The Virtual Memories Show

Photographer and writer Kyle Cassidy and actor and model Trillian Stars join us for a Bonus Episode to talk about their new Kickstarter, THIS IS ONLY EARTH, MY DEAR – POEMS & PHOTOS (closing May 4, 2024)! We get into their inspiration to make a book combining the poems of Pre-Raphaelite muse/model/artist Elizabeth Eleanor Siddal with photos of Trillian (in a Pre-Raphaelite mode), how the project changed once they began shooting in East London, how they found enough costumes for all the photos they wanted to take, why Lizzie Siddal was dismissed by the peers of her husband, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and how modeling and acting overlap and differ (and why Kyle prefers shooting with actors). We also get into what they've learned from nearly a dozen Kickstarters, what stretch goals they're hoping to reach for this one, and why they want to give Lizzie Siddal the book she never got when she was alive. GO PLEDGE, and follow Kyle on LiveJournal (!?) and Instagram, and follow Trillian on Instagram • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal and via our e-newsletter

At long last, artist Leela Corman joins the show as we celebrate her breathtaking new graphic novel, VICTORY PARADE (Schocken Books)! We talk about how the book brings together the women welders of WWII-era Brooklyn Navy Yards, professional wrestling, and her lifelong obsession with the Shoah, how discovering her watercolor style was like the portal between life and death opening, the art school experience that derailed her, and how the artistic ground start shifting beneath her as she got serious about her comics. We get into her life-defining visit to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the sacred responsibility of teaching, the influence of New Objectivity (& a bazillion other styles and modes of art & storytelling) on her work, why she brought characters from her earlier GN Unterzakhn into Victory Parade, her twin polestars of Primo Levi & Lisa Carver, and her music-comics collaboration with Thalia Zedek. Plus we discuss the Gen X practice of warts-and-all autobio comics, transgenerational trauma and the next book in her 'Birnbaumiad' triptych, the BS of artist's statements, the revelation of Neko Case's music, and a lot more. Follow Leela on Bluesky and Instagram, and support her work on Patreon • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal and via our e-newsletter

How did an eBay search lead to the discovery of a lost classic of comics? How can art help us build a better America? Artist and teacher Keith Mayerson joins the show to talk about co-editing the amazing new book, Frank Johnson: Secret Pioneer of American Comics, Vol. 1 (Fantagraphics) and his multi-decade "wordless novel" in paintings, My American Dream (Karma). We get into how Frank Johnson made thousands of pages of comics in private, never published, and may have created the first American comic-book in history, whether he constitutes an Outsider Artist, how his creative legacy contrasts with Henry Darger's, and what it means to make a lifelong body of work with no sense or expectation of a readership. We also get into Keith's My American Dream project, its roots in 9/11 & the GWBush era, how his paintings play off of each other like panels in a comic (and how the curation of art exhibitions is a form of comics), the mash-up of key cultural figures of modern America, his art-subject trinity of James Dean, Elvis, and Keanu Reeves (and his story of meeting Keanu), how My American Dream works to synthesize aspects of Warhol & Rembrandt (& Haring), and the vitality of his painting of Kermit the Frog on a bicycle and the significance of the Muppets in his vision of America. Plus we discuss Keith's art & comics upbringing, the process of building comics programs at SVA and USC, his cult classic queer horror graphic novel with Dennis Cooper, the artistic act of suturing in to his subjects, why the job of art is keeping hope alive, how he felt when he found a parallel, secret history of comics taking place solely in one person's mind, and a lot more. Follow Keith on Instagram • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal and via our e-newsletter

Classicist Edith Hall joins the show to talk about her fantastic, important new book, FACING DOWN THE FURIES: Suicide, the Ancient Greeks, and Me (Yale University Press). We talk about the taboo of talking about suicide, how that taboo can lead to transgenerational damage, how that compares to the family curses in Greek tragedies, and what the Tragedians have to teach us about life (and death) today. We get into her grandmother's suicide and her mother's conspiracy of silence around it, her own suicidal ideation and how Heracles Mad helped her through her worst phase, the way Facing Down the Furies sprung from Edith's previous book, Aristotle's Way, the process of researching her family history after her mother's death, and how Philoctetes embodies It Gets Better. We also get into the gender difference of existentialists and the crappy behavior of male philosophers, the gender difference in our readings of Alcestis, why she's Team Iliad (and supports my reading of Achilles' tragedy), the one Greek tragedy that she wishes survived to reach us, and a lot more. Also, I go LONG in the intro about some family stuff that came up in the lead-in to this episode. It should go without saying: content/trigger warning if discussions about suicide are a problem for you. Follow Edith on Twitter • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal and via our e-newsletter

LEAN INTO DEAN! Cartoonist, playwright, schmoozer, etc. Dean Haspiel returns for a Bonus Episode to talk about his new Kickstarter, THE RED HOOK X DEAN HASPIEL (closing March 28, 2024)! We get into why he's making the plunge into Meta-Mem-Noir and bringing Dean Haspiel as a character into his New Brooklyn comics universe, what it's like to be part of the story, and how this podcast is also becoming more autobiographical with each passing week. Plus, we talk about getting old and not being able to stay out all night (even though he tried this weekend), what it's like to treat comics as a reductive art rather than a rendering one, the play Dino's working on, what he's learned from his previous Kickstarter projects, Covid Cop and Billy Dogma and Jane Legit, why he's holding off on reading the finale of Howard Chaykin's Time2 project, and more! Follow Dean on Substack, Instagram and . . . LiveJournal!? • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal and via our e-newsletter

