Category: comics

  • Matt Madden Comics Seminar at Chicago Comics 8/2

    Our sister store, Chicago Comics is proud to present award-winning comic author Matt Madden to the store for a three hour seminar entitled “Checklist For a A New Comic: A Guide to Getting Started.” He’ll walk you through the many considerations you should keep in mind when you embark on creating a new comic, whether a one-pager, a webcomic, or a graphic novel. Madden will help you strategize and come up with a working plan for your next project. He will cover a variety of bases, including:: creative block and coming up with ideas, choosing a format and platform that makes sense, setting goals and scheduling your time so that you can reach them, finding an audience and looking for collaborators and/or publishers. So bring some paper and be ready to take notes on your next big (or small) project! The event begins at 5 and goes until 8.  And! Chicago Comics will also be giving away 3 free copies of Matt Madden and Jessica Abel’s new book Mastering Comics to random attendees! Updates and more information on the event can be seen on the Facebook Page for the event.

    Matt Madden is a former Chicagoan, now New York transplant, who is best known for his original alternative comics, and teaches comics at the School of Visual Arts and Yale University.

    Thurs, Aug 2nd, 5-8pm

    *Please note, this event is NOT at Quimby’s. It is at CHICAGO COMICS, at 3244 North Clark Street, Chicago. Call 773-528-1983 for more information.

  • Lauren Barnett, Neil Fitzpatrick and Bernie McGovern at Quimby's 8/18

    Lauren Barnett, www.melikesyou.com
    Barnett has been posting comics to her website for almost 7 years. She has self published 4 mini comics (I’d Sure Like Some Fucking Pancakes, Secret Weirdo, Was That Supposed to be Funny?, and A story about Fish). Her work has been printed in many anthologies and carried in stores across the US. Hic and Hoc Publications recently published her first full length book collecting her comics from 2008-2012 called Me Likes You Very Much. She currently lives in Brooklyn NY.

    Neil Fitzpatrick, http://neiljam.com/
    Neil Fitzpatrick has been drawing Neil Jam comics in one form or another for many years. He self published the first assemblage of Neil Jam comics in minicomic form. Neil Jam #1 was released in the summer of 1997. Neil Jam has seen print in dozens of minicomics since then, as well as a handful of indie-comics anthologies. In addition to comic books, he’s dabbled quite a bit with Neil Jam in comic strip form. Neil Jam ran as a student comic strip at the University of Missouri for four years. He currently lives in Chicago.

    Bernie McGovern, www.rockwellfarmer.com
    Bernie McGovern is a puppet designer, illustrator, and comics artist living in Chicago. He teaches for Snow City Arts in Rush Hospital’s pediatrics ward, where children can continue to learn while missing school. Current Snow City Arts projects include a patient-designed video game and shadow puppet animation. His personal projects include the graphic novels “An Army of Lovers will be Beaten” and “The Cosmouse.” His puppets have appeared in plays by Actors Theatre of Louisville, The Neo-Futurists of Chicago, The Hypocrites, Dog & Pony, Sanculottes, and Drinking & Writing Theater. He has a great love for collaborators, juniper, hazelnut infused chocolate, and his parents.

  • Eliza Frye Reads From Regalia 8/11

    Regalia is a collection of short stories exploring themes of sex and death through visual metaphor, magical realism, and white tigers. Some of the stories have been previously published and some are brand new. They are all love letters.

    “Frye has a powerful style. I had an immediate, almost visceral reaction to the images.”

    —  Derik A. Badman, COMIXTALK

    “I really want this … but I’m afraid of what my pastor will say.”

    — Chicago Comic Con Attendee

    Eliza Frye is a graphic novelist, illustrator and exhibiting artist. Her comics have been featured in literary magazines and anthologies in the United States and Europe, and her short story “The Lady’s Murder” was nominated for a 2009 Eisner Award. She has studied Character Animation at California Institute of the Arts and has a BA in Japanese Literature from UCLA. She enjoys her tea earl grey, hot.

