Talking with Tim

Timothy Callahan was just one of the many folks I met at Baltimore Comic-Con back in September. Coming out of that meeting we decided to do an email interview regarding his two books and criticism in general. Callahan is a savvy critic who clearly knows pop culture and the comic book genre better than many (as shown frequently at his blog, GeniusboyFiremelon) and is firm in his convictions. Before launching into the interview, here’s the core info on the man himself: “Callahan is an educator, husband, father of two, writer of Grant Morrison: The Early Years, and editor of the recently-released Teenagers from the Future. He writes for Back Issue magazine and Comic Book Resources, and he’s much busier than he used to be.”

Tim O’Shea: Zack Smith recently did a series of interviews with Morrison in which he thanked you for your help. How did you assist him?

Timothy Callahan: Zack had e-mailed me over the summer about the “Superman 2000″ pitch that I’d blogged about — the one where Morrison, Mark Waid, Mark Millar, and Tom Peyer proposed to revamp the Superman franchise for the new millennium — and he actually did an interview with me for Newsarama shortly after that. So we’d been in contact, and when he was sending his big ‘ole batch of questions to Morrison for the All-Star interview, he asked me to take a look at his proposed questions and to add a few of my own, which I did. I would say I added about three questions total, but Zack was probably influenced by a lot of the stuff I’d been writing about on my blog over the past year, so he very courteously thanked me in each of the installments that ended up running. Zack’s interview is shockingly comprehensive, and I’m glad to have been even a tiny part of it.

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Enrico Casarosa and his new book, Venice Chronicles (”A love story/travelogue/graphic novel”), was just one of the great books I found out about at the Baltimore Comic-Con in September. Casarosa was not at the con, but AdHouse’s Chris Pitzer was telling folks about the book in advance of its release (given that AdHouse is serving as the book’s distributor). I have trusted Pitzer’s instincts on books for years, so while I was still at the con, I emailed Casarosa to line up an email interview.

Before jumping into the interview, here’s the official bio on the storyteller:

“Enrico Casarosa has been in the animation industry for more than ten years, drawing storyboards that fit into large animated feature films. Currently a story artist at Pixar Animation Studios Enrico continues his quest to create more hours in the day by drawing alternate realities. Sooner or later his experiments will break through and we’ll all have to buy new watches. Meantime he just published an art book “3 trees make a forest” with partners in crime Ronnie del Carmen and Tadahiro Uesugi. Other times he pursues his muse by traveling with his watercolors and sketchbooks. Enrico is the founder of ‘SketchCrawl’, a worldwide drawing marathon event that gathers artists from all around the globe.”

Once you finish reading the interview, be sure to go here to buy the book directly from Casarosa.

Tim O’Shea: In addition to this new book, the Venice Chronicles, you work at Pixar. I was struck by something you recently wrote in your blog: “It’s become tradition for us selfpublishing friends here at Pixar to take photos of the opening of the first box of books.” How many selfpublishing friends are at Pixar and can you name some of them (and their projects)?

Enrico Casarosa: Oh yes there’s quite a few of us. I’ve had the luck of sharing tables at more than a couple of conventions (and co-publish a book) with uber talented friend Ronnie del Carmen. Another long time friend here at Pixar is Bill Presing, artist of “Rex Steele Nazismasher”. We met a long time ago back in NewYork and both did stories for the anthology Monkeysuit. And the list of talented pixarian friends/co-workers goes on: Scott Morse (Tiger!Tiger!Tiger!, Magic Pickle), Ted Mathot (Rose and Isabel, Cora), Derek Thompson , Dice Tsutsumi (Out of Picture) and many more. There’s also been a couple of anthologies called Afterworks that gather comics for some of the folks here and they even a new volume in the making.

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Last week I lamented the passing of Studs Terkel. I had no idea that I’d be paying tribute to critic John Leonard upon his passing this past Wednesday.

I lost track of Leonard in recent years, around the time of my divorce and returning to the Catholic Church. I was first introduced to Leonard in the 1990s, when I stopped attending church and started watching CBS’ Sunday Morning. His TV criticism and passion was like no one else I had ever seen. His scant moments on the show were sheer enlightenment. In the late 1990s, I read his book, Smoke and Mirrors: Violence, Television, and Other American Cultures.

I did not read the New York Times Book Review when it was edited by Leonard in the 1970s (well I was in grade school). I would periodically read his book reviews in Harper’s, but I did not realize he continued to do TV reviews for New York magazine up almost to the point of his death. I regret not appreciating Leonard more in general–at the point I found out he had written for the Nation in recent years, the degree of how much great analysis I denied myself became apparent.

Leonard was a liberal who got his start at the National Review (another reason to respect the William F. Buckley era of that magazine) . He was able to vote for Obama–despite being gravely ill and literally a day away from death–on Tuesday.

