ABOUT THIS EPISODE
Kat Verhoeven grew up in Canada's original capital of Kingston, Ontario in a single-parent household that encouraged artistic talents.Thanks to this, both she and her sister Mary Verhoeven grew to push each other in a friendly competition to see who between them was the better cartoonist – a jockeying that Kat says continues to this day -- with each taking a turn in the spotlight.
For Kat's part, she put her drawing talents towards an innovative food blog called Drawn and Devoured, which came out along with her initial sensual food poetry zine, The Artichoke that she published in her final year at the Ontario College of Art and Design. But for as much as she loved food and exploring all the culinary culture that Toronto has to offer, Kat reveals on the podcast that her relationship with food and her own body image was a destructive one for a time and through that struggle came her life's work so far, Meat and Bone from Conundrum Press.
We explore what's truth, what's fiction and what's somewhere in between in Meat and Bone, as Kat confronts her own struggles and polyamourous leanings in a fictional reality with an ensemble of fully realized and diverse characters that has never been seen to this degree in comics before and will stick with you. We talk about why both Barbarella and Toronto play such important roles in Meat and Bone and we dive deep on Kat's technique, tools and purposeful decision making that lead her to convey emotion using a different tonal colour palet for every strip and slight alterations to the look of each character. Fan People, this is when not drawing “on model” can pay dividends. If you listen to the episode, you'll understand why. We also don't forget discussing Kat's pre-Meat and Bone project, the Doug Wright and Ignatz nominated TowerKind, which exposes the fallacy of racially-profiling neighbourhoods in a post-apocalyptic Toronto seen through the eyes of children. Plus, we preview the upcoming Friendship Edition Anthology. (launching at TCAF 2020)
This episode of Speech Bubble is sponsored by Hairy Tarantula where a state-of-the-art coffee shop is about to be unveiled and Bam Coffee where you can get 15% off your first Bam Box of coffee, comics, prints and a limited edition mug when you type SB15 at checkout.
Conundrum Press – Kat's publisher
Drawn and Devoured – Kat's old critically-acclaimed food blog
Kat's equally talented cartoonist sister
Sponsors
