Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in los Cómics, NewsTagged caleb orecchio, jack brougham, juan fernandez, sally ingraham

Juan Fernández

Posted on February 8, 2017February 8, 2017

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Frank SantoroDecember 10, 2011Riff Raff / Scene ReportsThis article originally appeared on The Comics Journal 12/10/2011 This week’s scene report is brought to you by my old friend Gabby Gamboa. I remember meeting Gabby in 1992 when I walked into Comic Relief on Haight Street in San Francisco to sell my zines. She was the mini-comics buyer. I lied and said that I didn’t make them. I was too shy. She became a good friend and I’m happy that she agreed to do a scene report for that cow town known as SF. Please enjoy. Also, I will be posting a full Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival report soon. Thanks to Dan, Gabe, Bill and everyone who helped put on the show. It was the best con ever on the fun meter for me. XO. INTERMISSION FUNNIES with MICHAEL DEFORGE San Francisco CA Scene Report by Gabby Gamboa It seems like a million things have happened recently, there is so much to report. Fall started with SF Zine Fest, which was once again held at the County Fair Building in Golden Gate Park. It was an inspiring, energetic show that reminded me a lot of APE when APE first started. APE itself was a bit too large and unfocused for my taste this year. There seemed to be a larger emphasis on selling crafts and prints, much less on books and comics. Most people I spoke to said that sales were way down (curse this economy!) and everyone seemed to have a different opinion on what was wrong with the show and how to fix it. It will be interesting to see what direction the show will take in the future, especially now that Wondercon has moved to Anaheim. As a former Comic Relief employee, I was saddened when the Berkeley store shut down recently amid chaos, but from the ashes grew two new very good comic shops that are worth a visit: Fantastic Comics on Shattuck Avenue, and The Escapist on Claremont Ave. Here in San Francisco, the institution that is Al Kizziah just closed his Al’s Comics store after 22 years, and will be selling comics online and at trade shows. After a long absence, Marc Arsenault has restarted Wow Cool, his comics, zines, and music mail order empire, proving that it is indeed the 90’s all over again. You should buy some great comics at wowcool.com. Isotope (The Comic Book Lounge) continues to be a friend to creators and the indie-comics crowd. They recently presented their Isotope Award for excellence in minicomics to Katie Longua for her comic “Rok.” Seeing her around APE in a viking helmet made me nostalgic for some of the cool comics dames who have since moved away. Isotope also hosted a Halloween-themed book party with local cartoonists Lark Pien, Thien Pham, and First Second Books’ Mark Siegel. Isotope is currently hosting a series of comics creation classes taught by Ed Luce, creator of the seriously awesome Wuvable Oaf. Matt Wobensmith and Ed Luce run Gotblud Vintage Zine Store, which sells and buys vintage zines and minicomics, stocks all of your Wuvable Oaf needs, and hosts events with visiting artists like Tom Neely and Dave King (designer of the Crass logo). Needles and Pens continues to be another good place to get hard-to-find minicomics, much like the Rock Paper Scissors Collective in Oakland. Mission Comics and Art on 20th Street just celebrated its 2nd anniversary. It is a brilliant store with the best of everything. Like Isotope, Mission Comics takes comics seriously, so if you want action figures or trading cards, look elsewhere. Owner Leef Smith is very knowledgeable and he is a great supporter of the local comics community. He turns his store into an all-night studio for 24 Hour-Comics Day, he hosts a graphic novel book club and a lending library. In October the Mission Comics Gallery exhibited the Francois Vigneault-curated show Tales, which featured quirky fantasy art by cartoonists such as Dylan Horrocks, Jesse Reklaw, Ben Catmull, Andrice Arp, Kane Lynch, and many others. The December show will be original art from Mari Naomi’s Kiss and Tell graphic novel. Another great thing about Mission Comics is that they host a monthly creator meet-up. There are several other on-going creator meet-ups happening in the Bay Area, including a Berkeley Jupiter Comix Jam that has been happening for at least a decade. And I suppose that OWS is a meet-up of sorts. Cartoon journalist Susie Cagle was arrested along with a lot of other journalists and legal observers for standing off to the side during the riot that followed the shut down of the Port of Oakland. I have been enjoying her sketches from the scene. The Cartoon Art Museum had a great retrospective of local legend Lloyd Dangle’s now defunct Troubletown strip. One of the worst side effects of the demise of the newspaper is the end of great strips like this. They have an exhibit up now that I’ve been meaning to check out celebrating 100 years of The Wizard of OZ comics and newspaper strips. Opening December 17 is “Black and White and Read All Over: Comics of the New Millennium” featuring post-2000 comic strips, including Richard Thompson, Stephan Pastis, Keith Knight, Mark Tatulli and others. And ordering goodies from the online museum store is a great way to support them. Rina Ayuyang and Thien Pham are putting out the monthly Comix Claptrap podcast. Imagine The View, but about comics. Or Fresh Air, but about comics. Thien’s Elizabeth Hasselbeck is a great counter-point to Rina’s Terry Gross. Okay, it’s not like either of those things, but you should give it a listen if you haven’t already. Lit Quake is a weeklong San Francisco literary festival during which a dizzying variety of authors read from their works at venues all over the heavily mustachioed Mission District. I attended When Pictures Speak Louder Than Words at ZSpace. The highlights were a reading /mock-bickering session from Game Over by Gene Yang and Thien Pham (man that guy is everywhere!), Jon Macy reading his classy, yet sexy Teleny and Camille, Christine Shields reading from her beautiful limited-edition children’s book, and MariNaomi reading a creepy comic about bedbugs that can be found on the delightful therumpus.net. I was sad to have missed the LitCrawl event the next night at Mission Comics where Kane Lynch, Justin Hall, Rick Worley, and MariNaomi, but I heard it was smashing. In mainstream news, local publisher Image comics is still making up for torturing us in the 1990’s by putting out great stuff like the Walking Dead and the upcoming Danger Club. Besides stealing some of the best former Comics Relief employees (shout out to Todd Martinez and Biggles @Biggletron), they are also planning to celebrate themselves at the recently announced Image Expo at the Oakland Convention Center on February 24-26. They are welcoming exhibitors and artists, so a Wondercon replacement this may become. We suffered a tragic loss this Fall of cartoonist and Sparkplug publisher Dylan Williams. Though he had lived in Portland since the late 1990’s, he grew up in Berkeley and had a great impact on the Bay Area comics scene. He had been an employee of both Stand Up Comics and Comic Relief. He was an artist and founding member of the Puppy Toss collective, of which I was also a member. He was the main drive behind the unwieldy Puppy Toss minicomics publishing and distribution catalog, which he would finally get right all on his own with Sparkplug. He left behind many friends here, and we memorialized him with a gathering generously held at cartoonist Scott Hsu-Storaker’s house, and then again at a very teary-eyed panel at APE. He will be profoundly missed. As I write this I am getting ready for the East Bay Alternative Press Book Fair at Berkeley City College on December 10. Cartoonists such as Jaime Crespo (winner of Season 2’s America’s Favorite Vato! ), Kane Lynch, Sophie Yanow, MariNaomi, and many others will be there. I will be sharing a table with Primahood creator Tyler Cohen, and I will be selling my new Miss Lonelyhearts minicomic, and original art. By the time you read this, this event will already have occurred. I hope to have seen you there. If you had a time machine, you could go back and visit me on this night as I write to share in my eager anticipation of my future/your past event. Then we could both travel to the future and enjoy the release of my upcoming work concerning a group of young people who abuse their time machine to visit insignificant historical events. But then I would have to travel back again to this night to stop myself from writing this passage so no one can steal my awesome idea for my time travel comic before I get a chance to write it myself. Share this page: [...]

