Hi all.

My name is Katherine, and I’m the newest member of Larry Smith’s ELITE CADRE OF BLOGGERS here at SMITH. When I’m not committing outrageous acts of blogtastic derring-do (which isn’t very often, as even my day job is in the blog sector, believe it or not), I can be found living in a twee part of Brooklyn, sharing a small apartment with a great roommate, negotiating my mid-late-twenties, and trying to fit in a little creativity around said full-time job. In other words, my life is a cliche, and I won’t bore you further with it here. Naw, my purpose at SMITH is to point out all the interesting personal-media goodness I can find, for your delectation.

And I can’t think of a better way to start than by calling out the Peter Arkle News. Peter Arkle is a graphic designer in New York City (you may know his work from his current series of print ads for Bumble & Bumble), who irregularly puts out a well- printed, black-and-white “illustrated newspaper” about the events of his everyday life. His drawings are beguiling, and his blocky, all-caps handwriting reminds me of Aaron Cometbus. I discovered the Peter Arkle News several years ago, after I’d just moved to Brooklyn for the first time, and I remember being charmed to the core by his observations on New York City life. They seemed familiar, and yet also, somehow, better than mine.

The familiarness-yet-betterness of the world through Peter Arkle’s eyes is best experienced by ordering a real, live, hard copy of the Peter Arkle news. You can do that, and also check out samples from past issues, at Arkle’s web site.

I caught up with Peter Arkle the other day on the World Wide Web, and he was game enough to answer four questions for me.

1. What’s the last really good book you read?
“The Ruby in the Smoke” by Philip Pullman. (Author of the “His Dark Materials” trilogy. When I started reading it I was thinking: “Oh no, I won’t be interested in a mystery story set in Victorian London” But after only a page or two I was hooked. Philip Pullman writes so
well.

2. Who are the biggest influences on your art and/or your storytelling?
An early one is Richard Scarry (the children’s book illustrator and writer). Then there was Ralph Steadman and his scribbly writing and drawing and then the dry narrative style of Mark Twain (especially in his “Tramps Abroad”). And there are tons of travel writers (Pico Iyer etc. etc.). I love the way travel narratives allow all kinds of different subjects to be touched upon, and good ones are very often funny. As a teenager I always read “2000AD,” a sci-fi comic published in the UK (where Judge Dredd was born). Back then it was all lovely crisp black and white drawings. Taught me a lot about what could be done with just black ink.

3. What keeps you going with Peter Arkle News after all this time?
This question should really be “What stops me from keeping going with Peter Arkle News?” The answer would be all the other things I have to do to pay my rent (drawing for Bumble and Bumble, The New York Times, and all kinds of other freelance clients). It’ll soon be a year since I published the last issue of PAN. Yes, I do feel guilty. I have the issue roughly planed in my head. It’s going to be a crazy all over the place travel issue: from Indoneisa to Santa Fe to Scotland to Mexico and Iceland and California etc. etc.. Hopefully I’ll get it together fairly soon.

4. What’s one spot in New York City that you wish you were able to get to more?
The corner of 23rd Street and 6th Avenue because whenever I am there I see some strange doing something strange. One day I would like to find time to spend a day just hanging out there watching and taking notes.

E-mail interviewing Peter Arkle was a small dream come true. I can’t wait to see what other perks my blogidency (yeah, coining gross-sounding “blog-” words is like shooting fish in a barrel) at SMITH has in store…

See you soon, and till then happy foraging.