Mimi Pond joins the Virtual Memories Show to talk about Over Easy, her 15-years-in-the-making, New York Times bestselling graphic novel about diners, drugs and northern California in the 1970s!
The Virtual Memories Show
Season 4, Episode 19 - The Customer is Always Wrong
(upbeat music) - Welcome to the Virtual Memories Show. I'm your host, Gil Roth, and you're listening to a weekly podcast about books and life, not necessarily in that order. You can subscribe to the show through the iTunes store, and you can find past episodes, get an our email list, and make a donation to the show at our website, chimeraobscura.com/vm, or at our new site, VMSPod.com. You can also find us on Twitter at VMSPod at facebook.com/virtualmemoriesshow and at virtualmemoriespodcast.tumbler.com. Now, I met this week's guest, Mimi Pond, at the Toronto Comic Arts Festival two weekends ago. We corresponded before that a little bit about doing a podcast at TCAF, but she's been so in demand because of her new book, Over Easy, and she was on so many panels and had so many signing sessions, and honestly, I had a bunch of other guests already lined up that I really didn't want to be a past and take up an hour of what looked to be a pretty busy weekend for her. But I bumped into her that Saturday night of TCAF at the Doug Wright Awards, and I mentioned that I was, you know, that guy who mentioned recording a podcast with you. And to my surprise, she said, "Well, yeah, let's do it tomorrow." The rep from her publisher, drawn in quarterly, figured out her schedule and decided, "Well, she'll have time after her last signing session on Sunday." So we sat down near the end of the festival and chatted all about the book and her life. And it's quite a life. You really need to check out Over Easy, her new book. It's a long-form comic or fine graphic novel by an author, I'll go with it. About the late '70s when Mimi quit art school and was working in this, like, legendarily kooky diner in Oakland, California. Now, the storytelling in Over Easy is really compelling and the artwork is gorgeous and the sense of humor is right up my alley and the characters pretty much leap off the page. So I was just overjoyed to have come across a book that's so substantial. It's almost 300 pages in length, but also the fact that it's by an artist who's clearly worked through and lived with the material for a very long time. There's another book coming down the line and, well, there's plenty more about it, but that's all part of the conversation that you're about to listen to. Now, Mimi Pond is a cartoonist, illustrator, and writer. This is from her bio, from Over Easy. Her true biography is much more extensive, but we're gonna go with what they actually put in the book. She's created comics for the LA Times, "17 Magazine," "National Lampoon," and many other publications. Her TV credits include the first full-length episode of "The Simpsons" and episodes for the shows "Designing Women" and "Piwi's Playhouse." She lives in LA with her husband, the artist Wayne White. More about that later. And now, the virtual memories conversation with Mimi Pond, author of "Over Easy." ♪ If these don't add three to one care ♪ ♪ If you had a match ♪ Over Easy. It took 15 years to-- Off and on. Off and on. What was the limiting step to it, and when did it really start to pick up speed and-- Well, the limiting part was that I had two children and to raise in a house to keep and meals to cook and people to drive places and errands to do and chores to do and everything else. And my husband was the one making a real living, so I wasn't making any money, so I had to pull my weight somehow. So, you know, making art kind of has to happen around all that other stuff, so it gets difficult. And initially, I did it as just a conventional, fictionalized memoir because I thought, there's no way I could ever do all that drawing. It's just impossible. A prose memoir, yeah. Actually, initially, I thought of doing it as a screenplay, but I lived in LA long enough to realize that even if I wrote a script, the possibility of it getting produced was slim, and then the possibility of it getting produced in the right way was far slimmer. And I thought, why not just do it? I know how to write books, I can write a book, and then I'll have that. And then my agent couldn't sell it, and some editor had the temerity to say, what, you know, has she considered doing it as a graphic novel, and I just got furious. Like, how dare she? I'm a cartoonist, I wanted to do it as a comic book. I would do that, God, the nerve. And then I realized it touched a nerve, and I finally had to like break down and realize that's really what it wanted to be. That's who I am, and that's what I do. It was just such a daunting task to think of doing all that work at a time where I barely had enough time during every day to devote to myself for my work that it just seemed impossible. But, you