Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in NewsTagged Connor Willumsen, kuš!, no shame distro, NYC FEMINIST ZINE FEST, SARAH FERRICK, tor brandt

Juan Fernández

Posted on February 23, 2016February 23, 2016

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03/08/2016

Juan FernándezMarch 8, 2016NewsThey did it. 2dcloud reached their Kickstarter goal. It was a stretch but they had that long game. Art wins again. If you haven’t had a chance to check out the work that they are publishing i their upcoming season, I encourage you to check out their crowdfund campaign. There might be something right up your alley. Now in their twenty-eighth year, the Lambda Literary Awards have announced their nominations. The Lambda Literary Awards celebrate achievement in lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) writing for books published in 2015. The awards ceremony on June 6, 2016, will be held at the NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts (566 LaGuardia Pl, New York, NY 10012). It’s exciting to see the work that was chosen from the world of comics. Check out all the nominations here. LGBT Graphic Novels Curveball, Jeremy Sorese, Nobrow Honor Girl, Maggie Thrash, Candlewick Press The Less Than Epic Adventures of TJ & Amal, EK Weaver, Iron Circus Comics O Human Star: Volume One, Blue Delliquanti, Self-published Wuvable Oaf, Ed Luce, Fantagraphics Books NEW at SPIT AND A HALF!!! Lisa Carver, Ian Sundahl, and some great French imports from Editions Tanibis (in English and/or wordless!): Sylvie Fontaine and Paul Kirchner! All the good stuff over at www.spitandhalf.com. John P. is doing God’s work. Andrew White made a free PDF collection of his favorite among the one page comics he posted on Comics Workbook from 2012 to 2014. You can still read all 350 or so strips online, but Andrew thought it might be nice to have a pared down and easier to read version of the material available. Even if many of the strips are rough or haphazard, this was an important body of work through which I began to address some of the topics that are important in my comics today. I hope you like it. Nick Gazin chit chats with Peter Bagge over at VICE. While you’re at it, read up on the 5 Musical Urban Legends comics Bagge has done already for VICE. The series continues with the form that Bagge developed for Magnet Magzine. The Who, Mick Jagger, Chuck Berry, Michael Jackson and Prince. Who’s next?! Read the whole thing over on VICE. You never really learned how to draw, but your comics look great. Most people who try to make comics without learning to draw make garbage. How did you figure out the drawing style you have? Well, I can draw people and things that look like what I’m drawing while looking at it/them. But that bores me, and I assume it would bore the viewer of the results as well. So I prefer to draw from my mind’s eye, and I take my chances from there. I’m almost never happy with the results, though, so I have a hard time arguing with anyone who thinks my art looks awful. Initially, I was trying to duplicate the way old cartoons look, specifically ones directed by Bob Clampett. Later on, I was also mimicking early comics drawn by Harvey Kurtzman, in his old Hey Look! one-pagers and such. It’s a very polarizing drawing style, though. Goodreads has all these rave reviews ofWoman Rebel by all these woman’s studies majors who love the content of the book but give it three or four instead of five stars, simply because they can’t stand my art! Cartoonist and movie critic, Julian Lytle, sat down with Rocky Hadadi to talk 2015 Film on the most recent installment of Ignorant Bliss. This was recorded before the Oscars so there is a lot of talk about the nominees and a little TV talk. Good talk, good music, good banter. Listen in for a while. Chris Mautner took some time to write about Michael Deforge‘s latest work, Big Kids and the themes and story mechanisms in Deforge’s work more generally. Read on. Despite its small size, Big Kids manages to hold just about all of the ideas and themes DeForge has been exploring up to this point. The secret societies, the adolescent angst, the strange body transformations, the antisocial hero desperate to find acceptance — they all coalesce in this slim book. If you were looking for a starting point in DeForge’s bibliography, this might be the place. Would you like to be Nat. Brut’s first Artist-in-Nonresidence? It’s like an artist residency – but not. You will get a month’s worth of gift cards to cafés around New York City and activate the whole city as your workplace! The residency will last April 1-30, 2016, at the end of which all or part of your work will be published in Nat. Brut. Who can apply? Artists or writers of any medium, with a work sample. We are limiting our first round to applicants who identify as people of color. HOW TO APPLY Apply now until 11:59 on March 31 using our online application here:https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1XSbc4qqQQOOPGYm0TjplyLGWOpqJlMlXY7o8EFcdFp4/viewform?c=0&w=1 that’s it for today. juan fernandez, over and out. Share this page: [...]

