Comics Workbook

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Posted in NewsTagged aline lemos, Anna Mancini, Annie Mok, Big Kids, Brazilian cartoonists, documentary film, Gilbert Hernandez, Inkstuds, Michael DeForge, mini kus, Oliver East, Robin McConnell, Take Me Back to Manchester, The Comics Journal

Sally Ingraham

Posted on March 18, 2016March 21, 2016

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06/21/2016

Aaron CockleJune 20, 2016NewsAaron Cockle with GG Comics; Aidan Koch Exhibiting; ELCAF Capsule Reviews; Susan Te Kahurangi King; Jason Shiga; Ink Brick 5; Hopper Process ————————————————————————————————— Unattainable by GG CW’s featured comic for this week, from 2015. All of GG’s comics can be read for free on her website (completed stories) and on her tumblr (in progress stories). ————————————————————————————————— The person you are trying to reach is not available Work by Aidan Koch & Ieva Kraule, at Hester Gallery in NYC, continues through July 3, 2016. ————————————————————————————————— Some quick reviews of comics purchased at the recent East London Comic Arts Festival Healy’s storytelling is superb. The book begins with a double page from each story, context free, before we travel back to the beginning of each. Gradually, connections emerge and the beautiful colouring does nothing to stem the slowly dawning horror as the conditions worsen. As the members of the 1921 expedition find themselves stuck on a deserted island, with crossing hundreds of miles of sea ice the only hope of escape, the discovery of bear skulls and the threat of scurvy reveal just how indifferent the friendly arctic is to humans. There are numerous brilliantly understated details throughout, and the fact that we know Blackjack has a sick child at home makes her plight all the more awful. This is a book with a strongly compelling narrative – the expertly timed switches between the three stories encourage you to keep going – and I found myself reading the book in a single evening. The artwork is terrific, with really effective use of colour, and although the influence of Chris Ware can be seen in the characters it’s certainly not to the extent where it becomes derivative. Healy is a very talented storyteller and artist, and this is a strong release. — via Pete Redrup ————————————————————————————————— THERE IS NO CENTER: Dan Nadel on Susan Te Kahurangi King at Edlin Gallery At first glance King’s drawings are unlikely candidates for the amount of press they’ve received, let alone a full-blown museum exhibition—we’re talking about small, cartoon-based pictures, all made using the same pencil-and-crayon techniques and often in scrappy condition. But compositionally, King’s pictures permit various points of entry, providing the viewer a license to interpret freely. We may recognize cartoon characters and humanoids, but the odd secret of icons like Woody Woodpecker, Bugs Bunny, and Daffy Duck is that, embedded as they are in our cultural memory, they read however we want them to—invested with historical meaning or as hollow masks, purely formal agglomerations of shapes. — via Dan Nadel ————————————————————————————————— Jason Shiga Interviewed at TCJ Why did you choose Risograph printing for this series? What is your process like? I bought a Risograph printer because I wanted to do a two-color comic and it’s the cheapest option. I do also like the way it looks. It has that really warm, organic feel to it. And when the registration is just a little off, it looks really sweet. I do my penciling with ballpoint pens. If I make a small mistake I’ll just write an “x” through the line and draw another one. There’s no need to erase it since it doesn’t show up in the finished art anyways. I draw my pencils on letter size paper, I blow them up to ledger size on a photocopier, and then I lightbox those and ink them with a brush and a pen. That’s pretty much it. For lettering I print out the letters in Photoshop so I can adjust all the kerning and get that right, and then I just trace over that with a Micron. Then, I do my coloring in Photoshop and call it a day. Something that’s always attracted me about comics is that you can buy all the raw materials you need to get started for five bucks. There’s no reason you cannot be a cartoonist! — Interview with Jason Shiga conducted by Jeanette Roan ————————————————————————————————— Ink Brick Issue 5 INK BRICK is a journal dedicated to comics poetry. This issue features work by 29 creators using the visual language of comics to make poetry. There’s also a special section featuring an excerpt from a forthcoming collection of Jenny Zervakis’s mini comics work, to be published by Spit and a Half and the Sequential Artists Workshop. Featuring original work by: Louise Aleksiejew, Kurt Ankeny, Nicky Arscott, Colleen Louise Barry, Aaron Cockle, Letisia Cruz, Allie Doersch, Shawn Eisenach, Winnie T. Frick, Mike Getsiv, Dina Hardy, CB Hart, Jason Hart, Aurélien Leif, Courtney Loberg, Maxine Marie, Antoine Medes, Laurence Musgrove, Myra Musgrove, A. Noreña, Thilini Perera, Ellis Rosen, Sam Ross, Alexander Rothman, Samplerman, Alexey Sokolin, Deshan Tennekoon, Paul K. Tunis, Jenny Zervakis. Front and back cover illustrations by Samplerman. Submissions for INK BRICK no. 6 are due Sunday, September 4, 2016. ————————————————————————————————— How Edward Hopper Storyboarded ‘Nighthawks’ These drawings are among 19 studies for Nighthawks, brought together for the first time, in a revelatory show now at the Whitney. “Hopper Drawing” deploys 200 Hopper drawings—part of a trove of 2,500 bequeathed by the artist’s widow, Josephine—to showcase the role of drawing throughout his career, from his life drawing classes at the New York School of Art in the early 1900s, to his travels in Europe and Paris from 1906 to 1910, to the studies he made at the Whitney Studio Club and beyond. (After closing at the Whitney on October 6, the show will travel to the Dallas Museum of Art and the Walker Art Center.) — via Robin Cembalest at Art News ————————————————————————————————— Share this page: [...]

