INKSTUDS X BENT
Robin McConnell Interviews Dave Cooper
Sunday, November 28th, 3pm-6pm
@ The Central, 603 Markham Street
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=122348711160147
FREE

Presented by The Beguiling, Conundrum Press, and Fantagraphics Books

Toronto! Get ready for a fantastic comics event as Robin McConnell, host of the INKSTUDS podcast and author of the new book of the same name, will interview Canada's own Dave Cooper, who has recently released his own new artbook BENT! Following the interview will be a moderated Q&A with the audience, and a signing.

The event is going down on Sunday, November 28th, from 3pm-6pm next door to The Beguiling at The Central. Both the INKSTUDS book and Cooper's BENT (as well as other fine graphic novels) will be available for sale.

This is a FREE event, and it's going to be a lot of fun. Come on out and a have a beer and a bite to eat, and enjoy some great comics chatting.

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "I know what you're all thinking. Does [Destroy All Movies!!! The Complete Guide to Punks on Film] adequately up the punx? The answer is a resounding, 'Yep!' [...] There's a little more attention paid to Nick Zedd and Lydia Lunch than I think is deserved, but otherwise the book is perfect. [...] This one will live above your toilet tank for years and make shitting so much fun." – Nick Gazin, Vice

• Review: "Dave Cooper's produced [Bent,] another book's worth of sketches and oil paintings of weird looking women. Some of Cooper's gals are cute and cartoony, most seem to be a compilation of everything that women fear they look like. His paintings mix cartoonish proportions and ways of thinking with an amazing sense of light and forms. Dave Cooper has big ideas which are mostly scary and gross ideas rendered beautifully." – Nick Gazin, Vice

• Review: "Jason... makes comics that are quiet and lonely and often show how quickly life passes. [What I Did] contains the first comics that Jason had published in English... Each one makes it seem like life is just absolutely meaningless. [...] You like smart animals? With hats? And ennui? And muuuuurderrrrrrr? You do? What else do you like? Because I like you." – Nick Gazin, Vice

• Review: "Werewolves [of Montpellier] has an artsy feel, but also plenty of humor, even in (or especially in) its more dramatic moments. [...] But it’s mostly the subtle characterizations that still bring the greatest amount of personality out of his creatures that look like animals, but act so much like humans. [...] Overall, it’s another great book from Fantagraphics in the Jason catalog. It doesn’t shake the foundation of his style, but it does try a few new ideas and tells another fun story." – William Jones, Graphic Novel Reporter

• Review: "Because of the wide variety of ways these artists see the world and approach art, it’s understood that some pieces delighted me while others left me scratching my head. But even the head-scratchers — especially the head-scratchers — left me pondering various aspects of the mythical and legendary creatures in ways I’d never considered before. [...] Once I was done [with Beasts! Book 1], I realized that I’d held onto that feeling of going through a real, marvelous exhibit of strange and wonderful creatures. Like I’d been told a story in which I was the main character, visiting this museum, learning about these beasts, wondering about them, and in turn creating stories of my own." – Michael May, Robot 6

• Review: "Reading Drew Friedman's 2010 book Too Soon? reminded me that I'd missed his 2007 comics collection, The Fun Never Stops!, so I had to remedy that situation as quickly as possible. [...] Drew Friedman comics have to be experienced rather than described; he has a distinctive, warped sensibility, intensely steeped in old pop culture but with an almost literary detachment and a relentless tropism towards ugliness, unlikely connections, and random cultural detritus. What sells it is that unflinchingly realistic drawing style — when you look at a Drew Friedman picture, you know it must be true in some way, because a fake could never look that good." – Andrew Wheeler, The Antick Musings of G.B.H. Hornswoggler, Gent.

This week's comic shop shipment is slated to include the following new titles. Read on to see what comics-blog commentators are saying about our releases this week, and contact your local shop to confirm availability.

Bent
by Dave Cooper

80-page full-color 10.25" x 9" hardcover • $22.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-378-1

"And on the other side of things, barring a continuation of Weasel (which by the end had basically turned into this), Fantagraphics brings a new 80-page, 10.25″ x 9″ hardcover collection of the best of Dave Cooper’s most recent paintings, drawings and photographs." – Joe McCulloch, Comics Comics

"Bent is a new one from Dave Cooper collecting the past five years’ worth of paintings, ink drawings, pencil sketches, and photographs all as bizarre and as strange as you’d expect." – Gosh! Comics

"SO GOOD!" – Domy Books

Mome Vol. 20 - Fall 2010
by various artists; edited by Eric Reynolds

120-page color/b&w 7" x 9" softcover • $14.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-365-1

"In which the now-well-established Fantagraphics house anthology celebrates a nice round number with a spanking new cover design..." – Joe McCulloch, Comics Comics

"Your $15 will get you 120 pages of work from Steven Weissman, Sergio Ponchione, Jeremy Teinder, Aidan Koch, Dash Shaw, Sara Edward-Corbett, Josh Simmons, T. Edward Bak, Derek Van Gieson, Ted Stearn and more." – J. Caleb Mozzocco, Newsarama

"Also from Fantagraphics is the latest in their flagship anthology, MOME, the landmark 20th volume so they’ve done their maths and provided us with the following facts: 5 years, 20 volumes, 72 artists, and 2,352 pages of comics. Blimey." – Gosh! Comics

"Congratulations to Eric Reynolds on a mighty run of books, and let's hope it continues until it's a undeniable all-timer in the very tough room that is the comics anthology." – Tom Spurgeon, The Comics Reporter

Just arrived in our warehouse and ready to ship:

Bent
by Dave Cooper

80-page full-color 10.25" x 9" hardcover • $22.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-378-1

Ordering Info & Previews

Fine artist Dave Cooper offers us a window into the wobbly dollhouse that is his mind’s eye. The work in Bent gathers a diverse mix of imagery that is also strangely focussed in its single-mindedness. This work has found a devoted and passionate following with visitors to Cooper’s solo gallery shows in Los Angeles and New York in recent years.

