Raman Sehgal

PERSEPOLIS ...perpetually perplexed by a Persian protagonist

July 12th, 2024  |  Season 6  |  43 mins 26 secs

During a worldwide Quarantined Comics and Rabbit Fighters podcast REVOLUTION, Raman + Josh (two non-Persian dudes doing a Persian protagonist podcat) got the ORIGINAL band back together to talk about a comic that somehow NEITHER of us had read before, PERSEPOLIS, by Marjane Satrapi, an award winning, now banned graphic autobiography from the early 2000s about a young girl growing up in Iran, and becoming a woman overseas, returning home, and dealing with everything in between. The book was originally published in French, and has sold millions of copies worldwide. Its creator Satrapi later produced an award-winning film of the same name

In Persepolis, we meet young Marjane “Marji” Satrapi growing up in Tehran just before and during the Iranian Revolution of 1979, as well as thru the start of the Iran + Iraq War in the 1980s. Her parents, are secular, upper-middle class activists, who worry for their precocious daughter's safety in the increasingly conservative and dangerous Iran, so send her off to Austria to become a teenager. Her teen years are fraught with all the drama you can expect from such an experience, but Marji - now becoming a young woman - always maintains the experience of an outsider looking in - with her feet in both worlds. Marji eventually returns to Iran to find that not only has her mother country changed, but she as well. This book was a surprise and illuminating for us in many ways, making us question - what would WE do in such a situation?

VEERA HIRANANDANI ...the Night Diary (+more) on Modern Minorities

July 4th, 2024  |  Season 6  |  1 hr 1 min

With summer here, and QC still on hiatus while Raman + Ryan tend to their day-jobs, we wanted to feature a chat from Raman's OTHER podcast MODERN MINORITIES - featuring conversations with authors of historical fiction NOVELS about the 1957 Partition of India + Pakistan

Veera Hiranandani is an award-winning author of several books for young people - one of the most recent of which is THE NIGHT DIARY - a must read. While the novel is a historical fiction geared for adolescents and young adults, it’s a a heart-warming read that will pull you into a singular story through the eyes of a young girl experiencing one of history’s greatest traumas.. Veera went on to win the prestigious Newbery Award for the book, as well as the 2019 Walter Dean Myers Honor Award, the 2018 Malka Penn Award for Human Rights in Children's Literature, and several other honors and state reading list awards. Veera’s work speaks to the power of stories to spark conversations. Veera’s written a number of other award-winning books - including “How to Find What You're Not Looking For,” and “The Whole Story of Half a Girl. ”Her latest novel - AMIL & THE AFTER, is a follow-up to The Night Diary and it does what not many other books do - it examines the immediate AFTERMATH of a generational - and historical trauma. Again, through the eyes of a child. Veera’s journey - and story is a one that crosses cultures and generations - and it’s interesting to see how she pulls at the threads of her life to inform her work, and ask lots of hard whys - and why nots.

MANREET SODHI SOMESHWAR ...the Partition Trilogy on Modern Minorities

June 29th, 2024  |  Season 6  |  1 hr 8 mins

With summer here, and QC still on hiatus while Raman + Ryan tend to their day-jobs, we wanted to feature a chat from Raman's OTHER podcast MODERN MINORITIES - featuring conversations with authors of historical fiction NOVELS about the 1957 Partition of India + Pakistan...

Manreet Sodhi Someshwar’s the author of nine novels - including the Long Walk Home, Radiance of a Thousand Suns, and most recently the Partition Trilogy - a historical fiction novel series which Raman is a BIG fan of. Manreet’s articles and essays have appeared in the New York Times, the International Herald Tribune, and the South China Morning Post, among others. She has taught for the New York Public Library and the City College of New York - and she’s a former corporate citizen having done stints in Asia, and a parent grappling with the world our kids will inherit. Manreet’s recently complete Partition Trilogy - a series of 3 books titled Lahore, Hyderabad, and Kashmir - are a historical fiction set during, before, and immediately after the Partition - and independence of - India and Pakistan of 1947. Partition is among the the great humanitarian disasters of the 20th century - and the largest mass migration in history

RABBIT FIGHTERS ...unfrozen caveman Weezer?!?

February 29th, 2024  |  Season 6  |  55 mins 3 secs

Raman joins longtime friend of the pod Josh (whose past episodes include Dune, Black Science, and Red Son) on HIS podcast RABBIT FIGHTERS. The topic? their long, complicated relationship with the band WEEZER - alongside fellow Rabbit fighters Greg and Brian. Rabbit Fighters is a show where three friends revisit the movies and music that shaped their past - but one of them has never explored it. sound familiar? Subscribe to RABBIT FIGHTERS wherever you get your favorite podcasts - for weekly shenagins while you wait for Ryan and Raman to get their act back together.
RabbitFighters.com - It's like the world has turned and left me here.

WORM ...Edel Rodriguez' Cuban American's Odyssey

January 11th, 2024  |  Season 4  |  49 mins 47 secs

XYZ Comics ...cheating the alphabet with R.Crumb

December 30th, 2023  |  Season 4  |  29 mins 28 secs

to close out 2023's alphabetic soup of comics, we're closing the year with a cheat and reading “XYZ Comics,” by cartoonist legend R. Crumb. “XYZ Comics,” published in 1972, is more of a 28 page pamphlet that reflects Crumb’s rather interesting state of mind at the time - literally created as a stream of conscious on a road trip between LSD trips.

WILL EISNER... reviewing the godfather of the graphic novel

December 23rd, 2023  |  Season 4  |  41 mins 14 secs

comics, graphic novels, will eisner

Will Eisner is such an influential cartoonist, the comics industry's most prestigious award is named after him. In this episode, we'll finally talk about some of his most notable works, including "The Spirit" and "A Contract With God."

