Announcements and Weekly Top 10

Published on September 13, 2011 0 Comments

Three news pieces.

Firstly, we are saddnend to hear of the passing of Sparkplug publisher Dylan Williams. Williams had been battling cancer. We send our condolences to his family and friends.

Congratulations to our own Edie Fake, who won a 2011 Ignatz Award for Outstanding Graphic Novel for his book Gaylord Phoenix.

Billy McCall (aka Billy Da Bunny) of Proof I Exist zine moved to New Mexico and got involved with the ABQ Zine Fest 9/30-10/2, and as part of the fest, he’s hosting The First Annual ABQ Zine Fest OLYMPICS on 10/1 with events like Speed Stapling, Precision Folding, and Synchronized Zining.  Yes, you read that correctly. So, if you’re in Albuquerque in a few weeks, go and git yer zine on.

Here are the top 10 bestsellers of last week:

1. F***ing Epic Twitter Quest of @MayorEmanuel by Dan Sinker and Biz Stone (Simon) $12.00
2. Tiki Magazine vol 7 #2 $5.99
3. The Believer #83 Sep 11 $8.00
4. Wrongful Convictions: Causes, Solutions, and How You Can Get Involved by The Innocence Project $2.50 –  This zine outlines the basic ways wrongful convictions easily happen in the current American justice model, develops solutions and talks to activists about what their approaches are towards changing the system. Clear, informative, hopeful and helpful.
5. I Dont Understand Farming #6 $.75
6. I Will Bite You and Other Stories by Joseph Lambert $14.00 – 2011 Ignatz Winner for Outstanding Artist! Weird and toothsome stories of child-planetary interaction, monsterous consumption, ants-in-the-pants urgency and geometric breakdown. Lambert’s drawings have an assured mischieviousness like Steve Weissman’s early Lemon Kids, and these tales operate in a cosmic system that eschews outright snark and didactic symbolism in favor of suprising solutions and original visions. -EF
7. Chicago Street Art by Joseph J. Depre, Oscar Arriola, etc. $15.00 – Text by Joseph J Depre and photos by Oscar Arriola, Chris Diers, Thomas Fennell IV and Patrick Hershberger. A love letter of sorts to Chicago and its many street artists, photos published here so that when the art gets graffiti blasted they’ve been documented somewhere. With work by such artists as Tiptoe, Artillery, The Viking and more. Traverlers, fuck bringing home a snowglobe from the souvenir stand. Get this book instead.
8. Just Kids by Patti Smith (Ecco) $16.00
9. Exxxtinction: 1st Known Circle Jirk by Sy Loady $3.00
10. Warmer by Aiden Koch (Sparkplug) $5.00 – Koch’s moody, pencilled mini builds itself out of vaguely nihilist non-events. Pregnant pauses dwell on crumpled clothes and antique light fixtures, limbs and patterns. The structure plays itself long and loose, the slow clues that build narrative poignancy do an equal turn at washing away any meaning so we’re left with the dissolution of an empty visit to an empty day. -EF

New Stuff This Week

Published on September 9, 2011 0 Comments

ZINES!?
Show Me The Money #35 $2.50
Gleaming Armament of Marching Genitalia by Joao Maiopinto and Marcos Farrajota (MMMNNNRRRG) $14.22
Penny Man Trashed 12 x 12 Screenprint Included by Ben Chlapek $8.00
Backward Jane #2 Noelle Havens $3.50
Take That Crap Off Your Wall $3.00

COMICS! COMIX!
Nix Comics Quarterly issues #1-#3 (prices vary)
Upset Cats #1 Zejian Shen $10.00

GRAPHIC NOVELS & TRADE PAPERBACKS!
Caminhando Com Samuel by Tommi Musturi (MMMNNNRRRG) $28.44
Malus by Christopher Webster (MMMNNNRRRG) $17.06
Dimensions #1 $25.00
Ozma of Oz by Eric Shanower and Slottie Young (Marvel) $29.99

ART & DESIGN BOOKS!?
Neuro Trip by Neuro (MMMNNNRRRG) $21.32
Just My Type a Book About Fonts by Simon Garfield (Gotham) $27.50 – With a forward by Chip Kidd.
Sacred Skin: Thailands Spirit Tattoos by Tim Vater (Visionary) $32.95

FICTION!?
Howl on Trial the Battle for Free Expression by Bill Morgan and Nancy J. Peters (Citylights) $14.95

MAGAZINES!?
Fortean Times #279 Oct 11 $11.99
VMan #23 Fall 11 $5.95
Boneshaker Magazine #6 $10.00 – This bike mag is one of our topsellers.
Fifth Estate vol 46 #2 #385 Spr 10 $4.00
Tattoo Revolution Sep 11 $11.75

LITERARY JOURNALS, CHAP BOOKS & POETRY!?
Vain #10 Fall 11 $10.00
Annalemma #8 $15.00

Joe Janes and Friends Read from 50 Plays 10/1

Published on September 8, 2011 0 Comments
Oct ’11
1
7:00 pm

50 Plays by Joe Janes is the follow-up to the remarkable and insane 365 Sketches of 2010.  

Joe Janes spent months working with fifty local directors and their chosen casts to write a ten-minute(ish) play for each one.

