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

Awards In Retrospect

Well, as you kind folks may know, David and I won the Eisner Award for Best Reality-Based Project, back in July. We didn't get beyond nomination stage at the Harvey Awards, but a nomination is still a great thing, and a strong recognition that we achieved something worthy in our years of hard work on the Carter Family graphic novel.

David has recently become a comics goodwill ambassador to Eastern Europe. He's got lots of photos and stories from his trips to Belgrade and Russia, and I'm sure he'd be happy to share some of all-of-the-above here, if you kind folks are interested.

Here's a photo of the Eisner Award that I won (David got one just like it):

Stumptown Comics Fest

I'll be in Portland, OR on Saturday for the Stumptown Comics Fest, signing copies of "Carter Family: Don't Forget This Song" to benefit the CBLDF at 1pm, then participating in the Remembering Dylan Williams panel at 5pm.  The rest of the time, I will be walking around looking at all the comics.  (At the Oregon Convention Center).

-David

David Lasky will sign "Carter Family" graphic novel in Sacramento on Thursday, with music by Robert Armstrong

If you're in the Sacramento area, please come get your Carter Family: Don't Forget This Song graphic novel signed by David, and listen to Robert Armstrong (of the Cheap Suit Serenaders) play and sing Carter Family and related songs.   April 18th at 7pm.  This event is free.

[Armstrong is a legendary cartoonist as well, and one of my favorites.]

http://timetestedbooks.blogspot.com/

 

 

 
[I wish I was going to be there on the 21st when Time Tested remembers Sacramento-based PULSE! Magazine, which was one of the first publications to hire me as a cartoonist and illustrator! -David]

Time Tested Books
1114 21st Street (between L and K streets)
Sacramento, CA 95811
Phone: 916-447-5696

 

David in San Francisco at Mission Comics on Wednesday

David is travelling to Northern California in the week ahead.  You can find him at San Francisco's Mission: Comics and Art on Wednesday evening, April 17, where he will present a slide talk about the Carter Family book & then will sign copies...
https://www.facebook.com/MissionComics/posts/257291421075172

Trivia: In the summer of 1991, David lived in the Mission District, on the same street as Mission: Comics and Art, just 12 blocks east. (I'm excited to see how the neighborhood has changed.)

Sneaky Dragon interviews Mr Lasky

I was interviewed by two old friends from BC (Canada!) recently for their pod-cast which they call "Sneaky Dragon".  They asked me about my career in comics and we spoke about the Carter Family graphic novel.  And David and Ian (the hosts) spoke at length about The Carpenters for some reason. 
http://www.sneakydragon.com/sneaky-dragon-episode-66.html

I like how they've doctored the "Carter Family" cover...

Lasky in Olympia tonight!

 

 

If you're in Olympia, WA, or its environs, come to the Olympia-Timberland Regional Library tonight at 7pm to see David Lasky give a presentation on the making of "Carter Family: Don't Forget This Song!"  It's free. 
(And so is a comics workshop for teens at 3pm at the library.) 

http://www.trl.org/About/PressReleases/OL%20Carter%20family%20graphic%20novel%200213.pdf

I have to pinch myself every time I read this...
Art Spiegelman, Pulitzer Prize–winning writer/artist of Maus, said: "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."

Hear David and Frank Talk About "Don't Forget This Song" with Fretboard Journal's Michael John Simmons!

You've read several interviews about our graphic novel on the Carter Family... now you can hear we two chat with Fretboard Journal's delightful Michael John Simmons about Don't Forget This Song.

Just click on the graphic below and you'll go to the webpage pictured! If you're a guitar or stringed instrument enthusiast, FJ's website (and their print magazine) are a must!

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 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. 

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?

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!

The Endpapers--Last New Art For The Carter Family Graphic Novel!

Altho' these are crummy iPod pictures (see Corin See's much higher-rez shot, taken minutes after I took these, on Facebook), they offer a candid look at David--at work on the last piece of significant line art for Don't Forget This Song.

These lo-rez pix don't do justice to this stunning endpaper art. This is one of two ultra-detailed, distinctive pieces of endpaper artwork the book will have.

The book is going to press for a proof printing this week. We'll have a slim window of time to make a few needed changes, and then it's off to the press for real.

Here's David putting nib to bristol board, plus two shots of the art-in-progress...

More soon, friends!