Enjoy recent author events, interviews, and bookseller series. Visit our website to learn more: www.skylightbooks.com
Episodes
Thursday Aug 10, 2023
SKYLIT: Elliott Kalan, MANIAC OF NEW YORK
Thursday Aug 10, 2023
Thursday Aug 10, 2023
Hello listeners! In this episode, Tyler chats with Elliott Kalan, co-host of wildly successful bad movie podcast The Flop House, Emmy Award winning head writer of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and the creative force behind the comics MANIAC OF NEW YORK and MANIAC OF NEW YORK: THE BRONX IS BURNING.
Elliott discusses his earliest inspirations for Maniac Harry, a masked and immortal killer, whose murderous rampages become a semi-regular occurrence/nuisance to New Yorkers, his rules of satire and thoughts on storytelling as a vehicle for social messaging, plus why THE TAKING OF PELHAM 123 is his favorite film and a glorious portrait of '70s New York. Lastly, Elliott gives some insight into the ongoing writer's strike and how to support those most impacted by it.
Links to MANIAC OF NEW YORK and MANIAC OF NEW YORK: THE BRONX IS BURNING
https://www.skylightbooks.com/book/9781949028713
https://www.skylightbooks.com/book/9781956731040
Link to the Entertainment Community Relief Fund:
https://entertainmentcommunity.org/
Produced by Tyler Austin, Mick Kowaleski, & Alena Saunders
Opening music: "Optimism (Instrumental)" by Duck the Piano Wire
Closing music: "Rule of 3s (Solemnity Child)" by Elastic No-No Band
The Better Than the Movie guys will be at the American Cinematheque's FRIEND OF THE FEST! They'll be hosting a screening of Sally Potter's ORLANDO (1992) on Sunday, August 27th, at the Los Feliz 3. It's right next door to Skylight, come hang out and watch a movie with the BTTM gang!
Tickets found here: https://www.americancinematheque.com/now-showing/the-skylight-books-podcast-presents-orlando-8-27-23/
Friday Jul 15, 2022
CROWDCAST: Jamila Rowser & Robyn Smith, ”WASH DAY DIARIES”
Friday Jul 15, 2022
Friday Jul 15, 2022
The book takes its title from the wash day experience shared by Black women everywhere of setting aside all plans and responsibilities for a full day of washing, conditioning, and nourishing their hair. Each short story uses hair routines as a window into these four characters' everyday lives and how they care for each other.
Jamila Rowser and Robyn Smith originally kickstarted their critically acclaimed, award-winning slice of life mini comic, Wash Day, inspired by Rowser's own wash day ritual and their shared desire to see more comics featuring the daily lived experiences of young Black women. Wash Day Diaries includes an updated, full color version of this original comic—which follows Kim, a 26-year-old woman living in the Bronx—as the book's first chapter and expands into a graphic novel with short stories about these vibrant and relatable new characters.
Produced by Nat Freeman, Lance Morgan, & Michael Kowaleski.
Theme: "I Love All My Friends," an unreleased demo by Fragile Gang.
Visit https://www.skylightbooks.com/event for future offerings from the Skylight Books Events team.
Sunday Jun 26, 2022
SKYLIT: Sina Grace, ”ROCKSTAR & SOFTBOY”
Sunday Jun 26, 2022
Sunday Jun 26, 2022
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Produced by Nat Freeman, Lance Morgan, & Michael Kowaleski.
Theme: "I Love All My Friends," an unreleased demo by Fragile Gang.
Monday May 16, 2022
LIVE ON CROWDCAST: Julio Anta, ”HOME” w/ Pornsak Pichetshote
Monday May 16, 2022
Monday May 16, 2022
Produced by Natalie Freeman, Lance Morgan, & Michael Kowaleski.
Theme: "I Love All My Friends," an unreleased demo by Fragile Gang.
Visit https://www.skylightbooks.com/event for future offerings from the Skylight Books Events team.
Wednesday Jan 19, 2022
SKYLIT: Ellinor Richey, ”JUNKWRAITH”
Wednesday Jan 19, 2022
Wednesday Jan 19, 2022
Produced by Natalie Freeman, Lance Morgan, & Michael Kowaleski.
Theme: "I Love All My Friends," an unreleased demo by Fragile Gang.
Visit https://www.skylightbooks.com/event for future offerings from the Skylight Books Events team.
Tuesday Jan 18, 2022
SKYLIT: Darieck Scott, ”KEEPING IT UNREAL” w/ Ramzi Fawaz
Tuesday Jan 18, 2022
Tuesday Jan 18, 2022
Darieck Scott offers a rich meditation on the relationship between fantasy and reality, and between the imagination and being, as he weaves his personal recollections of his encounters with superhero comics with interpretive readings of figures like the Black Panther and Blade, as well as theorists such as Frantz Fanon, Eve Sedgwick, Leo Bersani, Saidiya Hartman, and Gore Vidal. Keeping It Unrealrepresents an in-depth theoretical consideration of the intersections of superhero comics, Blackness, and queerness, and draws on a variety of fields of inquiry.
