Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in NewsTagged deb lucke, kelly kincaid, kriota willberg, lauren purje, Leslie Stein, liana finck, nicole hollander, sally ingraham

Sally Ingraham

Posted on March 29, 2018

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Jonny Negron Draws MR. FREEDOM

Chris Anthony DiazJune 15, 2016The Diaz ArchiveJonny Negron’s portrayal of John Abbey as Mr. Freedom and Delphine Seyrig as Marie-Madeleine along with the freedom dancers in William Klein’s MR. FREEDOM (1969, France) for my ILLUSTRATED MOMENTS IN CINEMA/TELEVISION collection. The illustration was completed around November 2011 in marker pen, and Jonny’s candid was taken at MISSION: COMICS & ART, San Francisco, Friday, October 12, 2012 and Graham Willcox did the color on Jonny’s candid Share this page: [...]

Thee Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers

Frank SantoroMarch 21, 2018ClassesHi, Frank Santoro here! I’ve been teaching my comics correspondence course since 2011. You will never meet someone as enthusiastic about comics as me. I’m a good coach. The course is 8 weeks – I run several semesters a year but I will work with you if you want to start the course between semesters. 500 bux for 8 weeks plus access to my coaching for as long as you need. Payment plans are available. Floating start date! Apply anytime – I can run the course for you whenever it fits your schedule! Email santoroschoolATgmail for more details. The most common questions I get about the Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers is: “How does the correspondence course work?” The way the course works is that there is a private blog where you get all of your assignments. This blog is updated every day with demos related to each assignment. We do a lot of fast drawing to get you thinking about sequencing much like a storyboard artist. Over the 8 week course you will create a 16 page “signature” – that means that you will basically draw two pages a week. Email me – santoroschoolATgmail – and I will send you an invite to the course that just wrapped so you can see how it works for yourself. “What if I have a full-time job? Do you think I can manage to find the time to do the course within the 8 week time frame?” I’ve had many students in the past who have had full time jobs. I designed the course so that you can do it when you have the time – at night, weekends, etc. If you “fall behind” it doesn’t matter because I will work with you to complete your 16 page comic even after the course ends. The idea of the eight week course is to impress upon you the structure of a deadline which, I believe, is central to comics making. I know lots of talented comics makers who never seem to be able to finish anything. Comics is all about the deadline. So 16 pages in eight weeks is what we aim for – however if your job or other commitments prevent you from completing the comic, I will work with you until the comic is finished. “What if I can’t afford to pay for the course all at once?” Not a problem. I’m very flexible with payment plans. Talk to me about it and I promise you that I will make you an offer that you cannot refuse. If you think there is no way that you could afford this course then think again. Often I have found that people chicken out about actually doing the work by using the “I can’t afford it” excuse. I will work with you in ways that no “real” school would ever work with you. Also my course is way more affordable than just about any other comics program out there. 500 bux for an 8 week course plus access to my coaching for as long as you need. Thanks! Please email me santoroschoolATgmail with any questions regarding the course. I accept applications at all times. Santoro School Application guidelines: -3 figure drawings done on blank 3 x 5 index cards -3 landscape drawings done on blank 3 x 5 index cards -3 still life drawings done on blank 3 x 5 cards -draw in a contour line style – Think Matisse – no under-drawing – draw directly in ink -just send me small jpgs of images – dont post to your blog pls -specific url links to any comics work you have done. If you haven’t done comics before that is not a problem. Send applications to: santoroschoolATgmail Thanks xo Frank @santoro.frank on Instagram http://www.tcj.com/category/columns/riff-raff/ http://coldheatcomics.blogspot.com/ http://www.coldheatcomics.com/ Share this page: [...]

04/05/2018

Sally IngrahamApril 5, 2018NewsSally here with “Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story”, plus comics by Morrie Turner, Brumsic Brandon Jr., and Ted Shearer! ————————————————————————————————— Yesterday we marked the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., and PREVIEWSworld took the opportunity to share a particularly important comic – Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story(above). “In the late 1950s, as the Civil Rights Movement was gaining strength throughout the country, the peace organization The Fellowship of Reconciliation saw the need to promote their philosophy of nonviolent resistance to as many people as possible. To accomplish this, they used one of the most accessible formats of the day – the comic book – to tell the story of the successful bus boycotts by African Americans in Montgomery, Alabama, and the man who helped inspire them.“ Originally handed out in churches and nonviolence workshops, this comic was a powerful inspiration to many. You can read the whole thing HERE. The creation of the comic is a pretty interesting story in itself. Originally conceived by a man who didn’t allow his own kids to read comics – Alfred Hassler – it was meant to help convey the ideas of the Civil Rights Movement to the semiliterate. The comic soon became something much greater than anyone would have guessed. You can read a very thorough examination of it’s history and influence HERE. It is interesting to note that the identity of the artist who drew the comic has been entirely lost. Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story helped inspire John Lewis to write the award winning March trilogy, with Andrew Aydin and Nate Powell. Check out that comic HERE. ————————————————————————————————— There were a couple of cartoonists who found their work in much greater demand immediately following the death of Martin Luther King Jr. – a bittersweet turn of events, for sure. Morrie Turner had a strip called Wee Pals (above), which was syndicated an 4-5 papers in the mid-60’s. It was considered “subversive” because it featured a diverse cast of childhood playmates. He had in fact been encouraged by his friend Charles Schulz to create the strip, after Turner had complained about the lack of black characters in newspaper comics. When Martin Luther King Jr. died, in short order nearly 100 papers picked up his strip. Morrie Turner continued to draw the strip well into his 80’s. You can read more about him HERE. Brumsic Brandon Jr.‘s strip Luther was also picked up by numerous papers in the late 60’s, remaining in syndication for two decades. It’s cast of characters were from a poor neighborhood and were a bit more “streetwise” than Morrie Turner’s. Read more about Brumsic Brandon Jr. HERE. I’ve encountered Wee Pals and Luther before, but another comic by a black creator that was in newspapers at the time was new to me. Ted Shearer‘s Quincy appeared in 1970. He had made a variety of strips over the years, aimed at an adult audience, and they had appeared in numerous publications. Before Quincy took off, Shearer was working in an ad agency, but with the success of the strip – which, like Turner’s and Brandon’s comics, featured black kids commenting on life as they experienced it – he was able to focus on Quincy exclusively. He enjoyed syndication for 16 years. I’d really like to find the collection that was published in 1972, but for now you can see a selection of strips that kind souls have scanned and shared on the web HERE. Read more about Ted Shearer HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Announcing the Spring Semester of thee Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers 8 weeks! $500 bux! 10 spots available! Rolling start date because of spring break – start NOW! Deadline to apply is April 12th. Read all about the course HERE and email santoroschool@gmail.com for more details or to apply. ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 4-5-2018 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

07/21/2017

Sally IngrahamJuly 21, 2017NewsSally here with Rachel Masilamani live from Pittsburgh, PA; Sophie Yanow saying “No!”; Florida witches at large thanks to Vanesa R. Del Rey and Jordie Bellaire; and much more. —————————————————————————————————— The Pittsburgh Comic Salon had the great pleasure of hosting Rachel Masilamani last night at the ToonSeum. She has been making comics since 1997 and has a veritable constellation of work in print and online publications, as well as a number of self published works. Her first comics collection – RPM Comics #1 – received a grant from the Xeric Foundation. Her ongoing graphic novel project – Non Partum – appears on MUTHA Magazine in installments. Her most recent pieces are the powerful Battleground, which was part of Illustrated PEN’s series “State of Emergency”, and Who Does He Favor? from this month on the LA Review of Books. Rachel spoke eloquently about how she uses comics to control and contextualize her experiences and memories, how “lies” illuminate the truth, and her belief in the power of making good art. She relates to Lynda Barry’s term “autobiofictionography” and names her as a main source of inspiration. Rachel pushed through her first successes and then bitter disappointments with the realty of making comics (and not making a living) and now 20 years into the game she is confident in her work and herself, and is excited about the medium. It was wonderful to hear her speak, and to see her address a crowd of mostly women last night. Sharing our work and experiences this way is more important than ever. Check out more of Rachel’s work HERE. Read Juan Fernandez’s discussion of Rachel’s foundational work HERE. —————————————————————————————————— Sophie Yanow has captured the constant struggle of many artists to maintain their space to make their work – and turned that “NO” (so often combined with wracking guilt and anxiety) into something glorious. Thank you Sophie! This comic should go above everyone’s desk – and she has made it available as a “pay what you want” downloadable PDF so get your copy HERE asap! —————————————————————————————————— Vanesa R. Del Rey and Jordie Bellaire talk Redlands over on Multiversity Comics in anticipation of the upcoming release of #1 (August 9th). I can’t wait for this comic, which will mix small town Florida with fed up witches, hopefully with wicked and wonderful results. Alice Castle interviewed the two makers about the work: “The idea of using witches as the protagonists in “Redlands” is fascinating to me. Witches have usually been cast as figures of impurity; the kind of women who refuse to adhere to patriarchal society. What was it that drew you to this idea? What made witches the right pick for this story? Jordie Bellaire: Women and the archetypes of crones, witches, succubi, etc go hand-in-hand. If women were sexually liberated, educated or sought knowledge or were generally unfettered by whatever social construct was pushed upon them at the time, they were written about as evil, dark and inhuman. This was in an effort to push women down and make them seem as if they were against not only men, but against god as well. It dates back to the story of Adam and Eve. This is a compelling trope that I wanted to dive into it as I think it has really set the tone for how women are seen in our culture and in our media. Women have been taking back the idea of being a witch or she-devil and owning it. The women in my story are unapologetic, flawed but liberated and real. Vanesa, you’ve dabbled in the world of horror comics before with “The Empty Man,” which was where I first discovered your artwork. “Redlands,” from what I’ve seen, seems even more somber and atmospheric. How would you describe your approach to this series? Vanesa R. Del Rey: The visual tone for the series is inspired by turn of the 19th-century illustration and printmaking, mainly. But I was also visiting Goya’s etching works which are pretty dark in terms of the commentary he made with the work as well as the imagery he used. I thought a hatching technique would be appropriate to illustrate the uneasiness, distress and anxiety in this land we have created. It’s also very classical, with attention to details and line weight…. I’m playing with the energy of the line to express a feeling in all ways. Things in “Redlands” are very strange and confusing, much like the place from which we are taking inspiration, Florida; it’s beautiful and colorful, but dark and unsettling too.“ Read the rest of the interview HERE and get ye to a comics shoppe on August 9th to grab your copy of Redlands #1! —————————————————————————————————— Working the Circuit Karen Berger announces the lineup of her new publishing imprint, Berger Books – Vulture has the details HERE. Katie Skelly was on Inkstuds recently, interviewed by guest host Joe McCulloch – listen HERE. Over on Comics Alternative Interviews Andy and Derek spoke with Gabrielle Bell about Everything is Flammable – HERE. Nicola Scott wades into the whys of how she’s drawing Wonder Woman for W Magazine – read the interview HERE. If you’re in the San Francisco area join Nicole J. Georges for an evening and celebrate the release of her new book Fetch on July 21st – part of the Comics in the City speaker series at California College of the Arts – details HERE. —————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 7-21-2017 – by Gabriella Tito —————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 7-21-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

07/13/2018

Sally IngrahamJuly 13, 2018NewsSally Ingraham here with news and comics from Rachel Masilamani! ————————————————————————————————— Rachel Masilamani lectured at the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh last night, and in a lead-up to the event 90.5 WESA’s Bill O’Driscoll ran a feature about Masilamani and her comics. She talked about how Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics made her turn to the medium: ” “I had never thought to look critically at what I was doing when I read a comic, and then that made me really excited to try to do it on my own,” she said. “I thought, ‘Here I am, I’m a person who loves to tell stories and a person who loves to draw. Why didn’t I try this before?’” “It became really exciting to me to realize that there was a way that you can build stories and really welcome people in a new way, different than standing and talking, different than just writing, and different than illustrating someone else’s words,” she said. “ Masilamani’s main comics project of the last few years has been Nonpartum, which has been serialized on Mutha Magazine (read it here). This comic is her examination of pregnancy and motherhood and how the eyes of society view both from all angles. ” “I really want everybody to think about motherhood, and to think about how children are born, how we think about women, how we approach motherhood as a whole,” she said. “And I think that the form that I’m using opens a whole topic up to a new set of people who might not have realized that they wanted to read about it and they wanted to think about it.” “ Read the rest of the article and listen to the radio spot HERE. Juan here! Last night was really important for me as Rachel is a friend and an inspiration. She, in combination with Bill Boichel, are the very reason that I started making comics in Pittsburgh in 2010. I snapped some photos for posterity. Here’s hoping we can record a talk like this with Rachel to share with you online! Rachel offered up some great riffs and thoughts to serve as connective tissue across all her work. She’s making some truly titanic, contemporary comics that I can’t wait for you to see in the coming years. I wanted to appreciate Rachel a little with you all, she is quite simply, the primary reason why I started making comics. I made my first self-published comic,in response to a zine of Rachel’s that I’d found at Copacetic Comics’ old location in Squirrel Hill. It was this small, black and white zine for a $1 ‘Singing Contest’ was this amazing, relatively wordless story about a young girl living at the American-Mexican border. All the humans essentially don’t speak in words. All the word balloons are just filled with images. And there are these magical helpers, and they’re just animals from the desert and end up helping this girl in the story. In a traditional sense, she draws expertly in a naturalist mode. She works with color in a gorgeous way where she can lay another layer of meaning in her work just with the color, but it is not about the “good” drawing taking the work to this next level. Rather it’s about the way that the drawings and the words interconnect. Her ability to stitch and weave meaning and braid thoughts together. She’s able to achieve this lyrical prose that is just like utterly poetic in the combination of the images and the words. Her approach, he said, is experimental but accessible. What a godsend. She’s doing really deep, complicated communication and she’s able to do that and not lose you. Rachel does a really amazing job at inviting people to share that space with her on the page. She’s the reason why I started and is one of the reasons why I soldier on, trying to make beautiful things with images and words in this land that we call, comics. With that, I’d like to invite you to read all her work over on Mutha Magazine! Above is a page from the 4th chapter of Nonpartum – read all of it HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Weekend Reading! Lisa Lim shares the story of her “Bad-Ass Grandmother” on Mutha Magazine – read it HERE. Check out Angie Wang‘s comic about searching for a cherished dish – Water-Boiled Fish – on Eater. G. Willow Wilson (co-creator of Ms. Marvel) is going to take over the writing of Wonder Woman in November...Paste Magazine has the details. Hyperallergic takes a look at Eleanor Davis‘ Why Art? – HERE. The London Free Press has a quick feature on Lisa Hanawalt‘s upcoming Coyote Doggirl. Here’s your quarterly reminder to check out the Women Write About Comics website! ————————————————————————————————— Share this page: [...]

03/30/2018

Posted on March 29, 2018 by Sally Ingraham

Sally Ingraham here with work and wisdom from Kriota Willberg, Nicole Hollander, Deb Lucke, and many more!

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Kriota Willberg calls Draw Stronger (coming out in April 2018) the comic she was “born to make”. She addresses a chronic problem she has witnessed among cartoonists and artists and creatives of all sorts – living with pain. Publishers Weekly had a great chat with her recently, and she began by saying:

“In the US we have a number of familiar clichés: “No pain, no gain.” “You must suffer for your art.” “If it doesn’t hurt, it’s not working.” There’s a stereotype: artists suffer in literature and film—it’s sexy! Who wants to watch a movie about a genius artist who gets enough rest, meets their deadlines, never yells at their spouse or kids, makes incredible pain free art, and dies after a fulfilling happy career?

Wrist braces, calluses, poisoning from media (ink/paint), and lack of sleep are interpreted by many to mean that we are suffering in order to make great comics. That’s how it’s done! This is true for acting, dancing, sports, banking, science, everything. Our culture tells us that you love your discipline more (regardless of talent) if you prove through suffering that you are working harder than anyone else.

