Dear Seattle:
It’s only five days until the first viewing of our work-in-progress exhibit and anthology for the Ghosts of Seattle Past at Short Run Comix & Arts Festival!
SPOILER ALERT! Here are some of the awesome things you will soon be able to see, read, devour:
- Paul Constant commemorates the Old Spaghetti Factory and American nostalgia for chains
- Peter Mountford misses The Canterbury, in spite of (or perhaps because of) the current Canterbury
- We interview Ken Workman, great-great-great-great-grandson of Chief Seattle about Harbor Island
- Sarah Galvin waxes poetic about a ouiji board and Malden Ave and E Mercer
- Jeff Stevens recalls Squid Row
- Michelle Peñaloza writes a love letter to Bauhaus
- Victoria Holt photographs DIY Punk House Venues of Past
- Chris Porter memorializes Sit & Spin
- Eroyn Franklin takes us on a thoughtful walking tour of a block of Capitol Hill in a panoramic comic
- Dave Holden talks about Louis Armstrong, the Black and Tan, and the Palamor Theater
- Margaret Ashford-Trotter remembers Taqueria Express in comic panels
- Allison Green revisits Pizza and Pipes
- Corinne Manning says farewell to Harvard Exit
- Hollis Wong-Wear reminisces on Capitol Club
- Tomo Nakayama longs for Coffee Messiah
- Elissa Ball thinks back on The Globe
- Pam Mandel considers OK Hotel and 619 Western
- Kathy Fennessy renders Cellophane Square’s musician-filled glory
- Eric Carnell (Independence Printage) spins yarns about the heyday of The Funhouse
- Barfly pays tribute to the Cha Cha
And y’all? That’s the tip of the iceberg. WE ARE JUST GETTING STARTED HERE.
At Fisher Pavilion on Oct 31:
- You will be able to pull our book apart like an accordian, sift through the memories, art, words.
- There will be paintings and photographs and even a chair from the Velvet Elvis.
- There will be maps with the places you miss pinned to them.
- There will be silkscreened posters of the anthology’s cover by Jon Horn of Fogland Studios.
- It will all be on view, right up front on a huge wall of windows when you first walk into the festival.
In other words, IT WILL BE AWESOME.
If you’ve been wondering what we’re working on, now is the time to come see, add to the maps in person, submit your memories, share your memories of Seattle.
But we are just one of hundreds of exciting projects and artists to see at Short Run.
From their event posting:
“This Halloween, Saturday, October 31st, Short Run Comix & Arts Festival presents their fifth annual showcase of indie comix, zines, art books, small press lit, poetry, animation, and more.The spacious Fisher Pavilion at Seattle Center will overflow with 200 artists from across the country, with comics trick-or-treating for the kids, innovative animation by Seattle Experimental Animation Team (SEAT), mask making, an epic bake sale, and swag bags overflowing with comics.
Jaimee Garbacik will launch The Ghosts of Seattle Past-a collaborative atlas of memories and interactive art installation. The audience will create hybrid texts combining elements of illustration and poetry with Kundiman poets Jane Wong, EJ Koh and Michelle Peñaloza. Fictilis will conduct a creative census and Most Ancient will present a Virtual Reality art and sound experience.
Special guests this year include indie comics couple Charles Forsman and Melissa Mendes, from Massachusetts. Forsman has released two graphic novels with Fantagraphics, 2013’s Celebrated Summer and 2014’s The End of the Fucking World, and is currently self-publishing his ode to action comics, Revenger. Mendes, a Xeric Grant-recipient and member of the global feminist artists collective Ladydrawers, will present her latest work The Weight, an epic family saga inspired by her late grandfather’s life in rural New York state, spanning from the 1930s onward.
Celebrated Northwest visionary Jim Woodring will unveil his latest creation, Frank in the 3rd Dimension, out this fall from Fantagraphics Books, Inc. For the first time ever, you can enter Woodring’s hypnotic drawings through 32 pages of full-volume 3D visual vignettes. Short Run will bring Woodring’s world to Seattle Center with a 3D screening of the book. You’ll also have the rare opportunity to meet the mostly-reclusive local animator and outsider artist Bruce Bickford, most-known for his late ’70s collaborations with experimental musician Frank Zappa. His near-hallucinogenic claymation films have inspired generations of animators. Get an exciting first-look at pages from his now colossal graphic novel tome Vampire Picnic, or sneak a peek at his newest film Cas’l in our animation tent.
These special guests will feature their work alongside 200 fellow mid-career and emerging talents including traveling first-timers Box Brown, A.T. Pratt, Robyn Chapman, Hellen Jo, Calvin Wong, Georgia Webber, and locals Max Clotfelter, Jesse Lortz, Darin Shuler, Wave Books, Chin Music Press, Raychelle Duazo, Josh Simmons, E.T. Russian, and Pat Moriarity.”
In other words, EPIC AMOUNTS OF ART AND COMICS. And free! Hoorah.
Join the Ghosts of Seattle Past in remembering our lost spaces.
Love,
Jaimee Garbacik and Joshua Powell