Produced by Natalie Freeman, Lance Morgan, & Michael Kowaleski.
Theme: "I Love All My Friends," an unreleased demo by Fragile Gang.
Visit https://www.skylightbooks.com/event for future offerings from the Skylight Books Events team.
Thursday Dec 30, 2021
LIVE FROM CROWDCAST: Miranda Tacchia, ”UNIMPRESSED” w/ Aminder Dhaliwal
Thursday Dec 30, 2021
Thursday Dec 30, 2021
Have you ever schemed with a friend? Stared at your phone screen well after you should have gone to sleep? Braced for heartbreak? Been told to smile more? Then Unimpressed will undoubtedly speak to you. In a book that bridges comics and memes, Miranda Tacchia uses her biting sense of humor and background in animation to create brilliant character portraits of women with only markers, Post-it notes, and tape. A master of expression, figure, and subtle (and other times not-so-subtle) comedy, Tacchia's protagonists are usually "unimpressed women" — who all share the fact that "they don't give a shit about you," as Tacchia puts it.
What makes Unimpressed so impressive and entertaining is how Tacchia taps into instantly relatable feelings and situations while simultaneously creating art that exudes confidence and vulnerability.
Tacchia is joined in this Live Crowdcast episode by Aminder Dhaliwal. The episode was recorded on October 8, 2021.
Produced by Maddie Gobbo, Lance Morgan, Natalie Freeman, & Michael Kowaleski.
Theme: "I Love All My Friends," an unreleased demo by Fragile Gang.
Visit https://www.skylightbooks.com/event for future offerings from the Skylight Books Events team.
Thursday Dec 16, 2021
LIVE ON CROWDCAST: Jim Terry, ”COME HOME, INDIO” w/ Ezra Claytan Daniels
Thursday Dec 16, 2021
Thursday Dec 16, 2021
A Native American cartoonist explores the isolation and anxiety of being lost between two worlds but ultimate becoming comfortable in his own skin.
Come Home, Indio shares the Jim Terry’s journey of discovering his spiritual home as a Native American. From a childhood in suburbia, disconnected from his identity as an Indigenous person, through an urban adulthood marked by a struggle with alcoholism and the death of his parents, to his life-altering experience at Standing Rock, he begins to find a new sense of self as a Native and as an American.
Terry is joined in this Live Crowdcast episode by Ezra Clayton Daniels. The episode was recorded on July 14, 2021. You can watch the Zoom recording here.
Produced by Maddie Gobbo, Lance Morgan, Natalie Freeman, & Michael Kowaleski.
Theme: "I Love All My Friends," an unreleased demo by Fragile Gang.
Visit https://www.skylightbooks.com/event for future offerings from the Skylight Books Events team.
Wednesday Oct 06, 2021
SKYLIT: Pornsak Pichetshote, ”THE GOOD ASIAN”
Wednesday Oct 06, 2021
Wednesday Oct 06, 2021
Produced by Maddie Gobbo, Lance Morgan, Natalie Freeman, & Michael Kowaleski.
Theme: "I Love All My Friends," an unreleased demo by Fragile Gang.
Visit https://www.skylightbooks.com/event for future offerings from the Skylight Books Events team.
Wednesday Mar 10, 2021
SKYLIT: Erika Moen & Matthew Nolan, "LET'S TALK ABOUT IT"
Wednesday Mar 10, 2021
Wednesday Mar 10, 2021
Growing up is complicated.
How do you find the answers to all the questions you have about yourself, about your identity, and about your body? Let's Talk About It provides a comprehensive, thoughtful, well-researched graphic novel guide to everything you need to know.
Covering relationships, friendships, gender, sexuality, anatomy, body image, safe sex, sexting, jealousy, rejection, sex education, and more, Let's Talk About It is the go-to handbook for every teen, and the first in graphic novel form.
Produced by Maddie Gobbo, Lance Morgan, & Michael Kowaleski
Theme: "I Love All My Friends," an unreleased demo by Fragile Gang.
Visit https://www.skylightbooks.com/event for future offerings from the Skylight Books Events team.
Tuesday Aug 04, 2020
SKYLIT: Megan Margulies, "MY CAPTAIN AMERICA" w/ Eva Hagberg,
Tuesday Aug 04, 2020
Tuesday Aug 04, 2020
In the 1990s, Megan Margulies’s Upper West Side neighborhood was marked by addicts shooting up in subway stations, frequent burglaries, and the “Wild Man of 96th Street,” who set fires under cars and heaved rocks through stained glass church windows. The world inside her parents’ tiny one-bedroom apartment was hardly a respite, with a family of five—including some loud personalities—eventually occupying the 550-square-foot space.
