Best Josh Neufeld Podcasts (2025)

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Episode 661 - Josh Neufeld 1:19:42

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4d ago1:19:42

1:19:42

Comics journalist Josh Neufeld joins the show to talk about the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and the legacy of his fantastic graphic reporting of the lives upended by that catastrophe, A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge (Pantheon). We talk about his new 'zine followup, Beyond A.D., how the storm inspired him to become an emergency response…

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Episode 660 - Dean Haspiel and Whitney Matheson 48:42

8d ago48:42

48:42

Cartoonist-playwright-filmmaker Dean Haspiel rejoins the show for the homestretch of his new Kickstarter, ANTIMATTER (finishing Nov. 3, 2025), and brings his studio mate Whitney Matheson along to talk about her new story collection, THE FEELING. We talk about how Dino got the idea for a one-man anthology to contain all the characters & stories of h…

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Episode 659 - Ron Rosenbaum 1:14:56

11d ago1:14:56

1:14:56

One of my fave writers, Ron Rosenbaum, returns to the show to celebrate his amazing new book, BOB DYLAN: Things Have Changed (A Kind Of Biography) (Melville House Press). We talk about how his lifetime fandom of Dylan led to this book, why he opted for a biographical meditation over strict biography, the week he spent with Dylan in the '70s for a P…

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Episode 658 - Lance Richardson 1:36:24

18d ago1:36:24

1:36:24

Writer Lance Richardson rejoins the show to celebrate his magnificent new biography, TRUE NATURE: The Pilgrimage of Peter Matthiessen (Pantheon). We talk about his youthful introduction to Peter Matthiessen via The Snow Leopard, how this project grew beyond his (& his publisher's) original concept, the health risks of following PM's trek through Ne…

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Episode 657 - Tom Tomorrow 58:29

25d ago58:29

58:29

Political cartoonist Tom Tomorrow (a.k.a. Dan Perkins) is back as we celebrate his new Kickstarter project, OUR LONG NATIONAL NIGHTMARE (closing Oct. 30, 2025, so GO SUPPORT THAT), collecting 5+ years of weekly This Modern World cartoons! We talk about how he keeps his sanity (well, tries to), what it was like to look back at the past half-decade w…

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Episode 656 - Kayla E 1:20:28

1M ago1:20:28

1:20:28

With her debut graphic novel, PRECIOUS RUBBISH (Fantagraphics), artist and designer Kayla E explores and investigates the trauma of her upbringing, the fragments of her memories, and the process of reintegration. We talk about why comics were the perfect form for this project, how she found her iconography and the postwar children's comics style fo…

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Episode 655 - Hunter Prosper 1:22:30

1M ago1:22:30

1:22:30

ICU nurse Hunter Prosper joins me this week as we celebrate his wonderful new book, STORIES FROM A STRANGER: Every Person Has a Story (Simon Element). We talk about the ICU experiences that led him to start talking to strangers in public and asking them deep questions about their lives five years ago, how those conversations have changed him, why h…

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Episode 654 - ML Rio 1:18:09

2M ago1:18:09

1:18:09

With her amazing new novel, HOT WAX (Simon & Schuster), author, critic, and inveterate road-tripper M.L. Rio evokes the rock scene of the '80s and the travails of the not-quite-Almost-Famous band GIL AND THE KILLS. We talk about the redemptive & destructive power of rock & roll, how music is inseparable from her writing process, the challenge of wr…

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Episode 653 - David Leopold 1:52:28

2M ago1:52:28

1:52:28

Curator and archivist David Leopold rejoins the show for a wide-ranging talk centered on the amazing new HIRSCHFELD'S SONDHEIM: A Poster Book (Abrams ComicArts). We talk about David's decades as Hirschfeld's archivist, Sondheim's love of Hirschfeld's work, the process of making his first book of Hirschfeld's art that focuses on a single creator, th…

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Episode 652 - Dmitry Samarov 1:12:22

2M ago1:12:22

1:12:22

It's been a year since his last episode, so what's artist Dmitry Samarov been up to? Plenty! We talk about his new project of redesigning and illustrating public domain books, why he started off with the White Whale itself, and why Babbitt! was next in line, what the common themes are among the six books he's illustrated since this project began, a…

