Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Aaron Cockle

Posted on February 20, 2017February 21, 2017

Explore

Frank’s Comics Corner #3 – House of Mystery #177

Comics WorkbookFebruary 24, 2017EssaysFrank’s Comics Corner #3 – House of Mystery #177 – 2-16-17 Share this page: [...]

06/27/2017

Aaron CockleJune 27, 2017NewsAaron Cockle here today with New Chinese Comics; Zadie Smith on Lynette Yiadom-Boakye; Clowes @ Cracked; Philip Guston; Something Unusual is Happening at Printed Matter; Matthew Thurber’s Cartoonist Run-down ————————————————————————————————— If you can’t make it but would still like to buy a book, they will be available at Desert Island after the 29th and through our website: paradise-systems.com ————————————————————————————————— Under-Song For A Cipher Zadie Smith looks at the Lynette Yiadom-Boakye exhibition currently on view at the New Museum. In many of Yiadom-Boakye’s interviews, she is asked about the source of her images, and she tends to answer as a novelist would, citing a potent mix of found images, memory, sheer imagination, and spontaneous painterly improvisation (most of her canvases are, famously, completed in a single day). From a novelist’s point of view, both the speed and the clarity are humbling. Subtleties of human personality it might take thousands of words to establish are here articulated by way of a few confident brushstrokes. But the deeper beguilement is how she manages to create the effect of wholly realized figures while simultaneously confounding so many of our assumptions about the figurative. The type of questions prompted by, say, Holbein (What kind of a man was Sir Thomas More?) or Gainsborough (What was the social status of Mr. and Mrs. Andrews?), or when considering a Lucian Freud (What is the relation between painter and model?), are all short-circuited here, replaced by an existential query not much heard in contemporary art: Who is this? The answer is both literal and liberating: No one. Nor will the titles of these paintings identify them. ————————————————————————————————— ‘MAD Magazine in the 80’s seemed staid and a former ghost of itself, but Cracked seemed exciting and filled with new blood (and old) that spoke to my budding anarchic mind.’ At the Last of the Spinner Rack Junkies blog, Isaac Chance has uploaded a bunch of comics Daniel Clowes did at Cracked Magazine in the 1980’s. Clowes would produce work for Cracked from 1985 through 1989. During this period he was also writing and drawing his own comic book Lloyd Llewellyn for Fantagraphics. After six issues, Llewellyn ended with a Special in 1988 and Clowes began Eightball in 1989. ————————————————————————————————— Philip Guston and the Poets At Hyperallergic, Cara Ober looks at Guston’s work and the role that poetry played in its making, on exhibit at the Gallerie dell’Accademia (Campo della Carita, 1050, Venice) through September 3. The exhibit is loosely curated around the five poets who are said to have had the most significant impact on his work — Wallace Stevens, Eugenio Montale, T.S. Eliot, W.B. Yeats, and D.H. Lawrence — and this structure provides unusual opportunities for thematic, rather than historical or formal, groupings. But at the core of the exhibit is an idea that’s both cohesive and revolutionary. The show argues that Guston’s staying power — grounded in fresh oddness, compelling authenticity, and dodgy compositions — was a direct consequence of his relationship with poetic language and form, as well as the ideas of the poets who wrote them. Rather than a romantic inevitability, Poets offers a pragmatic and collaborative handle to Guston’s career as a prolific artist and maker; it attests to the power of verbal and metaphorical language in nourishing his visual oeuvre. The exhibit also argues that silence is necessary for a visual artist’s development; it suggests that Guston’s leaving New York, the epicenter of the art world, was not only helpful, but essential to his work. ————————————————————————————————— ‘Why were there no comics in the Whitney Biennial, again?’ Matthew Thurber discusses work by 10 Cartoonists Every Art Lover Needs to Know Including Austin English:. Comics-as-poetry is an established thing: See the work of Juliacks, Sarah Ferrick, and publishers like Sonatina and 2dcloud. English’s work was influential on this branch of comics-making. Unlike commercial comics—which traditionally convey emotion with simplified facial expression—the muddy, creased faces of English’s characters are opaque. I see a lot of George Grosz, Francis Bacon, and Willem de Kooning when I look at his drawings, which tend to be small and heavily worked with watercolor and colored pencil. Lale Westvind: The cartoonist’s background in traditional oil painting, video art, and animation led to her creating self-published comics at a heroic pace. In HAX, Amazonian warriors battle airplanes under Lichtensteinian Ben-Day dot skies. Her early animation Organism Test (2009) is a key to later work. Thousands of hand-drawn frames depict blob-creatures writhing in the desert, while hybrid motorcycle creatures race towards each other to collide at incredible speed: a copulatory act that generates new life. If Jack Kirby adapted J.G. Ballard’s Crash into a Captain Pronin cartoon, it might begin to resemble Westvind’s filmic oeuvre. Recent animations for the band Lightning Bolt and Morpha! Utila!, for the online TV channel Super Deluxe, are psychedelic masterpieces. And Keren Katz: Katz’s work, like that of Matthew Barney or Mika Rottenberg, has its own logic. Her storytelling voice seems to link the divine nonsense of authors like Daniel Pinkwater, William Steig, or Edward Gorey with surrealist writers like Leonora Carrington. Her comics are Truly Weird, the highest compliment I can give. With drawings executed in confident colored pencil, her figures stretch, bend, and topple in a manner reminiscent of contemporary choreography. (Indeed, Katz studied dance and has mentioned Pina Bausch as an influence.) ————————————————————————————————— The publications included in Something Unusual is Happening share a common interest in non-conventional storytelling, with each artist crafting a distinctive form of visual language that departs from the familiar narratives and formats of traditional comic art. The works explore a range of interests and fixations; allegories of personal transformation and enlightenment, cautionary tales of advanced technology, voyeurism and computer surveillance, as well as meditations on the act of comic-drawing itself. At Printed Matter, June 30-July 31, 2017. ————————————————————————————————— A Cosmic Journey – 6-27-2017 – by Cameron Arthur ———————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 6-27-2017 – by Gabriella Tito ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 6-27-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

