Monthly Archive for July, 2007

Loaded Blanks presents a Comic Art Battle at Quimby’s!

Aug ’07
30
7:00 pm

Loaded Blanks presents a Comic Art Battle at Quimby’s!

Thursday, Aug 30th, 7:00 PM
FREE

To celebrate the release of Loaded Blanks Greetings series two Loaded blanks and Quimby’s will host a “Comic Art Battle,” featuring several of the artists and creators behind the new line of cards. A cross between “Win, Lose or Draw”, “Whose Line is it, Anyway?”, and Professional Wrestling, the “COMIC ART BATTLE” pits the comic book world’s most talented creators, writers and artists against each other in a clash of lightning-quick wits and superior spontaneous draftsmanship!

A successful team of battlers will have to deploy charisma and strategy as well as talent in order to win over the audience during a series of timed matches, all of which are heavy on audience participation and ultimately judged by audience applause. The menagerie of challenges ranges from one-on-one cage matches where two artists must sketch a volunteer from the audience in an audience-suggested setting, to an all-out brawl where every team member must get up on stage at once and put their heads together to create a six-panel comic book page based on an audience-suggested theme in under five minutes.

Audience members will have the chance to win free cards, hot of the press and a chance to embarrass themselves on stage in front of their peers.

With Featured Performers/ Combatants:
Lilli Carre (Tales of Woodsman Pete, Deep Sea Diving)
Grant Reynolds (To The Mouth Of The Source, Tales of Achilles, Loaded Blanks illustrator)
Laura Park (Loaded Blanks illustrator)
Ezra Claytan Daniels (The Changers, Loaded Blanks illustrator and co-owner)

More info about Loaded Blanks:

Sure, You Could Let A Corporate Greeting Card Company Do Your Thinking For You. Or You Could Get “Loaded”.

Greeting Cards Just Got Fun.

Chicago, IL, August 24, 2007 – Buying a greeting card is something almost everyone does at least once in their lives. The problem with mainstream greeting cards is they can’t always capture a person’s unique flavor of humor or sentiment, leaving a glaring void on the shelves for those who want to say “I love you” minus the hearts and flowers.

The search for that perfect greeting card has become twice as easy with the release of the second series of Loaded Blanks Greetings. This time, we’ve assembled an all-female roster of the indie comics and illustration world’s most dynamic voices to create 12 original works of full-color comic art. As always, the hook is that the consumers fill in the blank text bubbles themselves.

Series Two feature a variety of artists from all over the country including indie comics wunderkind and filmmaker Lilli Carre (Tales of Woodsman Pete, Top Shelf Comics), performance artist and graphic novelist Dame Darcy (Meat Cake, Fantagraphics), poster and clothing designer Eleanor Grosch (Pushmepullyou Design) and recording artist Shelley Short (Hush Records). While some the artists have been featured in publications running the gamut from National Geographic and Nickelodeon Magazine to Magnet and Venus Zine, the appeal to put their other projects on hold to create a greeting card was more than just for the fun of it. “The great thing about starting an endeavor like this is that you can do things the way you wish every company would. For us, that means being very environmentally responsible and community-minded,” says Daniels. “As always, all our cards are printed on 100% recycled paper. Series Two also features a Breast Cancer Awareness card, and every penny we earn from it will be donated to breast cancer research.”

Loaded Blanks Greetings is nationally distributed through Diamond Comics, buyolympia.com, thedramastore.org and can currently be found in Chicago Comics, Quimby’s, Women and Children First and Wolfbait, with more Chicagoland locations added every day.

Lawrence Santoro at Quimby’s!

Aug ’07
16
7:00 pm

Lawrence Santoro at Quimby’s!
Thursday Aug 16th 7PM
FREE

This will be a reading/signing of the book, “Just North of Nowhere.” Set in Bluffton, a small town in the drift less area of the upper Midwest the book deals with the idea that land and its history can mark and alter the people who live on it. Readers familiar with Ray Bradbury’s “Dandelion Wine” or Manly Wade Wellman’s Silver John tales will recognize Bluffton and “Just North…” as a spiritual descendant.

A two-time finalist for the Bram Stoker Award of the Horror Writers Association, Lawrence Santoro has been writing creepy tales since he was five years old. As associate producer of the syndicated television series, “Hyde & Seeke,” Larry wrote, directed and supervised production during the comedy/mystery show’s first season. In 2001 his novella “God Screamed and Screamed, Then I Ate Him” was Stoker nominated.  His audio adaptation and production of Gene Wolfe’s “The Tree Is My Hat,” featuring best-selling author Neil Gaiman, was presented live at the WORLD HORROR CONVENTION in 2002 and garnered him his second nomination. In 2003 Larry’s Stoker-recommended “Catching” received Honorable Mention in Ellen Datlow’s 17th Annual “Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror” anthology.  His “So Many Tiny Mouths” was cited in the anthology’s 18th edition.

Larry’s first novel, “Just North of Nowhere,” was published by Annihilation Press in 2007. Also in 2007: “At Angels 16,” in A DARK AND DEADLY VALLEY from Silverthought Press, and “Cordwell’s Book” in TALES FROM THE RED LION.  Annihilation Press will publish “Little Girl Down the Way,” in HELL IN THE HEARTLAND in late 2007.  His novella, “Wind Shadows,” will see print in the Canadian anthology AIM FOR THE HEAD in 2008. Larry lives in Chicago.

More info at http://www.annihilationpress.com/

New Stuff 7/28/07

reading comics

Wicker Park Fest is in full effect. Crocs, ball caps and baggy tees. I think Jimmy Buffet was just in here looking at porn. Crazy! What more to say another week of new stuff. Looks like the summer lull is subsiding and hot books are starting to trickle out.

Continue reading ‘New Stuff 7/28/07’

More Search Engine Terms

Search Engine Terms

“Gee whiz, Google didn’t have any good hits for cornhole… Maybe I’ll have better luck if I try searching for corn and hole.”

New Stuff 7/21/07

bearmagic.jpg

Sorry folks, no Harry Potter for us this week? It’s a muggle house in here. When I get done I’ll tell you who dies. Guess if I had to pick a fictional character to be down with I’d take wizards over anarchists any day.
Continue reading ‘New Stuff 7/21/07’