Interview: Johane Matte

On Wednesday, July 11 through Sunday, July 15, while attending the Comic-Con International 2012 in San Diego, 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, comic book conventions 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.

It is my great misfortune to only speak English. Usually, this isn’t a problem. But when I go to Canada or Japan or basically anywhere else in the world, my monolingualism becomes a true liability because it means I can’t read books like Johane Matte’s Horus. (For a reader, there are few things worse than seeing something beautiful and not being able to read the words next to the beautiful thing. At least for this reader.) Luckily I can read her stories in the Flight and Explorer books and watch the movies she’s worked on, including Rise of the Guardians and How to Train Your Dragon.

We’re so lucky to be readers during this kids comics renaissance, because it means monolingual kids like me are able to read many of the same comics Johane read as a kid. So very lucky.

Books mentioned in this video:

• Amulet series, by Kazu Kibuishi (see Kazu’s interview here)
• Smile, by Raina Telgemeier (see Raina’s interview here)
• Cardboard, by Doug TenNapel (see Doug’s interview here)
• Bakuman series, by Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata
• Black Jack series, by Osamu Tezuka
• Lucky Luke series, by Goscinny and Morris
• The Adventure of Tintin series, by Herge
• Asterix series, by Goscinny and Uderzo
• Monster series, by Naoki Urasawa

Filed under: Interviews