Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in NewsTagged Black Callous, Dan Nadel, daniel clowes, Eleanor Davis, Kurt Ankeny, Rob Kirby, Stephanie Kubo, Turbulence, Watercolor, watercolor comics

Juan Fernández

Posted on March 21, 2016

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09/25/2017

Caleb OrecchioSeptember 24, 2017NewsCaleb Orecchio here with thoughts on work ethic, and other news.————————————————————————————————— I was talking to my dog recently. I says to her, “Zoe, I’ve rearranged my life around making comics and I still can’t finish a daily strip on time. I moved to a secluded lighthouse outside an old, cheap rust belt town and work the bare minimum to pay off school loans and rent and I still can’t manage to keep a consistent comics work schedule. What am I doing wrong?” She looked up from licking her privates and and answered, “You complain too much.” You probably already know this, but SPX 2017 was last week. I put my daily comic strip on hiatus because I was “too busy to be bothered by it” (if you’re a loyal CW Daily News reader, you’ll have noticed that Joanie and Jordie has been absent from this site for a minute). But lo and behold, Sally Ingraham (star cartoonist of Suzy and Cecil fame, comics educator, and managing editor of this very blog–among other things) made all her strips for that week in her hotel room at SPX AND executed her Daily News duties–PLUS! managed to manage the Comics Workbook Workshops being held throughout the weekend and keep tabs on us “kids.” I’m sorry to be so conflict of interest, but I didn’t do nearly as much and I was still more fatigued than she was by the end of the weekend. I mean, I still drew throughout the weekend. I did my drawing exercises and drew funny faces and dogs running every day. That counts right? Yes, but then I look over at Audra Stang and she has basically filled up a sketchbook with comics, documenting the journey from Pittsburgh to Bethesda and has Frank Santoro literally rolling on the floor with laughter reading them. Then Kurt Ankeny comes in with his sketchbook where, that morning, he had more-than-adequately redrawn some old masterpiece painting from some museum in D.C. He probably did it in 5 minutes while standing up. He invited me to go with him that morning but I was asleep when he messaged me. I could go on and on. What’s my point? My point is, to just keep going. Yes you’re tired. Yes you’re broke. Yes you’re busy. But guess what–we’re all in the same boat and we all want to be the next Gilbert Hernandez or Lynda Barry or whoever. Welcome to comics, it’s hard. Just keep going. ————————————————————————————————— The fall semester of thee Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers starts October 1st 2017. 8 weeks of comics instruction that will bang your practice into shape – 500 bux. Full details about the course and how to apply can be found HERE. ————————————————————————————————— if you don’t know now you know Noah Van Sciver talks to Peter Bagge at The Comics Reporter. I always enjoy an interview with Alan Moore no matter the subject. Go to The Beat for more. Frank Young writes about Chester Gould’s “meta comics” over on TCJ. Darkseid model sheet by Jack Kirby. The Village Voice has published their last issue (the cover features the great Bob Dylan signing off) and have a history of their art directors at SPD.org. ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 9-25-2017 – by Sally Ingraham Share this page: [...]

Little Seen Los Bros Hernandez Covers From The Late 1980s

Chris Anthony DiazJune 3, 2016The Diaz ArchivePeople wonder why i can’t pare down my comics collection in one fell swoop… it’s because i have to cherry pick it for gems like this to keep first before selling the ones that i have outgrown! Share this page: [...]

10/01/2018

Caleb OrecchioOctober 1, 2018NewsCaleb Orecchio here with an overview of my 2018 CXC experience. ————————————————————————————————— Apologies in advance for blurry photos herein. Another Cartoon Crossroads Columbus is in the books. This year was as fun as ever. On Thursday, I made it to The Billy Ireland Museum in Columbus in time to see Michael DeForge talk to Tom Spurgeon about his career. Tom asked a lot of good questions and brought up many good points that I haven’t heard many people ask DeForge. At the Q+A portion I, being a Comics Workbook person, asked about his use of the grid and how he determined what kind of grid he would use for what kind of story. He basically said that he thought that grids with two columns are funnier than grids with three or more columns which I thought was a good answer Friday I went back to The Billy Ireland and hung out with Kurt Ankeny and Chris Pitzer for a bit and went up to see the two great new exhibits, Koyama and Friends and Artistically MAD. Yes of course the MAD exhibit was awesome, but seeing the collection of Annie Koyama was a real treat. Seeing contemporary cartoonists’ work hung in one of the sacred temples of comics was energizing for me as a comics maker. The Museum was selling some of the overflow from their collection in the lobby which included some amazing old fanzines, obscure comic magazines and of course plenty of dumb comics. Everything I just mentioned is my favorite kinds of comic shopping. I paraded the gems I found like a person pushing spiritual literature in Las Vegas. Chris Pitzer geeked out when he saw my copy of “Tara” by William Black and we eventually bargained for a trade. Kurt and I missed the Koyama panel but made it to the Jim Woodring event moderated by Tom Spurgeon. I have not really heard or read many interviews with Woodring so I was going in fresh in a way. It was a great talk, and Woodring was a great interviewee. At the end of the talk, Tom surprised Woodring and the rest of the audience by awarding him with the this year’s Master Cartoonist award. It was a very touching moment and I am always happy to see people being awarded at CXC. Back to the “The Billy” where a reception was held with food and drinks followed by the official thank yous by Jenni Robb and Jeff Smith and then, a bewildered John Porcellino received the Transformative Work award for his legendary King-Cat comics. The whole place was glassy-eyed. While everyone went to see Lynn Johnston, I bailed to spend time with friends in town. I wish I would have stayed to see Johnston’s panel. All my sources tell me it was a great time. Saturday, the first day of the expo, Juan Fernandez and I were the dynamic duo representing Comics Workbook. We had two, count ’em, two tables. One we sold comics by Comics Workbook gang members, and the other was a drawing table. Juan had pads of paper, loose sheets and note cards ready for anyone and everyone willing to participate. Juan is a very gracious and patient teacher. He would jam with kids who would come by the table, too shy to draw without a nudge. We met a lot of parents who were very happy we were there, letting kids (young and old) have a hands-on experience at comic-making. The best part for us were the workshops. This year we held workshops on the same floor as the expo and really felt like we were part of the show. Juan had two workshops, and I had one. All three filled the room to the brim. Thank you CXC for providing that space for us. The workshops were a complete success. The famous Emerging Artist award went to Keren Katz. I love being able to see this award being announced because the recipient has no real way of knowing they will win. There are no nominations announced or anything like that so the winners always express gratitude in a raw honest way with no rehearsal. Congrats Keren. At the end of the first expo day, I, being a Central Ohio native, took off for a friends house to watch Ohio State beat Penn State. It was a stressful one, but the win made the holes in the drywall worth it. Sunday, was business as usual. Juan has his last workshop. We sold some comics. We talked to other cartoonists and guests and attendees and all that. The last surprise of the show was that Tom Spurgeon announced that Jeff Smith was stepping down as president of CXC, but would continue to serve as art director. Then, unbeknownst to Jeff, he was being awarded a special edition of the Master Cartoonist award; as well as a very special letter from the city of Columbus thanking him for his contribution to his community. Smith was slightly embarrassed to recieve an award at his own show, but the gesture was not lost on him. The show winded down quietly then Juan and I headed to the after party early to catch a drink with Ron Wimberly. Juan and Ron had an engaging discussion while I watched as if at a tennis court. My brain was fried from the show and my arms were almost too weak to lift my beer. Frank had sent me with a delivery for Ron, but I totally spaced and forgot to even mention it. Whoops. The Great Weekend wound down and everyone went back to their homes and hotels. As always, CXC was a blast. This is my “home show” and am proud latch my identity onto it for better or for worse. The staff and volunteers at the show were amazing as always. Once during the expo I thought, I’m thirsty. Then, lo and behold, a volunteer came by with water bottles. Mind-reading volunteers is a rare and blessed thing and they are only at CXC as far as I know. Thank you as always to Tom Spurgeon for directing yet another great show. Thank you to the Board and everyone involved at all the different venues. And of course thank you to Lucy Caswell, without whom none of this would exit. You make cartoonists feel appreciated which is hard to do. Thanks 10-01-2018 – by Niall Breen Share this page: [...]

