Archive for the 'comics' Category

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Caroline Paquita of PEGACORN PRESS, reads and shows works with Jo Dery and Edie Fake

Published on August 28, 2011 0 Comments
Sep ’11
26
7:00 pm

Caroline Paquita will be in Chicago to release the first two official works out on this small, “queer, feminist, total--freaker,” publishing house, Pegacorn Press. Using Risograph duplicators to create such works as her comic-zine WOMANIMALISTIC and an annual calendar, this once informal self-publishing venture officially expanded and became it’s own formal entity earlier this year.

In celebration, a 2012 calendar will be released, as well as a new comic compilation, featuring some of Chicago’s finest- Edie Fake and Jo Dery. Fake, Dery and a handful of artists in the U.S. and Germany were asked to create works surrounding the loose theme of of “2012,” and/or “THE FUTURE.” The result is a scintillating cornucopia of hilarity and social commentary, printed in an assortment of colored ink and paper-stock. Paquita’s yearly calendar features ”Womanimals” and other fanciful creatures gallivanting in jolly and curious environments. Wolves wearing wigs howl at the full moon, while tribes of Womanimals live in the trees with snakes and sloths- in 2012, anything is possible!

Also joining the bill is Edie Fake and Jo Dery. Both will be presenting work at this event, including some of Jo’s stunning animations.

Caroline Paquita is an artist/musician living and working out of Brooklyn, NY. Her work has been shown and distributed internationally and printed in such publications as Maximum Rock and Roll and Cometbus. A longtime creator of zines (Brazen Hussy, Zine Libs and most currently, WOMANIMALISTIC), a printmaker, and in general, a lover of all things made by hand, she began compiling heavy printing equipment in the hopes that one day she might begin a small publishing venture. PEGACORN PRESS is the result of this and her desire to create an environment where artists, particularly women and queers, are able to have the luxury to make work that will get printed and distributed to a larger audience. When she has spare time, she tends to her bees and hangs out with the chickens in her backyard.


Jo Dery is an artist who experiments with narrative form, using both traditional and new media. Her works include short films/videos, drawings, prints, illustration, installation, and artist/small-press book publications. Through the playful invention of characters and events, she investigates her relationship to the built environment, natural phenomena, history and current events, as well as aspects of cognition and consciousness. She currently lives in Chicago.

Edie Fake was born in Chicagoland in 1980. He graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence in 2002 and has since clocked time in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Baltimore. He’s received a Critical Fierceness Grant for queer art and was one of the first recipients of Printed Matter’s Awards for Artists. His drawings have been included in Hot and Cold, Creative Time Comics, and LTTR. Gaylord is his first full-length book. Currently, he lives in Chicago where he works as a minicomics sommelier for Quimby’s Books.

For more info:
http://pegacornpress.blogspot.com/
www.carolinepaquita.com
http://www.jodery.com/
http://vimeo.com/jodery
http://www.ediefake.com/

Quimby’s Bookstore Podcast #3 Is Up!

Published on August 5, 2011 0 Comments

Editor Ryan Standfest discusses BLACK EYE 1: Graphic Transmissions to Cause Ocular Hypertension, an anthology that collects original narrative , and by 41 international artists and writers, all focused on the expression of black, dark or absurdist humor. (And yes, we carry it at Quimby’s.) Ryan was here this past June 24th, to celebrate the Chicago release with some of the local artists included in the anthology.

