With That's Some Business You're In (Zoop), cartoonist-humorist-author Bob Fingerman has created a career retrospective to celebrate (lament?) his 40th year in comics. We got together in LA to talk about that milestone, what it meant to him to bring together decades of his comics, art, and illustration into a single volume, the challenges of writing the narrative to his work-life, and what he learned from looking at the arc of his career. We get into the 'maybe someday' vibe of the big projects he wants to tackle, the process of getting over his younger shame at making comics for, um, 'lower-prestige' (but well-paying) magazines, the distance he needed on his best-known comic, Minimum Wage, the artist's retrospective he really wants to see, why he enjoys creator-owned work instead of someone else's IP, and his true artistic goal. We also discuss the life-changing stuff — like addressing the tension between narcissism and imposter syndrome, the nature of change, the toxicity of NYC, and the need to leave a better memory — while we talk about life in LA, the writers who blew him away and how he can't begin to emulate them, the way his characters changed from punching bags to people, the joy of hummingbirds and small dogs, and a lot more. Follow Bob on Instagram • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal and via our e-newsletter
The Virtual Memories Show
Episode 593 - Bob Fingerman
(upbeat music) - Welcome to The Virtual Memories Show. I'm your host, Gil Roth, and we're here to preserve and promote culture one weekly conversation at a time. You can subscribe to The Virtual Memories Show through iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, Google Play, and a whole bunch of other venues. Just visit our sites, chimeraobscura.com/vm or vmspod.com to find more information, along with our RSS feed. And follow the show on Twitter and Instagram @VMSpod. Well, I am surviving the heat dome. The 90 degree plus temperatures finally ended yesterday, so it's less likely the AC is gonna kick on in the middle of this intro, although it also means some of my neighbors are out doing yard stuff now, so we may get some leaf blower, edger, et cetera, in the background, sorry. All that said, I was awfully glad not to have any podcast scheduled for last weekend. It was brutally hot and driving around or walking in New York City to get to a guest's home would have just been grotesque. That said, the downside of that is I don't have a next week show recorded yet, so I am hoping between Saturday's in-person session and Sunday's remote one, at least one of them actually comes through, and we will have a show for you next week. I've actually got a bunch of two for weekends ahead, like this one, and if I pull everything off, I'm actually gonna have all my shows through the end of August recorded by July 20th, and that means I can spend the rest of the summer losing my goddamn mind because I'm not recording any new shows or talking to anybody, I guess, or I can get ahead on September and the October episodes. I've got a whole bunch of work this fall, like my conference to organize and host and some legislative stuff that I'm working on, business trip to Milan that we're hoping to extend on one side or the other so I can finally get to Rome, maybe see the boxer at rest statue, which is something I've been hoping to do for a couple of decades. In fact, just yesterday I got a call from one of my member companies out in San Diego asking me if I would come out to speak to their annual sales meeting, which is a few days after my own conference in Maryland and a few days before the cartoon crossroads Columbus 10th anniversary festival. So I may be a little busy this fall, so getting ahead this summer is probably a good thing, but it's just Gil's fabulous life for you. Part of that fabulosity is that I tend to tie podcasts and other extracurricular stuff into my business trips. For example, last week's show with Swan Huntley, as well as this week's, we're both recorded on a Sunday in Los Angeles before I caught a 7 a.m. train on Monday down to San Diego for a three day biotech conference where I put on a suit, slicked my hair and tied it back to look somewhat professional, put on a different face and met with bio pharmaceutical manufacturers, the National Security Council, the commissioner of the FDA and a whole bunch of other folks. But the whole time I was thinking that I just let all of you guys down by not posting a new episode that week, which tells you how messed up my priorities are. So let's get to this week's show. My guest this time around is Bob Fingerman. Bob is a cartoonist, humorous and illustrator who is celebrating lamenting his 40th year in the comics biz. My first came across Bob's comics in the 1990s with his minimum wage comic from Phanographics, which was kind of a fictionalized version of his life as an artist in New York City. And we met at a festival around that under less than ideal circumstances. And over the years, since I started doing the show, his name has come up in the, you know who you ought to record with emails that I get from my pals. And he reached out earlier this year to tell me about his new career retrospective book. And I told him, matter of fact, I'm gonna be in LA right before the big biotech show. So you're on. All of that said, I did not expect the session to run nearly two hours, nor for us to talk another two plus hours after that. But that's a fun to do in this podcast and make a new friends, you know? So the reason we are on Bob has a new book out. That some business you're in is the name of it. It is published through the crowdfunding site, Zoom. But don't let that put you off. This book is gorgeous. We talk about it in the show. Bob, we're talking about this aspect of it. Bob did an amazing job designing this book. It looks beautiful. It is filled with his art over the years from his childhood comics to everything that preceded minimum wage, to his mad and cracked humor comics. Dotty's Inferno, a more recent book. His Star Wars shorts like Fred Jawa, Consumer Advocate, and just a bazillion other comics and illustrations and posters he's done over, as mentioned, 40 years. As I mentioned, the book does include his childhood comics, which means that he did not go my route and basically torch all of his juvenileia. By juvenileia, I mean everything from before I turned like 50. Anyway, that some business you're in collects it all. Bob's artwork is a blast, it's kinetic, hilarious, sometimes gorgeously painted, well composed. His sense of humor is, well it's apparent in every panel that he draws. And this book covers, again, the humor comics, horror stories, spot illustrations, promotional work and more. And it's organized chronologically with these wonderful written chapters, explaining his life, his entree into comics, his education under Harvey Kurtzman, the various venues where he worked, the indignities of screw magazine and all sorts of other stuff. The writing is sharp, it is entertaining throughout. And he tells some stories, just like he does in our talk. We, it's a little bridge burning that takes place, but again, after 40 years in this space, he sort of earned it. And it all compliments this wonderful art that he brings in and the way it's all displayed and laid out, it's a fantastic package. And, well, I'm bummed that he brought it to my attention only after the crowd funder for it closed, but don't worry, it made like four and a half times the original goal. He says that copies, the hard copy should be going out to backers any day now. And there'll be more available at the zoop.gg site and presumably also through bobfingerman.com. So keep an eye out, I'll post links to this stuff. But I gotta say, it's great to see Bob still rolling after 40 years. And as somebody who's a near-contemporary, a little bit older than me, I was interested in what he's learned over that time and how the field has changed, how comics, humor comics, the art and illustration work he's done, how that field's changed, but also how he's developed and changed as a person. None of us are who we were when we were younger or so we like to believe. And you guys know, my ongoing tension or dynamic and it really came up a few weeks ago, maybe a month or two ago with Jen Silverman, is that question of whether people can change or whether we've got pretty fixed identities from our childhood and youth that we can only kind of struggle against on the margins. Which is to say, this talk with Bob gets kind of deep by the end as we've really talked about the big changes in his life in the last bunch of years, not just the external ones, but how he's responding from within and what his life has come to mean to him and what his behavior or how his behavior has changed, how he's learned to be a different person, we think. And that all has me thinking that, you know, maybe we can find something new in ourselves and kind of nurture that even after like half a century running in the same patterns. Sometimes, you know, maybe it involves just moving somewhere sunny like LA. Anyway, you'll get to all that. For now, go check out Bob's comics, look up his new retrospective. That's some business you're in. Keep an eye out for his upcoming comic, "Printopia" and hunt down his minimum wage collections, as well as his recent humor comic, "Dotties Inferno" and his prose novels. He's had a heck of a career. He's done a lot of things, been a lot of places and it was a joy to sit down with him and his dogs, which leads to the caveats. One of his little dogs, Bugsy, got to barking a little bit. So Bob moved Bugsy and Sherlock out to another room so that we can have a little bark-free time. After we wrapped, he let them back into the living room and Bugsy leaped up in my lap and wouldn't let me move for an hour or two. Oh, the other thing, I do want to thank Dean Haspiel for being the real mover in connecting me and Bob. Like I said, other people have mentioned him over the years of somebody I should sit down with. Dean is the person who, hey Gil, you need to do this. So thank you, Dino. And here's Bob's bio. Internationally published and critically acclaimed cartoonist, illustrator and author, Bob Fingerman is best known for his cult comic series, Minimum Wage. In 2018, he realized his childhood dream to become one of Mad's usual gang of idiots. Alas, Mad was soon thereafter, essentially euthanized. Bob accepts only partial blame for that. His latest books are the comical graphic novel Dotties Inferno from heavy metal slash virus and the radically revised author's edition of his novel Pariah, now Pariah Redoo. His clients include Dark Horse Comics, Phanographics books, DC Comics, Marvel, IDW, Image Comics, Tore, Le Humenoid Associates, Fluid Glacial, Tappage, no turn, you know my French pronunciation is god awful. Sony slash Columbia Pictures, Riff Tracks, Heavy Metal and Z2 Comics. His new book is That Some Business You're In, a career retrospective. And now the virtual memories conversation with Bob Fingerman. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) That's Some Business You're In. Where did it begin? What led you to engage in a retrospective like this? - I'm staring down the barrel of turning 60. - I was gonna say, you're gonna turn 60 this August. So this is the timing. - It was one of these things where it's like, do you either lean into it or are you furtive about it? And, yeah, age is a number, you know? It's the all the cliches of that kind of thing. And, you know, on the one hand, society definitely becomes more and more ageist as we speak. And by the way, I'm as guilty of it as anybody. - Of course. - I'm the first one to say like old people, so. - That's not me, of course, that's me. - Exactly. - But I'm not gonna run away from the fact that, 'cause I was looking at 2024 and it's like, okay, what are milestones in 2024? Well, not only turning 60, but having started my career, my professional career, exactly 40 years ago, I started in '84. And I thought, well, that's worth commemorating. - Yeah. - Nobody else is gonna do it. So I might as well take the bull by the horns and so, and the other thing is it's taking ownership of things that I've kind of shrunk from over the years. 