Two-page Spread

Frank and I wanted the story of the Carter Family to really feel like it was set in times when the Carters lived.  For us, the best way to do this was to evoke old newspaper comics of the time.  A favorite of ours is Frank King's "Gasoline Alley" which, besides being beautifully drawn, sometimes featured ingenius Sunday pages where the panels connect up to form a landscape.  These two pages are our homage to those strips; and provide a quiet moment between A.P. and his daughter. 

David and Frank see DON'T FORGET THIS SONG the book for the first time! Video by James Gill

Frank & David see book for the first time from James Gill on Vimeo.

Just what it sez above... we held off on looking at the advance copy of our graphic novel (not in stores 'til at least September, folks...) until we could meet up and see it together. Jim Gill captured the moment, which occurred in his siren-rific apartment in Seattle's medical district. 

Sara Sings "Single Girl": Celebrating the 85th Birthday of The Big Bang Of Country Music!

To David and I, one of the great moments in Don't Forget This Song is when Sara and Maybelle record "Single Girl, Married Girl" on the second day of their very first recording session.

This took place at the epochal "Bristol Sessions," which is seen by many country music scholars as "the Big Bang" of country music. An entire chapter in our book is devoted to the Bristol Sessions, which also introduced the extraordinary Jimmie Rodgers to the musical world.

Above is Sara and Maybelle's exquisite 1927 original of "Single Girl, Married Girl." Take a few minutes and savor one of the finest performances in Sara Carter's career--she struck gold in her first recording session.

It's Here! It's Here! The Carter Family Graphic Novel! It's a Real Thing!Wowee!

IT'S HERE!!!!!!!

David and I each got one advance copy of our book today from New York! Woo hoo! It's really real, folks!

The printers did a super-duper job on it, and, of course, Abrams' Charles Kochman, Sara Corbett and Neal Egan (among many others) did so much to make this book a reality.

Later this weekend I'll post a video shot by our friend Jim Gill of David and I seeing the book for the first time. We waited 'til we could meet up and see it together. The temptation to rip the envelope open was enormous, but I figured... we've waited five years for this moment; what's a few more hours?

It won't be too much longer 'til this book is out in the world. It's a dreamlike experience to page through this book. It has a nice heft to it; it's printed on high-quality paper; the enclosed CD is really nicely sequenced, and offers a side of the Carter Family's performances that some folks might not know about.

More stuff very soon on this literally amazing (a word I seldom use) event in our lives and careers! 

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?

San Diego report

Thanks to Tom Spurgeon for his kind mention of the book in his reports from this year's Comic Con on www.comicsreporter.com...

"...the main reason I went to Abrams was to maybe look at anything they have for Frank Young and Dave Lasky's forthcoming Carter Family book, and I was NOT disappointed. They brought out an unbound version of the final book, and I got to look through it. It's handsomely mounted -- there will be a CD of radio performances -- and at first look this may be the Dave Lasky book we've been waiting for him to do for years and years now. I hope it is, anyway. No better guy than that David Lasky. At any rate, I really appreciate them making that book available to me, and I look forward to talking to Dave for CR close to its release this Fall."

And congratulations to Tom on his Eisner Award!

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!
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