    For more info: elizafrye.com and mail@elizafrye.com

    Sat, Aug 11th 7pm

  • Derf Reads My Friend Dahmer at Quimby’s 8/9

    “If you want to read a heavy story about a disturbing teenager, My Friend Dahmer will certainly quench your dark little desires. But this book is about a lot of other things that matter much, much more: the institutionalized weirdness of the suburban seventies, what it means to be friends with someone you don’t really like, a cogent explanation as to why terrible things happen, and a means for feeling sympathy toward those who don’t seem to deserve it.”
    — Chuck Klosterman, author of Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs and The Visible Man

     

    “A solid job. Putrid serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer’s origins are explored in this fine book. Dig it—it’ll hang you out to dry.”
    — James Ellroy, author of My Dark Places and L.A. Confidential

    My Friend Dahmer (Abrams ComicArts; March 2012; Non-fiction; Graphic Novel; Paperback $17.95; ISBN: 978-1-4197-0217-4; Hardcover $24.95; ISBN: 978-1-4197-0216-7) is an original graphic novel that gives a unique perspective on the notorious serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. To the public, Dahmer was a monster who committed unthinkable atrocities. To Derf Backderf, he was “Jeff,” a high school friend with whom he had shared classrooms, hallways and car rides. Using a combination of his own memories and journals, conversations with old friends, and Dahmer’s interviews and transcripts, writer-artist Backderf unveils a surprisingly sympathetic portrait of a disturbed young man—a shy kid, a teenage alcoholic, and a misfit who never quite fit in with his classmates—struggling against the morbid urges emanating from the deep recesses of his psyche.

    My Friend Dahmer:

    • offers fascinating and disturbing answers to the question, “What was Jeffery Dahmer like as a kid?”
    • raises the question “Could these murders have been prevented?”
    • touches on the issues of bullying, teen alcoholism, and the role of parents and teachers in a troubled teen’s life.

     

    About the Author:

    Derf Backderf lives in Cleveland, Ohio. He has been nominated for two Eisner Awards and has received a host of honors, including the prestigious Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award for political cartooning. His weekly comic strip, The City, has appeared in more than 100 newspapers over the past 22 years.

    Thurs, Aug 9th, 7pm

    The author is available for interviews, and images are available upon request. Contact: Katrina Weidknecht, Executive Director, Publicity, kweidknecht@abramsbooks.com

  • Quimby’s Bookstore Welcomes Kevin Huizenga and Dan Zettwoch 6/15

    Gloriana is a long-form poem in graphic form, and within its pages, Kevin Huizenga exposes the mechanics that underpin everyday life. His protagonist, Glenn Ganges, has conversations about dish soap and library visits that are both faithful depictions of mundane interactions and existential dissections of the units that construct our lives.
    In Gloriana, Kevin Huizenga exposes the mechanics that underpin everyday life. His protagonist, Glenn Ganges, has conversations about dish soap and library visits that are both faithful depictions of mundane interactions and existential dissections of the units that construct our lives. Huizenga has an understated, quiet approach to story writing that allows his characters (and his readers) the self-awareness to recognize the humor and tragedy of every moment.

    Huizenga’s much-lauded work is finely detailed, and in its innovative use of form, it explores the boundaries of the comic medium, deconstructing and reconstructing panels to express temporality and lived experience more fully. Presented in this expanded edition, Gloriana employs familiar settings and thorough, sometimes scientific explanations to reach thoughtful conclusions.

    Dan Zettwoch’s Birdseye Bristoe celebrates the visual complexity of our world, and the impossibility of distilling this into a single digital signal. In Birdseye Bristoe, there are homes rigged entirely from bungee cords and 3-liter soda bottles, geodesic domes that have been turned into jungle gyms, an array of lawn-mowing routes, and guessing games inspired by the ambiguity of religious and heavy metal iconography.

    It’s a story line we know all too well: “A mysterious stranger comes to town.” Only the town is not really a town and the stranger is a gigantic cell-phone tower. The town is Birdseye Bristoe—a portmanteau created from an interstate sign that points to two real towns—and it has only one real permanent resident, an old-timer known only as Uncle. A confirmed bachelor and World War II veteran, he owns most of the real estate in town. His teenaged great-niece and -nephew visit occasionally, though the town doesn’t have much to offer apart from an adult superstore, a gas station, and a tackle shop.

    Uncle reluctantly agrees to lease his land to a conglomerate of telecommunications carriers, and sets the somewhat random condition that the tower be built with a huge crossbar set horizontally into the mast, making it also the world’s largest cross. Birdseye Bristoe begins with the destruction of the cell tower and works backward to unravel the story of its fall.

