La bande dessinée: Pop-Sequentialism in France

Almost immediately after the Pop-Sequentialism exhibition opened, I ventured to Paris to cement international relations with a few, select galleries. To my surprise and delight, the exhibition and the show catalog were enthusiastically received and planning has begun for a European tour. This traveling, European version of the landmark exhibition of modern comic book art will include some of the pieces from the inaugural show, expanding to include more examples of original production pages from several of the same creative teams and a roster of new, landmark collaborations –addressing the slight differences in taste between American and European collectors.

By the time I packed my luggage to embark on this journey, the synergy at home had launched a media storm that could not be contained: Free Comic Book Day resulted in unprecedented "sold-out" status for more titles than ever before; the Frank Miller and Klaus Jansen Dark Knight splash page offered at auction by Heritage realized the record price of $448,125.00 (plus a 19% buyer premium); and Kenneth Branagh's blockbuster Thor movie opened to critical and public praise as billboards for Captain America and Green Lantern began popping up all over the nation. The Pop-Sequentialism exhibit garnered the pick of the week in the L.A. Weekly, and the blogosphere was lit-up with feature reports on Artlog, Newsarama, Gothic.Net, Comic Book Resources, Illustration.org, Campus Circle, ChinaShop, Spectrum, SupahCute, Crackajack, Forces Of Geek, Bleeding Cool, Wizards World, and a little over 11,000 other site pages!

The Pop-Sequentialism exhibition catalog is available now for a limited time. It's formatted like an 80-Page Giant and priced accordingly at $7.95. The print run of 1,000 copies isn't expected to last beyond this year's Alternative Press Expo. Wholesale and retail orders can be fulfilled by emailing info@laluzdejesus.com.

In preparing the catalog for publication along with Peter Shire's Hokkaido Story, I realized that the La Luz de Jesus Press website was well out of date. So I completely redesigned the front page to reflect greater consistency with the La Luz de Jesus Gallery website, and updated the book list to reflect the 25 titles currently available or in solicitation.

In the last two years we've published new art volumes by Dennis Larkins, Chris Mars, Scott Musgrove, Myron Conan Dyal & Jennifer Logan. Next month we'll be presenting a new Glenn Barr book and by the fall, we'll be publishing a massive tome to celebrate the 25th Anniversary of La Luz de Jesus Gallery. By the end of the year, there will be a new Daniel Martin Diaz collection and we'll be announcing new titles from past collaborators alongside a handful of print debuts. A work in progress, the new La Luz de Jesus Press site will soon be expanded to include a selection of antiquarian titles from Billy Shire's personal archive, an easy to use shopping cart, and links to signing events and exhibitions at other galleries featuring our roster of published artists. The gallery site will soon feature a comprehensive, artist search index and a revamped posters & prints menu. These improvements have been a long time coming, and it's my intent to present a better, more user-friendly experience for visitors both actual and virtual.

It's going to be a very exciting summer!