Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in los Cómics, NewsTagged caleb orecchio, gabriella tito, juan fernandez

Juan Fernández

Posted on January 18, 2017January 25, 2017

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Juan FernándezOctober 24, 2016NewsJuan here with Comics Workbook’s ongoing CXC and LICAF coverage; my own thoughts on strip cartooning; HTML Flowers’ No Visitors – Issue One; Anya Davidson interviewed by Paste Magazine; a shout out to Good Comics by Kim; The Economist takes a look at the power of comics journalism; a Pepe oriented call to action from Matt Furie; Robyn Chapman soliciting stories about challenges or financial woes tabling at North American comics shows; Comics Assistant Professor Job opening at CCAD. One week out and we’re still thinking about CXC on our end! It was a hell of a weekend. Reports and thoughts seeded by CXC have been coming in left and right. I’ve wrangled them all for your convenience. Check them out and if you like what you read, consider making CXC part of your comics adventures in 2017. Here’s what we’ve got for you: The collective blow by blow take on the CXC experience, think of it as a Master post, if you will! Sacha Mardou’s personal CXC adventures Juan Fernandez’s (me ;)) CXC-inspired thoughts on expanding the “comics festival toolkit”. Kurt Ankeny’s post-CXC thoughts Alyssa Berg shares her first convention experience Caleb Orecchio’s detailed and hilarious tale of his CXC experience CXC 2016: 3 Questions for the Crew ⚡Frank and Niall Breen have taken some time to reflect on their experiences in Kendal during the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. You can check those out here to find out why if you’re anywhere near the UK, you’re going to want to add LICAF to your comics appreciation schedule next year. The Lakes International Comic Art Festival 2016 report by Frank Santoro Niall Breen on LICAF 2016 ⚡ On my end, I’ve been thinking about 4 panel comics. A lot. Reading them, drawing them, teaching them… Through all those thoughts,one that I keep coming back to is that of openness of narrative. In today’s cultural landscape of fractured narrative and more broadly the idea of narrative collapse, I’m finding I’m interested in constellations of narrative. Non-linear experiences through a narrative world. Just as how comics creates fertile liminal spaces between panels, it’s my belief that comic strips have the potential to foster inviting spaces between individual strips. No large structures, just small moments. Some link together. Many don’t. Think Cul de Sac, Moomin, Macanudos. All that said, I’m excited to announce that come Mid-November I’ll have a weekday comic strip going live online. I tried the experiment of Daily Comics from 2013-2014. But I fell off that horse. That was at the Center for Cartoon Studies. After I graduated from the Center for Cartoon Studies I had to transition back into a more regular pattern of life. Life’s commitments made it very hard to find that time. I’ve used these past two years to work on different forms and to experiment with technique. I realized that when it comes to comics, I’m here for the bliss of creation. The strip is where I feel that bliss most strongly. I’m ready and I hope you are too! ⚡ It’s exciting to see that The Economist is running a piece on the power and vitality of comics journalism in the current news media environment. It’s great to see the ascendancy of work like Sacco’s and Glidden’s happen real time. Comics journalism is nothing new. It has been around for decades, kept alive by such talented artists as Joe Sacco, who has used the medium to depict everything from a war-torn town in the Gaza Strip to the Eastern Bosnian war. But it has only been in the last few years that it has really started to find its place in the mainstream media. The Nib, founded in September 2013, consists entirely of comics, many of which contain journalism and non-fiction. It has published more than 2,000 works on its website and released a popular 300-page book of its best offerings. The Cartoon Picayune has been around even longer—since April 2011—and showcases a variety of comics journalism online as well as in its yearly publication, which it offers to readers for $4. Even some of the more established publications, such as the New York Times, are making use of the format. In May, it published Patrick Chappatte’s moving five-part piece that takes an in-depth look at the lives of four death row inmates. It is surprising, in the age of tight newspaper budgets and the 24-hour news cycle, that comics journalism is thriving. Ms Glidden says it’s because “it can make people stop and take notice.” Everyone is constantly bombarded by so many images and text that they can simply grow numb to all of the information being thrown their way. It helps that comics journalism is still novel to many people; its format encourages people to take an extra minute to fully consider the information being presented. ⚡ I wanted to share a short and sweet letter from Matt Furie: Dear friends, I need your help making positive pepe the frog memes to battle against evil trolls: Please make a kid-friendly pepe in your style and send it to me at: hashtagsavepepe@gmail.com I’m creating a positive pepe artist database, so include your name. also, please share nice pepe’s with the hashtag: #savepepe thanks! -matt ⚡ Don’t miss this juicy interview with Anya Davidson over on Paste that goes into her work on Band for Life! Paste: I think that love for your characters really shows in the work. A lot of these characters—and it was what really struck me about School Spirit, which was the first work of yours that I encountered—already feel distinct and fully formed when you first meet them. I’d be curious to know more about your process, especially for something serialized like this. How much do you plan, how much just comes from working with them for a few strips, etc.? Davidson: I had a story arc for Band for Life, but I wrote the strips week to week. It kept the project fresh and spontaneous. Sometimes I’d write a few weeks ahead when I knew there was a thread I wanted to draw out. I had a lot of fun working that way. Lovers in the Garden, the book I just finished for Retrofit Comics, was scripted start to finish before I put pen to paper. And my next book is going to be fully scripted, too. For a graphic novel, in my case, just so I can keep everything straight, and so I can hone dialogue, I really prefer scripting. But the strip form uniquely gave me the freedom to improvise. Every cartoonist has their preferred methods—there’s no right way. As far as character development, all my characters are me. I went to see George Saunders speak and a woman asked him how he was able to write the adolescent girl so well in his short story “Victory Lap,” and he said, “Because she’s me.” I also think about people I know: their mannerisms and speech patterns and personal histories. So all of my characters have elements of friends, acquaintances and myself put in a blender. And I like to drop people into stories as they’re happening. I want people to feel like they’ve been dropped in a world that is fully formed—like the story started before they got there. I think that’s most engaging, most surprising. ⚡ If you’re a comics educator that is looking for a new opportunity, check out this job opening at CCAD – Assistant Professor – Comics & Narrative Practice, Illustration ⚡ I want to give the great Robyn Chapman of Paper Rocket Comics a signal boost for her “poll”. She is looking for your thoughts about challenges or financial woes tabling at North American comics shows. She does a great job at compiling small press and minicomics trends in her zine, The Tiny Report. Hey, micro-publishers. I’m looking for a quote or two about the challenges of tabling at conventions. I’d be happy to hear numbers or about financial woes. You can remain anonymous. Please PM me in the next few days if you’re interested. robertaraechapman@gmail.com ⚡ I want to give a shout out to Good Comics by Kim Joo Ha. <3 Kim’s always turning me onto the good stuff via their posts. Kim makes it easier to find art comics and wild zines in this crazy fractured hyperactive internet mediated comics landscape. What a godsend… If you don’t follow their twitter or the Good Comics by Kim blog, I’d check that out. I don’t know how they stay on top of everything, but that doesn’t keep me from appreciating their eye on comics or their writing… Don’t sleep on Kim! Until next time! Juan Share this page: [...]