Writers are lining up to sing his praise, but I leave you with A.O. Scott’s thoughts on Leonard:
“He demonstrated in every sentence what a critic could be — what a critic must be. Not a cop, a saint, a celebrity, a judge, a bureaucrat or a priest. A citizen. A teacher. A friend.”

Frank Santoro is a Pittsburgh-based artist who first became known in 1995 for Storeyville, a “perfect match of form and content” that was re-released in 2007 by Picturebox. More recently he has collaborated with Ben Jones on Cold Heat where the two storytellers are “applying Jones’s surreal, biting prose to Santoro’s elegant yet dynamic renderings”. Many folks will also recognize Santoro for his rather passionate opinions about comics and storytelling in general as shared at the group blog, Comics Comics. Through such efforts as Cage Match at the blog, as Santoro recently noted: “It was—and remains—our hope that people care enough about comics to take a stand, one way or the other. To get involved, to build a dialogue that will help create an emotional as well as intellectual foundation for the comics of the future.” This email interview took place soon after the initial David Heatley Cage Match, but before Heatley responded to critics (and the ensuing comments section from hell).

Tim O’Shea: If you had the chance to tell Heatley in person what you thought of this work, would you be this passionate? In asking this I’m not implying you would not have the guts per se to say these things in person, but rather the written word allows nuances and complexities lost in standard conversation. You were excited about his potential five years ago, but now feel far differently. Do you think Heatley squandered his talent and failed his potential–or that you were mistaken in seeing potential in his efforts in the first place?

Frank Santoro: I might not be so “passionate” but I plan on being honest. I’ve known him for years. He’s a nice guy. I don’t think he’s squandered his talent but I do wonder, openly and in a public forum, what the big deal is about his work. Why does it get so much attention? I think it has more to do with David’s “provocative” themes and his careerist approach to the new “graphic novel” landscape within the publishing industry than it does with how sound his comics are.

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A few weeks back, I got my hands on an advanced copy of The Nightmare Factory: Volume 2 (Fox Atomic/HarperCollins). As described by the publisher: “The mind-bending universe of horror master Thomas Ligotti awaits in another graphic adaptation of his haunting work … Four more of Ligotti’s arresting tales are adapted into fine graphic literature by famed creators Stuart Moore, Joe Harris, Vasilis Lolos (The Last Call), Bill Sienkiewicz (Elektra: Assassin), Toby Cypress (Killing Girl), and Nick Stakal (Criminal Macabre: My Demon Baby), featuring all-new introductions to each story by Thomas Ligotti.”

With the help of HarperCollins’ Greg Kubie, I was able to get in contact with both Moore and Harris for email interviews to discuss the book. First off, we’ll begin with Moore. Here’s his official bio (via his must-read blog, Pensive Mischief): “Moore has been a writer, a book editor, and an award-winning comics editor. His recent writing includes Iron Man (Marvel Comics), The 99 (Teshkeel), Firestorm (DC Comics), the original science-fiction series Earthlight (Tokyopop) and PARA (Penny-Farthing Press), and the prose novels American Meat and Reality Bites (Games Workshop). He was a founding editor of DC’s Vertigo imprint, and has also edited the Marvel Knights and Virgin Comics/SciFi Channel comics lines. Stuart lives in Brooklyn, New York with his wife, author Liz Sonneborn, and three of the most spoiled cats on the planet.”

Tim O’Shea: In adapting someone else’s prose for graphic novel, how hard is it to find your own voice while maintaining the spirit of Ligotti’s work?

Stuart Moore: I don’t do a lot of comics adaptations, but I always find them interesting. You exercise different writing muscles, and it makes you think differently about the way you construct your own comics.

With the Ligotti books, I don’t really worry so much about finding my own voice. These are really beautifully crafted stories, and I always try to keep as much of the original prose as I can. The trick is to figure out how to make each individual piece work in comics form. It’s a challenge, because in their original form, these stories rely much more on interior narrative and moody prose than on dialogue.

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It was with sadness that I read about the passing of editor Robert Giroux at the age of 94.

Giroux was the Giroux in the publishing house of Farrar Straus Giroux.

Here is an obit from the New York Times.

Consider this one sentence from his company’s tribute to him:

“Mr. Giroux’s authors included Hannah Arendt, John Berryman, Elizabeth Bishop, T.S. Eliot, Seamus Heaney, Paul Horgan, Jack Kerouac, Madeleine L’Engle, Dr. Abraham Joshua Heschel, Randall Jarrell, Robert Lowell, Bernard Malamud, Flannery O’Connor, Walker Percy, George Orwell, Xavier Rynne, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Derek Walcott, and Edmund Wilson.”

Now that’s just amazing. As a fellow who studied and admired Berryman and Percy in college, those names alone impressed me.

Thanks for some fine reading, Mr. Giroux.

There’s no corner of the sequential art industry that gets ignored, thanks to Dirk Deppey. As the linking dynamo behind Journalista, Deppey has built a web presence that is a daily stop for anyone who wants to stay informed about comics. Deppey took time out of his recent vacation to answer a few questions on his role as TCJ.com online editor and his past gig as managing editor of The Comics Journal.

