Blog

  • Version Fest Time Again

    Spring is in the air and so is impending arty madness. Its the time of year coked out art vampires don sunblock to go out of their bat caves once again and the smelly art kids return to the streets to fight the man and their boredom with a mix of dance moves and wheat pasted stickiness. In a dark void somewhere in between these two groups Version >08 is taking place. So check out the website for full schedule and to make sure you don’t miss any of the fun!

  • 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

  • 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

  • Al Burian….reading?

    alreading.jpg

    Wow, this signage magically popped up in the poster area. So if your in Chicago Sunday here’s your chance to check out Al & Jessica reading…and its free! Nice use of glitter too!!!

  • New Stuff 4/12/08

    ganges2

    Wow the free area is bursting with fat new issues of Vice, ANP Quarterly and Lumpen. So even if the purse strings are a little tight we got you covered this misty gray day. If you got dough then we got the fancy new Gary Panter book in stock and the new issues of Kevin Huizenga’s Ganges #2, plus new issues of Handbook and GLU if you swing that way. Whoa!

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  • Alix Lambert Crime Event

    Author Alix Lambert will read from and sign copies of her book CRIME: A Series of Extraordinary Interviews Exposing the World of Crime – Real and Imagined.



    As long as it has been documented, crime has captivated the public’s imagination. This book brings together the world of crime with its artistic counterpart and allows a dialogue to develop between the two. Through interviews with detectives, actors, murderers, film directors, prison inmates and authors, Alix Lambert uncovers both the prosaic and the extraordinary in a subject that implicates us all.

    Over 5O interviews including:
    Ben Affleck, Jake Arnott, LAPD Chief Bratton, Michael Buscemi, Dave Courtney, David Cronenberg, Mike Hodges, Ice-T, Takeshi Kitano, Dennis Lehane, Elmore Leonard, David Mamet, Viggo Mortensen, Samantha Morton

    The New York Times Sunday Magazine named Alix Lambert as one of “30 people under 30 who will change the culture in the next 30 years.”  Lambert’s feature length documentary “The Mark of Cain” was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award and aired on Nightline. “The Mark of Cain” was used as reference by David Cronenberg in the making of his film “Eastern Promises”. She went on to produce additional segments of Nightline as well as produce 7 segments for the PBS series LIFE 360.  Her fine art work has been exhibited in galleries and museums worldwide for the past 15 years. Her work has been shown at the Venice Biennale, The Museum of Modern art in New York, and the Georges Pompidou Center in Paris, to name a few. She was nominated for the BAUM award in photography. She was the Silver Award Documentary Winner at the Atlantic City Film Festival. Lambert is a contributing editor for INDEX magazine and for the literary journal OPEN CITY.  As a performer Ms. Lambert is a member of the Obie award winning theater group The Civilians and was seen on stage at PS122 in Nobody’s Lunch.  Lambert wrote Episode 6, season 3 of Deadwood: “A Rich Find” and is currently a writer and associate producer on the new HBO / David Milch drama: John From Cinicinnati.  Lambert was recently nominated for a WGA award for outstanding writing for a dramatic series for her Deadwood episode.

  • Peel Book Release Event

    Celebrate the release of “PEEL: The Art of the Sticker,” a book chronicling PEEL’s innovative coverage of street art as authors Dave and Holly Combs sign copies of the book, give a short talk and possibly pass out free stickers.

    PEEL Magazine, now in its fourth year, is the first street-art magazine with a focus on stickers. “Peel: The Art of the Sticker,” which sells for $33 and was designed by MTV art director Shelly Fukushima and published by Mark Batty, includes 69 art stickers bound into each book. All book purchases come with additional stickers donated by the artists.

    “Though the artists in the show employ a very wide range of styles and techniques and represent diverse cultures, they all use the sticker as a medium for their work – and that makes it highly accessible,” said Holly Combs.

    PEEL got its start after Dave and Holly Combs traveled to New York City to assist with Sept. 11 recovery efforts. While exploring Manhattan during their off hours, they were inspired by the wealth of stickers they saw all over the city. In the years since, PEEL evolved from a black and white zine stuffed into plastic bags to a full-size, glossy, internationally distributed magazine. Their new book documents the development of both PEEL and the sticker culture.

    “We’re helping add yet another tool to an artist’s arsenal in the form of the sticker,” Dave Combs said. “PEEL Magazine and our new book work to showcase sticker art’s social and aesthetic power.”

  • Michel Valdes Event

    Join Michel Valdes as he reads form the new issue of School Daze.

    Michel Valdes is a middle school teacher in Los Angeles, CA. When he’s not being the envy of every 7th and 8th grader he writes a zine or two.

    He will be presenting and reading from School Daze Year 1–a zine which chronicles his experiences being a teacher.  Come by and say hello..he’ll do his best to make you feel that you can be anything you want when you grow up.