Comics Workbook

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Juan Fernández

Posted on January 25, 2016January 25, 2016

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11/17/2016

Sam OmbiriNovember 17, 2016NewsSam Ombiri brings more thoughts on originality and Sally Ingraham follows up with comics by Shannon Wright and Keith Knight, a quick visit with Yona Harvey and Roxane Gay, the Winter Semester of the Santoro Correspondence Course, and Connor Willumsen’s Punisher pages for sale – plus March: Book 3’s big award. ————————————————————————————————— Sam Ombiri: A Shout-out to David O’Reilly I had more thoughts I wanted to share about originality that I didn’t mention last week, or I guess I feel I didn’t clarify. This is all concerning me, and how I approach originality – I am not an authority to impose. I’m not anti-originality, I guess I’m more thinking I’m anti-concern and preoccupation with originality. I’m not fully sure in which particular context that this struggle for originality would fit. I’m not sure even how to fully name a context of originality. The only thing that comes to my head is how when Lil Dicky became popular, he kept saying in interviews how he’s “different and original” and he repeats that so many times in different interviews to the point where it feels like a joke. Even if you forsake all these other underground hip hop artists, like say Heems, Busdriver, Open Mike Eagle, Danny Brown, Kitty, of course I have to mention Ride, or even if, as some of Lil Dicky’s fans were claiming, Lil Dicky meant in a more mainstream context that he’s so different – there’s the other context. (But even in that context he’s not in any way different.) Even then, as much as anyone can insist they’ve achieved originality and therefore they should be praised, someone can always come along and deny that. In the essay by David O’Reilly that I’ve been thinking about there’s an awesome quote by Tarkovsky – I won’t quote it for a couple reasons, a minor one being that it’s irrelevant. So I’ll just quote a different one, and for the sake of me making a point we’ll pretend he used this quote instead. Tarkovsky said that when he saw The Trial of Joan of Arc, he was touched by “the absolute independence of the spectator in regard to this film. A total independence in the sense that the film never appears to be a spectacle, but rather nature, life itself. If one wants to watch, one watches, if one doesn’t, one doesn’t. If one wants to see it as art one may, otherwise not. Such a strong independence from public and critical opinion remains for me the exemplary attitude of a director towards his audience.” He says later in the interview “when people tell me during the shooting of my film that a certain scene is in a way reminiscent of Bresson – and this has happened – I will immediately change the approach to avoid any resemblance. If there’s such an influence, it doesn’t show on the surface of my work. This is an influence of a deeper nature. It’s a moral influence between artists, without which art cannot exist.” Sammy Harkham said how he was really influenced by Brian Chippendale’s Ninja mini comics while Sammy was doing Somersaulting where the “melodrama is demilitarized” and the events made minor. It’s probably that type of indirect influence. I don’t know if Tarkovsky’s intentions were concerned with originality. It seems to be an altogether different impulse, similarly to the other quote in David O’Reilly’s essay (disregard the first sentence in the quote in relation to the last quote): “A preoccupation with originality of form is more or less a fruitless thing. A truly original person with a truly original mind will not be able to function in the old form and will simply do something different. Others had much better think of the form as being some sort of classical tradition and try to work within it.” I think everything but the last sentence is on a different wavelength than Josh Bayer’s idea of originality being a red herring. I think I would replace the last part of the quote with Josh Bayer’s thoughts on originality being a red herring. ————————————————————————————————— Sally here with some other comics and news from this week. From the Washington Post: “ “March: Book 3,” a graphic novel about the later years of the civil rights movement, won the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature on Wednesday night in New York.“ Congratulations to Rep. John Lewis and the creative team behind the book (including illustrator Nate Powell)! Co-writer Andrew Aydin had two take-aways from the big win, one being that the story of the civil rights movement could continue to be passed on to young people. The other was “Let the prejudice against comic books be buried once and for all!” We applaud that sentiment. Read the rest of the Washington Post article HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Shannon Wright is still making almost daily comics and sharing them on her Instagram. A recent strip: Because I’m not asking whether or not you wanna sleep with the dude or marry him. Get over yourself fellas. #comics #masculinitysofragile #blackartist #womenartists A photo posted by Shannon Wright (@shannondrewthis) on Nov 13, 2016 at 7:09pm PST Follow Shannon at @shannondrewthis for more. ————————————————————————————————— Essence has a feature on Yona Harvey and Roxane Gay’s work on the Black Panther spin-off series World of Wakanda – they talk about some of the challenges of taking on a Marvel Universe storyline. “Storytelling is storytelling, so it’s not that different, save for working within the comic format of panels,” said Gay. “The biggest difference for me was thinking more explicitly in terms of scene.” Harvey’s challenge was the formal outline. “I felt so resistant to the outline. In poetry, I experiment and draft and then shape the story through the placement of the poems. Total opposite of writing comics.” via Essence Read the rest of the article HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Keith Knight on The Nib recently: He has more Th(ink) strips on his website – check them out HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Comics Workbook has announced the Winter Semester of the Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers – course starts Dec. 29th 2016! 10 spots available – apply by Dec. 13th 2016 and get $100 of course fee! Email santoroschoolATgmail for more details. Santoro School Application guidelines: -3 figure drawings done on blank 3 x 5 index cards -3 landscape drawings done on blank 3 x 5 index cards -3 still life drawings done on blank 3 x 5 cards -draw in a contour line style – Think Matisse – no under-drawing – draw directly in ink -just send me small jpgs of images – dont post to your blog pls -specific url links to any comics work you have done. Send applications to: santoroschoolATgmail ————————————————————————————————— Connor Willumsen is selling his Punisher pages http://connorwillumsen.com/punisher/ #connorwillumsen #comicsworkbook #punisher #frankcastle A photo posted by @santoro.frank on Nov 16, 2016 at 5:39pm PST Connor Willumsen is selling the original pages from his Punisher story – check them out here. Share this page: [...]

