Hey Fan People, Speech Bubble is taking a break for the summer. Listen to this announcement to find out the amazing reason why.

Aaron's Top 10 Episodes

Chester Brown

Fabio Moon and Gabriel Ba

Seth

Cecil Castellucci

Paul Soles - The Voice of '60s Spider-Man

Willow Dawson

Chip Zdarsky Live @ Hairy Tarantula

Ho Che Anderson Live @ The Toronto Cartoon Arts Festival

Kevin Boyd - Comics Coordinator at Fan Expo Canada (Three-Part Series)

Joe Kilmartin - The One that Started It All

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Jim Rugg is the Ignatz and Eisner award-winning cartoonist behind Street Angel, (co-written with friend Brian Maruca) Afrodisiac, Rambo 3.5, SuperMag and The P.L.A.I.N. Janes, which is co-written by past Speech Bubble guest Cecil Castellucci. But these days he is best known as one half of the immensely popular Cartoonist Kayfabe YouTube channel with Ed Piskor (Hip-Hop Family Tree, X-Men Grand Design, and the upcoming Red Room)

Though based in Pittsburgh, prior to COVID-19 and the proximity precautions that come with it, Jim was scheduled to attend The Toronto Cartoon Art Festival in May 2020 in support of Street Angel: Deadliest Girl Alive from Image Comics and The P.L.A.I.N. Janes from Little Brown and Company, but formerly published by DC Comics' now defunct Minx imprint. There, he was going to surprise attendees with his latest project, Octobriana 1976 -- the world's first black light comic book -- with AdHouse Books. In light of the pandemic, Jim has switched gears and he is now funding Octobriana 1976 on Kickstarter from now until June 18, 2020 at 5 p.m. EST.

He comes to Speech Bubble in support of Octobriana where we talk about Octobriana's strange and controversial origin story, why Jim decided to print this comic with fluorescent ink and why rebellious women are characters he keeps coming back to. We also talk about his collaborators: Shelly Bond, Cecil Castellucci and Brian Maruca, while tracing his journey from self-taught comics fan to a professional cartoonist who has taught others at the School of Visual Art.

For all you Cartoonist Kayfabe fans, we talk about the way the channel has suddenly become important to the larger comic book community and some very high-profile creators. We get behind what fans of the channel know as "The Cartoonist Kayfabe Bump" and Jim talks about his strategies for back issue diving and he speculates with Aaron about what the comic industry may look like post-pandemic.

This episode is sponsored by Hairy Tarantula, which has supported us from the beginning. Please buy something from them in their time of need at their online store. Please also support Speech Bubble through our Patreon Page where for $3 a month you can hear audio blogs from Aaron and some process blogs from guests about some of their best comic book issues.

@jimruggart

Jimrugg.com

Octobriana 1976 Kickstarter Page

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The Making of Octobriana 1976

The books that influenced Octobriana 1976

The story behind Octobriana

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Adam Gorham is a comic book artist on such titles as TMNT Universe, Jughead: The Hunger, James Bond 007, Power Rangers, Marvel's Contagion and Rocket (starring Rocket Raccoon from Guardians of the Galaxy). He is currently drawing Punk Mambo for Valiant. Adam was born in Perth, Ontario but was raised in Mississauga, Ontario and still makes his home there now with his family.

On the podcast, Adam goes through his long, strange trip from art school drop-out and disgruntled grocery store warehouse employee to working for major comic companies like Marvel, Image and Valiant. This includes finding his first gig as a comic artist on Craigslist, working with Toronto radio personality “Fearless” Fred Kennedy on Fred's self-published, three volume indie book Teuton, and eventually breaking out as the artist on The Violent, a creator-owned gritty crime book published by Image and written by Ghost Rider and Old Man Logan scribe Ed Brisson.

Aaron also gets Adam's take on the New Mutants trailer since he worked on New Mutants: Dead Souls with writer Matthew Rosenberg (4 Kids Walk Into a Bank) which was the book that was likely going to launch as the movie came out before the film got delayed. Adam also tells a wild story about randomly discovering his letter envelope art in a Wizard Magazine years after the fact. This episode is sponsored by Hairy Tarantula and Bam Coffee Co. If you want 15% off your next Bam Box of coffee and geek swag, including prints and a limited edition mug, use code SB15 at checkout.

@AdamTGorham on Instagram

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Those who think comic book geeks and computer nerds are two mutually exclusive groups have never met Ryan North. The Toronto resident and writer behind The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, Adventure Time and Dinosaur Comics also holds a masters in computer science with a focus on Computational Linguistics — teaching artificial intelligence how to speak more naturally. His love of computer science also bleeds into the pages of the Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, aiding in its progressive picture of what makes a female heroine. Even his effort to bring back the choose your own adventure genre – Romeo and/or Juliet – refuses to define society along gender lines. Not bad for a guy who can’t draw, but still left what his parents called, “a respectable profession” to create comics.

@ryanqnorth

www.ryannorth.ca

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The first guest on our experimental Comics on Comics series, Comedian Ben Miner is the host of Comic Stripped, an interview show with comedy’s biggest names, on Canada Laughs – Sirius XM’s uncensored comedy satellite radio station. In addition to being a stand-up comic since he was 14, he’s also come in the top 16 of Master Chef Canada and absolutely loves comic books. He gives us an inside look at life as road comic, tells us why he hates Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, explains why diversity in comics has its limits and then pitches any listening artists on the best creator-owned comic book idea ever – The 10 Minute Man.

@BenMiner

Canada Laughs

Ad Astra Comix is a Canadian comics publisher specializing in comics with social justice themes. It was a mission first ignited in founder Nicole Marie Burton while reading the pulitzer-prize winning holocaust graphic novel Maus by Art Spiegelman way back in elementary school and hasn’t really stopped since. The latest books in her slate include a republishing of War in the Neighbourhood by Seth Tobocman and the anthology Drawing the Line: Indian Women Fight Back! She comes to us while on a roadtrip across Canada meeting with shop owners about how they can better engage their customers towards comics dealing with social justice issues. To that end, we talk about diversity in comics, the power of comics journalism and how comics fandom is very much a political microcosm of our own society.

Yaron Betan is the director of a new documentary premiering on Oct. 14, 2016 at the Carlton Cinema in Toronto called Heroes Manufactured. It features many former guests of this podcast like Mark Shainblum, Shane Kirshenblatt and Meaghan Carter and follows them as they make a living on Canada’s comic convention circuit. Yaron talks about how reading comics taught him how to tell a story and what it is about the Canadian convention scene that makes it distinctly different from the convention circuit in the U.S. Plus, he reveals how the U.S. film market has many similarities to a comic convention itself.

