FINDING FRIDA KAHLO by Barbara Levine (to be published by Princeton Architectural Press in the fall)  presents—for the first time in print—an astonishing lost archive of paintings, drawings, keepsake boxes, annotated books, clothing, a diary, and other assorted items and ephemera, belonging to one of the 20th century’s most iconic artists.

The book offers a rare glimpse into Kahlo’s exuberant and troubled existence and is overflowing with fascinating details about her romances, friendships, and business affairs during a 3-decade period, beginning in the 1920s when she was a teenager and ending just before she died in 1954.

The New York Times recently posted more on the discovery of the ‘lost’ Frida Kahlo archive in a column about artist’s treasures accompanied by a slide-show of images taken from the book . The pictures are wonderful so do take a look!

Click here for the New York Times column.

Other books of interest:

I WILL NEVER FORGET YOU by Saloman Grimberg

SELF-PORTRAIT IN A VELVET DRESS: FRIDA’S WARDROBE by Carlos Phillips Olmedo et al

MEXICAN CALENDAR GIRLS by Angela Villalba

AROUND THE WORLD by Barbara Levine and Kirsten Jensen

MEXICAN MURALISTS: OROZCO, RIVERA, SIQUEIROS  By Desmond Rochfort

MANUEL ALVAREZ BRAVO: PHOTOPOETRY

REVOLUCION! CUBAN POSTER ART by Lincoln Cushing

FRIDA KAHLO: BRUSH WITH ANGUISH by Martha Zamora

FRIDA KAHLO ART BOX

FRIDA KAHLO POSTCARD BOOK

Ottawa writer Brad MacKay,  who co-founded the Doug Wright Awards for Canadian Cartooning (and whose Top 10 graphic novels you can find here) reviews Yoshihiro Tatsumi A DRIFTING LIFE for the Globe and Mail:

In his ambitious new book, collected in English for the first time by Montreal’s Drawn and Quarterly, Tatsumi attempts the unheard of: to dramatize the cartoonist’s life. In this case, the life of Hiroshi Katsumi, Tatsumi’s pseudonymous stand-in, a young man in post-Second World War Japan who quickly becomes obsessed with all things manga. Slowly and steadily, the book chronicles the author’s growth as an artist, first as a child prodigy (he was barely a teen when his initial comics saw print), then later as the chief architect of the country’s gegika movement; a gritty genre of adult-themed stories that would eventually earn him a reputation as the grandfather of Japanese alternative comics… For anyone who has been fortunate enough to fall under the spell of Tatsumi’s groundbreaking work of the 1960s and ‘70s, this book will prove a compelling and worthwhile read. And for those brave souls aspiring to become a cartoonist themselves, A Drifting Life will prove to be indispensable.

Read Brad’s full review here

We have two pairs of tickets to the Vancouver premiere of the film HANDMADE NATION to give away! To enter, just leave a comment here by July 2nd, and we will draw a winner at random on July 3rd.

You can win a copy of The Deluxe Heirloom edition of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIES (and a P+P+Z poster!) by leaving your suggestion for the next mash-up of fine literature and kung-fu monster slaying here.

And last, but by no means least, you can win an 8-day, self-guided walking tour of the beautiful Genal Valley in Andalucía, southern Spain in our Tread Lightly contest with Lonely Planet and adventure travel experts UTracks. Enter the contest here.

HANDMADE NATION giveaway

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIES contest

Tread Lightly Contest

Peter also lists his Top 10 graphic novels here!

GIVEAWAY ALERT!

We have two pairs of tickets to the Vancouver premiere of the film, HANDMADE NATION to give away!

To enter, just leave a comment below by July 2nd, and we will draw a winner at random on July 3rd.

I’ve been excited about the book HANDMADE NATION: The Rise of D.I.Y., Art, Craft, and Design since it arrived in our warehouse last Fall. Now I’m excited about it all over again, as the documentary film it was based on is coming to Vancouver!

Handmade Nation Vancouver Premiere
Thursday, July 9th, 2009
Rio Theatre, 1660 East Broadway @ Commercial Drive

Craft Showcase at 7:00pm
Screening at 8:00pm

Go here for details and to buy tickets.

It’s going to be a great event, especially as filmmaker Faythe Levine will be at the event, answering Q&A and signing books after the movie. Also be sure to get to the theatre early to check out the craft market featuring local artists and makers. Bonus: the first 100 people in get a free swag bag!

Still not sure what all this is about? Well, here’s a preview of the book, HANDMADE NATION: The Rise of D.I.Y., Art, Craft, and Design:

And here’s a trailer for the documentary:

Both the book and the movie feature 24 makers and 5 essayists who work within different media—representing a microcosm of the crafting community that’s blossoming all over North America. To find out more about the HANDMADE NATION documentary, check out their website, and for a zillion reviews of the book, hop on over to Princeton Architectural Press’ site.

And don’t forget our P+P+Z contest is still on! Post your literary mash-ups for a chance to win.

LOUIS RIEL was included in the Toronto Star’s list of the 10 most important books of the decade chosen by books editor Dan Smith, books critic Geoff Pevere, and publishing columnist Vit Wagner at the weekend:

Our graphica standard-bearer is Chester Brown’s rich, character-driven biography of Louis Riel, the Manitoba Métis martyr who lives on as an unsung Father of Confederation. To see such a pivotal historical figure and tortured soul rendered so effectively and accurately was more evidence that comics are powerful literature.

I missed this somehow, but last month Sean Smith, author of YA novel ‘Snakes and Ladders’, had a great conversation with Seth (author of GEORGE SPROTT) about Canadian cartoonist Doug Wright for Open Book Toronto:

Wright worked somewhat in isolation and what amazes me with those kinds of cartoonists is that they really cared about what they were doing. He never got lazy. He never cranked it out just because the job had to be done. He put the effort in on each strip and that really shows in the amount of observation that’s in the work. If he had to draw a corner store, he’d put the effort in to go out and actually draw it to get the real details, not just plug in something that would be an easy answer. He obviously took great delight in replicating the real world and that is one of the most remarkable things you see in looking at his work, especially as it grows through the 60s and 70s. You can really look at it as almost a record of the times.

And here’s a nice video blog entry by Hannah Sung, host of CBC’s The Book Club, about graphic novels and the search for a definitive top 10 list:

As Hannah notes, Seth will be doing a live chat with The Book Club on Thursday!

Following up on my previous posts about the Canada Reads Book Club Top 10 Graphic Novels,  I am finally putting my money where my mouth is and posting my Top 10 graphic novels (for today).

There are some notable omissions because I have not read enough and I have slightly eclectic (some would say erratic) taste. Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home is not on the list simply because it is in the ‘to read’ pile rather than on the ‘have read’ shelf. I think there’s a good chance A Drifting Life by Yoshihiro Tatsumi will be on this list soon, and it breaks my heart not to include Adrian Tomine (although on any other day he would almost certainly be included).

No doubt others would say books by Seth and Chris Ware should have made the cut…

The “musts” for me were Maus, Watchmen, and Louis Riel.

It has become an unfortunate cliché, but all such lists have to start (or possibly end) with Maus. It is unparalleled and is impossible to imagine it being conceived in any other medium. And yet the legacy of this comic is almost unbearable, with independent cartoonists struggling to get out from under its enormity…

The same could be said of superhero comics and Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. Another influential comic whose legacy has become a burden, Alan Moore originally hoped the ambition of Watchmen would open new creative possibilities for comics and yet in many ways it seems to plummeted them (superhero comics at least) into a dark cul-de-sac. Still, it is hard to blame a comic as finally crafted as Watchmen (which unlike Frank Miller’s flashier The Dark Knight Returns, actually gets better with each reading) if some of its nuance was lost on people (filmmakers included!)...

I also can’t help feeling that the iconic Louis Riel is now also a burden for Chester Brown. It’s a book that is in many ways out of character for the artist, and it’s continued commercial success must be bittersweet. But Louis Riel is still a remarkable achievement, and Canadian for all that.

Louis Riel is symbolic of publisher Drawn & Quarterly’s belief in the medium and their artists. Certainly D+Q have come to dominate the field of “serious” comics over the last couple of years, and even though fantastic artists such as Adrian Tomine and Seth are not included in my current top 10, ask me tomorrow and they probably will be!

The rest of my list includes several of the usual suspects.

As a teenager in the UK Love & Rockets defined independent American comics for me, and the influence of the Hernandez Bros is still so widespread that including Locas by Jaime Hernandez was essential.

Joe Sacco’s controversial Palestine - a graphic novel that isn’t a novel - which seemed to expand the possibilities of non-fiction comic beyond memoir is here, as is Ghost World by Dan Clowes, a comic that demonstrated that good writing is not the exclusive preserve of literary fiction.

