Dot, whose work

880
00:54:44,920 --> 00:54:48,279
Speaker 1: has developed a really strong following just in the last

881
00:54:48,320 --> 00:54:51,759
Speaker 1: two years. I became familiar with Kim's work online over

882
00:54:51,840 --> 00:54:55,040
Speaker 1: the Pandemic Lockdown. Prior to starting the comics, she had

883
00:54:55,080 --> 00:54:59,280
Speaker 1: been developing her style privately, but in March began sharing

884
00:54:59,360 --> 00:55:02,440
Speaker 1: her work single day on the platform, and as these

885
00:55:02,560 --> 00:55:06,200
Speaker 1: online stories sometimes go, one of her comics went viral

886
00:55:06,360 --> 00:55:09,880
Speaker 1: after George ta Kay shared it and her semi autobiographical

887
00:55:10,040 --> 00:55:14,719
Speaker 1: character Dot and the comic strip overall exploded. The Red

888
00:55:14,800 --> 00:55:19,080
Speaker 1: Dot generally explores the world through Dot, who is essentially

889
00:55:19,400 --> 00:55:23,760
Speaker 1: Kim's Cathy character, most often using pop culture reference points

890
00:55:24,040 --> 00:55:27,560
Speaker 1: from movies and fantasy stories to explore her own life

891
00:55:27,640 --> 00:55:30,600
Speaker 1: and ideas. In some of my favorite strips, the Dot

892
00:55:30,760 --> 00:55:34,800
Speaker 1: character often talks to pass versions of herself at different ages,

893
00:55:35,000 --> 00:55:37,279
Speaker 1: with the perspective of her life now as a thirty

894
00:55:37,320 --> 00:55:40,439
Speaker 1: year old, it's really good these days. Less than two

895
00:55:40,640 --> 00:55:44,080
Speaker 1: years into becoming a comic artist while continuing to work

896
00:55:44,120 --> 00:55:47,280
Speaker 1: her day job, the Red Dot has over four hundred

897
00:55:47,440 --> 00:55:51,000
Speaker 1: thousand followers in a loyal base of fans on Patreon.

898
00:55:51,280 --> 00:55:55,040
Speaker 1: I talked to him recently about this uniquely online journey.

899
00:55:56,000 --> 00:56:01,480
Speaker 1: So take me through your web comics, uh fandom journey

900
00:56:01,600 --> 00:56:04,040
Speaker 1: where it was cyanide happiness kind of your entry point

901
00:56:04,080 --> 00:56:05,520
Speaker 1: there and then how did how did it kind of

902
00:56:05,560 --> 00:56:08,160
Speaker 1: go from there? They're definitely the entry point. Like I

903
00:56:08,360 --> 00:56:11,920
Speaker 1: literally had a community computer animation class where me and

904
00:56:12,040 --> 00:56:16,000
Speaker 1: my friends would not do our assignment and just browse

905
00:56:16,160 --> 00:56:21,479
Speaker 1: through their website and send them to each other. Um, yeah,

906
00:56:21,600 --> 00:56:26,840
Speaker 1: so watching them grow and then like Shin and Sarah

907
00:56:26,920 --> 00:56:31,520
Speaker 1: Anderson and like the Tumbler generation kind of blew up

908
00:56:31,600 --> 00:56:34,880
Speaker 1: into read it, and then you just had influx of

909
00:56:34,960 --> 00:56:40,320
Speaker 1: all these great little art styles and relatable perspectives that

910
00:56:40,560 --> 00:56:44,040
Speaker 1: just hit even though if it wasn't exactly something you

911
00:56:44,120 --> 00:56:46,120
Speaker 1: went through, you're like, oh, I can see that. How

912
00:56:46,200 --> 00:56:49,719
Speaker 1: much of dot is pulled from you? Um? And and

913
00:56:49,800 --> 00:56:52,680
Speaker 1: how did you build out the character? Has the character

914
00:56:52,840 --> 00:56:57,080
Speaker 1: changed since she started drawing her consistently or she's definitely

915
00:56:57,239 --> 00:57:01,560
Speaker 1: changed uh in style as I've gotten better and more

916
00:57:01,719 --> 00:57:06,160
Speaker 1: used to uh figure drawing every day. Because she was

917
00:57:06,280 --> 00:57:10,960
Speaker 1: super lanky, really big bulbous eyes kind of Tim Burton.

918
00:57:11,560 --> 00:57:14,080
Speaker 1: I didn't want to go for that. It just happened

919
00:57:14,120 --> 00:57:16,880
Speaker 1: to be really skinny, lanky, But um, she started to

920
00:57:16,920 --> 00:57:19,840
Speaker 1: get more proportioned and then a lot more expressive with

921
00:57:19,920 --> 00:57:23,720
Speaker 1: the eyes. And when it comes to her character, I

922
00:57:23,760 --> 00:57:31,520
Speaker 1: would say emotionally pretty dead set on. Like, um, I

923
00:57:31,960 --> 00:57:36,080
Speaker 1: came out of the closet as bisexual woman back in

924
00:57:36,120 --> 00:57:37,960
Speaker 1: two thousand and eighteen, and I started like kind of

925
00:57:38,000 --> 00:57:44,960
Speaker 1: incorporating those kind of lgbt Q positive comics, not because

926
00:57:45,120 --> 00:57:47,320
Speaker 1: I'm suddenly a part of this community. It's just I'm

927
00:57:47,440 --> 00:57:52,880
Speaker 1: finally okay expressing that part of myself out being inauthentic.

928
00:57:52,960 --> 00:57:55,800
Speaker 1: I don't want to represent something that I'm not and

929
00:57:55,920 --> 00:58:00,280
Speaker 1: then do a disservice. The Red Dot strip was ways

930
00:58:00,400 --> 00:58:03,960
Speaker 1: personal and was initially released within the context of the

931
00:58:04,120 --> 00:58:08,520
Speaker 1: existential stress and fear of the COVID nineteen pandemic lockdown.

