Just a quick shout out for fans of our friend Chris Ware. His artwork is going to be featured on the cover of the next fresh issue of THE NEW YORKER Magazine. This is Chris Ware’s special “Mother’s Day” cover that will hit newsstands on May 13th, 2013. So, please be sure to keep an eye out for it!

Also, Please be sure to read Chris Ware’s Article about this Cover by clicking RIGHT HERE!

Pantheon Books, a division of Random House who’s main focus are Graphic Novels, is having a “Fan Art” Competition starting right NOW and it will only last about one week. It’s called “PANTHEON PANELS”. Here’s the deal:

Submit a one-page comic representing the home you grew up in, but drawn in the style of Chris Ware's “Building Stories”.

Deadline is Friday, March 1st. Winners will be announced/posted on Friday, March 8th.

Please submit your original artwork in a standard image format-jpg, pdf, tif, etc. Images should be RGB, 72-300 dpi, and no larger than 1.5 megs.

Please submit your material to pantheonpanels@randomhouse.com
Good Luck!

If you have been reading this blog for awhile then you might recall a post we did where we mentioned an event called, “LIVE from the NYPL: Building Stories Together” that featured the Authors Chris Ware and Zadie Smith. This public speaking event happened back in December of 2012 and was a CLOSING EVENT for the famous New York City Public Library. Both Authors talked about the art of writing and it was both informative & very entertaining. In fact, the post we did here revolved around a link to the PODCAST that was later posted of the event & if you didn’t get to go to it, then you could listen to it online.

Anyways, this post is about a review of that event. Paulina Reso, a Contributing Editor over at the WILD RIVER REVIEW website, just published a very excellent in-depth story about the event. She gives us an excellent idea on what it was like to be there and also what issues both Authors brought up that were pretty interesting. Her article is very informative. She also includes a bunch of excellent visuals to go along with her writing that are fun to see. ( Thanks Paulina! )

So, please be sure to check it out by clicking right HERE!

Here’s quick post to share some pretty eye candy! Shown here is a nice collection of Chris Ware’s artwork that has appeared on the covers to a few issues of THE NEW YORKER Magazine, enjoy.

Hey Everybody! For your listening enjoyment we have embedded this excellent recording of Book Authors Chris Ware and Zadie Smith as they recently appeared at the New York Public Library for an event known as “Live From The NYPL”. Following the release of Chris Ware's new Graphic Novel, BUILDING STORIES (Pantheon Books), and Zadie Smith's newest novel, NW (an exploration of a set of characters in a London neighborhood) the two come together on stage to discuss the role of space and place in their own works. The event went really well & it’s quite interesting to hear from these 2 Artists. Also, this thing lasts for almost 2 hours! So, please give it a listen.

This week please be sure to pick-up the recent issue of The New Yorker Magazine ( Jan 7, 2013 ). For two reasons: 1. It’s an insanely great publication, and 2. Our Friend, the Artist, Chris Ware did the cover art and his artwork, as always, is totally amazing! The “message” of the cover was inspired by the recent Newtown Shooting Tragedy. Plus, it also responds to a previous cover that he did that had a “Back To School” theme and now, the recent event changed his feeling on that. OK, am I making sense here? Sorry, actually Chris Ware wrote a very excellent article explaining everything and how he came about the idea for the new cover and it’s over at the New Yorker website ( link down below).

You can read Chris Ware’s article by visiting this link, THE NEW YORKER.

Oh yeah, here’s an image of his previous cover we mentioned:

Since it’s the end of the year we’re seeing a lot more focus now on “The Best Books of 2012″ and over at the MULTIVERSITY COMICS website we’re very proud to say that 2 books published by Pantheon made the “Graphic Novels” list! We’re talking about Charles Burns’ THE HIVE and Chris Wares’ BUILDING STORIES. To check out their complete list of books that they’re talking about just CLICK HERE!

Down below be sure to check out this dope-fresh video from K.FLAY (Book Reviewer, Blogger, Musician, Artist, Designer, etc…) where she gives her thoughts about Chris Ware’s brand-new Graphic Novel Book, BUILDING STORIES (Pantheon Books). She also makes some wacky-crazy fun music, CLICK HERE to check it out!

Here’s a fun photo I knew we had to share. In New York City there’s this really great independent Bookstore called McNally Jackson. If you live in or near New York then you need to give them a visit. It’s a really cool place. They’re located at 52 Prince Street, between Lafayette & Mulberry.

Anyways, around the holiday season they always do this very smart thing in their store where they create Table Displays that feature “The Best of…Fiction, Romance, Mystery, etc.” Well, for their “Best Graphic Novels of 2012″ table they gave some special attention to a few books that Designer/Author Chip Kidd is associated with. Seriously, it’s a HUGE honor and we’re really proud of it.

The books we’re talking about are located at the top of the picture: BATMAN: DEATH BY DESIGN ( DC Comics, Written by Chip Kidd, Art by Dave Taylor ), BUILDING STORIES ( Pantheon Books, Story & Art by Chris Ware ), and THE HIVE ( Pantheon, Story & Art by Charles Burns ). Now, all the other books are really great too so it’s nice to be in such good company. Thank You McNally Jackson, you guys ROCK!!

For Store Location & Hours please visit their website, just CLICK HERE!

Here’s some really great news that just came in. Over at the Christian Science Monitor website they just published a very excellent review for Pantheon Books’ latest Chris Ware Graphic Novel, BUILDING STORIES. The review, written by David Unger, is very well thought out and also takes up two whole pages, wow! One quote from the article reads, “Chris Ware’s unusual graphic novel is a triumph of imagination and originality.” But we should just let you read what David had to say in full, so please, just CLICK HERE! ( Thanks David, good job! )