08/31/2017

Sally IngrahamAugust 30, 2017NewsSam Ombiri reviews a comic by Sienna Cittadino, and Sally goes on an adventure with Tarantula – in addition, we are pleased to announce the Comics Workbook-hosted workshops at SPX 2017! ———————————————————————————————— Sam Ombiri here: I am thrilled today to tell you about a minicomic by Sienna Cittadino called Jeremy Meets the Forest Cow. [Editor’s note: Sienna is from Pittsburgh, PA, and made this comic for the 2016 Comics Workbook Composition Competition.] It’s a stupendous, charming, hilarious, and tragic minicomic. I’ve really only seen some of her one-off gags and one of her picture books. Those were great, but when reading this comic I was surprised at how amazing Senna is at weaving a narrative. When I first read it, the design of the cover made me think the “Based on a true story” was a facetious comment, or a gag, but the back makes me think otherwise when it says “A comic for Jeremy and all the girls.” This is relevant because Jeremy Meets the Forest Cow comes from a very real place. Writing “For Jeremy and the girls” on the back makes the looming tragedy, from which we, the readers, are somewhat distant from, all the more menacing. I also get a better idea of who the Forest Cow is, and this expands how I feel for the Forest Cow. For me, the comic’s strength comes from it alluding to only bits and pieces of the tragedy that Jeremy is running away from. These bits and pieces Sienna reveals to us, the readers, in a really lyrical and comical manner. When I first met Sienna (who is a teen librarian at the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh), she highly recommended that I read Flannery O’Connor’s work, since I never had before. I don’t want to make such a thoughtless comparison, so I won’t make it any further, other than by saying how they both communicate tragedy with whimsical elements of humor and sorrow. I also couldn’t help but think of some of Leif Goldberg’s comics and drawings when reading Jeremy Meets the Forest Cow. The last panel, in which the Forest Cow is crying, really got to me. The only animal that has inflicted more emotion on me is Balthazar. I don’t know if the Forest Cow is crying because the Forest Cow won’t see Jeremy again, or if the Forest Cow feels really bad for Jeremy. So then not knowing which makes me even sadder, and this is what’s so great about the comic. I hope to see more from Sienna – of course I did before, but now my enthusiasm for her work has really grown. – Sam Ombiri You can read Jeremy Meets the Forest Cow HERE. Check out more of Sienna Cittadino‘s work HERE and HERE. ———————————————————————————————— Sally here: I was excited to find copies of Alexis Ziritt‘s and Fabian Rangel Jr.’s Tarantula at Copacetic Comics the other day. Published by AdHouse earlier this year, it is a nice little hardcover that explodes in your face the moment you open it. It’s pulp, and noir, and supernatural action/adventure as any description would tell you. There is a team of crime-fighters (led by Tarantula herself) on a mission to stop a satanic cult that has taken control of the government. There is gunplay and fistfights and house-scaling. There is plenty going on in it’s brief 96 pages, and while the script is bouncy and full of Spanish slang, it is Alexis Ziritt’s artwork that caroms the comic into happy chaos. I wouldn’t write off the artwork by merely calling it trippy, or psychedelic. Alexis Zirrit is very intentional with his coloring, and despite the ferocious pace of each page, the action is clear. Characters are relatively easy to recognize from spread to spread, and considering that there are bird-people and lizard-like beings, characters with geometric heads, and masks galore, this is pretty important. That being said, the shear density of the artwork does make each spread something of a bonus adventure to navigate, and while you will be compelled to crash headlong through the story, when you’re done the first time be sure to go back to the beginning and take another few moments to just look at the pages. Here’s one more to tantalize you. Now go and find your own copy of Tarantula and experience the rest for yourself! ———————————————————————————————— Alexis Ziritt will be at the Small Press Expo 2017 and will be doing a workshop with Comics Workbook (check it out HERE). In fact the entire schedule of Comics Workbook-hosted workshops at SPX 2017 has been announced and it is exciting stuff. Gilbert Hernandez! Sacha Mardou! Connor Willumsen! Audra Stang! Sign up for a workshop HERE and join us at SPX Sept. 16th/17th 2017. ———————————————————————————————— Frank Santoro made a comic book about his parents and now he needs help making a handbound copy of the book for each of them. It’s a good story. Check out the Indiegogo campaign HERE – or if you want to contribute via PayPal, look at the campaign HERE. ———————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 8-31-2017 – by Sally Ingraham ———————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 8-31-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

08/19/2016

Sally IngrahamAugust 19, 2016NewsSally here with your Friday comics news roundup – a little bleary after a late night comics-making blitz with Gabriella Tito. The Rowhouse is a busy place these days and Comics Workbook is moving ahead at full-steam in a number of directions – I’ve got updates on those projects, as well as some glorious Olympic moments with Katie Fricas, Leslie Stein with some guitar riffs, Meghan Turbitt on the the move, and a brick or two thrown by a mouse named Ignatz. ——————————————————————————————————————— Gabriella Tito arrived at the Rowhouse last night for a weekend residency, and she hadn’t been in the house more than 5 minutes before the index cards came out. She and Frank and I sat around until late in the night drawing and discussing comics. Gabriella is a graduate of Frank’s correspondence course and a member of the Comics Workbook Roller Derby League. You can find more of her work HERE – and expect to hear more about this true comics ninja soon. ——————————————————————————————————————— Speaking of the Comics Workbook Roller Derby League…the girls have been quietly pumping out articles, reviews, and comics all summer, meeting for “practice” and “derby bouts” every Sunday, honing skills and getting comfortable “skating together”, if you will. You can find an index of the work that the league has published HERE on the site – follow them on Instagram (@cwrollerderby) – catch up with members of the team at SPX and CXC this year (more details on those appearances soon!) – and stay tuned for other exciting developments as the Comics Workbook Roller Derby League continues to evolve. More info about CWRD can be found HERE. ——————————————————————————————————————— Katie Fricas jumped on the Olympics bandwagon this week and published a hilarious comic on The Awl about Forgotten Moments From Past Summer Olympics. Check out the rest HERE! ——————————————————————————————————————— The Bandcamp Daily blog recently published a profile on Leslie Stein, which showcases her music as well as her comics (she is a guitarist and vocalist for the rock band Prince Rupert’s Drops). “Though her comics are usually based on her own life, and are infused with her love of music (referencing Alex Chilton, LCD Soundsystem, Ringo Starr, The Band, Neil Young, Michael Hurley, and even the Osmonds), they rarely focus on her experiences as a musician. “I think art has always taken precedence over everything in my life,” Stein says. “I read about Hendrix falling asleep with his guitar in his bed; I fall asleep on the floor next to my drawing table sometimes. Not that I am comparing myself artistically to Hendrix, of course.” “ I read the most recent volume (Time Clock) of her long-running series Eye of the Majestic Creature a few weeks ago and found the stories about weird jobs, bad hangovers, and mysterious loneliness to be very funny and heart-wrenchingly familiar. Be sure to also check out her diary comics, which are running on VICE – here’s the most recent update. The rest of the Bandcamp Daily piece on Leslie Stein is available HERE. ——————————————————————————————————————— SPX announced the 2016 Ignatz nominees – HERE. ——————————————————————————————————————— Meghan Turbitt is having a Moving Sale! Original drawings from her NYC and Philadelphia Subway Sketchbooks starting at $10 – get all the goodies HERE. ——————————————————————————————————————— Comics Workbook is very pleased to present a new book from Connor Willumsen – Portraits. Available now for pre-order – get your copy HERE! Connor is one of the original CW samurais. He will be joining Frank Santoro at The Lakes International Comic Arts Festival this fall, teaching workshops and sharing his process. Look for him there! ——————————————————————————————————————— Go forth and lead extraordinary lives this weekend, folks. Sally out. Share this page: [...]