932
00:58:08,880 --> 00:58:12,160
Speaker 1: It was during this time that Kim's husband spent a long,

933
00:58:12,600 --> 00:58:15,840
Speaker 1: terrifying stretch in the hospital, something that was referenced and

934
00:58:16,000 --> 00:58:20,160
Speaker 1: addressed head on in the comic until his thankfully recovery

935
00:58:20,360 --> 00:58:24,080
Speaker 1: and return home. Kim was processing this stress and anxiety

936
00:58:24,200 --> 00:58:26,720
Speaker 1: in her work in real time, and as she tells it,

937
00:58:26,880 --> 00:58:29,720
Speaker 1: the community that was built around the comic strip played

938
00:58:29,720 --> 00:58:34,440
Speaker 1: a large role in getting her through a really difficult time. Uh.

939
00:58:34,560 --> 00:58:37,720
Speaker 1: It's definitely a like a form of therapy at times.

940
00:58:37,880 --> 00:58:40,200
Speaker 1: Other days where it feels like work where I'm not

941
00:58:40,920 --> 00:58:45,000
Speaker 1: I'm not in love with it, but sometimes just having

942
00:58:45,280 --> 00:58:49,040
Speaker 1: the the routine of Okay, I need to get this done,

943
00:58:49,320 --> 00:58:51,360
Speaker 1: and once I have it out, it will be a

944
00:58:51,480 --> 00:58:54,600
Speaker 1: catharsis and we can go on with the next day.

945
00:58:55,560 --> 00:58:58,040
Speaker 1: I don't have to answer to people saying like, well,

946
00:58:58,200 --> 00:59:01,240
Speaker 1: you can't be by because you're married a guy. It's no.

947
00:59:01,520 --> 00:59:03,680
Speaker 1: This was about me being okay with me, so I

948
00:59:03,720 --> 00:59:06,160
Speaker 1: want to talk about it here and there. And then

949
00:59:07,360 --> 00:59:13,040
Speaker 1: once it felt more comfortable coming out in that expression,

950
00:59:13,280 --> 00:59:15,800
Speaker 1: I was I was able to be more vocal about

951
00:59:15,880 --> 00:59:20,720
Speaker 1: it there before having actual conversations with certain family members. Um,

952
00:59:22,040 --> 00:59:26,040
Speaker 1: so yeah, it definitely it's a nice slow role. For that,

953
00:59:27,720 --> 00:59:30,160
Speaker 1: I will be linking to the Red Dot comic and

954
00:59:30,240 --> 00:59:32,960
Speaker 1: the description. Reading Kim's work is honestly one of my

955
00:59:33,200 --> 00:59:38,640
Speaker 1: favorite parts of the day. Onto artist number ten, my

956
00:59:38,800 --> 00:59:43,400
Speaker 1: dear friend Anna Selinas, an illustrator, comedian, and TV writer

957
00:59:43,680 --> 00:59:46,640
Speaker 1: who does I think some of the sharpest commentary on

958
00:59:46,800 --> 00:59:50,040
Speaker 1: depression and body image in the game with her strip

959
00:59:50,200 --> 00:59:53,840
Speaker 1: Bad Comics by Anna on Instagram, which currently stands at

960
00:59:53,920 --> 00:59:57,760
Speaker 1: over fifty followers. Like the Red Dot and Kathy, bad

961
00:59:57,840 --> 01:00:01,840
Speaker 1: Comics follows an avatar modeled after Anna herself, who talks

962
01:00:01,920 --> 01:00:06,400
Speaker 1: to her personified depression and anxiety, talks frankly about her body,

963
01:00:06,720 --> 01:00:09,120
Speaker 1: and above all is very very funny. I was really

964
01:00:09,160 --> 01:00:12,240
Speaker 1: fascinated to learn that bad Comics actually started up when

965
01:00:12,320 --> 01:00:15,640
Speaker 1: Anna was working a dead end job feeling uniquely like

966
01:00:15,760 --> 01:00:18,400
Speaker 1: ship in a way that only someone who has just

967
01:00:18,600 --> 01:00:21,560
Speaker 1: moved to Los Angeles can feel like shit. She was

968
01:00:21,640 --> 01:00:23,680
Speaker 1: honestly the first person I thought to speak to when

969
01:00:23,720 --> 01:00:26,680
Speaker 1: I was getting this episode together, So I'm very excited

970
01:00:26,920 --> 01:00:29,640
Speaker 1: to share some of our interview. This is kind of

971
01:00:29,680 --> 01:00:33,240
Speaker 1: how it happened. I was really really depressed. I was

972
01:00:33,360 --> 01:00:35,600
Speaker 1: more depressed than I had ever been in my life

973
01:00:35,760 --> 01:00:38,800
Speaker 1: when I was teaching because my dad had been diagnosed

974
01:00:38,880 --> 01:00:43,040
Speaker 1: with cancer. I had always had anxiety, but just never

975
01:00:43,160 --> 01:00:46,960
Speaker 1: experienced like full on depression and was not in therapy.

976
01:00:48,760 --> 01:00:51,240
Speaker 1: Didn't like my parents were not about therapy, Like I

977
01:00:51,320 --> 01:00:54,800
Speaker 1: had no tools to understand what I was going through. UM,

978
01:00:56,120 --> 01:00:59,160
Speaker 1: And so I would draw it, and I would draw that.

