Category: Store Events

  • Ray Bawarchi reads from The Dirt People

    Ray Bawarchi will read a chapter and discuss the book, The Dirt People.

    About The Dirt People:
    In the future, environmental degradation has forced humanity to live within giant domed cities.  The Corporate Sponsors, which have supplanted nation states, have brought humans to the pinnacle of civilization through a social order determined only by wealth. Information along with everything else has become a commodity. Life is good and only silly myths about “Dirt Men” plague the society. Follow one man as he challenges the social order and witness his transformation to a reluctant revolutionary.

    Ray Bawarchi is a writer who lives in Asheville, NC. He is the author of the novel, The Dirt People. His next novel, Voltaire’s Walkabout, will be in the Stores by Christmas 2008. He has recently written several Opinion and Analysis columns for New Europe: The European Weekly, a newspaper serving Europe and the world.

    For more info check: http://raybawarchi.blogspot.com/

  • Mods vs. Rockers Comic Release Party

    Join us for the release of Mods vs. Rockers #1, a 20-page comic book. This will be a meet and greet with artist/writer, Martin Cimek and Co-Publisher, Larry Fletcher of the Ton-Up Club Chicago Motorcycle Club. Enjoy complementary Hobgoblin English Ale while supplies last. Pick up a copy of the comic and get it signed by the creators. There will also be Mods vs. Rockers t-shirts, patches and posters for sale. This release will coincide with the 4th annual Mods vs. Rockers vintage motorcycle and scooter show (held at Delilah’s & Bottom Lounge June 14th).

    About The Performers:

    Martin Cimek: The bold imagery of Mods vs. Rockers is the product of graphic designer and illustrator, Martin Cimek. Since relocating in 1991 to Chicago from Grand Rapids, Michigan his career has included: logos, magazines, annual reports, advertisement, music packaging and websites. In 2002 he started his own company, Martin Cimek Design (MCD), and has also become a well known and published silkscreen poster artist. He has done numerous posters and commissions for many of Chicago’s most popular rock venues.

    Larry Fletcher: Larry has been a longtime fixture on the local Chicago scene. He worked for years in the nightclub industry managing China Club and Kaboom and later serving as VIP ambassador at Crobar. His love of vintage motorcycles led him to open the Ace Cafe Chicago in 1997, An English style pub/cafe that had a vintage motorcycle motif. It’s at the Ace that Larry started hosting motorcycle events and shows. Through the years, his motorcycle shows have grown and evolved. In early 2005, Larry founded the Ton Up Club Chicago and immediately began planning Mods vs. Rockers I with his longtime friend Mike Miller of Delilah’s. 2008 marks the 11th anniversary of his first show at the Ace Cafe.

    Check out their websites at:
    Martin Cimek Design

    Ton-Up Club Chicag0

  • Kevin Sampsell, James Stegall and Jackie Corley read books!

    Independent press publishers Kevin Sampsell (Future Tense Books), James Stegall (So New Media) and Jackie Corley (Word Riot) will read their latest work.

    About The Performers:

    Kevin Sampsell is the author of Beautiful Blemish (Word Riot Press), the editor of The Insomniac Reader (Manic D Press), and the publisher of Future Tense Books in Portland, Oregon. His new book of short fiction, Creamy Bullets, is due out this spring from Chiasmus Press.

    James Stegall publishes books and distills liquor in Eugene, Oregon. His writing has appeared in Nerve, Flak Magazine, Eyeshot and others. So New Media (www.sonewpublishing.com), his press, has published work by Amy Guth, Neal Pollack, David Barringer, Jami Attenberg, Jen Michalski and many other amazing writers.

    Jackie Corley writing has appeared on-line at MobyLives.com, 3AM Magazine and Pequin.org and in various print anthologies. She is the publisher of online literary magazine Word Riot (www.wordriot.org) and its print extension, Word Riot Press. Her short story collection, The Suburban Swindle, is coming out Summer 2008 from So New Media. Visit her personal website at jackiecorley.wordriot.org.

  • Tim W. Brown & Paul McComas read at Quimby’s!

    High-performance prose readings by Tim W. Brown, author of Walking Man, and Paul McComas, author of Planet of the Dates.

