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With Great Power #256... 22 Panels with Darya Foroohar · 22 Panels - A Comic Book Podcast

• 0:02
  Tad Eggleston: Good afternoon, I guess. Just barely. 12.02…
• 0:06
  Tad Eggleston: PM in the Central Daylight Time. Good afternoon, everybody, and we're not live, so I don't know why I always introduce it as good morning, good evening, good whatever.
• 0:17
  Tad Eggleston: My guest today is Daria Fuhar, who I met at the Insert Name Comic Fest in Minneapolis, though you're in Chicago, right?
• 0:28
  Darya Foroohar: I am, yeah.
• 0:29
  Tad Eggleston: So, so yeah, we both drove to Minneapolis to, meet each other. She's got two comics that I picked up. I want to talk about Maha Nasser.
• 0:40
  Tad Eggleston: And I need to kill my boyfriend's college roommate.
• 0:44
  Tad Eggleston: I read them both this morning. I adored them both this morning for completely different reasons. There's definitely a through line
• 0:53
  Tad Eggleston: But… but they're also very different, so… so, Daria, which one would you prefer to talk about first? Do you want to talk about something else entirely? The weather? Do you want to tell me? I don't know. I made no plans this morning.
• 1:07
  Darya Foroohar: Why don't we start off with I need to kill my boyfriend's college roommate?
• 1:13
  Tad Eggleston: Alright.
• 1:14
  Tad Eggleston: Alright, this one, I… I appreciate…
• 1:21
  Tad Eggleston: In so many levels. The first thing that struck me, though, is that,
• 1:28
  Tad Eggleston: It's become a theme in my life.
• 1:32
  Tad Eggleston: Starting with my wife and her.
• 1:35
  Tad Eggleston: her love for… for true crime podcasts, and then that got her into true crime comics. That's what finally got her into comics, period.
• 1:44
  Tad Eggleston: And Kelly Sudakonik is writing a comic that involves a mom.
• 1:48
  Tad Eggleston: involved, or obsessed with True Crying podcasts, and what I never realized until I had all of these women in my life tell me.
• 1:56
  Tad Eggleston: is that, like, the obsession with true crime podcasts is not the morbidity, it's not the, oh, I want to know about that, it's the preparation. It's like, in your head, it's like, this is what I need to prepare for. And I remember the first time my wife told me that, I went, oh…
• 2:13
  Tad Eggleston: Oh… So, so… I'm gonna go backwards for a second and say,
• 2:24
  Tad Eggleston: Tell me about I need to kill my boyfriend's college roommate, which obviously involves true crime
• 2:30
  Tad Eggleston: stuff, because I just immediately went there. Give me the front counter pitch, but then let's… let's talk about where it comes from, because…
• 2:39
  Tad Eggleston: I thought it was a really powerful and creative book, and… and I enjoyed reading it, and it's on my wife's file now.
• 2:47
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, not officially on my wife's pile, because it's in front of me right now, but it will be back on.
• 2:51
  Darya Foroohar: Metaphorically.
• 2:52
  Tad Eggleston: When we're done talking, right?
• 2:54
  Darya Foroohar: Yeah, for sure. Yeah, so I Need to Kill My Boyfriend's college roommate, was taken. The idea was, kind of inspired by, the friend of someone I was dating at the time, but, really, just kind of a lot of men I'd encountered who…
• 3:13
  Darya Foroohar: We're very staunchly on the left, but those kind of ideals of equality and, like, justice, especially, like.
• 3:21
  Darya Foroohar: justice through violent means just somehow didn't compute when it came to feminism and women's issues. And it just made me really angry, because it's something that I've experienced a lot, and it just seems like they're, like, hypocritical.
• 3:35
  Darya Foroohar: And I think I have a lot of rage and anger at that.
• 3:38
  Darya Foroohar: And at some point, you know, debating with those people becomes a humiliation exercise, because you're debating your humanity against
• 3:47
  Darya Foroohar: Debating with someone who doesn't see you as an equal is humiliating, because you're trying to prove your humanity, and I don't think you need to debate your humanity to someone who.
• 3:59
  Tad Eggleston: Well…
• 4:00
  Darya Foroohar: Believes that you're lesser than.
• 4:02
  Tad Eggleston: And I think, I think you hit,
• 4:06
  Tad Eggleston: And this is where I'm gonna say, I'm speaking as a privileged white male, as hard as I try, desperately, to make certain that, like.
• 4:17
  Tad Eggleston: I think one of the things that you hit on right there in what you said and comes out in the book is they think of themselves as on the left.
• 4:24
  Darya Foroohar: So they think of themselves as your ally.
• 4:28
  Tad Eggleston: Even as they're not acting Like, you're their equal.
• 4:38
  Tad Eggleston: And I feel like this is something that we see… With a lot of groups.
• 4:44
  Darya Foroohar: Yeah.
• 4:45
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, that actually is very much the through line between this and I want to talk about Mahanaser, is like…
• 4:53
  Tad Eggleston: When you get to that one, it's like, oh, we're equals, we see you because you're part of our cause, and…
• 5:00
  Tad Eggleston: Except that we don't, because… Yeah.
• 5:06
  Darya Foroohar: It's always, like, people think that women's rights need to be sacrificed for, like, some quote-unquote revolution, but what they don't understand is that if those rights are sacrificed now, they're never going to be gained back later.
• 5:17
  Tad Eggleston: Well, I mean, I… I…
• 5:19
  Tad Eggleston: and I hope that you don't take this as reductive, because it's not meant to be. I think that
• 5:25
  Tad Eggleston: Whatever level of privilege you are in your revolutionary group, Any…
• 5:32
  Tad Eggleston: Any level of privilege under that needs to be sacrificed to maintain your level of privilege.
• 5:39
  Tad Eggleston: Once your privilege has been… I mean, I see this… I mean…
• 5:44
  Tad Eggleston: I see this all the time with the leftists who have finally woken up to the fact that, oh, wait, this isn't funny.
• 5:53
  Tad Eggleston: This is fascism.
• 5:55
  Tad Eggleston: This… this is possibly not something that… that will… and when you want to talk to them about
• 6:01
  Tad Eggleston: oh, then maybe we need to focus on some of the things that people have been trying to focus on for years. Oh, no, no, we just need to defeat Trump. I'm like, yes, do you not understand that this is part of how you defeat Trump? That it doesn't work to go back to the way it was before, because that's what got us here.
• 6:18
  Darya Foroohar: Yeah.
• 6:19
  Tad Eggleston: You have to do it all at once. You can't do…
• 6:23
  Tad Eggleston: If it's… if it's… and… and I feel like I'm talking over you, so I'm gonna shut up again.
• 6:29
  Darya Foroohar: Oh.
• 6:32
  Darya Foroohar: I mean, I think, yeah, something that,
• 6:36
  Darya Foroohar: I really was inspired by was, like, writings by decolonial, like, theorists.
• 6:42
  Darya Foroohar: And I just find it… I just found it really funny that, like, the people, you know, like, the person that I was kind of had in mind when writing
• 6:50
  Darya Foroohar: like, the character of Steve, like, he was like, oh, you have to read Fanon, it'll change your life, and I was like, yeah, I've read Fanon, and I also think that, like, I also don't see…
• 7:02
  Darya Foroohar: how you don't see that that could be applied to other forms of oppression, you know? Like, if you think that decolonial violence is justified, then why not violence against men, like, by women? You know? Like, you never think the knife is gonna bit your throat, but it will. I mean, I hope it will, because just the smugness on those
• 7:21
  Darya Foroohar: people's… it just… it's just very angry, and you know, I'd rather write about it than actually, like, kill someone, because I don't really want to go to jail.
• 7:28
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, that's what I was gonna say. I personally,
• 7:32
  Tad Eggleston: I can only get behind figuratively hoping that it will. I don't actually hope for violence against anybody. Which is why, also, as I read this, I, like, for a long time as I was reading this, I'm like, okay, is this…
• 7:48
  Darya Foroohar: memoir or fiction? And then it got to the part where we were stabbing people, and I went, please tell me it's fiction. No, no, no, yeah.
• 7:55
  Darya Foroohar: I don't plan to, but it's just, like…
• 7:59
  Tad Eggleston: I didn't think you did.
• 8:00
  Darya Foroohar: No, no, no, absolutely not.
• 8:03
  Darya Foroohar: But it's… it is, you know, like, I do think that that kind of imagery…
• 8:09
  Darya Foroohar: is designed to make people uncomfortable, and I.
• 8:11
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 8:11
  Darya Foroohar: To make people uncomfortable, because that's the only way you're gonna, you know, really think critically about what you've been doing.
• 8:18
  Tad Eggleston: One could hope.
• 8:19
  Darya Foroohar: Yeah. I mean…
• 8:21
  Tad Eggleston: And I think that's also what we run into
• 8:25
  Tad Eggleston: a lot in the world, what I… what I saw in this book, what I saw you raging against, was like, oh, so, like, my… my existence makes you uncomfortable, so I'm supposed to change.
• 8:40
  Tad Eggleston: Which is just a ridiculous premise, particularly because, like.
• 8:46
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, every time I hear about the law, you know, and they always word it, that, like, we can't have anything in school. As a teacher, I pay a lot of attention to education
• 8:56
  Tad Eggleston: Thank God Illinois has mostly good education laws, but, you know, you see them in other states. And it's like, oh, we can't teach anything that will make children feel uncomfortable about their heritage. And I'm like, okay, then you can't teach white history if you have Black kids in the classroom.
• 9:14
  Tad Eggleston: Right?
• 9:17
  Darya Foroohar: No, it's… and it's like.
• 9:19
  Tad Eggleston: Would that ever actually have the law applied to it? I'm betting it wouldn't.
• 9:25
  Darya Foroohar: Yeah, I mean, and I'm grateful, like, for my education, you know, in high school, I was, like, made to feel, like, very uncomfortable, and in a good way, you know, because, like, our teachers would just give us, like, these very hard
• 9:39
  Darya Foroohar: you know, like, hard-hitting texts, and I was, you know, like, we really had to grapple with issues of, like, racism and classism, and it's like, yeah, you should feel uncomfortable, like, I'm glad that I was made to feel uncomfortable, as a kid. And, you know, like, I'm grateful for that, because I think that
• 9:56
  Darya Foroohar: you have to, you know, and I feel like it's good to be uncomfortable, because if you live your life, just never be uncomfortable, then you're never gonna grow.
• 10:05
  Tad Eggleston: That's a… that's a, very good point.
• 10:11
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, it's… and it's… it's so easy…
• 10:15
  Tad Eggleston: So easy to look… overlook the comforts that we have. Oh, God, we're both drinking Dunkin'.
• 10:25
  Tad Eggleston: We're not even in Boston, and we're both.
• 10:27
  Darya Foroohar: I mean, don'.
• 10:27
  Tad Eggleston: What's going on, man?
• 10:30
  Darya Foroohar: Oh, the American Empire.
• 10:36
  Tad Eggleston: I'm gonna talk a little bit about
• 10:41
  Tad Eggleston: form, but I think it plays in… I really enjoyed
• 10:47
  Tad Eggleston: I've really become enamored of the way people use panels, the way people express Thoughts.
• 10:55
  Tad Eggleston: the way people… Lay out their comics, and I enjoy…
• 11:05
  Tad Eggleston: Like, very… page one of the comic.
• 11:09
  Tad Eggleston: You know, you split yourself into four panels, but then all of your thoughts are this cascade of…
• 11:16
  Tad Eggleston: little panel here, little panel there. I'm assuming you're working pen on paper, which means you don't even have the advantage that some people have of, I'm gonna draw this panel and then literally lay them over each other. If I'm wrong, you can tell me.
• 11:31
  Darya Foroohar: No, you're right. Pen on paper.
• 11:33
  Tad Eggleston: Right, so you've managed to do this collage of all of your visions of death,
• 11:42
  Tad Eggleston: almost like Polaroids laid on top of each other.
• 11:46
  Tad Eggleston: And then, like… The racing thoughts in the… in the…
• 11:53
  Tad Eggleston: And I will admit to not having read every single word in the Racing Thoughts yet. I'm certain that I will at some point, but I kind of picked up that, oh, wait a minute, this is partially the…
• 12:04
  Tad Eggleston: feeling it's supposed to give you, but as I… but I also looked at it, and it's like, the… none of these words are accidental.
• 12:11
  Darya Foroohar: Yeah. Yeah, because sometimes when people do it.
• 12:13
  Tad Eggleston: like, the racing thoughts, there's a little bit of a blah blah blah, or… or, you know, repetitiveness or whatnot, and it's… it's really not. Like, you…
• 12:23
  Darya Foroohar: Yeah…
• 12:24
  Tad Eggleston: You… you wrote some shit, and I don't mean that in a pejorative way, I mean that in a…
• 12:32
  Darya Foroohar: No, I usually, like, do those, and I make sure that you can, like, get the story without reading them, but reading them gives you, like, a deeper understanding of it.
• 12:42
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 12:43
  Darya Foroohar: kind of, like, special feature, like an Easter egg.
• 12:45
  Tad Eggleston: Right. So, I mean, what…
• 12:53
  Tad Eggleston: And I talk to cartoonists at, like, every level of their career, so I guess I should… I should step back a little bit. How long have you been cartooning? Because you're one of my younger guests, not gonna…
• 13:05
  Tad Eggleston: Cast dispersions and try to guess how old you are, I'm not that guy. But, like…
• 13:12
  Tad Eggleston: I think my youngest guest was 15, and I'm… well, I'm certain you're older than 15. If you're 30, I'm gonna be shocked.
• 13:21
  Darya Foroohar: Yeah, so I'm 22.
• 13:24
  Darya Foroohar: My birthday is on September 16th, so I will be 23 soon.
• 13:29
  Tad Eggleston: Okay.
• 13:30
  Darya Foroohar: I've always wanted to do comics and cartoons, but I only really started doing them seriously when I was 18, because before I was just too paralyzed by my perfectionism and insecurity about my art.
• 13:43
  Tad Eggleston: Okay.
• 13:43
  Darya Foroohar: it's never gonna look as good as it does in my head, so I just wouldn't do it.
• 13:46
  Darya Foroohar: But then I took a comics class taught by, Dan Rayburn,
• 13:53
  Darya Foroohar: And it was just really transformative,
• 13:56
  Darya Foroohar: because I was like, oh, you don't have to be good at art to be good at comics, you know, and his, like, philosophy was just like, okay, everyone's gonna do the same thing, I don't care how good you are at art, you know, like, you have to do it.
• 14:08
  Darya Foroohar: And then our final project was, like, an 8-page comic, and I wrote a comic called Motherhood about my grandmother and, like, my feelings about children and childbirth. And I was like, oh, this is actually good. Like, this is actually pretty good. You know, like, it's… the drawing isn't amazing, but, you know, it still makes a meaningful comic.
