Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in NewsTagged caleb orecchio, juan fernandez, kate harmon, Michael DeForge, phil dokes, rep. john lewis, Ronald Wimberly, sam ombiri, tyler landry

Sally Ingraham

Posted on January 18, 2017January 19, 2017

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01/16/2017

Juan FernándezJanuary 16, 2017NewsJuan and Sally here to start your week off with George Herriman strips, Richard Diebenkorn sketchbooks, Illustrated PEN’s State of Emergency, the GOUFFRE anthology, and other comics and news bites. ————————————————————————————————— Here on the site, Comics Workbook student and cartoonist Jesse Rimler shares a report on the Richard Diebenkorn Sketchbook show that hung at the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University last summer. “This exhibit made me think about the general use of a sketchbook. Diebenkorn called his sketchbook his “portable studio,” and it’s clear he took drawing in these beatup spiralbounds as seriously as he did etching on a copper plate or painting on a canvas. I think some comics makers, myself included, tend to treat their sketchbooks as something completely different from their final art. The idea of closing the gap between the two is appealing to me, and Diebenkorn’s example is inspiring.“ Read the rest of this “Art Trip” HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Illustrated PEN published an online graphic narrative series called State of Emergency, which is intended to help “amplify the voices and stories of the communities most at risk in this new and hostile reality“. Edited by Meg Lemke, Rob Kirby, and MariNaomi, it features pieces by Iasmin Omar Ata, Dylan Edwards, Thi Bui, Rachel Masilamani, Robert Kirby, Whit Taylor, Tyler Cohen, and Cristy C. Road. Check out the whole series HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Juan Fernandez here. Ain’t got too much to say today, just wanted to share some strips I made with you a while back. I’ve been going through the new IDW 1934 Krazy Kat Dailies book every day this year. It’s been a wonderful experience. I’ve been clamoring for an economically formatted collection of Herriman’s dailies for some years now since Fantagraphics started doing their reprints of the Sunday pages. Those are exquisite. This IDW collection features the complete run of Krazy Kat dailies from 1934, reproduced full size on high quality newsprint, in a chunky, horizontally formatted hardcover volume from IDW’s Library of American Comics Essentials series. Woo boy. That thing is amazing. In light of this, I’ve been thinking about a couple of strips I made at the Center for Cartoon Studies in 2012. The following strips were made for the second assignment in Jason Lutes’ Cartooning Studio. Aping as the building of discipline. Style as functional raincoat. The objective was to recreate faithfully the visual and narrative style of an American strip artist and to tell 3 autobiographical stories using the strip as the vehicle. The assigned artists ranged far and wide, from Walt Kelly to Scott Adams. You know, a very CCS “traditional” cartooning exercise. I was lucky enough to get George Herriman’s Krazy Kat. Thanks Jason. It was a really satisfying exercise. I won’t lie, the strips turned out nice but they don’t really work. I had never done comic strips that weren’t just Dada-ist doodle non-sequitors, so this exercise proved to be a challenge. Not because I didn’t want them to make sense, but rather because I wanted so badly for them to make sense. I wanted to express so much in a single strip and it came out garbled. Clean, but garbled. I understand structure, but traditional narrative? Man, that’s hard to do and not ham up! To make these studies I read a great deal of Herriman’s dailies, across collections, but I found that the most useful was a big green copy of Fantagraphics Books’ The Kat Who Walked in Beauty. The “Panoramic” Dailies from 1920. If you’re only familiar with Herriman’s broadsheets, you really ought to take a look at his dailies. While the broadsheets are beautiful and hyperbolic, the daily strips are immaculately fine tuned little nuggets. It’s staggering to know that he churned out these little finely crafted gems on a daily basis for 31 years. In my opinion, it’s there that you’ll find his genius. Day in and day out. At least, that’s the work that I most want to read. Speaking to what I said about structure, I want to share some of the process of thinking about Herriman’s pacing. Diagrams of panel organization schemes that appeared throughout the strips from 1920. You have the pacing of his language in balloons but, more importantly you have the pacing across his panels. Horizons dip up and down. Panels tuck themselves behind others. Panel sequences exist as objects, embedded in the desert landscape. CW Students: I recommend blocking out the essential shapes and forms of any comics that you enjoy. It’s a good warm up for thinking about structure. Roughly block out panels and black regions. Squint your eyes. Take off your glasses if you wear them. Block out a lot of pages and spreads. This can really help internalize the structures of the works that you love. And that can help you synthesize those things into work of your own that you will love. ————————————————————————————————— The new anthology GOUFFRE from Lagon Revue is now available online from revuelagon.com. Edited and conceived by editors Alexis Beauclair, Bettina Henni, Séverine Bascouert, Sammy Stein & Jean-Philippe Bretin, GOUFFRE combines multiple printing techniques: Silk-screen, Riso printing, and offset printing. A spectacle of daring comics and all out production. Grab yourself a copy and be on the cutting edge of comics. It’s 45€. GOUFFRE stands for polymorphic, plastic comics. The magazine celebrates new perspectives and unique approaches of the medium: Minimal, maximal, without characters, made of sensations, or of emptiness, mute, aesthetic, close to abstraction. You will discover toxic undergrowth, extinguished suburbs, melancholic sci-fi stories, fake magazine covers, modern love relationships and visions of the near future. ————————————————————————————————— Tea and Crumpets Maurice, Son of Noah Pt. 4 by Roman Muradov is up on Hazlett – HERE. You can catch the rest of the story as well – and check out the previous comic series’ published by Hazlett, including the story by Annie Mok and Natalie Andrewson – Straight Expectations. The Will Eisner Hall of Fame 2017 Nominees have been announced. It’s the 100th year since Eisner’s death so the list is a little longer than usual, with four judge-appointed Hall of Fame inductees instead of the usual two, and seventeen names up for the public vote – including the Hernandez Brothers. Check out Tom Spurgeon’s comments on the list HERE. Michael DeForge now has a designated Instagram for his comic series Leaving Richard’s Valley – follow along @richardsvalley. There is an interview with Erik Nebel in Fluide Glacial, the famous French comics magazine. Erik translated an excerpt and shared it HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Check out Zona #2, a unique look into Frank Santoro’s process. Full color, 24 pages. Magazine sized. Cardstock covers. Edition of 100. Signed and numbered. Get a copy HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 1-16-2017 – by Gabriella Tito ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 1-16-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio ————————————————————————————————— 1-16-2017 – by Juan Fernández Share this page: [...]

