Charles Bock is a big fan of rock poster art, which led to a friendship with Chuck Sperry, one half of San Francisco’s Firehouse Kustom Rockart Company. Sperry even created a release poster for Bock’s debut novel, Beautiful Children, when it came out earlier this year. So when Bock found out he’d be reading with Richard Price at Central Park’s Summerstage next week, he told me, “I thought, what can I do to make it special and commemorate the event. Then I thought, yeah, poster. I showed Richard Price the poster Sperry did for my book and he was totally on board.”
“Coincidentally,” Bock added, “Chuck also is a huge fan of Richard Price, going back to The Wanderers, and he was more than stoked to do the poster.” I’ve tucked the full art in the backend of this post; be sure to take a look. And if you’re up for seeing Bock and Price together in New York for the first time since the online literary talk show Titlepage (though they did do a panel together at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books in April), head out to Central Park on July 31. And afterwards, if you go up to them with a book to sign, they’ll give you a print of the poster… until they run out, that is.
And here’s some bonus artwork: Leia Bell created this poster for the Beautiful Children reading tour, which Bock gave away (along with Sperry’s first poster) at various events.
