Broken Pencil: Inkstuds at TCAF

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Inkstuds at TCAF

The new book Inkstuds, launching this fall through Conundrum Press, is a collection of 30 interviews with North American alternative comic artists. Taken from the catalogue radio host Robin McConnell built up over the past five years on his radio show of the same name, the book features artists from Kate Beaton to Joe Ollmann to Jillian Tamaki. On the first day of the Toronto Comic Arts Festival McConnell will host a spotlight discussion with Paul Pope and Dash Shaw at The Pilot, just across the street from TCAF's home base the Toronto Reference Library. Broken Pencil spoke with McConnell about the new collection and TCAF.

Broken Pencil: What was the inspiration behind your new anthology of interviews Inkstuds?
Robin McConnell: The idea came completely from Andy Brown at Conundrum. He brought the idea up at TCAF last year. I had already been getting the interviews transcribed and had no idea what to do with them, so Andy's suggestion came at an excellent time. It was really important for me to have a diverse range of folks represented in the book. You will find a guy like Ted Stearn, who has only ever done the one interview with me, and old school giants like Kim Deitch and Gary Panter who are old hats on this kind of thing. The common thread between them, is that they are interesting. All the interviews in the book are with folks that I am a giant fan of and really enjoyed talking to. My hope is that someone will pick up the book and discover for themselves what makes these particular cartoonists so interesting.

BP: Are you excited about TCAF?
RM: Hell yeah, I am excited about TCAF. Last year was great and this year will be even better. I am really stoked on the panel I am moderated between Paul Pope and Dash Shaw. I think they are both really important and modern creators that are doing unique work. They seem to come from a similar background, but have gone off into completely different directions. This is my first time attending as an exhibitor so it will be interesting for me, standing on the other side of the table, but I hope to get a lot of shopping done too, and you know, meet Daniel Clowes. He is one of my all time favourite cartoonists. I mean, I even named the show after a strip he did!

BP: What was it like working with Conundrum on this project?
RM: Working with Conundrum has been great. Andy has been really patient with me as I get more and more neurotic about how I do things. I think Inkstuds and Conundrum is a really good partnership. We share similar values in comics, not only in the work he produces, but we can also talk about Jack Kirby's New Gods on top of our love of Canadian art comics.