09/05/2017

Aaron CockleSeptember 4, 2017NewsAaron Cockle here today with Comics Carousel; Anders Nilsen’s new book; Josh Bayer returns to the New York Comics & Picture-story Symposium; Workshops at SPX ————————————————————————————————— ————————————————————————————————— ‘But those books were both black and white. Color kind of forces your hand regarding borders.’ Paste Magazine has a nice piece about Anders Nilsen’s new book, Tongues, and the process that went into its making. “Panel design and structure matter a lot to me. I did a bit of teaching from 2012 to 2015 or so and one of the things I found myself focusing on with certain students was how panels work and what happens to storytelling when they change in various ways. Some cartoonists do great things with a simple grid. My two biggest comics influences, Hergé and Chester Brown, use very simple panel structures in their comics, and they were brilliant with it. But I can’t keep from playing around with panels. Partly it’s because I find measuring out rectangles very boring, but it’s also, I think, partly because I studied painting, and so I can’t help but think about the visual composition of a page as more than just a collection of rectangles. It was something I wanted to explore in this book from the outset and so this small sketch is my original idea for how to structure the panels in this opening dream sequence.” ————————————————————————————————— Josh Bayer, Adam McGovern and guests, Sept. 5, 2017 at 7pm The 190th meeting of the NY Comics & Picture-story Symposium will be held on Tuesday, Sept. 5, 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. Josh Bayer, Adam McGovern and guests on All Time Comics All Time Comics is a comic-book series that resists categorization. Part modern reworking of Bronze age comics superhero aesthetics, part a Mad Magazine-like Gonzo attempt to sidestep and weave that aesthetic back on itself. Published by Fantagraphcs, All Time Comics has created a space for a dialogue between older veteran creators like Herb Trimpe and Al Milgrom and younger Alternative Comics mainstays like Ben Marra and Noah Van Sciver. Join Josh Bayer in a lively discussion with comics writer/historian Adam McGovern. (Panel may include special guest artist/writers, schedules permitting). Josh Bayer is the author of Raw Power and Theth from Retrofit Comics, the editor of the Suspect Device Comics anthology series, as well as 2016’s The Black Hood. His work’s been selected for The Best American Comics series in 2016 and 2017. He is the founder of his own “Comics Are The Enemy Press” and he is currently releasing his All Time Comics imprint from Fantagraphics. ————————————————————————————————— Comics Workbook Cartoon Workshops If you’re planning to be at the upcoming Small Press Expo in Bethesda, MD, please consider attending one or all of the workshops the CW will be conducting: ————————————————————————————————— Frank Santoro made a comic book about his parents and now he needs help making a handbound copy of the book for each of them. It’s a good story. Check out the Indiegogo campaign HERE – or if you want to contribute via PayPal, look at the campaign HERE. ———————————————————————————————— A Cosmic Journey – 9-5-2017 – by Cameron Arthur ———————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 9-5-2017 – by Gabriella Tito ———————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 9-5-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

