Thank You Montreal! Merci beaucoup, Montreal!

Every once in a while I like to point our fair readers over to our Librairie D+Q blog, in the event you do not have it bookmarked already. The staff has been very busy the past month, so I am taking this chance to say thanks and job well done. We have a great, knowledgeable and smart staff (Jason, Julia, Julien, Chantale, Jade, Helen and our dear Fiona who has left us for NYC and now works at McNally Jackson she loves books that much!) who LOVE selling books. I'm not the only one who notices, acquaintances stop me on the street or at my children's schools to tell me not only how much they love the store but how much they like the staff! And now, our wonderful city of Montreal has noticed. The Mirror's Best of Montreal for 2012 has just been released and the Librairie is feted for Best Comic Store #1, Best Bookstore #2 and even Best Magazine Store #5.  Thank you Montreal, and especially thanks to our wonderful neighborhood of Mile End, the same hood that the Chief founded D+Q 23 years ago.

First off, the month of May marks our store director's, Jason Grimmer, one year anniversary at Drawn & Quarterly.  Under his tutelage the store has grown leaps and bounds, with not only an increased fourth quarter in 2012 and a fantastic December but outstanding growth in the first three months of 2012.  The above photo is by photographer Alexi Hobbs who photographed the store for the international edition of TIME Magazine.

Time Magazine was featuring Montreal's literary scene timed to the Blue Met Bleu Literary Festival.  To see more photos from the shoot and of the store visit Alexi's site. Of D+Q, the writer Hillary Brenhouse said:

It may have begun as a magazine anthology in late-80s Montreal, but Drawn & Quarterly has grown into an internationally renowned indie publishing house and come to define the literary-comics genre. Down the street from headquarters, a small and exquisitely curated flagship shop deals in D& Q titles and other finely printed matter.  The crowds go for launches, live readings and workshops to the best in design. Just in is Goliath, a graphic novel that draws a gentler giant from British cartoonist Tom Gauld, who visits the store on May 2. The English translation of Shigeru Mizuki's wellloved manga and memoir NonNonBa on his childhood forays into the spirit world also arrives next month.

Ever since we opened the store, we have taken the job of retailer very seriously. As retailers critique publishers, publishers often critique retailers. We felt with our store that we had to "put our money where our mouth was" and create the dream store that we knew could not only just exist, but in fact flourish. Above is a photo of our "new" D+Q section.

Do things look different?  New? To prepare for our 5th anniversary this Fall, we hired Denis Proulx of DAP Design to create new shelving for the store. We wanted to take advantage of the store's space, but we also wanted to do more "face-out" and less "spine-out" racking of our books.

We asked Denis for very simple, elegant, sturdy shelving straight to the ceiling that would showcase the books. He delivered and we couldn't be happier. Above is our graphic novel section. How gorgeous do those books look from  Fantagraphics, IDW, Abrams and more?  Yes, we sell D+Q books, but we also sell comics from our esteemed peers!

 

And we were able to open up our Young Adult and Kids section which came in handy last Saturday for Free Comic Book Day.

The new shelving allowed us to give our "total besties" McSweeneys their own section as well as deservedly expand our bandes dessinées sections.

So that's that! In honor of the store's fifth anniversary this Fall, check back to the Librairie D+Q blog for updates on some major headlining events this Fall, both comics and prose, and hopefully from all of our sections including kids, DIY, music and nonfiction. And once again, thanks to our fantastic customers and fans from around the world, who make fighting the good fight every day totally worth it!