Category: comics

  • Jaime Hernandez Book Launch for Is This How You See Me? in conversation with Anya Davidson

    In Is This How You See Me?, Maggie and Hopey get the band back together — literally. Now middle-aged, they leave their significant others at home and take a weekend road trip to reluctantly attend a punk rock reunion in their old neighborhood. The present is masterfully threaded with a flashback set in 1979, during the very formative stages in Maggie and Hopey’s lifelong friendship, as the perceived invincibility of youth is expertly juxtaposed against all of the love, heartbreak, and self-awareness that comes with lives actually lived. The result is no sentimental victory lap, however — this is one of the great writers of literary fiction at the peak of his powers, continuing to scale new heights as an artist.

    “One of the most talented artists our polyglot culture has produced.” — The New York Times Book Review

    Hernandez’s acclaimed ongoing comics series Love and Rockets has entertained readers for over 35 years, and his beloved characters — Maggie, Hopey, Ray, Doyle, Daffy, Mike Tran, and so many others — have become fully realized literary creations. Is This How You See Me? collects Hernandez’s latest interconnected vignettes, serialized over the past four years in Love and Rockets, into a long-form masterpiece for the first time.

    Jaime will be in conversation with Chicago-based artist Anya Davidson, author of Band For Life, School Spirits & more.

    For more info:

    Fantagraphics.com

    anyadavidson.com

    @xaimeh

    Cohen(at)fantagraphics(dot)com

    Here’s the invite for this event on Facebook.

    Monday, March 11th, 7pm – Free Event

  • Aaron Renier Discusses The Unsinkable Walker Bean & The Knights of the Waxing Moon 10/26

    SHIPWRECKED! After their perilous encounter with the sea-witches, Walker and the pirate crew of the Jacklight find refuge on a deserted island. But it might not be as deserted as it seems?shadowy creatures have been spotted in the jungle, and strange animal tracks appear overnight. When Walker, Shiv, and Genoa discover a secret passage and mysterious ruins, the dark history of the archipelago begins to unravel. Legend tells of a mad king, a fallen civilization, and a powerful royal family in search of their lost sister. In this triumphant follow-up to the epic graphic novel The Unsinkable Walker Bean, Aaron Renier is back with more breathtaking art and high-sea adventure in Knights of the Waxing Moon.

    Aaron Renier creates worlds that are so convincing and immersive that his readers are forever transformed. Walker Bean is a worthy heir to Tintin and deserves – and will not disappoint – a similarly wide audience.” –Dave Eggers

    AARON RENIER is the author of three graphic novels for younger readers; Spiral-Bound, Walker Bean, and Walker Bean and the Knights of the Waxing Moon. He is the recipient of the Eisner award in 2006 for talent deserving of wider recognition, and was an inaugural resident for the Sendak Fellowship in 2010. He teaches at DePaul University and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

    For more info:

    aaronrenier.com

    IG: @aaron.renier

    Event invite on Facebook.

    Friday, October 26th, 7pm – Free Event

  • Anne Elizabeth Moore Reads From Sweet Little Cunt: The Graphic Work of Julie Doucet in Convo with John Porcellino at Quimby’s 11/1

     

    In Anne Elizabeth Moore’s new book Sweet Little Cunt: The Graphic Work of Julie Doucet (Uncivilized Books), long considered one of the most influential women in American independent comics—although she left the field, and is Canadian—Julie Doucet finally receives a full-length critical overview of her work, from Anne Elizabeth Moore, a noted chronicler of independent media and critical gender theorist. Sweet Little Cunt is the first book-length critical analysis of a female cartoonist by a female theorist in the English language. It is a landmark production, both in Moore’s unique and defiant analysis of Doucet’s work, and the significance of a woman reorienting the entire dialogue around Doucet and comics in general, in a field that is so thoroughly and toxically dominated by men.

    Anne Elizabeth Moore is an award-winning journalist, best-selling comics anthologist, internationally lauded cultural critic, and called “one of the sharpest thinkers and cultural critics bouncing around the globe today” by Razorcake, a ‘general phenom’ by the Chicago Reader, and “a critic” by the New York Times. She is the former editor of Punk Planet and the Best American Comics series from Houghton Mifflin, as well as a Fulbright Senior Scholar. Her book Unmarketable was named Best Book of 2007 by Mother Jones. Body Horror is on the Nonfiction Shortlist for the 2017 Chicago Review of Books Nonfiction Award and was named a Best Book of 2017 by the Chicago Public Library. She teaches at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the College for Creative Studies. Quimby’s would like to congratulate Ms. Moore on her new position as editor of the Chicago Reader!

    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 and still running, has inspired a generation of cartoonists. He lives in Illinois. His most recent book is From Lone Mountain, which collects stories from King-Cat Comics.