02/06/2018

Aaron CockleFebruary 6, 2018NewsAaron here today with FUNHOUSE; 3 Comics from E.A. Bethea; Jog on Ditko; Necromancers of the Public Domain; Austin English; Fukushima Devil Fish ————————————————————————————————— FUNHOUSE An Interactive Book Fair by Desert Island at The Drawing Center On the weekend of March 24 – 25, Desert Island and The Drawing Center will present FUNHOUSE, a new, interactive book fair at which guests can make their own books in collaboration with resident cartoonists and illustration artists. FUNHOUSE Book Fair March 24–25, 2018 11am–5pm Tickets $10 via Eventbrite here. FUNHOUSE guests will interact with resident artists to create unique pages for one-of-a-kind books to be assembled at the fair. The resident artists will also have their own publications available for purchase at General Store within the FUNHOUSE fair, with games of chance, author signings, special activities, and giveaways of artists’ books. A SIDESHOW of talks, lectures, and presentations will be organized by FORGE. art magazine’s Matthew James-Wilson. Additional spectacles, like life-size interactive cut-outs and funhouse mirrors will provide wacky fun and photo-ops galore! FUNHOUSE artists include: Gabrielle Bell, Lilli Carré, Rob Corradetti, Joanna Fields, Laura Perez-Harris, Abby Jame, Jeff Ladouceur, Sarah Lammer, Gary Lieb, Richard McGuire, Ben Passmore, Oskars Pavlovskis, Monica Ramos, Jim Schuessler, R. Sikoryak, Whit Taylor, Matthew Thurber, Thu Tran, Mark Wang, Kriota Wilberg, Kelsey Wroten, Gina Wynbrandt, and JooHee Yoon. FUNHOUSE is organized by Gabe Fowler of Desert Island and Molly Gross of The Drawing Center. SIDESHOW Talk Series Saturday, March 24 and Sunday, March 25 at 11:30am, 1:30pm, and 3:30pm Programing TBD. Sideshow will be programmed by Matthew James-Wilson of FORGE. art magazine kuš! Magazine Comic Zine Workshops Saturday, March 24 and Sunday, March 25, 12:30–4:30pm Tickets $40 via Eventbrite here. kuš! comic zine workshop, lead by artist Oskars Pavlovskis from Riga, Latvia, will be a collaborative comic drawing experience suited for participants of any age and skill level. The workshop will focus on the creation of short experimental comic stories based around the FUNHOUSE theme. Together the participants will take part in creating a unique self-published comic zine, which will be printed and assembled during the workshop and each participant will receive a copy. ————————————————————————————————— The Olcott Hotel/Jamaica Bay/Tonight We Try Every Position At Bomb Magazine, Three Comics from E.A. Bethea ————————————————————————————————— The 206th meeting of the NY Comics & Picture-story Symposium will be held on Tuesday, Feb. 6, 2018 at 7pm at Parsons School of Design, 2 West 13th Street, in the Bark Room (off the lobby). Free and open to the public. Joe McCulloch on Total Language: Steve Ditko at 90 Ask a person today who created Spider-Man, and they’ll probably tell you Marvel Comics, that inescapable entertainment brand. Some of them might say Stan Lee, the man whose profile is highest in mass media. Others, perhaps fewer, will know about Steve Ditko (b. 1927), a cartoonist of an unusual trajectory: his vision and craft gave concrete form to commercial characters still adored across the globe, half a century later, but his passion would soon pour into deeply personal, experimental, and furiously divisive works, comics emboldened by the freedoms of artist ownership, yet antagonistic toward the compromised values of society. Few agreed with the ideology espoused by these comics, but Ditko kept working, undeterred – through the rise and fall of the underground era, through the transition from newsstand racks to comic book stores, through the graphic novel boom and the advent of crowdfunding. He is still working now, here in New York City. Since 2007, Steve Ditko has published more than 800 pages of new comic book art, and they are among his most fascinating: comics where text and image work in a simultaneity of intent, a total language that invests the tautness of line and the hatching of shadow with thematic roles in the story, where the function of the black and white page is a statement of the artist’s worldview, by which there is only good and evil, and where the individual must ascertain the objective nature of the world, lest they reject their own lives. Come and see for yourself. Joe McCulloch has been writing and speaking about comics for 14 years, sometimes to audiences other than his bathroom mirror. ————————————————————————————————— Necromancers of the Public Domain “There are certain beings who bear the stamp of the divine seal and are preordained to receive the higest favours within the gift of glory; they are fated to pass through life like those brilliant meteors which are seen to flash across the heavens and disappear in the same instant. Bastien-Lepage was one of those meteors.” Each month, we pluck a long forgotten volume from the shelves of the New York Society Library and resurrect it as a low budget variety show. This month Masterpieces in Colour: Bastien Lepage by Fr. Crastre February 8, 2017, 8pm, at The Tank, NYC Featuring: Nick Balaban (Pianist extraordinaire) Raquel Cion ( Me & Mr. Jones: My Intimate Relationship with David Bowie) Katie Fricas (The Guardian / Fashionique) Greg Kotis (“Urinetown: The Musical”) Susan Hwang (The Bushwick Book Club / Lusterlit) Charlie Nieland (Lusterlit) Reverend Jen Miller (Reverend Jen’s Anti-Slam) Jason Wachtelhausen (Monologist extraordinaire) Hosted by Ayun Halliday (No Touch Monkey! / Queen of the Apes) Bring a blank shirt, pillowcase, or bag for LIVE STENCIL FUN. Make your own free Necromancers souvenir! Read Masterpieces in Colour: Bastien-Lepage for free online Thursday, February 8, 8pm / 312 West 36th Street / First Floor / New York, NY 10018 ————————————————————————————————— Where I’m Coming From (Part 1) At The Comics Journal, Austin English continues a strong run of posts. Mini-comics, even the “classic” ones, often disappear. Some of the most beautiful ones are never reprinted. Many artists choose not to have their earliest work collected, seeing the flaws ever so clearly, while the reader from the past holds the work close to the heart, aware of all the undeniable beautiful moments it also so obviously contains. Those private moments have shaped so many readers who went on to make mini-comics (or regular comics) of their own. The works disappear, remaining only in the hearts and minds of a happy few, but their essence (whether aesthetic, political, formal, etc.) live on as new shapes in new works of art. ————————————————————————————————— Fukushima Devil Fish Launch Event: The Art of Gekiga with Ryan Holmberg ————————————————————————————————— Vision Box – 2-6-2018 – by Cameron Arthur ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 2-6-2018 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

10/12/2018

Sally IngrahamOctober 11, 2018NewsSally Ingraham here with a look at Rina Ayuyang’s “Blame This on the Boogie”- plus other news of note! ————————————————————————————————— In Rina Ayuyang‘s new memoir – Blame This on the Boogie (Drawn + Quarterly Nov. 2018) – bright colors and glamorous dance moves leap off of the page. They’re a sort of dazzle camouflage, nearly disguising a difficult childhood and a bumpy transition into motherhood – and that’s the point. That’s what “the Boogie” did for Rina. Her love for music in its many forms helped her cope with the realities of growing up in Pittsburgh, PA, in the 80’s – as the youngest member of a Filipino American family. Silver screen musical numbers saved her, and continued to bring her balance and comfort as she grew into an adult and became a mother. The story is a series of memories, pinned to the musical clothesline that ties everything together. Ordinary moments in life take on beautiful new proportions when they become mixed up with movie sequences. Is Rina dancing with a sibling or her husband or Fred Astaire? There’s something about the chaos and colors of the pages that compels you along, and I found myself exploring spreads in every direction. It is more of an experience that you dive into than a book you read – and you might feel your toes start tapping and get the urge to leap up and boogie along. The loose line work is joyful, even when Rina is describing postpartum depression or being ridiculed by classmates. And it is fascinating to me that while music has provided Rina with a means to escape or survive the rockiness of life, it is through comics that she processes those experiences. Hollywood musicals and TV shows like Dancing With the Stars can provide a “therapeutic distraction”, as the D+Q blurb puts it. In the end though it is comics that get Rina to the core of the matter. The rush and purge of these stories – the actual book in your hands – is her big theatrical number. Dive into this song and dance in November when the book officially debuts – or pick up an advance copy through Copacetic Comics HERE. Rina Ayuyang will be appearing at Short Run Comix and Arts Festival in Seattle on Nov. 3rd, along with Mimi Pond and Anna Haifisch. She will be releasing the comic in her hometown of Berkeley, CA, on Nov. 8th at Pegasus Books. ————————————————————————————————— Other News of Note The 3rd ComiqueCon is taking place this weekend in Detroit at the Arab American National Museum. The Detroit Free Press has a feature on it – check it out! Tegan O’Neil reviews Liana Finck‘s new comic Passing For Human – on The Comics Journal. The Comics Beat chats with the creative team behind Devil’s Dye, the latest 4-issue mini series in the Black Mask Studios’ Black AF world – read the interview HERE. The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum has announced an upcoming 2019 show featuring the work of Barbara Shermund. Read more about the show, titled “Tell Me A Story Where the Bad Girl Wins”, HERE. Share this page: [...]

