Blog

  • Trubble Club celebrates Free Comic Book Day at Quimby's 5/7

    Come to Quimby’s on Free Comic Book Day to have your conception and/or death drawn by the infamously untamable Chicago cartoonist gaggle, Trubble Club. Care to dabble in the inky arts yourself? Free pamphlets will be provided with starter panels and jam recipes. Pick one up and fill in a box with your very own genius. Additional free comics will be available at Quimby’s all day while supplies last.

    Trubble Club accepts the fact that we have to sacrifice a whole Saturday drawing comics at Quimby’s for what- ever it was that we did wrong. What we did WAS wrong. But we think you’re crazy to make us write this essay telling you who we think we are. What do you care? You see us as you want to see us, in the simplest terms and the most convenient definitions. But what we found out is that each one of us is a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess and a criminal. Does that answer your question? Sincerely yours, The Trubble Club.
    To pre-sear your eyeballs, aim your internet at trubbleclub.com.

    Saturday May 7th, 7 pm

  • Heads Up: 2011 Portland Zine Symposium in August

    The Portland Zine Symposium aims to promote greater community between diverse creators of independent publications and art. This fun and free event helps people share their work while exchanging their skills and information related to zine culture. Through workshops, panels and discussions, Portland Zine Symposium explores the role and effect of all types of zines.

    Time: August 6, 2011 at 10pm to August 7, 2011 at 5pm, Location: Refuge, Portland, OR

    For more info:

    Click here for more details and RSVP on We Make Zines, an online community for zine makers and zine readers.

    Also, not 100% updated: www.pdxzines.com

  • Weekly Top 10 and Video Footage of Deb Olin Unferth

    Here’s your Top 10 for the last week. No real surprises in what made the list of bestsellers, since most of it is stuff that’s made it on there before. However, COG Magazine is a title we just started carrying, a nice biking mag, about city biking, bike messengering and the like, from all around the world.

    Also! Footage from the Deb Olin Unferth event is up. She was here at Quimby’s on 3/7/11 reading from her memoir Revolution: The Year I Fell in Love and Went to Join the War. The piece we put up is a super funny bit about how religion got worked into her expereince, and how her Jewish family reacted to her short bout with Christianity. No matter how you feel about religion, this bit will crack you up. Click on the picture of Deb below, and it will take you to where you can watch it at You Tube.

    1.    OK OK You Smote Me Stories by Al Burian (Quimby’s Exclusive) $3.00 – Al takes us around the corner to his mayhem-prone stint on Wicker Park’s Dean Street, unhexing his way-too-hexed apartment and watching the tumult as Old Chicago takes a scraggly, low-level “stand” against encroaching yuppie “neighborhood improvement.”

    2.    Laphams Quarterly vol 4 #2 Spr 11 $15.00

    3.    Cartooning Philosophy and Practice by Ivan Brunetti (Yale) $13.00 – This is about as close you are going to get to having Ivan Brunetti come to your house and teach you how to make great comics. Turns out, it’s pretty damn close – Philosophy and Practice serves up a concise and well-honed crash course on finding and fine tuning your comics voice. -EF

    4. Proximity #8 Education As Art $12.00 – Writing the book on learning as art and the art of learning: Proximity #8 comes from all angles, focuses, builds, supports. Weighing in at 232 pages, this volume does an exceptional job with a wide variety of profiles, interviews and portfolios and essays, staying both solidly local and vitally connected, you’d be hard pressed to find a smarter art magazine.

    5. Monocle vol 5 #42 Apr 11
    6. Brilliant Mistake #1 by Carrie $1.00 – What a gem of a debut zine! Beautifully quilted together from bits of a questioning heart, Brilliant Mistake #1 pares down the aches of the social games we play. -EF

    7.  Acme Novelty Library #20: Lint by Chris Ware (D&Q) $23.95

    8. Cometbus #54 In China With Green Day by Aaron Cometbus $4.00

    9. N Plus 1 #11 Spr 11 $13.95

    10. COG Magazine #10 $6.00

  • Best American Comics

    Jessica Abel and Matt Madden want us to remind you that if you make comics, you really should be sending a copy of everything you make to the Best American Comics.  The Best American Comics 2012 edition will feature comics published from September 1, 2010 to August 30, 2011.  They would prefer you not wait until the last minute to send your comics, so grab what you’ve made since last september, put it in an envelope and mail it (plus contact information and the release date of your comic) to:

    Jessica Abel and Matt Madden
    Series Editors
    The Best American Comics
    Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
    215 Park Avenue South
    New York, NY 10003

    Mail your comics in!  No joke!  I’m talking to YOU!

  • New Stuff This Week

    All sorts of new stuff this week. And hey, the sun is out. Just in time for you to come in to Quimby’s to buy the new issue of Hi-Fructose.

