We’re bringing the big books to the Big Apple for MoCCA Arts Festival 2017, sponsored by The Society of Illustrators! April 1-2 you can find us at the Metropolitan West event space in Hell’s Kitchen. We’re bringing along special guests, hot new books, and a spunky can-do attitude.
Debut Books
Love and Rockets Vol. 4 #2 by Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez
The second issue of Love and Rockets picks right upfrom Issue #1! Over on Jaime’s side, it’s La Llorona’s turn to hit the stage at the punk rock reunion and the Hellmets are closing in on Princess Animus. Is Hopey ready? Is Isla ready? Are you ready? On Gilbert’s side, Fritz and her twin daughters meet, making Fritz crazier than ever, while Pipo and her new squeeze visit the mysterious Dr. Emil in prison in an effort to learn just what his secret cosmetic treatment actually is…
The Interview by Manuele Fior
The Interview is the second graphic novel by Manuele Fior, author of the critically acclaimed and international award-winning debut 5,000 KM per Second. Set in Italy in 2048, it follows Raniero, a fifty-something psychologist in a failing marriage. In the sky, strange bright triangles appear, bearing mysterious messages from an extraterrestrial civilization. Dora, his young patient, is part of the “New” Convention, a movement of young people preaching free love and alternative models to coupling and family. She declares that her telepathic abilities can parse the signal — a warning of some kind. Initially skeptical, Raniero’s curiosity and attraction grows. The Interview is a science fiction novel that eschews the stars in favor of the delicate, fragile, interior world of human emotion. It is a moving story about the passage of time, the commonalities and differences between generations, and on our changing society. “I tried to imagine the near future, but slightly different from the present,” says the author. “A scenario where not everything is negative and catastrophic, where the end of the world and of society as we know it does not come with a violent apocalypse, but rather an intimate and familiar context of daily life that keeps flowing.”
Eartha by Cathy Malkasian
Eartha is Cathy Malkasian’s fourth graphic novel — a metaphorical fable that resonates with contemporary themes. For a thousand years the unfinished dreams from the City Across the Sea came to Echo Fjord to live out their lives. Sex fantasies, murder plots, wishful thinking, and all manner of secrets once found sanctuary in Echo Fjord. Emerging from the soil, they took bodily form and wandered the land, gently guided by the fjord folk who treasured their brief and wondrous lives. Cathy Malkasian’s Eartha is an expansive tale of pastoral life, city corruption, greed, and addictions, and reverberates with questions plaguing us today, such as the alienating effects of hyper-connectivity and the self-destructive obsession with novelty. Malkasian’s drawing is notable for its rigorous draftsmanship, stunning landscapes and depictions of nature, the gestural nuances of her characters, and her sophisticated storytelling, all of which are on display in Eartha, making this the author’s lushest and most impressive graphic novel yet.
What Parsifal Saw by Ron Regé Jr.
What Parsifal Saw collects work produced by artist Ron Regé, Jr. following the release of 2012’s acclaimed opus, The Cartoon Utopia (which is being re-released in paperback this season). Regé’s interest in esoteric ideas and spirituality has permeated into all aspects of his work, as highlighted by “Cosmogenesis,” his adaptation of selections from the writings of 19th century occultist Helena Petrovna Blavatsky. “Cosmogenesis” concerns the magical, alchemical, ancient, and mysterious ideas that strongly influenced The Cartoon Utopia as well. Regé’s work continues to a cosmic consciousness, psychedelia, outsider rawness, and pure cartoonish joy.
Special Guests
Drew Friedman
Drew Friedman is an award-winning illustrator whose work regularly appears in dozens of major publications. For years he was renowned for his “stippling” style of caricature, employing thousands of pen-marks to achieve photographic verisimilitude, but in recent years Friedman has switched to painting. His painstaking attention to detail and parodies of Hollywood icons is widely admired.
Friedman’s work has appeared in Entertainment Weekly, Newsweek, Time, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, The New Republic, The New York Observer, Esquire, RAW, Rolling Stone, and MAD Magazine.
John Cuneo
John Cuneo (born January 4, 1957) is an American illustrator, whose work has appeared in many major publications, including The New Yorker, Esquire, Sports Illustrated and The Atlantic Monthly. He has been awarded several medals from the Society of Illustrators in New York City. He is also the author of the 2007 book nEuROTIC.
Julia Gfrörer
Julia Gfrörer lives on Long Island, where she maintains an extensive collection of black cardigans. Her work has appeared in Kramer’s Ergot and Best American Comics. She pronounces her name “gruh fare” but you can say it however you like.
Leslie Stein
Leslie Stein was born and raised in Evanston, Illinois. She attended the San Francisco Art Institute in 2000, moved to New York and graduated from the School of Visual Arts in 2004. Her early interest in comics and cartooning was revitalized around the turn of the century by her introduction to such independent/alternative cartoonists as Jim Woodring and Gilbert Hernandez. She has self-published her own comics series Eye of the Majestic Creature since 2005, the short stories from which have been published in two Majestic Creature collections to date. She plays guitar and sings in the band Prince Rupert’s Drops. She lives in Brooklyn.
R.O. Blechman
R.O. Blechman, born in Brooklyn 1930, is an American animator, illustrator, children’s book author, graphic novelist, and editorial cartoonist. In 1984, he won an Emmy for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Animated Programming for The Soldier’s Tale. In 1999, he was inducted into the Art Directors Hall of Fame, and in 2011 he received the National Cartoonists Society’s Milton Caniff Lifetime Achievement Award. He is also known for The Juggler of Our Lady (1953), Alka-Seltzer commercials, and multiple New Yorker covers.
Lucy Knisley
Lucy Knisley is a critically acclaimed and award-winning comic creator. She lives in Chicago. She specializes in personal, confessional comics and travelogues. Her last name is confusing and has a silent K. It’s pronounced kind-of like “nigh-slee.”
Signing Schedule
Saturday, April 1st
11am – Noon Drew Friedman
Noon – 1pm R.O. Blechman
1pm – 2pm Lucy Knisley
2pm – 3pm Leslie Stein
3pm – 4pm Drew Friedman
Sunday, April 2nd
Noon – 1pm Drew Friedman
2pm – 3pm John Cuneo
3pm – 4pm Julia Gfrörer
Location
Metropolitan West
639 W 46th St (Between 11th and 12th)
New York, NY 10036