MONTE SCHULZ TOURS WEST COAST IN SEPT.-OCT. TO PROMOTE THE RELEASE OF THE NEW NOVEL, THIS SIDE OF JORDAN

This September, Fantagraphics Books will publish This Side of Jordan, a novel by Monte Schulz. To support the release, the author will tour thirteen cities on the West Coast in September and October:

Fri., Sept. 25, 8PM • Southern California Writers Conf., Irvine, CA

Mon., Sept. 28, 7PM • Chaucer's Books, Santa Barbara, CA

Wed., Sept. 30, 7PM • Mysterious Galaxy Books, San Diego, CA

Thurs., Oct. 1, 6PM • Laguna Beach Books, Laguna Beach, CA

Sat., Oct. 3, 5PM • Skylight Books, Los Angeles, CA

Sun., Oct. 11, 11AM • Wordstock Festival, Portland, OR

Tues., Oct. 13, 7PM • Third Place Books, Seattle (Lake Forest Park), WA

Wed., Oct. 14, 7:30PM • Tsunami Books, Eugene, OR

Tues., Oct. 20, 7PM • Modern Times Bookstore, San Francisco, CA

Wed., Oct. 21, 7PM • Copperfield's Books, Santa Rosa, CA

Thurs., Oct. 22, 7PM • Book Passage, Corte Madera, CA

Sat., Oct. 24, 2PM • The Bookseller, Grass Valley, CA

Wed., Oct. 28, 7PM • Time Tested Books, Sacramento, CA

"Monte Schulz's novel This Side of Jordan shows that Like Father Like Son -both superb!" - RAY BRADBURY

"Schulz proves himself to be a handy wordsmith in this literarily ambitious novel of pre-Depression America. Hand this straight-faced and multifaceted almost-satire to fans of the southern gothic tradition, all the way from Flannery O'Connor to John Kennedy Toole." - BOOKLIST, Sept. 2009

"I just finished reading a review copy, and I think this is a truly great American novel. Certainly I have not read anything by a modern American (white male) that I have so thoroughly enjoyed in my 13+ years at Tsunami Books. I won't go into the tale; suffice to say those who read this book will bear witness to the beginnings of a great new (American) voice that upholds the power of innocence in a long, dark era." - SCOTT LANDFIELD, TSUNAMI BOOKS 

ABOUT THIS SIDE OF JORDAN:

In the idyllic last American summer before the great stock market crash of '29, nineteen year-old farm boy Alvin Pendergast somehow decides he can escape a fatal relapse of tuberculosis by accepting the offer of a job across the Mississippi River from a slick-talking stranger who seems everything poor Alvin is not: smart, sharply-dressed, well-acquainted, and without a worry in the world. But beneath appearances Chester Burke is also a gangster and a sociopathic killer. On their traveling road through the small towns of the Midwest, Alvin quickly discovers how ignorant he is of life beyond the farm.

Fortunately, he finds another companion for this harrowing journey, a curious and clever dwarf whose own pathetic life has offered little resistance to fate, until the circumstances of Chester's cruel itinerary forces both him and Alvin to seek another path, if they hope to survive.

This Side Of Jordan is a story of another America, eighty years distant yet familiar, too, a vibrant and scandalous tapestry of eccentric characters from a nation embroiled in criminal liquor traffic, thrilled by Jazz Age fads and frolic, drunk amid the glittering showgrounds of a booming circus whose flag-topped tents are about to come down. Through mayhem and merriment, past the violence and hypocrisy of Prohibition, along miles of dirt roads and busy Main Streets, we see in this wonderfully evocative narrative a simple yearning for love and hope. This Side Of Jordan is about the distance we travel in America to find our rightful place.

This Side of Jordan is Monte Schulz's second novel. His first, Down by the River, was published by Viking in 1991. Library Journal raved that it compared to Stand by Me and Twin Peaks, and seemed "ready-made for Hollywood." He spent ten years writing Crossing Eden, from which This Side of Jordan is drawn as the first of three interconnected novels; the second and third, Fields of Eden and The Big Town, will be published in 2010 and 2011.

Monte Schulz received his M.A. in American Studies from the University of California at Santa Barbara. He lives in Northern California. He is the eldest son of Charles M. Schulz (PEANUTS).

THIS SIDE OF JORDAN

By Monte Schulz

$22.99 Hardcover • 320 pages

ISBN 978-1-60699-296-8

PUBLICATION DATE: September 23, 2009

August 12, 2009 - Seattle, WA. Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery continues its summer celebration of Seattle cartoonists with a signing and book launch party for Eroyn Franklin's new graphic novel Another Glorious Day at the Nothing Factory on Saturday, August 22 from 6:00 to 8:00 PM. Produced with the support of the Xeric Foundation and Allied Arts, this 216 page book consists of striking hand cut images, with an individually die-cut silkscreen cover in a numbered edition of 1,000 copies.