know, I actually, fun home came out, and that was a real deciding factor for me because it was finally a graphic novel that I saw that I could really relate to in a format that reminded me of my own style. So, you know, I would hate for people to think that I was imitating fun home, because Alice and Beck will draw us beautifully and, you know, exquisitely and very precisely, and my style is somewhat different. But it had the same kind of intimate tone that I wanted to give to this. So, that really helped as a template. So that was kind of like a big turning point. - One of the cartooning influences, what were early influences for your cartooning and what kind of pushed you on in addition to Alice's work? - Well, very early as a kid, my father was an amateur cartoonist and taught me to draw, and then, you know, peanuts and, you know, Archie comics and stuff like that were a big influence on me as a kid, and then people like Aubrey Beardsley, and of course, Zapp Comics, and then on to the National Lampoon, Mary K. Brown. - Just thinking Sherry Flanagan. - Sherry Flanagan. Well, Sherry Flanagan became an important mentor of mine, because she bought my work while I was still a waitress to publish in The Lampoon, and then invited me to Comic Con, and I had grown up going to Comic Con in San Diego. I went to one of the first ones when I was 14, and I met Ray Bradbury, and I thought I just died and gone to heaven. And so, I was working in the restaurant in Oakland, and I drove down to San Diego, where my parents still lived, 'cause I grew up there, and got to hang out at Comic Con with Sherry Flanagan and Sam Gross and Mary K. Brown, and a number of other people, and drive them around and show them my hometown, and it was great, and then Sherry invited me to stay with her in New York, sort of, you know, get my feet wet, and eventually, I wound up moving there because of her, and she basically taught me how to make a comic strip, because up until then, I really wasn't making comic strips. I was doing these monologues next to these cartoon drawings of these characters that I came up with, and then I'd imagine what they'd say, and I was just writing kind of a monologue next to them. And so, it was just a matter of her, like breaking it down for me, like, you know, work backwards, you know, find your punchline, and then work backwards from there, and I was like, oh, okay, I can do that. - Was it almost visually like that, the Prince Valiant sort of thing, where you have an image and just, you know, rambling text underneath, or is that what you're talking about? - I don't even, I mean, I appreciate Prince Valiant, but I don't know what-- - Oh, it's a terrible comic. I never dug it as a comic. I appreciate the cartooning. I just mean, you know, you have a visual with no text, and, you know, your text is sort of-- - Actually, it's just sort of wrapped around the side of the image. And I've got you understanding cartooning as a form and as a shape. - Yeah, I mean, it actually, it came really naturally after that. I was just sort of like the key that unlocked the door. - Nowadays, they all go to school for this. - I know. - And it's just so funny to me, 'cause everybody I know growing up and people older than me, it's just a dark school, but they-- - Oh, yeah, I just got nothing but crap for making comics when I was in art school. I got, you know, practically punished. - Yeah, was there any benefit for your time in art school? - Oh, absolutely. I really value the education I got there in terms of like, you know, learning to draw the figure and, you know, all the technical aspects of, you know, line and form and color. And there wasn't a big emphasis on, you know, the sort of thinking part of making art. I was like, no one really, I was taught by mostly, primarily a lot of like nervous middle-aged men who really didn't want to like confront anyone's emotions and like go deep with like, what are you really trying to get out here? It was more like, yes, that's good or no, not like that. - I'm more concerned with the technical aspects rather than, okay, that's, which makes me glad I never pursued art school. And also, you know, I can't draw to save my life. - It was a very valuable experience. You know, here was the most valuable part of it was like becoming part of a community of artists. That was really important because up until then, I was sort of like the oddball or, you know, like I was the artist in the family, but nobody really knew what to do with me. And so to come into a place where everyone else was doing what I wanted to do and had the same experience, you know, similar experiences was very comforting. - And similarly, you build that sense of community within over easy also a different world, but it's still that sense of, you know, feeling as though you belong to a group. - Yeah. - That's interesting. Do you think the book benefited from its pros and carnations before