Caleb Orecchio @ CXC 2016

Caleb OrecchioOctober 23, 2016Festivals and ShowsTHURSDAY After pulling an all nighter Wednesday, printing my comic Thursday, and weaving through and from Dayton to Columbus, Ohio, I arrived just in time to meet Sally Ingraham and Kurt Ankeny at Cartoon Crossroads Columbus for the seven o’clock John Canemaker program on Windsor McCay’s Little Nemo. You had to see it to believe it folks. We watched McCay’s first two films and participated in the third, Gerdie the Dinosaur. Canemaker played the role of McCay as McCay would have exhibited Gerdie during his vaudeville act. I won’t even try to describe it. You had to be there. During this dramatic occasion, Lucy Caswell sat directly in front of me. The goddess and founder of what has become the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum. A year or two ago, Jeff Smith was giving a talk, a celebration of Will Eisner, at the Billy Ireland. Lucy sat in front of me then too. Then, as now during Canemaker’s Little Nemo presentation, Caswell acted as she would have in a Southern Baptist church. When the speaker made a particularly poignant remark, she said to herself and God, “That’s right.” When she saw her favorite images, she put her hand to her heart and whispered, “Amazing.” After all these years, comics and cartooning continues to astonish her. In a way, we really owe CXC to Lucy Caswell. Thank you. I’m an Ohio native. My grandparents grew up in Columbus. All of my grandpa’s stories of getting into fights and general mayhem take place on High Street and Goodale Avenue. I grew up in Marysville which is thirty minutes NW of Columbus. I live in Dayton now, but it didn’t make this festival feel any less like a homecoming. Oh aych! Aye oh! MARDOU First thing on Friday, Juan Fernandez, Sally Ingraham, Emil Friis Ernst, and myself headed to Mardou’s comics narrative presentation. Sacha is fantastic. She read from some of her recent work which had the whole room hanging on her every word and image. The fact that she read every line of dialogue added to the charm of the hour we spent in her world. During the exhibition portion of the festival, Sacha Mardou tabled with Comics Workbook. Her table, and the table I was manning were only a pillar apart. When I had a moment to breath, I’d look over to see if she was free to sell me her book, Sky in Stereo. Both days, she sold out. Don’t sleep on this cartoonist, she is a force to be reckon with! CAITLIN MCGURK AND THE BILLY IRELAND I could have wept seeing all the art at the Billy Ireland, just like every time I go there. Caitlin McGurk took us on a fantastic tour through the collection, moving through doors that would call the cops if you shut them too slow. Seth and Ben Katchor were among my fellow tourists. Seth, cane and hat and all, walked out of Dominion and to my left, gracefully listening to McGurk reveal the secrets and show off the bowels of the world’s biggest cartoon collection archive. Katchor and I drooled all over an original Krazy Kat Sunday. The center of the piece was a tree Krazy was sitting under. Herriman had scratched away the ink on top of the plant for texture. I almost broke down sobbing. Caitlyn McGurk was an excellent guide. Her knowledge was second to none, her enthusiasm was infectious. She loves her job and you can tell. She knows everything. She pulled out some original Canffs and let us all die there on the spot and come back to life enlightened by the whole process. Did you know Caniff would draw his Sundays, then rearrange the panels for different periodical orientations? Modularity. Caniff grew up in Dayton. It seems he and I are doing our careers in reverse. THE STATE OF THE INDUSTRY “OFF THE RECORD” A panel moderated by thee incomparable Tom Spurgeon and featuring Keith Knight, Brendan Burford, Shena Wolf, Chip Mosher, and Rich Tommaso, was excellent. Three “gatekeepers” (evidently a controversial designation) and two cartoonists. The talk provided perspective into how to make comics a career, something that should be discussed more often. Spurgeon was an excellent moderator and asked the tough questions. Brendan Burford, General Manager of King Features Syndicate, stood out to me. Forward thinking, intelligent, and passionate about comics. He talked about trying to develop comic strips that are worthy of our medium’s history and, looking forward, how cartoonists can be secret weapons in other industries, like Virtual Reality. He sees the cartoonists as a bridge, an essential and unique group of people with skills that can elevate other media. I talked to him a bit after the panel was over. He’s charming, social, and quick-witted. He has an extensive knowledge of the history of comics. I showed him my latest comic. As we were talking, his longtime buddy Nate Powell came over to say Hi. Fresh off March 3, Powell was energetic and kind. I went to leave, to let them catch up, but Brendan told me to stay. It was great listening to these old friends talk and laugh and catch up. The day was joyously interrupted; thee unstoppable Carol Tyler and thee prolific Sergio Aragones shared the honor of Masters of the Medium awards, presented by Tom Spurgeon and Jeff Smith. Spurgeon and Tyler got a bit weepy, and in response, so did others. Sergio and Smith cracked jokes which was, for me, like seeing Chaplin and Keaton high-five. Mr. Burford flagged down Sally, Juan, Emil, and I at the after party Katie Skelly hosted. It was soon after midnight, and my brain was slowing to a halt. Brendan, however, had more energy than ever. His vision of the future of comics and cartoonists is an optimistic one. “Cartoonists are secret weapons!” he kept saying like a prophet. I was trying to keep up with him among the loud music as he floated off the floor; luckily Juan and Sally picked up my slack and hung with Brendan’s wild ideas. This guy is the guy to talk to people! SATURDAY COmics! Gitcha COmics heah! Gitcha COmics! The first day of exhibiting at the Columbus Metro Library Downtown branch – I manned the Comics Workbook table along with Sally, Juan, and Emil. We were surrounded by our CW comrades – Kurt Ankeny, Whit Taylor, Alyssa Berg, and the aforementioned Mardou. This was my first time tabling, but Sally and Juan trusted me while they were off helping, recording, and running CW workshops. I should mention we sold out of Simon Hanselmann’s Truth Zone almost immediately. Some people would pass by and say I’ll be back later to get this. I just smiled and waved as Hanselmann’s fans came out of the shadows with their pizza stained t-shirts and Redbull in hand, handed over all their rent money to get this rare gem. A presence many attendees and would-be-buyers noticed was missing was our fearless leader, Frank Santoro. People recognized his longboxes (the only ones at the show to my knowledge) and his amazing books. If I had played a drinking game where, whenever I heard “Is Frank here?” I had to take a shot…I’d be dead. Which is fine. It just showed me what an influence he has on people. People who only met him last year and bought a handful of bad 80’s black and white comics, missed him. I hope we did him justice as comic sellers. EMIL FRIIS ERNST is the current resident of the Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency, all the way from Denmark. A living breathing Macbeth, we had skipped the Trudeau talk the night before and walked down High Street to find cigarettes for me. Emil is not only an excellent young cartoonist, but an all-around nice guy. We bonded over being early-twenty-something introverts, weary form brushing shoulders with giants all day. He was very nice to answer all my dumb-American questions about his mystical, foreign land of Vikings and wonder. We laughed, to my amazement, to shared senses of humor. He even bought me a beer! xoxo Emil! ERIC REYNOLDS Once I heard the new Love and Rockets was being sold at the Fantagraphics table, I ran over and picked up my copy before it sold out. Eric Reynolds was running the joint and I introduced myself. I thanked him for the editorial input he had on the SPX Celebrates Fantagraphics 40th Anniversary book I designed. He was very friendly and approachable. RYAN SANDS and I chatted briefly about our mutual internet acquaintance, Cameron Arthur, a teenage up-and-comer cartoonist from Texas. We talked Mickey Z too. He sees her as a great American cartoonist that should be celebrated as such. I agree. He told me a secret about Mickey Z’s next book Rav Collection 2, but it’s a secret so I can’t say. Don’t sleep on Mickey Zacchilli or Youth in Decline! ROBIN MCCONNELL of Inkstuds fame visited the CW table and bought GG’s A Mysterious Process. Juan had him check out Emil’s book All In A Day’s Work as well. Robin noted, “I