PINK SLIPS
Nothing is Golden

Hello, and happy summer! This week's summery highlights include: a compilation from Glenn Barr, featuring details of faces from his paintings and drawings, published by our very own Last Gasp Press; a breathtaking volume presenting 42 of the world's best tattoo artists in Comics, Cartoon, Pin-Up, Manga and New School styles; a collection of classically-inspired yet intensely original tattoo flash art from Oakland artist Jason Phillips; an insightful examination into North American art, reflecting the multi-cultural roots from which it stems; and a captivating collection of the exclusive portrait work of over 80 illustrators from all over the world.

In our Adult catalog: Nothing this week, folks. Sorry. This is a smutless week. Please be sure to check next week's newsletter for more dirty books.

LAST GASP BOOKS

FEATURED ITEM: GLENN BARR'S FACES Glenn Barr – $15.95 – ISBN-13: 978-0-86719-767-9 Hardcover, paper over board – 80 color and b&w illustrations A compilation from Detroit-based Glenn Barr featuring details from 80 paintings and drawings created over the last decade.Inspired by the complex expressions and raw emotions revealed by faces, Barr invokes the human condition, creating a multitude of personalities ranging from extraordinarily common to extreme and fantastic. Barr uses pencil and brush to render elegant and elongated necklines, exaggerated eyes, and the gentle or jagged slopes shaping the noses or foreheads of the men, women, and monsters he creates, whether they are beautiful, ordinary, or even grotesque. Expressed in the intricate details of each image, Barr presents a delicate mix of texture, color and line typical of his loose but carefully executed style.Faces brings each reader one step closer to experiencing first-hand the compelling minds and interesting characters found in the world of Glenn Barr. Turn the page to reveal subtle or manic emotions of the wise, the wicked and the wistful.

BOOK OF THE WEEK

CRANIAL VISIONS: EXPLORING THE SKULL THROUGH ARTISTIC INTERPRETATION Jinxi Caddel, editor – $70.00 – ISBN-13: 978-0-615-39053-6 Hardcover – Color The fascinating and grim history of the skull has been a forceful subject matter throughout the ages, tracing back in artistic endeavors as far as creative collections have been recorded. This high quality coffee table book features an immense volume of work highlighting the skull in many mediums, bringing together artists and works from all walks of life.

ART & PHOTOGRAPHY

FEATURED ITEM: CONTEMPORARY ART IN NORTH AMERICA: ARTWORLD Phoebe Adler, Duncan McCorquodale, editors – $49.95 – ISBN-13: 978-1-907317-23-1 Hardcover – Color Diverse in both content and style, art in the United States and Canada reflects the multi-cultural roots from which it stems, as seen in the range of mediums and techniques covered, from painting, photography and video, to installation, performance and curatorial practices. This is an insightful examination into the styles, perceptions and cultures of this region and its art.

ART, DESIGN/GRAPHICS

FEATURED ITEM: ILLUSTRATION NOW! PORTRAITS Julius Wiedemann, editor – $43.99 – ISBN-13: 978-3-8365-2425-4 Softcover – Color Illustration has flourished over the last decade, with professionals working both by computer and by hand. Its single most challenging and captivating subject has been the portrait, frequently used in editorials, advertising, products, and major exhibitions. The book collects the exclusive (and frequently unpublished) portrait work of over 80 illustrators from all over the world.

COMICS

THREE COMICS #2 Robert Kirby, editor – $6.25 – ISBN-13: 978-0-615-48061-9 See GAY/LES/BI/TRANS COMICS below.

DRUG & ALCOHOL INFO

LAST CALL: THE RISE AND FALL OF PROHIBITION Daniel Okrent – $17.00 – ISBN-13: 978-0-7432-7704-4 See HISTORY below.

GAY/LES/BI/TRANS COMICS

THREE COMICS #2 Robert Kirby, editor – $6.25 – ISBN-13: 978-0-615-48061-9 Saddle stitched – Color A limited-run anthology comic by queer comic artists. For this issue, each story features two cartoonists in collaboration. Jon Macy illustrates an autobio tale of sex and sort-of romance by Sina Evil; Jennifer Camper and Michael Fahy alternate panels in a parody of romance comics; and David Kelly and Craig Bostick team up again on an uneasy relationship between a country singer and a gay hustler.

