Jason Shiga Describes His Newest Book Meanwhile

“Meanwhile”, the latest book by Oakland cartoonist Jason Shiga, is a series of tubes… wait, scratch that… his book uses a series of tubes to allow the reader to determine choices like “should the main character have vanilla or chocolate ice cream?” and “should the main character travel back in time or just detonate the doomsday device now?”. Although Shiga’s stories are all clever, Meanwhile’s “choose your own adventure” mechanic works particularly well with the story’s time travel element.

photo by Jason Shiga

The above interview with Jason was filmed at this year’s Alternative Press Expo in San Francisco. Meanwhile, originally self published in 2001, will be coming out as a full color book by Amulet Publishing in spring of 2010.