Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in NewsTagged brie moreno, caleb orecchio, pittsburgh comics salong, sally ingraham

Juan Fernández

Posted on January 2, 2017January 9, 2017

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Caleb OrecchioSeptember 3, 2018NewsGone fishing ———————————————————————————— We will be back tomorrow at our normal programming schedule. Have a good one! ———————————————————————————— Share this page: [...]

11/14/2016

Juan FernándezNovember 14, 2016NewsJuan here with the good stuff: Juan Fernandez on CAB 2016; Heidi Macdonald’s CAB recap; Ben Jones interviewed; Angela Stempel at the NY Comics and Picture-Story Symposium; Four takes on Noah Van Sciver’s Blammo #9; Eleri Mai Harris on the American election; CBLDF on Rayma Suprani. ————————————————————————————————— ⚡️I went to CAB with Jenn Lisa last Saturday. I had a ball and I wrote about my time here on the site. Seeing everyone come together in a gymnasium like that lit a flame that very few things are going to be able to stamp out in the coming months. I’m ready to face the coming winter. Gabe Fowler’s got the market place down to a science. So, naturally, I’m interested to see the ways in which CAB continues to evolve. Will it stabilize into being an amped up zine fest and wild style art book fair that focuses exclusively on the marketplace? Will someone step in to lend a hand to the team to develop some track of programming during the weekend or the week before? To return to it’s BCGF format. Does that matter? Who’s ready to step up to the plate? On the floor I heard some people discuss this being the last CAB. And damn, that’s a little pessimistic. For what it’s worth, CAB can’t be beat for a lot of reasons. Easy access via transportation. Trains, plains, buses, cars all make their way easily to NYC. For the most part either you know someone in the City or there’s an affordable place to stay for a night or two. The crowds are great. People are squeezing CAB into their busy Saturday. It’s just one of many things they’re doing so they bring an incredible energy into the space. Most people likely just heard that there was something cool with comics going on in that one church in Brooklyn. That’s a good place to be. Gabe’s curation can’t be beat. You wan’t to find the coolest books published in a year? You can’t do any better in the US than coming to CAB. Oh and people come ready to spend money. Real money. ————————————————————————————————— ⚡️Heid MacDonald shared her CAB Coverage over on Publisher’s Weekly. Her big take away was similar to mine: Though scaled down in Size, robust sales. Because the show was planned a bit later than usual, there were fewer debut books. Indie mainstays Fantagraphics and Drawn & Quarterly were represented by artists like Drew Friedman and Adrian Tomine, but did not have booths. Nevertheless the books that did make it sold out quickly, including several very limited editions from even smaller publishers, such as the third volume of Connor Willumsen’s Treasure Island, an experimental comic from Breakdown Press; and Charles Burns’ Free Shit from French art publisher Le Dernier Cri. Although the event served to spotlight the number of talented cartoonists who still call New York home, many of the same artists cited the difficulty of maintaining a small press comics scene amid the rising costs and rents of New York City. “It’s harder to have a scene when everyone is broke and stressed out about money,” Skelly observed. ————————————————————————————————— ⚡️ Ben Jones did a killer interview over on HyperAllergic with Nicole Rudick focusing on his recent exhibition at The Hole NYC. Very inspiring, very enlightening. It cuts across all artistic disciplines and argues for drawing as a fundamental practice in the 21st century. My words, not his 😉 Nicole Rudick: Are these paintings of new comics? Ben Jones: I want to give you the two narratives. There’s the concept of the show, which is hopefully how the audience perceives it and how I approached it creatively — to make a zine first and then to have a meta-art show where I’ve hung the “originals” from the zine. Typically, you’d show the originals in this way at a comic-con or a coffee shop or something like that. I intentionally wanted to present the show in that conceptual context, as a novelty. I took that to the furthest extent by adding the fake red dot you’d see at a coffee-shop art show, to indicate that the work had been bought. As a painter, I’m constantly chasing that magical, ethereal line or stroke or gesture that is half muscle memory or trance action. You get a lot of that with handwriting and with quick sketching. I’ve fabricated ladders and furniture and video installations that take months of concepting the installation and executing the animation. This is something entirely different — it’s a one-to-one connection with an idea or a drawing or a mark. There’s a narrative to a lot of these pieces and a linear way to think about them, but then we also get to think about comics and about the formal aspects of comics, because comics aren’t just linear storytelling and gags. There is a nuanced, visual-language fuckery that I think is important. Think of Saul Steinberg changing the way people draw in the 1950s or Robert Crumb in the sixties — there are one or two people who have really changed the way we think and draw and understand line drawing. So this is also me firing a shot across the bow. ————————————————————————————————— ⚡️ Have you seen Bill Kartalopoulos’s Instagram? He’s posting a lot of protest art from the last 50 yrs or so. Find something that moves you and research it. There’s extremely fertile ground in these images. ————————————————————————————————— ⚡️Eleri Mai Harris is coming back to America. Thank god. In this political climate, comics stateside need her more than ever. She’s got a new comic on identity, politics and patriotism over on the NIB. Don’t sleep on this Australian-American journalist and cartoonist. ————————————————————————————————— ⚡️ CBLDF on Rayma Suprani, Venezuelan Cartoonist’s Political Exile Rayma Suprani has long been one of the best-known and most fearless political cartoonists in Venezuela, but for almost a year she and her work have only been “in” the country virtually, through social media. After El Universal, the newspaper where she had worked for more than 20 years, was bought by anonymous supporters of President Nicolas Maduro in 2014, Suprani was fired in short order and eventually forced to flee to Miami where “I can be more useful because my creativity can flow without worrying.” Suprani had often skewered Maduro’s now-deceased predecessor Hugo Chavez and stood up to the oppression of his populist movement known as Chavismo, but journalist Cesar Miguel Rondon tells PRI’s The World that Maduro’s government is even worse: They behaved like punks on a street corner. You don’t have the rule of law here. Every single day it’s more openly the exercise of a dictatorship instead of a democracy. So, ‘we don’t like Rayma. Rayma, you should go.’ It’s as simple as that. ————————————————————————————————— ⚡️Angela Stempel on Picturing Worlds: abstraction, rhythm and “reality” in animated spaces. This Tuesday at the NY Comics and Picture-Story Symposium! In this presentation, Angela Stempel will present her works of experimental animation that explore abstract shapes, the dissolution of the physical form and of photographic certainty in narrative and non-narrative pieces. She will discuss her influences, contemporary work and how she deals with the representation of time and energy. ————————————————————————————————— ⚡️ Four Shots get fired at BLAMMO #9: Alex Mansfield, Daniel Elkin, Justin Giampaoli, Keith Silva blast through Noah Van Sciver’s latest release. Enter the dude zone, haha. It’s good to see a single issue of comics get unpacked to this degree. More of this, please! For the past decade, cartoonist Noah Van Sciver has been publishing his one-man anthology series, BLAMMO. Kilgore Books has recently released the latest in the series and we here at Comics Bulletin were so impressed with it that we knew we had to devote some time and energy into unpacking our reactions. Each of the following writers were tasked with choosing a single page or panel from Blammo #9 and use it as a platform for talking about the book as a whole. None of the writers read what the other was working on during this process (Ed. Note: Except for Elkin — he sees everything). As testament to the thematic unity of Blammo #9, the writers all ended up talking about the same ideas of spirituality, artistic integrity, and the human desire to connect. ————————————————————————————————— In case you missed it, our indefatigable Sally Ingraham started an eBay store to help out the Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency and also her own comics-making projects. Check it out HERE! ————————————————————————————————— until next time! Juan Share this page: [...]

12/03/2018

Caleb OrecchioDecember 3, 2018NewsCaleb Orecchio here with some brief thoughts on Kirby’s appeal. ————————————————————————————————— Caleb here. This past semester, I ran an after school comics club for first through fourth graders here in Pittsburgh. Something that I’ve been thinking about lately is that their favorite comics, of the ones I brought in, were far and away my reprints of Jack Kirby Marvel comics (followed closely by Calvin and Hobbes and Ditko’s Spider-Man). They were particularly taken with Black Bolt who made his way into several of the students’ own comics. I think this in part had to do with the fact that they had no previous frame of reference for the character. My students would just sit their and look at the Kirby covers as if they were relics of spiritual truth and mystery. Their is something primal about Kirby that can not be shaken. I don’t think it is controversial to say that Kirby tapped into some deep Jungian gold mine of archetypes. One could argue that this explains the ongoing popularity of his characters. Undoubtedly, Kirby, and the rest of the superhero creators, were participating in a long tradition of hero sagas that has existed since the earliest known literature. The early Marvel characters were fresh and still somewhat familiar. And they stay fresh and familiar in no small part due to the silver and TV screens. Still, despite the intensity and gravitas of the movies, these old comic books still stand as a vital testaments of imagination. I simply find it interesting that a bunch of kids who were hardly interested in anything other than Sonic the Hedgehog and Super Mario Bros. found these stories and pictures fascinating. ————————————————————————————————— Cement Mixer – 12-3-18 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