12/18/2017

Caleb OrecchioDecember 18, 2017NewsCaleb Orecchio here with positive vibes and the usual gang of links to other news. ————————————————————————————————— When my extended family ask about how my comics are going I throw myself into a frenzy of roundabout explanations and unconfident, disconnected thoughts, leaving my loved ones confused and unsure of my life decisions—or I simply change the subject. This weekend when I visited some extended family I brought copies of my book to give to them. Everyone was glad to see and own physical fruit of my–until that moment, to them, theoretical–labors. One of my aunts hugged me, tears welling up. “I remember you drawing since you were little.” I watched my family examine and flip through my book–I have to admit, it was really satisfying. I often think of being an “independent” cartoonist in terms of being a folk singer, and I think this is the closest thing (for me, so far, anyway) to standing in a room of people while playing my version of “Goodnight Irene” or something. I let the “song” speak for itself, and the crowd responded positively. ————————————————————————————————— if you don’t know, now you know Cynthia Rose writes about the French comics festival, SoBD over at TCJ.com. If you are interested in supporting Cartoon Crossroads Columbus–a really great comics festival–consider donating to the cause. More info here from Tom Spurgeon at his The Comics Reporter. Alex Hoffman reviews William Cardini’s great comic, Tales from the Hyperverse, at Sequential Slate. Ben Towle reviews Tristan & Yseult by Agnés Maubpré and Singeon over at his blog, Benzilla.com. Dan Schindel talks Cerebus the Aardvark over at Hyperallergic.com, the remarkable (to few and myself) and ultimately tragic (to most and myself) self-published anomaly. ————————————————————————————————— The Winter Semester of thee Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers starts January 16th 2018! 8 weeks – 500 bux – coaching for as long as you need. The course is hard, but Frank will push your comics making practice to a new level, getting you to think about timing and color in new ways. Makes a great holiday gift for yourself – or for a loved one who is interested in comics. Apply by midnight (EST) on Dec. 25th and get $100 off the course price. Full details and how to apply can be found HERE! ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 12-18-2017 – by Gabriella Tito ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 12-18-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

Rachel Masilamani – Foundational Works (2000-2013)

