Category: discussion

  • 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

  • CHIPRC’s Zine Zine Club: Back to the Lab Edition, at Quimby’s!

    In November, we’re putting zines that explore STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) under the microscope! This month at our book club-style event for people who read zines, we’ll be talking about our favorite titles that illuminate, debate, and celebrate the ways in which the world works. Zine newbies and longtime enthusiasts alike are welcome to join us for a fun discussion and snacks.

    We’ve made our Mystery Zine Swap a monthly thing, too! If you’d like to participate, bring a zine (concealed in some way) to trade with someone else on the spot.

    This event will be led by Chicago Zine Fest organizer Cynthia E. Hanifin.

    Here’s the Facebook event invite for this event.

  • CHIPRC’s Zine Zine Club: Mysterious and Spooky Edition, at Quimby’s! 10/16

    CHIPRC’s Zine Zine Club: Mysterious and Spooky Edition, at Quimby’s!

    In October, we’re celebrating all things creepy, kooky, mysterious, and spooky! This month at our book club-style event for people who read zines, we’ll be talking about the titles that send chills down our spines. Please BYOZ (Bring Your Own Zines) that get you into the Halloween spirit, and join us for a fun discussion! Zine newbies and longtime enthusiasts alike are welcome.

    We’ll have some treats (and possibly a trick or two) for everyone, as well! Our Mystery Zine Swap was so popular last month that we’re making it a regular thing. If you’d like to participate, bring a zine (wrapped up or concealed in some way) to trade with someone else on the spot.

    This event will be led by Chicago Zine Fest organizer Cynthia E. Hanifin. 

    Quimby’s Bookstore, 1854 W. North Avenue in Wicker Park

    6:30-9 p.m. Tues, Oct. 16th

    Here’s the Facebook invite for this event.

  • CHIPRC's Zine Zine Club: Postmarked Edition, Meets at Quimby's Sept 11th!

    CHIPRC is closing, so Zine Zine Club is moving to Quimby’s for the September meeting!

    Long before the Internet was a thing, far-flung zinesters exchanged zines via postal mail. For many of us, the thrill of finding zines in our mailbox is just as potent as ever.

    This month the book club-style event for people who read zines will be talking about zines received in the mail. Zine newbies and longtime enthusiasts alike are invited to bring your favorite titles that you’ve bought or traded online from an individual zinemaker, distro, or zine shop. BYOZ and join the discussion about which zines are worth paying extra for postage!

    There will also be a Blind Zine Swap, so please bring a zine (wrapped up or concealed in some way) to trade with someone else on the spot this month.

    This event will be led by Chicago Zine Fest organizer Cynthia Elizabeth Hanifin.

    Tuesday, September 11th, 6:30pm

    Here’s the Facebook invite for this event!

     

  • Quimby's Welcomes R. Sikoryak In Conversation with Charles C. Valauskas 7/11

    In the new graphic novel Terms & Conditions (Drawn & Quarterly), R. Sikoryak tackles the monstrously and infamously dense legal document, iTunes Terms and Conditions, the contract everyone agrees to but no one reads.  In a word for word 94-page adaptation, Sikoryak hilariously turns the agreement on its head – each page features an avatar of Apple cofounder and legendary visionary Steve Jobs juxtaposed with a different classic strip such as Mort Walker’s Beatle Bailey, or a contemporary graphic novel such as Craig Thompson’s Blankets or Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis.

    “Mischievous, pastiche-heavy artist Robert Sikoryak…upped the difficulty level for his long-term conceptual project: Instead of abridging a book, he lifted the complete text of Apple’s mind-numbing corporate boilerplate, which users must agree to before accessing iTunes, and mashed it up with art invoking more than a century of comics.”—New York Times

    R. Sikoryak is the author of Masterpiece Comics (Drawn & Quarterly). His comics and illustrations have appeared in the New Yorker, The Onion, GQ, MAD, SpongeBob Comics, and Nickelodeon Magazine, as well as on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Sikoryak is in the speakers program of the New York Council of the Humanities, and he teaches in the illustration department at Parsons The New School for Design and at The Center for Cartoon Studies. He lives in New York City with his wife, Kriota Willberg. For more info: rsikoryak.com

    Charles C. Valauskas is legal counsel to domestic and foreign companies, new ventures, and universities and research foundations. Mr. Valauskas speaks on a regular basis throughout the world on technological and intellectual property topics. He has appeared in articles published in publications including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the ABA Journal, and Food & Wine. For more info: vciplaw.com/biographies

    For more info about this event, contact JULIA POHL-MIRANDA and SRUTI ISLAM publicity(at)drawnandquarterly(dot)com

    Tuesday, July 11, 7pm – Free Event

    Here’s the Facebook Event Invite.

    This event is co-sponsored by the Chicago Alternative Comics Expo (CAKE). For more info: cakechicago.com.