CXC 2016: 3 Questions for the Crew

Sally IngrahamOctober 23, 2016Festivals and ShowsCartoon Crossroads Columbus was an incredibly rich experience, and it left the attending Comics Workbook crew dizzy from new ideas, wonderful experiences, and filled with a renewed sense of belonging to a radically supportive and constantly evolving community. In an effort to process all of this, we asked ourselves a few questions – below are the first set of answers, supplied by Sacha Mardou, Caleb Orecchio, Juan Fernandez, and Phil Dokes. SACHA MARDOU 1) What is your biggest takeaway as a maker from the CXC experience? This was a a bench mark show for me in a lot of ways. CAKE 2016 was the first time I’ve been to a show and had a sense of people knowing my work in advance. This is still a new experience for me – I come from the St. Louis comics scene where until lately Dan Z, Kevin H and Ted May were the heavy hitters and I was there too, kinda. This show was a personal branch out for me and just as Sky in Stereo represents me finding my authors voice, CXC represents, on a personal level, me getting recognition and acceptance from my peers. It also had another level of me being there with Comics Workbook and cementing friendships and projects that have been fermenting for awhile. Without sounding sappy, it really was profound in terms of being there, part of a group of people that I admire and respect, who’ve been giving me feedback and a platform to find a wide audience. It was overwhelmingly positive, great and I’m so grateful for the opportunity. 2) What was something that you found and got excited about? (a book, artist, idea?) I saw an original Ronald Searle drawing at the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum and it seemed to sum up why we’re all here and why we’re all doing this. It was an existential moment. I wanted so much to roll it up and stick it up my sleeve, but honesty and dignity won out. 3) Favorite moment? I had a lot of moments with very special people, too many to write about. Honestly, Alyssa Berg and I had a meeting of minds on Sunday and – I hope it god it was mutual- but yeah. I gotta new penpal out of CXC. That makes me so happy! Girl Power, etc. CALEB ORECCHIO 1) What is your biggest takeaway as a maker from the CXC experience? The biggest takeaway for me was the community. Being around cartoonists was very special to me. My typically introverted guise is abandoned around “my people.” Be it cartoonists in the same “generation” or pros and veterans, it’s nice to be around these people. And with having so much programming and two whole days available to network and mingle outside of exhibiting, it made CXC extremely hard to leave. I’m nostalgic already. 2) What was something that you found and got excited about? (a book, artist, idea?) Seeing Winsor McCay’s Little Nemo presentation by John Canemaker was a big deal for me. The genius of McCay is vast, and Canemaker displayed that well. It really energized me and colored my attitude through for the rest of the festival. ALSO, the State of the Industry panel moderated by Tom Spurgeon. It was a breath of fresh air to hear cartoonists and gatekeepers (a controversial term) talk about the nuts and bolts of making a living in the comics industry. I was particularly excited about King Features Syndicate general manager Brendan Burford’s point of view. He seems to see the big picture and is furiously optimistic about comics and cartoonists. AND AND I took a tour through The Billy Ireland’s archives, guided by Caitlin McGurk. That was a blast. 3) Favorite moment? Okay, since you asked, I have to admit this. I almost had a moment in front of Seth, Ben Katchor, and the rest of the tour party when Caitlin McGurk took us into part of the archives and, just sitting to my right was an original Krazy Kat sunday page. It was the most beautiful piece of art I’ve ever seen. Seeing it so big, and just sitting out in the open. I think it was floating? You could feel the cosmic energy surrounding it. It was like Herriman’s ghost put it there just for me to see (other people saw it too, I’m just being dramatic obviously). The beautiful lines, the design, the scratched out ink at the top of the tree to give it depth and texture, and Krazy just sitting peacefully under it. I’m not one to get emotional in public, but I thought I was going to cry like baby in front of these people. I can feel tears welling up as I type this. I will never speak of this again. JUAN FERNANDEZ 1) What is your biggest takeaway as a maker from the CXC experience? I was reminded of the joy of print. Sometimes these events are so draining that I forget how much I love these little books. The halls of the Billy and the floor of the Metropolitan filled my spirits and allowed me to run workshops, sell books AND soak up all the comics on the floor. I’ve been in a lull of production – financial reasons + I’ve been stretched too thin between my own comics making, community organizing and paying the bills that I haven’t brought any books into the world. The vast array of work on display at the Billy and at the Metropolitan Library has me raring to produce some quality comics for print. 2) What was something that you found and got excited about? (a book, artist, idea?) The careful and holistic planning to programming, scheduling and laying out of the festival had me thinking deeply about the future of comics festivals. It was like someone opened a window and let in the most delicious breeze. I was so inspired that I wrote a little about those thoughts! 3) Favorite moment? Honestly, visiting the Billy Ireland blew my mind. Among the stacks in the archives and the art on exhibit, seeing Richard Thompson’s strip in the “Good Grief!” exhibition blew my mind and had my in tears. Seeing Mr. Thompson’s work in the flesh reignited a flame that I’ve been tending in my personal comics making ever since here in Pittsburgh. PHIL DOKES 1) What is your biggest takeaway as a maker from the CXC experience? That the only limits in making comics are the ones you put upon yourself. Sally and Juan really do make it very easy to just let the no’s that normally pop up in my process, pretty quickly vanish and not trip up my progress. And before I know it, they’ve made me make a page. 2) What was something that you found and got excited about? (a book, artist, idea?) Scott Roberts’ Happy Trails. Beautiful risograph narrative flipbook. Whit Taylor’s Wallpaper. Worried about how strong it would hold together with no figures depicted – no worries needed. Sacha Mardou’s Long Form Fiction Planning talk – Came in figuring it would be good because of the natural flow of her work, but was blown way-away by the depth of her research & thoughtfulness in regards of her characters/story. Wowzers! 3) Favorite moment? Gonna give you two: One – Walking into the reading room with all the original art laid out for about the 3rd time that day. See some big older guy handling some art without the white gloves. I look around at the staff in disbelief. “This guy’s got a lot of &%&&^ nerve… let me go around this table and get a good look at thi-OHMYGADITSSERGIOFREAKINGARAGONES! Two – Right after Sacha’s Friday talk, me, Sally, Juan, Kurt were having some chit chat between events and, quite naturally, out came everyone’s index cards/sketchbooks and the pens were scratching away. Just felt so right. For the rest of our complete CXC coverage check out the special “round up” report HERE. Share this page: [...]

08/09/2016

Aaron CockleAugust 8, 2016NewsAaron here today with Jaime Hernandez covers; the Lakes International Comic Arts Festival; Zika Virus – Watch Out!; Sara Lautman on Grudges; Leela Corman on Jewish Comics; some Daniel Clowes Work up for Auction ————————————————————————————————— This week’s Featured Comic is from the Comics Workbook Roller Derby Team Berg/Doersch/Fleck/Huskisson/Lisa/Mancini/Mardou/Tito have covered Locas Starring Hopey, by Jaime Hernandez. Image above by Jennifer Lisa. ————————————————————————————————— Comics Workbook at the Lakes International Comic Arts Festival Our illustrious founder Frank Santoro, along with CW stalwarts Aidan Koch and Connor Willumsen, will be in attendance at the upcoming Lakes International Comic Art Festival, October 14-16 in Kendal, UK. Santoro, Koch, and Willumsen will be conducting a Composition Competition Workshop on October 15 that should not be missed, especially if you happen to be in the Lakes District or are able to travel there. Koch and Willumsen will be conducting their own respective workshops as well. This is shaping up to be a top-notch festival! ————————————————————————————————— Maki Naro has a comic about the Zika virus over at Fusion.net. ————————————————————————————————— How To Hold A Grudge, by Sara Lautman ————————————————————————————————— Leela Corman’s Jewish Comics Rundown Corman covers a lot of comics history in a relatively short amount of space here. ————————————————————————————————— Rowhouse Auction: D. Clowes Edition This week’s Rowhouse auction will start Wednesday (August 10) at 1200 EST. We will be auctioning off artwork and other rarities generously donated by the great Daniel Clowes over on eBay. Stay tuned for details – or email Frank here santoroschoolATgmail.com – You won’t want to miss this! Share this page: [...]

