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  • Emil Ferris Debuts Her Graphic Novel My Favorite Thing is Monsters

    My Favorite Thing is Monsters by Emil Ferris (Fantagraphics Books) is a murder mystery, a family drama, a sweeping historical epic, and a psychological thriller about monsters, real and imagined, within and without. Set against the tumultuous political backdrop of late ’60s Chicago, the precocious Karen Reyes tries to solve the murder of her beautiful and enigmatic upstairs neighbor, Anka Silverberg, a holocaust survivor, while we get to watch the interconnected and fascinating stories of those around her unfold. My Favorite Thing Is Monsters is a revelatory work of striking originality and will undoubtedly be greeted as the debut graphic novel of the year.

    “Absolutely astonishing” – Chris Ware, Building Stories

    “No one has ever made a comic like Emil Ferris …it threatens not merely to exceed established standards of excellence, but to set new ones.” — Sam Thielman, The Guardian

    Emil Ferris grew up Chicago during the turbulent 1960s, where she still lives, and is consequently a devotee of all things monstrous and horrific. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from The School of the Art Institute. This is her first graphic novel

    Invite your friends with the Facebook invite!

    For more info: Pederson(at)fantagraphics(dot)com

     

  • New Stuff This Week

    *ZINES*

    How to Plan For Action: A Protest Prep Zine by Sarah Friedman $1.00

    How Not to Kill Yourself Zine: A Survival Guide For Imaginative Pessimists by by Set Sytes $4.00

    Conspiracy Fun Book Learn Real Historical Facts About the Dark Underworld of Oppression and Murder That School “forgot” to Teach You! by Joseph E. Green $4.00

    Grief and Other Things Men Gave Me by Jane Belinda $6.00

    Judas Goat Quarterly #72 Win 16 by Grant Schreiber $1.50

    Coup #1 Collection of Unfinished Projects Angle $10.00

    The Lowbrow Reader #10 $4.00 – Illustrations by David Berman, Drew Friedman, Gilbert Gottfried, and Jeffrey Lewis. Lowbrow hero Amy Heckerling spills the beans on Joseph Goebbels’s secret diary. (Her article is pretty timely—sad!) The Velvet Underground’s connection to the diabolic Steve Urkel is explored. Mel Brooks is discussed. What’s not to love?

    Borderless #2 Passport $15.00

    Xerography Debt #40 $4.00 – The review zine with perzine tendencies!


    Pedal By Pedal: A Zine About Women Over Forty Who Ride Bicycles: vol 1 by Julie Brooks $5.00

    Going Places #2 Powow Country $3.00

    10 Hot Sax Positions by Joe Degeorge Sax Machine $2.50

    Lizard People: Dear Reader: A DIY Guide to Searching For Weird Shit by Julia Eff $2.00

    Curio: A Book of Paper Toys by Anna Jo Beck $10.00 – Curio: A Book of Paper Toys is a collection over 20 paper toys. A lithographed and hand bound artist book in an edition of 30.

    The Cool Teen’s Guide To Fingering by infoTEENment $2.00

    The Cool Teen’s Guide To The Mall by infoTEENment $2.00

    Seeing and Believing by Maureen Ohara Ure $24.00

    In Flight Safety $10.00

    Brutal by Nathan Pearce $2.00

    *COMICS & MINIS*

    Unquotable Trump #1 by R. Sikoryak $4.00 – Collects the first 16 covers posted on the unquotabletrump.tumblr.com page. All Trump dialogue from the 2016 presidential campaign and beyond. Drawn by R. Sikoryak.

    Possession Scenes Collected #1-#5 by Lyra Hill $10.00

    Monstrum Ingenium Myth Series #1 by Rodger Binyone $5.00

    Halvin and Cobbes by Jared Solomon $8.00

    *GRAPHIC NOVELS*

    2 books by Tillie Walden:
    The End of Summer $18.00
    I Love This Part $12.00

    Abominable Mr. Seabrook by Joe Ollmann (D+Q) $22.95

    Zonzo by Joan Cornella (Fantagraphics) $14.99 – 50 all-new strips of smiling psychopaths!

