Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in NewsTagged Art Spiegelman, Bill Griffith, htmlflowers, jessica campbell, Karen Green, opentoonz, PIX, sophie goldstein

Juan Fernández

Posted on March 28, 2016March 28, 2016

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04/17/2017

Sally IngrahamApril 16, 2017NewsDigging into a new week with news and comics from Dash Shaw, Frank Santoro, Eleanor Davis, Sam Alden, Jen Sorensen, and M. S. Harkness. ————————————————————————————————— Dash Shaw writes about curating the pop-up shop at the Metrograph theater in New York City, where his film My Entire High School Sinking Into the Sea opened on April 14th 2017 – on The Comics Journal. The shop carries: “…rare DVDs, film-related books, and issues of Cahiers du Cinéma. They asked me to pick books and DVDs that felt related to my movie, or that a cinema-going audience would be interested in.” Included in the selection is Frank Santoro’s Incanto (above). Dash Shaw writes that Frank: “…painted the key exterior background paintings in High School Sinking. This particular zine by Santoro is lovely and poetic, and also, to me, utterly hilarious, because a section of it comes from a Speed Racer episode. Santoro told me that this was drawn after working as Francesco Clemente’s assistant. Clemente would often interpret preexisting old drawings, so that inspired Santoro to adapt a two-second Speed Racer moment. It’s perfect – like seeing something you’ve seen before for the first time. He captures the stillness of those Speed Racer cartoons with their minimal background paintings.” Incanto is out of print and a rare find, so if you don’t stop by the Metrograph pop-up shop in April to get a copy, you might still be able to find it at Copacetic Comics – HERE. Read about the rest of Dash’s picks for the shop and be sure to catch My Entire Highschool Sinking Into the Sea in a city near you soon! Here are some recent reviews of the film/interviews with Dash: “Drawn to Disaster” – Filmmaker Magazine interview “The Strife’s Aquatic” – NPR movie review Q&A from Denver Alamo Drafthouse screening, with artist Andrew Lorenzi “Alt Comix Artists Revives Classic Animation Tech” – Inverse feature “Resplendent Teenage Turmoil” – Fandor Keyframe interview Dash Shaw will be coming to Pittsburgh for a screening of his movie on April 25th 2017 at the Rowhouse Cinema! Full event details are HERE. Creator and director Dash Shaw along with cartoonist Frank Santoro will kick off the Pittsburgh Premiere of “My Entire High School Sinking into the Sea” with a live interview followed by a sneak preview showing of the film. VIP tickets include everything above plus a private Meet & Greet in the Bierport taproom (limit 30 people)! Tuesday, April 25th 7:15pm $12 Regular Ticket: Live Interview & Screening $20 VIP Ticket: Live Interview & Screening AND private Meet & Greet post screening. If you are in the region be sure to come out for this event! For a list of other screenings around the country visit this page. ————————————————————————————————— You can find an excerpt from the upcoming You & A Bike & A Road by Eleanor Davis (Koyama Press, May 2017) on Illustrated PEN, presented by guest editor MariNaomi. She writes: “Eleanor Davis puts out consistently great work, so much that it amazes me when I’m surprised (each and every time) by how wonderful her work is. This book is no exception, filled with moments that are full of joy, pain, beauty, and trouble. Using minimal lines and words, Eleanor conveys so much about the spectrum of emotions involved with being human.“ See the excerpt HERE. ————————————————————————————————— M. S. Harkness has offered a preview of her upcoming comic Tinderella – see it HERE. Marina is coming to Pittsburgh this summer for a Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency, and she will be working on Tinderella and other comics while she is here in July. Unperturbed by a tentative post-graduation financial state, Marina has been creating the ways and means to get to Pittsburgh – she’s determined to cause some havoc around here, come hell or high water – but you can help her get here with a little more comfort and ease by contributing to her Generosity campaign. She – and the Comics Workbook team – thank you in advance! ————————————————————————————————— Sam Alden published part 2 of 4 of his comic Sledgehammer on Hazlitt….in February – I somehow missed it, so possibly you did as well. Check it out HERE. New on Hazlitt is Rory Frances‘ Look Outside – view part 1 HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Jen Sorensen is interviewed on The Comics Beat. She talks about making political cartoons, being the comics editor at Fusion, and what it means to be a cartoonist in the present world. “Dueben: You won the Herblock Award a few years ago and you said that your job is “worrying about how humanity is destroying itself.” Which is a good line, but do you think that is the role of the cartoonist in some way? Sorensen: I’m doing a lot of worrying about humanity destroying itself these days. I think it is an important role of a political cartoonist. I think sometimes it’s probably more acute than others. It’s something that’s hard to deal with sometimes. Right now I find that these aren’t really funny times. There are ludicrous characters and you can make fun of Trump and these ridiculous nominees, but at the same time I don’t want to normalize him. I find myself not even wanting to draw him. I mean, I do and I will, but I don’t want to treat him like any other President. I’ve been struggling with that. How to be humorous at a time when things are just very serious. I guess what I wind up doing is somewhat darker humor, darker cartoons, and more informative cartoons that say, this is what’s happening, can you believe it? With the Bush administration things were terrible and there were definitely some dark times, but I felt like you could make fun of Bush for being a buffoon and the implications just weren’t quite as grave. It’s a different time now.“ Read the rest HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Blinkers – 4-17-2017 – by Jack Brougham ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 4-17-2017 – by Christian Southgate Christian is a member of the Charlottetown Comics Club (Prince Edward Island, Canada) which is headed by Comics Workbook alum Tyler Landry – more about Christian Southgate and the CCC HERE! ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 4-17-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

