On Thursday, I met alternative comics artists David Lasky and Greg Stump at Caffé Vita, formerly Café Paradiso, near my home on Seattle’s Capitol Hill for an interview which will form the basis of a story featuring them and their Seattle-set comic book, Urban Hipster. We talked about the book for a little over an hour and a half, and I will be transcribing the interview and probably post the transcript here when the feature sees print in tablet.

I also took a few pictures of them both at Vita and in the Comet.

I’ve known David’s work for quite some time, as he sent me a copy of his often-cited mini-comic adaptation of James Joyce’s Ulysses some time ago, but we’d never met. I don’t think I was highly familiar with Stump’s work except in that he has had a long-running comic in both The Stranger and in the Portland Mercury, “Dwarf Attack.”

Lasky is a classic comics introvert, very soft-spoken, and was wearing extremely long-and-thin rectangular-frame glasses with heavy black frames, a neat goatee, and shoulder-length brown hair pulled back into a pony-tail. Stump is more socially forward, and in his white teeshirt, well-muscled frame, and clean shaven head bore a resemblance to a well-known cleaning product’s anthropomorphic spokesperson.

I explored many aspects of the comic book they work together on, highlighting the relationship of the book to Seattle as a specific locale, and in particular the neighborhoods of Ballard, Capitol Hill, and the University District.

In order not to go into detail about the content of the piece I’m developing, I’ll just hold off on talking more about it today. However, I can note that I very much enjoyed the opportunity to speak with these guys, and think that I can really develop a good feature on the interview and their book.