Comics Workbook

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Juan Fernández

Posted on January 11, 2017January 11, 2017

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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: [...]

05/18/2016

Juan FernándezMay 18, 2016NewsJuan Fernandez bringing you: Gutter Fest #4; Inés Estrada’s Alienation #1; SAVE THE FANZINE; Feira Dente; El Día de Julio; y Para leer al Pato Donald. ————————————————————————————————— GUTTER FEST #4 – Fira d´Autoedició i de Microedició – It’s right around the corner in Barcelona, the 20-21 of May. Gutter Fest just released this promo videa… watch it. Full screen. Good luck making a promo for your zine fest fresher than this! Stay up to date with Gutter Fest over on their tumblr. ————————————————————————————————— Alienation #1 by Inés Estrada Estrada’s new science fiction series about the future, sex, love, virtual reality, paranoia and rock and roll! It’s available via her shop, GATOSAURIO. Dig into her work. ————————————————————————————————— SAVE THE FANZINE “Who knows their own story? Certainly it makes no sense when we are living in the midst of it. It’s all just clamour and confusion. It only becames a story when we tell it and retell it. Our small precious recollections. That we speak again and again to ourselves or to others. First, creating the narrative of our lives, and keeping the story from dissolving into the darkness…” Nick Cave, 20.000 Days on Earth SAVE THE FANZINE is a digital and online archive for self-published books. Not intended to replace the physical object, its purpose is to pay homage to the self-publising culture and to record these unique publications. It’s a killer record of contemporary zine making in Spain! Make an account and take dip. Water’s fine 😉 Check out SAVE THE FANZINE’s physical home, Sandwich Mixto, if you’re feeling adventurous today. Based in Madrid, they run a shop and workshop space that’s become a hub of Madrid’s self-publishing community. More on that in a future week. ————————————————————————————————— Passion and Militancy: the fanzine’s resistance as an art object. Madrid’s Libros Mutantes Zine Fest has prompted a little reflection on zines and their cultural significance in Spain over at El Confidencial. Smash that translate button 😉 ————————————————————————————————— Feira Dente Coming up in June in Brasilia, Brazil. Mark, your calendars for what’s to come! This is Dente’s second iteration. The programming schedule of workshops and More information to roll out, so keep it locked to their facebook and instagram accounts. ————————————————————————————————— Reseña de El Día de Julio Jesús Játiva reviews Julio’s Day over on Zona Negativa. Es esa capacidad magistral de plasmar en cien páginas cien años de historia familiar lo que hace esta obra tan buena: la muerte de muchos y el nacimiento de otros, la vida retratada en toda su miseria y también en su esplendor. Da la sensación de que Beto Hernández es pesimista, y parece caer en cierto fatalismo mostrando a todos y cada uno de los familiares bajo las más horribles desdichas y envejeciendo y engordando y volviéndose cada vez más feos. El contacto con la muerte y su presencia durante todas las páginas es constante, pero no parece Beto tan interesado en ese momento en el que dejamos de existir como en el momento que nos ha hecho lo que somos y nos ha marcado para toda la vida ————————————————————————————————— 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 » ————————————————————————————————— hasta la próxima, chiquillos, Juan Share this page: [...]

Comics Workbook @ SPX 2016: the Cartoon Workshops

Sally IngrahamSeptember 29, 2016Festivals and ShowsHere are just a “few” pictures from the cartoon workshops that Comics Workbook hosted at the Small Press Expo 2016! Check out the video of the full Cameron Weston Nicholson workshop HERE – more videos to come soon – stay tuned! ————————————————————————————————— Photographs by Juan Fernandez, Audra Stang, and Sally Ingraham Share this page: [...]

07/20/2017

Sally IngrahamJuly 20, 2017NewsSally here with comics and commentary from Black cartoonists on The Nib, work by Sophia Zarders, insights from Seren Sensei, and more. ———————————————————————————————— The Nib is running a series of comics called Revolution in Our Lifetime: Black Cartoonists on Life Under Trump. it features work by Ben Passmore, Shannon Wright, Keith Knight, Chris Kindred, Whit Taylor, Ronald Wimberly, and Bianca Xunise. Each artist has two 4-panel strips which stand on their own, but of course together paint a picture of individual but closely shared experiences. Above and below you can see excerpts from the strips – go HERE for the full piece. ———————————————————————————————— Check out work by Sophia Zarders – she is working on a graphic novel called Jesus Freak, and publishes a series of zines called Flossie/Dickie (above), among numerous other poster, mural, comics, and activism projects. ———————————————————————————————— On Nylon Seren Sensei writes about why black female critics are so important. She’s thinking about film, but her arguments easily transfer to comics, where criticism has long been the field of white men (along with everything else in comics…) Seren cites the clap back from black female critics responding to the new Wonder Woman film, which hit lots of marks for feminism but did little to combat “mainstream feminism’s disregard for intersectionality“, as Cameron Glover wrote recently for Harpers Bazaar. Seren concludes her article with this: “…not only does diverse criticism benefit tone-deaf white cultural producers, it also provides black artists with critique from people that actually understand their culture. The lack of diversity in critique has been a disservice to creators of color who often find their work bafflingly misunderstood, from restaurant critics to art and beyond. In a field that gives white creators far too much leeway and creators of color far too little, the rise of black women critics is a shift that will only benefit the entertainment industry—and its audience.“ Read the rest of the article HERE. For an interesting new journal of arts criticism from Black perspectives check out Arts.Black. And in the comics vein, Rob Clough kicked off a new series on his blog called “High Low Intersection” with guest writer Whit Taylor interviewing Miranda Harmon – check it out HERE. ———————————————————————————————— It’s the middle of the summer and a great time to go to “summer school” – check out thee Santoro School’s Handbook for Making Better Comics and dig into the project you’ve been dreaming about. Don’t wait! Do it now. Check it out HERE. ———————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 7-20-2017 – by Sally Ingraham ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 7-20-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