'Cause there was a long time where some of the sketchy places I worked for, just let's call them low prestige publishers I worked for, embarrassed me, like I spent a lot of my life being embarrassed by what I did. And at a certain point, you're just like, well, but it's all made for kind of an interesting life and an interesting career. And also, again, my girlfriend Valerie, she's baffled. She's like, why are you ashamed of that stuff? That stuff's cool and interesting. And I don't know if I necessarily agree it's cool, but it is interesting. - Back in that era, like when I came out of grad school, I was looking for editorial jobs. And somewhere in, off of Route 4 and Paramus was where Swank and a few other magazines were coming out from and it was like, yeah, I don't need a job that bad yet. Like that was an era where not so much. Nowadays, it would turn into the, like you said, it's almost a badge of honor or weird distinction to say, oh yeah, I've worked for these magazines up and down the scale. - Yeah, Swank's one of the few I think I didn't work for. But I worked for a lot of them, at least in the New York area. I think the only one that I ever worked for at that time that wasn't in New York was I did one gig for Hustler, which was great 'cause it paid really well. I mean, that's the thing. It's not like I was drawn to those because I had such an affection for the milieu. They did pay well. I mean, with the exception of the tabloid screw, which I think kind of exists in its own rarefied sewer, all the others paid well. So there was a financial lure to going for the low-hanging fruit. Well, what did you find, I guess, in terms of looking back at 40 years and the life that leads up to, I mean, you do talk autobiographically before the comics begin, of course, professional comics begin. What was it like for you looking back at your life and trying to organize it in a way that... - Well, looking back, yeah, those are kind of, they're intertwined, but they're different. Life versus work were kind of two different things. And I will say the book is a career memoir and I identify myself by my career, but I did not want to get into personal stuff because it's not that kind of a book. - No, the little thing is coming, but only as they impact the art. - Yeah, exactly. If they were germane to what I was talking about, I mean, there's definitely personal stuff because again, they're entwined, they're enmeshed. But looking, I was looking, looking back with kinder eyes, then I've had, I've, for most of my life been a very, not only self-critical, but self-excorating. Like, I just-- - You jump straight from self-loathing into self-excorating. - Yeah, there's been some, you know, I've wrestled with certain things. And the older I get one, I see less and less value, especially, you know, this is the life we've got and this is the one we get. And spending as much of it unhappy as I did largely, you know, I'm not blaming anyone. It all comes from within some of its nature, some of its nurture, both my parents were depressive to greater and lesser degrees. So that definitely has a profound effect on how you live your life. But looking back, the things that I could really see, one I never phoned it in, didn't matter who it was for. I've always worked hard. And a lot of the work, it's not up to my current standards, but it was good work. You know, I never, I don't think I ever did any work that I would consider bad, just less good. You know, and the other thing is I look at some of the older work and I think, I don't know if I could do that anymore. - I was wondering whether there's, there's always the, I'm better at X, Y, and Z now, but there's always the, man, I really had it going. - Yeah, or just, you know, certain things where, like for instance, you know, in the pre-digital age, you know, certain age you existed before everything became digital. And you know, the way I work now is a hybrid. I still draw traditionally, but I do all the color digitally. I haven't painted other than watercolor type stuff for myself generally. I haven't painted especially like with acrylics in decades. And I'm sure like writing a bicycle, I probably would figure it out and then probably do it better. But when I look at the kind of precision and detail, especially the stuff that when you're in your early 20s. - Yeah. - And you know, I've never had good eyes, but my eyes were better. It's just going to say you could get closer to the page. - Yeah. Yeah, there's certain stuff I kind of look at and I just think, wow, there's a level of like the miniaturists of Europe where they were painting with a one hair brush. And I was doing that. I mean, not that anyone can see, but that was a piece I've had in storage for above me for many years, it was a piece I did for Penthouse. And you know, it was their panels. It's an adult strip taking place during the bubonic plague. So I wanted to, I was looking at broil and looking at Bosch and all these people and looking at their painting. And I wanted to emulate and I was like, yeah, I'm going to go in there and do for, you know, for a dirty magazine that no one's even going to look at this. But for me it was, it's like, well, I care and it's a painting exercise. But yeah, I don't know if I could do that anymore. So yeah, I follow Carl Stevens on Instagram and he has that the incredible tiny cross hatching. And when he does videos of it, you could see like the glasses go up and the faces, you know, right up on the page. It's why I can't draw once I put my contacts in. I basically have to, you know, try to do stuff in the morning before I put them in or just sacrifice a day with, you know what? Don't need to see anything. I'm just going to try and get some drawing in. - When I used to wear contacts, I had reverse prescription glasses. - So that's a great... - I could put on glasses to see close up. So yeah, the things you do. - It makes sense for places for art, man. - Exactly. But that sense of self retrospective, that sense that you were ready to look back, it really was just occasioned, you know, with a big round number coming up. - Yeah, pretty much. And the other thing is, you know, if not now, when? - Yeah. - So it seemed, the other thing is I also just had I want to try new things. This is the other thing. It's like, I don't think just because you're getting older. If anything, as the world keeps changing, as the field keeps changing and so forth, you have to stay nimble. And so much stuff these days is being done with crowdfunding. Now, I like and prefer doing traditional publishing. I like working with a publisher. But I thought this would be a great kind of toe dip to do a book. I didn't want to do Kickstarter 'cause I didn't want to be responsible for manufacturing. - Okay. - To that degree, I still like, I like a buffer. - This should be a conglomerate behind it. - Yeah, I will hand over deliverable, you know, and printable files, that's another component that's changed. Artists didn't used to have to deliver a press ready book. It's like you'd hand in your pages and then an art department would go and deal with all the front matter and back matter. And now you basically are like here, print. - I will say the design of this book is fantastic. - Oh, thank you. - When I got to the end and saw that you at least are listed as the designer for it. - I'm the only hand in that whole book other than my friend Steve who proofread and copy edited. - A lot of artists. - Bless his soul. - A lot of artists don't know how to make a book look like, what a book should look like. Even though they've been published a million times and should be able to replicate it. - I know. - Looking at this, I'm like, he really understood the text flow, understood the layout. He really got things going well. So, you know, kudos. - Thank you. I take great pride in the fact that, yeah. - Reverse engineering what a book should look like. - Looks like a book. - Yeah. - That was hugely important to me. It's like basically Abrams isn't doing this, but it doesn't have to look like they didn't do it. - That's what I mean. - The degree of detail in that reverse engineering process was well done. - Thank you. I appreciate that. - Were you surprised by the crowdfunding response? - Came out about four times higher than what your base goal was, I think. - Well, it's, I mean, certainly as a toadip, it was an encouraging toadip. - Yeah. - It's so funny. How do you answer that? - Look, did you know you're fit? - I'll put it this way. - I was optimistic. I was optimistic. You know, they, since that's not my world, the platform I used is called Zoom. And so I defer it to them. It's like, you guys, this is what you do. So they're the ones that set the initial goal. And I thought that was very low. It's like, wow, well, that even cover the costs, but they know what they're doing. But maybe this is, I don't know if this is too much looking behind the curtain, but there is, there's building a narrative. And that's something they understand where they're just like, if you set your minimum, you'll make it right away. And when it succeeds, success encourages other people. - 'Cause other people wants to see. - And I thought, okay, that kind of makes sense, 'cause I thought, shouldn't we just set the number higher? And they said, well, sometimes that can be off-putting. So it's kind of like, in real estate, when you list your place lower and then you get a bidding war, these are the real world comparisons or analogs to things is like, oh, okay. I don't know if I want to sell my house for that. Don't worry, don't worry. It's gonna go above that. So that logic applies, but they did a great job. I will say working with Zoop has been, that's made it very pleasant because I really didn't, as I say. I don't want to be, every time I see somebody who does a Kickstarter, I think, well, and I've certainly kicked in for many of them, when they post their photo of like, well, 3,000 books arrive today, and I guess I know what I'm doing for the next month, and you see them stuffing envelopes, and I just just like, fuck that. I don't want anything to do with that. I get my hands dirty doing the work. I don't want to get my hands dirty doing the fulfillment. - You made the pages, that's enough. - So yes, so, if that makes me a snowflake or an elitist or whatever, I can live with that. - I'm turning 60 for good steak. - Yeah, quite a lot of times. - Time to be stuffing envelopes. - I still see Porcelino post the, got the zines back and one after another in the mailers. - Oh, and bless their souls for doing it. I admire that kind of hands-on thing, but yeah, I'd rather put my hands for just creating the work, so. - Maybe someday a balance in this book. There's a lot of maybe some days I'll get to this, I'll get to that. - No, that's probably true, I didn't think of that. Can you give me an example? I can't remember, but. - There's always a minimum wage thing. You could just say, maybe someday I'll get back to. You've also got a project we'll bring up later in pickedopia, but there are a couple of items that maybe I'll get back to this or get back to that. Do you see? - I've always hedged. - Yeah. - I've always hedged. - And again, we talk about age and, you know, when I recorded with Seth the first time, there was a sense of he had plotted out how many years he had and how many books that equaled. Seth being Seth, you know, he had this, you know, relatively, you know, thought out process. But do you have that sense of the, these are books I can tackle. This is something I just, you know, it'd be great if I was 40, but, you know. - It, you know, again, the sense of mortality exists, but I'm not preoccupied. - You're calling yourself an erotic Jew? I'm really just stuck by this. - When your number's up, your number's up. One, another thing I've really learned is your own death only really affects the people around you. You're out. I mean, say what you will, you know, is the, to quote Robert Klein. He's the upside to death is don't care. It's like, once you're out, don't care. So, you know, it's all the, if you've lived a good life, you've left a lot of broken hearts. If you've left a shitty life, you've left a lot of people who say good riddance, but ultimately getting the work done. I don't really feel like, I mean, certainly, I mean, I'm in good shape. You know, my health is good. These are all the things you say. And that was those were the last words he said. - It's hard to believe you died before the podcast, even air. - Exactly. So, you know, you never want to tempt fate, but, you know, I like to think I've got a good amount of years in front of me. We'll see. But, you know, yeah, I still have a lot of books left that I want to do. There's a lot I want to get done. - And that's what I'm getting at. That sense of, you know, 60, but whatever, right? I want to. - Yeah. Well, to me, it's in a way more than death. It's decline in terms of quality. Quality to me is like, I think my work looks better now than it ever did. And that's a big admission. Anyone who knows me knows that for me to actually kind of like the way my work is looking is also a very positive development. But there was always the one thing I will say again, looking back. I don't know of rigidity that one book for sure had a rigidity to it that I don't care for. And that would be white like she. But the art that I've always really enjoyed looking at, like when you're a little kid, and I don't think this is true for everybody, but little kids love detail. Or at least they used to love detail. 