Cuddles and Rage talk Bites of Terror - their new horror comic

by Mike Rhode

Cuddles and Rage (aka Jimmy and Liz Reed) have a new book coming out soon, but it's not a friendly little children's book. Instead it's 144 pages of horror comics starring anthropomorphic food. 

As their press release states - 

Tales from the Crypt meets All My Friends Are Dead in Bites of Terror: 10 Frightfully Delicious Tales (Quirk Books; On sale: March 24, 2020) by the creative duo Cuddles and Rage, also known as Liz and Jimmy Reed. The team’s adorably creepy work began as a webcomic and has been featured everywhere from Nerdist to the Washington Post. Now they’re bringing their unique combination of adorable hand-sculpted characters, meticulously designed dioramas, and photographed panels to a graphic novel that’s sure to delight anyone with a dark sense of humor. In the book’s foreword, Fangoria magazine’s Phil Nobile, Jr. notes that Cuddles and Rage is “a brilliant storytelling duo that examines the human condition through stories about anthropomorphic foods who live rich, full, hilarious, and often relatable lives.”  

From an ice cream cone who makes an ill-fated deal with the devil(’s food cake) to a moldy strawberry craving one last dip in a bowl of whipped cream, Bites of Terror’s characters find themselves caught in various fear-filled scenarios, each with a uniquely morbid twist ending. Introducing the tales is the Cake Creeper, a partially eaten groom’s cake who seems to have a sinister agenda. Here’s a sampling of sinful stories to whet your appetite:

• 

   Deviled Egg: A freak accident has a Jekyll-and-Hyde effect, leaving a hard-boiled egg split in two sides—one good, one evil.
• Pizza Party Massacre: A pizza slice working in children’s entertainment reluctantly agrees to attend a last-minute birthday party at a previous client’s house, the site of a violent incident.
• Death by Chocolate: At the request of his police chief, a turnip detective grudgingly allows a banana from the press to tail him as he investigates a murder spree perpetrated by a killer who removes the chocolate from his tasty victims.
   Unfortunate Cookie: After his mother’s death, a fortune cookie gains her gift of second sight, but his newfound knowledge may be more curse than blessing.  
• Preserved: A peach tries to keep her life and household afloat while dealing with the incessant criticism and neediness of her mother (and roommate).

In our two previous interviews in 2013 and 2016, I don't think we ever firmly pinned this down. For the record, which one of you is Cuddles and which is Rage? 

Liz: Personality wise, we go back and forth.  Originally, Liz was Rage & Jimmy was Cuddles.

Jimmy: It’s definitely a rotating situation. I feel lucky that we have each other to keep the balance in check. 

Where does the name come from anyway?

Liz: “Cuddles” and “Rage” were nicknames we created for each other when we would co-op game together. I can confirm that you are more successful at gaming when you lead with cuddles instead of rage. I died a lot, but Jimmy was always there to revive me. 

When last we chatted you were publishing comics on HelloGiggles website. When did you stop doing work for it? Are you doing work for any other web publication now? 

Liz: We shared our work there for about two years ending mid-2015. We are so thankful to Zooey Deschanel, Sophia Rossi, and Molly McAleer for the time our comics did live there. They created a platform that lifted a lot of female creators to another level. I don’t think we’d be where we are today without their support. Right now our work is posted on our own site and social accounts, but we’ve done work for a number of other publications and platforms and love collaborating on new projects. 

Your new book, Bites of Terror, is a blend of humor and horror. In 2016, you said " the old days of Cuddles and Rage were pretty dark."  Did you purposefully decide to return to that darkness after 2 children's books? Or were the stories just coming out darker, and you decided to embrace it? 

 Liz: Over the years, Jimmy and I have worked hard on fine tuning our voice to match our “quirky stories with heart” mantra. With the picture books, we originally wanted them to be darker, but the stories for that age group needed more cuddles than rage. I love that those stories bring smiles instead of nightmares to kids. I hope we will have an opportunity to write some creepy kidlit one day. After writing each picture book, we would animate a new Dr. Taquito short to unleash all the dark humor brewing inside our hearts. For me, horror is my true love. Bites of Terror gave us the opportunity to create darker stories fit for the whole family to enjoy. This is where we want to be. 