Tim O’Shea: Some people mistakenly assume your responsibility as TCJ.com’s online editor is to do Journalista. What all do you do as online editor?

Dirk Deppey: Journalista’s a big part of it, yes — I mean, it requires anywhere from six to twelve hours a day, depending on what’s out there, so it takes up the overwhelming majority of my time. The other big job is producing the online edition of the print magazine for subscribers, which entails turning the text and images into something Web-friendly, which while not as time-intensive as the blog still takes a significant amount of work. There are also the random online-only goodies, nominal policing of the message board and whatever else rears its ungainly head. I probably put in a good 50-55 hours a week on the website, all told.

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When I interview someone, typically I enter the process knowing that the person is far more informed than I am. Part of what draws me into interviewing most folks is the realization that here is someone I can learn a great deal from, or at least that’s how it works for the most part. Then there are interviews like this one, in which I become fairly well aware, fairly quickly, that the interview subject has a wealth of knowledge that has me scrambling to the New York Public Library website to keep up with the interview subject. Such is the case here, with Lars Martinson, creator of Tonoharu. Here’s the core info you need to know about the storyteller:

“Lars Martinson was born on Mother’s Day, 1977. He has met a princess, seen a five-legged cow, and eaten raw octopus eggs. From 2003 to 2006 he taught English in Fukuoka, Japan through the Japan Exchange and Teaching Program. In 2007 he received the prestigious Xeric Grant for his graphic novel Tonoharu: Part One.” He currently is in the midst of a two-year effort to study Calligraphy at Shikoku University in Japan and “is hard at work on the second part of the Tonoharu story.”

And here’s the essence of his current work:

“Daniel Wells begins a new life as an assistant junior high school teacher in the rural Japanese village of Tonoharu. Isolated from those around him by cultural and language barriers, he leads a monastic existence, peppered only by his inept pursuit of the company of a fellow American who lives a couple towns over. But contrary to appearances, Dan isn’t the only foreigner to call Tonoharu home. Across town, a group of wealthy European eccentrics are boarding in a one-time Buddhist temple, for reasons that remain obscure to their gossiping neighbors. ” (One last detail about the book? How well is it selling? Top Shelf has sold out of the first printing with a second printing on the way.)

Tim O’Shea: I found it interesting that you wrote recently in your blog: “Iris Murdoch once said ‘To be a good writer, you have to kill your babies’, and that’s what editing the text was like for me.” First off, I actually don’t think I’ve heard a graphic novelist reference Murdoch before, so I have to ask–what books or authors do you like?

Lars Martinson: I have to confess that I’ve never actually read any Murdoch; I heard the “kill your babies” quote years ago, and it stuck with me because I thought it was good advice and an apt description of the editing process. When I included it in a blog entry, I had to do an internet search to find out who to attribute it to.

But to answer your question, my favorite work of fiction is the four-volume Alexandria Quartet by Lawrence Durrell, about a group of expats living in pre-WWII Egypt. A couple of the character names in Tonoharu were taken from that series. My favorite author in general is Knut Hamsun, a 19th century Norwegian novelist. I’ve read every English translation of his work that I’ve been able to get my hands on.

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In a way I understand some of the shocked responses to the demise of the Los Angeles Times Book Review, given how suddenly the news broke. But if you read websites like Romenesko’s you already knew that the newspaper industry has been struggling for quite a while. The slices of pie available for media outlets are diversifying and in some cases getting smaller (i.e. newspapers). Buyout offers are happening across the country. So while it is a shame to see this change coming, I can’t say that I’m too surprised.

Last month, after reading Whitney (Pop Candy) Matheson’s review of Robert Schnakenberg’s new book, Secret Lives of Great Authors, I tracked down the author to interview him. In addition to discussing the new book, Schnakenberg took questions about the upcoming release of his revised Encyclopedia Shatnerica (about all things William Shatner, set for an August 2008 release) as well as a new Christopher Walken A-to-Z book (set for October 2008 release). But the bulk of this interview covered the book that answers such questions as “Is it true that J. D. Salinger drank his own urine? Why was Ayn Rand such a big fan of Charlie’s Angels?” My thanks to Schnakenberg for his time.

Tim O’Shea: How often in trying to research facts for Secret Lives did you find out the anecdote was not true?

Robert Schnakenberg: That happened occasionally. Sometimes I’d find a really good anecdote about someone, and then another source would say that it happened to someone else entirely. You know, one book says it happened to Ernest Hemingway, another says it happened to F. Scott Fitzgerald. That happens with quotes a lot. They are always attributed to two or three different people. So you throw those out, or you find the one source that you trust and you go with that. I can’t promise that every anecdote in my book is 100% true—I mean, I wasn’t in the men’s room with Hemingway and Fitzgerald when they compared schlongs—but I can say everything is reliably sourced. Double and triple sourced, in fact, as much as possible.

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