In our first-annual STAPLE Special, we dive into some of our mutual comfort foods: autobiographical and otherwise-great indie comics. Intercut throughout are interviews with an all-star, all-woman super-team lineup of comics creators.

Brought to you by

IDW: Add Weird Love to your pull list and add a splash of weird romance comics from the past to your diet that are guaranteed to entertain and delight (and horrify)!

Special Guests

Jess Fink on comicbook db, her website, Twitter, and Tumblr
Brooke Allen on comicbook db, Twitter, and Tumblr
Grace Ellis on comicbook db, Twitter, and Tumblr
Monica Gallagher on comicbook db, her website, Twitter, and Tumblr
Janelle Asselin on comicbook db, Twitter, her almost-over Kickstarter for Fresh Romance, and the Rosy Press website
Babs Tarr on comicbook db, Twitter, and Tumblr
You can learn more about STAPLE at their website. Make plans to go the next time it swings around (generally/historically, early March).

Artist Edition Uncut Interviews

Isolated, uncut individual interviews with the above creators can be found at the corresponding links in the Artist Edition feed. Subscribing to the Giant Size Channel gives you everything Giant Size and Artist Edition in one convenient feed.

Reading List

John's STAPLE Discoveries

David McGuire's Gastrophobia
Eric Colossal's Rutabaga The Adventure Chef
Tinius' & Salinas' Doctor Muscles
Kristin Hogan's squid dolls and Dead Squirrel Girl
Monica Knighton

From This Week's Special Guests

Jess Fink stuff like We Can Fix It! and Chester 5000 is get-able at her Store)
The New York Times-Bestselling first volume of Lumberjanes by Brooke and Grace and Noelle Stevenson and Shannon Watters is now out in Trade PaperBack form, collecting the first four issues (your friendly Local Comic Shop can get you the rest, I'd bet).
Monica Gallagher's Part-Time Princesses is now out from Oni Press.
Did we mention that there's just under two days left on Janelle Asselin's Fresh Romance Kickstarter???
Babs Tarr's opening arc on Batgirl isn't out in TPB form until June, but her Store (linked here) is open in April, and you should find her at a convention and go nuts on prints and such.

Brooke and Grace and Monica All Dig

Calvin and Hobbes (The Essential... is a great low-cost start, but The Complete... is the best way to be Hobbes-core

Jess and Monica and Babs All Dig

Ranma 1/2 by Rumiko Takahashi

Brooke and Monica Both Dig

Blue Monday by Chyanna Clugston-Major

Jess Fink loves and recommends

The Maxx (comic and animated show)
Aeon Flux
Johnny the Homicidal Maniac
SCUD: The Disposable Assassin is sadly, apocalyptically out of print (not too hard to find as singles), but Rob Scrab getting to direct the second LEGO Movie may help matters eventually
Craig Thompson's Goodbye, Chunky Rice and Blankets
...and most especially, Hayao Miyazaki's Nausicäa of the Valley of the Wind (in paper form), as well as the movie, which is still one of Studio Ghibli's best.

Brooke's Early Stapled Comics Included

Crimson by Brian Augustyn and Humberto Ramos is completely OOP, but not hard to find
Pogo by Walt Kelly

Grace Digs/Dug

Hexed by Michael Alan Nelson and Emma Rios
Scott Pilgrim by Bryan Lee O'Malley, linked here as the box set in original not-color, but which is now available in totally-color editions (the last of which is out on 5 May 2015)

Monica Loves/Loved and Loves

Early on, she really dug the anime based on Fushigi Yûgi by Yuu Watase
She is getting an Elfquest (by Wendy and Richard Pini) tattoo soon, so she maybe kinda likes it.
Ghost World by Daniel Clowes

Babs Was/Is/Will-Always-Be Drawn to...

Additional Show Notes and Links

Either the Gummi Bears theme song and intro fit Lumberjanes' tone perfectly, or Moisés is out of his mind.

ON THE NEXT EPISODE OF GIANT SIZE

ComiXology co-founders David Steinberger and John D. Roberts talk with us (about what they can) regarding what has (and has not) changed since their acquisition by Amazon, and what that means for the future.