Re/Read in a recurring column by Fantagraphics Bookstore curator Larry Reid that examines backlist titles you may have missed or are worthy of another read. This time we’ll look at Guy Colwell’s essential Inner City Romance. Inner City Romance collects five issues of the transitional underground comic book series of the same name, originally published from 1972 to 1978. Colwell’s comix provide an unvarnished look at the impact of crippling poverty, substance abuse, and violent crime in the aftermath of the Bay Area’s sixties counterculture. His work is informed by his incarceration at McNeil Island federal penitentiary as a Viet…
What’s in Store: Rock is Not Dead
Join us on Saturday, March 22 from 6:00 to 8:00 PM at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery as we celebrate the release of Rock is Not Dead, a collection of comix and prose inspired by contemporary pop music. This ambitious publication, from Canada’s 11th Dimension Press, comes complete with a CD of the songs referenced in the book. The event will include a performance by Amy Denio, who is featured on the project covering the Throwing Muses “Not Too Soon” which provided the inspiration for Seattle cartoonist Noel Franklin’s contribution to the book. Other subjects include songs by The Clash, Beatles,…
What’s in Store: Northwest Exposure
Don’t miss the Northwest Alternative Comics exhibition at Washington State University’s Museum of Art featuring Jim Woodring, Peter Bagge, Ellen Forney, David Lasky, Max Clotfelter, Tom van Deusen, Eroyn Franklin, Taylor Dow, Mita Mahato, and Paul Chadwick, on view through December 17. Fantagraphics Bookstore curator Larry Reid served as a consultant and will speak (very briefly) at the opening reception on Thursday, October 6. Artist talks, workshops, and related activities are planned throughout the run of the show. WSU is conveniently located in the middle of nowhere, on the border between Washington and Idaho south of Spokane. Then tune up…
Re/Read: Ghosts and Ruins by Ben Catmull
Re/Read is a regular feature by Fantagraphics Bookstore curator Larry Reid focusing on books worthy of closer scrutiny. With Halloween season fast approaching, we’ll look again at the exquisitely spooky opus Ghosts and Ruins by Ben Catmull. Ghosts and Ruins contains meticulously rendered drawings of haunted dwellings and the otherworldly creatures that inhabit them. An atmospheric narrative accompanies each image, revealing the mysterious circumstances of the illustrations. In this attractive hardcover volume, Catmull mines similar territory to his acclaimed comic book Monster Parade. Freed from the conventions of sequential comix, this work evokes the sinister charm of Edward Gorey,…
What’s in Store: Incomparable Cartoonist Charles Burns
Fantagraphics continues its commemoration of 40 years of publishing the world’s greatest cartoonists with an event focusing on one of the founders of the alternative comix movement. Charles Burns appears at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery on Saturday, October 8 at 7:00 to discuss his graphic novel masterpiece Black Hole and other seminal works. Seattle native Charles Burns emerged from the Evergreen State College in nearby Olympia with Lynda Barry and Matt Groening in the mid-’70s. Together, this trio of gifted cartoonists popularized a new approach to contemporary comix. Burns came to the attention of future Pulitzer Prize winner Art Spiegelman, who…
Re/Read: Big Baby by Charles Burns
Re/Read is an occasional column by Fantagraphics Bookstore curator Larry Reid that examines backlist titles you may have missed or are worthy of another read. This week we’ll focus on Big Baby by Seattle native Charles Burns. Big Baby collects four stories created by Burns between 1983 and 1992 from works published in RAW comix anthology and his syndicated “Big Baby” comic strip. Much like the Hernandez Brothers‘ Love & Rockets stories of this period, science fiction plays an important role, though Burns’ EC horror comics influences are more evident. His primary protagonist is a peculiar little boy with an…
What’s in Store: An American Treasure
Only rarely is there discovered a significant body of work by an artist as important as Robert Crumb. The drawings and related artifacts found in the forthcoming exhibition R. Crumb: Early Works, 1965 – 1967 represent a rare opportunity to experience the evolving aesthetic of a prominent American artist. Join us this Saturday, September 10 from 6:00 to 9:00 PM at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery as we unveil this exceptional collection of seminal works by one of history’s most gifted cartoonists. Below is a narrative explaining the origin of this work by Crumb confidant Mimi Currier, who will attend the…
Re/Read: Daishu Ma’s Leaf
Welcome back to Re/Read, an occasional column by Fantagraphics Bookstore curator Larry Reid drawing attention to books that you may have missed or merit another look. This time we’ll focus on Chinese artist Daishu Ma’s graphic novel, Leaf. This wordless story is set in a bleak urban village in the Chinese countryside where an inhabitant discovers a mysterious illuminated leaf amid the congested industrial landscape. His search for meaning leads him through a maze of mechanization that serves as a metaphor for traditional Chinese culture conflicting with contemporary ecological concerns and social identity. Ma’s sublime narrative and alluring rendering…
R. Crumb: Early Works 1965 – 1967 opens September 10
Fantagraphics Books launches an exciting series of events celebrating its 40th anniversary with “R. Crumb: Early Works, 1965 – 1967,” opening Saturday, September 10 from 6:00 to 9:00 PM at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery. This important exhibition features over thirty previously unseen original drawings and arcane artifacts, which demonstrate the development of the artist’s signature style. The show remains on view through November 2, 2016. Robert Crumb is widely considered America’s greatest living cartoonist. His work was recently featured in the Seattle Museum’s “Graphic Masters” exhibition alongside Dürer, Rembrandt, Goya, Hogarth, and Picasso. The seminal work on display at…
Re/Read: R. Crumb’s Kafka
Welcome to Re/Read, an occasional column by Fantagraphics Bookstore curator Larry Reid drawing attention to comix that you may have overlooked or are worthy of another read. We’ll begin with a classic by the great Robert Crumb. Kafka is among the most compelling books by R. Crumb. A collaboration with writer David Zane Mairowitz, this book seamlessly weaves Franz Kafka’s complex stories into a biographical narrative of his life in Prague as Europe descended into turmoil at the turn of the twentieth century. Many of Kafka’s stories foreshadowed the unspeakable horrors that would soon befall his fellow Jews at…
