Author Description

Peter Kuper (b. 1958) is one of the country’s leading cartoonists. His artwork has graced the pages and covers of numerous newspapers and magazines, including <i>Time</i>, the <i>New Yorker</i>, <i>Mother Jones</i>, and the <i>New York Times</i>. He is a longtime contributor to <i>Mad</i> magazine, where he has been writing and drawing <i>Spy vs. Spy</i> for two decades, and the cofounder and coeditor of <i>World War 3 Illustrated</i>, the cutting-edge magazine devoted to political graphic art.<br><br>Most of the interviews collected here are either previously unpublished or long out of print. They address such varied topics as world travels, teaching at Harvard, Hollywood deal-making, climate change, <i>Spy vs. Spy</i>, New York City in the 1970s and 1980s, and <i>World War 3 Illustrated</i>. Among the works examined are his books <i>The System</i>, <i>Sticks and Stones</i>, <i>Stop Forgetting to Remember</i>, <i>Diario de Oaxaca</i>, and adaptations of Franz Kafka’s <i>The Metamorphosis</i> and Upton Sinclair’s <i>The Jungle</i>. Kuper also discusses his graphic novel <i>Ruins</i>, which received the Eisner Award for Best New Graphic Novel in 2016.<br><br>Along with two dozen images, this volume features ten lively, informative interviews as well as a quartet of revealing conversations, conducted in collaboration with Kuper’s fellow artist Seth Tobocman, with underground comix legends Robert Crumb and Vaughn Bodé, <i>Mad</i> magazine publisher William Gaines, and Jack Kirby.