moving into becoming a graphic novel? - I think so, because it was like a script to go on, basically, I mean, it's about, I'd say, 80% the same. There were very few episodes and characters that I had to leave out. And I had to, you know, I had to throw out a lot of beautifully crafted descriptions of places because I was gonna draw them instead of write them. But, you know, I did, sometimes I'd just leave in some phrases because I just liked them. I was in love with them too. But a lot of the darlings got killed. So that was fun 'cause then you get, you know, nice drawings. So, it was good. And, you know, it's just this very comforting road map to fall back on. You know, you always know what you're doing 'cause it's all right there. So. - Because some cartoonists I speak to tell me that start with a script, within the first three or four panels, they realize they're already kind of deviating from where they started. - Oh, that's interesting. - I always kind of start with a script. - Yeah. But I suppose in this case, it's more, the fact that it's a memoir, you're going to have some sort of arc to it. - Oh, yeah. - You know, visually, what was the, or design-wise, what was the sort of biggest challenge that you found within the book? - They do a very good job of differentiating the individuals. You know, given that the women are sort of somewhat similar body types, but you know, they're all somehow, you know, able to stand out. - Oh, that's good, that's good. I think, honestly, my biggest challenge is drawing cars. So I hate, I really hate drawing cars and I know you're supposed to like, you know, put your heart and soul into everything you draw and find a way to love it, but cars are hard. - I always heard the story. I think it was Howard Chake and got stuck doing Westerns early in his career of drawing Westerns. And it couldn't draw a horse to save his life and would have a character point out, look, here he comes with his horse. You know, and the next panel, they gotta be walking on and that would be it. - I can deal with horses. You know, I like grew up typically drawing horses. So I know all about horse anatomy, but cars. And in fact, when I was a teenager in LA, I mean, in San Diego, I was doing a lot of pen and ink drawings of old buildings in San Diego. Like I'd take my big piece of illustration board and my pen and my ink and I'd go downtown and I'd sit on the curb and I'd spend the whole day drawing some beautiful building. And everyone who came by would have a comment. I mean, they were like sailors 'cause they were always sailors in San Diego trying to hit on you. And then there was like, like, you know, people are like, oh, that's pretty. Can you draw kitties? And then there's like, you know, these bumps that were these winos that would come along. And this was before homeless people were a thing. It was just like winos that this wino came along and said, you draw cars like a girl. And I was like, oh, no. - And even had that section within the book where you're kind of intimidated by your own car. You know, it's a muscle car in drag, I think you-- - Yeah. - You can portray it. - And I had to like download pictures of that car long gone now from the internet and from all angles so I could try to draw it correctly. And I did love that car. It was a 1969 Plymouth satellite with a floured vinyl roof and a matching interior. It belonged to my mother's best friend's mother who had ordered it special from the factory in Detroit. And it was like, it was a limited edition. You could had to order it like this. It had this floured vinyl roof. And it wasn't like the Dodge Swinger. It was a Plymouth satellite. It was the same family. But the Swinger had like the sproingy flowers on the roof. It was like hippie flowers. But this was more like a traveling decorator toaster cover. (laughing) So it was a really old lady car. But then under the hood you've got like this 386. And it's, oh, oh. - How much were you part of car, I never got car culture until my first San Diego visits. Was that like sort of like-- - No, because I, of course I had to be different growing up in San Diego. I really had, you know, if I'd had my druthers when I was 12 I would have moved to New York and become a beatnik. I rebelled even against learning to drive. So I didn't even learn to drive till I was 23. Which was good because then I had to like take the bus everywhere and I was always drawing on the buses. Either on buses or on bus stops. So that gave me a whole different perspective because when you're in your car, are you just whizzing by and you miss a lot? And it was a great exercise in learning to see things. - And how's the reception for the book? - It's been phenomenal. It's just been beyond my wildest dreams. It's everything I could have hoped for. - In working with a, over the comics oriented publisher as opposed to going to a-- - Listen, I have been sold down the river by mainstream