Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in NewsTagged caleb orecchio, Connor Willumsen, Dash Shaw, Gary Panter, gumby, jay jackson, Kyle Baker, sally ingraham, sam ombiri

Sally Ingraham

Posted on July 6, 2017

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12/13/2016

Aaron CockleDecember 13, 2016NewsAaron here today with Rosalie Lightning; Ubu Roi; Trish Trash; Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky; Dronewatch 2017; George Herriman’s Biographer, Michael Tisserand; What Dan Nadel is Reading ————————————————————————————————— Background/Middleground/Foreground Tom Hart’s Rosalie Lightning, a strong contender for book of the year, is excerpted at the PEN America blog. ————————————————————————————————— ‘I think you have to let teens come to their own satire’ The Lunar Observer’s Jacob Khepler observes the anniversary of Alfred Jarry’s play, Ubu Roi: Ubu Roi will never get the high school treatment — it was a big, big noise in its time, forging a path for Dadaism, Surrealism, and the Theater of the Absurd, but the very first word is SHIT, if not in all caps then in an all-caps feeling, and there’s no avoiding or defending that. ————————————————————————————————— Rollergirls (on Mars) Michael C. Lorah interviews Jessica Abel at the Comic Book Resources blog: Many authors have books later published in another language. Was it strange in any way to see this one first appear in another tongue? It was interesting because it definitely gave me a lot of insight into how the French comics industry works. That was very interesting information, because producing a book doesn’t happen the same way it does in the American system. And there are good sides and bad sides to the French system as well. It’s a complex question. It’s nice to bring back into English. Of course, it was written in English, so it’s sort of being “untranslated” more than anything else. But I was able to work closely with the translator for the French version. I speak French, so I was able to refine it and make it reflect the spirit of the book. I’m proud of how it came out there. ————————————————————————————————— Here, Kevin Huizenga finds the baron composing aphorisms at a house known as Mad Bean Cottage. Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky Comics ————————————————————————————————— 21st Century Birdwatching ————————————————————————————————— The 173rd meeting of the NY Comics & Picture-story Symposium will be held on Tuesday, Dec. 13, 2016 at 7pm at Parsons The New School for Design, 2 West 13th Street, in the Bark Room (off the lobby). Free and open to the public. Michael Tisserand on Birth of the Krazy: The Early Days of George Herriman and Krazy Kat. George Herriman’s biographer Michael Tisserand revisits the years when boxing, funny animals, and the one cartoonist’s genius produced comics’ most enigmatic character. Michael Tisserand‘s biography of George Herriman, Krazy: George Herriman, a Life in Black and White will be published by HarperCollins in December, 2016. His previous books include The Kingdom of Zydeco and the Hurricane Katrina memoir Sugarcane Academy. He lives in New Orleans. ————————————————————————————————— Nadel’s Reading List Including Lauren Weinstein’s Normel Person Comics: Normal here opens up to move away from the old “white straight guy” meaning and into a whole mindset of viewing the world and asking simple, structural questions and funny, moving observations. Halloween costumes, babies, food. The basics of our particular little kind of life. All done in Lauren’s detailed line work and lush watercolors. A master at work. And Jessica Campbell’s Hot or Not: 20th Century Male Artists: l love this little book that does exactly as the title suggests: breaks down male artists into the ol’ “hot or not” categories usually reserved for women, even, or even especially in the art world. Campbell nails the silly “objective” tone of it all, digs deep in her choices, and is very, very funny. Also, her unfussy, to-the-point cartooning removes any sense of artifice. The book moves along easily and you barely stop to realize how funny, weird, and uncomfortably natural it all feels. Share this page: [...]