04/11/2016

Juan FernándezApril 11, 2016NewsJuan Fernandez here with some comics news, hot and fresh out the oven for you: Laura Knetzger at ECCC, Assistant AI character design, Black Panther sells out, Mary Mack Tremonte on Paper Cuts, Connor Stechshulte reviewed, and Jim Rugg with a kick in the face. ————————————————————————————————— Laura Knetzger at ECCC Ooh boy, this is cool. Laura Knetzger’s gotta drawn diary of her time at Emerald City Comic Con, the show that seemed to go on forever… Laura goes with dad, eats some gyros, buys some manga! Check her comic out here. You might not be interested in Comic Con culture, but Laura’s loose unencumbered drawings are not to be missed. If you’ve been struggling with your own diary comics or simply documentary drawing and sequencing and feel that you’re overworking the form, check this comic out. No grand gestures, it just breathes life. Cool stuff. If you dig this, check out the first volume of her comic, Bug Boys. ————————————————————————————————— Character Design While some of you are busy working out the background story for your suite of characters for your latest story, somebody in Silicon Valley’s creating a fictional narrative for the AI that’s going to go on your phone’s time management app. What a time to be alive… The surge of investor interest in virtual assistants that can converse has been fueled in part by the popularity of messaging apps, such as WeChat, WhatsApp, and Facebook’s Messenger, which are among the most widely downloaded smartphone applications. Investors see that users are increasingly drawn to conversational platforms, and hope to build additional features into them. Who knows, if you’ve got some tight chops for dialogue, there might just be some good money in Silicon Valley for you. Read more about it all over on the Washington Post. This all horrifies me, but hey, to each their own. ————————————————————————————————— Black Panther Sales are Nuts Ta-Nehisi and Brian Stelfreeze’s Black Panther is selling like gangbusters. They sold out of their first 300,000 copy print run and have gone on to a second of this first issue. This is a big deal. Good on them. Over on the Atlantic, Ta-Nehisi Coates has written a nice in depth look at his collaboration with Brian Stellfreeze on making Black Panther a reality: Ideally, the writer offers notes in his script on how the comic book should look. This requires thinking with intention about what a character is actually doing, not merely what he is saying. This is harder than it sounds, and often I found myself vaguely gesturing at what should happen in a panel—“T’Challa looks concerned.” Or “Ramonda stands to object.” I was lucky in that I was paired with a wonderful and experienced artist, Brian Stelfreeze. Storytelling in a comic book is a partnership between the writer and the artist, as surely as a film is a partnership between the screenwriter and the director. Read it all on The Atlantic. ————————————————————————————————— Zines on the Radio There’s some fresh new installments of Paper Cuts! Paper Cuts is an exploration of the contemporary world of zines and DIY publishing hosted by Christopher Kardambikis. It airs on Clock Tower Radio. Each program features writers, performers, and artists who have shared their work in print, on paper and in small editions. The series acts as a cross section of this varied landscape and rich history. Here’s a chance for you to listen to the voices that would normally live in your hands and demand your eyeballs! Mary Mack Tremonte and Darin Klein #BLKGRLSWURLD Primal Screams Zine Fest 2016 ————————————————————————————————— Phoenix Comics Salon Announced First ever Phoenix Comics Club meetup, their Salon, is happening May 5th at the Central Library in Phoenix. If you’re in the area, be sure to go out and meet other comics makers and cartoonists. You get to decide how this thing grows. For makers, by makers. Seems like for this first meeting the focus will be on figuring out what exactly Phoenix wants/needs out of a meetup like this. Learn more about it here. ————————————————————————————————— Generous Bosom 1-2 Reviewed Gabriele Di Fazio takes a good look at Connor Stechschulte’s recent work for Breakdown Press in Generous Bosom #1 & #2 over on the Italian comics review blog Just Indie Comics. Hit that google translate button for the inside scoop. Read it the review. ————————————————————————————————— Get Drunk Off of Visual Literacy Kevin Huizenga turned us on to this one. A LYRICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF VISUAL PROPOSITIONS- RUGGED DESIGN IN OPPOSITION TO ELEGANCE – IT’S BIGGER THAN YOU COULD EVER THINK- JUST EXPLORE – NO CLUES FROM ME. Dive into Dr. Chris Mullen’s labrynth and see what you find! The website of The Visual Telling of Stories aspires to being a Visual Lexicon, dedicated to the primacy of the Visual Proposition. Above all it tries to create an overall consistency of structure and environment, as if it was all taking place in one characteristic landscape through which you are allowed to wander. The main delight and challenge is the invention of non-linear means of navigation through spaces of knowledge with a created balance of reference and discovery. Dr Chris Mullen ————————————————————————————————— A Kick in the Face Here’s some cool news from Bill at Copacetic Comics. The Street Angel Gang by Jim Rugg and Brian Maruca has arrived! Welcome the week with a bracing onslaught of all-out Street Angel™ action! This is the latest in the small batch preview editions signed and numbered by Jim Rugg. A tough gang holds an open call for new members; has the Orphan Avenger finally found a family? A mere 300 copies of this sucker exist. File under: You snooze, you lose.HERE. The Street Angel Gang “Rough Edition” This features the complete issue in pencil rough form. See Rugg’s work up close and personal. HERE. The Street Angel Gang Script Facsimile A facsimile edition of the complete original full script, complete with ammendations, notes, changes, spot illos and initial thumbnail breakdowns. See how a Street Angel comic book is born. HERE. or, get all three together for a special price: The Street Angel Gang PROCESS PACK Here it is: an all-in-one look at the Street Angel Production Process™ (pat. pend.). This pack contains: the facsimile of the original script with thumbnail breakdowns; the “Rough Edition” of the full pencil roughs; and a copy of the signed and numbered small batch edition. Supplies are limited! HERE. Soon to be a collectors item,you better pick up a copy at Copacetic Comics. ————————————————————————————————— That’s it for now. Got some Latin American comics news on Wednesday. Here’s a slew of Chicha from Peru for you to move through your day and to keep you company until then. This album rules. Support Barbés Records if you can dig it. Share this page: [...]

10/13/2017

Sally IngrahamOctober 12, 2017NewsSally here with Thi Bui, Lale Westvind, Sophie Goldstein, Jackie Kirby, and much more! ———————————————————————————————— First of all, can we please collectively freak out over this Lale Westvind cover on the upcoming Kramers Ergot 10…?! I can’t stop looking at it, and April 2018 seems like a very long time from now… Lale has a comic inside the collection as well, and it will also include work by Anna Haifich, Noel Frieberg, Adam Buttrick, Archer Prewitt, Andy Burkholder, Will Sweeney, Dash Shaw, James Turek, Rick Altergott, CF, Aisha Franz, Kim Deitch, Ron Regé Jr., John Pham, Robert Crumb, Sammy Harkham, and I think Simon Hanselmann just Tweeted something about having a page in it…! So it’s going to be a good one, obviously. ———————————————————————————————— Michael Tisserand (author of Krazy: George Herriman, a Life in Black and White) interviews Thi Bui on The Comics Journal. Her comic, The Best We Could Do, has been garnering praise and acclaim while starting important conversations since its release earlier this year. It is the story of her family’s escape from 1970s Vietnam and the reverberating impact of that on her life. It’s a difficult, but beautiful memoir – and the interview is excellent too. Thi had a lot to deal with when it came to making this comic (which she worked on for 12 years.) She has thoughtful responses to questions about working around the American narrative of the Vietnam War, and releasing her work into the present moment where the issue of immigration is so volatile. “Images we pick up from movies stick around for a long time. If your idea of what Vietnamese people look and sound like comes from movies like Full Metal Jacket and Platoon, then I have a lot of work to do to replace those caricatures with carefully observed characterizations of real Vietnamese people. Some people are able to do this entirely in prose; for me, drawing was in my arsenal, so I used it. My hope is that my images will stick around and influence people’s ideas of Vietnamese people for the better — not because I portrayed them all as model minorities, but because I showed them as fully formed human beings who can be wonderful, average, or total assholes, just like everybody else.” “In a time of so much anxiety and quickly moving bad news, I hope to bring a slower kind of thinking to the table. If you can give yourself a little time and headspace to filter away the 24-hour news and its effects on your psyche, the divisiveness of politics, and the way hurt triggers more hurt in a vicious cycle, you can more clearly see what matters, at the end of it all. And then you know what you have to fight for.“ Read the whole interview HERE. ———————————————————————————————— Jackie Kirby is cranking out work this fall – from her own creations to these terrific “Kirby Cut-Ups” (above, riffing on Jack Kirby and Stan Lee’s Fantastic Four) she posts something on her blog almost everyday. Follow her on Tumblr or Instagram (@musclegirl2666) for a good example of how to keep your hand moving, your mind sharp, and your comics-making practice on point. Check out more of her comics HERE. Also be sure to read her article for Comics Workbook from this past summer, on Meter, Geometry and Comic Form! ———————————————————————————————— Here in Pittsburgh there will be a release party for House of Women by Sophie Goldstein on Saturday, Oct. 14th, at Copacetic Comics (7 PM- 9 PM). Event details are HERE. You can see a preview from the book on Sophie’s website, and get a copy HERE. ———————————————————————————————— The Candy Store Sequential State has a review of GG‘s I’m Not Here – a comic that perhaps relies “on the reader’s intuition“. Kawai Shen of Cute Juice Comics also “analyzes” I’m Not Here, saying that it is “made of clues and feelings rather than answers“. It’s Nice That has a good interview with Tara Booth. Etelka Lehoczky of NPR didn’t really like Ulli Lust‘s Voices In The Dark – the reasons are somewhat interesting however. Katie Skelly “shines a light” over on The Comics Journal… Jacob Shapiro, who runs Fantom Comics in D.C., is guest curating some reviews on Our Comics, Ourselves – he checks out Hannah K. Lee‘s collection Language Barrier HERE. The New York Times visits Roz Chast and talks her new book and where she looks for salvation these days. Lynda Barry‘s The Good Times Are Killing Me just came out from Drawn and Quarterly – you can check out an excerpt of the book HERE. Audra Stang has been publishing a new comics story called Little Minnow – read the whole thing so far. ———————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 10-13-2017 – by Gabriella Tito ———————————————————————————————— Cozytown – 10-13-2017 – by Juan Fernandez ———————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 10-13-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

01/06/2017

Sally IngrahamJanuary 5, 2017NewsSally here, with work by Karine Bernadou to share, info on Gert Van Houten, praise for Annie Koyama, plus the spotlight on two local Pittsburgh creators, lots and lots of lists…and your daily dose of Comics Workbook Daily Strips! ————————————————————————————————— Here’s a wonderful tribute to Koyama Press and Annie Koyama via the Torontoist – as part of a reflection on the best and worst of 2016, they are voting for the Heroes and Villains of Toronto and Koyama Press has been nominated for “re-defining kickass in the local arts scene“. The write up about Annie and Koyama Press is lovely – check it out HERE. The ballots will be counted this morning and we’ll know by noon today who Toronto’s Superhero and Supervillain of the year will be – of course, the obvious choice for superhero to me is Kickass Annie! (Also, check out more work by Emile Compion – who made the image above of our favorite gal – HERE or via Instagram – @montevarious) ————————————————————————————————— The comic above was made by Gertrude Van Houten, who is considered to be the first known female cartoonist in the nation who made cartoons about a specific locale. She worked for the Grande Rapids Press in the 1920s and ’30s and her comics appeared on the front page of the paper every few days. Readers referred to her as “Gert” and as you can see in the piece above, the character “Little Gert” always made an appearance in a corner of her strips. Learn a bit more about her HERE, or get a copy of Drew Damron’s booklet Her Pitchers: The Life and Work of Gert Van Houten from Issue Press. ————————————————————————————————— A happy discovery for me this week was French cartoonist Karine Bernadou. I read a copy of Canopy (Retrofit Comics, 2016) while working at Copacetic Comics and laughed and grimaced my way through it. A young woman is abandoned in the woods by her mother and left to discover on her own the means to deal with a strange faceless man, a loving ogre, beautiful sirens, and the frightening/magical forest itself. I enjoyed Karine’s pantomime style and the somewhat violent, but hilarious tumble I took through her world. Get a copy of Canopy from Copacetic Comics or Retrofit, where it is also available digitally. ————————————————————————————————— Shout-out to local Pittsburgh cartoonists and creators Hannah Leach and Em DeMarco who attended the Pittsburgh Comics Salon this past week. There is an incredible richness of badass women working in the city these days and I’m always excited to meet, and get to know them better. Check out Em DeMarco’s work HERE – she is a comics journalist whose work appears regularly in the Pittsburgh City Paper, as well as a talented photographer who you are almost sure to bump into at more than one punk show on any given weekend. She works relentlessly, and is even turning her hand towards teaching comics this year. She’s definitely an inspiration to me! Hannah Leach draws and SEWS too! She recently opened an Etsy store which you should certainly check out – WolfWitchStitch. Also follow her Instagram for more drawings and stitchery in progress – @wolfwitchstitch. ————————————————————————————————— Heidi MacDonald over on The Comics Beat has The Beat Annual Creator Survey 2017. It contains thoughts on what was cool in 2016, what to expect in 2017, and – thankfully, in the face of plenty of negative energy going around – what inspires the creators that Heidi interviewed. Autostraddle has their list of the 10 Best Comics of 2016 – part of their Drawn to Comics series, which focuses on comics by, featuring, and for queer ladies. The Comp Magazine has a nice list of 10 Comics Read Twice in 2016 – including Anya Davidson’s Band for Life, Pushwagner’s Soft City, and the new Black Panther series which are all books I can totally get on the hype wagon for myself. The rest of the list is solid too, so if your “to be read” list needs rounding out, you’ll find some books to add there. Since I’m listing lists here, I may as well add The Comic Journal‘s The Best Comics of 2016 (According to Some) – and speaking of Anya Davidson, she was one among the “according to some” and had some thoughts on lists like these: “Can I say that I think these kinds of lists are arbitrary, because there is a dizzying number of brilliant books out there that I haven’t read, so this is more of a “list of things I read that I greatly enjoyed” than a best of?” Yes, you can say that, and thanks. Last list for today – The Guardian has one that is looking forward to The 20 Comics to Watch Out for in 2017. Lots of good stuff including new books by Eleanor Davis and Jillian Tamaki, and more of the Worlds Of Wakanda and Shade: The Changing Girl series’. ————————————————————————————————— I was just flipping through Zona #1 (above) today, looking for Gabriella Tito‘s story specifically – which you can read online HERE – but of course I ended up perusing the whole thing since Harry Moyer, Jack Brougham, and Frank Santoro’s stories are equally rad. This is one of my favorite Comics Workbook publications and if you don’t have a copy I highly recommend it – 60 pages of work in black and white, with screen printed covers made by Frank, out of an edition of only 100. Check it out HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 1-6-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 1-6-2017 – by Sally Ingraham Share this page: [...]

05/18/2016

Juan FernándezMay 18, 2016NewsJuan Fernandez bringing you: Gutter Fest #4; Inés Estrada’s Alienation #1; SAVE THE FANZINE; Feira Dente; El Día de Julio; y Para leer al Pato Donald. ————————————————————————————————— GUTTER FEST #4 – Fira d´Autoedició i de Microedició – It’s right around the corner in Barcelona, the 20-21 of May. Gutter Fest just released this promo videa… watch it. Full screen. Good luck making a promo for your zine fest fresher than this! Stay up to date with Gutter Fest over on their tumblr. ————————————————————————————————— Alienation #1 by Inés Estrada Estrada’s new science fiction series about the future, sex, love, virtual reality, paranoia and rock and roll! It’s available via her shop, GATOSAURIO. Dig into her work. ————————————————————————————————— SAVE THE FANZINE “Who knows their own story? Certainly it makes no sense when we are living in the midst of it. It’s all just clamour and confusion. It only becames a story when we tell it and retell it. Our small precious recollections. That we speak again and again to ourselves or to others. First, creating the narrative of our lives, and keeping the story from dissolving into the darkness…” Nick Cave, 20.000 Days on Earth SAVE THE FANZINE is a digital and online archive for self-published books. Not intended to replace the physical object, its purpose is to pay homage to the self-publising culture and to record these unique publications. It’s a killer record of contemporary zine making in Spain! Make an account and take dip. Water’s fine 😉 Check out SAVE THE FANZINE’s physical home, Sandwich Mixto, if you’re feeling adventurous today. Based in Madrid, they run a shop and workshop space that’s become a hub of Madrid’s self-publishing community. More on that in a future week. ————————————————————————————————— Passion and Militancy: the fanzine’s resistance as an art object. Madrid’s Libros Mutantes Zine Fest has prompted a little reflection on zines and their cultural significance in Spain over at El Confidencial. Smash that translate button 😉 ————————————————————————————————— Feira Dente Coming up in June in Brasilia, Brazil. Mark, your calendars for what’s to come! This is Dente’s second iteration. The programming schedule of workshops and More information to roll out, so keep it locked to their facebook and instagram accounts. ————————————————————————————————— Reseña de El Día de Julio Jesús Játiva reviews Julio’s Day over on Zona Negativa. Es esa capacidad magistral de plasmar en cien páginas cien años de historia familiar lo que hace esta obra tan buena: la muerte de muchos y el nacimiento de otros, la vida retratada en toda su miseria y también en su esplendor. Da la sensación de que Beto Hernández es pesimista, y parece caer en cierto fatalismo mostrando a todos y cada uno de los familiares bajo las más horribles desdichas y envejeciendo y engordando y volviéndose cada vez más feos. El contacto con la muerte y su presencia durante todas las páginas es constante, pero no parece Beto tan interesado en ese momento en el que dejamos de existir como en el momento que nos ha hecho lo que somos y nos ha marcado para toda la vida ————————————————————————————————— Para leer Al Pato Donald – Mass Communication & Colonialism This one is a throw back, but is well worth looking into if you haven’t before. How To Read Donald Duck (1972) by Ariel Dorfman (Argentina-Chile) and Armand Mattelart ( Belgium ), is a key piece of political literature of the seventies. An essay, or a “decolonization manual” in their own words that analyzed comic books published by Walt Disney for the Latin American market from the point of view of mass Marxist literature. Its main thesis is that Disney cartoons would not only be a reflection of the dominant ideology -the ruling class , according to the tenets of Marxism , but also be active and conscious accomplices of the task of maintaining and disseminating that ideology. It highlighted qualities of Disney characters and their world, notably that parents, or ancestors, generally were not present. Hay un desfasaje entre la base económico-social en que vive cada individuo y el estado de las representaciones colectivas, y es precisamente lo que asegura la eficacia de Disney y su poder de penetración en la mentalidad comunitaria en los países latinoamericanos dependientes » ————————————————————————————————— hasta la próxima, chiquillos, Juan Share this page: [...]

02/08/2017

Posted on February 8, 2017February 8, 2017 by Juan Fernández

Juan José con un poquito sobre: Sirio de Martín López Lam; talleres en #GRAFBCN2017; Chicks on Comics’s full slate of programming; VRDR Scarlet Witch Preview; Inés Estrada’s Alienation 3; La Hora del Bocadillo; La Polola Podcast; Hits with Tits talk posters.

Sirio – Martín López Lam (Fulgencio Pimentel – 2016)

I’ve been looking for a gripping work of comics poetics that can hold a candle to the winds of narrative… The wait is over. Sirio is here.

