The Joost Swarte exhibit Trafic at Galerie Champaka in Brussels which Kim posted about a couple of weeks ago is set to open tomorrow (which is today if you're in Brussels), and the gallery has posted some mighty handsome preview images of the artwork on their public Facebook page.

The Bumbershoot Music & Arts festival is upon us again, and if you can navigate through the drum circles and shishkaberry lines, here's where you can find some Fantagraphics:

Bumber By Number: local culture vultures Marlow Harris and Jo David are featuring a fully-immersive and interactive paint-by-numbers art exhibit, which will also feature vintage paint-by-numbers kits altered by our own Jim Blanchard and Jim Woodring.

[ That's a shot of Blanchard's piece above, which will be for sale! ]

If you wanna check out Bumber By Number and the rest of this year's visual art offerings, head to Seattle Center on Thursday, September 1st for a FREE open-to-the-public preview from 3:00 to 9:00 pm!

And, just an aside, but this year's Bumbershoot graphics were designed by noneother than Fanta-friend Jesse LeDoux. 

 

Eric Verhoest et Thomas Spitaels
ont le plaisir de vous inviter
à l’inauguration de
Trafic par

Joost Swarte

Vernissage en présence de l’artiste,
le jeudi 8 septembre 2011
de 18h00 à 20h30
_

Eric Verhoest en Thomas Spitaels
hebben het genoegen u uit te nodigen
op de opening van
Trafic door

Joost Swarte

Vernissage in het bijzijn van de kunstenaar
op donderdag 8 september 2011
van 18u00 tot 20u30

 

Rue Ernest Allardstraat, 27
Bruxelles 1000 Brussel
Belgium
Tel : +32 2 514 91 52 
Fax : +32 2 346 16 09
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
www.galeriechampaka.com

(Apologies to Tom Spurgeon for swiping his title.) That is one classy invitation, too.

I doubt the fact that the show's title is the same as the title of Jacques Tati's final movie is a coincidence; as I recall Tati's Playtime is Joost's favorite movie.

And yes, we're barreling down the final few laps of the Swarte Book Marathon! It's still on for early 2012.

Aieee! Last minute Beto alert! He's got some artwork on display at a comic shop in his hometown of Las Vegas, with what sounds like a hoot of an opening reception tonight. From the Facebook invitation:

Alternate Reality Comics proudly invites you to our FIRST ever Artist Spotlight Reception!! Please join us for this great event as we try to bridge the gap between the comic world and various other art forms!!

This months featured local artists will be the very talented Keri Schroeder and comic book legend Gilbert Hernandez (creator of Love and Rockets).

We will also have live performances from local folk talent Rushmore Beekeepers and local poet/spoken word artist Harry Fagel.

The reception will run from 6:00pm-9:00pm
Performances start at 7:30pm

Ellen Forney & Jim Woodring at the Frye Art Museum in Seattle, 03/08

This weekend, the Boise Art Museum unveils a new exhibit that is right down our alley: Comics at the Crossroads: Art of the Graphic Novel.

The exhibition spotlights 40 different comic book artists from the Pacific Northwest, including our own Jim Woodring, Ellen Forney, Shannon Wheeler, and Colleen Coover. We're also excited to see Fanta-friends David Lasky and Matthew Southworth included in the line-up!

Included in the exhibit will be original artwork, unpublished drawings, book covers, and more!

A preview party for Comics at the Crossroads is happening this Friday, August 19th at 5:30 PM, and the exhibit runs from August 20th to November 27th at the Boise Art Museum [670 Julia Davis Drive, Boise, Idaho].

Make a habit of visiting Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery this fall as we approach five years of presenting comix culture to the masses. It just keeps getting better:

 

On Saturday, September 3 between noon and 3:00 PM, we host a sneak preview of "Hooked on Comix 3." Fimmakers David P. Moore and Audry Mandelbaum will be present for a continuous screening of the latest installment of their insightful documentary series on alternative comix. This one features the lovely Dame Darcy and always entertaining Tony Millionaire. Can't wait.