Jimmy: I agree, we are huge fans of horror. We’re always writing weirder and darker stories for ourselves. I love that we’ve been able to embrace those aspects of our storytelling with Bites of Terror.
What are your influences here? The original EC comics in this mode, or the later DC ones like House of Mystery, or the Tales from the Crypt tv shows?

 Liz: I grew up watching Tales from the Crypt with my mom. That was really my first experience with horror anthologies. Since then I’ve consumed every horror anthology I can get my hands on. They are the perfect length for a quick fix or a long binge watch. In writing the proposal for Bites of Terror, I read a lot of the EC comics and dissected how the stories unfolded. You can’t beat the classics. Watching the HBO Tales does make me clutch my pearls at times now. Was I too young to be watching something so revealing in the 90s? This is a question I’m saving for my mom next Christmas.

 Jimmy: I also grew up watching horror with my mom. It’s something that Liz and I discovered that we had in common early in our relationship. We’re huge film fans, and some of our influences there were horror anthologies like Tales from the Crypt, Cat’s Eye, Creepshow, Trilogy of Terror, and Tales from the Hood.  I have always gravitated toward compilations where you get to sample multiple stories. I’m that way at a buffet, too - I’m putting a little bit of everything on that plate! 

 Who takes the lead in writing the spookier stories? The sweeter ones? 

 Liz: We each wrote five stories. It surprises me to say this, but I think Jimmy may have some of the darker stories in there. Young. Old. Sweet. Sour. Nobody was safe from Jimmy’s words. My stories focused a lot on relationships and life. Our 14-year-old dog passed away while we were writing Bites of Terror. My life had been flipped upside down. Getting lost in the writing during that time was very therapeutic—although some of the early drafts read a little too sad at times.

Jimmy: I think we found a nice balance between us in giving each story its own voice. We each gave a few of our characters some sweeter moments, but we also both put a few of them through the emotional wringer. No food is safe around here. 

Who does the character design? 

Liz: We typically designed the characters for our respective stories, but Jimmy did most of the heavy lifting there. I focused on sculpting and sets.

Jimmy: For most of the characters, we tried to use the story that was happening to them to help guide their character design. A curmudgeonly old carton of milk needs to have some big, bushy eyebrows. The Cake Creeper was a big collaboration between us. He’s my favorite character in the book. 

How many media did you use in the new book? I see clay, photography, drawing & paper cutting (the "Make a Wish" title panel). 

Liz: Oh gosh! I lost count. Clay, liquid clay, silicone, foam, acrylics, pastels, wire, wood, paper, gel, inks, foil, sticks, foam board, old clothes, cardboard, cotton, steel wool, spray paint, felt, cabinet liners, mesh bags from produce and tons of miscellaneous trash. It got to the point where I had to accept that maybe some of this stuff was more trash than art. 

Are all these stories new for the book? 

Liz: All new stories. A few of them were inspired by our older comics. 

Are you going to collect your earlier webcomic material? 

Jimmy: We have self-published a few compilations for our convention appearances, but would love the opportunity to put a comprehensive volume together.  

Are you still going to local cons? 

Liz: Yes! Our next local con is Awesome Con DC in May. We always love doing Small Press Expo too in September.

Jimmy: We love the local comics community, and our local conventions have such a great mix of artists. We watch the table for each other so we can shop and always walk away with a bag full of new books and art. 

Are those grape neighbors throwing away raisins? Any other food 'easter eggs' included (besides the deviled egg story)? 

Liz: Yes. The cycle of life is quite short for those little guys. We hid mini jokes throughout the entire book. We even included Middle-Aged Pig who we sneak into every book we make.