Cooper continues to obsess and fixate over his bizarre procession of milky figures as they crawl and wriggle into hidden meadows, jungles and cities. Everything in this world seems to be undulating and overripe — the multi-coloured Jell-O vegetation, the billowing clouds, and the twitching, agitated women, whether thin like sinewy rubber, or fat and bursting with doughy flesh.

The characters in Cooper’s work have been likened to a dog chasing its tail. Or maybe it’s as though they’re like someone on drugs who can stare at their own hand for 20 minutes; either way, these girls are hypnotized by wriggling around on the ground, twisting in on themselves, walking on their hands, squeezing and chewing one another. It may sound hellish, but to the demons, hell must seem like heaven. So maybe Cooper’s landscapes are more like a weird kind of utopia where all those insane facial expressions and physical contortions are more an experession of elation or giddiness.

This monograph collects Cooper’s finest, most revealing paintings, ink drawings, pencil sketches, and photographs from the past five years, many of which enjoy homes in the collections of influential collectors and some of Hollywood’s elite. Among this esteemed crowd is the great auteur, Oscar-nominated Guillermo del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth), who provides an enthusiastic introduction for Bent.

Bonus Savings: To celebrate the release of his latest book, for a limited time all in-stock Dave Cooper backlist titles are 1/3 off!

Oh nuts, I'm about to start today's Online Commentary & Diversions and noticed I never published yesterday's in my APE prep frenzy. Here it is:

• Review: "Rip M.D. is near perfect. ...[T]he art is fantastic; with original and distinct designs that border realistic and cartoony, with the best qualities of both carrying a jovial wit, which never balking on making the subject matter truly scary. And the story by Mitch Schauer is told in a clear and concise manner, taking on a sort of fairy tale tone in the beginning that sort of fades by the end. The book on the whole is kid-like in tone, but told with sophistication that one used to see in old Loony Tunes." – Mark L. Miller, Ain't It Cool News

• Review: "Rip M.D. is very sweet all-ages graphic novel... For those... looking for something to share with the family, Rip is an excellent choice. The writer, Mitch Schauer, is clearly a fan of classic monsters and has really had some fun with these characters. The real gem in Rip M.D. is the artwork. Beautiful, beautiful panels that you may want to tear out of the book and put up on your walls. [...] And the colors in this book are just stunning. This is a book that warrants some extra time to just enjoy each page. [...] Ultimately, this is a book that anyone can read and enjoy that would also make an excellent gift to a young reader as a Halloween treat. Score: ★★★★★" – Stephanie Shamblin G, Comic Monsters

• Review: "Most of [The Best American Comics Criticism] is enjoyable and smart, with pieces suitable for the relative comics neophyte, graphic novel enthusiast or fan of old strips from the heyday of newspapers." – Christopher Allen, Trouble With Comics

• Interview: Squee! talks to Carol Tyler about You'll Never Know in an interview which will run in edited form in the new issue of Ghettoblaster Magazine: "Hardest thing I've ever taken on. So much to juggle: the storyline, the art. The mechanics of making a comic page/book. Oy! I've been at this for four years and I'm still not done! I love it, though. I've had to wrap my life around getting pages done. [...] It's an epic struggle, although worth it a thousand times over."

• Interview (audio): Inkstuds host Robin McConnell chatted with fellow Canadian Dave Cooper while Dave was in Vancouver on his West Coast book tour

• Interview (audio): Guest host Lark Pien talks to Megan Kelso on the new episode of The Comix Claptrap podcast; also, Josh Frankel talks about Love and Rockets: New Stories #3 (hope he's nice; we haven't had time to listen yet)

• Coming Attractions: MTV Geek's David Paggi previews Jason's Isle of 100,000 Graves, coming next Spring

Dave Cooper and Johnny Ryan graced us with their presence at our Bookstore & Gallery last night to celebrate the release of their respective new books Bent and Prison Pit Book 2 and a fine time was had by all. Thanks to everybody who came out and made it a bustling crowd on a rainy Saturday night! For those who couldn't make it (or would like to relive the experience), browse our photoset, which includes shots of all of Dave's drawings on exhibit. We'll post pics of Johnny's visit to Floating World in Portland and from Dave's other book tour stops when they turn up.

Don't miss the festivities at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery this Saturday, October 9 from 6:00 to 9:00 PM as two extraordinary artists appear to celebrate the publication of exquisite new books.

Dave Cooper's BENT features twisted pictures that are simultaneously sensuous and grotesque. The event will feature an exhibition of alluring drawings offered at insanely affordable prices. His recent shows at Jonathan Levine in New York and Billy Shire Fine Arts in L. A. attracted celebrity art patrons. Here's your chance to join them. Also on hand will be Johnny Ryan touring behind the latest installment of his amazing PRISON PIT serial. There will be a display of colorful silkscreen prints by the mastermind behind ANGRY YOUTH COMIX.

This event coincides with the lively Georgetown Art Attack featuring challenging visual and performing art exhibitions throughout the historic industrial arts corridor. Please join us for complimentary beverages with these compelling contemporary artists.

And mark your calendars now for Saturday, October 30 when we welcome the incomparable Charles Burns back home to Seattle.

Thanks to über-fan Chris Diaz for sending us these photos from Dave Cooper's appearance at the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco last night, part of his ongoing West Coast book tour.