    About Body Horror by Anne Elizabeth Moore:
    “[D]evastating in its unwillingness to flinch … Body Horror is an incredible, touching, intelligent collection that looks beyond what’s comfortable to examine what is true.”
    – Foreword, Five Star Review

    Sat, Nov 1st, 7pm – Free Event

    For more info:

    anneelizabethmoore.com

    uncivilizedbooks.com

    emma(at)uncivilizedbooks(dot)com

    Facebook Invite for this Event

  • Ali Fitzgerald presents Drawn to Berlin 11/8

    Entwining political and personal displacement, Ali Fitzgerald’s graphic memoir, Drawn to Berlin: Comic Workshops in Refugee Shelters and Other Stories from a New Europe, is about loss, community, and the drawings that bind us. The students in Fitzgerald’s drawing classes are among the record-breaking number of people who are seeking asylum in Berlin, fleeing from countries such as Syria and Afghanistan. They draw images of experienced violence and careful optimism: rafts and tanks, flowers and the Eiffel Tower. Over the course of her decade in Germany, Fitzgerald experiences the highs of the creatively hopeful along with the deep depression of the disillusioned, all while waiting to stumble into her own glory like the great Modernists before her. Her comics are compassionate and unflinchingly intimate, as the fantasy of her bohemia crumbles in a globalized city.

    “Ali Fitzgerald has given us a beautifully crafted and sobering history lesson.” –Harry Bliss, New Yorker cartoonist

    Ali Fitzgerald is a comic artist and writer living in Berlin. She is a regular contributor to the New Yorker. Her comics have also appeared in New York Magazine’s The Cut, The New York Times, The Huffington Post, Bitch, and The Guardian. From 2013 to 2016, she wrote and drew the popular webcomic Hungover Bear and Friends for McSweeney’s.

    For more info: fantagraphics.com/drawntoberlin

    Here’s the Facebook event invite!

    Thursday, November 8th 7pm – Free Event

  • Kate Gavino Reads From SANPAKU in Discussion with Michi Trota at Quimby’s, Thurs, 8/23

    In Kate Gavino’s new book SANPAKU (BOOM! Studios), the author gives voice to the insecurities that haunt teens of all cultures through the lens of her own Catholic, Filipino background. This powerful coming-of-age story about challenging the world around you stars a young woman named Marceline who’s fascinated with the Japanese idea of Sanpaku—the belief that seeing the white above or below the iris of your eyes is a bad omen. But it’s everywhere Marcine looks—her grandmother has it, some classmates at Catholic school have it, JFK had it…even Marcine might suffer from this odd condition. Eating a strict macrobiotic diet and meditating is supposed to help, but no matter how much Marcine wants it to, it can’t save her grandmother’s life or make her days at school any easier.

    “[Marcine’s] cynical yet naive worldview provides a deadpan humor to a unique coming-of-age story,” raved Publishers Weekly about SANPAKU.

    The work of Kate Gavino has been featured in Rookie Magazine, The Rumpus, Hello Giggles, Buzzfeed, Bustle, The Boston Globe Mashable and more. Her novel Last Night’s Reading drew universal praise as a “love letter to the literary world” (Boston Globe).

    Kate Gavino will be in discussion with Michi Trota.

    Michi Trota (see below) is a Chicago-based Filipina American freelance writer/editor, communications & content development manager, community organizer, and firespinning geek who collects projects like the Dominion conquers quadrants. She’s the Managing Editor of the Hugo Award-winning and World Fantasy Award finalist Uncanny: A Magazine of Science Fiction and Fantasy, a two-time Hugo Award winner, and the first Filipina to win a Hugo Award. She’s also President of the Chicago Nerd Social Club Board of Organizers; a board member for the Chicago Full Moon Jams Foundation; and a resident fire performer/object manipulation artist with the Raks Geek performance troupe. Michi was featured in the 2016 Chicago Reader People Issue, and was also a featured essayist in Invisible: An Anthology of Representation in SF/F (edited by Jim C. Hines).

    For more info:

    listing on Facebook for this event

    boom-studios.com

    kategavino.com

    Thursday, August 23, 7pm – Free Event

  • Nate Powell Discusses Come Again on 8/9

    Nate Powell’s new graphic novel Come Again (Top Shelf) is a demon-filled 1970’s Ozark fairy tale, following two families pursuing elusive dreams in their dried-up hippie community. Under impossibly close scrutiny they carve out space for their secrets, while deep within the hills something monstrous stirs, ready to feast on village whispers. Come Again explores questions of changing ideals, privacy, love, parenthood, and the horror of casualness in the face of crisis. Powell will deliver a multimedia presentation exploring the book’s themes, influences, and creative development, followed by audience questions and a book signing.

    “With his work on Swallow Me Whole and March, Nate established himself as one of the premier talents in comics, but Come Again is his finest work yet. Profoundly moving, intimate, and haunting, this book will resonate with you for a long, long time.” – Jeff Lemire

    In 2016, Nate Powell became the first cartoonist ever to win the National Book Award for his work on the March trilogy, chronicling civil rights icon John Lewis’ experiences in the movement. His work includes Eisner Award-winning Swallow Me Whole, Any Empire, You Don’t Say, The Silence Of Our Friends, and Rick Riordan’s The Lost Hero. He has discussed his work at the United Nations, on The Rachel Maddow Show and CNN.

