The Asterisk
A new episode with Eddie Campbell about Kate Carew, my thoughts on finishing Emily Dickinson's poems, a whole ton of Instax pix & the race to finish, an excuse for not drawing, + more
The Virtual Memories Show News
A 2x/week email about a podcast about books & life
Podcastery
This week, I posted Episode 615 of The Virtual Memories Show, as Cartoonist & historian Eddie Campbell returns to the show with his fantastic new book, KATE CAREW: America’s First Great Woman Cartoonist (Fantagraphics Underground), which explores turn-of-the-(20th)-century artist, cartoonist, illustrator, caricaturist, interviewer & journalist Kate Carew. We get into how Eddie discovered Kate’s work while researching The Goat-Getters, how Kate wound up interviewing the likes of Mark Twain, Picasso, the Wright Brothers, and other celebs (& non-celebs) of her time, how her self-caricatures serve as a sorta graphic autobiography (and precursor to the whole world of graphic memoir storytelling), her support of women’s suffrage, and how I accidentally semi-sorta inspired Eddie to make this book. We also talk about how Kate’s story evades sentimentality, how Eddie & Audrey Niffenegger formed the Digital Art Burglars firm, what he’s learned from exploring the early history of American cartooning, why his next book is about the Midwest school of cartooning, how he wound up writing the comics histories he wanted to read, and why he had to pull a page from this book due to a complaint from the printer. Plus we discuss his new graphic novel about how he met Audrey, how his comic strip of the Pajama Girl, a murder victim in Sydney, led to him working with Alan Moore on From Hell, his life-lessons about making every pitch & taking every job that was offered, and why Kate Carew was such an enormous outlier in the world of cartooning. Give it a listen, and go read KATE CAREW: America’s First Great Woman Cartoonist!
Last week, I posted Episode 614 with comics librarian and curator Caitlin McGurk, as she returned to the show to celebrate her new book, TELL ME A STORY WHERE THE BAD GIRL WINS: The Life and Art of Barbara Shermund (Fantagraphics). We talk about Caitlin’s shock at her 2012 discovery of Barbara Shermund’s incredible gag-comics and illustrations in the archive of the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum, how her interest in Barbara evolved from blog posts to a museum exhibit to a book, the challenge of writing about someone who did no interviews or press and had no close relatives, and how easily women get erased from history. We get into the gestalt of Barbara’s fantastic linework and washes and her wry sense of humor, why Caitlin wound up writing an academic press version of the book before rewriting it for a trade publisher, and how Barbara helped create the look of The New Yorker in its early years. We also discuss the malleability of history, how the Billy Ireland has changed in the 10 years since Caitlin & I last recorded, the pep talk she wished she could have gotten from our late friend Tom Spurgeon, the incredible story of tracking down Barbara’s remains and giving her a proper funeral 35 years after her death, and more. Give it a listen, and go read TELL ME A STORY WHERE THE BAD GIRL WINS!
Recent episodes: Frances Jetter • Roland Allen • Eric Drooker • Simon Critchley • Doug Brod • Sven Birkerts • Christopher Brown
The Asterisk
Just about every morning I’m home, I read 2 pages (+ the previous day’s 2 pages) of Emily Dickinson’s poems (Belknap/Harvard). On Tuesday, I finished the dated poems — she only wrote two in 1886 before her death that May — and had A Moment.
Of Glory not a Beam is left
But her Eternal House –
The Asterisk is for the Dead,
The Living, for the Stars –
— Emily Dickinson, #1685
I’ve still got 30 or so pages of her undated poems to read, but soon that project will be over. I don’t know what it all means, or what I got from the poems, or whether I was just trying to prove something. There were ones that moved me, ones that I included in a postcard or my journal (two of my other morning routines), plenty that I puzzled over.
A little while back, I read this one (#1511) that put me in mind of my recent conversation with Simon Critchley about his Mysticism book, and his belief that music has substituted for religious transcendence:
The fascinating chill that Music leaves
Is Earth’s corroboration
Of Ecstasy’s impediment –
’Tis Rapture’s germination
In timid and tumultuous soil
A fine – estranging creature –
To something upper wooing us
But not to our Creator –
I wonder what I’ll read next, and who I’ll be after.
Instaxery
On Tuesday, I shot a bunch of Instax for my GUEST/HOST book. I was recording a podcast on the Upper West Side, so I set up drop-ins with guests who were . . . not close by. At one point, I realized I was passing the very distinctive building of a pod-guest who died a few years ago. I’m not sure if that fits the “rule” of the photos for the book: Photos taken around my 2024 in-person podcast-sessions and at hangouts/drop-ins with past guests. (The pix aren’t of the guests themselves, but something in their environment.)
And then there’s the first one in the top row: that was one the way to the podcast, when I sat in terrible traffic getting off the GWB and saw that Frank Stella array of pipes and thought, “Maybe it makes sense to have a picture that stands in for all the transit and traffic and boredom that goes into my making the show.” Don’t know if I’ll include either of those, because of my OCD-esque rule-making, but we’ll see. The point is, I’m making something beautiful, and you can’t stop me.
Oh, and on Wednesday, after a client event & facility tour, I stopped in on another past-guest and shot this one (digital version; the ones above are scans of prints):
We ended up spending hours together talking and sharing our joy and pain and art, but then I got stuck in horrendous traffic trying to get home (which is part of why this newsletter is going out a day or two later than usual).
Artistry
Listen, man: something’s gotta give. In this case, I just can’t keep up with drawing, although I’ve been maintaining my daily crappy sketch in a cheap notebook with a rollerball pen. Once I’m done with this stage of the book (shooting all those pix), maybe I’ll have time to get back to drawing. You should go to the Flickr album of most of the art I’ve made & find something you like.
Postcardery
A Letter is a joy of Earth –
It is denied the Gods –
Dickinson, #1672
Let me know if you want to be on my postcard-a-day list. (Financial supporters of the podcast get a hand-drawn or painted postcard as a thank-you.)
Until Next Time
Thanks for reading this far! I’ll be back on Sunday with links, books, & workout-craziness, and on Wednesday with a new episode, and maybe some art, maybe an Instax or two.
Oh Lord, well, if you're feeling lonely and if you're feeling blue / And if you just don't know what to do / BRING YOUR SPIRIT DOWN,