Another Glorious Day at the Nothing Factory is a revealing examination of the artist's transition from adolescence to adulthood. Franklin's impressionistic narrative complements the austere hand cut imagery in her exquisitely crafted autobiography. Original pages from Another Glorious Day at the Nothing Factory are included in the bookstore's current exhibition "Comics Savants: A Survey of Seattle Alternative Cartoonists."

Franklin was awarded a prestigious Xeric grant in 2008 to assist with production of this project. Past recipients of funding from the Xeric Foundation, which supports publishing efforts of emerging cartoonists, include notable Seattle artists Ellen Forney, Megan Kelso and David Lasky, who are also featured in the exhibition "Comics Savants."

Please join us on Saturday, August 22 from 6:00 to 8:00 PM as Fantagraphics Books continues its commitment to promoting the work of promising regional cartoonists with a party honoring Franklin's impressive achievement. The artists will sign copies of the newly minted graphic novel as well as her equally superb handcrafted mini comic The Here.

Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery is located at 1201 S. Vale St. (at Airport Way S.) only minutes south of downtown. Open daily 11:30 until 8:00 PM, Sundays until 5:00 PM. Phone 206.658.0110.

Listing Information

Eroyn Franklin book signing

Saturday, August 22, 6:00 to 8:00 PM

Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery
1201 S. Vale Street (at Airport Way S.)
Seattle, WA 98108
206.658.0110
www.fantagraphics.com

As announced at last week's Comic-Con International, Fantagraphics Books - the leading publisher of classic strip reprints including The Complete Peanuts, Popeye, Krazy & Ignatz, Prince Valiant, Captain Easy, Dennis the Menace, Zippy the Pinhead and others - has acquired the rights from United Media to publish Nancy by Ernie Bushmiller, beginning in Spring 2010.

According to Co-Publisher Gary Groth, who inked the deal, Fantagraphics has contracted to publish the first 24 years of Nancy dailies, beginning in 1938 (when Nancy took over the strip from its former star, Fritzi Ritz) through 1961. "If the demand is there," Groth noted, "we will of course want to continue into the 1960s and beyond, if for no other reason than to run all those great 'hippie' Nancy episodes. But we'll cross that bridge in 2016 when we finish publishing the books we've contracted for."

"I was a late Nancy convert," admits Co-Publisher Kim Thompson, who will be editing the series. "It wasn't until Denis Kitchen published his Nancy collections in 1989 and 1990, after people like Bill Griffith and Scott McCloud had been touting it for years, that I finally 'got' it. It's one of the all-time greats -- way ahead of its time in its own goofy way. Ever since then it's been at the back of my mind to do a more extensive reprinting, and our ongoing successes with classic reprint series these past five years told me the time is now ripe."

Each volume of dailies will contain four years per volume and be designed by Fantagraphics Art Director Jacob Covey. Cartoonist Daniel Clowes (Ghost World) will provide the introduction to the first volume. Each volume will be 8" x 8" in flexibound format and retail for $29.99. Information regarding collections of Nancy Sunday strips will be announced at a later date.

"I envision Nancy being influenced by pop art and constructivist design in a way that will complement the geometric style of the strip and also give a nod to Mark Newgarden's deconstruction of Nancy's forms," says Covey, whose designs on books like Popeye, Willie & Joe and Beasts! have garnered numerous awards. "In a word: ‘POP.' Like Popeye, I want it to seem fun so kids can connect with it but so smart adults can look at it more deeply. But where Popeye has a Victorian nod, this will be modernist."

Fantagraphics will begin with the "second" volume, 1942-1945. According to Thompson, "While we have access to great, nearly complete runs for most of the 1940s dailies, it looks like it will be far more trouble to collect the 1938 and 1939 material. So we'll be putting out a call to Nancy fans, both over the internet and in the first book itself, until we eventually secure the missing strips to double back and release the best possible 1938-1941 volume."

The character of Nancy, a precocious eight-year-old girl, first appeared in the strip Fritzi Ritz. After Larry Whittington began Fritzi Ritz in 1922, it was taken over by Bushmiller three years later. In 1933, Bushmiller introduced Fritzi's niece, Nancy. Soon she dominated the strip, retitled Nancy in 1938. At its peak in the 1970s, Nancy ran in more than 880 newspapers.