“How we were thinking” – The Zeitgeist and The Complete Wimmen’s Comix

MardouMay 26, 2016EssaysMystic novelist Doris Lessing interspersed her autobiographies with news clippings and thought-snippets that she’d saved from the years she was writing about. It’s not something you see very often in personal biography; history books are preferred when pulling in contextual ‘fact’. Instead Lessing supplies us with flavors of 60’s London (such as “in cinemas and theatres we stood up for the national anthem”). There’s something so evocative about how she pulls on that shared current of her time. Some of ‘the times’ get culturally hardened and recorded in history books, but lots of it doesn’t. In a similar vein, singer Ian Svenonius notes the transient attitudes of the Then-and-Now, using The Velvet Underground as an example , “…groups that failed in their own era despite catchy tunes, cool shades, turtlenecks and solid connections might have ‘felt’ bad to their audience…conversely, groups which might have felt ‘right’ at the time (the Grateful Dead, Grand Funk, Free etc) may seem confusing to listeners of a later era who are not privy to the pheromones said groups were releasing at their concerts.” Reading the two-volume release of The Complete Wimmen’s Comix made me think about those sort of cultural assumptions and blank spots. The first volume in particular feels like a powerful raw gust of real comics history. The pretty pink and black covers (with inset blue, bruise-like half moons) kicks off with Trina Robbin’s anthology It Aint Me, Babe (1970) and then the complete run of Wimmen’s Comix. I’ve read individual issues before and was somewhat ambivalent. Getting to read the whole gamut is a much different experience, especially the aforementioned first volume (1970-1985). The second volume contains a lot of great stuff too (and more of the artists I’d cite as direct influences on my own work such as Julie Doucet, Phoebe Gloeckner and Alison Bechdel) but the first volume stands out. It seems more experimental, wilder and much less conventional. I wouldn’t have name checked any of these artists in the 70’s/early 80’s as personal influences but this book has made me look with fresh eyes. There’s bold storytelling, some crazy comics layouts and lewd, unapologetically sexy content. It’s in stark relief to the relative lack of risk-taking I permit myself. (And yeah, I’m going to keep thinking about that one). Another aspect that occurs to me is that volume one is essentially my mother’s generation making those comics (I was born in ’75) which makes the lack of respect for cultural niceties and cartooning norms seem even more punk rock and revelatory, as well as being somewhat nostalgic. It reminds me of looking though my aunt’s closet in the early 1980’s and finding all her old platform shoes and boots. My childish trespassing got me yelled at after the event, but I’m glad to own that childhood memory of trying on and walking around in those beautiful and weird, too-big-for-me ‘space’ shoes. It’s not just surface and style though, the content is a match to the macho mores of its time. I’m old enough to remember the casual chauvinism of early 80’s primetime TV shows, as much as I remember seeing housewives with black eyes in the supermarket on Saturday mornings. Though, I was in 1980’s Northern England and not 1970’s San Francisco – yet it’s close enough to spark that consciousness. It’s kind of the thrust these feminist cartoonists were aiming at I think. This volume has also made me re-evaluate Aline Kominsky-Crumb’s work. I found her book Need More Love a little tiresome in tone but reading her juxtaposed with other women artists in this context is such an enjoyable experience. Set amongst her generational peers it’s easier to see the frank humor and flippant skill in her work. She’s so great! A lot of the comics here do miss their mark artistically but it’s not important overall. There was enough I found exciting (and fun!) in these volumes to remind me of the direct power of comics in print – a single cartoonist to a single reader through ink and paper, sharing the highs and degradations of the female experience. This is a big, beautiful, door-opening book and I’m really glad it’s out there. ————————————————————————————————— Sacha Mardou is a Brit making comics in St Louis, Missouri. Sky in Stereo is her most recent comic. Share this page: [...]

09/20/2017

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

02/23/2016

Posted on February 23, 2016February 23, 2016 by Juan Fernández

Wow wow wow, š! #24 ‘Urban Jungle’ is out now!

It’s here, the newest volume of š! from Latvia’s kuš! comics. It’s time to face up to the unpleasant corners of the city! Twenty-two international comics makers take you to some of the darkest spots in the urban jungle. Hop on over to the site to oggle at the pages you can expect in the newest volume.