Obviously, deadlines, day jobs, and life get in the way of healthy work/rest schedules. However, the comics community is beginning to be supportive of injured artists and more aware of healthy drawing practices. Protecting a lifetime of drawing is becoming more important than the next deadline.“

Kriota Willberg is the champion we need right now, determined to get this point across to legions of struggling (and not in the glamorous way) artists. Read the rest of the interview at Publishers Weekly HERE.

Over on The Comics Beat Kriota was a guest columnist recently, and shared a lengthy interview with Nate Piekos. The topic is Nate’s life-changing injury to hand/shoulder/neck which was caused by his work as a professional letterer for numerous comics publishers. Kriota calls his experience “nightmarish but hopeful”. Read about it HERE.

Be smart! Pick up Kriota’s book when it comes out, or catch one of her excellent workshops at a comics expo near you. (Pittsburgh cartoonists, Kriota will be here in June offering her workshop – keep an eye out for more details soon!)

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Nicole Hollander talks about her new book in the video above – it is called We Ate Wonder Bread, and is a memoir of her childhood in Chicago. Nicole Hollander is the creator of the comic strip Sylvia, which has been in syndication since 1981 (you can read archival strips and an occasional new one HERE).

*Sylvia* – March 19th 2018 – Nicole Hollander

Using Sylvia to speak her mind over the years, Nicole Hollander is an important voice and an interesting cartoonist. There’s a short but powerful interview with her on Publishers Weekly where she talks about the difference between creating a political daily comic strip, and a memoir. She also talks about what it meant to be a feminist cartoonist in the 1970’s.

“I didn’t even know my career was impossible. We had features editors who were women but it meant nothing. The approval came from men sitting in an office saying thumbs up or thumbs down. There were what, three or four slots? Early women cartoonists like Brenda Starr were very feminine. Lynda Barry had a strong following, but only in alternative papers. With Sylvia, readers were always writing in complaining, saying they were “disgusted their daughter would have to read about disgusting things like having your period.” But I got away with a lot. There was so much independence in what I did.“

Read the rest of the interview HERE.

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from Edward Gorey’s Art Collection by Deb Lucke

The chance to check out Edward Gorey’s Art Collection, as depicted by cartoonist Deb Lucke, was pretty much everything I could have asked for today. See the whole thing at The New Yorker – HERE.

Deb Lucke is known for her series for kids, The Lunch Witch – but I really like the more incidental comics that she makes. Here’s another one about a museum visit, this time to the MOMA, from February of 2018 – check it out on The Rumpus.

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Weekend Snacks

Just in time for Passover, Liana Finck shares her take on the story of Moses and The Burning Bush, in The Tough Customer – on Tablet.
The New York Times Book Review has added two comics and graphic novel columnists – the excellent Hillary Chute and Ed Park. The Book Review will start running their column in April. Read more about it HERE.
Kelly Kincaid draws a hilarious webcomic called Jetlagged Comic, which is about her life as a flight attendant. Huffpost shares 25 of her best comics, and the story behind how she started making them.
Whit Taylor presents Leslie Stein’s Present this week on Illustrated PEN – check it out HERE.
SyFy Wire chats with Wendy Pini and her husband Richard on the past and future of Elfquest, which recently came to a close after 40 years. Read the article HERE.
Hillary Brown tackles Eleanor Davis‘ Why Art? over on Paste Magazine, and offers a new interview with her – HERE.
Lauren Purje met Neil Gaiman recently and made a comic about it – on Hyperallergic.
Tessa Strain reviews Sloane Leong‘s new Image series, Prism Stalker – on The Comics Journal.

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

8 weeks! $500 bux! 10 spots available!

Rolling start date because of spring break – start as early as March 30th 2018.

Deadline to apply is April 12th.

Read all about the course HERE and email santoroschool@gmail.com for more details or to apply.

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Suzy and Cecil – 3-30-2018 – by Sally Ingraham

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Joanie and Jordie – 3-30-2018 – by Caleb Orecchio

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Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in NewsTagged deb lucke, kelly kincaid, kriota willberg, lauren purje, Leslie Stein, liana finck, nicole hollander, sally ingraham

Sally Ingraham

Posted on March 29, 2018

Explore

07/24/2017

Caleb OrecchioJuly 23, 2017NewsCaleb Orecchio here with The Power of Kirby and other news. ———————————————————————————————— all images herein are from the collection of comics given to me by my dad and uncle from when they were kids, circa 1976 to 1978. All images are drawn by Jack Kirby. The Power of Kirby Jack King Kirby, the powerhouse conundrum who unwittingly created the foundation of modern day popcorn flicks, is undoubtedly thee heavyweight champion of the comic book. Often, I think, it is hard to convince the layperson of the prowess of Jack. The boys who grew to men who are now my dad’s age (just turned the big five oh) have a less fond memory of him. At the point my dad would have seen Kirby’s work, Jack was drawing at his most “square” – that is to say, to my mind, his most “Kirby.” This was between 1976 and 1978, at the time my dad was 9, 10, and 11 and evidently a connoisseur of comic book quality. This was also arguably one of the lowest points in comics history as far as the amount of good comics on the stands and the amount of money pumping through the industry. At this point in time Kirby was working on such Marvel titles as Devil Dinosaur, Machine Man, Captain America and Falcon, Black Panther, 2001: A Space Oddysey, Captain America Bicentennial Battles, some Thor covers, etc. Basically, titles that have become very revered by today’s cartoonists. My dear ol’ dad would have none of it though. This is how I know… My dad had ZERO Kirby comics in his collection as a child. I know this because I inherited these comics when I was seven – my first comics! My dad really liked The Hulk, Spider-Man, Star Wars, The Champions, The X-Men, Marvel Team-Up, Marvel Two in One – stuff like that. It wasn’t until I convinced my uncle (my dad’s younger brother by a year or two) to give me his collection from the same era that I was exposed to Kirby. HE seemed to like Kirby whether he knew it or not. He had a few of the reprints Marvel put out like Marvel Super Action (reprinting Captain America runs) and Marvel’s Greatest Comics (reprinting Lee/Kirby era FF). I have a feeling the covers caught his eye. He even had The Mighty Thor #252 that had a Kirby cover. My dad would have never got a comic with a Kirby cover. How do I know he’d never knowingly buy a comic with a Kirby cover? Well one day I was meeting him for coffee. I live in Dayton, OH and he was driving from Cincinnati to Columbus for a conference. If you don’t know, Dayton is more or less in between so it’s what inspired my dad to ask me to meet for coffee. Anyway, I thought I’d get to the coffee shop way before him and so I brought along one of those 80’s reprints of New Gods to read while I waited. You know the ones? They had new covers by Kirby and mostly dumb essays by Mark Evanier in the back. Recolored and all that. Basically, my dad would have not been aware of these. He got there and saw the comic and pointed to it, “That’s an oldie but a goodie.” You have to understand he was referencing his familiarity with Kirby’s drawing style rather than his affinity for the work or his familiarity with the particular book sitting on the table. “What?” I said, “You didn’t have any of this guy’s comics in your collection. How do you know him?” He replied with a sour face, “I never liked him. He drew too square. Too blocky.” “But you know this is him?! This comic came out in the 80’s! You read comics in the seventies!” “Yeah. His style is distinct.” This, true believers is one of the many facets to Kirby’s genius. He carves his lines right into the lining of your brain. Whether you like him or not, you cannot forget Kirby. Now, if I had, say, Conan the Barbarian #99 at that table that day I met with my dad, he still would have said that’s an oldie but a goodie but he would have meant it. And he would remember having that comic and reading it and that he liked it probably, but he wouldn’t have known it was by John Buscema or written by Roy Thomas or anything particular like that. He may have just said, “It was cool and I liked the art.” Do you see what I’m trying to say? Do not underestimate the King. Kirby IS comics. He can draw his way into your dreams and nightmares. He can brand his vision into your eyes forever. So much so that after 40 years have passed, whether you like him or not, you can spot a Kirby drawing wherever it may be – namely at your son’s table at the coffee shop in Dayton, OH. ———————————————————————————————— if you don’t know, now you know I think it’s interesting when the mainstream media tries to be hip to comics. They almost always drop the ball. The real cartoonists tend to get the shaft. Like this LA Times article that spends more time on Wayne Brady than it does on the fact that the Hernandez Brothers made it into the Eisner Hall of Fame. Kudos to Rob Clough for fighting the good fight and getting some good nominations out there this year. There’s going to be a lot of post San Diego Comic Con news this week. Here is one about comics for kids, particularly girls. The proliferation of Wonder Woman fandom is pretty interesting. I think a lot of it stems from the new movie obviously, but also from the book by Jill Lepore. And I’d be remiss not to mention Ron Regé Jr. So when I saw this trailer, I was both surprised and not surprised. There is a roundtable discussion over at TCJ.com concerning Gary Panter’s latest book. Also if you didn’t know, Panter is on Instagram now:) ———————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 7-24-2017 – by Sally Ingraham ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 7-24-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

01/22/2018

Caleb OrecchioJanuary 22, 2018NewsCaleb Orecchio here with thoughts on Brandon Graham’s daily diary comics and other news. ————————————————————————————————— Lately, I’ve been intrigued by Brandon Graham’s daily comics he posts to social media. He posted them on his blog too. The simplicity is really nice structurally and tonally. Often the strips include whatever he’s thinking about that day, or what music he’s listening to. Sometimes these reflect very personal and revealing aspects of his life, while other times he just seems to let his mind wander and his lines and words fill the page. These are nice to read, and the benefit of improvisation lends itself to a simple, downward reading style—your eye starts on the top left-hand of the page and follows the strip down to the lower right-hand side. All the incredibly detailed gimmicks and intricacies of his professional work (i.e. King City and Multiple Warheads) are basically non-existent here, in a good way. Now don’t get me wrong, I generally love Graham’s work. His ability to make interesting images is not to be taken lightly and every new Brandon Graham release is an event unto itself in my house. However, in imperfect light, I simply can’t read Multiple Warheads. Often all the very pretty colors jump out at me at once and my eyes have to really focus to absorb the work as intended by the author. Plus, take into account the consistently inconsistent structural integrity of a Graham comic and I’ve got me a headache. His black and white work is often easier on the eyes, but still lacks a cohesive composition to allow for effortless reading that flows steadily. Maybe some would consider me a lazy reader, color blind and biased towards more Comics Workbook-y grid type comics, and I am biased for sure. That being said, I’m trying to make a point. Compared to King City and Warheads, Graham’s recent daily comics are very rough but to me they are actually much more inviting and enjoyable to read aesthetically at the moment. Whether it’s the content or the actual drawing (drawing: which I should point out, is different from inking), these daily comics feel particularly essential. Maybe it’s just my mood, but meandering thoughts by way of improved lines on paper feel pertinent right now. ————————————————————————————————— if you don’t know, now you know Michael Cavna on the work and career of legendary Pittsburgh cartoonist, Jackie Ormes, over at the Washington Post in lieu of Ormes’ induction into The Will Esiner Hall of Fame. Cailla Baasch Anderson gives some details into how lawyers are using comics to make legal contracts easier to understand. Phillippe LeBlanc writes about the Uncivilized Books series, Structures over at Your Chicken Enemy. Rob Kirby is the latest guest on Comic Book Decalogue. ————————————————————————————————— 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 – 1-22-2018 – by Gabriella Tito ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 1-22-2018 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