12/08/2016

Sam OmbiriDecember 8, 2016NewsWe’re here today with Johnny Ryan escapades, Alexis Zirrit colors, George Herriman’s new biography, and notes on Box Brown via Adam Griffiths. ————————————————————————————————— Sam Ombiri here: For all those Johnny Ryan fans out there, there’s this fun podcast called Bone Zone hosted by Davey Johnson (sometimes), Randy Liedtke, and Brendon Walsh (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmGAwNylqXA). It might get a little in jokey at times, so I don’t know how it sounds to a new listener. My favorite part in this episode was when they were calling a bunch of comic book shops and asking people if they had a bunch of imaginary titles. They would, at times,add little details here and there, so that the titles sounded more plausible. They would ask while trying to hold back laughter so most people couldn’t tell something was up, and there was a slight distortion in reality. They were greeted with skepticism – but then they’d add a small detail like “I think it was published by Oni press”, and then people who were familiar with Oni Press were suddenly way less skeptical. “We just got a bunch of Oni Press last week,” you’d hear the shopkeepers in the background yelling. “Yeah they’re asking for all these obscure titles – do we have Money Boys? or what was that other one? Cum Tuba?” To which Johnny would add, “Yeah, Cum Tuba by Chris Ware.” Then out of all this nonsense, this story about 3 brothers looking for comics, from a list that their sick dad had given them, constructs itself. At one point like 10 wild dogs begin chewing their sick dad’s comics. Some of these comics sound like a bunch of fun to draw – I’m really into drawing a comic called Money Boys, just basing off the multiple premises that come to mind when I hear the name. This episode of Bone Zone was also a good reminder of how I still need to read Prison Pit. There’s a lot of stuff that I always need to get to, but then I don’t. I like this thing that Brandon Graham (I think it was him) said – how, in comics, there’s just constantly great stuff being created, and that no one has all the time to read it all. He makes sure to note how you’d think he’d find it depressing, but it’s just the opposite for him. There’s always this thing of, when you discover something that possibly will be really rad, you want to preserve the little mystery of it. (Like how my listening to Chll Pll has been a nearly 2 year process, from it being recommended by a friend, to me listening to it slowly.) Maybe it’s a result of the immediacy of information in the internet, and “knowing” isn’t everything. Gary Panter said in this one talk that how physical mediums are fetishistic. I think that’s a good way of describing it, although I need to find a better word than “fetish” to describe things these days, just because of its modern definition – it only fits in the one context so then it’s forced to be used as a metaphor. This might not be a bad thing, especially for someone like Refn. I don’t know how to say this, but I’m reminded of how at the Oscars (which feel like a huge joke these days) when they present the animation awards, they use the extremely shallow depiction of animation – that you can “draw anything” and make anything happen, unlike in live action movies. It’s such awful thing to say. – Sam Ombiri ————————————————————————————————— Tyler Landry here, and it’s time to talk about Alexis Ziritt. Dude is a machine. Open up Space Riders at any page and feel your mind explode. BOOM! This is a serious action trip with all the trimmings, but what I want to focus on specifically is the colors. Flipping through my copy of Space Riders, a couple of things strike me, color-wise. First, this comic is vibrant. Every color that’s ever been imagined is in here somewhere. It’s fearless. The next thing that hits me is the way in which the colors CHANGE from page to page, spread to spread. Alexis uses different combos of straight palettes – where a suit is its own color, the flesh is its own color, the landscape is its own color, etc. But these are mixed with really intense moody scenes with light cast from viewscreens, explosions, or atmosphere. This is where the work really shines, in my opinion. Regardless of the approach, straight or moody, there’s great attention to how those colors help to move you through the work. Let’s look at some of this deep, moody shit: Both of these pages make extensive use of color as mood, and as focus. In the top image, the ship has taken damage, as has the morale of its crew – perfectly communicated with everything bathed in RED emergency lightning, punctuated with shots of YELLOW sparks. The crew members are only a slightly lightened version of that color, barely elevating them from their background. This helps bake the gravity of their situation into your brain as you read through the page. Then, as the discussion heats up, we’re treated to hints of GREEN glow from the viewer, exploding into a bigger viewscreen shot of a pile of angry aliens right outside – in GREEN. This color play from RED to GREEN = direct contrast, jarring change, intense move. On the bottom, again, an overall mood is set in hot PINK, but this one has a constant cool BLUE undertone, shown in the characters themselves, selectively. This creates a triangular slide, down which your eyes move, towards the edges…and it slams itself wide open in the YELLOW panel, where the characters heat up, and one darts across the page to meet the other in a devastating headbutt. Then, the scene pulls out and settles again, with nearly everything melting into the haunting PINK background – except for Capitan Peligro, cold and bold in BLUE, delivering a one-liner as tough as his nose-crushing blow in the previous panel. And – let’s not forget the burst and trickle of GREEN, reminding us just how significant this wound really is. – Tyler Landry Get a copy of Space Riders from Copacetic Comics – HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Sally here – The eagerly anticipated Krazy: George Herriman, A Life in Black and White by Michael Tisserand was released on Tuesday, Dec. 6th. Both the cartoonist and the biographer are originally from New Orleans, and a passing interest in George Herriman turned into a 10 year research project for Michael Tisserand after Hurricane Katrina nearly destroyed their city. ” “I had to teach myself to be an historian,” Tisserand said. “I didn’t anticipate the amount of difficulty it would be finding Herriman’s work.” Like a snake handler, Tisserand uncoils the confusing racial politics of New Orleans in the Jim Crow era, where the descendants of slaves and the descendants of so-called free people of color suffered segregation, discrimination and violence at the hands of the white population. As Tisserand explains, when Herriman was 10 years old, his parents fled the South for a new beginning in California, where personal reinvention was possible. As Tisserand wrote, “Herriman was a black man born in New Orleans.” But upon reaching the Pacific, Herriman’s parents “had obscured their identity and ‘passed’ for white.” Had they not done so, Tisserand points out, the creator of the immeasurably influential Krazy Kat cartoon could never have received the classical education that he did, found work in major American newspapers, or bought a home in the Hollywood Hills, owing to universal racism.” – via NOLA.com Read the rest of the above article about the book HERE. There’s another good piece in Gambit, HERE. And The Wall Street Journal names Krazy Kat the “most ingenious strip of the 20th century“. In addition, there is a great “Konversation” with Michael Tisserand over on The Comics Journal – check it out HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Adam Griffiths interviewed Box Brown recently for his ‘Zine Tree” series. They talk about Brown’s work (his newest book is Tetris: The Games People Play) and how he chooses his stories. AG: Three works of yours, Andre the Giant, Powerman, and Tetris, all seem to grapple with the theme of unconventionality, aspiration and conformity? If you agree with that to any such degree, how would you say you choose the stories that you tell? BB: I think that’s been my life experience. I identified with Andre as the person that had to operate on the outskirts of life. I think he felt like he was an outsider. I think for the early part of my life I felt that way a lot. Of course in high school but then I kind of still suffered from identity issues into my 20’s. It wasn’t until I discovered making comics that I discovered who I was. Until then I never felt like I fit in, but outwardly strangely I had figured out how to fit in. It just always felt like an odd fit. Read the rest of the interview HERE. Adam Griffiths is a cartoonist from the D.C. area who will be joining us at the Rowhouse in Pittsburgh for a Residency early next year. Be sure to check out more of his work HERE. ————————————————————————————————— The Winter Semester of the Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers Starts December 29, 2016. 8 week course, $500, 10 spots available, apply by December 13, 2016 and get $100 off course fee. Email santoroschoolATgmail for more details! ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 12-8-2016 – by Sally Ingraham Share this page: [...]

