From the Archives March Edition

Liz here, and I was having a great time in the basement organizing. Well, I mean, real talk: define “great.” But you know what I mean; I was amused by some of the things I rediscover as I get it all in order down there. But also, again, real talk: define “all in order.” YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN, STOP SASSING ME, PEOPLES. Still though. The stuff I have for you! Dig it.

Well what do we have here? It’s famed sculpture artist legend Cynthia Plaster Caster and former Quimby’s employee and CUFF legend Bryan Wendorf at an event here, talking to whoever’s hand is in the photo. Are they talking to the hand? You know it. The best I can triangulate the date is as follows: this is from before I started here because whatever this event was, it was pre-me at Quimby’s, so it would be sometime before 2001. It was clearly after Quimby’s moved from the original location at 1328 N. Damen to here at 1854 W. North Ave., so it was definitely the late ’90s. And the guy all the way on the right has a chinstrap beard that screams 1998 in a way that I can’t even begin to describe. So I think somewhere between 1998-2000. No YOU go do the carbon-dating, I’m too busy scanning weird mail art.

Sir! My soul is beaten down! Me too, bucko. I’m 90% sure we included this postcard in one of our MiniMagalogs but it is totally worth showing it off in its full glory here. How did this get here with no post date? And notice it is addressed to “SQUIMBY’S.” I understand why that happened. If you look at our logo, if you didn’t know otherwise. Allow me to explain once you look at the picture below.

Check out our patches through the ages. The one we have now is the one on the left. Why did I not put them in order? Because I am a fool. When I placed them down on the scanner I accidentally put them in the reverse order because I am just that sort of absentminded hippo. Don’t @ me, people. And no, we don’t have the white or yellow rimmed ones. Just the peach-y salmon ones, which you can get here. ANYWAY, notice how close that S is at 8:00 to where Quimby’s starts at 9:00, you know what I’m saying? That’s why I know someone is a Quimby’s nube when they’re like “SQuimby’s!” But still, I understand how they arrived at that, even if there’s a color separation.

Well look at that! It’s Matt Fagan, of Meniscus comic fame. And one of the founders of Brainstorm comics, which used to be down the street. The Evil Dead lunchbox! Can I tell you I forgot we even carried that? Or did he come in carrying it? Like on his way to work with a sandwich in it? Or maybe a necronomicon or something? No, you know what? I think we did sell that lunchbox.

As the flyer says, Adrian Tomine and Seth did events at both here and Chicago Comics, but what really grabs me are the incidentals: the Chicago Comics phone number! It has a 312 area code. The 773 area code didn’t become a thing until 1996. And the event was at the OQ (Original Quimby’s, as coined by Billy McCall). So was this pre-1996? Wow. And anybody who has done stuff with print and photocopiers recognizes that white tape. It’s so that you don’t see the marks of the paper underneath. Yesssssss. Or if this was 1996, should I say “rad” and “booyah?” You’re welcome.

I’m pretty sure Shappy (RIP) made this. He worked at both Quimby’s and Chicago Comics, so he dealt with the alternative comics vs superhero comics dichotomy on the regular. I loved his signs. But boy did he hate working! He said to me once, “Can’t I just sit and read issues of Eightball?” Chicago poet Robbie Telfer told me that Shappy got in trouble for using up all the toner in the printer for printing out pictures of Hanna-Barbera characters. Oh Shappy, I miss you. I’m so glad I was never your manager though.

It’s Jake Austen, editor of the famed Chicago zine Roctober and Chic-a-Go-Go cable access impresario! With baby! So this must have been two decades ago. But I can tell by the placement of the lighting overhead that he was standing in front of the counter, and it was taken by whoever was sitting in the very spot I am sitting in at this very moment. It was me. I think I took this photo. At least, I’m pretty sure. There was a period of time before smart phones in which I always a had a camera with actual film in it, and then we’d take the film over to the Walgreen’s at Wood and Milwaukee to get developed. We’d pick it up like a million weeks later when we remembered it was there.

