Boy oh boy, this "hit" is a doozy in the best possible sense. The ever wonderful fine arts & museum beat writer Carol Kino profiles the almighty Daniel Clowes for the venerable grey lady in conjunction with his upcoming retrospective at the Oakland Museum of California next month, and his monograph out from Abrams Comic Arts.
Wait, did I mention the NYT has a video interview? It's all a must read. I've read many a Clowes interview, and this one is spot on in what makes Clowes Clowes.
{Photo credit Terry Lorant for the New York Times}
Have you been thinking about buying some artwork from Seth, or Shary Boyle, Or Michael Dumontier and Neil Farber? Or some other talented Canadian artist? Well, now seems like a perfect time. Seth wrote us to tell us about this project to help his pal and sometimes collaborator Derek McCormack out in his recovery from Cancer surgery. Good cause? Great cause. Auction starts in a couple of days. I WILL REMIND YOU.
Jess has been hard at work on Dan Zettwoch's new graphic novel Birdseye Bristoe (lucky duck), and I hadn't yet had a chance to peek at the final version. But the unbound book just showed up in the mail, so in Jess's absence (she's off lollygagging around her home town), this cat got the chance to pore over each beautiful page. The texture in Dan's art is absolutely incredible. Here's a look:
Birdseye Bristoe! In stores! May! (Picture me "raising the roof" while you read this last line. That's how excited I am.)
We are pleased to announce Guy Delisle's first ever North American tour, and perhaps his only tour ever! (At least this extensive of a tour.) At each stop, Guy will be presenting a slide show, conversing and signing. JERUSALEM: Chronicles From The Holy City will be in stores on Tuesday April 24th.
“Neither Jewish nor Arab, Delisle explores Jerualem and is able to observe this strange world with candidness and humor...But most of all, those stories convey what life in East Jerusalem is about for an expatriate.”–Haaretz
“Engaging...[Delisle] highlights the very complex lives of Israelis, Palestinians, and foreign residents.” –Publishers Weekly starred review
John P. is back in that car of his, drinking Dr. Pepper and eating ketchup-flavored potato chips, and he's cruising back into Chicagoland, people.
First off, on Friday March 23rd at 7PM, John will be a special guest at the handsome Zak Sally's SAMMY THE MOUSE VOL. ONE Release Party (along with Dale "Tooth" Flattum) at Quimby's Queer Store (1854 W. North Avenue, ph:773-342-0910)
A collaboration between Johalla Projects and Rational Park, PHYSICAL EVIDENCE is a group show celebrating the sustainability of DIY practices. The show, presented salon-style, will give viewers a chance to see the scope of the original works of art.
Hand-assembled and/or printed zines, comic books, gig posters and screen-printed sculptures by Sally, Porcellino and Flattum will be available for viewers to purchase. They are physical objects, hand-made and hand-distributed, reminders of the artistic means accessible to individuals with a desire to do it themselves.
This all goes down at Rational Park (2557 W. North Avenue).
So early this morning, Pascal Girard, Matt Forsythe, and I headed out to the western part of Montreal to visit with the kids in our friend Stephanie Ferrara's class at James Lyng High School. Primarily, thirteen and fourteen years old, these kids just finished reading Maus and they've begun working on their own family history comics. They'd done the interviews with family members and were just sitting down to draw their own comic versions of those histories. Pascal did a funny drawing of his own father on the chalkboard ("He is not so fat in real life.") as the kids oohed and awed at how fast he drew. The whole thing was pretty fun as we tried to find solutions to drawing family (favorite solution? One girl drew her mom as a cupcake and her dad as a cockroach?! Her self portrait was a three-eyed silhouette). The girl next to her had about 40 post-it notes arranged into a story. The beginning of her story!! I'll fess up that I drew a couple of funny caricatures of an unruly boy or two (yes, yes, "not cool, Tom.") We were there for about an hour or so and it was not long enough. Fortunately, at the last minute I remembered that I had a camera so here's a bunch of kids and three awkward comics dudes and one distressed teacher. Thanks for having us everyone!! You guys are awesome.
People of Illinois! Paul Karasik is going to be giving a pretty sweet looking series of lectures to accompany his (dare I say) even sweeter looking exhibition on graphic novel realism at the Northern Illinois University Art Museum...
