Category: reading series

  • 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.

  • off-site: CAKE FRAME 2: Live Art Auction and Brain Frame Comics Performance Event to Benefit CAKE 4/20

    cakeframeSun, April 20 at the Co-Prosperity Sphere, 3219 S Morgan Street, Chicago IL 60608 (NOT at Quimby’s)

    Doors at 6pm, show at 7pm
    $5 – $20 sliding scale entry

    For the second year running, the performative comics reading series Brain Frame is teaming up with the Chicago Alternative Comics Expo (CAKE) to host the CAKE Frame fundraiser, an evening of comics readings and a live art auction. Cake Frame 2 is All proceeds go to benefit CAKE, the weekend-long celebration of independent comics 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.

    Brain Frame founder Lyra Hill will host the evening as master of ceremonies and auctioneer. Attendees can bid on original art from 30 talented Chicagoans including Chris Ware, Nicole Hollander, Ivan Brunetti, and Edie Fake. All bids for artworks will start at $30. The evening will also include a wide variety of comics performances by Brain Frame alums Kevin Budnik, Rachel Niffenegger, Pup House and Jen Rickert. There will be live drawing by Jenna Caravello and live music by El Is A Sound Of Joy. Doors open at 6pm and the event starts at 7pm, but we recommend attendees arrive early if they want to review the auction items before bidding.

    With only two months until CAKE on May 31/June 1 at the Center on Halstead, the CAKE organizers are kicked into full gear. Organizers Ben Bertin, Neil Brideau, Marnie Galloway, Max Morris, Grace Tran and Jeff Zwirek are committed to making this year’s show one that goes down in history, and the CAKE Frame 2 fundraiser will help them towards that goal.

    For more information on CAKE, please visit cakechicago.com
    For more information on Brain Frame, please visit brainframe.tumblr.com
    Contact: Max Morris, cakexpo(at)gmail(dot)com

  • Laydeez Do Comics October Edition: Beth Hetland and Jaclyn Miller 10/31

    Laydeez bigger logo May

    Laydeez do Comics is a unique salon with a focus on graphic works based on life narrative, the drama of the domestic, and the everyday. Invited guest speakers have 10-20 minute slots to present works/ideas followed by a Q&A. Launched in London in July 2009, the group has now expanded to other cities, including Chicago. Quimby’s hosts the Chicago chapter and it is usually the last Thursday of every month.

    October’s edition features artists Beth Hetland (cartoonist, teacher, lover of sharks) & Jaclyn Miller (cartoonist, Chicago Zine Fest organizer).

    Beth Hetland was raised in the rolling hills of Wisconsin.  After earning her BFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2009, where she started making comics, she packed up and moved to White River Junction, VT to attend a graduate program at The Center for Cartoon Studies.  She graduated with an MFA in 2011 and accepted a position teaching comics at her alma mater, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.  She has been teaching there ever since, bringing comics and cheer to eager young minds.  She has been self-publishing since 2006 with over 50 titles to her name. She has been the recipient of the both the Best Small Press Stumptown Award and Nerdlinger. Her longest auto-bio work, “Fugue,” is a three part story that traces the generational repetitions and relationship of her family utilizing music as a metephor. She frequently collaborates with her best friend, Kyle O’Connell, on fiction work–the current ideration of which is the first volume of their new series titled “Half Asleep.”  For more about Beth and her work, visit her blog: beth-hetland.com.

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    Jaclyn Miller is a cartoonist living and working in Chicago. Her work deals primarily in autobiography, daydream, and memory. Her current project, “Rememberies,” is a minicomic series centered around childhood folly and reflection. When she’s not working her day job or surrounding herself with good people and good comics, she spends her time as an organizer for the Chicago Zine Fest. More info at fortfootcomix.tumblr.com.

    Jaclyn Miller image

    rememberies

  • Laydeez Do Comics August edition 8/29 With Joyce Rice and Kat Leyh of Symbolia Magazine.

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    Guests will be Joyce Rice and Kat Leyh of Symbolia Magazine.

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    Symbolia is a tablet magazine of illustrated journalism that pairs incendiary reporting with thoughtful illustration and comics, the first digital journal solely dedicated to the form. Symbolia was founded by Erin Polgreen  Joyce Rice. Deanna Zandt wrote for Forbes that, “Symbolia has accomplished two major feats: elevated the status of illustrated, sequential art as a form in a neglected space, and created a new space for us to reimagine what journalism can look – and feel – like.”

    Speaker Bios:
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    Joyce Rice collaborates with artists to craft intriguing narratives that merge audio, animation, and hand illustration with high-quality journalism. A seasoned illustrator and interactive designer – and a specialist in sequential storytelling, interactive content and publication design – she’s cofounder and creative director of the digital magazine Symbolia.  Joyce publishes comics and drawings in a variety of independent magazines and comics anthologies, and has been self-publishing an ongoing diary comic – Bird Wizards! – since 2008. Her work has appeared in Columbia Journalism Review, has been written about in FastCo., Poynter, and other outlets, and she has spoken about the intersection of comics and journalism at the Michigan State University Comics Forum.
    leyhKat Leyh is a Chicago-based illustrator who somehow manages to draw for a living. When she’s not doing that, she creates comics for fun. A few of Leyh’s comics have been published by Yeti Press Comics, and you can view more of her work at www.KatLeyh.com.

