CA – LOVF Signing

Jesse Reklaw appears at Skylight Books on Friday, July 29, 2016 at 7:30 PM to discuss and sign his newest release, LOVF. A journey through a man’s psychological break, told through mixed media design and art, such as paints, tape, glitter, nail polish, white out and a lot of honesty and vulnerability.

LOVF is the sketchbook companion of a man literally losing his mind. Homeless and broke after giving all his stuff to punk rock heroin dealers, he ends up off his meds and on a secret quest from Portland to Brooklyn, DC, LA, San Francisco, and Seattle. He throws himself into every experience like it was his last; like it should be his last. With wild energy, promiscuity, criminal activity, and substance abuse, this becomes a full-blown manic episode… all of it captured by LOVF, the trusty sidekick. Jammed with cartoons, mad schemes, psychedelic portraits, and notes from the road, LOVF is a travel journal, and a mirror of the post-traumatic dreamworld its author can’t escape from. After losing his house, his job, his partner, and his best friend, he is triple-diagnosed with bipolar mood disorder, PTSD, and crippling chronic pain. As a self-professed over-achiever, he made sure things only got worse from there. Getting beat up in the street, running from the law, getting dragged out of a creek and into a mental hospital… it’s a Kerouacian meltdown of cross-hatching, spattered marker, crayons, glitter, tape, nail polish, white-out, fingerpainting, rain, wine, stickers, and word balloons, like the found diary of a homeless crazyman, turned into a comic book.

Jesse Reklaw grew up in Sacramento, studied at UC Santa Cruz, and completed a master’s degree in computer science at Yale University. In 1995, while pursuing a Ph.D. in artificial intelligence, he began self-publishing comics and dropped out of Yale to be a cartoonist. His other books include Couch Tag, Applicant, and The Night of Your Life.

Skylight Books
1818 N. Vermont Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90027
323.660.1175

CA – World of Warcraft Signing

Daniel Lisi discusses his new book World of Warcraft, with Jarett Kobek, Gabe Durham, Ashly + Anthony Burch and Brock Wilbur at Skylight Books on Friday, July 22, 2016 at 7:30 PM.

At more than 100 million user accounts created and over $10 billion made, it is not only the most-subscribed MMORPG in the world, but the highest-grossing video game of all time. Ten years after its launch, Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft is less a game and more a world unto itself, and it’s a world Daniel Lisi knows well. More time in his high school years was spent in Azeroth than in his hometown of Irvine, CA—a home he happened to share with Blizzard itself.

Now that Lisi has founded his own game development studio, WoW remains his most powerful example of just how immersive and consuming a game can be. Based on research, interviews, and the author’s own experience in a hardcore raiding guild, Lisi’s book examines WoW’s origins, the addictive power of its gameplay loop, the romances WoW has both cemented and shattered, the enabling power of anonymity, and the thrill of conquering BlizzCon with guildmates you’ve known for years and just met for the first time.
Daniel Lisi is the CEO and co-founder of Game Over, a video game development studio based in Los Angeles, CA. He’s a member of Art Share LA’s board of directors and facilitates an incubator for individual artists and their projects.

Jarett Kobek is a Turkish-American writer living in California. His novella ATTA was called “highly interesting,” by the Times Literary Supplement, has appeared in Spanish translation, been the subject of much academic writing, and was a recent and unexplained bestseller in parts of Canada. His most recent book is I Hate the Internet. Presently, he’s working on a book about Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s first album for Bloomsbury’s 33 1/3 series.

Gabe Durham is the founder, editor, and publisher of Boss Fight Books. His novel FUN CAMP was one of BuzzFeed’s 17 Books We Loved in 2013. He lives in Los Angeles, CA.

Ashly Burch is a voice actor and writer, and she speaks about representation and issues of gender and identity in the games industry. Anthony Burch was lead writer of Borderlands 2 for Gearbox Software and is currently a writer for Rocket Jump.

Brock Wilbur is a nightmare man with a heart of solid gold. Born in Salina, Kansas and booklearn’d at the Northwestern University in Chicago, Brock is a 6’7″ writer slash comedian now living in Los Angeles. He has some books and standup albums and films that you might enjoy, and you can track them all down on the internetwebs. He accepts tributes in the form of video games and gin — like an adult.

