200609131150
The Grace Reading Series, a monthly multi media mix focusing on women writers, returns with a series of readings by cartoonists. The series kicks off October 4 at Mo Pitkins in NYC with Megan Kelso and Gabrielle Bell. Future readings include Allison Cole (Never Ending Summer) and Lauren Weinstein (Girl Stories) on November 1, and Phoebe Gloeckner (Diary of a Teenage Girl) and FLY (Peops) on December 6.

Girl Stories, Teenage Diaries and Other Graphic Marvels of Womens Comics.

Let’s start with some numbers:

This past Saturday saw the 28th Annual Harvey Awards for Excellence in Comics Art. The Harveys are generally thought of as the more “interesting” of comics awards because it looks at titles that are easily overlooked in our frenzy for Fantastic Three Way XXX Factor Revolutionary War Superhero comics. However, the superheroes still get their more than fair share of kudos. You’d think at such a “vanguard” awards show there’d be a pretty good shake up of the status quo. You’d think that with the momentum of shojo manga (japanese comics for girls) and the explosive popularity of something like FUN HOUSE by Alison Bechdel, there’s be a lot of women. Alas, this is the never ending videogame called the comics industry folks.

In 21 categories for comics excellence that each nominated 5 contestants for top honors, only three of those nominations were penned by women. Of those three, zero of them won any awards. Yet not to anyone’s surprise, there were plenty of chicks to be found on the comic books’ covers.

So it is with tremendous honor and now civic duty, that The Grace Reading Series introduce the greater Manhattan-vicinity to six of our favorite women cartoonists.


The Grace Comics Showcase is a one of a kind multi-media presenation involving booze and a film projector; a fun adult graphic novel slideshow, if you will.

We kick off The Showcase with none other than darling of Brooklyn-by-way-of- Seattle MEGAN KELSO, who will talk about “place and placement” in her just published graphic novel, THE SQUIRREL MOTHER (Fantagraphics).

Joining her is the New York-by-way-of-the-world- darling of comics, GABRIELLE BELL, whose newest novel, LUCKY (Drawn and Quarterly), is so hotly anticipated we could not wait for her November pub date to show it off. (More on the authors below)

So come out to support our severely under- represented and supremely over-talented women of comics, and stay tuned for more details on the upcoming shows:

Nov. 1: Allison Cole (Never Ending Summer) and Lauren Weinstein (Girl Stories) Dec. 6: Phoebe Gloeckner (Diary of a Teenage Girl) and FLY (Peops)

The Date:
October 4th Wed

The Place:
Mo Pitkins

The Time:
7pm

The Cost:
Free!

1 COMMENT