On Saturday, September 10 we open Drawing Power, an amazing exhibition of cartoon advertising curated by Warren Bernard. On Saturday, September 24 Bernard will present a slide talk followed by a book signing from 6:00 to 8:00 PM. He'll be joined by visual artist and cartoonist Tom Neely presenting his latest "painted novel" The Wolf.

 

On Saturday, October 1 we'll host a special preview of the topical graphic novel Oil and Water with journalist writer Steve Duin from 6:00 to 8:00 PM.

The following Saturday, October 8 we welcome comix legend Trina Robbins for an exhibition and slide talk on Nell Brinkley from her phenomenal book Brinkley Girls, who will be in town as an guest at the Geek Girl Con.

Don't miss a minute of the action. Visit Fantagraphics Bookstore daily. If you don't live here, with local housing prices remaining soft and the Seattle job market improving, now's a good time to move. See ya'll soon.

This Friday, August 12th, the fabulous Roq la Rue gallery debuts The Blab! Show, curated by noneother than Monte Beauchamp!  

Beauchamp returns to the theme of "Krampus," which you may remember from back issues of Blab! and the collection of vintage Krampus postcards The Devil in Design, and the show features interpretations by artists like Shag, Andy Kehoe, and Ryan Heshka. If you don't recall, Krampus is a sinister holiday devil, so appropriately enough, Roq la Rue promise they'll be "throwing one hell of an opening party!"

The Blab! Show runs until September 3rd. For anyone outside the Seattle area, an online gallery will be posted here this Friday. Roq la Rue is located at 2312 2nd Ave. in the bustling Belltown neighborhood.

photo credit: Lynn Christoffers

Check out the Paul Karasik exhibit at the West Tisbury Public Library! [ GET IT?! ]

This Eisner Award-winning artist and scholar debuted an exhibit last Friday at his hometown library, and fortunately for those of you in Massachusetts, it will run until the end of August! Plus, Paul will be donating half of the proceeds from the sale of his work to the library's expansion fund.

The West Tisbury Public Library is located at 1042 State Road in Vineyard Haven, MA. And be sure to check out [ heh, heh... okay, I'll stop ] this lovely profile on Paul in The Martha's Vineyard Times!

(Artwork by David Chelsea)

We learned of this so last minute I don't even have time to write anything clever, so I'm just copy & pasting this info from the Gage Academy website:

Steele Gallery: Think Ink

August 5 – September 5
Opening Reception: Friday, Friday, August 5, 6:00pm-8:00pm

Local artists, cartoonists and graphic illustrators exhibit pen and ink artworks that display exceptional technical skill and creative, narrative story lines. Working with the constraints and possibilities of the fluid nib and inkwell, artists David Chelsea, David Lasky, Bob Rini, Jim Woodring and more dazzle the viewer with complex compositions and unexpected shifts in perspective.

Don't miss the concurring guest lecture with artist David Chelsea August 5.

One of the many awesome things about San Diego Comic-Con was getting to chat with pioneer of female comic art, Joyce Farmer, and current champion of the ladies, Esther Pearl Watson. We talked about how it wasn't always so easy to be a woman in the comics world. So, a show like this, spotlighting the latest wave of amazing women artists, just makes me really, really happy.

Lady Comix Art opens this Saturday, July 30th at the Webb Gallery in Waxahachie, TX. Curated by our own Esther Pearl Watson, the show features fellow female Fantagraphics artists like Dame Darcy and Gabrielle Bell, among an awesome line-up of ladies. The opening night soiree runs from 7:00 - 11:00 PM.

The Webb Gallery is located at 209 West Frankin Street in Waxahachie, TX, and the show runs through September 18th. And here's a print I spotted (and snapped a pic of!) at Esther's booth at SDCC that seems particularly appropriate for the show: