Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Sally Ingraham

Posted on February 16, 2017February 16, 2017

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04/15/2016

Sally IngrahamApril 15, 2016NewsSally here with sweet morsels to start the weekend off right – Simon Hanselmann and Eleanor Davis dazzle in interviews this week, while Alabaster Pizzo and Jim Rugg offer up comics overflowing with life-hacks, and Chris Ware via Comics Workbook provides us with the perfect way to spend that plump tax return we’re already dreaming of… —————————————————————————— What a day, what a day. Friday, April 15th, and in a stroke of great good fortune, it is NOT tax day…! Thanks to some obscure holiday celebrated only in Washington, D.C., the penny savers of the world can hold on to their riches for a few more days. If you still feel an urge to count coins, however, check out this comic by Chris Ware, which ran in the New York Times a few tax seasons ago. I say some obscure holiday… *sigh* —————————————————————————— Anyway, once you get those taxes filed, hopefully there will be a sweet refund landing in your coffers – and in anticipation of that, you could certainly at least take a gander at the INCREDIBLE AUCTION of original Chris Ware artwork that is being held to benefit the Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency. Check it out: The auction is live HERE, and will continue through next week. —————————————————————————— We can’t get enough of Jim Rugg this week – after blowing his mind with the Chris Ware package, Comics Workbook followed up by paying his studio a visit and getting into the details of Jim’s process. Check out part 1 of 3 below: Part 2 HERE. Part 3 HERE. Jim is cranking out some new high octane Street Angel comics too – Fist Fight Funnies features our kick ass hero enduring the horrors of middle school…the story so far. Can she survive MATH CLASS…?? —————————————————————————— Keeping things somewhat connected here, in a new interview with The Guardian, Simon Hanselmann mentions his confusion over how to read comics by Chris Ware. “I believe in the grid,” he says. This of course is the least interesting aspect of the article, which begins with Simon and HTMLflowers watching the sun rise at the top of a 12-storey crane in the middle of a construction site. ‘When not putting himself in mortal danger, Simon Hanselmann is responsible for the cult comic series Megg, Mogg and Owl. “If I don’t do stupid things every now and then, I will run out of stupid things for Megg and Mogg to do,” he says. “If I stop being a fuck-up, then Megg and Mogg will soon just be about managing European translations and Skyping with network executives.”’ Oh Simon, never change. Read the full article HERE. —————————————————————————— Annie Mok dives in deep with Eleanor Davis over on The Comics Journal. The conversation is lively, and the interview features a full banquet platter of Davis‘ styles – she’s a creative beast! There’s going to be something in there for everyone, and for me it was her thoughts about drawing as a form of play – holding on to the “kids drawing”, versus a more polished style. DAVIS: I feel like there’s a lot of different stages, and when you get to a certain level of maturity you realize that people are looking at your drawings, and that your drawing can be judged as good or bad. And then you clench up like crazy, and that’s when your drawing starts getting bad. Usually. Like, objectively. And then you have to learn and do “How to Draw the Marvel Way” or whatever, and learn to be good. But before that, you’re drawing as a way of play. It makes the drawings a lot more linear. Not aesthetically linear, but the way that the drawing is built is more linear, ‘cause each line is—it’s not preplanned, so each line is responding to the previous line rather than trying to build an overarching image. I think that that lends kids’ drawings a sense of integrity that maybe gets lost when you’re trying to do something that’s pre-planned… Read, and be staggered by, the whole interview HERE. —————————————————————————— Alabaster Pizzo has a new comic up on Vice, and it’s all about urban farming – a trickier and more treacherous endeavor than you might think. —————————————————————————— Czap Books just released a new collection – Inaction Comics 1: Productivity This book is a challenge to action. An attempt to break free of it, and to come to terms with it. So much of life is inaction, is just breathing or waiting. Is joys and shames, all so quiet you deny them or forget them a moment later. This book is made up of a group of very different artists with very different perspectives, but pulled together into an exploration of a single idea. A single story, in a way. Contributors include: Kimball Anderson – MJ Robinson – Paul K. Tunis – L. Nichols – LB Lee – Laurel Lynn Leake – Kelsea Rain – Alyssa Berg – Andrew White – Susie Oh – Klára Grancicova – Cathy G. Johnson Get it HERE. —————————————————————————— Alrighty folks, make the most of your weekend – go on wild adventures (channel Simon Hanselmann perhaps) and if you don’t make it back by Monday, who can blame you? If you do make it back though, we’ll be here with more comics news! – Sally Share this page: [...]

