One of the functions of this website is to showcase the work of Book Cover Designer Chip Kidd. So, we created a GALLERY PAGE to do just that. If you go there (just click the “Gallery” TAB Button up above), then you need to scroll down because all the new ones we recently posted are on Page Two. Just click the “Next Page” button at the bottom of Page One. Am I making this all to confusing? Sorry, ha ha!

HEY! This is More Easy To Do, Just Please CLICK HERE!

Thursday, June 27, 2013
8:00pm (Reception 6:30-7:30pm)

An Evening with Neil Gaiman
in conversation with Entertainment Weekly's Geoff Boucher
discussing his new novel, The Ocean at the End of the Lane

The Alex Theatre
216 North Brand Boulevard
Glendale, CA 91203

PURHASE TICKETS
$42 General Admission (includes Gaiman's new novel)
$55 Includes Reserved Seating* + Gaiman's new novel
**$105 includes Premier reserved seating* + Pre-event reception + two Gaiman books (new novel & Make Good Art)
NOTE: THE $55 RESERVED SEATING AND $105 RECEPTION TICKETS ARE SOLD OUT.
For ticket information, click here!

Here’s a fun picture we sort of randomly came across on Facebook. This photo was taken by the LIBERTY BAY BOOKS Bookstore (Poulsbo, WA) at the recent 2013 Book Expo America event. It shows Chip Kidd signing a Promotional Poster for his new book coming out in October titled, “Go: A Kidd’s Guide to Graphic Design”. They plan to hang the poster in their store… that’s cool!

Once we get some clearance on sharing this poster on the website, we will post it. Please stay tuned for that!

Last March (2013) Chip Kidd was invited to appear at the Tokyo International Literary Festival in Japan. He was interviewed by the Japanese website, NIPPON. Their tagline is “Your Doorway To Japan”, and that’s pretty cool! The interview can be read by clicking HERE!

While there, Chip Kidd participated in a lecture Series where he explained his thoughts on “Book Cover Design”, his early love of Japanese Pop Culture, Designing Tezuka Osamu's Buddha for Vertical, Unearthing the Japanese Batman Bat-Manga, and also his thoughts on the Author Murakami Haruki and the Future of Book Design.

The overall experience of being back in Japan was sort of overwhelming. I mean, it’s such a beautiful place that you just never NEVER want to leave and it’s always sad to do so. Japan is completely beautiful.

CHARLES BURNS

COVER PORTRAITS FOR THE BELIEVER 2003-2013

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BEFORE & AFTER PORTRAITS FROM BLACK HOLE

MAY 30 - JULY 26, 2013

Adam Baumgold Gallery presents an exhibition of portraits by Charles Burns that were published on the cover of The Believer magazine between 2003 and 2013. Using ink on paper in a strict 6 by 6 inch format, Burns creates endless variations of texture, lighting, and composition. His stark, black line offers a distinctive take on the tradition of portrait drawing. Over 300 drawings of artists, writers, musicians, animals, comic characters, and historical figures will be included.

Alongside this vast series of Believer portraits is a group of Before & After drawings from Charles Burns's seminal graphic novel Black Hole. In these comic grotesque portraits, themes of adolescent alienation and sexual awakening mingle with imagery of mutation, disease, and violence. Each smiling, yearbook-style portrait is accompanied by a Dorian Gray-like counterpart, picturing the same teenager with some troubling facial alteration.

Charles Burns’s drawings first reached a wider audience through the legendary comics magazine Raw in the 1980s. His graphic novel classic Black Hole, 2005 received the Harvey award. Other earlier cult classics by Burns include El Borbah, Big Baby, and Skin Deep, among others. Burns's drawings have appeared on the covers and in the pages of Rolling Stone, The New York Times, and many other publications, as well as on the album covers of Iggy Pop and others. His work was the subject of a solo exhibition Charles Burns at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts Museum, and was included in the exhibition Disparities and Deformations: Our Grotesque at the SITE Santa Fe Biennial 2004 curated by Robert Storr. Burns's forthcoming graphic novel Sugar Skull (Pantheon, 2014) will complete the trilogy of books that include X'ed Out and The Hive-a dreamlike narrative and homage to Tintin and other art that Burns admires. A retrospective of Charles Burns work was exhibited at Museum M in Leuven, Belgium in 2011-2012. Charles Burns lives and works in Philadelphia.

Gallery hours are Tues. through Sat. 11:00 - 5:30 P.M through June, and Tues. - Fri. during July. A preview of the exhibition can be seen by clicking RIGHT HERE! When you get there, click on “Exhibition Schedule” on the top left-hand side of the page. Also, their website shows all the art work at the event and there is way too much to show here. In fact, we sort of limited what we are showing here as “Portraits of Book Authors”, but there are many Movie Actors and other celebrities, a HUGE variety!

Daniel Clowes

David Sedaris

Orhan Pamuk

Jennifer Egan

Gary Panter

Salman Rushdie

Zadie Smith

Steve Martin

Frank Herbert

Here’s a quick post to share some awesome news for Batman Fans and DC Comics, Chip Kidd, & Dave Taylor. The Graphic Novel, BATMAN: DEATH BY DESIGN has made the New York Times Bestseller List… again! Yes! This time it makes the list as a Trade Paperback Edition. It came in on the list at #8, WOO HOO! Let’s hope it just keeps climbing, ha!

Here are some Amazon links for both of the Hardcover and Paperback versions:

I’m pretty sure we have mentioned Ward Sutton’s work here before. His shit is AWESOME! He’s a cartoonist who does a special column for the Barnes and Noble Bookseller’s website called “Drawn To Read”. It appears in their B&N Book Review section on a weekly basis & is always fun to see/read. Anyways, we just noticed that he did one of his strips on David Sedaris’ brand-new book, “Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls”.

It’s hilarious stuff so please be sure to check it out, just CLICK HERE!

Over at the FINE BOOKS & COLLECTIONS website they recently reported about how, last week, at a Rare Books auction at Sotheby’s (New York), seven books that once belonged to George Washington brought a final bid of $1.2 million dollars! Up above is a photo of the book spines all together. I don’t know, I thought this was pretty interesting to see, a nice piece of history too.

The lot contained the following books:

Volume III of Oliver Goldsmith’s An History of the Earth (second edition, 1779), bearing Washington’s armorial bookplate;

Volume VII of the same, also with bookplate

Jonathan Swift’s The Beauties of Swift (1782) also bearing his engraved armorial bookplate

Volume III of Alain-Rene Le Sage’s The Adventures of Gil Blas of Santillane (sixth edition, [1785]) signed

Volume IV of the same, also signed

Voyages de M. de Chastellux’s dans l’Amerique septentrionale… (1786) in two volumes, signed

Joseph Priestley’s Discourses Relating to the Evidences of Revealed Religion…(1796), signed.

Neil Gaiman’s The Ocean at the End of the Lane (Harper Collins, William Morrow Group) is Neil’s first new novel for adults since his #1 New York Times Bestseller, Anansi Boys. In this fresh series of video clips Neil Gaiman reads a few excerpts from this new book. Also, you can look for it to hit bookstores around June 18th, 2013. (Just for the record, this book cover was not designed by Chip Kidd. We’re just sharing some awesome stuff! ).

Just a quick post to share some fun literary news. Yesterday, at the Google Search Engine webpage, they changed their regular header graphic to a special one that celebrated the 85th birthday of the Book Author, Maurice Sendak. Of course he is the Writer of the classic Children’s Book, “Where The Wild Things Are”, published in 1963. The header had some interactive devices built-in and it was very animated… really, it was AWESOME!!

Happy Birthday Maurice Sendak!