979
01:00:59,280 --> 01:01:01,880
Speaker 1: I was like, I'm also really bad to talk about

980
01:01:01,920 --> 01:01:04,760
Speaker 1: my feelings. I would draw in this little strip like

981
01:01:04,960 --> 01:01:08,400
Speaker 1: I'm sad, i am drunk um and I'm drinking because

982
01:01:08,440 --> 01:01:12,600
Speaker 1: I'm sad, and I think the first comic I ever did,

983
01:01:12,760 --> 01:01:15,200
Speaker 1: I was like, I'm so glad I'm out of that

984
01:01:15,360 --> 01:01:18,480
Speaker 1: relationship because it was like I had a cloud that

985
01:01:18,600 --> 01:01:27,120
Speaker 1: said sadness, despair, anxiety, and UM. Someone commented or maybe

986
01:01:27,160 --> 01:01:30,680
Speaker 1: two people commented and said like, oh cute, and that

987
01:01:30,920 --> 01:01:35,440
Speaker 1: gave me the Also my ex boyfriend comment or message

988
01:01:35,480 --> 01:01:38,080
Speaker 1: being was like, that's really hurtful. I can't believe you

989
01:01:38,120 --> 01:01:43,360
Speaker 1: posted that. But mostly the reception was good, and I

990
01:01:43,520 --> 01:01:47,680
Speaker 1: kept posting UM, and people kept kind of commenting and

991
01:01:47,800 --> 01:01:51,439
Speaker 1: following and and would message me and be like, oh,

992
01:01:51,880 --> 01:01:56,240
Speaker 1: I'm going through the same thing. And I felt so

993
01:01:57,440 --> 01:02:03,240
Speaker 1: comforted by that. I was able to see the cyclical

994
01:02:03,440 --> 01:02:08,640
Speaker 1: nature of depression in a much more clear way. UM.

995
01:02:09,600 --> 01:02:13,440
Speaker 1: And I have a friend actually whose therapist told her

996
01:02:13,560 --> 01:02:17,040
Speaker 1: to make an anxiety UM blanket, which is like she

997
01:02:17,320 --> 01:02:20,040
Speaker 1: she knit. She liked to knit, and her therapist was like,

998
01:02:20,080 --> 01:02:23,240
Speaker 1: when you're feeling really bad, knit the color red. When

999
01:02:23,320 --> 01:02:25,880
Speaker 1: it's not so bad, do yellow. Have you heard of

1000
01:02:25,960 --> 01:02:28,480
Speaker 1: this before? No, this is really cool. And when you're

1001
01:02:28,520 --> 01:02:33,080
Speaker 1: feeling good, do green. So she had this blanket where

1002
01:02:33,200 --> 01:02:37,600
Speaker 1: like you could see these stripes of green and yellow

1003
01:02:37,640 --> 01:02:43,040
Speaker 1: and red like in various various thicknesses like come and go,

1004
01:02:43,840 --> 01:02:46,320
Speaker 1: and it was supposed to remind you that, like, this

1005
01:02:46,480 --> 01:02:51,440
Speaker 1: bad feeling will pass. And my comic served as that.

1006
01:02:52,200 --> 01:02:56,400
Speaker 1: I used to draw myself fully clothed with like a skirt,

1007
01:02:56,480 --> 01:02:58,720
Speaker 1: which is weird because I don't even wear skirts ever.

1008
01:02:59,520 --> 01:03:02,400
Speaker 1: And I drew myself as a skirt and a top,

1009
01:03:03,160 --> 01:03:07,880
Speaker 1: and about two years in around there, maybe I would

1010
01:03:07,880 --> 01:03:12,600
Speaker 1: occasionally draw myself an underwear topless, because that is how

1011
01:03:12,680 --> 01:03:14,680
Speaker 1: I exist in my bedroom, and I spend a lot

1012
01:03:14,720 --> 01:03:19,240
Speaker 1: of time in my bedroom, especially when I'm not feeling well. Um,

1013
01:03:19,440 --> 01:03:23,040
Speaker 1: I just hate wearing shirts when I'm alone, and there

1014
01:03:23,160 --> 01:03:27,280
Speaker 1: is something so deeply unsexy about my body when it's

1015
01:03:27,360 --> 01:03:30,680
Speaker 1: just me in a room and some people feel themselves,

1016
01:03:30,960 --> 01:03:33,320
Speaker 1: they take selfies and they're like, oh, I just felt

1017
01:03:33,360 --> 01:03:37,000
Speaker 1: so hot. That is truly never me. Something I especially

1018
01:03:37,120 --> 01:03:40,960
Speaker 1: appreciated was how she's able to control the way that

1019
01:03:41,080 --> 01:03:44,120
Speaker 1: she presents her body in the comic. As she describes it,

1020
01:03:44,320 --> 01:03:48,400
Speaker 1: drawing herself as a cartoon is this de sexualization process

1021
01:03:48,600 --> 01:03:51,200
Speaker 1: that liberates her from the way that her body is

1022
01:03:51,360 --> 01:03:55,360
Speaker 1: received and in some ways taken from her while performing live.

1023
01:03:56,760 --> 01:03:59,400
Speaker 1: You know, I was also doing comedy at the time,

1024
01:04:00,160 --> 01:04:03,400
Speaker 1: and I just feel, especially because I'm a curvy lady,

1025
01:04:04,000 --> 01:04:07,960
Speaker 1: I feel so sexualized when I'm on stage, like it's

1026
01:04:08,040 --> 01:04:10,920
Speaker 1: this hurdle I have to get over, like I have

1027
01:04:11,000 --> 01:04:13,120
Speaker 1: a big butt, and I just feel like that is

1028
01:04:13,200 --> 01:04:15,880
Speaker 1: just like an elephant in the room or something, and

1029
01:04:15,960 --> 01:04:19,000
Speaker 1: I'm like, never funny enough to get over it. UM,

1030
01:04:19,840 --> 01:04:21,760
Speaker 1: and I would always like try to play men and

1031
01:04:21,920 --> 01:04:26,440
Speaker 1: like sketch an improv to kind of de sexualize that.

1032
01:04:28,840 --> 01:04:32,880
Speaker 1: And with the comic, I can exist outside of all

1033
01:04:32,960 --> 01:04:38,960
Speaker 1: of that. I can exist truly de sexualized UM, and

1034
01:04:39,080 --> 01:04:44,400
Speaker 1: that is very freeing honestliness forever. Check out Bad Comics

1035
01:04:44,480 --> 01:04:46,960
Speaker 1: by Anna on Instagram and you can see some of

1036
01:04:47,040 --> 01:04:51,960
Speaker 1: Anna's recent work in TV, writing on Flatbush misdemeanors on Showtime.