04/19/2018

Comics WorkbookApril 18, 2018NewsSam Ombiri on Joe Daly’s The Red Monkey – plus Frank Santoro at Naples Comicon in Italy! —————————————————————————————————————————— Sam Ombiri here: When reading comics, or engaging with any art form really, there’s this confrontation with internal noise that I have to dealt with – that for unknown reasons I feel desperate to make sense of. I wonder…this whole comics thing…what’s it for? Different artists at different times speak to me, to help make sense of it all, and I’m certain this is what it’s like for everyone who reads comics. For me this week, I’m not saying Joe Daly’s The Red Monkey rectified ALL of this ongoing anxiety, but reading The Red Monkey was in some ways an answer to some of my questions – in a big way, really. This isn’t the first time Joe Daly’s book has given me a real gut punch. Daly’s comics in general feel like a really sincere reaction to the energy that comics poses. When I say sincere, I mean he makes comics that don’t seem concerned with the reception that will be given to the book that he’s made. Every drawing he made was at the service of the form, and engaging with the ideas he is engaging with, as opposed to aiming to get attention and accolades. Telling a story means less and less for people. It’s too simple; too boring. People feel desperate to make comics more useful, and as a result can forsake the form altogether, and that’s not without its consequences – comics feel increasing impotent. With The Red Monkey, it doesn’t feel like Daly wonders how people will consume it. He engages with comics like it’s something to make things that are difficult to understand, understandable. As though comics are an effective way for any reader to be confronted with what’s not understandable. I remember Stan Brakhage quoting Bresson (in a conversation Bresson was having with Godard) about how it’s important to convince your audience to like you – and making a thing aesthetically pleasing so that you can take your audience certain places. The Red Monkey was so easy to read, without it’s simplicity being a big deal, and the environment was so well rendered – never did I have to ask where I was or what the the character was doing. It’s this clarity that’s important when making stories. With that in mind, I’m reminded of a moment in Daly’s Highbone Theater and how I was sucked into Palmer’s idea about 9/11 without questioning it or mocking it, because of how infectious the narrative was. It’s in the same fashion that I’m sucked into the madness going on in The Red Monkey. That’s what art can do. I keep having this recurring stupid mini revelation, or rather I had this thought a year ago, and it’s nothing impressive, but it’s really stuck with me. This revelation has to do with how potent attitude is, how it goes into making any piece of art have a certain energy that defines it. There’s a moment towards the beginning of the story when the main character gets roped into babysitting for his neighbor. He tries to find a comic for the kid, and he tells the kid that he’s babysitting (who is a fantastic character), to be careful with the comics, and that comics are like his religion. That’s the energy I’m referring to that I find over and over in Daly’s comics. – Sam Ombiri Get a copy of The Red Monkey by Joe Daly over at Copacetic Comics, where coincidentally there is a wicked deal on the book as Bill Boichel is also eager to get more folks hep to Daly – check it out HERE. —————————————————————————————————————————— Sally here – the Naples Comicon Instagram account was buzzing yesterday, as famed Italian paleontologist Alberto Angela was caught at the National Archeological Museum of Naples, in Italy, looking at original artwork from Frank Santoro’s Pompeii (above). Alberto Angela is a popular TV presenter and commentator for science-based programs. He is the author of A Day in the Life of Ancient Rome, among other texts, and has lectured on the tragedy of Pompeii. He seemed taken by Frank’s depictions, or as the Naples Comicon put it, he “could not resist the charm of the show“. There are over 30 pages from Pompeii on display at the museum, in an exhibition which is being held in conjunction with Frank’s appearance as a special guest at the Naples Comicon (April 28-May 1 2018). The show opened yesterday (April 18th) at MANN and will continue until May 31st 2018. More details on the show can be found HERE. During Comicon Frank will be participating in a panel with Blutch, whose graphic novel Peplum also takes a look at Ancient Rome. Details on the panel are HERE. If you’re in the area, be sure to attend Comicon and meet Frank, and don’t miss the exhibition at MANN! —————————————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 4-19-2018 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

07/28/2017

Sally IngrahamJuly 28, 2017NewsSally here with Lale Westvind’s work at Printed Matter, Ellen Forney’s Virtual Memories, Fabulous “Flo” Steinburg, and more. ———————————————————————————————— You have just a few days left to catch the “Something Unusual Is Happening” show at Printer Matter – it is up until July 31st 2017. Featuring work by 15 international comics artists, it delves into experimental comics and the art of visual narrative. More details about the show HERE. Over on the LA Review of Books Megan N. Liberty writes about the show and features the work of some of the specific makers. “Lale Westvind’sJoan the Drone Pilot & Mary the Drone (2017), printed with blue ink on pink pages (except the cover which is red ink on cream), is the story of a world that exists in several dimensions, with those in charge controlling those trapped in the lesser plane for profit, until Mary arrives and attempts to escape. A heavy-handed metaphor for our use of technology, or technology’s use of us when in the hands of advertisers, it has a more traditional structure, with spreads divided into panels and text in word bubbles and boxes. But its dense imagery, heavy lines, and block shading, reminiscent of ‘70s and ‘80s pulp comics, make it at times visually dizzying and challenging.” Read the rest of the report HERE. ———————————————————————————————— Gil Roth of Virtual Memories sat down with another female cartoonist of note recently, inviting Ellen Forney onto the show for Episode 228. “The great Seattle cartoonist Ellen Forney joins the show to talk about comics, civic art, being bipolar, and the challenges of maintaining! We get into her 2012 graphic memoir,Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo, and Me, finding a graphic representation of her depressive states, the evolution in her drawing style, the letter she stole from Michael Dougan, the process of going from comics panels to enormous murals for a light-rail station in Seattle, the influence of the Moosewood Cookbook, the importance of a psychology stats class she took in college, how she learned to teach comics, the moment when she felt she was using all her artistic tools, and why she needed Kaz to design her back-tattoo!“ Listen HERE. I went back through some of the past episodes and bookmarked shows with Posy Simmonds, Leslie Stein, Jennifer Hayden and Summer Pierre, Phoebe Gloeckner, Glynnis Fawkes, and Karen Green. I’m sure there are more good ones to dig up as well! Check out The Virtual Memories Show every Tuesday for a new interview about books and life. ———————————————————————————————— Flo Steinburg, longtime secretary to Marvel’s Stan Lee, died this week. She was 78, and still fabulous. At the San Diego Comic Con 2017 there was a panel on “Women of Marvel” which understandably kicked off with a remembrance of Flo. Rachel Maurer reported for The Comics Beat: “Many of the panelists have worked directly with Flo at some point in their Marvel careers, noting that she was more than Stan Lee’s assistant – she was the original Woman of Marvel, someone who forged a path for female comics creators and whose legacy will continue to do so. One major indicator of this is the panel itself, a useful benchmark for progress in gender equality. Nine years ago Marvel had zero female-led titles, while this year’s panel had nearly 20 on the roster.“ Read more about how these women are walking in Flo’s footprints – HERE. ———————————————————————————————— New page from Iona Fox‘s Almanac – check out more of her work HERE and keep an eye out for her strips in Burlington, VT’s alt paper Seven Days. ———————————————————————————————— Supplemental “A Brief Appreciation” of Leslie Stein – by Ken Perille on The Comics Journal. Also on tcj.com – An Interview with Katie Skelly. Carta Monir on Process Party Episode 42 – HERE. Gabrielle Bell‘s July Diary is close to concluding – here’s Thursday’s offering. —————————————————————————————————— Here it is – get ready to comic your socks off – thee Comics Workbook Composition Competition 2017 has been announced! This year it’s a riff on the 6-panel grid, in the traditional North American comic book size – but with a twist! Full details HERE. ———————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 7-28-2017 – by Sally Ingraham ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 7-28-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

