Interview: Chris Schweizer

On Sunday, June 26th, while attending the American Library Association’s Annual Conference in New Orleans, I ran around to as many of my favorite kids comics creators as I could and asked them all the exact same questions. Keep in mind, exhibit halls are crazy loud and crazy busy, so there is a lot of background noise. Let me know in the comments if you have trouble hearing anything and I’ll translate for you.

I’ve admired Chris Schweizer‘s Crogan Adventures series from Oni Press since reading the first book, Crogan’s Vengeance, while on YALSA’s Great Graphic Novels for Teens committee. Crogan’s March, the second book in the series, is just as fun, and I’m eagerly waiting for Crogan’s Loyalty to be released … someday. Sigh. Sometimes being a fan is all about waiting, isn’t it?

You can tell pretty quickly that Chris is a teacher (he’s a professor at SCAD-Atlanta). He’s also a fantastic storyteller and booktalker who speaks very, very quickly. (While I envy his students his lectures, I also feel kind of badly for those trying to take notes.) Chris and I spoke for quite some time, so I had to split our conversation into two parts in order to get it loaded onto YouTube. In Part A we cover my first three questions, ending by me asking him what he’s currently working on:

In part B I start by asking Chris what else he is currently working on (I knew there was more than what he’d said in Part A):

Books mentioned in this video:

• Tarzan of the Apes, by Burne Hogarth
• Smile, by Raina Telgemeier
• Astronaut Academy, by Dave Roman (watch Dave and Raina’s interview here)
• Civil War Adventures, by Chuck Dixon and Gary Kwapisz
• Super Pro K.O., by Jarrett Williams
• Dragon Ball Z, by Akira Toriyama
• Hollywood History of the World, by George Macdonald Frasier

Filed under: Graphic Novels, Interviews