08/15/2017

Aaron CockleAugust 14, 2017NewsAaron Cockle here today with Maqsood-I-Kainaat; Tom of Finland; Wolk on Borges; FRAME Festival Open Call; Fake Photos! ————————————————————————————————— Maqsood-I-Kainaat, by Shreyas R Krishnan The 12th issue of the Ley Lines series is coming soon! Ley Lines is a quarterly publication dedicated to exploring the intersection of comics and the various fields of art & culture that inspire us. Co-published by Grindstone Comics and Czap Books. ————————————————————————————————— Tom of Finland, the Movie Touko Laaksonen gets the biopic treatment, and a fancy review at the Guardian. Considering the film’s subject matter, it actually contains very little sex – the main bedroom scene cuts from a kiss to the morning after. “The core fans were always saying: ‘I’ve seen the drawings, those are my sex, now I want to see the story of the man I idolise,’” says Karukoski. “So the amount of gay sex will come very much from the dramatic need. Where is the line where it becomes provocation? it overrides the emotional balance of the story.” Instead, much of the film focuses on the struggles Laaksonen endured as a gay man in conservative Finland, from facing jail as a young man after a pick-up went awry, to facing constant pressure from his younger sister never to express his true identity, since she believed it would bring shame on the family. “Even when I told her about him being accepted into the permanent collection at MoMA, her response was: ‘Well, what were they thinking?’” says Dehner, still hurt by the memory. The film, he says, is “touching – how terrible society has been to us and how conditional the love is from family members”. ————————————————————————————————— Webmaster Borges This is from way back in 1999, and probably the first piece I read by Douglas Wolk. Jorge Luis Borges and the Internet: Canny Borges never names the Web, of course: As “The Garden of Forking Paths” points out, in a riddle whose answer is chess, the only word that cannot be used is “chess.” But the meaning of his parables is specific and undeniable. The Aleph in the fiction of the same title, the portal through which one can see every point in the universe, is Netscape Navigator in all but name. The Zahir, an object that changes its form over time but monopolizes its owner’s attention forever, is none other than Microsoft Internet Explorer, as anyone who’s tried to unstick it from a computer’s operating system only to click fatally on an innocuous icon will tell you. (Consider, in fact, the alphabetical remove of Borges’ names for the browsers, his subtle jest on the Alpha and Omega of his new world.) ————————————————————————————————— Prague Comic Arts Festival Open Call Sign up for the FRAME festival and become a part of an emerging festival, full of comics, zines and illustrations! We welcome all small publishers, authors and illustrators. OPEN CALL is until 31.8. 2017. Each exhibitor can choose from two options for his presentation – a small table 110 x 55 cm or a large table 220 x 55 cm. The jury of Centrala and No Ordinary Heroes will then select approximately 50 exhibitors who will be contacted with detailed information on arrival and installation no later than September 10, 2017. ————————————————————————————————— ‘Research suggests that regardless of what you might think about your own abilities to spot a hoax, most of us are pretty bad at it.’ The BBC has a handy guide to spotting fake photos: Another giveaway is the colour of people’s ears. “If the Sun is behind me, my ears will look red from the front because you’ll see the blood,” he says. “If the light is coming from the front, you won’t see the red in the ear.” ————————————————————————————————— A Cosmic Journey – 8-15-2017 – by Cameron Arthur ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 8-15-2017 – by Sally Ingraham ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 8-15-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

02/14/2017

Aaron CockleFebruary 14, 2017NewsAaron here today with Podcasts for Grownups; Gerhard Richter Comics; (SOME)BODY at Adam Baumgold Gallery; Open Access at the Met; Frank S and Mickey Z, talking Risography; Daniel Clowes, talking on u-tube (with French subtitles!) ————————————————————————————————— The Comics for Grownups crew takes a look at Last Look by Charles Burns, Everything Is Teeth by Evie Wyld and Joe Sumner, and The Unquotable Trump by R. Sikoryak. ————————————————————————————————— Often standing alone, the Biped is a loner in a world of the replicas. J.Hoberman looks at some lost Gerhard Richter cartoons at the New York Review: Comic Strip’s austerely sketchy terrain is sometimes darkened by the artist’s thumb and palm prints. On other pages, Richter employs clusters of dots to suggest a desert. (The Biped dives into the sand on one page to surface in the next.) Richter’s drawings are annotated by pages or passages of elegantly blotchy, largely indecipherable writing with a family resemblance to Cy Twombly’s calligraphy; the use of ominously unreadable dialogue balloons, obscure crypto maps, and ornate official stamps suggest Saul Steinberg as another point of reference. ————————————————————————————————— (SOME)BODY February 18-April 8, 2017 Adam Baumgold Gallery 60 East 66 Street, NYC Featuring work by: LYNDA BARRY • POLINA BArSKAYA • Marc bell • BARTON LIDICE BENES • todd bienvenu • BETTE BLANK • VARUJAN BOGHOSIAN • ERNIE BUSHMILLER • DANIEL CLOWES • JOE COLEMAN • WILLIAM COPLEY • STUART DAVIS • ROY DeFOREST • MARCEL DZAMA • RAFAEL FERRER • dan fischer • JOHN GUTMANN • AL HANSEN • KIRK HAYES • NADIRA HUSAIn • SUE GERARD • JAIME HERNANDEZ • ALeX KatZ • ella kruglyanskaya • TALA MADANI • RICHARD MCGUIRE • JIM NUTT • christina ramberg • PETER SAUL • SETH • SAUL STEINBERG • MARK TANSEY • ADRIAN TOMINE • Ernest tino trova • CHRIS WARE • RACHEL WHITEREAD • DAVID WOJNAROWICZ • CRYS YIN • RAY YOSHIDA ————————————————————————————————— Creative Commons Zero at the Met The Metropolitan Museum of Art recently released a massive amount of work to the online masses: As of today, all images of public-domain works in The Met collection are available under Creative Commons Zero (CC0). So whether you’re an artist or a designer, an educator or a student, a professional or a hobbyist, you now have more than 375,000 images of artworks from our collection to use, share, and remix—without restriction. This policy change to Open Access is an exciting milestone in The Met’s digital evolution, and a strong statement about increasing access to the collection and how to best fulfill the Museum’s mission in a digital age. ————————————————————————————————— O Risograph, My Risograph! Over at the TCJ blog, Frank Santoro has several questions for Mickey Zacchilli about riso printing: Personally, I am fascinated with how risograph printing has changed making color comics. Before risograph was around the choices were expensive offset or expensive print on demand. And often dealing with those printers was difficult. The “pro” riso printers I have engaged are not faceless sales reps on the phone who have no experience making comics. So riso printers and their enthusiasm for the materials has reinvigorated the small press scene – which has drifted into “book publishing” (like giant offset press books) – and I was hoping you could speak to that? Yeah, I think that riso printing really has opened up a lot of options for people in a lot of ways! Especially in terms of self publishing! I really prefer being able to do something myself if I can, when I can. I think it’s important to keep the overhead low, because I think that books and zines are really important to offer to people at a price that is reasonable, that they can afford. I guess that’s why I don’t really like the “art chic” end of riso-printing, because it really is an affordable way to make a book or zine extra fun, and playing like it’s “high end” or “high art” is unfair and also just not true. But who am I? ————————————————————————————————— À l’occasion de son exposition à la Galerie Martel, Daniel Clowes nous parle de son parcours Clowes talking about comics and film, film and comics, in his usual way. ————————————————————————————————— Announcing the Spring Semester of thee Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers! The course starts March 7th 2017. Apply by February 26th to get 100 bux off! The course is 8 weeks long – payment plans are available. Application guidelines: – 3 figure drawings done on blank 3 x 5 index cards – 3 landscape drawings done on blank 3 x 5 index cards – 3 still life drawings done on blank 3 x 5 cards – draw in a contour line style –think Matisse – no under-drawing – draw directly in ink – just send me small jpgs of images – dont post to your blog pls – send specific url links to any comics work you have done. If you haven’t done comics before that is not a problem. Email santoroschoolATgmail to apply! More details HERE. ————————————————————————————————— A Cosmic Journey – 2-14-2017 – by Cameron Arthur ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 2-14-2017 – by Sally Ingraham ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 2-14-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio ————————————————————————————————— Cozytown – 2-14-2017 – Juan Fernandez Share this page: [...]