1037
01:04:52,960 --> 01:04:57,400
Speaker 1: Artist eleven the Wonderful Katie Fishel, who works under the

1038
01:04:57,520 --> 01:05:01,960
Speaker 1: handle at sex Underscore, is a the score weird on Instagram,

1039
01:05:02,160 --> 01:05:05,880
Speaker 1: which currently has almost seventy followers. Katie started doing the

1040
01:05:05,960 --> 01:05:09,960
Speaker 1: comic after having conversations with friends about her experiences and

1041
01:05:10,120 --> 01:05:15,160
Speaker 1: horrible often scarier traumatizing dating situations informative ways of viewing

1042
01:05:15,240 --> 01:05:17,200
Speaker 1: her own body. She found that a lot of her

1043
01:05:17,240 --> 01:05:20,120
Speaker 1: friends were connecting with it and started the comic. It's

1044
01:05:20,160 --> 01:05:24,560
Speaker 1: completely unflinching, sometimes goes full body horror, and it's just visceral.

1045
01:05:24,760 --> 01:05:26,400
Speaker 1: I dare you to look at her work and not

1046
01:05:26,600 --> 01:05:29,120
Speaker 1: pull out a repressed memory in like a fun way, though,

1047
01:05:29,360 --> 01:05:32,920
Speaker 1: and she's since used her growing platform to address issues

1048
01:05:33,080 --> 01:05:36,160
Speaker 1: that she holds close most frequently in her work on

1049
01:05:36,320 --> 01:05:40,680
Speaker 1: the mistreatment of unhoused people in Los Angeles. Her collaborations

1050
01:05:40,800 --> 01:05:44,600
Speaker 1: with unhoused activists and host of the incredible We the

1051
01:05:44,720 --> 01:05:48,520
Speaker 1: Unhoused podcast, Theo Henderson drew attention to how the COVID

1052
01:05:48,640 --> 01:05:53,120
Speaker 1: Nineteam lockdown affected unhoused people far differently than the housed.

1053
01:05:53,400 --> 01:05:56,960
Speaker 1: Theo's work is also deeply important, and I will be

1054
01:05:57,080 --> 01:06:01,320
Speaker 1: linking to it in the description subscribe to his Patreon.

1055
01:06:01,800 --> 01:06:04,560
Speaker 1: I got to speak with Katie Fishel about finding her

1056
01:06:04,640 --> 01:06:08,680
Speaker 1: own voice through sex as Weird. You know, I think

1057
01:06:08,760 --> 01:06:13,400
Speaker 1: the first thing that I ever did that even somewhat

1058
01:06:13,520 --> 01:06:17,840
Speaker 1: resembled it because I wasn't I drew my entire life.

1059
01:06:17,960 --> 01:06:20,680
Speaker 1: I drew you know, as a kid. Just it was

1060
01:06:20,760 --> 01:06:22,680
Speaker 1: such a pastime and it was a comfort, and it

1061
01:06:22,800 --> 01:06:25,000
Speaker 1: was just something so fun and it was sort of

1062
01:06:25,080 --> 01:06:29,800
Speaker 1: I think my first like um uh feeling of like, oh,

1063
01:06:29,920 --> 01:06:32,600
Speaker 1: this could be my currency. And so there was something

1064
01:06:32,800 --> 01:06:40,040
Speaker 1: that was really satisfying about, um, like putting having to

1065
01:06:40,200 --> 01:06:43,320
Speaker 1: sit with these experiences in a real way and like

1066
01:06:43,480 --> 01:06:47,880
Speaker 1: spending like hours, you know, making these like little drawings

1067
01:06:48,000 --> 01:06:52,200
Speaker 1: and and um, you know, I didn't really intend on

1068
01:06:52,320 --> 01:06:57,960
Speaker 1: putting them online until like I kind of got not

1069
01:06:58,200 --> 01:07:00,480
Speaker 1: like peer pressured into it, but I I had like

1070
01:07:00,680 --> 01:07:03,480
Speaker 1: enough you know, like boosters from like friends, and you

1071
01:07:03,560 --> 01:07:05,840
Speaker 1: know that everybody was just being really supportive, and it

1072
01:07:06,080 --> 01:07:09,120
Speaker 1: was it felt fucking crazy. I mean, you know, it

1073
01:07:09,240 --> 01:07:11,640
Speaker 1: literally is like it's like if you left your diary

1074
01:07:11,800 --> 01:07:14,200
Speaker 1: on the sidewalk and you watched you know, a couple

1075
01:07:14,240 --> 01:07:16,160
Speaker 1: of hundred people sort of like pick it up and

1076
01:07:16,280 --> 01:07:18,720
Speaker 1: pass it around and have something to say about it.

1077
01:07:18,840 --> 01:07:21,440
Speaker 1: It really made me feel crazy. That is the like

1078
01:07:21,600 --> 01:07:27,120
Speaker 1: instantness of feedback kind of shape what you do. Yeah,

1079
01:07:27,200 --> 01:07:29,040
Speaker 1: that's I mean, that's a good question. I think it

1080
01:07:29,160 --> 01:07:33,080
Speaker 1: definitely Like, you know, I I feel lucky in the

1081
01:07:33,240 --> 01:07:36,920
Speaker 1: sense that I well, besides a couple of things I

1082
01:07:37,080 --> 01:07:40,400
Speaker 1: haven't gotten any sort of for the most part, a

1083
01:07:40,520 --> 01:07:43,560
Speaker 1: ton of negative feedback. There are topics that I think

1084
01:07:43,600 --> 01:07:48,480
Speaker 1: are really sensitive that people knee jerk reaction to, you know,

1085
01:07:48,800 --> 01:07:50,880
Speaker 1: some of which I pay mine to, most of which

1086
01:07:50,920 --> 01:07:53,720
Speaker 1: I do not. You know, I think that's sort of

1087
01:07:53,760 --> 01:07:57,120
Speaker 1: the power of like speaking from my personal experience and

1088
01:07:57,200 --> 01:08:01,680
Speaker 1: also you know, uh, illustrating personal experiences of other people

1089
01:08:01,760 --> 01:08:06,520
Speaker 1: who anonymously submit, you know, to my page. It's like, well,

1090
01:08:07,440 --> 01:08:11,640
Speaker 1: regardless like whatever you think about the situation, it's mine

1091
01:08:12,320 --> 01:08:15,040
Speaker 1: or it's someone's. And I'm not making this up. But

1092
01:08:15,360 --> 01:08:18,240
Speaker 1: the fact is is like I'm comfortable talking about really

1093
01:08:18,360 --> 01:08:21,920
Speaker 1: really really complicated stuff in my life because that's what

1094
01:08:22,080 --> 01:08:25,200
Speaker 1: happened and it it. It doesn't really matter to me

1095
01:08:25,439 --> 01:08:28,160
Speaker 1: if you disagree with it, because I might disagree with

1096
01:08:28,240 --> 01:08:30,479
Speaker 1: it too, but it is part of my life, you know.