04/27/2016

Juan FernándezApril 27, 2016NewsFumetto 2016; Begoña García-Alén’s El Espectador; Dr Fausto Fanzine 10; Daryl Seitchik’s Missy for sale; a first look at Tim Hensley’s Sir Alfred No. 3 ; Al Jarnow & Edwin Rostron. ————————————————————————————————— FUMETTO 2016 Fumetto, one of Europe’s leading international comics festivals wrapped up this past weekend in Luzern, Switzerland. Celebrating its 25th anniversary, the festivities lasted from April 16-24. Among the many guests this year were Lorenzo Mattoti, Joost Swarte, Gabrielle Bell, Caroline Sury, Fremok, Max and Ben Katchor. Fumetto has captured glimpses of all the lectures, workshops, pop-up studios, gallery exhibitions, market places, and parties in a recently posted archive of photos. (If you want to get lost into the nitty gritty of the social media coverage of Fumetto, explore Fumetto’s social media wall here.) Among all of the goings on this year was Fumetto’s annual competition exhibition. The theme this year was “Temptation”. View the winning entries from the 2016 competition here. For those of you really hungry for more of Fumetto’s competitions, you can read all of the winning entries from 2014 and 2015. ————————————————————————————————— (the spectator) The fourth installment of Begoña Garcia-Alen‘s El Espectador (the spectator) is now up over on TikTok cómics. Her spectator series is a nice collection of work that explores the idea of observation and reflection. It’s done in a playful, formalist Koch/CF hybrid. Check it out here. ————————————————————————————————— Llegó nuestra Décima Edición. 10 Autores de Colombia, Argentina y Chile. Toda la info en: https://t.co/0OsmwQUpyN pic.twitter.com/Qhq901Nfmf — Dr Fausto Fanzine (@DrFaustoFanzine) April 25, 2016 Dr Fausto The 10th edition of the Colombian publication, the Dr Fausto Fanzine is here! This edition comes out thanks to the support of Editorial Universidad de Caldas. Ya llegó! It’s now available in cities throughout Colombia, starting in Bogotá. This is issue features 10 cartoonists from Colombia, Argentina and Chile: Edward Muñoz (Editor) http://eddmunoz.tumblr.com/ Un reptil http://relampagarto.tumblr.com/ Truchafrita http://www.truchafrita.net/ Wil Zapata http://wilcomix.blogspot.com.co/ Lutocorps http://lutocorps.blogspot.com.co/ Pablo Bofelli (https://www.facebook.com/PUNCH-590883774340172/?fref=ts)http://felipunch.com.ar/ Toto Duarte https://www.flickr.com/photos/sergalletas/ Javier Fabregas http://www.javierfabregas.co/ Pablo Pérez http://periodistailustrado.tumblr.com/ Jko Sánchez http://jkosanchez.net/ ————————————————————————————————— Digital Missy Daryl Seitchik has collected and made all of her issues of her comic Missy available digitally over on gumroad. Check it out. The first one’s free 😉 ————————————————————————————————— https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJZjfcMR2fc Comics Movie Tie-in Fantagraphics has just shared a detailed look at Tim Hensley’s latest book, Sir Alfred No. 3. It’s beautiful stuff, full o hyucks. Sir Alfred No. 3 is an oblique biography of the world’s most famous film director, Alfred Hitchcock. In fact, despite being numbered “No. 3,” no other issues exist. The comic book is composed of multiple gag strips based on anecdotes found in tomes of film lore in the public library and used book shops. As Hensley’s previous work Wally Gropius referenced the ’60s teenager genre, Sir Alfred pays homage to ’50s personality comics and movie tie-ins. It ends up being something of a cross between Marge Buell’s Tubby, who bears an unforeseen resemblance to the famous director, and Miss Beverly Hills of Hollywood. Have a closer look at the book over on Fantagraphics’ site. ————————————————————————————————— Asymmetric Navigations Take a walk and join Al Jarnow in conversation with Edwin Rostron over on Edge of Frame as they reflect on his life of creation that has move seamlessly across artistic mediums. Paintings, animations sculptures, software, exhibits – his ideas have taken every form you can imagine. Tune into his frequency for a little energy and inspiration. EoF: In the documentary Asymmetric Cycles you describe your process onCelestial Navigation as “setting up an experimental environment in which I could more or less improv and riff off of different ideas to do with time, the passage of time and the passage of light.” Was this typical of how you worked with your animations? Did this kind of experimental process relate to how you worked as a painter? Was there a lot of material generated through this kind of process that didn’t make the cut? AJ: Yes, always! In painting as in film, the process has always been a dialogue. What happens with the first stroke is a determining factor in what happens with the next. An experiment is an act in which you don’t know the outcome. It’s a learning process. You might have expectations and anticipate your results, but those can color your results. In film, a lot of snippets ended up on my cutting room floor (or at least in cans still stored in my attic). In painting, pieces ended up in re-cycling, painted over, cut in half, and again stored in my attic studio. ————————————————————————————————— Have a good one and see you soon. Here’s one some reverie for the road. Share this page: [...]