Lovers in crisis amidst a holiday during low season on the coast, an unresolved death and an even deeper mystery in the observation of nature. Clouds, rocks, the behavior of dogs and children in the neighborhood become signs that are offered to a narrator’s/our stunned eyes. An earthly thriller, many questions and a single answer, or at least an insinuation, in the stars. Sirio.

Sirio is a graceful, cloud-like story, intense and as awe-inspiring as a summer storm, combining the best of the titanic visual skills of Martin López Lam with his extraordinary literary sensibility. The texture and atmosphere of these pages confronts us with the underground stream of antagonistic feelings that flow between a man and a woman, in the best tradition of narrators like Raymond Carver, John Cheever, or James Salter.

To achieve this, Martín speaks a language that bridges the comics and cartooning idioms of arguably the most Eastern of the great western cartoonists (David Mazzucchelli) and the most western of the great mangaka (Seiichi Hayashi). Sirio confirms Martín López Lam as one of the most gifted and versatile visual narrators of the in contemporary Spanish comics. No comic has buffeted me viscerally the way that Sirio does. The elemental force of Sirio is incredible.

Sirio is not yet in English. Alas! Not to worry though, the images do the heavy lifting here. I hope an English translation comes soon so it can grip you tightly. Until then, order a copy from the great Spanish publisher, Fulgencio Pimentel. Practice your Spanish and soak in the images and the words!

DO IT!

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

Chicks on Comics have a full slate of programming this weekend at Fundación PROA in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Don’t miss Power Paola, María Delia Lozupone, María Luque and co. for two amazing afternoons of talks.
Marvel’s got a preview of Vanesa R. Del Rey’s work with James Robinson Scarlet Witch #15 – (take note VRDR devotees: on sale February 22nd).
Berliac’s got some new comics on Vice – Asian Food Store Junkies – A match made in heaven, or the opposite? You decide…
#GRAFBCN2017 has announced several workshops for their March 3-5 comics festival in Barcelona. Among them is a master class con Natacha Bustos y Javi Rodríguez. Sign up for their talleres HERE.
Inés Estrada just finished the 3rd issue of Alienation. Copies will be available on Feb. 22 along with the reprint of issue 1! Keep up with her at @inechii on twitter for all the details on her latest works. Along with her own comics she distros some incredible work from Mexico on her shop www.gatosaurio.com, so get hep.
On the radio in Spain: La hora del bocadillo – 04/02/17 – La Grieta, tebeos y neurociencia y Generación X. ———
La Polola Podcast is on hiatus! Vacation is vacation. As Sol Díaz Castillo y Marcela Trujillo gear up for their new season they have a contest going while on vacation! Draw your favorite song and catch up with the podcast! It’s always a fun, relaxing and enlightening listen. If you haven’t tuned in to La Polola just yet, Póngale Play.
Hits With Tits is exhibiting the show poster work of 40 women in Barcelona. Quique Ramos presents a poster making play-by-play by 6 comics makers and illustrators that’ll be at the CARA B festival on February 17-18: Roberta Vázquez, Nuria Riaza, Conxita Herrero, Cristina Daura, Maria Herrero y Marlene Krause.

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

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2-8-2017 – by Jack Brougham

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Suzy and Cecil – 2-8-2017 – by Sally Ingraham

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Joanie and Jordie – 2-8-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio

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Cozytown – 2-8-2017 – by Juan Fernandez

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Posted in los Cómics, NewsTagged caleb orecchio, jack brougham, juan fernandez, sally ingraham

Juan Fernández

Posted on February 8, 2017February 8, 2017

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12/30/2016

Sally IngrahamDecember 29, 2016NewsSally here, scribbling this as I’m making my way back to Pittsburgh, PA, from the wilds of Maine – through a nor’easter of course (2016 continues to deliver). I spent a week with family in Maine, chugging YA fantasy novels and drawing “Suzy and Cecil” strips and looking for Arctic Loons and of course reading (and gifting!) comics. Here are some things I found in the week the CW News team was taking a break. ————————————————————————————————— First of all, Disa Wallander updated her Slowly Dying comic (above!) Yay. ————————————————————————————————— Gloria Rivera posted her lovely comic Domestic Scene (named for the David Hockney painting of the same name) which she made last January but is sharing for the first time outside of the anthology it was published in. Start it below – finish it HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Tom Spurgeon has been publishing his annual “Holiday Interviews” on The Comics Reporter this week, and I was thrilled to see that Sarah Glidden and Tom had a lengthy exchange. Sarah got really introspective, probing her own motivations for telling the stories that she has this year. It’s good stuff. As Tom would say, “Go, read!“ ————————————————————————————————— From Summer Pierre via Mutha Magazine, an exciting birth story (above)…! ————————————————————————————————— From quite awhile ago, but finally read by myself – another type of birth story: Julia Wertz‘s A Friend’s Pregnancy on The New Yorker. The rest of the comic is HERE. ————————————————————————————————— The staff of The Village Voice put together a brief list of “The Ladies of Comics Who Made 2016 a Little More Bearable” – HERE. On the list is Giant Days (above), which certainly made my 2016 more bearable, and was one of the comics that I gave as a gift to a sister this year. ————————————————————————————————— Another comic I gave to a (different) sister this year was Anya Davidson‘s Lovers in the Garden. There is a nice review of the book by Sarah Miller over on Sequentialist – check it out HERE. While you’re at it, read some of the other comics reviews that Sarah Miller has written – it seems like Sequentialist is a site worth bookmarking. ————————————————————————————————— Nuria Pompeia died recently – she was a Spanish cartoonist, journalist, and feminist whose work often commented on social class, sexism, and censorship. As she was not well known here in the states, most articles I can find about her will need to be translated by Google…but here is a good one from earlier this year. (via The Comics Reporter) ————————————————————————————————— Here’s a great article that I found while poking around on Paste the other day, and since I got a good deal of joy out of the new Star Wars movie (Rogue One) I feel compelled to share it here. There is an obvious parallelism between Star Wars and some of Jack Kirby’s stories – but was Lucas inspired by Kirby or were they just riding the same creative waves? Get into it HERE (Pittsburgh’s Tom Scioli weighs in at one point!) ————————————————————————————————— I always like a good excuse to give a shout-out to Vanesa R. Del Rey – and the new Comics Workbook publication The Art of Vanesa R. Del Rey has given me plenty of opportunity. Check out the book HERE and get yourself a post-holiday treat! ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 12-30-2016 – by Gabriella Tito ————————————————————————————————— Amazingly, this is my last news post for 2016 – what a whirlwind it has been! See you next week and next year – Sally Share this page: [...]

