Hello everybody. Thank you for joining me for another episode of Books Closed. I am your host, Andrew Stortz.

Yesterday, the doors of Tattoo City opened and closed for the last time. Ed Hardy's legendary tattoo shop in San Francisco has been a pillar of modern tattooing since 1992.

Time marches on, and now that Ed is fully retired from all things

tattoo, change is inevitable. Ed's publishing company Hardy Marks has made some of the most

important tattoo books during his decades-long career. He wanted to document and share the origins

and history of tattooing, along with showing what the craft had become, as he and other influential artists

pushed the boundaries of what was even thought to be possible. The story of Tatoo City may have

come to a close yesterday, but luckily, Ed has passed the reins of Hardy Marks to Taki and

Molly Kitamura from State of Grace Tattoo in San Jose, California. With many years of experience

in making some of the most important tattoo books of their own

happen, I can't think of a better pair to take over Hardy Marks.

One of their first big projects is the reintroduction of the iconic tattoo time series,

and Toki wanted to introduce me to their new editor, Ethan Dodge.

All right.

So what are we talking about here?

Well, you know, it's funny because, well, first of all, thanks for having us on here.

We really appreciate it.

I don't know if I've even done a podcast since the last time I did one with you.

I always tend to think I sound ridiculous afterwards and I regret it, which is no fault of yours.

That's very normal.

You know, I think this actually warrants something that we want to talk about. And that's Hardy

Mark's publications. So I think obviously it's a huge deal for us, but I do think it's a lot

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