Skylight Books
1818 N. Vermont Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90027
323.660.1175

CA – Drinky Crow Drinks Again Signing

Cartoonist Tony Millionaire appears at Skylight Books on Thursday, July 14, 2016 at 7:30 PM!

Press Release:

Tony Millionaire’s Maakies is one of the longest-running and most decorated weekly comic strips in America, garnering multiple Harvey and Eisner Awards since it debuted in 1994. Drinky Crow Drinks Again collects over 200 Maakies strips from the past half-decade for the very first time! Featuring the comical high-seas adventures of a booze-soaked corvid (they don’t call him “Drinky” Crow for nothin’) and his equally-soused simian pal (Uncle Gabby), Maakies blends vaudeville style humor and a breathtaking line that hearkens back to the glory days of the American comic strip. Maakies suggests a contemporary collaboration between E.C. Segar, creator of Popeye, and seafaring novelist Patrick O’Brian (Master and Commander). Millionaire has won multiple Harvey and Eisner Awards and is also the creator of the popular Sock Monkey and Billy Hazelnuts books.

Tony Millionaire attended the Massachusetts College of Art in 1974 for four years. Until the age of 35, he made extra money by drawing people’s houses for about $50.00 a piece. Before achieving fame and fortune with Fantagraphics, he also did illustration work for The New York Press and The New Yorker, and animation for Saturday Night Live. Tony Millionaire’s Maakies is one of the most popular weekly comic strips in America, running in many of the largest U.S. weekly newspapers, including the Village Voice, the L.A. Weekly, the Chicago Reader and Seattle’s The Stranger. He has won numerous Eisner and Harvey Awards, including “Best Syndicated Strip” in 2004 and “Best Writer/Artist — Humor” in 2007. Maakies has been collected in numerous volumes published by Fantagraphics. Other, non-Maakies book releases include his series of Sock Monkey comics, graphic novels, and children’s books and The Art of Tony Millionaire from Dark Horse Comics, and, from Fantagraphics, Mighty Mite: The Earmite, the acclaimed original graphic novel series Billy Hazelnuts and 500 Portraits.

Skylight Books
1818 N. Vermont Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90027
323.660.1175

CA – Hot Dog Taste Test Signing

Lisa Hanawalt appears at Skylight Books on Wednesday, June 8, 2016 at 7:30 PM for the release of Hot Dog Taste Test.

ABOUT

Hot Dog Taste Test serves up Lisa Hanawalt’s devastatingly funny comics, saliva-stimulating art, and deliciously screwball lists as she skewers the pomposities of foodie subculture. Join the James Beard Award-winning cartoonist and production designer/producer of Bojack Horseman as she presents a selection of food-related excerpts from Hot Dog Taste Test.

Lisa Hanawalt is an artist living in Los Angeles and is the production designer/producer of the Netflix original series Bojack Horseman. Hanawalt has worked on illustrations, book covers, animations, comics, murals, and textile patterns, and exhibits her work in galleries. She writes and draws a James Beard Award–winning quarterly food column for Lucky Peach magazine, and cohosts the podcast Baby Geniuses with the comedian Emily Heller. Her first collection with Drawn & Quarterly was 2013’s critically acclaimed My Dirty Dumb Eyes.

Skylight Books
1818 N. Vermont Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90027
323.660.1175

CA – James Franco Signing

James Franco appears at Skylight Books on Saturday, May 14, 2016 at noon to sign his book of poetry Straight James/Gay James.

Please note, this is a signing only.

Press Release:

Straight James/Gay James explores the facets of James Franco’s public and private personas.Straight James/Gay James is a poetic bildungsroman—raw, candid, and uninhibited. James Franco writes about life as an actor and provokes questions about identity, sexuality, and gender. Other poems deal with family, Gucci, Lana Del Rey, James Dean, and Hollywood. His poetic style varies from the imagistic to the prosaic. The chapbook also contains an interview of “Gay James” conducted by “Straight James.” Yes, Straight James asks the question: “Let’s get substantial: are you gay or what?”