Here's the description of the exhibit:
Guest curated by Eisner Award winning graphic novelist, artist, and former co-editor of Raw, Paul Karasik, Graphic Novel Realism: Backstage at the Comics feature the work of contemporary cutting-edge creators of non-traditional, full-length graphic novels and shares some of the workings behind their creative process. About the exhibition, Paul Karasik writes: "Making comics is serious business. These seven artists are united by a rigorous working process utilizing a variety of source materials that ground their comics in the real world, no matter how fantastic their tales." Featured in the exhibition are Joyce Farmer, Jaime Hernandez, Paul Karasik, Jason Lutes, Mark Newgarden and Megan Montague Cash, Seth, and James Sturm.
Wednesday March 21st, 7:15 pm in Altgeid 315 Adaptation: Karasik examines the process of creating the graphic adaptation of Paul Auster's City of Glass
Thursday March 22nd, 12 - 1 pm in Campus Life 100 The Ride Together - Brownbag lecture: Karasik shares insight into the collaborative process of writing a book about autism in the family.
Thursday March 22nd, 4:30 - 6 pm in the Museum
The exhibition reception, what we like to call a vernissage around these parts.
Thursday March 22nd, 6 pm in Altgeid 315
How to Read a Comic: Karasik examines the basic language of the comics through deconstruction of a few classic comics.
If you can't make it to the talks, don't worry too much and start scheming to get to De Kalb, Illinois. The exhibit is up from today, March 20th, to May 25th.
Next Thursday is your (NYC's) chance to learn a little about biography-as-mode from Miriam Katin, Kim Deitch, Ariel Schrag and a multitude of impressive non-comic folks, including E.L. Doctorow, Nancy Milford, and James Kaplan.
The 4th Annual Leon Levy Conference offers a day-long conference (free! open to the public!) on varieties of biography next Thursday, March 29that the Elebash Recital Hall, CUNY Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Ave, NYC. Miriam's panel is in the middle of the day, "Comic and graphic arts biography" at 3 pm, and promises to be an interesting mix of bio & autobio authors: Matt Madden, Kim Deitch, Miriam, Lauren Redniss and Ariel Schrag. Ch-ch-check it out!
This month there's even more reason than ever to pick up a copy of the most recent issue of UNDER THE RADAR. For one, there is this nice lil capsule review of JINCHALO.
Buuuuttttttt beyond that, there's an interview with our most famous former intern, Claire Boucher (AKA Grimes), in which she mentions her time here.
All right, enough words that are difficult to pronounce! So it's a little late for International Women's Day, but this one's for (and, more importantly, by) the ladies. Specifically Vanessa Davis, Gabrielle Bell, Aisha Franz, Caroline Sury, Ulli Lust, Kati Rickenbach, Elisabeth Zwimpfer, Sharmila Banerjee, and claire Lenkova! Strapazin comics magazine decided to do an all-international, all-female cartoonists issue and it's on stands now. Sure, it's in German, but it does look awfully good, oh hey AND...
...rejoice, o European-reader-of-non-German-speakingness! The good people of the Fumetto International Comix Festival met this great idea and raised the ante: they're hosting an exhibit with the original artwork and the original artists! Yes yes! That means you can meet the charming Vanessa Davis IRL. You'd better hurry up and book your plane/bus/train ticket to Lucerne! Sunday March 25th, 3 pm at the HSLU - Design & Kunst, Rössligasse 12! Stay for the festival too, won't you? I hear it's not half-bad (*ahem* Raymond Pettibon).
I took a few days off last week and missed that Mizuki-san celebrated his 90th birthday! Bon anniversaire! The above photo is copyright Mizukipro. NONONBA will be out this May!
I swiped this from Mister Phil's tumblr. An old advertisement from D+Q CD Tom Devlin's old company Highwater Books. I liked that even then Tom was selling Cave-In as all-ages, because we are actually re-publishing it this Fall as a title for our Enfant imprint. Young people around the world need to read something when they have finished Bone, and this is the book for them! And who reprints an old classic without a new cover, hmmm?
Fridays. New books always arrive on Fridays. It's like the universe knows that sunny Fridays crush my soul. But today is better than all those other Fridays when new books have arrived because today we received FOUR NEW BOOKS! That's right, dear pals. Tatsumi's newest title, Fallen Words, plus the brand-spanking-new paperback editions of Abandon the Old in Tokyo, Good-Bye, and The Push Man and other stories. Eat your heart out, internet.