11/06/17

Caleb OrecchioNovember 6, 2017NewsCaleb Orecchio here with thoughts on Alyssa Berg’s risograph comics. PLUS! some insight into Alyssa’s process from the author herself!—and other news. ————————————————————————————————— I think Alyssa Berg’s current work is a step in the right direction for a modern day cartoonist—being an exploration in printing, risograph specifically, and how that process can present her comics in the best way a riso machine can. Alyssa makes painted comics that live online as photographs of the actual paintings, then “adapts” the paintings into risograph printed comics—the latter being slightly different than the former naturally due to how a painting transfers to this particular printing process. As a cartoonist, I can literally see her “thinking” when comparing the “actual” versions with the riso versions. Looking at her two versions of Alpenglow (winner of the 2015 Comics Workbook Composition Competition) I’m fascinated at the choices Alyssa made when “adapting” the paintings to print. At CXC 2016 I bought her first printing of Alpenglow, which was digitally printed. At SPX 2017, I bought the second printing, which is adapted to riso. Look at the differences below. The differences are interesting because both versions are good, obviously, but I find the riso version to be particularly intimate. Her paintings are beautiful, and I miss seeing the brush strokes and nuance of color the digital version provides, but the way the riso strips everything down really sings for me. For one, riso just flat out looks better than digital. Anything looks better than digital really. Second, the choices Alyssa makes are in service to the clarity of the image while also retaining the spirit of the painting (which we’ll get to in a second in Alyssa’s own words). This pruning of the work through the filter of riso really circumnavigates any distractions (though they are enjoyable) the paintings provide, and allow the reader a wholly immersive comics reading experience. I should be clear, I don’t necessarily think the painted version is better than the riso version, or vice versa; but it’s the fact that these very excellent comics exist in different ways is what is exciting to me. I asked Alyssa to give some brief insight into her process of adapting paintings to riso prints, and this is how she responded: “I started printing my painted comics last winter at the SVA RisoLab. I had this short-lived fantasy that I would be able to use a simple CMYK color separation in Photoshop to make faux-CMYK prints on the Riso. I realized quickly that while certain prints looked okay using this method, most of them came out with too much visual information/noise because of the texture & subtlety of the color mixing in the paint combined with the imperfect registration of the Riso. Also, registering the text with this method is not ideal. “Over the summer and currently during my residency at the RisoLab, I’ve been experimenting with ways to keep the integrity of the painting in the reproduction. I use a mix of “CMYK” in certain areas, spot colors with texture layers on top in other areas, and other spot colors without any mixing. This method reduces the noise and keeps the print painterly. The text is almost always one color so it’s crisp and clear. All of my color separation is done in Photoshop. I’m not much of a technology-person so there has been a big learning curve. By now doing color separation has become pretty intuitive, but still, I’m not always sure what the outcome will be. I like that little surprise. I rarely look at Riso color mixing charts/percentages. I rely on my knowledge of color mixing and grayscale from my painting background. I tried once to design a specific zine for the risograph & it came out kind of boring. It required too much thought while I was painting the pages and I prefer to not think in this phase! For now, I’m happier painting freely then putting in the hours on Photoshop.” Thanks Alyssa! If you want to pick up her comics, Alyssa will be at Comics Arts Brooklyn this weekend at Table K6. As a cartoonist, there’s a lot to learn from watching Alyssa transform her work for print. I highly, highly recommend seeking her books out, and compare the books to the paintings; she has most of them up on her site. I leave you with some pages from my favorite Alyssa Berg comic, Open Letter to Sleep. -CO ————————————————————————————————— if you don’t know, now you know Ron Wimberly and Beehive Books launched a Kickstarter for a newspaper magazine, LAAB Magazine. Two IDW imprints, The Library of American Comics and Euro Comics, have a podcast together. Tessa Strain reviews Garth Ennis and Goran Parlov’s follow up to their very popular and well-recieved Nick Fury comic. This time, it’s the Punisher. Not a link, but word around the campfire is Robin McConnell will be interviewing Chris Ware on occasion of his epic Monograph book for an upcoming episode of Inkstuds. So stay tuned. In other news, the latest Inkstuds episode features an interview with Cecil Castellucci and Marley Zarcone, the driving force behind a mainstream comic I like, Shade the Changing Girl. ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 11-6-2017 – by Gabrielle Tito ————————————————————————————————— Cozytown – 11-6-2017 – by Juan Fernandez ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 11-6-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio ————————————————————————————————— Share this page: [...]

