Bullseye with Jesse Th Jesse Thorn. Daniel Klaus, who was an award-winning cartoonist,

thought that after his mother died, he'd find out everything.

Dan was mostly raised by his grandparents. His mom had an intense, chaotic, and mysterious life. She dated race car drivers. She fixed cars on the south side of Chicago. Dan says the two of them never really connected.

The gaps in her biography stretched out for decades. The stories that she tell about her life were opaque and vague.

He figured once she passed he'd have a heart to heart with his brother who knew his mom better. But it turned out the brother died a month

before their mom. So, Dan Klaus did his own research. Scoward websites, called family

members, talked with old friends.

The things that he didn't know about his mom could fill a book.

And ultimately, they did.

The book is called Monica. It took Klaus five years to write and draw.

The title character narrates most of the book. She tells us about her life, but also about that of her mom Penny, who like Klaus mother was mercurial,

frustrating, and mysterious.

Monica spans genres, decades in fact. It doesn't present a grounded and reliable

telling of Penny's life but instead a collection of fantastic beautiful and

sometimes confounding narratives.

I really loved it.

I can't wait to talk with Dan about it.

Let's get into it.

My interview with Daniel Klaus. Dan, welcome to Bullseye. It's nice to see you and I was so happy to read this book.

Oh, thanks, Jesse. Glad to be here. This is a book that lives in a strange world betwixt and between, and I want to get into

some of the betwixt and betwings, but first I want to ask you about it just a simple kind of aesthetic question.

Sure. A lot of the stories in this book, especially the first few, draw from the kind of aesthetics and styles of genre comics.

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