• 14:26
  Darya Foroohar: And I was like, oh, you know, I love, like, this format, I love thinking in comics, so then I just kept going.
• 14:31
  Darya Foroohar: I've only been, like, going to shows and fests and stuff for a little over a year, just because I didn't really know anyone.
• 14:38
  Darya Foroohar: But ever since I started going, I've met more people, and it's been awesome.
• 14:43
  Tad Eggleston: Oh yeah, the community is… is… So ridiculously… Welcoming?
• 14:53
  Tad Eggleston: I guess is the best way to put it.
• 14:56
  Tad Eggleston: At every level.
• 14:58
  Tad Eggleston: Though I still… I still wish there weren't quite the same lines between different levels.
• 15:07
  Darya Foroohar: Hmm.
• 15:08
  Tad Eggleston: Like, like, like…
• 15:09
  Tad Eggleston: I forget, are you… are you headed to Cartoon's Crossroads this year? Were you the person there?
• 15:14
  Darya Foroohar: I actually, I didn't get in, but Radiator Comics, who distributes some of my comics,
• 15:21
  Tad Eggleston: Right. Invited, like, some of their.
• 15:24
  Darya Foroohar: You'd be at the table, and I jumped on the opportunity.
• 15:28
  Tad Eggleston: What I… what I love about Cartoon's Crossroads…
• 15:33
  Tad Eggleston: is at least among the cons that I've gone to.
• 15:37
  Tad Eggleston: They're the one that, like, blurs all the lines.
• 15:42
  Tad Eggleston: That kind of exists between comics. You know, because there's, like, the… Bet.
• 15:50
  Tad Eggleston: like, we were at Insert Name. Insert Name is the Zine Fest. Almost everybody there doesn't have a publisher, or if they have a publisher, it's a publisher in, like, name only. It's them, but they have their publisher name, or maybe it's 10 of them that have a publisher name together, or… you know what I mean? Every once in a while, somebody like, Uncivilized came a couple of years ago, that sort of thing.
• 16:16
  Tad Eggleston: And then you have, like, your SPX, and your cake, and… and…
• 16:20
  Tad Eggleston: that sort of thing, and that's like… that's like the higher echelon of that sort of stuff, combined with the small publishers, your Silver Sprocket, your…
• 16:29
  Tad Eggleston: your… your…
• 16:32
  Darya Foroohar: book farm.
• 16:33
  Tad Eggleston: Right, you're, you're uncivilized, sometimes you're phantographics or you're drawn in Quarterly, right? And then… and then you've got your pop culture cons, and that's where Marvel and DC and Dark Horse and whatnot show up, and maybe Phantographics and drawn in Quarterly, but not…
• 16:51
  Tad Eggleston: And there are so few, like.
• 16:54
  Tad Eggleston: I just talked to Jesse Lonergan. Jesse Lonergan, first of all, is just an insane artist, and I think you'd like his stuff, because I see… I see some of the same thought process type stuff in the way you lay out your panels to some of his work.
• 17:11
  Tad Eggleston: Though he uses way less words than you, so, like, I'm not…
• 17:15
  Tad Eggleston: But he's, like, the only…
• 17:18
  Tad Eggleston: artist I know that I… that I've seen his stuff at all those different levels of cons, right?
• 17:25
  Tad Eggleston: And…
• 17:28
  Tad Eggleston: Cartoon's Crossroads is the only place I go where I see all of those different levels of publishers and artists, like, represented in the same place.
• 17:38
  Tad Eggleston: with also more YA and manga thrown in than you see at either any of those other… Yeah.
• 17:47
  Tad Eggleston: You know, and comics is this huge world.
• 17:50
  Tad Eggleston: that isn't big enough, frankly, because it's such a perfect medium, and I want to go back to, like, you said you've wanted to make comics all your life, so…
• 17:59
  Tad Eggleston: like, talk to me about that. What… what…
• 18:03
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, I know everything that I love about the medium of comics, but I love to hear what other people love about the medium of comics. What about comics? It's like, oh god, I want to tell stories like this.
• 18:12
  Darya Foroohar: it's just such a good way of blending text and words, you know? When I was in, 8th grade, I just, I don't know, like.
• 18:21
  Darya Foroohar: I got maybe this, like, obsessiveness about, reading books, where I would, you know, like, read a pi… read a sentence over and over again, and I would be like, oh, I have to, like, memorize everything, like, perfectly. I have to memorize every single word on this page, otherwise I can't look at the next page.
• 18:37
  Darya Foroohar: And it kind of paralyzed me, and what helped me was comics, because it was just… gave me some breathing room.
• 18:43
  Darya Foroohar: and you know, I love comics all my life, I've been reading them since I was a kid, and… I don't know, I just… it's… I think in, like, panels, and I think it's really easy to do that, because I'm a bit of a perfectionist, so it's kind of like…
• 18:59
  Darya Foroohar: directing a movie, but you're the writer, you're the director, you're also the actors, you're the screenwriter, you know, you're the costume designer, you're the set designer, you have everything in your control. And I think,
• 19:11
  Darya Foroohar: the first, like, comic strip that I really did was, when I was 16, in, like, a writing workshop.
• 19:20
  Darya Foroohar: And it was this… Like, 4-page comic.
• 19:23
  Darya Foroohar: But it was from this, like, whole graphic novel idea I had in my head called Bachman the Prophet, and I've never written that, you know, but I've just been thinking about that for years and years, and I was like.
• 19:35
  Darya Foroohar: but it's… it was just a product of my perfectionism. I was like, well, I can't write this until I'm, like, amazing at art, you know? But I was just still thinking, like.
• 19:43
  Darya Foroohar: thinking about the spreads I would do, thinking about, like, how…
• 19:47
  Darya Foroohar: the spreads would, like, break up into panels and, like, just the individual art, and it's just such a great way to kind of convey so many different details, and the tone. I just think it's such an interesting medium, because I love writing, but then I also
• 20:03
  Darya Foroohar: Just love the detail and art and the backgrounds, just the way that you can kind of capture the characters.
• 20:10
  Tad Eggleston: Okay, talk to me about some of the comics that you read growing up. What comics… what comics were the ones that went, oh, this…
• 20:19
  Tad Eggleston: I wanna do this.
• 20:21
  Darya Foroohar: So, I read a lot of Asterix and Tintin growing up.
• 20:24
  Tad Eggleston: on the ice.
• 20:24
  Darya Foroohar: My dad had a lot of… had a big Tintin collection. He has, like, one in Farsi, which I hope to be… to become fluent enough to read in Farsi.
• 20:35
  Darya Foroohar: And then I wrote.
• 20:37
  Tad Eggleston: Well, and if you do, there's absolutely a need for, like… comics… translations.
• 20:47
  Tad Eggleston: in all directions. I had a couple of translators on recently.
• 20:50
  Darya Foroohar: Oh, cool.
• 20:51
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
• 20:54
  Tad Eggleston: And like with poetry, translating comics is different from just translating?
• 21:01
  Darya Foroohar: Yeah.
• 21:02
  Tad Eggleston: You know, so it's good to have somebody who has a little bit of a comics background.
• 21:07
  Tad Eggleston: Rather than… Sorry to interrupt there, like I said. Oh, no, I think, like… ADD, autism.
• 21:14
  Tad Eggleston: I hate using that as an excuse, it's more of an explanation.
• 21:17
  Darya Foroohar: Yeah.
• 21:18
  Tad Eggleston: Tell me to shut up.
• 21:20
  Darya Foroohar: No, no worries. Yeah, I think translating also, like, if you know, like, the slang as well, because in comics, you know, a lot of the dialogue is very colloquial.
• 21:30
  Darya Foroohar: But.
• 21:31
  Tad Eggleston: And needs to be.
• 21:32
  Darya Foroohar: Yeah, and then, you know, I read some X-Men, I read… oh, I read Persepolis as a very young kid, which, you know, I didn't really understand all of it as a young kid, but then I read it again when I was 12, and I understood more, and then I read it again, and it's just… it became.
• 21:50
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, I'm 45, and I don't know if I understand all of it, but…
• 21:53
  Darya Foroohar: It's a little embarrassing, but… Oh, I wrote my college essay on Persepolis. I was like, oh, you know, it's a touchstone for my cultural identity.
• 22:03
  Tad Eggleston: Which is…
• 22:04
  Darya Foroohar: I find a little silly, but, I mean, it kind of was, because I would be very confused over it.
• 22:10
  Tad Eggleston: You're allowed to say that it is, just… just because it… I mean…
• 22:16
  Tad Eggleston: And, like, this is where you can shoot me down if I'm wrong, but what that feels like is you're sitting there going, oh, this is the cliche touchdown for…
• 22:27
  Tad Eggleston: for my personal identity, I should find something cooler than this. But you know what? Screw that. If it is for you, it is for you.
• 22:39
  Darya Foroohar: Oh, yeah, I mean, and it's… it's great. I just… I love that book so much. I became very possessive over it, you know, as a kid. It's like, oh, you know, you guys don't get it like I do, you know, this is, like, my book.
• 22:51
  Darya Foroohar: So I loved that, and then I read Mouse when I was a little older, and Fun Home. I read a lot of manga. To be honest, I would just go to the library in middle school and high school at lunch, and just read whatever books they had, and often.
• 23:05
  Tad Eggleston: Okay.
• 23:05
  Darya Foroohar: have, like, books that were part of series, but didn't have all the series. They just have one.
• 23:10
  Tad Eggleston: So there's our shout-out for librarians. People use your graphic novel sections.
• 23:14
  Darya Foroohar: They… they do. I would just read.
• 23:16
  Tad Eggleston: I've got lots of librarians.
• 23:18
  Darya Foroohar: Yeah.
• 23:19
  Darya Foroohar: So I would just spend my lunch time reading all the comics and the manga and the graphic novels.
• 23:25
  Darya Foroohar: And, it was great, you know?
• 23:29
  Darya Foroohar: I would love it, I would burn through them.
• 23:32
  Darya Foroohar: I read Saga in high school.
• 23:37
  Tad Eggleston: We are doing a Saga Book Club, so if you want to reread Saga… Getting together every 4 weeks.
• 23:43
  Darya Foroohar: Because after that… We're together every 4 weeks. Oh, cool! Oh my gosh, yeah.
• 23:47
  Tad Eggleston: We're doing Volume 2 on…
• 23:50
  Tad Eggleston: I have to look at my calendar, I can't… even 4-week things, I can't keep track of dates anymore, I book too many things.
• 23:56
  Darya Foroohar: Yeah.
• 23:57
  Tad Eggleston: we will be recording Volume 2 at 8.30 on September 15th.
• 24:05
  Tad Eggleston: So, if you want me to, I will add you to the list on that, and you can come talk saga with some comic geeks.
• 24:14
  Darya Foroohar: Yeah, for sure.
• 24:15
  Tad Eggleston: I don't even think you'll be quite the youngest person in the room.
• 24:21
  Darya Foroohar: Wow.
• 24:22
  Tad Eggleston: Because we… We try to run the gap.
• 24:26
  Tad Eggleston: What? No, not quite that young. I think, I think, I think Isabelle is…
• 24:33
  Tad Eggleston: I think she's 20? Maybe 21 now?
• 24:35
  Darya Foroohar: Okay.
• 24:36
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, not a lot younger.
• 24:38
  Darya Foroohar: Yeah.
• 24:39
  Tad Eggleston: -Oh.
• 24:42
  Tad Eggleston: Sorry, I fell off… fell off the track again.
• 24:47
  Tad Eggleston: Let's bring it back to your book as I flip through, though.
• 24:50
  Darya Foroohar: Okay.
• 24:51
  Tad Eggleston: Because, you know, I actually…
• 25:02
  Tad Eggleston: I'm gonna ask the question that I don't think is handled as much
• 25:07
  Tad Eggleston: directly in this book, though… though I think the character is drawn as non-white,
• 25:17
  Tad Eggleston: Like, most of what you handle
• 25:19
  Tad Eggleston: With here is the casual misogyny of particularly college-age boys, college-age privileged white boys.
• 25:27
  Darya Foroohar: Yeah.
• 25:29
  Tad Eggleston: Is that something that is…
• 25:36
  Tad Eggleston: Cause I… I also… I mean, there was a…
• 25:39
  Tad Eggleston: The scene that kind of stands out to me is the party scene.
• 25:42
  Tad Eggleston: Where it kind of seems like the white girls are, like.
• 25:48
  Tad Eggleston: on the main character's side? I don't want to say your side, because I know it's fiction.
• 25:55
  Tad Eggleston: I forget, did you actually ever name the character?
• 25:59
  Darya Foroohar: No, and that was purposeful.
• 26:01
  Tad Eggleston: I thought that that was the case.
• 26:04
  Darya Foroohar: Yeah.
• 26:05
  Tad Eggleston: I, I, I felt like the white girls were on the, the… They were, like, on…
• 26:13
  Tad Eggleston: The protagonist side, but they were also kind of like, yeah, but this is the biggest problem in my life, and it's not that big of a problem, so, like, just forget about it.
• 26:22
  Darya Foroohar: Hmm.
• 26:23
  Tad Eggleston: And so I wonder if there's an element of the…
• 26:28
  Tad Eggleston: like, goddammit, this isn't the biggest problem in my life, but… but that also means that why the fuck is it a problem in my life? When we're still dealing with all this stuff, why… why? Why?
• 26:47
  Tad Eggleston: I don't know what quite the question is, like, talk to me about…
• 26:54
  Tad Eggleston: I guess the layering effect? It feels like it's a… it's like a,
• 26:59
  Tad Eggleston: And I think this comes out also in the way you do…
• 27:05
  Tad Eggleston: Your, your, your word explosions, or, or your, your, Massive pages of panels.
• 27:13
  Tad Eggleston: et cetera. About how this is one big issue, but it's, like, one big issue in your life.
• 27:25
  Tad Eggleston: Rather than THE big issue in your life.
• 27:29
  Darya Foroohar: I mean…
• 27:30
  Tad Eggleston: Or the character's life, sorry.
• 27:32
  Darya Foroohar: Yeah, I mean, it's definitely based on me, you know, it's like… Right. But I think it just, like, permeates everything in society, you know, and once you kind of realize that.
• 27:45
  Darya Foroohar: it's like, oh, I'm not gonna be fun anymore, because I'm always gonna be noticing something.
• 27:51
  Darya Foroohar: you know, and be like, oh, actually, I don't like when you said that. And then, you know, feeling like, oh, you're making people feel guilty or something. And, you know, obviously, there are other issues in people's lives and my life, but it's just something that…
• 28:08
  Darya Foroohar: I…
• 28:10
  Darya Foroohar: I think just the anger I feel about it is because it's perpetuated by people who say that they care about, like, the oppressed.
