Oct 10, 2011
When Dave Roman had first announced the forthcoming release of the collected Teen Boat for Clarion Press, I was a bit dumbfounded to realize that we’d never set up an official interview. Sure we’d spoken countless times and even been on the odd panel together, but for some reason or other, we’d never sat down for a formal Cross Hatch Q&A, and while his new book is still more than half a year away, now seemed as good a time as any.
After all, Roman has been working virtually non-stop since losing a full-time editorial position after the untimely demise of Nickelodeon Magazine. He contributed to anthologies like Flight, collaborated with wife Raina Telgemeier on an X-Men manga series and celebrated the release of his first Astronaut Academy collection for First Second this summer.
Like that series, Teen Boat began life as a web and mini-comic. While maintaining the cartoonist’s long-standing focus on younger readers, the latter series skews a bit older, combining, as the tagline goes, “the angst of being a teen with the thrill of being a boat.” In this first part of our conversation, we discuss revisiting older work, Roman’s tendency toward long storylines, and why making comics for kids is important.
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