The Hole named "Rising Star!"

The Hole: Consumer Culture recently won the "Rising Star" Award at the 2009 Glyph Comics Awards! Click the link below to read more:

http://www.popcultureshock.com/2009-glyph-comics-award-winners/48374/

About the Glyph Comics Awards:

The Glyph Comics Awards recognize the best in comics made by, for, and about people of color from the preceding calendar year. While it is not exclusive to black creators, it does strive to honor those who have made the greatest contributions to the comics medium in terms of both critical and commercial impact. By doing so, the goal is to encourage more diverse and high quality work across the board and to inspire new creators to add their voices to the field.

The awards are named for the blog Glyphs: The Language of the Black Comics Community (http://glyphs.popcultureshock.com), started in 2005 by comics journalist Rich Watson as a means to provide news and commentary of comics with black themes, as well as tangential topics in the fields of black science-fiction/fantasy and animation. For more information about the GCAs, contact Watson at rich.watson@gmail.com.

Signs of the Apocalypse/Rapture in Kankakee Press

Click on the image above read the brief from the Kankakee Daily Journal (Friday, April 24, 2009)

F40 at The Show 'n Tell Show!

Front Forty Press Director Doug Fogelson will discuss the process of creating F40's newest book, The Time After with the hosts of "The Show 'n Tell Show" at The Whistler (2421 N Milwaukee, Chicago) on Wednesday, May 20th at 7 PM. This segment is the "Book Design Special" and is in conjunction with the Pilcrow Lit Fest. Come out for drinks, design/publishing talk and camaraderie! Copies of The Time After will be for sale at this event.

*Click on the image above to see the flier close up*

Honorable Mention at the 2009 Green Book Festival!

F40's newest book, The Time After (Photography by Doug Fogelson, Design by Tim Hartford) recently received the Honorable Mention award at the 2009 Green Book Festival, which honors books that contribute to greater understanding, respect and positive action on the changing worldwide environment.

See the book here. And then buy it here!

"The Hole" Authors Jennings and Duffy's recent activity:

John Jennings and Damian Duffy, authors of The Hole: Consumer Culture Vol. 1, have been keeping busy with speaking engagements around the country.

The Hole is going to be used in courses at both Forest Park Community College in St. Louis, MO and Haverford College in Haverford, PA. Jennings and Duffy recently did a talk at Forest Park and are invited to Haverford in the Fall for a comics symposium which will feature a book party for The Hole! The two have also been asked to submit a comic entry into an anthology of autobiographical comics from Univeristy of Wisconsin.

And... The Hole is up for two GLYPH awards. Wish our authors luck!

F40 on Step Sister Press Blog

F40 Director Doug Fogelson talks about Front Forty Press and brand new book The Time After with Alicia Eler for fellow Chicago publisher Step Sister Press. Click here to read the interview.

Step Sister Press, LLC is an independent publishing company founded by artist Annie Heckman in 2007 to promote discourse on emerging interdisciplinary art, literature, and critical theory projects. Based in Chicago, the press coordinates projects and collaborations with artists and writers around the world. It is committed to progressive inquiry through printed material and online projects. Each book contains the work of at least one contemporary artist.

Recent press on "Signs of the Apocalypse / Rapture"

“Rapture: (noun) A feeling of intense pleasure or joy. It’s the word that the Chicago publisher, Doug Fogelson had in mind when he assembled Signs of the Apocalypse / Rapture (Front Forty Press; $65), a sometimes brooding and other times bright compendium of art on the twin themes. Local artists Cody Hudson, Carrie Schneider and Eduardo de Soignie are among those showcased; the accompanying soundtrack featuring Sonic Youth, among others.”

– Chicago Magazine, March 2009

“There’s a ton of fine work in Front Forty Press’s Signs of the Apocalypse / Rapture, a coffee-table collection of pieces on the title themes by 74 visual artists and solo musicians, ten bands, and a Web site. In the ‘Apocalypse’ section, painter Till Gerhard’s ‘Pink Apocalypse’ depicts seven apparently undead kids, knee-deep in water while pink light seems to rain down around them—a funny, classically composed conflation of gay utopia and zombie Armageddon. Emilio Perez’s ‘Born All Over’ shows swirling, goopy abstractions mingling and rushing together, with twisted faces almost but not quite taking shape in the muck. Over in ‘Rapture,’ Francesca Sundsten’s oil-on-canvas ‘Birdland’ is a serenely creepy mix of Magritte, Boccaccio, and Audubon—a nude, bird-headed woman in a natural landscape, surrounded by formally posed, rather dead-looking fowl.

The sonic material is on two CDs curated by David Castillo, Front Forty director Doug Fogelson, and Robert A.A. Lowe. It’s a little disappointing: an end-of-days compilation should include some bluegrass, gospel, and satanic death metal, dammit. Barring that, though, I was happy enough to listen to Om’s doomy trance sludge, Jana Hunter’s spooky, twee harmonic weirdness, and even Sonic Youth being Sonic Youth…”

– Chicago Reader, January 2009