Brampton, Ontario’s own Ricky Lima went from comic retailer to comic writer after being exposed to many seminal works in the medium. It was quickly evident that writing comics was his true calling after creating graphic novel Deep Sea with D.A. Bishop and ongoing series Black Hole Hunters Club with Shane Heron. But even though his latest effort, Happily Ever Aftr, was funded in only six days on Kickstarter, he suffers from an inferiority complex – struggling with the confidence to take popular projects to larger publishers. He opens up in studio about his successes, his anxieties and the debt he put himself in to get his latest project off the ground.

Kitchener, Ontario native A. Shay Hahn spent his childhood buying comics from the late legendary retailer Harry Kremer – namesake of the Harry Kremer Retailer Award presented to Canada’s best comic retailer by the Joe Shuster Awards. He would eventually grow up to produce his own comic books: Cryptozombic, Battle Rally and the local indie hit, Homeless G-Men. Before that he was a fine artist exhibiting his paintings in galleries and doing background set painting for the period TV productions of Kevin Sullivan (Road to Avonlea, Pit Pony, Anne of Green Gables) and soon discovered that there was no crossover whatsoever when came to the comic book audience. What could make a man with a relatively successful fine art career transition to comics? Is he mad? Tune in to find out.

Meaghan Carter’s love of manga and anime informs all of the webcomics she does. Take Off features fantastical creatures working together with their human partners like Digimon or Pokemon. In a way, Godslave is the same, but the relationship is a master-student dynamic, like the ninja schools of Naruto, with a lot of Egyptian history informing the narrative. It’s no wonder the strips have garnered her enough of a cult following to earn her a gig as the new colourist on The Pitiful Human-Lizard. She breaks down the role of a colourist, why you need an insane work ethic to even make it into comics and why her belief in ghosts and the afterlife will probably be a major component of her next project.

The Strange Romance Anthology is a series of short romance comics with a genre fiction twist. Whether a fantasy, western, science fiction or something else entirely, love is always at the centre of these stories from a wide array of international collaborators. It’s a modern tribute to the Weird Love comics of the 1950s without entirely being a pastiche. Editor Adam Prosser stops by in the midst of the Kickstarter to produce a print version of Vol. 1 (ending Aug. 13, 2016) to explain the book’s genesis and why Strange Romance fits so well with his love of pulp magazines and soap opera strips (Rex Morgan M.D., anyone?)

As one of the founders of the Space Channel and a producer on the homegrown genre fiction culture show Innerspace,  Mark Askwith has more than made his mark in the long history of comic book fandom in Canada. (Although, he” far too humble to agree on that fact.) He has personal ties to the likes of Neil Gaiman, Alan Moore and Frank Miller. He is also a staple in the history of Canadian comic book television with the seminal “Prisoners of Gravity,” and was a pioneering manager of The Silver Snail comic store in the 1980s. Aaron delves into Mark’s personal and professional history, and learns Mark’s simple but effective philosophy of creating, sharing and promoting content based on nothing but his genuine passion for genre fiction  

Chris is the owner, founder and curator for The Sidekick, (www.thesidekickcomics.com) a Toronto East End coffee and comic book spot. Chris wanted to have a combined shop since her high school days, long before the two cultures were mutually engaged the way they are in a few comic shops across Toronto. Chris opens up about how comics helped her through her difficult formative years and how growing up in Windsor was particularly difficult for a budding comic fan. Her challenges had far from relented when she entered art school as she -and many of her fellow students- butted heads with the school’s ideas on how to run something as subjective as art education. Aaron also takes some time to discuss their mutual fondness for French-Pressed Coffee.

Fiona Smyth is a legend of the Toronto arts community. A true renaissance woman, she's a sculptor, a muralist, a book illustrator an animator, an art teacher and an independent comic book artist. If you're a Toronto resident, you've probably seen her work without even realizing it. Her murals adorn iconic locations like Lee's Palace's Dance Cave and Sneaky Dee's (which is known to Scott Pilgrim Fans) where she designed their sign and bonehead cow logo. In 2019, she was inducted into The Giants of The North Hall of Fame as part of Canada's Doug Wright Awards for indepedent cartooning along with the late Inuit cartoonist Alootook Ipellie (1951-2007).

Her psychadelic and fluid drawing style has graced a who's who of Canadian publishers, newspapers and magazines since the time she was a student at the Ontario College of Art and Design, (now OCAD University) where she now teaches a new generation of students how to make comics. She is best known for tackling feminist issues, including issues of sexuality, gender and idenity throughout her entire body of work, which spans 30 plus years. In 2018, Koyama Press published a retrospective of her career from 1985-2018 called Somnambulance, which features excerts from her comic Nocturnal Emissions, published by Vortex Comics, as well as work she did for Vice, Drawn and Quarterly, Exclaim! Snipe Hunt, Taddle Creek and even Urban Outfitters' Slant Magazine, among others. Other work includes Cheez 100, collecting the first 100 strips of her series Cheez that was published in Exclaim! Magazine, her first and only graphic novel, The Never Wheres and two critcally-acclaimed sex education books for kids written by renowned sex educator Cory Silverberg, What Makes a Baby? and Sex is a Funny Word.

On the podcast, Aaron finds out how Fiona was recruited to create the Sneaky Dee's sign, what about her childhood and catholic upbringing pushed her to explore feminism in her art, what makes her work for kids different than her work for adults, what her southern good ol' boy pen name is and how it felt going from a punk student with a D.I.Y. ethos that's skipping class at OCAD to teaching at OCAD and becoming the authority she used to rebel against. Plus, find out if Seth lived with her, where she saw herself among the “Holy Triumverate” of Toronto's autobio artists (Seth, Chester Brown and Joe Matt) in the 90s and what it's like to be featured as one of Canada's Big Four comic artists in the recently closed This is Serious: Canadian Indie Comics at the Art Gallery of Hamilton. Oh, and she reveals that she and Cory Silverberg are working on a third sex education graphic novel covering puberty. Also, did you know she wanted to be a realist painter?

This episode of Speech Bubble with Fiona Smyth is sponsored by Hairy Tarantula and Bam Coffee Co.

@fionasmythlukkie

Fiona's Facebook

Fiona's blog

Fiona's Tumblr

Fiona's Giants of the North Hall of Fame Write-up

Fiona's Zines Online

What Makes a Baby?

