Colin's Comment

Friday, July 14, 2006

Interviewing Peter Bagge…
Today Robin and I interviewed Peter Bagge, who I used too know back when Seattle (Hell, he sold me rare copies of Comical Funnies 1-3 when he first moved to Seattle, cover price!) was the centre of the alternative comics world but I haven‘t him seen in years, on Inkstuds. I am one of the few who can say I’ve seen his band, The Action Suits, play live! Peter was good, intelligent guy, sometimes when you do interviews getting words out of a subject can be like pulling teeth but there were no awkward pauses of the “my-mind-has-gone-blank-I-can’t-think-of-anything-to-ask-this-guy-kind” but not this time.* (Little did we know that he was warmed up, this being his second interview of the day! Apparently there’s a radio show about comics in Portland Oregon, I never knew existed! I‘m hoping to meet one of the people from the show tomorrow as he’s in town for the Folk fest.) We talked about music, the Hate Annual and Apocalypse Nerd (his new must read comic) and what it was like being the “grunge” cartoonist… better than cancer, he said. We ran out of time before we could get into Libertarian politics, which is something I always wondered about. Libertarians I’ve met seem to be the “shoot the meter maid” kind. I look at a couple of the strips Peter had done for Reason magazine online and they reminded me of the politics I learned from Mad Magazine, that is, attack everybody! To be a cartoonist/social critic I think you have to be able to step back and satirize anyone who deserves it, truly committed ideologues make for bad comics. Does that make every cartoonist a natural Libertarian, or just a malcontent crank? Depends once again how it’s defined but I imagine thinking for yourself is a good place to start! Oh, Robin and I love the “Founding Fathers” strips in the back of Apocalypse Nerd, once again proving my theory that autobiographical cartoonists (Peter admitted on the show that Buddy Bradley was at the very least semi-autobiographical) are frustrated historians! There was one strip he did about going to a rally against the invasion of Iraq I could certainly relate too, I’ve done a story about a failed demo myself (that was in one of the Drippys). The interview should be up as a pod cast at the Crown Commission web site in about a week.

Next week, Krazy Kat with comics scholar Jeet Heer.

PS, those of you who are waiting for the Peter Bagge Hulk comic may have reason to hope!

*A journalist who was interviewing me told me that of all the visual artists he interviewed, cartoonists were the most articulate. Not bad for people who are supposed to be so socially awkward!

If you’re in Vancouver get your West Ender weekly as Julian Lawrence and Drippy the Newsboy are on the cover with an article inside about the current comics and art book art show at the Emily Carr foyer!

New book from Jason, I’ll report on it soon!

1 Comments:

At 12:41 p.m., Anonymous Anonymous said...

the peter bagge interview is up for downloading....

cheers

 

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