A “Best of” presentation of pieces at Donny’s Skybox at Second City in August was hailed by the Chicago Reader as “”silly, bizarre, violent, and provocative” “…the pieces showcase Janes’s willingness to take risks of all kinds.”

Joe Janes is a teacher, writer, actor, improviser and director in Chicago. He is the Improv Program Director in Columbia College’s Theater Department. At Second City, he teaches all levels of the writing program. He has worked for Second City for over a dozen years and in that time has performed in the national touring company, produced and directed at Second City – Detroit, directed for the touring company and Second City – Las Vegas.  He spent time as the artistic director of ComedySportz-Chicago where he developed their training center curriculum and created BattleProv. As a comedy writer, he wrote for and provided voices for Jellyvision’s You Don’t Know Jack series of CD-ROM trivia games, freelanced for SNL’s Weekend Update and won an Emmy for his work on Cincinnati’s Club 19. He is a founding member of The WNEP Theater Foundation for which he has written and performed for 20 years in such shows as The (Edward) Hopper Project, Metaluna and the Amazing Science of the Mind Revue, The Armageddon Radio Hour and Soiree Dada. He is also the artistic director of Robot vs. Dinosaur and a former company member of the hit show Improvised Shakespeare. Joe began his career as a stand-up comedian where he toured the country for five years opening for such acts as The Monkees, Bill Hicks, Rita Rudner, and Paula Poundstone. You can follow his exploits on his blog biteandsmile.blogspot.com and Twitter and become a fan of 365 Sketches on Facebook.

Joe Janes can be contacted at jjanes@secondcity.com

 

Sat, Oct 1st, 7pm  

Weekly Top 10

Published on September 6, 2011 0 Comments

1. Big Questions (soft cover edition) by Anders Nilsen (D&Q) $44.95 – Thanks to everybody that came out to both off-site events we sold books at for Anders, at both Lula and the Hideout!
2. Encyclopedia of Doris by Cindy Crabb $18.00
3. F***ing Epic Twitter Quest of @MayorEmanuel by Dan Sinker and Biz Stone (Simon) $12.00
4. Bitch #52 $5.95
5. Design Bureau Sep Oct 11 $8.00
6. lose #3 by Michael Deforge (Koyama) $5.00
7. Believer #83 Sep 11 $8.00
8. The Game by Anders Nilsen $9.00
9. We Are Wisconsin ed. by Erica Sagrans $18.00 – Wisconsin Uprising in the words of the activists writers and everyday wisconsinites who made it happen. Contributors include Michael Moore, Noam Chomsky, Van Jones, John Nichols, Medea Benjamin, Mike Elk, Andy Kroll, Tony Schultz, Ian Murphy, Allison Kilkenny, Billy Wimsatt, Chris Bowers, and more.
10. Archiving the Underground #1 ed. by Jenna Brager and Jami Sailor $2.00

Todd Dills and Friends Celebrate All Hands On: THE2NDHAND After 10 on 10/3

Published on September 3, 2011 0 Comments
Oct ’11
3
7:00 pm

THE2NDHAND’s founding editor, Todd Dills, joins contributors to launch the mag’s 10th-anniversary anthology: All Hands On: THE2NDHAND After 10

THE2NDHAND began its life as an 11-by-17-inch block of black text on white paper peppered variously with photo-illustrations, comics, line drawings and distributed in storefronts first in Chicago, then in an ever-growing list of cities around the U.S. New writing, simply, has been its focus since editor and publisher Todd Dills (author of the novel Sons of the Rapture) founded it in 2000—a small format its physicality, but a loud mouth and a big heart its most important parts.

“And without Quimby’s, where we began hosting readings shortly after we launched,” says Dills, “we would never have built the community of writers and readers we now enjoy.”

After a successful Kickstarter campaign raised funds to print the book, All Hands On: THE2NDHAND after 10 arrived in August to lay down the best of the mag’s 10+ years of publishing writing by the budding insurgents of the American lit landscape—and others, no doubt. True to form, the book begins with a section of new, as-yet unpublished work, and follows with sections devoted to some of its best repeat writers, including those on the program for this event.

Joining Nashville, Tenn.-based Dills at this event them are Time Out Chicago books editor and Featherproof Books publisher Jonathan Messinger (Hiding Out) and longtime THE2NDHAND contributors and Chicago residents Kate Duva and Jill Summers. For more about the book, as well as the writers, visit the2ndhand.com/THE2NDHANDTXT/books

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