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Episode 651 - AMA 1:59:51

2M ago1:59:51

1:59:51

No guest this week, so it's time for our first Ask Me Anything (AMA) episode since 2019! Past guests and pals peppered me with questions about the podcast, my reading habits, menswear aesthetics, mental health, comics, hair care, keeping a journal, work/life balance or lack thereof, the one episode I think people are sleeping on, Star Trek vs. Star…

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Episode 650 - Dan Goldman 1:42:05

3M ago1:42:05

1:42:05

With RED LIGHT PROPERTIES: Unfinished Business (Kinjin Storylab), writer/cartoonist Dan Goldman brings us a wildly entertaining graphic novel of midlife, the afterlife, and the south Florida real estate market. We talk about how the concept for RLP grabbed hold of him 20+ years back & never let go, why the story had to take place in/around Miami, h…

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Episode 649 - David Levithan and Jens Lekman 1:07:51

3M ago1:07:51

1:07:51

With SONGS FOR OTHER PEOPLE'S WEDDINGS (Abrams Press), writer David Levithan and singer-songwriter Jens Lekman bring the collaborative alchemy, as 20 years of fandom/friendship lead to this wonderful novel about a Swedish singer-songwriter — J — who finds a side-career playing original songs at people's weddings. We talk about the power of a great …

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Episode 648 - Sacha Mardou 1:11:41

3M ago1:11:41

1:11:41

With PAST TENSE: Facing Family Secrets and Finding Myself In Therapy (Avery), cartoonist Sacha Mardou brings us a phenomenal graphic memoir about the midlife process of overcoming lifelong traumas and anxiety. We talk about her decision to to make her therapy process (& sessions) public, first as online comics and then as a Past Tense, the benefits…

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Episode 647 - Oliver Radclyffe 1:34:47

3M ago1:34:47

1:34:47

With his phenomenal debut memoir, FRIGHTEN THE HORSES (Roxane Gay Books/Grove Atlantic), Oliver Radclyffe takes us on a journey into trans-selfhood. We talk about the gap between a trans narrator and a cis-het reader, the importance of trans visibility, how his understanding of masculinity and being male have changed, and how he faced down the risk…

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Episode 646 - Eulogy 30:44

4M ago30:44

30:44

No conversation this week, unless you count me talking to myself. This episode, I share some thoughts and memories about my father, following his death last week at the age of 88 — or 87, depending on who he was lying to — along with the eulogy I gave at his funeral. • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Stripe, Patreon, o…

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Episode 645 - Rachel Cockerell 1:13:52

4M ago1:13:52

1:13:52

How did Russian Jews wind up migrating to Galveston, Texas in the early 1900s? How did the image of America as melting pot come into existence? How did a family memoir evolve into a forgotten history of Zionism? Find out during my conversation with Rachel Cockerell about her amazing new book, MELTING POINT: Family, Memory, and the Search for a Prom…

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Episode 644 - Paul Karasik 1:25:21

4M ago1:25:21

1:25:21

Thirty-plus years in the making, the graphic adaptation of Paul Auster's THE NEW YORK TRILOGY (Pantheon) is here at last! Paul Karasik rejoins the show from Yaddo Artists Retreat to talk about the process of adapting Auster's postmodern crime novels into comics, how he collaborated with David Mazzucchelli (CITY OF GLASS) and Lorenzo Mattotti (GHOST…

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Episode 643 - Kate Maruyama 1:15:32

5M ago1:15:32

1:15:32

One of my fave guest/friends, Kate Maruyama, rejoins the show to celebrate her wonderful new novel, ALTERATIONS (Running Wild Press)! We talk about the book's long gestation/publishing history, Kate's love of old Hollywood & costume design, closeted movie stars and how she told the story of a gay relationship in the '30s & '40s, and how it felt to …

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Episode 642 - David Denby 1:37:45

5M ago1:37:45

1:37:45

With his fantastic new book, EMINENT JEWS (Holt), writer and critic David Denby explores the impact on American culture of Jews Unbound through profiles of Leonard Bernstein, Mel Brooks, Betty Friedan, and Norman Mailer. We talk about how he selected his four subjects, how each of them came of age in an environment that Jews hadn't experienced in m…