09/01/2017

Sally IngrahamAugust 31, 2017NewsSally here with reviews of work by Sophia Foster-Dimino, Tara Booth, and Katie Skelly, plus other news worth knowing. ———————————————————————————————— I’ve been reading a PDF version of Sophia Foster-Dimino‘s new comic (sent out as an advance review copy), which is being released by Koyama Press in the next few weeks. It’s called Sex Fantasy and it is going to be lovely. It collects the mini comics she’s been making in limited editions for over 4 years, translating them into a little square book of 440 pages. Each page will contain a single panel, and perhaps folks will be inclined to zip through the book at speed but I recommend taking time to savor this one. Each “sex fantasy” is a poem which manages to capture something about human interactions, attractions, anxieties, and those brief moments of connection or total disconnect. The pieces are funny, whimsical, and sad, some all at the same time. I like Sophia’s playful, but elegant line. I made myself stop reading the PDF version since I want to thoroughly enjoy the book when it is released. If you’re curious to check it out in the meanwhile, you can see some of the pieces HERE on Sophia’s website. Be sure to look for the entire Fall lineup of comics from Koyama Press – new work by Connor Willumsen, GG, Noel Freibert, Patrick Kyle, and Hannah K. Lee! ———————————————————————————————— Tara Booth‘s How to Be Alive was part of the spring 2017 collection from Retrofit Comics, but it was only released in the past few weeks. I don’t always go for comics that go careening around a page without panels or a grid to contain them, but I do enjoy Tara’s work. The simple sequencing is effective, the gags are funny, and of course her color and patterning is exactly as loud and as bright as I like it. She captures what it’s like to be caught inside her body and emotions quite well. There is a sort of joy in her drawings and paintings, whether she is lying on the floor wracked with anxiety, popping a zit or cutting her bangs, or delighting in comfy PJs. Get a copy of How to Be Alive from Copacetic Comics. Check out more of Tara Booth’s work HERE and follow her on Instagram. ———————————————————————————————— Katie Skelly‘s new comic from Fantagraphics is a big hardcover that collects the series she started drawing in 2015. My Pretty Vampire tells the tale of Clover, a young vampire who escapes the imprisonment of her brother to seek freedom and blood. How she became a vampire and how her brother was involved is deliberately unclear, but to me that was the only truly intriguing part of the story. Katie is playing with the horror genre, making her pretty blonde play the roll of both virginal survivor and slasher, but the comic fizzles before the end. Clover evades the pursuit of her brother and his hired detective, manages to stay out of the sun, mostly, and kills a bunch of folks. There seems to be a thread of abuse and certainly the potential for revenge, but that remains just a promise. You can expect erotic episodes in Katie’s work, and this comic has its share, plus it features Katie’s first use of full color. She was inspired by the spot coloring in Barbarella by Jean-Claude Forest, and tried to go for the grotesque effect of almost overwhelming color (according to this interview on CBR). Maybe it’s because of the large format with lots of space, but the block coloring of the piece doesn’t appeal to me. (I just keep thinking about Photoshop’s paint bucket.) There are some interesting spreads, but overall I didn’t find this comic to be as strong as I’d expected. Of course you must judge it for yourself – get a copy of My Pretty Vampire HERE. NPR did one of their “cover crushes” on My Pretty Vampire – see what inspired Katie’s cover design HERE. ———————————————————————————————— Less Subjective News Emma Allen is the new humor and cartoon editor at The New Yorker. Artsy features a profile on her. Rob Kirby reviews Summer Pierre‘s Paper Pencil Life #5 on The Comics Journal. Julia Wertz offers an excerpt from her upcoming book – Tenements, Towers & Trash: An Unconventional Illustrated History of New York City, out in October – which provides a brief history of the Village Voice. Speaking of the Village Voice, they recently announced that they’re discontinuing the print edition of the paper after 62 years. Lauren Weinstein‘s strip Normal Person appeared in the print edition for over a year, but I think it will continue being published online – regardless, her most recent strip details what will be lost when the Village Voice is purely virtual. Jessica Campbell is publishing comics on Hyperallergic (I had neglected to notice before!) – her most recent one is about Gauguin… Hilary Brown reviews Mimi Pond‘s The Customer is Always Wrong on Paste. ———————————————————————————————— Comics Workbook is hosting workshops at SPX 2017 and I’m pleased to say that this year instead of running tech and passing out index cards, I’ll be doing that stuff PLUS leading a workshop myself, along with Audra Stang (the pair of us are pictured above). For a complete list of the workshops VISIT THIS SITE – and please signup in advance for the workshops you want to attend, as they will fill up quickly. ———————————————————————————————— Frank Santoro made a comic book about his parents and now he needs help making a handbound copy of the book for each of them. It’s a good story. Check out the Indiegogo campaign HERE – or if you want to contribute via PayPal, look at the campaign HERE. ———————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 9-1-2017 – by Gabriella Tito ———————————————————————————————— Share this page: [...]

01/02/2017

Posted on January 2, 2017January 9, 2017 by Juan Fernández

Juan here. New year. New comics. Hope you’re harnessing some positive energy around you to accomplish what’s important to you. I’m doing my best here in Pittsburgh, PA!

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Pittsburgh Comics Salon meets this week on Wednesday at Lili Cafe under Copacetic Comics. Can’t wait. If you’re in Pittsburgh, I hope to see you there, ready to for some comics making drills and exercises.

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Here are some comics and news that I think you should pay attention to:

The last issue of Kevin Huizenga’s Ganges – arguably the most mechanically inventive and robust 2 color offset comic of the early 21st century – is coming out this March via Fantagraphics.
Australians have put together a Minicomic Club you can subscribe to this year. $52 AUD for international shipping. $1/week for Australian comics. Think Oily Comics but 1 chunky comic instead 5 slim ones.
The Unofficial Cuckoo’s Nest Study Companion by Luke Healy is now online. Brilliant mix of narrative modes. If you liked Synechdoche, NY or anything in the Charlie Kaufmann vein. You’ll love this.
Simon Reinhardt: What if Saul Steinberg and Jules Feiffer occupied the place of R. Crumb and Will Eisner in american comics history? Juicy TwitterCrit thoughts on mainstream, yet non-dominant alternative strains of american cartooning.

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Forge Art Magazine‘s put out a nice little interview with Brie Moreno. Sit down, grab a marker or pen and doodle while you get to know Brie if you have a free moment. If you’re already hep to Brie’s work, pass the signal along so more people can appreciate what she’s up to.

