Celebrated Portland comics artists Barry Deutsch and Jenn Manley Lee have been collaborating and inspiring each other since high school. Their separate projects, Barry's Hereville and Jenn's Dicebox, began as epic web comics but have now been collected and printed in hardcover graphic novel form. Barry and Jenn sat down at the KBOO studios with host S.W. Conser to discuss how comics are changing our conversations on gender, culture, politics, technology, and mythology.
Along with discussions of The Hinterland and other projects in the offing, listeners will hear tales of John and Chad's adventures in Belize (some never before discussed in either the print or the broadcast media) as well as some of John and Chad's ideas for film and game production in Portland.
Note: the date of Penelope Spheeris' appearance at the Hollywood Theatre had been mistakenly listed as March 10th on the show; the correct date is actually Saturday March 9th.
Ben Katchor, the first cartoonist to receive a MacArthur Fellowship grant, is also a writer, teacher, and performer of TED Talk recitations. His familiar-seeming yet skewed urban vignettes, such as Julius Knipl: Real Estate Photographer and The Cardboard Valise, have been appearing in magazines and alternative newspapers for over a quarter century. More recently, he's been collaborating with musician Mark Mulcahy on an absurdist musical play, The Slug Bearers of Kayrol Island, and a comic-book opera, The Carbon Copy Building, both of which won Obie Awards. Seemingly unable to successfully arrive in Portland, Katchor joins host S.W. Conser on the phone from Seattle to discuss his latest book, Hand-Drying in America and Other Stories, a collection of architecture-related comics from Metropolis magazine.
Spring brings offbeat film festivals to Oregon, and what could be more unconventional than the Youth Silent Film Festival? Festival creator Jon Palanuk talks with Jenn Chavez about inspiring teenage filmmakers to reinvent a classic art form. Then, S.W. Conser is joined by grown-up film director Eric Slade, whose new documentary Big Joy, a profile of trailblazing poet, playwright, and experimental filmmaker James Broughton premieres at this year's QDoc Festival.
Renowned Oregon Governor Tom McCall would have turned 100 years old this year. To commemorate this larger-than-life figure, Know Your City (formerly the Dill Pickle Club) commissioned a comic book about McCall's controversial decision to fund the Vortex I rock festival in 1970, which drew anti-war activists away from an American Legion convention in Portland. Author Sarah Mirk, who created the comic with artist Daniel Duford, joins Kick-Ass Oregon History founder Doug Kenck-Crispin to regale listeners with the history they didn't learn in school. Sarah will also share details about how to participate in the newest Know Your City project, Comics for Change.
In a special hour-long episode, 
This year's Portland Oregon Women's Film Festival (
Ben Katchor