How to Comission Fiona Smyth for a Project

Learn How to Make Comics from Fiona – Starts Jan. 25, 2020

Society of Illustrators

Weird Things

Albatross Soup – a short film by Winnie Cheung with illustrations by Fiona Smyth

Bradley of Him by Connor Willumsen – Koyama Press

Comic artist Marcus To (Red Robin, New Warriors, Batwing, Soulfire and Hacktivist) stops by to discuss Joyride, his first creator-owned project, published by Boom Studios. He reveals how the story of a girl who steals a spaceship to escape an oppressive earth was informed by his mother’s escape from China during the Cultural Revolution and his own friendly rivalry with his brother. He also drops knowledge on what it takes to break into mainstream comics, tells us what influences the youthful drawing style he’s known for and why actress Alyssa Milano (Who’s the Boss?) is one of his admired collaborators.

Follow him @marcusto

After opening the show with a tribute to Darwyn Cooke, (1962-2016) local Toronto indie comic talent David “D.A.” Bishop (@Renerd) drops by to talk about his ongoing fantasy title, Of Stone (available digitally from Comixology). The series follows Gan, the ogre king, as he wrestles with a secret that can change the fate of his people. We also talk Alan Moore’s now classic run on Swamp Thing and how that, and The Walking Dead, reawakened a long dormant artistic talent within him. Bishop is a classically trained painter who loved comics as a child and tried to bury his former life as an artist. But after years languishing in various jobs and careers, he finally threw himself into what ended up being the fraught compulsion of making his own comics. Other comics of his include Squirrels, Stranger and “Curly Plays the Rex” in The Toronto Comics Anthology Vol. 3.

renerd.com

Aaron tries mealworms live on air, which fits with the politics of consumption brought up by The Salesman — an original graphic novel from our guests John Little and Jon Sufrin. Little takes us through the long, hard road to publication: the book was released online, he hated it, so he recruited food journalist Jon Sufrin to help him re-write it. The result is a morally absolutist fable that pulls no punches and will leave many uncomfortable. Both men say, ‘That’s the point.’

Aaron was introduced to Jay Clark after claiming that past guest Alice Quinn was the only comics journalist in Toronto – Jay is proof to the contrary. He is the host of An Elegant Weapon, a podcast that interviews voiceover artists, actors and comic book creators from all over the geek media sphere. Jay tells us what goes into many of his interviews, how he lands big name guests like John Ostrander, (Grim Jack, Suicide Squad, Star Wars) Ryan Stegman (Superior Spider-Man) and Jim Cummings (The voice of Winnie the Pooh) and who is on the rise in the Toronto and Michigan indie comic book scenes. We also get into why he’s excited for Batman V. Superman and why he’s a big proponent of Zach Snyder.

Shane Kirshenblatt is the former proprietor of the now shuttered Temple of Toys – a retro toy store which had its retail location inside The Comic Book Lounge and Gallery in Toronto’s Little Italy neighbourhood. As a result, he was once the business partner of our last guest Kevin Boyd. Shane is also a custom action figure and Pop Vinyl maker, art teacher and comic book artist (The Jewish Comic Anthology, Anything Ghost, Dorothy Gale: Journey to Oz). Here, he schools us on the finer points of custom figure-making and toy collecting, tells us how judaism has been a cultural point of pride as he pursued work in the comic industry, how he has met his childhood heroes through his art and how he accidentally landed his own creator-owned series without ever having a drawn a comic book panel. Also, get an advance look of his new western webcomic series Tailbone, which he created with past Speech Bubble guest Aaron Feldman.

Kevin Boyd is an integral builder of Toronto’s comic book community. He’s now the Comics Programming Coordinator for Fan Expo Canada and the Toronto Comicon, as well as the director of The Joe Shuster Canadian Comic Book Awards. He was also the owner of the now closed Comic Book Lounge and Gallery and was the co-founder of the now defunct Paradise Comicon.

In the final part of our interview, Kevin talks about what brought him back to working for his one-time bitter rival and former employer, Fan Expo Canada and the plans he has for Toronto Comicon 2016. We chat about the issues affecting comic conventions around the world, what he thinks of them and how Fan Expo sees these issues.

Kevin Boyd is an integral builder of Toronto’s comic book community. He is now the Comics Programming Coordinator for Fan Expo Canada and the Toronto Comicon, as well as the director of The Joe Shuster Canadian Comic Book Awards. He was also the owner of the now closed Comic Book Lounge and Gallery and was the co-founder of the now defunct Paradise Comicon.

In part two, Kevin tells us why he founded The Shusters – Canada’s national comic book awards. He also talks about opening The Comic Book Lounge and Gallery as an attempt to continue the legacy of Dragon Lady Comics. The shop became a beloved social epicentre and was at the forefront at the new “lounge” trend in comic shops. It wasn’t all good though, a tragedy in his personal life and various circumstances beyond his control would seal the fate of his business.

Kevin Boyd is an integral builder of Toronto’s comic book community. He’s now the Comics Programming Coordinator for Fan Expo Canada and the Toronto Comiccon, as well as the director of The Joe Shuster Canadian Comic Book Awards. He was also the owner of the now closed Comic Book Lounge and Gallery and was the co-founder of the now defunct Paradise Comicon.

In part one of our interview, he discusses how he got into comics and why he went from creating comics to selling his collection at conventions. He also goes into how he ended up co-founding one of the most beloved Toronto comic conventions of all time and accidentally become embroiled in Toronto’s biggest comic con civil war.

The editors of volume three of The Toronto Comics Anthology stop by to preview the new book, promote the Kickstarter campaign and detail their own careers writing and editing comics. Allison talks about her story in the collection — “Ghosts Over Garlic Mashed Potatoes” — with art by Meaghan Carter, while Aaron details “The Dark” — a story that takes place in Toronto’s O.Noir restaurant – with art by Josh Rosen. Aaron has written for various independent comic collections like this, while Allison is also the editor of The Pitiful Human-Lizard ongoing series from Chapterhouse Comics. Toronto Comics Anthology Vol. 3 Kickstarter

We open another podcast from our archives in January 2014, just a few days after losing someone integral to Toronto’s comic book community. Debra Jane Shelly didn’t work in comics, but the mark she left on the scene was just as indelible. I look back on her impact with indie comic book creator and animator Brian Evinou. Brian self-publishes his own comics, (Fight Song, Lucy Legacy) has animated some of the most innovative cartoons, (Ugly Americans, Moon Beam City) and is the co-editor of a grand horror comic anthology (Monstrostity Vol. 1 and 2). After pouring one out for Debra, we talk about his time in the trenches of Artist’s Alley, how he got the editing job on Monstrosity, why making comics is better than making cartoons and that time he had a front row seat when Aaron pissed off Neil Gaiman (Sandman, American Gods)

Mariel Ashlinn Kelly

Mariel comes from the world of zines. Those hand-stapled, photocopied and folded masterpieces of the small press that made her a BlogTO Zinester to watch in 2016. Mariel is still setting Toronto on fire with her work, but this time it's as one of the contributors to the Drawn Poorly anthology, published out of Manchester, UK. The project is a zine focusing on stories of mental illness, chronic illness and disability.. While doing small groundbreaking zines of her own like Pixie Dream Ghoul and Moth – a true story about the time she chased a moth around her dad's home – she is currently working on her own long-form graphic novel that has been a number of years in the making. Mariel drops some hints right here as far as what readers can expect when it comes out.

