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Category: graphic novel
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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:
IG: @aaron.renier
Friday, October 26th, 7pm – Free Event
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Matthew Thurber Reads From Art Comic 10/11
In his new book Art Comic (Drawn & Quarterly), Matthew Thurber skewers the hot mess that is the art world. From sycophantic fans to duplicitous gallerists, fatuous patrons to self-aggrandizing art stars, he lampoons each and every facet of the eminently ridiculous industry of truth and beauty. Follow Cupcake, the Matthew Barney obsessive, Epiphany née Tiffany Clydesdale, the divinely-inspired performance artist, Ivanhoe, a modern Knight is search of artistic vengeance, and his Squire, Turnbuckle. Each artist is more ridiculous than the last, yet they are tested and transformed by the even more absurd machinations of Thurber’s fantastical art world.
“If there is such planet as the Art World, then Matthew Thurber is an intergalactic ranger and Art Comic is the trippy travelogue… Take me there!”—Jim Drain
Matthew Thurber is the author of 1-800-Mice and Infomaniacs. As Ambergris and in other ensembles he has performed at the Serpentine Gallery in London, the Hammer Museum, the Fumetto Festival, Abrons Art Center, and in an eyeglass store. He co-founded Tomato House, an art gallery in operation from 2012-2015, with Rebecca Bird.
Thursday, October 11, 7pm – Free Event
For more info:
Heres the Facebook Invite For This Event.
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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
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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
Thursday, August 23, 7pm – Free Event
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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
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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
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Georgia Webber Reads From Dumb: Living Without a Voice 5/31
Toronto-based cartoonist Georgia Webber’s new book, Dumb (Fantagraphics Books), Part memoir, part medical cautionary tale, Dumb tells the story of how the book’s author copes with the everyday challenges that come with voicelessness. Webber adroitly uses the comics medium to convey the practical hurdles she faced as well as the fear and dread that accompanied her increasingly lonely journey to regain her life. Her raw cartooning style, occasionally devolving into chaotic scribbles, splotches of ink, and overlapping montages, perfectly captures her frustration and anxiety. But her ordeal ultimately becomes a hopeful story. Throughout, she learns to lean on the support of her close friends, finds self-expression in creating comics, and comes to understand and appreciate how deeply her voice and identity are intertwined.
“Webber wields the full power of the comics medium to address the life-changing catastrophe of being forced into silence.”
– Broken Frontier
Georgia Webber is a cartoonist living in Toronto, where she is a freelance comics in addition to editing the comics section of carte blanche. She is best known for Dumb, her autobiographical comics series about living with a vocal disability.
For more info:
Media inquiries to: cohen@fantagraphics.com
Thursday, May 31st 7pm – Free Event
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Nick Drnaso launches Sabrina on Thurs, May 24th, Interviewed by Jessica Campbell
When Sabrina disappears, an airman in the U.S. Air Force is drawn into a web of suppositions, wild theories, and outright lies. He reports to work every night in a bare, sterile fortress that serves as no protection from a situation that threatens the sanity of Teddy, his childhood friend and boyfriend of the missing woman. Sabrina’s grieving sister Sandra struggles to fill her days waiting in purgatory. After a videotape surfaces, we see devastation through a cinematic lens, as true tragedy is distorted when fringe thinkers and conspiracy theorists begin to interpret events to fit their own narratives.
The follow-up to Nick Drnaso’s LA Times Book Prize winning Beverly, Sabrina depicts a modern world devoid of personal interaction and responsibility, where relationships are stripped of intimacy through glowing computer screens. An indictment of our modern state, Sabrina contemplates the dangers of a fake news climate. Timely and articulate, Drnaso’s graphic novel leaves you gutted, searching for meaning in the aftermath of disaster.
At this event, Chicago-based cartoonist Jessica Campbell will interview Nick Drnaso. Her new book XTC69 is in stock now! In it, a commander with the same name as the author 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?