NOTE: As with all Skylight Books in-store events, this signing is free and open to the public (first come, first served).  But because we’re expecting a large crowd at this event, we’ll be giving out numbered tickets to the signing line to keep things organized:

• To get a ticket to the signing line, you must purchase a copy of any James Franco title here at Skylight Books. You may bring other titles to have signed from home as long as you purchase a book from the store.
• James Franco will sign and personalize BOOKS ONLY–no memorabilia, posters, DVDs, fan art, etc. Also, we are not allowing any photographs.
• For all website orders for this event, be sure to leave a note in the Order Comments field if you’d like a signing line ticket.
• Can’t attend? If you would like a signed book but will not be able to attend, click Signed Copy after adding the book to your cart and we’ll do our best to get it signed for you. You  may pick up this book in the store after the event, or have it shipped to you.
• Skylight’s Friends with Benefits members get priority signing line tickets (and 20% off this and all other event books each month), so be sure to mention your membership (or join) when you order the book.

James Franco is an actor, director, writer, and visual artist. He is the author of two works of fiction, Palo Alto and Actors Anonymous, and two books that collage memoir, snapshots, poems, and artwork, A California Childhood and Hollywood Dreaming. His poetry has appeared in a chapbook, Strongest of the Litter, and the book, Directing Herbert White. His writing has also been published in Esquire, the Huffington Post, McSweeney’s, N+1, Vanity Fair, The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. He has received MFAs in fiction from Brooklyn College and Columbia, an MFA in film from New York University, an MFA in art from Rhode Island School of Design, and an MFA in poetry from Warren Wilson College.

Franco’s film appearances include Milk, Pineapple Express, This is the End, Spring Breakers, Oz, and 127 Hours, which earned him an Academy Award nomination. He portrayed poets Allen Ginsberg in the film Howl, C.K. Williams in The Color of Time, and Hart Crane in The Broken Tower, a film Franco adapted and directed. He has also adapted many poems into films that he has directed, including short films based on “Herbert White” by Frank Bidart, the collectionBlack Dog, Red Dog by Stephen Dobyns, “The Clerk’s Tale” by Spencer Reece, and “The Feast of Stephen” by Anthony Hecht.

Franco has also adapted to film the novels As I Lay Dying, and Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner, Child of God by Cormac McCarthy, In Dubious Battle by John Steinbeck, The Long Home by William Gay, and Zeroville by Steve Erickson.

Skylight Books
1818 N. Vermont Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90027
323.660.1175

CA – Turning Japanese Signing

Cartoonist MariNaomi appears at Skylight Books to sign Turning Japanese on Thursday, May 5, 2016 at 7:30 PM!

About Turning Japanese:
In 1995, 22-year-old Mari has just exited a long-term relationship, moving from Mill Valley to San Jose, California. Soon enough she falls in love, then finds employment at an illegal hostess bar for Japanese expats, where she is determined to learn the Japanese language and culture. She hopes to finally connect with her Japanese relatives without her mother as a translator and filter. Turning Japanese is a story about otherness, culture clashes, generation gaps and youthful impetuosity.

MariNaomi is the author and illustrator of the SPACE Prize-winning graphic memoir Kiss & Tell: A Romantic Resume, Ages 0 to 22, the Eisner-nominated Dragon’s Breath and Other True Stories, and her self-published Estrus Comics. Her work has appeared in over sixty print anthologies, and has been featured on such websites as The Rumpus, The Weeklings, LA Review of Books, Midnight Breakfast, Truth-out, XOJane, Buzzfeed, Bitch Media, and more. She is also the creator and curator of the Cartoonists of Color Database and the LGBTQ Cartoonists Database.

Skylight Books
1818 N. Vermont Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90027
323.660.1175

CA – Killing & Dying Signing

Cartoonist Adrian Tomine appears at Skylight Books on Thursday, November 12, 2015 at 7:30 PM!

Killing and Dying is a stunning showcase of the possibilities of the graphic novel medium and a wry exploration of loss, creative ambition, identity, and family dynamics. With this work, Adrian Tomine reaffirms his place not only as one of the most significant creators of contemporary comics, but as one of the great voices of modern American literature. His gift for capturing emotion and intellect resonates here: the weight of love and its absence, the pride and disappointment of family, the anxiety and hopefulness of being alive in the twenty-first century.

Adrian Tomine was born in 1974 in Sacramento, California. He began self-publishing his comic book series Optic Nerve. His comics have been anthologized in publications such as McSweeney’s, Best American Comics, and Best American Non-required Reading, and his graphic novel Shortcomings was a New York Times Notable Book of 2007. Since 1999, Tomine has been a regular contributor to The New Yorker. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and daughters.

