Ken Krimstein

With his new graphic biography The Three Escapes of Hannah Arendt: A Tyranny of Truth (Bloomsbury), Ken Krimstein combines his interests in comics, history and philosophy into a dream project. We talk about how he made the shift from "average NPR listener" to deep scholar of Hannah Arendt, teaching himself phenomenology in mid-life to balance story with philosophy, trying to understand the relationship between Arendt and Heidegger (and trying to understand Heidegger's philosophy and whether it fed into his Nazism), seeing through Arendt's eyes and taking solace from her philosophy, and how he got laughed at by other cartoonists when he told them he thought he could draw this 200+-page book in 6-8 weeks. We also get into Ken's history in comics and advertising, the alchemy of the New Yorker cartoon, how he learned about culture via Mad Magazine, his failed attempt to be Saul Bellow, the lesson that problem-finding is more important than problem-solving, the Chicago comics scene and the Evanston arts-mafia, what he misses about New York, and Saul Steinberg's central role in art and comics for the 20th century and beyond. • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal