Author: Alison Bechdel

Condition of Mr. Segundo: Revealing his political idiosyncracies.

Subjects Discussed: The meaning of “tragicomic,” Nabokov, Charles Addams, on how the funeral home component of Fun Home has been overlooked, on hitting a wall with words, the advantages of “visual writing,” Michael Lesy’s Time Frames: The Meaning of Family Pictures, Fun Home as a mystery, using maps and annotations in panels to create structure and ambiguity, the presentation of Bechdel’s father, Dykes to Watch Out For, on selling Fun Home to Houghton Mifflin, the influence of graphic novels, Maus, Harvey Pekar, uncouth forms of madeleine tea, ancient computer modems, rotoscoping, Ralph Bakshi, cross-hatching, analog vs. digital illustration, typesetting, Proust, Camus, the use of ten-cent words in comics, on posing in photographs for visual reference, Six Feet Under, Jill Soloway’s Los Angeles Times review, and literary respectability for comics.

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Guest: Carl Sheeler

Condition of Mr. Segundo: Ejected due to the apparently “serious” nature of politics.

Subjects Discussed: Running an unorthodox senatorial campaign, Howard Dean, the similarities and differences between Whitehouse and Sheeler’s platforms, problems with Sheldon Whitehouse, on Sheeler styling himself as “the next Ned Lamont,” more problems with Sheldon Whitehouse, Rhode Island’s status as a blue state, efforts to determine Sheeler’s positions, even more problems with Sheldon Whitehouse, universal health care, negotiating the mechanisms of the Senate, on impeaching Bush and the Democratic silence, the monies available for universal health care, the baby boomer generation, generic drugs, the economics of expired patents, placing ceilings on oil and gas, speculation on whether Our Young, Roving Correspondent is a Republican, U.S. energy policy, the Manhattan Project, the U.S. energy infrastructure, hybrid cars, James Howard Kunstler’s The Long Emergency, alternative energy in China, the emerging middle class in India, the trucking industry, the expense of overhauling the energy infrastructure and the possible burden on the working class, Los Angeles, and the transportation grid.

[LISTENER’S NOTE: Due to a technical snafu, the final minute of this conversation was unexpectedly cut off. We apologize for this podcast’s abrupt ending.]

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Authors: Hillary Carlip and Annabelle Gurwitch

Condition of Mr. Segundo: Recovering from an unfortunate incident involving a Motel 6 valet.

Subjects Discussed: Clarifying the provenance of “queen of the oddballs,” Chuck Barris, Rex Reed’s appearance on Dick Cavett, journals and ephemera, Liesl Schillinger’s review, on balancing the serious with the comic, cultural context and memory, the many forms of confession, on getting a blurb from Paul Reubens, the Oprah Book Club, a Voxxy postmortem, applying Hal Niedzviecki’s Hello, I’m Special to oddballs, the derivative status of current pop music, the needless prejudice against juggling and mimes, on being fired, “conquering” all “fired media,” a comical anthology as a tonic, and the similarities between getting canned in the entertainment industry and the current economy.

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