04/27/2018

Sally IngrahamApril 26, 2018NewsSally Ingraham here with comics by Sophia Foster-Dimino, Glynnis Fawkes, and Rachel Masilamani; a Swedish canon of female cartoonists; plus much more! ————————————————————————————————— The Eisner Award nominations have been announced, and Sophia Foster-Dimino‘s comic Small Mistakes Make Big Problems, from the Comics for Choice anthology edited by Hazel Newlevant, Whit Taylor, and O.K. Fox, has gotten a nod in the Best Short Story category. You can read the whole comic HERE. Another noteworthy nomination is Nick Sousanis’ essay on Karen Green, Columbia’s first curator for comics and cartoons, which appeared in Columbia Magazine last year. You can read A Life in Comics: The Graphic Adventures of Karen Green HERE. Check out the numerous other Eisner Award nominations HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Juan Fernandez pointed me toward a powerful dissertation by Swedish visual communication design student Stina Sandström, which digs into feminism in Sweden and how comics play a role in the continuing discourse on gender performance there. Looking specifically at three female cartoonists – Liv Strömquist, Sara Granér (her work pictured above) and Nina Hemmingsso – Stina Sandström focuses on how they work independently and yet imitate and expand on each others work, together creating a unified voice that is having an increasingly profound effect on popular culture and cultural norms in Sweden. “The success of these comic artists is reliant on their notion of Sisterhood. They have responded to the fragmentation of feminism by recognizing the power of coalition: that the search for essential female unity is not of gender identity, but of sexual afﬁnity. They’re connected in the realization that current representations of women’s roles, status, as well as the female body are all affected by gender norms which are growing stronger by repetition. By experimenting with 48 sexual transgressions and trying on a variety of gender costumes they try to break and disrupts repetitive gender performances. They have realized that by imitating and expanding on each others work, they share the burden of communicating the entire feminist story. These women make up a choir that, unlike the second wave of feminism, do not make up one united voice but rather sing in canon. A canon is a musical technique where an initial melody is imitated and expanded on by others at different intervals creating a wall of sound without interruption. As one singer takes a break to inhale there are others to ﬁll the gap and so the canon can continue in an endless loop. Like a canon these comic artists’ voices ﬂood the media landscape with provocative female identities and carnivalesque behavior without interruption. They keep repeating them until they lose their provocative nature and start to feel acceptable.“ Read the rest of The Carnival Grotesque: Representations of femininity in Swedish feminist comics HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Glynnis Fawkes takes Charlotte Brontë to yoga. What a concept! It makes for a good comic – read the whole thing on Spiral Bound. ————————————————————————————————— The Lines Drawn collective has a new installment of their project up on MUTHA Magazine. Part of a comic by Rachel Masilamani is pictured above. The collective states: “We are parents and teachers using comics to illustrate how we feel as adults responsible for the care and safety of children and youth in an age of continued school shootings. We hope our comics add momentum to the groundswell of students demanding solutions to end gun violence, not only in schools, but as related to police shootings of people of color, and the criminalization of African Americans. The collective includes Emilie Bess, Adam Bessie, Amy Camber, Sarah Romano Diehl, Ellen Forney, Robyn Jordan, David Lasky, Meredith Li-Vollmer, Mita Mahato, Rachel Masilamani, Annie Murphy, Amy Ongiri, Marc Parenteau, and Rachel Scheer.“ This installment, posted on the anniversary of the Columbine High School Shooting, includes comics by Ellen Forney, Rachel Scheer, Sarah Romano Diehl, Adam Besie and Marc Parenteau, and Rachel Masilamani. See them all HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Extra! Extra! The New York Times weighs into the conversation on the “new” Nancy, as envisioned by Olivia Jaimes – HERE. At The Comics Beat there is a “hits” version of the Nancy buzz – and the anticipation for the reveal of Aunt Fritzi is getting out of control…! Six cartoonists look at immigration – on The Nib. Graphic Novel TK talks to Annie Koyama about her life as a comics publisher – listen HERE. Sloane Leong talks to Nivedita Sekar about her upcoming comic Your Mother’s Fox – on The Comics Journal. I haven’t been reading Natasha Alterici‘s Heathen, but after skimming this article on the upcoming film production, I feel like I need to start. A “lesbian Viking comic” about a gal named Aydis “who is intent on ending the patriarchal and oppressive reign of the god-king Odin“…? YES PLEASE! ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 4-27-2018 – by Sally Ingraham Share this page: [...]

08/30/2018

Caleb OrecchioAugust 30, 2018NewsCaleb Orecchio here. I think about Asterios Polyp by David Mazzucchelli all the time and I know you do too. ————————————————————————————————— ————————————————————————————————— Once I read a comic book At midnight, 2009, Asterios Polyp, the name of it, The Petty Bickering Deities Strike again (on the Page) Yes ma’am life never gets tired of resurrecting ————————————————————————————————— ———————————————————— Cement Mixer – 8-30-18 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

04/23/2018

Caleb OrecchioApril 23, 2018NewsCaleb Orecchio here with Kyle Baker’s excellent cartooning on the 1990’s adaption of Dick Tracy, plus other news! ————————————————————————————————— I’m out on the road visiting my sister in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania (aka Amish Country) so lots of horse pulling buggy alongside hasty drivers speedily swerving around the innocent carriage, narrowly avoiding oncoming traffic. Other than that, this weekend was essentially stress free, full of familial love and camaraderie and void of any care of the world; but I’m going back to Pittsburgh today, count up to thirty. Round that horn and ride that train, gonna thread up. Lo and behold, in the brisk departure for my sister’s, I forgot to bring the various incarnations of Mister Miracle Frank loaned me to look at and possibly write about. Lo! there will be a day when my wits and memory will work faster than my feet and CR-V, but until that day comes we are stuck with my forgetfulness. Be encouraged, however, that lately I’ve been carrying around Kyle Baker’s 1990 Dick Tracy series. It’s interesting because it more or less came out around the same time as Why I Hate Saturn, and was probably read by more people at the time than what has become Baker’s auteur calling card. Baker’s Dick Tracy has been the subject of my drawing studies lately. I really appreciate Baker’s strong, brisk lines that let the colors breathe. The forms are rendered in a Moebius-esque Upon a Star style contours that please the eyes with their simplicity and accuracy. It’s Moebius by way of Sergio Aragonés by way of Chester Gould, the real hero here. The colors themselves are very limited, they’re beautiful. Baker’s Dick Tracy is a great study of what one can achieve in a limited amount of time with a limited resources. The book very nearly lives up to the beautiful simplicity of Gould’s strips. Have you seen the original art for Gould’s Sundays? They look amazing. Obviously the drawings are fantastic, but the simple layouts speak volumes, particularly when compared to most other, more muddled (layout-wise) comic pages you find at a cartoon museum. Baker’s layouts more or less stick to a 6 to 9-panel layout, and with that, keep a really steady pace. The sequencing of images is natural and makes one feel that Baker’s inner metronome went uninterrupted. I highly recommend to the aspiring cartoonist (or, for that matter, the passive reader) to look for Kyle Baker’s fantastic Dick Tracy books. Baker’s lively lines are infectious, and the images teem with an energy that can be hard to harness in a comic book adaption starring Warren Beatty. ————————————————————————————————— if you don’t know, now you know Frank Santoro is going to Italy for Comicon in Naples. Jaime Hernandez is the latest cartoonist guest on Virtual Memories. I personally think the new Nancy is kind of funny. Really, anything other than Guy Gilchrist comics looks great to me. Keren Katz is the latest guest on Process Party. ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 4-23-2018 – by Sally Ingraham Share this page: [...]

TCAF 2017 Recap – by Tyler Landry

Comics WorkbookMay 25, 2017Festivals and ShowsTyler Landry here: The Toronto Comic Arts Festival (TCAF) is the only comics show I’ve ever attended, except for our local small-town con (held in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada) which I did for the very first time this year. There are a couple of reasons for this, and they all fall into the realm of “excuses”, but, that’s how my cookie crumbles. I have, however, been to TCAF every year since 2013, and have been told by con-hoppers of all stripes that it’s one of the best, if not THE best show of its type. To me, it’s always felt huge, diverse, and rewarding in a thousand ways – so I take those observations with considerable weight. I’ve met (and bought comics from) a huge majority of my favorite cartoonists, made loads of new comics friends, and tabled – both independently and with publishers. I always like to arrive in Toronto early on Friday, settle in, walk around the city, have an eat and/or a drink with friends – and get comfortable before the chaos on Saturday morning. Spent a veritable stack of cash on comics right away. Exciting new work from Anya Davidson, Ben Passmore, Connor Willumsen, and Sophie Yanow – to name only a few. This year I spent time tabling with two publishers – signing some of last year’s comics with Study Group (The Coward’s Hole, and Lonesome), and with Retrofit, signing copies of the collected Shit and Piss, which debuted this year at TCAF. It was cool to meet some people who follow my work, and to see others discover it for the first time. This is why I attend TCAF. To participate in a significant way in the comics community, as a cartoonist, an enthusiast, and more recently as a (new) community leader and educator. With that in mind, in addition to signing, I did something sorta new – I ran a Comics Workbook workshop on composing a comic spread. The workshop made use of a standardized 6-panel grid, a quick idea gathering on story cards, and heavy panel-by-panel editing with a printed spread in mind. It was geared towards beginners, but the process we explored is the basis for how I make comics, and can be useful to anyone telling stories in a visual medium. Some of the essential materials I’d requested were missing from the room when we started (index cards, guys!), but we did have a fat stack of copy paper, and before long I had everyone in the (very full) room folding and tearing it into manageable chunks. I brought along some comics I’ve done, a few in-progress spreads, and the associated story cards as examples of the process from beginning to end. After a bit of discussion everyone began to get a sense of modular structure, the importance of editing oneself early, and some basic notions of pacing, dynamics thru motion, tone, and directionality across panels/the spread. Because of our slightly later start, we didn’t delve as deep into the spread as I’d have liked – but everyone got a taste of quick drawing and editing, and at least the beginnings of controlling the flow of information across the spread. By the time we were being kicked out of the room, we were having huge open discussions about the different participants’ comics, talking in terms of pacing, making switcheroos for clarity, capitalizing on directional flow, etc. We could’ve easily spent another 2 hours together as a group and accomplished even more. Being so busy during both days, I didn’t get to take in any additional programming, but Idid have a chance to share a few pints and meals with friends old and new. TCAF definitely does a great job of bringing us all together once a year to gush like fools about the things we love in comics. ————————————————————————————————— Check out more of Tyler’s work HERE and pick up a copy of his new book HERE. Share this page: [...]