With his brand new collection, THE WEREWOLF AT DUSK and Other Stories (Liveright), David Small brings us a trio of stories about the beast within (that is, within the heart, within the psyche, and within the body politic). We talk about the on-and-off 40-year history of this collection, the themes of transformation and aging that suffuse these stories, and the schism in Leonora Carrington's estate that nearly derailed the whole project. We get into the the challenges of adapting prose fiction into comics, his move from graphic novels (think Stitches and Home After Dark) to short stories, why he's come to love drawing digitally, and just how bad most surrealist fiction can be. We also discuss the decline in kids' books, our respective life changes from 2020's COVID check-in, his Truman Capote kick, how we deal with monstrous artists, how hard he has to work to make his drawings look like they were done in 15 seconds, and a lot more. • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal and via our e-newsletter

With RADIANT: The Life and Line of Keith Haring (Harper), Brad Gooch brings us the biography of Keith Haring, an artist who transformed public art & the art world in the 1980s and whose work has become part of global culture in the three decades since his untimely death from AIDS. We get into Brad's common threads with Haring, the parallels between this book and his biography of Rumi, how fatherhood helped Brad better understand Haring, and his surprise at discovering what a serious artist Haring was. We talk about why Haring's work makes more sense now than in the '80s, what he would have made of social media, the fire that drove him to make more than 10,000 pieces of art in his decade-plus career, the relationship of Haring to artists of color (among other race issues), where the Radiant Baby image came from, and what the younger gay population doesn't know about the AIDS crisis. We also discuss the incredible memorial of Keith and Howard Brookner at a recent Madonna concert, why 60 is a great age to start having kids, how Instagram reminds him of '80s social life, the parallels between the AIDS crisis and the early months of COVID, what Brad's learned in the course of writing four biographies, why Barbra Streisand's memoir reminds him of Karl Ove Knausgaard's My Struggle (!), and more. Follow Brad on Instagram and listen to our 2015 and 2017 conversations, and check out the Nakamura Keith Haring Collection • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal and via our e-newsletter

No conversation this week, except for our host, Gil Roth, in conversation with some virtual memories of his own! On the occasion of going to the movies for the first time since 2018, to see Wim Wenders' amazing new film Perfect Days, he reflects on a cusp-of-pandemic trip to Japan. This one's got Keith Haring & Koji Yakusho, a misplaced fortune, The Tokyo Toilet, an empty parking lot, Country & Western, a special 5K run, a big bag of Kit-Kats, and more, so give it a listen. • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal and via our e-newsletter

With his fantastic debut novel, PLASTIC (Pantheon), Scott Guild brings us a dystopian future of eco-terrorism, meta-reality, and . . . a world populated by plastic figurines who break out in song? We talk about the 10-year process of writing the book, how he found the stylistic elements that made it work, and why making the lead characters plastic let him bring comedy into his apocalyptic vision of the future. We get into Scott's history as a musician and how songwriting differs from fiction, the album he made (with all sorts of great artists) to accompany the novel, why he'd love to do live performances of it, and how the songs changed genre from the ones in the novel. We also discuss his writing influences, esp. Kafka & Plath, why he dedicated PLASTIC to his high school English teacher, how he accidentally created his own Barbenheimer (the Barbie movie created a conceptual entry point for readers, but the characters are under the Oppenheimer-esque shadow of a nuclear war), why he didn't show his novel to his wife until 3-4 months before their wedding, whether he played with dolls as a kid (spolier: we both did), who wins in the Dostoevsky-Tolstoy Steel Cage Match, and a lot more. Follow Scott on Twitter and Instagram • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal and via our e-newsletter

What is the meaning of Cleveland? Cartoonist Aaron Lange joins the show to talk about AIN'T IT FUN: Peter Laughner & Proto-Punk In The Secret City (Stone Church Press), his breathtaking new graphic novel that weaves together obscure records, urban legends and psychographic history. We talk about Aaron's fascination with Cleveland's punk scene, why the musician Peter Laughner stood out to him, the way Cleveland's hidden landmarks pointed him toward this massive project. We get into the research and interviews Aaron conducted for Ain't It Fun, the process of editing this work into a looping, flaneur-like, discursive (but never aimless) narrative, and the influence of Greil Marcus' Lipstick Traces, Iain Sinclair's Lud Heat, and Adam Curtis' documentaries. We also discuss post-Laughner Pere Ubu, using graphic design rather than panel-to-panel cartooning, visiting the zodiac circle by the Cleveland Museum of Art at all 4 equinoxes, chronicling the city's brutalist architecture, the constraints of the comics market on a book that defies easy description, and a lot more. Follow Aaron on Instagram and support Stone Church Press via Patreon (which doubles as Aaron's blog) • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal and via our e-newsletter