Inkstuds spotlights alt-comics luminaries

Radio might not be the most obvious medium through which to discuss a subject as visually oriented as comics, but Robin McConnell has been doing just that for five years. McConnell hosts Inkstuds, a weekly program on UBC's CiTR on which he and his rotating sidekicks (including Colin Upton and Robin Konstabaris) interview notable artists from the alternative-comics world.

McConnell has compiled transcriptions of 27 of these interviews for a new book, the logically titled Inkstuds (Conundrum Press, 280pp, $20, softcover). Some of the better-known subjects include Chester Brown, Seth, Joe Sacco, Mary Fleener, Jaime Hernandez, and Gary Panter. The interviews are presented without any introductory preamble or parenthetical insertions; McConnell assumes a certain depth of knowledge on the reader's part. For instance, when Franí§oise Mouly casually mentions someone named "Art", it helps to know that the publisher and New Yorker art editor is married to Art Spiegelman, the Pulitzer-winning creator of Maus.

On the other hand, if you're the type of person inclined to curl up with a 280-page volume of interviews with avant-garde cartoonists, you probably already knew that.

For more info, visit McConnell's blog. You can hear Inkstuds Thursdays at 2:00 p.m. on 101.9 FM.