03/21/2017

Aaron CockleMarch 21, 2017NewsAaron here today with Sikoryak; Feiffer/Eisner; Drawing Lessons with Victoria Lomasko; Intensive Publication Intensive; Till Doomsday; Fit to Print. ————————————————————————————————— ‘Other than that, there’s very little in the book that has any connection, visually, to the text.’ Rachel Davies interviewed R. Sikoryak on the occasion of the release of Sikoryak’s Terms and Conditions collection: RD: Both of your most recent projects—Terms and Conditions, and the Unquotable Trump—were first realized online. How does your attitude toward a work change when transitioning it from the internet to something tangible? RS: It’s funny, they were first seen online, but the iTunes project started as a mini comic. I published the first two parts of the iTunes book in April 2015, and I published the second two parts, the finale of the iTunes book, in September 2015. I had been selling them at conventions, and I’d been distributing them a little bit online through a mini comics distributor called Birdcage Bottom, I had gotten them out a little bit and I showed the mini comics to Françoise Mouly, and she said, Oh, you should put these on Tumblr! I did that, and then I sent out an email to everyone I knew in the world, and said, I’m doing this thing! The minute I sent out that email, this was like 20 or 30 days after putting it on Tumblr, the day I sent that email, Boing Boing had done a story, NPR called me to do an interview, The Guardian, all these other places came in, and started writing about it. I tip my hat to Françoise for knowing enough about the internet to tell me to use it. I kind of like to know what my work is before I release it to the world, like the iTunes book, I put out the first mini comic after I’d finished the first half of it—I wanted to stake my claim to it, but I’d already done like 35 pages. By the time I put it on Tumblr I was done, and I was really astounded by the response. I don’t know if it would have been more paralyzing to have seen all those people be very excited about it. It was a little startling to see how fast it clicked in with people. With the Trump book, again I made a mini comic, but this time I already knew I was going to start putting it on Tumblr. But I did make all of it, 16 pages, and I published the comic—published, I photocopied it, and then I put it on Tumblr. The response to that was so great that I was encouraged to make more. In this case, for Trump now [The Unquotable Trump], I’m making images, and posting them on Tumblr, and in some ways I’m certainly open to suggestions, people have , Oh, you should do this or that! But most people don’t have it all thoroughly worked out, so you end up just having to do what you’re doing. I’m certainly keeping my ear open if anyone has any ideas. In the Trump case, I kind of have my approach, and I’ve mapped out where I’m going, but who knows what he’ll say tomorrow! He’s a different case because the iTunes thing is a living document, they do update it, but he’s a living human, and a volatile one, so I don’t know what he’s going to do next. I’m happy if he stops giving me material! I don’t need anymore, but we’ll see what happens. I have to admit, I’m really glad that Françoise suggested Tumblr to me, it’s definitely increased my visibility. I don’t know what I’ll do next online, but I might post my next project there. It is part of what comics are now, and I hadn’t embraced it before. I feel like the iTunes thing in a lot of ways has just made me think about how comics work, and how I can make comics in a new way. I also think that’s what I’m all about is thinking about comics, so it’s definitely achieved way more than I expected it would! – via The Comics Journal ————————————————————————————————— Jules Feiffer Honors Will Eisner at 100: A Will Eisner Week Event The 182nd meeting of the NY Comics & Picture-story Symposium will be held on Tuesday, March 28, 2017 at 8 pm at Parsons School of Design, 2 West 13th Street, in the Bark Room (off the lobby). Free and open to the public. Please note 8 pm starting time! Will Eisner (1917-2005) innovated and pioneered comics in two different eras. Eisner helped invent the comics industry in the 1930s and created The Spirit in the 1940s as a heroic crime-fighting figure who appeared in a Sunday newspaper comics insert. The Spirit walked through a world of noir-inflected, urban drama, one suffused with humor and insight into the human condition, a world not afraid to essay the occasional Yiddish in-joke or Bronx social drama vignette. Then after producing comics for training and education, Eisner, in 1978, re-invented himself―and the medium of comics―with his first graphic novel, A Contract With God, followed, until his 2005 passing, with many additional graphic novels and textbooks. From 1946 until The Spirit’s end in 1952, Eisner counted as part of his close-knit, talented staff, a precocious teenager named Jules Feiffer, who worked on The Spirit and Clifford for Eisner, and also took on the self-appointed role of Eisner’s social conscience and resident smart-ass. In the years since, Feiffer’s own multifaceted career as satirical cartoonist, screenwriter (Carnal Knowledge), playwright (Little Murders) and children’s book author (The Man in the Ceiling)―and most recently, creator of his own trilogy of graphic novels (so far Kill My Mother and Cousin Joseph have been released, with the third volume in the works)―has blossomed in a unique and spectacular manner. But he did get his start with Will Eisner, with whom he was friend and colleague―and admirer―through the rest of Eisner’s life. Tonight, Jules will speak about his experience working for Eisner, what he learned from him and how Eisner influenced his own work, and why Eisner, a century after his birth, is still an important figure in the past, present and future of comics and graphic novels and in our culture as a whole. Jules will speak and present via Skype, and will be joined by in-person panelists, including Paul Levitz (author of Will Eisner: Champion of the Graphic Novel) and Danny Fingeroth (co-editor of The Stan Lee Universe and Chair of Will Eisner Week). ————————————————————————————————— ‘On the outside, I drew cartoon characters.’ Other Russians, by Victoria Lomasko, excerpted at n+1: In August 2010, I visited the Mozhaysk Juvenile Prison for the first time, as a volunteer for the Center for Prison Reform, and gave a drawing lesson to some of the inmates. I taught drawing classes at the girls’ penitentiaries in Novy Oskol and Ryazan and the boys’ penitentiary in Aleksin, but Mozhaysk is the only place I visited more or less regularly. I was originally trained as an educator, and before I came to Mozhaysk I prepared an experimental syllabus with ten lesson plans. There was almost no funding for the trips. We traveled by commuter train, carrying everything we needed for classes in our backpacks, so, with rare exceptions, we used the simplest materials during the lessons: paper and black pens. The Center organized the trips once a month. If you missed a trip, you had to wait for the next time around. There is a constant turnover of inmates at the juvenile prison. Some are released on parole, others are transferred to adult prisons, and new inmates show up all the time. Over a six-month period, the roster of my drawing groups changed completely. Some of the teens were well educated, while others were hearing everything for the first time. Many of them had psychological problems. In short, teaching classes at a penitentiary was tricky: you had to experiment and develop your own lesson plans. ————————————————————————————————— Publication Intensive at Triple Canopy: July 19-30, 2017 Triple Canopy is pleased to announce its fourth Publication Intensive, a two-week program in the history and contemporary practice of publication. During the Publication Intensive, Triple Canopy editors and invited artists, writers, and technologists will lead discussions and workshops with twelve participating students, who will research, analyze, and enact an approach to publication that hinges on today’s networked forms of production and circulation but also mines the history of print culture and artistic practice. The program will take place at Triple Canopy’s venue in Manhattan, and will include visits to studios of artists and designers, archives, and cultural institutions. Apply online through 11:59pm on Monday, April 17 2017. Participants will be notified no later than Friday, April 21. If you have further questions, please write edu@canopycanopycanopy.com. Read a conversation between participants in 2014’s program here. ————————————————————————————————— TILL DOOMSDAY Coming up on March 30th: John Malta & Siobhan Gallagher launch new doomsday anthology zine and Desert Island window installation, and Ezequiel García visits from Buenos Aries to sign his Fantagraphics book “Growing Up In a Public”. One big event Thurs the 30th at 7 pm! Come hang and meet the artists. ————————————————————————————————— FIT TO PRINT Fit to Print brings together a selection of art and editorial illustration created by 17 graduates of the Haute école des arts du Rhin (H.E.A.R.) in Strasbourg, one of the preeminent art schools in France. First presented at the Tomi Ungerer Museum in Strasbourg from January–April 2016, the exhibition debuts in New York in two parts — one at the Society of Illustrators, and another at The New York Times. Since 2012, The New York Times’s Opinion section has commissioned more than 100 illustrations from H.E.A.R.-educated artists to accompany a wide range of articles, or “All the News That’s Fit to Print,” in the words of the famous Times slogan. These artists caught the art directors’ attention with their excellent drawing and printmaking skills, strong sense of visual storytelling, and an often surreal, poetic approach to composition and concept. On view here is a selection of the artists’ personal and collaborative projects, primarily created for galleries or self-initiated publications. The exhibition continues at The New York Times with a collection of the artists’ commissioned illustrations. My hope is that these two shows demonstrate the power of editorial illustration, not only in its functional role as visual communication, but also as a unique form of fine art. – Alexandra Zsigmond, curator and art director at The New York Times ————————————————————————————————— Among many interesting offerings on the CW School Store is this set of comics (above) by Jake Terrell and GG – check it out here and explore the rest of the site while you’re there! ————————————————————————————————— A Cosmic Journey – 3-21-2017 – by Cameron Arthur ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 3-21-2017 – by Gabriella Tito ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 3-21-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