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Episode 641 - Peter Stothard 1:07:35

5M ago1:07:35

1:07:35

Can we find the poet in their poems? With HORACE: Poet on a Volcano (Yale University Press), Peter Stothard explores how the life of the great Roman poet unfolds though his art and the histories. We talk about why he wrote this biography through a critical study of Horace's poems (and why that's been a controversial approach), how Horace embodied t…

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Episode 640 - Cecile Wajsbrot 1:09:44

5M ago1:09:44

1:09:44

With her bewitching and beautiful novel NEVERMORE (Seagull Books, translated from French by Tess Lewis, who joins our conversation), Cécile Wajsbrot takes us on a tour of Chenobyl's Forbidden Zone, the High Line in NYC, Dresden, Paris, under the shadow of the Time Passes section of Virginia Woolf's To The Lighthouse. We talk about the challenges of…

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Episode 639 - Keiler Roberts 1:14:13

6M ago1:14:13

1:14:13

She may be able to quit cartooning (for a while), but Keiler Roberts can't quit The Virtual Memories Show! With her wonderful new book, PREPARING TO BITE (Drawn & Quarterly), Keiler returns to comics with a collection of (mostly) hilarious vignettes about domestic life, middle-age, the impact of multiple sclerosis, and having too many pets. We talk…

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Episode 638 - Peter Kuper 1:20:23

6M ago1:20:23

1:20:23

With his new graphic novel, INSECTOPOLIS (WWNorton), Peter Kuper brings us the 400-million-year history of insects in their own words as they take a post-human tour of the New York Public Library. We talk about how Insectopolis began when he was around 4 years old and saw the 17-year cicada brood, how Peter needed a new mode of comics-making for th…

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Episode 637 - Vauhini Vara 1:09:02

6M ago1:09:02

1:09:02

With SEARCHES: Selfhood in the Digital Age (Pantheon), tech writer Vauhini Vara explores how our sense of self has been co-opted, quantified, and exploited by big tech as a way of selling us more stuff or selling us to third parties. We talk about what we talk about when we talk about our Google searches (& Amazon purchases, Twitter subject prefere…

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Episode 636 - Craig Thompson 1:25:10

6M ago1:25:10

1:25:10

Artist Craig Thompson joins the show at long last to celebrate his new book, GINSENG ROOTS: A Memoir (Pantheon). We talk about how he spent ten summers of his childhood helping farm ginseng, how that herb connects rural Wisconsin with China and South Korea, how he balanced history, journalism, economics, and memoir in the pages of his book, and why…

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Episode 635 - Ari Richter 1:31:18

6M ago1:31:18

1:31:18

Artist, professor and now like-it-or-not cartoonist Ari Richter joins the show to talk about his fantastic book, Never Again Will I Visit Auschwitz: A Graphic Family Memoir of Trauma & Inheritance (Fantagraphics). We talk about how he he began this project in the wake of the Tree of Life massacre in 2018, how it helped him exorcise the demons of hi…

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Episode 634 - Dan Nadel 2:03:40

7M ago2:03:40

2:03:40

Author and curator Dan Nadel joins the show to celebrate the publication of his amazing new biography, CRUMB: A Cartoonist's Life (Scribner). We get into Robert Crumb's significance in American art, comics, and culture, Dan's first experience with a Crumb comic (it was an ish of American Splendor), the challenge of capturing the underground comics …

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Episode 633 - See Hear Speak 21:35

7M ago21:35

21:35

No guest? No problem! It's time for another impromptu monologue episode: this time, Gil sorts through family legacies of the genetic and Larkinesque variety, as occasioned by taking his dad for cataract surgery and getting a call from an old & previously deceased friend! Follow Gil on Bluesky and Instagram • More info at our site • Support The Virt…

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Episode 632 - Peter Trachtenberg 1:29:19

7M ago1:29:19

1:29:19

With his amazing new book The Twilight of Bohemia: Westbeth and the Last Artists in New York (Black Sparrow Press), Peter Trachtenberg explores the 50+ years of history for Westbeth Artists Housing in the far West Village, the role of the arts in New York City, and the ways we build & sustain community. We get into his long-term history with Westbe…

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Episode 631 - David Shields 1:37:02