06/13/2018

Juan FernándezJune 13, 2018los Cómics / NewsArelis Uribe; Margarita Valdés; 30 Millones de Naves; Berliac; el panorama de la ilustración española – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Los cómics y las noticias que me han llamado la atención esta semana: ~ en Español y “sometimes in English” ~ La Polola #78 – Arelis Uribe Sol Díaz Castillo y Marcela Trujillo tienen una nueva edicion de La Polola Podcast! Las chicas conversan con la escritora y periodista Arelis Uribe. Conversaron entre bombas, de quiltras, vida, calle y feminismo, compartió parte de su historia, recuerdos y proyectos. Es un viaje entre conceptos, libros, preguntas y mucho más. – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – La dibujante Margarita Valdés entrevistada Pablo Andulce, Más Deco Explícanos la necesidad de una revista de cómic hecha por mujeres. Cuando vi los cómics de Maliki en The Clinic sentí alivio de leer a una mujer hablando con honestidad de su cotidianidad, su sexualidad, o sus fracasos, sin florituras. Casi siempre veía aparecer, desde un autor hombre, una mujer idealizada, casi inhumana, con la que no me identificaba nada (esto no solo con los cómics, también en los libros, películas, etc.). Aunque ha cambiado para bien desde esos años hasta ahora, las voces femeninas siguen siendo escasas. En Chile hace algunos años Melina Rapimán hizo Tribuna Femenina, también de cómic de mujeres; participé de uno de sus números. Ahora con Brígida es buenísimo que se reabra ese espacio, y que sea un proyecto con varios números y que incluyan autoras de otros países. – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Novedades – 13 Millones de Naves La revista de cómics, 13 Millones De Naves les ofrece un monton de reseñasnuevas para ayudarlos en decidir su lectura de verano: Röhner de Max Baitinger, TheEndOfTheFuckingWorld de Charles Forsman, la 4ª entrega del Gus de Cristophe Blain, lo nuevo de Enki Bilal, el nª 3 de Sex Criminals y más! – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Un Degenerado. Entrevista con Berliac L. De Paoli y Santi Sanchez Kutika, Revista Kamandi Quizás hay un asunto sensible, la referencia fotográfica. Noto en muchas conversaciones de dibujantes en las que siempre se lo menciona peyorativamente, y para mí es desatender un poco cómo funciona en el manga la referencia fotográfica y la necesidad de imponer un cierto realismo a los escenarios. Yo veo SADBOI y entiendo el sentido holístico que tiene dentro de la obra… Siento que todavía hay un cierto tabú en el uso de referencias. ¿Cómo funciona para vos? Lo peyorativo es una cuestión puramente ideológica, una cosa es decir de modo descriptivo: “el manga usa referencias fotográficas”, y otra muy distinta es el tono normativo según el cual “en la historieta de verdad (la argentina) eso no se hace”. Pero eso esconde una mirada superficial del manga. La referencia fotográfica no es una cuestión de dibujo, sino que ayuda a leer mejor, es una cuestión narrativa, no estilística. En este sentido transicionar al manga también consistió en cambiar de ética de trabajo, e incluso ya nos vamos por el terreno filosófico si nos detenemos a pensar en la figura del autor en sí. En occidente, autor es aquel que deja su impronta en toda la obra. En el manga, en cambio, pasa por otro lado, por lo que no se ve. El manga en ese sentido es también superar el deseo de querer ser visto. Sino por ejemplo, el sistema de asistentes sería imposible. – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Mujeres ilustradoras, el panorama de la ilustración española Rigo, Momoko En momoko.es, os hablan esta mañana del panorama de la ilustración en manos de mujeres ilustradoras en España. Hay un gran número de ilustradoras españolas que están triunfando actualmente, viendo en muchos casos su trabajo impulsado por el poder de las redes sociales. Esta corriente artística y esta forma de consumo inmediato a través de las redes está cambiando los códigos tanto en el mundo de las artes plásticas como en el de la literatura. En Momoko os dejamos una lista de algunas de las mujeres ilustradoras españolas que más relevancia tienen actualmente, ¡las admiramos a todas y cada una de ellas! – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Suzy and Cecil – 06-13-2018 – by Gabriella Tito Share this page: [...]

PIX 2016 – Lale Westvind

Juan FernándezMay 21, 2016Festivals and ShowsMichael Pisano catches up with the great Lale Westvind at PIX 2016 in Pittsburgh PA Video by Michael Pisano and Di-ay Battad // michaelpisano.com // cargocollective.com/di-ay Share this page: [...]

YI YI by Steven Weissman

Chris Anthony DiazJuly 20, 2016The Diaz ArchiveSteven Weissman’s portrayal of Jonathan Chang as Yang Yang in Edward Yang’s YI YI (Taiwan, 2000) for my ILLUSTRATED MOMENTS IN CINEMA/TELEVISION. The illustration was completed January 2011 in India and Pearlescent inks complimented with Screentone patterns, and Steven’s candid with his son was taken at the Oakland Museum of California’s cafeteria in August 2012. And Graham Willcox did the color on Steven’s candid Share this page: [...]