In addition to being one of the great comic strips of the 20th Century, Nancy is a bonafide pop culture icon, having captured the imagination of such artists as Andy Warhol, Joe Brainard, Scott McCloud, Bill Griffith, Mark Newgarden, and many others.

In Spring 2010, Fantagraphics will also publish a revised and expanded book edition of cartoonists Mark Newgarden and Paul Karasik's seminal 1988 essay, "How to Read Nancy." In addition to explicating the brilliance of Bushmiller's cartooning, it also has become a landmark educational essay about visual storytelling through the analysis of Bushmiller's work.

To quote from How to Read Nancy: "To say that Nancy is a simple gag strip about a simple-minded snot-nosed kid is to miss the point completely. Nancy only appears to be simple at a casual glance. Like architect Mies Van Der Rohe, the simplicity is a carefully designed function of a complex amalgam of formal rules laid out by the designer. To look at Bushmiller as an architect is entirely appropriate, for Nancy is, in a sense, a blue print for a comic strip. Walls, floors, rocks, trees, ice-cream cones, motion lines, midgets and principals are carefully positioned with no need for further embellishment. And they are laid out with one purpose in mind - to get the gag across. Minimalist? Formalist? Structuralist? Cartoonist!"

Ernie Bushmiller

 "COMICS SAVANTS" EXHIBITION OPENING AUGUST 8 -- FANTAGRAPHICS BOOKSTORE & GALLERY CELEBRATES SEATTLE ALTERNATIVE CARTOONISTS

July 29, 2009 - SEATTLE, WA. Since relocating to Seattle from Southern California 20 years ago, Fantagraphics Books has remained committed to nurturing and promoting the diverse practitioners of alternative comics in the Northwest. The country's most successful purveyor of challenging comics routinely employs local cartoonists and publishes the work of regional artists which has contributed to Seattle's international reputation as the unrivaled center of alternative comics. To celebrate this association, Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery presents "Comics Savants: A Survey of Seattle Alternative Cartoonists" opening Saturday, August 8.

This exhibition will feature over a dozen emerging and established artists, including many of the most accomplished cartoonists in the alternative movement. Among them: Peter Bagge, who coined the term "alternative comics" in 1990 and as the highly-regarded creator of the phenomenal Hate comic book series attracted dozens of young cartoonists to the city during the 90s decade; Seattle native Charles Burns, whose teen years are fictionalized in his amazing graphic novel Black Hole, soon to be a motion picture directed by David Fincher; Visionary artist Jim Woodring, one of only a handful of cartoonists to be embraced by the fine art world, having been awarded the United States Artist Fellowship in 2007 and a 2009 Art Trust Washington State Artists Fellowship, who will exhibit work from his forthcoming graphic novel Weathercraft; Ellen Forney, whose collaboration with local author Sherman Alexie won the prestigious 2008 National Book Award; David Lasky, who will exhibit pages from his collaboration with Seattle writer Chris Esty "The Last Testament" from Hotwire #2; Second wave Seattle alternative cartoonist Megan Kelso; emerging artist Eroyn Franklin, who will exhibit hand cut pages from her Xeric award winning graphic novel Another Glorious Day at the Nothing Factory; current and former Fantagraphics Books staffers Jim Blanchard, Roberta Gregory, Patrick Moriarity; Ted Jouflas; Jason T. Miles and Eric Reynolds.

In addition to the display of original artworks, an eclectic array of comics and graphic novels by exhibiting artists will be available. Many featured artists will attend the opening reception of Saturday, August 8 from 6:00 to 9:00 PM. Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery is located at 1201 S. Vale St. (at Airport Way S.) only minutes south of downtown. This event coincides with the colorful Georgetown Second Saturday Art Attack featuring exciting visual and performing arts presentations in close proximity throughout the historic artists' enclave.

LISTING INFORMATION

COMICS SAVANTS: A Survey of Seattle Alternative Cartoonists

Peter Bagge, Jim Blanchard, Charles Burns, Ellen Forney, Roberta Gregory, Ted Jouflas, Megan Kelso, David Lasky, Jason T. Miles, Patrick Moriarity, Eric Reynolds, Jim Woodring, and introducing Eroyn Franklin.

Opening reception Saturday, August 8, 6:00 to 9:00 PM

Exhibition continues through September 9, 2009

Join us on Saturday, August 22 from 6:00 to 8:00 PM for the publication party of Eroyn Franklin's Xeric award wining comic Another Glorious Day at the Nothing Factory.

Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery
1201 S. Vale Street (at Airport Way S.)
Seattle, WA 98108
206.658.0110
Open daily 11:30 to 8:00 PM, Sundays until 5:00 PM

www.fantagraphics.com