Pia Guerra is the award-winning co-creator and artist of the seminal Vertigo series Y: The Last Man. For those of you who are unaware of the title – it’s the story of a young man named Yorick (and his pet monkey Ampersand) who happens to be the sole survivor of a mysterious plague that wipes out every species on the planet with a Y chromosome. You can read the first issue online and for free here.

Pia’s work is deceptively simple. The characters act and emote with clarity and the reader always has a very clear idea of setting and environment. In essence – she is a fantastic storyteller. One who employs a frugal, but efficient line that I admire.

I met Pia very briefly at the Bristol comic expo in 2007 and she drew a quick sketch of Y: The Last Man character – Agent 355 – in my sketchbook for me (above) which was very kind of her.

Alex Fitch of Resonance FM show Panel Borders asked me if I wanted to interview Pia for this weeks programme and I, of course, said yes (before realising I’m not the most confident interviewer and such things make me ridiculously nervous).

We talked about Will Eisner and economy of line, her early years in the comic industry, working on Y: The Last Man, switching to digital, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, living and working in Vancouver, bondage, Dr Who, her future in comics, the state of the comics industry, and working with her husband Ian Boothby.

The result will be broadcast today on Resonance 104.4FM at 5pm (London only) and streamed at www.resonancefm.com.

There will be a podcast available to download an hour later for those who miss the live show (which will also have some extra content that had to be cut due to time). I’ll update this post with a link to that when it’s up.

Update: The podcast can be found here.