I met Brie (AKA Booger Brie) and Matthew James-Wilson, editor of Forge Art Magazine at CAB this year. They were really kind and had the goods. Good people. This is important. I had questions about what they’ve been doing, and they were actually interested in my interest. No upturned noses. Thank you.

Brie’s got an exciting world of comics and zines that you can dive into. Honest and wonky ideas that flow and cross back and forth across her zines. Chunky lines that ooze and distort familiar forms. Chunky hyucks.

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Something a little different for you, from the Comics Workbook school store: Gary Panter generously donated these two seminal books – Cola Madnes, the long lost graphic novel that was to be published in Japan in the early 80’s, and 100 Drawings, where Gary documents many of his best commissions. This set is available HERE.

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Joanie and Jordie – 1-2-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio

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Suzy and Cecil – 1-2-2017 – by Sally Ingraham

We collected the Suzy and Cecil strips that Sally Ingraham and Gabriella Tito drew in 2016 (not all of which were published in the Daily News) and shared them HERE.

The series updates daily on Instagram – follow along HERE.

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Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in NewsTagged brie moreno, caleb orecchio, pittsburgh comics salong, sally ingraham

Juan Fernández

Posted on January 2, 2017January 9, 2017

Explore

10/05/2017

Sally IngrahamOctober 4, 2017NewsAdam Griffiths with an intro to his Cartoon Crossroads Columbus 2017 notes, Sam Ombiri on work by Jason Lee, and more cool items found in the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum! ————————————————————————————————— Adam Griffiths will be bringing us an extensive overview of Cartoon Crossroads Columbus 2017, starting later today. We offer a teaser now, in the form of his intro to what will be a 3-part series on the show. “A Comics Id is Tenderness : Notes on Cartoon Crossroads 2017 The first book I purchased on the expo floor at this year’s CXC was Kyle Baker’s. Earlier this year, I had seen Baker speak at the Schomburg Center in New York about his book, Nat Turner, to a roomful of kids. At the time, I had been struck by his ability to communicate; his engagement with the audience seemed intrinsically connected to his unabashed and explicitly mercantile use of language. Odd, how this seemed to captivate both his panel members and the audience, young and old. The persona of the salesman is an American motif – a motif that, under our current political climate, is being reduced to prideless status by the huckster in the Oval Office. When exactly did Americans need to believe that a good businessman’s success is dependent upon rhetorical violence and winner-take-all bullishness? I chose the term ‘A Comics Id is Tenderness’ for this write-up because Baker’s work revisited me several times during this expo. Over the course of the week, it became more and more clear to me that Baker has been a creator who has deftly championed the stories he feels are important to him alongside of his commercial work, who has kindly informed peers of his intentions, who brushes from shoulder the allegedly unforgivable concept of sacrificing creativity for financial gain.“ Wow. Adam’s report, like the show as a whole, is terrific. Look for the rest of the Part 1 later today, and parts 2/3 over the weekend/next week! ————————————————————————————————— Sam Ombiri here: At SPX Jason Lee, whom I see here in Pittsburgh every now and then, kindly gave me an installment of a new series he’s doing called Pyramid Inch (which appears in Sporgo 2, above). The title creates the feeling of a sharp, piercing, and somewhat distantly fading force. The comic reeled me in – it’s an amazingly accommodating comic. It’s a relief to read something like this. For a comic this rough, so to speak, to actually be this structured (and to have a narrative that flows with such ease,) to emerge in a setting like SPX, is great. Especially with my expectation of what might entail when I get a mini comic in a setting seemingly informed by a redundant sense of design. (Not just at SPX, but in a good amount of mini comics I see.) These rough drawings also work specifically well for Pyramid Inch. I’m grateful that the drawings don’t oversell the decadence that’s implied when the story is something like this: a character living in L. A. working on some art installation for Vice. With a setting like that, it would seem to demand that the design of the cartooning be a bit more posh, a bit more trendy and poppy. It’s very good that it doesn’t, because – as is written on the cover “a millennial gothic” – the dark underbelly is more readily apparent, especially towards the end where the main character is having a conversation. To clarify, this dark underbelly isn’t what excited me most about the comic. It feels like a perfect marriage in this case, where the art raises awareness to what would be otherwise hidden in a setting like the one in the story. This setting, by the way, is very alive, and I can understand why the characters are affected in the way they are. What’s more satisfying is that the art style isn’t announcing itself (not that it’d be a bad thing if it did). For the direction this comic is headed though, it’s what feels most needed – for the art style to not keep announcing itself and telling me to see the darkness through it. While the conversation toward the end of the comic is magnificent on the author’s part, the two characters’ conversation did test my patience. I was thinking to myself, “My god how long is this conversation gonna go on for?” That’s not to say that the conversation didn’t serve any purpose, or that I didn’t enjoy being forced to sit through it. It did tug on my heartstrings quite a bit at a certain point. It just feels that if the scene was redrawn another way it could’ve yielded a horrible reading experience. What I’m saying is that there are drawings I’ve seen Jason do that are way better than what’s drawn here in this comic, but evidently he didn’t make the comic based on the best drawings he could do – he prioritized the story first, and it yields much better results. It’s a really comfortable comic to read through, but the drawings don’t make it too comfortable to the point where it becomes unbearable to read. It’s also a really funny book. In fact it’s so funny that it doesn’t have to shove a gag down my throat every other panel, to remind me how funny it can be, at the expense of the story. Jason has been putting these comics out as Laura Pallmall, which is a pretty funny name in the most subtle way, and it’s emblematic of the humor in the comic. It’s also emblematic of the tone too – by replacing Palmer with Pallmall it simultaneously evokes a gothic feeling, and the mall part speaks to the idea of a valley girl, but it’s Laura Palmer who is a “valley girl”. Jason sets this tone by saying this “valley girl” version of Laura Palmer wrote this book – this book with fantastic drawings, sequences, dialogue, and a well told story. – Sam Ombiri Get a copy of this comic HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Sally here – above is a comic I found at the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum last weekend during CXC – it was part of the Tales From the Vault: 40 Years/ 40 Stories exhibit, which pulls especially interesting, groundbreaking, or controversial comics from a 250 year span of items in the museum’s collection. The comic above is a Luther strip, by Brumsic Brandon Jr., from 1973. Luther was launched the year after Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated (1969), and was one of the first nationally syndicated comic strips made by an African American creator that featured a black main character. The strip ran until 1986. Here’s a page of Krazy Kat, by the wondrous George Herriman, from 1943, also on view at the BICLM: ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 10-5-2017 – by Gabriella Tito ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie- 10-5-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