    For more info about both books, see drawnandquarterly.com

    Don’t miss Kevin Huizenga and Dan Zettwoch here at Quimby’s Bookstore Fri, June 15th, 7pm

    This event is in tandem with The Chicago Alternative Comics Expo [CAKE] June 16th and 17th, celebrates independent, underground, and alternative comics. There will be comics for sale, workshops, exhibitions, panel discussions and more. Over 200 guests will be in attendance including: Carrie McNinch, Michael Deforge, Brian Ralph, Gabrielle Bell, Anders Nilsen, Laura Park, Lisa Hanawalt, Julia Wertz, Nate Powell, Secret Acres, Sparkplug, Ken Dahl, Nicole J. Georges, Kevin Huizenga, Patrick Kyle, Blaise Larmee, and The Providence Comics Consortium and more! CAKE wil be at Columbia College’s Ludington Building, 1104 S Wabash. Quimby’s is proud to be a co-sponsor, and even prouder to be sponsoring the CAKE panel “Crude and Rude: The Importance of Vulgarity with Ivan Brunetti, Lisa Hanawalt, Hellen Jo, and Onsmith, Moderated by Josh Reinwald and Justin Rosenberg of the comic Crass Sophisticate.” For more info: cakechicago.com

  • Brain Frame #6 This Friday!


    Adding to the onslaught of Chicago’s Ultimate Weekend of Comics, be sure to catch the 6th edition of Lyra Hill’s outstanding live comics reading series, Brain Frame, this Friday, May 18th.

    Featuring the antics and talents and talantics of Krystal DiFronzo, Ian Endsley, Beth Hetland, Carter Lodwick, Kyle O’Connell, Eric Rivera and Sam Sharpe, it’s gonna be a hot night!

    Show starts at 8pm around the corner from the Quimbystore at 1542 N. Milwaukee Ave (2nd floor) and it’ll set you back 5 bones (worth every penny).

  • Australian Cartoonists' Caravan of Comics 5/9

    Australia’s premier independent  comic creators are hitting the road for three weeks in three small cars, stopping at Quimby’s on May 9th! Join us in welcoming:

    Pat  Grant – artist-writer­surfer  whose debut  graphic novel  Blue (published by Top Shelf, scroll down to see a picture of it resting on his the coffee table near his bed) about localism and  racism  may  turn  out  to  be  the Great  Australian   Graphic  Novel  Ben Hutchings – a  cartoonist  whose  softly  spoken  manner  belies  a  surprisingly  cheeky streak  that   informs  some  of  the funniest comics in the world Andrew Fulton – a quiet and  unassuming  cartoonist  whose  wordless  action  comics  are breathtaking  in  their  inventiveness  and  sense  of  play  with  the  form Mandy Ord – whose   autobiographical  comics  about  life  in  suburban  Melbourne  (including the  recent  “Sensitive  Creatures”)  are consistently  some  of  Australia’s most   accomplished sequential storytelling Douglas Holgate  – part  Viking,  all  cartoonist – is  the  Caravan’s  most  established  member having   published  numerous  children’s  titles both  in  Australia  and overseas.  His  lively style  speaks  to  an   enormous  enthusiasm  for  comics. Sarah Howell – best  known  as  2009-2010  Co-Director  of  the  National  Young  Writers’ Festival, is an accomplished  illustrator whose  style  is  sometimes  whimsical, sometimes grounded, and always stunning. David Blumenstein – the  cartoonist  behind  the  long-running comedy series  The  Bret Braddock  Adventures  a  comic  that  mines  humor  from  the  guts-­tearing feeling  you  get when  you’re  being  taken   advantage  of  by  a  boss  who  hasn’t  paid  you  in two  months. Gregory Mackay – makes  award-­winning  comics  about  a  strange  kind  of everyday­ness that  are   both  quietly  desperate  and  charmingly  beautiful.  His  long running  Francis  Bear is  published  in   French  through  The  Hoochie  Coochie. Michael Hawkins – tells  stories  of  teen  dramas  and  suburban  explorers  told  in  a  visual style  that  drips  and  bleeds  from  one  panel  into  the  next  through  Hawkin’s  amazing  ink and  watercolours.  Hawkin’s  style  is  completely  unique. Jen Breach – a  short,  bespectacled Australian based  in  New  York  City,  writes  comics about  ordinary   children  in extraordinary circumstances,  collaborating  with  a  number  of talented  cartoonists  (including  some  on the Caravan).and special  guest star  Roadie,  the  Caravan  is  delighted  to  include  John Retallick,  presenter  of  3CR   radio’s  long-running  “The  Comic  Spot.”

