This book is another L'Association recommendation from our controller Mr. Jamie Salomon. Says he, "This is one of those good books that invariably get overlooked when people make their lists. Wordless, surreal, too hard to pigeonhole. But it's really fascinating."
The Fall Silkscreen workshops recently ended a few days ago, and I was totally amazed by the work that our fantastic facilitator Leyla Majeri and her students created. They made masks for Halloween and they turned out nothing short of stunning.
This example is from the youngest participant in the group, 14-yr-old Emma McAslan, whose mad art skills are already apparent. It literally makes me smile every time I look at it. I wish this was going to be part of my costume..... Posted by Lambsamongwolves at 12:58 PM
Boy, is this book right up my alley. It would seem that this gentleman has reworked a Tubby comic or comics into some kind of trippy filthy narrative. I applaud you L'Association for continuing to publish such nuttiness!
Last night, through rain and snow, a dedicated bunch of Marc Bell fans trekked to 211 Bernard West to see what this man-machine has been thinking aloud about for the past few months.
Crowds were greeted by an extremely friendly band of D & Q staffers (only one of them was cut off by the end of the night.)
Mr. Marc Bell prepares to meet his fans. Please don't ask me about that sign and mock toilet in the background.
Marc's book Illusztraijuns will be very hard to come by if you didn't buy it last night. And if you got a signed copy, consider your kid's college tabs paid for (that is probably not true)..
And then of course the beer and wine is gone and we end up at the 24-hour greasy spoon eating poutine.
That's Amy Lockhart in a nutshell. Posted by Tom Devlin at 12:55 PM
What?!! No, he's not a grump! It's a character! Tonight, Marc launches his D+Q art show. The walls are packed with artwork--I think there are more pieces up there than in any previous launch. Also, Marc will have a limited number of those above books to sell. Come by 211 Bernard at 7pm! Posted by Tom Devlin at 10:02 AM
I keep thinking Chris Ware is going to burn out and quit everything, but this one man factory keeps pumping out hits. Acme Novelty Library 19 is the latest of the Rusty Brown saga and it's a doozie. An emotional journey to outer space and back, without a lot of down time.
We once had a customer bring back an Acme Novelty issue on the grounds that it was too sad (that was a one-time deal- don't get any ideas). Anyway, this one's sadder, so don't buy it unless you want to cry. But you'll be so happy to cry. So much invention in here. I don't even know if you can call it a graphic novel anymore, it's a hybrid, and it's amazing. Just read it.
About a year ago, I stumbled upon a few scans of Matt Furie's 6-panels treats online. I didn't know who they were by and where they came from, all I knew was that I wanted to know more.
Now with the 2nd volume of Boy's Club, Matt's collected comicsin the store, I do know more! Needless to say it's been a fantastic read. It's just arrived, and we are already down to 3 copies left! Do not fret though, we'll make sure we get more Matt Furie goodness as soon as possible!
The two Boy's Club volumes are all about a group of 4 seemingly half-animal half-humans hanging out in a world of couches, pizza, TV, soda pop,video games and drugs. Furie's characters will show you how you can burp, fart, get high and puke all over the place, and still be hilarious.
I know, I know worst pun ever. But don't miss the vernissage and launch of Marc Bell's ILLUSZTRAIJUNS FOR BRAIN POLICE this Tuesday. Did we mention that the book is limited edition, 150 copies ever, only sold through the D+Q store? Yup, yup and yup. Posted by Peggy Burns at 9:27 PM
The Pistol Press launched two new poetry books here at the store last Tuesday with a great turnout. Deanna Fong and J.P. King both read excerpts from their new works to an enthusiastic crowd.
Fong's Butcher's Block and King's We Will be Fish are now stocked here at 211 if you'd like to take a peek at the work of two emerging Canadian poets. I particularly enjoy the portraiture illustrations in Butcher's Block by Bilyana Ilievska, which utilize a nostalgic representational style to compliment the poems well. The cover illustration reminds me of Egon Schiele!
Each copy of either publication is 15 dollars, plus tax. Visit http://pistolpress.com/ for more info regarding Pistol Press and their writers.
We are taking Pre-orders for the new issue (7) of Kramers Ergot as the Kramers crew will be popping by Dec. 9 for a launch (more info to come regarding that!) Please note that pre-orders are available for pickup at the store only.
To reserve a copy write rory@drawnandquarterly.com In honor of this fine occasion we will be selling Kramers at 100$ (reg. 125, deposit required)
Kramers Ergot includes over 50 of the world?s greatest cartoon innovators such as Al Columbia, Carol Tyler, Chris Ware, Paper Rad, Jaime Hernandez, Blanquet, Daniel Clowes, Mat Brinkman, Kim Deitch, Anna Sommer, Anders Nilsen, C.F., Adrian Tomine, Joost Swarte and many others.