With comics and art by Stéphane Blanquet, Ivan Brunetti, Lilli Carré, Max Clotfelter, Al Columbia, Ludovic Debeurme, Olivier Deprez, Nikki DeSautelle, Brecht Evens, Andy Gabrysiak, Robert Goodin, Dav Guedin, Gnot Guedin, Glenn Head, Danny Hellman, Paul Hornschemeier, Ian Huebert, Kaz, Michael Kupperman, Mats!?, Fanny Michaëlis, James Moore, Tom Neely, Mark Newgarden, Paul Nudd, Onsmith, Emelie Östergren, Paul Paetzel, David Paleo, Martin Rowson, Olivier Schrauwen, Stephen Schudlich, Robert Sikoryak, , Brecht Vandenbroucke, Wouter Vanhaelemeesch and Jon Vermilyea. Original essays by Jeet Heer (on S. Clay Wilson), Bob Levin (on “The Adventures of Phoebe Zeit-Geist”), Ken Parille (on Steve Ditko) and (on Al Feldstein and EC). Also includes the text “100 Good Reasons to Kill Myself Right Now,” by Roland Topor, translated into English for the first time by Edward Gauvin. You can find us on podbean or on I-Tunes (just do a search for Quimby’s Bookstore. And don’t forget to subscribe to the at either of those places. And yes! Subscription to the is FREE.

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Anders Nilsen Celebrates Big Questions at Lula Cafe with Quimby’s 8/30

Published on August 1, 2011 1 Comment
Aug ’11
30
7:00 pm

’s graphic novel collection of is coming out, and we’re going to celebrate with him at Lula Cafe on August 30th at 7pm.

A haunting postmodern fable, Big Questions is the magnum opus of Anders Nilsen, one of the brightest and most talented young cartoonists working today. This beautiful and minimalist story, collected here for the first time, is the culmination of ten years and over 600 pages of work that details the metaphysical quandaries of the occupants of an endless plain, existing somewhere between a dream and a Russian steppe. A downed plane is thought to be a bird and the unexploded bomb that came from it is mistaken for a giant egg by the group of birds whose lives the story follows. The indifferent and stranded pilot is of great interest to the birds–some doggedly seek his approval, while others do quite the opposite, leading to tensions in the group. Nilsen seamlessly moves from humor to heartbreak. His distinctive, detailed line work is paired with plentiful white space and large, often frameless panels, conveying an ineffable sense of vulnerability and openness.

Big Questions has roots in classic fable–the story’s birds and snakes have more to say than their human counterparts and there are hints of the classic hero’s journey, but the easy moral that closes most fables is left here as open and ambiguous. Rather than lending its world meaning, Nilsen’s parable lets the questions wander out to go where they will.

Paperback, 7.25 x 9.25, colour, 658 pages

Anders will be joined by John Porcellino of King-Cat Comics and Stories, and local fiction writer Kyle Beachy (The Slide) and Zak Sally (Like a Dog Recidivist, former bassist of Low, editor of La Mano Press).

Please note that this event is NOT AT QUIMBY’S!

It is at Lula Cafe which is at 2537 N. Kedzie Blvd, Chicago
lulacafe.com
773-489-9554

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Alison Bechdel comes to Quimby’s 10/8

Published on July 21, 2011 1 Comment
Oct ’11
8
7:00 pm

is guest editing THE BEST AMERICAN COMICS 2011.

“An insightful compilation.”—USA Today

It is widely acknowledge that is, by and large, a printed medium, and in the foreword of THE BEST AMERICAN COMICS 2011, series editors Jessica Abel and Matt Madden trace the evolutionary print trends of this form – from Sunday pages and daily strips to fanzines and minicomics to a mail movement and self-publishing faction.  However, they also recognize that have invaded the digital medium, and many of the aforementioned DIY-ers have created a webcomics scene that parallels, yet doesn’t necessarily intersect with, the print world.  In part as a reflection of this new trend, this year’s volume of THE BEST AMERICAN COMICS features a first for this series: Kate Beaton’s clever, buzz-worthy, and hilarious Hark! A Vagrant, the first included comic by an artist who emerged entirely from the webcomics scene.

Star guest editor Alison Bechdel, author of the seminal chronicle of lesbian lives and loves, Dykes To Watch Out For, and the highly-acclaimed graphic memoir Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, continues this reflection on comics trends in her introduction.  Though she originally became a cartoonist because of its alternative, underground nature far from mainstream literary and art criticism, she acknowledges – and appreciates – the incredible growth spurt and popularity boost comics have undergone in the past decade.

