R. Sikoryak is a artistic chameleon who got his start in comics with the Art Spiegelman - Francoise Mouly compilation RAW, designed covers for the New Yorker, and created the G.W.Bush "Decider" character for The Daily Show.  His new book Masterpiece Comics boasts a hilarious and eye-opening collection of "mashups" in which such classic literary figures as Franz Kafka's Gregor Samsa find their iconic counterparts in the likes of Peanuts' Charlie Brown.

This audio file is the membership drive version of R. Sikoryak's appearance on Words & Pictures.  An expanded version of the interview will be added to the site soon.

S.W. Conser welcomes Stumptown Comics Festival director Shannon Stewart and Stumptown Comic Book Foundation president Kaebel Hashitani to talk about upcoming events this month — including the cartoon art show at the Portland Center for Performing Arts and the Comics Fest April 24-25 — now that City Hall has kicked off the third annual Portland Comic Book Month.

Portland artist and self-styled "war junkie" Joe Sacco has carved out a niche in the publishing world for his war reportage comics.  For twenty years Sacco has plunged into global hot spots to bring back detailed graphic stories of civilian bystanders.  His books include Safe Area Gorazde, Notes From a Defeatist, and Palestine, which won him an American Book Award and led to a Guggenheim Fellowship.  His latest book Footnotes in Gaza takes us back to the Palestinian refugee camps to reveal first-hand accounts of a massacre that was officially suppressed for fifty years. 

Syncopated is a new anthology of non-fiction "picto-essays" created by a broad range of contemporary comics artists, including Alec Longstreth and Sarah Glidden, who join host S.W. Conser to discuss this unique storytelling form.