01/18/2017

Posted on January 18, 2017January 25, 2017 by Juan Fernández

Juan José con un poquito sobre las Tetastristes; #GRAFBCN2017; 1er Festival Sudestada de Dibujo e Ilustración; Tarifas de Correos; La Distri;La nueva sangre de la poesía colombiana; de Rivera, de Keko y Altarriba; Gabriel Ebensperger Satt y discriminación homofóbica.

Cómics y noticias que me han llamado la atencion esta semana:

Miguel Ángel Martín lleva 30 años provocando con sus historias de sexo, violencia y tecnología. , en profundidad:
Los que estén en Buenos Aires en febrero no se pierdan el 1er Festival Sudestada de Dibujo e Ilustración el 24 de Febrero. Apuntense!
El 1 de enero de 2017 Correos ha eliminado la tarifa especial del paquete postal para los profesionales del sector editorial (libreros, editores, autores, impresores…) que ofrecía a través de la Tarjeta Post Libris, que permitía hacer envíos con número de seguimiento a un precio inferior que los envíos del resto de mercancías. Juan Lassalle a creado una peticion para recuperar estas tarifas. Ayuda a los libros.
La Distri en Mentes en Disturbio – Punks de Medellín-Colombia charlan sobre el fanzine – “Tu mirada sigue firme, tu espiritu sigue en alto” –
Comics: La nueva sangre de la poesía colombiana – Una corriente de poetas jóvenes, editoriales independientes y espacios de difusión no convencionales, quiere impedir que esta tradición literaria se estanque. Hay una apuesta por la ilustración y lo visual, llegando a bares y ferias para acercarse a un público juvenil.
El Museo del Prado sigue apostando por el cómic. Presentación de EL PERDÓN Y LA FURIA, sobre “Las furias” de Rivera, de Keko y Altarriba. Laura Barrachina habla con ellos en @Bocadilloradio3.
Resumen/Scene Report de la Feria Libre Feminista “Las Tetas se toman el puerto” en Valparaíso, Santiago de Chile por Emma Truek.
Gabriel Ebensperger Satt cuenta sobre su experiencia con discriminación homofóbica en el Infante1415 de la nueva Municipalidad de Providencia, Chile. Puedes ver la conversacion en el FB de Satt.

FERIA LIBRE FEMINISTA “Las Tetas se toman el puerto” Valparaíso, Santiago de Chile. Año 2017. Enero.

Echale un vistazo a este medallón estilo Pompeii! Hecho en Pittsburgh.
Frank Santoro le encarguo a la gran Airi Maeno que le hiciera unos medallones de plata utilisando uno de sus dibujos. Este dibujo viene de su libro Pompeii. Es algo que podrias imaginar que alguien se pondría hace dos mil años. Unico. Clasico. Un simple medallón de un ser querido. Un retrato. Algo permanente para desafiar a la desaparición.

Suzy and Cecil – 1-18-2017 – by Gabriella Tito

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Joanie and Jordie – 1-18-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio

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1-18-2017 – by Juan Fernández

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Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in los Cómics, NewsTagged caleb orecchio, gabriella tito, juan fernandez

Juan Fernández

Posted on January 18, 2017January 25, 2017

Explore

08/13/2018

Caleb OrecchioAugust 13, 2018NewsCaleb Orecchio here with thoughts on a Barry Windsor-Smith strip, and other news. ————————————————————————————————— “You ask why? I say why not?” — BWS’ note on the above piece in Opus. This strip has no “joke” in the traditional sense, but there is a payoff. A punchline. “POH!” 1, 2, 3, POH! It’s so simple. What is a four panel strip other than three panels that, traditionally, set up a punchline? Jack White, a musician and upholsterer, has noted that it takes three staples for a material to be considered upholstered at the bare minimum; this is his observation of the beauty within simplicity. Here Barry Windsor-Smith does not busy himself (or the reader) with a plot within three panels to bring us to the fourth, he simply stalls us and then squeezes the trigger. POH! It’s actually kind of funny, or at least amusing. What I find very interesting about this strip, is that it isn’t contrived in any way. Obviously, I presume, this was made privately. Maybe as a joke to himself or his assistant or studio mates or whatever. It does not matter. I am simply pointing out the simplicity, looseness and playful nature of the piece. There is a solid art and drawing background behind the images: the wash, the marks, the 270 degree turn; but they all briskly collide to make the joke, POH! This is a perfect strip. I’m not going to argue the point, but consider how few cartoonists make strips like this. Consider how few cartoonists make comics for fun. Musicians play music for fun. Football players throw the ol’ pigskin around for fun. Consider this, fellow cartoonists, for twenty minutes a day, as a warm-up, make a four-panel strip for fun that you’ll never show anyone. I guarantee you will be surprised by what will come out of that exercise. Many perfect comics are made in sketchbooks and will never be seen by anyone until the sketchbooks of that cartoonist are published, like the above example (also I think the sketchbooks of Chris Ware and Gary Panter apply). Perfect comic strips can be painstakingly rendered by Ernie Bushmiller, but they don’t have to be. Sometimes, they are made by Barry Windsor-Smith as a joke is all I’m saying. ————————————————————————————————— Share this page: [...]

