Monday, February 06, 2012

PR: Small Press Expo Announces Dan Clowes and Chris Ware as Special Guests for SPX 2012



Small Press Expo Announces Dan Clowes and Chris Ware  as special guests for SPX 2012

For Immediate Release                  Contact: Warren Bernard
                                                         
                                                          E-Mail: warren@spxpo.com


Bethesda, Maryland; February 6, 2012 – The Small Press Expo (SPX), the preeminent showcase for the exhibition of independent comics, graphic novels, and alternative political cartoons, kicks off 2012 with our official announcement that cartoonists Dan Clowes and Chris Ware will be attending this year's festival as special guests. 

Superstar cartoonist Dan Clowes was awarded the 2011 PEN Center Literary Award for his "Outstanding body of work in graphic literature." He received the Independent Spirit Award and an Academy Award nomination as writer for the movie Ghost World, based on his graphic novel, and he has published in the New YorkerTimeNewsweek, and GQ. He was the first cartoonist selected for inclusion in Esquire's prestigious fiction issue, and he drew the backgrounds for The Ramones' video "I Don't Want to Grow Up." But for cartooning cognoscenti, he is perhaps best loved for Eightball, the ambitious and groundbreaking serialized anthology in which he premiered most of the stories eventually collected in his graphic novels.  The most recent issue of Eightball contained the entire story "The Death Ray", published in 2011 as a standalone graphic novel and selected by The Onion's AV Club as one of "The Best 25 Comics of the '00s."

Graphic novelist, gallery cartoonist, strip cartoonist -- Chris Ware is one of the best known and most respected independent American cartoonists. He has guest edited McSweeney's Quarterly and The Best American Comics and published cartoons in the New Yorker as well as the Virginia Quarterly Review. He was the first cartoonist to serialize a story in The New York Times Magazine, and has had his work included in the Whitney Biennial. His graphic novel Jimmy Corrigan – the Smartest Kid on Earth received the Guardian First Book Award, the American Book Award and the prestigious French comics award "L'Alph Art." Fans are eagerly anticipating Volume 21 of his Acme Novelty Library comic strip series and his new compendium, Building Stories, will be released this Fall from Pantheon.

Details of events featuring Ware and Clowes will be released as planning is finalized. Pre-expo interview opportunities may be available. Please contact the SPX press office at the number above.

About SPX

SPX is a registered 501(c)3 non-profit that brings together more than 300 artists and publishers to meet their readers, booksellers and distributors each year. Graphic novels, mini comics, and alternative comics will all be on display and for sale by their authors and illustrators, as well as a series of panel discussions and interviews with this year's guests. 

SPX also preserves the works of the creators in the indie comics community through the Small Press Expo Collection at the Library of Congress, a first of its kind relationship with a major institution in the United States. 

As in previous years, profits from the SPX will go to support the the SPX Graphic Novel Gift Program, which gifts graphic novels to public and academic libraries, as well as the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund (CBLDF), which protects the First Amendment rights of comic book readers and professionals. For more information on the CBLDF, go to their website at http://www.cbldf.org
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SPX 2012 will be held Saturday, September 15  and Sunday, September 16, with the  Ignatz Awards festival prize ceremonies occurring Saturday September 15 at 9PM.  For more information on the Small Press Expo, please visit http://www.spxpo.com.


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