Tell Me Something I Don't Know

In this episode of Tell Me something I Don't Know, we speak with Joseph Lupo, a printmaker and professor at West Virginia University. His work focuses on how writers and artists communicate through comics. For more than a decade, he has deconstructed and examined a single volume of The Invincible Iron Man comic book: Volume 01, Issue 178, published in 1984.

"It is a different kind of superhero issue for a few reasons," says Lupo. "For one, never in this story does the superhero Iron Man ever directly appear. Also, this issue is split into two different story lines."

Using that single issue as source material, he invited 23 nationally-recognized artists to create new work inspired by that original comic. The result: a curated group exhibition, "Shame of the City: Deconstructing and Reconstructing Comic Book Narratives," which opens at Future Tenant in Pittsburgh on December 13, 2013.

We speak with Lupo about the show, and what we can learn about communication from studying comics.

Cartoonist Ed Piskor's latest book, The Hip Hop Family Tree (Fantagraphic Books) collects his non-fiction comic strip history of Hip Hop, serialized weekly here on Boing Boing. The Hip Hop Family Tree follows the success of his debut graphic novel last year, Wizzywig (Top Shelf Comics), the tale of a computer hacker. Piskor has a special knack for creating comics that appeal to audiences beyond those of us who frequent comic book shops and bookmark webcomics for daily reading. We caught up with him after a busy month of promotional activity for the new book, including stops at Miami Book Fair, Chicago Ideas Week, Brooklyn Book Fair, and the Small Press Expo.

Jacq Cohen is the publicist of Fantagraphics Books. Before that, she was an assistant publicist at Dark Horse Comics and interned at Top Shelf Comix. Fantagraphics Books has been a proponent of comics as a legitimate form of art and literature since they started publishing the Comics Journal in 1976. Since then, they’ve published some of the greatest cartoonists in history including George Herriman, Charles Schulz, Carl Barks, the Hernandez Brothers, Robert Crumb, Chris Ware, Dan Clowes, Peter Bagge, and many, MANY more (including TMSIDK's own Ed Piskor).

This year, Kim Thompson, the co-publisher of Fantagraphics Books and one of the most significant figures in comics history, passed away. As a result, 2013 has been a difficult year for the company. Besides the emotional impact of his loss, there have been financial losses due to his active role at the company. In order to overcome this shortfall, Fantagraphics Books has organized a Kickstarter campaign to help finance next season’s book publishing.

Although Cohen no-doubt deserves her own episode of Tell Me Something I Don’t Know, she graciously took time to talk about this fundraiser (don’t worry, dear listeners, we get to hear a bit about her and what she does at her dream job!). Please consider helping Fantagraphics Books by supporting this Kickstarter and share this episode with your friends who love comics. Thank you.

Cartoonist Farel Dalrymple began his comics career as part of the Meathaus gang - a loose collective of artists from the School of Visual Arts around the end of the 20th century (Brandon Graham and James Jean know the secret handshake). His work includes Pop Gun War, illustrating Jonathan Letham's Omega the Unknown, the webcomic It Will All Hurt on SG12, and the newly released Delusional from Adhouse Books. He has been nominated for Eisner Awards, received a Xeric Grant, and earned a Gold Medal from the Society of Illustrators.

Bill Shannon is a multidisciplinary artist based in Pittsburgh. In 1992, Shannon attended the The Art Institute of Chicago, earning a BFA in 1995. In 1996 Shannon moved to NYC and immersed himself in the art, dance and skate cultures of Brooklyn and Manhattan.

Over the past two decades, Shannon's installations, performances, choreography and video work have been presented nationally and internationally at numerous venues, festivals and events including the Sydney Opera House, Tate Liverpool Museum, NYC Town Hall, Portland Institute of Contemporary Art, The Holland Festival, Amsterdam, Temple Bar Dublin, Kiasma Museum Finland, the Hirshhorn Museum, and many more. Shannon also completed a project with Cirque du Soleil: he choreographed an aerial duet and a solo on crutches for their 2002 production "Varekai," which continues to tour.

Shannon has been honored with a Newhouse Foundation Award, a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, and a Foundation for Contemporary Art Award, among others. He has also received support for his work from the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Dance Project of the New England Foundation for the Arts, Jerome Foundation, New York Foundation for the Arts, and others.

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Tell Me Something I Don't Know is produced and hosted by three cartoonists and illustrators:

Jim Rugg is a Pittsburgh-based comic book artist, graphic designer, zinemaker, and writer best known for Afrodisiac, The Plain Janes, and Street Angel. His latest
project is SUPERMAG.

