Taboo Talk with Stephen R. Bissette

Stephen R. Bissette's Taboo

As promised, I'm back to regular postings!The second episode of Pod Sequentialism is posted and now you can subscribe on iTunes!

My guest this time is comic book artist, publisher and educator Stephen R. Bissette, perhaps best known for his work on Saga of the Swamp Thing, as well as his other collaborations with Alan Moore and John Totleben. I first met Steve as a teenager, and the very first piece of published comic book art I ever bought was one of his Swamp Thing pages.

A fellow New Englander, and an early advocate for self-publishing, Steve was one of the first comics industry professional I had ever met, and freely willing to demistify the business. His Spiderbaby Grafix imprint debuted Alan Moore's From Hell and Lost Girls as well as new works by Neil Gaiman, Charles Burns, Chester Brown, Eddie Campbell, Moebius, S. Clay Wilson, and Michael Zulli, while helping to launch the careers of Thomas Sniegoski and Mike Hoffman.

http://www.meltcomics.com/blog/category/pod-sequentialism/

Pod Sequentialism Espisode #02 is the deepest look behind the curtain that most comic fans will ever get. Bissette is an industry legend with over 40 years of experience in the business, and he speaks openly about the things that most pros are loathe to discuss. Steve gives up page rates and royalty agreements, reveals which publishers were the worst to work for, and gives an informal history of the direct distribution model.

We talk about the history of ‘zine culture, the risks and rewards of self-publishing, and how Frederic Wertham inspired pop surrealism.