    Dept. H vol 1 by Matt Kindt (Dark Horse) $19.99

    *ART BOOKS*

    Biomech Visions by Andres Hurtado (Last Gasp) $29.00

    *MAYHEM & OUTER LIMITS*

    Practical Spellcraft: A First Course in Magic by Leanna Greenaway $16.95

    Shamanic Graffiti: 100,000 Years of Drugs, 100 Years of Prohibition by Frank Ogden, Marcus Ashley Rummery (Trine Day) $19.95 – Freud said dreams were the “royal road” to the unconscious, and then along came a superhighway: psychedelics. Personally, we can access the psychedelic experience, but Frank Ogden shepherded over a thousand people’s experiences. What is presented is the howling unconscious released from the normal chemical constraints that restrict it. Written in the simple, but vivid style Frank popularized in his bestselling, The Last Book You’ll Ever Read, Shamanic Graffiti presents an alternative history of the brain and it’s functions: shamanism. Giving real world examples, the book finishes-up by exploring the theories of two pre-eminent psychedelic theoreticians, Dr. Timothy Leary and Dr. Stan Grof and looks at the future of psychedelic drugs.

    Esoteric Hollywood: Sex, Cults and Symbols in Film by Jay Dyer (Trine Day) $19.95 – Sample quote, accompanied by a picture of Elliot from E.T. on his bike in front of the moon, “Elliot has all the power of a male witch. Is he a moonchild?”

    Rivals of the Ripper: Unsolved Murders of Women In Late Victorian London by Jan Bondeson $35.00

    Legends: Murder, Lies and Cover-Ups: Marilyn Monroe, Princess Diana, Elvis Presley, JFK and Michael Jackson: Who Killed Them and Why They Didn’t Have to Die by David Gardner $14.95

    *POLITICS & REVOLUTION*

    Worshiping Power: An Anarchist View of Early State Formation by Peter Gelderloos (AK Press) $16.00

    Antifascism, Sports, Sobriety: Forging a Militant Working-Class Culture by Julius Deutsch (PM Press) $14.95

    *MAGS*

    Tape Op #117 Jan Feb 17 $4.95

    Majestic Disorder #8 $18.99

    Vive Le Rock #41 Iggy Pop and The Damned $10.50

    Harpers Magazine Feb 17 $6.99

    Make vol 55 Feb Mar 17 $9.99

    Four Two Nine #9 $12.99

    Four and Sons #6 Dogs and Culture Collide Fall Win 16 $19.99

    *LIT JOURNALS & CHAP BOOKS*

    Parody vol 5 #2 $5.00 – The Weird Al of Lit Journals!

    The Chicago Review vol 60 #2 Helen Adam and Her Circle $15.00

    Sail On Silver Girl by Katryn Macko $5.00

  • New Stuff This Week

    Brain Frame Yearbook 2011-2014. $50 Long live #comics! #brainframe #quimbys #quimbysbookstorechicago

    A photo posted by Quimbys Bookstore (@quimbysbookstore) on

    Brain Frame Yearbook 2011-2014

    *ZINES*

    American Dream #3 $3.00

    As You Were #1 by Bill Brown $3.00

    Soda Killers #13 $5.00

    *COMICS*

    Mike Pence’s Worst Nightmare by Ally Whitelaw & Becca Regan $4.00

    Houses Giant Sized First Issue by Matthew Schmid $5.00

    Verdict #1 by Kwame Teague $5.00

    Lucky #1 a Gangster Comic by Christian Cipollini $5.00

    Laskimooses #33 Maakausien Hamarassa $7.00

    True Adventures of Jep Comix #6 Summer 16 by Jep $4.00

    *MAYHEM*

    The Beautiful Brain: The Drawings of Santiago Ramón y Cajal $40.00 – The art of brainscans!

    Explorations in Awareness: Finding God by Meditating with Entheogens by John W. Aiken $17.95

    *MUSIC & FILM BOOKS*

    Headliners by Jamel Hewitt $20.00

    The Official Making of Big Trouble in Little China by Tara Bennett $39.99

    Lonely Boy: Tales From a Sex Pistol by Steve Jones $26.99

    *FICTION*

    Only the Animals: Stories by Ceridwen Dovey $18.00

    Zeke Stage One by Ward J. Pyle $13.95

    *POLITICS & REVOLUTION BOOKS*

    Culture As Weapon: The Art of Influence In Everyday Life by Nato Thompson (Melville House) $24.99