    Tim W. Brown is the author of two published novels, Deconstruction Acres (1997) and Left of the Loop (2001). His novel Walking Man is forthcoming in 2008. Brown’s fiction, poetry and nonfiction have appeared in over two hundred publications, including Slipstream, Chelsea, Pleiades, Another Chicago Magazine, The Ledge, Storyhead, Rockford Review, Bridge, Oyez Review, American Book Review, The Bloomsbury Review, RE:AL, Chiron Review, Rain Taxi, Small Press Review, Main Street Rag and New Observations. He currently serves on the executive council of the New York Center for Independent Publishing, and he is a member of the National Book Critics Circle.

    A long-time resident of Chicago, where he was a fixture in that city’s literary scene as a literary performer and publisher of the poetry zine Tomorrow (1982-1999), Brown moved to New York in 2003.

    Paul McComas was born and raised in Milwaukee. He received his BA in English at Lawrence Univ. in Appleton, WI, and his MA in Film at Northwestern Univ. His short fiction has appeared in numerous literary magazines, and he is the author of two critically acclaimed books: a novel, Unplugged (2002, John Daniel & Co.), and a short story collection, Twenty Questions (1998, Daniel & Daniel), now in its third printing. Paul’s comedic coming-of-age novel, Planet of the Dates, will be published in February 2008 by prestigious New York-based indie publisher The Permanent Press.

    Since 1987, Paul has presented his performance art and monologues at more than 70 theaters and other venues nationwide, including the Bowery Poetry Club in New York City (2004), Chicago’s Around the Coyote Fall Arts Festival (1998, 2003 [receiving the Chicago Reader’s “Critic’s Choice” in 2003]) and N.A.M.E. Gallery (1988, 1996), and twice at the International Performance Art Festival (1990, 1996). He lives in Evanston, Illinois.

    For more info check: www.timwbrown.com or www.paulmccomas.com

  • Luke "You" & Dave Roche

    Meet Luke the mind behind YOU and zinster Dave Roche the author of On Subbing: the First Four Years at Quimby’s
    youzine_01.jpg

    Luke is the mind behind YOU a free weekly zine from Melbourne. Every week since 2001, YOU has arrived usually taking the form of a handwritten letter sealed with staples in a paper bag. Issues of YOU are distributed for free in culture and books shops around the globe. YOU is now the subject of a zine anthology YOU: some letters from the first five years.


    Dave Roche is the author of On Subbing: the First Four Years. The book contains his tales of woe from working as an substitute education assistant in Portland’s school system. He helps kids who can’t function in normal classrooms focus on their work and keeps kids from fighting while they tease him or adorably flirt with him.  It’s a rewritten “best of” collection from issues #1-4 (The stuff Dave isn’t too embarrassed about) plus some extra stuff from his second to last year of Subbing.

    Both authors will be on hand to read and sign books.

  • Liz Prince

    Join Liz Prince as she signs comics and answers questions at Quimby’s

    Liz Prince has been drawing comics ever since she was in 3rd grade, and her work has been published since 1994 when she began regularly contributing to the Santa Fe based zine Are We There Yet? From there, the offers didn’t stop coming. Her comics have been featured in several zines/comic anthologies, 5 gallery shows, and she has produced 2 mini-comics. Influenced by autobiographical greats like Evan Dorkin, Ariel Schrag, James Kochalka, and Jeffrey Brown, her comics mix her real-life foibles with charming cartooning and comic timing. Her fans have described her work as being “cute,” making them feel “warm & fuzzy,” or simply being “too much information.” Liz’s first full length book Will You Still Love Me If I Wet the Bed? explores the banal and yet somehow fascinating intimacies of her first true love.

    Delayed Replays, the second comics collection from Ignatz Award winner Liz Prince further explores how one incredibly self-centered twenty-something finds contentment in her everyday life. From the amusing to the banal, Liz’s comics are slice-of-life at its best, or if not best, at least most relatable. These strips could easily find their home in many alternative weekly papers, but Liz is too lazy to post them anywhere but her live journal or her website.

  • First Line Event

    The First Line, the most important (*) literary journal in the country, is celebrating ten years of killing trees and making the grammar gods cringe. Come meet the editors (and mascots), at Quimby’s in Chicago. If you’re lucky, Robin and David will read from the new anthology: The Best of The First Line, Editors’ Picks: 2002-2006 (don’t worry, you’ll get lucky).

    The purpose of The First Line is to jump start the imagination-to help writers break through the block that is the blank page. Each issue contains short stories that stem from a common first line; it also provides a forum for discussing favorite first lines in literature. The First Line is an exercise in creativity for writers and a chance for readers to see how many different directions we can take when we start from the same place.