Contributors: Abraham Díaz (Mexico), Amanda Baeza (Chile/Portugal), Ann Pajuväli(Estonia), Dace Sietiņa (Latvia), Daria Tessler (Finland/USA), Disa Wallander (Sweden),Elīna Brasliņa (Latvia), G. W. Duncanson (USA), Hicham Amrani (France), Jean de Wet(South Africa), König Lü.Q. (Switzerland), Lee Kyutae (South Korea), Līva Kandevica(Latvia), Luke Pearson (U.K.), Mārtiņš Zutis (Latvia), Mathilde Van Gheluwe (Belgium), Sami Aho (Finland), Tara Booth (USA), Tsuchika Nishimura (Japan), Vivianna Maria Stanislavska (Latvia), Ward Zwart (Belgium), Zane Zlemeša (Latvia).

Connor and Sarah Ferrick join Jacob Canfield, Alice Stoehr, Carolyn Nowak over at We Should Be Friends for a slumber party podcast. Ethical boundaries in autobio comics, pop culture, squeamish qualities in comics and media. A nice cultural round table to sit in on.

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I’d like to pass on this message from No Shame Distro. No Shame is a people of color collective based in PA & NJ who are interested in promoting other zine writers and artists of color. They are coming at things from an anti-oppression frame work and they acknowledge that poc identify in a myriad of ways. They work towards the distro reflecting this. They hustle hard to get work around into the hands of many. Reach out to them if you have any questions.

Tor brandt has an obituary comic for the mythic Shit-Face. Read the comic here and give a moment of silence to his gentle soul. RIP Shit Face.

Gabby Schulz‘s latest work, Sick, is now available to retail outlets for preorder from Consortium here — you can let your local book store or comics shop to order a copy for you. The work has been a painful festeringly painful 4 year long mountain for Schulz to climb. His work is dark, antagonistic and all in all not an easy sell to the rah rah, go team environment of contemporary America, but it exists in spite of it all. It’s all a good way to look the horror show that is America.

I’m sure you will soon agree that this is not an easy book to sell — ostensibly (& please don’t tell the press otherwise) it’s a comic about the failings of American healthcare; in reality it’s a rambling jeremiad against the white race and western civilization as a whole. I am convinced it will be universally ignored/reviled/clearance-binned, for the simple reason that it doesn’t end on a high note, which breaks the basic rule of all narrative (and capital). So, apologies in advance for that! But still, i hope you’ll sift through the embittered logical cul-de-sacs and belabored watercoloring to find a shred of connection with what i’m trying to say about life. If not, i can only pray that my fellow citizens of empire will not indict or subtweet too harshly.

Last but not least, if you’re looking for an amazing publication focused experience, NYC Feminist Zinefest 2016 will take place on SUNDAY, February 28, 2016!

Get ready for a buzzing showcase of the work of artists and zinesters who identify as feminists, and whose politics are reflected in their work. For all you fine folks on the East Coast, don’t sleep on the NYC Feminist Zinefest. If you get off on the immediacy and expressiveness of a little printed booklet, smudged with printer’s ink or photocopy errors. Head on out and make some room in your life for those pocket-friendly knowledge bombs, the kind that eagerly come with you on a long train or bus ride.

over and out,
jf

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Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in NewsTagged Connor Willumsen, kuš!, no shame distro, NYC FEMINIST ZINE FEST, SARAH FERRICK, tor brandt

