Some of what happened at PFC

Here are a few images from some of what happened at PFC last month. The little wood guy that pops up here was originally drawn during an exercise by Helge Reumann, and subsequently became something like the main protagonist in the group book we all made. As seen in the last image, he made an impression (two people got tattoos of him after it was all over).

Marc Bell

Jillian Tamaki

Anders Nilsen

Marc Bell

drawing: Jillian Tamaki, Text: Marc Bell

Drawing: Jillian Tamaki, Text: me

Not sure who this is.

Helge Reumann

Top: Ines Estrada, Bottom: Nylso

Marc Bell

Antoine Marchalot

Not sure who this is

Laura Park

Jillian Tamaki

Antoine Marchalot

Antoine Marchalot

Sort of Like Christmas

 Last week a box came in the mail from an undisclosed North American publisher. I opened it up and found inside ten sketchbooks and one box of loose drawings all lovingly wrapped in brown paper and bubble wrap. As part of Autoptic and PFC this summer I am curating an exhibition of work by some of the artists of PFC at Light Grey Art Labs. Laura Park's sketchbooks and loose doodles are going to be a part of that show. In case anyone out there doesn't already know how amazing Laura's drawing is, here is a small sample of one of those notebook's contents.
     Also slated to be a part of the exhibition: Charles Burns, Dominique Goblet, Aidan Koch, Helge Reumann and maybe one or two others. The opening on Friday, August 7th will serve as the kick-off for Autoptic. Mark your calendars.

Some stuff I picked up at CAKE last weekend

Sara Drake had this funny, beautiful, creepy risograph comic about something terrible happening in a museum. It's wordless and there's some wonderful off-camera action sequences and great use of panels in a way I don't think I've ever seen. It's called Tipu's Tiger. I'm hoping for a sequel.

This is a spread from a little biological dream love comic by Ines Estrada.

On my way into the show Laura Perez-Harris handed me this crazy anthology/experiment-in-book-design, which has an interview with me in it. There's some great looking stuff in it including a novel approach to the problem of making a comic bilingual. It involves printing the translation in black and white ink on a transparency to match the word balloons, which is then bound into the book. Ingenious (not pictured).below are Alicia Galer,  Jason Estrin, and Mickey Z

Anya Davidson made a crazy sci-fi pulp love story called Needle Dick:

Michael Deforge sketchbook zine:

Laura Park worked magic on a matchbook cover for me:

And I picked up the new David B book from Uncivilized. It was a good show. Lots of stuff is not pictured including the mock-up Zak Sally was showing off of the not quite finished Recidivist 4. stay tuned about that.

Laura Park

I'm not sure exactly how I came across Laura Park's amazing and beautiful sketchbooks on Flickr. As a Chicago cartoonist type I knew her, vaguely, as friends of friends, and had seen and admired her mini-comics. But they didn't prepare me for the breathtaking color comics and drawings in her sketchbooks. It was like peering down a rabbit hole in the woods and realizing it's filled with gold. Several of these will be on display in the bar cases at Lula through December, installed in time to be featured along with the Car Engine Show for Lula's first proper art opening (Tuesday, August 24th, 6-9). In the months that follow, pages will be turned now and then as the mood strikes us.