• 28:18
  Darya Foroohar: Or minorities, you know?
• 28:21
  Darya Foroohar: And… that's kind of the angle that I'm writing from.
• 28:26
  Darya Foroohar: And that's definitely, like, a bigger kind of…
• 28:30
  Darya Foroohar: issue in some of my other works, where I talk about, like, Middle Eastern feminism specifically, because that's, like, the misogyny is perpetuated by men of color.
• 28:44
  Darya Foroohar: And it's, like, I think a lot of white… people. Or, like, white…
• 28:50
  Darya Foroohar: People are like, oh, you know.
• 28:53
  Darya Foroohar: like, it's just part of their culture, you know? And it's like, that's also racist, you know? Like, it's just, like, you're just saying that, like, like, someone… like, oh, they're just naturally misogynistic, like, you sound racist, you know? It's like…
• 29:06
  Tad Eggleston: Well, and that… and then the ultimate… the ultimate, like…
• 29:10
  Tad Eggleston: bullshit, which is, well, I'm not as misogynist as them. I just used that word you don't like. I'm not telling you you have to…
• 29:19
  Tad Eggleston: Whatever.
• 29:22
  Darya Foroohar: Yeah, I mean, like, one thing, that just came up, I don't know, a couple years ago, like.
• 29:29
  Darya Foroohar: I remember my cousins were telling me about, like, how, like, their dad, my uncle, was, like, being really misogynistic, and they were like, oh, you know, it's just, like, Iranian dad things, and I was like, well, if my… I mean, my dad is… I was like, if my dad ever said those things to me, I'd never talk to him, you know? It's like, that's…
• 29:44
  Darya Foroohar: that's, like…
• 29:46
  Darya Foroohar: You can't just, like, say, oh yeah, like, it's just their culture, because it's not, you know, and it shouldn't be.
• 29:54
  Tad Eggleston: And even if it is, cultures change.
• 29:56
  Darya Foroohar: Yeah, exactly.
• 29:58
  Tad Eggleston: You know, I mean, it's one thing to say that you respect all cultures, and it's another thing to say that all cultures should
• 30:08
  Tad Eggleston: B… static for.
• 30:12
  Darya Foroohar: And that's why I like to, like, write about, you know.
• 30:16
  Darya Foroohar: feminist movements in those countries, just because I know people are gonna be like, well, what if you were, you know, a woman there, you know? You don't know what they're like. And it's like, well, actually, I do, you know, because I've done research on it, and…
• 30:28
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 30:28
  Darya Foroohar: just because I know that it's something that is gonna come up, you know, and it's like… which is why I want to focus on… yeah, there are women there who are actively fighting against it, you know, so you can't just be like, oh, you know, that's just what they are, that's just what they do.
• 30:42
  Darya Foroohar: I don't know if that answered your original question.
• 30:44
  Tad Eggleston: No, it… I mean, I don't know if I had an original question. It does actually lead to,
• 30:53
  Tad Eggleston: I'm trying to remember exactly…
• 30:56
  Tad Eggleston: at one point, I think you even questioned, like, the why you care about words, and I think, like…
• 31:06
  Tad Eggleston: I'm gonna both posit a hypothesis, but also really just say why I care about words, which is, like.
• 31:13
  Tad Eggleston: Words are the absolute easiest thing to change, and they cost you nothing.
• 31:18
  Tad Eggleston: So, like… You can't use the R word anymore. Oh, well. Find another way to be funny.
• 31:26
  Darya Foroohar: Yeah.
• 31:28
  Tad Eggleston: You know, are you so dumb that you can't find another way to be funny?
• 31:32
  Darya Foroohar: Yeah.
• 31:33
  Tad Eggleston: You know, oh, don't tell racist jokes anymore.
• 31:39
  Tad Eggleston: You're so dumb that you can't be funny without.
• 31:43
  Darya Foroohar: Yeah. Without punching down?
• 31:46
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, it's like, that's why… And I'm specifically hitting towards common… Comics right now, but, like.
• 31:53
  Tad Eggleston: It is certainly the biggest group of people that
• 31:56
  Tad Eggleston: that even among the people who tend to be leftists, they seem worried about cancel culture. And if there is one thing that I will say about the left, is we're way better at canceling ourselves than cancelling anybody.
• 32:08
  Darya Foroohar: Oh, absolutely.
• 32:10
  Darya Foroohar: I mean, and it's just… that's… I mean, and it's like, that's why, you know, I'm writing a generic
• 32:18
  Darya Foroohar: comic about, like, I'm not, like, you know, posting, like, oh, this person, like, said this.
• 32:22
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 32:22
  Darya Foroohar: should be canceled. It's like…
• 32:24
  Darya Foroohar: I don't want to do that. I want to just write, kind of, a comment that's more general.
• 32:29
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 32:29
  Darya Foroohar: This is the issue… the issue… Well, and… and… and helps…
• 32:33
  Tad Eggleston: And, see, you just… you just opened my thought process. That's what I appreciated about this comic, is it didn't specif… I mean, it called out Steve, but who the hell is Steve? Lots of Steves in the world, right?
• 32:48
  Tad Eggleston: But what it did was show us how it feels.
• 32:54
  Tad Eggleston: show the world that, like, it doesn't seem like it's a big deal, but it kind of is. And it is a big deal.
• 33:04
  Tad Eggleston: BECAUSE it's a little thing.
• 33:07
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah. Because it's a little thing. It… It's just not hard.
• 33:15
  Tad Eggleston: To change your language.
• 33:18
  Tad Eggleston: Particularly when it comes to things that are, like.
• 33:23
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, I think of the… and I know that this is at times a problematic movie, but…
• 33:30
  Tad Eggleston: I think of the scene in Chasing Amy, where Holden gives Banky a hard time for using a homophobic slur against the video game hockey team, and he's like.
• 33:42
  Darya Foroohar: That's passive-aggressive rac- er, homophobia. Yeah.
• 33:46
  Tad Eggleston: And it's true. You could just call them assholes.
• 33:50
  Darya Foroohar: Yeah, no, exactly! And that's why I've been so upset with, like, Bitch as an insult, you know? This isn't the first time I've written about it. Like, I had a comic in 2021 where I, like.
• 34:02
  Darya Foroohar: I… an excerpt of it, was, like, published, like, last year, but it was just, like, saying, like, you could just use another word, you know? Like, why do you have to use a gendered word? You know, and the backlash to it, like, why are you getting so defensive? Like, why are you saying, like, oh, it's me who's soft?
• 34:20
  Darya Foroohar: who's being upset? Like, you know, if you can't even fathom why I would be upset, it's like, I'm sure you can, but you just don't want to think about it, because it's…
• 34:29
  Darya Foroohar: it's just, like, another thing you have to give up. And it's like…
• 34:32
  Tad Eggleston: I, I mean…
• 34:33
  Darya Foroohar: Bye.
• 34:34
  Tad Eggleston: To the extent that they can't, it's because there literally aren't any ways that they have to.
• 34:40
  Darya Foroohar: Yeah.
• 34:42
  Tad Eggleston: What… I mean, is there even a pejorative term for a privileged white male?
• 34:49
  Darya Foroohar: No, I mean… Like, no, but even if there were
• 34:53
  Darya Foroohar: the same effect. Like, you know, I don't know, it's why… like…
• 35:00
  Darya Foroohar: insults against, like, white people just aren't gonna have the same effect, because they don't have that, like, history of racism, like, behind it, you know? Like, insults for men, like, just don't have the same effect.
• 35:11
  Darya Foroohar: Because they're not carrying the weight of that real violence.
• 35:17
  Tad Eggleston: So, I mean…
• 35:19
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, that's absolutely true, and that was where I was going, is you just don't have the… but I am also suddenly realizing that,
• 35:29
  Tad Eggleston: like, one of my favorite books of last year, and I'm biased because the artist is a good friend of mine.
• 35:35
  Tad Eggleston: Was Big Jim and the White Boy.
• 35:38
  Darya Foroohar: By David Walker and Marcus Kwame Anderson, and it's a… it's a conversation with Huckleberry Finn.
• 35:45
  Darya Foroohar: Oh, okay.
• 35:45
  Tad Eggleston: You know, so it's a retelling of Huckleberry Finn that centers Jim
• 35:50
  Tad Eggleston: But, but, like, they made the conscious choice to use the N-word.
• 35:56
  Darya Foroohar: Mmm.
• 35:57
  Tad Eggleston: And they, like, scribble it out, so you know it's there, but it's not there.
• 36:02
  Darya Foroohar: But then there's a scene in the middle of it.
• 36:05
  Tad Eggleston: where Huck and Jim actually have a word… a conversation about it.
• 36:09
  Darya Foroohar: And Jim's like, well, what would you do if somebody called you a…
• 36:13
  Tad Eggleston: N-word, and Huck's like, well, I'd kick his ass, and he's like,
• 36:20
  Darya Foroohar: Yeah.
• 36:23
  Tad Eggleston: You know, it's… Like…
• 36:27
  Darya Foroohar: The, the…
• 36:28
  Tad Eggleston: Well, I mean, just the casual…
• 36:33
  Tad Eggleston: Cruelty or demeaning that people of privilege read.
• 36:37
  Tad Eggleston: white males.
• 36:40
  Tad Eggleston: Are willing to… to just throw out, because they've just never… never even considered how it would feel.
• 36:51
  Tad Eggleston: Thrown back at them.
• 36:52
  Darya Foroohar: It's, like, why I also just have an issue with, like, leftist men
• 36:57
  Darya Foroohar: calling, like… I don't know, using just misogynistic insults against right-wing women. It's like, yeah, I hate those women too, but misogyny isn't something you get to do to someone you don't like.
• 37:08
  Darya Foroohar: You know, because if you use it against them, what's to say you're not going to use it against someone else you don't like? And I've seen leftist men.
• 37:15
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 37:15
  Darya Foroohar: You know, use, like, mental health.
• 37:17
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, yeah.
• 37:18
  Darya Foroohar: against, like, accusations of sexual assault, you know? I've seen it, like, in my community, you know? And it's like, oh, okay, so you're just using the same thing that, like, right-wing people do, but wokely.
• 37:33
  Tad Eggleston: Right, right. It's okay if we aim it at our enemies. It has never made sense to me. I mean, the most common argument I wind up getting into with people that I agree on with things is when I feel like they start
• 37:50
  Tad Eggleston: Dehumanizing in one way, shape, or form.
• 37:54
  Tad Eggleston: Republican voters.
• 37:56
  Tad Eggleston: Because I'm sitting there going, that's way too big of a group for us to make any generalizations.
• 38:01
  Tad Eggleston: So the sec… the second we start even making generalizations, I have trouble with you, but when you… and don't get me wrong, I'm not happy with Republican voters. Yeah.
• 38:12
  Tad Eggleston: But the second we start stereotyping them, I have problems, but when that stereotype becomes in any way, shape, or form dehumanizing, what makes us different?
• 38:22
  Darya Foroohar: Yeah, because it's just a slippery slope, you know, and it's like, oh, so you're just gonna call any woman you disagree with a bitch. Like, how is that… how am I supposed to be, like, think of myself in solidarity with you?
• 38:36
  Tad Eggleston: Right. It's just… and it's like, yeah.
• 38:38
  Darya Foroohar: you know, I still…
• 38:40
  Darya Foroohar: join, like, the same marches or campaigns that those people do, because I'm like, well, this… I'm not gonna not go to a protest, because, like, the organizer said something I didn't like, you know, because the cause is more important, you know? But it still makes me upset, you know, because I don't wanna…
• 38:59
  Darya Foroohar: I don't want to, you know, be thinking about that, you know? Like, I wish that.
• 39:02
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 39:03
  Tad Eggleston: You want to be focused on what you're protesting, rather than the fact that, okay, when I'm done winning this battle.
• 39:10
  Tad Eggleston: There's another one to win, and I'm sorry, I just stepped on you. I mean, it's just…
• 39:14
  Darya Foroohar: Sounds like… Because I think…
• 39:17
  Darya Foroohar: the, like, a conflict is like, oh, so you're just, like, not gonna, like, fight for this thing just because, like, the leader of it, like, is a little bit sexist? No, like, I still will, you know? Like, I still will, like, go to those movements and, you know, participate and give my time and energy, but…
• 39:34
  Darya Foroohar: I don't like that, you know, this person is being elevated, and I'm also allowed to, like, talk about that, you know? Just because I'm…
• 39:43
  Darya Foroohar: like, talking about it doesn't mean that I'm in, you know, like, gonna be…
• 39:49
  Darya Foroohar: I don't know, like, a purist, you know, because I think…
• 39:53
  Darya Foroohar: that's why I'm, like, using my words. I think, like, rhetoric has to be stronger than…
• 39:58
  Darya Foroohar: action, because your rhetoric is going to be watered down anyway, so you might as well make it stronger rather than weaker, you know? It's why, like, my comics are very…
• 40:09
  Darya Foroohar: strong and pointed and, like, uncomfortable. Because in real life, like, I'm…
• 40:15
  Darya Foroohar: you know, like, I'm going to… I don't know, like… If every person organizing something
• 40:25
  Darya Foroohar: or no, like, no organization has people who are gonna be agreeing with me 100% of the time, but that doesn't mean that I'm gonna stop working with them, or, like, stop, you know, going to protests organized by them, because I understand that the cause is important, you know?
• 40:41
  Darya Foroohar: But I still think that they should be able to change, you know?
• 40:47
  Darya Foroohar: I think you should criticize organizations you work with, because if you don't, like.
• 40:52
  Darya Foroohar: fight for the people you work with to be better, then you're just, like, accepting that things are never gonna get better, and like, you know, I want things to get better. Like, that's why I talk about
• 41:03
  Darya Foroohar: misogyny, you know? It's because I think that there is the potential to get better, you know? If it were your lost cause, then I guess I just wouldn't talk about it.
• 41:14
  Tad Eggleston: I liked something you said there. Your rhetoric should be stronger than your actions.
• 41:20
  Tad Eggleston: We often hear that actions speak louder than words, and it seems like those two statements should be contradictory, but I don't think they are.
• 41:29
  Tad Eggleston: Because, you know… actions, particularly Towards large goals tend to be more communal.
• 41:41
  Tad Eggleston: So you necessarily have to make compromises. Your rhetoric can be your statement of purpose. This is how I want to act. This is how I wish we could act. And your rhetoric should be…
• 42:02
  Tad Eggleston: I'm processing really complicated thoughts in my head, so I'm kind of thinking out loud, because you made me think here.
• 42:09
  Tad Eggleston: No, no, no, no, go ahead, go ahead. No, no, no, I'm agreeing with you.
• 42:12
  Darya Foroohar: Oh, yeah.
• 42:13
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 42:15
  Darya Foroohar: So have you been following, like, the New York mayoral elections, like.
