Wow Cool

Sam Henderson will be making the rounds promoting his latest book Free Ice Cream. Many other Wow Cool distributed artists and publishers will be exhibiting, including: Pat Aulisio, Gary Panter, Jeffrey Lewis, Jon Lewis, Josh Bayer, Aaron Cometbus (at Last Gasp), Katie Skelly, David Mazzucchelli, Tom Gauld, Dean Haspiel, Leela Corman, Retrofit Comics, Fantagraphics, D & Q and Top Shelf.

Celebrating My Friend Dahmer, Harvey Pekar's Cleveland, and Free Ice Cream!

Hosted by Sam Henderson

Appearing: John 'Derf' Backderf, Joyce Brabner & Joseph Remnant

On the Docket: Reading | Audience Q&A | Book Signing

My Friend Dahmer:
You only think you know this story. In 1991, Jeffrey Dahmer—the most notorious serial killer since Jack the Ripper—seared himself into the American consciousness. To the public, Dahmer was a monster who committed unthinkable atrocities. To Derf Backderf, “Jeff” was a much more complex figure: a high school friend with whom he had shared classrooms, hallways, and car rides. In My Friend Dahmer, a haunting and original graphic novel, writer-artist Backderf creates a surprisingly sympathetic portrait of a disturbed young man struggling against the morbid urges emanating from the deep recesses of his psyche—a shy kid, a teenage alcoholic, and a goofball who never quite fit in with his classmates. With profound insight, what emerges is a Jeffrey Dahmer that few ever really knew, and one readers will never forget.

Harvey Pekar's Cleveland:
A lifelong Cleveland resident, Harvey Pekar (1939-2010) pioneered autobiographical comics, mining the mundane for magic since 1976 in his ongoing American Splendor series. Harvey Pekar''s Cleveland is sadly one of his last, but happily one of his most definitive graphic novels. It combines classic American Splendor-ous autobiographical anecdotes with key moments and characters in the city''s history as relayed to us by Our Man and meticulously researched and rendered by artist Joseph Remnant. With an introduction by Alan Moore to boot! Published by ZIP Comics and Top Shelf Productions.

Free Ice Cream:
Free Ice Cream is Sam's first solo publication since 2008′s Magic Whistle #11 Body Armor for Your Dignity. Subtitled And other cartoons you could have drawn, it collects Sam Henderson’s gag cartoons from 2009 and 2010 (148 of them, by our count). Sam has been posting these online and in Smoke Signal for the last couple of years. Also included is a 2-page “Jerrold K. Footlick” adventure. It’s 40 pages and a little bigger than comic-book sized.

Artist Bios:

Derf Backderf has been nominated for two Eisner Awards and has received a host of honors, including the prestigious Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award for political cartooning. His weekly comic strip, The City, has appeared in more than 100 newspapers over the past 22 years. Backderf lives in Cleveland, Ohio.

Joyce Brabner is a writer of comics who frequently collaborated with her late husband, Harvey Pekar, on his American Splendor stories. Pekar and Brabner worked with artist Frank Stack on the Harvey Award-winning graphic novel, Our Cancer Year. Brabner was portrayed by actress Hope Davis in the film adaptation of American Splendor (2003), and also appeared as herself.

Sam Henderson, persona non grata and elder statesman at the same time, with reactions ranging from “I'm never washing this hand again” to “Who?” has been in New York Press, Nickelodeon, DC Comics, several other places (including pornography), and back again. For a long time he did The Magic Whistle, which was a series, but now exists as a twice weekly one-panel gag strip. In 2001 he was a writer for SpongeBob Squarepants. Scene But Not Heard, a collection of the Nickelodeon strips, will be out from Top Shelf later this year. His most recent publication is a collection of recent cartoons called Free Ice Cream:.

Joseph Remnant is a Los Angeles-based artist, who previously illustrated Harvey Pekar stories for SMITH magazine's Pekar Project. He recently self-published the second issue of his own comic titled Blindspot.