    Laydeez do Comics is a unique salon with a focus on graphic works based on life narrative, the drama of the domestic, and the everyday. Invited guest speakers have 10-20 minute slots to present works/ideas followed by a Q&A. Launched in London in July 2009, the group has now expanded to other cities, including Chicago. Quimby’s hosts the Chicago chapter and it is usually the last Thursday of every month. For August the meeting is on Thurs, Aug 29th at 7pm.

  • BRAIN FRAME Performative Comix Series Celebrates Second Anniversary at the Co-Prosperity Sphere 7/28

    BF13bradscanBRAIN FRAME is a series of performative comix readings. Every other month for two years, BRAIN FRAME has showcased an eclectic mix of sequential artists interpreting their work via projections, puppetry, music, costumes, props, lectures, and performance. In honor of its 2nd anniversary, BRAIN FRAME 13 will include a raffle, art exhibit, market, and four of the most ambitious performances yet.

    Brain Frame 13 includes gallery show, mini-market, and four extraordinary performances.

    “It’s made me cry tears of joy and laugh food into my nose and I look forward to it every month as if it were Halloween or something.” -The Comics Journal

    On Sunday, July 28th, 5p, at the Co-Prosperity Sphere (3221 S Morgan St) ($8), Lyra Hill’s BRAIN FRAME celebrates its second birthday.

    BRAIN FRAME 13 will feature the comics art collective Trubble Club; Jeremy Tinder; Sara Drake; and a collaboration by BRAIN FRAME accompanist Night Terror (Tyson Torstensen) and Lyra Hill. A limited edition poster co-designed by Hill and Ignatz-Award winning NYC cartoonist Lale Westvind will also be unveiled at the show. Previously, the show has featured high-profile artists like Anne Elizabeth Moore, Edie Fake, and Jim Trainor, as well as up-and-comers like Andy Burkholder, Halle Butler, and Kevin Budnik.

    Hill, a comics artist and experimental filmmaker recently featured on Community Cinema’s Wonderwomen panel at the Cultural Center, doesn’t just curate BRAIN FRAME — she hosts, does tech and promo, and co-designs each poster. At BRAIN FRAME 13, she’ll be performing on stilts in full costume, with a smoke machine and three analog projectors. “I encourage the readers to be as weird and ambitious as possible,” she says, “I try to lead by good example.”

    Trubble Club will debut a similarly zealous performance at BRAIN FRAME 13. The jam-comics collective will begin the show with an interactive presentation of The Infinite Corpse, a revolutionary open-submission online comic with no beginning and no end. Following the adventures of everyman skeleton Corpsey, the path of The Infinite Corpse will be dictated by the audience as Trubble Club members try to keep up.

    Guests at BRAIN FRAME 13 can look forward to a mini-market with comics, zines, and t-shirts from BRAIN FRAME artists; a gallery show; and raffle with prizes like a set of BRAIN FRAME posters, a deer pelt, a certificate to Bang Bang Pie Co., a portrait by Trubble Club, and more.

    BRAIN FRAME has grown steadily since the first show, in scope as well as audience. Saturday, July 27th at 11:30am, a day prior to BRAIN FRAME 13, the MCA will host BRAIN FRAME LIT, a writing-focused comix reading, as part of its Comics Day activities. BRAIN FRAME is “the world’s most exciting comic book reading series,” Edie Fake told The Comics Journal. This coming year, Chicago will export a native gem as Hill tours around the country, hosting one-off shows with local cartoonists.

    Contact: brainframecomix(at)gmail(dot)com

  • Queer Literary Showcase All The Writers I Know with Michael Garabedian, ellie navidson, Sam Lowry, and H Melt 8/10

    ATWIKQueer literary salon All The Writers I Know returns Sat, August 10th for their newest showcase, “More Than Alive.” Readers include Michael Garabedian, ellie navidson, Sam Lowry, and H Melt. Based around the idea of storytelling as a community-building act, producer Mar Curran wanted the event to continue ATWIK’s efforts to foster queer-positive space to share written work around the idea of not only surviving obstacles in life but overcoming them to thrive. This topic is something Curran and guest co-producer poet H. Melt felt was important to highlight and celebrate at an event described as “part grown-up story time, part poetry cipher, part cocktail party.”

    “Many people in our community face huge challenges, both related to and independent of their queer identities,” says Curran. “Coming together in a safe space to read work about rising above these challenges is hopefully a way to encourage others in the audience to do so themselves.”

    Created in 2011 by Patrick Gill and Rosy Phinick in Gill’s living room, ATWIK was started with the hopes of creating a safe space for Chicago queer writers to share their work with one another. Two co-producers aimed to create a space that “lets you feel as comfortable as you would in your own living room.”

    For more info: Contact Mar Curran at mcurr7(at)gmail(dot)com or like the All The Writers I Know Facebook page

    Saturday, August 10th, 7pm – Free Event