VISION ...a synthezoid tragedy, or just poor decision-making?

November 15th, 2023  |  Season 4  |  1 hr 42 secs

V is for... VISION, 2016's Eisner award winning series by writer Tom King and artist Gabriel Hernandez Walta. in THIS comic Vision just wants an ordinary life ― with a wife and two children, a home in the suburbs, perhaps even a dog. So he built them. Sound familiar? Only this time Vision literally built his wife, kids, and even a cute green dog (don't ask how). As in they are all sentient robots. WHAT COULD GO WRONG?

UZUMAKI (revisited) ...Junji Ito's still scary manga treat

October 31st, 2023  |  Season 4  |  40 mins 57 secs

do you want to hear a scary story? well have we got a Halloween treat for you! U is for...Uzumaki. Uzumaki is manga legend's Junji Ito's seminal horror series from 1998. The entire populace of a small seaside town becomes obsessed with spirals. If you're into bodily, psychological, and cosmic horror, then step into the fog-shrouded streets of Kurozu-cho and see how long you can hold your mind - and your body - together.

this is an oldie but a goodie — a replay of one of our very FIRST episodes from the beginning of the 2020 pandemic. what's even scarier? how new we were to podcasting about comics we love — before i knew better than to trust Ryan to NOT freak me out. but this would be the first of many comics we'd come to love from Junji Ito. and boy is this a creepy one. make sure you read - and listen - with the lights turned on...

TOMINE ...the Modern Minorities conversation

October 29th, 2023  |  Season 4  |  1 hr 1 min

T...is for Tomine! that is Adrian Tomine, one of our all time favorite graphic novelists, who we've covered on this podcast before (The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Cartoonist, etc). We recently had the privilege of sitting down with Adrian Tomine on Raman's OTHER podcast, Modern Minorities, where superfan Ryan tagged along for a chat...

SABRINA... murder in a post-truth world

October 27th, 2023  |  Season 4  |  27 mins 12 secs

comics, graphic novels, nick drnaso, sabrina

This week, we take a look at Nick Drnaso's 2018 graphic novel "Sabrina," a murder mystery where the aftermath of a murder is almost as disturbing as the crime itself.

ROAMING... helping us feel both very old and very young

October 23rd, 2023  |  Season 4  |  31 mins 19 secs

We talk about "Roaming," the latest graphic novel collaboration between the cousins Jillian and Mariko Tamaki. It's a book about three young women touring New York City in the late aughts, and it's both a love letter to New York City and a nostalgic look at the relationship between three friends who are about to follow very different paths in life.

QUEENIE ...Harlem mobsters of questionable character

October 1st, 2023  |  Season 4  |  34 mins 33 secs

Q is also for QUEENIE, GODMOTHER OF HARLEM, Elizabeth Colomba and Aurelie Levy's historical graphic novel inspired by the life of Harlem's legendary mobster, Stephanie Saint-Clair. Queenie follows the life of Stephanie Saint-Clair—the infamous criminal who made herself a legend in Harlem in the 1930s. Born on a plantation in the French colony of Martinique, Saint-Clair left the island in 1912 and headed for the United States, eager to make a new life for herself. In New York she found success, rising up through poverty and battling extreme racism to become the ruthless queen of Harlem’s mafia and a fierce defender of the Black community. A racketeer and a bootlegger, Saint-Clair dedicated her wealth and compassion to the struggling masses of Harlem, giving loans and paying debts to those around her. But with Prohibition ending, and under threat by Italian mobsters seeking to take control of her operation, she launched a merciless war to save her territory and her skin. In an America still swollen by depression and segregation, Saint-Clair understood that her image was a tool she could use to establish her power and wield as a weapon against her opponents. With meticulous details—in both story and art Saint-Clair’s story is brought to life in a tense narrative, against a sometimes bloody backdrop of jazz and voodoo. The story tackles the themes of colonization, corruption, police violence, and racial identity, but above all, Queenie celebrates the genius of a woman forgotten by history...

PATIENCE... a blast into the past

September 24th, 2023  |  Season 4  |  41 mins 21 secs

comics, dan clowes, graphic novel, patience

In this episode, we'll take a look at legendary cartoonist's longest and trippiest graphic novel, 2016's "Patience" -- a murder mystery that takes place in the present, future, past, distant past, and present, though not necessarily in that order.

ON A SUNBEAM ...get in your goddamn goldfish spaceship

September 2nd, 2023  |  Season 4  |  41 mins 54 secs

Have you ever thought about enrolling in an space-Hogwarts, falling in love, only for your high school sweetheart to get wisked away by her space-homesteader aristocrat sisters, and deciding to join a space-cathedral reconstruction crew living and working on a space salamander eating chili and playing board games while making your way to your lost love? If so, then have we got a book for you: "O" is for ON A SUNBEAM, Tillie Walden's star crossed lovers' tale of Mia, Grace, and all their rad friends - sure to make you marvel at the simple things in life, but in space...

NOT ALL ROBOTS ...what AI can teach us about toxic masculinity

August 18th, 2023  |  Season 4  |  45 mins 41 secs

NOT ALL ROBOTS is the critically acclaimed future fiction work by Mark Russell + Mike Deodato, Jr. - in a not-too-distant future, where robots have replaced human beings in the workforce worldwide. An uneasy co-existence develops between the newly intelligent robots and the ten billion humans on earth. And since AI and robots and have taken over all the jobs - save hairdressers - every human family is assigned a robot upon whom they are completely reliant. We spend most of the story with the human Walters and their assigned house-robot Razorball (Snowball). What could go wrong?