Drawn! The Illustration and Cartooning Blog

This month, the amazing illustrator, Jillian Tamaki releases Skim, her first full-length graphic novel.

The story (written by Jillian’s cousin, Mariko) follows an angst-ridden teenager through a particularly turbulent semester of highschool; in a year marked by suicide of a classmate and a romance with an English teacher.

You can check out a six-page preview here.

I asked Jillian what she listens to while she’s working in the studio. I’ve already become hooked on some of her great audio suggestions. Here’s what she said (*I added the boldface to help you scan the essay):

I have a confession.

I listen to public radio. Lots and lots of public radio. Enough radio to hear the programming loop once or even twice in a day. Sam bought me a satellite radio for Christmas two years ago and it only fueled my addiction: I’ve gone through two radios in two years. How do you WEAR OUT a radio?! Virtually all my work is created to a soundtrack of streamed National Public Radio (NPR) and The Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC) programming. For this list I will highlight some of my favourite shows available on podcasts. All are available via iTunes.

This American Life
This American Life is pretty much everyone’s favourite public radio show and is a good place to start for the uninitiated. Each week’s show has a theme and contains several stories related to that theme in some way. Most stories involve some sort of acute observation on modern minutiae that makes you feel good and/or thought-provoked. This show is pure comfort food and the gold standard for comics-making (especially if you consider Chris Ware was, for a long time, provided the graphics for their printed and online material).

More images and audio suggestions after the jump.

Ideas
Ideas is a venerable radio show that’s been on the CBC for over forty years. Each show tackles a single issue, which range from science to politics to the humanities, and pretty much everything in between. I mean, really, where else can you get a three-hour radio programme about the work of literary translators? This show is great for deep, concentrated work like inking. You will be amazed how much information you will retain when you’re in zombie-mode. That’s why radio is better than music: music won’t make you smarter. Not even if you were played Mozart while you were in the womb. Sorry.

The Splendid Table
Even when you’re on deadline, you’ve gotta eat. So you might as well eat well. I’m obsessed with this foodie radio show and its host Lynne Rossetto Kasper, who is a walking encyclopedia of culinary knowledge. Lynne has this segment where people will call in with random questions about food (Q: “Once, I had pickled pumpkin in Germany. How do I make it?”) and she can always answer without fail (A: “Toss chopped pumpkin and onions with ice and coarse salt. Drain. Boil with peppercorn, vinegar, sugar, garlic, tumeric, mustard seed. Put in jars.”).

Radio Lab
I’m fairly new to this show, but I enjoy it a lot. It’s sort of like a hybrid of This American Life and a science programme. They will often take broad theme (Morality, Laughter, Deception, etc) and explore it from scientific, sociological or even metaphysical angles. They use unconventional production and fun sound effects. Get it? It’s a Radio Laboratory! It’s really well done and features Robert Krulwich as co-host, who is a public radio legend and has a very pleasing manner. They only produce 5 shows per season (they’re THAT good) . So you have to savour them.

In Our Time
In Our Time is a really intense BBC show about big concepts, spanning the spheres of culture, science, and history. It’s like Ideas on crack. You won’t know half of the topics the host, Melvyn Bragg, and his professorial guests discuss (“The Nicene Creed”, “The Permian-Triassic Boundary”, “The Multiverse”), but that’s half the fun. This show is strictly for times when you’re feeling really alert and intelligent. Don’t even try it if you’re penciling; this one is best left for menial work like doing separations or scanning in artwork.

Also of interest:
Jillian Tamaki’s blog
Gilded Lilies, by Jillian Tamaki
StudioTunes – Jellaby by Kean Soo