11/01/2016

Aaron CockleOctober 31, 2016NewsAaron here today with NY Comics & Picture-story Symposium events for this week; Wertz at the NYer; Drawing the Unspeakable; more Mould Map 6; ‘An Update on the Largest Prison Strike in US History, Now Ongoing’; Ankeny’s MICE Recapitulation ————————————————————————————————— There are three upcoming events at the NY Comic and Picture-story Symposium, in support of Illustration Week 2016: David Kunzle on Töpffer and Cham: the amateur and the professional The 168th meeting of the NY Comics & Picture-story Symposium will be held on Thursday, Nov. 3, 2016 at 7pm at Parsons School of Design, University Center, 63 Fifth Ave., room L105 (lower level). Free and open to the public. Two caricaturists dominate the emerging field of the French comic strip from the 1830s onward: the Genevan Rodolphe Töpffer and the Parisian Cham (pseud. Count Amédée de Noé). The undisputed father of the modern comic strip or graphic novel, Töpffer always pretended to denigrate his “little follies,” as he called them, among other disparaging terms, and which he executed in spare corners of his life as director of a boys’ school and university professor. Cham, by contrast, inspired by and at one point collaborator with the Swiss, quickly became a dominant figure in the French premier magazine of graphic satire, Le Charivari. He engaged full-time in all the major caricature formats then practiced, including close to 40 comic strips or graphic novelettes, published in albums and magazine instalments. They represent a fine contrast in their lives, graphic style and satirical reach. David Sandlin: Hold Back the Rushing Waters, Make the Wind Lie Still The 167th meeting of the NY Comics & Picture-story Symposium will be held on Wednesday, Nov. 2, 2016 at 7pm at Parsons School of Design, University Center, 63 Fifth Ave., room L105 (lower level). Free and open to the public. Artist David Sandlin discusses the influences of country music on his paintings, prints, and comics. Sandlin was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, in 1956. He currently lives in New York and teaches printmaking, book arts, and illustration at the School of Visual Arts. He has exhibited extensively in the U.S., Europe, Japan, and Australia, and his comics and illustrations have appeared in The Best American Comics 2015, 2012 and 2009; The New Yorker; Raw; and other publications. He has received fellowships and grants from the Guggenheim Foundation, the New York Public Library’s Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers, the New York Foundation of the Arts, the Swann Foundation for Caricature and Cartoon, and other institutions. David Kunzle on Chesucristo. The fusion in word and image of Che Guevara and Jesus Christ: the poetry The 166th meeting of the NY Comics & Picture-story Symposium will be held on Tuesday, Nov. 1, 2016 at 7pm at Parsons School of Design, University Center, 63 Fifth Ave., room L105 (lower level). Free and open to the public. Amid the manifold means by which this fusion was made, in narratives of the life of Ernesto Che Guevara, in word and in image, the poetry stands out, likening Che to Jesus in various moments of Jesus’ life and especially death. In the substance and words of various actions recorded in the Gospels parallels are drawn to Che’s sacrificiality; to his embodiment of the creative forces of a “divine”nature; to his omnipresence post-mortem, even his (spiritual) omnipotence. Extracts from the poetry are intoned simultaneously with projection of some of the infinite variations made of the famous, so often christified visage of Che. Based on Kunzle’s recent book, Chesucristo, The Fusion in Word and Image of Che Guevara and Jesus Christ. ————————————————————————————————— A Friend’s Pregnancy Julia Wertz has a piece at the New Yorker’s Culture Desk. ————————————————————————————————— Drawing the Unspeakable The Cultural Services of the French Embassy and the French Comics Association join Comics@Columbia to present a conversation with French cartoonists Kerascoët, Pénélope Bagieu and Catherine Meurisse, discussing the challenges of conveying powerful emotions in a medium often wrongly dismissed as trivial. This event, moderated by cartoonist Kriota Willberg, is part of the FRENCH COMICS FRAMED festival. November 1, 2016, 7–9:30pm, Butler Library, 535 W. 114 St., NYC ————————————————————————————————— Mould Map 6 Texts More info from the recently concluded TERRAFORMERS exhibition: Prison Abolition + Utopianism + Science Fiction by Miranda Iossifidis Exhibition Guide Text Map ————————————————————————————————— Happening Under Your Nose Eleri Harris and Jess Parker look at the largest prison strike in US history, over at the Nib. ————————————————————————————————— MICE 2016 Kurt Ankeny was at the Massachusetts Independent Comics Expo this past weekend, and wrote about it, here: MICE consistently packs in a widely varied crowd, full of people from every age group and background. Part of this is the fact that it is held in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which has one of the most highly educated and diverse citizenries in the nation (it’s home to both Harvard and MIT.) But MICE just has some magic about it. The show has been steadily growing over the past few years. Last year, they broke the 3,000 attendee mark for the first time, and preliminary figures for this past Saturday’s attendance were over 1600, so they seem on par to keep that streak going. People are there to immerse themselves in the comics culture, and to buy, which is always helpful. Share this page: [...]

12/05/2017

Aaron CockleDecember 5, 2017NewsAaron here today with Lyn Hejinian and Open Comics; Singularity Festival 2017; Lee Krasner ————————————————————————————————— ‘The open text is dynamic, and interactive, as reading is most pleasurable when it is active, and incites the imagination.’ Former CW resident Jackie Kirby takes a deep look at Lyn Hejinian’s work and deconstructs comics by Lynda Barry, Robert Grenier, M. Norbese Phillips and Ikeda Ryoko, Alyssa Berg, Michael Deforge, and Andy Burkholder: Understanding the aesthetic merits of an open text is perhaps made easier by looking at Hejinian’s work in tandem with sociologist Wolfgang Iser’s phenomenological approach to reading (1972). Iser views the meaning and totality of a literary object to be a virtual, dynamic and contradictory thing. Its gestalt, or the perceived unity and oneness from a configuration of parts, does not exist in the text itself, nor in the mind of the reader, but in the co-operation of the two: the act of reading itself. The text is a set of raw materials provided by the author. In a text, information is presented in the form of discretely separated units (in comics, panels; in prose, sentences; in verse, lines) juxtaposed in a pattern according to the author’s artistic desires. Iser writes, “The sentences are ‘component parts’ insofar as they make statement, claims, or observations, or convey information, and so establish various perspectives of the text. But they remain only ‘component parts’—they are not the sum total of the text itself.” These sentences are building blocks of a not-yet-existing meaning, which will be produced through the act of reading the text. Through the reading process, the reader assembles the “component parts” into a coherent whole. In comics, we can think of this as the way a reader navigates through panels to produce meaning. The reader’s imagination and memory give shape to the interaction of distinct parts “foreshadowed” by the sequence and structure of panels. The information present in the material comic is processed through the reader’s imagination and experience, the result being the production of the comic-as-meaningful. ————————————————————————————————— Singularity Festival 2017 南拳北腿 ETH, TONY CHEUNG, 90Kwok联展 December 8-20, 2017 17:00-23:00 Opening December 8, 2017 19:00pm PIL公共形象公司北京东城区鼓楼东大街206号 No.206, Guloudong St,Dongcheng District, Beijing ————————————————————————————————— LEE KRASNER: THE UMBER PAINTINGS: 1959-1962 Through January 13, 2018, at Paul Kasmin Gallery Paul Kasmin Gallery, in collaboration with the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, is pleased to announce an inaugural solo exhibition of paintings by Lee Krasner, which will focus on her iconic Umber Paintings. The series consists of only twenty-four paintings, eight of which are held in major institutional collections. The exhibition will be accompanied by a fully illustrated and comprehensive catalogue raisonné on the series with an essay by art historian Dr. David Anfam, Senior Consulting Curator of the Clyfford Still Museum in Denver and curator of the recent exhibition Abstract Expressionism at the Royal Academy, London. Painted between 1959 and 1962, Krasner’s Umber Paintings were realized during one of her most ambitious periods of creative production following the sudden and tragic loss of her husband, Jackson Pollock. During this time of newfound solitude, Krasner moved into Pollock’s studio at their home in the Springs, East Hampton, which enabled her to experiment on large canvases for the first time. In addition to the increase in scale, this period was also characterized by a further commitment to ‘allover’ compositions, an emphasis on gesturality and an engagement with the individual psyche. ————————————————————————————————— The Winter Semester of thee Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers starts January 18th 2018! 8 weeks – 500 bux – coaching for as long as you need. The course is hard, but Frank will push your comics making practice to a new level, getting you to think about timing and color in new ways. Makes a great holiday gift for yourself – or for a loved one who is interested in comics. Apply by midnight (EST) on Dec. 25th and get $100 off the course price. Full details and how to apply can be found HERE! ————————————————————————————————— Vision Box – 12-5-2017 – by Cameron Arthur ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 12-5-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

12/08/2017

Sally IngrahamDecember 7, 2017NewsSally here with comics by Nicole Claveloux, thoughts from Jackie Kirby, and lists from Abraham Riesman, among other things! ————————————————————————————————— Tis the season for “Best of” lists, with every news source you can think of publishing their 10 favorite “whatevers”. I’ve already seen a dozen “best of comics” lists, but I’m just linking to Abraham Riesman’s over on Vulture, since his list is 6 out of 10 female creators, and the rest are comics I also really liked. Riesman’s got writeups on Eleanor Davis‘s You & a Bike & a Road, Sophia Foster-Dimino’s Sex Fantasy, Jillian Tamaki’s Boundless, Thi Bui‘s The Best We Could Do, Poppies of Iraq by Brigitte Findakly (co-written and illustrated by her husband, Lewis Trondheim), and of course Emil Ferris’s My Favorite Thing Is Monsters. Connor Willumsen’s Anti-Gone and Gary Panter’s Songy of Paradise are also on the list, plus a few others. Look no further for your holiday gift-giving list, and if you haven’t already, add these comics to your own TBR lists ASAP. Check out the full list HERE. ————————————————————————————————— I am eager to get my hands on Nicole Claveloux‘s The Green Hand and Other Stories, which came out in English from New York Review Comics recently. Matthias Wivel reviews it over on The Comics Journal, making me only more excited to see it myself. Nicole Claveloux made comics for about a decade in France in the 70’s/80’s, but as her work went largely unnoticed she turned to other forms of artistic expression. “For a few brief years, Claveloux…contributed short comics to the legendary magazine Métal Hurlant – several of which were published in English in its counterpart Heavy Metal – as well as its offshoot Ah! Nana (1976–’78), which featured women creators exclusively. For the longer of these stories, she collaborated with the writer Edith Zha. The Green Hand collects most of this meager output between nifty hard covers, sensitively translated by Donald Nicholson-Smith and hand-lettered in imitation of the original by Dustin Harbin. It will hopefully be followed by a new edition of their feature-length comics album Morte-saison (1979). The title story, signed Claveloux and Zha, is the main draw here. Published in five installments in Métal Hurlant in 1977, and in Heavy Metal the following year, it is a technicolor dreamscape drawn from life clocking in at just over forty pages. An almost elegiac portrait of the unbearableness of being. There is no great crisis detailed in its vivid narrative of attempted escape from things as they are, just crushing inevitability as the couple at its center finally submerge themselves in an inky ocean under a neon sunset.“ Read the rest of the review HERE. Also, you can check out the comic strip she drew – “Grabote, which ran in the popular children’s magazine Okapi between 1973–’82″ – in French HERE. Here’s a page from it: I plan to see if I can track down some issues of Ah! Nana, which the Women in Comics Wiki describes: “Ah! Nana was a French comics magazine published from October 1976 to September 1978, running nine issues. It was published by Humanoïdes Associés, best known as the publishers of Métal Hurlant, or Heavy Metal. It was the first French publication featuring work almost entirely by women (though it occasionally featured male contributors) at a time when comics were still almost exclusively male environments. It included work by such French cartoonists as Chantal Montellier, Florence Cestac, and Nicole Claveloux, as well as Americans such as Trina Robbins. It sold 15,000 copies on a print run of 30,000, before the ban on sales to minors proved fatal, due to its frequent taboo and controversial material.“ Read more about the magazine HERE and HERE, in an article on Comics Forum. ————————————————————————————————— I was totally blown away by the article Jackie Kirby wrote for Comics Workbook earlier this week, which dug into the work of Lyn Hejinian as a way to talk about open comics. At one point she breaks down two panels from the comic by Lynda Barry pictured above, just as she had broken down the opening sentences of a short story, showing how each creator opened up their text/image to achieve a multitude of meanings. She goes on to say: “Barry’s formal style requires a more simplistic, linear execution, but even in two relatively unassuming panels, we see the process of anticipation and retrospection used in a variety of ways. It is also worth noting that because I am equating the prosodic sentence with the comic panel, a degree of slippage occurs. Each of the panels above includes multiple sentences, and were I to parse them one by one it would reveal even more subtle layers of activity within the text. Most notably, though, in dissecting these panels, the notion of juxtaposition becomes increasingly complex, and the reader is required to do much more work in producing meaning from juxtaposed images and words (e.g. identifying Freddie and Marlys, locating them at a kitchen table together). Spatial placement and juxtaposition are among the most essential elements of comic making. Fortunately for my purpose, they are also critical to Hejinian’s theories of openness.“ Read the whole article HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Cookie Crumbs There is a comics journalism roundtable composed of Sophie Yanow, Iona Fox, and Joe Sacco over on Process Party – listen to episode 60 HERE. There’s a great interview with Stephanie Zuppo, publisher of The Ladybroad Ledger in Vermont, on the business of making comics and art – HERE on Seven Days. Emily Flake has a new comic up on The New Yorker – read it HERE. Traditionally in December Rob Clough reviews a huge stack of mini comics made by CCS grads on his blog High-Low – here’s the first set of reviews, featuring work by Sophie Goldstein, Colleen Frakes, and Amelia Onorato. He’s continued with work by Laura Terry, Tillie Walden, Joyana McDiarmid, Daryl Seitchik, and Mary Shyne, among others. ————————————————————————————————— The Winter Semester of thee Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers starts January 18th 2018! 8 weeks – 500 bux – coaching for as long as you need. The course is hard, but Frank will push your comics making practice to a new level, getting you to think about timing and color in new ways. Makes a great holiday gift for yourself – or for a loved one who is interested in comics. Apply by midnight (EST) on Dec. 25th and get $100 off the course price. Full details and how to apply can be found HERE! ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 12-8-2017 – by Gabriella Tito ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 12-8-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

05/11/2018

Comics WorkbookMay 10, 2018NewsBryce Davidson here with thoughts on Chris Claremont, The New Mutants, and the almighty thought bubble! ———————————————————————————— Bryce Davidson here today, with thoughts on Chris Claremont, the New Mutants and the success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Over the weekend I went to see Avengers: Infinity War, as I’m sure many other people did. I liked it. I even saw it a second time. I really thought it was a good movie. On the ride home a friend and I tried unraveling it to try and figure out why it worked so well, as we both agreed that it shouldn’t have. It was too big, there was too much stuff going on, too many characters, too many motivations, it was an absolute cluster f***. Even the nearly 3 hour duration shouldn’t have been enough to house it all. Now granted there have been other movie franchises that have operated on this level – The Lord of the Rings is the first one that comes to mind – but Infinity War feels different. Denser maybe? More tangled, web-like? Sure, a large part of that is the fact that its been built on by over a dozen films, but surely if that’s the case then Infinity War should have been some incomprehensible, jargon filled slog. But it wasn’t! It was great! And not just for big nerds. It was a genuinely good movie. So my friend and I talked about it a bit and I began thinking about the New Mutants comics I have been binging on lately and more importantly, Chris Claremont. I assume most people who read this blog are familiar with him. For the few who don’t he’s surely worth a google. At one point Claremont was writing upwards of 6 X-Men titles and spin-offs at once – each one containing god-knows how many characters. His writing has been highly praised for it’s complex narrative structures and endless sub-plot stacks. X-Men editor Louise Simonson, recalled about Claremonts’ writing, “that whenever he was at a loss for story ideas, “All I’d have to do was go through all of the plot threads that he had left for the last year or two (Grant, 1993).” Everyone’s favorite cartoonist, Ed Piskor also talks about this a lot in his work on Hip-Hop Family Tree and X-men Grand Design. A lot of it can be found HERE in his interview with Claremont for Paste Magazine. There is just so much there in those stories. The depth of the characters, the breadth of the world (or worlds) they existed in, and the delicate intricacies of how each part interacted with each other. It looked like a mess, at times it could even feel like a mess (intentionally though I think, as to increase drama and friction.) If I was going to try and describe it, it feels like zooming out from a microscopic view. It all looks odd and crazy until you see the larger picture. This is how they did it. This is why the MCU feels ok to me. It’s certainly not an easy task, but it’s all there in the Claremont’s work. They’re using the “Claremont Method”. Small fringes of plots that end up being (literally) universe shattering events would start out as small whispers in the background years before (Magik anybody?). Obviously the people behind the MCU aren’t stupid and have done their research. Sure, they’re pulling from lots of source material, none of which is really the X-Men, but the structure’s feels so similar to me that I hardly believe its a coincidence. On the other hand something interesting to note that I picked up on is how Claremont leans into the comic book form, which contrasts with how the plots are presented in the MCU. It’s called the almighty Thought Bubble. It’s a staple of comics, and a very effective tool. Like life, people think in an instant. You can have an entire conversation with yourself or recall entire events in a fraction of a second, a small slice of time. It’s why thought bubbles work. We can see how it’s used by Claremont in this page from New Mutants #1 where Daniel Moonstar finally summons up her courage enough to enter the Danger Room and fight some robots. There is a lot of character being fleshed out here that is exclusively told through the thought bubbles. Could this scene work without the bubbles? Sure. Would we know that she’s grown up in the mountains hunting and tracking animals? No. You can’t do that in a film, as it operates within time. Comics allow the viewer to slice up time into moments, where thought bursts like these can exist. Does that mean it’s trickier to write that it in film? Eh, I don’t know. More showing, less telling I guess. You do lose a lot of detail. Although with that said, I am genuinely impressed by how much they were able to pack into Infinity War. I would say there is almost as mush as Claremont can pack, though not quite. Either way I think it’s a good study on narrative structure and storytelling approaches through different mediums. I’m curious to see if the Claremont Method continues to shine though. – Bryce Davidson Grant, Paul J. (August 1993). “Poor Dead Doug, and Other Mutant Memories”. Wizard: X-Men Turn Thirty. pp. 66–69. ———————————————————————————— Share this page: [...]

07/06/2017

Posted on July 6, 2017 by Sally Ingraham

Sally here with new work from Kyle Baker, old work from Jay Jackson, and more!

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The work of Jay Jackson – a pioneering African-American cartoonist who died in 1954 – has risen to the surface of the internet sea, and Steven Thompson shares pages from the strip Home Folks, and a little info on the creator, over on his blog Booksteve’s Library.