  • Damon Krukowski Reads from The New Analog, Joined by Bob Weston and Steve Albini 5/2

    Having made his name in the late 1980s as a member of the indie band Galaxie 500, Damon Krukowski has watched cultural life lurch from analog to digital. And as an artist who has weathered the transition, he has challenging, urgent questions for both creators and consumers about what we have thrown away in the process: Are our devices leaving us lost in our own headspace even as they pinpoint our location? Does the long reach of digital communication come at the sacrifice of our ability to gauge social distance? Do streaming media discourage us from listening closely? Are we hearing each other fully in this new environment? Damon Krukoswksi takes this on in The New Analog: Listening and Reconnecting in a Digital World (The New Press, April 25, 2017). He is joined at this event by musician luminaries Steve Albini (Shellac, Big Black, Electrical Audio) and Bob Weston (Shellac, Volcano Suns, Chicago Mastering Service).

    “Millions of music-lovers have acquiesced to the shiny juggernaut of digital-age technology without asking its economic and cultural price. Damon Krukowski is an incisive, passionate, and, above all, rational critic of this new realm. No nostalgic conservative, he offers a radical defense of analog craft in the face of the digital hard sell.”—Alex Ross, author of The Rest Is Noise and Listen to This

    Damon Krukowski was in the indie rock band Galaxie 500 and is currently one half of the folk-rock duo Da­mon & Naomi. He writes for music and art journals including Pitchfork, Artforum, frieze, and The Wire. He is the recipient of an Arts Writers Grant from Creative Capital/Andy Warhol Foundation, and a fellow at the Berkman Klein Center for Internetand Society at Harvard University. He has also taught writing and sound (and writing about sound) at Harvard University. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. More info: dadadrummer.com, @dada_drummer on Twitter, thenewpress.com, or for publicity brivero(at)thenewpress(dot)com.

    Tuesday, May 2nd, 7pm – Free Event. Here’s the Facebook link to Share this event!

    Check out that tour poster!

  • Peter Sotos & Publisher Chip Smith Discuss Controversy in Publishing 3/23

    minepsotos_lg

    Marking the roughly simultaneous re-release of Peter Sotos’ Tool  and Mine, Sotos will appear at Quimby’s Bookstore with his publisher Nine-Banded Books founder, Chip Smith, to discuss the continuing role of independent publishers in curating controversial and overlooked literature.

    “Peter Sotos is one of those rare writers who can say, ‘The words I write are me,’ or at least as close as anyone can come to communicating who they are in words.” –Thomas Ligotti, author of The Conspiracy against the Human Race

    “For this latter-day homo sacer, wounds are not to be healed but poked and worried until they bleed. Sotos is literature’s outcast, carrying stigma like a rat carries plague.” –Mikita Brottman, author of Thirteen Girls

    “…among the most important writing being done today.”
    –Dennis Cooper, author of The Marbled Swarm

    Peter Sotos is a Chicago-born writer whose work focuses on criminal psychology, sexual abjection, and the myriad aspects of pornography. (He was also an early member of the noise group Whitehouse.) Noted his unique literary style and his frank and insightful engagement with deeply disturbing subjects, Sotos’ writings are considered by many to stand as oblique social criticism. Sotos is the author of 11 published novels, including Index, Tick, Lordotics, Comfort and Critique, and Selfish, Little: The Annotated Lesley Ann Downey. He is also the editor of the Pure Filth, an annotated collection transcripts culled from the underground pornography of the late Jamie Gillis. Sotos’ writing has appeared in ANSWER Me!, Apocalypse Culture II, Funeral Party, and Ritual Sex.

    And oh yeah, he often comes in to Quimby’s (always wearing a long coat) with records he bought around the corner at Reckless Records. One time it was a greatest hits from The Smiths, prompting us to fun of him.

    For more info: ninebandedbooks.com and quimbys.com

    Sat, March 23rd, 7pm – Free Event

  • Jon “Metalion” Kristiansen and Tara G. Warrior Discuss METALION: The Slayer Mag Diaries 7/8

    Quimby’s welcomes Jon “Metalion” Kristiansen and Tara G. Warrior as they discuss METALION: The Slayer Mag Diaries.

    For 25 years, Norway’s Slayer Mag published the gospel of extreme underground metal, combining eye-ripping graphics, brutally honest writing, and relentless offbeat humor. Part anthology, part memoir, and part visual archive, METALION: The Slayer Mag Diaries (Bazillion Points Books, 2011) is a weighty 744-page tour through this underworld, and Quimby’s welcomes author Jon Kristiansen from Sarpsborg, Norway, for a discussion with the book’s editor, newly-minted Chicago resident Tara G. Warrior. Kristiansen’s life story has taken him from alienated outsider to central figure in Norwegian black metal to party beast to world-weary survivor. The pair will recount some of the hilarious and the tragic episodes contained in the book, and discuss a dedication to self-publishing spawned from the darkest excesses of metal.

    Friday, July 8th, 7pm

    Bazillion Points Books has posted a preview video of the upcoming “METALION: The Slayer Mag Diaries” book. The one-minute clip can be viewed at this location:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pb9cBqOKS1o