Terri Libenson, THE PAJAMA DIARIES daily comic strip artist: Mr. Media Radio Interview

 
BY BOB ANDELMAN

My mother’s maiden name was Kaplan. My favorite person in the whole world—after mom, of course—was my grandfather, Sam Kaplan. I even convinced my wife to give my daughter “Kaplan” as her middle name.

So I must admit a touch of prejudice in reading cartoonist Terri Libenson’s daily strip, “The Pajama Diaries.” How could I resist the story of a family of Kaplans as told by someone who grew up in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania? That’s where my Kaplans are from, too.

All that, and the fact that “The Pajama Diaries” makes me laugh.

AUDIO EXCERPT: "I've always drawn and I gravitated toward cartooning at a very young age. What inspired me was 'Peanuts'; I used to draw Snoopy and Woodstock all the time. My brother also had a lot of MAD magazines and I used to read those over and over again."

Before launching “The Pajama Diaries” in 2002, Terri was a writer and illustrator for American Greetings. She also did another strip for two years, “Got a Life.”

This summer, Terri is taking the Kaplan family back to a time before Jill and Rob had kids. It’s a chance to fill in parts of the strip’s back story and probably give the artist a change of pace.




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You can LISTEN to this interview with TERRI LIBENSON, creator and daily cartoonist of THE PAJAMA DIARIES, by clicking the BlogTalkRadio.com audio player above!

Copyright 2009 Bob Andelman. Click here for copyright permissions!

Josh Neufeld, A.D.: NEW ORLEANS AFTER DELUGE graphic novelist: Mr. Media Radio Interview

There are all kinds of journalistic storytelling styles, starting with your basic who/what/when/where and why.

There is also “if it bleeds, it leads.”

And let’s not forget the “New Journalism” class of the 1960s and ‘70s, exemplified by everyone from Tom Wolfe to Truman Capote it used dramatic literary techniques to add depth to the reader’s involvement.

These days, some bloggers and tweeters have taken short-form journalism to new highs—and lows.

But how many people think of comic book and graphic novel creators as part of journalism? I see a few hands raised, but not nearly enough.

I would suggest to you that a wave of artist and writers who once would have been relegated to the comic book ghetto are creating compelling journalism in hand-drawn pictures these days. A recent guest on this show, Brendan Burford (Syncopated), publishes a series of what he calls “nonfiction picto-essays”—essentially journalism in sequential art.

The latest example I can recommend to you is Josh Neufeld’s new book, A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge. It’s the story of a handful of very different residents of the Crescent City in the days leading up to and the months following the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Reading it, you’ll laugh, you’ll cry and you’ll come away with an informed perspective about the lives of average Americans dealing with extraordinary challenges.

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You can LISTEN to this interview with A.D.: NEW ORLEANS AFTER THE DELUGE graphic novelist JOSH NEUFELD by clicking the BlogTalkRadio.com audio player above!

Copyright 2009 Bob Andelman. Click here for copyright permissions!

COMIC-CON SPECIAL: Jonathan Rosenberg, GOATS web cartoonist: Mr. Media Radio Interview

Jon Rosenberg, you had me at the gray-skinned alien who said, “On our planet, people worship pancakes.”

That’s the point—it was page three, I believe—that I realized that Goats: Infinite Typewriters was spinning out of control and I loved it.

This first print collection of Rosenberg’s whack-a-doodle webcomic—maybe whack-a-mole would be more appropriate if he’d write a mole into the story—was my kind of strip. It’s got aliens, a chicken named Diablo, monkeys as assistant editors, bikers, alternate universes, good Hitler, a character coincidentally named Jon, and yes, even a goat.

Even better, it includes a stop at my exit of the New Jersey Turnpike—#9, for those who don’t know—and who isn’t excited about that?

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You can LISTEN to this interview with GOATS cartoonist JONATHAN ROSENBERG by clicking the BlogTalkRadio.com audio player above!

Copyright 2009 Bob Andelman. Click here for copyright permissions!

Patrick McDonnell, MUTTS cartoonist: Mr. Media Interview

Book cover via AmazonIf you want to see daily comic strips in their classic form, the place I’d steer you is Patrick McDonnell’s “Mutts.”

Finely drawn, acerbic in voice yet sweet by nature, gentle in image yet often violent in humor, “Mutts” is a throwback to the earliest days of the art form, when a brick to the head meant “I love you” and the illustrations took more space than the words.

Despite appearing in more than 700 newspapers around the world, “Mutts” is not the most widely recognized strip around nor is its creator, Patrick McDonnell, the best-known artist. He hasn’t established himself as an Internet personality—I suspect you’ll learn shortly that he still doesn’t use a computer—but he has lent his name to the protection of animals, serving on the board of directors for The Humane Society of the United States and The Fund for Animals.

He is also the author of two new books. The first, South, is a delightfully wordless children’s story featuring Mooch from the “Mutts” strip. The second is Mutts Shelter Stories, a pastiche of selected “Mutts” strips and full-color, adorable photos of pets found in animal shelters, ready to be adopted.

You can LISTEN to this interview with PATRICK McDONNELL, the cartoonist behind the "MUTTS" daily comic strip, by clicking the BlogTalkRadio.com audio player below!

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Copyright 2008 Bob Andelman. Click here for copyright permissions!

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