04/16/2018

Caleb Orecchio here with John Porcellino’s recent stop in Pittsburgh, and other news. 

—————————————————————————————————

He has seen but half the universe who has never been shown the house of Pain.

–Ralph Waldo Emerson

This past Friday, John Porcellino stopped by Copacetic Comics here in Pittsburgh while on tour for his book, From Lone Mountain, a collection of his King-Cat “comics and stories” from 2003 to 2007, published by Drawn and Quarterly. This was the first signing at Copacetic I’ve attended since I moved to Pittsburgh this year. It was great. Porcellino did his song and dance at Kaibur Coffee (same building as Copacetic but two floors below) by taking us, via slideshow, through excerpts of his book and giving background details and tangents revolving around the events therein. John laid bare his soul during his presentation as he does with every annual release of King-Cat. Pain and Joy are one, and the audience often found ourselves laughing in hindsight at the misfortunes along with our hero.

After the presentation and rather intimate audience Q&A, we hiked up to Copacetic where books were signed and comics were talked about. It was great. Not only could you chat with John Porcellino, but you could also hangout with the Pittsburgh crowd: Sam Ombiri, Sally Ingraham, Juan Fernandez, Jenn Lisa, Audra Stang, Nate McDonough, and many others. I showed Sam my favorite King City gag, while Juan waxed different ways to read and comprehend information with Audra and Sally. I clumsily talked about Pittsburgh roads vs every other American road system with John P as he signed my copy of his book. I asked Bill Boichel (Copacetic proprietor) if  he agreed that Red Nails was Barry Windsor-Smith’s best work, and I think he did. Then we started talking about Kaluta. Lots of things seemed to be going on. The hours went by quickly. It was a beautiful day. Only several days before, the city was snow-capped, but today it felt like how I imagine California feels on its best days. On the Copacetic Balcony, you could see the beautiful old buildings over the hills that run through the city and the purple dusk.

 

Thanks to John P. for coming to Pittsburgh and thanks to Bill Boichel and Copacetic Comics for hosting.

—————————————————————————————————

if you don’t know, now you know

—————————————————————————————————

Suzy and Cecil – 4-16-2018 – by Gabriella Tito

—————————————————————————————————

Joanie and Jordie – 4-16-2018 – by Caleb Orecchio

Share this page:

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *