Category: comics

  • Chris Ware Celebrates Building Stories 10/14

    It’s here: the new graphic novel by Chris Ware, BUILDING STORIES. It imagines the inhabitants of a three-story Chicago apartment building: a 30-something woman who has yet to find someone with whom to spend the rest of her life; a couple, possibly married, who wonder if they can bear each other’s company another minute; and the building’s landlady, an elderly woman who has lived alone for decades. Taking advantage of the absolute latest advances in wood pulp technology, BUILDING STORIES is a book with no deliberate beginning nor end, the scope, ambition, artistry and emotional prevarication beyond anything yet seen from this artist or in this medium, probably for good reason.

     

    “One of our favorite graphic novelists of all time….Ware’s gorgeous, complex treasure chest of a book—actually 14 separate printed works that can be read in any order—tells the complex, interconnected story of a lonely woman and the building she inhabits, and demands to be handled with care, each component studied and cradled and touched. You might be touched, too.”

    —Flavorwire

     

    “Ware provides one of the year’s best arguments for the survival of print…the spectacular, breathtaking visual splendor make this one of the year’s standout graphic novels.”

    —Publishers Weekly, starred review

     

    “A treasure trove of graphic artworks—they’re too complex to be called comics—from Ware, master of angst, alienation, sci-fi and the crowded street…A dazzling document.”

    —Kirkus, starred review

     

    “Ware has been consistently pushing the boundaries for what the comics format can look like and accomplish as a storytelling medium…More than anything, though, this graphic novel mimics the kaleidoscopic nature of memory itself—fleeting, contradictory, anchored to a few significant moments, and a heavier burden by the day. In terms of pure artistic innovation, Ware is in a stratosphere all his own.”—Booklist, starred review

     

    Chris Ware’s Building Stories is the rarest kind of brilliance; it is simultaneously heartbreaking, hilarious, shockingly intimate and deeply insightful. There isn’t a graphic artist alive or dead who has used the form this wonderfully to convey the passage of time, loneliness, longing, frustration or bliss.  It is the reader’s choice where and how to begin this monumental work—the only regret you will have in starting it is knowing that it will end.—J. J. Abrams

     

    “Building Stories is the graphic novel of the season or perhaps the year, a story that must be experienced rather than read…Ware takes visual storytelling to a new level of both beauty and despair in a work people will be talking about for a long time.” –Publishers Weekly Fall Announcement

     

    About the author:

    CHRIS WARE’s Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth won the Guardian First Book Award and was listed as one of the “100 Best Books of the Decade” by The Times (London) in 2009.  A contributor to This American Life and The New Yorker (where some of the pages of this book first appeared), his original drawings have been exhibited in the Whitney Biennial, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago and in piles behind his work table in Oak Park, Illinois.

     

    For more info: www.pantheonbooks.com

    www.facebook.com/pantheonbooks

    For publicity inquiries: Michiko Clark <MiClark@randomhouse.com>

    Sun, Oct 14th, 5pm – Free Event

  • Comics Release Party with John Porcellino and Noah Van Sciver 9/19

    Join John Porcellino and Noah Van Sciver as they celebrate the release of their new projects, King-Cat #73 (self-published) and The Hypo (Fantagraphics).  They’ll be reading from and showing slides of their work, answering questions, and signing books.

    The Hypo, debut graphic novel from Noah Van Sciver follows the twenty-something Abraham Lincoln as he loses everything, long before becoming our most beloved president. Lincoln is a rising Whig in the state’s legislature as he arrives in Springfield, IL to practice law. With all of his possessions under his arms in two saddlebags, he is quickly given a place to stay by a womanizing young bachelor who becomes his friend and close confidant. Lincoln builds a life and begins friendships with the town’s top lawyers and politicians. He attends elegant dances and meets an independent-minded young woman from a high-society Kentucky family, and after a brisk courtship, becomes engaged. But, as time passes and uncertainty creeps in, young Lincoln is forced to battle a dark cloud of depression brought on by a chain of defeats and failures culminating into a nervous breakdown that threatens his life and sanity. This cloud of dark depression Lincoln calls “The Hypo.” Dense crosshatching and an attention to detail help bring together this completely original telling of a man driven by an irrepressible desire to pull himself up by his bootstraps, overcome all obstacles, and become the person he strives to be. All the while, unknowingly laying the foundation of character he would use as one of America’s greatest presidents.

    JOHN PORCELLINO was born in Chicago, in 1968, and 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.”

    For more info:

    nvansciver.wordpress.com

    www.king-cat.net

    www.spitandahalf.blogspot.com

    www.johnporcellino.blogspot.com

    Wed, Sept 19th, 7pm, Free Event

  • 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.