1097
01:08:30,960 --> 01:08:34,160
Speaker 1: And I do think that that is something that I, um,

1098
01:08:34,760 --> 01:08:39,120
Speaker 1: you know, and pretty like adamantly against, which is like

1099
01:08:40,000 --> 01:08:43,920
Speaker 1: I'm not interested in making content that or making art

1100
01:08:44,040 --> 01:08:48,840
Speaker 1: that like everyone can agree with. That to me is

1101
01:08:48,920 --> 01:08:51,680
Speaker 1: like a sign of laziness to be honest, or or

1102
01:08:51,800 --> 01:08:54,439
Speaker 1: a sign that you're not really saying anything. If I'm

1103
01:08:54,479 --> 01:08:57,519
Speaker 1: going to be perfectly real, Like, I think it is

1104
01:08:57,600 --> 01:09:01,519
Speaker 1: good to like brings put stuff into the world that

1105
01:09:01,960 --> 01:09:06,519
Speaker 1: like creates a conversation, you know. Again, check out Katie's

1106
01:09:06,560 --> 01:09:10,479
Speaker 1: work at at Sex Underscore is Underscore Weird, keep an

1107
01:09:10,520 --> 01:09:14,320
Speaker 1: eye up for her upcoming book, and follow and become

1108
01:09:14,360 --> 01:09:18,480
Speaker 1: a patron of Theo Henderson and the Wed and Housed podcast.

1109
01:09:19,160 --> 01:09:22,360
Speaker 1: So while the three women, kim Anna and Katie all

1110
01:09:22,479 --> 01:09:25,680
Speaker 1: make pretty different work, They're all connected to who and

1111
01:09:25,840 --> 01:09:28,640
Speaker 1: what matters to them. This is firmly rooted in the

1112
01:09:28,760 --> 01:09:32,120
Speaker 1: tradition of the Zene scene of the nineties, of women's

1113
01:09:32,200 --> 01:09:36,519
Speaker 1: comics of the seventies, and of the Cathy comics. The

1114
01:09:36,600 --> 01:09:40,080
Speaker 1: final artist I spoke with, while still very young, has

1115
01:09:40,200 --> 01:09:43,439
Speaker 1: worked through all of the mediums we discussed today. She

1116
01:09:43,600 --> 01:09:48,000
Speaker 1: began working online, then moved into comics in print magazines,

1117
01:09:48,160 --> 01:09:50,680
Speaker 1: and is now about to start making graphic novels for

1118
01:09:50,920 --> 01:09:55,519
Speaker 1: Random House. Artist number twelve, whose work you may not

1119
01:09:55,680 --> 01:09:58,639
Speaker 1: know now, but I guarantee you will very soon. Liz

1120
01:09:58,920 --> 01:10:03,559
Speaker 1: Montaguo Montague is a relatively new voice in comics, first

1121
01:10:03,600 --> 01:10:07,000
Speaker 1: coming to prominence in when she began cartooning for The

1122
01:10:07,080 --> 01:10:10,080
Speaker 1: New Yorker, the first black woman to do so, ninety

1123
01:10:10,160 --> 01:10:13,760
Speaker 1: four years into the magazine's run. What the Fuck. Liz

1124
01:10:13,800 --> 01:10:17,120
Speaker 1: had already been making her comic strip called Liz at Large,

1125
01:10:17,320 --> 01:10:20,400
Speaker 1: for her local newspaper and posting online for some time

1126
01:10:20,479 --> 01:10:23,759
Speaker 1: before that, and quickly gained a huge audience of fans

1127
01:10:23,840 --> 01:10:28,680
Speaker 1: for her work that examined and satirized girlhood, specifically black girlhood.

1128
01:10:28,840 --> 01:10:30,880
Speaker 1: So I wanted to know more about her journey to

1129
01:10:30,960 --> 01:10:35,920
Speaker 1: becoming a cartoonist. Here's some of our talk. Um, it's

1130
01:10:36,000 --> 01:10:40,080
Speaker 1: just like it's so random. Um. So I went, I

1131
01:10:40,240 --> 01:10:43,320
Speaker 1: was living in this small town in South Jersey. I

1132
01:10:43,360 --> 01:10:47,599
Speaker 1: got an athletic scholarship till Liberal Arts School UM in Richmond, Virginia,

1133
01:10:47,760 --> 01:10:49,639
Speaker 1: where I went, and I made it in studio art.