Juan Fernández

Posted on February 23, 2016February 23, 2016

Explore

Developing a New Festival Toolkit

Juan FernándezOctober 21, 2016Festivals and ShowsI’ve just come back from CXC and I have only glowing reviews of it. It was such a breath of fresh air. To that effect, I’ve been thinking about the future of comics events in America. How we move into that future. I’m typing out loud, hoping for some conversation. Festivals like Entreviñetas are the future. Period. If you’re not up to date on the incredible work that is being done in Colombia, check out Frank’s tour diary from 2 years ago. And then hop on over to their site. It’s time that the rest of us caught up. Why? Because as it stands, in it’s current, commodity focused culture, comics are facing a cultural choking point with respect to the role that comics making can play in broader cultural discussions. We need to give comics making and comics reading practices more breathing room. To grow. To continue expanding. We need to nurture interdisciplinary approaches to experiencing comics. We need our festivals to make this a guiding principle. Comics making no longer needs to limited to being a collectible, genre oriented narrative art form. It can take its ascendant role as the 21st Century visual art form. It’s time that it be seen as a modality of communication with breadth and depth, that can survive in any kind of market driven cultural ecosystem. It’s time for our festivals to foster that. Hear me out. Here’s the nuts and bolts of something that’s been taking form across the discussions that I’ve been having in Pittsburgh and last weekend in Columbus… Festival Shop: I’ve been kicking around this idea with Frank Santoro of creating a show that completely does away with the flea market model. No more standing behind tables hawking wares. Instead, you establish a festival shop. So how do you run a festival shop? You get an experienced comics retailer to run the shop. You have them hire a trusted staff. You pay that staff. The shop gets a cut. 50/50. In a model like this it costs you no money to have your work available. Our current system is embarrassingly inefficient. It is an ineffective use of getting dozens of skilled comics makers and storytellers in one city for a week or weekend. With everyone behind tables, there’s cross pollination that just doesn’t happen. Under this new kind of model, if you are a guest you sign up to be involved in city wide comics programming. Signings, gallery exhibitions, lectures, workshops. This is the kind of thing that you get Arts and Cultural councils involved in. You sign up because you want to be part of the programming. With a model like this, you free up the artists and suddenly new horizons open up. Among those horizons are sources for financing. Imagine collaborating with a city’s municipal parks: guided bike tours where throughout the tour you make stops, learn about the city, while doing landscape drawings and comics strips of the experience… A series of readings at a book store. Gallery exhibitions. Movie screenings at an arthouse theater. There are so many venues that would be amenable to programming: libraries, universities, community centers, theaters, bookstores, parks… Most of these venues have programming budgets that could fund materials and labor for artists. It’s a path way towards equity. Book Debut Hub: The fear of course is of course that comics makers won’t attend a festival that they are not tabling at. It’s too foreign a concept to many comics makers. They might balk at the idea of having to be involved with programming as opposed to hand selling their books. So, one idea proposed is to make the exhibition aspect of the fest to be geared towards book debuts. The festival becomes an event for press. In such an ecosystem, everyone in local and national press knows that if they want to interview artists, this is where they do it. Like a “Comics-Cannes”. CXC is doing this well, already in its second. While it’s true that SPX is where a lot of people shoot to debut books, that’s not the focus in the market place. For the most part it’s a free for all. If a festival handled this in a way that was across the board… that’d be interesting. Start small and semi-annually What if you’re afraid that one big annual event is unsustainable? What if comics don’t have enough cultural momentum in your city? Well you don’t have a huge comics explosion once a year from the get go. You create a series of small events that invite a couple cartoonists to come together for some talks, workshops, interviews, and collaborative projects. You don’t want to make an event like this break the bank or be a social stressor on a local comics scene. You want the growth of an event like this to be sustainable. Fundamentally, you want to foster a culture of comics readership, with a focus on the reading habits of an entire city. How do you do this? You seasonal programming in clusters. do workshops in the public schools. Do workshops and lectures at the libraries and universities. Fold comics makers into the reading and lecture series in theaters. Keep them free. Limited guests Imagine this. You bring 4 special guests. A comics journalist, an art comics maker, a storyboard artist, a memoirist. They all have unique expertise. Not only in their craft but in the subject matter that they work with. Pair the journalist up with a panel of other journalists and have a discussion on geopolitcial instability in the middle east. Bring the art comics maker and have them do a performance with a dance troupe. Record a conversation between the memoirist and an archival libraries memoir specialist, get the storyboard artist to discuss their work with paleontologists. You organize community programming around those specific guests. You look at their strengths and their areas of expertise. You show your city that comics are a pathway to expertise. Why limit the number? You want to foster a cultural conversation across your city that is not diluted by droves of artists. Anyone who is interested in comics in your city will experience the perspectives of those invited. Together. Rather than seeing a list of 80 exhibitors and only engaging with 7 of those artists an attendee will in some way or another experience all the invited guests. You suddenly have a city on the same page. They’ve heard the same talks. They’ve seen the same demonstrations. Those artists impacts ripple out through that local area with much greater intensity. This is effective. Also, it is more cost effective. You can focus on certain artists and pair them up with institutions that wish to fund your activities. You get way more bang for your buck from your programming. Your programming funds your festival and it pays the artists an equitable wage. Is it more challenging than charging admission and charging exhibitors + selling ad space? Yes, a little more challenging, but far more promising. Of course, all this can and should be co-programmed with local artists. Your local artists will be the beating heart of this cultural project as time progresses. You are building a cultural institution that is fostering the arts, with a focus on comics and cartooning. This allows for an international and regional dialogue to develop organically among makers and readers tied to where you’re at. For the record, I want to see what we can do here in Pittsburgh to this effect. We have the ToonSeum, Copacetic Comics, Phantom of the Attic Comics, the Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency, the Pittsburgh Zine Fair, the Pittsburgh Comics Salon, The Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, a half-dozen comics hungry universities, and a slew of independent book stores. We have an existing regional show, PIX. We can make something happen. That’s on my end in Pittsburgh. What do you have where you live? What could you imagine coming together? What kind of programs would you develop if you could wrangle the necessary arts funding in your city? Don’t be shy to comment, this is a long overdue conversation. It can get messy. We’re just figuring stuff out. I especially want to hear young makers and organizers in conversation with the grizzled veterans. Some of you are in the trenches already, I want to hear what you’re doing. For the rest of our complete CXC coverage check out the special “round up” report HERE. Share this page: [...]