11/28/2016

Juan FernándezNovember 28, 2016NewsJuan here with Ghengis Con Cleveland Check in; Gou Miyagi; Suzanne Ciani; Appplications for the Santoro Correspondence Course. ————————————————————————————————— I was just in Cleveland with the CW gang at Ghengis Con Cleveland. Sally Ingraham, Caleb Orecchio, Frank Santoro, Jenn Lisa and yours truly. I had a great time. Lots of fun. I love my team. John “draw hard” G. organized a cozy, profitable afternoon of comics sellers. He did an amazing job for this special show. This is my third year attending. I grew up in Cleveland, so there’s something very personal about coming back to where I grew up annually. It’s a good rustbelt comics reunion.The local seasons cycle is nice. Healthy. Ghengis Con in Cleveland November as winter sets in. PIX in Pittsburgh in April as spring cracks apart winters icy clutch. I’ll be sharing my experience there with you later this week in my Ghengis Con 2016 Report. The who’s who, the what’s what and favorite books from the show. Stay tuned Got some great photos.Lots of smiling faces, good conversations, hot coffee. No news for today. This is more important. Watch this: Listen to this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73hRNJ0YkiM&t=395s Do your drills. ————————————————————————————————— Oh yeah, and don’t you forget that we’re still taking applications for the Winter term of the Santoro School Correspondence Course. Applications are coming in left and right, don’t get left behind! The Winter Semester of the Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers – course starts Dec. 29th 2016! 8 week course – 500 bux – 10 spots available – apply by Dec. 13th 2016 and get $100 off course fee! More details can be found HERE – or email santoroschoolATgmail. Santoro School Application guidelines: -3 figure drawings done on blank 3 x 5 index cards -3 landscape drawings done on blank 3 x 5 index cards -3 still life drawings done on blank 3 x 5 cards -draw in a contour line style – Think Matisse – no under-drawing – draw directly in ink -just send small jpgs of images – dont post to your blog pls -specific url links to any comics work you have done. Send applications to: santoroschoolATgmail Share this page: [...]

03/29/2016

Aaron CockleMarch 29, 2016NewsMarcel Broodthaers in NYC; Bernadette Mayer & Experimental Writing; PMF VII; FUCK OTHER FORMS OF ART; O Risograph, my Risograph! ————————————————————————————————— Belgian artist Marcel Broodthaers (1924-1976) is experiencing something of a renaissance here in NYC, what with the room devoted to his book work at the most recent New York Art Book Fair, a show currently at Paul Kasmin Gallery, and the expansive career retrospective now on view at the Museum of Modern Art. ————————————————————————————————— Bernadette Mayer’s List of Journal Ideas + Writing Experiments ————————————————————————————————— Aidan Koch @ Open Space + the Seventh Annual Publications & Multiples Fair (PMF VII), April 9-10, 12-6pm each day at the Baltimore Design School, 1500 Barclay Street. The fair is free and open to the public. ————————————————————————————————— Jef Czejak’s essay from 2001 about funding for comics projects within the art-funding community still has relevance. That whole issue of The Comics Journal, #238, guest-edited by Tom Devlin, is full of useful information. ————————————————————————————————— Risograph Tutorials on YouTube. There are some semi-slick, corporate videos that are kind of fun to watch, if you’re in to that sort of thing. ————————————————————————————————— SPECIAL NEWS ITEM Please consider supporting the Retrofit Kickstarter. They have an ambitious publishing schedule in place with an amazing group of artists producing high quality comics work. ————————————————————————————————— Share this page: [...]

