Peter Kuper, STOP FORGETTING TO REMEMBER cartoonist: Mr. Media Radio Interview (Rewind)

Graphic novelist Peter Kuper tells Mr. Media: ‘Stop Forgetting to Remember!’

(Originally broadcast June 21, 2007) I think the reason that many people who never read comic books find themselves drawn to graphic novels isn’t because they come in hard cover or because they cost more or because they’re hip at the moment.

I think it’s because we’re more likely to find little pieces of ourselves in the stories, which are often more autobiographical than Spider-Man or Green Lantern could ever be.

At least that’s the thought I kept returning to as I read through Peter Kuper’s latest graphic novel, Stop Forgetting to Remember.

The youthful sexual frustration, the aimlessness, the side comments to no one in particular, the social doubts, the eagerness/anxiety over fatherhood, the pain of maintaining an adult friendship -- there were so many things that could have been ripped from my own life that I couldn’t put the book down.

Kuper, whose previous graphic novels include Sticks and Stones, The System, and an adaptation of Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, is perhaps most widely recognized as the artist behind Mad magazine’s legendary “Spy vs. Spy” these days. And his strip “The Virgin” was optioned by HBO as well as actor Forrest Whitaker’s production company.