D+Q in Chicago Part 2: CAKE

Let me just say how excited we are to be participating in this year's edition of CAKE, which has become one of the more buzzed-about festivals after only one year in existence! I'll be in attendance, as will beloved, hilarious former D+Qer Jessica Campbell, so come say hi. You can find D+Q at tables 35 and 36 at the Center on Halsted (3656 N Halsted). The events of the weekend look a little like this:

Friday June 14, 9 pm
Join us for a CAKE kick-off event: a signing at Quimby's Bookstore (1854 W North Ave) with Michael DeForge, Lisa Hanawalt, and Patrick Kyle, followed by a Comic Art Battle.  Michael DeForge, Lisa Hanawalt, Patrick Kyle, and numerous other cartoonists will participate in this drawing face-off hosted by Ezra Claytan Daniels.

Then, bright and early Saturday morning, it's the main event...

the Chicago Alternative Comics Expo! with 

Lisa Hanawalt annnnd 

Chris Ware!

The schedule for the weekend at tables 35 & 36:

Saturday June 15, 11 am to 6 pm
12 – 1 pm Lisa Hanawalt signing at D+Q tables
12 – 1 pm Chris Ware panel, hosted by Jake Austen
1 – 2 pm Chris Ware and Jake Austen signing at D+Q tables
 3 – 4 pm Lisa Hanawalt signing at D+Q tables

Sunday June 16, 11 am to 6 pm 
12 – 1 pm Lisa Hanawalt signing at D+Q tables
2 – 3 pm Lisa Hanawalt signing at D+Q tables

While they won't be signing at our tables, D+Q authors John P and Kevin Huizenga will both be exhibiting at the show, so please go find them at tables 82 and 15, respectively. Hope to see you there, Chicago!

Interns are awesome (enough with the spot varnish!!)

Why, hello, Molly Johanson, awesome intern currently working in Production here at D+Q. Watch for her fingerprints all over Rookie Yearbook Two and Walt Before Skeezix. And what does she have here? It's the cover to Reggie-12 from Brian "Alone Time" Ralph. Is there a spot varnish on this book too, you ask yourselves? Why, yes, there is. You'll just have to wait and see what special surprise we dream up for this one. Also, lots of larfs inside this book. LET ME TELL YOU!

A little robot boy and his friends

People, we are so so so close to having yet another Brian Ralph comic book in our hands. Of course, Brian confounds expectations and delivers a YA humor comic about a happy-go-lucky (usually) robot boy and his lousy selfish friends. And his clueless boob creator. And a bunch of Giant Robots that the little boy has to fight again and again. Oh, this comic is called Reggie-12 and it's a collection of the strips that Brian did in the back of seminal asian-culture magazine Giant Robot (plus a handful of pages from the, ahem, Highwater Books Free Comic Book Day comic, as well as a couple new treats.) Rereading these strips I was shocked at just how hilarious these strips were which was something of a surprise because if you've ever met Brian in person then you know that he's pretty much a cold fish. But on paper, well, he's like an electric eel who won't stop making the jokes. Or an octopus who is holding a joke in each tentacle and then he gives you a spanking new joke one after the other until you have a total of eight jokes. He's like that.

OH, before I forget, holding up that page from the forthcoming Reggie-12 book is none other than our beloved and handsome Julian Ceccaldi who is leaving the Drawn & Quarterly family (co-operation!) after working at our store since he was just a youngster. So long, Julien! You are the best and will be sorely missed.

ROOKIE YEARBOOK TWO in stores October 1st!

This beauty is in the works so all I can say is that it will have new content by Judy Blume, Lena Dunham, Mindy Kaling, and Grimes! (What a @$%^# line-up!!!!!) And that ROOKIE YEARBOOK TWO will also feature interviews and contributions including Morrissey, Emma Watson, Molly Ringwald, Carrie Brownstein, the astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, Chris Ware, and Museum of Jurassic Technology founder David Wilson.

Tavi was in the office last week, and she and Tracy laid out the book, and then they work with Sonja Ahlers who is in the Yukon and provides the gorgeous art for the opening spreads for each month, such as the above's August On the Road!

Art Spiegelman's CO-MIX

Here’s what comes to mind after reading Art Spiegelman’s new book, CO-MIX: he has somehow managed to pack in what would otherwise be four or five (or six or seven?) widely influential careers into one lifetime. From Raw to Maus to The New Yorker, as editor, cartoonist, writer, illustrator, designer (not to mention bubble gum card guru and designer of giant stained glass murals), is there anything that Spiegelman hasn’t done and pulled off so well?

Let’s take a look at just one feature of CO-MIX: it’s a section that covers his mid-1990s book, The Wild Party. The art in the book itself is all very striking, mostly done in a stark scratchboard technique. But to get to the finished art, Spiegelman sometimes produced dozens of drawing studies, like this one:

 As with Maus and all of his other work, Spiegelman had a fairly lengthy process where he studied the composition and very foundation of a work until he reached the end result.

All of this is gorgeous stuff, and he has literally hundreds of pages of these studies in his studio, covering work spanning decades.

Remarkably, almost none of this has been collected in book form in North America until now. CO-MIX presents an important fraction of it, and hopefully it’ll go a long way in shining light on the sometimes overlooked aspects of his life’s accomplishments.

CO-MIX won’t be in stores until mid-September, but those of you in Chicago can come out to see him THIS WEEKEND at Printers Row!!