02/23/2018

Aaron CockleFebruary 23, 2018NewsAaron filling in today with Christina Ramberg; More from that Austin English TCJ Essay; Post-Text Futures (According to the NY Times); Desert Island’s 10-Year Anniversary ————————————————————————————————— Dan Nadel on the Art of Christina Ramberg At ARTFORUM Curator Jenelle Porter nicely summarizes the breadth of Ramberg’s interests: “To browse the over 1,000 slides Ramberg left behind is to gain a foothold on how she looked at the world. Slides of Buddhist hand mudras echo the elongated fingers in Hand. Patterned asphalt shingles, hand-painted signs, wig shop displays, the homes of outsider artists, a twisted and frayed awning—one can begin to decipher how Ramberg translated quotidian visual experiences into highly ordered paintings.” Ramberg and Hanson also created a scrapbook of comic-book clippings with examples of explosions, word graphics, and dreams, among other categories. The scrapbook, Ramberg noted, was “valuable as a sourcebook of comic conventions or shorthand methods of depicting various themes and objects.” She did not, however, employ collage and comic-book imagery in her paintings, as some of the artists Ramberg admired—Öyvind Fahlström, the Swedish master of reconfiguring comic-book elements; San Francisco’s symbolist painter and collage-master Jess; and Yoshida—did in their own. For Ramberg, these fragments revealed modes of rendering and moments of accidental strangeness, such as when a speech balloon hovers above a house to indicate an interior conversation. Taken out of sequential context, as in Ramberg’s scrapbook, the house appears to “speak,” as if in a Magritte painting. ————————————————————————————————— Where I’m Coming From (Part 2) Juan posted about this yesterday, but here’s another look at the 2nd part of Austin English’s personal exploration into zines and mini-comics. There’s a lot of ground covered here. Bessijelle made this zine on a home printer, and stapled it at the edges—everything about the assemblage of this comic is worked out by the author on a system of their own. A heartfelt pride in its making comes through, which is augmented immeasurably by the purposefully labored over work within. The author made the art according to their own principles and found the images to be powerful, thus making reproduction and dissemination of the work essential. But how to go about that? Like some of the most uniquely beautiful zines, the printing is as personal as the drawing within, and if the reader brings themselves to it, a total work of art can be seen. Unlike self conscious art zines that stress their expensive production values, this work’s quiet features make it priceless. … Annie Murphy’s I Never Promised You A Rose Garden is an extremely important project. Murphy is a hard-to-do-her-artistry-justice cartoonist who isn’t extremely prolific, so each new work is worth studying. More then that though, Rose Garden is a historical work that is more vital then that description usually suggests in zine culture. Instead of a ‘historical’ zine that is concerned with the changing storefronts of main street, Murphy’s subject is no less than the history of mood, the underground itself, sordid half-truths, and tragedies involving all of the above within her home of Portland, Oregon. Murphy is a cartoonist like no other, more emotionally precise than most artists who work in comics. Murphy’s feelings are clear to her but unique in spirit: she communicates them to the reader without noise and we are left with new heartbeats. ————————————————————————————————— ‘The thing you’re doing now, reading prose on a screen, is going out of fashion.’ At The New York Times, Farhad Manjoo contemplates a ‘Post-Text Future’. The internet was born in text because text was once the only format computers understood. Then we started giving machines eyes and ears — that is, smartphones were invented — and now we’ve provided them brains to decipher and manipulate multimedia. Suddenly the script flipped: Now it’s often easier to communicate with machines through images and sounds than through text. ————————————————————————————————— Hey Desert Island, Happy 10-Year Anniversary! ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 2-23-2018 – by Gabriella Tito ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 2-23-2018 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

TCAF 2016 | Ethan Rilly

Frank SantoroJune 3, 2016Festivals and Shows / InterviewsShare this page: [...]

03/28/2016

Posted on March 28, 2016March 28, 2016 by Juan Fernández

Juan Fernandez here today to start your week off with the latest: Comics readings, workshops and expos in Pittsburgh; Bill Griffith and Art Spiegelman reflect with Karen Green; HTMLFlowers’ sincere and open interview on Inkstuds; Jessica Campbell with the hyucks; OpenToonz in the hands of millions .

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BLITZBURGH

No beating around the bush here, there’s a load of comics happenings this week in Pittsburgh, big and small. Comics readings, free workshops and PIX. Lots of different ways to soak up the comics!

More information on PIX.

This Friday, the Lili Café in Polish Hill will celebrate PIX by hosting a night of comics readings and performaces by Carl Antonowicz, Juan Fernandez (me), Sophie Goldstein, Cynthia Lee, Jennifer Lisa, Rachel Masilamani and Noah Van Sciver. Copacetic Comics, on the third floor, will be open late for a post-reading hang out. Find out more here.

To celebrate PIX 2016 on Saturday, Comics Workbook is offering a full day of hands on comics instruction and training in partnership with the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh – South Side.

Come bring work for critique, practice your comics composition, or simply try your hand at comics making for the first time. We have activities to embolden the hearts and enliven the spirits of professional and amateur comics makers alike.

3:30-4:30 PM
Legendary Underground comics artist Bill Griffith will be conducting a FREE hour-long drawing workshop (with handouts) as part of this year’s PIX activities. That’s right, learn how to draw from the creator of Zippy the Pinhead. There will be Comics Workbook workshops all day long at the Carnegie Library on the South Side. Please RSVP.

– More workshop schedule updates to come. –

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Green, Griffith and Spiegelman
Here on the site, John Kelly has brought us some snippets from Bill Griffith and Art Spiegelman’s latest public talk.

Former Arcade magazine editors and Underground Cartooning legends Bill Griffith and Art Spiegelman discuss their early days as artists at a talk given March 16, 2016 at Columbia University commemorating Griffith’s announcement that he will be bequeathing a large portion of his personal art archives to the University. The talk was moderated by Karen Green, Columbia’s Librarian for Ancient & Medieval History and Graphic Novels.

Check ’em out here!

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Inkstuds: HTMLFLOWERS
HTML Flowers aka Grant Gronewold joined Robin over on Inkstuds to talk about his art, comics and music. We also coverchronic health conditions in modern medical bureaucracy, mortality, and the urge to make comics.

His series of mini comics, No Visitors, is availabe for order right now,. Grant’s also got a book out from Space Face Books called Virtual Candle as well as his collaborations with Simon Hanselmann in Werefolf Jones and Sons. This interview right here, It’s a good one, folks.

Listen to it over on Inkstuds.

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Best Jokes?
Jessica Campbell is back with the hyucks. Dig into them all over on her site, bestjokes.tumblr.com.

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OpenToonz
Last but not least, the robust 2D animation software suite, OpenToonz was made open source through a partnership between Italian developer Digital Video and Japanese company Dwango. Big ups to them. If you hadn’t caught wind of this yet, it is a game changer for 2D animation production, the kind that is going to lead to an increase in drawn animation production. For the comics maker and animator in a pinch, this powerful, free alternative to Adobe and Toonboom is a godsend. Go forth and make!

Download it here – https://opentoonz.github.io/e/index.html
A How to get started tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMskd30Y9Js
For more info in case your install doesn’t work properly on that check this forum out. https://groups.google.com/forum/…

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Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in NewsTagged Art Spiegelman, Bill Griffith, htmlflowers, jessica campbell, Karen Green, opentoonz, PIX, sophie goldstein

Juan Fernández

Posted on March 28, 2016March 28, 2016

Explore

2° Encontro Lady’s Comics

Anna ManciniAugust 3, 2016Festivals and ShowsHi there – this is Anna Mancini, or Manzanna, from Brazil. I just returned from the 2° Encontro Lady’s Comics, a pioneer event in Brazil dedicated to comics made by women. From July 29 to 31, 2ELC took place in Belo Horizonte, home of FIQ – Brazil’s International Comics Festival. This second edition was organized by FIQ in partnership with the event’s creators, the Lady’s Comics collective. The chosen theme for this year was “The First Trip”, which gave room to explore both the history of Brazilian female cartoonists and the challenges faced by artists starting and developing their careers. With panels, workshops, a fair and an exhibition by Chicks on Comics, 2ELC gathered many of Brazil’s female cartoonists in one place, plus international guests Sole Otero, Clara Lagos, Mariela Acevedo (Argentina) and Katherine Supnem (Chile). Aware of the challenges women face in the comics community, the gathering provided a much needed space for the participants to express and identify with each other. Topics included the need to study and rewrite our history, shedding new light on pioneer women cartoonists; the first steps of publishing, selling and entering the market; the struggles of the creative process; plus talks on motherhood, science fiction and education, among other themes. I’m still processing, digesting, reflecting on the experience. As my fellow cartoonists have confirmed, 2ELC left everyone with a shared feeling of empowerment, reciprocity and ambition. I’m glad to realize we’re in this together, and can’t wait to see how it will fuel our work. Pictures, videos and more from 2° Encontro Lady’s Comics can be seen at their facebook page. Share this page: [...]

