Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in NewsTagged caleb orecchio, gabriella tito, gina wynbrandt, INK BRICK, Iona Fox, kate beaton, kickass annie, koyama press, Lady's Comics, lauren weinstein, ley lines, marie duval, shreyas krishnan, sofie louise dam, the strumpet, vanesa r. del rey, vanessa davis

Sally Ingraham

Posted on February 2, 2017February 2, 2017

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03/29/2018

Comics WorkbookMarch 28, 2018NewsHere’s Sam Ombiri on Sophie Goldstein’s House of Women! ————————————————————————————————— Sam Ombiri here: At times when I read comics I’m really invested in the scenario being presented, and I don’t really identify the characters well enough. I’m reading the story and I have to interrupt myself to study who is who. With House of Women by Sophie Goldstein, however, I was really struck by the characters’ various expressions, and the gestures the characters would make. I was impressed by how much information was conveyed through this, and in ways that aren’t that obvious. I was just reading and reading, invested in the scenario, but I found that I was experiencing who each character was in a different way. It wasn’t just their distinctive design – it had more to do with their facial expressions, and the moments that took place really stuck in my mind after reading because I could feel who the characters were. Before the characters could speak, I felt a deep understanding of who they were. Whenever characters would act a certain way, it would come as no surprise because just their facial expressions would communicate so much. This was more so for Sarai, Kizzy, Rhivka, and Aphra than for Mr. Dean or the aliens (above). And that makes sense. It’s the equivalent of shining a spotlight. For example, it’s not unlike Aphra to look so cross – she’s clearly a very level-headed person, so when she looks cross or worried, it’s for good reason. When Kizzy appreciates the smell of the blossoms or is really taken by children, it’s very expected. Rhivka, for good reason, is hard to pin down and her absence is really felt. She looks like someone who would be mysteriously absent while the other women are gathered. All the expressions a character has ever made has molded that character’s face, and their gestures dictate the shape of their body. I was really struck by this – maybe because the style the book is drawn in is seemingly trying to get in the way of the story. It seems like there are things that should be obscuring my understanding and such, but the story is so clearly laid out – even the word balloons tell me where to go as a reader. What’s alluded to is what’s being said, making a rhyme with the image and words. Maybe I’m also thinking about how straightforward the visual narration in The Oven was, whereas in House of Women Sophie Goldstein is more specific with how moments should unfold. The book is very aware of a reader reading the pages – each moment is paced very distinctly. If a scene is of the women walking up a hill (above), the page is drawn in such a way that you feel it, you feel the moment passing slowly. It’s a case of using the comics medium to its full extent. This is perhaps like it’s filmic counterpart, Black Narcissus. I was anticipating a retelling of Black Narcissus because of how much Sophie emphasized it as a major influence – though truth be told, to me it was very far from that. I see maybe, for lack of a better term, iconography from Black Narcissus (like the title itself for example), and certain moments from Black Narcissus playing out in the book, but it simultaneously feels independent of the movie and any comparison to it would be inappropriate. What happened to Rhivka is perhaps comparable to Sister Ruth in Black Narcissus, but Rhivka is more aware of what’s happening to her. There is also this Cronenberg-esque mutation that one of the alien natives has gone through. This was actually a fantastic point in the book. The alien’s mutation was amazing. I really liked the design of the aliens in the book. All the drawings in this book are enjoyable both to look at, and to read – from the way the story is told through the panels, to the way the sounds the characters are hearing is communicated, and the words the characters say to each other. All great. – Sam Ombiri Get a copy of House of Women by Sophie Goldstein HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Announcing the Spring Semester of thee Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers 8 weeks! $500 bux! 10 spots available! Rolling start date because of spring break – start as early as March 30th 2018. Deadline to apply is April 12th. Read all about the course HERE and email santoroschool@gmail.com for more details or to apply. ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 3-29-2018 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

01/01/2018

Caleb OrecchioJanuary 1, 2018NewsCaleb Orecchio here with thoughts on Ed Piskor’s X-Men:Grand Design, and other news. ————————————————————————————————— What if Ed Piskor could do his dream X-Men comic? “I have such reverence for Kirby. I think of him every day. But there are Marvel and DC fans who only know the superhero idiom of comic storytelling, which is to say, the Jack Kirby idiom. I’m a fan of all comics,” Piskor says. “I like manga, I like French European albums, I like a lot of newspaper comic strips. The storytelling method I use is a storytelling pastiche of all that stuff. I am trying to do the least Kirby X-Men comic ever made.” -Ed Piskor from an Entertainment Weekly interview concerning his comic, X-Men:Grand Design Thee great Ed Piskor has successfully brought the “indie” aesthetic to the mainstream in a big way. To me, Piskor’ drawing is this amalgamation of what is often considered “old-school’—wearing influences like Crumb, Clowes, Wood and Kurtzman on his sleeve, plus a year at the Kubert School and we have a drawing style that probably feels alien to most of today’s Marvel readers. The furthest thing from what I’d bet on to be a commercial success has turned out, from all accounts, to be a smash. In a time where Piskor’s hatching style is practically “outdated” as far as any mainstream comic is concerned, X-Men: Grand Design looks as fresh as any great comic to come out in 2017. This is an Ed Piskor Comic published by Marvel, as opposed to a Marvel comic, made by Ed Piskor. He even mentions in the EW interview that he will be taking small liberties with the timeline to correct old, awkward editorial mishaps. He is actually shaping the canon of the property as opposed to most indie/mainstream collaborations that end up being low-stakes, non-canon work and fall to low sales. Piskor has instead made a “real” and profitable superhero comic that will serve as a genealogy for X-Men readers, just like Hip Hop Family Tree serves as a comprehensive history of the form for hip hop heads. How is all this relevant? Well true believers, this to me is the promise of “fusion,” a term coined by Comics Workbook fearless leader Frank Santoro. From a 2011 Rob Clough TCJ article on Michael DeForge and fusion, Frank sez, “’Fusion to me is about being polished and being able to rise above ‘amateur’ assemblages like the Fort Thunder second wave… I think it’s a broad term, but for me, applies to those seeking to be ‘mainstream’ – something above most art comics and something way more sophisticated than most mainstream schools.’” Earlier when the term was coined, the cartoonists who were prominently associated with fusion were Michael DeForge, Brandon Graham, Dash Shaw, James Stokoe, Michel Fiffe, etc, but I think the idea of Piskor’s work has brought this prophesy to fruition. This to me is very exciting for cartoonists who want to do their own thing on their own terms. More thoughts along these lines to come. Also, see Sally Ingraham’s write-up for the X-Men: Grand Design #1. -CO ————————————————————————————————— if you don’t know, now you know TCJ.com has their annual “Year in Review Roundup.” Take a moment to reread that great takedown of Yoe Books by RJ Casey. Similarly, Tom Spurgeon’s Comics Reporter posts some reruns, notably an interview with Carol Tyler about what would become Soldier’s Heart, and an interview with Sammy Harkham about Kramers 9–my favorite installment of the series after the lamented and underrated Kramers 8. The Beat has a couple articles on that one overstated, infamous Kirby quote (made popular by Dylan Horrocks) the warning to a young James Romberger, who writes the second article, from what I can tell, in response to the first article by Heidi MacDonald. Rob Clough reviews comics by our own Aaron Cockle, along with fellow CCS alums, Matthew New and Steve Thueson. Really enjoyed this Craig Fischer’s TCJ article on Alan Moore’s Providence. Also really excited for Tom Kaczynzki’s new TCJ column, “Event Horizon”. ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 1-1-2018 – by Caleb Orecchio ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 1-1-2018 – by Sally Ingraham Share this page: [...]

07/24/2017

Caleb OrecchioJuly 23, 2017NewsCaleb Orecchio here with The Power of Kirby and other news. ———————————————————————————————— all images herein are from the collection of comics given to me by my dad and uncle from when they were kids, circa 1976 to 1978. All images are drawn by Jack Kirby. The Power of Kirby Jack King Kirby, the powerhouse conundrum who unwittingly created the foundation of modern day popcorn flicks, is undoubtedly thee heavyweight champion of the comic book. Often, I think, it is hard to convince the layperson of the prowess of Jack. The boys who grew to men who are now my dad’s age (just turned the big five oh) have a less fond memory of him. At the point my dad would have seen Kirby’s work, Jack was drawing at his most “square” – that is to say, to my mind, his most “Kirby.” This was between 1976 and 1978, at the time my dad was 9, 10, and 11 and evidently a connoisseur of comic book quality. This was also arguably one of the lowest points in comics history as far as the amount of good comics on the stands and the amount of money pumping through the industry. At this point in time Kirby was working on such Marvel titles as Devil Dinosaur, Machine Man, Captain America and Falcon, Black Panther, 2001: A Space Oddysey, Captain America Bicentennial Battles, some Thor covers, etc. Basically, titles that have become very revered by today’s cartoonists. My dear ol’ dad would have none of it though. This is how I know… My dad had ZERO Kirby comics in his collection as a child. I know this because I inherited these comics when I was seven – my first comics! My dad really liked The Hulk, Spider-Man, Star Wars, The Champions, The X-Men, Marvel Team-Up, Marvel Two in One – stuff like that. It wasn’t until I convinced my uncle (my dad’s younger brother by a year or two) to give me his collection from the same era that I was exposed to Kirby. HE seemed to like Kirby whether he knew it or not. He had a few of the reprints Marvel put out like Marvel Super Action (reprinting Captain America runs) and Marvel’s Greatest Comics (reprinting Lee/Kirby era FF). I have a feeling the covers caught his eye. He even had The Mighty Thor #252 that had a Kirby cover. My dad would have never got a comic with a Kirby cover. How do I know he’d never knowingly buy a comic with a Kirby cover? Well one day I was meeting him for coffee. I live in Dayton, OH and he was driving from Cincinnati to Columbus for a conference. If you don’t know, Dayton is more or less in between so it’s what inspired my dad to ask me to meet for coffee. Anyway, I thought I’d get to the coffee shop way before him and so I brought along one of those 80’s reprints of New Gods to read while I waited. You know the ones? They had new covers by Kirby and mostly dumb essays by Mark Evanier in the back. Recolored and all that. Basically, my dad would have not been aware of these. He got there and saw the comic and pointed to it, “That’s an oldie but a goodie.” You have to understand he was referencing his familiarity with Kirby’s drawing style rather than his affinity for the work or his familiarity with the particular book sitting on the table. “What?” I said, “You didn’t have any of this guy’s comics in your collection. How do you know him?” He replied with a sour face, “I never liked him. He drew too square. Too blocky.” “But you know this is him?! This comic came out in the 80’s! You read comics in the seventies!” “Yeah. His style is distinct.” This, true believers is one of the many facets to Kirby’s genius. He carves his lines right into the lining of your brain. Whether you like him or not, you cannot forget Kirby. Now, if I had, say, Conan the Barbarian #99 at that table that day I met with my dad, he still would have said that’s an oldie but a goodie but he would have meant it. And he would remember having that comic and reading it and that he liked it probably, but he wouldn’t have known it was by John Buscema or written by Roy Thomas or anything particular like that. He may have just said, “It was cool and I liked the art.” Do you see what I’m trying to say? Do not underestimate the King. Kirby IS comics. He can draw his way into your dreams and nightmares. He can brand his vision into your eyes forever. So much so that after 40 years have passed, whether you like him or not, you can spot a Kirby drawing wherever it may be – namely at your son’s table at the coffee shop in Dayton, OH. ———————————————————————————————— if you don’t know, now you know I think it’s interesting when the mainstream media tries to be hip to comics. They almost always drop the ball. The real cartoonists tend to get the shaft. Like this LA Times article that spends more time on Wayne Brady than it does on the fact that the Hernandez Brothers made it into the Eisner Hall of Fame. Kudos to Rob Clough for fighting the good fight and getting some good nominations out there this year. There’s going to be a lot of post San Diego Comic Con news this week. Here is one about comics for kids, particularly girls. The proliferation of Wonder Woman fandom is pretty interesting. I think a lot of it stems from the new movie obviously, but also from the book by Jill Lepore. And I’d be remiss not to mention Ron Regé Jr. So when I saw this trailer, I was both surprised and not surprised. There is a roundtable discussion over at TCJ.com concerning Gary Panter’s latest book. Also if you didn’t know, Panter is on Instagram now:) ———————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 7-24-2017 – by Sally Ingraham ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 7-24-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

05/24/2016

Aaron CockleMay 23, 2016NewsBerliac Week Continues at CW; Venn Diagram Panel; Kirby Gridz; Safari Festival 2016; Dueling Book Release Parties; Henry Darger at the American Folk Art Museum; Juan Fernández Comics ————————————————————————————————— Featured this week: Gwai-Lo of the Heart by Berliac. Made for Comics Workbook in 2015. ————————————————————————————————— Venn Diagram Panel from MoCCA Festival 2016 Painter and cartoonist Keith Mayerson once called his 1996 graphic novel Horror Hospital Unplugged “too arty for comics” and “too comics for art.” The boundary between those two fields, however structural and arbitrary, may be weakening, but is it happening quickly enough to accommodate the rapidly growing number of artists who are now so productively working in this seam? Moderator Bill Kartalopoulos will investigate these questions and more with three leading lights of contemporary artcomics: Austin English (Gulag Casual), Aidan Koch (After Nothing Comes), and Blaise Larmee (3 Books). ————————————————————————————————— Via Micheal Oeming’s Facebook page. ————————————————————————————————— Safari Festival: New waves in contemporary comics and art. 11am to 6pm, 27 August 2016 Protein, 31 New Inn Yard, London EC2A 3EY safarifestival.tumblr.com | @safarifestival | info@safari-festival.com Safari Festival is a celebration of the new wave of alternative and art comics from the UK and beyond. Taking place over one Saturday at the end of August, the festival is an opportunity for a curated group of cartoonists and publishers to exhibit and sell their artwork, prints and, primarily, comics, and for attendees to experience the best of UK comics’ avant-garde. The artists exhibiting have been selected for their innovative, fearless, diverse approaches to making comics; approaches to cartooning that Safari intends to champion. The festival will be free to attend, and will take place at Studio 2, the Shoreditch gallery space of London-based creative agency, Protein. ————————————————————————————————— Thursday, May 26, 7-pm in Providence and/or NYC ————————————————————————————————— Henry Darger at the Folk Art Museum ————————————————————————————————— I Can See the Birds by Juan Fernández 5.5″x8.5″, Color & Risograph, $6 postpaid (International Shipping). This one is my Yo La Tengo comic on the shoulders of the poetry giant, Mary Oliver. The words are excerpted from her poem, Wild Geese. All drawings are first takes on location here in Pittsburgh. ————————————————————————————————— Share this page: [...]

09/20/2017

Juan FernándezSeptember 20, 2017los Cómics / NewsEmpezamos el día con Amanda Baeza; Entreviñetas 8; Marco Toxico en La Polola; José Muñoz y Maria Luque; Gaspar Pujadas y Rodrigo Vargas;#GRAFMAD2017; Mireia Pérez entrevista a Richard McGuire; y los tebeos de Cómics Workbook! ————————————————————————————————— Amanda Baeza y las canciones dibujadas Gabriela Blanco nos invita a reflexionar sobre Su obra de narraciones autobiográficas en El Espectador. Sus historias son fragmentadas, alejadas de la estructura secuencial y más cercanas a la simultaneidad, y lo son porque responden a una representación de sus recuerdos, desde adentro, sin inicio, nudo y desenlace ordenados, así como recordamos todos. Su intención es lograr hacer sentir al lector lo mismo que ella sintió en aquellos instantes, ponerlo en su lugar. Le importa más el qué representó para ella que lo que realmente sucedió. Y es en ese punto donde Amanda emerge como vanguardia: cuando modifica las formas convencionales para contar historias y las reajusta a lo que realmente le interesa contar, porque cree en la empatía como un recurso más poderoso de conexión con el otro que la ficción misma. Léanlo todo AQUI. ————————————————————————————————— ENTREVIÑETAS 8 – BOGOTA La primera parte del gran festival Entreviñetas tendra lugar este fin de semana, del 20 al 24 de Septiembre. Si todavia no lo saben, el Festival Entreviñetas es el evento del cómic y el dibujo más influyente en la escena latinoamericana contemporanea. No se pierdan toda la programación! Pueden ver los horarios AQUÍ. Talleres, ferias, charlas y entrevistas – habra de todo, sobre TODO! ————————————————————————————————— Los cómics y las noticias que me han llamado la atención esta semana: Sol Díaz Castillo y Marcela Trujillo tienen una nueva edicion de La Polola Podcast! Las chicas conversan con Marco Toxico, les contó de su vida, sus inspiraciones, su punto de quiebre, y motivación por hacer lo que le gusta en esta vida. Conversan acerca de referentes, la monstruosidad como tema y mucho más. Lo que va del cómic argentino: Martín Pérez escribe en las #Entreviñetas de El Espectador acerca de la obra de José Muñoz y Maria Luque Entrevista Sacapunta N°1 – Gaspar Pujadas + Entrevista Sacapunta N°2 – Rodrigo Vargas Entrevista de Mireia Pérez a Richard McGuire en CuCo 5. Abierta la convocatoria para participar en #GRAFMAD2017 ¡Hasta el 16 de octubre! TIK TOK Comics os presenta una nueva entrega de DOMINGO, la serie conversacional de Muriel Bellini ¡Disfrutadla! ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 9-20-2017 – by Gabriella Tito Share this page: [...]

02/03/2017

Posted on February 2, 2017February 2, 2017 by Sally Ingraham

Sally here with plenty of good company to help kick off your weekend – Annie Koyama, Vanessa Davis, Kate Beaton, Marie Duval, Sofie Louise Dam, Shreyas Krishnan, Gabriella Tito, and more!

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Kickass Annie drawn by Laura Park – expressing a little of how we all feel these days, according to Annie

Happy 10th Year Anniversary to Annie Koyama and Koyama Press! Despite Kickass Annie’s grumpy appearance (above), she promises many sweet things to come in the next months.

We can hardly repay you for being there for the comics community, for your faith in us all, and for the energy and passion you’ve given so freely for a decade. We can only say THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!

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Shreyas Krishnan on Abida Parveen (Ley Lines, August 2017)

The Ley Lines 2017 Subscription has been announced. Ley Lines comes from Kevin Czap and L. Nichols – it is a quarterly publication that explores the intersection of comics and other art forms and cultures. Four artists pick subjects that interest them and then compose work that compliments and describes their subject. This year Ley Lines will feature Tommi Parrish on William Blake/Lydia Lunch (February 2017), Eric Kostiuk Williams on Kylie Minogue (May 2017), Shreyas R. Krishnan on Abida Parveen (August 2017), and Evan Dahm on the Surrealists (November 2017).

Get your Ley Lines 2017 Subscription HERE.

I am particularly interested in seeing Shreyas Krishnan‘s book. She is an illustrator, educator, and visual journalist who started making comics more recently – her comic Becoming Rosie won the MoCCA Arts Fest Award of Excellence last year. See more of her work HERE.

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Sofie Louise Dam has a new comic on The Nib – it’s about Denmark’s move to take “being trans-gendered” off of all lists of mental disorders. Although Denmark is the first nation in the world to do this, Sofie details why that in itself isn’t nearly enough. More HERE.

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Vanessa Davis spoke to Paste about her comic Spaniel Rage, which was published in 2005 but is due to be re-released by Drawn & Quarterly this month. Vanessa talks about what it’s like to look back on work drawn over a decade ago, and the progression of her process since then. The diary comics that make up Spaniel Rage were in fact the very first comics she ever made.

“Paste: You mention in your new two-page intro comic that you didn’t know how to make comics when you started this project. How did you learn how to do that? Did you grow up reading comics?

Davis: I read Archie comics and Calvin and Hobbes and Garfield, but went to art school from 7th grade onwards, and was really encouraged to abandon anything comics- or illustration-influenced. I always had a cartoony “style” and that was always considered a handicap in my drawing abilities. In college I finally had a couple of teachers who finally just allowed that I knew how to draw as well as I was ever going to, and that the next thing to wrangle was my voice and perspective.“

A comic a day for a month (at a time in her life when the idea of drawing within panels seemed about as impossible as becoming a brain surgeon…!) put Vanessa on a path that she’s remained on to this day. And even if there are things about the Spaniel Rage comics that she might wish she could change, or would do differently now, she’s still glad to have them.

“Some people have tattoos they regret—I have comics. But we’re still all going to dance our mistakes around from time to time.“

Read the rest of the interview HERE. See some of Vanessa’s recent short work HERE.

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There is still time to submit work for The Strumpet #5 – the theme for this issue is “Origin Stories”, and the deadline is March 1st 2017!

“The Strumpet is a transatlantic annual focusing on women telling stories in comics, edited by cartoonists Ellen Lindner and Glynnis Fawkes (as well as, in prior issues, editrix emeritae Jeremy Day and Kripa Joshi).

Despite ENORMOUS progress made by women in comics in the last two decades, we still feel that there’s a bit of a lag between the number of women we know who are doing comics (a lot) and those who are getting published regularly (not always a lot). At the end of the day, we can all use another deadline, and a prompt to do new and interesting work. And that’s where The Strumpet comes in.“

Submission details HERE.

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Women’s comics anthologies – from the CW Roller Derby League comics library

Anthologies like The Strumpet are in the tradition of the very first all-girls comics publication, It Ain’t Me, Babe, (1970). The Strumpet is in fact the continuation of Whores of Mensa, which was the brain-child of Mardou. She wanted a publication for women’s comics that was BOTH sexy and clever. As Jeremy Day wrote in a brief history of both The Strumpet and Whores of Mensa:

“We wanted to tease apart the idea (and it is a dominant one, especially in comics) that people need to chose between being sexy and being clever. We wanted a comic that wore glasses and got passes; that was cunning, but also stunning.“

You can read about The Strumpet #1 HERE at The Comics Journal.

I have been spending a lot of time lately digging up anthologies like these. They are incredible time capsules of various moments in comics history, preserving work by women who made mini comics in the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s – pre-internet-publication days – as well as the early 2000’s. The catalog of work that each collection represents is fantastic.

Other anthologies that I’ve rediscovered include Action Girl Comics, which was published between 1994 and 2000 and was edited by Sarah Dyer, and Girltalk (1995-96) edited by Isabella Bannerman, Ann Decker, and Sabrina Jones. And of course there are the groundbreaking publications like Wimmen’s Comix (1970-1991), Tits & Clits Comix (1972-1987), and Twisted Sisters (1976, 1994). There are many more – I just haven’t gotten my hands on them yet!

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An Ally Sloper strip – “Cruelty To Judy’s New Contributor,” – by Marie Duval

There is a terrific article about Marie Duval over on Atlas Obscura. Lauren Young writes at length about this forgotten 19th century female cartoonist, who helped bring to life one of the first reoccurring characters in comics history – Ally Sloper. Marie Duval’s husband, Charles H. Ross, was the editor of Judy, a magazine that was a “cheap rival to the likes of popular magazines Fun and Punch, catering towards a primarily lower and middle class and female audience.” While Ross did create and draw the character Ally Sloper first, it was Marie Duval who developed and popularized the strip, doing the bulk of the drawing.

” “Marie Duval is important not only as perhaps Europe’s only popular female caricaturist, and not only as the chief author of the first Sloper,” wrote [art historian David] Kunzle. “She also deserves recognition for her graphic experimentation in an early period of the birth of modern art.” “

Read more about this rad lady HERE. And check out the Marie Duval archive HERE. (Thanks to The Comics Reporter for finding this piece!)

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The Last Cheerios

Kate Beaton compiled her annual Holiday Comics – read them all HERE.
Lauren Weinstein‘s comics on The Village Voice are pretty melancholy these days. Read Normal Person: The Future...
Iona Fox tells the story of a guy who successfully organized other undocumented dairy workers and won the right to a drivers licence while changing the structure of policing in Vermont – Part 1 is HERE.
Hyperallergic wrote about Gina Wynbrandt and her “pleasantly uncomfortable and brash” comics.
Shoutout to Lady’s Comics, a collective from Brazil!
Ink Brick is doing a Kickstarter campaign for Issue 8, which will debut in stores around the country this fall. Support the project.

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Check out The Art of Vanesa R. Del Rey! We designed it to look like a 1980’s comic book artist’s art book. The text is a transcription of an interview she did at The Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency in 2016. Vanesa is a once in a lifetime talent who studied with George Pratt and who has worked with Grant Morrison. Get a copy of this book HERE!

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Suzy and Cecil – 2-3-2017 – by Gabriella Tito

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Joanie and Jordie – 2-3-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio

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Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Sally Ingraham

Posted on February 2, 2017February 2, 2017

Explore

Meter, Geometry and Comic Form

Comics WorkbookJuly 31, 2017Essaysby Jackie Kirby Above, I have taken the opening couplet of Andrew Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress” (1681) scanned and annotated by Phillip Hobsbaum in Metre, Rhythm, and Verse Form (1996) and translated it into an 8-panel grid spread using values of red as a accentual tool. Approaching comics with the assumption that they are or can be included within the scope of poetic practice, one is brought to draw a connection between the formal structures through which time and meaning are manifested on the page: in the comic, geometry and the grid; and in the poem, meter and verse form. Here, I will present what could generously be called “notes” towards a theory of meter and geometry. I apologize now for the inevitable imperfection of the metaphor, but I find this to be an important and positive aspect of the connection between the two, rather than a caveat negating any use the metaphor may provide. Meter is the method of measuring verse by counting elements of it. It is a primarily mathematical system; it was called “numbers” by the Classical poets. Most often, the poet is counting syllables, as many languages exist primarily as a succession of syllables. Through different uses of meter, different methods of counting and measuring, different patterns of arrangement, writers create prosody, or a system of language. Within each language there exist many theories of organization, each of which is catered to both the language the writer uses and the purpose for which she wishes to use it. English poetry uses an accentual-syllabic metrical system, where the units being counted are syllables, and their pattern is defined by the arrangement of more or less strongly emphasized, or accented, syllables. Other languages use different systems. Languages which do not accentuate as strongly, such as French, will use something more akin to a purely syllabic meter, where forms are defined by the counting of syllables and ordering of numbers. This was also used by Ancient Irish and Welsh poets. Classical Greek and Latin poets based their prosody on the number of syllables and the length of time it takes to speak each syllable, creating patterns by arranging longer and shorter syllables. This is all to say, meter is a tool that must be developed accounting for the idiosyncrasies of the language in which one wishes to write. By looking at the metrical forms used by poets across different languages, and restructuring them for use in the language of comics, one can produce comic forms with increased complexity without decreasing (and perhaps even increasing) their legibility. In an initial attempt at translating verse form to comic form let us equate syllables with panels, and spreads with lines. Each row of panels will represent a metrical foot. Stress is produced relationally, and in comics one can use size, color, density, and a myriad of other visual techniques to “stress” a panel. The actual size of each panel per “foot” or row is up to your own discretion but I prefer to use a more qualitative than quantitative approach to my “comics scansion.” The first verse form I’d like to look at is dactylic hexameter, or Homer’s verse. It is the verse used in the Iliad and Odyssey, and later in Latin by Ovid and Virgil. Its historical use has equated it with the most grandiose poetic narratives, and cues a reader that she is reading a grand epic. Dactylic refers to the primary foot pattern of the poem, a dactyl being a long or stressed syllable followed by 2 short or unstressed syllables, while hexameter refers to the number of feet per line, which is 6 in this case (as opposed to pentameter , tetrameter , etc.). Using the system of translation previously established, a “dactylic hexameter” comic, would consist of spreads with 6 rows of 3 panels each, with the primary pattern being to stress the first panel of each row. Visually, this can easily lead us to a spread of 2 pages using a 9-panel grid. Another notable element of Homer’s verse is that the third and sixth feet may be spondees rather than dactyls. A spondee is a foot composed of 2 equally weighted syllables. This could provide a spread looking something like this. Alternatively, one could equate the panel to a metrical foot, and the page to a line. This would produce 6-panel grids, with each spread serving as a couplet. These are only a few different, relatively conservative, attempts at translating a single poetic verse form into comics. These are not prescriptions as to what certain meters must look like in comics, but demonstrations of the ways meter and verse form can be used to develop a prosody of comics. There is such a plethora of verse forms, all with their own particular uses that can be translated into comics. As shown in the Marvell scansion above, the 8-panel grid is quite suited for translating iambic tetrameter, which is used most commonly in the ballad form. This connection could lead to all sorts of comics practices or translated ballads. The harmony of a metered line is based on the same mathematical principals that produce visual harmony in geometric patterns. For instance, the sonnet, one of the most commonly used poetic forms, consisted originally of an octave (8-line stanza) followed by a sestet (6-line stanza). Poetry scholars have connected this with the golden ratio (8/5) with an extra line added to complete an even-numbered rhyme scheme. I have annoyed (to say the least) a number of English department chairs by insisting that poetry is simply linguistic mathematics. Certainly it’s (a bit) more than that, but much of poetics is applied mathematics, just as comics are. ————————————————————————————————————— Jackie Kirby is a poet and comics maker living in New York City. A recent graduate from The New School with a BA in Cultural Studies, she has been making comics and writing poetry seriously for three years. Check out work by Jackie on her website, and follow her on Instagram. Read Jackie’s Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency Report for more thoughts on comics and poetry. Share this page: [...]