I am NOT a fan of the whole bookshelf-porn thing. I'm mad at myself already for even bringing it up. But c'mon! Those spines? HULLO. Who wouldn't want a complete set of the Tatsumi paperbacks on their "A" shelf?
All four titles will be in stores near the end of the month.
Goliath has been picking up steam over here and across the pond, and Friday, a.k.a TOMORROW NIGHT, all that steam... will be turned into a locomotive?! Anyway, failed metaphors aside, Tom Gauld will be launching Goliath at Gosh! Comics this Friday at 6:30 PM. Don't miss this one, Londonites! And he's heading on tour after that too, with dates in Cambridge this Saturday afternoon at Forbidden Planet, Bristol, London again (at Nobrow), Edinburgh, Leeds, and ending with a bang at the Comica Festival in London. But really, first drive on down to London tomorrow night and admire the giant Goliath in the window, and then come to all the other events after.
P.S. Have we shared some of the great press Goliath has been receiving? Checkitout!
"Goliath (D&Q) may be the book that garners Gauld the wider recognition he deserves.... Goliath makes a fine introduction for the uninitiated, both for the alternately funny and poignant scenes of its hero waiting forlornly on the plain for something to happen, and for Gauld’s art, which is typically on-point. Working with cartoony figures, silhouettes, and finely cross-hatched close-ups, Gauld captures the bleakness of the landscape, and how what looks like an insignificant pebble from far away can become hugely important when it’s landing right between the hero’s eyes." – Noel Murray, The A.V. Club
"Tom Gauld's tragic, darkly funny retelling of David and Goliath from Goliath's perspective. Gauld's work is always quietly powerful and emotionally grabbing." – Mark Frauenfelder, Boing Boing
"Gauld's Goliath is a master classin reduction...a celebration of the Christian underdog becomes a subtlemeditation on the power of spin and the absurdity of war."–The Times of London
"Goliath is one of the very best of its genre and shouldn’t be missed, especially by those who like their humour spiked with a healthy dose of melancholy – the ending, when it comes, is a total knockout." – Marty Mulrooney, Alternative Magazine Online
What's that? You like what you see above? Head on over to Anders Nilsen's blog: it's chock-full of solid gold!
I can't think of a better way to spend my lunch hour than catching up on D+Q artists' blogs. My two favourite things about artists' blogs? Process posts and scanned sketchbook pages. LOVE IT.
But maybe you've fallen behind? The internet gets crazy. I understand. If I don't have a blog on my reader, forget about it. So, to make this a little easier for you, here's a list of D+Q artists who are reasonably active bloggers, and who if you don't already have in your readers, you should add, immediately. Here we go:
I dont know why I feel the need to perez hilton this adorable letter from a Lynda Barry fan in Austin. But the mom in me is being protective. Kid, you and you two best friends are pretty cool kids.
That handsome John P. is hitting the road for a short tour in the next two months! He's got stops in Gainesville, Chapel Hill, Durham, Baltimore, Chicago, Columbus, and Urbana, so get out your calendars, people. It all kicks off today with what would surely be an amazing opportunity: a 5 day John P-led comix workshop at the Sequential Artists Workshop.
March 24: Johalla Projects, Chicago Opening reception for "Physical Evidence," a three-person show of comics, printmaking, zines and more featuring Dale Flattum, John Porcellino, and Zak Sally
April 13-15, C2E2, Chicago IL Tabling with good ol' Joe Chips!
April 21-22: SPACE, Columbus OH Two full tables of awesome Spit and a Half merchandise
All right, so we don't have our copies of Belgian bad boy Brecht Evens' spankingly beautiful THE MAKING OF quite yet, but what we DO have is the French edition and the translated pages, heading off to the printer any minute now.
I've taken some pics of the French ed. so that you can get an idea of what the final book is going to look like, and I also included one of my favourite passages from the book. I didn't think it was possible, but Brecht just keeps getting better and better! This book is even more beautiful and complex that THE WRONG PLACE, and, besides being visually stunning, it's also completely hilarious. I can't wait until we get this baby back from the printer!
Boy oh boy, this "hit" is a doozy in the best possible sense. The ever wonderful fine arts & museum beat writer Carol Kino profiles the almighty Daniel Clowes for the venerable grey lady in conjunction with his upcoming retrospective at the Oakland Museum of California next month, and his monograph out from Abrams Comic Arts.