11/09/2017

Comics WorkbookNovember 8, 2017NewsSam Ombiri with thoughts on Yuichi Yokoyama’s Garden, and Bryce Davidson with info on Grass Green, and South African comics! ————————————————————————————————— Sam Ombiri here: At first I struggled to read Garden more than any other Yuichi Yokoyama book. At one point, maybe out of frustration, I began just reading the images. In Garden, Yokoyama isn’t putting much effort into the emotional build up of his characters, or making their expressions stack up – unlike in World Map Room, where the enjoyment of the words, and what the characters say, is more immediate. The interactions in World Map Room culminate into something larger, something which pushes the rest of the book, and which is key to understanding what structure that the characters will enter next. In Garden, there is no guide, whereas in World Map Room we had Enterprise – and at the very beginning, those mysterious workers who were going across the river. In Garden there is no one to tell the characters what’s going on. After all, the whole book is about trespassing – how then can you have a guide? I like how the characters have no motivation beyond curiosity, and that their trespassing is presented purely as function. It makes their quest all the more unspecific, and therefore their run-ins unspecific. The inherent philosophical tone in their inquiry toward a foreign structure or force affecting them really resonates with me as a reader, and says a lot without saying anything directly, about the nature of the lives we live. It asks questions that are at the back of our minds, ones that don’t form. We can’t always, if ever, present all the attributes of being a human to every second in a story. We have to make concessions, because certain things will strike us automatically, and we like that for many reasons. One reason is that it makes it easier to make and read comics. It’s strange for Yokoyama to try to erase the typical feelings humans possess, and only surrender to certain ones, but, especially in comics we always do this – it always happens. Yokoyama’s concessions with portrayal aren’t concessions at all – he’s directing all his efforts to erase what we’d typically see as a concession, if we were to look. It’s important to note that he’s doing this purposefully, turning what we’d see as a concession into a primary function! (I feel this could make his readers distrustful of his work.) Yokoyama isn’t demanding a huge amount of reaction from doing this – it’s only because he’s interested in doing his work this way that it turns out this way. I think it was Derik Badman who said that World Map Room is basically Yokoyama in a rut. I think that’s a false assessment, just based on the way Yokoyama works. The strip with the copier in New Engineering tells it all – he has run out of ideas from the very beginning, and is creating a new function for the way we draw. It’s judging Yokoyama by the wrong criteria, because he doesn’t engage, as far as I know, with thrilling or entertaining the reader – which is not to say that he does or doesn’t. We as the readers are the ones who react to it. “Why would you be so selective with what emotions are put on display?!” we ask him. While Yokoyama isn’t exactly portraying the characters in a humanistic way, or rather is aiming to disconnect from a humanistic take on the characters (but even to this Yokoyama has to make concessions to his own goal, by making his characters inquisitive at times, as mild as it may be, and a microscopic amount of sentimentality shows up every now and then) he’s still presenting humans. They may not be attached to a specific culture – they are only the specific species of human. Even if the story is told from what he imagines to be the perspective of birds, animals don’t, as far as I know, have a real point of reference for our behavior. His goal is well realized here in Garden, again with no guide and with no one except the other characters to ask questions, the answer often being silence – since they’re trespassers. For those who haven’t read Garden I urge you to read it, not for what I’ve said above – but you have to visit these structures in Garden. Some of the most spectacular stuff is in there. It’s one of the easiest comics I’ve read, and continues to be. Just read the images, and if you feel lost just read what the characters are saying – their words are there simply to help you read the image. You’re traveling with them. – Sam Ombiri Get a copy of Garden (PictureBox, 2011) HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Bryce Davidson here with thoughts on Afri-comics, Grass Green, and tiger men. Before I start I want to introduce myself to the CW readers out there, as this is my first post. I am a cartoonist and illustrator from Boston. I have released multiple comics and anthologies showcasing my work, most of which can be found at my website. I am also a Santoro Correspondence Course alumni and had recently met Frank for the first time in person at SPX this past August. He was nice enough to ask if I wanted to write for the blog so here I am! Also thanks to Sally and the rest of the CW crew for having me. I had very little in mind when starting this article. Most of this was found doing research into the South African comic book market, which had interested me after I had seen images of what I would later know as Afri-comics – all South African comics in the style of popular American titles that were produced from 1976-1978 – on the website, southafricancomicbooks.blogspot.com, which, as far as I can tell is a very extensive, constantly updated, database of South African comics. Most of these appear to be reprints and imports of famous American comics like Superman, Batman, etc. You can look for yourself if you want. The site is credited to George van der Riet, of whom I can’t find much on. The Afri-comics I was finding on there seemed at first to be knockoffs of famous EC titles, re-branded to a South African market, with examples such as, “The Vault of Horror” being replaced by “The Witch Doctor’s Cave”, with really good art. The art was good enough to compete with most of the EC guys, and I thought some of the characters were nice too, Tiger Ingwe especially. While most of these titles had clear American analogues, the aforementioned EC rips and their most popular title, Mighty Man, a blatant Superman knock off. Tiger Ingwe on the other hand seemed kind of his own thing. Half-man, half-tiger, all action. It was a pretty straight-forward title – he went around going on Conan-esque adventures in the jungles of South Africa. Battling tribes, saving people, you get the idea. Still it was nice to see that quality work in a market I otherwise knew very little about. With this peaking my interest I did a little more research into the topic. Pretty much, up until the time that Afri-comics debuted, South Africa was saturated with “Photo Story Magazines.” Serial magazines which used photography and actors to tell stories in a comic format with word balloons and all. They were cheap and quick to produce and very popular. Other than reprints or imports of American comics, there was no official South African-made comics. New and existing artwork of high quality, paving the way for country’s comic scene! Who was making these? Who was this unknown pioneer from Apartheid era South Africa who was producing close to Wally Wood level work? Unfortunately, as it turns out that’s not quite the case. There was a reason it was such a superior EC knock off… It may have been drawn by them. While there are no creator credits listed in the books themselves, according to Nick Wood’s article, “Soweto’s Super Man: ‘Mighty Man’ and the mid-70s in South Africa”: “That funding for the comic had come from a group of Republican Americans, including the media magnate John McGoff – and was developed by Richard Manville, a New York marketing consultant with clients in South Africa. Manville had sold the idea to J. Van Zyl Alberts in South Africa, who ran the pro-government newsweekly ‘To The Point’. Manville had developed the stories with a team of free-lance cartoonists, which apparently included Joe Orlando.” Crazy capitalists pushing republican propaganda to South Africa in the form of Joe Orlando comics? Joe Orlando, for those unfamiliar, is one of the best members of the EC gang. IMHO his story, Judgment Day (1953), which focuses on race politics, still holds up as one of the best sci-fi comics ever. Hands down. The article continues: “ had said: ‘there were certain guidelines…Like not screwing around with the government.’ Orlando had wanted the comic to include one-page outlines of heroes for black readers to identify with, such as the slain leader of the anti- Portuguese struggle in West Africa’s Guinea-Bissau, Amilcar Cabral. Not surprisingly, this idea was turned down and extra short strips run were instead about African folk stories such as ‘Anansi Plays Dead’ and black soccer players in local leagues.” Come to think of it the laws that Mighty Man, “The Human Law Enforcing Dynamo” was enforcing were in fact apartheid laws. Tiger Ingwe on the other hand, whose stories focused on straight action/adventure themes, doesn’t suffer quite as bad; but you can see how awkward it is to have what should be a purely black African character, acting like they are cut out of a Buck Rogers strip. Well it’s a pretty big bummer without a doubt. My hopes of finding the South African Jim Davis were crushed, so I shifted my focus over to Richard “Grass” Green – notable for being the first black participant in the American underground comix scene of the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s. While his professional work is few and far between, mostly working for Charlatan comics, his fanzine work, most notably Xal-Kor: The Human Cat is great, crazy, trippy, interesting Afro-futurist stuff. Part Kirby, part Ditko, but definitely it’s own thing, Xal-Kor offers a slightly gentler super-hero experience then we are used to. It is defiantly worth reading if you are able to track down the issues. One thing I couldn’t help thinking though is how similar the design was for both Tiger Ingwe and Xal-Kor. Both were obviously tiger men, not exactly a new concept, yet the way they were both depicted in their beastliness was shockingly similar. I noticed the distinction because the other beast hybrid characters I can think of (mostly Japanese) are King from Tekken, Guin from Guin Saga, Tiger Mask, all completely replace the head with the animals’. Xal-Kor and Ingwe don’t do that. Instead the creators chose to retain many of the human features, most notably the noses and mouths. It is a neat choice and seems to push the man/beast metaphor further than purely replacing parts. I can’t say if Grass Green had ever seen Tiger Ingwe or would have known anything about it, but it stands out as a nice little design connection within comic book history. Overall it seems to me that the beast/man motif seems to play nice with a lot of the themes within both the political agendas being pushed into the Afri-comics and the Afro-futurist, civil rights message which rings throughout Xal-Kor. Both works grappling with the burdens of the world through the medium of comics. You can read more about Grass Green and see more of his work HERE. (Bibliography – Wood, Nick. “Soweto’s Super Man: ‘Mighty Man’ and the mid-70s in South Africa.” South African Comic Books, 2011, southafricancomicbooks.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/sowetos-super-man-mighty-man-and-mid.html.) ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 11-9-2017 – by Sally Ingraham ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 11-9-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio ———————————————————————————————— Cozytown – 11-9-2017 – by Juan Fernandez ————————————————————————————————— Share this page: [...]