01/11/2017

Posted on January 11, 2017January 11, 2017 by Juan Fernández

Juan con un poquito sobre las Tetastristes; Reconciendo Amanda Baeza y su gran obra Nubes de Talco; la estética de la distorsion;Laura Barrachina entrevista a Conxita Herrero, Joaquín Guirao y Antonio Hitos; Un Faulduo en el foco; Tarantula Preview; The Art of Vanesa R. Del Rey; y tiras de Gabriella Tito,Caleb Orecchio, y Juan Fernandez.

Cómics y noticias que me han llamado la atencion:

“Las Tetastristes se toman el puerto” – La colectiva de ilustradoras y autoeditoras feministas Tetastristes Cómics estará por primera vez en Valparaiso, en una intima variete de actividades en la casa de Me lo dijo unx TRUEK ubicada en Cerro Concepción, Valparaiso el 1/14. Va haber un montón de actividades, como exposición y venta de material de las Tetastristes Cómics y de lesbilais, además de otras artistas visuales porteñas feministas y revoltosas. Para más información:
David Romera de FNAC reseña Nubes de Talco de Amanda Baeza. Esta obra, originalmente publicada por la editorial Fulgencio Pimentel, ya llegara al mundo anglohablante: kuš!komiks is set to translate Amanda Baeza’s Brume (Nubes de Talco) into English this February! Now the global english speaking community can experience Baeza’s tour de force in poetic, abstracted yet cartoony, work of emotional autobiography.
Bañate en la estética de la distorsion con Pablo Turnes en la Revista Kamandi.
En la ultima edicion de La Hora del Bocadillo en RTVE Laura Barrachina entrevista a Conxita Herrero, Joaquín Guirao y Antonio Hitos. Una hora de jovenes promesas…

Sebastián Martínez ha compartido con Comics Workbook un gran tesoro postmoderno escondido: Un Faulduo.

Joder, que genial. Dale un momento y ponte a explorar su website. Tienen de todo!

Formalmente, Un Faulduo es un colectivo de investigación y experimentación alrededor del campo de la historieta, conformado por Nicolás Daniluk, Ezequiel García, Nicolás Moguilevsky y Nicolás Zukerfeld. Sus colaboraciones hacen un recorrido interdisciplinario que abarca las artes visuales, el cine, la música, las artes escénicas y la literatura.

Nicolás Daniluk, Ezequiel García, Nicolás Zukerfeld y Nicolás Moguilevsky – trastienda de las “ADAPTACIONES ACADÉMICAS II: Historieta y disidencia” Buenos Aires, 2012

Un Faulduo es el nombre de la revista editada por el grupo. Lleva 10 números realizados desde 2005 y mantiene, desde su aparición y hasta la actualidad, un sistema de rotación de directores (cada número es dirigido por un miembro diferente del staff, lo que obliga a cambios de formato, contenido, técnica). / Un Faulduo is the name of a magazine published by the group. Ten issues have been released since 2005, and each one is led by a different member of the staff, forcing changes in format, content and technique.

Han publicado un libro a la vez tradicional y de vanguardia, La Historieta En El (Faulduo) Mundo Moderno. Pop-Collage-Noise-Fanzine-Deconstructivistas. Al fin del cabo, el libroe, es un ensayo visual, que viene desde la tradición de la escritura visual de John Berger.

Libremente inspirado en el mítico ensayo “La historieta en el mundo moderno” (Oscar Masotta, 1970), este libro realizado por Un Faulduo (colectivo de investigación y experimentación alrededor del campo de la historieta, formado por Nicolás Daniluk, Ezequiel García, Nicolás Moguilevsky y Nicolás Zukerfeld) se propone pensar la relación entre el lenguaje de la historieta y la forma del ensayo, tomando los propios materiales de la historieta como materia prima para su producción y como una forma que permite analizarse y pensarse a sí misma.