01/25/2016

Posted on January 25, 2016January 25, 2016 by Juan Fernández

Hello world,

Sophie Yanow‘s got a new comic, Cozy out in Quebec’s comics magazine, PLANCHES. It’s a wordless, blizzard time revelry comic. Good reading for all of you out there buried under a couple of feet on the East Coast.

Berliac‘s announced his latest project. SADBØI will be 128 pages long, and will initially be published by Norwegian publisher Jippi Forlag sometime this summer. English version will come out sometime after. Here’s where Berliac’s head is at with SADBØI.

Social structures shape the individual into what we call “goodness”, and when it fails, correctional punishment is employed. Is goodness a real choice, then? In a world where Evil is the last bit of freedom left, SADBØI will heroically choose it, and craftfully make it visible to the eyes of everyone.

Connor Stechschulte‘s second installment of Generous Bosom is now available for purchase through his online shop. He’s got a special package deal for anyone interested in purchasing Generous Bosom 1 and 2.

Matt Seneca has said of GB1, “It’s a beautiful piece of work. It’s tough to make work better than this.” and “Probably the best sex scene I’ve seen in a comic in terms of realism. It’s perfect.”

Heidi Macdonald of the Beat called GB2 the “most mindboggling comic of the year”.

Dazzling, risograph printed erotic psychological thriller about the rain-soaked night a stranded motorist is forced to spend with a strange, isolated couple. Well worth your time.

Sophie Goldstein‘s made the second installment of her 3-part House of Women series available for digital download on Gumroad. Science fiction meets psycho-sexual drama. Mysterious, tense and expansive.

On the Pittsburgh front, I’m happy to relay the official communiqué that Comics Workbook’s latest publication, Zona, is now available for purchase on the school store. Zona #01 2016 – includes the work of Gabriella Tito, Harry Moyer, Jack Brougham, and Frank Santoro. 44 pages of comics – check it out HERE

Pittsburgh Comics Salon – Saturday Comics Studio Jan 23 2016 Pittsburgh. Great turn out this past Saturday. Good vibes. Real cozy. Comics makers of all ability levels came out and held it down. Had lots of quality books for folks to peruse and copy from. Worked on modular comics composition. I was afraid that the snow was going to keep everyone at home, but folks came out full force.

-juan fernandez

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Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in News