Ways of Seeing: Cameron Weston Nicholson and Sam Ombiri

Sally IngrahamNovember 23, 2016Essays / Tool TalkTyler Landry explores the creative process of Cameron Weston Nicholson, and Sam Ombiri responds with further thoughts on the act of sketching. Tyler Landry here. I’ve been following some of Cameron Weston Nicholson’s semi-secret endeavors over the last week or two, and the man is ON FIRE! Several simultaneous streams of intense character development are taking place here – some involving characters you might recognize from a certain book/film about a peculiar little girl who’s looking for her place in the world, while some are brand new, straight from Cam’s brain-swamp. The latter are the first manifestations of a new comic he’s got in the works. Sssshhhhhh… There is a sincere (and successful) attempt here to accentuate each character’s unique physicality which, for me, helps to telegraph their personalities directly into their appearance. Think of it like exaggerated facial expressions – for the whole body. This next set of character poses is as much about movement as it is about base structure. In this case, what they do outwardly speaks volumes about what’s going on inside. Combined, the physical form and the gestures amount to much of what’s required for these characters to communicate who they are. What Cameron’s been doing here is the beginning of world-building for a story. Be it in comics, film/TV, a novel, or a video game, steps like these towards developing characters and, by extension, the world they inhabit, are essential. Cam’s really feeling these guys out, trying to understand what makes ‘em tick, how they dress, how they act, how they go about their business in the world he’s going to place them in. Just like any exercise in copying the masters, there’s a wealth of information to be gleaned from retracing the steps of your predecessors on the way to (or alongside) taking your own. – Tyler Landry Follow Cameron Weston Nicholson‘s Instagram to keep up with more of his process work – @prof_weston Watch the video of Cameron’s Comics Workbook-hosted workshop at SPX 2016 HERE. Check out Tyler Landry’s work – and for a look at Tyler’s own process read this Black Callus interview from earlier this year. Sam Ombiri here. Gary Panter said something like sketchbooks are your friend – sometimes you hide an idea in there and you find it later when you need it (I think that’s what he said). CF said he likes to think of a sketchbook or blank page as an experimental plane. Mieko Kawakami said that for her, sketching (she actually said poetry – but it’s in a different cultural context, which unless you avidly read contemporary Japanese literature in Japanese, and keep up to date with the trends in relation to the history of Western influence on Japanese poetry, mixing with the more traditional Japanese poetry, then going back to a mix of traditional and Western influence and just what’s hot in the scene right now…you’d get it – not that I know anything about all that, I just heard it somewhere). Anyway for Mieko Kawakami “sketching” is like delusion and the “final draft” (she actually said prose) is like imagination. I kinda partly disagree with this illustration. I don’t think – with my ignorance of what’s going on with Japanese poetry right now – work of that kind is pure delusion, but it is emotion tapered with structure at least for the time being (though there’s still structure at play, as shown in Cameron Weston Nicholson’s work – see above – but there’s room for expression created here. Or maybe it’s just one’s personal fears and reservations.) CF said something like the best way to draw is to turn your back on everyone you know and your ideals – at least I think that’s what he said. Japanese poetry is really preoccupied with rhythm, so even with the “delusion” it’s still grounded in something. Mieko Kawakami said the delusion she was referring to was like how she could have a family live in a house made out of pancakes – but ironically when she’s referring to her imagination she feels she can’t do that. It makes me wonder – why make novels that limit yourself if they are a “higher calling”? From my understanding, for awhile the attitude readers had for novels in Japan were: the more difficult the better. I’m not sure whether it was The Tale of Genji or Don Quixote that was the first novel, but I think it’s safe to say the novelists most likely have a strong sense of tradition strictly built on the foundation that The Tale of Genji set up (I’m only assuming). So then, maybe that strong sense of tradition is what drives Kawakami to limit herself. That doesn’t really make any sense though, because a lot of the more popular contemporary Japanese authors, at least popular outside of Japan, have been influenced by novels outside the Japanese tradition. I think she cited Virginia Woolf as a big influence. Someone said that the current movement is a fusion of the old difficult traditional Japanese literature and the new fun Japanese literature. Maybe in delusion/sketching/experimentation there’s a lack of tampering (which isn’t always the case). The only tampering to be found in imagination or in the work is in one’s limitations (sometimes). Ambiguity is subtracted so there’s a more possible chance of connection, but connection can happen either way. Sketches/process work is the most honest/real documentation. It doesn’t always show up in apparent ways in all works but sometimes it shows up in the final work, which usually rocks. I like to be reminded when I’m looking at a drawing that it’s a drawing made by a person who isn’t always graceful. – Sam Ombiri ——————————————————————————————– Cameron Weston Nicholson makes comics and animations in Richmond, VA. He recently won the Comics Workbook Composition Competition 2016 for his comic For a Lack of Better Words. Tyler Landry is a graduate of the Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers. He makes comics on Prince Edward Island, Canada. You can find some of his work at Study Group Comics and tons of his comics and work in progress on thee Comics Workbook tumblr. Sam Ombiri makes comics in Pittsburgh, PA. He writes for Comics Workbook and is a cornerstone of the Pittsburgh Comics Salons. Share this page: [...]