Thanks for those super sick Gremlins in 2012, Cara Bean! These are excellent. We get a lot a lot of good mail art on envelopes. We could do a zine or a book of just the correspondence we get from people.

Jesus saves big money! Thanks for the mail art in 2014, Peter Sickman-Garner! I bet this contained Hey, Mister. Sent Media Mail, the postal choice of self-publishers everywhere.

A Quimby’s ad in a 1998 edition of Lumpen! That font is so fabulously 1990s-cocktail-exotica-space-age-bachelor-pad-revival that I just want to go drink a martini and listen to Combustible Edison.

That’s what I got! Now go get in your time machines and listen to the Four Rooms soundtrack.

xoxo

Liz @caboosezine

2025 Chicagoland Indie Bookstore Day Challenge! April 26th

Apr
26
12:00 pm

On Saturday, April 26th Quimby’s will participate in celebrating Independent Bookstore Day with Chicago bookstores from all over the city!

One of the best ways to celebrate Independent Bookstore Day is the annual bookstore crawl (aka, the Chicagoland Indie Bookstore Day Challenge)! The crawl promises to be bigger and better than ever this year! Dozens of stores—both brand-new stores and old favorites will be participating.  (See the complete list at www.ChiLoveBooks.com.) And, yes, the bus tour will be BACK!

Again this year, the goals will be:
• Visit TEN stores in one day and get 10% off at all participating bookstores for an ENTIRE YEAR!
• Visit FIFTEEN stores in one day and get 15% off at all participating bookstores for an ENTIRE YEAR!

Readers are encouraged to post a snapshot of themselves and their Independent Bookstore Day haul on social media with the hashtags #TeamIndie, #ChiLoveBooks, #IBDCHI25, plus the hashtags of each store they’ve visited.

Independent Bookstore Day is the last Saturday of April, and yet again, Chicagoland proves itself to be the dream destination for book lovers and readers of all ages! More than 50 independent bookstores in the greater Chicago area — from Lake Forest to Beverly, and Naperville to the Loop — are collaborating on our annual Chicagoland Bookstore Crawl, which encourages book lovers to indulge in bookstore tourism by visiting 10 or more stores in a single day.

New Stuff This Week

 

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Zines

2 Angel Xoxo zines! $5 each: All Drafts #2, What Was it Like Growing Up in the Bay

Room For Rent by Bill Sassenberger (Fluke Publishing) $5

Cocktail Recipes for Those Who Like the Stories issues #1-#5 by Wil Martinez Petre $8 each

Qwerty Quarterly #7 $5

Healing Is the Best Revenge #5 Love Letters for Survivors by Karina Ebba Hagelin $11

Enlighten Me, You Nincompoop: The Misadventures of Trial and Error by C.M. Davassi (Happy Tapir Press) $5

Minor Inconveniences of Infidelities: Poems by Nicole Zwolinski $6

From The Word Distro: What I Watched When I Had COVID $3, Pencil of the Week #19 $5, Touring America Skylines the Limit featuring Billy McCall and August Personage $3, Soap Dish #2 a Zine About Soap and Stuff $2

Comics

Looking for the Cat issues #1-#5 by Matthew Thurber (Neoglyphic Media) $12-$15

Fructus Seminalis #1 by Dan Loeb and Maxim Mel $10

Blood Trucker #3 by Lauren Ramsey and Michael Ehrenreich $7

Hacienda #3 by Dave Ortega $10

Void Trust #1 The Universe’s Best Comics Anthology by Finn Walker and Danny Cooper $8

Graphic Novels

Life Drawing: A Love and Rockets Collection by Jaime Hernandez (Fantagraphics) $24.99

