Steve speaks with Gene Ambaum and Bill Barnes from the webcomic Unshelved.
Librarian Gene Ambaum and cartoonist Bill Barnes began publishing Unshelved on February 16, 2002. They have eight published collections.
Gene Ambaum (by Bill Barnes)
Gene Ambaum uses a pen name because he’s scared of his own shadow. He is so good at making fun of strange, difficult customers in Unshelved because he is the strangest, most difficult customer of all. He taught English overseas because no one there was in a position to criticize his spelling. If he ever starts another comic strip it will be about poop, because that’s what he spends most of his time thinking about.
Bill Barnes (by Gene Ambaum)
Bill Barnes loves librarians, show tunes, and meat. He can count his toes without taking off his shoes. Over the past eight years, he has tried to convince Gene that the meaning of “partnership” is doing what he says 99% of the time. He can often be seen wandering the floor at trade shows playing “The Final Countdown” on his ukulele Death Adder. In his spare time he draws Unshelved and writes a comic about the software industry, Not Invented Here.
SHOW NOTES:
- Unshelved
- “Hilarious Late Fee Joke” Sheldon comic
- Fleen.com
- Not Invented Here
- Webcomics inspiration: Wondermark | xkcd | Waste of Talent
- Comics inspiration: Doonesbury | Garfield
- “Concordance“, not “Colophon“
- The Bane Of Bill’s Existence
- Comic-Con International
- French comics artist Lewis Trondheim
- Unshelved Answers archive
- StackExchange | Proposed library StackExchange needs more committments to become a reality
Circulating Ideas 
I think the word you guys were looking for in the beginning of the episode is concordance :). So great to hear Gene and Bill. I love reading Unshelved. My library competed in the “pimp your cart” contest they used to have and I use the book cart that we won everyday!
Nice post!