Salvation arrived in the form of her spirited grandfather, Daddy Joe, whose midtown studio became a second home to Megan. There, he listened to her woes, fed her Hungry Man frozen dinners, and simply let her be. His living room may have been dominated by the drawing table, notes, and doodles that marked him as Joe Simon the cartoonist. But for Megan, he was always Daddy Joe: an escape from her increasingly hectic home, a nonjudgmental voice whose sense of humor was as dry as his farfel, and a steady presence in a world that felt off balance.
Evoking New York City both in the 1980s and ’90s and during the Golden Age of comics in the 1930s and ’40s, My Captain America flashes back from Megan’s story to chart the life and career of Rochester-native Joe Simon, from his early days retouching publicity photos and doing spot art for magazines, to his partnership with Jack Kirby at Timely Comics (the forerunner of Marvel Comics), which resulted in the creation of beloved characters like Captain America, the Boy Commandos, and Fighting American.
Margulies is in conversation with Eva Hagberg, author of How to Be Loved.
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Produced by Maddie Gobbo & Michael Kowaleski
Theme: "I Love All My Friends," a new, unreleased demo by Fragile Gang.
Visit https://www.skylightbooks.com/event for future offerings from the Skylight Books Events team
Thursday Apr 09, 2020
MariNaomi, "DISTANT STARS" w/ Myriam Gurba
Thursday Apr 09, 2020
Thursday Apr 09, 2020
In the final volume of the Life on Earth trilogy, celebrated cartoonist MariNaomi concludes her tale of growing up, falling in and out of love, and possible alien interventions. Shy, self-deprecating Paula Navarro is coming into her own—and it's making her new girlfriend, Johanna, a little nervous. Paula's former friend Emily Baker is learning to look inward. Brett Hathaway, Emily and Paula's mutual ex-hook-up, is torn about reconnecting with his estranged dad. And Nigel Jones is smitten with his tutor, Claudia—whose disappearance and reappearance remains a mystery to everyone around her. As Claudia and her guardians put the final plan in motion, they'll reveal the truth that links everyone's fate.
MariNaomi is in conversation with Myriam Gurba, a writer, a spoken-word artist, and a visual artist.
Wednesday Mar 25, 2020
Ebony Flowers, "HOT COMB" w/ Taneka Stotts
Wednesday Mar 25, 2020
Wednesday Mar 25, 2020
Hot Comb by Ebony Flowers is one of the most acclaimed graphic novels of 2019, receiving nominations from the YALSA Great Graphic Novels for Teens and Alex Awards, as well as the NAACP Image Awards. The book offers a poignant glimpse into Black women’s anxieties, support networks, and coming of age stories. Hot Comb is insightful and empathetic about the imperfections of identity, a propitious display of talent from a vital new voice.
Flowers will be joined in conversation by TV and comics writer Taneka Stotts.
Wednesday Nov 20, 2019
Dan Goldman, "CHASING ECHOES"
Wednesday Nov 20, 2019
Wednesday Nov 20, 2019
Malka, the black sheep of her family, learns that her relatives are making a decades-in-the-planning pilgrimage to their grandfather's pre-Holocaust home in Poland...and she wasn't invited. After guilt-tripping herself a ticket as the self-appointed "Keeper of the Family Archives," it becomes clear that everyone's brought more baggage than just their suitcases.
Chasing Echoes is a heartfelt tale about dysfunctional family dynamics, the ghosts of war and what brings us back together.
Tuesday Oct 29, 2019
Liana Finck,"EXCUSE ME" w/ Charlie Hankin
Tuesday Oct 29, 2019
Tuesday Oct 29, 2019
If you’re one of the 310,000 people who follow author Liana Finck on Instagram, you’ve probably seen a few of the following comments before: “Freaking Perfect”; “this rings so true for me I can’t even describe it”; “I'm putting this one on my bathroom mirror”; “WHY IS THIS LITERALLY ME”; “Can I get this tattooed on my body 100 times?” No matter what topic she’s covering—love and intimacy, politics, art, social anxiety, humanity—Liana’s work contains a precision and thoughtfulness that resonates deeply with those who encounter her work. This fall, Random House is thrilled to share a new book of over 500 of Liana’s most relatable and heartfelt drawings, EXCUSE ME: Cartoons, Complaints, and Notes to Self.
Liana’s thin-penned line drawings have an uncanny ability to communicate life’s absurdities, in a way that feels not only timely and sharp, but accessible and wondrously insightful. Her fans flock to her because they feel seen in her art—she never shies away from showing us life at its most hilarious, uncomfortable, and surreal. EXCUSE ME is divided into a series of distinctive chapters on: Love & Dating; Gender & Other Politics; Animals; Art & Myth-Making; Humanity; Time, Space, and How to Navigate Them; Strangeness, Shyness, Sadness; and Notes to Self. Each chapter is packed with Liana’s signature humor and wit, but also a deep sense of compassion and a profound curiosity in what it means to be a human in this world.
Finck is in conversation with Charlie Hankin, a writer/performer, cartoonist, and animator.