    More info: caravanofcomics.com

    facebook.com/caravanofcomics

    twitter.com/caravanofcomics

    Wed, May 9th, 7pm

  • Jeffrey Brown Celebrates Free Comic Book Day Here on 5/5

    Darth Vader and Son by Jeffrey Brown explores, What if Darth Vader actively raised his son? What if “I am your father” was just a stern admonishment from an annoyed dad? In this hilarious and sweet comic reimagining, Darth Vader is a dad like any other—except with all the baggage of being the Dark Lord of the Sith. Celebrated artist Jeffrey Brown’s delightful illustrations give classic Star Wars moments a fresh twist, showing that the trials and joys of parenting are universal, even in a galaxy far, far away. Life lessons include lightsaber battling practice, using the Force to raid a cookie jar, Take Your Child to Work Day on the Death Star, and the special bonding moments shared between any father and son. Humorous and touching, Darth Vader and Son is the perfect gift for dads of the Star Wars generation.

    And guess what? For Free Comic Book Day Jeffrey Brown is debuting a free comic book specifically for folks who come to this event at Quimby’s!

    Jeffrey Brown is the author of numerous graphic novels and comics, including Cat Getting Out of a Bag, Cats Are Weird, Clumsy, Unlikely and other titles. Jeffrey also co-wrote and created artwork for the film Save The Date, which was selected for Dramatic Film Competition at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. A lifelong Star Wars fan, he lives in Chicago with his wife and five-year-old son.

  • Call for Best American Comics

    A word from Jessica Abel and Matt Madden, the series editors of The Best American Comics for comics artists and publishers!

    Hi everyone,

    This is a note to remind you that we are, as always, collecting submissions for the Best American Comics. Great stuff comes out all year round and we want to get our hands on it as soon as possible. In addition, it makes our guest editors’ jobs much more manageable if we can supply them with a large batch of excellent booty by mid-summer.

    So please submit your books published since September 1 of 2011 for Best American Comics 2013. If you don’t publish books, we’ve put you on our reminder list because we know you know people who do, and we hope you’ll pass on this reminder to them. Especially when it comics to minis, webcomics, and very small press, we need your help to make sure we’re seeing what’s great out there in the comics world.

    How to submit:
    Mail one copy of each of your books to us at the address below. Please make sure to attach your contact information and the RELEASE DATE. If it’s not inside the book, stick a post-it on the cover with that info.

    For more details on the submissions process and rules, look here: http://www.hmhbooks.com/bestamerican/comics/contacts.html

    BAC11, under guest editor Alison Bechdel, has been one of our most popular volumes yet and I’m pleased to be able to announce to you “officially” the the guest editor for BAC12 is none other than Françoise Mouly! (As for BAC13, you’ll just have to wait and see…)

    Looking ahead, Jessica and Matt will both be at MoCCA Fest  and will have a table where you can drop books off if you don’t see us walking the floor. Matt will also be at TCAF the following weekend. We look forward to seeing you.

    thanks and get in touch if you have any questions,

    Jessica Abel and Matt Madden
    Series Editors
    The Best American Comics
    Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
    215 Park Avenue South
    New York, NY 10003

  • Zak Sally, Dale Flattum and John Porcellino 3/23

    Quimby’s welcomes Zak Sally, Dale Flattum and John Porcellino!

    Sammy the Mouse: Volume 1 by Zak Sally (Colors throughout, 104 Pages) is the first collection of sammy the mouse comics, all in a beautifully bound, handmade package. This collection is the first three issues of Eisner Award Nominee Zak Sally’s comic Sammy the Mouse (previously serialized as part the international Ignatz line of comics published simultaneously by Fantagraphics Books in the United States and Coconino Press in Italy). For this collection, Sally printed each copy on his own AB Dick 9810 offset press and is releasing it under his La Mano publishing house. Sally is personally responsible for every step in the bookmaking process; from conception to execution to reproduction to delivery, making each hand-signed copy the product of one artist’s unique vision. Volume 1 introduces us to Sammy, his friends and frienemies, and a fantastical town that’s as elegantly drawn and viscerally alive as the characters themselves. Sammy is tugged and pulled about town against his own volition in this first part in the series; from a bar in the shape of a baby to the top of a giant staircase to a picnic on the beach with a mustachioed female stranger. Some characters are seemingly controlled by an unseen voice from above, others by the constant need to get drunk. Throughout the book, Sally offers glimpses of the epic tale ahead between the drinking, arguing, and vomiting. Meticulously drawn and printed using a sophisticated two-color process, Sammy the Mouse: Volume 1 is an extremely funny, weird and intense introduction to what will be a truly unique series.