    ZINES & ZINE-RELATED BOOKS!
    High School Sucks by Megan Speers $3.00 – AMEN!
    Most Beautiful Thing I’ve Zine by Priyanka Pandit $10.00
    Pieces #5 On Change by Nichole $2.00
    Goat Fucker #1 by Jack Mulkern $6.00
    Signals #4 A Radio Zine by DJ Frederick $5.00
    Me Magazine #20 Spr 11 $7.50
    XXX Gratuitous Type #1 $15.00
    Adore The Adorable by John Ruch and Heather Reynolds $3.00

    COMICS & MINI COMIX!
    Facials Part One by Nic Greasy $3.00 – Amorphous sexual consumption and transformation with a serious case of the drips. -EF
    Memories and Delusions by David Alvarado $4.00
    Wanderlust by David Alvarado $2.00
    Live Work #1 by Pat Palermo $6.00
    Position Wanted by Pat Palermo $1.00
    Tread Lightly #1 by Jonathan Bell Wolfe $7.00
    The Yellow Zine- Pretentius Comics and Funnies by Roman Muradov $5.00

    ART & DESIGN BOOKS!
    Where Art Belongs by Chris Kraus (Semiot) $12.95
    But I Can’t Do Anything Else by Rob Schrab (Vertigo) $24.99
    Skullface by Yak ElDroubie and Antoni Cadafalch (Korero) $35.00
    Whose Hair by Christina Christoforou (Laurence) $12.95 – Do you recognize this drawing of a famous person’s hair?
    Textile Design Portfolio by Simon Clarke (Laurence) $35.00
    Pulled: A Catalog of Screen Printing Mike Perry (Princeton) $35.00 – Screenprint-handmade font guru picks some of his fave screen printers.

    GRAPHIC NOVELS & TRADE PAPERBACKS!
    Complete Wendel by Howard Cruse (Universe) $24.95
    Everything is its Own Reward by Paul Madonna (CityLights) $27.95
    Fables vol 15 Rose Red by Bill Willingham etc. (Vertigo) $17.99

    FICTION!
    November Criminals by Sam Munson (Anchor) $15.00
    Song of Ice and Fire series books (Game of Thrones etc.) by George RR Martin (Bantam) prices vary

    CHAP BOOKS, POETRY & LIT JOURNALS
    Insane in the Quatrain by Bradley La$tname $10.00
    Hand Me Downs of Hannah Hoch by Robert Pomerhn $15.95
    Blest For This Poet Crest to Rest on My Chest by Robert Pomerhn $4.95
    N Plus 1 #11 Spr 11 $13.95
    Oyez Review #38 $5.00

    MAGAZINES!
    Hi Fructose #19 $6.95
    Bizarre #174 Apr 11 $10.50
    2600 Hacker Quarterly vol 28 #1 $6.25
    Girls and Corpses #5 Spr 11 $8.95
    Namaste vol 12 #1 $9.95
    UFO Magazine #155 vol 24 #2 $5.99
    Colors #80 Spr11 $8.95
    Skunk vol 6 #8 $5.99
    COG Magazine #10 $6.00 (And we have some back issues of this wheels-related title too.)
    Diner Journal #17 Spr 11 $9.00
    BlackBook #83 Apr 11 $4.50
    Explosion Proof Magazine #2 win 2011 $11.00
    IDN Extra 05 Most Wanted vol 2 $25.00
    ArtForum Apr 11 $10.00
    Fury #19 $2.00
    Mojo #210 May 11 $9.99
    Ugly Things #31 $8.95
    In These Times Apr 11 $3.50
    AdBusters #95 vol 19 #3 May Jun 11 $8.95

    CHILDRENS BOOKS!
    Bear In Pink Underwear by Todd H Doodler (Blue Apple) $12.99

    MUCKRACKING, MEMOIRS, MAYHEM, MISCREANTS & MISCELLENOUSNESSESESNESS!
    The Gas Chamber of Sherlock Holmes and Other Writings on The Holocaust, Revisionism, and Historical Understanding by Samuel Crowell (Nine-Banded Books) $20.00
    Teaching the Taboo: Courage and Imagination In the Classroom by Rick Ayers, William Ayers and Haki R Madhubuti (Teachers College Press) $21.95

    MUSIC BOOKS OR BOOKS WRITTEN BY MUSIC PEOPLE!
    American Demon: A Memoir by Jack Grisham (ECW) $19.95 – Grisham is best known as the raucous and provocative front man of the pioneer hardcore punk band TSOL (True Sounds of Liberty). Don’t miss his reading from this book here at Quimby’s on May 14th!
    The Record Players: DJ Revolutionaries by Bill Brewster & Frank Broughton (Black Cat) $16.95 – Acclaimed authors and music historians Bill Brewster and Frank Broughton have spent years traveling across the world to interview the revolutionary and outrageous DJs who shaped the last half-century of pop music. With discographies, favorite songs, and amazing photos of all the DJs as young firebrands, The Record Players offers an unparalleled music education: from records to synthesizers, from disco to techno, and from small groups of influential music lovers to arenas packed with thousands of dancing fans.A history told by the visionaries who experienced the movement, The Record Players allows a rare glimpse into the sound, culture, and craft that developed into a worldwide industry.

