Atomic Books Blog

It's been a crazy long weekend. Here's just one of the wrap ups. More to come! Like any great neighborhood festival you see a lot of your neighbors just hanging out, like the Treksters and Fishboy, and entering Hampden Idol. Our diligent and friendly judges, Sarah Jennings, reigning Hampden Idol, Lee Gardner, editor of the Baltimore City Paper , and Aaron Henkin, host of WYPR's The Signal . Like a Prayer by our new Hampden Idol winner - Blessed Tess Keyboard Man with the finalists. The first annual The Great Baltimore Mac Off was a huge success, raising money for the Hampden Food Bank and offering an amazing array of mac and cheese creations from amateurs and professionals alike. photo provided by Genny Dill The Mac Off judges Mary Smith, of Charm City Cakes , Henry Hong, food writer for the Baltimore City Paper , Baltimore Magazine and chef at Noodle Republic , and Tom Campbell from Patchwork Catering  chose Lucia Treasure's Natty Bo...

Superhero Series , originally uploaded by sugarfreak . Our Button-o-matic has arrived with the brand spanking new Superheroes Series ! Buttons by Jeffrey Brown, Laura Park, Shawnimal, Jay Ryan and more!!

This Friday is our annual pre SPX party! These comic artists will be at Atomic Books presenting and signing their new works: ANDERS NILSEN MARC BELL MELISSA MENDES NOAH VAN SCIVER TOM NEELY BRIAN RALPH DINA KELBERMAN And THE NERDLINGER AWARDS ! 7-9pm Sales on tons of books, comics, DVDs and our own Atomic Books beer will be served.

Hey, we have this crazy thing happening in the city this weekend, so here's some helpful tips on avoiding the closed streets. But it's First Friday in Hampden tonight and Celebrated Summer Records is having a Donut Social and we're having a 25% sale on all CDs and DVDs and 50% off all sale items (off their already lowered prices) as well as refreshing adult beverages. We'll be open on Labor Day for our regular hours!

Keeping track of new magazines (etc.) that we get in which talk about Baltimore stuff. For more on, by, or about Baltimore-area artists, check out the following issues below.   Mojo Magazine #215 Mojo has a 1 page profile of Future Islands. "...This conflict between new wave stoicism and uninhibited emotional outpouring is the bloodline of Future Islands. Coming from the same Baltimore art-party scene as previous MOJO Rising star Dan Deacon, their 2008 debut Wave Like Home was a half-hour punch of bold, fraught electronic pop. But following the departure of drummer Erick Murillo, the trio moved away from warehouse wig-outs in favour of something more graceful and moving. The result was 2010's In Evening Air . All melancholy synth drones, New Order beats  and elegant ruminations on personal tragedy.... their upcoming album, On The Water ... finds a greater tenderness than its predecessor. The densely layered songs are given more breathing space, recalling early OMD a...

This month's Reading Club  pick is The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis  by Lydia Davis. See you September 28th for the discussion - 7:30 at Atomic Books! New members are welcome at any time, and you get 15% off all the books for this year's Club titles. Join the Facebook Group for more discussion and updates.

We're Open , originally uploaded by sugarfreak . So it won't be this dark anymore.

Irene was all about taking out our power here in Baltimore. We are without power and so is everyone else on our grid, which is mostly Falls Road shops, but also the Golden West Cafe. We'll be here for a while longer in case the power comes back this morning. ETA : Still no power! Hopefully it'll be back soon. ETA : Still no power this Monday morning. We'll be open anyway at 11am so you can browse books in the natural light of a dark shed.

We sometimes get odd and interesting letters sent to us at Atomic Books. It isn't always easy to determine the intent of the sender. But we thought it might be interesting to share these letters from time to time. This letter was sent to us by an inmate in the US Penitentiary in Jonesville, VA.

The other night, I was invited by a local organization of graphic designers to give a lecture on the history of the graphic novel. I finished that lecture with a list of reading recommendations. Since I rushed through it, and because a friend asked me for the list, I thought I'd post it here. So if you're looking for some quality graphic novel/comics reading, I suggest you try one of the many titles below. A Contract With God by Will Eisner Arguably the first graphic novel. It's a 1930s autobiographical story told through 4 interwoven tales that is also a look at life in New York in the early part of the 20th century. Maus: A Survivor's Tale by Art Spiegelman Art Spiegelman tells the story of his father surviving the nazi death camps – using mice and cats. It won the Pulitzer Prize. The Dark Knight Returns – Frank Miller Miller’s revision of the DC Comics hero is largely responsible for superhero comics being taken more seriously. While it hasn’t age...

All the world loves a list: Top 10s, Top 5s, Top 50s, it doesn't really matter how you number them. In fact, for magazines they are go-to sales boosters, and for web periodicals they are traffic drivers. But sometimes lists go wrong. Witness, for example, Kirstin Butler's "Comic Books as Journalism: 10 Masterpieces of Graphic Nonfiction" for The Atlantic . The first red flag comes when you try to figure out what qualifies Butler to rank such a list. Her bio states that she "is writing an adaptation of Gogol for the Google era called Dead SULs ." While her project may be very good, there is nothing about it that suggests she is any way an expert in, or even particularly knowledgeable of, comics journalism. Then there is the list itself. 1. The Beats by Harvey Pekar/various 2. Edible Secrets by Michael Hoerger / Mia Paltrow / Nate Powell 3. A.D.: New Orleans After The Deluge by Josh Neufeld 4. The 14th Dalai Lama by Tetsu Saiwai 5. The Stuff ...

Keyboard Man by Lachlan Hardy It's coming !

This Friday, Tom Scocca, author of Beijing Welcomes You , will be at Atomic Books to help familiarize you with our new overlords. Starts at 7pm! Adult refreshments will be needed.

This month's Reading Club  pick is The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel  by Amy Hempel. See you August 31st for the discussion - 7:30 at Atomic Books! New members are welcome at any time, and you get 15% off all the books for this year's Club titles. Join the Facebook Group for more discussion and updates.

In our free bins in the front of Atomic Books, we frequently distribute all kinds of items people send us - from zines and mini comics to newspapers, books, CDs, cassette tapes, t-shirts and more. Sometimes, things find their way into the bin, and we don't know where they came from. That's just part of the magic and fun of the free bin. Such is the case of an unopened padded envelope with cancelled postage and a crossed out shipping address that we could tell was full of publications. So opened the envelope and inside we found an array of awesome publications from Mud Luscious Press. I started thumbing through a magical novella called I Am A Very Productive Entrepreneur by Mathias Svalina. It's a series of stories that all start with the line "I started this business once...". My favorite section is: I started this business once that retrofit memories to include pilot lights. Thereafter the memories stay lit, even when you are away on vacation. Even w...

Baltimore Magazine 's Top 5 Best Writers of Baltimore - John Waters , Laura Lippman , Madison Smartt Bell , Michael Kimball and Stephen Dixon . We've been lucky enough to have 4 out of these 5 at Atomic in the past year for their awesome books. Laura, you're invited to join us any time!