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  • New Stuff This Week

     

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    Zines

    In Loving Memory of Rabbits, Rats, Birds, Squirrels $12

    A Treasury of Florida Man WTF: News Headlines From the Internet and Beyond by Alexandra Montclair (Harpy House Press) $12

    Things I Chewed Reviewed $4

    Uppercase #64 $24

    Comics

    Beach Day by Lucy Rose Till-Campbell $8

    Princess Reverie’s 10000 Year Curse (Wiggle Bird Mailing Club) $10

    Comics by Sunny Sponder, $10 each: Plunge, Flish Flash Flush (with Swami Tsunami)

    Spin Cycle by melonfarm $8

    Politics & Revolution Books

    Anarchism and Other Essays by Emma Goldman, edited by Jessica Moran and Barry Pateman (AK Press) $18

    Teach Truth: The Struggle for Antiracist Education by Jesse Hagopian (Haymarket) $24.95

    Art Books

    Out of Order by Kay Westhues $20

    Doing Stuff

    1000 Words: A Writer’s Guide to Staying Creative, Focused, and Productive All Year Round by Jami Attenberg $19.99

    Lazy Witchcraft for Crazy, Shitty Days: Easy Spells and Rituals for When You’re Stressed Out, Wiped Out, or Just Have No More Spoons to Give by Andrea Samayoa $19.99

    Fiction

    Horse Girl Fever: Stories by Kevin Maloney $16.95

    Chap Books

    I Want to be a Bowl $2

  • Recommended Zine Reading for the New Year

    Hello, dearest blog voyeurs! Did you keep track of all the books you read in 2024? I didn’t, but I read a ton thanks to that sweet Quimby’s discount and being within walking distance of my local public library. Everyone has different reading styles, and I’m always curious about the habits of fellow readers. The more distractions, the better for my undiagnosed ADHD brain. I personally love to sprinkle a little fun in between marathon book reading, so here is an exciting list of shortform reading to keep you going in between the pages.

    County Highway, “America’s Only Newspaper” (their words).

    I’m late to the County Highway game, but am glad to have finally arrived. Filled with essays, classified ads, music reviews, and dispatches from small town America, County Highway is an enriching paper that touches on subjects the mainstream media fails to cover.  Some of my favorite stories from past issues: a man who inherits a cabin with beastly neighbors; how ginger (the herb) can cure most of what ails you; a boots-on-the ground report of the devastation in Asheville, NC after Hurricane Helene; and the cultural importance of Dolly Parton & Dollywood.

    It’s refreshing to read journalism written with heart and integrity, served offline in a satisfying format that makes me feel like I’m in my old man era.

    Full Bleed #2

    If you like your horror injected with lots of fun, don’t miss out on ISSUE TWO of Chicago’s finest horror and exploitation zine, Full Bleed! We’re big fans of Full Bleed around here and are extremely stoked about the latest issue. If you aren’t able to make it into the shop or order it online, checkout their Instagram page where the editors post upcoming and relevant film screenings and events in Chicago.

    Zines by Ivy Rose

    One of my favorite underground comic artists is Ivy Rose, who just came into the shop from Albuquerque, NM to restock her zines! Ivy’s style mixes personal journal entries with hand drawn comics in a way that pulls at your heartstrings. All of the comics are full-color and truly gorgeous. I recommend the most recent issue, Cat Miscall, about keeping yourself safe as a femme and staying away from the creeps. These sweet zines are on our mini-comic wall.

    You can’t go wrong with mini-kuš! comics!

    Published in Latvia by editor David Schilter and team, kuš! comics gives comic artists around the globe a platform to share their stories by introducing new artists to comic enthusiasts. We recently received a huge shipment of restocks and new titles, as modeled by our resident Devil Lady. Issues #127-130 (pictured) are ready to come home with you.

    That’s all I got, you’ll have to come in and explore our collection of zines and books to add to your 2025 reading stack.

    xoxo, Angel

  • January Newsletter Out Now

    Read it here and make sure you sign up to get it in your inbox at quimbys.com.

  • Gift Guide for RADICALS

    Hi-diddly-ho, shopperinos! Echo here with another (last minute) holiday gift guide for you!

    If you’ve been a sentient member of the human species lately, you have probably noticed that society is in a state of… how can I put this… total chaos and unbridled horror?