Comics Workbook Workshops at SPX 2019

Juan FernándezAugust 19, 2019Festivals and Shows / NewsJoin Juan Fernandez and the Comics Workbook gang for a series of workshops featuring hands-on instruction from some of the most talented makers of independent comics. All workshops will held in the Glen Echo and Oakley rooms downstairs at the Marriott Hotel. Please consult the workshop schedule and sign up in advance to insure a spot. Walk-ins will be welcome, however, space permitting. (Curious about this years panels? Check out the rest of the fantastic programming available at SPX this year.) SIGN UP HERE FOR ANY OF THE SPX 2019 COMICS WORKBOOK WORKSHOPS. SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 14 11:00 – 12:00 pm Glen Echo Room Take a crash course in comics making – for kids big and small. We will bring the grids, the markers, the know-how – you bring your personal spark. Discover the comics-maker within you and let them out! Join Richie Pope for an easy foray into comics making – the perfect thing to start a weekend at SPX! All ages. 12:00 – 1:00 pm Glen Echo Room Join Jessica Abel and design your days with clarity and purpose, so the things that get done are what you care about most. Figure out where your time really goes, and use that information to create an action plan for your week built around your current reality, not some fantasy version of your life. Make smart, conscious decisions about your time, and take control of your creative life. 1:00 – 2:00 pm Glen Echo Room Learn how to make miniature clay cakes with Sweet Success & Sweet Competition author/sculptor Liz Reed. Attendees will create their very own unique clay character as Liz guides the class through different sculpting techniques using everyday household items. 2:00 – 3:00 pm Glen Echo Room Loglines aren’t just for screenwriters. If you’ve ever put together a pitch for a publisher or just needed 1-2 sentences for a Kickstarter project description, knowing how to communicate your story in a concise and effective way is essential for any comics creator. Led by Kickstarter’s Comics Outreach Lead Camilla Zhang, this workshop will help you craft a compelling logline or refine one you already have in the works. If you have a pitch you’d like to workshop, please bring up to 20 copies. 3:00 – 4:00 pm Glen Echo Room Tom Hart, the founder of The Sequential Artist’s Workshop (SAW), will help you with your storytelling flow! Feeling stuck? Tense? Like you can’t figure out which way to turn? Not sure which idea to build on or how to tell a good idea from a bad? Do you feel overwhelmed or underwhelmed by your own ideas? Loosen up and follow your story ideas from beginning to end in this workshop. Daydreaming, not drawing skill, is necessary. 4:00 – 5:00 pm Glen Echo Room Rachel Masilamani will lead a workshop for people who draw and people who don’t think that they can draw of all ages. We’ll work on shaping stories together. What comes first? What comes second, and how can we tie it all together? 5:00 – 6:00 pm Glen Echo Room Join cartoonist Fifi Martinez to learn how to explore how we can capture and share the emotional essence of what our subjective lives feel like in real time through comics. Using drawing, writing, diagramming and the collage-like capacity of comics, attendees will experience what it is like to keep a comics diary and how their comics can be used for reflection, meditation, and healing. 6:00 – 7:00 pm Glen Echo Room Emil Friis Ernst takes you through the basics of spatial design to boost your visual vocabulary with a third dimension. In this workshop, you will learn how to put characters in perspective easily, use the space around a character to tell a story, and use the third dimension to make poetry. SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 15 12:00 – 1:00 pm Oakley Room The ability to draw is a basic human ability, and sequential images are prevalent across human history. This fundamental aspect of human expression yields several important questions, such as how are such individual and sequential images structured, and how do people process and comprehend them? Join Juan Fernandez to learn how Visual Language Theory offers a framework to answer these questions and how principles and methods of the linguistic and cognitive sciences can enrich and expand our ability to make, read, and teach comics. 1:00 – 2:00 pm Oakley Room Estate Planning, Preventative Care, and Health and Wellness: these often neglected issues can up have huge impacts on the lives of cartoonists and those around them if not considered early on in life. Join Carol Tyler for an intergenerational community discussion on how we can create a better world for cartoonists to work and live. 2:00 – 3:00 pm Oakley Room In this workshop, you will work with NPR’s Malaka Gharib, the author of I WAS THEIR AMERICAN DREAM: A Graphic Memoir, on using the mini-zine format to explore your personal histories. In a brief presentation, she will discuss the power of mini zines in inspiring artists to make short and completable creative projects that are perfectly sharable in the Instagram age. Using deliberate questions aimed to have participants reflect on their own personal immigration stories, participants will create their own zine. This workshop is intended for anyone with an immigrant story to share, and all are welcome! At the workshop, we hope you will be able to complete one mini zine using a template or your own design. 3:00 – 4:00 pm Oakley Room Cartoonists can work in many different ways, shared studios, solo studios, and from home, each of which are conducive to very different kinds of work. Join Aimée De Jongh & Kenny Rubinis to discuss the art and craft of the cartoonist’s workspace. Among the topics covered will be the advantages and disadvantages of each kind of workspace. 4:00 – 5:00 pm Oakley Room Kickstarter may be the place to expose your comics project to a wider audience, but the secret to crowdfunding will always lie in the crowd! Build your community building muscle and learn some outreach tips and tricks at this fun workshop, where you can make new connections and reaffirm old ones. This session will be led by Kickstarter’s Comics Outreach Lead, Camilla Zhang. 5:00 – 6:00 pm Oakley Room Comics language and cinematic language are two distinct, yet related visual dialects. Each offers unique advantages in creating engaging experiences for audiences. We’ll dive in and dissect the work of a few specific animation designers as we broadly discuss composition and sequential storytelling tools as they might pertain to all visual storytelling media, focusing on emotion, engagement, charm, and clarity. Bring a sketchbook to record your visual thoughts as we take a deep dive into some tools that might help broaden your approach to storytelling. Check out the rest of the fantastic programming available at SPX this year – HERE! SIGN UP HERE FOR ANY OF THE SPX 2019 COMICS WORKBOOK WORKSHOPS. Share this page: [...]