'Cause I know all the kids when you'd see those drawings, like, I don't know if you remember these books that were cutaways of things where it was like, here's an office building, here's a ship, here's a nuclear submarine. - Well, we were stepping in the back of the building in the Fantastic Four, where we were kids too. - Sure. - But anyway, yes. - But that kind of detail, you know, is like God, 'cause you get lost in it. Like where's Waldo, you know? Why is that his kids love to look at all the little detail? And I still love that kind of thing. But as, in a way, as my tastes matured, spontaneity became more important to me in looking at and appreciating work. Stuff that felt less fussy and more fluid. - I believe a preciously overworked is the term you're looking for. - Yeah, preciously overworked was, yeah. It was a phrase lobbed at me by a couple of friends. And they were not wrong, they were not wrong. And that was all part of that. I just want to impress people. That was a big thing when I was young. It's like, that's another reason why I worked so hard. I wanted to impress people, like, look how hard this guy works. Look at all that fiddly pen and ink work and all that kind of thing. And, you know, ultimately, it's the guys like Jack Davis and Mort Drucker and Sergio Aragon as all mad people. But, you know, who had a snappy line, a snappy line is really fun to look at. And, you know, many illustrators over the years and what have you where it's just, it's not fussy. It's funny 'cause there was an artist, is a French artist whose work I love. He's got one of the snappiest lines I've ever seen. It turned out he's as slow as can be. So a line can be deceptive. Sometimes it has the illusion of something that just flowed right off the wrist and you realize they were just, they just have an incredibly steady hand. So, you know, sometimes it can be, but you can usually tell when somebody's not rushing it. - No, but that it's loose. - It's confident. Confidence, what's the thing I asked? - Bill Griffith, I guess the first time we recorded how the dailies at these strips are just tighter and tighter. And I said, I don't really get that 'cause as you get older, I thought you'd get kind of looser and, you know, no, you grow more and more acute with everything you do and that's how I draw. I got better or better and so it gets, you know, more and more detailed and tighter and that's Bill. - Yeah. - Works great for Zippy and it led to, you know, making a bunch of great graphic novels since then, but yeah, that was one of those. You just keep doing what's working for you. You managed to do this daily since 1985. So, you know, that's... - Yeah, now my goal, artistic goal, bucket list goal is before I die, I want one complete book to look as loose as the way I draw background characters. I want my foregrounds to be as loose as the backgrounds 'cause then I'll feel like, oh, you've, you've achieved piperhood, you've reached that level. - I was gonna say, he's another one who, when I recorded with him, he'd already finished the first full-length book and was on the second one. And he, just as you were saying about trying to find different forms, I mean, for him, it's still comics, but he's never done full-length before this. You don't count 'em in a row 'cause that's different than what we understand as a graphic novel. And he was just, one of the great moments of my life was when Jules Pfeiffer said to me, "Do you wanna see some of my new pages?" And it was, "Yeah, Mr. Pfeiffer, that'd be wonderful." You know, just just walking up and he's just pulling up all the the transparencies for lettering and showing us what original art looked like. And to him, it was completely liberating. The idea of having 180 pages instead of two tiers of eight panels. - Sure. - It just became this, this. - Well, and it makes sense too 'cause I mean, I think people think of him as a short-form guy, but I mean, he wrote a couple of the greatest movies. - Oh, sure, yeah. - Ever made. And so he, you know, long-form is definitely in his blood. - Yeah. - And of course, it's funny 'cause the first time I met him, he came to be a guest speaker in Harvey Kurtzman's class. And Kurtzman had this thing where he didn't want a chaos of arms going up for Q and A. He would have everyone write their question on a piece of paper and he'd put him in a hat. And then he would choose them at random like, "Okay, and here's a question for whoever the guest is." And I wrote a question and I, you know, I'm sure part of it was that thing when you're a student, you want to be the one who gets noticed. It's that little bit of showiness. But it also was a sincere question. And my question was, do you have any other novels besides "Acroid"? You know, waiting to happen. And, or words to that effect, and Kurtzman read that. And Phifer said, "Who asked that?" So I put my hand up and he said, "You read "Acroid?" And I said, "I did." And he said, "You liked it? I did." And he said, "Even my wife won't read that." So I kind of ingratiated myself in that I read his novel that apparently was perhaps not a huge, huge hit. But I enjoyed it. And to me, it was, those are the things again that stayed with me and inspired me 'cause it's like, well, he's a cartoonist. He wrote a novel. I can write novels and I wrote novels. So, you know, these are the things, but Phifer's a long-form guy. He's a long-form guy who for years, and even Bernard and Huey over the course of time is long-form. So it's an absolutely singular career also for someone who invented what we see as the weekly and everything else. - One of the great geniuses, I was first exposed to his work in my dad's apartment 'cause my dad had two of his books, which I have my dad's copies of. He had the Phifer's marriage manual and sick, sick, sick. And I was looking at those probably from the age of four or five on, and I couldn't read them and I didn't get it, but the art, even at that early age. And I think it was because his stuff, his was an early example of something so reductive that every line mattered when there's so few lines, every one of them counts. And I would just kind of look at those and I remember just thinking there was something spellbinding about, and the fact that there were no backgrounds was just figures, either talking directly to you, the reader, again, as a four or five year old. I'm not getting, these are monologuing characters, but there was something that I recognized as this doesn't look like other comic strips that I've seen. This does not look like peanuts, this does not look like pogo, this doesn't look like anything, this looks like this. And that was the very early in-coate beginning of enjoying extremely individualistic work. So, do you ever get to tell a favor? - More or less, I regret the fact that he seemed open to, I don't know about being friend friends, but at least being acquaintances. And there was something we went out to lunch once. He gave me a blurb for one of my books, 'cause he really liked the book, and I was believing me. That's, again, that's a better diction. And there was something about, well, there were a couple of things. One, it was like, he's too big. He's too big to get together for lunch with. He's too big. It's like, this is special, and the other was, truth is, he was always heading off to Cape Cod. And so, it was just like, I would say, you know, oh, we had to get out of town, and then I just gave up. So. - And that was out of Cooper's town. I think he's out around Cooper's town. So, if you can go see him in the baseball hall of fans, as well as-- - Okay, all right, sure. - Yeah, that's part of the, he did a great piece about, or Ed Sorrell did a piece about him, I think, very recently in the Atlantic, and it was all about making the pilgrimage to go see Jules. I had to drive to the end of Long Island to record with him when he was living in Sag Harbor, and that was one of those where he told me you'd have to come out here. I'm like, you're Jules Pfeiffer, I'll drive to the end of the fucking planet to stand with you for a conversation. So, yeah, don't worry about it, dude, we're fine. - I've got an Ed Sorrell story. - You're looking away when you say that. He was on the show, and before you get into it, I'll say my one goal, it was Thanksgiving of 2021. And my big goal was, don't kill Ed Sorrell with COVID. This is the number I was testing every day or two. I was like, just, don't have COVID, and don't give it to the 91-year-old guy, so. That's a good goal. - Your Ed story? - Yeah, no, this is when I was 16 years old. I was, for my summer job, I was a foot messenger in Manhattan. And it was a great way to learn the city. It was just like, you would go to this subterranean office where they would hand you a package or a envelope or whatever and say, head off to, yeah, whatever. So, I was running all over town, and they gave me just a pickup receipt. It's like, go to this address, you'll pick something up, bring it back here. Okay, so, I go to this little building on, I think it was either third, no, it was Lexington Avenue and 50, whatever street. And I look and it's like, this doesn't look like an office building. Okay, I'll go in. So, I'll go into the vestibule, I'm looking at the names on the buzzers, and I see one of them and it says, a Roth and a little Washington engraving. So, but that was the door number. So, I thought, okay, so I just push in, door wasn't locked, it was a different time. Yes. And I go, it's a walk up. So, I think this is unusual. I'm used to dealing with receptionists and so forth. So, I go up to whatever second floor. And because I was a foot messenger and because you're used to going into offices, I just threw open the door. Now again, by the way, this door wasn't locked. Yeah. Different agent. So, I throw open the door instantly. I know it's not the right thing 'cause it's somebody's home. And these two, to me at the time, older people, probably only about 50 something or whatever at the time, but they both look, it's a man and a woman and the man pops out of his seat and runs to the door. Can I help you? And I start stammering. This receipt. I've got this, but I was given this to pick something up. And he says, well, I didn't call for anyone. And he's kind of beginning to do the push you out the door thing, but I noticed all these illustrations on the wall framed illustrations and they were Arnold Roth. And I had a clipping file at home of Arnold Roth. Huge fan. So, as he was about to push me out, I said, "Are you Arnold Roth, the illustrator?" And it was one of those moments where he just stopped because it's that this kid knows who I am. So, he just said-- And he's not serving me with a subpoena, which is important. And he said, "Yes." And I just said, "I'm so sorry, but I'm just a huge fan." And then he just completely changed. He said, "Come in, come in, we'll figure this out." So, I come in and he said, "Why do you know my work?" And I told him, "Well, I'm an aspiring cartoonist." I was in high school just a few blocks away from there. I went to the high school of art and design, which was mere blocks from his home/studio at the time. And so, he said, "Well, let's get to the bottom of this. "Do you want to call your dispatch or this or that?" And then he said, "Well, wait, wait, maybe any called for you." So, we go out of his apartment, go up the next flight of steps, and Ed Sorel was his upstairs neighbor. And Arnie knocks on the door, and he says, "Hey, Eddy, "did you call for a messenger?" And through the door, he says, "No, tell him to go to hell!" So, anyway, that was the beginning of actually a friendship with Arnold Roth and Arnold modeled for one of those things. Arnold modeled for one of the characters in "White Like She." But years later, at an event at Columbia, Sorel was there, so I thought-- He lives closer to Columbia now. Yeah, well, I lived mere blocks from Columbia at the time. So, I saw him, and I thought, "I'm going to go over and talk to him." So, we're chatting, and I said, "I have a little story. "We did encounter each other once before." Through door. And I told him the story, and he just kind of went, "Yeah, that sounds like me." Same thing with pitching him on the show and then getting him on the show. I pitched him years earlier, and it was some incredibly brusque refusal, and then somebody's like, "Yeah, you should hit up Ed one more time." It