“I don’t want to go back to the bird shit,” Simon Hanselmann explains, reminiscing not-so-fondly about about jobs past. From all appearances, life is pretty good for the Tasmanian cartoonist. He’s making a living with comics, living in a nice Seattle home he shares with his wife, Jacq, a dog and a basement full of recused rabbits they lovingly refer to as “the bungeon.” His series, Megg, Mogg and Owl has been the subject of multiple award winning collections on Frantagraphics and has drawn interest from television production companies looking to turn his stoner trio into a series. His work appears regularly in magazines and anthologies, and when I arrive, he’s in the middle of preparing his work for an exhibit at a prestigious French art gallery. So naturally, he’s looking to mix things up. Hanselmann is beginning to embark on his most ambitious work to date, a multi-volume set that explores his own family history through the lens of Megs and Mogg, uncovering some early stories that his family would likely prefer stay hidden. It’s a deep and extremely personal story, he’s been meaning to tell for some time. “Once I started became successful in comics,” Hanselmann says with a laugh, “I stopped needing to see therapists.”

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