Mariel is someone that has drawn her entire life and dabbling in publishing gave her all the skills she needed to publish her own comics. With a style that Aaron compares to Emily the Strange and a heavy influence from the New Yorker covers of Adrian Tomine, Mariel has always been drawn to telling her own personal stories, rather than working for Marvel or DC. On the pod, she discusses how her subject matter focuses on relationships – even the lack of one and the relationship with one's self – thanks to her early love of Archie Comics.

Aaron and Mariel also go deep on a brief history of Toronto's zine scene and zines in general. They go back to the well on graphic medicine and Mariel's recent discovery that she had bipolar disorder and they talk about why a lot of Mariel's comics take place in the bathtub. Plus, for the movie lovers out there, the two do a small tribute to Toronto's Revue Cinema since Mariel draws posters for many of its screenings and does an ongoing comic strip for its program about the lonely life of a projectionist.

This episode of Speech Bubble is sponsored by the Geek Gods at Hairy Tarantula and the comic book coffee stylings of Bam Coffee Co. Don't forget to use SB15 at checkout and get 15% off your first Bam Box of coffee and comic swag from Canada's best indie comic artists.

@marielashlinn

Marielashlinn.com

The Department of Lost Things

@MarielAshlinn

Mariel Ashlinn Kelly on Facebook

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With 2016 upon us, we’re ringing in the New Year with a “lost episode” from our archives, back when sound quality wasn’t our strong suit (Sorry). This one features Alice Quinn — Toronto’s homegrown comics journalist who started covering the local scene before anyone else thought of it. These days she’s writing articles and doing video interviews for Comix Asylum Magazine, but back in the day she interviewed industry heavyweights like Bill Willingham, (Fables) Jim Zub (Wayward) and Chris Hardwick (@Midnight) on her own Quinntessential Comix Youtube channel. She also live streams a monthly graphic novel book club and, for a few years, Toronto fans could keep up with events through her T.Dot Comics website.

Kalman Andrasofszky isn’t only a high-profile fan of this podcast, he joined RAID Studio in the same month as our last guest Scott Hepburn. Before he was the driving force behind the modern relaunch of Captain Canuck, he had drawn everything from early clipart packages, role-playing games and loads of covers for Marvel and DC. He chats about the genesis of his love for comics and career as an artist, what it’s like transitioning from an artist to now primarily a writer and why Canadian media (including Captain Canuck) is no longer anything to be ashamed of or self-conscious about.

At the time of this release, Scott Hepburn is drawing Drax the Destroyer for Marvel with former WWE Superstar C.M. Punk. But back when Aaron talked to him, he’d just finished a collaboration with Rage Against the Machine frontman Tom Morello on a comic called Orchid for Dark Horse. They talk about what it was like working on a comic with a celebrity and how Scott ended up breaking in at DC where he worked on Forever Evil: Rogue’s Rebellion. They also touch on the establishment of RAID Studios – a bastion of high-profile comic book talent living and working in Toronto.

James Edward Clark is the Gene Day award-winning creator of Evil – a grindhouse, independent exploitation comic inspired by the films of Mexican wrestler El Santo. James was just a mild-mannered art student at Sheridan College when almost being burned alive in a house fire inspired him to say, “F– it” and bring Evil to life. He also talks about the influence of Robert Crumb (Zap Comix) and Greg Capullo (Batman, Spawn) in shaping his art style. Also for the first time ever, we go through a bag of comics our guest bought and review them. Oh, and our host is surprised with a birthday gift live on air.

Joseph Ianni (pronounced Yee-anni) is the illustrious audio editor for Speech Bubble, but he’s also a huge comic book fan. On this episode, he comes out from behind the editing suite to talk about his new self-published web comic, The Iamgrim. Not your typical zombie story, it touches on Joe’s love of video games and other aspects of geek culture, while simultaneously providing a creative outlet to help him process his long history with mental illness both personally, among his loved ones and in society.

The co-creator of Northguard – Canada’s first post-modern superhero – sits down for a chat on Fan Expo weekend. We talk about his place in Canadian comic history, the mentorship he received from the creator of Captain Canuck, his Orion scifi fanzine and what it was like to meet Johnny Canuck creator Les Barker.

Two members of the popular six-man From A Hat artist collective talk about its formation.

Hope Nicholson is a comic book writer, editor, publisher and historian. She discusses her restoration of The Canadian Whites of the 1940s and more.

Artist Jason Loo talks The Pitiful Human Lizard — his hit independent comic featuring Toronto’s not-so-super hero.

The editors of The Toronto Comics Anthology — multiple collections of comic stories taking place in Toronto.

Jenn is what you get when you cross a love for 80s and 90s manga like Akira and Sailor Moon with a passion for groundbreaking indie comics like Dirty Plotte, Eightball and Optic Nerve with some “take no shit” feminism thrown in. This Brampton-raised Toronto resident is best known for her self-published comics Magical Beatdown Volumes one and two and Marie and Worrywort: Comics About Anxiety. Both works won the Gene Day Award for outstanding self-published comics at the Joe Shuster Awards, as well as the Spotlight Award, honouring the identical circumstance, at the Doug Wright Awards – both in 2018.

In this episode, Aaron and Jenn geek out over Jenn's love of manga and anime, especially the magical girl genre, which was a heavy influence on Magical Beatdown. They talk about why the comic is such a local phenomenon in the indie comics scene, juxtaposing whimsical fantasy with over-the-top violence and gore. They also reflect on why the work often serves as a powerful catharsis for all women who have been catcalled and harassed by entitled men. They then move on to Marie and the Worrywort by tracing Jenn's ongoing battle with anxiety and depression and answering why she decided to go public in this comic. They talk about the emerging graphic medicine genre (comics covering mental illness, trauma, grief, disability and overall experience with the medical system) and why comics are one of the most effective ways to bring awareness and relatability to these still misunderstood issues. Plus, if you're an artist who also struggles with anxiety, Jenn has some great advice for you.

This is episode of Speech Bubble is sponsored by Hairy Tarantula where you can get 50% off graphic novels, trade paperbacks art books and manga for the entire month of November. Take advantage at 3456 Yonge St. This episode is also sponsored by Bam Coffee Co. where you can order freshly roasted coffee and comic book swag, including a limited edition mug delivered right to your door as part of a Bam! Box. Listeners use code SB15 at checkout and get 15% off your next Bam Box.

@funeralbeat

@jenn_woodall

Jenn Woodall's Big Cartel Store

Jennwoodall.com

Jenn on Gumroad

Jenn's publisher Silver Sprocket

Jenn's artist collective Friendship Edition

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From comic artist to YouTube star, Sean Ward tells us how comics have influenced everything he has done up to this point.

Recorded months before artist Marco Rudy (The Shield, Swamp Thing) started his current work on Bucky Barnes: Winter Soldier.

The former manager of Dragon Lady Comics and The Comic Book Lounge and Gallery shatters the myths of the comic book geek.

Emmanuelle's story is an epic one. Perhaps that's why when she was connected with Ramon Perez (Jim Henson's Tale of Sand, Marvel Two-in-One) and was mentored under his tutelage with an eye to creating comics of her own, she came up with the beginnings of what would become her fictionalized autobiographical masterpiece Queen Street instead of the few drawn pages he requested. Aaron and Emmanuelle go deep on this story (her story) and all the multi-layered implications that as an exceedingly precocious 7-year-old she didn't truly understand, but as an adult in retrospect, had far reaching consequences on the rest of her life – both greatly positive and darkly negative in equal parts

Aaron learns that Emmanuelle is exceedingly self-aware, but also still that gifted dreamer with a hugely developed imagination that she was as a child. Her inner child is still active and it's what makes her such a lush creator and artist. They talk about the influence of growing up in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario as a half Filipino, half French-Canadian who used ballet as her first gateway to putting her creative energy to use in the physical world. Speaking of the physical world, the idyllic time of Queen Street eventually gave way to the grey of adolescent reality. Emmanuelle addresses what became of her in those grey times as the recession loomed, addiction touched her life and she grew into the adult she is today.

Emmanuelle unpacks the spoken and unspoken barriers she faced as a women of colour of lower middle-class and how her unspoken personality sometimes comes directly in conflict with outdated societal expectations and assumptions about how woman are supposed to act.

Then, we talk about her chaste christian-catholic upbringing and how she balances that with a modern culture that is very open with sex and sexuality. She explains how she walks that emotional tightrope as part of her new adult's only erotic comic (exclusively available on Patreon) Princess Bunyi. With a strong manga influence ala Rumiko Takahashi, a heavy romance novel bend and a little dose of straight-up sexual fantasy. Princess Bunyi is now published monthly for Emmanuelle's Patreon supporters, so go check it out!

This episode of Speech Bubble is sponsored by Hairy Tarantula, which is having a 50% off sale on all trade paperbacks and graphic novels all through the month of November. Go grab these perfect stocking stuffers at 3456 Yonge Street. This episode is also sponsored by Bam Coffee Co.. Their Bam Box combines amazing locally-sourced coffee roasted in Canada with comic art from some of Canada's greatest up and coming indie talents. Get 15% off your next Bam Box on their website by entering SB15 at checkout.

@emmanuellechateauneuf

@TheBatmanni

@princess.bunyi

Princess Bunyi on Patreon

Buy Queen Street

An interview with Emmanuelle on Canadian Filipino Net

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Nick Maandag is a straight-laced accountant by day and a Joe Shuster and Doug Wright nominated cartoonist with a bizarre sense of humour by night. Early influences include the gross out humour of Ren and Stimpy and the subversive satire of The Simpsons. In comics, he moved on to the work of Robert Crumb and other underground cartoonists like Julie Doucet, Dan Clowes, Peter Bagge and Chester Brown and through their inspiration, decided to dedicate his life to making comics after a brief foray in animated film.

His first project of note was Streaker's, which won Peter Laird's Xeric Grant in 2010 about three men who are connoisseurs of streaking and treat it like an obscure high art form. It was distributed by John Porcellino (King-Cat Comics and Stories) through Spit and a Half and Diamond and was his breakout work when the late publisher Alvin Buenaventura of Pigeon Press took an interest and commissioned his two follow-ups, Facility Integrity – about a corporation that controls its employees' bathroom breaks to up efficiency – and The Libertarian -- about a libertarian that becomes infatuated with a socialist and must compromise his ideals as a result. Alvin also featured Maandag's work when he edited “Comics” in The Believer Magazine.

Now, with Drawn and Quarterly, Maandag has released his first full-length graphic novel featuring three stories that highlight his absurdist sense of humour, including the title story, The Follies of Richard Wadsworth about a dimwitted philosophy professor. In this more than an hour conversation, Aaron unpacks how such a bizarre sense of humour can come from such a straight-laced individual. They also talk about how Maandag's style means the art is just a vehicle to serve the jokes and the writing, but is otherwise pretty minimalist. Plus, Maandag details his earliest interaction with Chester Brown and what it's like to be friends with him now. Maandag also explains how he always felt that he was always going to be successful at doing comics for a living.

This podcast is sponsored by Hairy Tarantula and Bam Coffee Co. Don't forget to type SB15 at checkout to get 15% off your Bam Box featuring finely roasted coffee, a limited edition mug and more geektacular swag comic fans will dig.

@nick_maandag

Nick Maandag at Drawn and Quarterly

Nick Maandaag at Spit and a Half

Nick Maandag interview in Broken Pencil Magazine

Nick Maandag in The Comics Journal as featured in Jeet Heer's The Comics Chronicles

Nick Maandag in The Believer

Alvin Buenaventura Obituary from The Comics Journal

Jay Stephens is a Guelph, Ontario-based and Toronto-born comic artist and cartoonist who joins Aaron for a live episode from The Guelph Comic Jam on the day of the 2019 Joe Shuster Comic Book Awards, which honours Canadians like Joe Shuster – the co-creator of Superman – who make their living in mainstream comics. Jay began his career getting bankrolled by a Guelph comic shop called Collage, under Tragedy Sucks Comics, to create his own indie and underground comic anthology called Sin where many of his most well-known characters first appeared. These are characters like The Nod, (not to be confused with Domino's Pizza's The Noid) JetCat and Tutenstein. The Nod would go on to be the title character in The Land of Nod – Stephens' most critically-acclaimed comics work to date, having been nominated for both an Eisner and a Harvey Award. Meanwhile, Tutenstein would live on in a cartoon of the same name on Discovery Kids and JetCat would be part of Nickelodeon's KaBlam! segments.