Han oido las buenas noticias? Ya pueden pedir Tarantula a todo color! AdHouse esta publicando este primer volumen de la novela policíaca, psicodelica y a la vez satanica del equipo Alexis Ziritt y Fabian Rangel Jr. y Evelyn Rangel. Si no has leido Tarantula te daremos un antojo: aquí tienes tu preview.

Hoy les presentamos una nueva publicacion de Comics Workbook:
The Art of Vanesa R. Del Rey.

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 tu copia AQUI.Order a copy of The Art of Vanesa R. Del Rey HERE.

Frank Santoro, el director de Comics Workbook, nos cuenta un poquito sobre sus experiencias con Vanesa:

Me encontré por primera vez con VRDR en un festival de cómics en Toronto (TCAF) en 2014. Había empezado a hacer comics profesionalmente después de un período como un animadora. Fui Sorprendido por su la capacidad de ser como un camaleón de cambiar de estilos, y por su puesto le pedí ver más de sus obras.

Desenterró pilas de cuadernos de dibujos de sus días en Cuba, cuando estudiaba el realismo soviético y de trabajaba con George Pratt, maestro de cómics pintados. La educación de Vanesa como artista hace el balance suavemente entre los niveles alto y bajo del arte, así como los valores estéticos del este y el oeste. Es una base asombrosa. Ella es, a la vez, consciente de la historia del arte, la historia de los cómics y la historia de la animación de una manera NUEVA que casi parecía imposible hace quince o veinte años.

Debo admitir como un estudiante y fan de cómics que se enfocan en la mezcla de “alto y bajo” y en ” los cómics pintados” — Nunca he visto tal mezcla de habilidades al nivel de VRDR. Feroz. Imparable. Un competidor feroz. Michael Jordan-esque? ¿Es eso posible en la fabricación de cómic? Siempre he dicho que habría un “invasor vertical” en los cómics que podría emplear el “naturalismo” de la escuela de Noel Sickles / Alex Toth pero que podría pintar como una Alice Neel o una Jenny Saville. Creo que “el invasor” ha llegado en forma de Vanesa R. Del Rey.

Puedes comprar tu copia AQUI.
Sigan a Vanesa por Instagram – @vrdelrey – y http://vrdelrey.com/

Suzy and Cecil – 1-11-2017 – by Gabriella Tito

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Joanie and Jordie – 1-11-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio

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1-11-2017 – by Juan Fernández

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Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in News

Juan Fernández

Posted on January 11, 2017January 11, 2017

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The Drawing Power Report (2013)

