Seattle skies may be grey, but tomorrow things will take on a purplish hue, as our own Ron Regé, Jr. rolls into town with his rock combo, Lavender Diamond! 

You can catch them Thursday, December 13th at the Sunset Tavern [ 5433 Ballard Avenue Northwest ] with local lass Shelby Earl opening the show. Alas, the concert is 21+, so you young'ins will want to try to stalk him outside the venue to get a book signed.

And Fantagraphics will be on site with copies of Ron's latest masterpiece, The Cartoon Utopia, for sale! Now is your chance to get your books signed by Ron himself, or perhaps get a special holiday wish inscribed in one for a festive gift!

Live outside of the Seattle area?  Lavender Diamond will be LIVE on KEXP at 3:00 PM PST, and you can stream their set worldwide at KEXP.ORG. You live in Portland? Visit Ron this Friday evening at Floating World Comics before their show at the Doug Fir Lounge!

It's been even more extra-heartbreaking to write this FLOG post in the wake of yesterday's tragedy at the Clackamas Town Center mall near Portland, Oregon. Earlier this year, Seattle had its own tragic shooting at beloved local hang-out Café Racer.  

This Thursday, December 13th, Café Racer and Brown Paper Tickets are hosting a very special benefit for the victims' families and the lone survivor of the shootings that took place on May 30, 2012, claiming five victims and impacting everyone involved in the Seattle artistic community.

Brown Paper Tickets will be debuting their Artist Ticket Program, where a limited edition of event tickets are imprinted with original artwork for an extra fee, with proceeds donated to charity. For this inaugural event, Brown Paper Tickets chose our own Ellen Forney and Jim Woodring, two artists who were very much a part of Café Racer community. Ellen and Jim will perform readings, and will also be available to personally sign your Artist Ticket.

The evening will also feature musicians and performance artists who had a direct connection to those that were lost as a result of this tragedy, including The Bad Things, Baby Gramps, Lonesome Shack, and performance artist Queen Shmooquan. The MC for the evening will be Seattle's effervescent hostess Sylvia O'Stayformore.

Doors are at 6:00 PM, with the event kicking off at 7:00 PM. Cover is "pay-what-you-can" and advanced tickets are highly recommended as space is limited. There will be some tickets available at the door the day of the event but are first-come, first-served. Café Racer is located at 5828 Roosevelt Way NE. 

If you can't make the event but want to donate to the Victims of the Café Racer Shooting Memorial Fund, click here to visit the donation page. 

The Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery is proud to present a homecoming event with artist Nathan Bulmer, former-Seattleite now-Brooklynite, on Sunday, December 30th, signing from 2:00 to 4:00 PM!

Bulmer has had work published in MAD Magazine, Time Out New York, Seattle Magazine, and The Comics Journal, and has a brand-new collection out now titled Eat More Bikes, from our dear friends at Koyama Press! Much like his web-comic of the same name, the all-new cartoons contained inside traffic in the same absurdist humour.

You can buy more comics like Eat More Bikes at the Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery, located at 1201 S. Vale Street in Seattle's Georgetown district. Open daily 11:30 to 8:00 PM, Sundays until 5:00 PM. Phone: (206) 658-0110.

Never mind that it's winter -- things are gonna be heatin' up this Saturday, December 15th as Fantagraphics celebrates the, uh, release of Sexytime: The Post-Porn Rise of the Pornoisseur! 

Editor Jacques Boyreau will be bringing the naughty and nice to the Northwest Film Forum at 9:00 PM. Boyreau kicks off the evening with a hilarious and tasteless compilation of outstanding 35/16mm porn trailers.  

The night concludes with a screening of Candy Von Dewd, where valiant, stoic astronauts of the Rocketship Leroy crash on a dune planet and encounter telepathic Amazons. Drugs, gladiators, robots, boobs and alien sex blow up B-movie grammar into psychedelic arthouse splendidity.

Northwest Film Forum is located at 1515 12th Ave in the Capitol Hill neighborhood. Dare I say, it will be a, um, titillating evening.

Portland's already a bit of a cartoon utopia, so it's only right to bring the lovely Ron Rege, Jr. to town for a celebration of his magnum opus, The Cartoon Utopia!

Join him this Friday, December 14th at Floating World Comics for this very special signing from 5:00 to 7:00 PM.

In The Cartoon Utopia, “Utopians” of the future world are attempting to send messages through consciousness, outside of the constricts of time as we understand it. These messages appear in the form of art, music and storytelling, three of the very things that Ron will be bringing to the Rose City. After his signing, you can catch Ron on drums with his band, Lavender Diamond, at the Doug Fir Lounge!

Floating World Comics is located at 400 NW Couch St. in the the heart of the Pearl District. 

Shout it out! Last month, Northwesterners got the chance to experience The Last Vispo Anthology: Visual Poetry 1998-2008 in person, and it was indeed, a hoot and a holler! (That's editor Nico Vassilakis leading the call, and Fantagraphics co-founder Mike Catron helping out in the background!)