“His weekly panel HOME FOLKS, always crowded with many characters and variations on a theme a la a number of classic cartoon panels dating back to the 1920s, is brilliant. Running exclusively in small African-American newspapers, week after week he managed to hit the nail on the head regarding not just exclusively the black experience but human life in general–even animal life at times. It was all recognizable and relatable…“

See more of Jackson’s work HERE. (via tcj.com)

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Kyle Baker has turned his comics know-how to Gumby recently.

“The A.V. Club has an exclusive look at Baker’s entire story in next week’s Gumby #1, and he’s using a style that he previously tried out on Plastic Man, removing black outlines so that the images on the page look like they’re made out of layers of construction paper. It adds a tactile quality to the art, which makes a lot of sense for a property that started with three-dimensional clay figurines. The characters still have the exaggerated expressions that Baker is known for, and this rendering choice makes the entire story feel lighter and more childish. This first issue also features stories by writers Ray Fawkes and Jeff Whitman (Managing Editor or Papercutz), artist Jolyon Yates, and colorists Laurie E. Smith and Matt Herms, and reader can discover each creative team’s take on the property when Gumby #1 goes on sale July 5.“

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The Comics Journal features an interview between Gary Panter and Dash Shaw – they break down Panter’s new book Songy of Paradise (Fantagraphics, May 2017) in a number of different ways, but it was these comments from Panter about working within your limitations that stuck with me:

“Shaw: One time, I can’t remember how you said it, but it’s always stuck with me. I was at your place and you were telling me about your beaded necklaces or something that you were working on, and you had all these different, experimental, non-commercial projects– projects that might not have any audience– and you said that being raised Christian helped you follow all these unusual ideas, because you always had the impression that you were being watched.

Panter: Yeah, I’m not sure about the first half, if it propels me, but I do have the feeling of being watched. I was thinking about that today, it’s odd. We were taught that there’d be the Day of Judgment, it’d all play back. And it would be really fucking embarrassing, you know? [Shaw laughs]

[Jokingly] Why did he spend all this time drawing comics?!

Well, I dunno, you just decide what you’re good at, what fascinates you, and you kind of go for it. I don’t really have giant resources, I’m limited in a lot of ways, so I can do these… Like if I take up lanyards, which I have as part of my little projects—lanyard making, like you made at summer camp, those woven plastic gimp things. When I learned how to do that—I’m completely untalented at it, but I can invent my version of it, I can get as far as I can get. It’s the same with my candles, my comics, my paintings, my music—everything. I’m working within my limitations. So if you’re working within your limitations, you can actually get stuff done. “

Read the rest of the interview HERE.

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Julian Lyte talks to Ulises Farinas about Farinas’ publishing imprint Buno, and his ideas about comics distribution and pre-ordering, on the Ignorant Bliss podcast. Check it out HERE.

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Connor Willumsen is having a screen print sale!

The screening series is called Cinema1999 – prints are 20 bucks and shipped rolled, editions of around 25 – limited supplies. Check it out HERE!

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**L-down** – Caleb Orecchio hard at work, July 2016 – Ben Sears taking a look at his comic, August 2016 – Frank working with Gabriella Tito, August 2016 **Middle-down** – Audra Stang at the ToonSeum (with Pittsburgh comics makers Sam Ombiri, Lane Milburn, and Em DeMarco) during her 2nd residency, January 2017 – Kate Harmon copying Elektra, August 2016 – Adam Griffiths ticking off comics tasks, January 2017 **R-down** – artwork by Emil Friis Ernst, an exchange student from The Animation Workshop in Denmark, December 2016 – Ronald Wimberly visiting Copacetic Comics, February 2017 – Sam Ombiri stopping by the Rowhouse to print a comic, February 2017

We are already in the midst of our second summer running the Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency! Above is a collection of photos from our first summer, into the winter of 2017, and beyond.

More photos and info on the Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency can be found HERE!

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7-6-2017 – by Sam Ombiri

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Suzy and Cecil – 7-6-2017 – by Sally Ingraham

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Joanie and Jordie – 7-6-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio

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Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in NewsTagged caleb orecchio, Connor Willumsen, Dash Shaw, Gary Panter, gumby, jay jackson, Kyle Baker, sally ingraham, sam ombiri