publishers four different times, screwed so badly. I did the Valley Girls Guide to Life. That one on the bestseller list. It was great. After that it was a long downhill slide. It was like, you know, you take a book to a book. I had publishers come to me say, "We want you to do this book about like Simon issues." She said, "We want you to do a humor book about hair." Like, "Great, okay, I do it." You know, I turn it in and then they just take it and they're like, "Oh, we're going to drop this book down this well. You don't mind, do you? Oh, here it goes." I mean, why did they even spend the money? I mean, and that's not just my complaint. That's like, you know, thousands of, you know, hundred millions of authors have suffered that. So to have drawn and quarterly be so invested in it has just like meant all the difference in the world. - And have you seen that sort of transformation over, I guess, about 30 years of publishing, 30 plus years of publishing that sense of the importance of the gigantic organization is no longer, you know? - Yeah, well, it's changed so much. I mean, like when I started in the 80s, it was like the very end of like this very gentlemanly genteel profession. And then it just became super corporate. And then it just became like this machine that's cranking out this stuff and nobody's editing anything anymore. They're just barely paying attention. - And you're like, why do you even bother to publish all these titles? Is it just one big tax write off for the fat cats at the top? That's must be what it is. - What do you want people to get out of the book? Contemporary, okay, let's say young people under 30s. What do you, I think they see and get out of a book so rooted in this 1970s? - I would like them to have more of an understanding of what the 70s really were because kids tend to be very, have this kind of stariied romantic nostalgia for this era that they never experienced. And they think it's all wonderful. In the same way, I think that when I was young, kids saw the maybe the 1950s as being like, oh, poodle spurts and bobby socksers and fun, fun, fun. When in fact the 50s were very dark, they had all the black listing and all the incredible amount of repression and this incredible kind of pressure to conform. And my mother used to complain about that as having been a 50s housewife. She just said, I just felt like people were watching me all the time to make sure that I was a good mother. So anytime you went out, your dress was like, starch till it stood out into your ears and your hair was pulled back so tight, it was falling out of your head. And like, look, it's perfect. And it's kind of like that today, whereas everyone wants to be kind of Martha Stewart perfect and parents are under pressure to be the super parents, the helicopter parents. And the 70s were, the 60s had come along and they threw out all the rules and then it was the 70s and it was like, whoa, what do we do now? Like the 60s are over, that ship has sailed and now it's just like the murky bond water and you're just like waiting through this moral swamp of like, oh, wait, sex is good and drugs are good. And wait, maybe that's not so good, but no one's gonna tell me, I've gotta figure it out for myself, you know? So, and then there was everything that went on. There was, first of all, kick off with a Manson murders and Watergate and Vietnam and the oil crisis, Jonestown, and the Patty Hearst kidnapping, which is a special favorite of mine, because she was only a year older than me and it all happened in the Bay Area and it was all happening on the radio and on the news, like all the time. And I remember like relating to it because she was a girl my age and I finally caught her like my, I think my first semester when I was in art school and we were listening, it came over the radio and they finally caught her after like 18 months on the run and the most frightening thing was that there were people like normal, like liberal people who were like, you know, right on SLA when this was just like, this murderous band of crazies, they were like insane nut jobs who had managed to like get a stranglehold on the media and did horrible things to Patty Hearst, you know, and murdered people, innocent people. And so like you're going, wait a minute, you support these people, like what is going on? - It's down with the man. - Yeah, but it was, I mean, I was really screwed up and even I was like, wait a minute, these people, they just murdered the first black superintendent of schools in Oakland and you're cheering for them. So that's what I mean, it was crazy time, every like up was down and black was white and you just kind of had to like figure it out for yourself. - And how did you survive into the '80s? - How did I survive? - Is that book too, is that a-- - Well, no, no, just it's the continuation of my, it's, I don't want to give too much away. - No, don't go down, okay. So how did