    At Quimby’s, we recognize our small but important role as dedicated purveyors of radical, inclusive, and subversive literature. Perhaps (hopefully) there are many radicals in your life. Heck, you may even be one of them! So, I’ve picked out some books, zines, and other fun stuff (from our rather extensive selection of subversive materials) for the RADICAL in your life. Read on to discover my revolutionary picks for you and your loved ones this gift-giving season…

    Zines can make for very thoughtful and fun gifts or stocking stuffers. I’d like to point your attention to Pleasure Pie, a sexual justice organization that’s based in Boston. They make incredible zines about sex positivity and intersectional liberation and we just love them! We’re freshly restocked with plenty of Pleasure Pie titles and they sent us a bunch of new stuff, too! The newest additions to our Pleasure Pie inventory include:

    What Is Pleasure Injustice?
    Sustainable Alternatives for Pads and Tampons: a Gender-Neutral Guide
    How to Say No: a Guide for Listening to Your Gut in Sex and Life

    They’ve also sent us some very poignant zines about Palestine, its voices, and its struggle for liberation:

    Queer Voices From the Fight for Palestinian Liberation
    Sex Education in Gaza: Empowering Young People Under Occupation
    A Gazan Young Man Dreams of a Peaceful Death     by Mo. Alcrunz
    We Palestinians Are Not Going Away: First Person Accounts on the War in Gaza

    The first book in my radical gift guide is To Rob a Bank Is an Honor by Lucio Urtubia. Urtubia is remembered as a real-life Robin Hood. On paper, he was a bricklayer from Navarra, an autonomous community in Spain. He was also a revolutionary outlaw who spent many years printing political pamphlets in his printshop, counterfeiting passports and checks for workers, and, most famously, scamming Citibank to fund the efforts of Italy’s Red Brigades, the Black Panthers, and other radical groups. This fascinating memoir is sure to make an excellent gift for the anarchist on your list.

    No radical book collection is complete without An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States. By telling the history of the United States from an indigenous perspective, historian and activist Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz helps us see through the colonial lies that have dominated the popular narrative about the hyperpower that is the United States. As I type this, we have two wonderful versions of this important book in stock: the 10th-anniversary edition and a beautiful graphic interpretation adapted by Paul Peart-Smith.

    Next up, we have a landmark classic—An Autobiography by Angela Davis. Originally published in 1974 (by Toni Morrison!), this book was re-released as a new edition in 2022, and it remains very pertinent to current events. A memoir from such an iconic social justice leader as Davis would make an excellent gift for anyone who’s into Black liberation, prison abolition, feminism, communism, queer rights, or for anyone who has the courage to hope and take actions to make a better world for everyone.

    Those who are passionate about queer liberation are sure to appreciate Surviving the Future: Abolitionist Queer Strategies a collection of essays on current queer revolutionary theory from PM Press. This book does a wonderful job of bringing the movement for LGBTQIA+ liberation right into the fold of intersectionality with prison abolition, antiracism, and other concurrent revolutionary movements. It highlights the need for mutual aid as we look towards a brighter future for queer folks and for individuals from all marginalized groups.

    Don’t forget to pick some fun, revolutionary stocking stuffers! Like Johnny Sampson’s glorious “No Bezos” sticker. And you can radicalize your Christmas tree with a hammer-and-sickle or anarchy ornament by artist Paul Garner. Garner’s Che Guevara figurines would also make great gifts!

    ¡Felices fiestas & viva la revolución!

    -Echo @fraulein_echo

    P.S. And we’ll see you tomorrow, Tuesday, December 24th, because we’ll be open this one Tuesday from noon to 6! More info here!

  • Big news About Quimby's!

    We’ve got some major news to tell you about the future of the store. More information here at Block Club Chicago.

  • December Newsletter Out Now!

    Read it here and make sure you sign up to get it in your inbox at quimbys.com.

  • Gift Guides to Get You in the Giving Spirit

    Since the season of giving is fast upon us, we at Quimby’s would like to offer you some guidance in your gifting.  So we will be posting our staff-curated gift guides over the next few weeks on our socials, and I’ve been honored with going first.

    For the HORROR QUEEN in your life who isn’t ready for Halloween to be over, we’ve got everything from comics and zines, to stickers and poetry, and even a game!  And just to prove that I’m recommending for a friend, I’ll start with my most recent purchase for myself and work back to one of my favorites.

    As a lifelong Gorey-phile, I bought Escape From The Evil Garden an Edward Gorey board game the moment we were both in the shop together.  I told myself it was an early Christmas present, but I already opened it and played with my bae (and won!).  The game is for ages 10 and up and plays like a spooky, more advanced Candyland. You might be cast as the Cheerful Woman or the Unwell Man with traits and abilities to match; then you have to make your way through the labyrinth to get out of the garden, battling plants and animals for your survival.  So much fun.

    If you’re more in the mood for stocking stuffers, there are oh so many spooky stickers.  I love this sexy trick-or-treater, Bat Girl drawn by Mel Stringer.  Riding Roller Coasters with Vincent Price is a micro-zine by Dayna Meyer celebrating the Master of Horror’s love of the terrifying amusement park ride.  I also really enjoy Spooky Nova by Ari Ganahl.  This all-ages mini-comic shows the meet-cute between a kid and a friendly ghost trick or treating (with a poke at gender roles).  Perfection.