    *MAGAZINES*

    Uppercase #32 A Magazine for the Creative and Curious

    Wire #395 Jan 17 Peter Brotzmann $10.99

    *LIT JOURNALS, CHAP BOOKS & POETRY*

    The First Line vol 18 #4 Win 16 $4.00

    The Last Line #3 Win 16 $3.00

    Book of Days by Jason Triefenbach $3.00

    Revise the Psalm Work: Celebrating the Writing of Gwendolyn Brooks by Qraysh Ali Lansana (Curbside Splendor) $24.95

    *POLITICAL BOOKS*

    Hegemony How-To: A Roadmap for Radicals by Jonathan Smucker (AK Press) $16.95

  • Black Eye Number 3 Release & Signing 2/18

    This event is occasioned by the publication of BLACK EYE No. 3, the final and timely volume of the Ignatz-nominated Black Eye, the anthology of humor and despair published by Rotland Press. This all-comics issue compiles 136 pages with a jaundiced eye on the zeitgeist. Subtitled “A Shameful Enlightenment,” it is a riff on the absurdity of our times, as charted by a coterie of 36 international cartoonists. Black Eye No. 3 will thrill, sicken, amuse, titillate, horrify, and fortify. This event is an opportunity to bring together five of the contributing artists who are based in Chicago: Andy Burkholder, Corinne Halbert, Paul Nudd, Onsmith and Johnny Sampson. Copies of BLACK EYE No. 3 will be available for purchase, as well as a limited edition letterpress print by Paul Nudd, and a limited edition risograph print by UK artist Ben Jones. The Sightseer’s Complement, a limited run, 40-page supplemental book to Black Eye No. 3 will also be available for purchase and signing.

      “Ryan Standfest brings together an exquisitely curated collection of funny, dark, and beguiling comic art for Black Eye No. 3. I’m going to read my copy by a roaring arson blaze.”  —Kaz, Creator of the comic strip Underworld

    The contributors to Black Eye No. 3 include: Alexis Beauclair, Tom Bunk, Andy Burkholder, Max Clotfelter, Mark Dancey, Kayla E., Vincenzo Fagnani, Penelope Gazin, Julia Gfrörer, Anna Haifisch, Corinne Halbert, Eric Haven, Ian Huebert, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Clara Bessijelle Johansson, Francis Kulikowski, Meghan Lamb, David Lynch, John Maggie, Nicolas Mahler, Jérôme Mulot, Erik Nebel, Paul Nudd, Onsmith, Pierre La Police, Helge Reumann, Josephin Ritschel, Martin Rowson, Florent Ruppert, Johnny Sampson, David Sandlin, S. William Schudlich, Santiago Sequeiros, Sammy Stein, Brecht Vandenbroucke, Chris Wright The cover is by Joan Cornellà. The book is edited by Ryan Standfest.

    Founded in 2010, ROTLAND PRESS is a small publishing house located in Detroit, Michigan, USA. It is a publisher of printed projects that promote subversive humor— be it black, dark, gallows, satirical or absurd. ROTLAND PRESS aims to occupy a place between the mainstream and the avant-garde, the philistine and the genteel, industriously manufacturing the finest in despairing entertainment. Ryan Standfest in the Publisher and Editor-In-Chief. More info: rotlandpress.com

    Sat, Feb 18th, 7pm – Free Event

    Here’s the Facebook event to invite your friends!

  • Quimby's Welcomes Michael DeForge with Sadie Dupuis 3/25

    Join Michael DeForge for a live reading and book signing as he introduces the world to Sticks Angelica, Folk Hero. Sticks has escaped her heritage for the refuge of the woods and through her story, DeForge delivers another deeply humane work, one that subtly questions the integrity of the political state and contemporary journalism, all while investigating our relationship to the natural world.

    Michael will be joined by musician Sadie Dupuis (Sad13, Speedy Ortiz) who will play a solo set following the reading. Come out for a celebratory lo-fi comics night!

    Invite your friends to this event with the Facebook invite here!

