Neil Gaiman in Conversation with Art Spiegelman

April 4, 2014
Sosnoff Theater
The Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts
Bard College

[@fabricatedreality8218]

Art Spiegelman is a genius and I thank him a million times for writing/drawing that wonderful book.

[@alexcarter8807]

In the 1970s, I call the latter half the "Starving Seventies", there was not a lot of happiness or joy in my house. But Spiegelman was a ray of sunshine. Before there was Maus, before there were The Garbage Pail Kids, there were Wacky Packages, by Spiegelman. Those things gave me so many laughs. The gum that came with them was just about inedible, but the laughs! Decomposition Notebook, Air-Raid, Boozo, those things were so funny!! I am eternally grateful to Mr. Spiegelman for bringing some light into my life during a hard time.

[@cha5]

"So you got to be a superhero on The Simpsons of course... I got to be a bad guy." X-D

[@NateSean]

He has to explain his reason to be on stage and talk to his audience, as if we wouldn't pay to watch him chew bubblegum for two hours.

[@susanadiasjohnson457]

👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿 O. M. G. TWO GENIUSES WHO INSPIRED MY LIFE, WHO I NEVER KNEW THAT THEY KNEW EACH OTHER. WATCHING TWO CREATIVE WRITERS TALK ABOUT WRITING AND THEIR LIVES --- TOTALLY EXTRAORDINARY. I KNEW THEM AS YOUNG ADULTS, WHEN THEY ALREADY WERE GENIUSES. HOW BIZARRELY WONDERFUL TO FIND THIS INTERVIEW.

[@19BrightLights]

comics as poetry and graphic design rather than writing and illustration is probably the most interesting thought i've ever heard about comics... excellent conversation from two very compelling artists !

[@joncarroll2040]

Someone once described comics dialogue as something like headlines written by a poet.

[@ChrisRalphHoward]

Love these two. It's always interesting to see what influenced different writers or artists. It's always a surprise.

[@mynar_lenahan]

Love the Commedian Harmonists. And it's really nice to see these guys, together on stage. It's cool to know they can be critical of each other, and still have a respect for one another. I get the idea that one could completely hate the work of the other, but still keep that respect, which is refreshing to see in public figures. Anyway, I think its weird so few people have seen this. Art kind of opened my eyes to reading comics critically, and about what's possible in the medium. Neil continues to open my eyes to a lot of other things, and its nice to hear Hansel and Gretel for the first time. Beautiful text.

[@ytubeanon]

Interesting, but if you're going to invite speakers who make the effort to bring visual aids, the cameraman should capture them, about half of what Spiegelman's talking about isn't shown.

[@joncarroll2040]

Most interviews I've watched with Art Spiegelman focus on the literary dimension of his work with some very superficial questions about the visual aspect (why mice?!?) It's really great to see him demonstrate that he's a genius of an artist as well as a writer.

[@pablobratcat]

The New Yorker cover he described is an object lesson in projection.

[@jochildress5003]

We have Steven Spielberg and the Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation to thank for the enabling of the Academy Award for Holocaust films. Formed during or immediately after and as a result of Schindler’s List, his foundation documented oral histories of over 50,000 stories of living Holocaust survivors.

[@alexcarter8807]

Yes! And you can look them up! So far my favorite is that of Baruch Burghman, but they are all diamonds.

[@jschiek8054]

MAD magazine saved my childhood.

[@mattcook7881]

Useless to complain, I know, but I hope the camera operator still occasionally has moments of guilt as penance for how frustrated I am right now over their decision to not, at least, just include the screen in the frame.

[@lolniceinreal]

godlike

[@maik.ol.m]

Im litrally going to implode on myself my 2 biggest influences talking to each other FOR AN HOUR?!? this is the greatest day of my life

[@pedrodiniz206]

For me 2 genius talking

[@mayaenglish5424]

15:58 Hahaha Exactly. When will they learn that a Taboo/Banned book list is really a recommended reading list?!

[@hecolas]

i need subtitles :(

[@mariamkinen8036]

Be back soon..

[@alanrobinson100]

I hate the camera person, so much insight- but where watching to sitting figures.

[@vollsticks]

Those fucking Will Elder "advertisements", Jesus Christ they don't look like they were created by a human hand, almost. And I mean that as a compliment! Like the Marlbrando "cigarette" ad, my God they're almost supernaturally perfect (actually seen the original of that piece). Compared to Spiegelman, wow it's like apples and oranges, my God he has the most rough-arsed line I've ever seen in a "professional" cartoonist. And not in a good, Gary Panter-esque way, unfortunately. I still enjoy his work, though. And this is the best "interview" with A.S I've ever seen, or read, for that matter, with the exception of the "generational head-to-head" with Kevin Huizenga from TCJ 300

[@tomasinacovell4293]

I make Ale and I'm a Jew too!

[@cavyherd7471]

Waaahhh! Slides? Wahhhhh.....

[@donreed7018]

Saluting the man who helped trash The New Yorker. Lovely. And fittingly, the event is held in the building that trashed the college campus.