Best Graphic Novel by a Local Artist 2013 | The Hypo: The Melancholic Young Lincoln, by Noah Van Sciver | Best of Denver® | Best Restaurants, Bars, Clubs, Music and Stores in Denver | Westword
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Best Graphic Novel by a Local Artist

The Hypo: The Melancholic Young Lincoln, by Noah Van Sciver

Don't think we're crowing just because Noah Van Sciver's work appears in these pages: The cartoonist would have made a name for himself in the comix world with or without our help — he's that good. Known to the rest of the world as the creator of the Blammo comic book and an accomplished old-school comic artist with a dense, heavily cross-hatched style, an ironic sense of humor and a slight taste for the macabre, Van Sciver has had work published in several compilations, in Mad and The Best American Comics 2011. But he reached his pinnacle — so far — with 2012's The Hypo: The Melancholic Young Lincoln, an impeccably drawn graphic novel published by Fantagraphics. Mining a little-known period in the life of Abraham Lincoln, when he was treated for a deep bout of depression resulting in a nervous breakdown, the book, which revisits the now-antiquated treatment options of the nineteenth century, is dark, but a glimmer of Lincoln's future can also be detected in the denouement.

Best Group of Shows by a Bunch of Kids

Estee Fox, David Sole, Harry Kleeman and Daniel Nilsson

This past winter, four young upstarts transformed Edge Gallery into a very edgy place. First was Estee Fox, represented by videos, disturbing performances and some great figurative works on paper. Then David Sole turned one space into an artificial back yard that included a gouged and graffiti-covered wall. Next up was Harry Kleeman, with some super-successful hybrids of paintings and sculptures that hung on the walls. Finally, there was Daniel Nilsson, who was all over the map with oddball attractions like silvered Coke bottles, a fur-covered ladder and some very elegant sculptures that relied on fluorescent lights. It's apparent that the next generation of Denver's art world has already arrived.

Best Group Show by a Bunch of Grownups

Stephen Batura, Edie Winograde, Jerry Kunkel and Gary Emrich

In anticipation of Continental Drift at MCA Denver, Jennifer Doran curated a quartet of solos by well-known Colorado artists that focused on new art about the West. Stephen Batura was made up of the artist's casein-and-acrylic paintings based on historic photos, like his famous train-wreck paintings. Edie Winograde mashed the past with the present through the artist's remarkable color shots of nerdy re-creations of historic events. Jerry Kunkel featured the painter's photo-realist pieces depicting Western scenes as though they were placemat images. Finishing things off was Gary Emrich, which combined a video with digital prints of mid-century Western-kitsch knickknacks. The strong foursome presented further evidence that contemporary art in the West is an up-and-coming national trend.

Best Hip-Hop Weekly

Club Level Sports Bar

Hu$$la Entertainment's Saturday-night hip-hop party at Club Level attracts hundreds of people every week. One of the secrets to the night's continued success is its organizers, who treat every week like it's the first. They further foster goodwill with customers by treating them with grace and respect: While DJ Juanito and DJ RX spin the tunes, host Thomasito Vasquez greets each customer with a smile and MC Money keeps the crowd entertained. There's usually a line around the building by 11 p.m. — and it's easy to see why.

Best Homage to Elvis

Jonny Barber

On the 35th anniversary of Elvis Presley's death, Jonny Barber — the artist formerly known as the Velvet Elvis, who channels the King perhaps better than anyone else in the world — chose to honor Elvis Presley in the most memorable and fitting way possible. While the rest of the world was in Memphis last August, Barber had the foresight to book some time at Sun Studios, where the King once recorded, and performed ten of the original Sun singles, along with an original of his own and a tune by Willie Lewis, the founder of Denver's Rock-A-Billy Record Company.

Best Homemade-Instruments Show

Gorinto

Kurt Bauer (Super Secret Messengers and Animal/Object), a fixture in the Denver avant-garde going back to at least the '80s, curated this event. He asked people in the scene who'd built their own sound-making devices to put together a set showcasing the capabilities of those home-crafted instruments. With numerous performances that included entomologist Aaron Spriggs's portable theremin, a piece performed by Mark McCoin and a partner called "In Utero," and Jacob DeRaadt's amplified piece of metal, this wasn't your typical concert. Not since S/O/A (bject) and the Carbon Dioxide Orchestra last performed has anything like it been seen in Denver. Gorinto was proof that outsider art of the sound variety is alive and well in our city.

Best House Shows

Post Pony Palace

Having an anarchist collective host musical events is not a new or unique occurrence in Denver: The Breakdown Book Collective put on multiple memorable shows at both of its locations, and the Pitchfork House was one of the very few places where you could see crust-folk outfits like the Fainting Fansies in their element. Post Pony Palace benefited from the habitation of Magee Headley of the Haircut and her diverse musical tastes, so we saw the likes of avant-garde duo Dark Blue Dark Green (from Columbia, Missouri), Kitty Crimes, Cap'n Fresh and the Stay Fresh Seals, and noise artist Lockbox all in a living room with a P.A. Naturally, Headley's own band played the house on more than one occasion, and when you went to the place, you really did feel like you were visiting a friend who invited punks and other weirdos in to play music.

Best Innovation in a School Building

MSU Denver's Hotel and Hospitality Learning Center/SpringHill Suites

What's the best way to teach students how to run a hotel and events center? By having an actual hotel and events center right on campus, of course. And that's exactly what the Metropolitan State University of Denver's Hotel and Hospitality Learning Center accomplishes by doubling as a SpringHill Suites Marriott hotel. The swanky-looking combination classroom building and boutique hotel commands the corner of Speer Boulevard and Auraria Parkway. It was designed by Denver's venerable RNL architectural firm, which created a series of intersecting boxes set at various angles to one another. The walls are covered in a luscious purply-gray brick on the street sides, with buff brick used where the planar walls face the campus. In between is mirror-tinted glass, including a Mondrian-esque passage marking a doorway.

Best Installation

"Bufalo Blanco"
Brandon Bultman

Nestled inside The Surface Beneath, a group show presented last summer, was a hallucination in the form of an installation by emerging artist Brandon Bultman. The unforgettable "Bufalo Blanco" consisted of a derelict upside-down '57 Buick station wagon with its exposed undercarriage planted with real prairie grasses. A thoughtful young artist, Bultman proved he's also ambitious with this piece; to get the car through the gallery doors, he had to turn it on its side, which he accomplished with the help of heavy-duty air bladders. He found the car, riddled with bullet holes, on a family farm, where those same kinds of grasses grow. To Bultman, the spectacular installation represented his childhood in Kansas — which apparently was pretty topsy-turvy.

Best International Film Organization Based in Denver

Design Onscreen

As a Colorado-based film organization, Design Onscreen functions on several levels: as a film-making entity, as a festival organizer, and as an advocate for the restoration of post-World War II architecture. The non-profit foundation also curates the Architecture + Design Film Series, culling documentaries that showcase architecture in film and include historical, cultural and stylistic subject matter. Design Onscreen then takes these movies around the world, to push a dialogue on America's recent architectural past.

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