12/09/2016

Sally IngrahamDecember 9, 2016NewsSally here with Vanesa R. Del Rey’s new book, work by Sylvie Fontaine, Fiona Smyth, and Gabriella Tito, and notes on the All Time Comics project. ————————————————————————————————— “Frank Santoro: Vanesa, I’m quite taken aback by your sheer technical ability which seems to be married to a poetic sensibility. There’s a lightness there. Sometimes illustrators with that ability get heavy-handed. Yet you manage the push-pull between the two sides of yourself – because you’re like a samurai. The humble samurai. Vanesa R. Del Rey: It’s about trying to remember that. I can get all this praise, I can get all these amazing responses from strangers, but at the end of the day – I’m still a student. I’m still learning. The crown doesn’t fit. The crown should never fit.” In May 2016 Vanesa R. Del Rey came to Pittsburgh, PA, to visit the Rowhouse and share her sketchbooks and her passion for comics with Frank and the rest of us. Their conversations about her work and experiences have been transformed into the book The Art of Vanesa R. Del Rey, which is full of gorgeous images as well. You can get a peak into the book at the pre-order site HERE – the book will be released later this month! Vanesa is known for her work on Marvel’s Black Widow, and the Boom Studios stories Hit and The Empty Man. She is the “vertical invader” in comics that Frank has always talked about – the artist who “could employ the naturalism of the Noel Sickles/Alex Toth school but who could paint like an Alice Neel or a Jenny Saville.“ Vanesa is an inspiration to me on a lot of levels, and getting to hear more of her stories and thoughts via this new book – getting to hang out with this samurai! – is a great privilege. To hear another woman voice out loud something like “I want to be a strong female – I want to be powerful” and then to watch her truly kick ass IS incredibly powerful. Check out more of Vanesa’s work HERE. Pre-order a copy of The Art of Vanesa R. Del Rey HERE! ————————————————————————————————— Big news broke yesterday – EW revealed that Fantagraphics is going to release a line of superhero comes starting in March 2017. Wait…whut?! “Headed by writer Josh Bayer, the All Time Comics line launches in March 2017 with All Time Comics: Crime Destroyer #1. The supersized issue will introduce the four main characters of this shared superhero universe: Atlas, Bullwhip, Crime Destroyer, and Blind Justice, each of whom will be getting their own individual series. As proof of the line’s blending of eras, this first issue will feature the final published comics work of the late Herb Trimpe, a Marvel veteran of the Lee/Kirby era who helped co-create Wolverine. All Time Comics will also feature work from the likes of Al Milgrom (who co-created DC’s Firestorm), as well as younger artists like Noah Van Sciver and Ben Marra. Each issue, Bayer promises, will feature a new unique mash-up of different cartoonists.” – via EW It’s true – here’s the pre-order page on Fantagraphics’ website. And I do think this is exciting news. I totally want to read a superhero comic that Noah Van Sciver has worked on. But Heidi MacDonald over on The Comics Beat has already voiced the thought that immediately occurred to me – the project is kind of “a throwback boys club that proves just how far comics have come….not. Tsk tsk, boys. Haven’t you heard the news? Girl cooties are allowed around comics now and even superheroes!” Heidi shouts for Katie Skelly to get in on the project, or else. I am going to start the clamor for Lale Westvind and Anya Davidson and Vanesa R. Del Rey for heavens sake, and I’m going to keep adding to the list! Overall I do think it’s a cool project (I look forward to collecting the issues!) and I like what Bayer has to say about it: “All Time Comics is celebration of independent comics and the best of pulpy superhero comics of the past,” Bayer tells EW. “We are making a circle complete. This is also a period when comics seem to be in danger of being eclipsed by movies and video games, and All Time Comics is here to remind people that comics, not movies, not action figures or toys, that started our cultural obsession with superheroes. All Time Comics is us, and we stand for comics. Comics are not fading. They will stand… for all time.” – via EW The EW press release is HERE. Heidi on The Comics Beat has the whole list of who exactly is working on what issues at the end of her post, HERE. ————————————————————————————————— I spend two days a week at one of the best alternative comics shops in the world – Copacetic Comics, in the Polish Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh. A twice-weekly perusal of the shelves or a thorough dig through the many long boxes of small press and self-published work usually turns up a few treasures. Yesterday I poured over a little book by Sylvie Fontaine, called Miss Va-Nu-Pieds (2008). Sylvie Fontaine is a French comics maker who has been publishing work since the 90’s. Despite the fact that her book Le Poulet du Dimanche (2007) earned an introduction by Moebius himself, the internet did not reveal much more about her. I was quite content with Miss Va-Nu-Pieds though. The black and white panels reminded me of Frans Masereel woodcuts, with a little Mary Fleener mixed in. The wordless story follows a young woman through a swiftly changing wonderland. She moves forward constantly, encountering new landscapes and beings, falling into traps and narrowly avoiding accidents, planting , dancing, until she rides a giant hand to a point of rest and possibly fulfillment. I would say you can get a copy of this book at Copacetic, but I think I’m keeping it. So if you’re interested, you can order it through the publisher, Tanibis. ————————————————————————————————— Another work that I was reminded of while looking at Miss Va-Nu-Pieds was The Rendered (2016) by Fiona Smyth. Perhaps something about the harsh black and white made me long for hot pink – although there is a slight stylistic similarity. Speaking of Fiona Smyth, when I saw her this past summer she was bemoaning the fact that the building in Toronto where her studio has been located for years was being torn down, or was kicking all the artists out – something really depressing – and now I see on her site that she’s having a final studio sale. Boooooo. She’ll be selling drawings, paintings, zines, and prints on Dec. 10th and then Dec. 17/18th – here are the details. In other news – much more delightful news! – I just discovered Fiona’s CHEEZ archive. CHEEZ is a weekly strip that Fiona has been publishing on the web since…2009?! It was “originally a monthly comic/drawing published in Canada’s Exclaim Magazine over a ten year period from 1992 to 2002.“ Here is the first strip that appeared on the site in 2009: And the most recent one: Yes, you read that correctly – Fiona Smyth has drawn 489 CHEEZ strips. Check them all out HERE! ————————————————————————————————— There are 4 days left to get an early application in for the Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers, and get that sweet $100 off discount on the Winter Semester. Apply by Dec. 13th! The course starts December 29th 2016, and you have until the 28th to submit an application – the course is 8 weeks long – Frank takes 10 students and you won’t find a better teacher out there. One-on-one feedback, techniques and ideas about comics that will transform your practice and push you to a whole new level. Winter is the time to hunker down and make some serious work – and have a bit of fun too. Check out the course – take the course: More details can be found HERE – or email santoroschoolATgmail. ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 12-9-2016 – by Gabriella Tito Share this page: [...]

02/17/2017

Posted on February 16, 2017February 16, 2017 by Sally Ingraham

Happy Friday! Sally here with another amazing group of cartoonists and comics scholars – joining me today are Lucy Caswell, Mickey Z, Dominique Goblet, Jillian Fleck, Vanesa R. Del Rey, Gabriella Tito, Caitlin Rose Boyle, and many more. I invite YOU to join me as well in celebrating a special anniversary!

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The great curator and comics champion Lucy Shelton Caswell with cartoonist Miton Caniff

The Lucy Caswell Research Award is roaring to life! The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum is partnering with the Will and Ann Eisner Family Foundation to create an endowment that will provide funding for comics scholars to travel to Columbus, OH, and conduct research at the BICLM. The Will and Ann Eisner Family Foundation issued a challenge – if the BICLM and Ohio State University Libraries can raise $35, 000, they will match that amount, generating $70, 000 for comics scholars. During the “Buckey Love” campaign over the last week, the Libraries raised $11, 061 which is a tremendous start to the project!

You can make a gift to the Lucy Caswell Research Award HERE.

The Award is named after the great Lucy Shelton Caswell, Professor Emerita at Ohio State University and founding curator of the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum.

