Travis Millard, Mark Dischler (Narrow Books), and myself.

Travis talked for about 40 minutes about his art and how he’s found an audience for it: the why and how of the galleries and companies that have sought him out. (Travis told me he gets emails from young artists and art students all the time asking how he’s “made it”, and it’s a task every time to explain that his career has been more about sitting at the drawing board than a by-the-numbers “this is how you become a professional artist” plan.)

So the talk Travis ended up delivering was sort of a letter to the kids who email him. He talked about his early days drawing as a kid, his blessedly failed efforts to get and keep a job as a designer, the dumb or ballsy moves (depending on your attitude) he took when first asked to do things he’d never done before (album art, animation, magazine illustration), and the odd sorts of anchors that ended up being more important than he could’ve guessed, like bar bathroom art installations he did at the Max Fish bar in New York and the Little Joy bar in LA.

It was a funny and informative talk, and with luck, Google will put the entire thing up for viewing on the web soon. For me, it was nifty to see a Google office, and Mark and I got to meet Travis’ art buddy, Kiel Johnson, whose work I’d seen before and dug. (We also got to check out Kiel’s feature spread in the new issue of Hi Fructose magazine.)

Mark, Mel Kadel, and Kiel Johnson checking out Hi Fructose before the talk.

Tomorrow he’ll be accepting three awards—that’s right, count ‘em for a hat-trick—from the Society of Illustrators for his work, including one for his cover for the Criterion Collection DVD of John Huston’s Wise Blood adaptation. (Full details here.)

Josh provided the wrap-around cover art (pictured above) and illustrated several stories for our anthology, which you can pick up from the Narrow Books webstore.

First: Freak City / October 25th

A sale event at Freak City’s grand opening of their amazing 5000 square foot space on Sunday, October 25th. Featuring vendors and participants including Dim Mak, Flock Shop, Evil Genius, Delicious Vinyl and Rojas.

Narrow Books will be there offering hardcover titles from Megan Whitmarsh and Esther Pearl Watson, T-shirts by Mark Todd, and this awesome Travis Millard poster courtesy of Blood is the New Black.

2PM to 8PM, followed by an after-party till 2AM with DJs, drinks and… a taco bar!? Yeah.

But also: DesignerCon / November 21st

DesignerCon at the Pasadena Convention Center on Saturday, November 21st.

[Save the date on this one-- I'll have more information on this show soon.]

The Kogi Taco Truck will be there, and the Narrow Books crew (Myself, Mark, and author Joseph Mattson (Elana couldn’t make it)) will be spinning LPs while you barter. August 15th from 1-4 pm at Book Soup, don’t be late or the good reads may go home with someone else!

UPDATE: Photos from the event. A load of people showing up, of course, for those famous tacos.

Highlights:

Cinders gallery, where I got to meet Sto, the head man in charge of a gallery that shows work from a lot of our favorite artists like Mark Todd, Esther Pearl Watson, Megan Whitmarsh… I was going to hit him up with Hey Fudge but he already had a copy on the shelf behind me!

Desert Island book and comic store, who recently put out the “Smoke Signals” comics mag with cover and comics inside by Travis. Great store, run by the friendly Gabe Fowler, who also gave me an awesome trade– I walked out with the new David Mazzucchelli book, Asterios Polyp.

Word bookstore in Greenpoint. When I was walking up I saw a sign in the window, a sort of friendly manifesto on supporting independent publishers. And it was no lie! The manager, Stephanie, was super-hospitable. I think they’d even invite Narrow Books for an event there if I could figure out how to coordinate one from here in LA.

Also got to attend a book event at ArtBook at X for For the Love of Vinyl: The Album Art of Hipgnosis, put out by PictureBox, and scored a copy signed by Aubrey Powell for a friend of a friend who designs album covers.

Ah, NYC, the city of friendly people. Now I just need to remind people LA isn’t all suck.

Funk Rumble Block Party! 12pm-10pm, Saturday, July 11th - The first Funk Rumble Block Party is happening in Chinatown this weekend, in conjunction with the Chinatown Artwalk (6pm-10pm). This “half music festival, half block party” is going to feature some amazing soul and funk… homegrown LA stuff no less! And Narrow Books will be there too, selling books and t-shirts. There’ll be food vendors (including vegetarian), a load of designers and artists, and a full bar open over at the Grand Star Jazz Club. Admission is $5 before 4pm, $8 after. And kids under 10 get in free.

** Special for this event, we will have a limited amount of signed copies of Yeti Logic (Rojo) by Megan Whitmarsh. Each copy has a unique yeti drawing! 

Joseph Mattson reading at Book Soup, 7pm, Thursday, July 16th - Author John O’Brien sadly committed suicide two weeks after hearing that his first novel, Leaving Los Vegas, was being made into a film. But he left behind several hard-hitting novels that were published posthumously. The amazing press Akashic Books has just released his final unpublished work, Better, and Narrow Books author/editor Joseph Mattson will be reading from that novel along with writers Jerry Stahl and O’Brien’s sister, Erin.

Been super busy lately, sorry about the lack of posts. Several on the way, well overdue.

(He jotted these drawings in like three minutes, by the way.)

With luck, UO will consider carrying the book in their stores. They’ve recently had a hit with Farts: A Spotters Guide, which has illustrations throughout by Travis.

They also began putting out exclusive prints every month, which is rad and so they’re inhabiting this space where they’re a store but also a product creator. (Our book company, Narrow Books, is currently getting a site redesign, and the new site will be selling books published by other folks, so we’re headed the same way, but from the opposite direction.)

Kelly Lynn Jones and the rest of the Paper Planes team also maintain a blog that covers a lot of artists and events (naturally with a tendency toward events on the West Coast, where they’re based), and it’s a great discovery ground.

So, yeah, obviously they deserve a shout out anyway, but I started writing because I wanted especially to point up their Narrow Books section, they’re carrying all of our books and I dig the presentation.

Travis Millard

Travis Millard will be signing the massive book collection of his art and comics, Hey Fudge (Narrow Books).

Esther Pearl Watson

 Esther Pearl Watson will be signing her graphic novel, Unlovable Vol. 1 (Fantagraphics). Unlovable is the humiliating but hilarious story of Tammy Pierce, unpopular teenager, and is loosely based on an actual diary found by the artist in a truckstop bathroom.

Megan Whitmarsh

Megan Whitmarsh will be signing her new book, Yeti Logic (Rojo). Yeti Logic is a beautiful limited edition hardcover collecting Megan’s drawings and embroidery work.

The Unique LA event happens on the massive penthouse floor of the California Market Center (110 East Ninth Street, LA, CA) on May 2nd and 3rd. Narrow Books will be at booth 1009, next to the on-site bar and lounge. There’s a whole lot of great stuff there, and you’ll want to give yourself several hours to shop the wares of all the designers and vendors. Be prepared, admission costs $5, but it’s well worth it!