Comics Workbook @ CXC 2016

Sally IngrahamOctober 21, 2016Festivals and Showsnote: This is a special “round up” report from the Comics Workbook crew of the many facets of the show that inspired and intrigued. We are collecting our thoughts, images, and videos and have already started sharing them on the site and across our social media. This space will serve as the “complete” adventures of the crew at CXC and will be updated frequently. Be sure to check back in! (All photos are by Juan Fernandez and Sally Ingraham unless otherwise noted) Thanks to the incredible generosity and support of Frank Santoro, a team of eight cartoonists (who have all been involved with Comics Workbook for a few years) went to the show to really dig into what it had to offer. Sacha Mardou, Kurt Ankeny, Alyssa Berg, Whit Taylor, Juan Fernandez, Sally Ingraham, Caleb Orecchio, and Emil Friis Ernst were proud and excited to represent Comics Workbook. Our pals John Kelly (Executive Director of Pittsburgh’s ToonSeum), Chris Anthony Diaz (comic-scene photographer extraordinaire), and Phil Dokes (a long-time supporter of CW and the Pittsburgh Comic Salons) also joined our crew throughout the weekend. Comics Workbook wasn’t at CXC simply to table at the Marketplace – we also hosted the Comics Workbook Sessions, a series of four workshops over the course of Saturday and Sunday that offered festival attendees the opportunity to investigate new techniques for comics making and learn about the working habits of Alyssa Berg and Kurt Ankeny, our special CW workshop leaders. Sacha Mardou lent her thoughts and talents to the “Talk and Teach” panels that CXC offered during the Thursday/Friday programming, and she also had a Spotlight panel on Saturday. Whit Taylor was there as our special guest reporter. For Sacha Mardou’s personal CXC adventures go HERE! Whit Taylor presents her official “report card” for CXC HERE! Chris Diaz shares part 1 of his CXC Portraits series HERE! Check out Juan Fernandez’s CXC-inspired thoughts on expanding the comics festival toolkit. Leave some comments and join the discussion – HERE! Kurt Ankeny has his post-CXC thoughts HERE! Alyssa Berg shares thoughts on her first con HERE! Caleb Orecchio has a detailed and hilarious tale of his CXC experience HERE! We asked ourselves 3 questions to help process this rich experience – some of our answers HERE! Here’s a quick video that Sally cut together while traveling home from the show: ————————————————————————————————— By the time the CW team arrived on Thursday for Cartoon Crossroads Columbus, there was already an incredible energy pouring out of the comics cathedral that is the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum. For most of the team it was their first time at the Billy Ireland, and we entered the space with a special mixture of reverence and awe. On a normal day, the Library is an amazing space – original pages from Winsor McCay and Bill Watterson hang in the exhibit hall, and a tour of the archives reveals only a tantalizing taste of the world’s largest collection of materials related to cartooning and comics. During CXC, the place spirals to a whole new dimension, and you are likely to bump into Sergio Aragonés, Seth, Carol Tyler, Garry Trudeau, Ann Telnaes, Charles Burns, Ronald Wimberly, or thee great Lucy Caswell herself (founder of the Library) sharing a look at an original Peanuts strip or getting a coffee. Two full days of programming took place in this truly extraordinary space, and the Comics Workbook team spread out and absorbed as much as possible. We’re at CXC in Columbus, OH – and already caught Ann Telnaes talking about editorial cartooning at the Billy Ireland Library & Museum – much more to come! @cartoonlibrary @anntelnaes #cxc2016 #comicsworkbook A photo posted by Comics Workbook (@comicsworkbook) on Oct 13, 2016 at 1:12pm PDT Ann Telnaes spoke with festival director Tom Spurgeon about editorial cartooning on Thursday afternoon. This was one of many “Talk and Teach” presentations which filled the first two days of CXC. They provided cartoonists and industry leaders with an opportunity to share something that they felt they “did well” – skills and life practices that other makers might find interesting and helpful. Dustin Harbin, T. Edward Bak, Sacha Mardou, and Kriota Willberg also led a “Talk and Teach” panel. In addition there was a Scholarly Symposium during the first two days of CXC – a whole second track of programming that brought together academics and unique thinkers to dig into the concept of a “comics canon”. On Thursday evening John Canemaker presented some of Winsor McCay’s work at the Wexner Center for the Arts, riveting and amusing the audience with details of McCay’s working practice and adventures in animation. Totally blown away by the Winsor McCay presentation hosted by John Canemaker at CXC – this is part of McCay’s first animated film, drawing on characters from Little Nemo #cxc2016 #winsormccay #animation A video posted by Sally Ingraham (@sally_ingraham) on Oct 13, 2016 at 6:40pm PDT John Canemaker stepping into Winsor McCay’s roll in the type of vaudeville act McCay used to do with his animated character Gerdie – at CXC tonight #cxc2016 #winsormccay #johncanemaker #gertie A video posted by Comics Workbook (@comicsworkbook) on Oct 13, 2016 at 8:10pm PDT Sacha Mardou was a Comics Workbook Special Guest at CXC this year, so she got to