In preparation of his soon-to-be-released career-spanning art book, D+Q artist Marc Bell is launching a limited edition (150 copies) of ILLUSZTRAIJUNS for Brain Police. The vernissage will be Tuesday Oct. 28th, 7pm. Last night, Marc came in to hang a handful of amazing pieces here at 211:
The details are incredible, you gotta get close to really inspect/read/de-scramble what is going on. In fact, if you were in this morning you would have witnessed D+Q accountant Jamie Salomon standing on a chair to getting a closer look!
As an appreciator, my favorite part of Marc's book is the lack of ISBN (only waffle). As an employee of a book store it is also my least favorite! Only Waffle?!!
OK, so the colors are off, but you have to do with what Fabricville has.
Mark your calendars, Kit and I decided that the librairie will have an all-day Halloween party in 2009 since it falls on a Saturday! Posted by Peggy Burns at 10:50 AM
So another batch of carefully selected DVDs came into the store this week, and I am SO thrilled to say that wrapped up and laying amidst its fellow films was my favourite movie of all time, Badlands.
It's not great just because Sissy Spacek gives the performance of a lifetime, (and when she was only 24 or some such age) or because Martin Sheen plays a bad-ass character named Kit, but because it is simply put, in my mind, the most breathtaking work of cinema I have yet to see.
It is the original Natural Born Killers, but with an understated tension that is far more powerful than Stone's excess and ridiculousness, and instead with the aid of Tak Fujimoto, who is to cinematography what Bacon is to painting.
I can't really say more, because you just have to see this one to understand. And watch for that fish on the nightable! Posted by Lambsamongwolves at 10:34 AM
OK, so I never post on the 211 blog and when I do, I post a photo of my daughter. But, eagle eyed parents or DINKS or 20-somethings will know that Gigi is wearing a Brobee dress. (that I made myself, total DIY off nickjr.com!) Who is Brobee? ("he's the green one!) Only a character from the best kids television show since PeeWee's Playhouse....Yo Gabba Gabba, which the brand spanking new DVD just arrived at 211.
Of course, this post is really just a distraction from me sewing Gigi's Brobee Halloween costume, "there's a party in my tummy!" Posted by Peggy Burns at 8:38 AM
Come to the store this Tuesday at 8pm, PistolPress authors Deanna Fong and Jp King are both launching their books! The night will consist of readings by both poets, book signings, and "everyone's favourite Korean courting tunes".
Butcher's Block is written by Deanna Fong and illustrated by Bilyana Ilievska. It "reflects on one's emotional connection to fixed locales. Using the age-old conflation of food and sex as a vehicle, this collection of poetry negotiates consumption with wry language and poetic deftness, remembering the trail of people left behind when one balances a domestic and nomadic way of life."
Jp King's We Will Be Fish "follows the travels of Leopold Canary as he searches for his missing wife through the tattered remnants of our own cities, at times operating as an appliance designer, rogue doctor, or collector of miscellaneous curios. Spanning a decade, this highly inventive collection of narrative poems reveals the life of an obsessive, emotionally hesitant recluse, nostalgic for a future that will not come to pass".
Ok, so November 3rd isn't exactly the dead of winter, and deadlines aren't always things to look forward to, but I still wanted to entice all with words of enthusiasm for this exciting contest coming up for emerging writers of all shapes and sizes. http://www.writersunion.ca/cn_shortprose.asp
Hosted by the Writers Union of Canada, this contest seems of particular note because of its flexible and open guidelines. In the spirit of creative enterprise, and of D+Q artists like Lynda Barry who would, I am sure, say, "go for it', the Librairie Drawn & Quarterly hopes that all of you budding artists put the pen to the paper or hands to keyboard, (or pen to keyboard, but that might prove more difficult) and get writing. Posted by Lambsamongwolves at 5:02 PM
So hey, I know it's only October, but why don't you make a mental note about the awesome new calendars we just received here at the store. Whether you're already looking forward to leaving this year behind, or you're dreading what to get for the dullard you'll ultimately be paired up with at that annual Secret Santa exchange, consider a sweet new calendar for ringing in the new year. It'll come sooner than you think!
This one by Rex Ray is pretty eye-catching:
Fast Food has put out a calendar for 2009 too....I think I might have to pick this one up just for the "60 FUN STICKERS" provided inside!
You can also expect to see some nice new stationary and agendas to arrive soon here at 211, not to mention more calendars (Charley Harper!!).
Speaking of Charles Harper, for all of you who are fans of this book:
...you can now take home a piece of Charles without your wallet crying crocodile tears!