06/21/2016

Aaron CockleJune 20, 2016NewsAaron Cockle with GG Comics; Aidan Koch Exhibiting; ELCAF Capsule Reviews; Susan Te Kahurangi King; Jason Shiga; Ink Brick 5; Hopper Process ————————————————————————————————— Unattainable by GG CW’s featured comic for this week, from 2015. All of GG’s comics can be read for free on her website (completed stories) and on her tumblr (in progress stories). ————————————————————————————————— The person you are trying to reach is not available Work by Aidan Koch & Ieva Kraule, at Hester Gallery in NYC, continues through July 3, 2016. ————————————————————————————————— Some quick reviews of comics purchased at the recent East London Comic Arts Festival Healy’s storytelling is superb. The book begins with a double page from each story, context free, before we travel back to the beginning of each. Gradually, connections emerge and the beautiful colouring does nothing to stem the slowly dawning horror as the conditions worsen. As the members of the 1921 expedition find themselves stuck on a deserted island, with crossing hundreds of miles of sea ice the only hope of escape, the discovery of bear skulls and the threat of scurvy reveal just how indifferent the friendly arctic is to humans. There are numerous brilliantly understated details throughout, and the fact that we know Blackjack has a sick child at home makes her plight all the more awful. This is a book with a strongly compelling narrative – the expertly timed switches between the three stories encourage you to keep going – and I found myself reading the book in a single evening. The artwork is terrific, with really effective use of colour, and although the influence of Chris Ware can be seen in the characters it’s certainly not to the extent where it becomes derivative. Healy is a very talented storyteller and artist, and this is a strong release. — via Pete Redrup ————————————————————————————————— THERE IS NO CENTER: Dan Nadel on Susan Te Kahurangi King at Edlin Gallery At first glance King’s drawings are unlikely candidates for the amount of press they’ve received, let alone a full-blown museum exhibition—we’re talking about small, cartoon-based pictures, all made using the same pencil-and-crayon techniques and often in scrappy condition. But compositionally, King’s pictures permit various points of entry, providing the viewer a license to interpret freely. We may recognize cartoon characters and humanoids, but the odd secret of icons like Woody Woodpecker, Bugs Bunny, and Daffy Duck is that, embedded as they are in our cultural memory, they read however we want them to—invested with historical meaning or as hollow masks, purely formal agglomerations of shapes. — via Dan Nadel ————————————————————————————————— Jason Shiga Interviewed at TCJ Why did you choose Risograph printing for this series? What is your process like? I bought a Risograph printer because I wanted to do a two-color comic and it’s the cheapest option. I do also like the way it looks. It has that really warm, organic feel to it. And when the registration is just a little off, it looks really sweet. I do my penciling with ballpoint pens. If I make a small mistake I’ll just write an “x” through the line and draw another one. There’s no need to erase it since it doesn’t show up in the finished art anyways. I draw my pencils on letter size paper, I blow them up to ledger size on a photocopier, and then I lightbox those and ink them with a brush and a pen. That’s pretty much it. For lettering I print out the letters in Photoshop so I can adjust all the kerning and get that right, and then I just trace over that with a Micron. Then, I do my coloring in Photoshop and call it a day. Something that’s always attracted me about comics is that you can buy all the raw materials you need to get started for five bucks. There’s no reason you cannot be a cartoonist! — Interview with Jason Shiga conducted by Jeanette Roan ————————————————————————————————— Ink Brick Issue 5 INK BRICK is a journal dedicated to comics poetry. This issue features work by 29 creators using the visual language of comics to make poetry. There’s also a special section featuring an excerpt from a forthcoming collection of Jenny Zervakis’s mini comics work, to be published by Spit and a Half and the Sequential Artists Workshop. Featuring original work by: Louise Aleksiejew, Kurt Ankeny, Nicky Arscott, Colleen Louise Barry, Aaron Cockle, Letisia Cruz, Allie Doersch, Shawn Eisenach, Winnie T. Frick, Mike Getsiv, Dina Hardy, CB Hart, Jason Hart, Aurélien Leif, Courtney Loberg, Maxine Marie, Antoine Medes, Laurence Musgrove, Myra Musgrove, A. Noreña, Thilini Perera, Ellis Rosen, Sam Ross, Alexander Rothman, Samplerman, Alexey Sokolin, Deshan Tennekoon, Paul K. Tunis, Jenny Zervakis. Front and back cover illustrations by Samplerman. Submissions for INK BRICK no. 6 are due Sunday, September 4, 2016. ————————————————————————————————— How Edward Hopper Storyboarded ‘Nighthawks’ These drawings are among 19 studies for Nighthawks, brought together for the first time, in a revelatory show now at the Whitney. “Hopper Drawing” deploys 200 Hopper drawings—part of a trove of 2,500 bequeathed by the artist’s widow, Josephine—to showcase the role of drawing throughout his career, from his life drawing classes at the New York School of Art in the early 1900s, to his travels in Europe and Paris from 1906 to 1910, to the studies he made at the Whitney Studio Club and beyond. (After closing at the Whitney on October 6, the show will travel to the Dallas Museum of Art and the Walker Art Center.) — via Robin Cembalest at Art News ————————————————————————————————— Share this page: [...]

