Interview: Nate Powell

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.

Back in 2008, Top Shelf sent me a copy of Nate Powell’s book Swallow Me Whole, a fascinating look at mental illness from inside the heads of two suffering teens. I became a fan for life. Nate’s newest two books are very different, but also compelling. The first, The Silence of Our Friends, done with Mark Long and Jim Demonakos, is a civil rights story set in 1967 Texas. Second is a graphic novel hybrid called The Year of the Beasts, in which Nate did the comic-style chapters and collaborator Cecil Castellucci wrote the prose chapters. It’s pretty interesting twist on the usual graphic novel hybrid fare and Nate’s a pretty interesting guy. Take a look.

Books mentioned in this video:

• Sweet Tooth, by Jeff Lemire (not for kids – this was a joke on me, as I’d accidentally called Nate “Jeff Lemire” when introducing him)
• Anya’s Ghost, by Vera Brosgol
• Hicksville, by Dylan Horrocks
• Invisible Cities, by Italo Calvino
• The Wind-up Bird Chronicle, by Haruki Murakami

Filed under: Interviews