The good people at the Portland Mercury have a fantastic interview up with Matt Fraction, the man responsible for writing Casanova, pretty much my favorite comic book right now. There’s an equally good interview with Fraction up over at Comics Alliance, as well as this one in GQ. The last of those includes the following quote, which has been running through my head for the last couple of weeks:
For all the bravado and, what you call it, callow youthfulness behind the idea of “Do it yourself!,” at the end of the day, there’s a time in your life when you absolutely can, and there’s a time in your life when you’re married and you have a mortgage and a baby or two babies and you need diapers and food and it’s just like, “I can’t do that, I can’t work for free anymore.” It’s not like anybody’s getting rich. It’s not like “Well, I need a BMW.” No—I need to pay my light bill. That’s the reality of it.
The backmatter this time out — short essays on work that was, in some ways, influential to Casanova — is reminiscent of Fraction’s work as critic and and enthusiast at Artbomb and CBR’s Poplife. Good stuff all around, I’d say.
I have a second copy of the first reissued issue, should anyone want it. Casanova‘s the sort of thing I feel borderline evangelical about; the reissued second issue is out today, and there’s a preview here.