    More info about the book:

    A Johnson has his Boswell and every Sticks Angelica has her Michael DeForge

    Sticks Angelica is, in her own words, “49 years old. Former: Olympian, poet, scholar, sculptor, minister, activist, Governor General, entrepreneur, line cook, headmistress, Mountie, columnist, libertarian, cellist.” After a high-profile family scandal, Sticks escapes to the woods to live in what would be relative isolation were it not for the many animals that surround and inevitably annoy her. Sticks is an arrogant self-obsessed force who wills herself on the flora and fauna. There is a rabbit named Oatmeal who harbors an unrequited love for her, a pair of kissing geese, a cross-dressing moose absurdly named Lisa Hanawalt. When a reporter named, ahem, Michael DeForge shows up to interview Sticks for his biography on her, she quickly slugs him and buries him up to his neck, immobilizing him. Instead, Sticks narrates her way through the forest, recalling formative incidents from her storied past in what becomes a strange sort of autobiography.

    Deforge’s witty dialogue and deadpan narration create a bizarre, yet eerily familiar world. Sticks Angelica, Folk Hero plays with autobiography, biography, and hagiography to look at how we build our own sense of self and how others carry on the roles we create for them in our own personal dramas.

     

    Author Bio:

    Michael DeForge was born in 1987 and grew up in Ottawa, Ontario. His one-person anthology series Lose has been nominated for, or won, every major comics award including the Ignatz and Eisner awards. His previous graphic novels with Drawn & Quarterly are Ant Colony, Big Kids, and First Year Healthy. This March he releases Sticks Angelica, Folk Hero.

    Sadie Dupuis is a musician, writer and artist who most frequently performs as the frontdemon of the rock group Speedy Ortiz, which has released two critically acclaimed albums for Carpark Records. She also writes politically-geared pop songs under the moniker Sad13. Based in Philadelphia, her writing on music has been published in Spin, New York Magazine, and Nylon, and she earned an MFA in poetry from UMass Amherst.

    Sat, March 25th, 7pm  FREE EVENT

  • In New York? GRAND OPENING QUIMBY’S BOOKSTORE NYC, 2/4/17!

    GRAND OPENING

    QUIMBY’S BOOKSTORE NYC

    SATURDAY FEBRUARY 4th, 2017

    7:00 – 10:00

    At 7:00 PM, Steven Svymbersky will give a short slide show talk on the history of zines followed by champagne and hors d’oeuvres.

    This event is also the opening for the first major survey of works by sculptor and collage artist, Eric Kirsammer.

    Quimby’s Bookstore NYC

    536 Metropolitan Ave

    Brooklyn, NY 11211

    718-384-1215

    quimbysbookstorenyc(at)gmail(dot)com

    quimbysbookstorenyc can be found on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter & Tumblr

    Quimby’s Bookstore NYC joins Desert Island Comics on Metropolitan Ave in Williamsburg to bring you every cool, queer, sick, rad, aberrant, dope, weird, impossible publication available, something you never knew existed but that now you need.

    Steven Svymbersky originally opened Quimby’s Bookstore in Chicago’s Wicker Park neighborhood in 1991.  That store recently celebrated their 25th anniversary. Quimby’s specializes in zines, alternative magazines and underground books. Subject matter includes LGBTQ, Anarchism, Tattooing, Creative Resistance, Drugs, Minority and Women’s Issues, Taxidermy, Occult, Punk Rock, Cycling, Urban Farming, Vegetarianism, Morbid Anatomy, as well as the more outré artists working in fiction and photography. 

    In December 2016, Svymbersky opened the second Quimby’s location next door to Desert Island Comics (Best Comics Resource, Village Voice 2016). Desert Island has been on Metropolitan Ave over eight years.  Founder, Gabe Fowler is also the publisher of the comics anthology Resist!/Smoke Signals and every year in November organizes New York’s largest underground comics convention, Comics Art Brooklyn.

  • Tom Tresser & Friends talk Chicago Is Not Broke 2/8

    Quimby’s welcomes authors from the book “Chicago Is Not Broke: Funding the City We Deserve,” a collection of short articles by various writers, edited by Tom Tresser, showing how we can save and generate MAJOR sustainable, progressive revenues for Chicago. The authors are all local experts in civic policy and many are educators. We seek to use this book and the ideas in it to influence Chicago’s budget process and larger discussions about our future. Details of the chapters and author bios are at www.wearenotbroke.org.