Juan Fernández

Posted on January 25, 2016January 25, 2016

Explore

Talking Trash With Derf

J KellyMarch 17, 2016InterviewsDerf’s The City was one of the most popular alt weekly newspaper comic strips of all time, appearing in 140 papers at its height, and his international best seller My Friend Dahmer won the Angoulême Prize and named by Time magazine as one of the “top five non-fiction books of the year” in 2012. His new graphic novel, Trashed, is a great break-down of the garbage industry inspired in part by the time Derf himself worked as a garbageman. You can meet Derf on April 2nd here in Pittsburgh at PIX, where he’ll sign books and talk during the evening’s programming. We asked him to fill us in on a few things: John Kelly: You spent years as one of the most visible alt-weekly cartoonists. Other than the medium being pretty much dead or at least diminished what do you see as the biggest changes in that world? Is it even an option for cartoonists today? And what, besides Craigslist, killed it off? Derf: Sadly, that is a genre that no longer exists. Neither do daily strips for that matter, not as a viable career anyways. The weekly guys who are still at it have all transitioned to a paid web model. Seems to be working for them. I chose to go in a different direction. I was bored with it. Turns out, judging from the reception my books have received, I was toiling in the wrong genre all along! Oh well. Twenty years down the crapper! The internet wiped out the weeklies, for sure. Not only by absconding with its main sources of revenue personals and classifieds but by taking its content. The weekly press was the internet before the internet. The weeklies were also plagued by lousy management and stupid decisions. Look no further than getting rid of comic strips for evidence of that! I pin this on the bizarre corporate takeover of the alternative press. The first generation of activist, local owners all cashed out by the end of the 90s and sold their papers to corporate media companies. It was pretty much all over at that point. Everything has its time, and the era of the vibrant weekly press, and of weekly cartoons, is long over. Its too bad, because it was great fun and we did important work. Kelly: Did you always hope to expand your work into these longer pieces like Dahmer and Trashed? Both started out as smaller projects. Did you envision longer pieces with them from the start? Derf: My Friend Dahmer, absolutely. I always envisioned it as a long book. The early, short versions were little more than samples that I hoped would interest a larger publisher in the project, which didn’t happen. And also was me working out how to tell and draw a longform story. There was a bigger learning curve there, especially with the art, than I expected. Trashed started as a 50-page floppy in 2002. I had no expectations there of a larger work. But when it was so well received and got me my first Eisner nomination, I decided it would be an ongoing project. I came back to it in 2010 and 2012 as a webcomic. It only took that long because of cancer and my decision to make Punk Rock & Trailer Parks first. I was planning to keep adding to the Trashed webcomic until it eventually became a book. I considered it a side project. It was my editor at Abrams, Charlie Kochman, who prodded me to make it a book now, which was a great call, it turns out. So the new graphic novel is basically the entire web series I had mapped out. Kelly: Rate your own garbage disposal/recycling habits. It all seems pretty hopeless. Is it? Derf: I do as well as I can. Im not an eco-fanatic. I recycle absolutely everything, but, like all Americans, Im faced with over-packaging and commercial waste at every turn. Until we cut down on that, at the production end, our garbage will continue to be a huge problem. As I explain in the book, the biggest part of our waste, almost a third, is packaging. So the largest part of our crap is the crap our crap comes in! That’s America. I am, however, really obsessive about how my garbage is put out. Nothing is too heavy, everything is neat and tidy and lined up for the garbagemen. No piles of trash, no boobytraps. My wife laughs at me because I spend so much time arranging the trash. Kelly: Its clear that both Dahmer and Trashed were extremely researched. How did your background at newspapers and as a journalism student help with this process? Can you pick out anything you found during the research process for either (or both books) that stands out as something that surprised you to learn? Also, as someone who who was there for the Dahmer story, were there things that the media just got wrong in their reporting? Derf: The media got just about EVERYthing wrong about Dahmer’s young life. That was really aggravating, since I was still working in the press at that time. It was thoroughly depressing watching the 24-hour news cycle in action, right on my doorstep, actually. The biggest surprise for me regarding Jeff, was how close to that first murder my friends and I were. Mere feet away from the body, at some points. When he carved up his first victim, the rest of us were just a few houses away at a friends party! I had quite a few sleepless nights over these revelations. But its all ancient history now. I have to keep reminding myself Jeff was real. Hes become a character in a comic book to me now, 23 years after his death. Thats a psychological defense mechanism, I imagine. Kelly: Can you talk about any other graphic novels that you feel really stand out? Derf: I dont read many comics anymore, to be completely honest. I stopped reading comics when I started making comics. Its just something I needed to do for my own creative development. Im aware of whats out there and whats good, but I dont feel I can offer any opinions. I will say this, its a golden age of graphic novels right now. Every month sees a dozen incredible books, and thats not even counting the avalanche of material coming from micro-publishers. Its a fabulous time to be a comics fan. Kelly: Any advice for people trying to break into the field? Derf: Do good work. I firmly believe that good work finds a way to be seen. It’s as simple as that, but, of course, thats not an easy accomplishment. That’s the thing. Kelly: What are you working on next/now? Derf: Right now Im dabbling with another webcomic, The Baron of Prospect Ave. Its a sequel to my first book, punk Rock & Trailer Parks. Another fun side project. Except I actually got a big arts grant to do it! In Ohio we have these Cultural Workforce grants and they gave three of them to comics creators this year, which is pretty damn cool. You can read it on my website www.derfcity.com. Its another side project, just for fun, but it too will be a book eventually. My French publisher nags me about it incessantly, in fact. But hell just have to wait. I’ll also have more volumes of True Stories coming out later this year, from the fine folks at Alternative Comics. These collect my stories from my comic strip, The City. I have three more volumes planned. Its a nice way to wrap up that part of my career and have an archive of all those True Stories. And then this spring and summer I’ll decide what my next new book will be and start working on that. I have more ideas than I have time. I wish I was faster. Work until you die! That’s my motto. Share this page: [...]

