Season 4, Episode 39 - 35 Cents & a Stamp

John Porcellino has been publishing his King-Cat Comics & Stories mini-comics for 25 years, but I managed not to check them out until last month. BIG mistake on my part! Turns out the critics were right; John P.'s one of the best autobio cartoonists out there, as well as "a master at miniature poignance" (Entertainment Weekly). We sat down at SPX 2014 to talk about publishing his new work, The Hospital Suite, as a standalone book and developing the skill and courage to tackle longer stories, his disdain for "the culture of like", overcoming the shame and stigma of his OCD, the process of discovering an audience for his work, the pitfalls of autobiographical comics, discovering the power of negative space, turning his life into a narrative, how comics enabled him to communicate with people, and, most importantly, being an NFL bigamist. Bonus: Roger Langridge gives us a few minutes at SPX to talk about his new book, Jim Henson's The Musical Monsters of Turkey Hollow!

"I managed to go 43 issues before I hit the paralyzing grip of self-doubt and self-consciousness [from realizing that I had an audience]. I feel lucky that I had all those years to write comics in essentially a vacuum. I can't imagine what it would be like to be 20 years old and trying to write comics in this world with the internet's immediate response."