The Spring Season

Kurt AnkenyJune 29, 2017Festivals and ShowsSo, for those of us in the indie comics circuit, the summer lull is upon us. Summer usually has very few indie-centered shows going on, even though the mainstream comicons are going full blast. The consensus is that generally, indie comics are more dependent on the college and art school crowd, and when they all go home for the summer, it’s hard to gather enough interested folks to hold a show. It seems awfully stupid to join an industry whose main customer base is one of the poorest and busiest groups of people in society, but here we are, at it again, hoping to make a buck. I enjoyed my spring season, though. First was PIX (Pittsburgh Indy Comix Expo) in Pittsburgh at the beginning of April, then I had CAKE (Chicago Alternative Comics Expo) in Chicago at the beginning of June, followed the very next weekend by the one-day MECAF (Maine Comics Arts Festival), in Portland, Maine. PIX was a lovely little show. Well, perhaps I shouldn’t call it little. It has a grand venue, and you can feel the aspirations Bill Boichel has for this show. Housed in the August Wilson Center for African American Culture, the space was beautiful and more than big enough. The crowd was steady and enthusiastic despite the quadruple-threat of: 1) a competing comics show in one of the Steel City’s immediate suburbs, 2) the Pirates’ home opener, 3) a HUGE anime/cosplay show just around the corner from PIX, and 4) the first absolutely glorious spring day, with temps in the 80s and barely a cloud in the sky. Proving that Bill and Copacetic Comics have tremendous pull, the guest list was full of heavy hitters: Anya Davidson, Jim Rugg, Ed Piskor, Lane Milburn, Connor Willumsen, Frank Santoro, Lale Westvind. Quite a line-up for a show this size. I got the chance to finally meet Connor in person, and we got to chat for a while as we drove through the rusted rat-maze that is Pittsburgh’s road system. I also got to meet the very talented Audra Stang. I crashed with the Comics Workbook crew, and it was especially nice that even though this was a one-day show, there was a bit of after partying and camaraderie. Next time I go to Pittsburgh, I need to finally arrange a couple hours of just me and Bill up in Copacetic. Bill is a comics oracle, and I need to drink from that fountain of knowledge. CAKE in Chicago is always a great time. The crowd is usually lively and in a spending mood, and the neighborhood of Boystown in north Chicago is a really lovely place. I got to meet and chat with Simon Hanselmann (though he did the vast majority of the chatting.) I was lucky enough to table with Tommi Parrish, who has had books published by Czap Books and 2D Cloud, and has a forthcoming book from Fantagraphics. They are an incredible artist, and I thoroughly enjoyed their Ley Lines volume on William Blake and Lydia Lunch. I’m very much looking forward to picking up their longer works. Also, a very lovely tablemate. Excellent at sharing snacks. Speaking of snacks, I also got to catch up with Alyssa Berg, who was tabling with the elusive Ron Rege, Jr. I met Alyssa at last year’s CXC (Cartoon Crossroads Columbus). Alyssa’s creating some really interesting works as she dives into the risograph process in an attempt to translate her mixed media comics into print forms that perhaps capture her vision a little better than scans of painted pages do. Really looking forward to what she comes up with during her SVA residency. I also got to table across the aisle from Kevin Czap and Cathy Johnson, who are two of my favorite people and a presence at nearly every show I’ve been to. Kevin, indie-comics’s self-styled Comics Mom, publishes a strong line of books that are heartfelt, thoughtful, and full of need-to-be-heard voices. Cathy is a fellow former Minnesotan living on the East Coast, making beautiful comics stories that are straight from the core of America. I caught up for a few minutes with Ben Passmore. At last year’s CAKE, Ben dropped off a black and white mini called Your Black Friend at my table. In the year since, Ben has become a household name in indie comics. He’s busy with books coming out in the fall, and suddenly has a bunch of illustration work. It makes me so happy to see that coming his way. I was very sad to see later that he, Kevin, Cathy, and others went to do their usual con karaoke on Saturday night and I missed it. I was exhausted from getting only a total of eight hours of sleep over the previous two nights, so after inviting myself along to a dinner with Kevin Huizenga, Tom Spurgeon, Rob Clough, Jenny Zervakis, Nick Drnaso, Noah Van Sciver, John Porcellino, and Dan Stafford, I headed to my friend Gene Ha’s house. Gene’s been working over the past year + on his own creator-owned book, Mae. It’s a great book, full of crazy detailed sci-fi-fantasy adventure that only Gene could pull off. It’s like he’s channeling the same spirit that moved him to produce the insane beauty of Top Ten with Alan Moore, but on his own story and possibly with more love and care. Dark Horse has been publishing it, but killed the book a couple of months ago along with a batch of other titles. While Gene has rights to everything, Dark Horse has printing rights to the first six issues, and those will be held by them until January 2019. Despite acclaim, a growing fan base, and being featured as the YA book of the summer at last week’s ALA Conference, Mae is now stuck in limbo unless someone else picks it up and continues it without rights to publish the first six issues for 18 months. Here’s hoping someone will take that chance! Sunday at CAKE was much better than Saturday, sales-wise for me. At the end of the day, I invited Alyssa to join Gene and me for dinner. Alyssa was keen to try the famous/infamous Chicago Deep Dish Pizza, so we headed over to the best spot in town. Over dinner, Gene and Alyssa and I had a great discussion about Alyssa’s work, her philosophy in creating, and how she likes to connect with readers through her books. Gene wowed Alyssa with some iPhone images of his work, and I was so pleased that these two friends of mine hit it off so well. Bravo, Chicago, and thanks for the heat wave! MECAF was the capper to my spring con season, on June 17. I saw Shelli Paroline and Dan Mazur, the brains behind Massachusetts Independent Comics Expo (MICE), and Shelli’s partner in comics and life, Braden Lamb. Shelli and Braden have just released a book with First Second called Making Scents, and they had a couple of copies at the show. The book is gorgeous from beginning to end because Shelli and Braden are top notch cartoonists. It annoys me no end that they are listed as if they were secondary partners on the cover. In fact, First Second has been annoying me in general lately. Their program of publishing everything in digest-or-smaller mini-volumes has been to the great detriment of works by great cartoonists like Paul Pope’s Battling Boy, and Christophe Blain’s Gus. Also, how are people supposed to look up the works of Christophe Blain and find Gus if he’s listed as “Chris Blain” in all the book data? I’ve had more than one CB store tell me they couldn’t find it because I’d forgotten that :01 had anglicized his name. Such weird choices by this imprint. Everyone I talk to about it is baffled by their approach. The show at MECAF was decent. A pretty good day. In fact, better than any single day of sales so far this year. Not bad for a library show which was blocked off by the Pride parade for half of the day. Coming this fall, I’ll be at CXC again, giving a talk in NYC at the New York Comics and Picture-Story Symposium at the Parsons School of Design at the invite of Ben Katchor, and also MICE, which is frequently the best show of the year for me. No dice in the SPX (Small Press Expo) lottery again this year, but I’m hoping to make an appearance at either CALA (Comic Arts Los Angeles) or CAB (Comic Arts Brooklyn) toward the end of the year. I’m continuing work on the science fiction graphic novel you may have seen thumbs for on my Instagram, and I’ll be shopping around a collection of short comics stories I’ve done over the past three years. Wish me luck on getting someone to pick that up. See you in the fall! Kurt ————————————————————————————————— Kurt Ankeny makes comics in Salem, MA – his most recent book is In Pieces: Someplace Which I Call Home. Share this page: [...]

