Interview Roundup

• The Village Voice chats with graphic novelist Jessica Abel about, among other things, how her comics have often been miscontrued as thinly veiled memoir: “When La Perdida was first serialized [in 2001], everyone assumed it was autobiographical, but as it went along people figured out Carla wasn’t me—or hoped it wasn’t me, given what happens in the book.”

• As long as we’re talking about comics, here’s an interview with manga legend Kazuo Koike, perhaps best known for Lone Wolf and Cub…but whose Lady Snowblood was a key influence on Quentin Tarantino for Kill Bill. And lest we still have any doubts about the signficance of manga, Koike describes it as “the only new—and perhaps, the last new—commodity that Japan can proudly present to the world.” As he points out, “gross yearly sales in the Japanese automobile industry are 20 trillion yen ($170 billion). Gross sales related to intellectual property, of which manga is a major subset, are 14.7 trillion yen ($125 billion).”

• I was hoping that I’d get to meet Elizabeth Kolbert this weekend at the Virginia Festival of the Book, but our panels are scheduled directly opposite one another. So for now I’ll have to settle for this New Yorker promotional interview for her series of articles on climate control…

• One of the best books I’ve read in the last month is Naomi Novik’s His Majesty’s Dragon, which is basically like Patrick O’Brian, but with dragon riders. Seriously amazing book; it’s a mass-market original coming out any day now from Del Rey, and you’ll want to pick it up. Find out some more in this interview with Novik.

23 March 2006 | uncategorized |

Don’t You Forget About Me

Oh, good heavens—I was so busy putting the finishing touches on a story for next Monday’s issue of Publishers Weekly that I completely didn’t realize I’d been so remiss here. I am really going to have to make up for that beginning this weekend.

In the meantime, my good friend Mark Sarvas spotted an interview between Kate Braverman and William Vollmann. Since I had just met Braverman in my role as GalleyCat co-writer, I emailed her to say I’d seen it, and she suggested that I check out the complete version of that talk, which she’s hosting on her own website.

And Tommy Hays, a former Beatrice guest author, turned up with an essay at Moorishgirl, coinciding with this month’s release of The Pleasure Was Mine in paperback…

As for me, I’m at New York Comic-Con much of this weekend, reporting for GalleyCat, but I have some guest authors just about ready to be published, so I’ll start cracking on those Saturday (or Sunday).

24 February 2006 | uncategorized |