Interviews
No More Words: An interview with the creators of the webcomic Pear Pear
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Pear Pear is an innovative, wordless webcomic created by Peter Donahue, Erin Donahue and Sal Crivelli. There is a lot to like from the clean and simple icon-driven website to the intriguing ideograph-in-balloon speech that the characters use. Maybe most impressive of all is the investment of real personality in a pear and a mug. Artist Peter Donahue is the creator of this month's cover art at ComixTalk -- I got a chance to interview all three by email.
What is the creative team behind Pear Pear? And what do each of you do on the comic and website?
Bringing the Buzz Back to Buzzcomix
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Andrew "mneonix08" Gomez created the webcomics toplist Buzzcomix back in 2002 and it has long been one of the most popular "top list" sites for webcomics. After graduating from college mneonix08 has taken apart the code for Buzzcomix and reworked the site adding several features, including a webcomics reader (with bookmarking function) that shows a lot of promise. Currently in beta, the new version of Buzzcomix is scheduled to launch August 8th. I caught up with mneonix08 over email last week.
An Interview with Tom Brazelton
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Theater Hopper by Tom Brazelton is a webcomic sort of, but not entirely about Tom, his wife Cami and their friends. The creator, Tom Brazelton (as opposed to his four-color alter ego) is coming up on six years of the webcomic. Neither fatherhood nor the Star Wars prequels have stopped the man from making fun at and with the movies. Over the last couple of months I interviewed Tom about the webcomic, his third print collection and other necessary pop culture topics.
Catching Up with Jason Shiga
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Jason Shiga is an inventive cartoonist and the creator of FLEEP, a comic serialized at Modern Tales back in 2003. Shiga is fairly prolific and has posted to his website many other examples of his work over the years. His most recent graphic novel Bookhunter was nominated for an Eisner award this year and he's already at work on new comics.
Catching Up With Pendleton Ward
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Back in 2003, one of the first webcomics reviewed by ComixTalk was a cute little absurdist riff called Bueno The Bear. Bueno the Bear was a strange, but sweet-natured aburdist bit of humor; alas it's creator Pendleton Ward took the archives down from the web. Curious as to what Ward is up to now, I got a chance to interview him via email.
An Interview with the Creator of SPQR Blues -- Carol "Klio" Burrell
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Carol "Klio" Burrell is the Glyph Award nominated creator of SPQR Blues -- a webcomic set in the shadow of Mount Vesuvius in the era of the Roman Empire. Burrell is really talented which is a great thing because a historically-based webcomic like SPQR Blues appears to be a really demanding task: set in Roman times with a wide-ranging cast; all of it meshing with our collective sense of the Roman empire both in terms of the writing and the visuals -- it's extremely interesting to say the least and perhaps the education-oriented publishing company (Graphic Universe) Burrell works for ought to consider putting it out as a book when she's done.
I was really excited to see Burrell's Roman take on "steampunk" for our cover at ComixTalk this month. I think there's a whole new subgenre of speculative fiction waiting to emerge from that image. I got a chance to interview Burrell about her and her webcomic via email earlier this month.
Catching Up With Dylan Meconis
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Dylan Meconis created the popular and well received webcomic Bite Me!. ComixTalk reviewed it back in 2003. Nowadays Meconis is working on the webcomic Family Man. Family Man is being serialized by Meconis on her website and as she discusses below is a work with a lot more ground to cover before it will be completed.
Meconis also wrote a regular column called Juxtapose This! for ComixTalk in its first years. Aside from Paul Bryant Johnson's comics, it's the only thing I think we've published that had footnotes. But really good footnotes! (honest!) Being the fifth anniversary year of ComixTalk I thought it would be a great idea to catch up with Meconis and see what she's up to in 2008.
Joe Shuster Calling: An interview with Canada's Favorite Comic Book Creator, Faith Erin Hicks
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Faith Erin Hicks is the creator of two critically well received webcomics, Demonology 101 and Ice. She most recently put out the graphic novel Zombies Calling for which Hicks was just named "Favourite Canadian Comic Book Creator - English Language Publications" at this year's Joe Shuster awards.
We've covered much of Hicks' career in webcomics at ComixTalk from a review of D101 in March 2003 to interviews with her at the completion of D101 and during the start of her webcomic Ice. She even did one of my favorite covers for ComixTalk for the April 2005 issue.
Given the very recent news of her Shuster award it was great timing to catch up with her on life in Halifax, Nova Scotia and to get a few words on the new graphic novel, The War at Ellsmere, she's currently working on.
The Diaz Codak
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Aaron Diaz's Dresden Codak is an inventive swirl of science and supposition. The writing is fantastic speculative fiction all on its own but it's complemented by Diaz's damn impressive artwork. ComixTalk had a review of the comic earlier this year, I caught up with the creator for an interview by email for this month's issue.
Catching Up With Dorothy Gambrell
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Dorothy Gambrell is a prolific creator, probably best known for her webcomic Cat and Girl. We've interviewed her twice before, once for our March 2003 issue, and again for our October 2004 issue. We've also reviewed her webcomic Cat and Girl and her webcomic The New Adventures of Death. I got a chance to catch up via email with what she's working on now.