Juan FernándezMay 15, 2016Festivals and ShowsThis article was co-written with Simon Reinhardt. It originally appeared at Dog City Press. This past weekend a couple of us from Dog City trekked down from Vermont to Pittsburgh, PA for the Drawing Power conference at the Carnegie Museum of Art. The museum setting established a wonderful tone for the conference. It was a breath of fresh air to go to an intimate event with such a clear focus on discussing comics. A big thanks is due to Jude Vachon, zine librarian at the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh. Vachon was the core organizer of this event and responsible for steering it toward such a success. The days events ran from 10 AM until 5 PM. Each panel was a jam packed 45 minutes. The first panel of the day was moderated by Bill Boichel, owner of the Copacetic Comics Company. It focused on the idiosyncrasies of the local Pittsburgh comics scene. The panel consisted of Lizzee Solomon, Andy Scott, Paulette Poullet and Nate Mcdonough. The panelists spoke about their experiences self-publishing and the role that the Pittsburgh community played in their work practices. Scott spoke about his anthology, Andromeda and the restructuring of the publication in late 2012 from a monthly to a quarterly format. Solomon spoke about cartooning being at the core of her multi-disciplinary work practices while Nate McDonough retold the beginnings of hisGrixly publication. McDonough, Solomon and Scott spoke of their times drawing together during the early issues of Andromeda and the competitive one-upmanship that their drawing parties would foster. The panel explored the inroads that the four cartoonists had made into self-publishing and the external factors in their lives that had driven them to continue to self-publish in Pittsburgh. Following the Pittsburgh cartoonists panel, French cartoonist, Boulet (Gilles Roussel) , author of the 24-hour comic Darkness took the stage to give a lecture on the evolution of his cartooning practices. He spoke about streamlining his creative process and the increased emphasis on improvisation that he had developed in his work. He spoke about working with Joann Sfar and Lewis Trondheim on the series, Dungeon along with the exquisite corpse comic, Chicou Chicou, that he developed with several French cartoonists. The aim of Chicou Chicou was to create a fictional “auto-bio” group comics blog. The cartoonists would pass strips back and forth over the internet adding pages until they were complete. Each of the cartoonists involved created a persona and crafted a drawing style that suited their character. Boulet played a small, geeky girl named Ella. Besides discussing the subtleties of drawing stories from the perspective of a female character, Boulet talked about the harassment he received online when writing under a female pen-name. He reported receiving unsolicited love letters and invitations on dates and noted that when he got into disputes people would ask “are you on your period or something?” At the end of his talk, Boulet spoke succinctly of his influences and of his current project, a 200 page improvised story in which he is neither pencilling nor scripting. He showed several of the 60 pages that he’d completed and the audience was in awe. Freelance writer, illustrator and graphic designer, Joan Reilly then took the stage and talked about her work editing the forthcoming feminist anthology, The Big Feminist But. Joan presented the book’s contents and the genesis of the project. The Big Feminist But arose from Reilly and O’Leary’s attempts to learn why so many of us, women and men, couch discussions around feminism with the phrase “I’m not a feminist, but…” or “I am a feminist, but…”. They decided to embark on the journey of making a comics anthology as the first step in starting a conversation about the issue. The result is a promising book that features “graphic musings on life, love, lust and liberation,” by talents such as Jeffrey Brown, Gabrielle Bell, and Lauren Weinstein. The book’s list of contributors is especially notable for including a number of couples working together, as well as single men and women. Reilly mentioned that a number of Kickstarter backers expressed their gratitude that men were involved with the book as well– an observation that highlights The Big Feminist But’s drive to create an expansive and inclusive conversation about feminism. Subsequently, John Porcellino, took the stage to talk about the story of his life of zine-making and distribution. He talked about the story of King Cat, and the Spit and a Half zine and comix distribution service. Porcellino touched on his artistic development and the early years of King Cat (focusing on the first 50 issues, collected in King Cat Classix). Porcellino has created books, comics, and publications since he was 7 or 8, and was creating zines for years before he discovered Factsheet 5 and learned that other people were doing it too. He read some highlights from early King Cat issues and talked about his work processes and goals in creating that work. One revelation from this portion of the talk was the influence of Marvel’s monster comics from the 50s and early 60s. While the relationship between these fantastic stories and Porcellino’s chronicles of everyday life might not be immediately apparent, Porcellino emphasized the drab, repetitive nature of the monster stories as well as the alienation of their typical mad scientist protagonists. “As an artist I’m very interested in repetition and boredom,” he said. Porcellino also talked about the sales and distribution history of King Cat, which was instructive for the many self-publishers in the audience. Gesturing to the cover of the first issue of King Cat to be sold in stores, Porcellino noted the 35 cent cover price and remarked “in true zine fashion, I probably charged 35 cents because it cost me 36 cents to print.” He also talked about his history of working bizarre or menial jobs to support his comics, and pinpointed King Cat issue 42, which he wrote, drew, and edited entirely on company time, as “the point I became a professional cartoonist, because I was being paid to draw comics.” Porcellino spoke about his interest in the idea of real life and the ineffable experience of being alive. One thing he mentioned—and we think this is a big part of what makes King Cat so special—is that he tried not just to describe the event of his experience, but to communicate the feeling of that experience. Porcellino characterized the subject matter of his comics as “this weird feeling I had… the underlying mystery in every moment,” a description we think King Cat readers will agree is quite fitting. Caitlin McGurk, librarian at the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum moderated the following panel on self-publishing. Porcellino remained on stage to join Ramsey Beyer, Rachel Masilamani and Bill Boichel to chat about their experiences self-publishing in the United States. Similar to the first panel of the day, the panelists spoke of how they’d found their way to comics and more generally towards self-publishing. Masilamani recounted first encountering zines through Christina Kelly’s zine of the month column in Sassy magazine. She spoke about the experience of receiving the Xeric grant and the consequences that it brought along with it. It allowed for her to get her first comics into the world and to hit the ground running with her first collection of RPM, but from the get go she was on her own. The panelists thoughts on the pricing of mini comics were particularly interesting. Not surprisingly, Boichel as a vendor and Porcellino as a distributor had a lot to bring to the discussion of the relationship between self-expression and the commodification of desire. Boichel mentioned that artists sometimes come to him with $20 minicomics, reporting that they sold a lot of copies in New York, but he knows they won’t sell at that price point in Pittsburgh. Beyer emphasized the importance she placed on the ethics of the production process and mentioned having worked with 1984 Press in Oakland California. Boichel, suggested that aspiring cartoonists always pick someone to write to; a friend, an acquaintance, a stranger, someone. By thinking of their audience’s interests and their budget, they could be more likely to create works that would move through the world more freely. Dash Shaw followed the self-publishing panel. He began his talk by showing some recent animation work. One of the most striking animations that he played was the music video,Seraph, which he had made in collaboration with Frank Santoro and other artists for Sigur Ros’ valtari film experiment. Shaw took the audience through a brief survey of his cartooning work, starting with his three current publications– the minicomic New Jobs, published by Uncivilized Books, the pamphlet3 New Stories, and the graphic novel New School, both published by Fantagraphics– and working his way backward to the mammoth graphic novel Bottomless Belly Button. One through-line of Shaw’s talk was his thoughts regarding line and color. “I could talk about color forever,” he said, and it’s hard not to get excited by his original and distinctive ideas. Many of the pages Shaw showed from New School use color in ways that are entirely divorced from traditional comic book coloring. Shaw rarely uses colors to simply fill out the drawing, preferring instead to use the collision between the color and the line-art to create meaning and emotion, often in oblique and subtle ways. This unwillingness to spell things out directly for the reader was evident in Shaw’s discussion of line and drawing as well. He spoke of being inspired by David Mazzucchelli’s idea of the “dumb line,” (which he describes in more detail here) and by trying to push back against the conventions of “good” illustration. “So much illustration is about telling people what something is and how to feel about it,” Shaw said, adding that he wanted to make drawings that don’t tell their reader how to feel. He also spoke about his fascination with the house styles found, among other places, in manga and Archie comics, speculating about an ideal, impossible Archie style. In Shaw’s conception, even the best Archie artists fall short of this Platonic style, and their own personal style would be the accumulation of their failings at achieving a true Archie drawing. All in all, it was a dense, stimulating talk, and we can’t wait to dive into New School and read it with the attention Shaw’s work demands. The final panel of the day, “A Career in Comics” was moderated by Caitlin McGurk and featured Jim Rugg, Ed Piskor, Frank Santoro and Dash Shaw. The fluidity of the discussion was really satisfying. Without much effort it hopped from discussions of style (and avoiding “style”) to explorations of narrative collapse. Of course, a highlight of the panel was the discussion of the differences between making money around comics and making money in comics. Career development and survival were recurring topics, and every member of the panel had a different way of approaching making a living as a cartoonist. The common thread was work ethic and hustle. Santoro half-jokingly described himself as “basically a used book dealer at this point.” Rugg spoke about doing design work and also discussed the Flight School fellowship , a professional development program for Pittsburgh artists he recently participated in. To see the comics medium getting the attention of an established institution like the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh and for it to occur at the Carnegie Museum was inspiring. Here’s hoping for more small events around the country with this level of intimacy and intensity of dialogue. all in all, you could say… Share this page: [...]