Juan FernándezJanuary 12, 2017EssaysThere’s things you can’t do with words and there’s things you can’t do with pictures, that’s what’s so exciting about the form. It’s constantly pressing against your limitations. – Rachel Masilamani 2013 A veteran self-publisher, Rachel Masilamani has been making comics since 1997. Her first comics collection, RPM Comics #1, received a grant from the Xeric Foundation and was named “Best Comic Book” by the Baltimore City Paper. Since then, her comics have appeared in Meathaus, Street Runoff, Graphics Classics, The Indiana Review, Dog City, MUTHA Magazine and in other anthologies and in her own publications. This is a look at her body of work as a whole through 2013. An accomplished story teller, Masilamani is hard pressed to categorize her work. Endlessly fascinated with people, Masilamani draws inspiration from her own life and the behaviors of those around her to create stories that burrow themselves deep into the minds of her readers. Her stories elegantly blend naturalistic storytelling with expressionistic visual representation. In much of her work, Masilamani explores notions of local and universal truth by blurring the line between fact and fiction. In so doing, she makes her inner life palpable. She walks this tightrope in ways similar to the memoir work of Carol Tyler, Mardou and Gabrielle Bell. Although Masilamani grew up reading newspaper comics, she didn’t start making her own comics until she was a student at John Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD in the late nineties. Her first formal forays into the medium were under the guidance of Baltimore based cartoonist and instructor, Tom Chalkley. One of the stories made under Chalkley’s guidance, Pen Bandit, appears in Masilamani’s first collection of comics, RPM #1. Originally planned to be a short film that she wanted to propose to John Hopkin’s film club, Masilamani decided to make Pen Bandit a comic on her own to avoid the inevitable frustrations she foresaw of having to compromise her vision. Classic comics maker. After she graduated from John Hopkins University in 1999 with a degree in Anthropology and a minor in Art History, she didn’t go looking for a job or head off to graduate school, rather she attempted to make cartooning a full time job. She knew it would be hard but she stuck to her guns. For months she dedicated herself to improving her cartooning and honing her ability to translate her observations to paper. It was a bold move as a young cartoonist. Her efforts paid off when she received the Xeric Foundation Grant. The grant provided her with $5000 to print and distribute her first collection of comics, RPM #1 in 2000. With the help of the grant, she hit the ground running. The first issue of RPM featured uniquely original, personal stories, carefully rendered in pencil and pen & ink. Though the work might not have been fully developed, it was a promising collection of stories that offered a fresh perspective. After continuing freelance work and putting out the occasional minicomic, Masilamani published RPM #2 in Baltimore. RPM #2 retained the same ingenious sense of observation and personality that made RPM #1 stand out, but revealed the hand of an artist who had tighter storytelling mechanics and a greater confidence in draftsmanship. Comprised of memoir, folk tales, and urban fantasies, the variety of genres in RPM #2 placed Masilamani’s narrative chops center stage. After publishing RPM #2, life caught up with Masilamani. Though she’d given the life of a free-lance cartoonist and illustrator a go, it wasn’t meant to be. Masilamani returned to school to study Library Science and began a series of relocations that wound up taking her to Pittsburgh, PA. During this time, Masilamani slowed down her release of comics. While it would seem that Masilamani had taken a hiatus from her cartooning, the truth was that she continued to work and re-work new comics privately. This new period of cartooning saw Masilamani put out two self-contained mini-comics, Singing Contest and Las Cuerpas. While both stories take place in the same physical landscape, the Mexican-American border, Singing Contest and Las Cuerpas explore radically different emotional landscapes. Singing Contest tells the story of a young woman who leaves her home to participate in a televised singing contest. The comic is a playful experiment that cleverly uses the iconographic power of the comics medium. In Singing Contest, Masilamani allows the animals that aid the protagonist on her journey to speak in words, while all of Masilamani’s human characters speak in icons. As a result of this formal decision, Masilamani creates a smooth, but idiosyncratic reading experience that lends the story an air of heartfelt whimsy. Las Cuerpas, which Masilamani published in 2010, is much heavier. It deals head on with the femicides of Ciudad Juarez Mexico. A wordless comic inked expressively in pen and ink, Las Cuerpas swiftly moves across the city of Juarez and builds to a feverish crescendo. Las Cuerpas is the result of Masilamani living in New Mexico and experiencing first hand the constant news about women and girls being murdered in Ciudad Juarez with no discernible follow up. Though at the time she felt powerless to do anything about the murders, Masilamani couldn’t stop imagining that something could make the femicides unignorable. Las Cuerpas is her attempt at making the horrors impossible to ignore. Since Las Cuerpas, Masilamani has self-published two more collections of stories, Odds Are in 2012 and No Words in 2013. The two collections document a graceful evolution in the poetics of Masilamani’s story telling. Odds Are contains 9 stories, each of which, in their own way, experiment with the semiotic relationship between words and pictures. Comprised of explorations of sensory experience, feminine identity and gender politics, Odds Are shows Masilamani handle extremely nuanced material. No Words consists of 3 longer stories, which focus on semiotics and trust, race and ethnicity, and urban disenfranchisement. In these stories Masilamani allows herself more time to slowly create dense, inhabitable yet challenging narrative spaces. These stories, though rooted in traditional narratives, make one think of the comics poetry of Tom Neely and John Hankiewicz, mainly because of Masilamani’s mature poetic, highly symbolic, dense and at times abstract, language that takes readers out of their comfort zones. Attentively tuned to the mechanics involved in the co-mixing of abstract languages, Masilamani achieves a certain alchemy with these comics. It’s thrilling to read. In 2013 I published a collection of short stories by Masilamani in Dog City #2, the box anthology I co-edited with Simon Reinhardt and Luke Healy. It was called Selfies. It was an honor to work with her in this capacity and to bring her work to the anthology’s audience. Here’s what Rob Clough had to say about it on The Comics Journal: “See What I’m Saying” is one of my favorite stories of 2013, as she reflects back on a childhood dare to shut up for five minutes, how she found herself as a child with the constant urge to tell stories, and how she is facing the concept of mortality. The heavy narrative bent of the text nonetheless lightly plays around its images, commenting on them in oblique ways while never directly addressing the fear of breast cancer. “Selfies” is a series of amusing, marvelous drawings of women taking photos of themselves with their cameras. “Move It” is all about a series of interactions between a zaftig teenager and the new boy in her building. Her verisimilitude and restraint regarding the way teens act is remarkable, and she quickly manages to create a youth-dominated world in the way that the Hernandez Brothers might. There’s a sense of getting all the details right, which gives the reader trust before the story’s final, painful payoff. Since these works, Masilamani has been working with MUTHA Magazine on an incredible series of comics, her NONPARTUM series. You can read her work there here. As a fan of her work, I’m constantly inspired by her doggedness as a creator, balancing fulltime work as a librarian and family life to create insistent and timeless comics. It is a joy to see her continue to revel in the liminal spaces of comics in her latest work over at MUTHA. You can purchase Rachel Masilamani’s work online from her site, RPM Comics. You can read some of her comics online for free on her zco.mx page. Share this page: [...]

03/21/2016

Posted on March 21, 2016 by Juan Fernández

Clowes vs. Nadel, Kurt Ankeny with tool talk, Eleanor Davis on the road, Rob Kirby with comics reviews and a look at Stephanie Kubo’s -Turbulence-.

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Daniel Clowes and Dan Nadel in Conversation
Today we bring you a great conversation between Daniel Clowes and Dan Nadel from the Clowes spotlight from 2010’s Alternative Press Expo(APE). Of interest since it dovetails Clowes’ 2016 tour for the release of Patience. This video gives a lot of insight indirectly to Patience.

Filmed by Chris Anthony Diaz, you can watch the conversation here.

Comic book match ups, Burne Hogarth yelling, EC Horror comics, the disappointment in comics history, public vs. private characters, and life in the letters columns, it’s all there.

For more on Clowes, do check out Todd Hignite’s recent interview over at the Comics Journal. And if you like what read there, dig deeper, or simply revisit the 1992 Clowes interview conducted by Gary Groth and Peter Bagge.

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Black Callous Interviews
Deep process and technique interviews with comics makers by Kurt Ankeny will soon be gracing this here website. This is the kind of tool talk the craft junky is sure to get kick out of.

For a nice preview of the kind of conversations you can expect, have a look at Kurt’s recent post about watercolor comics. Read it here.

My technique for comics is quite simple. I lay-in flat shapes of color to define the objects in each panel. Then I draw lines over those shapes where I need to clarify (using the liquid watercolors in a dip pen). If I do it the other way (which, I admit, is less nerve-wracking) the washes of watercolor will tend to bleed any lines which either are a little too thick and therefore have a bit too much pigment on the surface, or that aren’t completely dry. Waiting a day or two before doing the washes ALMOST eliminates this problem, but not fully. I like crisp lines, so I do it the other way…

Stay tuned for more Black Callous updates.

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On the Road
Eleanor Davis has been documenting her recent bike tour via tweets and diary comics (shared on twitter). Interesting sutff. If you’re keen on learning more about the kind of loose, comics “journaling” you can do while travelling, be sure to give Davis’ work a look. It’s a gracefully flowing diary. A great way of honing in on notable thoughts from the day.

Wednesday pic.twitter.com/6TMeOxz4QE

— Eleanor Davis (@squinkyelo) March 18, 2016

Thursday pic.twitter.com/IvNzCQQg4D

— Eleanor Davis (@squinkyelo) March 20, 2016

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Review Round Up
Rob Kirby has put together a solid bunch of capsule reviews of some recent North American small press releases.

Frontier #11: “BDSM ” by Eleanor Davis
Olive & Old Fat Men Turn Me On by Mama Lips
Men’s Feelings vol. 2 by Ted May
Excerpts by Carrie McNinch
The Social Discipline Reader by Ian Sundahl

Read Kirby’s full round up here.

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Turbulence – Stephanie Kubo
Stephanie Kubo has set up a site for some forthcoming outer space comics. The first comic in the series is a little ditty titled Turbulence. Check it out for some vertical scroll goodness. Forms blend and swirl, as gravity tugs the narrative along full circle. You can read Turbulence here.

over and out,
Juan Fernandez

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Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in NewsTagged Black Callous, Dan Nadel, daniel clowes, Eleanor Davis, Kurt Ankeny, Rob Kirby, Stephanie Kubo, Turbulence, Watercolor, watercolor comics

Juan Fernández

Posted on March 21, 2016

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Adam Griffiths – Rowhouse Residency Report

