August 23, 2012 – Seattle, WA. Cartoonist Gary Panter has indelibly influenced four decades of American popular culture. Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery celebrates this remarkable artist with an exhibition of original drawings and colorful prints on Saturday, September 8, from 6:00 to 9:00 PM. Panter will appear to sign copies of his new collection Dal Tokyo, published by Seattle-based Fantagraphics Books.
Gary Panter’s manic “Jimbo” comix and dense illustrations were emblematic of California’s punk movement in the 1970s and later became fixtures in Art Spiegleman’s avant garde RAW Magazine anthology. In the 1980s, Panter cultivated a broader audience as set designer for the unlikely hit children’s television franchise Pee Wee’s Playhouse, where his singular aesthetic was recognized with multiple Emmy Awards. He is widely regarded as one on the most innovative artists in contemporary comix, and in 2006 was included in the sensational “Masters of American Comics” traveling exhibition. In recent years, his work has been published by Matt Groening’s Bongo Comics, Drawn & Quarterly, Picture Box, and two previous volumes from Fantagraphics Books: Jimbo in Purgatory and Jimbo’s Inferno. Panter was the recipient of the prestigious 2012 Klein Award, presented by the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art in New York.
The ambitious Dal Tokyo concept occurred to Panter in the early 1970s – (the title is an amalgam of Dallas in his native Texas, and Tokyo, which he once considered an exotic faraway land.) It imagines a frenetic future society on Mars combining cultural motifs from America and Japan. Visual puns, punk, and psychedelic imagery coalesce in this alluring allegory. The strip was serialized for a year in the weekly L. A. Reader and later published monthly in the Japanese magazine Riddum for more than a decade.
Please join us on Saturday, September 8 to welcome this extraordinary artist to Seattle. Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery is located at 1201 S. Vale Street in Seattle’s Georgetown arts community. This event coincides with the colorful Georgetown Art Attack featuring visual and performing arts throughout the historic neighborhood.
Questions? Contact store curator Larry Reid at 206.669.9059. The exhibition will continue through October 10th, 2012.