Jasen Lex is a designer and illustrator from Pittsburgh. He is currently working on a graphic novel called Washington Unbound. All of his art and comics can be found at jasenlex.com.

Cartoonist Ed Piskor (that's me) draws the Wizzywig, and draws the Brain Rot/ Hip Hop Family Tree comic strip at this very site, soon to be collected by Fantagraphics Books and available for pre-order now.

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Peter Bagge and Evan Dorkin began making alternative comics in the 1980s.

Peter Bagge began his career on R. Crumb’s Weirdo magazine as a cartoonist and then editor. He created Neat Stuff and Hate for Fantagraphics Books along with works for DC Comics, Marvel, and Dark Horse including the titles Yeah! (with Gilbert Hernandez), Apocalypse Nerd, and Other Lives. His latest work is the biography, Rebel Woman: The Margaret Sanger Story.

Evan Dorkin is best known for Milk & Cheese, Dork, and Superman and Batman: World’s Funnest (he also wrote and drew Bill & Ted’s Excellent Comic Book). He has written for a number of TV shows including Space Ghost Coast To Coast, Superman, and Welcome To Eltingville. He is the co-creator of Beasts Of Burden (with Jill Thompson).

Follow TMSIDK on Twitter

GET TMSIDK: RSS | On iTunes | Download episode | Listen on Stitcher

Tell Me Something I Don't Know is produced and hosted by three talented cartoonists and illustrators:

Jim Rugg, a Pittsburgh-based comic book artist, graphic designer, zinemaker, and writer best known for Afrodisiac, The Plain Janes, and Street Angel. His latest
project is SUPERMAG.

Jasen Lex is a designer and illustrator from Pittsburgh. He is currently working on a graphic novel called Washington Unbound. All of his art and comics can be found at jasenlex.com.

Ed Piskor is the cartoonist who drew the comic, Wizzywig, and draws the Brain Rot/ Hip Hop Family Tree comic strip at this very site, soon to be collected by Fantagraphics Books and available for pre-order now.

Frank Santoro is a Pittsburgh-based cartoonist. He self-published his first major work, Storeyville in 1995 while living in San Francisco. Upon its republication twelve years later, Tom Spurgeon wrote, "Frank Santoro's Storeyville may be the book of 2007, which is doubly amazing when you realize that it may have been the book of 1995 as well." After spending time in the New York art scene, where he painted and assisted painter, Francesco Clemente, he returned to making comics in the early 2000s with Cold Heat - an unfinished collaboration with Ben Jones. He cofounded the influential comics criticism blog and publication, Comics Comics, with Dan Nadel and Tim Hodler. In 2011, he founded the Santoro Correspondence Course. He writes a weekly comic for tcj.com and runs comicworksbook (currently in the midst of the comicsworkbook Composition Competition 2013). This fall, Picturebox, Inc. will release Santoro's new graphic novel, Pompeii -- a historical romance set in the days before the eruption.

Rob Liefeld is the creator of Deadpool, Cable, X-Force, Youngblood, Supreme, Bloodstrike, Prophet, and Glory! He founded Image Comics in 1992 with Jim Lee, Todd McFarlane, Erik Larsen, Jim Valentino, and Marc Silvestri. Currently he oversees the Extreme Universe titles at Image. Follow Rob on Twitter @robertliefeld and see more of his art on robliefeldcreations.com.

Shelton Drum is a first-generation outlier in the world of comics retail and convention organizing with his Charlotte NC store, Heroes Aren't Hard To Find, celebrating 30+ years in existence and Heroes Con growing stronger over a similar span of time. The TMSIDK gang traveled to Heroes Con 2013 to record the show live and the conversation spans the history of comics from the mid-60s forward through the eyes of a store owner who's seen it all.

Jon M. Gibson is the co-founder/co-owner of iam8bit -– a production company, creative think tank, art exhibition, and gallery space in Los Angeles. iam8bit’s projects include a music video for Radiohead, A Really, Really Brief History of Donkey Kong for the King of Kong DVD, Street Fighter Club, a custom vinyl picture disc for Tron Evolution, and marketing and artwork for Mega Man 9. After the success of the initial iam8bit shows (hosted at Gallery Nineteen Eighty Eight), they opened their own space and have continued to produce a variety of art exhibitions in addition to their work in the video game, film, fashion, and music industries.