    SEX & SEXY & SEX CULTURE!
    Gothic Tales of the Marquis de Sade (Peter Owen Publishing) $15.95
    For Lonely Adults Only #9 Fall Win 11 by Regis Trigano $8.00

    POLITICS & REVOLUTION!
    Nowhere To Be Home: Narratives From Survivors of Burmas Military Regime by Maggie Lemere and Zoe West (McSweeneys) $16.00

  • Monstrous Achievement : Jack Grisham Reads From His New Memoir An American Demon 5/14

    An American Demon is Jack Grisham’s story of depravity and redemption, terror and spiritual deliverance. While Grisham is best known as the raucous and provocative front man of the pioneer hardcore punk band TSOL (True Sounds of Liberty), his writing and true life experiences are physically and psychologically more complex and unsettling than those of Bret Easton Ellis and Chuck Palahniuk.

    Eloquently disregarding the prefabricated formulas of the drunk–to–sober, bad–to–good tale, this is an entirely new kind of life lesson: summoned through both God and demons, while settling within eighties hardcore punk culture and its radical–to–the–core (and most assuredly non–evangelical) parables, Grisham leads us, cleverly, gorgeously, between temporal violence and bigger-picture spirituality toward something better. An American Demon flourishes on both extremes, as a scary hardcore punk memoir and as a valuable message to souls navigating through an overly materialistic and woefully self–absorbed “me first” modern society.

    An American Dem    on conveys anger and truth within the perfect setting, using a youth rebellion that changed the world to open doors for this level of brash destruction. Told from the point of view of a seminal member of the American Punk movement — doused in violence, rebellion, alcoholism, drug abuse, and ending with beautiful lessons of sobriety and absolution — this book is as harrowing and life–affirming as anything you’re ever going to read.

    Now in heavy demand as a public speaker, Jack Grisham currently receives thousands of monthly phone calls from individuals and organizations seeking his advice, expertise, wit, mentorship, and support, especially on drug and alcohol–related issues. Grisham is a master hypnotherapist and resides in Huntington Beach, California. He spends his time with his family, surfs, and voluntarily offers his services to his community. An American Demon is Grisham’s first book.

    “If you’ve ever found yourself unable to turn away from witnessing an accident, crash or natural disaster, you’ll read An American Demon straight through, like I did.  Jack Grisham’s memoir is as original as it is horrifying.  I couldn’t put it down.”    — James Frey, bestselling author of A Million Little Pieces

    “What isn’t shocking is that Jack wrote a fantastically depraved, heart wrenching, thoroughly engaging book that you’ll want to read in one sitting. What is shocking is that it wasn’t written from inside a jail cell at a maximum security prison.”     — Jim Lindberg, former lead singer of Pennywise, and author of Punk Rock Dad

    “…the book is unnervingly brilliant, compulsive reading for those of us that are glad it’s all over.”
    — Rat Scabies, musician.  Scabies played drums for the punk band The Damned.

    “Jack Grisham is a legend to those in the know.  Much of the success of punk rock was built on the blood, sweat, and tears of this surf punk, Southern California mad man. After such a compelling read, it’s so nice to see him break on through to the other side…some weren’t so lucky…” — Mark McGrath, singer

    “Jack Grisham finally, irrevocably, puts to death the slander that the early Los Angeles punk scene was ‘plastic.’ The first true literature to come out of our pathetic little punk lives, American Demon is haunting and awakens monsters. But it should come with a warning label: it’s a dangerous book. Read Patti Smith’s Just Kids. Then read this. But only if you have the courage to follow poetry as far as it can go.”— Paul Roessler, producer, composer, musician

    For more info: jackgrisham.com and  ecwpress.com

    Saturday, May 14th, 7pm

  • Chester Brown Stops at Quimby’s on the Paying For It Tour 5/11

    It’s tempting to call Chester Brown a recluse, but if you live in Toronto, he’s not. But it is rare for him to hit the road, and he will be on tour in 2011 for PAYING FOR IT.

