San Francisco, CA – July 31, 2009 -- The Cartoon Art Museum’s Monsters of Webcomics exhibition is so big that it needs two opening receptions with special guest Nick Gurewitch, creator of the popular webcomic The Perry Bible Fellowship!

On Thursday, August 27, Gurewitch will meet fans and sign copies of the two-bestselling Perry Bible Fellowship collections, The Trial of Colonel Sweeto and The Perry Bible Fellowship Almanack. The booksigning is free and open to the public.

On Friday, August 28, Gurewitch guides Perry Bible Fellowship fans through an artistic thesis about visual storytelling, and will go behind the scenes of comic-production with co-writer/spiritual advisor Evan Keogh. As an added bonus, never-before-seen comics by Gurewitch will be on display as part of the Cartoon Art Museum’s Monsters of Webcomics exhibition. Special guest Michael Capozzola (stand-up comedian and creator of the San Francisco Chronicle’s Surveillance Caricatures) will lead a Q&A with Gurewitch immediately following the presentation. This is a ticketed event. General admission for this presentation is $10, or $5 for members of the Cartoon Art Museum.

About Nick Gurewitch:
The Perry Bible Fellowship first ran in the Syracuse University newspaper The Daily Orange. It exploded in popularity when Nicholas Gurewitch began posting strips online in 2004. As the darkly funny weekly gag strip progressed, Gurewitch expanded his artistic repertoire, experimenting with different art styles and creating pastiches of illustrators like Shel Silverstein and Edward Gorey.

PBF has won two Ignatz Awards for Outstanding Online Comic, a Harvey Award for Best Online Comics Work, and an Eisner Award for the print collection The Trial of Colonel Sweeto, published by Dark Horse Comics. The newest collection, The Perry Bible Fellowship Almanack, spans the entirety of the online archive.

About Monsters of Webcomics exhibition: August 8 – December 6, 2009
The Internet has revolutionized all forms of communication, and comics are no exception. The Cartoon Art Museum explores the digital revolution in its latest exhibition, Monsters of Webcomics, a showcase of some of the best and boldest work published on the World Wide Web.

Cartoonists choose to work on the Web for many reasons. For some, it’s an opportunity to reach readers directly without going through editors, publishers, or syndicates. For others, it’s a chance to explore the artistic possibilities of the Web, whether that means working in a format that would be impossible in print, tackling subject matter most comic-book publishers won’t handle, or taking advantage of the rich palette available with digital coloring. Others simply want to share their comics with as many people as possible.

The comics by the ten artists featured in this exhibition run the gamut from four-panel comic strips to full-length graphic novels and include comedy, drama, history, science fiction, and sociopolitical commentary. As varied as this work is, however, it represents only a very small sample of the comics available on the Web. The Monsters of Webcomics exhibition also includes a virtual gallery that will highlight dozens of additional online comics. Featuring Dark Horse artists Jesse Reklaw (Night of Your Life), Chris Onstad (Achewood), and Nicholas Gurewitch (Perry Bible Fellowship)!