The Village Gossip has a bag of 64 questions...every visitor who comes past must answer a totally random selection of these, the first twenty pulled from the bag.
This week Natalie d’Arbeloff drops by. Creator of The God Interviews (which is readily available from lulu.com; or, in the UK: GOSH, The Cartoon Museum, Page 45 and Owl Bookshop in Kentish Town). Natalie will be talking about self-publishing and how this book went from an online strip to a print-on-demand publication on 24th February at the Torriano Meeting House in London (more details on this in Parish News). For more info on The God Interviews, check out the reviews on Natalie’s website - the blurb from lulu.com:-
Believer or non-believer, it's unlikely that you have ever imagined God as drawn by Natalie d'Arbeloff but you will surely identify with her alter ego, Augustine, as she takes on the Deity in these wildly original and playfully profound interviews.
What are you working on at the moment?
A sequel to The God Interviews:
http://www.nataliedarbeloff.com/interviewgod.html
The continuation of my visual novel-in-progress, Double Life
http://www.nataliedarbeloff.com/blaugarchive.html
My blog:
http://www.nataliedarbeloff.com/blaugustine.html
and the meaning of life in general.
What is the best comic you've ever read?
Make that plural:
Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis series
Art Spiegelman: Maus
Simone Lia: Fluffy
Joe Sacco: Palestine
Jeffrey Brown Clumsy
Downloading illegal torrents will kill comics, discuss.
I have no idea what you're talking about.
Do you like your own name?
Of course I do. It's a wonderful name.
Have we been visited by aliens yet?
If you have to ask, you haven't been very observant.
Have you ever seen a ghost?
Only in the movies.
How did you spend your 18th birthday?
Too long ago, can't remember.
What do you think has been your most life-changing decision?
Getting married and divorced.
What’s the most expensive luxury you’ve ever bought?
Membership to a gym that I hardly ever used.
When are you happiest?
Too personal to answer.
When have you been most scared?
When people I love have been ill or died.
When was the last time you went too far?
Too far from what?
Which of the seven deadly sins do you indulge in most often: anger, sloth, gluttony, covetness, envy, pride or lust?
What is this, a confessional?
Would you eat human flesh if your life depended on it?
Only if those humans were organic free-range vegetarians.
What is the most exciting thing happening in comics right now?
Visual novels drawn and written by intelligent and talented grown-ups.
Are superhero movies good or bad for comics as a whole?
I'm not a fan or creator of superheroes so I don't know.
What song means the most to you?
Too many to mention or remember.
What are you going to be doing tomorrow?
Mailing Christmas cards, clearing the mess on my desk, starting a new painting. Or failing to do all of those.
What is your favourite soup?
Bouillabaise, the real thing.
If you weren't answering these silly questions, what would you be doing instead?
Going to bed. It's two-thirty a.m. innit?
If you'd like to drop by the Village to answer the Gossip's questions, email craigjohnsonesq@aol.com to chat. Similarly email if you have a question you'd like the Gossip to include in his bag.