See Cuddles and Rage:

Cuddles and Rage Presents Beetlejuice at The Alamo Drafthouse, Winchester, VA - March 26 at 7:15pm

Fountain Books Signing, 1312 East Cary St. Richmond, VA 23219 - March 28 at 2pm

Fantom Comics Signing, Washington, DC - April 11, 2pm

Third Eye Comics Signing (date TBD)

To keep up with C&R:
Disturbingly cute stuff by Liz & Jimmy Reed
Follow us on Twitter: @cuddlesandrage 
Follow us on Instagram: @cuddlesandrage 

Follow us on YouTube: CuddlesAndRage

Latest comic on The Lily

Do you remember LiveJournal? It was an essential part of my teenage identity.

Back in 2005, I'd spend hours reading what others had written

Caitlin Cass

February 23 2020

https://www.thelily.com/do-you-remember-livejournal-it-was-an-essential-part-of-my-teenage-identity/

Bruce Guthrie on UVA's Oliphant exhibit

by Bruce Guthrie

I went down to Charlottesville this weekend to see the new Oliphant exhibit there.  While there, I met with Molly Schwartzburg who was co-curator of the exhibit that I had been sending emails to regarding photo policies and such.  We had a good chat!

This is the official exhibit description:

Oliphant: Unpacking the Archive
September 23, 2019 – May 30, 2020
Celebrating the recent acquisition of editorial cartoonist Patrick Oliphant’s voluminous archive

In 2018, Patrick and Susan Oliphant donated almost 7,000 drawings, watercolors, prints, sculptures, and sketchbooks to the UVA Library. Complementing the art is a wealth of archival material: correspondence, photographs, professional papers, scrapbooks, and recordings. This, the first exhibition to juxtapose the archive with Oliphant’s artwork, shows how and why Oliphant became the most widely syndicated, most influential political cartoonist in America, shaping the political consciousness of generations.

What happens when a great artist takes up the profession of political cartooning and deploys all the weapons in his considerable arsenal to send a message? Endowed with a skepticism of the status quo, a love of drawing, and little formal training, Oliphant began his career at eighteen as a copy boy in Adelaide, Australia. When he joined the Denver Post in 1964 he introduced a linear fluency and wit—a studied awareness of adversary traditions from Hogarth, Goya, and Daumier to David Low—as well as an expansive imagination and conceptual reach as yet unknown to American newspaper audiences.

Oliphant’s swift rise to prominence, including a Pulitzer Prize in 1967, was followed by five decades of sustained, uncompromising work. From Watergate to Bridgegate, from Duoshade to digital delivery, and from the ephemeral newspaper cartoon to the lasting medium of bronze, Oliphant’s work both embraces its immediate context and transcends the particulars of time, place, and medium to reify universal traits of human character.

Today is a moment of great change for political commentary and visual satire. As newspapers continue to fold or merge, and the number of staff editorial cartoonists drops from hundreds to dozens nationally, Oliphant’s archive will be essential for understanding the place of political cartoons in newsprint’s last decades of dominance, and inspiring paths forward in an era of turbulent uncertainty.

It's a wonderful exhibit, filled with bunches of his daily strips, his sculptures, etc. 

For me, the major disappointment was that most of the artwork were reproductions.  Apparently, the originals were hung for the first couple of months when it opened in September, but were then rotated out.  The signage was not changed to reflect this so I'm not entirely sure what was original and what wasn't.  That's not the way it's supposed to be in a research library.

But ignoring that, there is a lot to love about the exhibit:

• The sketchbooks -- so many sketchbooks! -- are wonderful.  There's even one (clearly a reproduction) that you can pick up and look through.  Pat drew everything! 
• There's a huge doodle picture on an easel that's just amazing.  Between classic drawings are phone numbers, addresses, and appointment reminders.
• The sculptures -- two of which are downstairs -- are great.  The National Portrait Gallery has copies of most of them too, but they all went off display when the presidential gallery was reorganized.
• There's a free poster and a fairly modest brochure.  Both feature a self-portrait that he did for San Diego Comic-Con back in 2009. That was the one that I sat next to his wife Susan during his talk while he drew obscene things on his writing tablet (Susan kept covering her eyes during the demo).
• The history lesson about growing up in Australia and coming here on assignment were interesting.  I always wondered why he was here.
• There was a display about Punk, the penguin character that visits most of his strips.  Punk has been around.... well, hell, almost forever.  It's his signature like Ralph Steadman's splatter.  And like at Steadman's Katzen exhibit, you'll find Punk on the walls in something like ten places throughout the building including on floor landings and in the elevator.  (Some Katzen folk got splatters added to their business cards.  I'm not sure that happened with Punk.)