“Prior to her retirement, her scholarly work and teaching focused on the history of newspaper comic strips and the history of American editorial cartoons. She has curated more than seventy-five cartoon-related exhibits and is the author of several articles and books, the most recent being the revised edition of Billy Ireland. Caswell is co-editor of The Ohio State University Press Studies in Cartoons and Comics series. She also serves as the vice president of Cartoon Crossroads Columbus, the annual citywide celebration of cartoon art.“

It’s hard to actually put into words the importance of Lucy in the comics community, and this award is just one of many ways that her influence will continue to impact the coming generations.

More details about the award can be found HERE.

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*Space Academy 123* by Mickey Z – 2-16-2017

In Mickey Z‘s recent interview with Frank Santoro about risography (HERE on The Comics Journal) she mentioned that she was experimenting with online comics. I immediately went on a hunt for them, and found the (mostly) daily comic that she has been publishing on Instagram for awhile – Space Academy 123 (the latest episode is pictured above)! It is a hilarious story about “space school” that I insist you go and read NOW.

Once you’re in the Mickey Z mood check out her RAV collection from Youth and Decline – HERE. She is a cartoonist to keep on your radar – she’s always making terrific work and doing interesting collaborations while holding up her corner of the comics community tent in Providence, RI!

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A page from Dominique Goblet’s *Pretending is Lying*

Paste Magazine has a review of Dominique Goblet‘s Pretending is Lying (translated by Sophie Yanow).

“In many ways, the book is a mess. The narrative is scattered and patchy, and the characters are often frustrating. On the other hand, it holds an immediate power. Goblet conveys her messy childhood, her difficult relationships with her parents and her lasting problems from her upbringing. The mess is the point, even if it can feel smothering. If pretending is lying (something one character says to another in the heat of anger), these pages avoid deception by being as raw and direct as Goblet can render them. Characters also lie to one another (or to themselves) throughout. It’s complicated. Life is complicated. There’s no clear, overarching storyline because forcing experience into a narrative is a kind of lying.” – Hillary Brown

This is the latest release from New York Review Comics, an fairly new imprint that has already published a bunch of really neat comics, including some of my favorite books from last year – the reissue of Mark Beyer’s Agony, the collection of Glen Baxter’s wild single-panel gag strips, and Pushwagner’s Soft City. I’m excited to see what else they put out, and will definitely be taking some time with Dominique Goblet’s Pretending is Lying soon.

Read the whole Paste review HERE.

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A spread from Jillian Fleck’s *Lake Jehovah*

Rob Clough recently reviewed Jillian Fleck‘s Lake Jehovah.

“Jillian Fleck’s debut book Lake Jehovah is the sort that an artist with a lot to say tends to throw at the world; there are multiple levels of meaning, metaphor and symbol in the comic that take a long time to unpack, along with a complex visual playbook that riffs on all sorts of formal tricks like the use of the grid and repeating visual motifs. Fortunately for the reader, Fleck was up to the task that she set for herself in telling a story of multiple apocalypses, mysterious illnesses, horny demons and talking animals, and a remarkable balance of the absurd and the deadly serious. Along the way, there’s a serious examination of the value of poetry, the utility of language in general and a restless exploration of gender and sexuality, It’s done with a humane and sympathetic take on all of the characters, no matter their experiences.“

Read the rest HERE! Get a copy of the book from Conundrum Press. Jillian is an alum of the Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers and a member of the Comics Workbook Roller Derby League.

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Scarlet Witch drawn by Vanesa R. Del Rey

Vanesa R. Del Rey‘s artwork launched Marvel’s Scarlet Witch back in 2015, and then the series continued with collaborations between writer James Robinson and a number of other artists. Keeping things mixed up like this was always the intent of the series. Now, Vanesa returns with issue #15 – out on February 22nd 2017! There’s an interview with her over on Marvel News and some preview pages of her inks for the story – check it out HERE.

Be sure to follow Vanesa in Instagram, where she shares tons of process drawings and other artwork – @vrdelrey – and check out the Comics Workbook publication The Art of Vanesa R. Del Rey HERE.

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Women Who Write About Comics is expanding their reach through a publishing project – their new imprint, Bleating Heart Press, will be releasing Secrets of the Goat People #1: Voice (above) in late March 2017.

“In this inaugural double issue, you’ll find 40+ pages of original comics, illustrations, and prose from 17 international creators. Learn about the power of silence, how a superhero finds her inner strength, the strength of goat women, and what it means for these creators’ voices to be heard.“

This website is a great resource for comics news and reviews – take a minute to explore it. Recent posts include this roundup of mini reviews of work by Anya Davidson, Eleanor Davis, and more – HERE.

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Excerpt from *The Unstoppable Wasp* – written by Jeremy Whitley; art by Elsa Charretier; color by Megan Wilson

The A.V. Club offers up a review of Marvel’s new series The Unstoppable Wasp:

“Written by Jeremy Whitley with art by Elsa Charretier and colorist Megan Wilson, The Unstoppable Wasp is a book full of good intentions: It focuses on bringing girls into the male-dominated STEM field (including backmatter interviews with real-life female STEM professionals), features a cast of characters from different ethnic backgrounds, and prioritizes fun and compassion in its storytelling. The artwork from Charretier and Wilson is dynamic, expressive, and bright, with imaginative layouts and detailed linework, particularly when it comes to the messy science lab environments. Charretier has quickly risen through the ranks of comic artist with her animated, effervescent style, and she’s the perfect artist to handle a story about a joyful new superhero.” – Oliver Sava

Sounds pretty good, right? The reviewer makes a point of noting, however, that this is yet another series where a female hero is being written by a man.

“That’s not to say that every book about a female superhero should have a woman writing it, but the overall message of The Unstoppable Wasp makes it difficult to ignore the lack of female creators in superhero comics while most of Marvel’s superheroine titles are written by men.” – Oliver Sava

This is followed by a hefty list of Marvel stories with female leads that are being written by men. At least the rest of the creative team for The Unstoppable Wasp are women – check out more work by Elsa Charretier and Megan Wilson!

