Biography
Rick Klaw is the paternal grandson of Irving Klaw, the photographer and film maker most noted for his bondage photos of Bettie Page. In 1979, the family relocated to Houston, Texas. Klaw moved to Austin, Texas in 1987 and participated in the Austin cadre of comics and science fiction writers and artists in the early 1990s, a group which included Shannon Wheeler, Chris Ware, Martin Wagner, Lea Hernandez, Roy Tompkins, John Lucas, and Mark Finn.
Klaw has worked at several bookstores, primarily in Austin, Texas. Notably, he worked at a particular Bookstop branch (later taken over by Barnes & Noble), about which he recalls fondly:
- "..this particular store had the greatest collection of bookselling talent I have ever worked with... Most of my fellow booksellers became bookstore managers either Bookstop/B&N or with other companies, and many of them became published critics."
From 1990 to 1994, Klaw was also managing editor for the independent comics publisher Blackbird Press, which produced the first collection from cartoonist Shannon Wheeler, an anthology entitled Omnibus: Modern Perversity, and other projects.
In October 1994, Klaw began managing Adventures in Crime & Space, a science fiction/mystery bookstore in Austin (along with three Bookstop employees), where the stores' promotions gained recognition from The Austin Chronicle, which named the store the "coolest bookstore in the city". One such quirky promotion which ultimately fell through was a scheduled "signing" by Philip K. Dick, despite the author having died some years previously. Ultimately abandoned due to a difference of opinion with the owner, this factored into Klaw's decision to leave in February 1996, to focus more on his duties as managing editor of Mojo Press.
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