Juan Fernandez @ CAB 2016

Juan FernándezNovember 14, 2016Festivals and ShowsComic. Arts. Brooklyn. 2016: Comics, zines, prints. A shmorgasbord of color. A dazzling display of print. The 2016 Comic Arts Brooklyn (CAB) presented by Brooklyn’s Desert Island Comics was held on Saturday, November 5th. Organized by Desert Island proprietor Gabe Fowler, this marks the fourth year that the show has been called CAB and the eighth year of the show, which was originally called The Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival. Gabe has turned the fest into a well-oiled machine and this year featured satellite events the day before and the day after the Saturday exhibitors showcase at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Church. Friday saw Altcomics 8, a night of music, live comics readings, and art hosted by 2dcloud, along with the opening of Buzz Saw, an exhibition of art from the Sequential Artists Workshop. Sunday saw Color Giants, the Brooklyn Animation Expo, which was held in conjunction with Art Brooklyn Fireproof. Screenings were programmed by Kenneth Filmer. There were no panels or artist spotlights this year. A bummer in some ways, but given the last minute green lighting of this year’s CAB, it makes sense to not have wanted to rush programming only to wind up with subpar panels. I exhibited as Comics Workbook and tabled next to the great Julia Gfrörer and Sean T. Collins, alongside Patrick Kyle(and Lala Albert who set up shop at Patrick’s table towards the end of the day). The Comics Workbook table consisted of myself, Jenn Lisa, Ronald Wimberly and Simon Reinhardt. I thought it was a wonderful show. Rumors had been going around earlier this year that it wasn’t going to happen. Well, IT HAPPENED! A huge thank you to Mr. Fowler for the last minute opportunity to exhibit at this year’s CAB. Comics Workbook got word late in the week that there was a need for another exhibitor. Of course, we agreed to go. You don’t miss CAB. We hunkered down prepared a wide array of comics to bring to the good folks of New York. Unfortunately Frank’s car had been giving him trouble all week and was in the shop. We planned everything carefully. I would leave with Jenn Lisa and haul what I could. He would get it out of the garage Saturday morning and he would book it to make it in the afternooon Saturday to catch the second half of the buzzing show. Unlike Frank though, I can’t haul short box after short box of comics in my VW Bug… We had to decide what would go first and then did some intense tetris outside the Rowhouse Residency to fit in as much as we could. We slammed the trunk and hauled ass to NYC! Frank would bring the rest in the morning. Jenn Lisa and I hit the road, spirits high. We arrived early Saturday morning, got some shut eye and then booked it for Our Lady of Mt. Carmel in the morning. I was worried about parking, so Jenn and I took off to set up as early as we could. Frank’s taught me how critical these kind of considerations are for making these exhausting days fall into place. We lucked out out and found a spot right in front of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel. Unloading and setting up was a breeze. We were tabling next to Patrick Kyle, Lala Albert, Julia Gfrörer and Sean T. Collins. Good folks. I told Jenn to get ready, because CAB’s prime time is 11-1:30. A choc-a-bloc that builds to a fever pitch. Everyone’s oogling and oggling round that time. Most attendees hope to make a full tour of the show before breaking out their wallets, but within that first hour I heard that attendees just couldn’t wait on buying so-an-so’s latest book or zine. They knew that things were going to fast. We sold a Truth Zone within the first 20 minutes of the show. That set the tone for the show. It was wonderful to meet so many people. Lots of people were familiar with what we’d been doing over the past year in Pittsburgh with the house and with the residencies. It emboldens the spirit to know that what we’re doing is rippling out. A HUGE shout out to all former students that came by and traded your books with us! You know who you are <3 Jenn and I brought a lot of our own books and were excited to share them with New Yorkers. I sold out of my zine I Can See the Birds, which was awesome. What else sold well? Connor. Willumsen. This is his show! Everyone was asking for his stuff. We sold out of all the copies of Swinespritzen that we brought which was a real thrill. That Connor… The great Ronald Wimberly stepped up to the plate at 2PM to do a signing and the fans start piling up. He brought the goods. While his fans waited, to chat with the shinobi himself, they dug through our shortboxes. We riffed on the primo comics Frank had curated. It was a good time. They found some 80s gold. No one curates a small selection of comics like Frank… Ron had brought the Artist edition of Prince of Cats, the Attack on Titan anthology he was in and Something Wicked This Way Comes. Ron is one of the most exciting comics makers I can think of right now. His blade cuts across a thousand forms. He gives his fans, new and old, the attention they deserve while he signs. It was a real honor to work by his side on Saturday! Image did right by this edition of Prince of Cats. It’s glorious. Lots of people asked for Frank. In the end his mechanics in Pittsburgh let him down. This CAB was lacking in it’s requisite levels of Santoro. Alas! For all of those who left messages, rest assured, we passed along all the memos to Frank. There were so many amazing books of all shapes and sizes. Here are some of my favorites: Lale Westvind’s Breakdown Press book, Hax Anya Davidson’s Gloom Planet Alabaster Pizzo’s Mimi and the Wolves Act 3: The Howl Conor Stechschulte’s new self published print masterpiece, Christmas In Prison. Richard Short’s Klaus Magazine 2 On a personal level, I was especially startled by how many people were familiar with my own zines and comics. Comics Workbook has been sharing some of them through our social media network over the past year, but I never expected people to be hep to my work just yet! The reach that the blog and the social media network has is really inspiring. There’s still some viral mystery to it all… CAB is such a whirlwind of a show. It’s definitely the New York City atmosphere. It all just goes by so fast. It was busy. Sales were solid. There are so many comics festivals these days (curated and non-curated) that I know for a fact that I can’t handle more than regional shows around Pittsburgh and the heavy hitters around the East Coast. It’s a delight to end the season with CAB, you leave inspired with work that invites you to pore over it all winter long. I firmly believe that the most interesting, and arguably pioneering comics makers are all in a room at CAB(some come every other year). Wish that I could have gone around and interviewed people about their work! That’ll be for next year. I wound up holding down the fort at the Comics Workbook table. The comics weren’t going to sell themselves 😉 Towards the end of the show Simon M. Reinhardt arrived to hold it down and I was able to make the rounds. Thanks Simon! Here are some photos of only a few of the many amazing people I bumped into. Gabe’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. I think it’s been year of a lot of change for comics shows. A new regime of shows is definitely falling into place. CAB showed that it is definitely a part of that new regime. As a show, it does what so few comics can do. It’s got the verve of Montreal’s legendary Expozine. When it comes to art comics and accessible art from the outer limits – It can’t be beat. Mr. Fowler’s extensive knowledge of “what’s happening” in comics comes directly out of his experience as a retailer and it’s clear he curates the show like he curates his store. Desert Island is a great store which serves its community. In my eyes, it’s a must stop for an any all comics pilgrims that travel along the East Coast. I urge everyone to go to CAB next year. It’s a different show than TCAF and a very different show then SPX and CXC. Whether you are a maker or a reader, it’s good to go to them all if you can. It bears repeating – to soak up all these shows and to be at the epicenter of new work and current conversations – YOU DON’T NEED TO BE EXHIBITING. Just pack your bags, grab a bunch of your zines and hop on a bus. While you’re there, give away some books, maybe trade some, take some photos and notes! You’ll come home with lots of ideas and inspiration. There’ll be a lot of new encounters with other makers known and unknown. These shows are where it all happens. You get to meet the authors who are making some of the most amazing work in the world at the moment. Worth it’s weight in gold. -can’t wait for next year, Juan Share this page: [...]