GRAPHIC NOVELS

CAPTAIN EASY, SOLDIER OF FORTUNE: COMPLETE SUNDAY STRIPS, V.2 Roy Crane – $39.00 – ISBN-13: 978-1-60699-391-0 Hardcover – Color Long before the first superhero, Roy Crane's courageous, indomitable, cliff-ganging rough guy set the aesthetic standards for the newspaper strip. This second volume reprints the rare Captain Easy Sunday pages from the 1930s. Captain Easy fights for gold in the frozen north, is mistaken for a bandit, is stranded on a desert island, faces a firing squad, and much more!

HISTORY

LAST CALL: THE RISE AND FALL OF PROHIBITION Daniel Okrent – $17.00 – ISBN-13: 978-0-7432-7704-4 Softcover – A little b&w art A brilliant, authoritative, fascinating history of America's most puzzling era, 1920 to 1933, when the U.S. Constitution was amended to restrict one of America's favorite pastimes: drinking alcohol. A dazzling explanation of why we did it, what life under Prohibition was like, and how such an unprecedented degree of government interference in the private lives of Americans changed the country forever.

HUMOR

ABRAHAM LINCOLN, VAMPIRE HUNTER Seth Grahame-Smith – $13.99 – ISBN-13: 978-0-446-56307-9 Softcover – Some b&w art Abraham Lincoln's fight against the undead has been in the shadows, until Seth Grahame-Smith (Pride & Prejudice & Zombies) stumbled upon his journal and reconstructed his life story, including the role vampires played. Hardcover, some art (b&w). "The funniest, most action-packed and weirdly well- researched account of the Civil War you'll probably read in a long time." -Vanity Fair

MAGAZINES & ZINES

The following magazine has had a new issue come out in the last week. Standing orders are available; please contact your salesperson for periodicity and return requirements.

HEAVY METAL SPECIAL VOL. 35 #5 (SUMMER 2011): WAR OF THE WORLDS SPECIAL Kevin Eastman, editor – $6.95 Perfect bound – Color The adult illustrated fantasy comic magazine. Reprints lots of good Euro stuff, exposed breasts, proficient art. This is one of their quarterly special issues, the War of the Worlds Special. In this issue: "St. Petersburg" by Joe Pearson, David Abromowitz, Gavin Yap, & Puppeteer Lee; "Legacy" by Chi-Ren Choong & Wankok Leong; "Divine Wind" by Kromosomlab & Leon Tan; more.

TATTOO/PIERCING/BODY MOD.

FEATURED ITEM: COLOR TATTOO ART Marisa Kakoulas – $199.00 – ISBN-13: 978-0-934020-93-0 Hardcover – Color This breathtaking volume presents 42 of the world's best tattoo artists in Comics, Cartoon, Pin-Up, Manga and New School styles. Dedicated to graphic, animated tattoos as well as the fine art of tattooists. Many of the impressive color tattoos are shown full page, with a rich selection of sketches, paintings and artwork. Joe Capobianco, Jime Litwalk, Dave Fox, King Rat, Ivana, more.

FEATURED ITEM: TATTOO FLASH Jason Phillips – $50.00 Hardcover – Color Jason Phillips grew up on a steady diet of classic flash painters. But this Oakland tattoo artist is making his own mark, and is equally influenced by Hokusai or Gregory Blackstock in trying to boil things down to their simplest form. This book contains some of Phillips's favorite sheets of flash from 2002 to 2010. All the highs and lows of modern existence capsulated in small designs.

VARIOUS ODDS & ENDS

EMBRACE: A PREGNANCY JOURNAL Nikki McClure – $16.95 – ISBN-13: 978-1-57061-681-5 Softcover – Color Pregnancy is an adventure like no other; a time of tremendous physical and emotional change. Many women want a place to record this singular time in their lives. Nikki McClure, a mother herself, inspires with her beautiful artwork, and reassures with her comforting voice in this journal which accompanies a mother-to-be through her nine months of pregnancy and her baby's birth.

RELISTED

The following titles had been taken out of our catalog, but they recently came back in stock — or else we found them on our stock shelves when we thought they were gone — so we've put them back on our Website.

COMMIES FROM MARS 2 Tim Boxell – $2.00 – ISBN-13: 978-0-86719-106-6 Saddle stitched – Black and white From the early '80s comes this very good series edited by Tim Boxell. Features early work by Boxell, Hunt Emerson, J. Michael Leonard, Greg Irons, Shawn Kerry, and more.

DANIEL JOHNSTON Daniel Johnston, Philippe Vergne, Jad Fair, Harvey Pekar – $45.00 – ISBN-13: 978-0-8478-3230-9 Hardcover – Color Daniel Johnston only ever dreamt of two things: to be a rock star and a famous artist. Amazingly, he succeeded at both. His art appears in galleries throughout the world and was featured in the 2006 Whitney Biennial. In his complex world, good battles evil attended to by playful characters. Over 150 illustrations, many never seen before.

FACTS O'LIFE Lora Fountain, editor – $2.00 Saddle stitched – Black and white We gave birth to this one in '72. It's the real facts about birth control, abortion, V.D. (remember that?), and… sexuality! Quaint nostalgia. Artists include Robert Crumb ("Strawberry Fields"), Gilbert Shelton ("Fat Freddy Gets The Clap") and many more.

HELL BOUND: NEW GOTHIC ART Francesca Gavin – $24.95 – ISBN-13: 978-1-85669-563-3 Softcover – Mostly color, some b&w The first book to focus on new gothic art highlights a new generation of artists increasingly obsessed with the darker things in life. Street artists, sculptors, photographers, filmmakers, installation artists, painters and more all reflect this renewed interest in gothic imagery, feeding the popular fascination for all things gothic.

STOREYVILLE Frank Santoro – $24.95 – ISBN-13: 978-0-9789722-7-1 Hardcover – Color A perfect match of form and content, Storeyville was originally published in 1995 as a now-rare 40 page tabloid newspaper, printed in muted tones ranging from sandy yellow to a deep sepia. A youthful adventure at the dawn of the 20th century is told with humor and pathos. "One of the landmarks of comics' development." -Chris Ware

Download here [1.26MB]

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Fortunately we live in the era of computers. Technology has developed rapidly. Using contemporary technology, mankind knows how to make dreadful weapons which commit mass murder. On the other hand, we can use contemporary technology for peace. Misunderstanding and discrimination come from ignorance.

Using the internet, we can get a lot of information held in common. Nowadays it is very easy to go abroad, so we can know the life of everyday people in each country. There are many races on the earth and they have their own religion, too. Mankind speaks various languages but grief is the same. We really need mutual understanding and cultural exchange in order to have a good relationship with many countries.

We hope the young generation in the world make the Earth a place without wars or nuclear weapons. We hope the young generation in the world make the planet without the tears of children caused by wars.

This is the wish of Gen, the author, the Hibakusha and all the Japanese people. Gen has been translated into many languages and they will increase in the near future.

Please listen to messages from Gen. Thank you.

–Project Gen, February 2011

About Project Gen

In the pages of Barefoot Gen, Keiji Nakazawa brings to life a tragedy unlike any that has ever befallen the human race before. He does not simply depict the destructive horror of nuclear weapons, but tells of the cruel fate they visited upon victims and survivors in the years to come. Yet Gen, the young hero of this story, somehow manages to overcome one hardship after another, always with courage and humor. Barefoot Gen’s tale of hope and human triumph in the face of nuclear holocaust has inspired volunteer translators around the world, as well as people working in a variety of other media. Over the years Gen has been made into a three-part live-action film, a feature-length animation film, an opera, and a musical.

The first effort to translate Barefoot Gen from the original Japanese into other languages began in 1976, when Japanese peace activists Masahiro Oshima and Yukio Aki walked across the United States as part of that year’s Transcontinental Walk for Peace and Social Justice. Their fellow walkers frequently asked them about the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, and one of them happened to have a copy of Hadashi no Gen in his backpack. The Americans on the walk, astonished that an atomic bomb survivor had written about it in cartoon form, urged their Japanese friends to translate it into English. Upon returning to Japan, Oshima and Aki founded Project Gen, a non-profit, all-volunteer group of young Japanese and Americans living in Tokyo, to do just that.