A fleet of poets descended upon the Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery on Saturday, November 24th, and throughout the evening, they performed small batches of readings.

Contributor Gustave Morin traveled all the way from somewhere in Southern Ontario -- "Let's just say, Detroit," he told us -- for his performance.

Another Canadian, poet Donato Mancini, braved the border crossing for a reading with us. He had a very touching moment when he was flipping through the book to find his piece, and just exclaimed, awestruck, "I still can't believe this thing exists!"

In between the batches of readings, we were fortunate to have musical performances from Lori Goldston (former Nirvana and Earth cellist, and recent Stranger “Genius Award” recipient) with former Black Cat Orchestra band mate Kyle Hanson.

Sadly, this evening was also a farewell party for Nico, a longtime co-worker of ours, who is moving to New York with his new bride. This shot is blurry, but I love the proud round of applause he's getting from Gary Groth here. We'll miss you, Nico!!!

Warehouse hero Ajax Wood prepares to bitchslap the young Conrad Groth. Just kidding, I have no idea what is going on. You can see more photos from the opening reception at the Fantagraphics Flickr.

The next day, the posse of poets headed north for an event at the STAG (Strathcona Art Gallery) Library. The following photos were shot by Steve Calvert, and you can see more in this Facebook gallery.

Thank you to all the poets for participating in this very special weekend for a very special book!

Our exhibit of prints from the anthology will continue to be on display at the Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery through tomorrow Thursday, December 6th, and are for sale for the ridiculously low price of $25 each. Drop by to see them at 1201 S. Vale Street in Seattle's Georgetown district. Open daily 11:30 to 8:00 PM, Sundays until 5:00 PM. Phone: (206) 658-0110.

Thursday, December 6th

• Seattle, WA: It's your last chance to see our exhibit for The Last Vispo Anthology: Visual Poetry 1998-2008 at the Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery! Prints are a ridiculously-cheap $25 each! (more info)  

Friday, December 7th

• Seattle, WA: Dutch artist Femke Hiemstra debuts her latest collection "Let the Devil Wear Black" at Roq La Rue, with Blab #18 cover artist Ryan Heshka! (more info)   

Saturday, December 8th

• Seattle, WA: The Love and Rockets 30th Anniversary Celebration comes to the Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery with guests of honor Jaime & Gilbert Hernandez! We'll also have a special musical performance from Geneviève Castrée! (more info)   

 • Los Angeles, CA: Esther Pearl Watson and Mark Todd present the Eighth Annual Giant Robot Post-It Show, with work from Andrice Arp, Gabrielle Bell, Lilli Carre, Martin Cendreda, John Cuneo, Eleanor Davis, Renee French, Johnny Ryan, Malachi Ward, and Steven Weissman! (more info)   

Who knows what the devil will wear to the opening reception for Dutch artist Femke Hiemstra's latest exhibit at Roq La Rue, this Friday, December 7th!

"Let the Devil Wear Black" is a collection of meticulously tight, jewel-like mixed media paintings and exquisitely-rendered black and white drawings, homes to a dark fairytale land where inanimate objects come to life and frolic with animal neighbors. The painting below is titled "OMG," for very, very obvious reasons!

Femke will be joined by artist Ryan Heshka, cover artist for Blab #18! His own collection "Disasterama" debuts that night, as well.

Both artists will be in attendance for the opening reception from 6:00 to 9:00 PM, and they'll also be joining us at the Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery on Saturday, December 8th for our 6th anniversary celebration with Jaime & Gilbert Hernandez, and musical guest Geneviève Castrée!

Roq La Rue is located at 2312 2nd Avenue in Seattle's tricky-to-park Belltown neighborhood, so get there early!

Do I even need to say who's who in this pic?

As we mentioned earlier this week with the release of Larry's 1995 interview with him, Terry Zwigoff is making a rare Seattle appearance tonight, Thursday, November 29th at Central Cinema!

He'll be screening his 2003 film Bad Santa, but he'll also be doing a Q&A afterwards where you can ask him about his work on Ghost World or Crumb.  Fantagraphics will be on site with copies of his screenplay for you to get signed!

Central Cinema is located at 1411 21 Avenue, in Seattle's Central District neighborhood at 21st Avenue and E. Union street. Look for the Neon Marquee!

Write yourself a note so you don't forget! It's time for the Eighth Annual Giant Robot Post-It Show, curated by our own Esther Pearl Watson with her equally-awesome husband Mark Todd!

Each one-of-a-kind Post-It masterpiece is merely $20, and this might possibly be the biggest Post-It Show yet with over 2,000 submissions! And there's over 260 artists involved, including our own Andrice Arp, Gabrielle Bell, Lilli Carre, Martin Cendreda, John Cuneo, Eleanor Davis, Renee French, Johnny Ryan, Malachi Ward, and Steven Weissman!

The Giant Robot Post-It Show 8 runs from December 8th through 16th at GR2 [ 2062 Sawtelle Blvd., Los Angeles, CA ] with an opening reception event on Saturday, December 8th from 6:00 - 10:00 PM. Come prepared to "cash-and-carry"!