This little hardcover number entitled Birds and Words is really beautiful, showcasing ornithology writings and drawings by Harper in a book that is a pleasure to flip through.
Lastly, please admire the most adorable puppy this fair city has ever seen:
Come to the store this Tuesday at 8pm, PistolPress authors Deanna Fong and Jp King are both launching their books! The night will consist of readings by both poets, book signings, and "everyone's favourite Korean courting tunes".
Butcher's Block is written by Deanna Fong and illustrated by Bilyana Ilievska. It "reflects on one's emotional connection to fixed locales. Using the age-old conflation of food and sex as a vehicle, this collection of poetry negotiates consumption with wry language and poetic deftness, remembering the trail of people left behind when one balances a domestic and nomadic way of life."
Jp King's We Will Be Fish "follows the travels of Leopold Canary as he searches for his missing wife through the tattered remnants of our own cities, at times operating as an appliance designer, rogue doctor, or collector of miscellaneous curios. Spanning a decade, this highly inventive collection of narrative poems reveals the life of an obsessive, emotionally hesitant recluse, nostalgic for a future that will not come to pass".
Shary Boyle spoke on Wednesday to a packed house here at 211. Explaining her process, her travels and the various little ladies who have helped her along the way. She showed slides of her paintings, sculptures, projections as well as pictures of kids she thought were cute. I was surprised at the amount of work she has produced not to mention her many collaborations with pretty huge music stars (Bonnie Prince Billy, Peaches)
I especially enjoyed when she mentioned Ron Rege Jr. and her love for his book Does Music Make you Cry?
If you missed the event you can still pick up her book Otherworld Uprising here at the store.
We are very pleased to launch Shary Boyle's new book: Otherworld Uprising, published by our pals at Conundrum. I've long been a fan of Shary's work since I discovered her first book, Witness My Shame a few years back. Her drawings, although confident and adept, contain (and are often about) the intense awkwardness that characterizes adolescence, and for some of us, the continued adolescence of adulthood. I find her newer work even harder to look at, and that's what I love about it. This should be a great event- I think most of the 211 crew will be there, working or not.
And on a side note, one of Shary's porcelain sculptures is featured on the cover of this month's Matrix magazine. You can find that here as well. See you there tomorrow night!
Just in, this beautiful Moomin picture book, Who Will Comfort Toffle? from Tove Jansson and the good folks of Sort Of Books. Like anything in her catalog, this wistful, lonely book features not only a great story but endlessly inventive artwork. Honestly, I don't thing there was anything that she couldn't easily do, pen and ink, watercolor, and these amazing fields of color.
Thanks to the handsome Patrick Lacharite, the store is now equipped with an awfully high-end sound system (which means better sound for our events, amongst oh so many things) and... the most beautiful record player ever. It has sensors instead of buttons, need I say more? Yeah, didn't think so.
Among the records we will play for youguises, our favorites (for now) have to be Genesis' Invisible Touch...
... and the Hooliganship Realer, which we bought from the gorgeous duo when they stopped by Montreal to give an earth shattering performance for Pop Montreal on the 5th at Sport Benefica.
We have more up our sleeves: Ennio Morricone, the Doors, Roxy Music, Leonard Cohen, Dire Straits, etc. So next time you come to the store, brace yourselves for some hot tunes!
Keeping on the cinema theme, I bring you: "Instant Light-Tarkovsky Polaroids"
Sixty colour plates taken by Tarkovsky between 1979-1984 in Russia and Italy. The pictures are very beautiful, mostly country sides with his son, his wife and dog appearing regularly.
The Polaroids alone look like something you might find in your grandmothers photo album (albeit, if it were my grandmother it would be the German countryside or West coast Vancouver Island)it is together they form a constant mystery and depth comparable to his films.
As if our excellent selection of graphic novels, art books, posters, novels, hand-made books wasn't enough we've added select titles from the Criterion collection. Have you always wanted to own and view again and again the Quebecois film Mon Oncle Antoine? Here's your chance. Criterion has just released a deluxe treatment of Claude Jutra's 1971 classic. Often cited as Canada's greatest film this coming of age tale focuses on a young boy in rural 1940s Quebec. This expanded DVD contains numerous interviews, an experimental short, and a recent documentary about this beautiful film.
This is what it'll look like here in a couple of weeks!
If there is a film more deeply engrained in my brain than Albert Lamorisse's Red Balloon, I can't think of it. To me this is the quintessential elementary school classroom film, watching it now I can practically here the rattling of the projector behind me. Criterion has done their usual stellar job on this DVD short.
