Neil Brideau, Minicomics!!

The Chicago Zine Fest is taking place, March 8 and 9 this year! I'm pleased as punch to be participating in the fest as an invited guest! I'm going to be hosting Zine Lose or Draw, a fun drawing competition on Friday night 10pm (WAY past MY bed time), at Quimby's Bookstore (like I'm not stuck there often enough)!  There'll be prizes and gifts to be given, hopefully some sort of refreshment will be handed out (no poison allowed).I'll also be tabling at the Zine Fest, on Saturday, up on the 8th floor of 1104 S Wabash at table 79 (the year I ...

So Fereshteh Toosi and I have been dating for almost two years, she's an amazing person and artist who often seems to have limitless energy, and is never satisfied with the work she's putting out.  Above is a picture of her from a performance she created for Defibrillator about a year ago. She's currently working on a years-long project, Garlic and Greens, which is a multifaceted mixed-media art piece that grew out of her tenure at ArcheWorks.  Garlic and Greens investigates food traditions, specifically focusing on African American s...

MARK:Hey Neil, what have you been up to?NEIL:Oh, Y'know, like this and that.MARK: Oh yeah?  Like what?NEIL:I don't know, bustin' heads, feedin' pigeons.  That sorta thing.MARK: Cool.  Cool.NEIL:Oh, I'm also organizing CAKE, the Chicago Alternative Comics Expo.  It's taking place June 16th & 17th at 1104 South Wabash (8th floor, jerks!), from 11am and 6pm.KNIGHT #2:A comics show?!  Ah man, those things cost so much money!  And I don't have any! [turns, kicks the dirt]NEIL:Not CAKE.ORKA:Whaaa-????NEIL:Yeah, you d...

Free Comic Book Day is a really exciting holiday for me (mainly because of the "free" and the "comic book" components of the equation).  Often times it's official, sanctioned free comics that are handed out from larger publishers, but each year it seems more and more smaller publishers are taking it upon themselves to publish free comics.  This year, Tugboat Press has Runner Runner & Sparkplug Comicbooks, Teenage Dinosaur, Revival House & Floating World Comics released Bad Trip.  Last year, Sam Sharpe, Erik Schneider and ...

Do you love alternative comics?Do you live in New York City?Do you have the weekend free?(alternately, do you remember me from college and want to tell me off to my face?)I'll be at the Museum of Comics and Cartoon Art Fest this weekend!I'll be tabling with SAM SHARPE & LIZ PRINCE, and tabling next to KENAN RUBENSTEIN & JOSH SHALEK!The website has a full exhibitor list, along with the table assignments (I'm at table i-7), hours and show costs.Come by, say hi.  I happily accept vegan baked goods for exchange for just about anything....

We are thrilled to announce Chris Ware will be a special guest at the Chicago Alternative Comics Expo, June 15 & 16 2013! As part of our programming, Roctober’s Jake Austen will host Chris Ware in conversation to talk about Ware’s career and his connection to Chicago and its living comics history. Chris Ware is the author of “Jimmy Corrigan – the Smartest Kid on Earth,” which received the Guardian First Book Award and was included in the 2002 Whitney Biennial of American Art. His most recent book “Building ...

We are so excited to announce Deb Sokolow will be a special guest at the Chicago Alternative Comics Expo, June 15 & 16 2013! Deb Sokolow’s art combines a penchant for drawing diagrams with an outsider’s cautiously curious view of the world around her. Overheard conversations, observed facts, suspicions and guesswork accumulate in a fractured story, told with flow charts, maps, and Xeroxed images rather than smooth narrative transitions. Like a conspiracy theory, Sokolow’s drawings assemble enough arguments and facts to ...

We are wicked excited to announce Collective Stench will be a special guest at the Chicago Alternative Comics Expo, June 15 & 16 2013! The Collective Stench is a group of friends who met at school in Providence, RI, and shared the love for bone-crushing comics. They now frequently table together at comics festivals, show together at art shows, and engage in other collaborative activities. Most of them are based in the greater New York area, with a few additional members in Providence, DC, Philadelphia, Austin, and The Bay area. We’...

We couldn’t be more excited to announce Kim Deitch will be a special guest at the Chicago Alternative Comics Expo, June 15 & 16 2013! Kim Deitch has a reserved place at the first table of underground cartoonists. The son of UPA and Terrytoons animator Gene Deitch, Kim was born in 1944 and grew up around the animation business. He began doing comic strips for the East Village Other in 1967, introducing two of his more famous characters, Waldo the Cat and Uncle Ed, the India Rubber Man. In 1969 he succeeded Vaughn Bodé as editor of ...

We are very excited to announce Phoebe Gloeckner will be a special guest at the Chicago Alternative Comics Expo, June 15 & 16 2013! Phoebe Gloeckner is a graphic novelist. Her book, The Diary of a Teenage Girl (2002), was praised as “one of the most brutally honest, shocking, tender, beautiful portrayals of growing up female in America.” Cartoonist R. Crumb called her story, Minnie’s Third Love (published in A Child’s Life and Other Stories) one of the “comicbook masterpieces of all time.” Her books have been publishe...

Annie Mok & Sam Sharpe will be reading at Quimby’s on Saturday! You have the work week to prepare for their awesomeness. Saturday, May 25, 7pmQuimby’s Bookstore1854 W North AveChicago, Illinois http://www.quimbys.com/blog/2013/05/25/?ec3_listing=events...

In the week following March’s Chicago Zine Fest, 13 high school students participated in a series of talks and workshops with exciting self-publishing artists from the greater Chicagoland area. Now here’s their chance to present and read from their self-published works inspired by what they learned during the series, that include essays, poems, comics and stories. Quimby’s is proud to support the next era of self-publishers. Teens Read from Works Inspired by Chicago Zine FestTuesday, May 14, 7pmQuimby’s Bookstore1854 W North AveChicago...

thegreatlakesbookproject: The Great Lakes Book Project is now at Quimby’s! ...

Stories & Queer, a traveling reading series for queer and queer-friendly poets & writers is landing at Quimby’s tomorrow night!  Come be amazed by the writing & oration talents of Deborah Miranda, Erika L. Sanchez & Gregg Shapiro! Stories & QueerFriday, May 10, 7pmQuimby’s Bookstore1854 W North AveChicago, Illinois http://www.quimbys.com/blog/store-events/stories-queer-at-quimbys-510...

To-Morrow! Cast a spell and join us for Ian F. Svenonius as he presents Super-Natural Strategies for Making a Rock’n’Roll Group! Tuesday, May 7, 2013 at 7pmQuimby’s Bookstore1854 W North AveChicago, Illinois...