• 42:20
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
• 42:21
  Darya Foroohar: I thought it was amazing that he won the primary. I'm not registered to vote in New York anymore. I did grow up there, so… Right. I do have, like, a, you know, I'm very interested. But, seeing, like, Twitter… I don't know, I don't know, like, how, you know, much Twitter impact has on real life, but, like, seeing a bunch of people on Twitter
• 42:40
  Darya Foroohar: been like, oh, you know, he's not a true ally to the cause, you know? He didn't, like, say.
• 42:45
  Darya Foroohar: like, police should be, like, 100% defunded, and I'm just thinking, well, like, he's trying to win an election, like, you should still say those, like, you should still criticize him, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't vote for him, because it's like, this is the best mayoral candidate we've had in years, like…
• 43:01
  Tad Eggleston: Well, and… and… and, like… here's what I was trying to put together, is that, like.
• 43:13
  Tad Eggleston: Actions have… bigger consequences.
• 43:17
  Darya Foroohar: And therefore, actions need to be…
• 43:20
  Tad Eggleston: on some level, small c conservative. I'm not… I don't mean conservative as in, like, conservatives, red state people. I mean… I mean, like…
• 43:33
  Tad Eggleston: If you… It's thought out? Yeah, if you… overact.
• 43:39
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, yes, you can work to fix things if things don't go well, but it's better not to break things.
• 43:44
  Tad Eggleston: Whatever Silicon Valley people think, more times than not, it's better not to break things than…
• 43:52
  Tad Eggleston: To break them and then fix them.
• 43:54
  Darya Foroohar: Yeah.
• 43:56
  Tad Eggleston: Whereas rhetoric… is where the ideas are formed. Rhetoric is where…
• 44:06
  Tad Eggleston: they're refined. Rhetoric is where you decide to make actions. Rhetoric should change. You shouldn't be damned for something that you said 10 years ago, because you're not who you were 10 years ago.
• 44:18
  Tad Eggleston: I say that with caveats, but… Yeah. But, like, but, like…
• 44:24
  Tad Eggleston: You're not old enough to remember
• 44:27
  Tad Eggleston: or likely not old enough, I don't want to guarantee you were… you were what? If you're 22 now, you were 5, so maybe.
• 44:37
  Tad Eggleston: Er, no, no, sorry, you were…
• 44:40
  Tad Eggleston: You were one, so no, you're not old enough to remember the John Kerry-George W. Bush campaign.
• 44:47
  Tad Eggleston: in 2004.
• 44:50
  Tad Eggleston: But, like, a huge part of it was based on the fact that John Kerry had flip-flopped on the Iraq war. He'd voted for it and voted against it, and it didn't matter how many times that he said, look.
• 45:03
  Tad Eggleston: Based on the information we had on this date, yeah, I voted for it. And in the… in the 3 months before the next vote, this, this, this, and this came out, and I changed my mind, and I voted against it. He was labeled as a flip-flopper, and we needed to have
• 45:19
  Tad Eggleston: firm, powerful, and like, How… how is the idea that leaders shouldn't change their minds a good thing?
• 45:30
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah. How is it good that, like, any position that you take in your life, you shouldn't be able to change…
• 45:39
  Tad Eggleston: frog.
• 45:40
  Darya Foroohar: Yeah.
• 45:41
  Tad Eggleston: Oh.
• 45:46
  Tad Eggleston: And that, to me, is the power of the statement that you just made, that the rhetoric should be stronger. We should be less afraid of taking a strong position
• 45:57
  Tad Eggleston: Rhetorically.
• 45:59
  Tad Eggleston: Because if we learn more, if our experience tells us more, and we wind up softening it, or strengthening it, or whatever.
• 46:06
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, because, I mean, just to bring your mom, Donnie example, it could be that he's trying to win an election, it could be that he's, like.
• 46:15
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, police as we know it is completely flawed, but I don't know if having no vehicle for…
• 46:25
  Tad Eggleston: public safety is a good idea, so before… before I say defund the police out loud, I want to have a really good idea of what we're gonna do instead.
• 46:38
  Tad Eggleston: You know, we have massive problems with, like, our carceral system. But I don't know if the best answer is to let everybody out of prison and figure it out.
• 46:47
  Darya Foroohar: Yeah.
• 46:48
  Darya Foroohar: And I think, like, rhetoric is also, like, great at inspiring people and motivating.
• 46:54
  Darya Foroohar: And it's like, that's why it should be really strong. But, you know, not everything is going to be translated to action, you know?
• 47:02
  Tad Eggleston: At least not into direct…
• 47:04
  Darya Foroohar: Yeah.
• 47:05
  Tad Eggleston: And I think that's part of…
• 47:08
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, and I don't want to defend Biden too much, because he lost me when he couldn't
• 47:14
  Tad Eggleston: When he couldn't… speak power to Netanyahu, he completely lost me.
• 47:23
  Darya Foroohar: I mean, I think that's what lost him the election, I thought.
• 47:26
  Tad Eggleston: I do too.
• 47:29
  Tad Eggleston: Because I, I, I, I think it was his weakest moment.
• 47:33
  Tad Eggleston: I don't think anybody bought it as being strong for Israel.
• 47:38
  Tad Eggleston: you know, so the people who wanted him to be that, Trump had them anyway.
• 47:43
  Tad Eggleston: And everybody else went, what the hell are you doing?
• 47:48
  Darya Foroohar: Yeah.
• 47:49
  Tad Eggleston: But until that point, you know, he was accomplishing a lot of things.
• 47:54
  Tad Eggleston: And… still losing ground, I think, because…
• 48:02
  Tad Eggleston: there were so many people that are like, well, you talked this game, and you haven't managed to deliver it, and I'm sitting there going, it's been 6 months in an opposition Congress.
• 48:11
  Darya Foroohar: Yeah.
• 48:11
  Tad Eggleston: This is what he wants to do.
• 48:13
  Tad Eggleston: you know, the number of people who would talk about Obama and his broken promises, I'm like, those aren't broken promises, those are, this is what I want to do. But now, once I'm in office, there are people who have checks on what I can do. And we like it that way. If you don't believe that we like it that way, look at the last 6 months where we have a president who doesn't have checks, who's just doing what he said he was gonna do.
• 48:36
  Darya Foroohar: Yeah.
• 48:38
  Tad Eggleston: People are complicated, the world is complicated.
• 48:44
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, I love it when people give me things to absolutely chew on.
• 48:47
  Tad Eggleston: I like…
• 48:48
  Darya Foroohar: Yeah.
• 48:49
  Tad Eggleston: What should be stronger than actions.
• 48:51
  Darya Foroohar: Because it's like, I'm not advocating for you to, like, murder someone, in my.
• 48:54
  Tad Eggleston: No!
• 48:54
  Darya Foroohar: But I am advocating for you to, like, think about your words and what you say, you know? And also for men, like, how do you talk to your friends?
• 49:04
  Darya Foroohar: how do you challenge your friends and their misogyny? Because it makes me think, like, this, I read this, kind of excerpt from Steve Biko, the South African independence activist,
• 49:16
  Darya Foroohar: And one of his, writings was, like, talking to, like, white liberals in South Africa, and he was like, basically, you're too obsessed with, like, seeming cool to Black people, but, like, what you… what actually helps the movement is if you talk to your racist white friends.
• 49:30
  Darya Foroohar: You know? And he's like, well, none of you are actually doing that, because you don't actually want anything to change, you just want to seem like you do. You know, and I was like, that seems like a lot of, like, liberal men, you know? It's like, they, like, are like, yeah, babe, you know, misogyny sucks, but they don't talk to their, like, misogynist friends, you know?
• 49:47
  Tad Eggleston: Or, or…
• 49:48
  Darya Foroohar: other jokes.
• 49:49
  Tad Eggleston: Or, in my mind, equally bad, they completely write off their misogynist friends as, like, oh, the best way to convince them to be different is for me not to be their friend anymore.
• 50:05
  Darya Foroohar: It's like.
• 50:05
  Tad Eggleston: And therefore, they get more of an echo chamber.
• 50:11
  Darya Foroohar: Yeah, I've just seen, like, people be like, yeah, oh, that's just, like, Josh, that's just what he does, you know?
• 50:16
  Tad Eggleston: Yo, yeah, no, no, no, no, no, no.
• 50:19
  Tad Eggleston: I wasn't… I wasn't saying that that doesn't…
• 50:21
  Darya Foroohar: Oh.
• 50:22
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, but those tend to be the two… very rarely are, I will remain
• 50:28
  Tad Eggleston: their friend, and or have a very long breakup process where I try to… Keep the friendship.
• 50:38
  Darya Foroohar: Oh, yeah.
• 50:38
  Tad Eggleston: By helping them become a better person, because isn't that… isn't that, like, part of what friends are for?
• 50:46
  Darya Foroohar: Yeah.
• 50:46
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, to me, every relationship I have, it's because, you know, my best friends are the people that I spend time around, or I talk to, and I want to be better because of them.
• 50:58
  Tad Eggleston: that I feel like I've grown because of conversations with them, or time spent with them.
• 51:05
  Darya Foroohar: Just one thing, I said Steve Baker was an independence activist. He was an anti-apartheid activist, which I guess could be translated to independence, but I don't want to, like, say anything on the record that's technically factually incorrect.
• 51:19
  Tad Eggleston: That's cool.
• 51:20
  Darya Foroohar: that correction. Yeah, I was, like, outside part-time.
• 51:24
  Tad Eggleston: This is, this is,
• 51:26
  Tad Eggleston: I love that you think we have enough listeners that it matters, and it also makes me smile, because it's such a college kid thing. I gotta be…
• 51:37
  Darya Foroohar: I like being correct.
• 51:38
  Tad Eggleston: I'm not… Taria, I'm not trying to make fun of you.
• 51:42
  Darya Foroohar: I know, I know, I know.
• 51:44
  Darya Foroohar: I, I, I know. I just, I'm like, well, I…
• 51:47
  Tad Eggleston: 25 years ago, I would have been exactly the same. I would have been, oh, no, no, no!
• 51:53
  Darya Foroohar: yeah, I was like, fuck, like, if I don't do that, I'm gonna be thinking about it the entire… the rest of.
• 51:58
  Tad Eggleston: I… I so completely relate to that statement.
• 52:04
  Tad Eggleston: I beyond relate to that statement.
• 52:09
  Tad Eggleston: So, yeah, no, I wasn't… I wasn't meaning to put you down. I would.
• 52:13
  Darya Foroohar: Oh, no.
• 52:14
  Tad Eggleston: It was more laughing… laughing at the 20-year-old myself that would have been that way. Oh, wait a minute, I said this, and I meant that, and 99.95% of the world don't know the difference. But that… that .05% is clearly going to be listening to this podcast, and they're gonna blow up my Twitter feed.
• 52:36
  Darya Foroohar: Yeah.
• 52:37
  Darya Foroohar: L-O-L.
• 52:40
  Tad Eggleston: Well, cause, I mean, that's… That's the other thing I appreciated about your comic, is that it…
• 52:50
  Tad Eggleston: A friend of mine.
• 52:52
  Tad Eggleston: is…
• 52:53
  Tad Eggleston: what they call pure O, OCD, strictly obsessional, he has the constantly racing thoughts, so… so, like, your first page. Your first page both reminded me of his first comic, She Could Fly, from… from…
• 53:07
  Tad Eggleston: her books.
• 53:10
  Tad Eggleston: came out a couple years ago. But also, my wife tends to have similar issues, where it's like.
• 53:18
  Tad Eggleston: You know, and for that matter, it was listening to…
• 53:22
  Tad Eggleston: everything comes together. My brain is the one that brings everything that I have ever got together in one spot. I was just listening to Marc Maron, and he was talking about his girlfriend doesn't text back, and, you know, 5 minutes later, he's convinced that she's had a car accident and she's dead, because, like.
• 53:36
  Darya Foroohar: Yeah.
• 53:38
  Tad Eggleston: that's just how his… I think the line he's like is, like, I don't get these people who say, like, stop thinking for a while and just relax. If I try to try to stop thinking…
• 53:47
  Darya Foroohar: There's that corner of my brain that will open the worry box.
• 53:52
  Darya Foroohar: Yeah, I get that. I used to, like, have, like, obsessive thoughts that my parents were dead, and, like, they died in a car accident.
• 53:58
  Darya Foroohar: Yeah, very distressing. I didn't really think about it, like, that it was anything. You know, I didn't really talk about it, but I do remember, like, a period of time in my life where I was like, oh my god, like, I would just think that my parents had died if they came home late.
• 54:11
  Tad Eggleston: Right, right. And I don't personally have the same obsessive thoughts, but I do have the brain that I can't shut down.
• 54:23
  Tad Eggleston: as you've probably noticed, as I ping-pong all over the fucking place in the 55 minutes that we've been talking so far.
• 54:33
  Tad Eggleston: I don't even remember where I was.
• 54:35
  Darya Foroohar: Rhetoric, action, obsession, panels.
• 54:41
  Tad Eggleston: All of the above.
• 54:43
  Tad Eggleston: Why don't we transition to… I want to talk about Maha Nasser, because I didn't know who Maha Nasser was before this, and now I do, and I'm glad that I do. Yeah, so talk to me. You want to talk about Maha Nasser? I'm giving the opportunity to talk about Maha Nasser.
• 54:59
  Darya Foroohar: So this, the comic first came about, as an essay for a class on Middle Eastern feminisms, and the essay actually got, like, a B, or a B+, and I was, like, a little upset, but it was also because I kind of
• 55:13
  Darya Foroohar: ignored the assignment, because I was, like, getting too deep into research about Palestinian feminism, and I was like, wait… like, I got into a rabbit hole.
• 55:20
  Darya Foroohar: But I did a ton of.
• 55:22
  Tad Eggleston: I know all about those. You just defined why.
• 55:25
  Darya Foroohar: I don't.
• 55:26
  Tad Eggleston: have a college degree. And…
• 55:28
  Darya Foroohar: Oh, you know, and I don't think… I mean, the teacher and I kind of, like.
• 55:32
  Darya Foroohar: love her. We, like, argued all the time in class.
• 55:36
  Darya Foroohar: Because I was the only one being like, actually, like, you can say that these people are misogynistic, like, because no one else in the class was, like, Middle Eastern, and I was like, am I gonna be the only one who's, like, saying, like, actually.
• 55:51
  Darya Foroohar: we can be angry, you know? But I digress. So I wrote
• 55:57
  Darya Foroohar: And then I was like, wait, I want to make a comic about this, and then, like, raise money because, for, like, Palestine relief. And so I used the essay as kind of like a framework for the comic, which was helpful, because,
• 56:14
  Darya Foroohar: like, a lot of my academic comics, you know, I really have to do a ton of research, so for this one, like, the research had already been done.