09/06/2016

Aaron CockleSeptember 6, 2016NewsAaron here today with the Composition Competition Awards; Sophie Yanow in the Dakotas; Shaw/Nadel on U-tube; some pioneers of the comic strip; Kirby injustices revisited ————————————————————————————————— Congratulations to ALL who created and submitted work for this year’s Composition Competition contest! First Place – $500 cash prize: Cameron Nicholson – For a Lack of Better Words Second Place – $250 credit at Copacetic Comics: Shee Phon – I Know It’s Not About Me, But I Don’t Want To Die Third Place – $100 credit at Copacetic Comics: Cameron Arthur – Oasis Honorable Mention – $50 credit at Big Planet Comics: Lisa Wilkinson – The Last Time I Saw Tate; Janne Marie Dauer – Blame It On the Night Moves; Luke Howard – Extragalactic; Niall Breen – Śūnyatā Special Prize – $25 credit at Copacetic Comics: Lina Madöry – Reflection No Prize Shout Out!: Jillian Fleck – I Got A Job; Phillip Dokes – Falling Congratulations to the winners and all of those who participated. ————————————————————————————————— Sophie Yanow is covering the Dakota Access Pipeline protest at the Nib: ————————————————————————————————— The Strand bookstore filmed last week’s conversation with Dash Shaw and Dan Nadel In support of Shaw’s recently released Cosplayers book, for your viewing/listening enjoyment. ————————————————————————————————— Some updated exhibition info for the Pioneers of the Comic Strip show on view at Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, through September 18: With an extensive exhibition, SCHIRN presents the pioneers of the comic strip, who set the artistic and substantive standards of early comic strips in an experimental and progressive way. This also highlights the relationship of comic strips and colorful newspaper supplements with the developments in visual arts at the time. The SCHIRN presents the cultural history of the comic strip in an outstanding series of selected works, primarily by American illustrators: Winsor McCay, Lyonel Feininger, Charles Forbell, George Herriman, Cliff Sterrett and Frank King. ————————————————————————————————— Asher Elbein writes about Jack Kirby’s history with Marvel Comics at the Atlantic: In the mid-1970s, Congress revised the laws around copyright, offering longer periods of ownership for copyright holders—if the proper paperwork could be provided. Marvel realized that many of its previous contracts were legally questionable, remnants of the comics industry’s fly-by-night origins with regards to creative work. In 1978, the company began handing out freelancer contracts that guaranteed the company “forever all rights of any kind and nature in and to the work.” As Michael Dean wrote in a 2002 issue of The Comics Journal, these “work for hire” contracts were partly a result of the superhero boom Kirby himself had a hand in creating. “It wasn’t just monthly comic books that were at stake any more,” Dean wrote. “It was the vast ancillary potential of licensing and merchandising the content of those comics.” The contracts legally formalized what had previously been loosely assumed to be corporate policy, but having it in writing gave many comics freelancers pause for thought. When Kirby got the contract, he refused to sign it and left Marvel for good. Share this page: [...]

