Download This: David Malki ! on The Sound of Young America

How does an artist know if he's hit the mark? Just ask Wondermark creator David Malki !:

"If I've done my job right, it looks like a Victorian engraving of a ninja on a unicycle."

The Sound of Young America, 1.08.09

I'm not much of a comics reader, but about a year ago, I came across a strip that made me laugh out loud. The old-timey drawings, the outlandish dialogue, the tiny hat on the bear—it wasn't like anything I'd ever seen before. And when I read it a couple minutes later, I laughed out loud again.

I cut it out of the paper have it sitting on my office desk, and it STILL makes me grin every time I read it, even though it's yellowed and getting less legible by the day.

I never spent any time trying to figure out who this guy was, but when I was listening to a Jesse Thorn interview a guest on his show, The Sound of Young America, it didn't take me too long to figure out that the strip on my desk was created by the same guy as the one on the podcast.

If you like David Malaki !—or if you've never heard of the guy but like the comic strip above—carve out a half hour to listen to this podcast about how he came to create these hilarious and original comics with the help of Victorian books and magazines.