Comics Alternative Interviews: Jason Shiga
Episode description
Time Codes:
- 00:24 - Introduction
- 02:12 - Setup of interview
- 03:50 - Interview with Jason Shiga
- 58:26 - Wrap up
- 59:54 - Contact us
For this interview episode, Paul and Derek have the pleasure of talking with Jason Shiga. The first volume in his Demon series comes out this week from First Second, and the cartoonist goes into a lot of detail about the efforts that eventually led to this publication. As listeners of the podcast well know -- since Demon was first discussed on the show back in December 2014 -- the title began as a webcomic, with Jason self-publishing individual issues in pamphlet form as the story progressed. This endeavor eventually caught the attention of First Second, and now we have the first in a four-volume paperback series.
The guys spend most of their time discussing the unique premise of Demon, a fast-paced adventure that questions our foundations of morality, and artist's continued use of his protagonist Jimmy Yee. This is a character that readers might recognize from earlier works such as Bookhunter, Empire State, and Meanwhile, and Jason describes his narrating strategies as similar to Tezuka's star system. Paul and Derek also ask Jason about his penchant for experimenting with form, his use of the webcomics platform, and his ambitious new project, "The Box."