05/10/2017

Juan FernándezMay 10, 2017los Cómics / NewsEmpezamos el día con los vanguardistas; Vanesa R. Del Rey; La Polola; Ana Tijoux; Alexis Ziritt; Elizabeth Casillas; Carla Berrocal; Fabian Rangel Jr.; y los tebeos de Comics Workbook. ————————————————————————————————— AvanGard – Y Que? Gerardo Vilches escribe sobre la vangardia contemporanea y internacional de los cómics. Su evolucion, su role y su crítica. Hoy existe una generación de autores que no responden al clásico perfil de fan que sueña con trabajar con sus personajes favoritos y replicar aquello que cautivó su imaginación de niño. Por el contrario, muchos de los artistas de vanguardia provienen de otros campos de expresión, han estudiado Bellas Artes, puede que no hayan leído cómic hasta que una novela gráfica cayó en sus manos de jóvenes adultos y no se sienten en absoluto obligados a respetar ningún canon. ————————————————————————————————— ⚡ 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. 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, quien estudió con George Pratt y quien a dibujado con Grant Morrison. Estamos ofreciendo compras adelantadas a un precio reducido. Sigan a Vanesa por Instagram – @vrdelrey – y http://vrdelrey.com/ Le pedimos a nuestro director, Frank Santoro que nos contara un poquito sobre la fuerza feroz y imparable que es Vanesa R. Del Rey. FS: “Vanesa, I’m quite taken aback by your sheer technical ability which seems to be married to a poetic sensibility. There’s a lightness there. Sometimes illustrators with that ability get heavy-handed. Yet you manage the push-pull between these two sides of yourself–because you’re like a samurai. The humble samurai.” VRDR: “It’s about trying to remember that. I can get all this praise, I can get all these amazing responses from strangers, but at the end of the day—I’m still a student. I’m still learning. The crown doesn’t fit. The crown should never fit.” Este intercambio viene de una entrevista que Frank hizo con Vanesa R. Del Rey, que occurio en la Residencia de Comics Workbook en Pittsburgh, PA USA. 2016. FS: 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¡ ————————————————————————————————— Cómics y noticias que me han llamado la atención esta semana: Sol Díaz Castillo y Marcela Trujillo tienen una nueva edicion de La Polola Podcast! En este capítulo las chicas conversan con Ana Tijoux acerca de sus inicios en el rap, su forma de hacer canciones, su vida como inmigrante, la diversidad y mucho más. . Alexis Ziritt os ofrece una serigrafia bien chula del forro de Space Riders #3. Blanco y Negro. Liempo. Poderoso. En la nueva ediction de Revista Cactus, Elizabeth Casillas os trae lo más transgresor e innovador del cómic actual. Pura vanguardia. Ya hace tiempo, las editoriales en Colombia le apuestan a las novelas gráficas, fanzines y libros ilustrados. Conozca cuáles son. The Fine Art Collective ES entrevisto a Carla Berrocal. 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. ————————————————————————————————— Blinkers – 5-10-2017 – by Jack Brougham ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 5-10-2017 – by Sally Ingraham ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 5-10-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

09/27/2017

Juan FernándezSeptember 27, 2017los Cómics / NewsEmpezamos el día con Andrea Galazina; El Publicadero en Manizales; Maria Luque y los tebeos de Cómics Workbook! ————————————————————————————————— Juan here: I’ve been blasting through this fall and am running on empty – OOF- the usual SPX circus, organizing the Pittsburgh Zine Fair, scheming for Cartoon Crossroads Columbus (CXC) + organizing press conferences, handling catering and other administrative craziness at the day job at the Arts Council have me running ragged. I know, I know, no complaining, no complaining. It’s all good stuff and the haul will be over come October 12th. Just wanted to let you know how I’m doing . Anyway here’s the usual comics gold I bring you every week from Latin America and Spain. A little lighter a haul than usual, but just as shiny. *Turn on your translation devices* ————————————————————————————————— Andrea Galacina acaba de publicar “¡PUEDO DECIR LO QUE QUIERA! ¡PUEDO HACER LO QUE QUIERA! UNA GENEALOGÍA INCOMPLETA DEL FANZINE HECHO POR CHICAS“, una autoedición sobre el contexto del fanzine feminista en España. La fundadora de BOMBAS PARA DESAYUNAR también da algunos detalles del próximoPICHI FEST y habla sobre el DEPARTAMENTO DE FANZINES de la biblioteca de Mujeres. Ana Flecha les ofrece todos los detalles en esta entrevista en Madriz.com Léanlo todo AQUI. ————————————————————————————————— ¿Ya están listos para el Publicadero en Manizales, Colombia? Acá la programación. Todas las actividades son gratuitas: https://goo.gl/kUdxsQ ————————————————————————————————— Las estampas de color de María Luque – Entrevista “Usa el color como Matisse y los espacios de sus dibujos parecen salidos de algún sueño naíf. Le gusta viajar, los gatos y perseguir a extraños en los museos para luego consignarlos en su libreta de dibujo.” – Andrea Uribe Yepes En la casa de familia Luque en Rosario, Argentina, hay un daguerrotipo de su abuelo Teodosio Luque. Es un cuadro de un señor solemne de barba larga y cara de serio que asustaba a todos. María recuerda que de pequeña el cuadro rodaba por la casa: lo escondían en el baño, debajo de las camas. Cree que ese daguerrotipo lo hizo Cándido López, uno de sus artistas favoritos y de los únicos que manejaban la técnica por la zona. Esto es importante porque cuando empezó la Guerra de la Triple Alianza, su abuelo Teodosio fue enviado como médico y Cándido como soldado. Esa proximidad fue la que generó curiosidad en María y la historia de la cual partió su primera novela gráfica: La mano del pintor (2016). Léanlo todo AQUI. ————————————————————————————————— Frank Santoro made a comic book about his parents and now he needs help making a handbound copy of the book for each of them. It’s a good story. Check out the Indiegogo campaign HERE – or if you want to contribute via PayPal, look at the campaign HERE. ————————————————————————————————— The fall semester of thee Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers starts October 1st 2017. 8 weeks of comics instruction that will bang your practice into shape – 500 bux. Full details about the course and how to apply can be found HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 9-27-2017 – by Gabriella Tito Share this page: [...]

01/19/2017

Posted on January 18, 2017January 19, 2017 by Sally Ingraham

We’re here today with news from Ronald Wimberly and Rep. John Lewis, work by Phil Dokes, thoughts on Michael DeForge from Sam Ombiri, and our Thursday collection of daily strips by Comics Workbook students and alums!

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Ronald Wimberly is on an international tour! He was at Gosh! Comics in London yesterday speaking to a packed house about his work and process and his series Black History In It’s Own Words, which will be released by Image Comics in early February 2017 to help commemorate Black History Month – check it out HERE.

Here’s a nice little video about Ron which was made for the Attack on Titan Anthology:

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I love the pieces that Phil Dokes has been posting on Instagram lately (follow him @phildokes67). He’s an OH cartoonist and comics historian, and a regular attendee of our comic salons here in Pittsburgh, PA.

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Representative John Lewis won’t be attending the inauguration ceremony on Friday, much to Trump’s dismay. As sales of the March trilogy rocketed to No. 1 on Amazon, amid this dustup, The Washington Post published a nice piece that focuses on what Rep. Lewis believes his story will continue to fuel.

“I’m hopeful…that young people can see another generation that acted in a peaceful, nonviolent fashion and never gave up.“

Read the whole piece HERE.

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Ant Colony – Michael DeForge’s first graphic novel

Sam Ombiri here: A couple of weeks ago I saw an Ant Colony book. I didn’t think much beyond “Oh wow it’s Ant Colony.” Then later I thought about the digital one that I had read – wait that was Michael Deforge back then! Of course I knew that, but it didn’t fully render in my mind that it was the same Michael that made all the other work I think of when I think of him.

His work is still the same but at the same time, (as obvious as this is to say) it’s different. Like in my mind I think of that Michael and the Michael doing comics now as different (obviously this can be attributed to passage of time, but I’m kind of ignoring this aspect to say what I’m saying here). The way he changes his work so often, it creates this weird effect that I find in anonymity. It feels like Michael cloned himself and multiple Michaels make different work, but we can’t tell who the “original Michael” is.

It feels like a less convoluted and less contrived way of working under different pseudonyms (not that I begrudge anyone for having a pseudonym whatsoever, but what I mean is that it’s tough to pull off in a way where the new person created through the pseudonym interacts with the work being made.) I also don’t know if I buy into what I’m saying. – Sam Ombiri

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Always available on our school store – Thee Santoro School Handbook for Making Better Comics (one page of the book is pictrued above) by Frank Santoro and Kurt Ankeny. Printed offset on cardstock by the professionals at The Prolific Group, Winnipeg, Canada. This is not some cheap color xerox or risograph. Looks great, feels great, and even smells great. This 16 page handbook is a quick guide to the tenets of our school. A smash hit – get a copy HERE.

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Dungeon Lollers – 1-19-2017 – by Tyler Landry

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Suzy and Cecil – 1-19-2017 – by Kate Harmon

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Joanie and Jordie – 1-19-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio

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1-19-2017 – by Juan Fernández

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Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in NewsTagged caleb orecchio, juan fernandez, kate harmon, Michael DeForge, phil dokes, rep. john lewis, Ronald Wimberly, sam ombiri, tyler landry

Sally Ingraham

Posted on January 18, 2017January 19, 2017

Explore

Noah Van Sciver’s FANTE BUKOWSKI

Chris Anthony DiazJuly 8, 2016The Diaz ArchiveNoah Van Sciver FANTE BUKOWSKI original art that was unpublished (first, second and fourth photos) and published (inside end covers, third photo) in the book. Plus, a chance to see how Noah colors partially on the original art before completing digitally on the computer. More of Noah’s work can be purchased at Fantagraphics Share this page: [...]

Bill Griffith Searching for Beatnik Comics

Juan FernándezApril 7, 2016EssaysBill Griffith Searching for Beatnik Comics at COPACETIC COMICS PITTSBURGH PA USA – Shot and Edited by John Kelly Share this page: [...]

01/23/2017

Juan FernándezJanuary 23, 2017NewsJuan and Sally have thoughts on visual literacy, comics from the Women’s March, an Island comics club, news of The Beguiling, and much more to start your week. ————————————————————————————————— Today on the site, Tyler Landry shares thoughts on running a weekly comics club in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada – a Comics Workbook “satellite school”! Tyler Landry: I’ve been running the Charlottetown Comics Club (CCC) weekly, since the spring of 2016. At first in my home with a few trusted friends, then we moved to a public place – the back room of a local comic shop, Lightning Bolt Comics, where anyone and everyone is welcome to join. I sought to model this club on a few basic ideals. First, the continued development and expansion (for myself, and members) of the foundation of comics-making skills I learned through Frank Santoro’s Correspondence Course, and, by extension, the inundation of ideas, influences, and examples flowing through Comics Workbook. Second, to gather locally operating cartoonists (of all levels and persuasions), who often toil in silence/obscurity at home, in a place where we can feel comfortable working and growing alongside each other, for mutual benefit and general good feels. ————————————————————————————————— Juan here. Lately, I’ve been really interested in how we create and share information (and truth) across the web. And of course, how visual literacy (and the tools necessary for its preservation) tie(s) into it. Let’s talk out about visual information and the net. Did you know that more than 180,000 of the items in the New York Public Library’s Digital Collections are in the public domain? It’s true! Aaron Cockle showed me that a year ago, the NYPL had announced this new part of their digitally accessible collection. Thanks Aaron. Now everyone has the freedom to enjoy, modify, reuse and share the materials in almost limitless ways! NYPL now makes it possible to download these items in the highest resolution available, directly from the Digital Collections website. They’re BIG files. It’s true, “the interactive visual library” has been upon us for a while thanks to search engines that could deliver images. Nevertheless, searching in that library is for the most part garbage. You have to sift through mountains of visual information just to potentially find what you need. Bummer. Web art that is allowed to grow wildly from that collective visual library, in an art-for-its-own-sake kind of way, has for the most part been visually chaotic and the noise of visual resolution has usually been used as an aesthetic tool. Think Paper Rad. (Of course, there are lots of interesting exceptions like Dina Kleberman’s I’m Google project – not chaotic at all!) What kind of art is possible with tools like Public Domain visual collections? You tell me. Relatedly and more broadly, this kind of thing reveals one of the many reasons why public libraries are so important. They point to a simple truth that everyone is denying. Searching via tools made by creators that work hand-in-hand with corporate interests sucks. It’s never deep enough. It’s never a rich enough experience. The paths to finding high quality, curated collection of visuals, for free, are long, windy, and sometimes non-existent. A private browser like Google, isn’t the most stable place to reliably find images across time. Sorry, private browsers. What we have is the exciting arrival of another institutionally supported manifestation of archive-able visual memory. I’m very thankful. We have Wikipedia, Archive.org, and others, but we still need more. Yes, this news is from last January, but I want to shout about these kinds of projects from the hilltops. Especially in these times of “#alternativefacts”. Why? Because. With the explosion of instantaneous visual communication across the internet, visual forms, digitally transferred, can essentially be considered as shared experiences. The shared experience of “having seen”. This aspect of highly networked communication allows for users to collectively “see” the world through a shared viewpoint. Permission to transform artifacts of visual ephemera, of past visual memories, invites us to step across time and create and modify languages using pre-existing systems of visual communication. It is the power to create knowledge. Captured thought held into stable states that can be comprehended by another person across the network. Truth as recordable and transferrable. Huge props to the late John Berger for helping me understand this and expand his thoughts from the seventies into the present day. So why and how does this matter today? Expanding this all out to copyright, websites ARE the expressions of that thought. And, as such function as the basis for the merging of idea and expression of idea. Everything expressed in “recordable” communication IS an idea within the legal framework. Organizations with corporate money have the power to take away certain “sides” of information. Information nowadays essentially being the mass of recorded experience. That kind of power can shape the mass of collective knowledge, that is the basis from which we collectively determine “truth”. Turning the creation of ideas into a commodity form. As a society, it is only through collectively supported libraries that we can expand what it means be creating, sharing and finding Truth. Commodity form as community form. Please visit your local library today. It may have been a while since you last visited… It may have been just yesterday! Either way, do yourself a favor and open yourself up to serendipity. Get out there, find something interesting and check it out. ————————————————————————————————— Sally here: The Guardian asked cartoonist Katie Fricas to document the Women’s March in Washington D.C. on January 21st 2017 – here are the stories of some of the women who chose to march. Cartoonists were on the streets worldwide that day, and many of them were documenting the march. Here is a sampling of work I gathered from just a quick scan through my Instagram feed: ————————————————————————————————— The Washington Post shared advice from eight creative thinkers to “the sisters who follow in their footsteps“. Among those who spoke out were Lynda Barry, Hilary Price, and Cece Bell. Advice from Hilary Price: “You will face two monsters, an external one and an internal one. The external one is the person who tells you you don’t have what it takes. You need to cultivate a knee-jerk response to this, to the tune of: ‘Go to hell. Yes I can.’ The internal monster needs a much softer touch. She’s trying to protect you from rejection, but her strategies are misguided. She says things like, ‘You don’t have time’ or, ‘This isn’t real work’ or, ‘It’s probably not good enough.’ “Your job is to see through these tactics, then tuck her in, tell her everything is going to be okay, and go back to your desk.” – Hilary Price And Lynda Barry says “always carry a pen and notebook” – read the rest HERE. (via Comic Riffs by Michael Cavna) ————————————————————————————————— There is a lovely piece in The Globe and Mail about The Beguiling, the famous Toronto comic book shop that recently had to move to new digs – a location that one can only hope will someday be filled with as much history as the last place. It won’t be quite the same Beguiling that Michael DeForge discovered as a high schooler, or the one that pulled Jillian Tamaki from New York City to Toronto… The cartoonist Seth finishes out the article: “I will certainly miss the Markham Street location. That place has a special spot in my memory. We all have a lost city inside ourselves – the memory of places that used to be. I’m sorry to add the Mirvish Village shop to that inner lost city, but I am happy to see the Beguiling carry on and prosper. Long live the Beguiling.“ Read the rest HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Don’t Miss: David Mazzucchelli’s interview with Ted Stearn over on The Comic’s Journal: “DM: But long before you were making comics you were thinking about characters and settings and worlds and creating these environments and I think it really shows right from the first comics you made that there was this sense of world-building, or atmosphere— TS: (Nods vigorously) That’s really good, I hadn’t really thought about that a lot, but I think that’s true, and I think the artists and the authors who I admire the most are able to do that. They did reflect on the real world, but they created their own—like, Basquiat did that, and, I don’t know, Goya did that, Charles Burchfield, and a lot of other artists that I admire. They weren’t married to “reality”—you know, so many artists recreating the world in their own vision. That’s what I appreciate about a lot of artists and I guess that’s what I was trying to do, though I don’t think I thought about it consciously, whether it was the sculpture or the paintings or the automatic drawings or the comics…” Comics on The Nib – recently Mary Shyne (Comics Workbook student) on Obama’s Last Mic Drop. ————————————————————————————————— It seems like cartoonists are more needed than ever these days, whether it’s to document and comment on history, tell the stories of forgotten people, or offer insights into how to survive in this increasingly strange world. From comics journalism to political and editorial cartoons to sci-fi fantasy epics to memoirs to off-the-cuff mini comics and zines…we need it all to help us navigate and survive with a semblance of grace. I’ve been incredibly inspired recently by the cartoonists in my life – from Audra Stang, here for her 2nd Rowhouse Residency, to Pittsburgh’s wealth of active and activist-minded artists, to my little 1st grade students who attend an after school comics class that I teach – and I hope that there continues to be many willing minds and hands out there ready to do this work. (If you have always wanted to make comics but aren’t sure where to start, check out the Santoro School Handbook – or our online Correspondence Course – or the Rowhouse Residency!) ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 1-21-2017 – by Gabriella Tito Suzy and Cecil – 1-22-2017 – by Gabriella Tito (Suzy and Cecil strips that appeared this weekend – don’t want you to miss any of the fun! Strips go up seven days a week @suzy_and_cecil) ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 1-23-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio ————————————————————————————————— 1-23-2017 – by Juan Fernández Share this page: [...]

06/02/2016

HarrisonJune 2, 2016News @h_gprince is collecting comics and arts news for Thursday, June 2, 2016. Today we’ll board the drunken boat, take a glance at process, and finish off by hunting heads. On a Boat PLEASE SHARE: Drunken Boat, the venerable online literary journal for experimental writing (15+ years running), is introducing a dedicated comics section beginning with our fall 2016 issue. We are seeking both form-melting and traditionally formal comics from a diverse range of artists, so whatever comics or comics-like things you’re making, send us your best. Submitted work should be previously unpublished (though feel free to contact us if this distinction is hazy), between one and twenty-five pages, and comprising either one or multiple pieces. Works will be displayed online, which offers some leeway with regards to size specifications. We simply ask that you familiarize yourself with the journal and use common sense when submitting. We’re open to figuring out a way to present your comics in the best possible fashion. The submissions deadline for our fall issue is 6/30/2016, so get to work! You’ll find our submissions page here. If you have any questions, feel free to email at nick@drunkenboat.com. -Nick Francis Potter, Drunken Boat comics editor Processing “Reading about other cartoonists’ process always interests me, but I’ve never really written about my own way of creating comics art because it’s usually as simple as can be – pencils, letters, inks, and colors all on the same sheet of paper in that order, no computer intercession to speak of. But for my latest comic, the bootleg Punisher/Dazzler blowout TRAP: FRANKIE TEARDROP, I employed a pretty different way of working that I thought one or two of you might be interested in looking behind the scenes of.” – Matt Seneca. This is how I do most my drawings. First attempt at using a time lapse thing, what do you think? #illustration #sketchbook #timelapse #animegirl #process A video posted by Matt Layzell (@m_layzell) on Jun 1, 2016 at 8:36am PDT Processing(g) “This is how I do most my drawings. First attempt at using a time lapse thing, what do you think?” – @m_layzell http://layzellbros.com/ Hunters Share this page: [...]