Speaking of animation, thanks to his underground comics work on Sin, Stephens was soon plucked from that realm to work on a favourite of Aaron's childhood – YTV's absurdist '90s sketch comedy show, Squawk Box starring the very underrated, but never imitated child actor Dov Tiefenbach. Not only did Stephens write on the show, but he also created the animated short Wonder Duds about a hapless superhero who only ever did the bare minimum necessary to call himself a hero. In addition to being influenced by classic Hanna Barbara cartoons and Harvey Comics like Casper, Richie Rich, and Hot Stuff, he was also fascinated by creepy horror comics and monsters of legend, which was a heavy influence on his Cartoon Network show, The Secret Saturdays, which featured its own toy line from Mattel.

As an artist who tells Aaron that he peaked kind of early, his latest work, Dejects, represents a revival of sorts featuring lost and rejected stories starring his most well-known characters: Tutenstein, The Nod, Wonder Duds and JetCat. It also marks a reunion with his old Tragedy Sucks editor Michel Vrana who has revived his old publishing outfit Black Eyed Books to put out Dejects. On the pod, Aaron and Jay get personal to talk about the ups and downs of his career. They answer where he has been and what he has been doing since his peak? They talk about his occultist upbringing, which had a huge influence on his art, what the comic scene is like in Guelph and his mainstream comics work with the original co-creator of the Teen Titans Bob Haney in what would be his last and lost Teen Titans script – eventually released in 2008 (four years after Haney's death) as Teen Titans: The Lost Annual.

This episode is sponsored by Hairy Tarantula at 3456 Yonge Street in Toronto and Saskatchewan's Bam Coffee Co. Don't forget to go to bamcoffee.ca and use SB15 at checkout to receive 15% off your own Bam Box, which combines coffee and amazing geek swag our listeners drool over.

@Jaypopgun

Buy Dejects

Jay's old archived website

Jay's old Monsterama blog circa 2010

Jay Stephens entry on Lambiek's Comiclopedia

Buy t-shirts with Jay's design

Buy Welcome to Oddville

Owl Magazine – Arrowhead (Jay's creation from the True Patriot Canadian superhero anthology)

Black Eye Books – Jay's Publisher

@blackeyebooks

The Interesting Case of The Secret Saturdays

JetCat on Nickelodeon's KaBlam!

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Comic artist Andy Belanger (Swamp Thing, Vampirella, WWE Comics) is an absolute wild man. His ambition knows no bounds and he's always been a highly competitive person in his field. Maybe that's why he has done so much. From talking his way into a gig drawing Friday the 13th for Wildstorm, and in doing so achieving his lifelong goal of working for DC Comics by age 27, to being the artist on the critically acclaimed Southern Cross for Image Comics and now being a professional wrestler for Montreal's International Wrestling Syndicate as Bob “The Animal” Anger.

Aaron and Andy talk about it all, including how they met 16 years ago when Andy was in his rockabilly phase promoting his first ever self-published effort, Dead End 56 by selling comics out of the back of a classic car while flanked by rollergirls. They talk about Wolf for a little publisher that didn't last called Moonstone and his first real ongoing title as the primary artist, Kill Shakespear. Did you know that Steve Niles (30 Days of Night) almost wrote Southern Cross? Speech Bubble is the only place you'll find out why he didn't.

Somewhere in there, they also talk about what it was like to work with Duncan Trussell and Donny Cates on The Simulationists for Heavy Metal Magazine and how that lead to illustrating a Tijuana bible that Trussell can hand out at shows. Plus, his plans to found a new Montreal studio space with Isola's Karl Kerschel, a sneak peak of his new comic project coming in October 2019 from TKO Studios, Pound for Pound with writer Natalie Chaidez (showrunner on USA Network's Queen of the South) and how he found his new found love of professional wrestling – a place for all that wild energy to go and possibly the greatest feat of embedded journalism known to man for what may be his most ambitious comic project yet.

This episode is sponsored by Hairy Tarantula and Bam Coffee Co.. Don't forget to use SB15 at checkout to receive 15% off your Bam Box of coffee and geektastic swag.

@AndyBelanger

@Andy_Belanger

Andy's Blog

Buy Andy's original art

International Wrestling Syndicate

Bob “The Animal” Anger in action

Buy Pound for Pound

Buy Southern Cross

Buy Kill Shakespeare

The Simulationists interview in Paste Magazine 2016

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Comics power couple Ken and Joan Steacy ring in their 40th wedding anniversary with a live interview on Speech Bubble during TCAF weekend and a graphic novel each. The first, Aurora Borealice from Conundrum Press made its debut at TCAF and is the first part of a three-part fictionalized memoir from Joan Steacy following Alice (standing in for Joan) and her struggle with illiteracy. As Joan says on the podcast, “I graduated high school functionally illiterate and I knew I had to do something about that.” The memoir also documents how meeting legendary media theorist Marshall McLuhan and his son Eric changed her life. How having people of that calibre believe in her gave her more confidence and how she embraced new technology to help overcome her struggles with reading. Meanwhile, she had to overcome being perceived as a dummy in her own family and she explains what it's like to be failed over and over again in school and then overcoming that to go to university. The graphic novel she releases now helped her accept her own personal style and embrace who she is as a cartoonist.

Ken began his career working for Marvel as an inker right out of school, but it wasn't the dream he thought it would be. He talks about having to carve his own path through the comics industry as a military brat. He went to Sheridan College and learned art fundamentals and basically started again to unlearn bad habits and learn good habits. He eventually would go on to win the Governor General's medal for his work in sequential art and draw books like Iron Man and Astro Boy. He talks about his journey toward authorship and away from being a cog in a wheel.