you survive into the '80s? - Well, I finally, you know, left the restaurant and went to New York and became a cartoonist and an illustrator, so, you know, that was, and then everything changed again. - Yeah, how did that culture-- - Well, it was like, you know, the go-go '80s and all of a sudden it was all about having money and designer clothes and status symbols and all this stuff. And I mean, I was in New York, which was sort of like the white-hot center of that and there was a whole like tumble bonfire, the vanities thing. And you would read about that, you know, all the time in newspapers and magazines, but, you know, I was living in a crummy apartment in the East Village and hanging out with cartoonists, so it wasn't really informing my world. The closest I got to that was I got a gig with, Clay, you know, Clay Felker started New York Magazine and he basically launched the careers of people like Tom Wolfe. And he was still, he was kind of like on his last legs of launching new magazines when I met him in the '80s. And at one point, he tried to launch what he was describing as a village voice for the Upper East Side, which doesn't make any sense. But it was called the East Side Express. And he was giving me a full page every week. It only lasted 13 issues, but it was a great gig. And I had my pick of society events to attend. So it was like total fish out of water time. So here I am like going from Fifth Street in Avenue A and totalling uptown to these hoity-toity parties, which like were just ridiculous. And I got to do things like cover the opening night of the big horse show in Madison Square Garden, where all the socialites were attending the opening night in ball gowns. And this was pre-stylist socialites. This was before people started hiring stylists to make them look decent to go out at night. So they're just wearing the ugliest-ass gowns. And there's Andy Warhol being led around by Cornelia Guest. And it's like, this is just a gift for a cartoonist. So that was really fun. So yeah, I mean, the only downside of that was you were kind of existing in this bubble of possibilities. Like, everyone else is making all this money. Maybe I'm going to be making all this money in that. Where are we now? So in retrospect, I wouldn't have bought all those Manolo Blonick shoes that I got. They were on sale. I have to add. They were like, well, you go to the last day of the sale and you get these great shoes. But then I had two nine-pound babies, and I can't wear them anymore. What was the transition for you, like, starting a family and transitioning from full-time artists to-- Well, it was hard. It's really hard. I mean, I love being a mother. Well, I actually know we're recording this on Mother's Day and you're not a redger kid. Yes. [LAUGHTER] No, I really have no regrets about having children and raising children and having a family. But it's just very difficult. And it took me a long time to figure it out. And everyone has to figure it out in their own way, how to make it work. And so there's a lot of-- basically, you have to sacrifice a lot. You're like, your life is no longer your own. You have to put a lot of your own needs and desires on hold to make sure that your kids get what they need. And that's number one. But you have to do it in a way so that you don't wind up resenting them and being angry all the time. So that's the trick. And so you have to approach it with a sense of humor, I think. I hope my kids don't feel like I was just seething with resentment the whole time because I was having a lot of fun with them. It's just a hard thing to do. So when they were in-- my daughter was still in preschool and my son was like in first or second grade when maybe first grade, when I started writing this. And actually, I had to leave the house to go work on it because there's so many distractions at home. So the first place I found to work was a friend of ours got some money. This was like, in the, I think, the middle of the internet, the first internet bubble in the late '90s and got this big office space and built cubicles for artists to come in. I mean, for writers to come and write. And he offered me this cubicle. I mean, wasn't mine only. But I had like, you know, certain hours of the day, I could just go in there and work. So there was that and then that fell apart. And I was looking for a new place to work, get out of the house. And the only other place there was to work was like-- well, I was at the preschool. I'm talking to the preschool director about how I lost my workspace. And it was the silver-like Jewish community center preschool. And her name was Ruth Shavit. And she's Israeli. And she said, really, why don't you work here? I was like, that's so crazy, it might just work. Because they had this unused office upstairs. And my daughter was still there. But I could avoid her and not see her. Anyone here screaming toddlers the whole time? You know, I