was great and Carter actually told me to hit up Ed one more time. The great and Carter stories that we bumped into each other, and I bumped into him in the Ottawa airport. He had no idea who I was. But I recognized great and Carter. Of course. Pitched the show in his hands. Spy magazine, yep. And so, he, "Oh, you should get Ed Sorrell on your show." I'm like, "I tried, just like try again." I never thought he was going to finish all the murals in my restaurant, but he finally did. So, hit him up. And so, what I did is go, "I said that." "Yeah, I probably did." "You know what, sure, come by, we'll do one of these." And so, yes, I did not kill him, and we had a good podcast. These are those things where if you lead a certain kind of life, and you encounter crotchety altar cockers over the years, and your first impressions are not great if you're lucky later in life. Like, you know, the fact that I, by the end, became friends with Sam Gross. It was like, "Oh, Sam, very dismissive of me early." And we ended up, you know, in his case, we did go out to lunch on multiple occasions, and it was a thrill. Roz set us up, Roz Chas, and Sam was, he was great. He showed me that week's strips, and I, or that week's gags, and I busted out laughing over at least half of them. They, they killed me. And at the very end, he showed me the notebooks that he uses to account. Yeah, the ledgers. Yeah, to account for the sales of every strip he's ever done. And I, for a brief instant, thought, "You know, we could digit..." Never mind. You know, I was like, "No, I'm not going to offer it a computer. "Something has worked for you for 50 fucking years at this point "that you've got reams and reams of hate. "Just keep doing what you're doing. "It's all going to be fine." Yeah. I was trying to persuade him to let Fantagraphics or somebody do a comprehensive book of his work, and he was just kind of like, "Eh, who the hell is time to go "through all this shit?" Really, buddy? When, there are certain artists, and again, I wonder if this, I wonder where you fit in that, that sort of mold, for whom moving forward is it. It seemed more quashed when I recorded with him had no interest in talking about anything in the past. Everything was about what he's working on. Yeah. And Sam could talk about the past, but he was... Well, for him, you looked at, to me, it was like, he looked at all that work almost as like a burden for somebody else. Like, he was, 'cause he literally was saying to me, "I should throw all this shit out." And I said, "How dare you, sir?" Yeah. But, you know, I'm... I'm friends with his daughter, and, you know, I hope all this stuff is being preserved somehow, somewhere. You figured they would not throw it out without consulting a couple of experts who would say, "No, I'll take that off your hands." Yes. And we'll get a barn upstate in New York and put everything in a controlled situation. Sure. I would do it for Christ's sake, and I'm sure there are other people who would... Yeah, there's universities that would gladly, but it would be nice if a giant monograph came out. That's the weird thing. It's like we're living in this golden age of preserving stuff, but it's not all the stuff I wish was being preserved. What's your besides Sam stuff? What would you love to see? Oh, artist edition of. We talked about one before starting out. Well, my number one. Okay, I can actually see this is an easy pull. Yeah. Cleban. Oh, gosh, yeah. Cleban, you know, everybody... I assume no prior knowledge for the listeners at home. Cleban, you'd know his work, folks, because his cats exist. Yeah. But all of his other work, which is genius, doesn't exist anymore, other than if you have the old paper bags. Which is from 1970s or something. But he was a brilliant, in addition to just being one of the most brilliant cartoonists of all time. He was also just a great artist. I don't know if you've ever seen any of his watercolors or things. When I was recording with M.K. Brown, I did some research on that. Yeah, sure, sure. Yeah, his first wife. Yes. Yeah, I got to see some, 'cause she went into the... I would work, I figure one of them worked night the other worked day and they basically turned one studio into two people's, one apartment, into two people's studios by divvying up the time. But yeah. It's a disgrace that his second wife is the one in charge of his. 'Cause she... Was gonna leave that? She, I don't care. I'll go on record. I'll go for it. The fact that she is basically denying the world, 'cause I know there's been interest. In fact, I've seen there's a dummy book of a massive monograph that was good to go and she... Kai Bosch. And it makes no sense to me. It's like, you know, it's not like... It's a win for everybody. Offensive work or this and that. I mean, it's brilliant work. And I just, so that's the number one. To me would be a Cleban, like Tossian style, retrospective. That book needs to exist. It's interesting 'cause like Richard Corbin, one of my all-time heroes, he was one of those only look forward types. And I will say, you know, obviously, saddened that he passed away, but his widow and daughter are doing a great thing, making his legacy live. 'Cause all the books that he said no to, they're now doing beautiful artist edition type books. And he was flat out like, ah, you know. - Again, too much work. I don't wanna deal with this. Or is there a sense about what it was like that? - In his case, it was more just like, I don't wanna... He was almost... I get the impression almost embarrassed by the older work. I don't know. - I don't know. - I can't get inside his head. - You were embarrassed ones upon a time at your own stuff. You know, who knows? Maybe he became more conservative. Who knows? You know, anyone who knows Corbin knows he did. He did a lot of naked people for a lot of years, and maybe he was somehow, I don't know. I'm not gonna speculate. But I do know that the work is now coming out better than it ever did. And I'm grateful for that. So, you know, maybe something will happen with Cleban. - After they hear this, that's of course. - 'Cause we're not selling one to Fingerman that asshole. - Yeah. - In the book, you talk about the genesis of minimum wage, for which you're best known. And the thinking at the age of 30, you had the perspective to write about your 25-year-old self, which you are smirking at because, yeah, you needed more time and we all need more time. I think with Pete Bag, it was like a 10-year gap for him, from Buddy Bradley to himself. He was always sure, keeping it a 10-year. He's got a new-- - Yeah, I'm very curious to see that. - As am I. Yeah, I have high hopes. Well, I don't have super high hopes. I hope it's something he enjoyed making. That's, you know, I got to spend a fun CXC cartoon crossroads Columbus with Pete once. The guy who was gonna interview him had to cancel last minute, so I did a panel instead and we'd ended up just hanging afterwards at his table. It was one of those instances where he sold out by the end of day one because he had no idea that there was gonna be that much interest in his stuff. He's like, if I knew I would have brought, you know, a whole ton for day two. So we ended up just shooting the breeze on day two while he did sketches or drawings for people, which puts me in mind of, again, your crowdfunding going four times higher than you had as a base, but do you get surprised by people discovering your work? - Now, do you hear from people? Oh, I've rigid stuff back in the head. - I don't know who's discovering my work now. I keep a pretty low profile, actually. That's something else, the pandemic, really, just through the fucking knuckles to everything, you know. - Was your projects like a canceled, or were you just kind of being out in the world and stuff? You know, that's the whole thing with cartooning is generally it's a pretty solitary undertaking. I mean, there are people like our mutual Mr. Haspiel, you know, who do the shared studio kind of thing. I would not function well in that environment. - I was wondered, you know, what sort of cartoonist does well, and I guess it's a personality. - I want my door closed, I want my little microcosm. I don't want any distractions. Other than podcasts, I don't want anyone talking at me. Leave me alone. - I'll say most cartoonists told me the lockdown was no significant change to their day-to-day lives. It was just that everybody else was locked down and that drove them insane, well. - It made it feel less special for us. (laughing) Yeah, no, that's true. I really, you know-- - Cartoonists, like one of my jokes, jokes with giant scare quotes that you can't see around it was that I'd been in basically practicing for a lockdown my entire life. But even though I've pretty well on record as not being necessarily a fan of things like comic conventions and all that, I was kind of missing them. And so, you know, I'm looking forward to actually going to a couple this year, be going to San Diego for the first time in 18 years. - That's just about the, I think I was 2005 was the last time I went there. - Okay, so yeah, it was the last one broke me. I had PTSD after that one and just haven't been back since then. So, but, you know, I fully coped to that being my, again, psychological disposition and not the actual-- - I'll say at that 2005 one, a friend of mine who was in the Navy lives in San Diego came on one day and he ran a ages missile defense system for a battle group in the Gulf and Comic-Con overwhelmed him. Since early, he just like couldn't keep track. I'm like, you literally were keeping track of like speedboats and cruise missiles and everything else and you're overwhelmed by the people in costumes, it's too much. - That's fair. - Completely fried, so. So, I can understand where you're coming from if, you know, literally somebody who could have had PTSD from that sort of experience. - Oh, that one, it was just compounding one thing on top of another, it's not worth relitigating in my own head, but I was there to promote a book that ended up not being at the show. So, that one was just like, oh, this is, this was a long way to travel for being embarrassed. - Shh, shh, shh. - What's it good to? - Shh, shh, shh. - Shh, shh. - Would you like me to get back to shows? - To some degree, a limited degree. I will never be one of those people who's like a road dog who enjoys comms, but, you know, San Diego, just for the sheer spectacle of it, I'm kind of looking forward to it with some trepidation. - More the social scene? - Yeah, more social. The one thing I really learned over the years, 'cause I went to San Diego pretty much every year for 20 years, was if you go there with work in mind, it's terrible, 'cause you're just stressed out the whole time because you've kind of given yourself how you need to achieve this and this and it's awful, awful. But if you go just to see other people you know and like and, you know, hang out after the show at the bar and grab dinner, then it's very nice. So, you know, I'm not saying I would not wanna conduct any business if there's any business to - But don't make that the lead. - Yeah, exactly. Make that ancillary to the experience. Yeah. And I was lamenting that there didn't seem to be any indie comics shows in Los Angeles, like Mocha and SPX and things like that. And I was talking with the owner, there's a very good shop called Secret Headquarters in Atwater and I was talking with the owner there, Dave, saying, "Why isn't there anything?" And he said, "Well, there used to be one." And he mentioned this artist, Jen Wang. He said she used to be involved. And lo and behold, they're bringing that show back this December. And of course now I'm forgetting what it's called. So, let me show notes. - If there are show notes, I apologize. It's I think it's like L.A. C.A. like Los Angeles comic. I can't remember. It's on a campus somewhere. I really don't. Okay, you're going to go in the other room now. Shavy boy. But I'm looking forward to that one 'cause like the idea of doing a show that's specifically for kind of indie comics type stuff. It's my new in my not so new new hometown is very appealing to me. It's been saying Miss Cab too. I mean, I've done Mocha, but we used to have comic arts Brooklyn. - Oh, okay. I did that one a couple of times. - Yeah, that was a, let me one. - All right. Actually, do you know the cartoonist Charles Rodriguez's work? - Yeah. - Yeah, that was part of, that was a big part of what in Gracie it had made a gross. 