Where did the story for Slug Bearers come from?
Ben Katchor: By accident, I dropped a princess-style telephone on the floor. It broke open and I discovered that a small lead weight was screwed into the case. I wrote a one-page strip for Metropolis Magazine as an attempt to explain the existence of this weight, where it came from, its purpose and how it functions in the world. Also, I have always felt that the texts of instruction manuals were a form of found poetry. So Slug Bearers combines these two themes into a romance of humanitarianism and exploitation. Mark, you’ve been making influential music since the 80’s, first as the front man of the band Miracle Legion, and now with your solo shows and albums. Does Slug Bearers feel like a departure musically? Mark Mulcahy: Some of the stuff in here I could easily have just written as a song of my own, which I guess you’d call rock, but that’s such a broad category – maybe more of the folk presentation of rock music. The music in Slug Bearers keeps changing, and certain themes return wi