They did a really nice job and it's well worth the trip.  Plus that library also has an interesting exhibit about the Declaration of Independence and offset printing. 

I of course did my normal photo obsessive thing -- so many photos! -- and they're up on http://www.bguthriephotos.com/graphlib.nsf/keys/2020_02_20B2_UVAL_Oliphant

Flugennock's Latest'n'Greatest: "In Case Of Bernie..."

From DC's anarchist cartoonist Mike Flugennock -

"In Case Of Bernie..."
http://sinkers.org/stage/?p=2935

Looks like Bernie Sanders is on a roll already, building up steam heading into the Nevada Caucuses, and that can only mean one thing – it's time to drag out Russiagate again, and like our heroic "first responders" the US media are right on top of things, trying to put out the fire.

What really bugs me about this, though — and along with running as a Democrat, it made Sanders a non-starter for me — is how Sanders, despite all the centrist galaxy brains accusing him of being a Russian stooge, has actually been riding the Krazy Train almost since the beginning.

Really, Berners — is this your goddamn hero, the guy who's going to  lead your asses out of the desert? A guy who buys into the empty Russiagate hype, lets himself be rolled and Red-baited, and then bends the knee to a bunch of McCarthyists? Really?

Christ, you guys are going to get so goddamn screwed again — screwed blue and tattooed —  and I, for one, am out of sympathy for you.

---------

"Sanders condemns Russian interference in 2020 elections", Politico 2.21.2020
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/21/bernie-sanders-condemns-russian-116640

"Bernie Sanders briefed by U.S. officials that Russia is trying to help his presidential campaign", Washington Post 02.21.2020
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/bernie-sanders-briefed-by-us-officials-that-russia-is-trying-to-help-his-presidential-campaign/2020/02/21/5ad396a6-54bd-11ea-929a-64efa7482a77_story.html

PR: Meet Ben Percy, the writer of WOLVERINE & X-FORCE today at Third Eye Annapolis!

Can't make it? Look inside for signed comic pre-orders!

TODAY! Meet comics superstar Ben Percy (X-FORCE, NIGHTWING) at our huge WOLVERINE #1 Launch Signing! Sunday 2/23/20  11AM-1PM - ANNAPOLIS Click here for full info Pre-Order WOLVERINE #1 variants by clicking here! Can't make it? You can order signed copies by clicking here! Read more about other projects by clicking here. STAY CONNECTED   ‌ ‌ ‌

Third Eye Comics | 2027A WEST ST, Suite 102, Annapolis, MD 21401 Try email marketing for free today!

Commentary: Alexandra Bowman of Georgetown's "The Hilltop Show" Responds to Callout and Critics

by Alexandra Bowman

Ms. Bowman is a 19-year-old student, political cartoonist, and humorist at Georgetown University. We interviewed her last December. When I met her in person last weekend, she told me about a minor university controversy about a pulp paperback book collection in a GU dorm library that had started to go national due to Brietbart picking it up. I offered her space at ComicsDC for her response. For the record, I'm in my mid-50s and grew up with many of the books pictured in the Georgetown Review story around the house, I have read some of them, and I personally do not find them generally offensive myself. However, I do believe that she and her colleagues have a right to make their opinions known without being trolled. And at least one of the books, The Cunning Linguist, is genuinely hardcore pornography. - Mike Rhode

Launched in fall 2019, The Hilltop Show is Georgetown University's political comedy show. Our team aims to make current campus, national, and international events accessible and entertaining to those who might not typically engage with the news - including not only students but the broader Georgetown community and beyond. In line with this mission, we publish journalistic pieces as well as comedic sketches and interviews with political practitioners and comedians. 

