Trimmings from the Craig Thompson Interview, Part The First #1

Getting an artist’s professional-life story down on tape can sometimes be quick work; documenting the evolution of that artist’s creative process across that career always takes a hideously long amount of time. This is probably why most journalists don’t do craft/process interviews.

Even at its final, mammoth size in Study Group Magazine #1, my “Where It’s Done” feature on Craig Thompson omitted a lot of interesting/amusing comments and conversations that he and I had over the course of our marathon interview session and subsequent followups. I plan to periodically stitch together some of the deleted material from the raw tapes and share them here. – milo

MILO GEORGE: Ever try spotting blacks with Q-tips?

CRAIG THOMPSON: People use Q-tips for that? I wonder if that’s how you get that perfect Kirby crackle.

MILO: I think so, depending on what size you’re drawing at.

CRAIG: I’ve always wondered how they get that effect. That would be one of many advantages of working in a place like Periscope Studio, where they know all those pen & ink techniques.

MILO: You’d have to call dibs on sitting near Steve Lieber; the last time I was there, it seemed like he was only who didn’t have a laptop and a WACOM tablet on his desk.

CRAIG: Being in a room of WACOM tablets would be very depressing.