Fantagraphics Grand Opening

Never let it be said that we here at Successless would miss out on a party. Especially not one that has comics, cartoonists, art, artists, music and beer. Double especially if it's only a 15 minute drive away.

So, with that in mind, we absolutely had to make it back down to the Georgetown neighborhood of Seattle for the official grand opening of the Fantagraphics Books retail store, which happily coincided with the Georgetown art walk, and a gallery opening at Belle & Wissell promoting the new book Beasts! Nevermind that we had already hit up the soft opening a month earlier. This time, there would be beer!

The event was scheduled to kick off at 5pm, so we rolled in at a fashionably late 6pm. And boy were we surprised by the turnout! There was already an overflow crowd on the sidewalk out front, and plenty of crossover traffic between the store and the nearby galleries. Getting inside was easy enough, but moving around once inside proved difficult. It was packed, wall-to-wall, with a wide range of folks, from kids there with their parents, to young hipsters soaking in the atmosphere, to older aficionados digging for rare books. The counter staff (which usually consisted of one person) looked happy, bordering on overwhelmed, as I'm not sure they were expecting this kind of turnout.

The store itself was mostly in the same state as it was for the soft opening, just a little more polished and tweaked. The plain banner in the window was replaced with permanent vinyl graphics, based on Daniel Clowes artwork. The side wall was adorned with a selection of original art from Peter Bagge, R. Crumb, Jaime Hernandez, Chris Ware, and others, tastefully presented behind plexiglass. The damaged room had a larger inventory, including out-of-print comics (like Penny Century #3, which I was happy to finally find).


We hung around and shopped for a little while, bumping elbows with Ellen Forney, Andrice Arp and Kaz Strzepek (who chatted with us or a while), among others. When it got a little too claustrophobic (and we finished our complementary beers), we made our way over to the gallery to check out the Beasts exhibit. The space was small but elegant, with original artwork hanging on one wall, an interactive projection of pages from the book on the opposite side, and a beautiful diorama on the bookshelf, next to a selection of small-press art books. They were playing a mix of minimal techno from the upstairs staff area/DJ booth, which fit the modern design of the space quite well.










Back at the Fantagraphics store, local band The Rheas played a quick set of synth-laced indie pop, with store counterperson Rhea Patterson on drums. It was around 8 at this point, and the crowd showed no sign of thinning out yet, but we decided to take our leave. It was great to see such a large, diverse turnout for a comic store opening, though. I never would have guessed that even an institution like Fantagraphics could have pulled it off, with the economic state of the artform as it is. But I'm definitely happy to be proven wrong.