THIS IS NOT A TEST: Tom Kaczynski presents the launch of his brave and brilliant collection Beta Testing the Apocalypse on Thursday, January 24th at Big Brain Comics in Minneapolis.

He will be joined by fellow Fantagraphics alumni Zak Sally and Derek Van Gieson, as well as Vincent Stall, Dan Wieken, and Peter Wartman.

Join them from 5:00 to 7:00 PM for this special celebration! Tom says a commemorative red ink will be used in authorizing your books. 

Big Brain Comics is located at 1027 Washington Avenue South. After the event, there will be mandatory fun at the Downtown Grumpy's.

Get ready for a truly Super Sunday as we welcome Portland artist Aron Nels Steinke to the Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery on Sunday, February 3rd!

From 1:00 to 3:00 PM, he'll be signing copies of his brand-new collection Big Plans, a collection of his awesome autobiographical mini-comics series, now compiled in a fine 360-page volume by Portland's Bridge City Comics!

Laugh-out-loud funny, chilling, and meditative, Big Plans collects Aron Nels Steinke's most intimate and relatable stories. With a unique sense of timing, these are incredibly readable comics that are hard to put down.

The amazing Esther Pearl Watson will be among the hundreds of artists exhibiting at the L.A. Art Book Fair, opening Thursday, January 31st at the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA!

Non-profit organization Printed Matter presents this unique event for artists' books, art catalogs, monographs, periodicals, and zines. There will be art installations, and even a "Zine World," a super-sized subsection of the L.A. Art Book Fair, featuring zinesters from home and abroad, together with three zine exhibitions.

Here's a sneak peek at some of the zines that Esther will be bringing:

(That Garbage zine is a collaboration with her also-awesome husband, artist Mark Todd!)

This event is free and open to the public, and runs through Sunday, February 3rd. The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA is located at 152 North Central Avenue. 

The great Gary Panter returns to the Fredericks & Freiser gallery in Chelsea for an exhibit of his paintings on Friday, January 25th!

As Gary tells us, "The gallery flooded and has had a lot of repairs and toil to get back in business. My work luckily was on a high shelf and so was not destroyed in the flood and so you can still see it rather than blobs of flotsam."

Support the arts and hurricane recovery, and take a trip to Chelsea for the opening reception from 6:00 to 8:00 PM.  Fredericks & Freiser is located at 536 West 24th Street in NYC.

Friday, January 18th

• Rochester, NY: The Nazareth College Department of Art launches their exhibit "Good Work," featuring our own Steve Brodner, Debbie Drechsler, Drew Friedman, and Richard Sala! (more info)  

Sunday, January 20th

• Buffalo, NY: It's your last chance to catch the exhibit, Spain: Rock, Roll, Rumbles, Rebels, & Revolution, an in-depth career retrospective on the late, great Manuel “Spain” Rodriguez at the Burchfield Penney Art Center. (more info)  

As we reported last fall, the mighty Ron Regé, Jr. will be leading a week-long intensive workshop at SAW, the Sequential Artists Workshop, from March 4th through 8th, in Gainesville, Florida!

Ron says, "If you are curious about, say, Jodorowsky's Psychomagic, surrealist revolution, alchemical archetypes, or other aspects of pulling spirits through the chaos of the ether (in relation to comics?) then come on over and we'll see what happens!" And who isn't curious about all those things?

Friend Ron on Facebook, and you'll get a sneak peek at his upcoming curriculum! He's been sharing PDF's and YouTube clips related to what he'll be throwin' down. It'll be the most magical Spring Break in Florida ever! And there's still time to sign up -- you can also get the "package deal" and take John Porcellino's class the week before. 

This is sure to be a very special and poignant event: C. Tyler will be making a rare West Coast appearance to discuss her work at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles on Thursday, January 31st!

Titled Scrapbooks, Army Surplus, Comics and Other Stuff: A Conversation with Graphic Storyteller C. Tyler, she will discuss her stunningly rendered and intensely personal series You'll Never Know: A Graphic Memoir, and will delve into comics, family memories, gender, and generations.

This event is FREE and open to the public. The discussion starts at 7:00 PM in the Annenberg Auditorium [ 3502 Watt Way ] of the University Park Campus. Reservations are recommended, so click here to RSVP!

Yo La Woodring // photo credit: Eric Reynolds

The Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery is thrilled to announce that this Saturday, January 12th, as you admire our exhibit of original artwork by the legendary Jim Woodring, and while you get your copy of Problematic: Sketchbook Drawings 2004-2012 signed, you will be enjoying the sweet, sweet sounds of the not-even-released-yet Yo La Tengo album Fade in the background!

I don't even know where to start in listing all the ties between indie rock veterans Yo La Tengo and our own Uncle Jim. Jim did some of the illustrations in their CD The Sounds of the Sounds of Science. Their bassist James McNew has Pupshaw and Pushpaw tattooed on his arm. James' solo project Dump can also be heard on Jim's Visions of Frank DVD...

And this Saturday, you and Jim Woodring will be two of the first to hear their forthcoming album in its entirety, before it's even in stores! Fade officially comes out Tuesday, January 15th (or Monday, January 14th in Europe) on the fine Matador Records label.

Jim Woodring’s Problematic book launch is from 6:00 to 9:00 PM. The Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery is located at 1201 S. Vale Street in Seattle's Georgetown district. Open daily 11:30 to 8:00 PM, Sundays until 5:00 PM. Thanks to my dear YLT and our friends at Matador Records.

Seattle is once again the center of the alternative comix universe with shows opening all over town this weekend. On Friday, January 11 at Roq la Rue from 6:00 to 9:00 PM is the post-apocalyptic group show "I'll Love You Til The End Of The World" featuring Fantagraphics favorites Camille Rose Garcia and Scott Musgrove. The same evening you'll find "Friends" at Cairo, featuring Intruder artists Max Clotfelter, Darin Shuler, Aidan Fitzgerald, Tom Van Deusen, Marc J. Palm, David Lasky, Nikki Burch, Ben Horak, Jason T. Miles, Tim Miller, James Stranton, Kazimir Strzepek and Alexa Kristine Koenings. (The future of alternative comix now.)

The comix action moves to Georgetown on Saturday evening, with a show of "Paintoons" by John Ohannesian at the One Night Stand Gallery (located directly above Fantagraphics Bookstore.) John has been busy in recent months as a Fantagraphics freelancer faithfully restoring classic strips like Nancy, Buz Sawyer, and Popeye for your reading pleasure. It'll be interesting to see how this exercise informs his cartoon paintings. Across the street at LxWxH Gallery is Bette Burgoyne's "Forest," a 30-foot narrative scroll drawing. And, of course, don't miss the Problematic reception with Jim Woodring at our bookstore. Lots of great surprises await.

Ooh la la! The loveable duo of Fuzz and Pluck are making their French debut this month from our fine colleagues at Éditions Cornélius!

And to celebrate, an exhibition of original artwork is being launched at Librairie Les Super Héros in Paris! Join artist Ted Stearn on Friday, January 25th as he heads to the City of Light for the opening reception and book signing. Ted also reports that 20 original pages will be available for purchase! 

Super Héros is located at 175 Rue Saint-Martin in Paris. The exhibit will be on display through Saturday, February 9th.