Juan FernándezAugust 1, 2016NewsJuan here with your news for the day: Caleb Orecchio Rowhouse Report; Mickey Z straight outta 2012; Bill Boichel reviews Stroppy; Tillie Walden dailies; Tucker Stone on The Factual Opinion; SDCC 2016 panels; AIGA on Koyama Press, Breakdown and Retrofit; new Street Angel from Jim Rugg; New Private Rowhouse Auction – 7.31-8.6
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First up, we’ve a Rowhouse Residency report from Caleb Orecchio and Frank Santoro, live from the Rowhouse Residency in Pittsburgh, PA.
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Mickey Z – THROWBACK EDITION – 2012/2013
I’m happy to announce that we are featuring Mickey Z’s comics made for Comics Workbook in 2012 and 2013 on the site this week. There’s no one quite like Mickey Z: an inimitable, full force assault of joy and recklessness on graph paper. Jump in! The waters fine.
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Stroppy reviewed by Bill Boichel
Bill Boichel’s got a killer review of Marc Bell’s Stroppy on the site this week. Few people can write as insightful reviews as Bill, so it’s an honor to be able to share his writing with you here.
Stroppy channels the vigorous populist cartooning energy that can trace its roots back to the classic comics strips – especially the depression-era Popeye by E.C. Segar and Harold Grey’s Little Orphan Annie. This vital populism was an integral part of American life and lore, but with the advent of the war economy in the late-1930s, it was sublimated into the national war effort throughout the Second World War, and beyond.
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Tillie Walden Daily Comics
Tillie Walden is an introverted comics workhorse. a deft image maker and even more cunning sequencer of images. Very smart, very intuitive.
She’s been making posting comics like this every day over at her Patreon. If you’re interested in supporting her emerging talent give her Patreon a look and consider making a regular contribution to help her grow.
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Tucker Stone talks The Factual Opinion
Sean Witzke interviews Tucker Stone about the past 10 years of founding and running The Factual Opinion. Fellow TFO authors Nina Stone, Abhay Khosla, Matt Seneca, Michel Fiffe, Morgan Jeske, Joe McCulloch, Chris Mautner and Marty Brown all chime in with their memories of writing by Stone’s side on the site. Interesting perspectives on the difficulties of cultural writing that spotlights comics.
TS: The thing that makes a lot of comics arguments (especially the ones driven by the comics blogosphere) so fucking absurd was that it takes a solid 20 minutes to explain what drives them. You have to go so deep into the woods, explaining the subject matter, explaining why you dislike this one person and the website they write for, how that old irritation infects the current conversation you’re imagining having with them–it makes you sound crazy. The jump that I think I had to make–that I still have to make–is that is IS crazy. It’s fucking lunacy, completely, to act as if those little battles have any bearing on anything at all outside the bubble. Nobody outside this thing is ever going to comprehend what the hell you’re talking about if you try to explain why you don’t like the person who handles press releases about books they’ve never read at some website they’ve never heard of. I think that’s what makes it a little more fun and crazy (albeit very gross) right now, because you don’t actually have to read the comics anymore, you can just go after some assholes for the way they treat women. Nobody has to read DMZ anymore or The Massive or whatever bullshit, you can just all band together under the umbrella of thinking that it’s fucked up to get handsy with some lady at a bar under the pretense that you’ll get her an inking gig somewhere. I think that’s great! Nothing in comics was ever going to change for the better when you kept demanding people read these dopey things that come out infrequently, look like shit, cost too much, aren’t as entertaining as the most bottom rung television show, etc. We got rid of that barricade. Hell yes, I say!
The wider cultural context thing that always got me was the way digital comics was gonna save something–that idea that you could put these things in a device capable of showing off the top tiers of media. What kind of lunatic is going to choose the New 52 version of Booster Gold over watching million dollar movie trailers?
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Sarah Ferrick’s Sec on Rookie Mag
Rachel Davies shares her thoughts on Sarah Ferrick’s latest publication, Sec over at Rookie. As someone who really enjoyed this 2dcloud release from the winter, I highly encourage you to check out this review. If you’re interested in a comic that sets the bar for emotionally driven, visceral yet abstracted, sexual comics making, Sec is where it’s at.
Sec somehow finds a way to flawlessly illustrate those moments when, laying in bed, I attempt to recreate one of my wildest dreams: I have all the words for it, know the specifics of the fantasy, yet I’m unsure of the visuals.
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SDCC 2016 Panels now online
You can now tune into the many quality panels that were held at SDCC (July 20-24 2016) from the comfort of your home thanks to Jamie Coville.
Here are some noteworthy listens to start you off right:
We Need Diverse Comics
The Complete Wimmen’s Comix: A Her-story
Celebrating 40 years of Fantagraphics
Daniel Clowes Spotlight
Comics Arts Conference #11: Trina Robbins Spotlight
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AIGA on Koyama Press, Breakdown and Retrofit
There’s a nice pice on AIGA’s Eye on Design blog that touches upon the heavy hitters of independent comics publishing that have been pushing the frontiers of the comics market. They talk about what separates small presses from their larger counterparts, the crossover appeal of small presses, broad mainstream misunderstanding of independent comics making and their motivating love of the medium.
Kessler blames the mainstream media for the public’s misunderstanding. “Scott McCloud’s The Sculptor gets loads of coverage,” he says. “It’s terrible, that book. But The Guardian riffed on it quite a lot, and so did a lot of other papers. I spoke to a lot of people who picked it up because they wanted to get into comics and they just thought it was total shit. My grandma, who’s very literate and culturally engaged, wanted to get into comics, and instead of asking me what comics to read, picked up what The Guardian recommended, and was just so confused. She said she felt like a fool reading it. I just had to tell her that I agreed, it was shit, and I sent her some comics that I thought were good instead.”
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New Private Rowhouse Auction – 7.31-8.6
Last but not least, we have a new private auction up at auction.comicsworkbook.com! Lots of old and new comics for you to take home. Lots of you have been writing in and saying you want cheaper stuff to bid on. So we’re going to do this different this week. Email Frank Santoro at santoroschoolATgmail for a password, if you don’t already have one. If you already have a password, it is the same from last week. All funds go to helping keep the lights on and further developing the school.
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until next time!
jf
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