Tue, 26 March 2024
How did an eBay search lead to the discovery of a lost classic of comics? How can art help us build a better America? Artist and teacher Keith Mayerson joins the show to talk about co-editing the amazing new book, Frank Johnson: Secret Pioneer of American Comics, Vol. 1 (Fantagraphics) and his multi-decade "wordless novel" in paintings, My American Dream (Karma). We get into how Frank Johnson made thousands of pages of comics in private, never published, and may have created the first American comic-book in history, whether he constitutes an Outsider Artist, how his creative legacy contrasts with Henry Darger's, and what it means to make a lifelong body of work with no sense or expectation of a readership. We also get into Keith's My American Dream project, its roots in 9/11 & the GWBush era, how his paintings play off of each other like panels in a comic (and how the curation of art exhibitions is a form of comics), the mash-up of key cultural figures of modern America, his art-subject trinity of James Dean, Elvis, and Keanu Reeves (and his story of meeting Keanu), how My American Dream works to synthesize aspects of Warhol & Rembrandt (& Haring), and the vitality of his painting of Kermit the Frog on a bicycle and the significance of the Muppets in his vision of America. Plus we discuss Keith's art & comics upbringing, the process of building comics programs at SVA and USC, his cult classic queer horror graphic novel with Dennis Cooper, the artistic act of suturing in to his subjects, why the job of art is keeping hope alive, how he felt when he found a parallel, secret history of comics taking place solely in one person's mind, and a lot more. Follow Keith on Instagram • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal and via our e-newsletter |
Wed, 20 March 2024
Classicist Edith Hall joins the show to talk about her fantastic, important new book, FACING DOWN THE FURIES: Suicide, the Ancient Greeks, and Me (Yale University Press). We talk about the taboo of talking about suicide, how that taboo can lead to transgenerational damage, how that compares to the family curses in Greek tragedies, and what the Tragedians have to teach us about life (and death) today. We get into her grandmother's suicide and her mother's conspiracy of silence around it, her own suicidal ideation and how Heracles Mad helped her through her worst phase, the way Facing Down the Furies sprung from Edith's previous book, Aristotle's Way, the process of researching her family history after her mother's death, and how Philoctetes embodies It Gets Better. We also get into the gender difference of existentialists and the crappy behavior of male philosophers, the gender difference in our readings of Alcestis, why she's Team Iliad (and supports my reading of Achilles' tragedy), the one Greek tragedy that she wishes survived to reach us, and a lot more. Also, I go LONG in the intro about some family stuff that came up in the lead-in to this episode. It should go without saying: content/trigger warning if discussions about suicide are a problem for you. Follow Edith on Twitter • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal and via our e-newsletter |
Sun, 17 March 2024
LEAN INTO DEAN! Cartoonist, playwright, schmoozer, etc. Dean Haspiel returns for a Bonus Episode to talk about his new Kickstarter, THE RED HOOK X DEAN HASPIEL (closing March 28, 2024)! We get into why he's making the plunge into Meta-Mem-Noir and bringing Dean Haspiel as a character into his New Brooklyn comics universe, what it's like to be part of the story, and how this podcast is also becoming more autobiographical with each passing week. Plus, we talk about getting old and not being able to stay out all night (even though he tried this weekend), what it's like to treat comics as a reductive art rather than a rendering one, the play Dino's working on, what he's learned from his previous Kickstarter projects, Covid Cop and Billy Dogma and Jane Legit, why he's holding off on reading the finale of Howard Chaykin's Time2 project, and more! Follow Dean on Substack, Instagram and . . . LiveJournal!? • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal and via our e-newsletter |
Tue, 12 March 2024
With his brand new collection, THE WEREWOLF AT DUSK and Other Stories (Liveright), David Small brings us a trio of stories about the beast within (that is, within the heart, within the psyche, and within the body politic). We talk about the on-and-off 40-year history of this collection, the themes of transformation and aging that suffuse these stories, and the schism in Leonora Carrington's estate that nearly derailed the whole project. We get into the the challenges of adapting prose fiction into comics, his move from graphic novels (think Stitches and Home After Dark) to short stories, why he's come to love drawing digitally, and just how bad most surrealist fiction can be. We also discuss the decline in kids' books, our respective life changes from 2020's COVID check-in, his Truman Capote kick, how we deal with monstrous artists, how hard he has to work to make his drawings look like they were done in 15 seconds, and a lot more. • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal and via our e-newsletter |
Tue, 5 March 2024
With RADIANT: The Life and Line of Keith Haring (Harper), Brad Gooch brings us the biography of Keith Haring, an artist who transformed public art & the art world in the 1980s and whose work has become part of global culture in the three decades since his untimely death from AIDS. We get into Brad's common threads with Haring, the parallels between this book and his biography of Rumi, how fatherhood helped Brad better understand Haring, and his surprise at discovering what a serious artist Haring was. We talk about why Haring's work makes more sense now than in the '80s, what he would have made of social media, the fire that drove him to make more than 10,000 pieces of art in his decade-plus career, the relationship of Haring to artists of color (among other race issues), where the Radiant Baby image came from, and what the younger gay population doesn't know about the AIDS crisis. We also discuss the incredible memorial of Keith and Howard Brookner at a recent Madonna concert, why 60 is a great age to start having kids, how Instagram reminds him of '80s social life, the parallels between the AIDS crisis and the early months of COVID, what Brad's learned in the course of writing four biographies, why Barbra Streisand's memoir reminds him of Karl Ove Knausgaard's My Struggle (!), and more. Follow Brad on Instagram and listen to our 2015 and 2017 conversations, and check out the Nakamura Keith Haring Collection • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal and via our e-newsletter |