7M ago1:37:02

1:37:02

Author David Shields returns to the show for a conversation about his new documentary, HOW WE GOT HERE, and the companion book, HOW WE GOT HERE: Melville plus Nietzsche divided by the square root of Allan Bloom times Žižek squared = Bannon (Sublation Media). We get into how the world moved from the death of God to the death of essence to the death …

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Episode 630 - Meeting Across The River 17:56

8M ago17:56

17:56

Uh-oh! Gil doesn't have a guest this week, so he recorded a monologue from a hotel room in Weehawken, NJ during a business conference for his day job! He talks mental health, oblique mythology, Charles Crumb, comics and pharma friends, the St. Patrick's Day Parade, and more! Follow Gil on Bluesky and Instagram • More info at our site • Support The …

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Episode 629 - Elon Green 1:03:02

8M ago1:03:02

1:03:02

With THE MAN NOBODY KILLED: Life, Death, and Art In Michael Stewart's New York (Celadon Books), author Elon Green brings us an investigation into a terrible episode of police brutality and its aftermath in mid-'80s NYC. We talk about what drew him to the story of Michael Stewart, a 25-year-old black artist-model-DJ who died at the hands of transit …

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Episode 628 - Vanda Krefft 1:21:17

8M ago1:21:17

1:21:17

Biographer Vanda Krefft returns to the show to celebrate her wonderful & illuminating new book: EXPECT GREAT THINGS!: How the Katharine Gibbs School Revolutionized the American Workplace for Women (Algonquin Books). We talk about the turn of the (20th) century origins of Katharine Gibbs & her school, the legacy of her executive secretarial course f…

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Episode 627 - Seth Lorinczi 1:23:11

8M ago1:23:11

1:23:11

With DEATH TRIP: A Post-Holocaust Psychedelic Memoir (Spiral Path Collective Press), Seth Lorinczi explores how trauma can be transmitted over generations, and how an ancient (& new) form of treatment can help overcome it. We talk about finding his family's story of the Holocaust, trying to understand why so much of it stayed hidden, how badly it w…

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Episode 626 - Martin Mittelmeier 1:11:28

9M ago1:11:28

1:11:28

With NAPLES 1925: Adorno, Benjamin, and the Summer That Made Critical Theory (Yale University Press, tr. Shelley Frisch), Martin Mittelmeier traces the roots of the Frankfurt School in southern Italy. We talk about the epiphany on the lip of a volcano in Lanzerote that brought this book to life, the years he spent poring over Theodor Adorno's writi…

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Episode 625 - Jonathan Ames 1:24:14

9M ago1:24:14

1:24:14

Can LA private detective Happy Doll live up to the Four Noble Truths and escape the cycle of Samsara? Jonathan Ames returns to the show to help answer that question and celebrate his new novel, KARMA DOLL (Mulholland Books)! We talk about the joy of reading (& writing) page-turners, how his lead character Happy Doll has evolved over three novels (s…

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Episode 624 - Witold Rybczynski 1:42:20

9M ago1:42:20

1:42:20

With his latest book, THE DRIVING MACHINE: A Design History of the Car (Norton), architect and architecture & design writer Witold Rybczynski explores how cars evolved from their earliest days through the befuddling styles of today's EVs. We get into the design language of cars and how it had no true precedent, why European styles were so different…

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Episode 623 - Matt Madden 1:21:41

9M ago1:21:41

1:21:41

Cartoonist Matt Madden rejoins the show to celebrate his new collection, SIX TREASURES OF THE SPIRAL: Comics Formed Under Pressure (Uncivilized Books). We talk about the liberation to be found in formal constraints, his history with OULIPO and its OUBAPO offshoot, how structure can inspire story, and the formal and thematic challenges in sequencing…

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Episode 622 - Fred Kaplan 1:03:37

10M ago1:03:37

1:03:37

After 4+ decades as a reporter and with a half-dozen nonfiction books under his belt, Fred Kaplan rejoins the show to celebrate his first foray into fiction, A CAPITAL CALAMITY (Miniver Press)! We talk about how lockdown got him to start A Capital Calamity, how his history in national security and the defense sector informs the novel (& its acciden…

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Episode 621 - Mia Wolff 1:24:14

