Today we have Sean Michael Robinson's lengthy interview with David Lasky, the veteran alternative comics artist who just put out his debut graphic novel, The Carter Family (which he created in collaboration with Frank Young). Lasky discusses many things, from his plans to write comics about bread delivery to his multiple attempts to do justice to James Joyce in comics form. He also talks a little about why it took him so long to put out a full-length book:
When it’s a minicomic you can take certain risks and there’s no danger. It’s a low-budget operation. But when it becomes a book some publisher is putting up a lot of money and then it’s out there in bookstores and libraries and it’s representing alternative comics to the world. And if it’s not a very good book, I cringe. “Oh, why did they put that out?” I’m not saying that my peers put out a lot of bad books. I think there’s a lot of great books. But if I put out a book I want it to be my best thing possible. So I have had publishers express interest, but ... partly I wasn’t ready, partly I felt they were maybe just overeager, or maybe were gonna put out something that wasn’t my best material.
Elsewhere:
—Adrian Tomine's been on a roll lately, media-wise (and here on the blog), but it's all good stuff. He talked again to The New Yorker about how he creates cover images for the magazine, and I missed earlier this great episode of Too Much Information, which features a very good audio interview with Tomine about surviving superstorms. (It also features another guest telling an incredible (in both senses of the word) story about the teenaged Mitt Romney meeting Guy Debord in Paris, 1968.)
—I said I was done reading BCGF reports, and that's mostly true, but I'd be remiss not to mention at least two more, from Robert Boyd and Rina Ayuyang, two supersmart comics people who had very different experiences.
—I am also going to steal Tom Spurgeon's link to a story I unfortunately missed myself last week, to Tablet's article about Paul Reinman. Read it.
—Finally, is it necessary for someone here at TCJ.com to address the recent cosplay "controversy?" I hope not, because it's really obvious who the cretins are in that back-and-forth, and I don't feel like dealing with it. You don't see a lot of cosplay related to the kinds of comics we mostly cover, anyway, though the way things to go with The Young People™, I'm sure that will change sooner than I expect. There will probably be a lot of "sexy" Tux Dog outfits at the BCGF of 2020.