His latest project War Bears happened thanks to an article he illustrated written by Margaret Atwood that takes place during the golden age of Canadian comics -- The Canadian Whites. The article was published to celebrate Canada's 150th birthday and War Bears is its continuation – a further exploration of the story. He talks about what it was like to work with Margaret Atwood and the creation of Oursonette – a fiction hero of the Canadian Whites period. The two Steacys pack a great one-two punch as you listen to them react to each other's work as Joan explores her own history and Ken explores Canadian comics history both real and fictional. This episode is sponsored by Hairy Tarantula.

@joansteacy

Joan's blog

Conundrum Press

The Comics Journal interviews Joan

The Comics Program that Ken and Joan teach at Camosun College

Joan and Ken's son Alex's forthcoming webcomic Drainers

Buy War Bears

Buy Aurora Borealice

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Kagan is a Toronto comics forefather, having founded RAID Studio with Ben Shannon, Cameron Stewart and Chip Zdarsky. He continues to be a fount of knowledge for artists coming up through the local scene, opening his studio for weekly life drawing nights. His latest book, Draw People Everyday from Penguin Random House Canada, comes from these life drawing sessions and the techniques he has picked up after years of drawing the human form. Kagan is probably best known for his magnum opus, Infinite Kung Fu – a mash-up of Shaw Brothers and Golden Harvest 1970s kung fu movies with blaxploitation, zombie horror and spaghetti western films. He also teamed with Chip Zdarsky on the scifi romp Kaptara about a gay space explorer that crash lands on a planet right out of a Playmates action figure catalogue.

Kagan gives Aaron the inside scoop on all this, including the status of Kaparta and why it stopped. Plus, he reveals an exciting new project that will mark his return to comics after a long hiatus. If that doesn't float your boat, find out what it was like for him to be a courtroom illustrator for some of the most high profile cases in Canada, including The Toronto 18, serial killer Russell Williams and disgraced former CBC Radio host Jian Ghomeshi. This episode is sponsored by Hairy Tarantula.

@kaganmcleod

@KaganMcLeod

Kagan's Website

Buy Draw People Every Day

YouTube Review of Draw People Every Day

Buy Kaptara Vol. 1: Fear Not, Tiny Alien

Buy Infinite Kung Fu

Infinite Kung Fu Trailer

Infinite Kung Fu Launch Party Video

The History of Rap Video

The History of Rap Poster

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This conversation with The Hamilton Spectator's resident editorial cartoonist runs the gamut. Graeme Mackay (as Aaron learns, pronounced Mac-kai) is "The Last of the Mohicans." He has held his position since 1997 and,pre-COVID-19, was actually still been going into a newsroom when many of his editorial cartoonist colleagues either have been working from home for years or their positions have been eliminated entirely as newspapers tighten their belts.

It's actually COVID-19 that forced Graeme to finally work from home and switch to digital drawing (something he would've had to do anyway as The Spectator was set to move offices later this year) and he and Aaron talk about that transition to digital and how Graeme is finding adjusting his technique after years of using traditional pen and ink.

The two also talk about Graeme's serpentine route to working at The Spectator, from his interest in politics and glad-handing those in power to a brief stint in the deli section of Harrod's Department Store in London, England (and that time the late Dodi Fayed landed on the roof in his helicopter because he just had to have his favourite brand of mustard) to finally sending cartoons to various newspapers across Canada and being syndicated in many of them.

They also talk about his earliest influences in cartooning, including the drawings of Richard Scary, and Graeme's uncanny ability to draw city skylines at just three years old. They talk about his earliest cartoons in the pages of Carelton University's student newspaper, the genius of Gary Larson's Farside and of course, Mad Magazine. The recent passing of Mort Drucker of The Usual Gang of Idiots there comes up as well.

Meanwhile, both Aaron and Graeme share the fact that they were raised by television in common, which was another heavy influence on Graeme's career both in comedy with SCTV and in watching the news at a very early age.

The two also discuss Graeme's favourite cartoons from his own work and the possibility of doing anthology or a "Best Of" somewhere down the line. Graeme talks about how supportive his editors have ever been and also those rare times his cartoons were spiked from publication. They discuss the fact that despite the fact he fears that the other shoe may one day drop and he may lose his job, he is a well respected cartoonist, having been featured in the "This Is Serious: Canadian Indie Comics" exhibit in early 2020 alongside Canadian comic book legends like Chester Brown, Seth and Fiona Smyth.

Finally, not only do they talk about the way COVID-19 and the way the stay at home order is affecting Graeme's work, but also his part in "The Cartoonists Against COVID-19" social media exhibit spearheaded by The Association of Canadian Cartoonists to show solidarity with front line workers and to promote the work of the famous Canadian editorial cartoonists who may have lost work due to the pandemic. Then, the two wonder about whether maybe this pandemic will shake up the capitalist system in a good way. This episode is once again sponsored by Hairy Tarantula.

Graeme Mackay's Website

Graeme Mackay on Facebook

Graeme Mackay's YouTube Channel

Graeme Mackay, Wes Tyrell, Matt Weurker and Cartoonists Against COVID-19 on Politico

#cartoonistsagainstcovid

The Association of Canadian Cartoonists

Our conversation with Graeme's friend and fellow editorial cartoonist Wes Tyrell

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Mark first came to Aaron's notice on the Cartoonist Kayfabe YouTube channel. The hosts Jim Rugg (Street Angel) and Ed Piskor (X-Men Grand Design, Hip-Hop Family Tree) did an episode showcasing picture books that spotlighted Mark's underrated classic, “Who Needs Donuts?” On this episode of Speech Bubble, Mark explains the bizarre story of how the book got its non sequitor title among other unlikely tales from his life as a prolific cartoonist for The Village Voice, The Washington Post and other equally high profile American publications of record, including The New York Times Book Review.

In all three of the publications named here, Mark wrote and drew long-running comic strips – the most well-known of which was arguably McDoodle Street, which developed quite a cult following in the pages of The Village Voice among the miscreants living in 1970s New York. He tells Aaron that inspiration for the content of such a thing came on long meandering walks through the city streets at all hours of the night where he would just let his mind wander into all manner of dreamy tangents. Later, in his rent-controlled apartment – where he once heard the music of Kris Kristofferson wafting through the floor boards – he would draw what he saw. What came out was often a Where's Waldo-esque acid trip where every inch of the panels were covered in a warped-ly detailed cityscape with sight gags strewn throughout. Maybe this was at least partially due to the fact that both Mark's parents were gag cartoonists themselves. In fact, growing up he sometimes found himself playing in the backyard with the real Dennis the Menace (son of the strip's creator Hank Ketcham).