Sally Ingraham

Posted on July 6, 2017

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2/15/2016

Juan FernándezFebruary 15, 2016NewsThe comics world suddenly lost Alvin Buenaventura last Thursday. This time is a time of reflection. He left an incredible, indelible mark as a publisher and advocate of the comics medium in the early 21st century. His absence will be sorely felt. You can help keep his legacy alive today by reading any one of the great works he helped usher into the world from the Buenaventura Press + Pigeon Press catalogue. Buenaventura Press Boy’s Club 2 and 3 by Matt Furie Comic Book Holocaust and Klassic Komix Klub by Johnny Ryan Elvis Road by Elvis Studio by Helge Reumann & Xavier Robel Hunter and Painter by Tom Gauld Destined for Dizziness and The Neighborhood by Souther Salazar Yeast Hoist #12: Stop Thinking Start Sleeping Stop Sleeping Start Living by Ron Rege Jr. Spaniel Rage by Vanessa Davis Injury #1, #2 and #3 by Ted May, Jason Robards, and Jeff Wilson Boy’s Club #1 was published by Tim Goodyear’s Teenage Dinosaur. Comic Art Magazine issues 8 and 9 edited by Todd Hignite (2006, 2007) Kramers Ergot 6 edited by Sammy Harkham (2006) Kramers Ergot 7 edited by Sammy Harkham (2008) New York Sketches; a portfolio of drawings by Adrian Tomine (2004) Private Stash: A Pinup-Girl Portfolio by 20 Cartoonists by Robert Crumb, Adrian Tomine, Jaime Hernandez et al. (2006) Dawn by Phil Elverum (2008) The Complete Jack Survives by Jerry Moriarty (2009) Pigeon Press Incubation by Charles Burns (2015) In the Garden of Evil by Charles Burns and Killofer (2015) Worst Behavior by Simon Hanselmann (2015) The Libertarian by Nick Mandaag (2014) Facility Integrity by Nick Mandaag (2014) ECHO ECHO by Charles Burns (2014) Rest in peace, Alvin. Leslie Stein has a new comic up on VICE that recounts the second half of her recent, positive trip to Montreal. Good vibes in her diary. Open, airy reflection with juicy colors. Refreshing stuff that’ll warm right up. David Brothers has interviewed Zainab Akhtar over at Inkstuds. They talk about Mads Mikkelsen, Akhtar’s childhood experience with comics, what led to her critiquing comics, being focused on narrative, the community she has found herself in, serializing comics for others, friendship, a brief aside into Masamune Shirow, and much more. A particular highlight here is the questions they pose about the current landscape (or lack thereof) of active comics criticism across social media. No one is chiming in on the conversations that people are working hard to encourage and it drives them mad… [soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/246110878″ params=”color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false” width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /] If you want some good studio talk and a solid dose of traditional comics craft, go spend some time with the video of Pittsburgh’s own Ed Piskor that Heather and Rob Beschizza put together over at Boingboing. While drawing a Happy Mutant, he takes you through the tools of comics past, his “war chest”: zip-a-tone sheets, letraset, a Leroy lettering gadget, and the immortal spirit of great cartooning. He also muses on what it’s like to teach students who have spent all their comics making lives drawing solely digitally on tablets and the issues that can pose for their process later on. Speed is king ’round these parts. Bill Boichel riffs on camera on his Remedial Comics segment about the latest issue of the one and only Kevin Huizenga’s GANGES: Ganges #5 is a unique reading experience (well, unique outside of the Huizengian oeuvre, at least). Huizenga boldly commits exponential shifts in the temporal scale, weaving a narrative that stretches from a traditional panel-by-panel rendering of second-by-second shifts in mood during a domestic argument to experimental fractal depictions of the natural soil erosion cycles repeating over eons that build up and breakdown the earth in the course of millions upon millions of years; from the immediate to the eternal. The result is a work that succeeds (where others have failed*) in presenting both in a manner that effectively situates each within the other in an equivalence that brings to mind the title of Samuel Delaney’s classic science fiction novel, Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand (if not so much the novel itself). – Bill Boichel This latest effort is available for you to purchase over at Copacetic Comics. Share this page: [...]

01/04/2017

Juan FernándezJanuary 4, 2017los Cómics / NewsJuan con un poquito sobre Tenderete Fest XIII; Furillo, la vida de Núria Pompeia; Chicks on Comics en A long distance relationship; Power Paola;Un look a las Editoriales Colombianas enfocadas en los cómics; Para leer Al Pato Donald – Mass Communication & Colonialism; Joanie y Jordie de Caleb Orecchio; Suzy y Cecil por Sally Ingraham. Cómics y noticias que me han llamado la atencion: Hoy empieza @TendereteFest XIII a las 16:00 en @lasnaves en Valencia — Más Detalles. Conozcan a Furillo. Un tipo que está dibujando la historia al absurdo. Imaginate, Franco en la luna… Pues ese es el caso en Nosotros Llegamos Primero. Estilo Joe Sacco “bigfoot” con un gusto español… Elisa G. McCausland le da un vistazo al trazo lúcido de Núria Pompeia. Pomeia fallecio el pasado 25 diciembre. Chicks on comics,El colectivo internacional de historietistas en primer plano en El País! Después de ocho años de trabajo conjunto, toman ahora las paredes de la Fundación Proa de Buenos Aires para exponer A long distance relationship, diálogos entre el cómic y las artes. El viaje gráfico de Power Paola por Suramérica Isabela Ramirez nos cuenta del colorido diario de campo de Power Paoloa, Nos Vamos. Paola recorrio Suramérica durante dos años dibujando y escribiendo todas sus experiencias en sus libretas de apuntes. “Yo me fui editando poco a poco —explica Paola—. A lo largo de todo el recorrido hasta Lima (aunque ahí no terminó el viaje) estuve dibujando y escribiendo solamente lo que me parecía que debía dibujar. Mi edición no fue racional sino intuitiva. Todo es tal cual como es el cuaderno, no fue pensado”. Un look a las Editoriales Colombianas enfocadas en los cómics Go have a look at some of the movers and the shakers in Colombias flourishing world of comics publishing. There’s something for everyone in this collection of publishers. Como hay gente a la que le gustan las pantallas de computador, hay otra que sigue amando al papel en todo el sentido de la palabra. Aquí le dejamos algunas editoriales colombianas que hacen novelas gráficas, fanzines y libros. Para leer Al Pato Donald – Mass Communication & Colonialism This one is a throw back, but is well worth looking into if you haven’t before. How To Read Donald Duck (1972) by Ariel Dorfman (Argentina-Chile) and Armand Mattelart ( Belgium ), is a key piece of political literature of the seventies. An essay, or a “decolonization manual” in their own words that analyzed comic books published by Walt Disney for the Latin American market from the point of view of mass Marxist literature. Its main thesis is that Disney cartoons would not only be a reflection of the dominant ideology -the ruling class , according to the tenets of Marxism , but also be active and conscious accomplices of the task of maintaining and disseminating that ideology. It highlighted qualities of Disney characters and their world, notably that parents, or ancestors, generally were not present. Hay un desfasaje entre la base económico-social en que vive cada individuo y el estado de las representaciones colectivas, y es precisamente lo que asegura la eficacia de Disney y su poder de penetración en la mentalidad comunitaria en los países latinoamericanos dependientes » ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 1-4-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 1-4-2017 – by Sally Ingraham Share this page: [...]

