Delve into the peculiar mysteries of the Unifactor as Seattle artist Jim Woodring unveils the secrets behind his brand new graphic novel Congress of the Animals, released this month by Fantagraphics Books Inc. Congress of the Animals is the highly-anticipated follow-up to last year’s Weathercraft, and in 2010, Woodring was awarded the Stranger Genius Award for literature.

Join us at the Elliott Bay Book Company at 7:00 pm on Thursday, June 30th as Woodring himself takes us page by page through his latest creation, with explanations and anecdotes on his first full-length graphic novel to star his signature character, Frank. Attendees will also get a rare glimpse at sketches and drawings that Woodring left out of his latest tome.

Woodring teases: “I'm going to talk about how I changed the basic formula of the Frank stories with Congress of the Animals, and how I didn't anticipate how strongly those changes would affect not only Frank's world, but mine.”

What mysteries will unfold? What will become of Frank? Will Woodring bring the giant 7’ dip pen??? All these questions, and more, will be answered on Thursday, June 30th at the Elliott Bay Book Company.

Congress of the Animals presentation & signing with Jim Woodring
Co-Sponsored by Fantagraphics Books & The Elliott Bay Book Company
Thursday, June 30th at 7:00 pm

The Elliott Bay Book Company
1521 Tenth Avenue
Seattle WA 98122
This event is free and all ages

Cartoonists Paul Hornschemeier and Eroyn Franklin Present New Books on June 18 at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery in Seattle.

June 7, 2011 – Seattle, WA – Two of the country’s most gifted young cartoonists will debut their recent publications at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery on Saturday, June 18 from 6:00 to 8:00 PM. Paul Hornschemeier, from Chicago, presents Life with Mr. Dangerous and Seattle’s own Eroyn Franklin debuts the highly anticipated Detained.

Eroyn Franklin’s Detained explores immigrant detention centers in Washington State. Each side of the book is a continuous panorama that follows two immigrants as they navigate Seattle’s former INS building and The Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma — a powerful and evocative examination of cultural isolationism and the politics of xenophobia. The accordion-fold format lends a creative conceptual perspective to the protagonists’ poignant stories. This self-published work was supported in part by Artists Trust of Washington and the 4Culture lodging tax.

Paul Hornschemeier’s latest book, Life with Mr. Dangerous, was serialized in Fantagraphics Books' Mome anthology before being collected by Random House/Villard. It follows the saga of a newly single woman her mid-20s in an unfulfilling job as she struggles to find meaning and order in her life. The story is insightful and often funny, filled with situations that anyone who was ever young will recall. Hornschemeier has previously published three titles on Fantagraphics Books: The Three Paradoxes, All and Sundry, and Mother, Come Home.

Listing Information

Paul Hornschemeier and Eroyn Franklin book signing

Saturday, June 18, 6:00 to 8:00 PM

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

Iconoclastic cartoonist Jim Woodring will be touring the Northwest in June behind the release of his latest masterpiece, Congress of the Animals. Woodring will appear in Minneapolis, Portland, and Seattle to sign books and illuminate the allusions in his second full-length graphic novel.

In Congress of the Animals we are treated to the pitiful spectacle of Woodring's signature protagonist Frank losing his house, taking a factory job, falling in with bad company, fleeing the results of sabotage, escaping in an amusement park ride, surviving a catastrophe at sea, traveling across hostile terrain toward a massive temple seemingly built in his image, being treated roughly by gut-faced men and intervening in an age-old battle in a meadow slathered in black and yellow blood. We trust the artist's book tour will be more sedate.

Woodring's journey begins at midnight on Saturday, June 5 at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, MN. Woodring will demonstrate his giant pen, discuss his work, and sign books as part of the unorthodox "Nightshift" festival of art. The tour continues on Friday, June 10 with a book signing at the illustrious Powell's City of Books in Portland, OR at 7:30 PM. Woodring returns to Seattle on Saturday, June 11 where he will appear at 1:00 PM at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery as part of the amazing Georgetown Carnival. Washingtonians and British Columbians alike will not want to miss Jim's signing at Village Books in Bellingham, WA on Wednesday, June 29. He concludes the Northwest leg of his tour with a signing at Elliott Bay Book Company on Capitol Hill in Seattle on Thursday, June 30 at 7:00 PM.

Don't miss an opportunity to meet America's most visionary cartoonist. Look for more public appearances by this remarkable artist as the summer progresses.

From The Adventures of Jodelle — click to enlarge

THE ADVENTURES OF JODELLE
Written by: Pierre Bartier; Drawn by: Guy Peellaert
Hardcover • Full-Color
Release: May 2012

PRAVDA
Written by: Pascal Thomas; Drawn by: Guy Peellaert
Hardcover • Full-Color
Release: November 2012

FANTAGRAPHICS ACQUIRES RIGHTS TO TWO LEGENDARY BELGIAN CLASSICS: PEELLAERT'S THE ADVENTURES OF JODELLE AND PRAVDA

Fantagraphics Books has signed a deal to release two groundbreaking graphic novels from cult Belgian artist Guy Peellaert (1934-2008): The Adventures of Jodelle (1966) and Pravda (1967). The remastered editions will be produced in collaboration with the late artist's estate, which will contribute previously unseen material for extensive archival supplements.