03/18/2016

Sally IngrahamMarch 18, 2016NewsIt was a week for brilliant interviews, with Annie Mok talking to Michael DeForge, and the Inkstuds radio show with Gilbert Hernandez. Exciting new books came out this week, and we came across an important list of female Brazilian cartoonists that you’re going to want to investigate. Here we go! ————————————————————————————————— Let’s dive right into the interview with Michael, which came to us via The Comics Journal. Annie Mok and Michael DeForge begin by talking a bit about his new book, Big Kids, which came out February 23rd 2016 from Drawn + Quarterly. “DEFORGE: I’d sort of been circling adolescence for awhile in my stories, and I guess this is the one where I’m writing about it most directly, and the allegory is like very clear… It’s a time when people are most aware of the edges of the world. Not maybe able to see them yet, but aware they’re there. For me, things stop seeming limitless—which is maybe not how—I know you’re supposed to feel invincible and boundless as a teenager, but for me, that’s when I was aware of limits everywhere. But not really sure what all of them looked like, or the shape of all of it, or how to best escape them. That to me was what Big Kids was about, seeing a little bit more of the edges of things. And sometimes what seems like a radical shift in perception ends up not being very in the end.” From there, Annie leads the conversation to touch on memory, the artistic community a cartoonist builds for themselves or stumble into, and the cliché (but necessity) of comics as therapy. They also mention the musical puppet show that Michael is working on slowly but surely, and Annie’s reaction perfectly sums up my feelings about that – “Oh my god! Aaah, so happy!” Read the whole spectacular interview HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Oliver East just published a new book – Take Me Back to Manchester. It’s the story of an epic walk that took place in 1872, when an elephant and his trainer trekked the 220 miles between Edinburgh and Manchester. Why? You’ll have to check out the comic. As much as it sounds delightful, the story of how it came about is equally lovely. Oliver East is the “walking cartoonist”. Before creating Take Me Back to Manchester, he followed the route of his heroes on foot across Scotland and England, walking over 20 miles a day for 10 days. In this short documentary (below) made by Simon Sylvester and Dom Bush, Oliver walks through some wonderful parts of the world, and talks about his struggles with dyslexia, how he didn’t even start drawing until he was 26, and what it was like to compose a comic in motion with the ghost of an elephant at his side. Check it out. ————————————————————————————————— The new mini kuš! #38-41 are out, which means spring is pretty much here. “The creators of the newest minis are Ingrīda Pičukāne, Tara Booth, Hanneriina Moisseinen and Aisha Franz. The comics vary from an incredibly sad war story to a super fun and wild adventure of a young woman, a broad range of stories both fictional and non-fiction and drawn in different styles both digital and hand-drawn! A great bunch of comics for new discoveries!” More details HERE. ————————————————————————————————— The latest Inkstuds interview is particularly riveting. How could it be otherwise, with the likes of Gilbert Hernandez behind the microphone?! You’re not going to want to miss this. [soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/249959700″ params=”auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true” width=”100%” height=”450″ iframe=”true” /] Robin McConnell always does his research, which makes for detailed conversations that really illuminate the life and work of the people he interviews. Gilbert Hernandez can tell a story out loud just as well as he can on paper, and between the stories are loads of interesting tidbits and comments on the comics scene he helped craft from the bottom up. Great stuff. (I especially liked when he compared superheroes to screwdrivers…!) Set aside some time to listen to the whole thing, because this guy is one of the reasons we’re all making comics today. ————————————————————————————————— I have a special guest today, here with a brief bit of Brazilian comics news for you. Anna Mancini (pictured above in her studio) recently shared with me a list of some of her favorite Brazilian cartoonists – folks like Julia Balthazar and Amanda Paschoal (see pic below) – and soon she will be providing a detailed scene report for Comics Workbook. For the moment though, she’s got something else to share. Anna here, reporting: “Aline Lemos has put together a collaborative list of *all* Brazilian women comics artists – from young students to established pros. Here’s the link if you’d like to check it out – https://goo.gl/AYyde5 Aline Lemos created it aiming to bring more visibility to female cartoonists in our country, since there’s a widespread dismissal of our presence and relevance to the scene. As I have noticed from following American blogs and artists, this situation is not exclusive to our experience in Brazil – I have that recent piece by Kim O’Connor in mind, having the situations she described ring a little too familiar with the attitude of many Brazilian male cartoonists.” Thanks Anna! Check out the list she mentions, and discover the legion of women in comics in Brazil! ————————————————————————————————— That’s my Friday news for you. Have a terrific weekend and meet us back here on Monday for the latest and greatest in comics news! – Sally Share this page: [...]

02/21/2017

Posted on February 20, 2017February 21, 2017 by Aaron Cockle

Aaron here today with Ana Galvañ, Ethnographic Cartooning (in VT), New Dirty Diamonds, Trailer Park Comics, Martz/Orwell, PaperJazz Poster Showcase Extravaganza, Raymond Pettibon, Dan Archer on 3 Years After ‘The Maidan War’

—————————————————————————————————

“I’m interested in the uncertain human behaviours, in fear, in loneliness, and in strange beauty”
The AIGA Eye on Design blog profiles Spanish cartoonist Ana Galvañ, and the webcomics platform she created, TIK TOK:

Tik Tok publishes each comic series by episodes to keep readers coming back, to cultivate a relationship between its writers and readers, and to encourage illustrators to continue penning personal work. “Our philosophy is about taking risks,” the founder emphasises. “We publish stories that look past the limits of the representational.” It’s on this site where I first discovered Galvañ’s mesmerising and quietly disconcerting comics—in her panels, a riot girl sensibility seems to meet the perspective-bending world of Borges.

—————————————————————————————————

El viaje más caro/The Most Costly Journey

The Most Costly Journey (in Spanish, El viaje más caro) is an ethnographic cartooning project that employs collaborative storytelling as a tool to mitigate loneliness, isolation, and despair among Latin American migrant farm workers on Vermont dairy farms.

The Most Costly Journey is a collaboration between the Open Door Clinic, Vermont Folklife Center, UVM Extension Bridges to Health, UVM Anthropology, and Marek Bennett’s Comics Workshop.

The project is supported by the Vermont Community Foundation Innovations and Collaborations grant and other generous supporters.

Featuring work (translated into English and Spanish) by Marek Bennett, John Carvajal, Iona Fox, Kevin Kite, Michelle Sayles, Michael Tonn, Rick Veitch, Tillie Walden.

—————————————————————————————————

Dirty Diamonds: An All-Girl Comics Anthology Open Call for Submissions

—————————————————————————————————

Short Run Trailer Blaze Residency Application Information

—————————————————————————————————

John Martz’s George Orwell’s Twenty Seventeen

John Martz, from George Orwell’s Twenty Seventeen

—————————————————————————————————

PAPERJAZZ: A POSTER SHOWCASE
At Pioneer Works, 159 Pioneer Street, Red Hook, Brooklyn

Featuring work by:
1) Chris Simon
2) Mike Taylor
3) Matt Thurber
4) Jack Reese/Andrew Alexander
5) Katbus Brawl
6) Slow Youth
7) Jenny Zych
8) Nuts! Fanzine
9) KJ Martinet
10) Ben Urkowitz
11) Sarah Crowe
12) JinHee Kwak
13) Aniahs Gnay
14) Sessa Englund
15) Lala Albert
16) Metropolarity
17) Ø.K.Fox
18) Blind Arch
19) Lale Westvind
20) Caroline Paquita
21) Ilana Blady
22) Sakura Maku
23) Randon Rosenbohm
24) Matthew Van Asselt
25) &
26) Hazel Newlevant
27) Annie Mok
28) Holly Simple
29) Gonzalo Guerrero
30) Meghan Turbitt
31) Nick Amara
32) Robert Richburg
33) Kayley Berezney & Cait Davis
34) Marcela Szwarc

—————————————————————————————————

Rayond Pettibon: A Pen of All Work at New Museum, February 8-April 9, 2017

Raymond Pettibon, “No Title (James Joyce Ulysses),” 1995.