07/27/2017

Sally IngrahamJuly 27, 2017NewsSam Ombiri on Gabrielle Bell’s Everything is Flammable – plus other comics and news! —————————————————————————————————— Sam Ombiri here: The reason for my enthusiasm for Everything Is Flammable by Gabrielle Bell is hard to pin down – but I’ll try! I liked how everything flows without interruptions. There’s a seamless transition between what’s going on in her head and what’s happening around her, in what’s treated by her as her reality. She doesn’t treat any incoming moment with more reverence than the last. I got a surprising amount from the book – I just expected to have some fun reading another Gabrielle Bell book, but I kept feeling a lot from panel to panel. I’d read it and keep reading it, and I’d savor it. Gabrielle throws you these incredibly insightful things about life, but they are given no more weight than what was happening earlier. What’s great is that they are open ended insights – ones that you as the reader continue to work out as her stories continue. There’s a part in book where Gabrielle is saying how she is wanting to go see if her Mom is alright after a house fire, but it’s so that she can be a hero – it’s really funny and speaks to the spirit of the book, that spirit of celebrating these minor victories. I’m addicted to reading them. The quests aren’t minor, but the triumphs aren’t a bigger event than those small, small moments of failure we might experience. Everything moment is given the same weight as far as the way they are portrayed. The stories in the comic aren’t desperate to build for “a moment”. For example, Gabrielle may have a part where she’s about to check on her mother after an accident happened, and she says “And I have to admit my own selfishness in wanting to go. First, to draw comics about it…” This attitude doesn’t show, exclusively, an attempt to exploit every possible event. Gabrielle tells very little and conveys a lot. Take the little things you love about people – you don’t have to escape into fantasizing and romanticizing these things about people. You don’t have to look too far to find them, every detail in life doesn’t always lead to a climatic ending. It’s consistent in Gabrielle Bell’s fiction and her auto bio that she seems uninterested in big endings or big conclusions, based on the work I’ve read. I think, as a result, there’s more of what I can believe in the reality that Gabrielle Bell portrays. Related to this: I’m thinking of Gabrielle’s segment in Tokyo! – the Interior Design part directed by Michel Gondry. In contrast to the rest of Gondry’s filmography, it felt like the most nuanced and layered portrayal of this certain (for lack of a better term) mysterious nature of life. Even Gondry commented, and this might be him speaking as a comics maker himself, on how much Gabrielle can convey in just one panel. – Sam Ombiri Get a copy of Everything is Flammable by Gabrielle Bell HERE. —————————————————————————————————— 7-27-2017 – by Sam Ombiri on the eve of Microsoft Paint’s passing – more info HERE —————————————————————————————————— Sally here – Ronald Wimberly did some character designs (above) recently for LeSean Thomas’ new animated short Children of Ether. The Blerdgurl writes: “What I think makes Thomas’ Children of Ether so significant is that not only is he an African-American artist and director who worked exclusively with a Japanese team to create Children of Ether, the main character, Rhonda, is also woman of color, a rare image in the world of anime.“ Read more HERE. —————————————————————————————————— Above is an excerpt from a comic about Abdi, part of a 14 comic series about various Somalian people published by PositiveNegative. “In collaboration with the Open Society Foundations (OSF) we produced a series of fourteen comics, based on personal testimonies, that highlight integration issues of the Somali communities across seven cities of Europe – London, Leicester, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Malmo, Oslo and Helsinki. The focus of the project was to accompany the OSF policy research on the same subjects and locations and to engage a wide, general audience and challenge negative media stereotyping of the Somali community.“ Read all of the comics HERE. Read about the Somali diaspora HERE. —————————————————————————————————— It’s the most wonderful time of the year! 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 – 7-27-2017 – by Gabriella Tito —————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 7-27-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

