Interview: J. Torres

On May 4th through 6th, while attending the Toronto Comic Arts Festival, 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 (even when they’re held in a library), 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.

Here’s the thing about J. Torres. The guy is everywhere. He’s done superheroes. He’s done high school comedies. He’s done moody atmospheric ghost stories. He’s even humanized Big Foot. As if this weren’t enough, he’s got three new books either out or about to be out. J. Torres is like the Nora Roberts of kids graphic novels! (Okay, that might be pushing it, but seriously, the guy has written a LOT of books.) He carved out time to come to TCAF, where I grabbed the chance to talk with him. I got lucky, because the next day he came down with a horrible case of Con Crud. I just hope it wasn’t my fault…

Books mentioned in this video:

• Smile, by Raina Telgemeier
• Astronaut Academy, by Dave Roman (see Raina’s and Dave’s interview here)
• Friends With Boys, by Faith Erin Hicks
• Level Up, by Gene Luen Yang and Thien Pham (see Gene’s and Thien’s interview here)
• The Complete Calvin and Hobbes, by Bill Watterson

Filed under: Interviews