08/04/2016

HarrisonAugust 4, 2016NewsHello, this is Harrison. Here is the comics and arts news of August 4, 2016. ————————————————————————————————— http://profweston.tumblr.com/post/148417347211/trying-some-comics-outttt Cameron Nicholson Recent comic experiments by this Richmond, VA, cartoonist. More here. ————————————————————————————————— Lettering your own work is fun as hell. Starting to get a hang of it. #comic #comics #wip #studio #photoshop #lettering #comiclettering #hardwork #blackartist #onemanband A photo posted by Skuds McKinley (@skudsink) on Aug 3, 2016 at 2:41pm PDT Skuds McKinley “Draw everyday. 4 to 6 hours every day. No excuses! If you want to be a comic book artist you have to do this, you have to be fast and be cognizant of deadlines. Draw things that you really enjoy. If you love manga or Spider-Man, draw that stuff!! Don’t just draw things that are popular, it’ll come off as fake. Push yourself to the limit to be a good artist. Learn perspective drawing, learn anatomy, learn how to draw vehicles. Draw everything! This will put you ahead of the guys that draw the same crap over and over again. Try not to spend so much time worrying about a style or comparing yourself to others, you’ll just be shooting yourself in the foot. Just focus on being a good artist who can draw anything thrown at them. Over time your style will start to show itself.” – Derek Skuds Mckinley Jones Follow @skudsink for daily drawing updates. A couple of Skuds’ books are for sale on the school auction – see below. ————————————————————————————————— ? ? ? “When Manchester-based photographer Mishka Henner first stumbled upon these seemingly abstract images on Google Earth, he had no idea what he was seeing; with research, the artist realized that these tentacle-like scars on the earth were created by the meat industry. The harrowing satellite-sourced images that constitute The Feedlots convey the sheer scale of intensive farming in America, where the need to maximize profit all too often takes precedence over concerns for sustainability and animal welfare.” – Elizabeth Sulis Gear for Feature Shoot Here. ————————————————————————————————— “Can I touch yours?” “As a mixed-race child growing up in a predominately white suburb, my features were an anomaly to the unexposed eye.” Whit Taylor in the Nib. ————————————————————————————————— McGurk At Work “After gaining experience at Marvel Comics and the Center for Cartoon Studies in Vermont, McGurk moved to Columbus to work as a visiting curator at the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum, which houses the world’s largest cartoon and comics collection. In just over four years, she has moved up to associate curator for outreach, organizing exhibits and public programs. She is also an assistant professor.” – Erica Thompson for Columbus Alive More Here. ————————————————————————————————— Sad Sack Share this page: [...]

09/30/2016

Sally IngrahamSeptember 30, 2016NewsSally here with Meg Lemke on censorship, the return of Karen Berger, reviews of work by Whit Taylor, Hazel Newlevant, and Daryl Seitchik, Ulli Lust on “drawing as language”, and Sarah Bowie’s adventures in Angouleme. ————————————————————————————————— On the site we have the first roundup of photos from the Comics Workbook hosted cartoon workshops at the Small Press Expo 2016! Check them out HERE. ————————————————————————————————— The last week in September is traditionally Banned Book Week. This annual event put on by the American Library Association brings attention to the books that have received censorship across the years, but more importantly it is a celebration of the freedom to read whatever you want. Meg Lemke, Editor-and-Chief of MUTHA, wrote a piece for Pen America on Jillian and Mariko Tamaki’s This One Summer, which has been frequently removed from schools and K-12 school libraries for it’s use of “profanity” and “vulgarity”. Comics have always had a close relationship with the firing squad, and Lemke muses on why: “As with other banned comics (such as Alison Bechdel’s lauded Fun Home), we see how easily images read as obscenity to those unfamiliar with the form. They are seen as more dangerous by their accessibility. It is what makes them attractive to younger readers, and too tempting a mark for censorship.” – Meg Lemke for Pen Read the rest of the piece HERE. Read an excerpt from This One Summer HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Karen Berger is BACK! If that name is unfamiliar, get on the same page quick: “For three decades, she worked as an editor at mega-publisher DC Comics, and her long list of accomplishments while there can mostly be traced back to one risky venture: creating and running a mature-leaning imprint called Vertigo from 1993 to 2013. In that position she did more than just about anybody else in comics history to get ambitious, avant-garde, serious non-superhero work in front of a mass audience. The Sandman, V for Vendetta, Preacher, iZombie, Y: The Last Man, Transmetropolitan, 100 Bullets, Hellblazer — those are just a few of the better-known titles Vertigo produced during Berger’s tenure.” – via Vulture.com After a falling out with DC Comics and a silence of 3 years, Karen Berger has returned to the scene, making her return with a new comic she’s edited – Surgeon X – which hit stands on Sept. 28th. More on this story HERE. (via The Comics Reporter) ————————————————————————————————— Rob Clough has reviews of Whit Taylor‘s Wallpaper and Hazel Newlevant‘s Tender-Hearted on High-Low this week! Check them out HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Ulli Lust has a report on the International Comics Festival Boomfest on her blog – check it out HERE and plug into the Russian alternative comics scene for a bit. Speaking of Ulli Lust, she has a preview on her website of one page from the new book she’s been working on over the last 3 years. Page 333: ————————————————————————————————— And to continue speaking of Ulli Lust, she was one of several cartoonists who appear in a series of films about “drawing as language”, made by the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Art. Gabrielle Bell, Ben Katchor, Jooste Swart, and Joe Sacco, among others, are also interviewed. Ulli Lust’s film is below: ————————————————————————————————— The Comics Beat presents a review of Daryl Seitchik‘s Exits (Koyama Press, 2016). “Moving past something might be the central message of Seitchik’s story, and the idea that even as a healthy endeavor it might not look like we expect it and it might have its own set of issues. Claire moves past the corporeal being that she feels is the center of her problems, but pushing that aside to another state doesn’t really solve anything for her, and reality becomes the result of whatever you make of it.” – John Seven Read the rest HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Sarah Bowie is in Angouleme, doing a residency in La Maison des Auteurs – and she is keeping a diary of the adventure. Today’s story: Catch up and keep up with Sarah HERE. ————————————————————————————————— If you haven’t seen it yet, check out the video of Cameron Weston Nicholson‘s workshop at SPX – he riffs on many of the things that I love about making comics myself. Well worth a watch! ————————————————————————————————— Help send Connor Willumsen to the UK for The Lakes International Comic Arts Festival in October! ————————————————————————————————— It’s finally feeling like Fall in Pittsburgh! I have plans to usher October in with some spooky reading and adventures in apple orchards. Have a good weekend folks! – Sally 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: [...]