From there my choices get a bit more personal. Alan Moore’s multi-layered From Hell is to my mind his best work, even if fewer people have read it than Watchmen.

I came across Tekkonkinkreet by Taiyo Matsumoto almost by accident last year (I saw the movie first), but it is something that I have been unable shake since I read it (something that I can’t say about any novel I have read in the last year). 

My choice of Explorers on the Moon is somewhat arbitrary, but my list had to include at least one Tintin book, and the rocket is iconic! 

And lastly you can put the inclusion Hellboy down to perversity or over-compensation for Brad MacKay’s exclusion of genre comics if you like, but to my mind Mignola’s work is ignored too often - too weird to be mainstream, and too much fun to be “indie” (no self-reflective navel-gazing here). The Conquerer Worm is Mignola at his peak. His expressionistic art style (did you ever see so much chunky black ink?) and his (albeit limited) storytelling are in full flow. It’s like he took the first four volumes just to get going and then blazed out in a bonkers masterpiece of Lovecraftian nonsense. I mean where else would you get a dead astronaut, a gun-blazing crime fighter called Lobster Johnson, and (of course) a big red monster (working for the US government) delivering a stone fist of whupass to crazy Nazi cult-worshipping scientists and a giant worm? Where??? 

To be argued over…

1. Maus by Art Spiegelman
2. Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons
3. Louis Riel by Chester Brown
4. Palestine by Joe Sacco
5. Locas by Jamie Hernandez
6. Ghost World by Dan Clowes
7. From Hell by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell
8. Tekkonkinkreet by Taiyo Matsumoto
9. The Adventures of Tintin: Explorers on the Moon by Hergé
10. Hellboy: The Conquerer Worm  by Mike Mignola

 

]]> 2009-06-22T21:18:35+00:00 http://blogs.raincoast.com/weblog/oprah-loves-pride-and-prejudice-and-zombies-as-much-as-we-do/

In an article posted today on abcnews.go.com it lists PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIES as one of O Magazine’s top 4 reads for the Summer! Gayle King, the editor at large of O magazine, dropped by Good Morning America to share some of the magazine’s top picks for summer reading. Oprah, let us know what you think!

 

 

     


      (ABC News Photo Illustration)


      ~Please take a look at our earlier blog post to guess the new title in the Quirk Classic Series for your chance to win a Heirloom Edition of PPZ signed by Seth Grahame-Smith!!

 

]]> 2009-06-18T18:20:41+00:00 http://blogs.raincoast.com/weblog/yummy-fathers-day-recipe-for-grilled-snapper-tacos/ Grilled Snapper Tacos

  Grilled fish tacos are a staple in Southern California. Rather than the usual salsa that accompanies meat-filled tacos, those filled with fish get topped with finely chopped sweet onion and fresh cilantro and a squeeze of fresh lime. Once you taste them, you’ll know why. There’s nothing better to eat while you’re sitting on a bench looking out over the water in Laguna. Just make sure you’re far enough away from the beach volleyball game to avoid getting flying sand in your taco.
Makes 12 tacos



Ingredients
12 corn tortillas
1 medium sweet onion, finely chopped
1 bunch cilantro, finely chopped
1/4 cup fresh lime juice
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 pounds red snapper fillets
2 teaspoons chili powder
2 teaspoons paprika
2 teaspoons dried oregano
Spray cooking oil
4 limes, quartered, for serving
Hot sauce, for serving

Wrap the tortillas in aluminum foil, in 3 packages of 4 tortillas each, and set aside.

In a medium bowl, mix together the chopped onion, cilantro, and lime juice. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Set aside, or cover and refrigerate for up to 4 hours.

Prepare enough coals for a hot charcoal fire, or preheat your gas grill on high for 10 minutes with the lid closed.

While the grill is heating up, season the tops of the snapper fillets with the chili powder, paprika, oregano, and a sprinkling of salt and pepper. Place the tortilla packages in the over and set it at 250°F.

When the coals are ready or the gas grill is hot, liberally spray the skin side of each snapper fillet with cooking oil. Place on the grate, skin side down, and grill for 4 minutes, until the skin is golden brown and a crust has formed. Spray the top of each fillet with more cooking oil and gently turn them over. Grill for 4 to 5 minutes more, until the center is just cooked through.

Transfer the snapper fillets to a cutting board, and cut them into quarters. Put on a serving table with the warm tortillas, onion-cilantro mixture, quartered limes, and hot sauce, and let people assemble their own tacos.

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