RSVP REQUIRED BECAUSE THERE WILL BE FREE BEER (edit - There may not be free beer, but we will have free snapples. still waiting on my dude -oli)
For seven years (and one miscounted eighth anniversary party) Highwater Books was snobby, high-concept, iconoclastic, poorly-business modeled publishing company that ran itself into the ground. Highwater published books late, promised them and never...
[read more] RSVP REQUIRED BECAUSE THERE WILL BE FREE BEER (edit - There may not be free beer, but we will have free snapples. still waiting on my dude -oli)
For seven years (and one miscounted eighth anniversary party) Highwater Books was snobby, high-concept, iconoclastic, poorly-business modeled publishing company that ran itself into the ground. Highwater published books late, promised them and never published them at all and even withheld its books from distributors on principle. The company asked its artists to fold mini-comics and stand behind convention tables and sell their wares to a public that did not know what to make of them. It hatched plans, plots and schemes, and it may have been the most important comic publisher of the early part of the century. Over those seven or so years, Highwater elevated the concept of design in the comics world; It emphasized independent and DIY attitudes in an increasingly corporate society, and it published some of the most important artists in comics. In October, Fourth Wall Project celebrates Highwater and a selection of its artists with a group art exhibition: Right Thing the Wrong Way: The Story of Highwater Books.
Starting with the opening party on October 1st and on view for three weeks, Right Thing the Wrong Way will display new and archival works by the artists central to Highwater Books: Brian Ralph, Greg Cook, Jef Czekaj, Jordan Crane, Kurt Wolfgang, Marc Bell, Megan Kelso, and Ron Rege. Along with the artists work, there will be an installation celebrating the strange history of the company. The organizers (TD Sidell, Emily Arkin, Brooke Corey, Jef Czekaj, and Greg Cook) will construct a mini-museum within the gallery, displaying ephemera (both finished and unfinished), half formed concept pieces, and plain old junk that made Highwater special. In lieu of a traditional catalog the organizers, in conjunction with Bodega Distribution, have put together an oral history of the company that will manifest in a short-run publication (natch!) for the show. Compiled and edited by Highwater artist and Phoenix art critic Greg Cook, the oral history will act as a companion to the show with the artists and “employees” of Highwater telling the story themselves.
Please join us as we celebrate the joys of art, comics, and futility at Fourth Wall Project from October 1-24th with Right Thing The Wrong Way: The Story of Highwater Books.
About the Artists:
Greg Cook’s first graphic novel, Catch As Catch Can, was published by Highwater Books in 2001, and won him the “Promising New Talent” Ignatz Award the following year. If he ever gets another one done, it is supposed to be published by First Second books. In the meantime, he dabbles in photography, works as an art critic in Boston, and produces the blog The New England Journal of Aesthetic Research.
Megan Kelso was born in 1968 in Seattle, Washington. She started drawing comics in the late eighties for an independent study project at the Evergreen State College in Olympia Washington. She has since published three books; two collections of short stories, Queen of the Black Black (published by Highwater Books), The Squirrel Mother (published by Fantagraphics), and one graphic novel, Artichoke Tales (also published by Fantagraphics). In the early 90's, she was the first woman to be awarded a Xeric Grant, which she used to self-publish 6 issues of her comic book, Girlhero. In 2002, she won two Ignatz Awards for Artichoke Tales minicomics and in 2007 her graphic novella Watergate Sue was serialized for 6 months in the "Funny Pages" section of the New York Times Magazine. She lives in Seattle, Washington with her husband and daughter and is currently working on her third collection of short stories.
Ron Regé, Jr. began drawing and self publishing his comics in the early 1990’s in Cambridge MA. His first book Skibber Bee~Bye was published by Highwater Books in 2000. His most recent book Against Pain collects short works from 1986-2006 and was published by Drawn & Quarterly in 2008. His current project The Cartoon Utopia has been presented in solo gallery shows in Los Angeles, Austin, Montreal, and Richmond. Ron currently lives in Los Angeles.
Marc Bell is the only Canadian to be directly involved with the Highwater Books publishing empire. His comics have appeared in many Canadian newspapers (that Americans have never heard of), Vice Magazine and The New York Times Magazine. In 2009, Montreal ’s Drawn & Quarterly published Bell ’s most recent book, Hot Potatoe. He is represented by the Adam Baumgold Gallery in NY.
Jef Czekaj is a cartoonist, children's book author and illustrator, and musician. His comic, "Grampa and Julie: Shark Hunters," ran in Nickelodeon Magazine for more than 10 years. A collection of the first three years of the comic was published with the help of a Xeric Foundation Grant and distributed by Top Shelf. Jef has illustrated several books for Charlesbridge Pulishing with two more on the way. His first book with Hyperion, Hip and Hop Don't Stop, was published in Feb. 2010. His next book, Cat Secrets, will be published by Balzer and Bray in Feb. 2011. He DJs for an award-winning hip-hop group under an assumed name. Jef lives and works in Somerville, MA.
After graduating from the Rhode Island School of Design Brian Ralph joined the Providence, Rhode Island warehouse gang Fort Thunder. During that time Ralph created an Ignatz winning comic mini-comic Fireball and the Eisner nominated comic Cave-In (Highwater).Ralph's second comic book effort, Climbing Out, was awarded a Xeric grant. Most recently Ralph has published a series of comics entitled Daybreak (Bodega). Ralph lives in Savannah, GA where is a professor in the Sequential Art Department at the Savannah College of Art and Design.
Jordan Crane grew up in Long Beach, CA. Warning signs of his renaissance-man abilities were evident in his sojourn at his college newspaper, the Daily Trojan, at the University of Southern California, where he functioned at various times as a cartoonist, art director and columnist. Crane went on to publish both his own and other people’s comics through his press, Red Ink, and edit and design the ambitious anthology NON (which won several AIGA 365 awards), among other projects (which included silk-screening). He is currently producing the semi-regular comic Uptight for Fantagraphics Books and is the editor of the online comics repository What Things Do. Crane resides in Los Angeles, CA with his wife and two children.
Kurt Wolfgang is the artist behind the Xeric Grant winning and Ignatz Award nominated graphic novelWhere Hats Go, as well as the editor of the Ignatz Award winning Lowjinx series. His illustrations and comics can be found in a number of cruddy mini-comics, high falootin' artsy fartsy anthologies, and some shiny magazines. Born & raised in some crummy part of New Jersey, Mr. Wolfgang currently resides in the picturesque village of Collinsville, CT where he is working on Pinokio, a wordless and signifcantly unfaithful adaptation of Carlo Collodi's classic tale Pinocchio. On any given day, his estimation of the eventual page count ranges from 600 to 1200, so he's chosen to no longer attempt to forecast such things. Please, don't ask him, he'll just get upset. When not drawing comics or thinking about drawing comics, he enjoys telling lies to his children, drinking beverages and wishing things were different. He still calls his dog's name when he drops food on the foor, even though she's been dead for some time. His father was no damned good.