05/13/2016

Sally IngrahamMay 13, 2016NewsSally here on this Friday the 13th, with nothing spooky to offer. Instead, I’ve got tons of press about Koyama Press, a bit of hero worship for Rokudenashiko, and a whole lot of longing for TCAF… ————————————————————————————————— The National Post had a write up about Annie Koyama and Koyama Press this week, detailing how truly “kick-ass” they both are. And it’s definitely their week! Mental Floss hyped two of Koyama Press’ new books – What is Obscenity by Rokudenashiko, and Night Air by Ben Sears – as 2 out of 5 favorites. “This is Sears’s first graphic novel and it reads like a marriage between the character designs of Mike Mignola, the childhood wonder of Farel Dalrymple, and the low-key humor of Adventure Time.” – Rich Barrett via Mental Floss “In What is Obscenity?…Rokudenashiko tells the story of her arrest in a funny, engaging, and eye-opening way. Interspersing photographs, legal documents, and news articles with her comedic cartooning, she re-enacts the unbelievable experience of being arrested, filmed by the local news in the back of a police car (labeled with the insulting on-screen chyron as a “so-called artist”), and dealing with male lawyers and policemen who are too ashamed to even talk about what she did.” – Rich Barrett via Mental Floss ————————————————————————————————— While the book deals with Rokudenashiko‘s original imprisonment in 2014 for building a kayak, among other things, modeled on her vagina, this “so-called artist” has been fighting obscenity charges in Japan right up until Monday of this week. The New York Post reports that a Japanese court found Rokudenashiko “not guilty of obscenity for displaying figurines modeled on her vagina, signaling a step towards freedom of expression, although the court fined her for distributing digital data of her genitals.” She isn’t about to take that fine (400,000 yen, or $3,700) on the nose – ‘”I am of course indignant. I will appeal and continue to fight in court,” she told a news conference, where she displayed several pink vagina figurines that prosecutors had argued were obscene.‘ Read the rest of the NYPost report HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Over on The Comics Beat, John Seven digs into What is Obscenity? and finds it to be – “…a passionate memoir and meditation on art, censorship, and societal attitudes towards women, but just as important, it’s a charming and amusing rundown of Rokudenashiko’s experiences that wraps in many aspects of Japanese culture, most fascinatingly, Japanese prison conditions.“ With the recent court ruling weighing on his mind, John Seven clarifies the “real beauty of Rokudenashiko’s book”- “Despite the understandable outrage, despite the big issues that her experience tackles, despite corruption and misogyny and incompetence she faced, despite the gloominess of prison and her own emotional traumas, she still puts it together in a form that is extremely personable even as it informs. She is the best possible messenger. That’s a real feat, but it also tells you something about the artist they were gunning for, about her intent and outlook and why the persecution was such a major misfire. It also tells you why people like her work so much. She made a kayak modeled after her own vagina. How is that not great? How is she not a hero?“ Read the rest of his excellent review HERE. ————————————————————————————————— John Seven was concerned that Rokudenashiko might be prevented from coming to Canada for TCAF this weekend, but according to the Koyama Press blog she has landed in Toronto and is set to strut her fabulous stuff there, and also at the Asian American Writers’ Workshop in New York on May 18th. Check out the event page for that HERE. I don’t want to switch gears to talking about TCAF just yet (especially because a quick glance through their featured guest list is enough to make me cry…due to not being able to go this year…!) so let’s stay on the topic of “This Week with Koyama Press” for a bit longer. ————————————————————————————————— I’ve got another review of a new Koyama Press book! None other than Katie Skelly unpacks Cathy G. Johnson‘s Gorgeous on The Comics Journal. Skelly lets loose some snazzy writing, proving that she can scribble about other people’s comics just as well as she can draw her own. And she makes a good case for the need to get your hands on a copy of Gorgeous – “Gorgeous itself is a gorgeously drawn comic; Johnson’s strengths lie in lush atmospheres and the sprightliness of the character’s faces, which carry tons of gesture despite their simplicity. As the tendency for younger cartoonists to eschew ink for pencil-only work grows, Johnson stands out by demonstrating an otherwise unparalleled skill in expressive lighting and texture, especially in the smoky and anxious woods that surround her highways. Her generous panels also allow for some deft experimentation in expression of time; one particular sequence, the strongest and most effective in Gorgeous, holds a diner table in wide focus for six pages, recalling the stillness of films by Chantal Akerman while still communicating panic and frustration.“ You know you want to read it, but in case you need more incentive, check out the rest of the review HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Taking a slight turn here – let’s catch up with Alyssa Berg as she finishes her 3-part series for Comics Workbook – Sunday is a Good Day to Visit a Museum. Her continuing reflection on her visit to The Rubin Museum of Art inspired Alyssa to seek the input of a few other cartoonists. This week, in the series finale, she is joined by MariNaomi, Simon Hanselmann, Sophie Yanow and Vanesa R. Del Rey in answering the question, “What are the rituals, meditations, or devotions in your artistic process?” As you can probably guess from the lineup, the answers are wildly varied, thoughtful, and entertaining. Check out the whole piece HERE. And a big shout-out to Alyssa for writing such a rad series for Comics Workbook! ————————————————————————————————— Speaking of MariNaomi, as you hopefully noticed above, she will be reading with Rokudenashiko at the Asian American Writers’ Workshop in New York on May 18th. Again, check out the event page for that HERE. Over on Unicorn Booty recently, MariNaomi was the first guest on the new INQ Podcast. Apparently, “The goal with this show is to create a ‘comic-con in your ears’, and have guests on to do a deep dive into some aspect of the comics world. … In the podcast, we talk about the ins and outs of autobio comics: how to do it right, how to do it wrong, how to do it without pissing people off (or at least how to learn not to care quite so much if you do.)” Sounds pretty good to me – check out the podcast HERE. ————————————————————————————————— And speaking of Simon Hanselmann, he’s buzzing around with HTML Flowers these days, hyping Megg and Mogg in Amsterdam. Last seen being kicked out of Desert Island Comics in Brooklyn, NY…he’s most likely on his way to Toronto now to make some mischief at TCAF. And here we are again at the subject of TCAF – or the Toronto Comic Arts Festival – which starts tomorrow. I can’t even begin to unpack it, honestly, so you’ll just have to wait for the after-party pile of news and stories we’ll be sharing all next week! ————————————————————————————————— Instead, to wrap up this week and this post, here’s a great check-in with Daniel Clowes, via NPR. Read some highlights from the interview, or listen to the Fresh Air program online. Here’s one such highlight: On why his speech balloons sometimes drift off the page – “It’s one of those things that just sort of happens by necessity. I think I started with that Mr. Wonderful book, and the idea was that I wanted the book to be all inside his head. So you see his thoughts and they’re always in the foreground, and whatever anybody else is saying is covered up by those thoughts. It’s sort of the way that we normally are talking to each other where we’re thinking about, like, “I really gotta go,” and somebody is telling us something and we’re not focusing. I wanted to capture that.“ Find the rest HERE. Oh, and PS: GhostWorld is now streaming on Hulu. ————————————————————————————————— Catch ya next week! – Sally Share this page: [...]