Chicago, IL Scene Report

Frank SantoroJanuary 8, 2012Riff Raff / Scene ReportsThis week’s Scene Report is brought to you by Edie Fake. Thanks Flakes! —– It’s important to say one thing straight off the bat: Chicago loves comics like no other place I’ve ever been. It’s town is full of oddballs and oddities, a fermented blend of cheap rent, cheap beer, bad weather and good house shows…and somehow the result is a veritable hotbed of activity in all directions. Let’s start this report on my block. Down four flights of stairs from my apartment you’ll find Anya Davidson working furiously on her next graphic onslaught in a studio surrounded by many animals and no windows. She’s made these super lush silkscreened comics for years, usually in itty-bitty editions of five or so, but now she’s also got some killer pages in the Kramer’s E. that just came out, so get on it. When we make it out the door of the building and just head down the block, we’ll be at Robin Hustle’s house. Hustle not only draws perverse zine-comic hybrids about hair, milk and sex economies, she’s also spearheaded the reawakening of a Chicago punk free paper, to be known henceforth as The Land Line. This is the reincarnated version of the monthly paper called The Skeleton News that ran itself fabulously ragged for about two years while I was outta town. The Land Line is going to be quarterly and also free, content-rich and dirty, just like good soil. The first issue debuts right around the new year. There’s a million folks meeting, working and partying to make it happen…on the visual end, Grant Reynolds notably took on the helm of “Comics Editor” and recent transplants Mika Lee and Otto Splotch are throwing down some real brain bender drawings for it. A couple blocks further down the street towards my P.O. Box we run into this household that is a crazy pit of comics talent. Leslie Weibler, Andy Burkholder and Max Morris are all holed up together living with a collective library of approximately a million great comic books, spurring each other onward towards greatness. Dane Martin used to live here and Blaise Larmee too. Max can talk comics in a real way for days without stopping and he just launched a great Chicago comics anthology called “Vacuum Horror” at this year’s BCGF. There goes the neighborhood! Let’s expand a little…One of my favorite places in town is Spudnik Press. Started four years ago by Angee Lennard (who also draws the geriatric comic Mossdale Estates), the press has grown exponentially even during the year I’ve been a member. Part of the thrill of this shop is you might run into the likes of Lilli Carré printing some gorgeous, witty edition, or Sanya Glisic blowing your mind with her cosmic-ly perverse Struwwelpeter prints. Artist book maker Aaron Smith just got the AB Dick offset press up and running and it’s a force to be reckoned with, along with the functional facilities for letterpress, silkscreen, etching, woodblock and litho printing. Add to this the number of active copy scams in town and the fact that Aaron Renier just scored a free Risograph machine and we’ve got a print renaissance on our hands. …Which reminds me of Keith Herzik’s big show that just happened at the historic Hyde Park Art Center which included 4 zillion comics and posters he’s made plus a frozen pizza he accidentally cooked for 6 hours. Keith’s got colors on lockdown that no one has names for yet. That’s the sort of thing we encourage round these parts. …Which reminds me of the “Cartoon Ink” show Christa Donner, Jeremy Tinder and Surabhi Ghosh curated a few months back at the School of the Art Institute which showcased some of SAIC’s young guns like Sua Yoo, Wax Wing, Emily Fundis, Sarah Drake and William Cleveland next to the likes of Chris Ware, Anders Nilsen and Jeffrey Brown. Hey -right- Chicago’s a great place to learn comics in a school, if that’s your bag! When local rabble-rouser Anne Elizabeth Moore isn’t busy teaching zinemaking in Cambodia, starting her own tripped-out grad school or calling the comics industry on its own shit, she also teaches comics at the ‘tute. The comics-inclined SAIC student body has staged an impressive Small Press and Comics Symposium two years running and puts out an anthology Xerox Candy Bar. Comics historian Hillary Chute is down at University of Chicago, as is Paul Hornschemeier, as will be Alison Bechdel in the spring. Curmudgeon-with-a-heart-of-gold, Ivan Brunetti teaches at Columbia College where his passionate students like Onsmith and David Alvarado crank out the gorgeous anthology Linework. Ivan just re-released his iron-clad comics syllabus as a concise and potent little instruction volume that I am working through with Marian Runk at our biweekly gay comics coffee klatch. Jeremy Tinder is a good guy to know – not only is he awesome in a general way, he’s also one of the solid forces behind the weekly rendez-vous of Chicago’s notorious Trubble Club. TC roll call will break your drawing-chops-o-meter: frequent offenders include Aaron Renier, Nate Beaty, Carrie Vinarsky, Corinne Mucha, Grant Reynolds, Lilli Carré, Joe Tallarico, Sam Sharpe, Rachel Niffenegger, Ben Marcus, Bernie McGovern, Jo Dery, Becca Taylor, Travis Lampe and the unstoppable Laura Park– plus a rotating cast of out-of-town visitors. When I started going to this thing I thought that no way was I going to enjoy drawing against someone else’s panel, but it turns out that it’s actually utterly inspiring. Trubble Club is a beast unto itself! Not only is it a running contest to see who can be the most vile and crude, it keeps you loose and lucid and it’s like DIY drawing school, to boot. Trubble will be putting out it’s first full color edition momentarily courtesy of some Post Family support and we get to do an installation and curate a comics reading room at the DePaul Museum next year for a Chicago Imagists show they’re staging. On the note of shows staged, I wanna be sure to mention that people are doing some pretty amazing things with performative comics here. Does this even happen in other towns? Ezra Clayton Daniels used to throw infamous and rowdy Comics Art Battles back in the day, and since he just moved back to town I guess that means we should all look out. Brett Koontz makes brilliant comic books about post-apocalyptic sci-fi lifestyles and then turns them into these (also brilliant) backyard theater productions so you can figure out who he based each character on. Lyra Hill just started the world’s most exciting comic book reading series, Brain Frame, that alternates between feeding you jell-o shots and splashing you with fake blood. Lyra herself always goes above and beyond at these happenings and then hands the stage over to hams like Ian McDuffie and Krystal DiFronzo. It’s made me cry tears of joy and laugh food into my nose and I look forward to it every month like as if it were Halloween or something. It’s definitely a town where comics and art have met, fallen mad in love and now they’re having a baby. Just take a look at Paul Nudd’s crud, or check out Kerry James Marshall’s RYTHM MASTR paintings. And check out Deb Sokolow’s drawings. Did I mention the Imagists? That Yoshida shit runs deep! Even the Museum of Contemporary Art here is down, staging the giant Jim Nutt show last year as well as a special exhibit called “New Chicago Comics”. A few months ago Ruby Thorkelson got the local feminist gallery, WomanMade, to put on a great show of comics work from women and trans identified artists called “Underground” which included an amazing, amazing reading room. Also of underground note, The Chicago Underground Library got a new home and a new name after sustaining major damages last winter. Now it’s called Read/Write and it’s still rad all over. Additionally, Joe Tallarico has not-so-secretly been improving the underground comics stronghold in the Art Institute Library, as well as rooting some old-school Hot Nuts like George Hansen out of the woodwork. Joe’s been busy on the print end too, doing comics making and editing for the long running freak sheet, Lumpen which just up and turned 20. Also aging gracefully is Roctober, the best music/comics magazine in the universe; they’re about to turn twenty just as the clock strikes issue #50 Who else turned twenty this year? Oh, why, Quimby’s Books, the infamous weirdo comics and zines shop, my current place of employment and a truly astounding place to hang. I’ve been coming to Quimby’s since shortly before it moved to its current location in ’94, back when I was a zitty, obnoxious teenager and Dan Clowes was probably down the street drawing Eightball. Twenty years in now, this beast has made itself an international hub of self-publishing and small press comics, not only by keeping our eyes peeled for interesting experimental stuff on paper but also by accepting anything and everything folks send our way. For a good part of it’s run, the shop has been owned by Eric Kirsammer, who guides with a gentle hand and keeps us stocked in twisted art. Traditionally, the floor has been handled by rabid self-publishers like my powerhouse co-workers Liz Mason and Neil Brideau. There’s no telling how many minds have been blown in these walls, I certainly count mine among them. Deep scene resource 4eva. Can’t forget the other stores around here- Quimby’s is not the only game in town, especially if you’re a traditionalist. Our sister store, also under the mindful proprietorship of Kirsammer, is the stocked-to-the-gills Chicago Comics which I will proceed to call whenever I am confused about Marvel. There’s also Brainstorm for a passionate mix of superheroes, videos, and funny jokes. Challengers carries its own eccentric combo of local and mainstream work. I’ve only been into Vigilante once, but I liked it, and then if you go up so north it’s suburbia, Comix Revolution holds court and holds down the fort. What’s a better place to wrap things up than the future? For Chicago, that means getting a solid annual independent comics festival started here. Originally dreamed up by my Quimbyian coworker Neil (who also helped jump start the Chicago Zine Fest a few years ago), the Chicago Alternative Comics Expo (or CAKE, for short) finally has its ducks in a row – a plum location at Columbia College’s Ludington Building, a solid date (June 16th and 17th, 2012) and a gorgeous promotional poster by Laura Park. Applications are open until the first of January, the tables are truly affordable and things are really starting to get up and rolling to make it happen. CAKE’s core team of organizers (Neil, my neighbors Max and Andy along with Grace Tran, Jeff Zwirek, Nick Drnaso and myself) are starting the exciting work of mapping how we want the space set up and imagineering what the programming will look like. …So things are brewing in Chicago, in the past, in the now, and in the near next- If I were you I’d come check it out. Share this page: [...]