'Cause Sam and Charlie were friends. - And a somewhat similar. - Oh yeah, well, they were kind of super, super dark, politically, completely out of alignment. But I put together two books of Rodriguez's work and Sam was very helpful there as was Rick Meyerwhits. So, but I think the fact that I was so devoted to getting Rodriguez's work out of obscurity jail endeared me to him 'cause he's like, oh, you're doing good work. - There is that sense of, we'll say lineage that I don't know because goddamn kids today, blah, blah, blah. I have no idea what younger artists think or find as far as influences go. But I mean, you know, in your book, the, holy shit, I'm gonna take a class with Harvey Kurtzman, even though it turned out to be gag panels, which is the last thing on Harvey Kurtzman teaching. You know, still that sense of, you know, recognition of these are my heroes. These are the the greats who came before us, meant something. - Yeah, well, it's interesting 'cause I mean, it shouldn't name names. I'll just say a prominent publisher of independent comics and alternative comics was lamenting to me a while ago saying that the young generation of cartoonists, he finds this was his words, the most A historic he's ever met. - It's the stereotype I didn't want to jump into, but yeah, I've heard that from other men of a certain age. - Yeah, and I've also heard it from instructors, I know, at certain art schools, which will also be unnamed on being very diplomatic here. - I think it was on Mike, but no, Paul Carisick said when I recorded with him in New Garden that he's literally met kids who don't know who Superman is. - Oh, that's just weird. - Yeah, and that was like getting to that level of, there's just no cultural, that's like living under a rock. - I can understand like a young, not knowing who Harvey Kurtzman is, that's fine. But Superman is sort of a culture. I mean, that's just, you know, who's Zack Snyder. You know, it's just like, that's just part of the zeitgeist. - And apparently he was getting, you know, 18, 19 year old kids who know knowledge whatsoever. And it was like, okay, I-- - That's weird. - I always thought we had like a certain common cultural foundation at least that we can build on. - Yeah, that would be like not knowing who Bart Simpson is. - Yeah, but it's all adventure time and things like that. So, you know, yeah, we're in different times, man. You know, things have gotten strange, but one of the things that I'm interested in is, I mean, this project was done through the internet. The, well, the difference between, you know, comic books and working in an online world, you know, I know you're still making comics for print for trying, but. - Yeah, that's one thing I will say. I've been probably to my own detriment. I've never done any comics online. - Yeah. - And I never say never, but I could probably say never. It just doesn't appeal to me. - Yeah. - Would it increase my audience? You know, I've thought about like using Instagram to serialize something where I would do like one panel or two panels a day. And at the end of it, you end up with a book. And I still do think about that. That's, you know, that has some appeal to me. - Yeah, and it becomes also sort of a daily drawing goal, which is fine. So that, you know, that's where I won't go with a never 'cause that definitely qualifies. But, you know, the idea of like doing, I don't like looking at comics on anything other than paper. Like I have grudgingly. - Oh, it killed me having to read your books a PDF. - I, yeah. - I apologize. - There's no way around this, but, you know. - Yeah, yeah. Well, you could print it out if you had to print or you at least could print. But no, I, in a way, I apologize because yeah, that is a book that, you know, I noticed, I think 30 people did go for the digital option and I just, maybe not that many, but it's just like, I'm not gonna judge. I'm glad you got it. And some people just don't like anything cluttering. - Again, there's space concerns. There's a lot of stuff that people have to deal with. - I get that, you know. But for me, yeah, it's anathema to my enjoyment of. - We've got the giant Robert Williams, we'll say coffee table book, the huge retrospective here. And Fanta sent me a PDF of it once when I was working to try to get Robert on the show. And it's just a, yeah, now this really needs to be weighing me down. Even the PDF was, you know, making my laptop heavier. - Sure. - It was so huge, but yeah, that book is an object and it needs to be in that sort of format. Yeah, online comics I've never grooved on particularly. I mean, I get an email with, I get Zippy, Muts, and Makonutos from Lineers are the three comic strips. So I'll get daily and just look at those online, but it's not the same. - It's not the same? - Yeah. - And the feedback mechanism is the thing. And we've talked about it with, well, Porcelino was the first person to bring this up with me, the notion that once upon a time a comic went out or a mini went out, and months and months later, you're getting the feedback. - If you get feedback. - Yeah, somebody might send you a letter or a postcard and it's somebody you idolized and boom, you know. And now it's, you know, just like, like, like, like, like. - Yeah. - Or no like, like, like. And then you shrink even further into, you know. - Yeah, that, I mean, that is definitely one thing. I do kind of get a little bit nostalgic for sometimes in the pre-digital realm was fan mail. - That's why I send a postcard every day. I write postcards to people every morning. It's part of my every mail morning. It's part of my rituals, just write a postcard to someone. 'Cause a week from now, someone's gonna open their mailbox and they're like, wow, somebody actually thought about me enough to write this. Usually it's somebody I barely know, so they can't figure out who it's from, which is even funnier to me. But yeah, it's just that sense of, again, going analog as opposed to the people who write me back by email to say they got the postcard, which is kind of defeating the purpose or whatever. That's, you know, me and my crusty curmudgeonhood. - One of the things you mentioned, besides never say, never about digital, your lack of interest in working in existing IP, you mentioned in the book, you did a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles thing, it really kind of taught you that you didn't want to work on other people's properties. - Yeah. - You did other stuff. - I think part of it's also not growing up within appreciation of that kind of thing. I didn't read Super Heroes, I didn't care about Super Heroes. Still don't care about Super Heroes. Not in an elitist way, it just doesn't work. - It just wasn't work, yeah. - And, you know, the funny thing is like I enjoy most of the Marvel movies I see, but I don't feel any desire to go read the comics. It's like, what? - That's part of their goal, but, you know, I don't want to be a public enemy number one for comics. - Oh no, Dean got mad at me for mentioning, being dismissive about Super Heroes and my newsletter once and, you know, I told him, I was being an asshole, Dean, it's okay. - Well, you know, I don't begrudge anyone that enjoys them and there's also some really fine work being done, you know, some beautiful drawing. I can look at it objectively and say, well, that is very well drawn and so forth and so on, but I don't care, I don't want to read it. But the other thing is like the idea of laboring that hard for something you have no ownership in. You know, it's sort of that thing of, you know, I'd rather own 100% of something that pays nothing versus own nothing in something that pays well. You know, it's like paying well, obviously, is important, you have a roof over your head, you have bills to pay. And, you know, it's not like I don't do paying gigs and there are gigs that I do that are work, the dreaded work for hire, but they're still not IP, that it's like, you know, there's a publisher I do work for called Z2 and they do a lot of licensing type things with, mostly with music things. They did the Weird Al book, they, I just did a story for a book of of Lemmy stories, Lemmy from Motorhead. Now, I can't own that 'cause that's, you know, that's Lemmy, that's that. And somebody else's words and I'm happy to illustrate that kind of thing. And, you know, I'll write, I did four stories for, they were doing an ongoing tie-in with the last podcast on the left. And I really enjoyed writing and drawing those, but I don't own them. So, you know, you, you-- - But it's different than what I do the X-Men. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Like, I was coming up with my own little cartoon versions of the hosts of that show. It's not like I was handed a model sheet and said, okay, you must conform to these-- - The website in here, yeah. - Yeah, I don't want anything to do with that. It's not interesting to me. You know, over the years there, I've have thought more in terms of the, as a writer than as an artist, where I thought, well, there's some characters, I would be fun to do a story featuring this one or that one. But not so overwhelmingly that it was like, I felt the need to pursue it. But yeah, you know, if anything, I sometimes get frustrated when I look at artists I know, or at least I know their work. And I see how great they are, and all they're doing is, and I'm just kind of like, you're so good. - Yeah. - Break out, break out of that prison, you know? - Well, like I said, your version of that is the, you know, not doing Kickstarter and going with Zoop, because, you know, what you're comfortable with, and maybe that's their rationale, but, you know, it's still a little different that way. You're looking stuff for, I know they're gonna pay me, I don't have to think of things, and, you know, develop my own ideas. - Yeah, and I will say, if people let me play with their toys the way I wanna play with them, that's also makes a difference. Like, you know, when I did get asked, I've known Mike Maniola for decades now, and when I got to do a Hellboy story, it's like, yeah, I love Hellboy, so I can understand wanting to do it, but I wouldn't wanna make it. - Canonical. - Yeah, everything. You know, doing a little late page or whatever it was, it was like, that's great. - And the Fred Joa. - Yeah, exactly. - The story was hysterical. - Exactly, yeah, so if people let me do that kind of thing with their, yeah, I mean, that's another one of the maybe perverse parts that, well, that's what I find funny, is let's take something extraordinary and make it really-- - The mundane. - The mundane, yes, bring the mundane to the extraordinary. - I always find, one of the lines I've had for years, that sense of when you've built a good enough world that you can take us into either the boring parts or the, well, it turns out that supporting character has a really interesting life. We just never bothered looking at him. The version of this I always wanted to see was on the show "Deadwood," a David Meltz show, where I wanted one episode from the Chinese leader's perspective where all the Anglos are mumbling gibberish and he's moderating back and forth and moving through those two worlds and just see what his thing is like for one episode before getting back to Al Swair and Jin and everything else. - Yeah. - If "Deadwood" had had the longevity of "The Simpsons," you would have gotten your wish. - I may have ended up writing that one. - But tell me about your literary influences. We've talked about some of the comics things. Who are the writers who kind of, either influencing how you wrote comics or some of the prose work you've done too? - Yeah, the one, I'm sure the ones that, this is where your, I don't know if you sound like-- - You can be as pretentious as you want to be. - But I was gonna say, do you sound like an asshole when you're just like, oh, I don't pretend like I write like these people. I'm just saying, I know they are too much. - No, but they are too much, too. - Okay, so some people are clear. - I remember the old days in the comics journal with the summer reading list and everybody would put Ulysses in this one of that. And it's like, yeah, that backup artist on Batman is not reading fucking Ulysses. That's, but anyway, here. - Yeah, exactly. And by the way, I mean, I've always been a little bit more meat and potatoes probably than is, you know, to create the most well-rounded reader. But the ones that I know that definitely their DNA crept into the way I at least wanted to write Bruce J. Friedman. Terry Southern. Martin Amos, back when he was funny. Kind of like the-- - Wasn't funny now, he's dead. Well, yeah, much is a tragedy, awful. But, you know, Amos's early books, I would say up through-- - London Fields is just one of my most acidic, all-time faves. - But money and other people. And the name is Dave Babies, Rachel Paypeople. - Yeah, I wasn't sure if you're gonna go with "Dead Babies" or not, so I was gonna