I founded the show last April. I write sketches and "informational monologues" (the thing John Oliver does), conduct and coordinate journalistic investigations, organize film shoots, edit videos in Adobe Premiere, and conduct outreach and PR for the Show. I create our graphics, drawing many by hand with traditional and digital media, like our Season 2 poster:

The Hilltop Show meets in a study space in a dorm that would be more accurately described as a glorified broom closet. Until a few weeks ago, the space included a bookshelf, on which were hundreds of books have been there since 2003 when the dorm opened and an alum donated them. During a weekly team meeting, we noticed one book that caught our eye, entitled Cherokee, which depicted a young Native American girl on the cover illustrated not only in an objectifying way but also with blood on her clothes. Upon further inspection, we realized that at least one of the books was hardcore pornography, but many others of them included derogatory racial elements and glamorized rape, including that of underage girls. We asked the university and multiple organizations if they were aware of the books and if they had any background knowledge of their origins, and within hours of one of our emails being sent, every book disappeared from the dorm library. 

The Hilltop Show partners with an independent student media publication on campus, The Georgetown Review, and we worked with them to publish a journalistic report based on The Hilltop Show's research and the events that had transpired. The Show also filmed and published a sketch (a Goodfella's parody) on the same day the books were removed. 

Shortly thereafter, the university newspaper, The Hoya, published an article that included a statement from me, with some remarks indicated as representative of the team's views and some as my own. As I noted to them, "While some were simply raucous crime noir murder mysteries representative of the literary and cultural time in which they were written, other books included extremely problematic and damaging elements, including the glamorization of rape, including that of underage girls. Completely naked women of all races were frequently featured on these books' covers. Further, many books fetishized young nonwhite women." 

The books were typical of the time in which they were written, but our main question was whether the university knew that they were present considering that the books' racist and pornographic content, regardless of when the books where written, could be harmful to those who read them. Several young children under the age of ten live in the buildings where these books were kept, not far out of their reach.

I'd point to how Disney has approached the issue of many of their older films containing culturally outdated and racist elements. On the new streaming service Disney+, films with these elements have warnings in their descriptions.  For example, on the 1967 film "The Jungle Book," the following lines are included in the description of the film: "This program is presented as originally created. It may contain outdated cultural depictions."  I believe that even a small plaque on the walls of the McCarthy and Reynolds library with a similar sentiment would have been enough. When we reached out to the university, we didn't want the books to ultimately be removed. We wanted them to be contextualized in a similar way to how Disney has handled such content typical of mid-20th century media.

Conservative higher education news site The College Fix published a laughably biased article, which was not based in fact nor particularly concerned with providing much context for the situation whatsoever. Breitbart apparently then noticed this article and then wrote one of their own based on the College Fix's report. 

Breitbart reported the story in a way that suits the narratives popular with their reader base. Their report paints the story thus: liberal snowflake college students complained when something offended them, and the university folded and banned the books those students whined about. The image accompanying the article, a photo of books engulfed in flame, has prompted thousands of commenters to compare what we did - which was to raise questions to the university regarding the presence of dime novels that glamorize rape and pedophilia - to Nazi book burnings. 

Brietbart's article has been shared over 38,500 times as of February 20th. Over 11,000 comments have been left. 

The Hilltop Show has released a statement via a tweet commenting on the Breitbart article: 

"First, we didn't want the books removed altogether. We wanted them contextualized. Censorship? Nope. Second, if you're a fan of keeping books around that glamorize rape and pedophilia, we have Some Concerns. Something tells us you didn't read @thegureview's actual report."

I'd like to conclude by saying that we are more entertained by our Breitbart callout by anything else. After all, Breitbart has now called the Hilltop Show a "crack research team." Rest assured that "Crack Research Team Member" T-shirts are currently being designed. Cheers.

More information about The Hilltop Show can be found on our website, hilltopshow.com where you can also sign up for our newsletter. Our YouTube channel is linked here. We post updates, political cartoons, memes, and more on our social media pages: we are @hilltopshow on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. As our slogan states, we will continue to #capitalizeonthechaos. 