05/18/2018

Sally IngrahamMay 17, 2018NewsSally here with comics by Sacha Mardou, Jessica Campbell, Hope Larson, and more! ———————————————————————————— Sacha Mardou has a comic up on MUTHA Magazine called Someday, My Witch Will Come. She writes: “According to journalistic science, women are likelier to go though a midlife crisis earlier than men, between the ages of 35-44. Well my midlife crisis certainly showed up on schedule, as this comic details. I discovered that you don’t learn to be a whole human being all by yourself, you need to ask for help. I’m still learning, it being a process, not a destination, as they say. I hope that by sharing this story it might help other women feel okay about the kooky stuff we do on this path to Self-Realization (whatever that means).“ See the whole comic HERE! There is also a comic published this month by Grace Farris on MUTHA Magazine which you should check out – Of Firsts and Donuts. ———————————————————————————— Alenka Figa reviews Jessica Campbell‘s new comic XTC69 (out from Koyama Press this month) for Women Write About Comics. She comments: “While mostly focused on biting commentary and indulgent plot, XTC69 also contains some moments of sharp realness that contrast its usual tone. In an early scene, Human Jessica can’t climb up a cliff face and has to piggyback ride on Alien Jessica’s back. Human Jessica’s skirt rides up revealing her underwear, and when they get to the top she clumsily readjusts it. These details are small, but they’re unsexy and real. Jessica is already emotionally vulnerable from learning her entire world is essentially gone, and then has to face her physical vulnerability. Campbell’s character designs are simple and lack the familiar level of detail used to exploit women’s bodies; despite the thick line work and cartoony style, the women in the comic are awkwardly real. In a comic full of commentary on misogyny, it’s small details like this through which Campbell shows how easy it is to draw outside of the male gaze.“ Read the whole review HERE. John Seven also reviews XTC69 for The Comics Beat – read his review HERE. Jessica Campbell‘s most recent comic for Hyperallergic can also be read HERE. ———————————————————————————— Hillary Brown sat down with Hope Larson to discuss Larson’s newest comic – All Summer Long – for Paste Magazine. They talk about Larson’s shift from being primarily an artist to a writer, and about the role of music in her life, among many other things. “Paste: One of the things I see as recurring in your work is this determination not to take a narrative where most people would (i.e., the idea that Bina and Austin would end up together is made to seem ridiculous). Is that intentional? Larson: No, it’s not. I’m one of those people who feels that there’s nothing new under the sun, and all the stories have been told, and all you can do is write honestly, in the hopes that it will feel new and resonate with readers. I’m definitely not trying to gotcha anyone. I just do my best to understand the characters and write them making the choices that feel true to them.“ Read the interview HERE. ———————————————————————————— Weekend Snacks Koyama Press has announced their Fall 2018 lineup and I’m pleased to note that Mickey Z‘s Space Academy 123 is being collected! Keiler Roberts also has a new comic coming out, and so does Britt Wilson. There is an excerpt from Lucy Bellwood‘s upcoming comic 100 Demon Dialaouges up on Boing Boing – check it out HERE. Colleen Frakes is the daily comics diarist for The Comics Journal this week – see her Cartoonist’s Diary HERE. Kriota Willberg offers 5 Things You Can Do to Reduce Drawing Pain – part of the Get a Grip! series on The Comics Beat. ———————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 5-18-2018 – by Sally Ingraham Share this page: [...]