From the beginning of his career, Pettibon has employed drawing and writing in tandem to connect radically distinctive cultural forms—from movies and literature to comics and TV—and pieces of narratives from throughout history and culture. His visual universe is populated by the ghosts of the last century of American history, including such disparate characters as Charles Manson, Gumby, Superman, and Ronald Reagan. Pettibon hints at familiar and forgotten narratives in his work, while using an expressive approach to color, line, and gesture in order to provoke complex emotional states. Whether his work is addressing surfing, baseball, war, or family, or channeling the voices of John Ruskin, Henry James, or Allen Ginsberg, it manages to suggest both personal and universal perspectives on our shared cultural experience.

—————————————————————————————————

Dan Archer, from Ukraine’s Revolution, Three Years On

‘Or overshadowed completely by the war that soon followed.’
At the Nib, Dan Archer takes an expansive look at Ukraine 3 years after its revolution, and where things stand now, geopolitically.

—————————————————————————————————

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

Frank here: This semester has a rolling start date – it will officially start March 7th but I will continue taking applications past that date. I will make it work for your schedule. Just apply!

Applications received by February 26th will get 100 bux off!

The course is 8 weeks long – payment plans are available.

Many more details can be found HERE.

Email santoroschoolATgmail to apply

—————————————————————————————————

A Cosmic Journey – 2-21-2017 – by Cameron Arthur

—————————————————————————————————

Suzy and Cecil – 2/18, 2/19, and 2/21/2017 – by Sally Ingraham and Gabriella Tito

Suzy and Cecil is published every day, including weekends. We decided to share the two weekend strips along with today’s as they have an overarching storyline. Keep up with the strip on the weekends via Instagram – @suzy_and_cecil! (Click on the image above to see the strips larger.)

—————————————————————————————————

Joanie and Jordie – 2-21-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio

—————————————————————————————————

Cozytown – 2-21-2017 – by Juan Fernandez

Share this page:

Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Aaron Cockle

Posted on February 20, 2017February 21, 2017

Explore

Vanesa R. Del Rey – Process

Sally IngrahamDecember 9, 2016Tool TalkFeaturing Vanesa R. Del Rey // vrdelrey.com Video by Michael Pisano, Di-ay Battad and Juan Fernandez // michaelpisano.com // cargocollective.com/di-ay // juanjosefernandez.com Soundtrack // Victoria’s Other Secret // Galapagoose Check out The Art of Vanesa R. Del Rey HERE. Share this page: [...]

Summer 2016 Rowhouse Update

Juan FernándezJuly 29, 2016School UpdatesShare this page: [...]

