This weekend (Oct 16-17) we’ll be at the Alternative Press Expo right here in our backyard.

The show is one of our very favorites, with an abundance of artists, small press, cartoonists, zine-makers, and creators of all types.  If you have any kind of interest in the arts, you should definitely come check it out!

Signings with Junko Mizuno, Joe Ledbetter, Buff Monster, Ron English, Camilla d’Errico (See schedule below)

Play Last Gasp Comic-Con BINGO with prizes!

Plus all the newest books, imports, rare stuff… Our booth is #1616.

SDCC exclusive junko mizuno print

2-print set. Edition of 60. Debossed digital offset.

Signing Schedule

Thursday

Camilla d’Errico – 2pm-3pm
Junko Mizuno 4:30pm-6pm

Friday

Junko Mizuno noon-2pm
Ron English – 2pm
Joe Ledbetter – 3pm
Buff Monster – 4pm
Junko Mizuno 5pm

Saturday
Junko Mizuno 11am

Copies of our HUGE, amazing 11″ x 14″ catalog will be available!

Gilbert Shelton, underground cartoonist and author of the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, Fat Freddy’s Cat, Wonder Warthog, and Not Quite Dead, will autograph copies of his work at Oat Willie’s Campaign Headquarters, 617 West 29th Street, Austin, TX, on the afternoon of Friday, March 12, 2010.

No stranger to Austin, Shelton began his art career at the University of Texas Ranger student humor Magazine in the early sixties, where he was a frequent contributor and began the groundbreaking Wonder Warthog comic series.

After graduation Shelton moved around the country searching for creative opportunities, stopping at Cleveland, New York, and back to Austin to attend graduate school. He tried various stints at humor and automotive magazines and a brief stay as Art Director for the Vulcan Gas Company, a psychedelic rock venue in Austin.

Finally, Shelton moved to San Francisco in 1968, hoping to join poster artists Victor Moscoso, Rick Griffin, Stanley Mouse, Alton Kelly, and Wes Wilson in creating posters for the exploding rock scene there. He and three other Texans pooled their resources, bought a printing press, and formed a company, Rip Off Press, to create, print, and publish rock posters.

But, as Shelton put it in a 2006 interview, “I wasn’t as good (as a poster artist) as these guys, but I discovered I could do comic books. And, we discovered that our printing press wasn’t good enough to print posters, but it was good enough to print comics.” The rest is history.

Over forty years later, Shelton has produced 14 Freak Brothers titles, as well as several collections. They have been translated into so many languages that it is easier to list the exceptions: every language except Chinese, Arabic, Russian, and the African vernaculars. Over thirty million Freak Brothers books have been sold
worldwide.

In addition to the Freak Brothers, Shelton is the author of the companion series Fat Freddy’s Cat, and has coauthored five titles in the series Not Quite Dead , the peripatetic adventures of the “worlds least famous rock band” with French cartoonist Pic. He was also a contributor to the Zap! underground comic series,
numerous fanzines and other publications, and was the creator of the drug dealing board game Feds ‘n Heads.

Old and new friends of the works of Gilbert can see him at the Oat Willie’s autograph party Friday, March 12th, at a show at the South Austin Museum of Popular Culture, on March 13th and at a panel discussion at SXSW on Monday, March 15th.

Elizabeth McGrath says:

Hello,

I am pleased to announce the opening of my new show “American Animals” this Saturday, November 14, 2009 at Billy Shire Fine Arts (5790 Washington Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232; phone: 323-297-0600).
The opening reception will be from 7 – 10pm. The show runs from November 14 – December 5

Visit the BSFA web site for more details

I look forward to seeing you there!

-Liz

Book Preview & Interview with The Pizz

Ed Hardy, internationally renowned for breathing new life into tattooing, appears in person to discuss his art and life, as collected in the new book Beyond Skin (teNeues). Hardy will sign copies of the book, which contains drawings, prints, paintings, and his newest pieces in porcelain.

This is not Ed Hardy the fashion line. This is Ed Hardy the original, whose artwork integrates iconography from classic tattoo flash and Hollywood cartoons to the Old West, from Asia and Polynesia to Medieval Europe. Hardy achieves beauty by mixing the grotesque, humorous, subtle, and flamboyant.

Beyond Skin is a scintillating overview of an artist who has tapped the pulse of our time and an ideal gift for all who appreciate the mastery of art that defies generalization.

Presented by Last Gasp

Admission: Free

Ed Hardy
Beyond Skin
Text by Alan Govenar

Size: 10 x 12 7/8 in.
240 pp., Hardcover with jacket
c. 200 color illustrations
Text in English, German, French, Spanish and Italian
$ 98
November 2009
ISBN 978-3-8327-9352-4
To be published by teNeues in November 2009
Phone for press (about the book): teNeues, Anshana Arora (212) 627 9090 ext 19
Available from Last Gasp

Ed Hardy

At the age of ten, Don Ed Hardy recognized the unique force of tattoo art. Growing up in the center of 1950s and early 60s California pop culture, he went on to earn an art school degree and then learned to tattoo by apprenticing himself to master artists. Over the past forty years Hardy has revolutionized this ancient tradition while also bringing fresh energy to the classical mediums of painting, printmaking and ceramics through his exhibitions across the United States and abroad. His technical brilliance and mesmerizing imagery have created an indelible style on skin and in the worlds of fashion and contemporary art. Hardy’s sense of design is at once startling, seductive, frightening, and enchanting, transcending categories of time and culture, high and low.
Ed Hardy’s Tattoo City

Please join Joe Ledbetter and London Miles Gallery for Shock & Awe, the launch event of Joe Ledbetter’s Amalgamation Tour and his first U.K solo show. Joe will be signing copies of Creatures of Habit, his new book from Last Gasp.

Saturday, October 10, 2009, 5pm to 8pm
London Miles Gallery
212 Kensington Park Road
Notting Hill Gate, London, W11 1NR
Gallery Phone: (44) 0 2077274447

Todd Schorr will sign copies of his new book American Surreal at Jonathan Levine Gallery this Saturday, Oct 10, from 3-5pm.

The book is a collection of Todd’s most recent mind-blowing paintings, documenting the work of one of pop surrealism’s most talented artists. The works are elegantly presented at 10 x 15″ on thick artpaper, with a quarterbound cloth cover and gilded edges.

Book Preview

Jonathan LeVine Gallery
529 West 20th Street, 9th Floor
New York, NY 10011
212-243-3822

Presspop Gallery will have a few advance preview copies of “Onikage” by Toshio Saeki (Last Gasp). You must see this book in person!!

Here is the SCB signing schedule:

Friday, Oct 2nd
2pm – 4pm Daze, Ghost and Papermonster
4pm-6pm Martha Cooper

Saturday, Oct 3rd
11am – 1pm Alain “KET” Maridueña
2pm – 4pm Ron English