present her own “Talk and Teach” on Friday morning. She shared thoughts on long-form fiction planning and many tantalizing details from a work in progress – to a packed room at 10am! Some of the team went over to Hale Hall to check out SÕL-CON, the Brown and Black Comics Expo which ran alongside CXC this year. The CW crew all made it onto an archive tour at the Billy Ireland at some point on Friday, although only some of us got to share that wild ride with Seth! There are many, many drawers and shelves of treasures – we got to see a few amazing things, but I think everyone on the team immediately started making plans for a return trip. Here’s a look at an original Milton Caniff page…! In the archives at the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum @cartoonlibrary #cxc2016 A video posted by Comics Workbook (@comicsworkbook) on Oct 14, 2016 at 9:53am PDT Friday afternoon there was a State of the Industry panel that featured “all star representatives” for a discussion and Q&A, hosted by Tom Spurgeon. The panelists were Rich Tommaso (cartoonist), Keith Knight (cartoonist) Chip Mosher (ComiXology), Shena Wolf (GoComics.com), and Brendan Burford (King Features Syndicates). Our crew was there to dig in to this “off the record” look at the industry. Friday night there was a reception at the Billy Ireland, and the promised “surprise” turned out to be an award ceremony. The 2016 CXC Master Cartoonist award for a lifetime of work in comics was an unbreakable tie between Sergio Aragonés and Carol Tyler! The entire crowd was laughing and in tears by the time the ceremony was over – a hearty congratulations to them both. Garry Trudeau‘s fantastic discussion of his work with Glen Gary Gold on Friday night was capped with another award – he was presented with CXC’s 2016 Masterwork Award for Doonesbury. Late night on Friday found the CW team socializing at one of the official after-parties – this one hosted by Katie Skelly. These parties – one a night, Friday-Sunday – were an amazing opportunity to make new friends and catch up with old ones. Even for relative new kids on the scene, like many of the CW crew, the Late Night parties were an incredibly welcoming space where we could chat freely with industry leaders (Caleb and Sally and Juan spent an hour with Brendan Burford of King Features on Friday) or play a game of pinball next to the likes of Charles Burns. John Kelly had joined our ranks by then, and he grabbed this great picture: Saturday (CXC Day 3!) the show switched gears and held it’s Marketplace and 3rd day of programming at the beautiful downtown branch of the Columbus Metropolitan Library. The Comics Workbook team was there when the doors opened, so we missed the kerfuffle that surrounded the expo being map- and table-assignment-free (a minor bump in what seemed like a miraculously smoothly run show.) The entire team was soon set up and ready to run full tilt into a fantastic day. It was terrific that the Comics Workbook team was so large since we had to be in a number of places at once. Folks took turns tabling, running the Comics Workbook Sessions, buzzing about documenting the event, and leading panels. Sacha Mardou had a spotlight panel right off the bat, hosted by Jared Gardner. She talked about her process and did a reading from Sky in Stereo. John Kelly had a fun panel with Carol Tyler Saturday afternoon. This is a video of Carol talking about her early work over dinner with John on Saturday night: There was so much programming on Saturday that there was no way to get to everything a person might want to! Raina Telgemeier‘s event brought in a crowd of kids, many of whom were eager to explore the Marketplace floor later. We heard from dozens of people that the panel on political cartooning with Lalo Alcaraz, Nate Beeler, Keith Knight, and Ann Telnaes was really good. Keith Knight also presented his “They Shoot Black People, Don’t They?” presentation, which has recently garnered him nationwide attention. There were spotlight panels on Ed Koren, Stan Sakai, and Julia Gfrörer among others, drawing demos by Katie Skelly, Brandon Graham, and Ronald Wimberly, a discussion with Nate Powell about finishing the popular March series, and a Fanta at 40 panel. Back to tabling – Saturday had a good amount of foot traffic all day and since Sacha had a bit of extra space on her table after she sold out all her books in an incredible rush, we set up a drawing station and had kids stopping by all day to work on giant comics – many of them had probably been inspired by their encounter with Raina in real life. A bit of video from the day: LIVE at CXC!!! #comicsworkbook A video posted by Comics Workbook (@comicsworkbook) on Oct 15, 2016 at 10:14am PDT Charles Burns stopped by the table to find the comics that Frank had reserved for him! Chris Anthony Diaz took a break from snapping pictures to catch up with Sacha and get a unique drawing. He was also seen fraternizing with other cartoonists throughout the weekend, so we can probably soon expect some new editions to The Diaz Archive here on the site! Comics Workbook hosted 4 workshops during CXC, and Alyssa Berg was up first on Saturday. She talked about her use of the 4- and 9-panel grids and her adventures with painted comics, and then led an exercise that got the whole room drawing and collaging comics. The attendees of the workshop included students from Columbus College of Art and