Hall of Best Knowledge cover

FROG HOLLOW BOOKS & FANTAGRAPHICS PRESENT: ACCLAIMED HALIFAX ARTIST CELEBRATES RELEASE OF DEBUT GRAPHIC NOVEL AT EYELEVEL GALLERY on MAY 14

WHO: RAY FENWICK
WHAT: HALL OF BEST KNOWLEDGE release party & author signing
WHERE: EYELEVEL GALLERY, 2063 Gottingen Street, Halifax
http://www.eyelevelgallery.ca/
WHEN: Wednesday, MAY 14, 7PM

In this exciting debut graphic novel, Ray Fenwick has pioneered his own medium of storytelling, one best described as “typographical comics.” [See this excellent National Post feature on Fenwick from last week for more info: http://www.nationalpost.com/related_links/story.html?id=447874] HOBK is presented as a handsome, found journal written by an unnamed voice, referred to only as "The Author." Little is known about him. He clearly fashions himself a genius, writing with a faux-aristocratic air. Each page features pearls of “wisdom,” lettered in an elegant, almost obsessive fashion, bedecked with Ionic columns and fleurs-de-lis. Only at the end does The Author’s true story become clear. The ensuing journey is a riotous tour through the narrator's ego and id, part graphic novel, part art object, part satire, and part puzzle. Elegantly designed and printed with rounded fore edges and belly band.

Ray Fenwick is an artist, illustrator and typographic thing-maker living in Halifax, Nova Scotia. A former improv comedian and theater school dropout, he now occupies himself making drawings, comics and patterns for people like Blue Q, CMT, Nickelodeon, Urban Outfitters, and others. He contributes regularly to the comics anthology, MOME.

"Fenwick has taken a high-brow route to the art of comedy. Hall of Best Knowledge is several things rolled into one: a bizarre self-help book; an eccentric college text; a guide to life from the unlikeliest of guides. It's hard to categorize (typographical novel? Graphic metafiction?), even harder to explain."  — Mark Medley, National Post

PUB. DATE: MAY 14, 2008 • 168 pp. • ISBN 978-1-56097-910-4 • $19.99