    Tom Tresser is a civic educator and public defender. His first voter registration campaign was in 1972. In 2008 he was a co-founder of Protect Our Parks, a neighborhood effort to stop the privatization of public space in Chicago. He was a lead organizer for No Games Chicago, an all-volunteer grassroots effort that opposed Chicago’s 2016 Olympic bid. Tom co-founded The CivicLab, a co-working space where activists, educators, coders and designers came to work, collaborate, teach, and build tools for civic engagement. Located in Chicago’s West Loop, the space operated for two eventful years closing on June 30, 2015. He is the lead organizer for the TIF Illumination Project that is investigating and explaining the impacts of Tax Increment Financing districts on a community-by-community basis.

    For more info: Tom Tresser, 312-804-3230  tom(at)civiclab(dot)us

    Here’s the Facebook event post to invite your friends!

    Wed, Feb 8th, 7pm – Free Event

  • New Stuff This Week

    Just in: New David Alvarado comic #quimbysbookstorechicago #comics

    A photo posted by Quimbys Bookstore (@quimbysbookstore) on


    Life is Beautiful vol 2 Teen Dreams and Other Stories by David Alvarado $10.00

    *ZINES*

    KerBloom #123 Nov Dec 16 by Artnoose $2.00

    Put a Egg On It #13 $8.00

    Disruptor #3 Fall Win 16 Exploring DIY Punk and Hardcore Live From Chicago by Lucas Reif $5.00

    Sick Muse #6 Dec 16 $6.00

    When the Day Is New by Tim Pigott $3.00

    *COMICS & MINIS*

    New stuff, shipment from Birdcage Bottom. #comics #quimbysbookstorechicago

    A photo posted by Quimbys Bookstore (@quimbysbookstore) on


    As You Were #5 A Punk Comix Anthology: This Job Sucks (Silver Sprocket Bicycle Club) $15.00

    Coffee Spoons #3 by Megan Kirby $4.00

    Air Waves Goodbye by Steve Stelling $4.00

    Spinning A Yarn by Krystal Difronzo $4.00

    Crooked Teeth #6 by Nate Doyle $10.00

    Cyanide Milkshake #8 by Liz Suburbia $3.00

    Wandering Uterus and Contemporary Applications of Ancient Medical Wisdom a Pathology Laffs Minicomic by Kriota Willberg $5.00

    The Black Hood Anthology of Depression and Anxiety $10.00 – This book is determined do for comics about Depression what Black Flag did for songs about depression. 72 pages, with 10 color pieces by artists like John Porcellino, Box Brown, Tara Booth, Noah Van Sciver, Elizabeth Bethea, Josh Simmons, Mike Freiheit, Pat Aulisio, Katie Fricas, Mike (Late Era Clash) Taylor, Hyena Hell, and many others. Includes a one page comic/interview with Dwid Hellion from famed HC band Integrity, and an essay by artist/writer Eve Wood.

    Our Best Shot: Disclosures of Unlawful Compassion in the United States by Avi (Silver Sprocket Bicycle Club) $4.00

    *GRAPHIC NOVELS*

    Mimi and the Wolves vols 1-3 by Alabaster. Now in stock! $12.00 each! #witchycute

    A photo posted by Quimbys Bookstore (@quimbysbookstore) on

    Mimi and the Wolves Act 3 The Howl by Alabaster $12.00

    *POLITICS, REVOLUTION & CURRENT EVENTS BOOKS*

    The Secret State: A History of Intelligence and Espionage by John Hughes-Wilson (Pegasus Press) $29.95

    *MAGAZINES*
    Maximumrocknroll #404 Jan 17 $4.99
    Razorcake #95 $4.00
    Juxtapoz #193 Feb 17 $6.99
    Skeptic vol 21 #4 16 $6.95
    Skeptical Inquirer vol 41 #1 Jan Feb 17 $5.99
    2600 the Hacker Quarterly vol 33 #4 Win 2016-2017 $5.95
    The Big Takeover #79 $5.99
    Atlantis Rising #121 Jan Feb 17 $6.95
    Nexus vol 24 #1 Jan Feb 17 $6.95
    Neural #55 $7.99
    Magnet #138 $4.99
    Witches and Pagans #33 $6.95
    Ugly Things #43 $9.95
    Victory Journal #12 $16.00
    Delayed Gratification #24 $20.00
    Fate #730 $5.95
    Tom Tom Magazine #28 $6.00
    Cannabis Now #23 $7.99
    Man About Town #19 Win 2016-2017 $19.99
    Frankie #74 $14.95
    RFD #168 Win 16 Sisters $9.95
    Ghetto Blaster #45 $4.50
    Shindig #61 $12.99

    *CHAP BOOKS, LIT JOURNALS & POETRY*

    Slow Reader Magazine #1 On Haruki Murakami (Madras Press) $8.00 – Collects stories, essays, poems, illustrations, and some in-betweens that center around novelist Haruki Murakami. A poem by Raymond Carver talks of tea with Murakami and getting hit in the ear with a snowball; the Murakami menu from Nodoguro in Portland, Ore., includes Norwegian Wood (seared Japanese eggplant, bonito, ginger, and red miso) and Kafka on the Shore (sea bream sashimi with citrus skin salad and pepper); Aimee Bender writes of what it is to trust an artist, and the experience, when reading Murakami, of having “gone somewhere new, a metaphysical spelunking.” There are also contributions by Jesse Ball, Rivka Galchen, Chris Ware, Yoko Ogawa, Etgar Keret, and others.

    N+1 Deep End #27 No President $14.95

    Brooklyn To Mars #11 $7.99

    Mercenary Girdler by Elizabeth Harper $10.00

    There’s One For That #1 by Orla Foster $3.50

    The Paris Review #219 $20.00

    Fillip Supplement #1 $5.00

    The Iowa Review vol 46 #3 Win 2016-2017 $8.95

    My Nipples and Not Apologizing For Them #1 A Story of Womanhood and Triumph by Annie Baldwin $11.00

    *SEXXXY*

    Elska #9 Yokohama Japan $18.50

  • January Quimby's Newsletter

    Read our whole monthly newsletter at this link here, as well as sign up for future issues sent directly to your inbox!

  • Quimby’s 2017 Zlumber Party 1/28-1/29

    Hey zinesters and comics artists! Come to our Zlumber Party (as in Zine Slumber Party)! This is the sixth year in a row we’re inviting you to come in and spend the night with us working on your zine, and start your year off with a creative frenzy! Get here at 9:30 on Sat, Jan 28th (the store closes at 10pm). Then spend the night here! Stay until 6am Sun, Jan 29th! (And yes, you can leave whenever you want before then if you want or need to.) So bring yer jammies and a sleeping bag, then leave in the morning with what you’ve been workin’ on! There will be snacks! And coffee!

    What: Zlumber Party 2017!

    When: Sat, Jan 28th, 9:30pm – Sun, Jan 29th, 6am

    Where: Here at Quimby’s Bookstore at 1854 W. North Ave, Chicago

    RSVP: Give us a holler so we have a head count: info(at)quimbys(dot)com.

    Invite your friends with the Facebook invite here.

    Helpful hints!

    *In terms of what to bring, definitely whatever project you’re working on, whether it’s a zine, a comic, a book, a magazine, an artist book — independent publishing knows no bounds!

    *Be here at 9:30pm (the store closes at 10pm). This is NOT a lock in; you can leave whenever you want. You can stay as late as 6am on sunday morning, which is the official end time for the event.

    *Wear comfy clothes! Don’t forget your sleeping gear! A sleeping bag if you wanna take a break to catch a few zzzz (or just be comfy), a pillow, footie pajamas, a blanket, slippers…whatever makes you comfy.

    *We’ll provide some snacks and coffee, but you may want to bring some snacks with you if you like. A good way to make new friends is bring food, is all we’re saying. If you have food sensitivities or allergies please bring whatever nourishment you need to bring to sustain you.

    *We’ll also provide some office supplies (papers, pens, scissors, staplers, that type of thing), chairs and tables.

    *One final note: Please don’t feel pressured to feel like you have to finish whatever you’re working on before you leave. If you feel excited to work on your project once you’ve been working on it here, that you’ve started your 2017 off jazzed that you got the creative ball rolling, then we’ve done our job (that’s once of the reasons we do this event in January). When you’re all done with your zine and you want to consign it here, we’re excited to sell it for you. More info about consignment here: https://www.quimbys.com/consignment

    Also, click here for more info about consigning at Quimby’s Bookstore NYC!