The Virtual Memories Show

Cartoonist Kevin Huizenga joins the show to talk about his new graphic novel, Glenn Ganges in The River At Night (Drawn & Quarterly)! We get into late-night reveries and using a character's sleepless night as a base camp for a 200-page book, the ways repetition leads to time travel, making an artistic breakthrough partway through his new work, his modular approach to storytelling and how it jibes with his midwestern comics style, and the risk of identifying too much with his stand-in, Glenn Ganges. We also talk about video-game sobriety, whether his favorite creators are spending too much time on Twitter, learning about indy comics before the internet, and our shared cyberpunk upbringing. And we do the math on how many books in our libraries we'll actually get around to reading! • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: Episode_347_-_Kevin_Huizenga.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:00am EDT

Live from CXC - Cartoon Crossroads Columbus, it's my Spotlight Session with Ho Che Anderson, cartoonist behind KING, Godhead (Fantagraphics) and plenty more! We get into the ups and downs of Ho's career, his transition from "frustrated cartoonist" to "somewhat dissatisfied cartoonist", his twin inspirations of Mister X and Black Kiss, and all the comic, writing and movie influences that went into his science fiction epic Godhead! We also talk about his being labeled an "openly black" cartoonist, how being Canadian gave him a different perspective on Martin Luther King when it came to tackling MLK's biography, why he prefers writing a story to drawing it, the importance of world building in both his fiction and non-fiction work, and why you should never meet your heroes (unless your hero is Howard Chaykin)! • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: Episode_346_-_Ho_Che_Anderson.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:35pm EDT

A beautiful and subtle meditation on memory and his parents' marriage and divorce, Frank Santoro's 200-page graphic novel, Pittsburgh (New York Review Comics), is one of my favorite books of 2019. Frank & I get into about Pittsburgh's unique visual style, in which he eschews black lines and works directly with color markers, how he solved the problem of word-balloons intruding on a comic page's color harmony, and how the book's design and style mirror the reconstruction of memory. We talk about how the book originated with his dad totally opening up to one of Frank's friends about a story he never told Frank, how interviewing family members for the book brought him closer to them and to understanding them as people, and why I developed the belief that men are far less likely to know how their parents met than women are. We also discuss how his art-training influences his comics compositions, how working for painter Dorothea Rockburne taught him to see the page as music, why he prefers standalone projects to serial publishing, and plenty more. • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: Episode_345_-_Frank_Santoro.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 5:22pm EDT

Transgression vs. transcendence: Elizabeth Hand's brand-new novel, Curious Toys (Mulholland Books), explores artistic and cultural taboos through the lens of a serial killer mystery set in the amusement parks of Progressive Era Chicago. We talk about her inspiration for making outsider artist/writer Henry Darger one of the lead characters of Curious Toys, how she first heard about Darger and the Vivian Girls mythology he created in his paintings and 15,000-page (!) novel, the striking similarities between Darger and Tolkien, the tragedy of outsider/visionary artists, and the challenge of casting a nonbinary character a century in the past (the novel's other lead, not Darger). We also get into why writers have no control over the success of their books, the differences between writing on spec vs. on contract, some hints about her next Cass Neary novel, the time she outdrew Deepak Chopra at a bookstore signing, and more! • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: Episode_344_-_Liz_Hand.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 4:35pm EDT

With her new book, Vivisectionary (Fantagraphics), artist Kate Lacour has created a work of repulsive beauty (or beautiful revulsion). We get into the theme of transformation in her work, her untraditional notion of comics, whether Vivisectionary should be considered "body horror", the concentric narratives that comprise the book, and how nothing can prepare you for the insect life in New Orleans. Along the way, we talk about treating God like an art director, the twin joys of generation and decay, the symbology of her art, the wonders of going to the Art Students League in NYC for life drawing classes, her followup questions to the Gil Roth AMA episode, the intensely mixed attraction/repulsion reaction people have to her work, what made her most uncomfortable about doing a five-day journal comic, why she's adapting the Song of Solomon for her next work, and more! • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: Episode_343_-_Kate_Lacour.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:06pm EDT

The great architecture writer Witold Rybczynski rejoins the show to talk about his wonderful new book, Charleston Fancy (Yale University Press). We get into how he discovered the stories and characters behind the Byzantine homes of a block of Charleston, the city's unique history and its role as a pioneer in historical zoning, the catastrophe that launched the book, and the value of local architects. We also talk about how computers have changed architecture and building, how an architecture student can graduate nowadays without actually making a set of architectural drawings, the loss of tradition and continuity in architecture, how moving into Philadelphia proper has changed his perspective on the city, why he disagrees with the modern notion that every age has to have its own architecture and what he'd like to see from the rebuilding of Notre-Dame, what he culled from his library before moving house, and what single building he'd like to not see anymore. • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Direct download: Episode_342_-_Witold_Rybczynski.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 10:05am EDT

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