Comics WorkbookFebruary 23, 2017Residency Reports / School UpdatesAdam Griffiths is a comics artist from Takoma Park, MD. He joined us in Pittsburgh for a Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency January 29th-February 4th 2017. Here are his thoughts about visiting the city and his Rowhouse Residency experience. ————————————————————————————————————— The focus for my residency was completion – this is to say, I had a project I was interested in finishing during my week in Pittsburgh, and Frank seemed to help me make this theme more concrete. My projects for the week were: Allow the Rowhouse Residency hosts to see and provide feedback on the graphic novel that I have been writing for three years. Finish drawing a mini-comic that I’d begun last summer. Work on character, setting, and script concepts for a new secret project. Follow my usual comics schedule, which includes time set aside for exercise, freestyle drawing, and a weekly illustration in an unfamiliar environment. Did I accomplish all of these tasks? Let’s start. SATURDAY I arrived in Pittsburgh around 1 AM on Saturday night. I came early because I wanted to poke around Pittsburgh. My Rowhouse Residency wasn’t supposed to begin until Monday, so I had found an AirBnB that was a 10-minute walk from downtown Pittsburgh, and stayed there for two nights. Since I’d never been to Pittsburgh before, I wanted to see as much as I could but also stay focused on art. The ToonSeum was at the top of my list, followed by the Andy Warhol Museum, and then my usual wandering, which is when I take photographs and sketch. It’s a bit like a fugue state when I do this; I don’t always schedule that, but I consider it to be work, and when it begins I sort of just know, and become less reserved about taking snapshots of whatever interests me, or stopping to sit somewhere and draw. For breakfast I walked east on Forbes Ave, up Wylie Ave to Grandma B’s, a sort of diner greasy spoon. A lot of interesting buildings along this route; I stopped to watch a group of very young-looking investors talking to a man in front of the deserted New Granada Theater, which was under some type of development. I also stopped in front of the shuttered Crawford Grill, once a center of black social life in the Hill District. I didn’t really know what to order at Grandma B’s, but the staff was really nice and wanted to know where I was from. I got some great snaps on the way up the hill. After breakfast I walked back down the hill to The ToonSeum, only a 45 minute walk. The main exhibit area was partially set up for a Will Eisner show – still I saw some really lovely works, including another Eisner comic titled Harry Karry, which was about spies. I introduced myself to John F. Kelly, Director of The ToonSeum, who was in a meeting with his landlord. While I waited for his meeting to end, I happened upon a bunch of old cartooning instruction books, and I went through all of them. There was actually quite a bit of good (albeit dated) advice on how to structure your career as a cartoonist; I worked in the fine art gallery world for about ten years as an administrator. Every five or so years a helpful book is published about creating your own career as a fine artist. With the cartoonist version of such a book, there seemed to be much more structure and visualization of the career path, which, being that cartoonists’ careers were largely appended to the newspaper and media world at first, made plenty of sense. I was able to speak with John F. Kelly briefly. I asked if there was an archive in the basement and if I could come back and have a look at it. He said there was sort of an archive, but sure. I scheduled a Tuesday visit, but ended up not returning later because I was so busy drawing. After that, I walked over to the Andy Warhol Museum. I wasn’t ready for SO MANY floors of Andy Warhol. I enjoyed the screen prints, but I wasn’t so impressed with his early drawings. I have a very “Italo Calvino writerly approach” to visual artists’ early work – which is to say, Invisible Cities (written by Calvino) was an incredible feat of early work – short stories that are concise, that point towards future works of the creative person in question (I also pretty much lump artists, writers, musicians and performers all together). One of the wall plaques stated that Warhol had a peculiar skill for “increasing his income,” which I found strange. I went into the video lounge and watched ALL of the television commercials that Warhol ever produced. I wanted to do this because I have seen quite a few of Warhol’s films, own a few of them, and I admire the aggressive boringness of Warhol’s Dracula. The commercials, however, were artless. Should I have been surprised? Evening was coming, and I’d read that the Strip District was an interesting place to go on a Saturday night. I started walking in that direction and came upon EIDE’S, a 3-floor comics emporium. The long-box comics selection there was one of the best I’d ever seen; by the time I went to another floor, I was already plotting out how to convince the owners to let me set up a home somewhere in the store. Not gonna try that, but when I checked out in the basement, the clerk gave me a ‘bonified nerd’ discount! Then, the clerk on the main floor was also kind enough to direct me to a decent place to have dinner. I walked back to my AirBnB that night, chock-full of comics-luv. SUNDAY Sunday morning I decided to meet up with Sally Ingraham from Comics Workbook. I walked up Forbes Avenue to Wylie Avenue again in order to get to the Polish Hill neighborhood. This ended up being a much longer walk than I’d anticipated; I had a suitcase full of clothes, art supplies, and books. I had breakfast and made a few sketches at Lili’s Cafe, a coffee shop located below Copacetic Comics in Polish Hill. I haven’t been around punky vegan kids for a while, but one young lady was drawing and I gave her my card. Once I finished eating, I went upstairs. Copacetic Comics was a gem of an establishment. I looked around the store, got more comics and discussed the new George Herriman biography by Michael Tisserand with the owner, Bill Boichel. After this, Sally Ingraham took me on a driving tour of Pittsburgh. We saw the sprawling Allegheny Cemetery and took in some views. It was a relief to finally get to the Rowhouse and put down my suitcase. I was ready to begin working. I started by setting out all of the books I’d brought with me, plus the new ones recently acquired. Then I wrote out my schedule for the week by hand and posted it next to my drawing seat in the kitchen. I spent the rest of the night finishing thumbnails for the mini-comic. MONDAY & TUESDAY The first two days I worked in an isolated fever, completing my weekly illustration, a jumbo post-it note sketch, lots of small drawings, and several pages of the mini-comic. While I hadn’t explicitly stated that I wished to be left alone, I knew I wouldn’t hone in on the work with tons of distractions. I TURNED OFF MY PHONE during the daytime. I had gone to the grocery store on Sunday evening, which was conveniently right across the street so no excuses to go anywhere. WEDNESDAY Toiled in isolation this day as well. At this point, I felt very concentrated on completing the work, and was very satisfied with the quality of the drawings. Part of focusing on completion has nothing to do with how fast you’re working – it’s more like being a kind of live television actor with floor marks that you need to hit during scenes. If you miss the mark, or a line, you play through anyway, and plot to sneak in the part you meant to express later. I would work on a page for as long as I could – if I hit a dead end, I’d go to the mini-library I’d set up on the floor in the front room and look through comics until I was ready to start working again. The privacy of the Rowhouse made that feasible – I just kind of tore all over the place unrelentingly, joyfully. Over dinner at Frank’s house, which was next door, I spoke with Frank about his current work, which was set up across from the dinner table. Frank read what I had completed of my mini-comic. I only had about three more pages to go at that point. Also, I left my graphic novel with Frank overnight. While looking it over, he insisted that I should go ahead and print what I had done already. This was a step I needed to make – get comfortable with – so we discussed how I’d go about getting my mini-comic printed first. I have completely drawn my graphic novel at least 5 times, and have worked the script over entirely, maybe about 9 times. Working in my edits and really being rather fussy. I am very pleased with the version I’m working on – momentum-wise I’m very good at getting myself to work, but I’m very critical of what I do! It was useful to change my frame of mind from the creative work to the production work – just the type of shock I needed. In fact, in one of my old art world jobs, I’d been responsible for printing a gargantuan full color 400-page artist catalog of fine art works for two years in a row. So, while I was familiar with most of the printing terminology, I’d never ever had to apply any of that thinking to my own work. Having to consider printing the comic renewed my enthusiasm for sharing the work. I’ve got 150 pages drawn and need to get it out there! THURSDAY Finished drawing the mini-comic on this day. 40 pages. I drew 35 of them during the residency. For the rest of the day, I worked on various sketches, including some development work for a new comics project. I invited Sally and Frank over to the Rowhouse for dinner Friday night. For dinner, I cooked herbed chicken, mashed potatoes and salad. We talked about the residency and my further involvement in Pittsburgh. FRIDAY My last day. Continued developing my new comics project. Took a late afternoon drive with Frank through Braddock, and the rest of the Steel Valley. Frank is a Pittsburgh native who has lived in other parts of the country, but is now settled here running Comics Workbook. He told me about his family’s history in Pittsburgh, and then we stopped at Jerry’s Records, where I got LPs by Gene Loves Jezebel and China Crisis. I’m hoping to return for PIX, Pittsburgh’s Indy comic con, in April. After returning home on Saturday, I’ve since put myself in conversation with four printers about the mini-comic. In keeping with the speed at which I’m now working, I’ve averaged coloring pages at about 2-5 a day. So I’m more than sure I’ll have my first mini-comic printed by then! ————————————————————————————————————— Check out more work by Adam Griffiths on his website, follow him on Instagram, and look for his new mini-comic this spring! For more information about the Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency visit this page or email santoroschoolATgmail Share this page: [...]