03/29/2017

Juan FernándezMarch 29, 2017los Cómics / NewsEmpezamos el dia con Katherine Supnem;Roberto Massó; Borlocomix; Emma Ríos; Fabian Rangel Jr y Alexis Ziritt; Amaru Distro; Desiree Rodriguez; Berliac; Sol Díaz Castillo y Marcela Trujillo; Manu Garrido y los tebeos del día! ————————————————————————————————— Cayo Cæctus nos presenta Katherine Supnem en Sacapuntas.cl (…) lo fundamental es comenzar a cambiar nuestras propias vidas autoconvocándonos y organizándonos junto a otras mujeres. Necesitamos grupos espontáneos de cómics y grupos dirigidos con una finalidad específica para el radical cambio cultural. Tengo las esperanzas puestas en los nuevos hombres, niños, niñas, mujeres, lesbianas, trans, intersexuales, queers, para una cultura no sexista, ni machista. El trabajo de Lady’s cómics es a punta de cañón, obteniendo recursos desde la propia autogestión, donaciones colectivas y fondos del estado para llevar a cabo este proyecto que rescata la cultura y la historia de las autoras de cómics de Brasil y latinoamérica. Si grupos/colectivos/eventos de este tipo no son imitados, vamos a perder nuestra historia y siempre será el relato de las vencidas (como los relatos de toda América Latina, que parten desde la derrota contra los españoles), siempre seremos las otras, las segregadas, las marginadas de la historia universal del cómic y para que esto no suceda, se debe rescatar con mente y acción arqueológica. No dejemos que se pierda la historia de la historieta hecha por autoras de cómics, por ello es necesario crear eventos bajo la tutela de mujeres. – Katherine Supnem sobre el 2° Encuentro de Lady’s Cómics – Belo Horizonte Brazil ————————————————————————————————— Roberto Massó presenta un nuevo cómic mural e inédito sobre la ciudad de Madrid inaugurando así la tercera exposición de la quinta temporada de La ciudad en viñetas. Massó presenta una visión múltiple de un día en Madrid, desde el subsuelo al cielo pasando por el asfalto, poniendo de relieve detalles y acciones, algunas imperceptibles y otras que siempre están ahí, pero nos pasan desapercibidas. Edificios, tráfico, gente, rótulos… todo se conecta en su particular visión de la ciudad. La inauguración será el próximo jueves 6 de abril en la 4ª planta de CentroCentro Cibeles a las 19h, y la exposición se podrá visitar de forma gratuita hasta el 2 de julio de 2017. ————————————————————————————————— “Si alguien me pregunta quien es el mejor dibujante de comics Venezolano mi unica respuesta es Carlos A. Etcheverry . Los demas son puros mamaguevos!” – Alexis Ziritt Eric Colón Moleiro entrevista a Carlos Etcheverry, dibujante venezolano feroz en Los Angeles: La película porno perdida que hizo su tía María Conchita en los años setenta, la supuesta homosexualidad oculta de su padre Robert, la leyenda de la hacienda Daktari y las razones que lo han llevado a renegar de su apellido. Carlos (Alonso) Etcheverry es venezolano y vive en California desde hace más de 15 años. Es artista plástico y autor de un comic que ha visto la luz gracias a la editorial R-ev inspirado en torno a un personaje surreal, suerte de arlequín perverso con ropa del altiplano llamado Borlo y asegura -en este entrevista exclusiva que es tan arriesgada como sus historietas- que en su casa se habla mal de Chávez, de su papá y de María Conchita también, por supuesto ————————————————————————————————— Cómics y noticias que me han llamado la atención esta semana: Entrevista con Emma Ríos – Emma Ríos comparte sus experiencias como creatriz de MIRROR and PRETTY DEADLY con Nadia Alamah de ComicsVerse. All new Space Riders is out!!! Hoy en EEUU!!! Coming at you full force via Blackmask Studio’s dynamic duo, Fabian Rangel Jr, Alexis Ziritt. Want to get your hands on this high voltage galactic transmission? Find your local comic shop using Comic Shop Locator or if you don’t have a local spot because you live on the moon, here’s more options: Black Mask Store + ComiXology. En 2014 Amaru Distro emprendio una gira vía tierra por Suramerica,con el objetivo de dar a conocer el trabajo de creadoras y creadores del fanzine de Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, Perú, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Brasil y Paraguay, ellxs cuentan como es la movida fanzinera en este lado del continente, desde su orígenes, contexto social y cultural, hasta la actualidad. Esta semana Amaru Distro compartió un teaser de documental, Fanzinogamia. Desiree Rodriguez interviewed by Greg Anderson-Elysee. Columnist and Editorial Assistant for Lion Forge‘s Catalyst Prime, Rodriguez has written for outlets such as: The Nerds of Color and Women Write About Comics in detail on diversity in comics and pop culture, Latinx representation, feminism, and sexuality. She is currently working as an Editorial Assistant on Catalyst Prime for Lion Forge Comics, coming out in May. Dig in! Berliac‘s got some new comics on Vice – Asian Food Store Junkies – S01-E05 This week’s all about secret origins… Fabian Rangel Jr.‘s new comics series “Helena Crash” gets a micro-review. It’s pulse pounding, caffeine fueled, sword swinging, machine-gun firing, car crashing sci-fi adventure comic. You know the type. Sol Díaz Castillo y Marcela Trujillo tienen una nueva edicion de La Polola Podcast! En este capítulo las chicas conversan nuevamente con Katherine Supnem, esta vez de su participación en el reciente festival de historieta que organizaron las amigas Chicks on Comics en Argentina. Taiyo Matsumoto o el placer de dejarse abrazar por un cómic. A good Spanish appreciation of the singular mangaka by Manu Garrido. ————————————————————————————————— La gran Vanesa R. Del Rey le ha dado permiso a Comics Workbook para publicar unas selecciónes de sus cuadernos de bocetos. Hemos diseñado esta publicación para que parezca uno de esos libros de de artistas los años 80. Arte y Entrevista. El texto es una transcripción de la entrevista que hicimos con Vanesa cuando visito la Residencia Rowhouse en 2016. Vanesa es un artista impresionante y inigualable. Puedes comprar una copia AQUI. Sigan a Vanesa por Instagram – @vrdelrey – y http://vrdelrey.com/ ————————————————————————————————— Blinkers – 3-29-2017 – by Jack Brougham ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 3-29-2017 – by Gabriella Tito ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 3-29-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

07/05/2017

Juan FernándezJuly 5, 2017los Cómics / NewsJuan here. In observation of Venezuela’s Independence day, no news for today. Instead I offer you an opportunity to look into and reflect on the reality of life in my homeland, Venezuela. We’ll be back in action, with everything you need to know about Latin American comics making next week! Behind the Protests in Caracas (VICE) Grocery Shopping during Venezuela’s Food Shortage (VICE) El dia a dia en Venzuela (Reddit) Venezuela is Starving (WSJ) “Una Guerra Ajena” (Luis Manuel Aguana) Venezuela declared it’s independence from Spain on July 5, 1811. July 5, 1811 – July 5, 2017. 205 years, the blink of an eye. ———————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 7-5-2017 – by Gabriella Tito ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 7-5-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

Connor Willumsen is having a screen print sale!

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