Okay, I'm going to borrow copy from the Criterion website on this next one because I haven't seen it yet: With Vampyr, Danish filmmaker Carl Theodor Dreyer's brilliance at achieving mesmerizing atmosphere and austere, profoundly unsettling imagery (The Passion of Joan of Arc and Day of Wrath) was for once applied to the horror genre. Yet the result--concerning an occult student assailed by various supernatural haunts and local evildoers in a village outside Paris--is nearly unclassifiable, a host of stunning camera and editing tricks and densely layered sounds creating a mood of dreamlike terror. With its roiling fogs, ominous scythes, and foreboding echoes, Vampyr is one of cinema's great nightmares.
I'm going to out on a limb and say that most of us haven't read enough Phillip Roth. Oh, maybe, you read Portnoy's Complaint years ago but then moved onto other authors and kept thinking "I need to read more Roth." The man's a national (um, U.S.) treasure. Well, here's the perfect place to jumpstart your new Roth fixation. Indigination is short, brutal, and funny--just like life! (I don't remember the exact phrase.) Posted by Tom Devlin at 9:00 AM
We've actually been waiting on this one for a little while. The new Art Spiegelman collection is out featuring much of his pre-Maus formalism as well as some more recent material. Are there that many must have comics in the world? Well, yeah, but this is easily one of the 5 you need to buy this year (after you buy all of the ones we publish.) Posted by Tom Devlin at 10:21 AM
Do you want me to tell you when there's a new issue of the Believer on the stands? I would imagine you would because I imagine you as an intelligent and interested reader of things that require reading! Just in yesterday. Posted by Tom Devlin at 12:46 PM
....here's a further explanation as to why you need to get yourself to the Librairie early on the evening of the 15th to make sure you get to see Shary Boyle's much-anticipated talk! Posted by Lambsamongwolves at 1:22 PM
That's right "bests" they are in the store. They are large, good looking, edited by people we cherish and are sure to move fast so come get them while it is still 2008.
Editors:
Lynda Barry, Ivan Brunetti (Anthology Of Graphic Fiction Vol.2) Salaman Rushdie, Dave Eggers, Jerome Groopman..
A little pre-launch hype. Marc Bell will have a 96-page limited edition book (175 copies) available at his 211 Bernard art show later this month!! $10. Consider it a bears-no-resemblance-to-the-final-art-book-due-out-next-fall preview. Posted by Tom Devlin at 4:48 PM
Okay, so we're sold out of Who Needs Donuts? right now but there is a great 2003 interview with Mark Alan Stamaty here. Posted by Tom Devlin at 2:04 PM
Mark Alan Stamaty is a great cartoonist and certainly a very great drawer. This is a man who knows how to really pack a frame. It's helter-skelter in that Stamaty world--not a flat dull moment. I kind of feel like this one children's book might be one of the greatest documents of early 70s Manhattan. Page after page of the craziness of teeming crowds. And tons of tiny jokes--visual puns, tiny handwritten window frame gags. There's not an ironic moment in this glorious celebration of crowds (and donuts.)
This is easily my favorite book in the store right now. (below a detail that will lead you to a screen busting double page spread.)
Is that loitering joke the most sophisticated bit of wordplay in a children's book ever? Posted by Tom Devlin at 3:04 PM
One of my favourite things about Montreal is the amount of amazing festivals in this fine city. And one of my favourite festivals of all is our annual Pop Montreal festival. Every fall, this DIY music fest is the perfect 5-day cure-all for the onset of the beginnings of truly cold weather, and initial autumn blues.
This year, over 400 bands are playing, which in and of itself is pretty mind-boggling, but the cherry on top of that musical sundae (which boasts acts as diverse as Irma Thomas to the Chinese Stars) has got to be the segments of Pop, of which Drawn & Quarterly is very proud to be involved with.
For the first time ever this year, we are going to be at Kids Pop, with our Kids Workshop coordinator Iona Fournier-Tombs giving mini-bookbinding workshops at Ecole Lambert-Closse. People will have a chance to sign-up for her workshops that begin the following weekend. There are a ton of other amazing events and activities for kids and their parents, and we're really excited to be involved in this awesome community segment.
Librairie D+Q is also involved with Art Pop this year, as the host of an exhibition of Jack Dylan's latest Pop posters. Come out for the vernissage this Saturday at 7pm before meandering to see those 125 bands you were planning on catching that night.
Last, but not least, we are also going to be at Puces Pop all weekend long, (with some fabulous new D+Q titles to boot!) amidst a crowd of amazing artisans and independent craftspeople.
Woah. Quite alot going on this weekend, it seems. So my advice to all is to eat well (a diet of only chicken sandwiches is my personal "eat-well" recipe, but maybe that isn't such a helpful tip for the vegetarians reading this) and sleep so that you'll have the energy to go to absolutely everything. All 400 bands, plus all the Kids, Art and Puces Pop segments. We'd love to see you there.
Wednesday October 15th at 7:30pm,