05/01/2018

Aaron CockleMay 1, 2018NewsAaron Cockle here today with Eva Hesse; Alberto Savinio + Roberto Calasso; Edward Gorey; Frederick Luis Aldama; How to Tell a (Good) Story; The Revengerers ————————————————————————————————— Eva Hesse: Arrows and Boxes, Repeated April 6-May 25, 2018, Craig F. Starr Gallery, 5 East 73rd Street, NYC Hesse is best known for the pioneering sculptural works in nontraditional materials like latex and fiberglass that she made between 1966 and her untimely death in 1970. Prior to identifying herself as a sculptor, Hesse worked in more traditional media like painting, and she made hundreds of drawings over the course of her short but prolific career. Her paintings, drawings, and sculptures are often considered separately, but this exhibition offers a rare opportunity to view early and late works side by side, illuminating the underlying structural similarities as well as their transformations. ————————————————————————————————— ALBERTO SAVINIO Annual installation, 06 October 2017 – 23 June 2018, The Center for Italian Modern Art, 421 Broome Street, 4th Floor, NYC Alberto Savinio will feature 25 rarely seen works by the artist, focusing on paintings produced after his move to Paris in 1926, when he put his other creative pursuits on hold in order to devote himself fully to visual arts. The exhibited works are characterized by Savinio’s vivid color palette, his fantastical interpretation of mythology and voyage, and his eccentric vision of landscape. Continuing CIMA’s practice of introducing work by contemporary artists into its exhibitions, the installation will also feature select sculptures and prints by French-American artist Louise Bourgeois (1911–2010). This juxtaposition will bring to the fore the two artists’ commonalities, including their flirtation with Surrealism, a shared interest in the subconscious, and, most significantly, the profound influence that familial relations had on their respective artistic imagery. ALSO: WEDNESDAY, MAY 9, 6-8PM Join CIMA for a rare opportunity to hear Roberto Calasso discuss the work of Alberto Savinio in conversation with JonathanGalassi, president of Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Calasso is the publisher of Adelphi Edizioni, the Milan editorial house that has over the last forty years embarked on a rigorous project to re-issue Alberto Savinio’s literary oeuvre. Adelphi has to date published some 23 books by the author including, in 1977, the Nuova Enciclopedia—a remarkable and highly original personal encyclopedia with entries ranging from the god Apollo to Josephine Baker, which Savinio worked on throughout the 1940s until his premature death in 1952. Note: This program is the first of two evenings featuring Roberto Calasso at CIMA, co-presented with Farrar Straus and Giroux and with the support of the Maurice English Poetry Award. On May 10, Calasso will discuss FSG’s newly issued edition of The Ruin of Kasch, translated by Richard Dixon, with author Lila Azam Zanganeh. The book will be available for purchase and signing both evenings. ————————————————————————————————— Gorey’s Worlds February 10–May 6, 2018, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, 600 Main Street Hartford CT This pioneering exhibition explores Gorey, his work, and the artists Gorey admired and collected. Works range in style, era, and media—from 19th-century prints and drawings to contemporary art from the 1970s and 1980s. Through 73 works on paper by Édouard Manet, Charles Meryon, Eugène Atget and Albert York and others, as well as anonymous folk art, visitors will step into Gorey’s imagination by viewing the art he collected alongside his own sketches, drawings, prints, and art books. Rarely seen portraits and personal effects, such as his distinctive fur coats and metal jewelry, further bring Gorey himself to life. ————————————————————————————————— The 217th meeting of the NY Comics & Picture-story Symposium will be held on Tuesday, May 1, 2018 at 7pm at Parsons School of Design, Kellen Auditorium (Room N101, off the lobby), Sheila C. Johnson Design Center. 66 Fifth Avenue. Free and open to the public. Frederick Luis Aldama on Latinx Comics: Geometric Storytelling, Production, and Consumption . Aldama will unzip his brain, offering a multimedia extravaganza of US Latinx comics as explored in and through pop culture. He explores how Latinx created comics vitally complicate and enrich our understanding of Latinx identity and experience and powerfully add to and actively shape the history of comics. Along the way Aldama presents a dynamic model for understanding Latinx subjects as active transformers of the world we live in today. Frederick Luis Aldama is Arts & Humanities Distinguished Professor of English and University Distinguished Scholar at The Ohio State University. He teaches courses on Latino comics, film, and other cultural phenomena. He is the author, co-author, and editor of over thirty books. He is founder and director of the White House Hispanic Bright Spot awarded LASER (Latinx Space for Enrichment Research) as well as recipient of the Ohio Education Summit Award and American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education’s Outstanding Latino/a Faculty in Higher Education Award. In 2017, Aldama was awarded the Alumni Award for Distinguished Teaching and inducted into the Academy of Teaching. He was recently inducted into the Society of Cartoon Arts. ————————————————————————————————— How to Tell a Story Eleanor Davis provides the illustrations for this NY Times piece by Daniel McDermon. Common Pitfalls As the saying goes, “Practice makes perfect.” But here are some things to look out for while you practice: Don’t sound like you’re reading from a book. Keep your language informal, like the way you would talk to a friend. “Your story isn’t meant to be read,” Mr. Beverly said. Wear your influences lightly and speak in your own voice. Don’t mimic someone else’s style or verbal patterns. Keep your goal in mind: this experience is for the audience, not for you. If you get lost or mess up, don’t call attention to a mistake. “Pause, gather yourself, and continue,” Mr. Beverly recommended. “Even if you have to repeat yourself.” Don’t overshare. There’s a difference between a relatable personal story, which helps connect you to the audience, and TMI. ————————————————————————————————— Intentional knockoffs Obvious Plant’s Jeff Wysaski made some knockoff Avengers action figures and they’re perfectly hilarious in their bootleggedness. See them all here. ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 5-1-18 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

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