Both albums were originally released in France by Eric Losfeld, the controversial publisher who passionately defied censorship in the lead-up to the cultural revolution of 1968; along with Jean-Claude Forest's Barbarella, Peellaert's Jodelle and Pravda were among the earliest of European adult-oriented graphic novels.

The Adventures of Jodelle, whose voluptuous title heroine was modeled after French teen idol Sylvie Vartan, is a satirical spy story set in a Space Age Roman-Empire fantasy world. Its then-revolutionary clashing of high and low culture references, borrowing as much from Renaissance painting as from a fetishized American consumer culture, marked the advent of the Pop movement within the nascent "9th art" of comic books, not yet dignified as "graphic novels" but already a source of great influence in avant-garde artistic circles. Visually, Jodelle was a major aesthetic shock. According to New York magazine, its "lusciously designed, flat color patterns and dizzy forced perspective reminiscent of Matisse and Japanese prints set a new record in comic-strip sophistication."

Released a year later and first serialized in the French counter-culture bible Hara-Kiri, Pravda follows the surreal travels of an all-female motorcycle gang across a mythical American landscape, led by a mesmerizing cold-blooded heroine whose hyper-sexualized elastic anatomy was this time inspired by quintessential Gallic chanteuse Françoise Hardy. Pravda's eye-popping graphics pushed the psychedelic edge of Jodelle to dazzling new heights, further liberating the story from narrative conventions to focus the reader's attention on the stunning composition and glaring acid colors of the strips, with each frame functioning as a stand-alone cinematic picture.

From Pravda — click to enlarge

Pravda, with its themes of female empowerment and beauty emerging from chaos, became an instant sensation on the European underground scene, inspiring various tributes and appropriations from the worlds of film, literature, fashion, music, live arts, advertising or graphic design. Over the years, it has acquired a rarefied status as a unique and timeless piece of Pop Art defying categorization or trends, and has found itself exhibited in such unlikely "high culture" institutions as the Musée d'Orsay or the Centre Pompidou. An early admirer of Peellaert's radical vision — along with luminaries as diverse as Jean-Luc Godard (who optioned the film rights to Pravda) and Mick Jagger — Frederico Fellini praised Jodelle and Pravda as "the literature of intelligence, imagination and romanticism."

The Adventures of Jodelle was published in the United States in 1967 by Grove Press, whose legendary editor-in-chief Richard Seaver (the man credited with introducing Samuel Beckett, William Burroughs and Henry Miller to America) also provided the translation; Pravda has never been released in English, despite its lead character transcending the long out-of-print book where she originated to become a peculiar iconic figure, the maverick muse of a few "au courant" art and design aficionados from Paris to Tokyo.

Refusing to cash in on the phenomenal success of Jodelle and Pravda (he viewed the former as a one-time graphic "experiment" of which the latter marked the accomplishment) the reclusive Peellaert abruptly left cartoons behind after only two albums at the dawn of the 1970s to pursue an obsessive kind of image-making which painstakingly combined photography, airbrush painting and collage in the pre-computer age. His best-known achievement in America remains the seminal 1973 book Rock Dreams, a collection of portraits which resulted from this distinctive technique and was hailed as "the Sistine Chapel of the Seventies" by Andy Warhol's Interview magazine, eventually selling over a million copies worldwide, influencing a generation of photographers and earning its place in the pantheon of rock culture. Other well-known creations include the iconic artwork for David Bowie's Diamond Dogs album cover (1974) as well as The Rolling Stones' It's Only Rock ‘N' Roll the same year. Peellaert also created the indelible original poster for Martin Scorcese's Taxi Driver (1978), the first of many commissions from renowned auteurs including Wim Wenders, Robert Altman, Stephen Frears, Alain Resnais and Robert Bresson.

As the original negatives and color separations for Jodelle and Pravda are long lost (interestingly, Peellaert never reclaimed the original ink-on-paper pages from Losfeld) Fantagraphics will be re-coloring both books digitally. "The original books were colored via hand-cut separations from Peellaert's detailed color indications," said Fantagraphics co-publisher Kim Thompson, who will be editing and translating the new editions. "Since the Losfeld editions were printed quite well and Peellaert's linework is thick and simple, we're going to be able to generate crisp black-and-white versions of the line art to start from which should duplicate the original ‘look' exactly. Although actually our edition of Pravda should be better than the original, which had some pretty erratic color registration."

The Adventures of Jodelle is scheduled for release in May 2012, and Pravda in November 2012, both in deluxe oversized hardcover editions. Each will feature an extensive original essay discussing the works and their historical context, accompanied by numerous archival illustrations and photographs.

"I am terrifically excited to bring these two landmark books to American audiences — especially Pravda, which has never been published in English," said Thompson. "They are some of the most graphically jaw-dropping comics ever put to paper. They remain both quintessentially 1960s in attitude and look, and utterly timeless."

From Pravda — click to enlarge