Project Gen went on to translate the first four volumes of Barefoot Gen into English. One or more of these volumes have also been published in French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Swedish, Norwegian, Indonesian, Tagalog, and Esperanto.

By the 1990s Project Gen was no longer active. In the meantime, author Keiji Nakazawa had gone on to complete ten volumes of Gen, and expressed his wish to see the entire story made available to non-Japanese readers. Parts of the first four volumes had also been abridged in translation. A new generation of volunteers responded by reviving Project Gen and producing a new, complete and unabridged translation of the entire Gen series.

The second incarnation of Project Gen got its start in Moscow in 1994, when a Japanese student, Minako Tanabe, launched “Project Gen in Russia” to translate Gen into Russian. After publishing the first three volumes in Moscow, the project relocated to Kanazawa, Japan, where volunteers Yulia Tachino and Namie Asazuma had become acquainted with Gen while translating a story about Hiroshima into Russian. The Kanazawa volunteers, together with Takako Kanekura in Russia, completed Russian volumes 4 through 10 between 1999 and 2001.

In the spring of 2000, the Kanazawa group formally established a new Project Gen in Japan. Nine volunteers spent the next three years translating all ten volumes of Gen into English. The translators are Kazuko Futakuchi, Michael Gordon, Kyoko Honda, Yukari Kimura, Nobutoshi Kohara, Kiyoko Nishita, George Stenson, Michiko Tanaka, and Kazuko Yamada.

In 2002, author Keiji Nakazawa put the Kanazawa team in contact with Alan Gleason, a member of the first Project Gen, who introduced them to Last Gasp of San Francisco, publisher of the original English translation of Gen. Last Gasp agreed to publish the new, unabridged translation of all ten volumes, of which this book is one.

In the hope that humanity will never repeat the terrible tragedy of the atomic bombing, the volunteers of Project Gen want children and adults all over the world to hear Gen’s story. Through translations like this one, we want to help Gen speak to people in different countries in their own languages. Our prayer is that Barefoot Gen will contribute in some small way to the abolition of nuclear weapons before this new century is over.

– Namie Asazuma

Coordinator, Project Gen

Write to Project Gen

c/o Asazuma

Nagasaka 3-10-20, Kanazawa

921-8112, Japan

Keiji Nakazawa lives with his wife in the suburbs of Tokyo, and remains actively involved in the work of the Project Gen

volunteers. Now retired from cartooning, his most recent project was a live action film he wrote and directed about

young people growing up in postwar Hiroshima. He is currently working on another film scenario.

The statement above was prepared in conjunction with the “Manga Movable Feast.” Since February 2010, once a month, the manga blogging community holds a week-long event called the Manga Moveable Feast, in which they discuss a particular series or one shot title. Each day, the host shares links to new blog entries focusing on that work, while building an archive for the entire week’s discussion. At the end of the event, the group then selects a new host and a new “menu” for the following month.

In the words of Sam Kusek, one of the organizers:

The primary goal of this feast is to promote intelligent, in-depth analysis of manga that we as community hold strong feelings towards, while fostering a sense of community among avid manga readers by inviting everyone to take part in the event, regardless of whether they’ve participated before.

This February 2011 Manga Movable Feast centralizes around Barefoot Gen, published in North America by Last Gasp.

Download here [1.23MB].

BLABWORLD Book Signing
Sponsored by The Intuit Show of Folk and Outsider Art (with SOFA Chicago)
Navy Pier Festival Hall

Friday, November 5th, 2011, 5:00 PM – 7:00 PM

Contributing artists, CJ Pyle, Fred Stonehouse, Michael Noland, Travis Lampe, Kari Laine McCluskey, Larry Day, and BLABWORLD founder, editor, and designer, Monte Beauchamp will be available to sign copies of the premiere volume of BLABWORLD, a 10 x 10 inch, full-color, 128-page, periodic hardcover book of works by leading contemporary painters, print makers, illustrators, and sequential artists worldwide.

Attend the book signing and purchase books at the Intuit Store, Booth 1524i.

Get a FREE 3-Day pass to both fairs!