The Forbidden Planet International Blog

It used to be a copy of the Observer every Sunday, relaxing across the sofa, supplements spread out about me, maybe an old Cary Grant film on the TV. Then we had a child, so that went right out the window. But there’s a joy to curling up with a little bit of longer reading over the weekend that doesn’t go away. And nowadays I find myself saving up long form interviews from various comic sites to enjoy over coffee.

This week:

Stan Sakai at the Daily Crosshatch (part one, part two).

Sakai’s samurai rabbit is over 25 years old, and Sakai shows no signs of slowing down yet, maintaining a schedule that would seem impossible to many comic creators today. In honour of his achievements Fantagraphics have released a special 2-volume slipcased hardcover edition containing the material from the first 7 Usagi volumes – some 1200 pages. And that’s just the start of the Usagi saga!

But the main event, and something you should ideally settle down to with the complete 15 volume Cerebus series by your side for reference is this three part interview by Sean Michael Robinson with Gerhard, inker and background artist on Cerebus. It’s very craft based, and fascinating with it:

“Dave’s dialogue — “You might be surprised at who you’re driving crazy- staying in one place this long, I mean.”

Gerhard: After I finished that page, I was wondering if people would get it. That’s a photocopy of the Staedler pencil and my ruler and my floor plan. Those are all the issue numbers that we’ve been in the bar. And the bottom left panel is a reference to way back when, when Dave said that if I wanted to, I could draw the interior of a submarine behind the characters, the backgrounds were up to me. Well, I finally got to draw my interior of a submarine. I wonder how many people actually got that, or were they thinking, “What the hell is going on here?”

(Gerhard at The Comics Journal Part One, Part Two, Part Three)

And a third interview: John Ridgway, stalwart of the UK comic scene is interviewed by David Robertson at The Comics Journal.

(John Ridgway Part One. Part Two)