Blog

  • Eugene Nelson Jr. Reads From Covert Operations: Alpha

    Covert Operations: AlphaWhen asked about his influences, Eugene Nelson Jr. points to three enduring sources: growing up on the Southside of Chicago in the 1970s and 80s, playing Role Playing Games with people all over Chicago, and loving my family everyday. Not a likely combination for a writer, but one that has brought forth Covert Operations: Alpha (AuthorHouse Publishing), a debut book that is filled with action, love, friendship, death, mystery, humor, magic, betrayal, technology and vengeance. All set here in the back drop of Chicago. Fast paced and intriguing, Covert Operations: Alpha’s science fiction marks the difficulties of everyday life in a world that has evolved into a powerful society filled with powerful beings. This book will wake up every brain cell you have in an effort to understand each character and their actions. Just when you think you understand something, everything will change and so will your understanding. This is the thinking man’s book and you will enjoy every moment of it. So check your equipment at the door and get ready for the time of your life as you are introduced to the world of Covert.

    Bad attitudes meet sophisticated intelligence, and underground crime meets big business in this involving debut book. Eugene Nelson Jr.’s complicated characters and rude cut offs in Covert Operations: Alpha evoke a self-absorbed population. Eugene Nelson Jr., who still lives in Chicago, works from home now and spends most of his time creating new and exciting tales from his role playing game by the same name of Covert Operations.

    For more info: http://covertoperationsalpha.com/

  • Quimby's T-Shirts!

    Quimby's employee not included.
    Quimby's employee not included.

    QUIMBY’S T-SHIRTS?!  Ahem.  I mean, Quimby’s T-Shirts.  For the first time since Quimby’s arrived on your home planet of Earth, you can wear our family crest on your chest!  We decided to go pretty simple for our maiden voyage into the world of wearables: our logo (designed by the mighty and valiant Chris Ware) printed 5″ on black, pre-shrunk 100% cotton shirts.

    These little treasures were printed just down the street at our neighbors’ Broken Cherry, and we’ve got a bunch of them in an assortment of sizes:

    Ladies’: X Large, Large, Medium, Small

    Men’s: XX Large, X Large,
    Large, Medium, Small

    Ankle Biters’: Size 2, 3, 4, 5/6

    You can stop by and exchange $14.99 for it. Or if visiting the store would involve a plane ticket, you can always make us do all the work (with a little help from the United States Postal Service) by ordering it here.

  • Weekly Top 10 & a Cool Photo

    We went to pick up books from the Independent Publishers Group warehouse on the south side. They had conveyer belts all over the place. It was like a highway system. We figured they wouldn’t let us take a ride on it, so we took a picture of it to show you how cool it looks.

    IPG Warehouse
    IPG Warehouse

    And here’s this week’s top 10 bestsellers here at Quimby’s:

    1. Is It THE FUTURE Yet by Mucha Corinne $3.00 – A Quimbys Bookstore exclusive edition!

    2. Blue Yodel No 8 mm by Lamb $2.00 – Images from a reel shooting spree. Shooting film, that is.

    3. Craphound #4 Clowns Devils and Bait (Show & Tell Press) $12.00 – Holy Shit, the Craphound #4 reprint landed and it makes me smile like Ren and dance like Stimpy! Tejaratchi’s obsessive hi-con picture pages are brimming with the sauciest devils, the juciest bait and the most ambiguously legal clowns. Thrilling, terrifying, mind-blowing, hands down one of the world’s greatest zines! – EF

    4. Juxtapoz #113 Jun 10  $5.99

    5. Giant Robot #65 $4.99

    6. Bitch #47 $5.95

    7. Squinty #1  by Sua Y00 $5.00

    8. Poop by Sam Sharpe $2.00

    9. Boneshaker #42-500 A Bicycling Almanac $6.00

    10. Big Questions #14 Title and Deed by Anders Nilsen (D&Q) $7.95 – New comic for local artist superstar.

  • New Stuff This Week

    Zines/Chap Books
    Love Your Blood #1 by var. $2.50
    Explorers Are We #2 $1.00
    Overtime: Hour 13 Hollywood Cowboys by GD McFetridge $2.00 – From the folks who bring you The First Line.

    Comics & Mini Comix

    mineshaft25
    Mineshaft #25 $7.00     – A comic-driven all-star zine. In addition to nice short comics by C. Tyler and Nina Bujevac, Sophie and R. Crumb let you peek at their sketchbooks and R. also gives you a glimpse of his dream diary- where we learn that he’s even a curmudgeon while sleeping. ALSO of note: Kim Deitch reviews the Crumb Genesis comic, Simon Deitch talks dodos and Pat Moriarity has a nice bar comic and Jim Blanchard does a glorious drawing of a bear. Feels real family-style, if your family was all famous cartoonists.

