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!)

Happy Birthday A.P. Carter!

On this day in 1891 Alvin Pleasant Carter was born. A. P. Carter was one of the most influential music makers of the 20th century. He left a mark as large and pervasive as Lennon and McCartney, Hank Williams Sr. and Bob Dylan.

Perhaps even larger than those hallowed names, because A.P. developed deeply to the construction of popular song making. He helped set the concept of shaping a song to the constraints of a record's playing time. He also had a genius for condensing long ballads into powerful three-minute capsules--the very thing that helped country music become widespread.

Though his life--and those of his family and friends--was still very much rooted in the ways of the 19th century, A.P. cannily used emerging technology as a guide to his inner passion. His fearless blend of past, present and future preserved the old songs he encountered in his rambles and made them new for millions of listeners, to this very day.

A.P. needed the partnership of Sara and Maybelle to express his musical vision, and to make it popular. But at the very heart of the Carter Family were the songs--and A.P.'s loving stewardship of them.

Celebrate this day by listening to some Carter Family music. Click HERE to peruse the many videos of Carter Family music currently on YouTube.

NW Book Tour: Portland, Bellingham, Seattle!

If you live in Portland, OR, you might check out The Projects this weekend (sadly, I can't be there).  But save some energy for Thursday, Oct. 25, when Frank and I will be reading and signing our book at (one of my favorite stores in the world) Reading Frenzy!

The following day, Friday, Oct. 26, we'll be signing at one of the NW's great bookstores: Village Books, in Bellingham, WA! 

Our NW Book Tour ends with a bang at the Fantagraphics Bookstore in Seattle, Nov. 2 -- just before the spectacular Short Run small press show (where I will have a table)!  Frank and I will both be signing copies at Fantagraphics, along with cartoonist Noah Van Sciver, and the Fantagraphics Bookstore Gallery will be displaying a selection of Carter Family (and Noah Van Sciver) original art.  (And I am told there will be music by Dennis Driscoll!)

David Speaks-- an excerpt from Ron Austin and Louise Amandes' documentary

David Lasky Sample from AUSTINAMANDES on Vimeo.

Ron Austin and Louise Amandes just posted this preview of their documentary on Pacific Northwest cartoonists. Here, David Lasky talks about how he became a cartoonist, and about the Carter Family graphic novel project. In HD video, the studio where the latter part of the book was created looks better than it did in real life! How do they do that?

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!
.

Don't Forget This Song is on pre-order status at Amazon!

Our book was once listed on amazon.com, but due to the various hurdles David and I had to jump to get this baby done, that listing was soon a pipe-dream.

This time it's for real!


Click HERE to see the real thing!

As David said, "This is yet another marker for me that the book is a REAL thing, and will really be in print soon..." I second that emotion! 


If the book isn't physically being printed, as I write this, it's either on the printer's queue (or, perhaps, already run off) in China. The street date is October 1st, but copies may surface before then, depending on when the book is printed and how long it takes copies to arrive, via the proverbial slow boat from China, to our consumer shores.


It's exciting news for us, and we're glad to share it here with you!

A Sample Chapter from DON'T FORGET THIS SONG

We're currently at work on the final third of the rough draft of our graphic novel. Currently, David is translating the quick sketches of our thumbnail drawings to more fully realized pencil drawings.

As each page of pencil art is completed, I scan it into our computer. In PhotoShop, I type in dialogue.

Don't worry--the finished version will NOT use the Comics Sans font! We picked this font simply because it's easy to read, and somewhat approximates the feel of handwritten text. It's a handy way to see if dialogue works, or needs either expansion or reduction.

The first two "acts" are dialogued and penciled. They have been thought and re-thought. Sequences that once seemed likely to be in the book have been removed, while new material, based on information we've found through recent research, has found its way into the story.

We will likely make more changes, as new information comes our way. I've done some phone interviews with various friends, associates and members of the present-day Carter family. It is a pleasant experience to talk to these kind folks, and each interview has yielded some precious new pieces of information. We're grateful for the opportunity to learn something new from our interviewees.

With the blessing of our editor, Charles Kochman, we're happy to present you with a little sample of the book. This is the second chapter of the first act of the book.

This sequence takes place before A.P. Carter meets his future wife, Sara Doughtery. It's a sort of origin story for A.P. the song-hunter.

David evokes a strong sense of the passage of time in his pencil artwork.

We both felt this sequence well represents the early section of the book. We hope you'll enjoy seeing it.