Issue #044: Jen Wang

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Welcome, lovely listeners and Precious Patrons of Pulp Pamphlet Parlay, to Issue 44 of Comics Squee. Each podcast our panelists, more than meets the eye, discuss the comic books, graphic novels, and general sequential art geekery that excites them.

Our superpowers are tangents and tentacles.

Piloting our revolving 4th chair this issue is our guest, comics creator Jen Wang. Among her many writing and cartooning projects are covers for Boom!, and the art for Fake Mustache from Amulet Books. Her own indie projects include Koko Be Good, and the script and art for In Real Life with Cory Doctorow (which we squeed about when Lucy Bellwood joined us on show 28).

In this issue of Comics Squee we have: dreams of contemporary art stardom derailed by the temptations of punk ; legacy’s of identity and delusion ; a lady private eye in Portland ; and adventures in Constantinople (Istanbul)

1. Jen Wang: Wendy by Walter Scott (starts at 00:02:57.542)

   Wendy is one of the funniest graphic novels Jen has read in a long time. It’s not quite a strip, but it’s about the daily misadventures of this girl who is in art school.

   The art is black and white. The style is loose and cartoonish but the expressions are strong.

2. John: Stumptown by Greg Rucka (writer), Matthew Southworth (artist), and Justin Greenwood (artist) (starts at 00:08:08.837)

   This is set in Portland, otherwise known as Stumptown.

   John really enjoys Stumptown. It’s very grounded for a PI story and is rooted in city in which it’s set.

   The main character, Dex, is a Private Investigator. She’s also former career military.

   The writing is good. The art is dominated by mostly two to three tones. And it’s beautiful. And Rucka does a good job of building a world for crime to happen in.

3. Chriss: Delilah Dirk and the Turkish Lieutenant by Tony Cliff (starts at 00:14:58.131)

   Delilah Dirk is one of Chriss’ favorite comics. Tony Cliff’s art is fabulous; he has a superb skill at creating motion and understanding body posture and balance.

   This is a fun adventure story with just the right humor. The colors are excellent as well.

   Delilah Dirk and the Turkish Lieutenant collects all of the current Delilah Dirk stories by Tony Cliff, except for the stand alone isssue Bad Seed.

4. April: The Impostor’s Daughter: A True Memoir by Laurie Sandellm (starts at 00:20:52.925)

   This is an interesting memoir about a daughter discovering, and dealing with, her father being a fraud. He has lots of tall tales about his life and accomplishments, which he’s gotten away with because he’s so charming.

   The art is a cartoon style. Laurie Sandellm is a prose writer, not an artist, but she’d always dealt with her feelings about her father by drawing about them, so when she wrote the book she ended up returning to that idea and the result is this graphic novel.

Question Time: Who are your favorite female comic characters? (starts at 00:28:39.175)

This one was harder to answer, because there are so many.

What We’re Looking Forward to Reading Next (starts at 00:56:21.125)

• John:

  Reading back through all of Mind Management now that the series has wrapped up

• Chriss:

  More issues of Jill Trent: Science Sleuth

• Jen Wang:

  Fantasy Basketball by Sam Bosma

• April:

  Sex Criminals coming back

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