09/16/2016

Sally IngrahamSeptember 16, 2016NewsSally here with more on SPX, the Spanish Fever crew, Dash Shaw, Glynnis Fawkes, and Lynda Barry. ————————————————————————————————— Around this time last year I had just moved to New Mexico, and I was missing Pittsburgh desperately. I spent the weekend of Small Press Expo somewhat frantically composing my comic Walkabout (which is all about Pittsburgh) and watching the various small dramas of SPX unfold via meager internet updates. A year later I will be attending SPX myself, bringing copies of Walkabout with me, and also a car-load of special zines made by Comics Workbook for SPX and Fantagraphics‘ 40th Anniversary celebration. Quite the switch-up! You can get a copy of the “Fanta-zine” when you register at the show – and a copy of my comic as well as loads of other cool stuff from Frank Santoro, Andrew White, Juan Fernandez, Audra Stang, Emil Friis Ernst, and others at the Comics Workbook table – N8. Observe the nifty map below so that this info imprints in your memory bank: ————————————————————————————————— The workshops that Comics Workbook is hosting at SPX have created quite a buzz, and may set the stage for more programming along these lines at future shows. We are particularly pleased to be presenting members of the “new wave of Spanish cartoonists”. A portion of the talent behind the new Fantagraphics compilation Spanish Fever arrived in the D.C. area on Thursday, kicking off their US tour with a public talk at the Former Residence of the Ambassadors of Spain, moderated by José Villarrubia. “Asked if there was some stylistic through-line that characterized this new movement, Villarubia said, “I see the influence of American independent comics, the underground, the influence of French comics, Japanese comics. In terms of the art, the aesthetics are influenced by what everyone else all over the world is being influenced by. I think more and more people are reading comics online and have access to materials from many different traditions. This work is informed by that. The five creators who are coming are a really great sampling of that, with different styles and age and gender.” ” – via dcist.com Spanish Fever editor Santiago Garcia is joined by David Rubin, Javier Olivares, José Domingo, and Ana Galvañ as the tour moves on to SPX this weekend. You can catch them at a panel moderated by Matt Madden and then learn to make comics THEIR WAY at the Spanish Fever workshop session on Saturday, Sept. 17th at 3-5pm (Brookside A&B room). See you there! I could keep talking about SPX, but there will be plenty of time for that next week… ————————————————————————————————— Meanwhile, Dash Shaw’s film My Entire High School Sinking Into the Sea is garnering praise from everyone who has seen it – No Film School sat down with Dash soon after the premiere at the Toronto Film Festival and dug into the production adventure: “NFS: The process of casting animators is in and of itself its own form of directing. Were you and Jane generally on the same page? How did you navigate when you weren’t? Shaw: Jane and I are married and we live together. When we were drawing this, it was a small apartment, so discussions from the movie would comically fall over into other aspects of life. It would be very long talks when there were disagreements about what a face would be like for a certain line. Somehow it would work itself out. Our marriage survived this movie. A great example: there’s a part where all of the characters are running and the background moves while they’re in silhouette. Jane does all the silhouettes. I did the collage paper that’s flying past them, and I think that’s a good moment to point to where it was Jane in full force juxtaposed with something that I did and it equals something that’s more than the sum of its parts.“ Read the rest of the interview here. ————————————————————————————————— Over on Mutha Magazine Glynnis Fawkes has a late summer harvest of comics about kids and adults and general weirdness. One such: Many more HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Lynda Barry has her 3rd New York solo exhibition opening this weekend at the Adam Baumgold Gallery. “The Marlys Show, from September 17th through November 5th…will be devoted to Lynda Barry’s beloved character Marlys, and will feature 80 original drawings. There will be work dating from the early appearances of Marlys in 1986 to watercolor drawings of Marlys from 2016, with stories from Barry’s books The Fun House; Come Over, Come Over; It’s So Magic, The Freddie Stories, and of course The Greatest of Marlys, which is being reissued this year in hardcover by Drawn and Quarterly. Also included will be many of Lynda Barry’s comic drawings that were published in Raw, The Village Voice, Esquire, Newsweek and The New York Times, among others.” -Adam Baumgold The opening reception is September 17th from 5-7 and promises to be a great party, although Lynda Barry claims she will be “smoking and drinking beer over in the corner and trying not to make eye-contact“…! More details about the show HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Today is the last day to apply for a spot in the fall semester of the Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers – DO IT! ————————————————————————————————— I’ll bid you farewell till next week and a very happy weekend and leave you in the joyous grip of the Dom Flemons Trio (who swung through Pittsburgh on Thursday to make a special stop mid-tour at Copacetic Comics so they could get the new volume of Hip Hop Family Tree by Ed Piskor!) Cheers! Share this page: [...]

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