07/06/2018

Sally IngrahamJuly 5, 2018NewsSally Ingraham here with news and comics from Ulli Lust, Hannah Berry, Joana Mosi, and more! ————————————————————————————————— Ulli Lust has an exhibition at Cartoonmuseum Basel, June 30-Oct. 28th 2018. She composed a photo report about the show HERE, for those of us likely to miss it. There is also an article about the retrospective on Aargauer Zeitung, which is a passionate testimony to the effect Ulli Lust and her work has on people. It begins (excuse the rocky translation out of German by Google translate…!): “None draws as furiously as the Viennese Ulli Lust – and no one shows them as affectionately as the Cartoonmuseum Basel. The greeting in the Cartoonmuseum is clear: The painted face of Ulli Lust on the glass pane at the entrance to the exhibition, hair wild, look adventurous. Behind this glass front, so much is now clear, hides an artist who prefers to fall mercilessly, than cautiously gropes. Rather than miss a pretty label. Behind this glass front is Ulli Lust and she does not mean for no reason.“ Decipher the rest HERE – or if you speak German, I hope you enjoy this article. ———————————————————————————————— There is an interesting and quite funny interview with Hannah Berry on Comics Grid about how her comics relate to her interest in law, and vice versa. She is a British cartoonist and the creator of Detectives Britten and Brülightly, among other works. Berry’s work is dark, and serious, and very British (they talk about this in the interview) but as you might expect, she mixes in the right balance of humor. “Thomas Giddens: Just thinking a bit more about the kind of ways you engage with particular issues. Is humour important? It seems like there’s some moments of your work that are quite amusing. In Britten and Brülightly for instance, it’s very dour, it’s very sombre, it’s very serious, and then there’s a talking teabag. Hannah Berry: Yes, yes, I do try to sneak the odd little joke in here and there, because I think you can reach people; there’s something about humour that really connects people. I think it’s a way of really getting onto a person’s wavelength. I mean, maybe some of my humour falls flat—as much as I’d love to be, I’m not looking over everyone’s shoulder as they read my books. Someday, hopefully, with the internet, but who knows. But I do think there’s something with humour that really helps you connect with the reader. It’s a similar thing to horror, I suppose. There’s sort of a build-up and you’re trying to get a very distinct reaction from a person, and I think I can do that. I do a weekly cartoon strip for the New Statesman which is again not really political. I tweet them every week or thereabouts, and the ones I think are the absolute successes, the ones that will probably win me some kind of future prize, they’re the ones that do alright, you know? They’re okay. But the ones that I sort of do in a hurry and I think are less good, they’re the ones that do really well. So maybe my sense of humour is not what everybody else’s is, or maybe I just can’t understand Twitter, I don’t know; maybe I’m doing something a little bit awry, perhaps. But I do think it’s an important factor, yes, and also because, you know, it’s nice to read a funny book every now and then.“ Read the whole interview HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Check out work by Joana Mosi, a Portugese cartoonist and teacher based in Lisbon. Above is part of a short comic that I enjoyed – see the rest HERE. Her most recent book is Spineless Cactus (Nem Todos os Cactos têm Picos) which you can see more of HERE – and read a review about HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Weekend Snacks Nicole Hollander is the guest on Episode 279 of RiYL – check it out HERE. Publishers Weekly talks to Lisa Hanawalt about her upcoming comic Coyote Doggirl (Drawn & Quarterly, Aug. 2018) and all her “weird little horses” – HERE. The Comics Alternative podcast digs into the entire spring catalog from Koyama Press – including new comics by Jessica Campbell and Fiona Smyth. Listen to Episode 285 HERE. The Portland Mercury has a review of Geneviève Castrée‘s last book – A Bubble – published two years after her death, and made for Castrée’s daughter. Frank Young reviews Cathy Malkasian‘s Eartha for The Comics Journal – HERE. Paste Magazine sits down with Alisa Kwitney, the writer behind Mystik U. Read the interview HERE. Mariko Tamaki is the latest guest on Inkstuds – listen HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 7-6-2018 – by Gabriella Tito Share this page: [...]

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