If you’re going to MoCCA this weekend, be sure to stop by the Fantagraphics table on Saturday from 3-4pm to say hi to Lilli. You can also catch her a few hours later (6:30-8:30) at Giant Robot for the release of Windy Corner #3.

Thanks so much to Whitney of USA Today’s Pop Candy for picking Nine Ways to Disappear as a top read! “I can’t imagine anyone reading this book and not wanting to go out and buy a copy for someone else.” We couldn’t agree more!

We just received our first copies of Lilli Carre’s Nine Ways to Disappear and we are excited to be debuting it this weekend at Stumptown Comics Fest in Portland! Come see us at booth #102–not only will we have special Fest discounts, we’ll also be accompanied by the fabulous Martine Workman!

Focus Features is coordinating a series of events around the world premiere of Away We Go, the newest release from Sam Mendes starring John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph. It was written by Vendela Vida and Dave Eggers and they’re going on a mini-tour of screenings as a fundraiser for 826 National, The Teacher Salary Project, The Believer, and Voice of Witness.

May 1: San Francisco
May 7: Los Angeles
May 9: Seattle
May 14: Ann Arbor
May 15: Chicago
May 16: New York
May 31: Boston

Friends of Nancy: Comics at the RISD Library
April 16 – June 26

Opening Reception
Thursday, April 16, 5:00-7:00pm
Library, Second Floor, Room 223

Fleet Library at RISD
15 Westminster St.
Providence, RI 02903

Friends of Nancy: Comics at the RISD Library is an exhibition of comics and graphic novels which will be displayed at the RISD Library. The exhibition includes an eclectic mix of groundbreaking contemporary and historical cartoonists from the Library’s collection of Artists’ Books and Special Collections, and will feature original pages and hand-printed mini-comics by Allison Cole, Cybele Collins, Jo Dery, C.F., Leif Goldberg, Carlos Gonzalez and James McShane. The opening reception will be held on April 16th from 5-7pm in room 223, the Special Collections Reading Room on second floor of the RISD Library.

Congrats to Drawn and Quarterly for turning 20 this year! They are definitely a paragon of publishing that we look up to. If you’re in Montreal on June 3rd, their anniversary show with TV on the Radio and The Dirty Projectors seems like it’s not to be missed. Plus snazzy poster by Adrian Tomine!

As I’ve said before, my brother George is a busy busy guy and if you don’t meet him at the Handmade Nation screening at Mezzanine next Wednesday, you have lots of opportunities to see him play (or tell a story) coming up…

march 13th fri @ the smell, la
burning star core
damion romero
workbench
ezra buchla
chen santa maria
http://thesmell.org

march 14th sat @ women house, la
moment trigger
lemon bear
chen santa maria

march 16th mon @ verdi club, sf
porchlight storytelling series
w/ george chen, stephen elliott, tba
http://www.porchlightsf.com

march 19th thurs @ southern exposure, sf
what’s in the box?
w/ george chen, kit clayton, david horvitz, lukas geronimas, leif hedendal
http://www.boxgame.org/

.::chen santa maria/dan friel west coast tour::.
april 25th – portland – pocket sandwich w/ mark evan burden, yellow crystal star
april 26th – seattle – the josephine w/ redneck, arbitron
april 27th – portland – valentine’s w/ white rainbow
april 28th – oakland – totally intense fractal mindgaze hut w/ grouper, pete swanson
april 29th – irvine – acrobatics everyday @ uc irvine w/ erika m anderson
april 30th – los angeles – the smell w/ lucky dragons, finches, erika m anderson
may 1st – los angeles – pehrspace w/ erika m anderson
may 2nd – san francisco – oven51 w/ high castle, erika m anderson, stamina mantis

http://myspace. com/chensantamaria

We didn’t have time to partake in much of the 32nd Portland International Film Festival, but we wanted to see something and The Beaches of Agnes jumped out at us since we loved the two Agnes Varda films that we had seen, Cleo from 5 to 7 and The Gleaners and I. Even though we ended up with craned necks and a bit of screen sickness from being relegated to the third row, the movie was totally worth it. It’s a filmic memoir composed like memories are–disjointed, fanciful, random, sentimental. Varda has lived an incredibly colorful life and coming from anyone less charming, this might have come across as self-aggrandizing, but instead it is beautiful and inspiring. I don’t want to go into details of the movie as each little bit builds up to making the wonderful whole, but I highly recommend seeing this if you get a chance.

I do not consider myself a philatelist, but I do love a good postage stamp. I’ve been slowly amassing a random collection since the 90s when I did a lot of mailing for my zine/label. So it’s not so much a collection placed carefully in binders, but scattered sheets here and there that I’ve bought to use but then can’t bear to part with. There are many I wished I had kept, but part of the beauty of stamps is that they’re fun to share. I try not to buy ugly stamps, but if I end up with some, I use them on bills or something where the recipient couldn’t care less. Stamps are little pieces of art and can add a lot of personality to a correspondence. I’m sure most people don’t notice, but when I’m not in a rush, I try to present an interesting panoply in that upper right corner. Here’s a recent juxtaposition that amused me…

I’ve always caught bits of Masterpiece Theater here and there over the years, but have become a regular viewer more of late, probably starting with Jane Eyre and the string of Jane Austens last year. On average, the productions are pretty good, although some are much worse than others (hello Mansfield Park). That horrible version convinced me that not all Masterpiece are created equal and that it might be a good idea to read the books before they show their interpretations. I had actually read Mansfield Park after enjoying the movie from a few years back (and liked the Fanny Price of the movie far better than the actual one). [On a side note, I always loved how in Whit Stillman's Metropolitan, Tom's opinion of the book was based on literary criticism, rather than having read the book itself. If you've never watched Metropolitan, I highly recommend it--it still stands as one of our favorite movies, with a yearly holiday viewing.]

I found out last week that Masterpiece Classic was returning with Tess of the D’Urbervilles. Granted, a lot of the books they dramatize are things most people probably read in high school, but I still have a lot of catching up to do. So I went out and found a used copy of the book and spent the weekend cramming it down. I didn’t get to totally digest it as I finished a few hours before the broadcast, but I can easily say the book is much better than at least Part 1 of the show. I guess the problem all book adaptations have is that it is extremely difficult to capture the wording which constructs the picture–you can tell basically the same plot, but that’s often not the only thing that makes a book singular. I also wanted to have my own interpretation of the characters in my head before being tainted by their choice of actors. It’s not even that Thomas Hardy is so luxurious in his language, but there is something nice about putting your imagination to work to form the faces and places that he only builds with words.

Anyhow, here is one particular turn of phrase that I liked (please excuse the very rodent-like qualities of my polar bear!)