Mary and I went down to Georgetown on Saturday night to hang out at the Fantagraphics Book Store and Gallery. I got to meet and photograph Al Columbia who was there exhibiting some of his original artwork. He was also signing copies of his new book Pim & Francie. Al was actually very friendly and talkative. In fact his voice was horse and sounded like a frog from talking so much. He shared with me a little bit about the genesis of his ideas and how he went about creating Pim & Francie. It was definitely interesting to get some insight from him because his stuff on the surface seems to be so left field, yet somewhere underneath it all, there really is a sort of narrative. Anyway, it was great to get to meet him and so many other cool people.

Also, this morning the good people at the Fantagraphics Flog Blog were nice enough to put up a post of some my photos from the night.

~Al Columbia~

Also, I got to meet and talk a bit with Mathew Southworth who’s comic book Stumptown has just come out.

Mathew getting Al to sign his copy of Pim & Francie.

I got Mathew to sign a copy of Stumptown for me.

Al Columbia signed a copy of Pim & Francie to me as well.

Artist Jim Woodring also showed up to get a copy of Al’s book signed. While there, Jim signed one of the Mr Bumper toy figurines he had designed (Boing Boing article on the Mr Bumper toy here).

Many others were there to meet Al, as well as check out his artwork on display and browse the book collection.

Group Shot.

Left to right: Jason Leivian from Floating World Comics in Portland, Al Columbia, and comics artists Mike Allred and Mathew Southworth.