The Small Press Expo has an ad in the new issue of the D.C. Conspiracy's semi-annual comics newspaper Magic Bullet (#8), which hits the streets today. SPX notes a few of the special guests for its Sept. 13-14 show, including Jules Feiffer, Michael DeForge, Renee French, Tom Tomorrow, James Sturm, Lynda Barry and Box Brown (who did the art for the ad).

See "Comics Stripped: As alt-weeklies drop their funnies, is the end of a genre near?" By Michael Miner, Chicago Reader February 12, 2009, which reports on how much money the City Paper saved by dropping all its comics except Dirtfarm. Tip from Spurgeon.

Written by Express contributor Tim Follos
Posted By Express at 12:01 AM on October 2, 2008
http://www.expressnightout.com/content/2008/10/mixing_up_her_media_lynda_barry.php

» Politics & Prose, 5015 Connecticut Ave. NW; Fri., Oct. 3, Barry, 7 p.m.; with Tom Tomorrow, 9 p.m., free; 202-364-1919. (Van Ness-UDC)

Here's D&Q's PR:

LYNDA BARRY FALL 2008 WHAT IT IS TOUR DATES!
Slide Show and Signing unless otherwise noted!
These are the last dates until 2009! Do not miss the most enthralling and exhilarating author tour of 2009!

An exuberant, no-nonsense cheerleader for life’s outcasts, [Barry] led her smallish room’s capacity crowd in a sermon-like call to creativity without fear of failure, to engage in what she called deep play or suffer going slowly insane. Of all the convention’s professional badge wearers, she was the coolest. She finished her panel by singing, You Are My Sunshine without moving her lips and got a standing ovation.-MSNBC on COMICON 2008

BOSTON Thursday, October 2nd, 7 PM, Brookline Booksmith, brooklinebooksmith.com
WASHINGTON DC Friday, October 3rd, 7PM Politics & Prose, http://www.politics-prose.com
NYC, Saturday, October 4th, 4 PM, New Yorker Festival, festival.newyorker.com *In conversation with Matt Groening!
NYC, Sunday, October 5th, 3 PM, New Yorker Festival, festival.newyorker.com *Signing only
MADISON, Saturday, October 18th, 2PM, Wisconsin Book Festival, www.wisconsinbookfestival.org *Multi-Author Panel
TORONTO, Saturday, October 25th, 3PM, IFOA, www.readings.org
TORONTO, Sunday, October 26th, 1PM, IFOA, www.readings.org *With Chip Kidd
PORTLAND, Sunday, November 9th, 5PM, Wordstock, www.wordstockfestival.com
LOS ANGELES, Tuesday, November 18th, 7PM, Hammer Museum, www.hammer.ucla.edu *In conversation with Matt Groening!

LYNDA BARRY’S WRITING THE UNTHINKABLE TOUR DATES!
Toronto! Portland! Los Angeles! San Francisco!
http://www.myspace.com/writingtheunthinkable

PRAISE FOR WHAT IT IS:
The collages in legendary cartoonist Lynda Barry’s What It Is are a bathysphere-like odyssey through the depths of her funky subconscious.–Vanity Fair

Using ink brush, pen and pencil drawings as well as collages and luminous watercolors, many of them on lined yellow legal paper,
[What It Is] explores deep philosophical questions...–Carol Kino, The New York Times

Deliciously drawn...insightful and bubbling with delight. A –Salon

Part free-spirited workbook, part instruction in how to write... What It Is is unparalleled in originality.–Entertainment Weekly

ABOUT WHAT IT IS:
What It Is demonstrates a tried-and-true creative method that is playful, powerful, and accessible to anyone with an inquisitive wish to write or remember. Bursting with full-color drawings, comics, and collages, autobiographical sections and gentle creative guidance, each page is an invigorating example of exactly what it is: The ordinary is extraordinary. Lynda Barry explores the depths of the inner and outer realms of creation and imagination, where play can be serious, monsters have purpose, and not knowing is an answer unto itself. How do objects summon memories? What do real images feel like? These types of questions permeate the pages of What It Is, with words attracting pictures and conjuring places through a pen that first and foremost keeps on moving. Her insight and sincerity will tackle the most persistent of inhibitions, calling back every kid who quit drawing to again feel alive at the experiential level. Comprised of completely new material, this is her first Drawn & Quarterly book.

ABOUT LYNDA BARRY:
Lynda Barry has worked as a painter, cartoonist, writer, illustrator, playwright, editor, commentator and teacher and found they are very much alike. She is the inimitable creator behind the syndicated strip Ernie Pook\'s Comeek featuring the incomparable Marlys and Freddy, as well as the books One! Hundred! Demons!, The! Greatest! of! Marlys!, Cruddy: An Illustrated Novel, Naked Ladies! Naked Ladies! Naked Ladies!, and her first book for Drawn & Quarterly, 2008’s What It Is. D Q plans to publish a multivolume hardcover collection of Ernie Pook’s Comeek starting in 2009, as well as a collection of the Nearsighted Monkey.


Peggy Burns
Drawn & Quarterly
Director, Marketing & Publicity
400 Ave Atlantic #800
Montreal, QC H2V 1A5
t: 514/279-0691
peggy@drawnandquarterly.com
http://drawnandquarterly.com/blog/

Politics and Prose press release had this in it. Note Our Man Thompson in Adams Morgan this Sunday!

Small Press Expo 2008 will be held the weekend of October 4-5 at the Marriott Bethesda North Hotel and Conference Center in Bethesda, MD. Now in its 13th year, SPX is the preeminent showcase for the exhibition of independent comic books and the discovery of new creative talent. More information is available at www.spxpo.com.

In conjunction with SPX, P&P is hosting three events. On Friday, October 3, at 7 p.m.Lynda Barry (WHAT IT IS) and at 9 p.m. Tom Tomorrow (THE FUTURE’S SO BRIGHT I CAN’T BEAR TO LOOK) will be appearing at the bookstore.

Politics and Prose is also participating in Crafty Bastards Arts & Crafts Fair, on Sunday, September 28, at Marie Reed Learning Center in Adams Morgan. Come by the P&P booth at 1 p.m. to meet Richard Thompson, who will be signing copies of his CUL DE SAC.
For more information, see www.washingtoncitypaper.com/craftybastards/2008. .

I was lucky enough to meet Ms. Barry last year and found her to be absolutely fascinating. Here's a 30 minute interview with her by Neal Conan, "'What It Is' Plumbs the Depths of Creativity," National Public Radio's Talk of the Nation, June 2, 2008. I've bought the book, but haven't had a chance to read it yet.

Lynda Barry's got a new book out, What It Is. I've just called Big Planet to have set aside for me as Rick Banning just told me it was out. I met her last year at the PEN event and she was absolutely fascinating to talk to about her working style and subject matter. Here's a NY Times story on her: "How to Think Like a Surreal Cartoonist," By CAROL KINO, New York Times May 11, 2008.