leave that out for a minute. - But all of those books, you know, 'cause the other thing is, I was reading those when I was in my 20s. And so they profoundly affected me because they were so funny, but they were so acid. And-- - That's writing, though. - Yeah, well, that was the thing. - It's pyrotechnics just going. It was like Nabokov, you know, later. - Yeah, that's, he was kinda, in a way, the first writer I was reading where sentence construction was just, you like you say, it was, it was fireworks. So it really lit up those parts of my brain when I was reading it. And just, you know, it was like, I'll never be like that. I do know that I was throwing 25% words in where I didn't need to. - But we also have a good vocabulary. - No, I might as well use it, but, you know, sometimes simpler is better. But, you know, Philip K. Dick is probably my favorite, but I don't necessarily see him being very influential other than the reason his work appealed to me other than conceptually. I love sci-fi, but I don't like a lot of sci-fi writers. And it's because their humans are not very compelling. They're way more into the tech or they're way more into the science. You know, my dad was very much a hard science fiction guy. I don't care if it's hard science. I want it to be compelling on a human level. Nobody did it better than Philip K. Dick, who wrote about Schmucks. You know, his was a universe populated by hapless Schmucks that things happened too. I am friends with a writer named David Fury, he's a TV writer. And years ago, when I first moved out here, he was one of the first friendships that I was kind of nurturing, 'cause I met him right before moving here. He was, it is a mutual friend of one of my friends back in New York, a cartoonist named Robert Layton. And so, you know, I met David, it's like a month before I moved here. And he said, "Yeah, look me up when you get here." And he wasn't full of shit. He was a real person and we became friends. But he read some of my work, 'cause at that time I was also developing one of my novels as he, while I had written a screenplay, but I also was thinking I could expand this to a series. And he read a bunch of my work and he pointed out something in my work that no one had ever pointed out before. And it was very interesting to me. And it was very, it was one of those things where it's very telling not just about the work, but about the creator. He said, "You write passive protagonists." He said, "You write books in which things happen to the character, but they don't make things happen." And they react and they, you know, it's not like they don't do anything, but they are not proactive. They're, and I thought, oh, that's Philip K. Dick. Philip K. Dick was a guy who wrote about Schmucks that things happened to. And then they either rise to the occasion or they don't, they're crushed by circumstance or some combination thereof. They're not a lot of people who triumph in Philip K. Dick. They merely survive. So I think, I was like, okay, yeah, and I looked at all my work. Okay, he's right. It's like I've written, like, okay. And in my book, Bottom Feeder, it's about a guy who, through circumstance, has become a vampire, but he doesn't know why it happened or how it happened. He only knows that it happened. And then things happen. But yeah, he's got to respond. And, you know, minimum wage, he's like, yeah, things happen to Rob. Rob doesn't, you know, it's like other than pursuing work, Rob doesn't really make things. And all these things are like, oh, very interesting observation. So, and I'm sure that says a ton about me. - Yeah, it wasn't gonna say it, but, you know, I'm assuming you were gonna get to that point. - Yeah, I mean, it's really only in the last, basically, almost since moving here, where it was like the decision to move west, where it was like, I am going to actually have agency in making decisions and achieving things and also breaking myself out of what I would describe as a fear-based life. You know, it's like, oh, you know, so much new experience wouldn't have happened for me if I was left to my own devices. - What changed? - You go into some of those changes in the book, but talk about that process. - Yeah, I'm not gonna go too much into it, but, you know, I was married for almost, you know, at least it was 25-year relationship. And, you know, it ended. And it was one of those things where, (laughs) after crushing depression and some bad stuff, I thought, okay, I need to really examine myself in a very objective, but don't go easy on yourself. It's like, why did this happen? Like, you know, when you're in a long relationship and the other person says, okay, I want this to end, at first, it's easy to frame it as I was dumped. 'Cause that abdicates responsibility, and I did not wanna do that. It's like, if I'm gonna grow as a person, I need to take responsibility for a lot of things. And so, part of it, but I didn't know I needed to get out of New York. I mean, it was, 2016, 2017 was very one-two punch, 'cause my mom died, and I was very close with my mom. And then my marriage ended, and I thought, okay, I gotta get out of New York. 'Cause literally everything here is a trigger. And I already have dark thoughts, so it's like, I don't need, I don't need a trigger, metaphorically, or potentially, literally, if I'm gonna-- - In a city of tall buildings, yeah. - Yes, and I was living on the 11th floor at the time, believe me, I had some dark thoughts. So I was like, okay, I've wanted to leave New York for a long time anyway. LA, I like LA, I've thought about LA, I've suggested LA. I've got nothing to hold me here. My dad was still alive, but he was situated in a way that I didn't need to be there. He was in decline, but very happy. He had 24-hour live-in care. All of his needs were being met, so I thought, okay, I can maintain a long distance thing, but I have to get out of here. If I'm gonna survive, I have to get out of here. So anyway, getting out west, then began the, okay, let's look at, what led you here? What can you do better? What did you not do so well at? What can you do better at now? And looking kind of at the sort of the wholeness of who I was, the more I looked, the more, as they used to say on report cards, needs improvement, those were in 1,000 point type, needs improvement. And there were a lot of things. I mean, everything from, from yeah, don't be so fearful of new experience. My mom was like that. My mom, really, she led a very small life in the wholeness, of course, as she got older, got smaller and smaller. I was really the only person in her life, which is why I couldn't leave. But there was just so much in terms of the way my brain was wired, disposed towards negativity, disposed towards, because the other thing is, I'm sorry, this is now getting all very heavy. - No, no, cool, you're okay talking about it. But imposter syndrome, that's a thing. And this is, I think, very common for especially creative people, where they're both driven by narcissism, 'cause of course you're doing this thing and you want other people to look at it and tell you it's good. It's narcissism, and some people it's founded 'cause you actually are good, you're capable, you do work, that's, you know, but there's this wrestling with the narcissism versus the am I, am I a fraud, is this so, and then you wanna find some balance, some equilibrium there. There were a lot of things that made me the person I was in New York. Now I realized a big part of it was geographic. I never realized how toxic New York was to me until I got out, because I thought feeling shitty and anxious and kind of depressed all the time is just how I am, that's who I am. And getting away from it, I suddenly started to feel physically different, like a pressure lifted that I didn't even know was there. And now part of it was also, now again, like I say, I loved my mom and I liked my mom. Liking is a whole other thing, like a lot of people, I love my mom, but I liked my mom, she was cool, but you know, she also made things hard for me in ways why she wouldn't let me help, or she was independent to the point of her own self-destruction and just watching her literally deteriorate was awful. And it definitely put my brain in a perpetually dark place. But when she died, you know, really after the grieving, that again lifted a weight, 'cause it was like, I'm not feeling sad all the time. I'm not feeling worried all the time. It's like, that's gone. New York, kind of keeping its thumb on my, more like a boot really, is like, that's gone. You know, one of the things I pointed out to somebody when I, it was about six months into living here, it's like, I haven't been jostled in six months. 'Cause you're sitting in cars, at traffic lights all the time, I'm just kidding. No, but even like walking on the street, it's not everyone crammed together. And that was huge. And also, there's the component, now I know I had seasonal depression. It's like, oh, I'm getting so much vitamin D now. There were so many things, but so it really all, it did definitely begin to rewire things, which again, made me have the luxury of being able to look at again. What are the failings? Being judgmental, being quick to anger, being condescending, you know, all these things. And by the way, I know all of those were armor for insecurity, but you know, you can be insecure without being unkind. And that was something that it took me, some major changes to kind of get to. Now, I don't think I was, like, objectively, I don't think it was a horrible asshole, among other things, having as many-- None of us ever do think that, it's other people who think that about me. Yeah, but no, but actually consulting with friends that have had for many years. 'Cause the one thing I will say, you know, I've maintained my friendships with my East Coast friends. That's one of the great things about Zoom. It's like, 'cause I have a lot of friends who don't like the phone, but they're okay with Zoom. You keep, so there's something about talking where you can see the other person and you're, it does make a difference. And they see the change. Oh, but to a person, they're just like, oh, you're not the person. It's, they're happy for me. 'Cause they're just like, they're like, oh, it's nice to see you. You know, it's still, obviously, it's a work in progress. 'Cause that was the other thing, to go back to turning 60 and that. I think a lot of people decide, well, I am who I am. Like it or lump it. And that is, again, it's a way to to not grow. And I don't think you need to calcify just because of your age. Like I've said to Val, by the time I'm an old man, when I croak, I want people to say he was really nice guy. You know, I mean not, again, I don't, it's not gonna affect me. I don't mean that in an egotistical or narcissistic again. But just in like, leave the world having left a kind imprint as opposed to, he was kind of, he was funny, but he was really acidic. Like there were people, you know, who, I mitigated the person I was by at least being funny. I was always that, well, you know, Bob's funny guy. But there were so many occasions, you know, I, this is one of the things about nothing really done. I never do drugs of any kind and I didn't drink much. I have a pretty good memory. And I can think back, like forensically back to so many occasions where I think God, that was not good. I wish I hadn't done this. I wish I hadn't done that. - Flinching was shame at something that you did at like six years old, that's still the... - There's that, but it's more. - Yeah, then that's also a... - It's more the things, it's more the things, how did they hurt somebody I cared about? - Right, yeah. - And that is really what I don't want anymore, is hurting anybody I care about. That, like that's... - Have you seen a difference in your work? - Yeah, okay. - Yeah, I'm sure some people, like those are the people who, you know, who go way backward. Oh, he's going softer this or that. Yeah, I think my work is more humane than where it once was. It was much quicker to be... - I can put in a really sneely laugh here. - Yes, and by the way, it's not to say that I don't, like there's, you don't want to sand the edges off your humor too much, because that's where the funny often is, but... - But to better understand where that's coming from in relation to those characters. - Yeah, and there's, yeah, exactly. And there's a difference between that and mean-spiritedness. And I don't think my work was necessarily ever really mean-spirited, but there was a darkness in it that I think has lifted. I did a redraft of one of my novels. I wrote a book called Pariah. And that book has now gone through multiple iterations where the first draft was so