A.P. Carter and Spiderman (and Pizza)

Emerald City Comic Con has taken over the WA State Convention Center this weekend, and to mark the occasion, Seattle pizza chain Pagliacci has interviewed me about superheroes in their newsletter. (Yes, it's a pizza restaurant with its own newsletter!)  Writer Louis Whitford and I got pretty deep talking about superheroes as part of the culture... and of course we also talked about The Carter Family.  It may be the first time A.P. Carter has ever been compared with Spiderman!

Pagliacci's online newsletter

Don't Forget This Song Receives Two Eisner Award Nominations! Yahoo!

This just announced: our Carter Family graphic novel is nominated for two 2013 Eisner Awards, according to Comic Book Resources' website (click on the link to see their article.)

The book is nominated for Best Reality-Based Work (and is up against stiff competition from Ellen Forney and Carol Tyler) and for Best Writer (Frank M. Young, who shares this nomination 50/50 with co-creator David Lasky). Again, we're up against a big name--Ed Brubaker--but we're the only non-mainstream figure in that category, so who knows what'll happen?

Receiving these nominations is an enormous honor, and gives us a strong sense of "thumbs up" from our contemporaries in the comics world. Whether we win or not, this is a big deal to us--thank you so much to everyone who voted for us!

(And, since this post bumped David's recent announcement--if you are in the SF area and would like to meet David and get your book signed, please read the posting immediately below. David will be in SF on Thursday, along with legendary underground cartoonist/musician Robert Armstrong. Show your love for David, San Francisco!)

The Cash Sisters

Back in late August, Leeann and I were excited to journey down to Portland and meet two of Johnny Cash's daughters, Tara and Rosanne (and show them an advance copy of the book, which they kindly posed with)...

 

I complimented Rosanne on her heartfelt and gorgeous-sounding album, "The List," which is a selection of songs from the list of 100 essential Country songs that her father wrote for her when she was a teenager.

The occasion was a reception for Kickstarter backers of Beth Harrington's Carter Family documentary "The Winding Stream."  Rosanne spoke passionately about the Carter Family and about the importance of supporting what looks to be the definitive documentary about the Carter and Cash Families, featuring interviews with Johnny Cash, Rita Forrester, Janette Carter, Joe Carter, Mike Seger, and countless other people who figure strongly in American music.  The movie is in post-production and Beth is looking for supporters to help complete this 10+ year labor of love. Go to the Winding Stream website for details!

(Here is Beth, excited to see the book for the first time, with Leeann & me.)

The Bristol Chapter: Meanwhile, Down on State Street...

 

Larger version here...

Diamonds in the Rough: Sara and A.P. audition for Brunswick Records

Before the Carter Family had their breakthrough moment at the Bristol Sessions, they (or at least, Sara and A.P.) auditioned for another record label: Brunswick Records. Frank and I are excited to present a full chapter from our graphic novel which tells the story of this earlier and less successful attempt to become recording artists.

Because there is little to no documentation of the event (no one can even seem to agree what city it was in), this is our vision of what may have happened at the Brunswick Session.  All we really know is that A.P. was asked to play the fiddle on record and he refused.

The year is 1925, the place is Poor Valley, Virginia, on the modest farm of Alvin Pleasant and Sara Carter...

We hope you enjoyed this chapter. Learn what happens next in the graphic novel Carter Family: Don't Forget This Song, from Abrams Comicarts this fall...

Creeping Into Reality... the book bobs up on the pop-culture radar...

Humble soul that I am, I seldom think to Google my own projects and see how they're doing out in the world. A friend of my collaborator David Lasky mentioned he'd seen a write-up of Don't Forget This Song in the Previews catalog (for non comix-nuts, this is the Sears Roebuck catalog of upcoming comics, graphic novels and assorted doo-dads).

This piqued my curiosity, and here are some results of my Googly search.

1. A flattering preview/recommendation from The Library Journal:

2. Abrams Comic Art's page for the book, including this lovely comment by Art Spiegelman...

"What a fine marriage of form and content! Humble and moving—straightforward with occasional breathtaking bravura passages—this book echoes the Carter Family's rough-hewn sounds. It tells of the lives, sorrows, and values of a lost America in short episodes like a giant stack of old 78s. Using the vocabulary of comic strips like Little Orphan Annie and Gasoline Alley, it's as obsessive in its dedication to vernacular craft and hard work as A.P. Carter himself. Frank Young and David Lasky have spun a work of visual music that will replay in your head and heart well after you've finished reading it."

see the page HERE.

3. numerous pre-order sites for the book (including Diamond Previews, the aforementioned mega-catalog)... all these listings basically use the boilerplate promotional description supplied by Abrams. It's a good description, but you'll see it all over the place over the next few months.

Indeed, the book is getting closer to release. We're supposed to get our mitts on an advance copy pretty soon. Abrams' booth at the San Diego Comic Con will have copies of the book for sale (IF the book gets back from the printers by then--a big if at this point!)

If you've seen any random web mentions of our book, please let us know! In the meantime, it's neat to see the book coming up on the horizon of the publishing/reading world...

We will showcase some sequences from the book here very soon. In the meantime, we're excited to share this news with you!
.