Editorial Cartoon by Steve Artley

Feb 26: Pixar's Head of Story, Kelsey Mann at Corcoran

Onward: Meet and Greet with Pixar's Head of Story, Kelsey Mann

Meet Kelsey Mann, Head of Story at Pixar, on Wednesday, February 26 at 4 p.m. in the Hammer Auditorium. Kelsey was the story supervisor on the 2013 feature film, Monster's University and has worked on Toy Story 3 and The Good Dinosaur. He will be talking about Onward, released in theaters on March 6, 2020. RSVP here.

Set in a suburban fantasy world, Disney and Pixar's Onward introduces two teenage elf brothers who embark on an extraordinary quest to discover if there is still a little magic left out there.

[We've talked to GWU's organizer and there are spaces for non-students available]

Latest Liz at Large in print and online at City Paper

Liz At Large: "Growing"

Plant the seeds.

Liz Montague

Washington City Paper Feb 20, 2020

https://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/arts/article/21117328/liz-at-large-growing

Pop Culture Happy Hour on Sonic the Hedgehog

'Sonic The Hedgehog' And Fan Service

Glen Weldon

• Stephen Thompson

  Petra Mayer

  Tasha Robinson

Pop Culture Happy Hour February 21, 2020

https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=807888168

https://play.podtrac.com/npr-510282/edge1.pod.npr.org/anon.npr-podcasts/podcast/npr/pchh/2020/02/20200221_pchh_pchh_633_sonic_the_hedgehog__-_final-da06b0f9-643f-44ce-aabd-ec968762c806.mp3

Ben Schwartz voices the titular Sonic in the new movie Sonic the Hedgehog.

Courtesy Paramount Pictures and Sega of America.

The new movie Sonic the Hedgehog is about this hedgehog — who runs fast. Ben Schwartz voices the Hedgehog, Jim Carrey is the evil Dr. Robotnik, and James Marsden is also in there somewhere. When the film's trailer first dropped last fall, Sonic's appearance — the legs! the teeth! — creeped a lot of people out. The studio went back and redesigned the character completely, which got us thinking about the power of fan reaction.

Dead Reckoning's Churchill reviewed at ICv2

REVIEW: 'CHURCHILL: A GRAPHIC BIOGRAPHY' GN

ICv2 Stars: 4.5 (out of 5)

Posted by Nick Smith on February 21, 2020

https://icv2.com/articles/reviews/view/45224/review-churchill-a-graphic-biography-gn

Flugennock's Latest'n'Greatest: "Jackpot!"

From Mike Flugennock, DC's anarchist cartoonist..

"Jackpot!"
http://sinkers.org/stage/?p=2928

What happens in Vegas isn't staying in Vegas THIS time, folks. The word is out about The Skanky App Developed By The Skanky App  Developers Partially Funded By The Buttigieg Campaign. This time, it's another off-the-shelf Google product — an allegedly "secure Google web  form" running on a batch of iPads purchased by the DNC, or "dPads", as it were.

An associate professor of CompSci at the University of Iowa promptly went into "OK Boomer" mode, blaming the age of the poll workers (70)  instead of perhaps considering their over-engineered with built-in security vulns cheesy-ass Google "app" which is basically a hammer in  search of a nail, and a disaster waiting to happen so obvious that it's got a goddamn lampshade hanging on it.

Gotta love this closing paragraph, though, with the money quote from some flack at the Alliance For Securing Democracy (spit) — basically, "if you're cynical about the state of American 'democracy' and refuse to participate in elections, then the terrorists win":

      "Regardless of the challenges that may exist in administering the election, I think it's incumbent on any Nevadan who wants to participate in the caucus to do so," Levine said. "If you are not participating for that reason, that's a win for our adversaries, both domestic and foreign."

D'ahh, fuck this noise; I'm gonna go check out Lou Rawls at the bar...

