Jeff Lemire chats about ‘10,000 Ink Stains: A Memoir’

Here’s my brief but insightful chat with Jeff Lemire about his new book 10,000 Ink Stains: A Memoir published by Dark Horse.

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Based in Toronto, Ontario, Jeff Lemire is an Eisner award-winning and New York Times bestselling author and comic book creator. He is best known for his critically acclaimed books Sweet Tooth, Essex County, Underwater Welder, and Mazebook as well as being the co-creator of Black Hammer, Gideon Falls, Descender, Little Monsters, The Bone Orchard, Phantom Road and many others. In 2008 and in 2013, Jeff won the Shuster Award for Best Canadian Cartoonist. He has also received The Doug Wright Award for Best Emerging Talent and the American Library Association’s prestigious Alex Award, recognizing books for adults with specific teen appeal. He has also been nominated for eight Eisner awards, seven Harvey Awards and eight Shuster Awards. In 2010, Essex County was named as one of the five Essential Canadian Novels of the Decade. Most recently, Jeff was awarded the Eisner award in 2022 for Snow Angels in the Best Digital Comic category. Jeff recently wrote a new book entitled 10,000 Ink Stains: A Memoir, published by Dark Horse.

In 10,000 Ink Stains: A Memoir, readers will gain insight into Jeff’s his work from Sweet Tooth, Essex County, Black Hammer, Descender, and more. Jeff takes the reader along book-by-book, writing essays about the making of each project, showcasing artwork from all of them, offering details about his personal life during the creation of each book and sharing some never-before-seen process material on each book, plus unpublished stories too. For anyone seeking answers about how Jeff creates his art, this is the ultimate book for modern comic book fans.

As a side note, during my chat with Jeff, I presented him with the inspiration for his initial journey into comic books — the DC Blue Ribbon Digest: Justice Society of America. In 10,000 Ink Stains: A Memoir, Jeff wrote about his mother buying his first comic book which has now led him, many years later, to create stories based on those characters in today’s comic books.

You can discover more about Jeff Lemire on Substack at JeffLemire.Substack.com/ and on Instagram at @jefflemire

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