    PRAISE FOR SAMMY THE MOUSE
    “A grimy, metaphysical malaise drips from every line of Sally’s lush yet unwholesome artwork, especially when he’s plundering the iconography of innocence and youth in the service of disorienting discomfort… A-” – The Onion AV Club

    “And then there’s Zak Sally’s Sammy The Mouse which for me has been a revelation…” – Tom Spurgeon, The Comics Reporter

    “Nothing else I’ve seen in thirty years of self- enforced sobriety has made me want a drink more than Sammy the Mouse. Zak Sally grabs you by the eyes and drags you headlong into a vision of earnest struggle and serial revelation. It feels real. Hell, it is real.” –Jim Woodring

    “Sally is producing a real sharp, evocative and haunting work that manages to send a deli- cious chill up my spine upon reading it.” – Chris Mautner, Robot 6

    Zak Sally is an Eisner-nominated cartoonist whose work has appeared all over the place. He owns and operates La Mano, an award-winning “micro-publishing” house who has published work by John Porcellino, William Schaff, Nate Denver, Jason Miles, and Kim Deitch. He spent 12 years in the band Low.

    ——————-

    Dale Flattum creates posters, art forgeries, and other screen printed propaganda under the alias TOOTH. His book TOOTH: The Graphic Art of Dale Flattum showcases 25 years of his graphic art. It includes 250 page volume mixes posters, illustrations & propaganda into a semi autobiographical history, as told through a Xerox machine. *It also includes a CD of music pulled from the author’s shady nine year musical past in the bands Steel Pole Bath Tub, Milk Cult, The Nein, and Agent Nova. (The CD also includes the unreleased Novex second album.)

    “When I was 16 years old,” Dale explains, “I tore a weird looking poster off of a telephone pole near my house. It was crudely assembled, cheaply produced, and probably the greatest thing I’d ever seen. Later when I started to play music, the poster for the show became almost as important as the show itself. It was proof that something had happened. It was subversive propaganda. It was fun. It was addicting. And what did you need to do it? Scissors? Glue? A Xerox machine? An 8.5 x 11 piece of paper turned out to be a very powerful thing. The possibilities were endless.”

    “TOOTH makes needles out of haystacks.” Dirk Fowler

    “Blunt, in your face, yet abstract at the same time. Much of this book feels sticky to me for some reason. I’m glad Dale has kept this up and sharpened his art tongs over the years.” -Jello Biafra

    “TOOTH’s exquisite work looks so effortless. He can do in a moment what I have to STRUGGLE to do. I’m jealous!” -Art Chantry

    “Awesome!!!” -Wayne Coyne

    ——————-

    John Porcellino has been writing, drawing, and publishing minicomics, comics, and graphic novels for over twenty-five years. His celebrated self-published series King-Cat Comics, begun in 1989, has inspired a generation of cartoonists. Diary of a Mosquito Abatement Man, a collection of King-Cat stories about Porcellino’s experiences as a pest control worker, won an Ignatz Award in 2005, and Perfect Example, first published in 2000, chronicles his struggles with depression as a teenager. King-Cat Classix and Map of My Heart, published in 2007/2009, offer a comprehensive overview of the zine’s first sixty-one issues, while Thoreau at Walden (2008) is a poetic expression of the great philosopher’s experience and ideals. According to cartoonist Chris Ware, “John Porcellino’s comics distill, in just a few lines and words, the feeling of simply being alive.”

    Event Details:
    Where and When: Here at Quimby’s, 3/23, 7pm, free
    Who & What new title they’re celebrating:
    Zak Sally Sammy the Mouse vol 1
    Dale “TOOTH” Flattum TOOTH: The Graphic Art of Dale Flattum
    John Porcellino “King-Cat Comics #72”