05/24/2018

Sally IngrahamMay 24, 2018NewsSally here with a Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency Report from Jason Robinson! ———————————————————————————————— Jason Robinson is a comics maker, illustrator, and graphic designer living in Asbury Park, NJ. He joined us in Pittsburgh early last summer for a weeklong Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency. When Jason arrived, he mentioned that he had brought along a few “housewarming gifts” – these turned out to be several boxes worth of kitchen gadgets, pots and pans, a tea kettle, and other goodies for the Rowhouse that future residents and the more long-term resident cartoonists have made delighted use of. This generous gift was just one among many ways that Jason showed his support for the Rowhouse Residency, and if Frank and the rest of the team was able to give him anything in return we are grateful! It’s a treat to revisit Jason’s time in Pittsburgh through his thoughtful and entertaining residency report – here’s an excerpt: “Day six was filled with daydreams and the jotting down of enough story ideas to last the next five years. In many ways, I feel like I was just getting revved up and here I am at the end, hoping I have the discipline to continue this trajectory or at least ride this wave for a long while. Because only now have the chaotic thoughts begun to settle on the floor of my brain. And I’m able to calmly wander through, picking up bits and pieces, and notice how some seem to connect—to join together like pieces of a puzzle. I joined Frank and Sally for dinner on that last night. And a bit drunk on wine, I tried to convey this feeling by paraphrasing a similar concept I’d read somewhere about a scientist explaining that “it may not look like I’m working when I’m staring off into space, but what I’m really doing is constructing a 3-dimensional puzzle in my head—piecing together bits and bytes of information, and that takes time and focus to carefully construct this puzzle in my mind’s sky so that it may stand on it’s own. So, please don’t interrupt me, or you risk the pieces of the puzzle caving in on each other, imploding into a cloud of ash.” …Fortunately, Frank has a better and much more succinct iteration in his back pocket – “When I’m working, you may not see it, but I’m welding here. I have a helmet on, and my mitt, it grips a fucking torch-of-fire. So stand back, or you’re in danger!” I’ll close with some unsolicited advise to future residents: You don’t have to chain yourself to the drawing table. Of course you may, and obviously there can be great benefits to doing so, I only argue that there are other equally constructive ways to make use of this time you’ve carved out for yourself. Paradoxically, doing “nothing” may be exactly what’s needed to do the next something.“ Read the rest of Jason Robinson’s Rowhouse Residency Report HERE! For more info on the Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency please visit this page or email santoroschool@gmail.com ———————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 5-24-18 – by Audra Stang Share this page: [...]

06/13/2017

Aaron CockleJune 12, 2017NewsAaron Cockle here today with The ClairFree System; Pope Hats; Blind Spot and Black Paper; The Republic of Samsung; Printer Steganography ————————————————————————————————— ‘Here, she explains the inspiration behind her images and what she hopes readers to take from her work.’ Sally linked to this piece this past Friday, Claire Landsbaum asked Jillian Tamaki to dissect some of the panels from her story ‘The ClairFree System’, which is included in Tamaki’s new book, Boundless. Tamaki talks about incorporating found objects into the art-making process: This is another sculpture from the Art Gallery of Ontario, but the original artwork was just the child — I created the rest. A lot of this story is about reframing context: taking a classical sculpture or a photograph, which is a specific instant in time, and stripping it of its information to make it universal, which is what I did here. The image itself is about someone’s hopes and dreams for their child — about everyone’s idea of a great parent, which is that they can give their kid everything they want. I’ve heard people say that a new child is a pure, unsullied human being who hasn’t ever made a bad decision — that they’re without sin. I find that extremely hopeful. I don’t have children, but I would imagine the desire to prolong that state is an emotion every parent feels. ————————————————————————————————— ‘I keep returning to this notion: that the best feeling in the world is working really hard at creating something with no guarantee of a positive outcome.’ Ethan Rilly talks about his process for making Pope Hats #5, over at the AdHouse Books blog: Enough people have asked me whether I’m a lawyer that it might be useful to answer here: No, and I never was. Never stepped foot in a law firm. This story might be autobiographical in all the regular faintly embarrassing ways but the lawyer stuff is a good distance outside of me. I did research and interviews. ————————————————————————————————— ‘I pray to Tarkovsky, Marker, and Hitchcock.’ Teju Cole will be exhibiting work June 15-August 11 at Stephen Kasher Gallery in NYC, photos and text from his new book, Blind Spot, as well as an installation piece, Black Paper. The exhibition features over 30 color photographs from the series Blind Spot, each accompanied by Cole’s lyrical and evocative prose. Viewed together, these works form a multimedia diary of years of near-constant travel. In these photographs, we see what Cole has seen, from a park in Berlin to a mountain range in Switzerland, a church exterior in Lagos to a parking lot in Brooklyn; and we are drawn into the texts—which function as voiceovers—with which Cole complicates his already enigmatic images. At stake here is the question of vision, an exploration Cole began following a temporary spell of blindness in 2011, and which he presents here in a photographic sequence of novelistic intensity. The exhibition also presents Black Paper, a visceral photographic response to Cole’s experiences following the election of November 2016. This continuously evolving, large-scale work explores buried feelings, haunted space, and all that can be seen through darkness. ————————————————————————————————— “ABOUT MY WORK AND MYSELF AND ALL THE REST I USED TO SAY:/,” “I HAVE NOTHING TO SAY AND I’M SAYING IT:.” As a continuation of its online Net Art Anthology exhibition, Rhizome features and discusses Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries’s piece, Samsung. The piece Samsung addresses the complex nature of the corporation—its existence not only as an economic entity but also as an emotional phantom, reaching its incorporeal fingers into relationships, daydreams, and fantasies. The text of Samsung, demonstrating many of the formal qualities of poetry, is interspersed with conversational breaks that establish intimacy with the viewer. The tone becomes conspiratorial as the narrator asks, “CAN/I CONFIDE/IN YOU?” There is no option to decline. The viewer is rendered complicit in the narrator’s confession of their adoration of Samsung. ————————————————————————————————— ‘The printouts contained invisible dot patterns added by the printer to identify the worker who sent the print job’ I posted about Video Steganography, the imbedding of hidden information within electronic files, a few weeks back. Recently, the Boingboing blog posted a piece about one of the ways the National Security Agency was able to determine the source of leaked information about potential hacking involving the Russians in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, by examining the hidden dot patterns that are used with color printers. There’s been much speculation on exactly how NSA leaker Reality Winner was exposed after giving The Intercept documents that showed the extent to which the security agency suspects Russian meddling (previously) in last year’s general election. On one hand, the filing against her talks of the “creases” seen in the scans The Intercept posted, tipping them off to it being a workplace printout from an insider–an insinuation of casual sloppiness on the reporters’ part. On the other hand, it seemed clear Winner did everything at a work computer anyway and was surely doomed once the story came out and internal investigations began. ————————————————————————————————— A Cosmic Journey – 6-13-2017 – by Cameron Arthur ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 6-13-2017 – by Gabriella Tito ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 6-13-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

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