01/17/2017

Aaron CockleJanuary 16, 2017NewsAaron here today with Drawing Center events; RESIST!; Cosplayers; ‘Unquotables’; Notes on Zip-a-Tone. ————————————————————————————————— This week at The Drawing Center, work by Mateo López, Jackson Mac Low, and Amy Sillman. Opening January 20, 2017. Sillman will be presenting her animated drawing, After Metamorphoses. She talks about it here: But we don’t care about “the grid”—we are committed to something different: something scrappy but complex, earnest but smart, ironic but not cynical—a strange FORM! We’re not in it for the money and WE’RE NOT MONEY. We’re not coins of the realm, easily identified by our denominations; we’re definitely not thin paper currency meant to slip inside a wallet. We don’t make sense. We have rough edges and contradictions. What the fuck is “thing theory” anyway—we’re like things that talk back. Where is emancipation located? Should we split our time between art and politics? Is art enough? Is it possible that our work, our love, our beliefs, our symbolic gestures, our senses of humor, can amount to any meaningful resistance? Does resistance come in different lengths; a long game and a short game? Does everyone have to do it the same way? We haven’t figured it out but we love art that offers change above all: insistent, unremitting change that won’t resolve into finality or finesse. We don’t know quite what to do but the qualities that mean something have shifted: knowingness is out, a goddamn “good” painting seems irrelevant, smug… we don’t need someone to tells us which painting is “better.” Fuck that. Image above from Mateo López: Undo List. ————————————————————————————————— ‘So, it is using old fashioned like printing presses and trucks and you know, just sheer physical get together that will make little cells out in the open and we publish a link so that people can sign up for those local distributions.’ Betsy Gomez at the CBLDF talks to Francoise Mouly and Nadja Spiegelman about the forthcoming release of the Resist! anthology comic on Saturday, January 21: Resist! revives the tradition of using comics for protest. What precedents inspired you in developing this project? FM: Well, the first thing was being asked by Gabe Fowler to guest edit a special issue of Smoke Signal, which is a tabloid printed on newsprint that he wanted to release at the time of the inauguration and the women’s march. When he got in touch with me specifically, like “I want a woman guest editor,” and because he asked right after the election and that was my feeling as well — since we’d just been robbed of our first woman president, there was a sense shared by so many — Gabe’s request seemed natural at the time… My friends were saying, “I’m going to Washington.” We didn’t know where or what. I mean, we knew it was the day after the inauguration, but there was some sense of wanting women’s voices heard. NS: About historical precedent, and I think Francoise can talk very eloquently about historical precedents in France like L’Assiette au Beurre and Charlie Hebdo. One of the things is: there is a long historical precedent for political protest. But one thing that there isn’t, is enough contemporary parallels and enough space in American culture right now for political images as an act of resistance… We’re hoping to create more of that space. ————————————————————————————————— Over at Calm Undertones Now Transmitting, an in-depth look at Dash Shaw’s A Cosplayers Christmas: Shaw’s conception of cosplay shows how the exploitation of individuals that has been opened up by the postmodern ethos can be circumvented by those with the confidence to make their own meaning (even naïveté within certain bounds is enough) against the will of the myriad influences directed at them (e.g. marketing, social norms, political processes etc.). In A Cosplayers Christmas, the obliviousness of Annie and Verti to considerations of the monetary value of the gifts they exchange is endearing and humorous but it also points to the way that cosplay, by allowing its participants to claim partial ownership of the fictions they enmesh themselves in, serves to subvert the traditional paradigm of the separation between cultural producer and cultural consumer that has allowed space for capitalist interests to take hold. Annie and Verti have no interest in purchasing merchandise based on the properties that hold their interest, instead they would prefer to create their own related objects that they can attach personal meaning to. ————————————————————————————————— R. Sikoryak will be signing his newest work, The Unquotable Trump, this Friday, January 20, 6-8pm at Jim Hanley’s Universe, 32 East 32nd Street, NYC. Parodies of comic book covers with actual Trump quotes from the 2016 presidential campaign. The mini comic edition also features a Public Service Announcement comic strip and extensive footnotes. ————————————————————————————————— Could this piece have been done on the computer?…Could this piece exist without the fields of tone? Back in 2009, Alex Holden was thinking about Zip-a-Tone in comics: Zip A Tone has been on my mind because I recently received “Two Eyes Of The Beautiful” from Ryan Cecil Smith, who is currently living in Japan. Some equivalent of Zip A Tone (in virtually unlimited variety) is still widely available in Japan, despite the advent of the computer. “Two Eyes of the Beautiful” is all about Zip A Tone, from simple dot patterns, to trees and foliage……even buildings. Indeed, it is pretty easy to recreate the same effects of the adhesive sheets in Photoshop. Kevin Huizenga frequently employs this technique. Whenever Zip A Tone is mentioned, I can’t help but think of Matt Wagner’s “Heist”, printed in BATMAN BLACK & WHITE #3. Could this piece have been done on the computer? I suppose so. Could this piece exist without the fields of tone? Absolutely not. ————————————————————————————————— Pompeii by yours truly Frank Santoro – get a copy HERE. “The book itself is about drawing, really. It’s also about two artists who draw in order to see the world around them. So, the book itself IS drawing—and at the end it breaks down the barrier between what’s “real” and what is “drawn”. That’s what is great about the medium—that I can use drawing to illustrate that breakdown. There are a lot of visual rhymes in the book—where the “reality” is mirrored by a painting or a drawing. I’m trying to get to the core of visual storytelling by amplifying the process of drawing and making that the subject of the story as much as the interaction of the characters.” – Frank Santoro in an interview with Publishers Weekly ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 1-17-2017 – by Sally Ingraham ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 1-17-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio ————————————————————————————————— 1-17-2017 – by Juan Fernández Share this page: [...]

