Alabaster Pizzo has a new one for ya. A little ditty if you will. Alabaster has been making interesting comics out of seemingly innocuous material like amazon reviews for wooden rulers. Real clever. This piece maintains the same exciting formal cheekiness. You can read SOLID ADVICE here.
The fifth and final chapter of my Kris Mukai‘s latest comic, Angels’ Share is now online at Hazlit! You read the whole thing by accessing the other chapters via her author page on Hazlit. As an aside, I’d like to point out that serialized comics stories are a big deal. Never underestimate them. Good way for people to work on longer form work and a good way to keep comics in the layman’s everyday experience.
The story in Angels’ Share takes place around the same time as Mukai’s story in Weeping Flower . Mukai blends text, image and animation seamlessly to create a microcosm of grief and frustration, wrapped in phantasmagoric digital figuration. Cool stuff.
2dcloud has been reaching for the stars in their forthcoming publishing season. They have taken to kickstarter for supporting their campaign.
They aim to release an ambitious collection of work by Sarah Ferrick, Andy Burkholder, Austin English, Leon Sadler, Caroline Hennessy, Nicholas Verstraeten, Katherine Poe, Leslie Weibeler, Connor Willumsen, among others. They are at 19% of their goal. At this rate, we’ll only reach 59%. Please donate whatever you can if you love 2dcloud. Their artists are making difficult work and that makes their books a harder sell, but we believe in them. We believe that there is an audience for their work. Prove us right!
Don’t just listen to us here at Comics Workbook, Mari Naomi has sounded off on the inspiring work that Raighne and Megan Hogan have been doing with 2dcloud. Give Mari Naomi a listen and consider supporting this ambitious crowdfund..
The work 2dcloud publishes is experimental without being pretentious, entertaining without compromising taste, and oh so exciting. 2dcloud are true pioneers. It is so important that they continue existing, putting voices in the mix that might not otherwise find homes.
So here’s why I’m writing this: Right now, 2dcloud is trying to grow. They’ve hooked up with Consortium to distribute their books, which is a huge coup for everyone involved (especially their authors!). But working with a distributor has its challenges, particularly in the money department. You can read about the nuts and bolts in their blog post, which you should check out if you’re curious at all about how publishing works: https://medium.com/@2dCloud/can-indie-publishers-afford-to-grow-4e509d702333#.y8wo6886a
From overseas, there’s a great piece over at Fumettologica on the legacy of Bill Sienkiewicz. Some good italian thinking right there. Read it here. Be sure to hit that translate button! It’s a bumpy read after translation but it’s a rewarding reflection on the arc of Sienkiewicz’s artist evolution and creative commitments.
Some things, you understand well, are never easy to deal with. So the author has preferred to avoid a traditional script, building the dense pages of the volume of an exhausting succession of memories, metaphors, fragments of visions and mental spaces . Definitely a choice of effect, carried out with such vehemence to go to involve the rare segments set in the real world. These, though regarded with almost external eye – although remain narrated by the protagonist – we seem indistinguishable from the most symbolic sections.
As if to say that for some people, achieve the objective world view is impossible . As can be straining, their eyes will always remain too conditioned by the noise and the hood of desperation in their head. A disastrous condition, impossible to understand for anyone not have ever tried on his own skin.
Elijah Brubaker has made a short recording of his process working on his newest work, This Is All We Have. As a comics maker you can absorb a lot in a minute of watching this video. If you’ve never worked physically before. lettered with a nib, or used a light box to allow you to draw on separate sheets of paper, you might learn a thing or two!
And LAST BUT NOT LEAST: Anya Davidson takes a big bite out of Brian Chippendale’s Puke Force over at the Comics Journal. One hell of a good read. Her writing digs deep into Brian’s latest work and it connects dots from all over the multiverse in its exploration of satire in the modern era.
With each new generation there are new crises to confront and new inventions that change the way human beings function in the world and relate to one-another. And with each new generation comes a new crop of artists to help us contemplate the events of the day through the lens of their work. In the wake of the plague, death bed scenes and vanitas paintings became popular-a reminder to the viewer not to become too attached to the things of this world because death is always close at hand.
In his fourth graphic novel, Puke Force, Brian Chippendale bravely tackles the perils of modern American life. The book begins where the action in his earlier book, Ninja, left off.