    Comics Section San Francisco Panorama McSweeneys #33 $10.00 – Cuttin’ right to the chase.
    Sundogs #10 by Adam Pasion $3.00
    Werewolf #2 by Josh Rosen $5.00
    various new things by Liz Prince! Including Four Squares #1, I Swallowed the Key to My Heart, Delayed Replays vol 3!
    Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep Dust To Dust #1 By PKD with var. other (Boom) $3.99
    Mope vol 1 by Matt McClure $5.00
    Chutzpah #1 May Jun 10 by Naomi Kane $5.00
    Scorched Earth by Josh Kramer $3.00
    Oak & Linden #1 and #2 by Pat Barrett $6.00 & $3.50

    Poseur3
    Poseur #3 by Nat $4.00     – Shocking tales of electrifying thrills, and other strange and charming short comics to amuse and bemuse.

    Crude Dude Comix #6 by Jose Angeles $3.50
    Hate Baby #1 Sum 10 by Corinne Halbert $7.00

    Graphic Novels & TPBs
    Search For Smilin Ed by Kim Deitch (Fantagraphics) $16.99
    The Selves by Sonja Ahlers (D&Q) $19.95
    Wednesday Comics HC: The Worlds Greatest Heroes The Worlds Greatest Comics (DC) $49.99 – Huge anthology with Tons o’ artists, like Brian Azzarello, Neil Gaiman, and more! We only got 1, so you better race here and get it.
    Scalped vol 6 Gnawing TPB by Jason Aaron & RM Guera (Vertigo) $14.99
    Dungeon Quest Book 1 by Joe Daly (Fantagraphics) $12.99
    Captain Long Ears Diana Thung (SLG) $12.95 – So cute!
    Death Trap by Lane Milburn $10.00
    Psychoshit Fuck by Jose Angeles $25.00

    Mags & Lit Journals
    Venus Zine #43 $4.50
    Artifice Magazine #1 $7.00
    Giant Robot #65 $4.95

    Fiction & Poetry
    These Children Who Come at You With Knives and Other Fairy Tale Stories by Jim Knipfel (Simon) $14.00
    Light Boxes by Shane Jones (Penguin) $14.00

    DIY
    Boneshaker #42-500 A Bicycling Almanac $6.00
    Above the Pavement the Farm Architechture & Agriculture at PF1 by var. (Princeton) $19.95
    Yum Yum Bento Box Fresh Recipes for Adorable Lunches by var. (Quirk) $16.95

    Mayhem, Outer Limits, Trouble Makin’
    Beyond the Matrix Daring Conversations With the Brilliant Minds of Our Times by Patricia Cori (North Atlantic) $18.95
    Role Models by John Waters (FSG) $25.00

    Art
    Graffiti Asia by var. (Laurence Ki) $24.95 – Comes with a DVD
    Nymphonomena by Pat Barrett $6.00

    Essay/Political
    No Impact Man the Adventures of A Guilty Liberal Who Attempts To Save The Planet by Colin Beavan (Picador) $15.00
    Made By Hand Searching for Meaning in a Throwaway World by Mark Frauenfelder (Penguin) $25.95 – Written by the founder of Boing Boing and Editor in Chief of Make
    Wheres My Wand One Boys Magical Triumph Over Alienation and Shag Carpeting by Eric Poole (Penguin) $24.95
    Lexicon of Labor More Than 500 Key Terms Biographical Sketches… by Emmett R Murray (New Press) $17.95
    Not Written In Stone: Learning and Unlearning American History Through 200 Years of Textbooks by Kyle Ward (New Press) $22.50
    End of Major Combat Operations by Nick McDonell (McSweeneys) $12.95

    Music Books
    Van Dyke Parks’ Song Cycle, From the 33 1/3 Series by Richard Henderson (Continuum) $10.95
    Perfecting Sound Forever an Aural History of Recorded Music by Greg Milner (Faber) $17.00

    Other
    Louis Sullivans Doors of Chicago Poster by Matt Bergstrom $20.00 – From the maker of the Build Your Own Chicago and New York Postcards.

  • Alan Goldsher & Artist Jeffrey Brown

    Paul Is DeadWriter Alan Goldsher & Artist Jeffrey Brown will present their new book, Present Paul Is UnDead: The British Zombie Invasion, that Goldsher wrote and Brown illustrated.

    Are readers ready for a world in which the Beatles just wanna eat your brains? ALAN GOLDSHER (Hard Bop Academy) thinks so, and he may be right. In this humor-filled splatterfest, the rise and fall of the zombie Beatles unfolds through eyewitness accounts, newspaper clippings, and interviews. Violence and music go hand-in-hand as the zombiefied Lennon, Harrison, and McCartney fight, eat, and rock their way to fame and popularity while ninja lord Ringo Starr tries to keep them out of trouble. Nothing can stop them–not even a vampiric Pete Best, zombie-killing Mick Jagger, rival ninja Yoko Ono, or bad reviews. In fact, their only enemies may be one another, as personal conflicts threaten to break them up for good. Roughly paralleling the real-world career of the Beatles, this alternate history reimagines successes, failures, and rivalries with over-the-top bizarro charm.

    JEFFREY BROWN illustrated Paul Is Undead. He’s best known for his bittersweet autobiographical graphic novels like Clumsy, Unlikely, and more. His work has appeared in McSweeney’s, NPR’s This American Life, the Chicago Reader, the New City, and Time. He has been featured on and created a short animated music video for the band Death Cab For Cutie.

