If you are a fan of independent comics and graphic novels you really should check out Robin McConnell’s radio show Inkstuds. Every Thursday between 2:00 - 3:00pm Robin interviews the best creators in the medium, from publishers like Drawn & Quarterly, Fantagraphics and Top Shelf, for Citr Radio in Vancouver. Then, bless him, Robin posts up a podcast on the Inkstuds website so those of us unlucky enough not to live on the West Coast can listen too!

Inkstuds recently interviewed the masterful Chris Ware (ACME NOVELTY DATEBOOK, QUIMBY MOUSE and JIMMY CORRIGAN) and comics scholar Jeet Heer about the influential and much loved work of Gasoline Alley’s creator Frank King. The newspaper strips he created are being loving collected in a series of beautiful books edited by Chris with introductions by Jeet (and published by Drawn & Quarterly) called WALT & SKEEZIX.


Three volumes of WALT & SKEEZIX available so far:

WALT & SKEEZIX BOOK ONE
WALT & SKEEZIX BOOK TWO
WALT & SKEEZIX BOOK THREE (New!)

Click here for the Inkstuds interview with Chris Ware and Jeet Heer

As the New York Times reported earlier in the year, reprints of vintage newspaper strips have suddenly become very popular as contemporary cartoonists and graphic artists like Chris Ware, Seth, and Joe Matt openly pay homage to these 4 panel masterpieces. 


Other collected reprints of classic newspaper strips available include:

HANK KETCHAM’S COMPLETE DENNIS THE MENACE (Fantagraphics)
KRAZY & IGNATZ by George Herriman (Fantagraphics)
POPEYE by E. C. Segar (Fantagraphics)
POGO by Walt Kelly (Fantagraphics)
THE COMPLETE PEANUTS by Charles M. Schulz


Fantagraphics have also published R. C. Harvey’s definitive (nee massive!) biography of the legendary Milton Caniff, creator of newspaper strips Steve Canyon and Terry and the Pirates.


If you interested in all this stuff, but you don’t quite know where to begin, I’d recommend you download the awesome PDF sampler available from the Fantagraphics website. It’s very cool resource with loads of images.

If contemporary comics are more your thing, Inkstuds also interviewed the mighty Adrian Tomine recently.

As Siobhan mentions below, Adrian is appearing at Sophia Books in Vancouver on Tuesday November 13th and 7pm, to launch his first full-length graphic novel SHORTCOMINGS. He’s being interview by Vancouver author, journalist and all round good guy Kevin Chong! 

AND you can also win a free signed poster of the cover art to SHORTCOMINGS (which are awesome - if I could enter, I would!) by leaving a comment on Siobhan’s post.

Apart from SHORTCOMINGS we also have several collections of Adrian’s work available from D&Q:

SCRAPBOOK
SUMMER BLONDE
SLEEPWALK
32 STORIES (which is almost out of stock so get them while you can!)

If you are really obsessive you can also get Adrian Tomine Stationery from Chronicle Books:

SHE READ THE LETTER… Journal
OPTIC NERVE postcards

(yes, yes… I do own all of these and I did get Adrian to sign them when he was in Toronto...)

Click here for the Inkstuds interview with Adrian Tomine

Click here for the Adrian poster giveaway