Design, where a new program in comics making is about to start! They were particularly intrigued by the techniques Alyssa shared, and several of them came back for the remaining 3 sessions. Here’s work by Phil Dokes, made during Alyssa’s workshop: Juan Fernandez and Sally Ingraham led a workshop immediately following, and shared a popular Pittsburgh Comic Salon exercise that riffs on the cinematic quality of comics making. While this workshop was taking place, late in the day on Saturday, a mysterious burst of clapping rose from the expo floor – turns out another surprise award had been presented – the CXC Emerging Talent Award went to a flabbergasted but very deserving Kevin Czap. “Comics Mom Surprised with Novelty Check” Thank you so much to Vijaya, Jeff, Caitlin, Tom and everyone else who made this happen. Unreal! A photo posted by Czap Books (@czapbooks) on Oct 19, 2016 at 5:35am PDT Here’s a video off of the CXC Facebook page of Tom Spurgeon’s speech and the presentation: We mentioned that the CW team was early to set up on Saturday – but we weren’t by any means first. As if you need more proof of why Kevin Czap a.k.a. “Comics Mom” received this honor: The Marketplace day ended at 6, and Saturday night our crew again split into a few groups – some caught up with Charles Burns at CCAD for his magnificent talk on his early work and influences. The rest of us (who unsurprisingly hadn’t really eaten anything all day) went on the hunt for dinner. Most of the team was too beat to hit the Saturday Late Night party hosted by Stan Sakai – although Sacha Mardou made it there, and then to a Haunted House in rural Ohio for a very atypical wild night! Sunday dawned – CXC Day 4. The team trickled back to the Library despite a few Columbus Marathon-related hangups. The Marketplace floor was a little quieter, but that provided many of us with the opportunity to go visit other cartoonist pals, and get into conversations with those that came to visit us – like Ben Katchor, at one point, and Caitlin McGurk, on the hunt for comics to add to the Billy Ireland collection…! Kurt Ankeny led the CW team Sunday with a workshop right off the bat. We had a number of returning attendees who had really committed to the full Comics Workbook crash course. Kurt talked about modifying your grid, materials, and tools to fit the story, then led an exercise that was straight out of Ohio’s history of correspondence course schools – spin the wheel, pick a character, spin again, pick a setting, spin again, pick an action – there’s your comic! John Kelly hosted a spotlight panel with Sergio Aragones Sunday afternoon – here is one of several videos from the talk that he has shared: Find the other videos HERE and HERE. Folks came by the table raving about the conversation between Ben Katchor and Seth, or if they had picked the other Sunday programming track, the conversation between Jeff Smith and Raina Telgemeier. Brandon Graham had a spotlight panel, and Jeff Smith talked about Bone at 25. There certainly never felt like a “winding down” of the show for the CW team – we were busy the whole time and Sunday passed in a blur. Juan and Sally ran another workshop during the last hour of the expo, and incredibly people showed up to make comics, at the expense of grabbing their last minute purchases from the Marketplace floor! We made 4-panel strips based on haiku poems. The workshop folks were so engrossed in making comics that once again, the mysterious clapping rose up to startle us – and this time it was announcing the end of the festival… There was celebration and a few tears, hurried group photos before friends parted ways, then the mad rush to pack up (one working elevator to the parking garage, a couple hundred cartoonists and their livelihoods in boxes and on carts…) The CW crew made short work of it, and then long drawn out work of the goodbyes and good wishes. A few folks finally hopped into cars to make the trip home, but others delayed their parting for hours by going to hunt for dinner and walking the entire length of High Street on a warm night under the full moon. Yes, it was exactly that picturesque. The crew that remained in Columbus by 9:30pm Sunday night certainly qualified as “Dead Dogs”, so we made our way to the official very last event of CXC 2016 – the Late Night Dead Dogs Party hosted by Julia Gfrörer and Sean T. Collins. There we ran into Kevin Czap and got into conversation with Caitlin McGurk, took a moment to personally thank Tom Spurgeon, and chatted with Jeff Smith until the hour was really excessively late and it seemed prudent to walk back to hotel rooms and call it A SHOW WELL LIVED! Heartfelt, ecstatic thanks to Jeff Smith, Vijaya Iyer, Tom Spurgeon, Lucy Caswell, and Kathleen Glosan for putting on an amazing show that we were excited and humbled to be part of. Also, many thanks to Caitlin McGurk (Billy Ireland), Lauren McCubbin (CCAD), Jared Gardner, Neil Cameron, Frederick L. Aldama (Sol-Con), and the amazing crew of volunteers. We still have (even more!) official reports and personal thoughts to share, but the CW crew as a whole has never felt more lucky to be part of this community. We look forward to giving back a little of what we were given, and will ride the wave of inspiration and validation that this show gave us until next year. See you once again in Columbus! ========================================== Share this page: [...]