11/08/2018

Comics WorkbookNovember 7, 2018NewsSam Ombiri on Men’s Group The Video by Ben Jones ————————————————————————————————— I find I am often longing for a great comic. This longing has the feeling of a hole with a specific shape that only allows a corresponding shape to fit in. I suppose there’s no sense in wondering why I want to read a good comic; I mean I don’t want to read a bad comic as far as I know, although I don’t mind reading a bad one. There’s a lingering dissatisfaction that often comes from reading good work, taking it for granted how good the work is, and then moving on to the next good work to take for granted. There’s something rather depressing about it. It seems to me that Ben Jones’ work is often consumed along in this manner. It’s apparent when I run into a knock off of Ben Jones’ or Paper Rad’s work that it’s being done by someone who totally missed the mysterious and vague point of Ben Jones’ work. Which to be fair seems mysterious even to him. In an interview in his book, Men’s Group The Video, Ben Jones says “I don’t get Gumby. You can’t say he’s well animated. I didn’t even watch Gumby all that much as a kid. I’m not trying to call back to some 1970s nostalgia. I’m not using characters for their pop iconographic value. I’m using them as language.” He later says “I’m trying to use Gumby for what Gumby was intended for…” to which he adds “I’m deadly serious about my characters. I don’t mean this as a joke: I feel like Shakespeare, and I’m using star-crossed lovers. I’m very much interested in my characters as much as Shakespeare was interesting in using cheesy things like lovers and kings to tell interesting stories.” Men’s Group The Video benefits by not being jam packed with a lot of comics. This allows the comics to be more closely examined by the preceding text casually asking questions about the comics. In the case of Gumby, Ben finds himself optimizing what Gumby’s presence in Ben Jones’ work represents or invokes or communicates. There’s an interview where Kevin Huizenga says “Ben Jones has always been really inspiring to me, I think it’s because- this sounds stupid- he is very creative. He just comes up with amazing things. His work is unified in a strange way, too. It’s hard to explain. The way he’ll just draw a comic about muppet babies as if it’s no big deal and they’ll be rapping or something. It’ll be really funny but beautiful and scary too.” Men’s Group The Video is packed with what appear to be, metaphorically speaking, a magnifying glass to what Ben Jones is doing with the comics language (as well as other mediums). He has created this mythology of this collective called Men’s Group The Video that in a certain sense exists. The idea or the impression of the existence of the collective is used as a language of sorts to communicate a certain feeling Ben Jones is trying to get at. It also allows him raise new questions in this mode of communicating. Some “members” of this collective write essays, some, like the painter Joe Bradley, write poetry. Some “members” like Dan Nadel interview Ben Jones. Reading these texts are important in relation to the comics, because while the comics are immensely strong on their own, the comics are even more so felt with a certain depth. They also give loads of clarity, and somehow create more mystery simultaneously to the comics and art Ben did in Men’s Group The Video and the work he did with Jessica and Jacob Ciocci in the past. Ben’s work often seems to be about solving the mystery of him drawing what he did at the time that he did it. Ordinarily with most other comics, it would seem goofy to question the drawings in this way. It seems fitting to ask the question despite the goofy nature of the question, but the ingrained nature of what he’s drawing is goofiness. Ben doesn’t have a big answer to this question he just keeps circling it with more art and comics that don’t cease to be compelling. ————————————————————————————————— Cement Mixer – 11-8-18 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

