Today on the site, Annie Mok reviews the wondrous Meat Cake Bible by Dame Darcy.
Fantagraphics has just released a collection of comics from Dame Darcy, the Mermaid-identified cartoonist and sometime reality show star, in the form of The Meat Cake Bible. Ornately designed by Keeli McCarthy, the die-cut hardcover opens to a scene of Dickensian magical realist debauchery, featuring some of Darcy’s core cast of characters, such as Strega Pez, Effluvia the mermaid, and Wax Wolf. They all live in Sobriety Straight, a Victorian hellscape/dreamscape, wherein the dozens of short stories from the Meat Cake comics took place, published by Fantagraphics from 1993-2008. The strips reflect the giddy viciousness of the best Riot Grrrl art and music from the early nineties, with a collection of mostly (white) women characters as cackling demonesses, taking up space and being loud.
We'll have Ron Rege's interview with Dame Darcy soon enough.
Elsewhere:
It's SPX weekend! You won't find me there (though I wish I was going). All your info is here. Instead you can find me at the New York Art Book Fair on Sunday at 1 pm, interviewing Suellen Rocca of Hairy Who fame.
SPX recommendation: Do yourself a favor and buy Anya Davidson's Band for Life. I'm in the middle of it now and it's incredibly warm, funny and brilliant cartooning.
Here's a cool-sounding event about underground press in Oregon.
The great store Quimby's gets the local legend treatment in the Chicago Tribune.
And here's our own Robert Boyd on Trenton Doyle Hancock.