• 56:22
  Darya Foroohar: So all there was to it was, like, kind of translating it into comic form and doing a little more research on Maha specifically. I had a friend who had, like, showed me a Facebook group, with a bunch of photos of her, because there… it's difficult to find photos of her online.
• 56:39
  Darya Foroohar: she's really not well known, but I kind of just was thinking, Like, this is someone who…
• 56:46
  Darya Foroohar: confounds both, like, pro-Israel activists.
• 56:51
  Darya Foroohar: and the pro-Palestine activists who kind of ignore the misogyny that is present, you know? Because this is someone who's fighting against Israeli oppression, and also the oppression of the men in her community.
• 57:05
  Darya Foroohar: And she didn't back down on either front, and I feel like a lot of people think that you have to choose one or the other, and I don't want to, you know? This is someone who was fighting for both, you know? She was fighting for women, and for her country, and for Palestine, and I think that was really inspirational.
• 57:21
  Darya Foroohar: And I, like, it was just really very heroic of her, you know? Because she could have, like, backed down, but she didn't, you know? And it was just really moving to me, and I wanted to write about her, and kind of show people that you don't have to back down on either issue.
• 57:41
  Tad Eggleston: This is just another autism brain thing.
• 57:44
  Tad Eggleston: How much do you think people saying that…
• 57:48
  Tad Eggleston: You have to back down on one issue or the other.
• 57:52
  Tad Eggleston: is… wedge driving.
• 57:55
  Tad Eggleston: It's like, let's split these groups. Let's make these factions work against each other rather than with each other, even though they're mostly going for the same things.
• 58:07
  Darya Foroohar: I mean, a lot of, like…
• 58:09
  Darya Foroohar: pro-Israel activists are like, well, what if you were a woman in Gaza?
• 58:13
  Tad Eggleston: Right. It's like, okay, well…
• 58:15
  Darya Foroohar: I mean, even my dad, he was like, okay, well, like…
• 58:18
  Darya Foroohar: what if you got raped? Like, wouldn't you want to… and your rapist was in a hospital? And I was like, well, I wouldn't bomb the hospital.
• 58:25
  Darya Foroohar: You know? Yeah. Like, what?
• 58:27
  Darya Foroohar: But I would…
• 58:29
  Tad Eggleston: What if I was a woman in Gaza? I'd be getting bombed, like women in Gaza. Yeah.
• 58:34
  Darya Foroohar: But also… but I would also want that person to face justice, you know?
• 58:38
  Tad Eggleston: Absolutely.
• 58:39
  Darya Foroohar: those people… I think also a lot of, like,
• 58:45
  Darya Foroohar: Pro-Palestinian activists are scared of, like, pointing out the flaws in
• 58:51
  Darya Foroohar: Palestinian culture that Palestinian women are fighting against, you know?
• 58:56
  Darya Foroohar: It's like, you couldn't… a lot… like, every culture is misogynistic. You don't have to deny misogyny.
• 59:01
  Tad Eggleston: Well, and it's…
• 59:02
  Darya Foroohar: for a people.
• 59:04
  Tad Eggleston: It's, it's kinda how the…
• 59:07
  Tad Eggleston: how you wind up with the… the magical black man, or the… the noble, savage Indian, whatnot. It's so much easier to…
• 59:19
  Tad Eggleston: Fight on behalf of a supposedly perfect group.
• 59:24
  Darya Foroohar: Amen.
• 59:25
  Tad Eggleston: And to go, yes, they're human too.
• 59:29
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah. You know.
• 59:30
  Darya Foroohar: And it's like, that shows…
• 59:32
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, I'd love to see Hamas gotten rid of, but the way they're doing it right now…
• 59:38
  Tad Eggleston: is going to help Hamas unless they… unless they accomplish genocide. The only way, the way that they're going right now gets rid of Hamas
• 59:46
  Tad Eggleston: Is if they actually kill them all.
• 59:48
  Darya Foroohar: I don't have that. And I can't get behind that.
• 59:51
  Darya Foroohar: And I don't think… I mean, it's not gonna happen, you know, because…
• 59:55
  Darya Foroohar: the Palestinian diaspora, exists, you know? Right. And as long as the diaspora exists, there will always be resistance, you know?
• 1:00:03
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 1:00:04
  Darya Foroohar: And you just.
• 1:00:04
  Tad Eggleston: And then your bad actions inspire resistance. And therefore, like, again, you're… like… like…
• 1:00:14
  Tad Eggleston: and it's one of those things where it's like, how do we not learn? You know, shock and awe, oh, wonderful, except that shock and awe goes from shock and awe to, oh, we gotta beat those fuckers.
• 1:00:28
  Tad Eggleston: You know, did we… And this is one of my unpopular takes, like, was our response to 9-11
• 1:00:37
  Tad Eggleston: oh, we must change our ways and be more like they want us to be, otherwise they'll hurt us again. No, it was, fuck you, we're coming after you. So why on earth do we expect any other person in the world
• 1:00:53
  Tad Eggleston: To behave differently when we carpet bomb them.
• 1:00:56
  Darya Foroohar: Yeah.
• 1:00:58
  Darya Foroohar: And it's like, obviously people are gonna fight back, you know?
• 1:01:02
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 1:01:03
  Darya Foroohar: And it was, like, similar, you know, honestly, similar rhetoric was kind of being used a couple months ago when they were bombing Iran, you know, and again, I saw leftists denying misogyny in Iran, and it was, like, it just made me so angry, you know, because…
• 1:01:19
  Darya Foroohar: Having seen, like, my female family members directly face, like, misogyny.
• 1:01:25
  Darya Foroohar: from, like, these cultures, these governments, you know, I… I haven't been to Iran, my mom's half Turkish, but I largely, you know, haven't been at the brunt of that, like, specific misogyny, but it's like, I've seen how that's affected, like, my mom and my stepmom, you know? But does that.
• 1:01:45
  Tad Eggleston: Madeline, and…
• 1:01:45
  Darya Foroohar: they should be bombed? Obviously not, you know? Like, you can… and it's like, most people in Iran are just normal people, you know? Like, everyone in… they just… they're just living their lives, you know? They're not, like, some perfect, like, you know.
• 1:02:02
  Darya Foroohar: flawless group of people that have perfect society, you know? Like, no woman is ever harmed, you know? All women have this one idea, you know, and they're all.
• 1:02:12
  Tad Eggleston: No, that only exists in small-town America.
• 1:02:15
  Darya Foroohar: Right, right.
• 1:02:18
  Darya Foroohar: But it's just, like, you don't have to deny… and yeah, I mean, like, that's why I wrote a small comic a couple months ago, just, like, on my thoughts about the bombing and, like, my family in Iran, you know?
• 1:02:28
  Tad Eggleston: See, I need to see so many more of your small comments.
• 1:02:31
  Darya Foroohar: I just posted that on Instagram, because I was just, like, tired of seeing so many takes, you know? Like, oh, this will cause a revolution in Iran. Like, no, it won't. You know, like, you think bombing someone is gonna cause them to rebel against their own government?
• 1:02:46
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, it…
• 1:02:47
  Darya Foroohar: government crackdown.
• 1:02:48
  Tad Eggleston: It might, but not the revolution you want.
• 1:02:52
  Darya Foroohar: Yeah.
• 1:02:54
  Tad Eggleston: You know, I mean, we caused a revolution in Afghanistan.
• 1:02:59
  Tad Eggleston: They're even more… Taliban than they were before. You know?
• 1:03:10
  Darya Foroohar: But yeah, it just, like, got kind of.
• 1:03:12
  Tad Eggleston: I mean…
• 1:03:13
  Darya Foroohar: dissonance.
• 1:03:14
  Darya Foroohar: is something I write about a lot.
• 1:03:17
  Tad Eggleston: And that's… I mean, I… it's why I'm enjoying your work, I'm enjoying, talking to you, cause… because…
• 1:03:31
  Tad Eggleston: Cognitive dissonance is…
• 1:03:36
  Tad Eggleston: Something that's so much easier to recognize in others than ourselves.
• 1:03:44
  Tad Eggleston: So, so, like, people who will challenge themselves and the people around them when they see it,
• 1:03:54
  Tad Eggleston: are special to me. Because…
• 1:03:57
  Tad Eggleston: again, this is how we become better as people. This is why I stand up for comics, this is why I stand up for fiction.
• 1:04:04
  Tad Eggleston: Fiction is how you learn about people. History books is how you learn about… about…
• 1:04:12
  Tad Eggleston: governments and societies and systems. But if you want to know about the people who lived in them.
• 1:04:18
  Tad Eggleston: Fiction is where you go.
• 1:04:21
  Tad Eggleston: Sometimes memoir, but memoir is always gonna be slightly slanted.
• 1:04:27
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah. And biography is… It doesn't have the humanity.
• 1:04:35
  Tad Eggleston: It's, it's, again, about how an individual fit into a system, into…
• 1:04:42
  Tad Eggleston: Either fit into a system, or reshape the system, or whatever.
• 1:04:46
  Tad Eggleston: And all of that is important, you know, it all fits together, but this is, I mean.
• 1:04:54
  Tad Eggleston: again, as an educator, I… I, like, it's why I get…
• 1:05:00
  Tad Eggleston: Like, one of my big pet peeves is when people go after arts education, or humanities education, or…
• 1:05:07
  Tad Eggleston: English classes. Oh, what do we need those for? You know, what are they going to learn from reading literature? And it's like…
• 1:05:14
  Tad Eggleston: How to, like… human better?
• 1:05:18
  Tad Eggleston: I don't know if you've noticed, but humaning is hard.
• 1:05:24
  Darya Foroohar: Yeah, and I worry, like, I'm not trying to seem like I have no cognitive dissonance, you know, like, when I.
• 1:05:32
  Tad Eggleston: No, I know you're not.
• 1:05:33
  Darya Foroohar: It's just…
• 1:05:35
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, I see it in your writing, is the fact that you think about
• 1:05:40
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, you question yourself regularly. That, that's…
• 1:05:46
  Tad Eggleston: That's acknowledging at least the possibility of cognitive dissonance. No, I didn't… didn't mean to say that they're implied all of that.
• 1:05:55
  Darya Foroohar: I don't think that's what you were implying. Yeah. I'm just, you know, like, I worry…
• 1:06:02
  Darya Foroohar: I don't know, I don't want to see it.
• 1:06:05
  Darya Foroohar: I don't want to seem like I'm…
• 1:06:08
  Darya Foroohar: like, I don't know, like, I have all the answers.
• 1:06:11
  Darya Foroohar: just because I'm criticizing other people.
• 1:06:15
  Tad Eggleston: Right. You know?
• 1:06:16
  Tad Eggleston: Well, and it's the…
• 1:06:20
  Tad Eggleston: And, and, like, I'm gonna say this, and I wanna make it clear that at 45, I… I…
• 1:06:26
  Tad Eggleston: I'm no… not much closer to it. But at 22, I was so good at seeing the problems in the world, and thought that I… I was certain of how…
• 1:06:41
  Tad Eggleston: how to move forward. And the biggest change between me then and me
• 1:06:47
  Tad Eggleston: now is just my confidence level. My confidence level isn't as high anymore, because I've learned that much more about the world, and I'm that much less certain
• 1:06:59
  Tad Eggleston: of my own beliefs, and not in a bad way, just in a… like, I've expanded enough that I can start going… I mean, we touched on it, like, the left is completely great at canceling people who are otherwise allies.
• 1:07:16
  Tad Eggleston: and terrible at canceling anybody else, which is why I honestly don't think the left cancels anybody. The right is good at using the left to find that wedge to cancel that otherwise powerful voice.
• 1:07:34
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah. Or better still, bring them over to the other side.
• 1:07:38
  Tad Eggleston: you know, there's nothing that's more painful to me than when I see somebody who, at one point, I viewed as an ally.
• 1:07:46
  Tad Eggleston: who… is now, like, a right-wing talking head. And it's like, what happened to you?
• 1:07:54
  Tad Eggleston: And sometimes I know the story, more times than not, I don't, but my guess is, almost all of the time, it's they slipped up in one particular way, where they felt ostracized, and they were welcomed by the assholes.
• 1:08:10
  Darya Foroohar: Yeah, and it's… I think a lot… I've seen that, not…
• 1:08:20
  Darya Foroohar: I don't know, like, I think a lot of the Iranian diaspora is more conservative than you would think.
• 1:08:27
  Tad Eggleston: Oh!
• 1:08:28
  Darya Foroohar: because, they really dislike the Islamic Republic.
• 1:08:33
  Darya Foroohar: most Western leftists seem to love the Islamic Republic, so… and, you know, I'm sure that that's… I think it's, like, also, like, the wealth, a lot of the diaspora had the funds to, you know, leave the country. Right. So, like, their general.
• 1:08:47
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, I'm a baseball geek… I'm a baseball geek, too, and
• 1:08:53
  Tad Eggleston: Why can't I remember his name right now?
• 1:09:01
  Tad Eggleston: there is, I don't know how much baseball writing he's been doing lately.
• 1:09:07
  Tad Eggleston: Rainey Jazzari.
• 1:09:11
  Tad Eggleston: Who is mostly a dermatologist, but, but, but.
• 1:09:16
  Darya Foroohar: Baseball critic?
• 1:09:17
  Tad Eggleston: Well, particularly, he writes about his favorite team, the Royals, but he sometimes does stuff elsewhere. And he, he is Iranian-American, and, and, like, he, he wrote, he wrote an essay a while ago
• 1:09:33
  Tad Eggleston: God, probably 10 or 15 years ago.
• 1:09:37
  Tad Eggleston: But, talking about how… like… The… the post-9-11 embrace of… Anti-islam rhetoric, in the Republican Party, like.
• 1:10:00
  Tad Eggleston: Was one of the biggest
• 1:10:03
  Tad Eggleston: like, own goals ever, because he's like, pre-9-11, particularly Iranian Americans, but in general, Muslim Americans were, like, 90% Republican.
• 1:10:17
  Darya Foroohar: Yeah.
• 1:10:19
  Tad Eggleston: But then they started getting blamed for everything, and in the span of two election cycles, they went to 90% Democrat.
• 1:10:28
  Darya Foroohar: Yeah, I mean… It's… Yeah, hatred, hatred will, lose you voters.
• 1:10:37
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, thank God? Yeah.
• 1:10:44
  Darya Foroohar: Not always.
• 1:10:44
  Tad Eggleston: Because it… yeah, it's kind of… it's kind of… kind of disturbing, the number of people that… that it feels like…
• 1:10:53
  Tad Eggleston: don't.
• 1:10:55
  Tad Eggleston: Don't abandon the, the people that pretty clearly hate them.
• 1:11:00
  Darya Foroohar: Yo!