02/09/2018

Sally IngrahamFebruary 8, 2018NewsSally here with Caitlin McGurk talking Edwina Dumm, the Apple Mary/Mary Worth comic strip story, and Six Chix! ————————————————————————————————— Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum Associate Curator Caitlin McGurk was a guest on Episode 4 of the Library of American Comics & EuroComics Podcast, with Dean Mullaney and Kurtis Findlay. She talked about the upcoming American Comics Essentials Vol. 11, which collects Edwina Dumm‘s “Tippie” comic strip from 1945. Listen to the podcast HERE. Check out the Edwina Dumm LOAC Essentials book HERE – it will be coming out soon, and features an introduction by Caitlin McGurk. I am a huge fan of Edwina Dumm and am personally so excited for this collection! ————————————————————————————————— I like to root around in the archives of the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum, both in person and online. I was systematically going through the list of creators the other day, looking for WOMEN, and I came across June Brigman. I remembered that she was the last artist who worked on the comic Brenda Starr, Reporter (a long-running strip that has a fantastic, complete history of female creators – but that’s a tale for another day!) I looked into what she is currently working on, and noted that she is the artist behind the strip Mary Worth (syndicated by King Features). Mary Worth is an interesting comic strip. It’s been around since 1938 or so, making it one of the longest running “continuity” strips ever. It’s like a soap opera, with loads of characters and swirling plot lines, but it is centered on Mary – a 60-something widow and former teacher. Currently written by Karen Moy and drawn since 2016 by Brigman, it touches on all sorts of social issues and features classic cliff-hanger endings. You can read it HERE. Mary Worth was created by writer Allen Saunders and artist Dale Connor in 1938, but it has an interesting and somewhat debated connection to an earlier strip called Apple Mary. Martha Orr (the niece of Carey Orr, a cartoonist with the Chicago Tribune) started Apple Mary in 1934. It was about an old woman named Mary, who sold apples out of a pushcart, and tended to her crippled grandson Dennie. (You can see an example of the strip at the top of this section.) The strip was successful, but Martha had to quit making it after about 4 years, in favor of raising her own family. This is when Mary Worth appeared, but whether it was made to fill the popular hole that Apple Mary had left, maintaining some of the same tone and subjects, or whether it was the true evolution of Apple Mary, is up for continuing debate. Don Markstein notes on his Toonopida page for Apple Mary that “Whatever the case may be, as the Great Depression lifted, Apple Mary was left behind. There is little to be seen of her in the Mary Worth of today.” Here’s another Apple Mary strip by Martha Orr, one that does feature her being called Mary Worth by name. I like the idea of this character existing for 84 years, bookended by female creators. Next time I’m at the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum I’ll have to take a look at the one original Apple Mary strip by Martha Orr that they house in the archive! See it online HERE. ————————————————————————————————— I recently discovered a really unique comic strip called Six Chix. It’s a daily strip syndicated by King Features and created by six women cartoonists – they each have their assigned day, and then they rotate for the Sunday strip. “Isabella Bannerman draws Mondays; Martha Gradisher draws Tuesdays; Susan Camilleri Konar draws Wednesdays; Mary Lawton draws Thursdays; Benita Epstein draws Fridays; and Stephanie Piro draws Saturdays. Each cartoonist writes and draws with her own style and perspective. In any given week, you might find gags about the economy, technology, zombies, pirates or health care — and the main characters will be female and funny.“ The strip began in 2000 and was the idea of Jay Kennedy, the editor-in-chief at King Features at the time. You can read it online at the Six Chix website and learn more about the cartoonists HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Collected from the thousands of pages of material that Frank has left scattered all over the digital landscape, these 4 PDF collections contain Frank’s best writing on comics and comics making from the past decade. Theory and process, reviews and discoveries, journeys both physical and spiritual. Check out the “Best of Frank Santoro” PDF collections, available HERE! ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 2-9-2018 – by Gabriella Tito Share this page: [...]

12/19/2016

Juan FernándezDecember 19, 2016NewsJuan here with PIX 2017, Art Happens on PCTV21, comics and image related news that’s caught my eye and of course the inimitable Suzy and Cecil. ————————————————————————————————— Feast your eyes on the first official PIX 2017 Poster, by PIX 2017 special guest, Lale Westvind. Damn. PIX is pleased to announce it’s first confirmed guest at PIX 2017 – Lale Westvind! Lale is a beacon of self-publishing and a veteran of small press comics. She has self published many small batch comics, among them Titus and the Cyber Sun, Hot Dog Beach, Now and Here, Double Head Tour, and the just released Yazar and Arkadas. Her stunning multicolor risograph, Hax, published by Breakdown Press in the UK, was one of the standout releases of 2016. Her work has also appeared in numerous anthologies, most notably the latest Kramers Ergot (#9). And, she has graced PIX 2017 with its first graphic, which will soon be posted here. Watch for it! ————————————————————————————————— Staying with the local Pittsburgh news, I hopped on the airwaves on PCTV21 to talk comics with Christiane Leach and Jennifer Saffron on Art Happens. We talked about what I’m talking about all the time with Frank and Sally here at the Rowhouse. It was good to get all this talk outta the house. If you want to know what it’s like to talk with me in person, here’s a taste. I can’t tell you how nice it is to have conversations with comics with people who are willing to play ball and to see comics as a vital intersection of the arts. Christiane and Jennifer are amazing hosts, always ready to get their hands dirty with whatever is on hand. It’s great to bring to the world these ideas that have been instilled in me by Frank Santoro, Bill Boichel via BEM, Copacetic Comics and Comics Workbook. I’d be nowhere without these guys. Grab something warm and sit down with us. Treat it like a podcast while you work. ————————————————————————————————— My buddy Em DeMarco, here in Pittsburgh, has put out a call for a comic that she’s making about hate-related incidents post-election. I want to pass the mic on over to her: *IF* you’ve experienced verbal or other forms of harassment since Nov. 8th: I’m gathering stories for a nonfiction comic about hate-related incidents that have happened since the election in Western Pennsylvania. I’d like to hear stories of people who feel like they’ve been targeted in any way because of their (real or perceived) race, ethnicity, national origin, immigration status, gender, sexual orientation, or religion. *** IF you feel comfortable sharing your story *** private message me, or email me at emcorp.works@gmail.com. Feel free to share this with friends or family who you think might be interested in speaking with me. Thank you, Em DeMarco ————————————————————————————————— when you can’t work harder, work smarter – for real though <3 ————————————————————————————————— Comics and news that’ve caught my eye: A look at the wonders of SAMPLERMAN. Yvan Guillo is Samplerman. Dig into his collage comics here on HyperAllergic. Underground Art Comics in China. VOLCAN – I can’t afford to get my hands on this, BUT I can learn a lot by looking at what Alexis Beaculair has posted online! Check out these high quality photos of Lagon Revue’s juicy publication, VOLCAN. A memory of when the internet was young. Check out this photo from back in 1973 to see, in a way that is now impossible, what the internet used to look like… ————————————————————————————————— From Comics Workbook: Suzy and Cecil – 12-19-2016 – by Gabriella Tito We are accepting applications for the Winter Semester of the Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers right up until Dec. 28th 2016. Course starts Dec. 29th! 8 weeks – 500 bux – the best comics education for your money. Full details and how to apply HERE. ————————————————————————————————— until next time! juan Share this page: [...]