10M ago1:24:14

1:24:14

With THE EMPTY LOT (Fantagraphics Underground), artist Mia Wolff brings together 100 paintings from more than 40 years of her oeuvre. We talk about how she found the thread & structure for the book, the patterns that emerged as she re-ordered the pieces and stitched them together with new illustrations, comics and prose pieces, and how you can make…

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Episode 620 - Damion Searls 1:36:51

10M ago1:36:51

1:36:51

Translator & author Damion Searls kicks off our 2025 season with a talk about his amazing new book, THE PHILOSOPHY OF TRANSLATION (Yale University Press). We talk about how all writing — translation or not — involves constraints, he balanced the book between philosophical argument and concrete examples of translation, and how he came to define tran…

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Episode 619 - 2024 Recap 50:38

10M ago50:38

50:38

It's the end of the year, so let's take stock of 2024 with a big ol' year-in-review monologue! Your intrepid/decrepit host, Gil Roth, gets personal while talking about what he's learned from the podcast & his guests this year, how they continue to change each other's lives, the moment he found his Spirit Jacket, his communion with a Roman sculpture…

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Episode 618 - The Guest List 2024 1:03:37

10M ago1:03:37

1:03:37

Twenty-two of this year's Virtual Memories Show guests tell us about the favorite books they read in 2024 and the books they hope to get to in 2025! Guests include Roland Allen, Shalom Auslander, Laura Beers, Sven Birkerts, Mirana Comstock, Leela Corman, Nicholas Delbanco, Benjamin Dreyer, Eric Drooker, Randy Fertel, Sammy Harkham, Frances Jetter, …

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Episode 617 - Benjamin Swett 1:31:59

11M ago1:31:59

1:31:59

With The Picture Not Taken: On Life and Photography (NYRB), Benjamin Swett brings us a subtly beautiful series of essays that explore memory and identity and what we really see in the viewfinder. We talk about the role of photography in his life, how Musil, Sebald, and Knausgaard and taught him to trust digressions, the freedom to be found in the e…

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Episode 616 - Ken Krimstein 1:11:55

11M ago1:11:55

1:11:55

LIVE from Labyrinth Books, artist and vulgarizer of history (in the French sense) Ken Krimstein returns to the show to celebrate his new book, EINSTEIN IN KAFKALAND (Bloomsbury)! We talk about the mystery of the 15 months Einstein & Kafka overlapped in Prague, how the two of them invented the modern world, what Ken has learned about graphic storyte…

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Episode 615 - Eddie Campbell 1:27:59

11M ago1:27:59

1:27:59

Cartoonist & historian Eddie Campbell returns to the show with his fantastic new book, KATE CAREW: America's First Great Woman Cartoonist (Fantagraphics Underground), which explores turn-of-the-(20th)-century artist, cartoonist, illustrator, caricaturist, interviewer & journalist Kate Carew. We get into how Eddie discovered Kate's work while resear…

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Episode 614 - Caitlin McGurk 1:02:34

11M ago1:02:34

1:02:34

Comics librarian and curator Caitlin McGurk returns to the show to celebrate her amazing new book, TELL ME A STORY WHERE THE BAD GIRL WINS: The Life and Art of Barbara Shermund (Fantagraphics). We talk about Caitlin's shock at her 2012 discovery of Barbara Shermund's incredible gag-comics and illustrations in the archive of the Billy Ireland Cartoo…

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Episode 613 - Frances Jetter 1:18:54

12M ago1:18:54

1:18:54

Artist Frances Jetter joins the show to talk about her amazing new book, AMALGAM: An Immigrant, His Labor Union, and His American Family in Brooklyn (Fantagraphics Underground). We talk about how the book both expanded and narrowed in scope during its 12-year process, how her grandfather's story bleeds out into American, Jewish and labor history, a…

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Episode 612 - Roland Allen 1:15:28

12M ago1:15:28

1:15:28

With THE NOTEBOOK: A History of Thinking on Paper (Biblioasis), Roland Allen explores how the proliferation of paper & binding changed culture, business, and maybe the nature of human consciousness. We talk about how keeping a diary got him obsessed-ish with notebooks, how he found a narrative and protagonists as he delved into the history of noteb…