• 1:11:00
  Tad Eggleston: But that's where I also have to remind myself that,
• 1:11:09
  Tad Eggleston: We love to look through our own lenses, and how easy it is for us to find this information, or that information, or whatever.
• 1:11:18
  Tad Eggleston: High-speed internet isn't as…
• 1:11:24
  Tad Eggleston: it isn't as much of a thing in 70% of the country. Libraries aren't as well stocked in 70% of the country. You know, schools are watered down in 70% of the country, so all of these people that we love to… to…
• 1:11:42
  Tad Eggleston: make out as just… stupid, because they're voting against their own interests or whatnot. I mean, A,
• 1:11:50
  Tad Eggleston: I don't think we spend enough time thinking about what their interests are, but B,
• 1:11:56
  Tad Eggleston: We assume that they have the same resources and time we have to… to…
• 1:12:06
  Tad Eggleston: To cut through the muck?
• 1:12:08
  Darya Foroohar: Mmm.
• 1:12:09
  Tad Eggleston: And we also…
• 1:12:11
  Tad Eggleston: like, dis… we also, I think, give ourselves too much credit for how much we cut through the muck, and how much we're around people.
• 1:12:17
  Darya Foroohar: Yeah.
• 1:12:18
  Tad Eggleston: that have also cut through the muck. Like, like…
• 1:12:22
  Tad Eggleston: it's a totally different thing to be completely surrounded by people who only watch Fox News, only spout Fox News.
• 1:12:31
  Tad Eggleston: and think that Donald Trump will save everything, and manage to find a way To know better.
• 1:12:40
  Darya Foroohar: Yeah.
• 1:12:42
  Darya Foroohar: You know? It's… yeah.
• 1:12:46
  Tad Eggleston: I'm sorry, I think… I think big picture a lot.
• 1:12:51
  Darya Foroohar: Oh, no.
• 1:12:53
  Tad Eggleston: you know… I think we need to broaden the tent, I don't know how…
• 1:13:00
  Tad Eggleston: Because it seems like every, every way, every way you could broaden the tent.
• 1:13:06
  Tad Eggleston: Just cuts off people on the left, even when you're not trying to.
• 1:13:10
  Darya Foroohar: Yeah…
• 1:13:11
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, I think that's why I appreciated what you were saying before, too, on, like, just because I don't agree with everything a leader says.
• 1:13:19
  Tad Eggleston: in some sort of protest movement doesn't mean that I won't be part of that protest movement. If the movement itself is important.
• 1:13:27
  Tad Eggleston: We'll figure out the details.
• 1:13:30
  Tad Eggleston: Further down the line.
• 1:13:32
  Darya Foroohar: But I'm still gonna criticize them, you know? Oh, yeah! No, no, no.
• 1:13:37
  Tad Eggleston: But, but I think…
• 1:13:38
  Darya Foroohar: versus rhetoric. Again, like, bringing that back.
• 1:13:42
  Tad Eggleston: And I love bringing that back, because I think
• 1:13:46
  Tad Eggleston: I think if I had the magic wand to do…
• 1:13:50
  Tad Eggleston: One thing, it would be like…
• 1:13:55
  Tad Eggleston: convince people to… to listen and discuss, rather than, I must have my staunch rhetoric.
• 1:14:02
  Tad Eggleston: And if you don't agree with my rhetoric, I'm taking my ball and going home.
• 1:14:09
  Darya Foroohar: Yeah, which seems to be the case, but, you know…
• 1:14:13
  Tad Eggleston: too often.
• 1:14:14
  Darya Foroohar: Maybe I'm generalizing as well. Probably.
• 1:14:18
  Tad Eggleston: I… I don't know that you are.
• 1:14:20
  Tad Eggleston: I mean…
• 1:14:23
  Tad Eggleston: And to the extent that you are, it's certainly based on experience. It's certainly, certainly been my experience, too.
• 1:14:29
  Darya Foroohar: Yeah.
• 1:14:30
  Tad Eggleston: Just because I look for ways not to generalize doesn't mean it's not easy to.
• 1:14:37
  Tad Eggleston: If that makes sense. Yeah.
• 1:14:43
  Tad Eggleston: So, like, actually, this is… this is a question, you know, out of this, cause… cause…
• 1:14:50
  Tad Eggleston: I'm the old man, the old white man at that.
• 1:14:53
  Tad Eggleston: Talk to me about… Where you see…
• 1:15:02
  Tad Eggleston: Either specifically or broadly, your age group.
• 1:15:07
  Tad Eggleston: Today.
• 1:15:08
  Tad Eggleston: In terms of…
• 1:15:11
  Tad Eggleston: Trying to effect change, in terms of moving forward, in terms of what you want, what you think is possible.
• 1:15:19
  Darya Foroohar: It's really… I think it's dependent on, I see a lot of…
• 1:15:27
  Darya Foroohar: varying, answers. Of course. I think in a lot of my college peers, the ones who did, like, tech or consulting are just, like, doing…
• 1:15:42
  Darya Foroohar: corporate jobs, and they're like, oh, well, I'm working at this evil company now, but once I retire, I can work at a non-profit.
• 1:15:51
  Darya Foroohar: which… I don't… I don't know.
• 1:15:59
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah. No, there was a… there was a, I think, Washington Post op-ed recently by some guy that had made his first million at 25, and he was convinced he would be a billionaire at 30, and that's when he'd start doing good work.
• 1:16:12
  Darya Foroohar: Yeah.
• 1:16:13
  Darya Foroohar: Because, I don't know, Talking to someone in consulting yesterday.
• 1:16:18
  Darya Foroohar: And… it's like, yeah, I don't like it, but I…
• 1:16:24
  Darya Foroohar: do it, you know, because it'll make money, and I… so I think a lot of people are just trying to… to make…
• 1:16:30
  Darya Foroohar: A living and make ends meet, but…
• 1:16:33
  Tad Eggleston: I don't know, the job market is really hard. I'm… Oh, yeah.
• 1:16:37
  Darya Foroohar: maybe I'm… maybe I'm passing too much judgment on them,
• 1:16:41
  Darya Foroohar: You know, because me, I've been trying to find, like, a day job in, like, at an organization who's, like, aligns with my values, and that's been really hard.
• 1:16:52
  Darya Foroohar: Not gonna lie, a little bit disheartening.
• 1:16:56
  Darya Foroohar: But I think a lot of, people…
• 1:17:01
  Darya Foroohar: are looking for change, but are very pessimistic. I think everyone in my age group is very pessimistic,
• 1:17:09
  Darya Foroohar: And… Just kind of worried.
• 1:17:14
  Darya Foroohar: And, like, there isn't really hope, you know? Yeah, it's just very bleak. It's like, you know, try not to think about it, and I think that's why a lot of people are just, like.
• 1:17:24
  Darya Foroohar: Making ends meet for themselves, you know?
• 1:17:28
  Darya Foroohar: I also think a lot of information is being disseminated through social media, which is allowing people to learn about things that they haven't, that they wouldn't have been able to, like, 20 years ago, which I think is, really making my age group,
• 1:17:43
  Darya Foroohar: more, like… Aware of different struggles and different issues.
• 1:17:48
  Darya Foroohar: But it's just… I think it can be a sort of echo chamber.
• 1:17:53
  Darya Foroohar: Of people who align with your values, you know, because…
• 1:17:59
  Darya Foroohar: if one of my cousins is, like, in the Air Force, and her Instagram stories are way different than most of the people I follow, you know? It's like…
• 1:18:10
  Darya Foroohar: you can't… like, the cosmopolitan, liberal…
• 1:18:16
  Darya Foroohar: Youth is just not representative of the entire youth, and…
• 1:18:21
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 1:18:22
  Darya Foroohar: I don't really… to be honest, I don't… Know enough.
• 1:18:27
  Darya Foroohar: people in, like, rural red states to…
• 1:18:30
  Tad Eggleston: Right, and I guess I asked too big of a question. I wasn't trying to make you the spokesperson for all 22- and 23-year-olds.
• 1:18:41
  Darya Foroohar: Right, right.
• 1:18:43
  Darya Foroohar: I know single one, so I can speak for all of them.
• 1:18:46
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, it's kind of like Black people, they all know each other, right? No? That's not true?
• 1:18:53
  Darya Foroohar: I saw a tweet… I saw a tweet, that was, like, I…
• 1:18:59
  Tad Eggleston: Hold on just a second. I want to make it abundantly clear to anybody listening, I was joking. That was not a serious comment. Sorry. Now, go ahead, Target.
• 1:19:10
  Darya Foroohar: I saw after, like, Iran got bombed, I saw a tweet that was like, I know all 90 million Iranians, therefore I can speak for all of them.
• 1:19:19
  Darya Foroohar: And I just think… Like, yeah.
• 1:19:23
  Darya Foroohar: You know… It's… it's really easy to make generalizations.
• 1:19:29
  Tad Eggleston: Absolutely.
• 1:19:29
  Darya Foroohar: And…
• 1:19:30
  Tad Eggleston: And I phrased it badly. I was meaning to ask more for you and the people that you're around, the people that you align yourself with.
• 1:19:40
  Tad Eggleston: How do you… How do you manage the… Work-life protest balance.
• 1:19:49
  Tad Eggleston: Fights are the ones… A lot of pessimism.
• 1:19:53
  Darya Foroohar: Yeah, and I think…
• 1:19:58
  Darya Foroohar: A lot of people are just working and going to sleep, working and going to sleep,
• 1:20:03
  Darya Foroohar: It's hard, you know, like… I…
• 1:20:07
  Darya Foroohar: Quit my, service job, a couple weeks ago.
• 1:20:12
  Darya Foroohar: And got a new one, and then quit that, just because I have so much comic stuff this month.
• 1:20:18
  Darya Foroohar: You know, and after this month, I'll get another one, but it's not what I'd like to be doing, you know, and I just think that I quit… I was working at the Second City as a host for
• 1:20:30
  Darya Foroohar: About 8 months, and it was just making me a really angry person, a bitter person. I think that was because we were understaffed, and just, like, had to do the work of multiple people.
• 1:20:40
  Tad Eggleston: Bye.
• 1:20:41
  Darya Foroohar: But I just think, like, it's exhausting, and people just don't have time. You know, like, if you don't know what you want to do, and you don't have, like.
• 1:20:50
  Darya Foroohar: plan to do what you want to do, it's really hard to get started, you know? And I haven't been to, like, as many demonstrations lately as I would like.
• 1:20:59
  Darya Foroohar: and, you know, that's… that's not good, you know? I feel like I should. And…
• 1:21:07
  Darya Foroohar: I think that a lot of people
• 1:21:11
  Darya Foroohar: feel guilty, like, they feel like, oh, I need to be doing more, I need to be doing art, I need to be doing this, but they're just tired, and they're pessimistic, and the people in corporate jobs also don't go, you know, to things, or they do…
• 1:21:27
  Darya Foroohar: But…
• 1:21:31
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, I know a lot of people that are just afraid to go to the things because of the jobs that they have, because they're afraid that, like, if they're in the wrong picture, or whatever, that it could…
• 1:21:40
  Darya Foroohar: when I had a 9-to-5, I mean, I worked at WBEZ sometimes, I still went to protests. Right. Because my thing was, like, I'm not important enough for them to fire me.
• 1:21:50
  Darya Foroohar: Like, you know…
• 1:21:52
  Tad Eggleston: This is… this is where I'm a little bit older.
• 1:21:55
  Tad Eggleston: They're the people that have had the jobs a little bit longer.
• 1:22:00
  Darya Foroohar: Yeah, no, that… yeah.
• 1:22:04
  Darya Foroohar: But that's one of the masks.
• 1:22:06
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 1:22:08
  Tad Eggleston: When it's legal. It's funny, when we make it illegal for protesters to wear masks, but totally legal for law enforcement.
• 1:22:15
  Darya Foroohar: Right, right.
• 1:22:16
  Tad Eggleston: And I use that term as loosely as possible.
• 1:22:19
  Darya Foroohar: Yeah…
• 1:22:22
  Tad Eggleston: So, like, if you could ask for one thing from the older generations, the ones that are more privileged, that want to be…
• 1:22:32
  Tad Eggleston: Allies with women, allies with people of color, or just anti-fascists.
• 1:22:38
  Tad Eggleston: Which, there are a lot of them that want to be, and, like, I mean, I see it all the time. They're… they're… I mean, two things. First.
• 1:22:48
  Tad Eggleston: Many of them had a hard time Waking up until…
• 1:22:56
  Tad Eggleston: it actually, like, hit their 401K. Oh my god, the stock market's on fire, what happened? But then the other thing, like, because that's… I don't put myself in that group, but I do put myself in the group that's always been comfortable enough that it's like, I look for actions, I try to live the best life I can, but, like, other than the fact that I…
• 1:23:16
  Tad Eggleston: am an educator, and I'm never afraid to have
• 1:23:21
  Tad Eggleston: The hard conversation, and have deliberately kept myself in a job where, like.
• 1:23:27
  Tad Eggleston: I can mostly get away with it, and if… if I don't, I can make as much or more money somewhere else relatively quickly, so I don't have to…
• 1:23:37
  Tad Eggleston: to worry as much. Like… what could…
• 1:23:46
  Tad Eggleston: the older generations that care do to be more… and, you know, not to youth in general, but I'm certain that there's, like, like, what would you
• 1:23:56
  Tad Eggleston: Love to see more of…
• 1:24:00
  Tad Eggleston: the 30-somethings, the 40-somethings, the 50-somethings, the 60-somethings doing? Because I know that I… I look at these groups and I…
• 1:24:08
  Tad Eggleston: I don't see them acknowledging the… the…
• 1:24:13
  Tad Eggleston: The fights that have been going on for a while?
• 1:24:17
  Tad Eggleston: The people fighting them, Or the people who would be fighting them, except that
• 1:24:22
  Tad Eggleston: Like you're talking about, they're too tired.
• 1:24:25
  Darya Foroohar: Yeah.
• 1:24:26
  Darya Foroohar: I think, first of all, talk to your friends who aren't as active as you are, because that's who has, like, wealth and power. Talk to your friends, because they're more likely to listen to you than they are to some kid.
• 1:24:42
  Darya Foroohar: You know, and secondly, I think just, like, invest in the youth. Just, like, really…
• 1:24:48
  Darya Foroohar: Like, pay attention to what's going on, you know, consume, like, art.
• 1:24:53
  Darya Foroohar: it's made by, young people that you think is interesting. I think just, like, more care and investment in youth movements would mean a lot,
• 1:25:06
  Darya Foroohar: And it will just show, like, hey, you know, what I'm doing is actually making an impact, you know, it's going beyond my community, and it's actually, like, teaching people something. And then if you tell your friends that, then that could really change something, because they're more likely to listen to you than they are anyone else.