01/24/2017

Aaron CockleJanuary 23, 2017NewsAaron here today with Sophie Yanow on the ground in DC; what we talk about when we talk about Chinese Comics; Paper Jazz Festival; Frank Johnson; some light reading (courtesy of The New Inquiry); Dr Seuss, political cartoonist. ————————————————————————————————— Dispatch from D.C. Intrepid reporter Sophie Yanow was at this past weekend’s U.S. presidential inauguration. ————————————————————————————————— The 174th meeting of the NY Comics & Picture-story Symposium will be held on Tuesday, January 24, 2017 at 7pm at Parsons School of Design, 2 West 13th Street, in the Bark Room (off the lobby). Free and open to the public. Orion Martin on The Largest Comics Industry Ever: China’s Pulp Comics Beginning in Shanghai in the 1920s, a vibrant culture of mass produced comics developed in mainland China. These pocket-sized comics, called lianhuanhua, became one of the most popular forms of entertainment in the country and were printed in tremendous quantities. In 1985, the peak year of lianhuanhua production, more than eight billion comics were printed in genres ranging from historical parables to adaptations of Star Wars. Demand for the comics has decreased since the 1980s, but hundreds of thousands continue to circulate in antique stores and online. R. Orion Martin is writer and translator based in Brooklyn, New York. He writes about comics, art, and the ways new understandings of comics can make them more meaningful to our lives. His work has been featured on Hyperallergic, The Comics Journal, and The Hooded Utilitarian. You can find him on Tumblr or Twitter. Here’s the Spring 2017 Symposium schedule as well, if you are interested: ————————————————————————————————— Paper Jam is now Paper Jazz Rising like a phoenix from the ashes, or like Jean Grey/Phoenix, or whatever, The Paper Jazz Festival has emerged as a replacement for the much-loved and now-defunct Paper Jam Festival. We do this in recognition of free-to-table/free-to-attend (or donation-based) fairs that have been running as long or longer than us like Pete’s Mini Zine Fest, NYC Feminist Zine Fest, Zinefeast, Locust Moon, Etc. We will also continue to never repeat exhibitors, which was inspired somewhat by the Toronto Comic Arts Festival’s policies. Our fest has always been a collective of influences, we want everyone in the zine/small press/comics/chapbook/editions community to feel welcome and appreciated. With this rebrand we want to emphasize safer spaces, inclusivity, accountability, and transparency. We encourage folks to reach out to us on tumblr or paperjazzfest@gmail.com. ————————————————————————————————— Frank Johnson, Outsider Cartoonist The Outsider Art Fair was held this past weekend at the Metropolitan Pavilion in NYC, and one of the highlights was the Dan Nadel-curated work of Chicago cartoonist Frank Johnson (1912-1979) at the Chris Byrne booth. From Nadel’s curatorial statement: From as early as 1928 until 1979 he filled 28 notebooks, totaling approximately 1800 pages, with a continuous comic strip detailing the adventures of a fantasy group of friends, “Wally’s Gang”, and completed approximately 100 cartoon drawings. This work was found by his widow after he died. Neither she nor anyone else knew that he drew them, and there is no record of his having published anything or even corresponded with any cartoonists. Nadel’s been aware of Johnson’s work for some time, and wrote an essay about it in the Summer 2005 issue of Folk Art: The American Folk Art Museum Magazine, pages 57-63. ————————————————————————————————— A reading list created by a group of Black, Brown, Indigenous, Muslim, and Jewish people who are writers, organizers, teachers, anti-fascists, anti-capitalists, and radicals. WE studied and pursued methods for revolutionary social change before Trump came to power, and our core focus remains the same: abolishing the ever-enlarging systems of hierarchy, control, and environmental destruction necessary to sustain the growth of capital. With the ascendance of White nationalist ambition to the upper echelons of empire, we have given special attention to struggles waged and endured by marginalized people for whom the fight against capital has always been a concurrent fight against Anglo-Saxon supremacy. Via The New Inquiry ————————————————————————————————— ‘… and the wolf chewed up the children and spit out their bones… but those were foreign children and it really didn’t matter.’ As always, Dr. Seuss provides us some vital context for these times. More of his political cartooning work has been posted as part of the UC-San Diego digital collections. ————————————————————————————————— Look into Donald’s eyes – look DEEPLY. ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 1-23-2017 – by Sally Ingraham Suzy and Cecil – 1-24-2017 – by Sally Ingraham ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 1-24-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio ————————————————————————————————— 1-24-2017 – by Juan Fernández Share this page: [...]

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