The A.V. Club piece can be read in full HERE – and among the four comics reviews is a nice write up about Lady Castle, so bonus!

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From the Comics Workbook TV archives – Frank met up with Caitlin Rose Boyle around the time the first issue of Jonsey was released. Check out more of Caitlin’s work HERE. We’re up to issue #10 of Jonsey now – read about Jonsey’s recent adventures as an activist HERE.

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Me (Sally Ingraham) at CXC 2016 – photo by Chris Diaz

It’s my Comics Workbook Daily News 1 Year Anniversary! I’ve been with you on 50 of the past 52 Fridays and shone my face plenty of other days too. It has been tremendously satisfying to keep an eye on the comics scene and share what I think is interesting and important with this community. Thanks for hanging out with me and the rest of the CW News team for a year and more – we look forward to continuing to provide quality content and commentary for many years to come.

For the record, here’s my first Friday Daily News post!

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Popsicle Sticks

Julia Wertz‘s The Infinite Wait and Other Stories is reviewed on Fantasy Literature.
Reminder to check out Fiona Smyth‘s weekly strip – CHEEZ. Last I checked there were 499 drawings posted there!
Emma Lawson reviews Jessica Campbell‘s Hot or Not: 20th Century Male Artists over on Comics Alliance. One of my favorite comics from last year.
The Argentinian women’s comics collective Chicks on Comics has released a fanzine – you can view it on Issuu – HERE. It includes work by 150 women from around the world.
A reviewer on Forbes believes that Emil Ferris‘ My Favorite Things Are Monsters is about to transform graphic literature – find out how HERE.
The Comics Journal has the first long form interview with Emil Ferris EVER – check out Part 1.
Jessica Abel blogs about working smarter, not harder, even in your creative life. She is also offering a “live-journal” experience to subscribers who wish to follow her current project – writing and publishing a book about creative focus in 3 months. Check it out.
Can we talk about the fact that Jillian Tamaki, creator of SuperMutant Magic Academy, and co-author of This One Summer, also makes the most incredible quilts (pictured below)?! In my mind there is a strong connection between quilting and comics. See more of her work HERE.

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Announcing the Spring Semester of thee Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers!

The course starts March 7th 2017. Apply by February 26th to get 100 bux off! The course is 8 weeks long – payment plans are available.

Application guidelines:

– 3 figure drawings done on blank 3 x 5 index cards

– 3 landscape drawings done on blank 3 x 5 index cards

– 3 still life drawings done on blank 3 x 5 cards

– draw in a contour line style –think Matisse – no under-drawing

– draw directly in ink

– just send small jpgs of images – dont post to your blog pls

– send specific url links to any comics work you have done. If you haven’t done comics before that is not a problem.

Email santoroschoolATgmail to apply! More details HERE.

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Blinkers – 2-17-2017 – by Jack Brougham

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Suzy and Cecil – 2-17-2017 – by Gabriella Tito

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Joanie and Jordie – 2-17-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio

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Cozytown – 2-17-2017 – Juan Fernandez

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Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Sally Ingraham

Posted on February 16, 2017February 16, 2017

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02/25/2016

Juan FernándezFebruary 25, 2016Newsdamn, it’s cold and gray in Pittsburgh. Bummer. Gotta get toasty somehow… thankfully Tara Helfer‘s got a little 10-panel winter ditty for you. Great pantomime of a hungry young troll girl. Interesting, subtle designs that leave you excitedly filling the narrative blanks. It’s the kind of comic that leaves you smiling imagining the before and after of the sequence. Read her comic here. – Jillian Tamaki has a new comic out on Hazlitt entitled Boundless. She glides through the animal kingdom, giving the reader a taste of what life is like for several critters. The comic is a great empathetic exploration of the human in the natural. No panels, just images and words swimming together. Hop on over to Hazlitt.net to read Boundless. – Tyler Landry has uploaded the gory, grotesque glory that is Shit and Piss 3 over on Ello. It’s a glorious, carnal, fetid, sumptuously human 16 pages. Beautifully choreographed action, spliced with strong poetic imagery. Dive into the muck and give it a read. – If you haven’t yet heard through the grapevine, Sally Ingraham and Maggie Umber are hosting a drawing challenge over at the comicsworkbook.tumblr. It’s the Gato Gif Competition. Do you like to draw? Do you like cats? Do you want to win comics books from Comics Workbook and 2dcloud? Then you best get the inside scoop on the Gato Gif Challenge from Maggie and Sally! – Emma Rios and Hwei Lim Reflect on their collaboration for their work on Image’s new miniseries Mirror. It’s a standalone narrative where the duos been collaborating in new and leftfield ways, dipping into the experimental waters with gusto. Rios, known as the artist on Pretty Deadly, here writes for Lim. Sit down with the two of them over at Comics Alliance and learn more about their collaboration. CA: How have you found the collaborative process together? HL: Emma is incredibly open to all my crazy suggestions, and extremely forgiving of my countless silly questions and backtracking and forgetfulness! ER: Beyond the obvious beauty of her lines and colors, Hwei’s brilliant narrative, and her ability to make characters feel, have always stood out from anything I’ve ever seen. She turns everything into twice as nuanced with very little, a glance, a wink, a joke… in a way that looks almost effortless and natural. If you don´t draw it’s hard to imagine how difficult that is but, literally, it’s bringing life to the pages. Analyzing how she is building Mirror, and comparing the result with what I would have done myself is mind-blowing for me as an artist. If I were the one drawing the book, this story would have looked grittier and more disgusting, because I’m rather visceral and sometimes I just can’t restrain myself when drawing violence and similar stuff. But this light she brings … has transformed the story even since before I started writing a single line. It allows us to work on another level, with cuteness and humor, and is taking the tragedy to a whole new level of pain, haha… The eyes she draws are the saddest eyes, and if they belong to a caged animal, man… I don’t even know how I can even deal with it. Actually I’m always apologizing to her each time I send her stuff that is twisted with a, “Sorry, I’m a horrible person” but she seems to enjoy it. There’s a nice interview with Conor Stechschulte at Broken Frontier. They dig into lots of really interesting aspects of Conor’s comics making processes and the evolution of his creative interests from his years studying art at MICA with the Closed Captioned Comics crew to present day. Read all the nitty gritty here. [and you can pick up Generous Bosom 1 and 2 at the Breakdown Press online store here. ;)] With up to 25 panels per page, the pacing of your comics seems very carefully laid out. Do you plan it out carefully? When I get down to planning the pages, I do work a good deal on it. I think a lot about timing and focus, especially on where the page turns fall. I write out dialog, then thumbnail pages, then do a “Scratch” version of the full-size page, then lightbox the finished drawing from there, and I’m making changes at every stage. Share this page: [...]