Skylight Books
1818 N. Vermont Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90027
323.660.1175

CA – Judah Friedlander Signs

Judah Friedlander appears at the Skylight Books on Friday, November 13, 2015 at 7:30 PM to sign his new book of cartoons!

You know Judah Friedlander from his role as Frank Rossitano on 30 Rock as well as his roles in acclaimed films like Wet Hot American Summer, American Splendor, and The Wrestler. But long before he became a stand-up comic and actor, Friedlander drew stuff. If The Raindrops United is a collection of hilarious and surprisingly profound drawings and comics that shows a new side of Friedlander’s “terrifically entertaining” (New York Times) comedy and marks a milestone in the career of one of America’s most inventive comedians.

Hailed by Tina Fey as “one of the all-time great weirdos,” Judah’s drawings and cartoons push boundaries, exploring absurdities from American life and sex to history and human rights. Whether imagining George Washington in Las Vegas, plastic surgery for imperfect triangles, or the Keystone Pipeline as a sex act, Friedlander’s riotous drawings in If the Raindrops United are laugh-out-loud funny, thought-provoking, and conversation-starting.

Judah Friedlander was a series regular on NBC’s Emmy Award-winning hit show 30 Rock for seven seasons (SAG Award for Best Ensemble). He won international acclaim for his portrayal of Toby Radloff in the award-winning movie American Splendor. He is the author of the bestselling instructional karate book How To Beat Up Anybody, featuring his photography and artwork. Friedlander is featured in Netflix’s just-released Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp, and his upcoming projects include a new comedy album and a stand-up documentary concert film. He will be a series regular on FOX’s 2016 primetime animated series Bordertown from executive producer Seth MacFarlane. You can follow Judah Friedlander on twitter at @JudahWorldChamp.

Skylight Books
1818 N. Vermont Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90027
323.660.1175

CA – There Is No Right Way to Meditate Signing

Yumi Sakugawa signs at Skylight Books on Monday, November 2, 2015 at 7:30 pm!

Press Release: 

In There Is No Right Way to Meditate, award-winning artist Yumi Sakugawa helps you tap into your inner self and finally find the peace that you’ve been seeking. Each page offers a unique perspective on how to lead a more mindful life, with captivating ink illustrations and encouraging words like, “it’s okay if the only thing you did today was breathe.” From simple ways to get rid of a bad mood to instructions for making your intentions come true, her lessons will inspire you to become more aware of the present moment and find stillness no matter where you go.

Yumi Sakugawa is an Ignatz Awards nominated comic book artist and the author of I Think I Am in Friend-Love With You and Your Illustrated Guide to Becoming One With The Universe. Her comics have also appeared in The Believer, Bitch, the Best American Non­Required Reading 2014, The Rumpus, Folio, Fjords Review, and other publications. A graduate from the fine art program of University of California, Los Angeles, she lives in Los Angeles.

Skylight Books
1818 N. Vermont Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90027
323.660.1175

CA – Oh the Moon Signing

Charlyne Yi appears at Skylight Books on Tuesday, November 3, 2015 at 7:30pm.

Press Release:

From actress, comedian, musician, and writer Charlyne Yi comes this collection of illustrated, interconnected short stories and anecdotes that blends comedy, fantastic adventures, and a storm of feelings that will make you want to laugh and cry at the same time reminiscent of the works of Demetri Martin, Shel Silverstein and John Cassavetes.

Charlyne Yi takes readers from the beginning of time to the depths of a frog’s stomach, and to Hell and back literally in this collection of short stories that showcases her unique style.Equal parts whimsical, hilarious, heartbreaking, and terrifying, these short stories both written and illustrated by Charlyne can be read separately, but are connected thematically following the difficulties of love at every age: Forgive Me: What happens when the tiniest boy of all time is the only thing standing between the world s largest baby and an angry mob? Who could ever love something so small? Or so big? The Particles: A love story that takes all the time in the universe to tell. She’s All Legs: In this spicy, action-packed romance, Agatha, a woman who is literally just legs and a head, decides to hunt down and kill the Devil himself. Along the way she meets Cassady, an Elvis impersonator with his own, mysterious gripe with the Dark Lord.

Charlyne Yi is a struggling poet, comedian, musician, painter, and writer. She can do ten pushups a day. She wrote and starred in the fictionalized documentary Paper Heart, for which she won the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award at Sundance. She has also been in Knocked Up, This is 40, and House.

Skylight Books
1818 N. Vermont Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90027
323.660.1175

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