dark, it was unpublished. I had a writer friend read it after it had gotten a few rejections, and he said, "Oh, this book is unpublished." - It's unpublishable. - It's like it is so relentlessly dark, which says a lot about where my brain was. And then, you know, based on his note, and anyone, anytime somebody says to me, "Well, that's on this run. "This thing will fuck you, I'll fix it." So I fixed it, sold it, did get published. But it's still, I had the opportunity a couple of years ago to put a new edition of it out. And I probably rewrote about 40% of it. - Sure. - And it's still dark, but it's more humane. And part of it's 'cause I also lived through things. There's a difference between experiential data and observed. And I had experienced a lot of things, a lot of death. You know, when I wrote the book originally, I hadn't had a lot of people in my life die. And I've since had that. And it's like, well, now I know what it's like. I really know what it's like now to lose people and to grieve people and that kind of thing. And it's, you know, the certain things you do have to experience to be real about it. But also even there, like the villain character in the book was more of a caricature in a way in the previously published one of like even an asshole, like him is wrestling with stuff. Let's give him a little bit more of an inner life. Let's do certain things that he's still bad, but he's not a cartoon. - Yeah, you care about it. - A little bit. And there were just also certain darker developments in the book where in a way it's like when you're writing a ostensibly a horror novel, it's like, well, you gotta do this, you gotta do this. It's like, no, you don't. Let me get rid of certain things that never sat well with me. Even then it was like, well, it's harsh. Like, does it need to be this harsh? No, it doesn't need to be that harsh. So yeah, I don't think I would have written that version when I was younger and living in New York. The book, Printopia, that's due out later this year, was a graphic novel I started in New York in 2012 and it kind of has come and gone and it hibernated for a long time and then I dug it out. And yeah, I mean, the first 24 pages of it were done in New York, the rest was done here. And even there, I did a lottery working on those first 24 pages partly 'cause the art needed a little bit of a facelift. But it also, I came to have a very different idea about that book where like I think I have greater empathy for my characters than I once did, characters were more punching bags for me at a certain point. And I don't think I need that anymore. So yeah, I think that's a long winded way of answering your question. If I do think my work is definitely kind of, I won't say evolving 'cause that's for other people to judge but it's changing. It's reflecting the change. - I think so, I think so. Like the book that I wanna start working on and I probably, right now I'm in this thing where I've just finished a few things, like what's my next big project? 'Cause I like a big project and all like piecemeal stuff. And I think I'm just going to do the sequel to "Printopia" which will be the first book I've ever done set in Los Angeles. I feel I've been here long enough now. I've earned doing something set here. And I'm looking forward to it 'cause it will be sort of a further, still, by the way, it's still gonna be making fun of stuff and all that, you know, it's what I do. - You can excise that part of yourself, but. - No, it's, yeah, there's always gonna be some edge to my work, I think. But there's ways of doing it and ways of doing it. You know, you don't need to be a creep who thinks he's better than anybody else. - I'm just as, you know, that's the thing. It's like I now look at everyone's just trying to do the best they can, or at least a lot of people are trying to do the best they can. And I think I was less charitable. - Disposed, yeah, towards that. - Same thing, I had a tendency to mean spirit in this. And I really have tried to temper that in recent years, even if that's the initial rule. - And it's made you feel better, hasn't it? - Oh yeah, even if it's the initial reaction in my head, it doesn't have to come out. - Yeah. - You know, there's a degree of like, nobody needs, and especially in the internet age, where everybody needs a shit on everything all the time. - Yeah, well that's the other thing is now, again, observing. Observing how, not only how easy it is to be cruel now, but how about cruelty has become a virtue now. - Yeah. - And I think that's also really, you know, if this makes me, again, the person who has to be a contrarian, if I'm being contrary towards kindness, that's okay with me. I don't like how cruel things have become, and how kindness and empathy are seen as weak. It's like, ooh, that is not a healthy place for a society to be. I don't care for that. But the other thing is, and again, this is sort of the recovering New Yorker, is, I think for me, and for a lot of people, like, no, in New York over the years, negativity is somehow conflated with authenticity. And-- - I think it's a flip. I think earnestness is seen as weakness. - Yeah. - Really caring about something is a sign that you're vulnerable. - Yeah. - But I think there's also a place of approach. - It dovetails. You know, when I moved here, I had several people who've known me for a lot of years, and they were just like, "Can't believe you're leaving New York. "You're so New York. "You're the quintessential New Yorker." - And of which they mean-- - And to me, that was grounded. - Yeah, that was not like a compliment. And it was just, you know, it's at a certain point, I realized I'll always be a New Yorker, but I don't have to be there. And the other thing is it's not a life sentence. You know, it's not Escape, it's John Carpenter movie. It's Escape from New York, you know. It's just, I don't know if Snake Pliskin was any happier when he left. He didn't seem to be. I think he might've been predisposed towards being an unhappy person, but I don't have to be Snake Pliskin to get the hell out of. - I think of Annie Hall with Woody Allen's, Tony Roberts is spending all the virtues of California and he's just, you know. - And I said to friends of mine, I said, "I promise I'm not gonna be Tony Roberts much." But there were some friends, I was like, "You really should consider, "at least visiting, you might see something you like here." - Do you feel like a resident? - Yeah. - The person I recorded with just now says it takes five years to-- - I took to it immediately. I mean, you know, when I moved here, I moved to New, the first place I had was in Burbank because I thought that was situated to where I would be working. Ended up not being the case, but I liked it. It was, again, something I didn't think I would ever like. It's like I'm a city person, it's like, and I moved. I was very clear to the realtor. Don't show me apartments. I wanna live in a house. I wanna feel, I don't want people walking on top of me. So I moved into a house. It was half a house, but still I had my own backyard. - Right. - I had my grill, I had my outside. Every day I would start my day, make my breakfast, take it outside, do my crossword puzzle with the sun and the cactus and all that. And it was, oh, and I have one of my best friends in New York, my friend Laura, she sent as a houseworm and gift a hummingbird feeder, set it up immediately. And I'll tell you, just every day seeing the hummingbirds show up, it had a chemical effect on me where it was like, oh, that's sort of, that's a physical manifestation of joy. You see this little red, chested, tiny little bird coming and it was, these are all mood elevators, you know? Having small dogs now. And I never thought I'd be a guy whose dogs, I thought I'd have dogs someday. I didn't think they'd be chihuahuas. But I love them, and I have a great relationship now. Val, who I mentioned, it's an interesting thing. Starting a relationship when you're both the same age, 'cause that's the other thing. You start a relationship when you're young, you're young, you're forming, you're this and that. Start a relationship with someone who's on the same page. And A, Val is good for keeping me honest, 'cause if I backslide, if there's a little bit of what I call New York Bob, who shows up in a constructive way, she's kind of like, not the guy I'm connected with. It's like, yeah, it's enough to me, oh, okay, ah, good. Thank you for pointing that out. But she's a writer, director, she did that painting, so you can see she's kind of, there's definitely a lot of-- Compulating farm animals, and yeah. Yeah, copulating farm animals. She wrote and directed a movie. Where if you see it, it's kind of like, yeah, I think we were sort of destined to be together. She did a movie called "Love and Sex," which, you know, its minimum wage was my fictionalized version of my, you know, youthful romances and what have you wrote, one long romance and then love and sex is her kind of semi-autobiographical comedy about that kind of thing. You know, there's, it's, we get each other. And that's very nice. Like, we very often kind of remark, how remarkable it is we found each other, because it's just like, yeah, we're both, you know, middle-aged is a very kind word, you know, we're-- Again, we're not old, but we're not, we're definitely not young. Yeah, of a certain age thing, we start moving past middle-aged a little. Yeah, yeah, there needs to be a new term for it, especially as people are living older, to be older and older now, which is not necessarily a good thing, but-- I've been watching Northern Exposure, which I never watched back in the '90s, and one of the lead characters who's around 60 realizes he's having his mid-life crisis, 'cause all the men live to about 115, 120, and that's 60, he's starting to think. Yeah. I don't have a lot of time left, you know. Yeah, exactly. I figure for us, it's a different world. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, it's, there's a lot of things that have definitely, I would say, on a, you know, small, but internally profound ways that have, I think, made me more predisposed towards a positive outlook than I could have before. Even dare say the word happiness. Yeah, yeah, I'm happier, happier now, than, yeah. You know, if I look at, it's that whole thing of like, sure, youth has a sheen to it. Blissfulness, different than happiness. But I would not wanna trade places with myself again and go back, like, oh, you wanna be. Now, I earned where I am now. (laughing) I did the work, and I'm doing the work, you know? That's, like I say, I do not believe in letting myself off the hook for shittiness, whether it was, again, nature, nurture, or just shittiness out of convenience. I also realized, and again, before I moved here, I was seeing a therapist for a while, which helped. It helped, I had a good therapist, and he gave me some very good tools to keep working with. - With that sense of, you know, how it influences the comics and the stories that you're telling, and how it keeps something as, you know, still Bob Fingerman comics, as opposed to, oh, yeah, well, I liked him more when he was an asshole, which you can understand as a temptation on a reader's part, but not healthy for the artist. - Yeah, well, I mean, but this is the thing, and it generally, unfortunately, holds true, is people generally like the older work by whoever. - Yeah. - Name a band. - That's always. - Name a band that has longevity, that people who started with them like their newer stuff better than their older stuff never happens. I think honestly, one of the only bands I can think of, two bands that I love that are age-wise, one's a little younger, one's exactly, people have people out there, ah, he's got shitty taste. But Queens of the Stone Age, I think they're better now than they ever were. And Bramstein, I think their new album, better than anything they've ever done, and, you know, they're all 60 years old, and I think they're kind of at the peak of their creative powers. I do remember years ago, and it made me so irritated, even when I was younger, where it was, I believed the back page of the "New York Times" book review, where some fucking idiot did this thing about how no writers do their best work after 45. And I felt 45, that's your cut off. - You're starting for Christ's sake, but-- - And so I just, I don't know, I wish I could remember who that is a long time ago. But, you know, I was thinking of the artists I love, when did they really kick in? 