heard kids outside. But it didn't bother me because they weren't mine. Nice. So it was really great. And it was like, there was no internet access. It was just this room where I could go close the door and work. And that's all I could do. And that's the greatest way to get work done. It's like to put yourself in a place where there's nothing else you can do. Yeah, I just-- the episode that's going up in a few days, actually, it's with a Norwegian writer who was telling me that she and her husband, who were both writers, when they were both working at home, they would give each other their cell phones and hide them from each other. Because that was the work thing all day long. They shut off the internet router. And they each hid each other's cell phone so that they would be able to try to work without any problem. My only problem now is that I rely on the internet a lot for image references. Yeah. And then that turns into the YouTube spiral [INAUDIBLE] going down. I just had to look up this one fact and check my email. Look at ESPN. And all of a sudden, you're not working. Although, I kind of find this weird ADD balance between going on Facebook, and then drawing, and then going on Facebook draw. So I'm-- You're able to just strike a balance on it. Kind of. As long as it really helps-- my husband and I have been doing a lot of traveling because he's an artist who does installations in large spaces in other cities. And just to leave home and go some place with him and take my work along, it's great. Because I don't have to worry about any of the distractions of home, running errands, picking up the dry cleaning, washing the dishes, planning a meal, doing laundry. And worst of all, dealing with customer service on the phone. That's the kind of thing. You spend an hour doing that, and you just want to lay down in a dark room with a cold cloth on your head for the rest of the day. I don't know what it is about it. It just sucks the life out of me. There's the anxiety building up to it after a while. Because you know it's going to be bad, and then it takes you forever to even make the call, because you know how often it's going to all go. So you find just working in hotels, or working in residencies is better? Yeah, it's fantastic. What's your working process like, both materials and time of day? What's your doing? Well, ideally, I like to get on it right after breakfast and work until lunch. And ideally, someone has fixed me a beautiful meal. This happened once. Robert Rauschenberg Residency in Captiva, Florida. That was like heaven on earth. Where they gave you a studio, you'd have breakfast, you'd go, you'd work till lunch, you'd go to have lunch. And the chef, who used to be Walter Cronkite chef, had fixed you this spectacular lunch, and then you worked till evening, and then you have this wonderful dinner, and then you get to talk to the other artists in the residency. And then you just do that for 30 days in a row, and you're like, "Ha, ha." That's a good work spa. Work spa, yeah. And then you have to return to the modernity. The amount of time you spent working on this book and looking at who you were back then, who do you see when you look back at Mimi of 1977-78? I was pretty stupid. Well, I think I was idealistic, and I was smart, and I was perceptive, but I was naive. And I don't want to say that I didn't value myself. Well, by your portray it, it seems as though the character of you, initially, at least, is looking for value in relationships and finding a boy. Yeah, I mean, there's hormones there. So you're looking for the perfect boyfriend, and you wind up sleeping with all these losers and jerks, because nobody thinks anything of it then. I mean, that's the thing that I keep railing about, is there's this lack of slut-shaming culture that we have now. That was one of the great things about the '70s, was the sexual liberation of both sexes. Now, it's like boys will be boys, and men still get to sleep around with whoever they want. Nobody says a word about it, but-- Don't touch my little girl. Yeah, and the walk of shame, like, what's that about? Like, your body is your own business. If you want to go sleep with someone who's not the right person, and then go home the next day, it's nobody's business, but your own, like, what? But we're a Puritan country. I mean, we're very schizophrenic country, but we're also, you know, the Puritan thing never really got excised. Yeah. There's a certain sense of it. You know, I don't know what it's like up here. Well, I mean, it's more than-- I mean, if it was just straight up Puritan, then they judge men, too, but they don't. I made plenty of mistakes, but I learned from my mistakes, and I wound up marrying just the right person, and you've been married to him for-- I mean, we've been together for 30 years, so, you know, I feel like I learned from my mistakes. So to answer your question, you know, I was, like, young