Raised By Ghosts by Briana Loewinsohn (Fantagraphics) $18.99

Tedward by Josh Pettinger (Fantagraphics) $24.99

Beat It, Rufus by Noah Van Sciver (Fantagraphics) $22.99

Baby Blue by Bim Eriksson (Fantagraphics) $29.99

Santos Sisters vol 1 by Greg and Fake (Fantagraphics) $24.99

Music & Film Books

I Like People That Can’t Sing: Paul Nelson Interviews Leonard Cohen & Lucinda Williams edited by Kevin Avery (Fantagraphics) $29.99

The Harder I Fight the More I Love You: A Memoir by Neko Case $30

Candy Darling: Dreamer, Icon, Superstar by Cynthia Carr $20

Getting Help

Love in a Fucked-Up World: How to Build Relationships, Hook Up, and Raise Hell Together by Dean Spade $19.99

Newspapers

County Highway vol 2 #5 March/April $8.50

Fiction

Forgotten Titles: The Problem of Eternity by Emma Wong $5

Lit Journals & Chap Books

Moss Piglet March 2025 $15

Sinister Wisdom #136 $16

chap books by PT Orbizol $5 each: Communal Education, Greysonic Codex

Live from the Monkey Show Poems by Samuel L. Rubinstein $7

No Stop November Poems by Jonathon Addington $5

Sexxxy

Elska #51 Buenos Aires Argentina $20

March Newsletter Out Now

Read it here and make sure you sign up to get it in your inbox at quimbys.com.

New Stuff This Week

 

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Zines & Zine-Related

One Skate Beyond #2 Indoor Skating Edition by Buster $4

From Stephen Poon, $6 each: Cincinnati Mushroom House & Pondering the Infinite: 2 Short Stories

From Sofa Melon, Melon Press: Numerology: A Easy Guide to the Age of Your Soul the Zine $8, Midnight Shift: A Spooky RPG $12, Knaffgata #1 The Missing Link $10 & more.

Mayhem in Miniature: Graphikos Tradition by Jim Blanchard (Waterhead Books) $6

For the Love of Ray Navarro by Ruben Esparza (Mattazine Society) $12

Trashy by Brenna Brash $10

THING: Issues #1-10 The Voice of Americas Black Queer Underground in the Early 1990s edited by Robert Ford, Trent Adkins, and Lawrence Warren (Primary Information) $35

Knight of Cups by Erica Dawn Lyle $5

Brick House by Adam Green (Wiggle Bird Mailing Club) $10

Comics

Duplicator Magazine $22

Sliced Timber #1 by Lumberjack Nick (Killer Pterri Comics) $9.99

Fever Dream #1 by Scott Gerard Ruhl $6

My Comic Final LOL $10

Satellite Sunset by Madeline Mouse $10

From Leo Covault: Early Gender Crushes #1 $6, Transition Hacks for Ye Old Mascs $10, The Harpist $22 & more.

Graphic Novels

Holy Lacrimony by Michael DeForge (Drawn & Quarterly) $24.95

Confessional by Paige Hender (Silver Sprocket) $29.99

Hourglass by Barbara Mazzi (Silver Sprocket) $15.99

You Must Take Part in Revolution: A Graphic Novel by Badiucao and Melissa Chan (Street Noise Books) $23.99

Politics & Revolution

ALGOFFSHORE: The Art of Automating Tax Evasion by Rybn.org $25

Art Books

Freeks: Astounding Aberrations and Mutations by JR Williams (Waterhead Books) $34.95

It’s Worse than I Feared Drawings by Tom Howes $24.99

Newspapers & Lit Journals

The Shadow #62-#64 $2 each

Lyrics as Poetry #5 A Journal of Songwriting and Prose $20

edited by Nabeela Washington: How We Make Fire $12, How the West Was Black $11

Music Books

There and Black Again by Don Letts (Omnibus Press) $20

Sex & Drugs & Rock ‘N’ Roll: The Life Of Ian Dury by Richard Balls (Omnibus Press) $20