11/20/2017

Caleb OrecchioNovember 19, 2017NewsCaleb Orecchio here with some Marvel comics colored by thee great Françoise Mouly, and other news. ————————————————————————————————— “Years and years and years ago I colored comics for Marvel, and I didn’t feel comfortable in that world at all as a woman. But things have changed; I’m now running into women in their twenties and early thirties who discovered comics as adults.” –Françoise Mouly, from this New Yorker interview Hey there True Believer! Have I got a treat for you. Maybe you knew this already, I think I did but obviously forgot, but thee great Françoise Mouly–perhaps you’ve heard of her–had a stint at Marvel Comics where she colored various titles from 1978 to 1979 (as far as I can tell). I was just minding my own business and perusing through the few issues of Tomb of Dracula I own (gotta love that Gene Colan/TomPalmer combo) when lo and behold, I see the credits for the colorist: Of course we all know Mouly’s work, famously the co-founder of RAW, art editor at The New Yorker, and recently the Resist! anthology with her daughter Nadja Speigelman—plus much more. A true champion of the medium of comics. What a pleasant surprise to find her in the pages of some of my favorite, dumb back-issues. This is half the reason I love old newsprint comics, you never know what combination of creators you will find, and what the results will be. Françoise Mouly colors?! What a treat. I like how she considered tone and value. Something that wasn’t necessarily regarded often within the machine of newsprint boy’s-adventure comics. I assume this was merely a “job” to her on a freelance basis; and the years that she worked being ’78 and ’79, I can’t help but muse that the capital for publishing RAW (first published in 1980) was acquired through Marvel paychecks. Though this may not (probably not) be strictly true, I emit an evil laugh when I consider this. Water into wine. Mwahahaha! After seeing her credited as a colorist in Tomb of Dracula #67, I figured that couldn’t be her only job she did for Marvel. I did some searching and found that I owned several other issues she colored. Most of these were my dad’s and among my favorite comics when he gave me his collection when I was seven. So, for all you Mouly and back-issue fans alike here is a list of her work at Marvel. Comics has such a wacky history–I love it. ————————————————————————————————— if you don’t know, now you know In case you missed it this week, Chris Ware was guest on both Inkstuds AND Charlie Rose in support of his Monograph. Frank Santoro returns to his Riff Raff column over at TCJ to talk CAB 2017. Big news concerning the legendary French show—to me and other cartoonists—Tac Au Tac (basically translates to “Tit for Tat”) will be returning in 2018! Pipeline Comics has some details. See Juan Fernandez’s index of the old show he made for this very site. New Comic Books Are Burning in Hell is up. Sarah Horrocks is the latest guest on Process Party. ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 11-20-2017 – by Gabriella Tito ————————————————————————————————— Share this page: [...]

07/04/2016

Juan FernándezJuly 4, 2016NewsJuan Fernandez here with: Daniel Clowes at the Bay Area Book Festival; Ronald Wimberly on spec work for corporations; Gabrielle Bell’s July Diary; Lauren Weinstein at the shore; Lunch at Alcatraz Jr.; Aline Kominsky-Crumb und Robert Crumb. ————————————————————————————————— On the site: New in the DIAZ ARCHIVE: http://comicsworkbook.com/daniel-clowes-talk-at-the-bay-area-book-festival-2016/ ————————————————————————————————— No More Free Work for Corporations Stop Doing Spec Pages Pt. 1 Ronald Wimberly: A quick preface: Yesterday a friend of mine told me the story of how she was scouted by DC Comics to participate in their “talent” workshop. My colleague, who worked as a professional for 7 years and had books from Marvel under her belt, made time to meet up with a rookie editor only to subject herself to the editor’s rejection and novice opinion as to how my colleague may one day meet the standards of the DC talent workshop- some other time I’ll talk about how lame this DC Comics talent workshop is in how it is manufacturing the spectacle of demand for their brand by creators and using that to forego the cost and editorial aptitude it takes to curate and build a stable of … but they had the gaul to ask my colleague to do test pages, so here’s my opinion on that. Pt. 2. Ronald Wimberly: If you can’t generate surplus value, then your business model is broken, fam. That means you need to go out of business or fix it. You don’t fix it by getting free labor. Or you can, but that is unjust. ————————————————————————————————— Gabrielle Bell’s July Diary July is here and that means that it’s time to relish in Gabrielle Bell’s July Diary. Since 2012, every July, except for 2015, Gabrielle Bell has been posting a “July Diary,” on her site, which have been collected in her book Truth is Fragmentary from Uncivilized Books. Subscribe to Bell’s blog and receive Bell’s comics in your inbox on the regular. Oh, what a day! This year, Bell is shaking things up a bit in her process. It’s going to be really excited to see where her new process takes her stories… This year I’ve set the parameter for myself of no penciling, no erasing, no revising, no redrawing, no editing. It still isn’t exactly a diary though. If it were really a diary, I’d be exposing all my ugly secrets, my inappropriate crushes, the people I hate and all kinds of incriminating and compromising information about everyone I know. I’d love to do that but it took me so long to get the friends I’ve got and I’d like to keep them. You could call this a journal but I don’t like that word either…it sounds too much like “journaling.” At this point it’s an experiment and I’ll figure out what it is in the future hindsight. ————————————————————————————————— Drawn Together: Aline Kominsky-Crumb and Robert Crumb at Cartoonmuseum Basel 7.2-11.13.2016 A comprehensive exhibition that charts the history of Aline Kominsky-Crumb and Robert Crumb’s collaborative work in their comics series Drawn Together has just opened at Cartoonmuseum Basel. If you’re in Switzerland, you won’t want to miss out on seeing this bit of taboo busting underground comics history in the flesh. ————————————————————————————————— “… I can feel time passing and it aches.” Summer vacation comics from Lauren Weinstein over on the Guardian. Frageile memory, raw parenthood and wild horses swirl together in this one. ————————————————————————————————— New Street Angel update: Jesse’s first breakfast in the big house! So gross yummy! SUBSCRIBE here to keep up with Street Angel news + art via Jim Rugg and Brian Maruca. ————————————————————————————————— New Private Rowhouse Auction – 7.3-7.9 Last but not least, we have a new private auction up at auction.comicsworkbook.com! Lots of old and new comics for you to take home. email Frank Santoro at santoroschoolATgmail for a password, if you don’t already have one. If you already have a password, it is the same from last week. All funds go to helping keep the lights on and further developing the school. Connor Willumsen is offering commission sketches that you don’t want to miss out on, all at different tiers. Don’t sleep on your chance to get work by this contemporary heavy hitter. ————————————————————————————————— soak up the sun, bomb some hills, and feel the wind in your hair, until next time! JF Share this page: [...]

12/03/2018

Caleb OrecchioDecember 3, 2018NewsCaleb Orecchio here with some brief thoughts on Kirby’s appeal. ————————————————————————————————— Caleb here. This past semester, I ran an after school comics club for first through fourth graders here in Pittsburgh. Something that I’ve been thinking about lately is that their favorite comics, of the ones I brought in, were far and away my reprints of Jack Kirby Marvel comics (followed closely by Calvin and Hobbes and Ditko’s Spider-Man). They were particularly taken with Black Bolt who made his way into several of the students’ own comics. I think this in part had to do with the fact that they had no previous frame of reference for the character. My students would just sit their and look at the Kirby covers as if they were relics of spiritual truth and mystery. Their is something primal about Kirby that can not be shaken. I don’t think it is controversial to say that Kirby tapped into some deep Jungian gold mine of archetypes. One could argue that this explains the ongoing popularity of his characters. Undoubtedly, Kirby, and the rest of the superhero creators, were participating in a long tradition of hero sagas that has existed since the earliest known literature. The early Marvel characters were fresh and still somewhat familiar. And they stay fresh and familiar in no small part due to the silver and TV screens. Still, despite the intensity and gravitas of the movies, these old comic books still stand as a vital testaments of imagination. I simply find it interesting that a bunch of kids who were hardly interested in anything other than Sonic the Hedgehog and Super Mario Bros. found these stories and pictures fascinating. ————————————————————————————————— Cement Mixer – 12-3-18 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