and idealistic and naive, but I was also just someone who was, like, desperately looking for validation, and for my-- I was looking for my people. And the character, Laszlo, was definitely my people, and he was doing the same thing. He was trying to gather the most interesting people he could around him, and very much validating their experiences. And that made all the difference in the world for me, then, was like finding someone who shared my observations and views, who saw things the same way that I did, you know? And instead of the usual average person, it's like, you're so weird. It's like, no, you're right about that, you know? Do you find that sense within the cartooning community, or do you feel a sense of a bond with us? Yeah, I do. I mean, I don't know a lot of cartoonists in LA. I know Vanessa Davis and her boyfriend, Trevor Alexopolis. And I know a few cartoonists in New York. So I don't-- when we lived in New York in the '80s, we socialized a lot more with cartoonists. But we're kind of in LA. We're sort of a bit cut off from that. But Facebook is good for that, too. And it's really been fun to meet all these cartoonists here at T.Calf. How did you and your husband meet? Well, he was-- I was actually friends with-- we had a mutual friend and a cartoonist who's now a writer named Ron Haughey, who written a lot for the Simpsons. But he was a cartoonist for the National Lampoon as well. Actually, I was-- Linda Barry long ago told me to look up Ron Haughey when I first went to New York, because he knew her, too. And so we became friends. And then one time he said, oh, I'm going to go see this guy do this puppet show on the Lower East Side. You want to go? And I was like, fine. Maybe I'll meet someone. Yeah, right, like that's going to happen. And I went to this avant garde crazy artist puppet show. And it was spectacular. And then the guy who pops up his head at the end of the show from behind this cardboard puppet stage is this incredibly handsome young guy. I'm like, that's for me. So that's how we met. Wonderful. Essentially love it first sight. Pretty much. Was he convinced of that, too? I think it took him a little bit longer. But then I lured him into my lair and did my magic mojo on him. Did your kids have any-- or kids particularly artistic? My son's about to graduate from California College of the Arts, which was my school, which is used to be California College of Arts and Crafts. So he graduates May 17. And our daughter just started last fall at Cooper Union in New York. So she's loving that. So it's really gratifying to have artistic kids. And they're just phenomenally talented. They're like already so much more talented than both Wayne and I were at the same age. What fields are they particularly interested in? Well, Woody's concentration has been painting. Although he could do-- both of them can do anything they set their mind to. And Lulu right now is just like into everything because that's what they do at Cooper Union. It's like everything right now. But they both draw and paint and do three-dimensional stuff. And it's just amazing. And I'm convinced one day they will do cartoons. I can understand they're like shying away from it because it's what I do. But I think they'll creep around to it eventually. As long as they're not doing autobiographical stories about their bizarre childhoods or something, that's-- I'd be OK with that, I think. Yeah, I'm afraid after this weekend I may end up in some people's comic strips, just from being the weird guy with the microphones, sitting down and doing reporting. Yeah, it's always a risk. Yeah, you know, as long as they draw me well with the nice jacket and stuff, I'll feel good. Now, you are working on part two of "Omarizi." Less than a 15-year gestation this time-- I hope I'll be done by the end of the year. Oh, wow. OK. What kind of similar length do you think? I think so. OK. The first one being 270 pages, which is something I've always wondered about when it comes to long form comics. What's the editing process for that like? Because you can't just draw 50 pages and have someone and editor come back and say, ah, yes, it wasn't the right direction to go in. The only thing I got edited on was bad language. And the '70s being what there were, there was a lot of politically incorrect language. And they insisted on taking out some politically incorrect terms. And I said, it was the times. That's how people talked. They're like, no, you'll get slammed if you do this. So there were a few things. But other than that, they've been great. They don't get in the way that way. Well, did you find any-- beyond that sort of editorial, any editorial process, otherwise, just any way of revising? I just always wonder when it comes to long form work like that, that you can't easily delete and re-paste text. Like you can't approach. It never gets to that point. I mean, when I'm editing myself, it's like I do pencil