In addition, to its busy pages, McDoodle Street gained attention for its biting social commentary and satirism. A combination Mark was later asked to repeat when targeting America's seat of power for his Washingtoon Strip in the Washington Post and then his Boox Strip for the New York Times Book Review. Though special in their own right, these two strips never quite captured the imagination like McDoodle St., which ended abruptly, without explanation. Mark offers that explanation here and in the pages of the newly published McDoodle Street collection from The New York Review of Comics and Penguin Random House Canada, which he came to the Toronto Comics Art Festival to promote at the time of this interview. This episode of Speech Bubble is sponsored by Hairy Tarantula.

Mark's website

Mark's Wikipedia entry

Cartoonist Kayfabe – Show and Tell 04: Picture Books feat. Who Needs Donuts?

The publisher of the re-issued MacDoodle St. New York Review of Comics

Penguin Random House Canada

Yellow Yellow reissued by Drawn and Quarterly

Mark Alan Stamaty on Bullseye with Jesse Thorn

Mark Alan Stamaty on All of It with Alison Stewart

Mark Alan Stamaty on Leonard Lopate At Large on WBAI

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Twin brothers Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá are international comic book powerhouses whether doing a project together or apart. The two artists have collaborated on comics like the Eisner-award-winning Day Tripper and Two Brothers and the comic book adaption of Neil Gaiman's How to Talk to Girls at Parties. They are equally potent as separate entities (although, they're never really separate since they share a studio). Of course, you know Gabriel as the co-creator of Umbrella Academy with Gerard Way (lead singer of the band My Chemical Romance) and Fabio as the co-creator of Casanova with Matt Fraction (Sex Criminals, Hawkeye, Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen).

The twins came to Speech Bubble's Never Sleeps Network studios in Toronto all the way from São Paulo, Brazil, as a stop-over before 2019's Toronto Comic Art Festival, for a rare and exclusive long-form interview together. During the interview they discuss their special bond as twins, doing everything together, including living together and sharing the same bedroom until they were 23, and explain how drawing became their twin special language from a very early age. They also explain that because they are so bonded, personal relationships are a key part of what they like to unpack and explore when doing comics together. It was their fascination with the way stories unlock a person's imagination, in conjunction with the art, that turned them toward comics as an interest and eventual career.

They chronicle their rise from doing fan zines in Brazil to working on some of the American comic industry's hottest projects with some of its best known creators and how hard, but also necessary, it was to break into the American market if they were ever going to be successful as comic artists. Listeners will also hear about how reflecting on his own death in the shower and how fleeting life actually is, lead to Gabriel coming up with the concept for Day Tripper and how that subsequent Eisner win put both brothers on the map. They also share how being twins and growing up consuming the same media influences their process, with the story always being at the centre in governing who will draw what and their distinctive drawing styles (Gabriel inks with a pen and Fabio inks with a brush) fitting each story differently.

Of course, you'll hear about Umbrella Academy too. You'll learn how Gabriel feels about the comic being adapted by Netflix and whether the two are competitive with each other about their different levels of success and fame. This episode of Speech Bubble is sponsored by Hairy Tarantula and Oldtown Bodega.

@fabiomoon

@gabriel_ba

Fábio's Twitter

Gabriel's Twitter

Fábio and Gabriel's Facebook Page

Fábio and Gabriel's blog

Fábio and Gabriel's YouTube Channel

Fábio and Gabriel's Canadian publisher

Sponsors

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Scott has approached rarefied air that very few Canadian cartoonists have ever reached. His historical graphic memoir Two Generals was nominated for two Eisner Awards, named one of Chapters-Indigo’s best books of 2010, selected as a Best American Comics in 2012 and named by CBC as a “Canada Reads” selection and one of the 40 best Canadian non-fiction books of all-time. Not to be out done, his book Northwest Passage also has Harvey and Eisner nominations to its name. Plus, his young adult comic Three Thieves won a Joe Shuster award as The Best Canadian for Comic for Kids. He's a contributor to the Canadian superhero anthology, True Patriot, which was edited by past Speech Bubble guest J. Torres and he's currently doing covers for the Bettie Page comic published by Dynamite Entertainment. The project he's working on (as of this recording) is a graphic biography of a jazz cornet player Bix Beiderbecke aptly named, Bix.

On the pod, Scott comes to the recording session, fresh off his stint as a panelist on Librarian and Educator Day at the Toronto Comic Art Festival, carrying All-Stars, a mini-comic he put together with University of Windsor librarians and history professors Heidi Jacobs and Miriam Wright about the Chatham [Ontario] Coloured All-Stars and their victory in 1934, as the first black team to win the Ontario Baseball Association title. Aaron and Scott cover the Chatham All-Stars and their star player Wilfred “Boomer” Harding, but not before bonding over their mutual love of the Batman 1966 TV show and chronicling Scott's path to professional comics making through animation. His early influences include the great Will Eisner, Canadian legend Ty Templeton and Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics – all of which put him on a path toward cartooning instead of drawing superheroes. He talks about what attracts him to simple storytelling and that mid-century design style that has become a bit of a calling card for him. Plus, he goes behind-the-scenes on the development of Two Generals – a highly personal project for him. This podcast is sponsored by Hairy Tarantula.

@scottchantler (Instagram)

@scottchantler (Twitter)

@Scottchantlercartoonist

Scott's Website

Buy Scott's Original Art

Scott on Amazon

Scott in Maclean's as The University of Windsor's Cartoonist-in-Residence

Scott's TEDx Talk

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You probably don't know Ben by name, but if you live in Toronto and you've had ice cream at the Sweet Jesus Ice Cream Parlour you've definitely seen his work. He's the artist behind the original look of Sweet Jesus and now he has launched his first graphic novel, Apologetica. Published by past Speech Bubble guest Mark Laliberte's publishing imprint Popnoir Editions, Apologetica takes the state of the world to its environmental extremes. Ben talks about what influenced his vibrant, kinetic drawing style that seems to melt off the page at times and talks about his fascination with the aesthetics of activism. Apologetica is very much a lampooning of not just the state of our world, but the way the emotional millage one can get from the appearance of encouraging change means more than creating actual change in the age of social media. Sponsored by Hairy Tarantula

Ben O'Neil's Website

@yung.restless

Ben's work with Sweet Jesus

Aaron's review of Apologetica in Sequential Magazine #2

The trailer for Buzzard – The film Ben co-wrote with Joy Webster

The trailer for The Sunset Channel – The film Ben co-wrote with Matthew Kinahan

Speech Bubble's interview with Ben's publisher Mark Laliberte

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