    Chester Brown has never shied away from tackling controversial subjects in his work. As the cartoonist of the autobiographical The Playboy and the biography Louis Riel, Paying For It is a natural progression for Brown as it combines the personal and sexual aspects of his autobiographical work with the polemical drive of Louis Riel. Brown calmly lays out the facts of how he became not only a willing participant in but also a vocal proponent of one of the world’s most hot-button topics–prostitution. Paying For It offers an entirely contemporary exploration of sex work–from the timid john who rides his bike to meet his escorts, wonders how to tip so as not to offend, and reads Dan Savage for advice, to the modern-day transactions complete with online reviews, seemingly willing participants, and clean apartments devoid of cliches street corners, drugs, or primps.

    Paying For It is a book that stands for itself and will be the most talked about graphic novel of 2011. In stores this May.

    Hardcover, 5.5 x 7.5, Black & White, 272 pages, ISBN: 9781770460485, $24.95 US / $25.95 CDN

    “PAYING FOR IT is a very enlightening book, as well as being entertaining…{Chester Brown} is a very skillfull artist in that way.”–R. CRUMB, from his introduction to PAYING FOR IT

    Wed, May 11th, 7pm

    Refreshments Provided by Piece Pizzeria & Brewery!

  • Hear Ye: Another Work Submission Opportunity with Woman Made Gallery

    Woman Made Gallery 685 N MILWAUKEE AVE, CHICAGO IL 60642, TEL: 312 738 0400

    We’ll paste it in directly from their site at womanmade.org/entryform.html

    (scroll down to where it says “Underground”)

    CALL FOR ARTWORK:
    Underground – Publication Submission (pdf)
    Underground – Art Submission (pdf)
    Exhibition Dates: July 8 – August 18, 2011
    Open to women, transgender, genderqueer, and gender non-conforming people from the international community who make self-published zines, comics, and chapbooks, as well as print, graphic, and comic art in all media. This exhibition will include both a pop-up library of zines, comics, and other self-published works, and a show of installed artworks in all media. Apply to show in one or both exhibition components, but please create separate entries for each.
    For publication submissions: Enter one to three publications following the guidelines on the publication submission form (pdf link above). Mail-in or drop off entries only.
    For art submissions: Use the online entry system (link below) or for mailed entries follow the guidelines on the art submission form (link above). Include an artist or project statement and a $30 entry fee.
    Online Entries Submit jpgs of three of your works on our website.
    Curator: Ruby Thorkelson
    Ruby Thorkelson is WMG’s Gallery Coordinator. She is also a visual artist working in drawing, comics, book-making, and collaborative projects, as well as a 2010 recipient of a Community Arts Assistance Program Grant from the City of Chicago. For more information, visit Ruby Thorkelson’s Webpage.
    Entry Deadline: May 31, 2011
    Notifications: June 4, 2011
    Further questions? Contact Ruby: admin@womanmade.org or 312-738-0400.

  • “Cinco De Awesome” J. Bradley Reads From The Serial Rapist Sitting Behind You Is a Robot

    When asked about his influences, J. Bradley points to three enduring sources: failure, 80s cartoon, unrequited love. Not a likely combination for a writer, but one that has brought forth The Serial Rapist Sitting Behind You is a Robot (Safety Third Enterprises). A collection of prose-poems from J. Bradley in his first foray into fiction. Bradley’s swift cuts and unapologetic style still remains intact in this new frame delighting in tales of Jurassic Park, sexual liaisons, and sexual disgust. Even in the darker times of the twenty story collection the Florida poet goes for a dirty bountiful laugh.

    “Rabbit punches are illegal in boxing because they are a potentially fatal blow. “The Serial Rapist Sitting Behind You Is A Robot” is a series of rabbit punches comprised of poetry, wit, sex and sick.  J. Bradley attempts to kill with each piece; packing their tiny structures full of a power reserved for breaking the teeth of cheating spouses.  Each piece makes an impact that stuns strong and spreads circular in a visceral ring that will leave the reader wondering, “What just happened here?” After they stagger to their feet, they will taunt him to hit them again and again.” – xTx, author of Normally Special

    Also joining the bill are Chicago author Ben Tanzer, who will read from his book You Can Make Him Like You (Artistically Declined Press), James Tadd Adcox, editor of Artifice Magazine and Brandon Will.

    For more info: http://iheartfailure.net

  • Hear Ye: Make Magazine Submission

    Chicago-based lit mag MAKE is calling for submissions for issue #11. Here’s what they’re looking for:

    Issue 11, themed Neither/Nor, calls for work that is neither here nor there.
    Think: no man’s land / Either/Or / corpus callosum / the Midwest / afterlife / liminal.
    Deadline: April 15, 2011
    For more information and to upload your work, please go here: www.makemag.com/submission

    Now go Make a submission.