roughs on tracing paper because it's cheap and it's easy to erase. And so I'll do like a chapter's worth of pencil roughs. And I'm sort of monitoring the flow of the pages and how just the general flow and the look of it. And like three panels on this page, four panels on that page, a splash page, is it just an intuitive feel for the pacing? And then sometimes I go to bed and I think, oh, I really need for that to be one whole page by itself. So I might go back and redo a couple of pages. But it happens early on before it gets to a finish. And also because the story has already been written down and it's like this map. So it hasn't failed me yet in terms of the telling of the story. So I don't have to worry about like, oh, I made the sudden left turn and now I have to go back and put in all these other carriages. It just doesn't work like that. And you consider it essentially nonfiction memoir. I mean, I've read interviews with you where you sort of talk about the composite aspect of some of the character-- It's still fiction. And it gets a little more-- part two gets a little more fictionalized. There's some episodes in part two that are definitely fiction. So there are things that happened that didn't necessarily-- that I had happening to my character because she's the main character that didn't necessarily happen to me, but that make a more strong dramatic point if they do. And there are a few things that some of the other characters do that they didn't do, but someone else did to me. But I had to squish two characters into one or whatever. So it is fiction. But I-- I just feel any tension about that in terms of-- all the names have been changed, et cetera, that kind of blending between out of bio and-- Tension you mean from outside? The tension of retelling the story, I guess, in a way that people who may have been part of it most of how things went. Does that matter at that point? I worry about that for a while, because I am still in touch with a lot of those people and consider them friends. But it's been like 35 years now. But even over the course of writing it, I was like, well, what if they get mad? What if they get a feeling as hurt? What if they say, that's not the way it was? And I was like, you know what? Let them spend 35 years trying to figure this out. I have devoted my life to telling this tale that needs to be told, that I knew and needed to be told from the day I went to work there. I have devoted all this time and energy into crafting this story so that I can capture the essence of what that time and place was like. And if they want to do it, they can try it. So, you know, tough luck. But I have to say, the reaction from those old co-workers and friends has been overwhelmingly positive. That's great. And I'm sure so many of them were on drugs at the time. Because they don't remember, really. Understood. Meet me, Pawn. Thank you so much for coming on The Virtual Memory Show. Well, thank you. [MUSIC PLAYING] And that was Mimi Pond. I really enjoyed the heck out of her New York Times bestselling book, Over Easy. And I bet you'll dig it, too. It's published by Drawn and Quarterly, one of the finest comics publishers in the world. And you can find it in bookstores and comic shops everywhere. Mimi's website is mimipond.typepad.com. And that's M-I-M-I-P-O-N-D. If you want to learn more about her husband, the artist Wayne White, and their family dynamic, you really should check out the 2012 documentary, Beauty is Embarrassing. The movie really goes into that relationship and the nature of her art and his art. And I really wish I'd watched it before we recorded that conversation. But hey, better late than never. Because Beauty is Embarrassing is one of the most inspiring movies I've ever seen. And that sounds like an insipid term, but I tell you, you will be primed to make art after seeing that documentary. So go buy Over Easy, Mimi's best-selling graphic novel, and go watch Beauty is Embarrassing. You'll thank me for it. And that's it for this week's virtual memory show. Thanks so much for listening. We'll be back next week with a conversation with George Prochnick, author of the new biography, The Impossible Exile, Stefan Zweig at the End of the World. And that's a really good one. If you're a big Zweig-free click, I am. And please, hit up our websites VMSPod.com or chimeraobscura.com/vm, so you can make a donation to this ad-free show. You can also find past episodes on the sites and get on the show's email list that way. And if you've got ideas for guests, drop me a line at groff@chymeraobscura.com. That's G-R-O-T-H. Or VMSPod on Twitter, or at our Facebook page, facebook.com/virtualmemoriesshow. And you can always go to the iTunes store and look up the virtual memories show and leave us a nice review and rating. Until next time, I am Gil Roth, and you are awesome. Keep it that way. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) [BLANK_AUDIO]