'Cause some, like right out of the gate, you're just like, oh my God, this is a prodigy. But like Corbin, you know, I love his younger work, but like his peak was probably from about 40 on. - Because it's just, as you talk about in the book, when it came to minimum wage especially, as well as other work of yours, the perspective that comes from being in your 40s, is why I don't record people younger than me? You know, I gotta get some like 30 year old artist or writer like-- - Talk to no event skiver at least. - No, and I have done a couple, we've had a good time, but no is a rare case because he does think about time, and talk to-- - Talk to Owen Klein. - Who somebody wants to introduce me to, I think it was Drew Friedman, I kinda connected with-- - He's an old soul. - Yeah, I've been told since, oh gosh, I must have been Drew, who told me I need to connect with him, but I never have, but yeah, there's a sense of, you need those cycles, you need to see things go by a few times to develop that maturity and that perspective. That the energy is fine when you're young, but it doesn't sustain, I think. - Yeah, well that again is kind of his part and parcel of the being negative, being authentic, is also being dismissive somehow makes you better than, or more sophisticated than, or whatever. Yeah, I don't know, is any of these really hold true? - Screw all that, keep making great work, you're gonna be 60 soon, you got a whole life ahead of you, but last question that I always hit people with, what have you been reading? - Ah, I've been pretty, the thing is, I will say my reading habits have gotten worse over the years. Part of it is, I don't know what it is, and this has been more than a decade, it's probably been about 15 years, I get fatigued when I read prose. - It's probably the context and the reverse glasses. - Sure, exactly, but what have I been reading lately? Well, I mean some of it's on the pile there, yeah, you know. But prose-wise, one of the recent books I read was Dirty Pictures. - Oh, The History of Underground Comics. - Yeah, I recorded with him and I'm blanking on his name. - Brian. - Brian Daugherty. - Yeah, yeah, I thought that was excellent. I was really on the fence about buying it, 'cause I thought, yeah, what do I, what don't I know? And then I read it and I thought, oh, I didn't know much of anything. I really just knew sort of the broad strokes. That's a very, very deep dive book. And I loved it, it was just, 'cause it's just, got enough of the gossipy bitchy, the way cartoonists talk amongst themselves, 'cause he's got all these great anecdotal things of really the interpersonal stuff. You know, you know the work and this and that, but that one goes so much into the feuds and the who, I thought it was great. - Yeah, I mean, I, this is, and I don't know if this is the self-loathing thing, 'cause I always consider reading comics and graphic novels not reading. - Yeah, but last comic that knocked you the fuck out. - Probably Noah's stuff. I really do enjoy Noah's work quite a bit. I didn't connect with the Mormon book that much. It's a great piece of work, but honestly, it's just not my jam. - The about a cartoonist. - About a cartoonist. - It's actually the ones in Vermont. There's one there that just really affected me. - And his serial that he just concluded maple terrace? - Yeah, yeah, the first two issues of that. - One dirty tree, great. I think he's remarkable. I love his work and he's a good dude. Josh Bayer. - Yeah, Josh and I recorded SPX. I had not read his stuff. Like I'd always seen things, but just didn't have an entry point and finally turned into, I gotta sit down and read this new book of his and I will dive in and we end up having a really good. - Yeah, I'm looking forward to having a chat with him. We, it's nice that it's a mutual admiration society, 'cause I started following him on Instagram. I thought this guy's stuff is really unique. - Yeah. - Like I can see some of what he's been looking at, but it's got that thing of, oh, it's him. This is, he owns it. Like this is a thing and he created this thing. - Another thing also that needs to be seen on a page, you get something on the screen, but you really can't grasp it until you're looking at a book. - Yeah, he very, I ordered unfinished? - Unending, I think. - Oh. - We're unended, something like that. - Yeah. - Yeah. - But yeah, whatever. - It's over on the shelf, I can go grab it. But when I ordered it, we got in touch somehow. And it was just kind of like, oh, I love your stuff. And so, blah, blah, blah, so we had some interaction. But he sent me along with the book, a few of his other things. And yeah, like you say, there's a tactile, like he printed a couple of his earlier things in magazine format and they're on newsprint. And there's just something so legit about that. 'Cause it's like, this is a very, you know, for people who love comics and love books, these are those feral things where there's smells. Certain books, you open it up and there's a smell of ink and paper and all that. It's the pulp or whatever. And it does, you know, smell is one of the most, obviously it's tied in with memory very deeply. So, you know, walking down the street some time and you get a smell and your brain just goes right back to something very specific. And yeah, so having books that have an old factory and tactile component is hugely important. There's reasons why I really hate glossy paper, you know? Like I don't want to have to angle a book so that when I'm reading it, it's not reflecting off of it. It's just, I don't know who decided glossy was good. But yeah, there's something I'm very, like I'm thrilled that printopia. A, it's going to be oversized. One thing, and again, maybe it's when you get older, you want things to be a little bigger. I don't want to strain my goddamn eyes reading this. - There are cartoonists I can't read. Much like I had to talk about drawing. There are artists I can't read once I put my contacts in. I've got it, especially a Chris Ware, but there are other examples that are just as, - Yeah, you know, I'm going to read this tomorrow morning. - Okay, yeah, and even though I'm, like when I look at some of my older work, I had to tend to see to overwrite. I don't think it's bad writing. It's just too much writing. And part of that was I've always had the consumer part of my brain too. It's like, well, I don't want people to race right through it. They paid their money. I don't want, I've read comics, you know, sometimes you buy a comic and you're done three minutes. - Well, great. - Let's just slow them down for sure. - I want to slow them down a little bit. Now I think I've kind of, I'm still kind of like the economy of line. I'm looking for that economy of just the right amount of words. I still write a lot though, but that's the thing when you write a lot. And it's printed, what eventually when it's reduced for printing and it's basically like four point type, that's hard. So I'm ecstatic. Printopia is going to have a nine by 13 trim size. That's nice. - And when's it coming out? - And when's it expected? - I think this is what's very cool. Dealing with a new, completely new publisher. And I think because he is new, he doesn't do things the established way where like traditional publisher, you sell your book. And if you're lucky, it comes out a year later. There's this whole, I think we're putting it out in October, possibly November, but it'll be out this year, which is like, there's no reason not to. - Yeah, it's just publicity cycles and-- - Which they don't do anyway. - Yeah. - Nobody publicizes anything unless it's already a best seller. Dan Brown or, you know, Stephanie Meyer. - They get a drum beat. But if you're anybody from, you know, the beat here down, and by the way, nobody in comics has money to promote. So you might as well just put it out. Just put it out. This is again what I was saying. You got to stay limber and nimble for how the business changes. Just put it out. - I'm looking forward to seeing it. - So-- - I'm looking forward to seeing that some business you're in also in actual print. - That'll be out in weeks. - And we'll have an episode for it. Well, thanks for coming on the show, man. It's been, God, almost 30 years of on-and-off interaction with your work. So it's nice that we got to sit down in person. - Thank you, thank you, yeah. And I don't know how much pruning you're gonna do. I have a tendency to ramble. - Nobody expects anything less from me. So that's just gonna come out fine, man. It'll be great. - Okay, thanks. (upbeat music) - And that was Bob Fingerman. His 40-year career retrospective in comics that some business you're in should be available now, if not, pretty soon from zoop.gg. That's Z-O-O-P. In the meantime, visit bobfingerman.com. All one were to check out Bob's books, writing the great gallery of his illustrations and art and some of his caricatures, and a lot more. He's also on Instagram as Bob Fingerman, all one word, same way, B-O-B-F-I-N-G-E-R-M-A-N. I have links to all that in the show and episode notes for this one. They can support the virtual memories show by telling other people about it. Let them know there's this podcast comes out every week with interesting conversations with fascinating creative people. You can also help out the show by telling me what you like and don't like about it and who you'd like to hear me record with or what movie or TV show or book or piece of music or comic or theater or art exhibition or whatever, you think I should turn listeners on to. You can do that by sending me email DM if we're connected on Instagram or blue sky or by a postcard or a letter. I do a newsletter two times a week and that's got my mailing address at the bottom of it. You can also leave a message on my Google Voice number, which is 973-869-9659. That goes directly to voicemail so you don't have to worry about getting stuck in an awkward conversation with me. And messages can be up to three minutes long. So go longer than that, you'll get cut off, just call back and leave another one. And let me know if it would be okay to include your message in an upcoming episode of the show. Might have something interesting to share with listeners, but I'd never run something like that without the speaker's permission. So let me know. If you got money to spare, don't give it to me, not right now at least. I'm making a book that I'm gonna be running through probably Kickstarter by the end of this year. I'll need your money then because it's gonna take some work to produce this thing the way I want it to be. And well, you'll love the final copy, your final version of it or so I hope. Anyway, what I'm saying is if you got money, don't give it to me right now. Give it to people or institutions in need. With people you can go through, go fund me, Patreon, Kickstarter, crowd funder, Indiegogo, Zoop, maybe all sorts of crowdfunding platforms where you'll find people who need help with rent, medical bills, veterinary bills, car payments, getting an artistic project off the ground. There are a lot of people who could just use a little hand to help get them ahead or get them to catch up a little bit on things and you can make a difference in their lives, so do that. When it comes to institutions, I give to my local food bank and world central kitchen every month, but there are a lot of things you can do with your money, you can give to the poor people's campaign, freedom funds, election funds, women's choice and Planned Parenthood, all throughout. There are a lot of things you can do with your money to help make a better world, so I hope you will. Our music for this episode is Fella by Hal Mayforth, used with permission from the artist. Should I visit my archives to check out my episode with Hal from the summer of 2018 and learn more about his art and painting? And you can listen to his music at soundcloud.com/mayforth and that's M-A-Y the number four, T-H. And that's it for this week's episode of The Virtual Memories Show. Thanks so much for listening. We'll be back next week with another great conversation. You can subscribe to The Virtual Memories Show and download past episodes at the iTunes Store. You can also find all our episodes and get on our email list at either of our websites, vmspod.com or chimeraupscura.com/vm. You can also follow The Virtual Memories Show on Twitter and Instagram at vmspod. At virtualmemoriespodcast.tumbler.com and on YouTube, Spotify and TuneIn.com by searching for virtual memories show. And if you like this podcast, please tell your pals, talk it up on social media and go to iTunes, look up The Virtual Memories Show and leave a rating and maybe a review for us. It all goes to helping us build a bigger audience. You've been listening to The Virtual Memories Show. I'm your host, Gil Roth. Keep reading, keep making art and keep the conversation going. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)