10/09/2017

Caleb OrecchioOctober 8, 2017NewsCaleb Orecchio here with thoughts on The Best American Comics 2017, and other news. ————————————————————————————————— The Best American Comics 2017 is here, compiled by series editor Bill Kartolopoulos, and guest editor Ben Katchor. When I heard Katchor was the guest editor this year and saw Matthew Thurber’s cover for the book, I was quite looking forward to the latest edition. It’s a really solid one and feels fairly intimate due to the amount of personal work. There are several thematically personal works, but mostly I mean work that feels “drawn”–as opposed to laborious, exacting work that can often bog down a large anthology when bumping shoulders with more spontaneous comics. There is literally no Image, DC, Marvel, Dark Horse, etc. and many, if not all, of the comics are drawn using analog materials. So the whole book feels really nice to read, you don’t have to adjust your eyes before reading each piece. First up to bat was Gary Panter with a comic originally published in frieze no. 181, which sets a nice tone and basically sets the gold standard for the rest of the book. I thought it was interesting how many Pittsburgh people made it in the book, which may or may not continue to solidify Pittsburgh as a thriving comics town. You have Ed Piskor (of course) plus Laura Pallmall and Sienna Cittadino, who not only are now residents of Pittsburgh, but also made their way through Comics Workbook one way or another. Cittadino’s featured work, Jeremy Meets the Forest Cow, was an entry to the 2016 Comics Workbook Composition Competition (Cittadino literally won the 2017 competition), and Pallmall is a graduate of the Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers. Just thought that was interesting. Another Comics Workbook connection is Kurt Ankeny whose amazing book, In Pieces: Some Place Which I Call Home, (originally serialized on Comics Workbook’s Tumblr) was excerpted (see image below). Kurt is an excellent drawer and I’ve seen his sketchbooks full of great coffee shop portraits, so I know he can draw really well on the first take. So I asked him, “Is that sequence in The Best American Comics first-take? Like, you literally drew these pages in your sketchbook more or less?” He responded, “They were done in a pad of perforated paper, but yes, essentially first take. That first page was drawn onsite from observation.” This reminds me, Kurt was invited by thee Ben Katchor himself to give a talk at Parsons for the NY Comics & Picture-story Symposium tomorrow, Tuesday, Oct. 10, 2017 at 7pm. Kurt is very smart and an excellent cartoonist so if you’re in the area, treat yourself. Anyway, that’s all the time we have today folks–see you next week as I attempt to jump the Grand Canyon with a pair of roller skates, a parachute, and a box of tissue paper. Should be fun. Bye now. ————————————————————————————————— if you don’t know now you know Here on this very site, Juan Fernandez is looking forward and looking to expand the comics festival toolkit. This is an excellent article and everyone should at least hear him out. In case you missed it earlier, just wanted to remind you that Kurt Ankeny will be giving a talk at Parsons for the NY Comics & Picture-story Symposium tomorrow, Tuesday, Oct. 10, 2017 at 7pm. (TOMORROW) Tom Spurgeon has post-festival press release of CXC 2017. CXC was great, Tom is an excellent host and I already can’t wait to go back next year. Joe McCulloch’s weekly column at TCJ.com is no longer with us, but Joe still is–here he gives us a review of Berserker #1 from Breakdown Press. Right now The Comics Beat has a lot of coverage of New York Comic Con if you’re into that sort of thing–I personally think it’s always interesting to read about the mainstream side of comics whether or nor I’m actually interested in the comics themselves. ————————————————————————————————— Check out thee exclusive Connor Willumsen bundle from Comics Workbook! Get Anti-Gone by the great Connor Willumsen, along with two zines – a 20 page bootleg, and a special collage zine – as well as a unique Anti-Gone drawing by Connor. Get a “Connor box” HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie– 10-9-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 10-9-2017 – by Gabriella Tito Share this page: [...]

06/15/2016

Juan FernándezJune 15, 2016NewsJuan Fernandez here with: los Cómics españoles en Bologna;lo nuevo de TIK TOK; las novedades del Club de Dibujo; Juan Diaz Canales’ COMO VIAJA EL AGUA; Santiago García y el arte del guion. ————————————————————————————————— Off the site: Report: Spanish Art Comics Day in Bologne Serena Di Virgilio over at Italian comics criticism hub, Just Indie Comics, has a great report on the Spanish Independent Publishing panels and exhibitions from this May in Bologne. Lots of inspiring photos and a great primer on some of the most exciting contemporary makers of Spanish speaking comics from around the world making comics in Spain. Thursday, May 26 BilBOlbul Spring / Summer 2016 , preview of Bologna balloon festival, a meeting dedicated to Olaf Ladousse, Klari Moreno, Roberto Massó and Martín López Lam, and an exhibition of the latest works of the latter. The four authors, mostly unknown in Italy, living in Spain and selfpublishing their creations. Apart from that, it is a rather heterogeneous group that presents a stimulating variety of imaginary and experiences. ————————————————————————————————— Novedades/New over on TIK TOK Cómics: ¡Click through to read/Dale click para continuar a los comics! ————————————————————————————————— Club de Dibujo – Weekly Drawings from Around Latin America Club de Dibujo es la publicación serial de un grupo de artistas latinoamericanos que envían cada semana un nuevo dibujo. La curadora es Adriana Lozano. Check them out and stay atop the refreshing and raw wave of Latin American illustration and comics! ————————————————————————————————— Rafael Villa con Martín Cáceres: El Sueño de la Máquina Here’s a neat interview of Martín Cáceres in the latest edition of Chilean arts periodical La Panera. The interview starts on page pg. 32 of the PDF, surrounded by lots of interesting contemporary arts and culture from Chile 😉 ————————————————————————————————— Juan Díaz Canales y Como Viaja el Agua Juan Díaz Canales, best known in the states for his work on the Blacksad series with Juanjo Guarnido, sits down and talks with Bilbao 24 horas about his ventures into his first solo graphic novel, Como Viaja el Agua. P.: “Como viaja el agua” es tu primer trabajo como autor completo. ¿Cómo afrontas el reto? R.: Como una experiencia más. Así es como me voy planteando el resto de cosas en la vida. Como apasionado de los tebeos es algo que quería hacer desde hace tiempo. También es cierto que, al no tener un pasado fanzinero tenía algo de miedo. Sin tener ese bagaje, me he enfrentado a un libro de 90 páginas. El riesgo era alto pero ha llegado un momento de madurez profesional y eso me ha dado algo de seguridad para afrontarlo. ————————————————————————————————— Diego Cuevas y Iván Galiano interview guionista Santiago García Over on Jot Down, EL PAIS’ contemporary culture magazine, there’s a solid interview with Spanish comics writing all star, Santiago García. If you’re not familiar with García, take note! He’s one of the most popular writers of comics in Spain. An auteur comics writer if you will. Smash that google translate button if you need to for all the juicy details of García’s creative formation, the nature of his collaborative process with artists and his hopes for the future. P: Estudiaste Periodismo e Historia del Arte. ¿Las hiciste pensando en trabajar en algo relacionado con los cómics? R: No. No sabía lo que iba a hacer. Empecé Filología Inglesa y en mitad de ella me fui a la mili. Cuando volví en vez de retomarla me fui a Periodismo en la Complutense. Fue la carrera que hice con veinte años. Años después, con treinta y cinco, hice Historia del Arte. A mí me gustaban mucho los tebeos. En realidad lo que me ha gustado siempre es el papel impreso, la prensa, los periódicos, las revistas y los libros. Yo lo que quería hacer era papel impreso. Probablemente en orden de preferencia los cómics eran lo primero, pero yo me veía de periodista. Aparte, Peter Parker era periodista, Clark Kent era periodista, era la profesión que lo aunaba todo . ————————————————————————————————— hasta la proxima! (Share the love you have. Nunca sabes que pasara…) JF Share this page: [...]

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