02/10/2017

Sally IngrahamFebruary 9, 2017NewsSally here to finish the week with you – I’ve got work by Emil Ferris, Theora Kvitka, Valentine Gallardo, Iris Yan, and Lou Rogers to share, plus comics scholarship with Rebecca Wanzo and the debut of The Ladybroad Ledger – and much more! ————————————————————————————————— Emil Ferris‘s long-anticipated debut graphic novel is finally here. My Favorite Thing Is Monsters was a decade in the making, and then it quite literally got lost at sea last fall when “the entire 10,000-copy print run of the book was stuck on a cargo ship seized at the Panama Canal after the freight company, Hanjin, filed bankruptcy.” The A.V. Club reports: “The scope of Ferris’ story is huge as it juggles a murder mystery, family drama, psychological thriller, and love letter to classic pulp monsters while taking readers from Chicago to Nazi Germany, and the narrative is constantly surprising and hugely fulfilling.“ They have a 11-page preview of the book – check it out HERE. It will be officially released on February 15th (although Copacetic Comics already has copies!) I look forward to seeing this in person – the “intensely hatched linework” is not always my cup of tea, but the story sounds compelling and Emil Ferris is a very interesting person. In an exclusive for Chicago Magazine, Emil has shared more of her story. “Growing up in Uptown in the 1960s, Ferris was part of a diverse community of people who she says “operated outside the system.” Her neighbors included black migrants who traveled north during the Great Migration, white Appalachian miners living in abject poverty, and thousands of Native Americans who left their reservations in the wake of relocation programs. “There was an incredible beauty,” says Ferris. “These were people who suffered, but were strong. They were survivors.” “ Emil was a survivor as well – born with scoliosis she was immobile for much of her childhood. This led to a vision of herself as a wolf-girl and a fascination with monsters – both of which influenced the creation of her new book. The piece on Chicago Magazine includes a comic by Emil that details the “stranger-than-fiction saga” which led to My Favorite Thing Is Monsters. The first part is below – read the rest HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Meet Rebecca Wanzo, a comics scholar, associate professor of women, gender and sexuality studies in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, and associate director of the Center for the Humanities. She is also a founding board member of the Comics Studies Society (CSS), “the first professional organization for comics researchers in the United States.” Wow. Total badass. The Source, a publication of the Washington University in St. Louis recently sat down with Rebecca to talk about comics and education and scholarship. Her current book project – The Content of Our Caricature – brings up an interesting discussion about how African-Americans fit into a medium that has a deep history of caricature and excess. “Think about Charlie Brown, the way he’s drawn. The body is a sign. Comics depend on this language of exaggeration and excess. But it’s really easy for representations of black people to slip into racist caricature. How do you get away from caricature in a medium built upon it? But what’s more interesting to me is when black comic artists intentionally use caricature, and to what ends. Sam Milai, the great Pittsburgh Courier editorial cartoonist, whose archives are in the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum (where Wanzo is a board member) had a gorgeous, realist phenotype for black people he thought were doing good things, but sometimes used racist caricature for people he was criticizing. You see this consistently in black cartooning.“ They also get into the impetus behind forming the Comics Studies Society and what works Rebecca especially likes to teach. “I enjoy teaching excerpts from “Winmen’s Comix,” especially the early issues, which are really transgressive. Students assume representation gets more progressive over time, but that’s not necessarily true. For feminists, the 1970s were pretty radical!“ The rest of the interview is also interesting – check it out HERE. I’m very excited to see the debut issue of Inks, the CSS Journal coming out later this year, and will definitely be tracking down more of Rebecca Wanzo’s writing. ————————————————————————————————— In the tradition of Wimmen’s Comix and Strumpet and other collections of comics featuring women only comes The Ladybroad Ledger. It is a newsprint compilation that features 10 female-identifying artists and plenty of diverse subject matter. It is making it’s way into stores and libraries all across the state of Vermont. It was created by Stephanie Zuppo, a cartoonist based in Winooski, VT. There is a nice write-up about the first issue of The Ladybroad Ledger over on Seven Days. “These days, gender disparity in comics is declining, according to Zuppo… “It’s becoming more balanced, especially in alternative and indie comics,” she says. “Now, a lot of the major publishers are taking notice and hiring more women.” That doesn’t mean female cartoonists should kick back and declare victory any time soon, adds Zuppo. “I still think featuring women in comics is an important thing, and it should be done more often,” she asserts.“ Read the rest of the article HERE. Stephanie plans to release her publication twice a year. Check out more of her personal work HERE – and keep up with The Ladybroad Ledger HERE! ————————————————————————————————— Theora Kvitka is a Pittsburgh-based cartoonist who publishes the webcomic Urbanity Planet (above). It updates every Monday. Her work was featured in a roundup on The Guardian of comics throughout history that have looked at gentrification, from 1921 to 2016 – HERE. ————————————————————————————————— The Comics Beat featured the work of Valentine Gallardo as part of their A Year of Free Comics feature. You can read about Valentine’s Spellwich HERE – and you can read the whole comic on Vice – HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Check out the work of Iris Yan (above). She is a Brazilian-born Chinese cartoonist who has been publishing the webcomic Pigs in Maputo since 2010 – read more of it HERE. These comics appear almost daily – she also has longer form work which you can see HERE. ————————————————————————————————— I – Sally Ingraham – started a Patreon to help support my comics-related endeavors! I am focusing on developing a comics curriculum for girls, building a library of women’s comics, and researching and documenting women in the comics industry. The teaching part is especially rewarding and where I really am looking for help when it comes to the Patreon. I am working on putting more classes together and establishing a “comics tutoring” clientele, but as that grows I need some help making ends meet. Consider sending me $1 or $5 or $10 a month while I build this network and create a curriculum that has the potential to really change these young girls’ lives. I’m just trying to get more ladies to make and read comics – and once they’re on board for that, to makes spaces for their work to be seen and for them to be heard! It’s fun. It’s radical. It’s necessary. Join me on this journey – check out my Patreon HERE. Many thanks in advance! ————————————————————————————————— Pictured above are cartoons by suffragist cartoonist Lou Rogers in Judge Magazine in 1912 (left) and the original Wonder Woman artist H.G. Peters in 1943 (right). I’m in the middle of reading Jill Lepore’s terrific book The Secret History of Wonder Women, which I may write about later – but for now I just wanted to give a shoutout to Lou Rogers, who was a prolific editorial cartoonist in the early 20th century. She was very involved in the suffragist movement – and in a funny “role reversal” she eventually married her colorist, Howard Smith. The artist who designed Wonder Woman – H. G. Peters – worked at the same paper as Lou did for awhile. (Although I recommend reading The Secret History of Wonder Woman, if you can’t spare the time for 400+ pages you can get the “Cliff Notes” version via this Buzzfeed article: 8 Things You Won’t Believe About Wonder Woman’s Origins.) ————————————————————————————————— Biscuits and Gravy Sara Lautman has a comic on The Awl called The Smell – HERE. Liana Finck had a comic on The Awl a few weeks ago – For Love of the Unknown. Sacha Mardou looks at money in a new way with Murry Mint, for The Common Reader. ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 2-10-2017 – by Sally Ingraham ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 2-10-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio ————————————————————————————————— Cozytown – 2-10-2017 – by Juan Fernandez Share this page: [...]