    From the folx at Pork Belly Press, I would recommend haunted, a limited edition anthology of poems rooted in the idea of haunting.  If you’ve never noticed the gorgeous chapbooks they make, the cover designs would make them stand out even if we didn’t have them in a special spot on the chapbooks rack.  They’re also hand-numbered and hand-sewn, so yes, I swoon over these.

    And last but certainly not least on my list is My Favorite Thing Is Monsters Books One and Two by Emil Ferris.  I’ve included both in case your HORROR QUEEN already has the first or if you’re just feeling generous.  These beautiful comics are drawn in heavy pen and follow Karen, an adolescent who sees themself as a werewolf, as they try to solve the mysteries of the adult world while characterizing everyone as monsters of the silver screen.  Extra bonus features include being created by a Chicago native, so there’s lots of Uptown and the Art Institute among other great Chicago locations and legends.  Among my favorite comic books of all time, I cannot recommend these books enough, whether or not you love horror.

    I hope this helps ease you into this holiday season.  And if you’ve already checked your favorite HORROR QUEEN off your list, then stay tuned in on our social media for more gift guides to come.

    -elizabeth @getbacktoprint

  • Helpful Consignment Check-In Clarification!

    Our consignors rule! They make awesome zines and comics, lug them over here (or send them over here), and then get excited to see their stuff on the shelves. And we’re excited to put their work in people’s paws.

    When we updated our consignment policy last year we had faith that our consignors would make our work sustainable by following some changes in our consignment policy. One thing was that we only accepted consignment check-ins via email at info@quimbys.com to tell people they had to check in for restocks and payment. It was an adjustment, for sure! And we also changed our policy about how often you could check in, which was no more than 3 times a year or once every 4 months. And finally, we told consignors which titles we could restock and how many of them we would accept, instead of blindly just taking any restocks. Like any business, we found it made more sense to actually look at numbers and think about which items we could take more of. In the past, people who stopped here, say, on their way to an art opening and didn’t want to carry all their zines couldn’t just drop restocks in our laps anymore, if they were things that we couldn’t afford to take more of. (New stuff though? Hell  yeah! Any time! If we haven’t had it before, we wanna see it! A new issue of your zine, we’ll take 5!) So thanks to everybody who understood and respected why we had to do this. Here is a blog post that outlines why we had to make these changes.

    We got some helpful feedback from our consignors. Longtime consignors knew they were being asked to check in every 4 months instead of any time they felt like it, and they were happy to do so. but they weren’t sure when those 4 months started. Was it 4 months from the date they were last paid? Was it 4 months from the last day they asked about their consignment? Well, here’s the answer: you can check in 4 months from the date we itemized your last payout for you. So if you emailed us on Sept 15th (OUR BIRTHDAY!) and we got back to you on say, September 25th (give us a break! We have thousands of consignors!), the next time you’d be eligible to check in would be January 25th. That’s four months from the day we emailed you back and told you what we owe you (and asked you if you want Paypal or a check).

    Thank you so much for your continued patience as we’ve refined our consignment process to meet the unprecedented volume of consignment items we continue to receive. Please keep sending us your awesome stuff! We wanna get it up on our shelves.

    (cute consignor image by @fraulein_echo!)

  • November Newsletter Out Now!

    Read it here and make sure you sign up to get it in your inbox at quimbys.com.

  • Blurry by Dash Shaw

    Have you ever lost your glasses? Or gazed at an impressionist painting? Or gotten lotion in your eye? Seen through a blurry lens, the world becomes indistinct; it’s harder to tell where one thing ends and another begins.

    Dash Shaw’s newest book, Blurry, blends the individual stories of several different characters as they struggle to answer both commonplace and life-changing questions. They’re the kinds of conundrums that we are all inevitably faced with. What to create? Who to partner with? What to do with our time? Which ice cream flavor to choose? Such problems sprout like dandelions from the liminal cracks in our lives. And, as Shaw skillfully demonstrates, they’re the questions that spur us to grow as people.

    Blurry beautifully portrays the complexity of our inner lives as it fluidly intertwines the protagonists’ narratives. I really loved following each character’s thought process as they sorted through their individual quandaries. Reading this book helped me feel less alienated in my own inner deliberations. It reminded me that, while I might get a bit lost in my own problems from time to time, so does everyone else I come into contact with every day. And even if we sometimes feel alone in our unique struggles, it’s nice to remember that our problems actually connect us to one another, because they are a quintessential part of the human experience. 

    Be sure to stop by for our event on Saturday, November 9th when Dash Shaw will be in conversation with acclaimed graphic novelist Olivier Schrauwen and brilliant cartoonist Conor Stechschulte! More info here!

    Polish up those contact lenses and come on down to Quimby’s to pick up this lovely tome!

    ~ Echo