07/07/2017

Sally IngrahamJuly 7, 2017NewsSally here with news and comics from Emily Flake, Eleanor Davis, Becky Cloonan, Karen Green, Ulli Lust, and more! ———————————————————————————————— The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum has officially announced their acquisition of “113 pieces of original artwork by fifteen influential underground and alternative female cartoonists, donated by friend and longtime donor Scott Jonas.” “Included in this collection is work by Mary Fleener, Phoebe Gloeckner, Roberta Gregory, Dame Darcy, Nina Paley, Lynda Barry, Dori Seda, Shary Flenniken, Carol Lay, Leslie Sternbergh Alexander, Caryn Leschen, Nicole Hollander, Dot Bucher, Lee Binswanger, and Donna Barr. The collection consists of original drawings, cover art, multi-page stories, and comic strips, all created between 1975 and 2007. “We are very thankful to Scott Jonas, a comic collector with a great eye,” said curator Jenny Robb. “There is so much variety in this collection, but also a common theme. Each piece is an important contribution to the documentation of contemporary women creators in our collections, and in the context of alternative and underground comics.”“ Read more about the collection HERE! ———————————————————————————————— Jon Day reviews Eleanor Davis‘ You & a Bike & the Road (Koyama Press, 2017) for The New York Review of Books. The book is about Eleanor’s cross-country bike trip and is built from the diary comics she made along the way, “On a bike the road ceases to be an abstraction on the map but becomes a physical reality. There’s something inherently cinematic about the way you take in your surroundings on a bike, too, with sweeping pans, lingering close-ups, jump cuts as the lights change and you roll into gear. Perhaps one reason there are so few truly great films about cycling (Jørgen Leth’s documentary about the Paris-Roubaix one-day classic, A Sunday in Hell, and Sylvain Chomet’s animated The Triplets of Belleville being notable exceptions) is because the act of cycling—just sitting in the saddle and watching the world roll by—is itself more dynamic than any film can convey. … Comics lend themselves to representing how a cyclist sees: the flatness of the bird’s-eye-view map set in contrast to the scene-by-scene illustrations of Davis’s daily experience. We are pulled into Davis’s perspective, seeing from her position on the road as well as from a close third-person view as if slightly above.“ Read the rest of the review and see some excerpts from the comic HERE. For those readers who may not know, Becky Cloonan was the first woman to draw Batman in the main series, when she was a guest artist on an issue in 2012. Check out some of her pages and her thoughts on the project HERE. ———————————————————————————————— On The Comics Beat David Nieves reviews Becky Cloonan‘s upcoming collection By Chance or Providence (Image Comics, July 26th 2017). Containing three stories previously self-published by Becky, and with colors provided by Lee Loughridge, the collection startled and impressed the reviewer with it’s emotional intensity. “Getting back to what makes these tales unique. First, they aren’t for everyone. While they could certainly appeal to the crowd reading Gotham Academy, it’s not likely they’ll land with the audience reading Cloonan’s Punisher run. It speak’s to her ability as a well-rounded storyteller to be able to branch out and have created Shakespearean tales like these then move on to more traditional comics. The weight these characters carry is conveyed, not only through Cloonan’s sparse and effective use of dialogue but through the raw emotions the eyes everyone in these tales possesses. By Chance or Providence is your chance to read what goes on in the mind of a true metal loving storyteller like Becky Cloonan. Love stories that combine poignant comic style with rich dark Castlevaniaesque lore in a way that could only happen in these pages.“ Read the rest of the review HERE and look for this in stores later this month. ———————————————————————————————— Emily Flake has a comic strip in The New Yorker titled Things I’m Afraid My Daughter Will Be Doing in 2026. See one example above – for the rest, go HERE. ———————————————————————————————— Karen Green was on NPR’s “Meet the Expert” recently, talking about her two passions – ancient and medieval history, and comics. Karen Green is the Curator for Comics and Cartoons at Columbia University, and the Librarian for Ancient and Medieval History, so she certainly is an expert – check out the conversation HERE. You can read more about Karen’s “life in comics” by perusing Nick Sousanis’ 6 page story on her – HERE. ———————————————————————————————— Glynnis Fawkes details her daughter’s struggle with picking an outfit from a pile of clothes that may have once, maybe even last week, contained clothes we liked… – something we can all relate to – on Mutha Magazine HERE. ———————————————————————————————— Ulli Lust‘s most recent The Simple Stroll is pictured above. These strips appear in the English language German magazine EXBERLINER. Ulli collected the strip into a small riso booklet and brought copies to TCAF this year, so perhaps you will bump into a copy somewhere! Otherwise, keep up with the strip HERE. ———————————————————————————————— M. S. Harkness was visiting Pittsburgh this past week, here for a Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency. She checked out the Pittsburgh Comics Salon on Wednesday and got to meet some of the local zine and comics makers, and hung out with Audra Stang (a new member of the Pittsburgh scene!) and myself throughout her time in town. It’s great to have this kind of energy moving through the city, and the conversations that come out of meetings of minds like these are what keeps the form vibrant and evolving. Check out work by M. S. Harkness HERE and keep an eye out for her upcoming comic Tinderella. See what Audra Stang is up to HERE and follow her adventures in teach comics this summer via Instagram! ———————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 7-7-2017 – by Gabriella Tito ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 7-7-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

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

8 weeks! $500 bux! 10 spots available!

Rolling start date because of spring break – start as early as March 30th 2018.

Deadline to apply is April 12th.

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