1134
01:10:50,000 --> 01:10:52,200
Speaker 1: And then I graduated and I was a graphic designer

1135
01:10:52,640 --> 01:10:55,439
Speaker 1: in d C. And I worked in International Development UM,

1136
01:10:56,240 --> 01:10:57,920
Speaker 1: which is a really interesting job. I got to travel

1137
01:10:57,920 --> 01:10:59,920
Speaker 1: a bunch of just school, and I was literally just

1138
01:11:00,080 --> 01:11:02,640
Speaker 1: like at my desk one day and I emailed The

1139
01:11:02,680 --> 01:11:06,240
Speaker 1: New Yorker about their diversity. They emailed me back, and like,

1140
01:11:06,400 --> 01:11:08,960
Speaker 1: I didn't. I only knew the New Yorker though from

1141
01:11:09,000 --> 01:11:11,800
Speaker 1: their Instagram feed. I had like maybe I'd seen it

1142
01:11:11,840 --> 01:11:13,920
Speaker 1: in a dentist office or something, but like, I was

1143
01:11:13,960 --> 01:11:16,680
Speaker 1: not familiar with the New Yorker. I was familiar with

1144
01:11:16,840 --> 01:11:20,439
Speaker 1: like the cartoons or anything like that. So I only

1145
01:11:20,520 --> 01:11:22,639
Speaker 1: knew what I had seen on Instagram from the cartoon

1146
01:11:22,720 --> 01:11:25,040
Speaker 1: feed and then just kind of was like, oh, I

1147
01:11:25,080 --> 01:11:27,720
Speaker 1: guess I could dry this, and here we are a

1148
01:11:27,800 --> 01:11:31,920
Speaker 1: few years later, Liz originally reached out to Emma Allen,

1149
01:11:32,080 --> 01:11:35,000
Speaker 1: the current cartoons editor for The New Yorker the first

1150
01:11:35,040 --> 01:11:38,200
Speaker 1: woman and person under thirty to lead this department, and

1151
01:11:38,360 --> 01:11:41,280
Speaker 1: as in her work, Liz Montague was not afraid to

1152
01:11:41,360 --> 01:11:45,280
Speaker 1: ask the hard questions in the funniest way possible. It's

1153
01:11:45,280 --> 01:11:48,120
Speaker 1: not that I'm bad at judging risks. I just feel

1154
01:11:48,360 --> 01:11:51,559
Speaker 1: like I'm someone who's always willing to just take the risk.

1155
01:11:51,920 --> 01:11:54,720
Speaker 1: I mean, in my view, if I do it and

1156
01:11:54,840 --> 01:11:57,920
Speaker 1: my life will stay the same. Like if if they

1157
01:11:57,960 --> 01:11:59,920
Speaker 1: don't respond to me, then it's not really a risk,

1158
01:12:00,000 --> 01:12:02,479
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. Yeah, that's so. I was

1159
01:12:02,560 --> 01:12:05,880
Speaker 1: just like, why not? But I just saw the email

1160
01:12:05,920 --> 01:12:08,280
Speaker 1: button on the on Instagram, was like, well, maybe they

1161
01:12:08,400 --> 01:12:11,360
Speaker 1: just genuinely don't know that. Like all of their drawings

1162
01:12:11,400 --> 01:12:14,759
Speaker 1: are white. Maybe they just don't know. Once her status

1163
01:12:14,840 --> 01:12:18,439
Speaker 1: as a New Yorker cartoonist was secured, Montague's audience grew

1164
01:12:18,560 --> 01:12:20,960
Speaker 1: in the adult sphere, and she used her strips in

1165
01:12:21,000 --> 01:12:24,040
Speaker 1: the magazine to explore a number of themes, strips on

1166
01:12:24,120 --> 01:12:28,280
Speaker 1: current events and ones with autobiographical elements. In a magazine

1167
01:12:28,360 --> 01:12:32,360
Speaker 1: that has generally circulated to a largely white and upwardly

1168
01:12:32,479 --> 01:12:36,599
Speaker 1: financially mobile New Yorker scene, Liz continues to make cartoons

1169
01:12:36,680 --> 01:12:38,720
Speaker 1: for the New Yorker, but she's already got her eyes

1170
01:12:38,800 --> 01:12:41,479
Speaker 1: on what's next. Something that brings us all the way

1171
01:12:41,520 --> 01:12:45,120
Speaker 1: back to our first artist, Marissa Moss. Because Liz Montague

1172
01:12:45,320 --> 01:12:48,280
Speaker 1: is now working on a series of graphic novels for

1173
01:12:48,439 --> 01:12:51,320
Speaker 1: children and young adults and aiming for black girls to

1174
01:12:51,400 --> 01:12:54,839
Speaker 1: be more centered in scene in a still majority white genre.

1175
01:12:55,120 --> 01:12:57,800
Speaker 1: She's going to be at the Scholastic Book Fair. It's

1176
01:12:57,920 --> 01:12:59,840
Speaker 1: very exciting, so I wanted to talk to her a

1177
01:13:00,040 --> 01:13:03,439
Speaker 1: little bit about where her career is going next. Well,

1178
01:13:03,479 --> 01:13:05,880
Speaker 1: I'm working on mainly children's books right now, and I

1179
01:13:06,479 --> 01:13:08,879
Speaker 1: love kids, lett I love it. I think it's awesome,

1180
01:13:09,000 --> 01:13:11,920
Speaker 1: it's so fun. We just let ourselves be so much

1181
01:13:12,040 --> 01:13:16,080
Speaker 1: like create these very like gentle and kind worlds for

1182
01:13:16,200 --> 01:13:18,320
Speaker 1: kids that we just don't let ourselves create for adults.

1183
01:13:18,439 --> 01:13:19,960
Speaker 1: I don't get it. It doesn't make sense to me,

1184
01:13:20,320 --> 01:13:22,960
Speaker 1: but um, I feel like what got me into reading

1185
01:13:23,000 --> 01:13:25,479
Speaker 1: as a kid was like the Juny b. Jones and

1186
01:13:25,560 --> 01:13:29,519
Speaker 1: the Ramona and like the Babysitters Club. But like when

1187
01:13:29,600 --> 01:13:32,519
Speaker 1: you look now looking back at it as an adult,

1188
01:13:32,560 --> 01:13:34,600
Speaker 1: I'm like, wow, Like all of those books were like

1189
01:13:34,880 --> 01:13:38,400
Speaker 1: entirely white, Like they had female protagonists. Which was really cool.

