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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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!

You can help "The Winding Stream"

Even longer than Frank Young and I have been working on our Carter Family graphic novel, Beth Harringson has been working to make the definitive documentary on the Carter Family, The Carter Sisters, and Johnny Cash.  She has launched a campaign on kickstarter.com to raise funds for post-production.  Please watch the video on her page and see if you don't get chills like I did...
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/thewindingstream/the-winding-stream-phase-2-post-production-carter

Abrams Comic Arts Fall 2012 Brochure

Frank and I were honored to learn that images from our Carter Family graphic novel appear on the cover of Abrams' Fall 2012 Comic Arts Brochure. 
See the brochure online by clicking here.

The Sampler Booklet is Out...

David and I each got a bundle of 68-page, full color sampler editions of CARTER FAMILY COMICS: DON'T FORGET THIS SONG from our publisher, Abrams Comicarts this week.

If you're at a comics convention this spring or summer, or if you attend any events at The Museum of Cartoon Art in New York, you'll be able to lay hands on a complementary copy of this uncorrected proof edition!

This book presents the first third of the graphic novel in full color, including an introduction I wrote, our bibliography and thank-you acknowledgments from David and myself to all the wonderful people who have cheered us on during the sometimes-rocky road of this book's creation!

The preview is printed on newsprint, and the effect is different than that of the final hardcover book. It's a blast to see these pages printed on comic-book paper, nonetheless.

Trainspotters will want to hang onto this preview edition--it has little bits of art and dialogue you won't see in the final hardcover version. This is mostly due to some information we got, late in the game, mostly pertaining to recording technology of the late 1920s.

David has made several small but important changes to the artwork since this preview went to press. I've also fine tuned some of the dialogue and color. So this booklet may be a future collector's item!

Here's a quick scan of a page from the sampler:

This page, from Chapter 10 of the book, stands alone. It shows the moment when the idea of recording truly gets into A.P. Carter's head. He also meets a future ally, record retailer Cecil McLister. The top panel is one of the many labor-of-love moments throughout the book. It took David considerable time to render all those distinct figures in the panel--on top of the many other elements therein. Ditto, it was time-consuming (but fun) for me to color them, the buildings, A.P.'s horse cart, etc.

Kim Deitch kindly offered a rave reaction to our book, when it was still in the production stage. Abrams excerpted his enthusiastic words on the back cover of the sampler:

This sampler brings us--and the book--one significant step closer to publication! As said, keep your eyes out for this free proof. We'll keep you updated on the book's progress, as the street date of October, 2012 approaches...