04/17/2017

Sally IngrahamApril 16, 2017NewsDigging into a new week with news and comics from Dash Shaw, Frank Santoro, Eleanor Davis, Sam Alden, Jen Sorensen, and M. S. Harkness. ————————————————————————————————— Dash Shaw writes about curating the pop-up shop at the Metrograph theater in New York City, where his film My Entire High School Sinking Into the Sea opened on April 14th 2017 – on The Comics Journal. The shop carries: “…rare DVDs, film-related books, and issues of Cahiers du Cinéma. They asked me to pick books and DVDs that felt related to my movie, or that a cinema-going audience would be interested in.” Included in the selection is Frank Santoro’s Incanto (above). Dash Shaw writes that Frank: “…painted the key exterior background paintings in High School Sinking. This particular zine by Santoro is lovely and poetic, and also, to me, utterly hilarious, because a section of it comes from a Speed Racer episode. Santoro told me that this was drawn after working as Francesco Clemente’s assistant. Clemente would often interpret preexisting old drawings, so that inspired Santoro to adapt a two-second Speed Racer moment. It’s perfect – like seeing something you’ve seen before for the first time. He captures the stillness of those Speed Racer cartoons with their minimal background paintings.” Incanto is out of print and a rare find, so if you don’t stop by the Metrograph pop-up shop in April to get a copy, you might still be able to find it at Copacetic Comics – HERE. Read about the rest of Dash’s picks for the shop and be sure to catch My Entire Highschool Sinking Into the Sea in a city near you soon! Here are some recent reviews of the film/interviews with Dash: “Drawn to Disaster” – Filmmaker Magazine interview “The Strife’s Aquatic” – NPR movie review Q&A from Denver Alamo Drafthouse screening, with artist Andrew Lorenzi “Alt Comix Artists Revives Classic Animation Tech” – Inverse feature “Resplendent Teenage Turmoil” – Fandor Keyframe interview Dash Shaw will be coming to Pittsburgh for a screening of his movie on April 25th 2017 at the Rowhouse Cinema! Full event details are HERE. Creator and director Dash Shaw along with cartoonist Frank Santoro will kick off the Pittsburgh Premiere of “My Entire High School Sinking into the Sea” with a live interview followed by a sneak preview showing of the film. VIP tickets include everything above plus a private Meet & Greet in the Bierport taproom (limit 30 people)! Tuesday, April 25th 7:15pm $12 Regular Ticket: Live Interview & Screening $20 VIP Ticket: Live Interview & Screening AND private Meet & Greet post screening. If you are in the region be sure to come out for this event! For a list of other screenings around the country visit this page. ————————————————————————————————— You can find an excerpt from the upcoming You & A Bike & A Road by Eleanor Davis (Koyama Press, May 2017) on Illustrated PEN, presented by guest editor MariNaomi. She writes: “Eleanor Davis puts out consistently great work, so much that it amazes me when I’m surprised (each and every time) by how wonderful her work is. This book is no exception, filled with moments that are full of joy, pain, beauty, and trouble. Using minimal lines and words, Eleanor conveys so much about the spectrum of emotions involved with being human.“ See the excerpt HERE. ————————————————————————————————— M. S. Harkness has offered a preview of her upcoming comic Tinderella – see it HERE. Marina is coming to Pittsburgh this summer for a Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency, and she will be working on Tinderella and other comics while she is here in July. Unperturbed by a tentative post-graduation financial state, Marina has been creating the ways and means to get to Pittsburgh – she’s determined to cause some havoc around here, come hell or high water – but you can help her get here with a little more comfort and ease by contributing to her Generosity campaign. She – and the Comics Workbook team – thank you in advance! ————————————————————————————————— Sam Alden published part 2 of 4 of his comic Sledgehammer on Hazlitt….in February – I somehow missed it, so possibly you did as well. Check it out HERE. New on Hazlitt is Rory Frances‘ Look Outside – view part 1 HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Jen Sorensen is interviewed on The Comics Beat. She talks about making political cartoons, being the comics editor at Fusion, and what it means to be a cartoonist in the present world. “Dueben: You won the Herblock Award a few years ago and you said that your job is “worrying about how humanity is destroying itself.” Which is a good line, but do you think that is the role of the cartoonist in some way? Sorensen: I’m doing a lot of worrying about humanity destroying itself these days. I think it is an important role of a political cartoonist. I think sometimes it’s probably more acute than others. It’s something that’s hard to deal with sometimes. Right now I find that these aren’t really funny times. There are ludicrous characters and you can make fun of Trump and these ridiculous nominees, but at the same time I don’t want to normalize him. I find myself not even wanting to draw him. I mean, I do and I will, but I don’t want to treat him like any other President. I’ve been struggling with that. How to be humorous at a time when things are just very serious. I guess what I wind up doing is somewhat darker humor, darker cartoons, and more informative cartoons that say, this is what’s happening, can you believe it? With the Bush administration things were terrible and there were definitely some dark times, but I felt like you could make fun of Bush for being a buffoon and the implications just weren’t quite as grave. It’s a different time now.“ Read the rest HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Blinkers – 4-17-2017 – by Jack Brougham ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 4-17-2017 – by Christian Southgate Christian is a member of the Charlottetown Comics Club (Prince Edward Island, Canada) which is headed by Comics Workbook alum Tyler Landry – more about Christian Southgate and the CCC HERE! ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 4-17-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