    For more info: seemybrotherdance.org

    Thurs, August 9th, 7pm – Free Event

    Here’s the Facebook invite for this event.

  • Keiler Roberts Reads From Chlorine Gardens & Jessica Campbell Reads from XTC69 on 10/5

     

    Quimby’s welcomes Keiler Roberts & Jessica Campbell on Fri, October 5th at 7pm!

    Dealing with pregnancy, child-rearing, art-making, mental illness, and an MS diagnosis, the parts of Chlorine Gardens (Koyama Press) sum sound heavy, but Keiler Roberts’ gift is the deft drollness in which she presents life’s darker moments. She doesn’t whistle past graveyards, but rather finds the punch line in the pitiful.

    “Keiler Roberts is forthright and adroit as she diagrams the pain inherent in memory, but it is Roberts’ idiosyncratic way of buckling you into her brilliant, uncomfortable, funny-as-fuck soul that lifts you above the ground.” — Emil Ferris, My Favorite Thing is Monsters

    In XTC69 Jessica Campbell, the artist, presents the tale Commander Jessica Campbell of the planet L8DZ N1T3 and her crew are searching for men to breed with when they discover the last human on Earth, the cryogenically frozen Jessica Campbell. With a new, but familiar crewmember, the search for men continues, but will it be worth it?

    “This oddball escapade delights from opening salvo to closing quip.” — Publishers Weekly

    KEILER ROBERTS is a Chicago-based artist whose autobiographical comic series Powdered Milk has received an Ignatz Award for Outstanding Series and was included in The Best American Comics 2016. Her first book with Koyama Press, Sunburning, was published in 2017.

    JESSICA CAMPBELL is from Victoria, BC and is an enthusiast of jokes, painting and comics. She completed her MFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where she is a comics instructor. In 2016, she unleashed the art world and chauvinist skewering: Hot or Not: 20th-Century Male Artists.

    For more info: koyamapress.com

    Friday, October 5, 7pm – Free Event

    Here’s the Facebook invite for this event.

  • Offsite: CAKE – The Chicago Alternative Comics Expo, First Weekend in June

    Quimby’s Bookstore is proud to co-sponsor the Chicago Alternative Comics Expo [CAKE] is a weekend-long celebration of independent comics, inspired by Chicago’s rich legacy as home to many of underground and alternative comics’ most talented artists– past, present and future. Featuring comics for sale, workshops, exhibitions, panel discussions and more, CAKE is dedicated to fostering community and dialogue amongst independent artists, small presses, publishers and readers.

    Don’t miss the opening night of CAKE with a kick-off party here at Quimby’s on Fri, June 1st at 7pm, featuring an Uncivilized Books Showcase. The tabling exhibition on Sat, June 2nd and Sun, June 3rd at the Center on Halsted (3656 N Halsted Ave) from 11-6, with panels, workshops and more!

    Special Guests include:
    Tony Breed
    Eddie Campbell
    Nick Drnaso
    Nicole Hollander
    Audrey Niffenegger
    Mimi Pond
    Fiona Smyth
    Carol Tyler
    Georgia Webber
    Jim Woodring
    Gina Wynbrandt
    Bianca Xunise

    For more info about exhibitors and the programming of the events, see cakechicago.com.

    CAKE art by Johnny Sampson.

  • Chicago Alternative Comics Expo (CAKE) Kick-off at Quimby's: 5 Cartoonists 1 City: Minneapolis Showcase

     

    This year’s CAKE Kick-off event is a spotlight on one of the Midwest’s greatest comics presses, Uncivilized Books. Come to hear Zak Sally read from his new memoir book cataloguing the 80’s & 90’s music scene! Tom Kaczynski read new comics on immigration & nostalgia! M.S. Harkness will read from Tinderella, an autobiographical comic about online dating, living poor and being a dumb 20-something! Jenny Schmid read White Supremacists are Human Farts, a comic created with her 10 year old adopted daughter! Tim Sievert read from The Clandestinauts, his new comic based on RPG campaigns, a queasy mix of violent and clever, flying by the seat of your pants storytelling!

    The Chicago Alternative Comics Expo (CAKE) is a weekend-long celebration of independent comics, inspired by Chicago’s rich legacy as home to many of underground and alternative comics’ most talented artists– past, present and future. Featuring comics for sale, workshops, exhibitions, panel discussions and more, CAKE is dedicated to fostering community and dialogue amongst independent artists, small presses, publishers and readers.

    For more info:

    cakechicago.com

    uncivilizedbooks.com

    zaksally.com

    tomkaczynski.com

    M.S. Harkess

    jennyschmid.com

    timsievert.com

    Friday, June 1, 2018, 7pm – Free Event

    Facebook Event Invite For This Event.

     

     

     

  • Free Comic Book Day 2018

    Yeah we’ll have some free comics for you! While supplies last!

    #FreeComicBookDay
    #FCBD
    #FCBD2018

    Here’s the Facebook invite for FCBD at Quimby’s.

    Also check out our sister store, Chicago Comics at 3244 N. Clark, where they’re celebrating FCBD as well!