    For more info:
    alangoldsher.com
    Jeffreybrowncomics.com
    http://www.topshelfcomix.com/catalog/jeffrey-brown

  • Robert K. Elder reads Last Words of the Executed

    Last Words Cover

    The final words of the famous and infamous have been collected since antiquity because they speak to a primal curiosity and spark introspection: What does one say on the edge of oblivion?

    We expect last words to be poignant, a résumé or summation of life experience. Sometimes they are, sometimes they are not. We want them to reveal secrets. But they very seldom do. Journalist Robert K. Elder spent 7 years writing Last Words of the Executed, chronicling the ?nal thoughts of the most discarded, reviled members of society. It’s an oral history of the overlooked, the infamous and the forgotten—who nonetheless speak to a common humanity with their last act on earth. This is the history of capital punishment in America, told from the gallows, the chair, and the gurney.

    “This is a dangerous book. Who knows how we will emerge from the encounter? It makes me want to live, to use my energies in soul-sized pursuits like justice, like love…”
    —Sister Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking
    “Robert K. Elder is a journalist in the noblest tradition. . . . What I will remember most about this book is its poetry in the speech of people at the most traumatic moment of their lives.”
    —Studs Terkel, from the foreword

    For more info: http://lastwordsoftheexecuted.com

  • Work In Progress at Quimbys

    wipThe rumors are true, our monthly social get together, Work In Progress is tons of fun! It happens that last Wednesday of the month, and involves free snacks, and working on projects in a social atmosphere.

    You can either present something your working on, and get feedback, or just hang out and work on your project and not feel so all alone for one night.

    Stop by June 30 from 7 – 8:30pm for a good time!

  • Work In Progress May 26

    Don’t forget!4588303758_366324f949

    Tomorrow is our monthly creative get-together, Work In Progress.

    It’s a great event to come to if you’re interested in working on a project in a social atmosphere, or if you need advice on something you’re working on, or you want to eat our free snacks.

    It starts at 7pm, and runs until 8:30-ish. Hope you can make it, bring whatever you want to work on!

    Work In Progress happens the last Wednesday of every month!

  • Weekly Top 10

    Yes. We do offer gift certificates.
    Yes. We do offer gift certificates.

    So a teacher was teaching a class about David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest, and the winning essay received a Quimby’s gift certificate. With footnotes. Three footnotes.

    This week’s top 10:

    1. Henry And Glenn Forever by Tornado Igloo (Tom Neely, Scot Nobles, Gin Stevens ) (Microcosm) $4.00

    2. Is It THE FUTURE Yet? by Corrine Mucha $3.00 – AVAILABLE ONLY AT QUIMBY’S!

    3. Kinship Structure of Ferns by Lee Relvas $10.00

    4. Arty Party by Sara Drake and James Payne $4.00 – Art history yuks and guffaws! 24pp, b&w, 8.5″x11″

    5. Big Questions #14 Title and Deed by Anders Nilsen (D+Q) $7.95

    6. Bike Snob: Systematically & Mercilessly Realigning the World of Cycling by Bike Snob NYC (Chronicle) $16.95

    7. Bust Jun Jul 10 $4.99

    8. Ovulation Awareness, Sex Ed and Social Commentary, 2nd ed. by Sam $4.00 – If you or someone you know ovulates you should probably read this fertile feminist DIY health zine.

    9. Birthday Bees by Rylan Thompson $10.00

    10. Weathercraft by Jim Woodring (Fantagraphics) $19.99 – Down the wormhole we go with Manhog, spiraling through the vaguely Midieval worldspheres of the Unifactor. This new volume is a full force onslaught of Woodring’s glorious geography of constantly shifting torments and delights and its effects are longer lasting than most psychedelic drugs I could compare it to. -EF

  • Learnapalooza


    Quimby’s is proud to team up with the organizers of Learnapalooza, a free, day-long neighborhood festival happening on June 19, 2010 in the Wicker Park neighborhood of Chicago where community members, both businesses and residents, will exchange skills with one another. Anyone who has anything to share – and basically we all do – can offer a workshop. The idea is to provide a fun and free way for neighbors to share their passions and for everyone to learn new skills. The organizers of the festival hope that all attendees will realize how much they have to teach and learn from others.

    Of course Quimby’s is participating! We’re offering three workshops about how to get involved in independent publishing, since that’s of course what we’re known for. Each of our workshops are 45 minutes long, and they’re at 2:00, 3:00 and 4:00 that day. There are workshops in a variety of places, and we hope that you’ll stop in to Quimby’s to attend our portion of the ‘palooza! You are of course welcome to come in on the day of as a walk-in, but if you RSVP to tell us ya think you might make it, we’d appreciate it so we know how many people to expect.

    For more info or to sign up to teach a class, learn something new, or be a volunteer the day of: Learnapalooza

    Quimby’s Workshops: Sat., June 19th, 2:00pm, 3:00pm and 4:00pm