02/28/2017

Aaron CockleFebruary 27, 2017NewsAaron here today with Whit Taylor Comics; PaperJazz; LA Times Book Prize Finalists (Comics Category); Pete Toms Gets Reviewed; Another Look at Matthew Thurber; Horvitz/Provan in Conversation; Congrats to INK BRICK ————————————————————————————————— What is Race? Just the Facts. Whit Taylor has a comic about race and its perception throughout history posted at the Nib. ————————————————————————————————— ————————————————————————————————— Graphic Novel/Comics of Note (in Los Angeles, California) The Los Angeles Times has released its list of finalists for their annual book prize awards, with a strong list of contenders for the ‘GRAPHIC NOVEL/COMICS’ category: “Beverly” by Nick Drnaso “The Artist” by Anna Haifisch “Don’t Come in Here” by Patrick Kyle “What Is Obscenity” by Rokudenashiko (translated by Anne Ishii) “Demon: Volume 1” by Jason Shiga ————————————————————————————————— A Comic Whose Characters Swim in Apathy and Cynicism At Hyperallergic, R. Orion Martin digs in to Pete Toms’s Dad’s Weekend, published by Hic and Hoc: Every middle-aged character in the book except for Manny seems to be in a state of resigned existential crisis. One middle-aged woman interrupts Manny to tell him about a realization she’s had, Once you unpack, you’re left with an empty suitcase. What’s at the foundation of who you are? Animal instincts? Some shit your parents said to you when you were a toddler? It’s all so simple and unimportant. I had this dream where I hung myself with my own DNA strand. ————————————————————————————————— ‘The pre-production of Cremaster 3 is kind of just rolling along without me.’ Sally and Juan linked to this Max Morris/Matthew Thurber interview last week, but I wanted to take another look at it, especially this part from the start of the Q&A: Max Morris: Back in 2014, you wrote this article for The Comics Journal Website , “Letter to a Young Cartoonist”, that stirred some controversy at the time. A bulk of the article dealt with the ramifications of posting comics work on Tumblr and Social Media, among other issues of challengers to the new generation of comics artists. This was in a time when that felt like the primary way to see new work being made by current creators. A little under 3 years after you posted that article, a lot has changed. Looking back at this article, what words do you have to say to the young cartoonist today? Matthew Thurber: I feel more than ever that printed media contains autonomous power that is almost magical. All internet publication is embedded in and framed by another corporation. With print, as soon as it flies off the press it belongs, like the land, to “you and me”. The disturbing thing about social media is they change the terms of publication from one of total freedom, to one where you are being allowed to express yourself. Because they grant it… they can take it away. Social media echo chambers are destructive: look at what they have helped to do in terms of ripping our country in half, replacing everything with a simulation of reality. Is that what you mean by “a lot is changed”? We’re opting into 1984 because it feels good. It’s so seductive to feel like you’ve done something in pseudo-reality. We need to learn to live without the internet, to distribute artifacts in physical space, to know how to talk to each other again. It is so much more meaningful and beautiful. And guess what??? I’m part of the problem because I’m on INSTAGRAM (@mtshelves)! What a miserable hypocritical worm!!!! And the worst part is….I LOVE it! I love the ego pampering attention and the immediacy despite my complete conviction that it sucks! ————————————————————————————————— Ask the Stone to Say Via Triple Canopy, David Horvitz and Alexander Provan discoursing on time, space, discourse, discoursing: Horvitz’s work as an artist often suggests how to live outside the bounds of time, how to recover forms of experience that are rooted in natural rhythms and not the dictates of international bureaucracies. “A lot of people are into yoga and meditation, but I see those as ways of relaxing your mind and body so that you can continue to work efficiently and productively, at absurdly accelerated rates,” he says. “I’m interested in forms of meditation that cultivate the enjoyment of time, that oppose efficiency, that make you miss every deadline.” Horvitz and Provan cover ancient Egyptian astrology and atomic clocks, the auditory landscapes of nineteenth-century villages and the contemporary landscapes offered by geostationary satellites. They find the origins of Brexit in the imposition of the Gregorian calendar (“European-elite time”) on the British in 1752, which vanquished eleven days and gave rise to a protest slogan after Boris Johnson’s heart: “Give Us Our Eleven Days.” ————————————————————————————————— INK BRICK’s crowd-funding goal for it’s 8th issue was met with some time to spare, so congratulations to them. The new book has a great list of contributors, and frequent readers of this news-blog will see some of their favorite cartoonists/people involved: Vidhu Aggarwal | Alyssa Berg | Warren Craghead | Erin Curry | John Hankiewicz | Keren Katz | Mark Laliberte | Matt Madden | Paul Madonna (cover) | Alexander Rothman | Alexey Sokolin | Bishakh Som | Deshan Tennekoon | Andrea Tsurumi | Paul K. Tunis | Andrew White | Sophia Wiedeman | Shahar Sarig More info, as well as details about their ‘Stretch Goals’, are noted on their Kickstarter page. ————————————————————————————————— The Spring Semester of the Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers is starting soon! The semester has a rolling start date, but it will officially kick off on March 7th. We will continue taking applications past that date – Frank is always willing to make it work for your schedule. Just apply! The course is 8 weeks long – 500 bux – payment plans are available. More details can be found HERE. Email santoroschoolATgmail to apply ————————————————————————————————— A Cosmic Journey – 2-28-2017 – by Cameron Arthur ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 2-28-2017 – by Sally Ingraham ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 2-28-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio ————————————————————————————————— Cozytown –2-28-2017- by Juan Fernandez Share this page: [...]

Clowes and Nadel in Conversation (2010)

Juan FernándezMarch 21, 2016Interviews / The Diaz ArchiveChris Anthony Diaz has passed along this video he shot, for us to share with you: the Daniel Clowes spotlight panel from 2010’s Alternative Press Expo(APE), with Dan Nadel. Of interest since it dovetails Clowes’ 2016 tour for the release of Patience. This video gives a lot of insight indirectly to Patience. Comic book match ups, Burne Hogarth yelling, EC Horror comics, the disappointment in comics history, public vs. private characters, and life in the letters columns, it’s all here. Many thanks to Chris Anthony Diaz for documenting this conversation. Stay up to date with Diaz’s work here: folkloreshed.tumblr.com/ Share this page: [...]