--------------

"Campaigns Warn Of Chaos Ahead Of Nevada Caucuses", Washington Post 02.18.20
https://www.inquirer.com/politics/nation/nevada-caucuses-trump-democrats-iowa-20200217.html

"Tech for Nevada Caucuses Under Scrutiny after Iowa debacle", The Hill  02.17.20
https://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/483202-tech-for-nevada-caucuses-under-scrutiny-after-iowa-debacle

"Not a great look: Failed Iowa caucus app is deeply linked to self-declared winner Buttigieg… and Hillary Clinton", Danielle Ryan at 
RT, 02.04.20 https://www.rt.com/op-ed/480068-buttigieg-iowa-app-shadow/

Alliance for Securing Democracy, https://securingdemocracy.gmfus.org/

Library of Congress opens Anne Mergen’s Editorial Cartoons

Ready for Research: Anne Mergen's Editorial Cartoons

Martha H. Kennedy

Library of Congress' Picture This blog February 20, 2020

https://blogs.loc.gov/picturethis/2020/02/ready-for-research-anne-mergens-editorial-cartoons/

Robin Ha interviewed for The Beat

INTERVIEW: In ALMOST AMERICAN GIRL, the universal language of comics connected Robin Ha to her new culture

Coming-of-age in the South and learning to embrace the Korean-American identity

Nancy Powell

01/31/2020

https://www.comicsbeat.com/interview-robin-ha-almost-american-girl/

Robin should be on Southern Fried Asian podcast soon, and I found this 2018 interview when looking for it.

Episode 025: Robin Ha

Keith Chow

Southern Fried Asian  July 18, 2018

https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/southern-fried-asian/episode-025-robin-ha-LH49relasPh/

Southern Fried Asian with comic book illustrator and the creator of the bestselling graphic novel cookbook Cook Korean, Robin Ha.

Robin reveals the secret origin of Cook Korean (1:45) and explains why Korean food is so popular right now (11:00). Then, Robin describes what it was like moving from Seoul, Korea to Huntsville, Alabama at age 14 (22:00) and living among the city's Korean population... or lack thereof (28:00). Later, she explains how the local comic book store in Huntsville literally changed her life (35:00) and how she eventually taught herself to cook (37:00). Finally, Robin shares some Alabama food memories and her fascination with drive-through fast food places like Sonic (42:45).

March 14: Local comics collective Square City Comics public meeting

MAR 14 2020

SCC March Meeting

https://www.facebook.com/events/649917672430258/

· Hosted by Square City Comics

• Saturday, March 14, 2020 at 1:30 PM – 4:30 PM

• National Gallery of Art East Building 4th and Pennsylvania Ave, Washington D.C. 20565 Details Come hang out for our March monthly meeting. Come talk shop with your fellow DMV area cartoonists. We will meet in the Terrace Cafe at the National Gallery of Art, which is located in the East building. Note: Large bags have to be checked at the front desk, so if possible try to limit your bag size to a backpack, or allow for extra time. And we are bumping back the start time by a half hour to try to avoid the lunch rush. See you there! Here is a link to the Terrace Cafe site for your reference: https://www.nga.gov/visit/cafes/terrace-cafe.html

March 7: Strange Adventures Signing w/ Tom King and Mitch Gerads at Fantom Comics

Update 3/4/20: Mitch Gerard won't attend due to illness.

MAR 7 2020

Strange Adventures Signing w/ Tom King and Mitch Gerads

https://www.facebook.com/events/221406155556619/

· Hosted by Fantom Comics

• Saturday, March 7, 2020 at 6:30 PM – 8:30 PM

• Fantom Comics 2010 P St NW, 3rd Floor, Washington D.C. 20036 Tom King and Mitch Gerads reunite for Strange Adventures, telling the story of Adam Strange as a man of two worlds. We're happy to announce that Tom will be returning and Mitch will be here for the first time! Signing will follow a podcast discussion with Julian Lytle of IGNORANT BLISS. We ask that all attendees limit themselves to 2 items per person for signing with a possibility that the creators may have time to let folks back in line for other items. Strange Adventures #1 will be released Wednesday, 3/4 and is available for pre-order at Fantom Comics now!