“Nick Drnaso’s Sabrina is the best book—in any medium—I have read about our current moment. It is a masterpiece, beautifully written and drawn, possessing all the political power of polemic and yet simultaneously all the delicacy of truly great art. It scared me. I loved it.”—Zadie Smith
Nick Drnaso was born in 1989 in Palos Hills, Illinois. His debut graphic novel, Beverly, received the LA Times Book prize for Best Graphic Novel. He has contributed to several comics anthologies, self-published a handful of comics, been nominated for three Ignatz Awards, and co-edited the second and third issue of Linework, Columbia College’s annual comic anthology. Drnaso lives in Chicago, where he works as a cartoonist and illustrator.
For more info:
Julia Pohl-Miranda and Sruti Islam at publicity@drawnandquarterly.com
Thurs, May 24th, 7pm – Free Event
Quimby’s Bookstore, Chicago, IL quimbys.com
Here’s the Facebook Event Invite for this!
Press about Sabrina!:
Chicago Magazine
Chicago Tribune
The Chicago Reader -
John Porcellino: From Lone Mountain at Quimby's 3/16
John Porcellino will be comin’ round Lone Mountain with his newest D+Q book here at Quimby’s on Friday, March 16th!
From Lone Mountain (in stores March 20th) collects stories from his influential zine King-Cat, and sees John entering a new phase of his life—remarrying and deciding to leave his beloved second home Colorado for San Francisco. Grand themes of King-Cat are visited and stated more eloquently than ever before: serendipity, memory, and the quest for meaning in the everyday.
A view of America—as seen in small towns, rural roads, and its overlooked in-between places
John Porcellino makes his love of home and of nature the anchors in an increasingly turbulent world. He slows down and visits the forests, fields, streams, and overgrown abandoned lots that surround every city. He studies the flora and fauna around us. He looks at the overlooked. Porcellino also digs deep into a quintessential American endeavour—the road trip. Uprooting his comfortable life several times in From Lone Mountain, John drives through the country weaving from small town to small town, experiencing America in slow motion, avoiding the sameness of airports and overwhelming hustle of major cities.
Over the past three decades, Porcellino’s beloved King-Cat has offered solace to his readers: his gentle observational stories take the pulse of everyday life and reveal beauty in the struggle to keep going.
About John Porcellino:
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.
For more info:
Facebook Event Listing for this event.
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Tommi Parrish at Quimby's for The Lie and How We Told It 2/6
Cartoonist, illustrator, and art editor Tommi Parrish stops at Quimby’s with The Lie and How We Told It, a book that has received praise from NPR, Paste Magazine, Sequential State, and others.
Tommi Parrish is a cartoonist, illustrator, and art editor from Melbourne, currently based in Montreal. Their work has appeared in various anthologies, magazines, mini comics, gallery shows in New York, Argentina, and throughout Australia, the online column Advicecomics and they were previously an art editor of the Australian literary journal The Lifted Brow. Their previous publications include Perfect Hair (2dcloud) and Perfect Discipline and Unbending Loyalty (Perfectly Acceptable Press).
About The Lie:
After a chance encounter, two formerly close friends try to salvage whatever is left of their decaying relationship. They are in for an awkward, painful night that leaves them feeling lonelier, more uncertain, and more estranged than ever before. Parrish’s first graphic novel for Fantagraphics is a visual tour de force, always in the service of the author’s ever-prevalent themes: navigating queer desire, masculinity, fear, and the ever-in-flux state of friendships.
Parrish makes emotionally loaded painted comics about everyday relationships, doubts, and anxieties. The psychological acuity in the work pairs perfectly to the graphic style. The Lie and How We Told It is a remarkably resonant work from an exciting new voice in contemporary graphic novels.
Don’t miss Tommi here on Tuesday, Feb 6th, 7pm.
Here’s the event invite for this on Facebook.
