Benefit Engine Manual

We made a little catalog for the Car Engine show, featuring images of each of the artist's work. Full color. Proceeds from sales of the catalog will go to benefit Tommi Musturi and Marijpol, whose work was damaged in the flood at Lula a couple of weeks ago (see right to order--$10 plus postage). Below is the first spread.

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.

Big Questions #15

I finished the cover yesterday. Here's another page as well. Should be out in early Fall.

Amanda Vahamaki and Michelangelo Setola

Concurrent with the Car Engine Drawing Show this Summer at Lula is a show of pencil drawings by Amanda Vähämäki and Michelangelo Setola (also in the Car Engine Show) both of whom are part of the Italian comics collective Canicola. The drawings are partially collaborative, many have appeared in their artists book Souvlaki Circus, published in the U.S. by the late, lamented Buenaventura Press. The drawings are little gems of narrative image making. They are mysterious, understated and dreamlike. They are being seen in the U.S for the first time (Lula's show follows on the heels of a show at Home Gallery in Hyde Park), and it may be a while before these artists work will be seen here again. Reception with wine and food August 24th, 6-9.