    (*) ten-year-old, Texas-based, 64-page, perfect bound, 8” x 5”,
    $3.00-a-copy, quarterly, unaffiliated, unfunded, unassuming, and far
    from uninspiring

    more info at: www.thefirstline.com

  • The Gay Utopia

    The Gay Utopia is an online symposium devoted to exploring that ideal realm in which gender, sexuality, and identity dissolve. It includes poetry, artwork, comics, personal essays, reviews, fiction, drama, slash, and more by Ursula K. Le Guin, Jennifer Baumgardner, Dame Darcy, Johnny Ryan, Ariel Schrag, Julia Serano, Michael Manning, Matt Thorn, Neil Whitacre, Edie Fake, and a host of other contributors.

    The forum covers an enormous range of topics, from early animation to Restoration romance novels, from horror films to shojo manga, from the kinship structure of ferns to the relationship between men and trucks. Some highlights are:

    –Scott Treleaven’s classic 1997 essay on an unusual use for the orgasm
    –Tabico’s insect-sex-zombie apocalypse
    –Paul Nudd’s vile recipes for chutney
    — Kinukitty on why teenage girls need more manporn
    –gay utopia questions answered by a Giant Squid.

    Incidentally, this forum has a fair bit of explicit adult content. Please proceed with caution if that seems advisable. So in other words, the Gay Utopia has something for everyone. Please come by and check it out: The Gay Utopia

    For this event Gay Utopia contributors will read essays, stories, etc. from the Gay Utopia website. There will also be a zine containing material from the website (including contributions from Ursula K. Le Guin, Johnny Ryan, Dame Darcy, Ariel Schrag, Edie Fake, Lilli Carré, and others.)

    The Performers for this event will include:
    Noah Berlatsky (critic),Bert Stabler (critic and artist), Paul Nudd (artist),Dewayne Slightweight (comics creator and artist), David Erik Nelson (official emissary of the Giant Squid)They will be reading content from the zine and website.

  • Jim Munroe post-Rapture event

    Join author Jim Munroe in conversation with Jef Smith from Think Galactic, the Wicker Park political SF book club as they discuss Munroe’s graphic novel Therefore Repent! Jim Munroe will also sign copies.

    What if the religious right… are right?

    Therefore Repent! is a graphic novel set in a Chicago neighborhood after the Rapture. Once the Christians have floated bodily into the sky, life goes on pretty much as usual for the immoral majority… except that magic works, if you’re willing to risk demonic mutations. CNN reports that Mr. Christ and Mr. Bush are on a speaking tour of the red states. And an angelic army appears to have been deployed to mop up the sinners. But through it all, outsiders Raven and Mummy face the possibility of a bigger problem than the end of the world: the end of their relationship.

    In the tradition of The Book of Revelations, Therefore Repent!, courtesy of novelist Jim Munroe (Flyboy Action Figure Comes With Gasmask) and acclaimed artist Salgood Sam (Sea of Red) is a lurid, dark fantasy tale. By taking the apocryphal scripture as literal truth — as the American powers-that-be claim to do — the story also explores the political and spiritual ramifications of God abandoning humanity.

    Jim Munroe ‘s first novel Flyboy Action Figure Comes With Gasmask was published in 1999 by HarperCollins. He founded No Media Kings in 2000 to provide a publishing alternative to media conglomeration. He is also author of Angry Young Spaceman (Four Walls, 2000), Everyone in Silico (2002) and An Opening Act of Unspeakable Evil (2004). A cultural activist and former managing editor of Adbusters magazine, he lives in Toronto

  • Low Brow Art Blow Out!!!!

    NOT AT QUIMBY’S but worth checking out.

    On Saturday, April 26th, DvA Gallery in collaboration with Billy Shire Fine Arts in California will be having a gallery show and booksigning with all your favorite artists. The book signing event will be from 4-6pm and the gallery opening is from 7-11pm. Artists in attendance include Dave Cooper, Elizabeth McGrath, Daniel Martin Diaz, Glann Barr, Bob Dob, Martha Rich and many more. We will also have other merchandise for signing such as t-shirts, toys and posters.

    This event is also made possible by our sponsors Quimby’s Bookstore, Chicago Comics and Pabst Blue Ribbon.

    Hope to see you all there!

    DvA Gallery is located at 2568 N. Lincoln Ave. (Lincoln and Sheffield)

    773.871.4382 www.dvagallery.com