Is Seattle taking part in something that’s reflected nationally, this performance/alternative press thing?
BB: Absolutely. I’d been talking about setting up some sort of national circuit for years and years, getting addresses of shops and so forth. Of course, they start up and go out of business quickly – See Hear in New York just closed, and they were one of the venerable stores… We had talked about setting up some sort of a circuit and I had discussed it with my friend Juliet Torres who works at Last Gasp and publishes a series of minicomics that pairs comics artists with slam poets together. Dave Lasky’s done those, Ivan Brunetti’s done those – and we were talking about it and he turns around and does it, which is great. So he added us to the west coast list right away. How interrelated are the Seattle and Portland cartooning and comics communities? BB: Just in terms of output – Craig Thompson lives there and he’s pretty well known nationally; he’s gotten really big since the release of Blankets. Our big one right now – obviously Pete Bagge lives here, he doesn’t publish as much as he us