• 1:25:27
  Tad Eggleston: Last serious question before we get to some more fun questions, because I don't want to wear you out entirely.
• 1:25:33
  Darya Foroohar: Oh, I'm good to go.
• 1:25:39
  Tad Eggleston: You brought up, and you acknowledged the echo chamber, but you brought up that social media allows people to
• 1:25:46
  Tad Eggleston: to, see news or stories that might have been hard for them to find otherwise, etc.
• 1:25:55
  Tad Eggleston: My age and older, Tends to be…
• 1:26:02
  Tad Eggleston: Like, all or nothing on social media.
• 1:26:04
  Darya Foroohar: Hmm.
• 1:26:05
  Tad Eggleston: But another one of my unpopular
• 1:26:08
  Tad Eggleston: opinions, at least among my age group, is that, like, we're projecting our own issues, learning new technology on the kids.
• 1:26:19
  Tad Eggleston: We're fucked up by social media because we don't know how to use it, and we fall into doom scrolling because we don't know how to block things, we don't know how to…
• 1:26:28
  Tad Eggleston: to… to vet our sources very well, because we've never had to. We're so used to, oh, the internet is trustworthy… I mean, I'm blown away by the same people who used to, like.
• 1:26:40
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, Wikipedia is not trustworthy, because anybody can edit it.
• 1:26:46
  Tad Eggleston: are now, like, all in. ChatGPT is awesome. I'm like, are you out of
• 1:26:51
  Tad Eggleston: mind. Do you not know how these two things work?
• 1:26:55
  Tad Eggleston: Wikipedia, yes, anybody can edit it, and they have to give citations. It's like a living… academic paper.
• 1:27:04
  Tad Eggleston: ChatGPT doesn't know how to give citations.
• 1:27:08
  Darya Foroohar: I mean, I hate to, like…
• 1:27:10
  Darya Foroohar: be depressing, but a lot of kids are similar to that, and it's like, maybe there's more…
• 1:27:17
  Darya Foroohar: I think a greater percentage of youth
• 1:27:20
  Darya Foroohar: is more aware of, like, ChatGPT and the evils, but still.
• 1:27:23
  Tad Eggleston: It's like…
• 1:27:25
  Darya Foroohar: baffling. I, like, come across, you know, people who are like, oh, just chat GPT it, and I'm just like, you can't Google it, you know? Like, you know, like, why just AI? And I think just a lot of kids are using… Oh, machine learning. Let's not call it AI. It doesn't deserve to be called AI. Machine learning.
• 1:27:42
  Tad Eggleston: Large language models. And, you know, I mean, what bothers me is there are values to large language models. In fact, one of the things that large language models are best at is the one thing that we still
• 1:27:53
  Tad Eggleston: how many people are like, oh, don't use Google Translate?
• 1:27:57
  Tad Eggleston: Google Translate is actually relatively ridiculously good at this point.
• 1:28:00
  Tad Eggleston: It's not perfect. You can't… you can't program a perfect translation. It… it… But…
• 1:28:09
  Tad Eggleston: Large language models for translation is, like, exactly what they're designed for.
• 1:28:16
  Darya Foroohar: Yeah.
• 1:28:17
  Tad Eggleston: For solving problems? Not so much.
• 1:28:23
  Darya Foroohar: Yeah, I know.
• 1:28:23
  Tad Eggleston: But I guess what I meant was, talk to me about how you vet your sources, how you go, oh, this is in my feed.
• 1:28:32
  Tad Eggleston: But, it feels dodgy, versus, this is in my feed, I need to learn more. What do you click on? What do you not click on?
• 1:28:40
  Darya Foroohar: Yeah…
• 1:28:41
  Darya Foroohar: I think AI, like, certain, like, fonts and, like, drawings are, like, AI-coded now. There are, like, certain drawing styles that are too neat, or, like, that I've seen in a lot… in enough AI-generated posters that I'm like, oh, that's AI.
• 1:28:56
  Darya Foroohar: You know, and you can kind of tell if you've seen enough AI content that I'm like, okay, this is AI.
• 1:29:01
  Tad Eggleston: But I, I, I was… I'm sorry, I was, I was talking…
• 1:29:05
  Darya Foroohar: Sure, in terms of…
• 1:29:05
  Tad Eggleston: Getting your, your news information.
• 1:29:07
  Darya Foroohar: Yeah.
• 1:29:08
  Tad Eggleston: What, like.
• 1:29:08
  Tad Eggleston: how do you decide, oh, this meme is worth following up on, or I trust that this is just…
• 1:29:15
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, and I say this because, like, the same people who bash social media have the tendency to, like.
• 1:29:23
  Tad Eggleston: throw up the, hey, look at this 5-second video I saw that proves this point, and it's like, isn't that what you say the kids are doing that sucks?
• 1:29:33
  Darya Foroohar: Yeah, so I think, a lot of it is, like, who posts it? If it's an account that I know.
• 1:29:38
  Darya Foroohar: generally vets their sources and posts a lot, and just, like, is not something that posts every single thing they see, then I'm more likely to trust it additionally. Before I repost something that I think is dodgy, I'll Google it, and, like, if there's a bunch of news stories confirming it.
• 1:29:57
  Darya Foroohar: then I'll be like, oh, okay, you know, this is true. If there aren't, then I might not repost it on my own story, because I'm just like, okay, well, I don't want to post something that might be fake.
• 1:30:07
  Darya Foroohar: But I think just googling something, you know, like.
• 1:30:10
  Darya Foroohar: that you think might not be true. You know, you'll be able to see multiple different sources posting the same thing, and if it's like, okay, well, multiple different sources are posting this one thing, then it's a lot more likely to be true.
• 1:30:27
  Tad Eggleston: So this is where I'm going to translate for the boomer generation that might be listening. What she said is, if…
• 1:30:34
  Tad Eggleston: a poster, she means writer. So like a newspaper writer, if they've been right a lot in the past, and you get to know them, they're often right again.
• 1:30:45
  Darya Foroohar: Yeah.
• 1:30:46
  Tad Eggleston: It's the same skills we used to use.
• 1:30:49
  Tad Eggleston: It's just a new meaning.
• 1:30:50
  Darya Foroohar: Yeah.
• 1:30:51
  Tad Eggleston: I'm sorry, that was really meant for… and I don't know if I have any of that sort of person actually listening, because I make fun of them enough that they probably got tired of me a long time ago. That wasn't supposed to be making fun of you. That was saying, oh, oh, the kids today, they know how to vet things, just the.
• 1:31:08
  Darya Foroohar: Yeah, absolutely, yeah.
• 1:31:09
  Tad Eggleston: It's just different.
• 1:31:10
  Darya Foroohar: We try. We try.
• 1:31:14
  Darya Foroohar: Yeah.
• 1:31:15
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, I guarantee not all kids, just like, guess what? Not all adults. Yeah. Every time. Every time I hear people talking about, like, oh, the kids today, and I'm like, oh, the 50-somethings today.
• 1:31:28
  Tad Eggleston: Says the guy pushing 50.
• 1:31:33
  Darya Foroohar: Yeah.
• 1:31:34
  Tad Eggleston: Okay, I promise more fun, so…
• 1:31:39
  Tad Eggleston: We hit on this a little bit before, but this time I want you to go more specifically using…
• 1:31:48
  Tad Eggleston: the books that were meaningful to you, and why. Give me your comics biography, starting with
• 1:31:55
  Tad Eggleston: Like, the first book you remember reading or buying.
• 1:31:59
  Tad Eggleston: And kinda, like… The books that formed
• 1:32:04
  Tad Eggleston: How you think about comics, what you think about when you're making comics.
• 1:32:09
  Tad Eggleston: What inspires you to make comics the way you make them, that sort of thing.
• 1:32:14
  Darya Foroohar: Can… before I answer that, can I take 30 seconds to go to the bathroom?
• 1:32:19
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, absolutely.
• 1:32:20
  Darya Foroohar: mess up something.
• 1:32:21
  Darya Foroohar: easiest.
• 1:32:24
  Darya Foroohar: But…
• 1:32:25
  Tad Eggleston: Well, I mean, obviously.
• 1:32:26
  Darya Foroohar: photography?
• 1:32:26
  Tad Eggleston: Not editing is the easiest. But yeah, comics biography.
• 1:32:31
  Darya Foroohar: Okay.
• 1:32:32
  Darya Foroohar: Persepolis, for one, just one of, like, the earliest
• 1:32:38
  Darya Foroohar: comics that I remember reading, one of the earliest graphic novels, and I also, not just in content, but in form. I really, admire it. I think her use of, like, black and white is, is great, satrappy's,
• 1:32:54
  Darya Foroohar: And just the use of, like, the stark contrast in lines, and how she can convey so much.
• 1:33:01
  Darya Foroohar: Well, not necessarily doing something incredibly detailed or incredibly… Crowded, you know?
• 1:33:08
  Darya Foroohar: a lot of, like, the repetition and the motifs are just really powerful, you know, and it's, like, less is more.
• 1:33:15
  Darya Foroohar: And that… yeah, it just tells such a complete story, and it's just been something that…
• 1:33:25
  Darya Foroohar: I think has maybe subconsciously or consciously influenced me. I think, definitely mouse,
• 1:33:33
  Darya Foroohar: also content and form. Very ins… like, very inspiring, very, moving.
• 1:33:42
  Darya Foroohar: you know, like, it's… I… I'm like, you have to, you know, if anyone's like, oh, should I read Mouse? I'm like, yes, you have to read it, you know? Yes. You should read.
• 1:33:52
  Tad Eggleston: Anything by speed.
• 1:33:52
  Darya Foroohar: One of the…
• 1:33:54
  Darya Foroohar: But it's, like, also, yeah, it's, like, one of the comics that really made people who don't read comics see, oh, this is… this is, like, actual literature.
• 1:34:03
  Darya Foroohar: You know, and I think that's really important. I think,
• 1:34:10
  Darya Foroohar: One, manga series I read in seventh grade was called King of Thorn. Definitely something I shouldn't have read, because it was extremely violent, but it was really intro… I don't know, it was… I was just like.
• 1:34:25
  Tad Eggleston: Shouldn't have read, or, or maybe wasn't… wasn't 7th grade appropriate.
• 1:34:31
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, like.
• 1:34:32
  Darya Foroohar: I, yeah, it was just, like, very violent, dystopian, violent, but a lot of the imagery was really powerful. It was just, like, very gory.
• 1:34:41
  Darya Foroohar: And… I just… I think it, like, stuck with me.
• 1:34:45
  Tad Eggleston: I don't know this one.
• 1:34:46
  Darya Foroohar: Yeah, no, it's not very well known.
• 1:34:50
  Darya Foroohar: I had to drop something esoteric, you know, so people think I'm.
• 1:34:54
  Tad Eggleston: I'm all for esoteric.
• 1:34:55
  Darya Foroohar: Yeah.
• 1:34:58
  Tad Eggleston: I'm all for e… I mean, we'll get to this in my next question, but… but, like,
• 1:35:04
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, no, what's esoteric, for one, can be…
• 1:35:07
  Tad Eggleston: can be not for another, and everything in between. It's what you like.
• 1:35:14
  Tad Eggleston: That's cool. This actually looks… I'm just glancing at it. It looks kind of cool. I might have to…
• 1:35:21
  Darya Foroohar: Yeah. Track it down. Of course, it doesn't look like it's…
• 1:35:24
  Tad Eggleston: easily tracked down.
• 1:35:26
  Darya Foroohar: I just, yeah, I just discovered it in my middle school library.
• 1:35:30
  Tad Eggleston: So you had a good… a shout-out to your middle school librarian.
• 1:35:36
  Darya Foroohar: Yeah?
• 1:35:38
  Tad Eggleston: And clearly, they didn't think that it was something that you shouldn't be reading.
• 1:35:42
  Darya Foroohar: Yes?
• 1:35:42
  Tad Eggleston: Either that, or they didn't pay attention to what they bought. They just went, manga, kids will like it.
• 1:35:47
  Darya Foroohar: Yeah, I mean, I'm thinking that, just because it was just very violent.
• 1:35:52
  Tad Eggleston: No.
• 1:35:54
  Tad Eggleston: Well, but this is the United States. Violence is way more… way more okay than sex. Never understood that.
• 1:36:02
  Tad Eggleston: I've never understood that.
• 1:36:04
  Tad Eggleston: You know, I really hope that my kids don't have to deal with violence in their life, but I also kind of hope that they have sex. So, like, why are we willing to expose them to tons of violence, but not sex? Why are we willing to talk to them?
• 1:36:20
  Tad Eggleston: About violence, but not sex.
• 1:36:23
  Tad Eggleston: Well, I mean, some.
• 1:36:24
  Darya Foroohar: I'm sure kids my age were, like, looking up… were, like, watching porn, I think, like, most were.
• 1:36:29
  Tad Eggleston: No, I just, I just mean, like.
• 1:36:31
  Darya Foroohar: violent.
• 1:36:32
  Tad Eggleston: My kids are older than you, and, like,
• 1:36:36
  Tad Eggleston: I would have more people look at me funny, because I had watched a romance
• 1:36:42
  Tad Eggleston: Like, a rom-com that had.
• 1:36:44
  Darya Foroohar: Yeah.
• 1:36:46
  Tad Eggleston: Sex in it.
• 1:36:47
  Darya Foroohar: with my kids than would look at me funny if I watched, like.
• 1:36:52
  Tad Eggleston: A movie, you know, an action movie where 100 people were machine gunned his ass.
• 1:36:58
  Darya Foroohar: Yes.
• 1:36:58
  Tad Eggleston: And it's like,
• 1:37:01
  Tad Eggleston: First of all, I know my kids, so, like, I'm not exposing them to things that I think that they're not ready for, but second, like.
• 1:37:09
  Tad Eggleston: Why is… this bad, And…
• 1:37:15
  Tad Eggleston: This not bad, when in reality, we would really prefer to have way less shooting.
• 1:37:23
  Tad Eggleston: And as long as it's consensual, do we care about how much sex it's had?
• 1:37:28
  Darya Foroohar: I hope not. Speaking of sex, though, another comic, one of the more recent, like, modern comics I've read, has been Gina Woodbrandt's Someone Please Have Sex With Me.
• 1:37:41
  Darya Foroohar: Which I really, I read that last year, I really liked it. I actually, like.
• 1:37:45
  Tad Eggleston: I bought that from Gina at Cake in 2019.
• 1:37:50
  Darya Foroohar: Nice, yeah.
• 1:37:52
  Tad Eggleston: Which was awkward. I'm sitting there going, Gina, please don't look at me as that dirty old man, but I've heard such great things about this book, and I'm looking forward to it, and I forget what she wrote in it, but it was… it was… it was funny and biting.