03/03/2017

Sally IngrahamMarch 2, 2017NewsSally here with comics by Marie Jacotey, Jessica Abel, Amanda Baeza, Jessica Campbell, Sophie Franz, Gabriella Tito, and others to end your week on a high note! ————————————————————————————————— Adult Swim has been publishing comics online and among many interesting ones, I found Gerry by Marie Jacotey – you can see the first part above and the rest HERE. Marie is a Paris-born comics-maker and alum of the Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers. Another piece she made recently is Paradise, which was commissioned for a cocktail magazine, and explores the cliche of the “insufferable creative” – check it out HERE. Also featured on Adult Swim is a series by Esther Pearl Watson called Crapland, and Liana Finck‘s Horrible People – plus tons of funny and weird comics created by dudes (including the great Benjamin Marra!) ————————————————————————————————— Speaking of comics about cocktails, pictured here is part of a 5 page story called Rusty Nail made by Amanda Baeza which appeared in Cocktails After-Dinner, a publication made by Studio Pilar. This was one book in a 4-part series that includes Pre-Dinner, After-Dinner, Anytime, and the upcoming Long Drink (Marie Jacotey’s story Paradise, which I mentioned above, appeared in Cocktails Anytime). Each book features 6 stories by different comics artists based on a specific drink – more details about the project can be found HERE. Studio Pilar is an Italian collective and cultural association composed of four illustrators which focuses on promoting visual communication with an emphasis on comics and self-publishing. More about them HERE. Amanda Baeza is a half-Chilean/half-Portuguese cartoonist – check out more of her work on her site. ————————————————————————————————— There is a terrific interview with Jessica Campbell about her book Hot Or Not: 20th-Century Male Artists (which is one of my top 5 comics of 2016) over on The Fridge Door Gallery. The premise of the book is of course, “we know these guys were geniuses, but were they hot?!“ “Jackie Hampshire: Have you been subjected to the male-dominated Art History survey course in the past? Did it add fuel to the fire? Jessica Campbell: I took a class in undergrad that used Janson’s History of Art (an edition that included women, thankfully) but countered it with essays like Linda Nochlin’s “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” Frankly, most of the blatant sexism that I have encountered in art has been in the comics world, where even last year, the largest (or second largest?) comics festival in the world gave out a lifetime achievement award that, of 30 nominees, included not a single woman. And, similar to Janson’s text, about 10 years ago in comics there was a touring exhibition and catalogue called The Masters of American Comics that was intended by its curator/editor to solidify a comics canon and included not a single woman artist. I remember watching a panel discussion with him where he said that there’s “never been a female Milt Caniff,” which was essentially the same as Janson saying that there’s never been a female Rembrandt or whatever. Yeah, OK, but there is a female Mary Cassatt, Artemisia Gentileschi, Frieda Kahlo, etc. JH: I know you work with many mediums, why did you choose the graphic novel for this particular commentary? JC: Part of it was the facility/logic of expressing the joke/critique in a book format, and part of it was the idea of reducing the work to black and white, somewhat crude drawings. I liked the idea of reducing these male geniuses to only their appearances and reducing their masterworks to crude reproductions.“ Read the rest of the interview HERE. ————————————————————————————————— This story by Jessica Abel was a nice discovery in Biff Bong Pow! No. 1, an anthology from 1991 that was edited by Ivan Brunetti. Jessica is pretty cool – a good cartoonist and one who has been totally dedicated to the medium and the community for decades. She makes comics, writes about them, teaches, does motivational coaching, and gets up to all kinds of other mischief. Her current projects include Trish Trash, a space-roller-derby comic, and online workshops to jump-start your creativity. Disregarding all she’s got going on NOW, I’m always particularly thrilled to find her earlier work. There is a different kind of life in it, something rawer. The comic above and two more stories I turned up in Biff Bang Pow! No. 2 were a special treat – and a great bonus to a couple of wild comics collections that show off the varied and hilarious skills of Ivan Brunetti and a few other pals. ————————————————————————————————— What is Sophie Franz up to these days? Her sketchbooks are always full of detailed, story-filled drawings like the one above, and frankly they are tantalizing teasers that drive me crazy. I loved her book The Experts, which was released by Retrofit Comics last year – so deliciously creepy – and now I’m eager for something new from Sophie. While we all wait for that…check out her work here and join me in trying to decipher her sketchbook pages…! ————————————————————————————————— Jillian Tamaki is hitting the road with her new book Boundless (Drawn & Quarterly, 2017) this spring. “Boundless explores the intersection (and overlap) between the virtual and IRL worlds.” Check out a preview of the book HERE! ————————————————————————————————— On the Spider’s Web Dominique Goblet‘s Pretending is Dying is reviewed on The New York Times – in brief, the book is “tender, affecting, and complete“. From Marlene Krause comes the comic Edible on VICE. “A strange maternal creature and her child exist in a weird toxic wilderness. What the hell is going on?“ Ann Telnaes jumped onto The Nib to share a “Sleazy-Bake Oven“. ————————————————————————————————— The Spring Semester of the Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers starts March 7th. The course is 8 weeks long – 500 bux – payment plans are available. More details can be found HERE – or email santoroschoolATgmail to apply. Not ready to commit to an 8 week course but still want to put some thought towards making comics or leveling up your skill set? Check out thee Santoro School Handbook – 16 pages of comics-making gold! ————————————————————————————————— Blinkers – 3-3-2017 – by Jack Brougham ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 3-3-2017 – by Gabriella Tito ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 3-3-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio ————————————————————————————————— Cozytown – 3-3-2017 – by Juan Fernandez Share this page: [...]

2/19/2018

Caleb OrecchioFebruary 19, 2018NewsCaleb Orecchio here with Barry (Windsor-)Smith, and other news. ————————————————————————————————— “Red Nails” was the last Conan the Barbarian story Robert E. Howard ever wrote before he killed himself. It is almost undoubtedly, to my mind, his greatest story–which is also, appropriately, the best and most faithful Conan comic book adaption, drawn by Barry Smith in 1973. Obviously, Barry Smith was and is thee great Conan adapter despite the fact that John Buscema would eventually become synonymous with the character; but “Big” John never could match the intensity of Barry Smith–an intensity that eventually caused him to see ghosts and psychedelic phenomenon in his NYC apartment. Smith’s adaption (according to the book’s credits, Roy Thomas “wrote” the adaption, but the comic is so faithful to the source that I regard Thomas’ role as merely editorial given what we know about the “Marvel Method”) is so electrifying to the eyes, that the original black and white version (first appearing in the magazine, Savage Tales #2 and #3 in two parts) nearly makes me cross-eyed. The amount of detail crammed into each panel is staggering and almost intimidating, yet the beauty of each image and prowess of the hands that made them is simply undeniable. Thus, the release of Marvel Treasury Edition: Conan the Barbarian #4 gave “Red Nails” the release it deserved, finding it newly colored by Smith and in an oversized deluxe format. I don’t want to show my hand just yet, but I felt it important today to point out the sheer blood, sweat and tears Barry Smith (later Barry Windsor-Smith) put into this work. Of course, this kind of ambitious, detail-oriented work is not realistically feasible on a monthly deadline and would cause Smith to miss said deadlines, cause fatal distribution problems and as I mentioned before, see things. Still, the results speak for themselves. I want to share more of my thoughts on this work, but I have to wait until next week. See you then. ————————————————————————————————— if you don’t know, now you know Tucker Stone and David Brothers talk Black Panther comics, with small a shoutout to under-appreciated artist, Billy Graham. Jaeah J. Lee on “The Forgotten Zine of 1960’s Asian-American Radicals” at Topic.com. Kawai Shen reviews “Mother” by Celine Loup over at Your Chicken Enemy. Michel Fiffe is the latest guest on Process Party. ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 2-19-2018 – by Sally Ingraham ————————————————————————————————— Share this page: [...]

Leave a Reply Cancel reply