08/25/2017

Sally IngrahamAugust 25, 2017NewsBon voyage to Caitlin Rose Boyle, and to Suzy & Cecil too – plus weird longbox comics finds and other news! ———————————————————————————————— Caitlin Rose Boyle‘s work was featured on the cover of Pittsburgh’s City Paper this week, and inside there’s an interview with her, on the eve of her departure for L.A. After a successful stint as the artist for Jonsey, Caitlin is ready to focus on animation for awhile and wants to be nearer to the studios where she hopes to collaborate. One of the things she’ll miss about Pittsburgh however are the comic makers here. “There are too many wonderful artists in this city. John Peña taught a comics class at CMU that kind of helped jumpstart my comics making process. Juan Fernandez has been a constant friend since our time at school and he’s one of the hardest working comics people I know! I’m always inspired after a conversation with Juan. Jenn Lisa’s drawings are so full of life and heart; her comics & drawings supercharge me when I look at them. Lizzie Solomon’s work pushes me to be bolder and weirder, Rachel Masilamani’s work is so powerful and raw and makes me want to share my heart on the page. I’m very lucky I got to share a space with Pittsburgh artists and comics-makers for awhile.“ Caitlin also makes note of her influences and the changing comics scene. “I wasn’t super into American comics growing up, and the male-dominated atmosphere was a big part of it. I gravitated towards manga, which had a huge selection of female creators to choose from in a bunch of different genres. There’s still totally an old guard of comics dudes making really stale stuff with the bigger publishers, but there are honestly SO many women and non-binary people doing amazing work in comics right now, here and all over the world. A large chunk of it is independently published, or published online, but it’s accessible and there’s so much of it that I frequently have a backlog of amazing work to read through.“ Read the rest of the interview HERE – and good luck to you Caitlin! ———————————————————————————————— Gabriella Tito and I are releasing a collection of Suzy & Cecil strips! Pulling from the comic strip that has been shared daily on Instagram and here in the Comics Workbook Daily News since November 2016, it will feature 44 strips picked out of the hundreds that we’ve made so far. Please pre-order a copy HERE! ———————————————————————————————— Digging through longboxes is often how I discover new-to-me comics makers who happen to be women. As with any sort of hunting, there are good days, and bad days, and just weird days. It’s interesting and informative to add names to my mental list, and file comics titles away, but not surprising that there is a great deal of chaff to sift through. Above is a comic by Diana Sasse, which at first glance I thought was a story by Donna Barr, who made those wild Stinz comics about centaurs. There are talking animals and centaurs galore in Diana Sasse’s Frenchie Doudou series, which follows a French soldier through a fantasy version of Europe in a time similar to WWI. The centaurs, and their more humanoid biped strain of being, are the Germans. Diana is Swiss, and began publishing comics in 1988. I think her most recent project was this Antique White House series from the early 2000’s (a European fairy-tale-style take on JFK…) I guess the wind has blown away much other traces of her work. Far more interesting – probably I should have led with this one – is one of Rachel Pollack‘s Doom Patrol issues, with art by Linda Medley. Rachel Pollack took over the writing on Doom Patrol when Grant Morrison left, and scribbled issues 64-87. Fans were heartbroken when Morrison left, but Rachel Pollack did some pretty interesting stuff with the series despite being a newcomer to comics – most notably, introducing a transgender character. Here’s an interview with Rachel from 2014 where she talks about some of what she tried to do with the series. DC is actually finally collecting Rachel’s run of Doom Patrol – Doom Patrol Book Four will be released in February of 2018. Rachel Pollack’s run of Doom Patrol featured a number of different artists, but the issue I found was penciled by Linda Medley. She, of course, went on to be the award-winning creator of Castle Waiting, a series she started publishing in 1996 with the help of a Xeric grant, and continued to self-published for years on her own. Fantagraphics collected two volumes of Castle Waiting, but as of now Linda is working on volume 3 and is back to funding it herself (with a little help from her friends, hopefully). One more longbox find – and this one IS by Donna Barr. No centaurs – instead we have the adventures of the (sadly fictitious) younger brother of the notorious German general the Desert Fox (Erwin Rommel). His little brother is Oberst Manfred Pfirsich Marie Rommel, and he is the Desert Peach. An openly gay German soldier during WWII is somewhat intriguing, and his misadventures as the commander of the 469th Halftrack, Gravedigging and Support Unit of the Afrika Korps, are pretty bonkers. Supposedly this unit is for the fellows who are really not “fit for service” in the German Army, the weirdos and strays who were nonetheless enlisted. The Desert Peach mainly tries to keep them out of any fighting, beyond what fighting they do among themselves. From the looks of issue #2, the series is pretty lively, and it appears that Donna aimed to bring a few more dimensions to the good vs. evil story-line of WWII. I guess I’d have to read the rest to see if she succeeded… Earlier this year Donna Barr announced that the San Diego State University Library had released her Black Manuscripts – a series of 12 “ornate” works that collect what she was writing and drawing about in the mid-1970’s, soon after she got out of the army – things she never expected to see published (like many girls of the time, she noted). You can peruse the manuscripts in the digital library HERE. ———————————————————————————————— In Addition Andrea Ayres digs into the barrier breaking/industry leading work of Kelly Sue DeConnick and MariNaomi over on The Comics Beat, laying out the resources both women have created to combat the problem of diversity in comics. Read the article HERE. Sara Lautman gives a shoutout to her “Microgeneration” on the New Yorker. Check out new online magazine Anomaly 25, featuring the work of a bunch of rad women – HERE. Melissa Mendes shared a comic she created based on a Twitter thread written by Julius Groat that deals with the recent white supremacist activity in Charlottsville. Read it HERE. ———————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 8-25-2017 – by Sally Ingraham ———————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie- 8-25-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

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