1190
01:13:38,520 --> 01:13:41,400
Speaker 1: But it's like those are like entirely white books, and

1191
01:13:41,760 --> 01:13:45,320
Speaker 1: I think that right now I want to like work

1192
01:13:45,439 --> 01:13:49,840
Speaker 1: on that age group, that genre, and like diversifying the

1193
01:13:49,920 --> 01:13:53,360
Speaker 1: space a lot more. I've linked to Liz's work in

1194
01:13:53,439 --> 01:13:56,799
Speaker 1: the description, and her books with Random House start releasing

1195
01:13:57,040 --> 01:14:00,800
Speaker 1: next year. I cannot wait. And that Dear Listener was

1196
01:14:00,920 --> 01:14:05,280
Speaker 1: twelve artists, many from different backgrounds, some from different generations,

1197
01:14:05,560 --> 01:14:09,160
Speaker 1: all finding their niche in the medium of comics online

1198
01:14:09,200 --> 01:14:12,599
Speaker 1: and off to share their stories. And while there's certainly

1199
01:14:12,800 --> 01:14:14,800
Speaker 1: a lot of work to be done in this space

1200
01:14:14,960 --> 01:14:19,240
Speaker 1: to continue to fund an uplift marginalized voices, speaking with

1201
01:14:19,320 --> 01:14:23,000
Speaker 1: these twelve artists made me feel hopeful. The next generation

1202
01:14:23,120 --> 01:14:26,839
Speaker 1: of comic artists will undoubtedly continue to push this envelope,

1203
01:14:27,000 --> 01:14:29,760
Speaker 1: and if these artists are any indication, we are in

1204
01:14:29,880 --> 01:14:33,559
Speaker 1: extremely good hands. But listening to the twelve artists speak

1205
01:14:33,640 --> 01:14:36,960
Speaker 1: about their approach to cartooning, it struck me how similar

1206
01:14:37,080 --> 01:14:39,880
Speaker 1: it sounded to what Kathy guys White was doing back

1207
01:14:39,920 --> 01:14:43,439
Speaker 1: in the day. The difference was confessional cartoons were not

1208
01:14:43,720 --> 01:14:47,000
Speaker 1: as accepted back then. Here's the slice of our interview

1209
01:14:47,080 --> 01:14:52,600
Speaker 1: from this spring. Hey, it wasn't a she wasn't a

1210
01:14:52,680 --> 01:14:56,960
Speaker 1: horrible whim all the time she was. She wasn't um

1211
01:14:57,800 --> 01:15:04,920
Speaker 1: the Jamie. I never did anything intentionally. I never I

1212
01:15:05,040 --> 01:15:06,920
Speaker 1: never thought, oh, now it's time for Kathy to be

1213
01:15:07,160 --> 01:15:09,759
Speaker 1: more tough and let me do those trips, or doesn't

1214
01:15:09,800 --> 01:15:11,320
Speaker 1: now it's time for Kathy to be more of this

1215
01:15:11,600 --> 01:15:14,840
Speaker 1: and let's see those strips. I was really kind of just,

1216
01:15:15,720 --> 01:15:19,639
Speaker 1: you know, writing it out as life happened, not changing

1217
01:15:20,160 --> 01:15:23,639
Speaker 1: changing dates and or changing names and you know people,

1218
01:15:23,840 --> 01:15:30,160
Speaker 1: of course, but um, I was just kind of writing

1219
01:15:30,200 --> 01:15:33,680
Speaker 1: it out as we went along. And I think in

1220
01:15:33,800 --> 01:15:36,680
Speaker 1: some ways, you know, I evolved. I got stronger, I

1221
01:15:36,800 --> 01:15:42,760
Speaker 1: got more discriminating, I got more on offer on, and

1222
01:15:45,439 --> 01:15:49,120
Speaker 1: I guess that you know that came out in this strip.

1223
01:15:50,680 --> 01:15:53,719
Speaker 1: I want to end this episode by sharing these artists

1224
01:15:53,800 --> 01:15:57,400
Speaker 1: connection to the Kathy comics and their experience with them,

1225
01:15:57,600 --> 01:16:00,280
Speaker 1: and like they are, their takes are all very friend

1226
01:16:00,439 --> 01:16:02,800
Speaker 1: I hope you enjoyed learning about them, and I really

1227
01:16:02,960 --> 01:16:05,800
Speaker 1: encourage you to get engaged with their work. It was

1228
01:16:05,920 --> 01:16:09,080
Speaker 1: such a pleasure putting this episode together, and we'll be

1229
01:16:09,200 --> 01:16:12,799
Speaker 1: back next week with our final episode of Act Cast,

1230
01:16:13,080 --> 01:16:15,000
Speaker 1: A chat with Kathy, guys White, and a look at

1231
01:16:15,040 --> 01:16:18,240
Speaker 1: how with forty five years of perspective, we remember the

1232
01:16:18,320 --> 01:16:22,680
Speaker 1: comic strips legacy talk to you then, I mean, AC

1233
01:16:23,000 --> 01:16:27,400
Speaker 1: is definitely the first thing. Um, It's funny. I watched

1234
01:16:27,640 --> 01:16:31,439
Speaker 1: this documentary about comic artists. Um. She talked about how

1235
01:16:32,040 --> 01:16:35,280
Speaker 1: she had started making those comics from her personal experiences

1236
01:16:35,560 --> 01:16:38,560
Speaker 1: and kind of like the day to day issues that

1237
01:16:38,640 --> 01:16:43,280
Speaker 1: she was experiencing. And UM, I remember really relating to

1238
01:16:43,360 --> 01:16:47,200
Speaker 1: that when I saw that movie, Like she wasn't necessarily

1239
01:16:47,200 --> 01:16:50,920
Speaker 1: an artist beforehand, Like she just started making those and

1240
01:16:51,040 --> 01:16:54,720
Speaker 1: I think that's really really cool. My first thought is

1241
01:16:54,800 --> 01:17:00,280
Speaker 1: the swimsuit once and the stress of that. When I

1242
01:17:01,040 --> 01:17:02,320
Speaker 1: was reading it back when I was a kid, I

1243
01:17:02,400 --> 01:17:05,120
Speaker 1: didn't get it at all. I didn't understand it at all. Um,

1244
01:17:05,840 --> 01:17:08,280
Speaker 1: but it's I still read it and it still intrigued me,

