Illustrious cartoonist Carol Tyler will appear this Saturday, September 11 from 6:00 to 9:00 PM at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery to celebrate the publication of YOU'LL NEVER KNOW Book 2 with an art exhibition and book signing.

Tyler was among the early female practitioners of underground comix, creating remarkably revealing autobiographical narratives in a singular visual style. Her ongoing trilogy YOU’LL NEVER KNOW continues this tradition and has received broad critical acclaim. Of the first installment in the series, the New York Times commented, “It’s impossible not to compare You’ll Never Know with Art Spiegelman’s Maus.” Reviewing the latest volume, which debuts at Saturday’s event, Eric Scigliano of Seattle Metropolitan suggests, “Two famous precedents, Art Spiegelman’s Maus and Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis, seem almost one-dimensional by comparison.”

Join us on Saturday evening at the bookstore to meet this extraordinary artist. Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery is located at 1201 S. Vale Street (at Airport Way S.) only minutes from downtown Seattle. Phone 206.658.0110. This event coincides with the lively Georgetown Art Attack featuring visual and performing arts events throughout the historic industrial arts corridor. (Saturday’s Art Attack includes our own Martin Bland with the Tom Price Desert Classic playing for the 7th annual “Beer Bust” breast cancer fundraiser at neighboring Smarty Pants, benefiting Gilda’s House Seattle.)

The often provocative, always entertaining Georgetown Art Attack returns on Saturday, September 11 from 6:00 to 9:00 PM. This celebration of Georgetown's creative arts corridor includes colorful business enterprises as well as private art studios that open to the public during this monthly event.

Among the many attractions: The 7th annual "Beer Bust" breast cancer fundraiser at Smarty Pants, featuring entertainment by the Spoils, the Tom Price Desert Classic, and a Georgetown neighborhood bartender Olympics, with all proceeds benefiting Gilda's Club Seattle; Equinox Studios, with the largest concentration of artists and artisans in the Georgetown area will be open with over 30 sculptors, painters, musicians, blacksmiths, and heavy metal craftsmen presenting their wares; panoramic landscape photographer Adria Pontious at Calamity Jane's; a Cinema Party at the Georgetown Trailer Park with art, film, treats, tunes & trailers; graffiti artist Kevin "Sensei 23" Sullivan at The Stables as well as an entry in a beer label competition at adjoining Full Throttle Bottles; the NAUTILUS Studio presents the strange, dark and beautiful assemblage art of Corey Urlacher; Cartoonist Carol Tyler's "You'll Never Know" exhibition and book launch party at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery; live music outside Georgetown Music Store; works by Mark Tedin, Kyle Abernethy, Julie Baroh and Michael Hoppe at Krab Jab Studio; and much more.

The Georgetown Second Saturday Art Attack is a promotion of the Georgetown Merchants Association (GMA.) For more information contact Larry Reid or GMA chair Sara Aruguete. For a Georgetown Art Attack site map see: www.georgetownartattack.com. Trailer Park Cinema information can be found at www.trailerparkcinema.com.

[Artwork by Jim Woodring — click for larger version and see below for more photos]

Comics connoisseurs can view "Counterculture Comix: A 30-Year Survey of Seattle Alternative Cartoonists" for free this Friday, September 3 from 11:00 [correction:] noon to 7:00 PM in the Olympic Room on the Northwest corner of the Seattle Center grounds near Key Arena.)

The exhibition features 3 generations of cartoonists from the city that gave birth and momentum to the alternative comix movement. More than 250 artworks and artifacts are on display, with a comix reading lounge, a continuous screening of David Moore's seminal Hooked on Comix documentary, and cartooning demonstrations by Friends of the Nib and Bureau of Drawers. All Bumbershoot visual art shows are free on Friday, and hizzoner the mayor will tour the exhibitions in the afternoon.

Bumbershoot, Seattle's annual Labor Day weekend arts festival, looks promising this year. In addition to the comix exhibition, there's the daily Flatstock poster show, a special preview of the anxiously-awaited Jesse Bernstein documentary I Am Secretly an Important Man on Saturday, a concert by Hole, featuring the lovely and talented Courtney Love on Sunday, and the equally lovely and talented Tony Millionaire on Monday. Hope to see you there.

[Artwork & artifacts by Lynda Barry]

[Artwork & artifacts by Peter Bagge]

[Jason T. Miles assembles the Profanity Hill installation]

The Seattle Art Museum's popular Remix series at the sculpture park continues this Friday, August 27. The event features the public debut of the Bureau of Drawers, Seattle's new cartooning salon, which includes Fantagraphics friends David Lasky, Marc Palm, Jen Ralston, Tom Dougherty and many other fine cartoonists. (This provides a preview for the big "Counterculture Comix" exhibition at Bumbershoot when Bureau of Drawers will join Friends of the Nib in cartooning demonstrations over Labor Day weekend.)

Also on the bill at Remix is a major new work and gallery talk by Houston artist Trenton Doyle Hancock whose amazing narrative book Me a Mound was published by Picturebox.

Influential comix artist Carol Tyler will appear in at Fantagraphics Bookstore in Seattle on Saturday, September 11 from 6:00 to 9:00 PM to present her two-volume graphic memoir YOU'LL NEVER KNOW with an exhibition of original art and book signing. This will mark Tyler's fist visit to the Northwest.

Carol Tyler's career in cartooning began as a graduate student in painting at Syracuse University in the early 1980s. She later moved to San Francisco and began a lasting relationship with underground comix legend Justin Green. Her work soon found its way into seminal female comix anthologies Twisted Sisters and Wimmen's Comix. Fantagraphics Books later published her autobiographical works THE JOB THING (1993) and LATE BLOOMER (2005.)