Submission after submission, Bechdel writes, shows how cleverly, confidently, and infectiously young comics are playing with the balance of art and language.  Selections like Brendan Leach’s Pterodactyl Hunters about fictionalized 1904 New York, Chris Ware’s Jordan Lint to 65 about the complete, fictionally-realized life of Jordan Lint, and Joe Sacco’s historiography, Footnotes in Gaza don’t fit neatly into a single category.  And yet, many of these pieces address a metacomic theme, commenting on their own art form in some way – David Lasky’s cheeky send-up of recent trends in the ‘graphic novel’ phenomenon and Joey Allison Sayers’ Pet Cat, which investigates the negative qualities defining the more commercial reaches of the comicsphere.

And although Bechdel questions why there’s still such a gender disparity in the field, she also lauds the fact that female cartoonists are beginning to experience a form of freedom that she hopes will extend to the art form as a whole.  “Freedom from having to explain or defend ourselves.  Freedom from being confined to one section of the bookstore.  Even freedom—one day, maybe—from books like this one.”  And it is this liberation, this ability to “look just a little beyond the horizon” that truly defines each of the pieces in THE BEST AMERICAN COMICS™ 2011 which begins, appropriately, with Gabrielle Bell’s heartfelt Manifestation.

Allison Bechdel began drawing the comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For in 1983.  Dykes was syndicated in fifty alternative newspapers, translated into multiple languages, and collected into a book series with over a quarter of a million copies in print. Bechdel is also the author of the best-selling graphic memoir Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, which was named a Best Book of the Year by Time, Entertainment Weekly, the New York Times, People, USA Today, the Los Angeles Times, the Village Voice, and the San Francisco Chronicle, among others.  Her new graphic memoir, Are You My Mother?: A Comic Drama, will be published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in April 2012.

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Cassie J. Sneider Reads From Fine Fine Music with Dave Roche and Danny ‘Ratso’ Rathbun 7/23

Published on June 29, 2011 0 Comments
Jul ’11
23
7:00 pm

FINE FINE MUSIC is a collection of stories about the other side of rock and roll and coming of age in the land that time forgot. Lake Ronkonkoma is stuck in 1981, an alcoholic blackout of unnatually tan people waxing their Camaros to Foreigner on cassette and knowing the words to every Billy Joel song whether you want to or not. From an internship making Seamonkey costumes, a childhood fear of My Buddy dolls, and a heartbreaking crush on Aerosmith, funny lady delivers her tales of growing up in a land of fist-pumping Snookies with the antagonistic wit of a record store clerk.

Cassie J. Sneider grew up in the murky depths of Lake Ronkonkoma, New York, a town with a haunted lake, a trailer park, and a record store. She put 240,000 miles on a Toyota Echo doing readings all over the country. Cassie J. Sneider collects 8-tracks and new friends. You can catch her on the Sister Spit 2012 national tour. For more info: cassiejsneider.blogspot.com

is the zinester behind such titles as On Subbing and About My Disappearance. He is a Quimby’s favorite.

And now, one more name has been added! It’s Danny “” Rathbun, who writes about openly and honestly about failed relationships, drugs and depression, but always with a wink and a smile. He runs a number of tongue and cheek columns like, ‘Drunken Letters to Abstract Concepts’, ‘Copyrighted Material Used Without Permission’, and ‘Punk rock trading cards’, that have drawn comparisons to Mad Magazine. Ratso’s work has been printed in over twenty different newspapers around Virginia, including The Virginia Gazette, The Williamsburg-Yorktown Daily, and others.  He is a regular contributor to Grassroots magazine, and the Commonwealth Times.  He publishes the zine Don’t Tread on Me, regularly performs standup comedy and gives readings across the state of Virginia, and is currently on a nationwide tour, doing readings across the country. For more info:  dtmzine.blogspot.com

Sat, July 23rd, 7pm

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