1245
01:17:08,520 --> 01:17:09,720
Speaker 1: and I think there are a lot of different things

1246
01:17:09,760 --> 01:17:11,160
Speaker 1: going on there. I think I was young, so I

1247
01:17:11,240 --> 01:17:13,880
Speaker 1: didn't really understand the problems of being an adult. But

1248
01:17:13,960 --> 01:17:18,360
Speaker 1: it's also a closeted trans girl, and I knew that

1249
01:17:18,439 --> 01:17:22,560
Speaker 1: there was some forbidden knowledge in that comic um that

1250
01:17:23,000 --> 01:17:25,320
Speaker 1: I you know, I wasn't supposed to be reading. You know,

1251
01:17:25,360 --> 01:17:28,000
Speaker 1: I wasn't it wasn't for me, um, but I read

1252
01:17:28,040 --> 01:17:30,439
Speaker 1: it anyways, and I feel like, in a weird sort

1253
01:17:30,479 --> 01:17:32,479
Speaker 1: of way, I feel like it was a piece of

1254
01:17:32,520 --> 01:17:36,879
Speaker 1: the puzzle of me sort of finding uh my identity.

1255
01:17:37,280 --> 01:17:43,120
Speaker 1: Years later, I always think of her diet comments it's

1256
01:17:43,120 --> 01:17:45,000
Speaker 1: always got a diet, and I always felled bad for

1257
01:17:45,120 --> 01:17:47,160
Speaker 1: Kathy because I felt like she needed some self love

1258
01:17:47,320 --> 01:17:54,280
Speaker 1: or something. I feel, eat, eat whatever you want, like

1259
01:17:54,800 --> 01:17:57,840
Speaker 1: you're gonna be okay. Actually reading reading it as a

1260
01:17:57,960 --> 01:18:01,240
Speaker 1: young girl, um, I think it didn't actually like the

1261
01:18:01,320 --> 01:18:04,280
Speaker 1: Kathy comics for that reason, because I found that that

1262
01:18:04,640 --> 01:18:07,040
Speaker 1: um that I couldn't relate to her at the moment.

1263
01:18:08,040 --> 01:18:12,920
Speaker 1: I think about being frazzled. I like life like I

1264
01:18:13,000 --> 01:18:14,880
Speaker 1: think Kathy, you know, like I just think a like

1265
01:18:15,000 --> 01:18:18,640
Speaker 1: obviously everyone goes back, but I do think, yeah, I

1266
01:18:18,680 --> 01:18:22,240
Speaker 1: think a lot about like like the reaction to conflict

1267
01:18:22,439 --> 01:18:26,720
Speaker 1: is frazzled. Um. So that's sort of where I go

1268
01:18:26,880 --> 01:18:28,960
Speaker 1: with Kathy, and like what I think when I see her,

1269
01:18:29,600 --> 01:18:32,000
Speaker 1: And then I also think a lot of like that.

1270
01:18:32,080 --> 01:18:34,200
Speaker 1: I think visually a lot about like negative space and

1271
01:18:34,320 --> 01:18:37,920
Speaker 1: like primary colors. She just knew, she knew her lane

1272
01:18:38,800 --> 01:18:42,120
Speaker 1: stayed in it, stone steady one that that race, like

1273
01:18:42,400 --> 01:18:45,840
Speaker 1: it never felt like Kathy tried to keep up with

1274
01:18:45,920 --> 01:18:49,840
Speaker 1: the Joneses. I've read some interviews with Kathy of Kathy Um,

1275
01:18:50,360 --> 01:18:52,920
Speaker 1: and I think she thinks that she herself, like you know,

1276
01:18:53,040 --> 01:18:54,920
Speaker 1: failed a lot of stuff, and she wasn't very confident

1277
01:18:54,920 --> 01:18:57,600
Speaker 1: in her comics at the beginning and all that. She

1278
01:18:57,760 --> 01:19:01,080
Speaker 1: also was I think on trained um. But I feel

1279
01:19:01,160 --> 01:19:03,160
Speaker 1: like even if you feel that way, there has to

1280
01:19:03,200 --> 01:19:05,559
Speaker 1: be something in you that's kind of like I'm going

1281
01:19:05,600 --> 01:19:07,640
Speaker 1: to document my life, you know what I mean, Like

1282
01:19:07,680 --> 01:19:09,120
Speaker 1: there's something in you that has to think it's like

1283
01:19:09,200 --> 01:19:12,479
Speaker 1: special and worth doing just being you know, being self

1284
01:19:12,560 --> 01:19:15,639
Speaker 1: obsessed and like write it, Look, this is what happened

1285
01:19:15,680 --> 01:19:18,880
Speaker 1: to me, you guys, and like I am cool or

1286
01:19:18,960 --> 01:19:20,960
Speaker 1: I am sad, or I am this sortam that, But

1287
01:19:20,960 --> 01:19:25,679
Speaker 1: you should pay attention, you know, whatever it is. I'm

1288
01:19:25,880 --> 01:19:30,519
Speaker 1: I feel guilty saying this, but I think I never

1289
01:19:31,640 --> 01:19:35,280
Speaker 1: connected with her. Maybe at the time I was a

1290
01:19:35,360 --> 01:19:39,320
Speaker 1: little young, but also I think I probably was a

1291
01:19:39,439 --> 01:19:44,240
Speaker 1: victim of like how she was being characterized that comic.

1292
01:19:46,040 --> 01:19:49,720
Speaker 1: And it is like even when I would read, um,

1293
01:19:50,160 --> 01:19:53,160
Speaker 1: you know, Saturday Morning or whatever the Sunday Morning cartoons

1294
01:19:53,200 --> 01:20:00,400
Speaker 1: in the newspaper. It always felt far away, and then

1295
01:20:00,479 --> 01:20:02,560
Speaker 1: now looking back and I'm like, oh my god. She

1296
01:20:02,720 --> 01:20:05,600
Speaker 1: was expressing like literally what I'm expressing in my comics now,

1297
01:20:05,640 --> 01:20:06,919
Speaker 1: where I'm like, I'm so anxious,