11/14/2017

Aaron CockleNovember 14, 2017NewsAaron Cockle today with Comic Sans; Yayoi Kusama; Claes Oldenburg; Jason Shiga; Nancy; Michelangelo Buonarroti ————————————————————————————————— ‘Hating Comic Sans Is Ableist’ Lauren Hudgins looks at the Comic Sans font, its detractors, and how people with dyslexia use it to read: Comic Sans and Arial are readily available because they are included by default in many operating systems and word-processing programs, and they are web-safe fonts. A pamphlet from the office of student services at my sister’s school on accommodations for dyslexic students is printed in Comic Sans on blue paper in both English and Welsh. Other common fonts suggested by the British Dyslexia Association include Century Gothic, Verdana, Calibri, and Trebuchet. (Trebuchet was also designed by Connare.) ————————————————————————————————— Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors On Instagram, the Broad’s geotag summons a seemingly endless stream of photos of museumgoers – individuals, couples, children – holding smartphones up to Kusama’s reflective surfaces. The rise of art selfies like these has become a bone of contention among the art world elite, inciting a backlash in Kusama’s case. The New York Times’ Roberta Smith called her “a bit of a charlatan” who “stoops to conquer with mirrored ‘infinity’ rooms that attract hordes of selfie-seekers”. The LA Times went further: “The most interesting feature of the rooms is that looking at the ubiquitous photos of them is as fulfilling as actually being there”. Apartment Therapy meanwhile, declared her David Zwirner exhibition “the Instagram exhibit to end all Instagram exhibits”. ————————————————————————————————— Claes Oldenburg: Shelf Life Taken together, the sculptures in Shelf Life represent a compendium of the ideas and objects that have resonated throughout Oldenburg’s life and practice, now revealed in completely new relationships. As an artist pivotal to the evolution of contemporary art throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, Oldenburg has approached this latest period of his career as, he said, “a time to decide what one keeps.” These are the images he has chosen to keep. ————————————————————————————————— ‘The Science of Demon’ Jason Shiga guest-blogging at Locus Mag: Science fiction has always been my favorite genre, especially when the story takes the form of scientific discovery itself. There’s something incredibly satisfying about the classic scientific method of observing, imagining, testing and finally getting a clear answer from the universe about some fundamental way it’s structured. I feel the human mind has a science shaped keyhole in it and hearing a good story or joke or cleverly designed experiment all satisfy that same part of the brain. It could be Sherlock Holmes figuring out that what everyone else thought was a ghost was just a (spoiler for 100 year old story) dog covered in luminescent paint. In a way, I think all great fiction is science fiction of a sort. ————————————————————————————————— Mark Newgarden and Paul Karasik on How To Read Nancy: The Elements of Comics in Three Easy Panels The 200th meeting of the NY Comics & Picture-story Symposium will be held on Tuesday, Nov. 14, 2017 at 7pm at Parsons School of Design, 2 West 13th Street, in the Bark Room (off the lobby). Free and open to the public. Cartoonists and scholars, Paul Karasik and Mark Newgarden use a single three-panel Nancy strip to explain how the medium of comics works. Everything that you need to know about reading, making, and understanding comics can be found in a single Nancy strip by Ernie Bushmiller from August 8, 1959. Mark Newgarden and Paul Karasik’s groundbreaking work How to Read Nancy (Fantagraphics Books, 2017) ingeniously isolates the separate building blocks of the language of comics through the deconstruction of a single strip. As much a lecture about visual literacy and the benefits of deep-reading, students, academics, scholars, cartoonists and casual fans will be stunned to understand that the secret language of comics is right before their eyes. Paul Karasik is the co-author (along with David Mazzucchelli) of the perennial graphic novel classic City of Glass, adapted from Paul Auster’s novel. His cartoons appear in the New Yorker. Paul teaches at the Rhode Island School of Design. Mark Newgarden is an acclaimed cartoonist and author of the book We All Die Alone, the co-creator of “Garbage Pail Kids”, and the co-author (with Megan Montague Cash) of the award-winning Bow Wow series of children’s books. Mark teaches at Parsons and Pratt Institute. ————————————————————————————————— Michelangelo: Divine Draftsman & Designer This exhibition presents a stunning range and number of works by the artist: 133 of his drawings, three of his marble sculptures, his earliest painting, his wood architectural model for a chapel vault, as well as a substantial body of complementary works by other artists for comparison and context. Among the extraordinary international loans are the complete series of masterpiece drawings he created for his friend Tommaso de’ Cavalieri and a monumental cartoon for his last fresco in the Vatican Palace. Selected from 50 public and private collections in the United States and Europe, the exhibition examines Michelangelo’s rich legacy as a supreme draftsman and designer. ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 11-14-2017 – by Gabriella Tito ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 11-14-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio ————————————————————————————————— Cozytown – 11-14-2017 – by Juan Fernandez [1] Share this page: [...]

San Diego Comic-Con International 2018

Chris Anthony DiazJuly 24, 2018The Diaz ArchiveMy first Comic-Con ever! So my apologies, I tried my best to take as many photos as possible, but this show is overwhelming, yet a lot of fun. Also, I lugged around too much stuff to get signed, which i brought — yes excuses! Anyways, this is all I ended up with despite going in with a more extensive list of cartoonists I wanted to photograph! Oh well, hopefully next year I end up taking more. San Diego Comic-Con International 2018, downtown San Diego Convention Center Exhibit Hall, Thursday, July 19, 2018 Share this page: [...]

04/24/2018

Aaron CockleApril 23, 2018NewsAaron here today with Global Art Comics; Frank in Italia; Print Slam #8; Paradise Systems; Cy Twombly; Remote Mind Control ————————————————————————————————— Save the date! April 27th: SPRING GROUP SHOW | GLOBAL ALT COMICS! Featuring work by Trina Robbins, Mary Fleener, Lauren Weinstein, Powerpaola, Gina Wynbrandt, Conxita Herrero, Tommi Parrish, Gabrielle Bell. ————————————————————————————————— Do you have any peculiar habits or routines before starting to draw? I try to do drawing warmups. I like to copy Archie comics. It lets my brain draw without thinking, without inventing. And Archie comics have a type of cartoony realism which I think is perfect to copy. Ideally, I warm up for 30 minutes or so before beginning to work on my own comics. Although as my comic nears completion, I warm up less because I feel confident about my direction. Also, I obsessively make coffee on the stovetop with my Bialetti caffettiera. I have to drive far away to find Lavazza coffee at the Italian grocery in a different neighborhood. American coffee is crap. Frank Santoro is interviewed at Fumettologica, in support of the publication of Pompeii in Italy, and Frank’s trip this week to Naples Comicon. An excerpt from the Italian edition has been posted as well. ————————————————————————————————— ————————————————————————————————— Paradise Systems: Woshibai, Lisk Feng and Jun Cen in conversation April 27, 2018, 6-8 PM Shanghai-based cartoonist Woshibai reads from his new book Migraine, newly released by Paradise Systems. Woshibai will be joined by New York-based cartoonists Jun Cen and Lisk Feng in conversation about Chinese comics and the illustration community. Jun Cen will also have copies of his book Negative Space availanble, which was recently published in China. ————————————————————————————————— Cy Twombly: In Beauty it is finished: Drawings 1951–2008 Through April 25, 2018, 522 West 21st Street, NY Cy Twombly: Coronation of Sesostris Through April 28, 2018, 980 Madison Avenue, NYC ————————————————————————————————— ‘EM stands for electromagnetic.’ Curtis Waltman at Muckrock found some good graphics in a recent Freedom of Information Act request: As part of my ongoing project looking at fusion centers’ investigations into Antifa and various white supremacist groups, I filed a request with the WSFC. I got back many standard documents in response, including emails, intelligence briefings and bulletins, reposts from other fusion centers – and then there was one file titled “EM effects on human body.zip.” ————————————————————————————————— Vison Box – 4-24- 2018 – by Cameron Arthur ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 4-24- 2018 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

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