can tell that he’s part of the cult.” CHARLES BURNS Maybe you’ve heard of him? Mr. Burns stopped by to pick up some DC romance comics. Juan and I chatted with him briefly and I asked him which was weirder, DC romance comics or Charlton romance comics? Charlton of course. BEN KATCHOR AND KEVIN CZAP Mr. Katchor looked through every single CW-made comic at the table thoroughly, which was exciting to see. As we started to make small talk, Tom Spurgeon announced that Kevin Czap was receiving the Emerging Talent award with $7,500 from Jeff Smith and Vijaya Iyer. By the end of Czap’s humble and gracious speech, Mr. Katchor had been intercepted. Next I saw him he was at Nate McDonough’s table. NATE MCDONOUGH What a guy. I was delighted to be right next to Nate’s table. A Pittsburgher who has ties to my Dayton, OH. So nice and so prolific. I swear he knew 50% of the attendees that passed by his table. Lot’s of hugging and catching up at Nate’s place. I bought his latest graphic novel, Naptime – a comic that has a cover I watched Nate draw on a floppy red folder, on his lap, when there was at least forty-feet of open table in front him. This was only a couple months prior to CXC. BEN SEARS had a residency at the CW Rowhouse a couple weeks after me this past summer, and was drawing in the next room when Frank and I had an iChat meeting about some graphic design I was doing for him. I introduced myself and we traded notes on the Residency. I bought his book Night Air and he drew in it. Nice guy, that guy. JOE MCCULLOCH picked up a copy of Matt Seneca’s 200 Deaf Boys that CW was selling and smiled. Before he spoke, I had no idea this was Jog the Blog himself. “Have you read that comic?” I asked him (and everyone else who glanced at it because it’s my favorite comic right now.) He replied, “Yeah, I’m a friend of Matt’s.” His voice and cadence were unmistakable. I told him how much I LOVE the McCloud/Sculptor take-down episode of Comic Books Are Burning in Hell. He laughed and said something like, “Some days I think that was one of my shining achievements, and other days I think I will carry it with me forever like the chains of Jacob Marley.” (note: the latest episode of Comic Books Are Burning in Hell is all about Joe and Chris’ CXC adventures – listen HERE!) CHRIS ANTHONY DIAZ The man behind the excellent photos. Juan introduced us. Chris is great. He’s a collector with great taste and a self-disciplined photographer. He showed me some photos of Noah Van Sciver, mustache and all, for possible future author photos. He regaled me with some fantastic Alvin Bueneventura stories. He talked about how he and Alvin were once making bookplates for a Charles Burns book in a hotel room. Chris is kind and engaging. I drove he and I out to Mr. Burns’ presentation at CCAD and I had the good fortune to sit next to Chris and watch him in action; removing his glasses after each photo to check the lighting that didn’t seem to cooperate in the dark auditorium. Unfortunately I had to abandon Chris at CCAD for I had taken ill. My all-nighter was catching up with me and I wasn’t feeling so hot. Chris was understanding and said he could find a ride back. The next day I apologized to him and explained my workaholic situation. He was nice about it. I gave him my comics and he took my photo. Chris is such a great guy and I hope to meet up with him again in the future. AT THE MOTEL…after abandoning Chris at CCAD and getting the key from my roommates, I turned on the Buckeye game and laid down. We were getting man-handled by Wisconsin and I fell asleep in the third quarter I think. Falling into a deep, restorative slumber was unfortunate because I had the only key! Luckily, I awoke to find all my roomies sleeping angelically. They made it in somehow, and the Buckeyes ended up winning in overtime. Go Bucks! SUNDAY AS THE DEER PANTETH FOOOOR… Last day of the festival and the last day to sell things. Sally had already sold out of one of her books. Juan, Emil, and I were fighting for second. Some stoners had a eulogy for the soldout Truth Zones. Lot’s of chatting and laughing and a grand time was had by all. I almost forgot to mention the CXC volunteers! They were amazing! I wish I would have got their names. These nameless angels tirelessly made the expo a more comfortable place. If I needed water, they sensed it and came flying over bringing me more water bottles than I asked for. When you’re talking all day, taking periodic smoke breaks, and feeling a bit under the weather, these people are knights in shining armour. They also helped us find carts to carry the egregious amount of supplies we brought for workshops to our cars in one trip. Thank you CXC volunteers! SALLY INGRAHAM AND JUAN FERNANDEZ Thee Comics Workbook co-pilots never sat down until they laid down to sleep. These two are the beating heart of CW and without them, Frank would be convulsing on the Rowhouse floor, muttering about 9-panel grids and the Golden Section. They work day and night to bring the comics gospel to the world in not one, but TWO languages. I am honored to have shared the weekend with them. KURT ANKENY It was great to finally meet Kurt. I bought his new comic, Dark Desert Dawn. All the drawing in this one is “first-take”, though you wouldn’t know it because it’s drawn so well. I hate him for that. 🙂 Look for his fresh-off-the-press graphic novel, In Pieces: Someplace Which I Call Home. It’s an achievement to be proud of, Kurt. WHIT TAYLOR During the craziness of the festival, nobody bothered to introduce us (SORRY CALEB AND WHIT!! xo – Sally), so I introduced myself to Whit on the last day. I knew her comics and writing on comics already so it was nice to finally meet her. A veteran at this point, she brought up a lot of good points about comic festivals and what we can do better as a community. ALYSSA BERG painted her way into my heart when she came out with Alpenglow, the 2015 Comics Workbook Composition Competition best in show. I was jealous when I first read it, but her fantastic use of color and the way she moves the reader through space were undeniable. Alyssa was the heart of the personality for the CW crew I think. Whip smart and funny as hell. THE END By the end of the show, the entire mystique of being around my heroes like Jeff Smith and Sergio Aragones had evaporated. I felt like I wasn’t some young buck – I felt like I belonged there. Finally, from out of the clouds and floor above, Jeff Smith announced, “CXC is over!” We all scrambled to leave so as to avoid being pepper sprayed by the library security guards. As we were leaving Carol Tyler waved and spoke to the entire room of exhibitors shouting, “Thank YOU CXC! I LOVE YOU!” The CW crew left the CXC expo floor, gratefully thanking a weary Tom Spurgeon for such an amazing four-day weekend. Thanks again Tom! Time to eat and recharge. Juan and Emil (our two bilingual crew members) left for Pittsburgh and Sacha caught a plane to St. Louis. The remaining CW crew was: Alyssa, Whit, Kurt, Sally and myself. The former three had free drink stubs for the bar at their hotel so we went back there to cash in. Kurt shared with Sally and I because he doesn’t drink. We talked, gossiped, whooped and hollered. Then the old people kicked us out and we made our way to High Street for food. We walked for what seemed like days, trying to make a nutritious decision. This was fine. We chatted, cackled, tooted and scooted our way through the streets, stopped an unwieldy child from being crushed in traffic, shared back stories, made fun of goofy store windows, and finally found a restaurant to eat at. After we ate, we parted ways. They to the last after party of CXC, and me to Dayton in hopes that I could manage a decent amount of sleep so I could make it to work on time. Which I didn’t. But that’s okay. CXC was a blast. I look forward to seeing all my new pals again. I see why cartoonists are such a tight-knit group. You see each other maybe once or twice a year and only for a few fleeting, busy days. I’m nostalgic already. See you all again soon. ———————————————————————- Thanks to Lucy Caswell, Jeff Smith, Tom Spurgeon, Caitlin McGurk, the Billy Ireland Museum, CCAD, The Columbus Museum of Art, Sol-Con, Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus Metropolitan Library, the CXC volunteers and everyone who made CXC possible. And a special thanks to Frank Santoro, founder, fearless leader, and Jedi master of Comics Workbook. Without whom, the life I live now in cartooning and in general, would not exist. Thank you thank you thank you. –CO Caleb Orecchio makes comics in Dayton, OH. You can find more of his work HERE. For the rest of our complete CXC coverage check out the special “round up” report HERE. Share this page: [...]

08/11/2016

HarrisonAugust 11, 2016NewsComics and arts news, here is that news. ————————————————————————————————— Stay Drawing MOK: There are many side and ¾ back views of you, but as usual, there aren’t really any direct views of your face. Like the withholding in the text, what does it mean to you to sort of withhold your gaze from the viewer? ODOMO: I didn’t want to draw my face a million times. And everyone is like “god, cartoonists are just so in love with their own faces and love the sound of their own voice”. Well so what? Fuck you. I’m still drawing myself and making it about ME, but like trying to keep it visually interesting and not too same-y. Backs of heads are like… allowing a little bit of intimacy between me and the reader / viewer but like… stopping them before they get too close. I’m setting the boundaries. For me, the back of the head view is like… there’s a person standing there and you want to reach out to them, but you can’t. The withholding thing… that’s fun too, haha. That’s more in my writing than my drawings. I love scratching something out and making it so no one will ever be able to read it. I started using paint, too, so there’s like sometimes an entire pages that I end up covering up and wiping out. It’s my book, I can withhold what I want. I can have blank pages if I want. I like the way it looks. Annie Mok and Mare Odomo over at TCJ. ————————————————————————————————— Still Drawing More Annie Mok, with Natalie Andrewson for Hazlitt. ————————————————————————————————— https://comicsworkbook.tumblr.com/post/148762935662/comicsworkbook-pale-sick-and-magic-414 ————————————————————————————————— https://mitografia.tumblr.com/post/148756254036/223-of-366 Kenneth Rocafort ————————————————————————————————— KING OF THE FLIP Share this page: [...]

03/18/2016

Posted on March 18, 2016March 21, 2016 by Sally Ingraham

It was a week for brilliant interviews, with Annie Mok talking to Michael DeForge, and the Inkstuds radio show with Gilbert Hernandez. Exciting new books came out this week, and we came across an important list of female Brazilian cartoonists that you’re going to want to investigate. Here we go!

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tumblr_o46u90YekU1rwdxzqo1_500 — Michael DeForge, image via Koyama Press

Let’s dive right into the interview with Michael, which came to us via The Comics Journal. Annie Mok and Michael DeForge begin by talking a bit about his new book, Big Kids, which came out February 23rd 2016 from Drawn + Quarterly.

“DEFORGE: I’d sort of been circling adolescence for awhile in my stories, and I guess this is the one where I’m writing about it most directly, and the allegory is like [laughs] very clear… It’s a time when people are most aware of the edges of the world. Not maybe able to see them yet, but aware they’re there. For me, things stop seeming limitless—which is maybe not how—I know you’re supposed to feel invincible and boundless as a teenager, but for me, that’s when I was aware of limits everywhere. But not really sure what all of them looked like, or the shape of all of it, or how to best escape them. That to me was what Big Kids was about, seeing a little bit more of the edges of things. And sometimes what seems like a radical shift in perception ends up not being very [radical] in the end.”

BIGKIDSinterior_14-650x815 — Big Kids, Michael DeForge

From there, Annie leads the conversation to touch on memory, the artistic community a cartoonist builds for themselves or stumble into, and the cliché (but necessity) of comics as therapy. They also mention the musical puppet show that Michael is working on slowly but surely, and Annie’s reaction perfectly sums up my feelings about that – “Oh my god! Aaah, so happy!” Read the whole spectacular interview HERE.

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Oliver East just published a new book – Take Me Back to Manchester. It’s the story of an epic walk that took place in 1872, when an elephant and his trainer trekked the 220 miles between Edinburgh and Manchester. Why? You’ll have to check out the comic. As much as it sounds delightful, the story of how it came about is equally lovely.

Oliver East is the “walking cartoonist”. Before creating Take Me Back to Manchester, he followed the route of his heroes on foot across Scotland and England, walking over 20 miles a day for 10 days. In this short documentary (below) made by Simon Sylvester and Dom Bush, Oliver walks through some wonderful parts of the world, and talks about his struggles with dyslexia, how he didn’t even start drawing until he was 26, and what it was like to compose a comic in motion with the ghost of an elephant at his side. Check it out.

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The new mini kuš! #38-41 are out, which means spring is pretty much here.

“The creators of the newest minis are Ingrīda Pičukāne, Tara Booth, Hanneriina Moisseinen and Aisha Franz. The comics vary from an incredibly sad war story to a super fun and wild adventure of a young woman, a broad range of stories both fictional and non-fiction and drawn in different styles both digital and hand-drawn! A great bunch of comics for new discoveries!”

More details HERE.

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The latest Inkstuds interview is particularly riveting. How could it be otherwise, with the likes of Gilbert Hernandez behind the microphone?! You’re not going to want to miss this.

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/249959700″ params=”auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true” width=”100%” height=”450″ iframe=”true” /]

Robin McConnell always does his research, which makes for detailed conversations that really illuminate the life and work of the people he interviews. Gilbert Hernandez can tell a story out loud just as well as he can on paper, and between the stories are loads of interesting tidbits and comments on the comics scene he helped craft from the bottom up. Great stuff. (I especially liked when he compared superheroes to screwdrivers…!) Set aside some time to listen to the whole thing, because this guy is one of the reasons we’re all making comics today.

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I have a special guest today, here with a brief bit of Brazilian comics news for you. Anna Mancini (pictured above in her studio) recently shared with me a list of some of her favorite Brazilian cartoonists – folks like Julia Balthazar and Amanda Paschoal (see pic below) – and soon she will be providing a detailed scene report for Comics Workbook. For the moment though, she’s got something else to share.

Anna here, reporting:

“Aline Lemos has put together a collaborative list of *all* Brazilian women comics artists – from young students to established pros. Here’s the link if you’d like to check it out – https://goo.gl/AYyde5

Aline Lemos created it aiming to bring more visibility to female cartoonists in our country, since there’s a widespread dismissal of our presence and relevance to the scene. As I have noticed from following American blogs and artists, this situation is not exclusive to our experience in Brazil – I have that recent piece by Kim O’Connor in mind, having the situations she described ring a little too familiar with the attitude of many Brazilian male cartoonists.”

Thanks Anna! Check out the list she mentions, and discover the legion of women in comics in Brazil!

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That’s my Friday news for you. Have a terrific weekend and meet us back here on Monday for the latest and greatest in comics news! – Sally

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Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Sally Ingraham

Posted on March 18, 2016March 21, 2016

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03/29/2018

Comics WorkbookMarch 28, 2018NewsHere’s Sam Ombiri on Sophie Goldstein’s House of Women! ————————————————————————————————— Sam Ombiri here: At times when I read comics I’m really invested in the scenario being presented, and I don’t really identify the characters well enough. I’m reading the story and I have to interrupt myself to study who is who. With House of Women by Sophie Goldstein, however, I was really struck by the characters’ various expressions, and the gestures the characters would make. I was impressed by how much information was conveyed through this, and in ways that aren’t that obvious. I was just reading and reading, invested in the scenario, but I found that I was experiencing who each character was in a different way. It wasn’t just their distinctive design – it had more to do with their facial expressions, and the moments that took place really stuck in my mind after reading because I could feel who the characters were. Before the characters could speak, I felt a deep understanding of who they were. Whenever characters would act a certain way, it would come as no surprise because just their facial expressions would communicate so much. This was more so for Sarai, Kizzy, Rhivka, and Aphra than for Mr. Dean or the aliens (above). And that makes sense. It’s the equivalent of shining a spotlight. For example, it’s not unlike Aphra to look so cross – she’s clearly a very level-headed person, so when she looks cross or worried, it’s for good reason. When Kizzy appreciates the smell of the blossoms or is really taken by children, it’s very expected. Rhivka, for good reason, is hard to pin down and her absence is really felt. She looks like someone who would be mysteriously absent while the other women are gathered. All the expressions a character has ever made has molded that character’s face, and their gestures dictate the shape of their body. I was really struck by this – maybe because the style the book is drawn in is seemingly trying to get in the way of the story. It seems like there are things that should be obscuring my understanding and such, but the story is so clearly laid out – even the word balloons tell me where to go as a reader. What’s alluded to is what’s being said, making a rhyme with the image and words. Maybe I’m also thinking about how straightforward the visual narration in The Oven was, whereas in House of Women Sophie Goldstein is more specific with how moments should unfold. The book is very aware of a reader reading the pages – each moment is paced very distinctly. If a scene is of the women walking up a hill (above), the page is drawn in such a way that you feel it, you feel the moment passing slowly. It’s a case of using the comics medium to its full extent. This is perhaps like it’s filmic counterpart, Black Narcissus. I was anticipating a retelling of Black Narcissus because of how much Sophie emphasized it as a major influence – though truth be told, to me it was very far from that. I see maybe, for lack of a better term, iconography from Black Narcissus (like the title itself for example), and certain moments from Black Narcissus playing out in the book, but it simultaneously feels independent of the movie and any comparison to it would be inappropriate. What happened to Rhivka is perhaps comparable to Sister Ruth in Black Narcissus, but Rhivka is more aware of what’s happening to her. There is also this Cronenberg-esque mutation that one of the alien natives has gone through. This was actually a fantastic point in the book. The alien’s mutation was amazing. I really liked the design of the aliens in the book. All the drawings in this book are enjoyable both to look at, and to read – from the way the story is told through the panels, to the way the sounds the characters are hearing is communicated, and the words the characters say to each other. All great. – Sam Ombiri Get a copy of House of Women by Sophie Goldstein 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 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. ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 3-29-2018 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

11/03/2016

Sally IngrahamNovember 3, 2016NewsSam and Sally with the Thursday comic news – featuring Anya Davidson, Yona Harvey, Ariell Johnson, Ron Husband, Cameron Weston Nicholson, and new work from Sam Ombiri himself. ————————————————————————————————— Sam Ombiri here with a “Comment Section Review”: Anya Davidson’s work got bombarded with negative comments in the A.V. Club comment section recently. I’m pretty crazy about her work, and I don’t want to act like there is no room for the folks who have dislike of Anya’s work, but I feel the commentators completely fail to acknowledging a comics scene outside of theirs, so they just see Band For Life as “a bunch of random scribbles that Fantagraphics put out.” I wonder what they read to make themselves so repulsed with Anya’s work. To some degree that’s really cool that it repulsed them to the degree that it did, because I wonder in what universe are the drawings in Band For Life considered horrible, in what universe?! I just say that because I lack that perspective. Sammy Harkham said he feels, or I guess more so felt at the point at which he said it: that “context is everything, it’s weird, but context is everything.” I don’t know if I agree with that completely but I do agree. Michael DeForge said that the people commenting live in a bubble and haven’t come into contact with anything like Band For Life. Jesse Moynihan said somewhere how when he debuted with his first Adventure Time episode, he went on 4chan (I think) to see the response for it and people were saying “why are these drawings so bad?” I guess the context there is that it doesn’t resemble anime enough for them. It’s really cool that they could sense there was a different energy in those drawings though. What are these people in the A.V. comment sections reading, though, that’s got them so full of themselves and their tastes? They probably just don’t want their scene “contaminated.” – Sam Ombiri Sally here, and I’m with Sam when it comes to being crazy about Anya Davidson’s work – so for the record and for the ignoramuses out there, here’s a list of recent reviews and interviews with this badass cartoonist, brought to you by folks who don’t live in bubbles: The Comics Journal, with Dan Nadel himself blowing the trumpets – “…her comics are a joy to look at. Her thick-thin strokes dance on the page and her characters are always-recognizable graphic icons. Hers is a Kurtzman-esque cartooning technique that she can apply to any scenario of her choosing…” Paste, on Anya’s “noisy, weird art” – “Her work, which evokes the bombastic action of Jack Kirby as immediately as it does a riot grrrl zine, is bold and brash. Her bulky, blocky figures clash and collide with one another in a cacophony of pen and ink. It’s the kind of genre-busting, high- and low-culture-blending comic perfectly at home in a post-Fort Thunder alternative comics scene, and for those in the know, Davidson has been a cartoonist to follow.” The Comics Beat – “Anya Davidson’s Band for Life is one of the boldest graphic novels of the year, an eye splitting trip into the lives of an indie punk rock band and their misadventures. Call it Josie and the Pussycats for the post-iTunes generation.” You can get a copy of Anya Davidson’s Band for Life HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Here’s a recent comic by Sam Ombiri: ————————————————————————————————— Pittsburgh’s poet/professor Yona Harvey is getting ready for the Nov. 9th debut of a new Marvel series – The World of Wakanda – which she is authoring along with Roxane Gay (they are the first black female authors to work for Marvel) and Ta-Nehisi Coates (author of the current Black Panther series, which The World of Wakanda spins off of). In conversation with Wayne Wise for the PGH City Paper this week, Yona said “I think my poetry skills helped with the voice and characterization,” – when asked about the differences between writing poetry and writing a comics script. “The Zenzi story is only 10 pages, so concision is necessary. She feels that the page-to-page and line-to-line transitions are very similar to what she does with the forms of poetry she writes. Finding the ‟voice and the music and the sound,” were important to her. Comics are a different language, but the beats and rhythms felt familiar.” – via PGH City Paper Comics Workbook will be at Phantom of the Attic next week when the comic debuts and Yona Harvey is there to celebrate the release. Read the rest of the PGH City Paper article HERE. Check out more work by The World of Wakanda artist Afua Richardson HERE. ————————————————————————————————— While poking around Paste I came across another recent “first black woman” story, this one about Ariell Johnson, “the founder and president of Amalgam Comics & Coffeehouse, Inc. in Philadelphia, and the first black woman on the East Coast to own her own comic book store“. She has garnered an appearance on a variant cover of Invincible Iron Man #1, illustrated by Elizabeth Torque. Ariell says it was the X-Men‘s Storm who got her into comics, and although she had to scrape bottom to find diversity in superhero comics as a kid, that is finally changing. Her comic book shop is part of that. Read the article HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Cameron Weston Nicholson dug up this story about Ron Husband for us: although Floyd Norman is often credited as being the first black Disney animator, that title actually belongs to Ron Husband. Cameron is an animator himself, so he understands the amount of work that goes into just seconds of action – and knows that the title of “animator” is one that has to be earned. “From the early days at Disney until the 1980’s, an artist had to produce 100 feet of animation to get a screen credit.” Ron actually pulled this feat off, and you can read about his career HERE. He got into the educational side of animation as well, visiting schools and becoming a sort of ambassador, and currently runs a blog featuring process posts and other tidbits from his wealth of animating knowledge – check it out HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Check out some of Cameron Weston Nicholson‘s latest sketches and drawings, via his Instagram (@prof_weston): Before bed. ? A video posted by Cameron•Weston Nicholson (@prof_weston) on Nov 1, 2016 at 6:30pm PDT Also, take a minute or 60 to view the footage of Cameron’s SPX 2016 Comics Workbook-hosted workshop if you haven’t yet – “Comics are a symphonic mixture of picture & word.” ————————————————————————————————— Comics Workbook got a nice shout out from Down the Tubes, a British comics website that has been reporting on comics since 1999. Mel Brooks was writing about the academic workshops at The Lakes International Comic Art Festival, which Frank Santoro, Aidan Koch, and Connor Willumsen were a large part of – check out the report HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Check out Swinespritzen – and Portraits, the other new book from Connor Willumsen – HERE. Share this page: [...]

