Join Neighbor David Gallaher at Lark to Celebrate the Release of His New Comic Book

For comic book writer David Gallaher, supporting the businesses in our neighborhood is important. That’s why for his new book, The Only Living Boy, he’ll be doing a signing not at a comic book shop or a bookstore someplace else in the city, but at Lark this Wednesday, August 15, from 7:30-10pm.

“It makes so much sense to keep this local, because I’m a member of this community,” David says. “It’s really important for me to support our businesses. Everybody in every shop I’ve been into is great. Everyone’s always happy to see you, and they recognize you. Of course I want them to survive.”

He’s already done a lot in keeping his business local. David, who is originally from Hawaii but moved around with his parents, who were in the military, lives in the neighborhood with his wife, Valerie, who grew up here. He proposed to her at The Farm on Adderlely, and the couple held their wedding there as well.

“Everybody putting the wedding together was awesome,” he says. “And even though it rained, we got everybody inside, and we had a good time. And when the wedding was over, it stopped raining, and we went to Sycamore for drinks.”

He works from home, so being able to get out of the house and do work in other places, or just to get out and see people, is something he tries to do as often as possible. So when Lark opened, and it was so convenient to his home, he found himself there several times just during the first week.

“I appreciate that they have a separate play room, and that sell beer and wine!” David says. “The food is great, and they really encourage you to stay as long as you like.”

With a big sweet tooth, he recommends their pastries, but his favorite dessert in the neighborhood might be The Castello Plan’s ice cream, where they feature flavors like salty almond, basil, and rosewater vanilla.

“Every time we go, we buy all of them,” he says. “I’d like to see them do an ice cream tasting night.”

Even without the sugar rush, David has a lot of energy, and that comes through in his writing. Full of action and adventure, The Only Living Boy is about a 12-year-old named Erik Farrell who runs away from home and wakes up to find himself in a strange world, and now he’s got to find a way out.

“When you’re 12 years old, you’re not a teenager, you’re not a grown-up, and you’re not a kid,” David explains. “So you go through weird phases, trying out what you’ll be. Grown-ups set the the rules when you’re a kid. But when you’re 12, you start to realize that grown-ups don’t follow their own rules–and there are basically no rules for adults. And adults don’t understand you. So that’s what the story is about: It’s tough to be a kid, and adults have this propensity toward ruining everything.”

David partnered once again with artist (and former Ditmas Park resident) Steve Ellis–their past books include Box 13 and the award-winning High Moon. But for this book, they went about things in a new way. They created a publishing company, Bottled Lightning, funded in part with a successful Kickstarter campaign.

“It’s great–it’s our studio with out own employees, it does some custom publishing services and advertising, things like that,” David says. “And it all started with Kickstarter. We made our goal in a week, and made additional money, it was incredible.”

The pair were at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con to debut The Only Living Boy, and he said they got a great reception.

“Comic-Con itself is great,” David says. “It’s 150,000 people, all dressed up, five days long. And everyone is so nice. There are fans of all kinds, and that to me is really awesome.”

If not on so large a scale, he’d love to see that kind of enthusiasm for books, comic or otherwise, in Ditmas Park. As many neighbors agree, David thinks the area could use its own bookstore.

“It could create a greater sense of community than bars do,” he says. “If it did events with authors, people buy stuff because they want to get it signed. And then the casual business would be pretty strong.”

As for a comic book store, well, that’s a different sort of animal. But David thinks it could work.

“If I were to open a comic book store on Cortelyou Road, I know I would be guaranteed a certain amount of clientele because comic books are serialized, so you get regular monthly business,” he says. “What I really like is something like Urban Martial Arts, which has created a business that caters to children. You could do that with comic books, and still create a business that caters to adults in the evening hours. Who doesn’t want to grab a beer and read Wolverine? And who doesn’t want to play with their kids and have guys who created the comics do workshops for them during the day?”

Until his dream bookstore opens, you can pick up a digital copy of The Only Living Boy (for only 99 cents until the end of the day) online here, or you can also buy a copy of the book at the signing at Lark. The series will have four books–this first one doesn’t “officially” get released until October, then the next ones follow in January, March, and July.

And you can keep up to date with David’s work by following him on Twitter.

Comic-Con photo of David and Steve courtesy of David Gallaher.