(Pond, Mimi) Mimi Pond started her career as a cartoonist at the National Lampoon in the late 70s. In the years following, she wrote and illustrated five humor books and contributed regularly to dozens of national magazines and newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times. In 2014, she published the first part of her coming of age memoir, Over Easy. In her latest graphic novel, The Customer is Always Wrong (Drawn and Quarterly), a young woman’s art career begins to lift off as those around her succumb to addiction and alcoholism. The Customer is Always Wrong is the saga of a young naïve artist named Madge working in a restaurant of charming drunks, junkies, thieves, and creeps. Oakland in the late seventies is a cheap and quirky haven for eccentrics and Mimi Pond folds the tales of the fascinating sleaze-ball characters that surround young Madge into her workaday waitressing life. Outrageous and loving tributes and takedowns of her co-workers and satellites of the Imperial Cafe create a snapshot of a time in Madge’s life where she encounters who she is, and who she is not.
