1. You have been a pioneer in the pandemic for creative digital connections - what inspired you to take this role? Thanks! It was a pretty natural extension of everything I have always done. Regarding video work, I was playing around with a camcorder throughout my teen years, enlisting my friends to act in skits and short movies. When I graduated from college in 1999, I built a website to showcase my portfolio. Every professor didn't believe it was a good use of my time as they didn't think that art directors would look at art on the internet. That website, coupled with an aggressive postcard campaign, led to my first published book. In 2004, one year before the publication of PUNK FARM, I created a MySpace page for my fictional barnyard rock band. My publisher wasn't interested in releasing the book with a CD, so I produced music on my own and released it via social media. Before YouTube, I made videos about my process and showed them at conferences during my keynote lectures. And then my first virtual author visits and webcasts came in 2011. So I have always been into new technologies and how I might use them to tell stories and advance the work that I have been doing in print. My New Year's resolution for 2020 was to do more webcasting. Having had all those years of experience, I knew the only way I would be successful in achieving that goal was to create a dedicated video space. I carved out a little corner in a room in my basement and went live weekly on Facebook. And then...the pandemic hit. I have so many friends who are essential workers and saw what they were contributing to society. I felt the need to do my part, so I started going live that first Monday of the shutdown. 2. What initially drew you to comics?
All of it. The visuals, the stories. I could not get enough of comics as a kid. I would cut GARFIELD out of the newspaper daily and collect them in scrapbooks. I would also find a way to get to the comics shop every month so I could know what would happen next to BATMAN, SPIDER-MAN, and the X-MEN.
3. What have comics allowed you to do in terms of telling your own story?
With HEY, KIDDO, I was able to invite readers into my childhood home. With that visual medium, readers can be face to face with the people who formed my story.
4. Looking forward to your book Sunshine! Is there anything you'd like readers to know about it at this point?
SUNSHINE was originally a chapter in HEY, KIDDO. But because SUNSHINE didn't fit the throughline of KIDDO, that plot point was reduced to one single page. SUNSHINE is about my week at a camp that serves children with cancer. It was an intense and formative experience for me, and I am eager for everyone to read it when it d in April 2023. Never mind supply chain problems, so many authors, like me, have been struggling with creating work in these awful times. But I am glad I gave the book and my mental health the time they deserve!
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