10/10/2017

Aaron CockleOctober 10, 2017NewsAaron here today with ARTZINES; Kurt Ankeny; Brigitte Findakly and Lewis Trondheim; Gary Panter; Juan Fernández ————————————————————————————————— ARTZINES is a transmedia research project run by artist publisher antoine lefebvre editions. This research project aims to produce a reference book on the subject of contemporary art zines. As an artist researcher, it is important for lefebvre to imagine new creative ways of doing research. Therefore, ARTZINES.INFO will allow the public to access the unedited data of this research project as it is collected. This online database and the zines produced by ARTZINES during this research process will show the progress made toward the publication of the book. ————————————————————————————————— Kurt Ankeny: Mining the Mind’s Eye Kurt Ankeny talks about the reasoning and philosophy behind why he finds drawing from imagination and memory such a strong approach to cartooning, and how this creates deeper truths via non-photographic image making. The 195th meeting of the NY Comics & Picture-story Symposium will be held on Tuesday, Oct. 10, 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. ————————————————————————————————— ‘This humorous episode takes on additional absurdity when the subject shifts to a military coup on the next page.’ Mark Peters at Salon.com has some nice things to say about the new book by Brigitte Findakly and Lewis Trondheim, Poppies of Iraq: Like any great comic, even one about the real world, “Poppies of Iraq” creates its own reality for readers to get lost in — a world told via plain, blunt language and non-realistic, cartoony figures that interweave the personal and political. One of the most subtly brutal sequences in the book involves a marriage. In a tense two pages, Trondheim presents three short conversations consisting of the words “So?” and “Completely.” ————————————————————————————————— Gary Panter: HIPPIE TRIP, Oct 12 — Nov 11, Marlborough Contemporary Viewing Room, 545 West 25th Street, NYC. Via Dan Nadel. ————————————————————————————————— Expanding the Festival Toolkit If you haven’t already, please take a look at Juan Fernández’s post about future possibilities and approaches to comics festivals: Centralize Sales Our current system is embarrassingly inefficient. It is an ineffective use of getting tens of dozens of skilled comics makers and storytellers in one city for a week or weekend. No more exhibitors expected to stand behind tables hawking wares. Nowadays with everyone behind tables, people are barely interacting. There’s a vital cross-pollination that just doesn’t happen. What does it look like when a show does away with the flea market model? One thought is that you establish a festival shop. You get an experienced comics retailer to run the shop. You have them hire a trusted staff. You pay that staff. The shop gets a cut. 30/70. In a model like this, it costs you no money to have your work available. Under this new kind of model, if you are a guest you sign up to be involved in citywide comics programming. Signings, gallery exhibitions, lectures, workshops. This is the kind of thing that you get Arts and Cultural councils involved in. You sign up because you want to be part of the programming. With a model like this, you free up the artists and suddenly new horizons open up. Among those horizons are sources for financing. Imagine collaborating with a city’s municipal parks: guided bike tours where throughout the tour you make stops, learn about the city while doing landscape drawings and comics strips of the experience… A series of readings at a bookstore. Gallery exhibitions. Movie screenings at an arthouse theater. There are so many venues that would be amenable to programming: libraries, universities, community centers, theaters, bookstores, parks… Most of these venues have programming budgets that could fund materials and labor for artists. ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 10-10-2017 – by Sally Ingraham ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 10-10-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

Love and Rockets Dolls

Juan FernándezJune 19, 2016Photos“Gilbert & Jaime playing with their Luba, Maggie and Hopey dolls sent to them by a fan who made them out of barbies” – Carol Kovinick Hernandez Share this page: [...]

Ch 3: Inking the Head and Figure (FACC)

Juan FernándezJanuary 1, 2016ResourcesShare this page: [...]

10/16/2018

Aaron CockleOctober 15, 2018NewsMid-October Process Post ————————————————————————————————— I was out of town last week. As with my last trip, I wasn’t really able to work on comics, but I tried to keep busy with sketching when I had the chance. Mostly quick exercises with negative space, nothing too intense. I was drawing in sketchbooks I made out of a portable speaker user’s manual and some books made out of tea bag wrappers. Examples below. ————————————————————————————————— I picked up some books as well: Moron der Schwachsinnige, by L.G.X., 1995 Mad Love, by André Breton, translated from the French by Mary Ann Caws, 1988 (Coincidentally, Caws participated in a panel discussion at Printed Matter this past Friday to promote Ideas Have No Smell: Three Belgian Surrealist Booklets Ideas Have No Smell collects the first English-language translations of three works: Transfigured Publicity, visual texts by poet and photographer Paul Nougé (1895-1967); the whimsical, hand-drawn artist’s book, Abstractive Treatise on Obeuse by Paul Colinet (1898-1957); and For Balthazar, a collection of aphorisms and observations by the ever skeptical author, lawyer, and anarchist Louis Scutenaire (1905-1987). Star Warriors : A Penetrating Look into the Lives of the Young Scientists Behind Our Space Age Weaponry, by William Broad, 1985 ————————————————————————————————— Cement Mixer – 10-16-18 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

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