05/03/2017

Juan FernándezMay 3, 2017los Cómics / NewsEmpezamos el día con unlocalizador de residencias; Liniers y Julieta Botto; Los Premios Eisner; Acción Cultural Española; Power Paola y Serge Bloch; Vanesa R. Del Rey; La Política Retratada; Alfonso Zapico y los tebeos de Comics Workbook. ————————————————————————————————— Localizart.es Infórmate sobre las residencias artísticas a las que puedes optar en Europa y América Latina como creador de cómics. Puedes utilizar el localizador de residencias y espacios para la producción artística en América Latina AQUI. ————————————————————————————————— En un intercambio más que entretenido, Liniers conversa sobre cómics, literatura y sobre su propia editorial, la editorial común con Julieta Botto: JB -Tu proyecto editorial es de cómic, pero, a la vez, pareciera que se acerca más al de libro de arte. ¿Cómo definirías a La editorial común? L -A La editorial común no la veo como de libros de arte, la veo como de libros de cómic. Es una editorial de novelas gráficas, si se quiere, y de algunos libros de humor gráfico, pero eso es del mundo del cómic. La razón por la que comenzamos con esta editorial es porque la Argentina es una especie de usina muy gigantesca y muy poderosa de artistas dentro del mundo de la historieta, y muchas veces veía que libros de autores argentinos se publicaban en Europa, se publicaban en los Estados Unidos y no se publicaban en la Argentina. Es como si los discos de Calamaro o las películas de Darín no se vieran en la Argentina, me parece que estamos cometiendo un error cultural. Así que la idea de La editorial común fue usar Macanudo, que sabemos que es un libro que se vende, para bancar, por ahí, libros que son más difíciles de vender, pero que son mucho mejores que Macanudo. Y para encontrar ese tipo de material, buscar autores nuevos en América Latina. Traer libros de afuera que ayuden a abrir la cabeza al público argentino. Esa es un poco la idea. Léela AQUI! ————————————————————————————————— Cómics y noticias que me han llamado la atención esta semana: Los Premios Eisner colocan siete obras con firma española entre lo mejor del tebeo. Paco Roca, Emma Ríos y Albert Monteys entre otros! Atención autores españoles de cómic: Acción Cultural Española convoca a su residencia de novela gráfica en Angouleme. Un diálogo dibujado por Power Paola con Serge Bloch para Revista Arcadia. Vanesa R. Del Rey tiene 3 obras increibles en el Line Art show de Gallery Nucleus. Por supuesto, estan en venta! No os perdáis esta exposición, La Política Retratada, que repasa la relación humor gráfico y política a través de 200 viñetas en el Palau Robert Barcelona si estas de visita! Reseña de la segunda entrega de La Balada del Norte de Alfonso Zapico en 13 Millones de Naves. Otro logro gráfico-histórico! Ya podéis ver la entrevista completa que le hizo Carlos Reyes a Carla Berrocal en la Plop Galería durante mi estancia en Santiago. El programa se grabó el 28 de marzo en Plop Galería, Santiago de Chile. ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 5-3-2017 – by Sally Ingraham ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 5-3-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

06/03/2016

Sally IngrahamJune 3, 2016NewsSally here with an update from the Rowhouse, a conversation with Phoebe Gloeckner, a new Art Trip with Sacha Mardou, wise words from Lynda Barry, and a couple of unique interpretations of visual or non-visual communication – plus, a very chill anime beat. ————————————————————————————————— It was a busy week around the Rowhouse in Pittsburgh, as the Comics Workbook team had our first residency! Matt and Mahmoud worked with Frank on a comic book based on a game they are developing – but beyond that (the nitty-gritty of arranging and rearranging index cards!), the days were spent in a ferociously exciting exchange of ideas on comics, architecture, music, social-media communication, and so much more. The time is NOW, folks! ————————————————————————————————— Ariel Schrag interviewed Phoebe Gloeckner at MoCCA this year, and a video of the whole conversation is available to view (below). It is a lively discussion between two powerful female voices in comics. Phoebe Gloeckner is known for A Child’s Life and Other Stories and The Diary of a Teenage Girl – both considered to be essential works about adolescent girlhood. Ariel Schrag has also been known to dig into the trials and tribulations of adolescence, via comics such as her autobiographical high school series Awkward, Definition, Potential, and Likewise. The two women talk about Phoebe’s work as a medical illustrator, the filming of The Diary of a Teenage Girl, and many other things. Take an hour to sit down with them! For more information about Phoebe, check out THE Phoebe Gloeckner interview on The Comics Journal. ————————————————————————————————— Having recently moved from Santa Fe, NM, to Pittsburgh, PA, I was somewhat miffed to discover that within a week of my move, the extraordinary Lynda Barry came to speak at a theater in Santa Fe…! Fortunately, a close friend of mine went to the event and was kind enough to report back for me/us. In the words of Comics Workbook extra-special correspondent Julie Kirby: “Rather than field questions she insisted we already knew the answers to, cartoonist Lynda Barry ended her talk at the Lensic Theater in Santa Fe Tuesday night with a dirty joke and a song. Such a satisfying finale after an already intriguing presentation was precisely why nearly 800 people turned out to see her speak, and surprisingly, to hear her sing. While Barry was indeed entertaining and undeniably hilarious -who doesn’t love a collection of awkward figure drawing anecdotes? – I believe she had a much more important purpose. To encourage! To inspire! An adamant proponent of the 30 second drawing, Barry suggested that allowing ourselves too much time, too many opportunities for regret inhibits our art. That recognition does not require exact duplication. Barry demonstrated how familiar shapes – the profiles of Popeye and Marge Simpson, or the outline of the United States – can be reproduced with little accuracy, yet great familiarity still results. She lamented that by 8, 9, 10 years of age we often quit drawing because we believe we are unable to properly depict a nose. (In my personal experience, it was hair.) Barry basically said STOP. Stop editing, stop erasing. Start writing with a paintbrush and without expectations. While even she acknowledged that many of her ideas are not entirely original, her unconventional delivery of them certainly was.” Thanks Julie! ————————————————————————————————— Today on Comics Workbook we’re featuring a new Art Trip piece. Sacha Mardou had a run-in with an iconic dress, and scribbled down her impressions and thoughts for us. Check out Art Trip: Little Black Dress HERE! ————————————————————————————————— On Tuesday, Aaron Cockle featured the work of Ilan Manouach (a cartoonist, musician, publisher, and more from Greece) in his Daily News post. He highlighted part of an essay by Bill Kartalopoulos about Manauach’s work Katz (which is a riff on Art Spiegelman’s Maus). I bring this up again for two reasons – ONE: because Bill Kartalopoulos guest-edited a whole section on comics for World Literature Today, which features numerous essays, interviews, and book lists. Check it out HERE. AND TWO: because the part of the essay on Ilan Manouach that caught my interest was his project Shapereader. Manouach is working on developing a system of comics for the visually impaired! Incredible stuff. Check out the image above. It is a laser-engraved communication board, one of six that accompany a graphic novel called Arctic Circle, which employs the Shapereader repertoire. Below is another such board. The communication boards “…carry the index for 210 different shapes, providing the tactile equivalents for the specific features of the story. They are divided into groups according to their semantic content and function: characters, props, settings, actions, affections as well as graphic and textual devices forming the well-known toolbox of graphic storytelling craft.” In Manouach’s words: “I think comic books are interesting because they are both very material and very immaterial. … Comics is a language, a very immaterial thing, but at the same time it’s a very tangible thing. There are books, they take space, they are printed in Singapore, they travel back to the States, they are carried in distribution, sold in bookstores, etc. I wanted to do a work that takes both of these directions and puts them to the extreme.” Take the time to learn more about this fascinating new “tactile” comic form, and read Bill Kartalopoulos’s essay on Ilan Manouach a few times – there are more projects and ideas in there that neither Aaron or I even touched on…! ————————————————————————————————— Here’s another interesting angle on communication – The Toronto Symphony Orchestra uses “listening guides” that use symbols and what looks almost like Morse Code to aid a listener experiencing a (sometimes overwhelming) live orchestra performance. Over on Creative Review they get into the details of the project with it’s creator – Hannah Chan-Hartley – the managing editor and musicologist at the TSO. ‘In developing the listening guides for Key, Chan-Hartley says she “wanted to remove some of the barriers to comprehension that more ‘traditional’ guides you see in print tend to have. For one, these traditional aids often have a lot of descriptive text, which you have to read through and then remember as you listen to the piece. I wanted my guide to be visual, and one that you can follow along with in ‘real time’ while listening. “Secondly, only people who can read musical notation would find the excerpts in the traditional guides useful, so I wanted a graphic way to represent what is being heard so anyone could understand. “And finally, I wanted the guide to be in a format through which you could visually grasp the overall structure of a symphonic movement or an entire symphony – by showing when the main musical themes are presented, developed, and recur, and thereby help to structure your listening”.’ Read the rest of the article and see lots more pics of the “visual listening guides” HERE! ————————————————————————————————— https://vine.co/v/iEObIUemwFP Our recent Rowhouse residents are guys of many talents – one of their projects is the curation of the Chill Anime Beats tumblr, where you can find many soothing, lonely, lovely Vines like the one above – CHECK IT OUT HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Have a fantastic weekend folks! More sock-knocking-off comics news coming your way on Monday. Cheers – Sally Share this page: [...]

