Comics Alternative

For this interview show, Andy and Derek are very pleased to have as their guest Peter Kuper, whose latest work, Ruins, has just been released through SelfMadeHero. As the author points out, this is a very different kind of book from his usual material, one that has taken over three years to complete. Ruins is the story of a young married couple who travel to Oaxaca, Mexico, for the wife’s sabbatical. There the two of them, George and Samantha, bear witness to, and become involved in, some of the political unrest unfolding during their visit. More importantly, each one undergoes a unique journey that defines the trajectory of the life that follows. Paralleling Sam and George’s experiences is the flight of a monarch butterfly as she makes her way from Canada to Oaxaca, hovering over much of the social, political, and environmental turmoil that has come to define our times. As the guys point out, this is a very politically conscious narrative, as many of Peter’s comics are — see, for example, The System, his wor