Tyler's ambitious trilogy YOU'LL NEVER KNOW examines her relationship with her father and his experiences in World War II. The first volume, A Good and Decent Man, explores how his war experience shaped her childhood and affected her relationships in adulthood. The recently published second volume, Collateral Damage, delves deeper into her father's horrific wartime exploits in Italy and her current cycle of family dysfunction. Her delicate line quality and watercolor technique add depth and urgency to this compelling memoir. Bestowed with prestigious industry awards and nominations, as well as universal critical acclaim, Tyler's achievement is unparalleled in recent years. According to the New York Times Book Review, "It's impossible not to compare You'll Never Know with Art Spiegelman's Maus, the first great graphic novel about what happened to a cartoonist's father during World War II... Tyler's book is a vivid, affecting, eccentrically stylish frame built around a terrible silence."

Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery is located at 1201 S. Vale Street, only minutes south of downtown Seattle. This event coincides with the colorful Georgetown Second Saturday Art Attack featuring visual and performing arts presentations throughout the historic neighborhood. Phone 206.658.0110.

Listing Information:
CAROL TYLER: YOU'LL NEVER KNOW
Book signing and opening reception Saturday, September 11, 6:00 to 9:00 PM
Exhibition continues through October 6, 2010
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

The COVER STORY book launch party at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery last Saturday was great fun. A steady stream of visitors viewed the display of otherworldly album art and visited with contributors Aja West and Cheeba. The book is pretty amazing, and will inspire you to peruse your vinyl collection for the cardstock covers.

If you missed this wonderful event, you can still check out the COVER STORY exhibition and pick up a copy of the book at Fantagraphics Bookstore through this Wednesday, August 18. We're located minutes south of downtown Seattle at 1201 S. Vale St. in the heart of the historic Georgetown industrial arts district. See you soon.

Everyone has seen the strange graphics that grace the covers of obscure albums while flipping through used record bins at garage sales, flea markets and records stores. Some of the weirdest are collected in COVER STORY Vol. 2: Odd, Obscure, and Outrageous Album Art published by Wax Poetics/powerHouse Books. Fantagraphics Bookstore, in association with Georgetown Records, celebrates the publication of this delightfully odd volume with a publication party this Saturday, August 14 from 6:00 to 9:00 PM.

The party will feature a display of many of the most outrageous album covers from the book, as well as DJ sets of the actual recordings and a book signing by contributors Aja West and Cheeba. Come discover your own twelve-inch treasures in the record store's 50 cent bins, and peruse a mass of equally unusual comix from Fantagraphics Books.

This event coincides with the colorful Georgetown Art Attack with action throughout the historic neighborhood. Drive down in your vintage ride and join the "Slow Roll" hot rod cruise down Airport Way at 8:00 PM.

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

The tradition of cool art in a hot neighborhood continues with the Georgetown Second Saturday Art Attack on August 14 from 6:00 to 9:00 PM. Fabulous food, fine art, friendly bars and a few surprises are in store at this colorful monthly event in one of Seattle's most compelling communities.

Among the many free visual and performing arts events: Georgetown Records and Fantagraphics Bookstore present the book launch party for "Cover Story: Odd, Obscure, and Outrageous Album Art" featuring an exhibition of album art from the book, a book signing, and DJ sets from contributors Aja West and Cheeba; The Georgetown Arts and Cultural Center presents a solo show "Archetypes and Lucky Charms" which combines universal archetypes with individual portraiture by Seattle artist Deborah Scott; the return of the Georgetown Trailer Park Mall featuring a Market of Curiosities — a collective of local artists with hands-on activities — followed by an outdoor screening of highlights from the Georgetown Super 8 Film Festival at dusk; A "Slow Roll" hot rod cruise down Airport Way beginning at 8:00 PM; new paintings by Julie Lukes at Calamity Jane's; photography by Robin Crookall with musical guests presented by the Twilight art collective at the Stables; the grand reopening of Krab Jab Studio, having moved from suite 335 to suite 250 of the Original Rainier Brewery, featuring new member, painter Michael Hoppe, as well as works by Julie Baroh, Kyle Abernethy, and Mark Tedin.

The Georgetown Second Saturday Art Attack is a monthly promotion of the Georgetown Merchants' Association. For a map of participants, please see: www.georgetownartattack.com. For additional information contact Art Attack coordinator Larry Reid.

More than 3.000 maniacal bicycle enthusiasts descended on Georgetown last Friday for the annual Dead Baby Bike bash. Mayhem and merriment ensued as bone crushing bike stunts and ear crunching rock collided on the streets — sometimes literally — right outside Fantagraphics Bookstore. Another exquisite evening in the "Summer of Hate." [Above photos by John Ohannesian; click here for more – Ed.]

This Friday evening in Seattle marks the spectacle of the Dead Baby Bike Club's 14th annual downhill bicycle race. The contest itself is insane, but the real action begins at the finish line in Georgetown. Their apocalyptic party is like the Road Warrior on about 10 hits of acid. Not-to-be-missed: Tall bike jousting (really), bicycle powered carnival rides, music by Tad Doyle's Brothers of the Sonic Cloth, Kurt Danielson's Misericords, a sea of liquid refreshment, and more.

If the relentless action gets too intense, take a break at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery in the heart of the party. Check out Dame Darcy's lovely art exhibition and pick up some Peter Bagge comic books featured in our "Summer of Hate" promotion. Fantagraphics curator Larry "The Love God" Reid will be spinning discs, including a few tunes from the brand new CD by Bagge's combo Can You Imagine? We'll be open a little later than usual for this one, so stop by and say hi.