Wow lots of sweet zines and magazines this week, but its been real slow for comics! What’s up comic people where are you at? We need some new stuff to get our spring read on! On a super positive note we also got a small supply of the sweet new monograph from former Chicagoan Jesse Rose Vala which I highly recommend you pick up before its gone! Never anytime for sleepiness around here! Get on it!
Dig this! The John Flexicorn Memorial Library folks were here last week at Quimby’s collecting comics from contributors for their cool project. Why, what’s that, you ask? Let them tell you about it here:
The John Flaxicorn Memorial Library is a project created to encourage
communication and collaboration between comics artists at SAIC (The
School of the Art Institute of Chicago) as well as outside the school
community. Kyle O’Connell and Beth Hetland have built a library to
house multiples of comics by staff, faculty, alumni, graduating
seniors and underclassmen of SAIC. All of the copies at the show are
free for anyone to take home with them. The Library includes 54
different titles and even more contributing artists. This Library
stands as a testament to the practice of making comics at SAIC; how it
was practiced, how it is practiced and how it will be practiced.BFA Show: Sullivan Galleries, 33 S. State St. Opens March 20th at 7pm,
runs through April 3rdFor more info: beth.hetland@gmail.com
Apr ’09 |
18 |
6:30 pm |
Join four authors from the Bizarro fiction movement: D.Harlan Wilson, Andersen Prunty, Eckhard Gerdes and Garrett Cook as they read from and sign their books. The material is sometimes profane, sometimes funny, but always weird and engaging.
D. Harlan Wilson is an award-winning novelist, short story writer, literary critic, screenwriter, and assistant professor of English at Wright State University-Lake Campus. His recent books include a novel, Blankety Blank: A Memoir of Vulgaria (Raw Dog Screaming Press 2008), a novella, Peckinpah: An Ultraviolent Romance (Shroud 2009), and a book of cultural theory, Technologized Desire: Selfhood & the Body in Postcapitalist Science Fiction (Guide Dog Books 2009). Visit him online at www.dharlanwilson.com
Andersen Prunty is the author of The Overwhelming Urge, Jack and Mr. Grin, Zerostrata, Market Adjustment and Other Tales of Avarice, and The Sorrow King (forthcoming). He naps in Dayton, Ohio. You can call him Andy and visit him on the web at www.andersenprunty.com
Eckhard Gerdes is the author of several unusual novels, including My Landlady the Lobotomist (a top-five selection for novel of the year in the Preditor’s and Editors Poll), The Million-Year Centipede (a top-ten selection the year prior and a nominee for the Wonderland Award), Przewalski’s Horse (which won the Bissell Award), and Cistern Tawdry (nominated for the Georgia Author of the Year Award). He teaches at Lake Forest College, DePaul University, and Triton College. He has three sons and lives in the Chicago area.
Garrett Cook is a Bizarro, horror and crossgenre novelist currently residing in Warrenville, IL. While he is not reading submissions for Evil Nerd Empire publishing (www.evilnerdempire.com) or dealing with his duties as Associate Editor of Bust Down the Door and Eat All the Chickens magazine, he is promoting his book Murderland Part 1: H8.
Other info: find out more about Bizarro fiction at www.bizarrocentral.com
1. Do Not Disturb My Waking Dream #2 by Laura Park $3.00
2. Stop Smiling #38 $6.99
3. Butt #25 Fantastic Magazine for Homosexuals $9.90
4. Mome vol 14 Spr 09 (Fantagraphics) $14.99
5. Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons (Vertigo) $19.99
6. East Village Inky #40 $3.00
7. Lint vol 1 by Clara Kazarov $4.00
8. Unlovable (hardcover) by Ester Pearl Watson (Fantagraphics) $22.99
9. Proof I Exist #9 by Billy Roberts $1.00
10. Cinema Sewer #22 $4.00
Apr ’09 |
13 |
6:30 pm |
Microcosm Publishing is heading out on tour! This time around we’re sending some of our authors and artists to teach you a little somethin’ (and hopefully entertain you in the meantime!) First off, though in no particular lineup order, Do-It-Yourself Screenprinting author John Isaacson will show you the ins and outs of turning your bedroom into a full-on DIY t-shirt factory. Says his tour-mate and Microcosm founder Joe Biel, “If there were awards for niceness, John would be in the top three. He teaches writing programs when he’s not busy teaching silkscreening workshops. He’ll be bringing his skills and knowledge to your town and showing even the experts a thing or two.”
Then we got Moe Bowstern, author of the extra rad zine series Xtra Tuf, who will show you some sailors’ knots and teach you a few sea chanteys. Moe’s zines tell the story of her life as a woman in the male-dominated commercial fishing industry and are high adventure no matter how you shake it. She’s also a real sweetheart!
Next there’s Microcosm founder Joe Biel who will screen his latest documentary If It Ain’t Cheap, It Ain’t Punk: 14 Years of Plan It X. You may know Joe from the celebrated zine Perfect Mixtape Segue, of which his latest issue just came out. Joe is also the co-author of the recently released zine-making how-to book Make a Zine and the dude who brought you the excellent zine-makin’ “talk-umentary” $100 and a T-Shirt. He’s a great guy and wears a lot of green and orange.
Also on the lineup we got Shelley Jackson, co-author of the Chainbreaker book and zine. Joe Biel had the following to say about the wonderful Miss Jackson: “The first time I visited New Orleans, I knew no one except for a polite GK Darby who kept insisting that I should come. Shelley offered to put up two strangers in her cute little shotgun home and we became closer over years. She’s been a bike mechanic for longer than I’ve known her and wrote down her thoughts on the matter with her friend Ethan in her Chainbreaker book. She’s going to teach you how to fix yer bike.”
Last but not least–or, really, last–the incredibly awesome traveling vegan chef Joshua Ploeg will prepare some mind-blowing cuisine from his hot-off-the-press debut cookbook In Search of the Lost Taste. Joshua is also known as Joshua Plague, member of such kick-ass punk bands as Behead the Prophet, the Mulketeo Fairies, and, his latest outfit, Warm Springs. You haven’t lived until you’ve had Joshua’s cooking, for reals!
Come on down and hang out with us!