05/25/2016

Juan FernándezMay 25, 2016NewsJuan Fernandez with: the Chris Diaz Archive: Creep Highway & the Candy Boys + Connor Willumsen; Gabri Molist; Voltio #1; Ana Oncina; Grids on the Web; Canadian Centre for Architecture. ————————————————————————————————— On the site – New in The Diaz Archive: http://comicsworkbook.com/creep-highway-the-candy-boyz/ http://comicsworkbook.com/connor-willumsen-draws-pris-from-blade-runner/ ————————————————————————————————— ELSEWHERE: Four Mathematicians – Gabri Molist Don’t miss the Fibonacci progression in Gabri Molist‘s latest entry in the Four Mathematicians series. Over on TIKTOK cómics. ————————————————————————————————— A look at Voltio #1 Voltio is a recently launched an anthology published by La Cúpula chock full of emerging Spanish artists. Ana Oncina y Álex Giménez are at the helm of this production, which aims to present comics in a recently absent format – the comics magazine. (Spain has a tradition of this sort of publication: El Vibora, Trinca, Cairo, Creepy, Vampus, Métal Hurlant, 1984, Cimoc, Totem ) Lots of visual experiments and humor in this one. A spanish peer toImage’s Island if you will. The first issues features work by: Alex Giménez, Àlex Red, Alexis Nolla,Ana Galvañ, Ana Oncina, Andrew Rae, Antonio Hitos, Aroha Travé, Fran Collado, José Domingo, Kensausage (Cristian Robles), Núria Tamarit yPowerPaola. Jaime Valero reviews Voltio over at Fancueva.com RTVE’s Jesús Jiménez reviews and places Voltio in its Spanish cultural context ————————————————————————————————— Ana Oncina en el Spotlight Barcelona based cartoonist, Ana Oncina was born in 1989 in Alicante and studied Fine Arts at the Polytechnic University of Valencia, specializing in illustration and animation. Her first comic , Croqueta y Empandailla became instant success thanks to its charismatic characters and Oncina’s sense of humor. A work that resonated A LOT with Spaniards reading comics. Her stories are in a similar vein of Philippa Rice’s Soppy, Croqueta y Empandailla are quotidian relationship comics with a twist of humor. Traducir&Co Interview (2016) Júralo por mi Interview (2015) ————————————————————————————————— Grid Webdesign Tutorial Complement your time with yesterday’s Kirby grids with some thoughts on the grid and contemporary webdesign over on www.tutsplus.com . ————————————————————————————————— Mental Architectures Still in the webdesign vein, Don’t miss the Candian Centre for Architecture’s new site. It’s a great example of empathetic presentation of content on the web that allows for the stories and articles to maintain a feeling of awe. Beautiful stuff, really. ————————————————————————————————— hasta la proxima 😉 Juan Share this page: [...]

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