05/09/2016

Juan FernándezMay 9, 2016NewsJuan Fernandez with: Aidan Koch’s The Elements of Painting; Rebecca Sugar and Ryan Sands; Supporting Rob Clough; Malachi Ward interviewed; Wowee Zonk at TCAF; Jason Shulman’s Photographs of Films; Virtual Graffiti. ————————————————————————————————— New Comics – The Elements of Painting I’m happy to announce that this week we are featuring Aidan Koch’s The Elements of Painting on Comics Workbook. These strips were originally created for and featured on Comics Workbook in 2013. The full collection is now a 14 page, b/w offset book on newsprint printed in an edition of 500, available on Koch’s site. The series is a collection of beautiful, observational work that extracts both the dominant and elusive narratives from the paintings Koch observes. Inspiring work that’s sure to get your mind racing. Read it all here. ————————————————————————————————— Rebecca Sugar & Ryan Sands The Society of Illustrators has posted a video of the Rebecca Sugar Q&A from April 3rd at MoCCA 2016. In this spotlight session, Sugar answered questions posed by Youth in Decline publisher Ryan Sands, focusing in particular on her own comics work. Sugar and Sands touched upon depictions of love, working on Margo in Bed, compositional differences between comics and animation, the pastiche of Steven Universe, and how to continue growing when making comics. Soak it up. ————————————————————————————————— Support Rob Clough Comics critic Rob Clough’s family is facing crushing hospital bills. He and his family could use all the help they can get. Please consider donating over on his site. My family has been crushed by medical expenses in the past month, including a couple of hospitalizations. I would greatly appreciate any donations readers might care to give in order to help defray costs. There’s a paypal button over at the right for those who would care to do so. Reader support has helped keep me and this site going, and I want everyone who’s ever donated to know just how much my family and I appreciate that support. Clough’s energy and enthusiasm for reviewing comics work is an invaluable resource for independent comics making. No one plows into forward thinking comics and reviews them with gusto and consistency quite like Rob Clough. On a positive note, he is going to be back in the saddle, releasing 3 new reviews a week for the foreseeable future, so there is much to be thankful for. Donate here. ————————————————————————————————— INKSTUDS: Sean Ford interviews Malachi Ward Malachi Ward makes beautiful, intricate science fiction and fantasy comics. The stories are set in richly illustrated, fantastic landscapes, addressing existential questions and carrying a certain dark edge that I appreciate and associate with some of the very best science fiction writing in prose or comics. I was eager to talk about his recent work: a new short story collection from Alternative Comics called FROM NOW ON, and the serialized story he’s working on with Matt Sheehan in the ISLAND anthology called ANCESTOR. We also talked about time travel, why people explore strange new worlds, religious cults, and why we love Vancouver so much. I think Malachi is doing some really interesting comics right now and I hope you’ll check them out. – Sean Ford If you like this podcast, and want to hear more, consider supporting Inkstuds on Patreon. ————————————————————————————————— the Wowee Zonk Zone The Toronto Comic Arts Festival is this coming weekend (May 13-15) and with its arrival comes an exciting flood of self-published zines and comics. The Toronto based comics collective, Wowee Zonk has partnered with TCAF to host a special showcase. Curated by Patrick Kyle, Ginette Lapalme, and Chris Kuzma, the Wowee Zonk Small Press Showcase will highlight some of the most exciting work being made in comics, zines, and independent publishing. That room is sure to be real colorful, real hot and real sweaty. Not to be missed. Lots of things are sure to go down at TCAF in the coming week. You can get the lowdown of the latest TCAF news here. They’ve got a fancy app, Guidebook, that allows you to stay abreast with all the happenings with your phone. ————————————————————————————————— Photographs of Films Jason Shulman has an upcoming exhibition entitled Photographs of Films at the Cob Gallery, London that reveals what happens when you crush time into a 2 dimensional space. It’s funny stuff. You get some really interesting translations in his process. Some really subtle directorial and cinematographic decisions are brought to light in this averaging of images. AnOther Mag has a nice selection of Shulman’s photographs and some reflections on his process. Check it out here. “The images vary so wildly, that’s the remarkable thing about it,” Shulman continues, “and they’re also quite didactic. You can learn something about the director’s style from this kind of kooky translation: you can learn that Hitchcock deals with people, for example, Kubrick deals with composition, Bergman deals with… I mean lots of Bergman films are kind of moody and psychological, much more so than other films. So it’s odd that in one exposure all of these things, although very subjective, kind of come through.” Jason Shulman: Photographs of Films runs from May 12 until June 4, 2016 at the Cob Gallery, London. ————————————————————————————————— Virtual Graffiti VR is undergoing a veritable Renaissance. Painting, sculpting, and now this insane Graffiti Simulator. Here’s a look at Kingspray Graffiti Simulator a new Virtual Reality game soon to launch on SteamVR. I want to see what David Hockney will do with this. ————————————————————————————————— I’ll leave you to start your day with the Don. Stay strong – Juan Fernandez Share this page: [...]

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