Comics Community Heart: an Interview with Kevin Czap

Alyssa BergNovember 1, 2016Interviews“The Emerging Talent Award – this goes to a cartoonist whom we feel has plenty of promise as a cartoonist and has shown themselves to be a solid and giving community member as well… We love everything we’ve ever learned about you, in terms of your comics community heart.” —Tom Spurgeon, during the presentation of Jeff Smith and Vijaya Iyer’s Emerging Talent Award to Kevin Czap at CXC, 2016. By a combination of good luck and being an early bird at a pick-your-own-table convention, I ended up tabling close to Kevin Czap of Czap Books during the recent Cartoon Crossroads Columbus expo. This proximity allowed for neighborly chats and also afforded me a front-row spot when they were awarded the CXC 2016 Emerging Talent Award. Jeff Smith and Vijaya Iyer presented Kevin with a $7,500, no-strings-attached award in the form of a novelty check. It was a special moment to witness at CXC – a generous display of support for a deserving artist. A week later, I met up with Kevin in Providence, Rhode Island, to continue the conversation about CXC, comics and community. Alyssa: Tell me a little bit about winning the Emerging Talent Award at CXC. What was that like for you? Kevin Czap: I’ve been going to shows in Columbus with that crowd for a long time. I do a lot of shows – this year I’m going to be doing a total of 14 or 15, more than I usually do. So I know a lot of people, but there are a number of people I don’t necessarily think they know who I am, or I’m not necessarily on their radar… I’m just going about my thing. I didn’t expect it at all. It felt nice in that regard – plugging away at this thing and trying to be a part of the larger conversation of comics that I feel a part of is being represented at CXC. So the award felt like acknowledgement, that you are being noticed and heard, which feels nice. I’m doing all of this stuff without expectation of reward, it’s just what I what I want to do, but it’s definitely nice to see some traction. A: You recently did a Kickstarter for the 2017 collection from Czap Books that more than doubled the amount of money you asked for, and you won this Emerging Talent Award, both within a short span of time. It’s pretty wild, right? KC: I was thinking about that on the drive home and I was crying a lot. Not only that, last year Annie Koyama approached L. Nichols and I about funding Ley Lines, and she gave us a big check for printing the whole line for a year (as well as to pay the artists). And she just did that again for next year. I’ve collected close to what my salary was at my old full-time job to put into making comics, just out of people’s kindness and support of me. It’s too much (laughs). A: It’s the perfect amount! What was your old full-time job? KC: I was a web and graphic designer for a marketing firm in Northeast Ohio. It took good care of me but as I was becoming more ambitious with comics-things that had various facets of identity, the time got to be too much. I was spending the whole day thinking about the comics work that I was not getting done. A: It’s a leap of faith, as an artist, to leave a full-time job. KC: This award validates that decision even more. And also with the Kickstarter, I’ve been able to see the gains that I’ve made since leaving that job, and all of the time I’ve been able to put to good use. A: You have a lot of projects going at once: your own comics, publishing other people’s work, Ley Lines… In addition to those projects you are going to 15 festivals this year. It’s a pretty basic question but how do you manage your time? KC: In the beginning of the year, I figured out a really nice system of dividing up the days into specific blocks so everything is being worked on continually. But then after the first couple of big shows I fell off that a little bit. Now I’m trying to catch back up and get in to it again. Generally I just have a million to-do lists. I realized there are things I really don’t want to do, like call somebody on the phone or ask a stranger a question where the ‘no’ could be a scary thing. But if I put it on the to-do list, I have to cross it off. A: Do you love crossing things off? KC: It’s the greatest thing in the world. A: I was just reading Fütchi Perf and I’m wondering about the process that goes into your comics. KC: I’ve been trying to speed it up a little bit. Generally I’ll have ideas and over a couple months, they’ll formulate. Different bits and pieces of an idea will grow and crystallize and an image will pop out of that. I feel like I work better in smaller chunks. Fütchi Perf was made in discreet units over time. The first couple stories were for specific publications or tasks. I was living in Cleveland and the local alt-weekly had a comics issue: ‘do Cleveland of the future.‘ I did a single page that I later adapted to the first story in Fütchi Perf. A lot of them are based off of experiences I’ve had. I try to shove across any plotting ideas I have. ‘Alright that doesn’t matter, what is the feeling, what do I keep obsessing over?’ The story I was just talking about, I was trying to capture the feeling of going to my first house show – going down this hill and there is this weird house and it’s going to change your life but you don’t know it yet. From there I’ll have the images and then I try to run through the actions in my head. I’ll write out the lyrics or phrasing of the song. I’ve always been obsessed with this idea of somehow translating the feeling or structure of a song to a comic. Some of the more recent work I’ve done I’ll literally try and dissect the structure of song lyrics and try and transcribe that to panels. But for Ley Lines, it was different. I wrote all of the words first. I had some images like I usually do but it was writing out the actual lines, then rewriting and editing before drawing. A: Your Ley Lines book, The Letting Go, was inspired by a conceptual artist (Bas Jan Ader)? KC: Yeah, it’s an artist I learned about in college who I’m still interested in. I was reading a lot of writing about his work and my friend gave me a copy of a documentary about his life and work. I was thinking about these things in general and trying to shove that into a more personal, auto-biographical thing. A: I work with auto-bio in my own work but I try to pull away from the specific and make it more of a relatable feeling. With the auto-bio stuff, is that really close to you? KC: I feel like it’s really personal but it’s heavily coded. There’s a very thick screen. Some of the lines or words are directly things I’ve thought about my own situation but taken out of context to be more relatable and capture a feeling. Everything I do is really earnest, but there is a layer of self-consciousness about that because you have a sense that people don’t take earnestness seriously or it’s an easy route to being bad. There’s always an awareness of that. I don’t want it to be naive, but I do think that earnestness and honesty are important. A: When I made Alpenglow for the Comics Workbook competition, I made a conscious decision to re-imagine that story through kinder eyes. I have the tendency to go toward a heavy-hearted place but I wanted to be more positive, for myself and the people who would read it. When you’re making your work are you conscious of what’s being put out into the ether…of wanting to put positive vibrations into the universe (I’m sorry, I’m a half-hippie!)? KC: No, totally. That’s a lot of where Fütchi Perf started coming from. That idea of how can I turn this into positive energy that I can put into the world? It’s partly what I’m putting out into the world but it’s also what I’m putting into myself, too. I realized at some point it’s very easy to grow negativity in your own mind and I could see where that path leads. How can you correct that behavior, or view it another way? It is a lot of explicitly taking something and flipping it to see, what’s another outcome of this, what do you actually want to happen? A: That’s interesting that you say ‘what do you actually want to happen’ because as I was reading Fütchi Perf, in the first story, a character is “chosen to receive a sizable arts grant.” KC: Oh, ha, I forgot about that. That’s so funny because that specifically came out of not getting a grant and I thought, wouldn’t it be great if I had? A: Tell me about the comics community and how you might add to it. KC: As far as the community goes, my role – if I can do anything, I want to be able to bridge some gaps and constantly be true to my idea of comics being a very diverse and interesting medium full of possibility and not about any one particular way a comic looks or is made. A lot of it involves me constantly questioning and revisiting my own assumptions and tastes. I think it’s valuable to revisit those assumptions. Part of why it seemed important to me to go into publishing, besides liking it – promoting other people’s work and putting books together which is fun – is being very aware that the culture and history of comics is editable. It’s created by active involvement. ———————————————————————————————————————— One of my favorite things to see is a work in progress or sketchbook from an artist I admire. I asked Kevin if they would bring something in progress along to our meeting. KC: Right now I’m working on some things, but it’s all writing at this point. This is a recent sketchbook. It started as all ballpoint pen, and more recently I brought in the highlighter. With the line drawings, it’s like a wall I can’t get past. I want to do more blocky color. ———————————————————————————————————————— Kevin Czap – a.k.a. “Comics Mom” – has been making comics since they were a child in Northern Virginia. They live in Providence, RI, where they run the publisher and distro Czap Books. Their most recent work is The Letting Go (Ley Lines #8 – August 2016). Catch up with Kevin at Comic Arts Brooklyn this weekend (Nov. 5th 2016)! Alyssa Berg makes comics in Brooklyn, NY. You can find her work HERE. Share this page: [...]

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