• 1:38:04
  Darya Foroohar: I… well, I actually, like, used it last year to, like, do, like, I did a comics, like, strip in that style, because I was like, I just love, like, the way she makes fun of herself.
• 1:38:15
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 1:38:15
  Darya Foroohar: Because that's something I do a lot, and I just think she does it so effectively, and it was just really funny, you know? I was like, yeah, like, that…
• 1:38:22
  Darya Foroohar: it's real, you know? Like, that's so real.
• 1:38:26
  Darya Foroohar: And it's… yeah, it's great. Very funny.
• 1:38:33
  Tad Eggleston: So, so that's a, that's a, that's a…
• 1:38:39
  Tad Eggleston: We've got… Persepolis Mouse, King of Thorn, someone please have sex with me.
• 1:38:44
  Tad Eggleston: some J&B Brant action.
• 1:38:45
  Darya Foroohar: Oh, my friend Dahmer.
• 1:38:49
  Tad Eggleston: Derf!
• 1:38:51
  Darya Foroohar: Yeah, so I…
• 1:38:53
  Tad Eggleston: to meet Durf in Ohio.
• 1:38:55
  Darya Foroohar: That was also something that I read,
• 1:38:58
  Darya Foroohar: maybe younger than I should have, because again, this was, like, in a library, not school library, but, like, over the summer, I'd, like, go to the library and just read anything that was there. Just read all the comics that were there, and this was one, and I was like, oh, wow. You know, it just, like, stuck with me.
• 1:39:16
  Tad Eggleston: We had dirt fun.
• 1:39:17
  Darya Foroohar: And…
• 1:39:17
  Tad Eggleston: You're just a good guy.
• 1:39:18
  Darya Foroohar: Oh, cool!
• 1:39:20
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, like I said, you will… you will meet Durf in Ohio, and, like, if you… if you…
• 1:39:28
  Tad Eggleston: need an introduction, let me know, and I'll take you up and introduce you to Durf in Ohio. Oh, yeah. Because I know he's tabling again this year. Last year, he's… he's from the area, so last year he was just there as a…
• 1:39:42
  Tad Eggleston: as a spectator. Yeah, just as a visitor. And, like, I was talking to him about it, and he's like, yeah, I haven't been to a con just be at a con for, like, 20 years, this is awesome.
• 1:39:52
  Darya Foroohar: Wow.
• 1:39:54
  Darya Foroohar: Yeah, no, but that… I really liked that book. I think I was just very into, like.
• 1:40:00
  Darya Foroohar: I don't know, I read a lot.
• 1:40:00
  Tad Eggleston: Have you read his other works?
• 1:40:03
  Darya Foroohar: I've read a little bit of the Kent State shooting one, but I haven't finished it.
• 1:40:07
  Tad Eggleston: And state is great. I actually, I think my favorite is Trashed.
• 1:40:11
  Darya Foroohar: Cause.
• 1:40:11
  Tad Eggleston: He's trash. He takes… A… Similar to your… I need to kill… My boyfriend's college roommate.
• 1:40:23
  Tad Eggleston: He, he was a, he was a garbage collector, but he doesn't…
• 1:40:27
  Tad Eggleston: doesn't tell an autobiographical story about garbage collecting, it's, like, inspired by his time garbage. Yeah, autofiction.
• 1:40:36
  Tad Eggleston: With… with the lean towards fiction, but it's… it's… it's one part that, and one part, like… non-fiction…
• 1:40:48
  Tad Eggleston: Environmental stuff, and learning about all the ramifications of the stuff
• 1:40:55
  Tad Eggleston: So you learn so much about garbage, and I know that that seems, like, not interesting, but again, autistic, I like learning about everything, but second, like, environmentally, it's important.
• 1:41:05
  Tad Eggleston: Absolutely.
• 1:41:06
  Darya Foroohar: Absolutely.
• 1:41:07
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, he's one of my favorite…
• 1:41:10
  Tad Eggleston: Favorite nonfiction cartoonist.
• 1:41:12
  Darya Foroohar: Yeah, no, I love that.
• 1:41:13
  Tad Eggleston: Passion.
• 1:41:14
  Darya Foroohar: comics.
• 1:41:15
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 1:41:16
  Tad Eggleston: So, I mean, you clearly like fiction as well. You brought up saga, you brought up…
• 1:41:20
  Tad Eggleston: Couple others, so, so,
• 1:41:23
  Tad Eggleston: Did you… well, you said you started with Asterisk and Tintin, so, like, when did you discover non-fiction comics?
• 1:41:31
  Darya Foroohar: Well, I mean, Persepolis and Mouse were memoir nonfiction comics.
• 1:41:35
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 1:41:36
  Darya Foroohar: I've been reading memoir comics for as long as I've been reading fiction, but.
• 1:41:40
  Tad Eggleston: Okay.
• 1:41:41
  Darya Foroohar: My first, nonfiction comics were, like, adaptations of theory books. Okay. Like, a comic adaptation of the Communist Manifesto.
• 1:41:51
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 1:41:53
  Darya Foroohar: And lately, I've been seeking out more nonfiction comics, because I'm really interested in graphic essays and, like, kind of popularizing them, because I think that it's a really good way to convey an idea to someone who doesn't know about it.
• 1:42:04
  Tad Eggleston: Absolutely. Have you… Have you read any Nick Susanis?
• 1:42:10
  Darya Foroohar: I don't think so…
• 1:42:12
  Tad Eggleston: He actually did his PhD thesis at… Columbia as a comic.
• 1:42:20
  Darya Foroohar: Oh.
• 1:42:21
  Tad Eggleston: It's called unflattering.
• 1:42:26
  Tad Eggleston: But he… He teaches comics and stuff.
• 1:42:31
  Tad Eggleston: out at, I think San Francisco State?
• 1:42:35
  Darya Foroohar: Oh, wow.
• 1:42:36
  Tad Eggleston: I think that's his website. I just typed it rather.
• 1:42:41
  Darya Foroohar: Cool, oh, thank you!
• 1:42:43
  Tad Eggleston: it in… But he does… He does a lot of…
• 1:42:55
  Darya Foroohar: Graphic essay.
• 1:43:00
  Tad Eggleston: Sick.
• 1:43:04
  Darya Foroohar: Yay!
• 1:43:04
  Tad Eggleston: And just, I mean, that website, spinweavenCut.com, for those listening, now that I've, yeah, his new comic is his syllabi as a comic.
• 1:43:17
  Darya Foroohar: Mmm, wow, yeah, no, I love that.
• 1:43:20
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, he did a due process one, I missed that one.
• 1:43:25
  Tad Eggleston: Draw the li- you would appreciate draw the line.
• 1:43:28
  Darya Foroohar: Yeah, no, I can see it's.
• 1:43:30
  Tad Eggleston: That was one of the most.
• 1:43:31
  Darya Foroohar: for this.
• 1:43:32
  Tad Eggleston: That was one of the most powerful comics of last year. I… I…
• 1:43:36
  Darya Foroohar: Oh.
• 1:43:37
  Tad Eggleston: I've talked about that a lot.
• 1:43:38
  Tad Eggleston: And, and it, it's, it's…
• 1:43:43
  Tad Eggleston: It's kind of the flip side of what we've been talking about in terms of…
• 1:43:54
  Tad Eggleston: rhetoric and actions, you know, it's… it's… like…
• 1:44:00
  Tad Eggleston: let's say you're that privileged person, and whatever, like, where is your line? What point do you say, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no? And is that… is that in the rear view? And if it isn't, why the fuck not?
• 1:44:20
  Tad Eggleston: You know, so, alright.
• 1:44:26
  Tad Eggleston: So… Final question is my favorite, favorite question to ask.
• 1:44:33
  Tad Eggleston: Tell me something you love.
• 1:44:38
  Tad Eggleston: Preferably a comic, but we don't really have rules.
• 1:44:41
  Tad Eggleston: Preferably storytelling, but again, with the rules.
• 1:44:45
  Tad Eggleston: But something that you love, That not enough other people have experienced.
• 1:44:51
  Tad Eggleston: And you need them to, because you want more people to talk about it with.
• 1:44:59
  Darya Foroohar: So, I really love the saga of Daran Shan.
• 1:45:06
  Darya Foroohar: That is originally a prose-like book series, but it's been adapted into a manga. I've read both. There are 12 books each.
• 1:45:16
  Darya Foroohar: The one thing I don't like about the manga is that they whitewashed one of the characters, which I didn't know until I read the prose book.
• 1:45:26
  Darya Foroohar: But it's a vampire story, but the vampires are kind of non-traditional. They don't live forever, they don't have sparkling skin, they can't turn into bats, but it's kind of just this saga of,
• 1:45:39
  Darya Foroohar: a boy who, gets thrown into this world, and it's YA, but it's a lot more serious than YA, you know? And I think.
• 1:45:50
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, honestly, YA is where some of the most
• 1:45:55
  Tad Eggleston: Serious work is being done right now.
• 1:45:59
  Darya Foroohar: The author doesn't really shy away from Death, or gore, and…
• 1:46:04
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 1:46:05
  Darya Foroohar: It's not written… like, to be childish, and I've only ever met one other person who's read it,
• 1:46:15
  Darya Foroohar: So…
• 1:46:17
  Darya Foroohar: I think that, you know, I remember when I was 12, I would just, like, go online and, like, see comics people had made about it. And, like, that was the only way I could kind of connect with people who'd read it. And this is… I guess this is just kind of selfish, because I've just been…
• 1:46:31
  Tad Eggleston: No!
• 1:46:32
  Darya Foroohar: Such a, such a, such a meaningful series to me when I was younger.
• 1:46:37
  Tad Eggleston: This is literally why I ask the question the way I ask it, is that, like.
• 1:46:44
  Tad Eggleston: it could be an underrated thing, or it could be an obscure thing, or, like, when Nate Powell was on, the last time he was on, he said.
• 1:46:56
  Tad Eggleston: I've been reading…
• 1:46:58
  Tad Eggleston: the current X-Men books, and I know that seems like, like, but I… I hang with nonfiction indie comic writers. It's not cool to read X-Men.
• 1:47:11
  Darya Foroohar: Yeah.
• 1:47:14
  Tad Eggleston: You know, Andrew Iden talked about his tomato garden.
• 1:47:18
  Darya Foroohar: Hmm.
• 1:47:19
  Tad Eggleston: So I'm like, okay, well, I'll come down to North Carolina and taste your tomatoes, and we can talk about them.
• 1:47:25
  Darya Foroohar: Yeah, well, the Saga of Darren Shawn…
• 1:47:27
  Tad Eggleston: I'm… I'm looking at it right now, and… and… and it…
• 1:47:34
  Darya Foroohar: Don't watch the movie. Don't watch the movie.
• 1:47:36
  Tad Eggleston: Don't watch the movie.
• 1:47:37
  Darya Foroohar: You might see the movie, the movie is really bad, it just, like, butchers the whole series.
• 1:47:43
  Darya Foroohar: Bad movie adaptation, just read the books.
• 1:47:46
  Tad Eggleston: I'm not a movie guy, so you didn't have to worry.
• 1:47:50
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, I watch, like, one movie a book a week for,
• 1:47:55
  Tad Eggleston: like, my family does a Zoom where we talk about.
• 1:47:58
  Darya Foroohar: Oh, fun, okay.
• 1:48:00
  Tad Eggleston: But often those are the only movies that I watch.
• 1:48:04
  Tad Eggleston: So…
• 1:48:06
  Tad Eggleston: And I thought Darren O'Shaughnessy rang a bell, but it doesn't, because I'm looking at all of his other work, and I don't…
• 1:48:14
  Darya Foroohar: Yeah.
• 1:48:15
  Tad Eggleston: Where I… oh, well… No.
• 1:48:20
  Tad Eggleston: Nope, I don't think I recognize any of it, but I'm still on board.
• 1:48:24
  Tad Eggleston: Particularly if they wind up being audiobooks, because that's how I do most of my prose. Otherwise, I'll wind up doing the manga first, because…
• 1:48:33
  Tad Eggleston: Somewhere along the line, I just stopped doing prose as well.
• 1:48:37
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, not… not, like, across the board. I recently… I recently read Barbara Kingsolvers… Demon Copperhead.
• 1:48:48
  Tad Eggleston: Which was another one of Andrew Iden's recommendations.
• 1:48:52
  Tad Eggleston: And I started with the audiobook, and then, like.
• 1:48:56
  Tad Eggleston: Got out of my car and needed to read more.
• 1:49:00
  Tad Eggleston: And I really only do the audiobooks in the car, so, like, it meant I had to pick up.
• 1:49:04
  Darya Foroohar: Yeah. I'm not sure if the books are audiobooks. I mean, I've never read.
• 1:49:09
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, I don't know.
• 1:49:09
  Darya Foroohar: books, but they might.
• 1:49:11
  Tad Eggleston: I'll have to look.
• 1:49:12
  Darya Foroohar: Yeah.
• 1:49:13
  Tad Eggleston: But… but it definitely looks cool. So, I… I will let you know if I ever,
• 1:49:19
  Tad Eggleston: Join that club, and then you can have another person to talk about.
• 1:49:22
  Darya Foroohar: Okay, okay, good, good.
• 1:49:24
  Tad Eggleston: talk about them with.
• 1:49:26
  Darya Foroohar: Nice.
• 1:49:27
  Tad Eggleston: But, I mean, I'm not always a vampire person, but just… just looking at, like… the…
• 1:49:35
  Tad Eggleston: Kind of the… the…
• 1:49:39
  Tad Eggleston: the basic stuff here, it seems like it's more likely to be up my alley than some…
• 1:49:46
  Darya Foroohar: Yeah.
• 1:49:47
  Tad Eggleston: Something I better shot, though.
• 1:49:48
  Tad Eggleston: So Dardia, it has been a pleasure. You are welcome back anytime, for any reason. Thank you. I just like talking comics with people, and I like talking with people that make me… make me think. If I don't talk to you or see you before, before.
• 1:50:07
  Darya Foroohar: Ohio? Well, we'll see each other there, and hit me up for a cup of coffee or something. Absolutely. And don't skip karaoke night. Karaoke night is fun. I love karaoke.
• 1:50:17
  Tad Eggleston: Absolutely. There is an official karaoke after-party, it's…
• 1:50:22
  Darya Foroohar: Got it, okay.
• 1:50:23
  Tad Eggleston: saddle at night. Yeah.
• 1:50:25
  Darya Foroohar: I will be there.
• 1:50:25
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, it's… it's… it's a blast. So… and I might actually manage to get out of my… my comfort zone and actually participate, rather than just watching the show.
• 1:50:36
  Darya Foroohar: Let's go…
• 1:50:37
  Tad Eggleston: Every year, I try to convince myself that that's going to happen. So, for 22 panels, this has been Daria Faruhar, and we will see you after the next page.