Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in NewsTagged Aidan Koch, bernadette mayer, jef czekaj, marcel broodthaers, PMF VII, Retrofit, risograph, the comics journal #238

Aaron Cockle

Posted on March 29, 2016March 30, 2016

Explore

03/24/2017

Sally IngrahamMarch 23, 2017NewsWe finish the week with Mary Fleener, Isabel Bas Amat, Gloria Rivera, Miranda Harmon, and more! ————————————————————————————————— I just had a chance to check out Mineshaft #34 (Fall 2016) at Copacetic Comics and happened across Mary Fleener‘s piece for the zine (above). Only hours later I discovered that Women Write About Comics had posted an interview with Mary Fleener, which digs into what she’s currently working on, her recent experience with comics about local politics, and her long relationship with the medium. She is part of a relatively small group of female cartoonists who have been working steadily since the 70’s, and I am pleased to see that she is still totally invested in the community and is still making serious work – perhaps the best work of her life (keep an eye out for her new book Billie the Bee, a project she considers to be the hardest thing she’s ever done.) Mary Fleener’s advice to an aspiring comics maker: “Read a lot of books, look at a lot of art, and go to a lot of museums. I compare a lot of things to learning how to play a musical instrument. It’s almost like a Law of Nature. If you practice, you will get better. If you draw a lot, you will get better. Some people take longer, and some can do it right away, but if you do not practice you’ll get nowhere. Another thing, if you have a burning desire to try something, then you MUST. If you do not, you will always wonder what you missed out on. Envy is another thing that can either give you the drive to try harder or it can eat you up inside. If someone gets an award, congratulate them, don’t be bitter. One more thing: always say “Please” and “Thank you”.“ Read the rest of the interview HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Thanks to the wonders of Google Translate I’ve been doing my best to learn about Isabel Bas Amat (b. 1931), a cartoonist from Barcelona, Spain, who was one of only three women to draw comics for the long-running comics magazine TBO (1917-1983). She began making work for the magazine in 1967, and her strip Ana-Emilia and Her Family (above) became popular. She was completely self taught and had very little communication with other cartoonists, so all of her work was based on the comics that she had grown up reading. She drew from an early age, and first sent her comics to a local magazine when she was 15. She had the satisfaction of seeing her work published, and was able to carry on making comics and doing illustration work. Her comic for TBO, a magazine she always hoped to be published in, featured a character that was based on the daughter of the publisher, Albert Viña. Like her character Ana-Emilia, Isabel was a climber and swimmer and tabletop tennis player – but comics were her first love. There is an interview with Isabel Bas Amat on Tebeosfera – with the aid of Google Translate you can learn more about this rad cartoonist and see more of her strips and comics – HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Gloria Rivera is in Pittsburgh this week for a Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency. She is an alum of the Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers and is a member of the CW Roller Derby League so we know that she isn’t afraid of working hard. Now she is making the most of a week dedicated entirely to drawing and research – or “sparing in the dojo” as we call it around CW. We’ll hear more about her adventures next week – meanwhile follow the Rowhouse Residency Instagram account – @rowhouseresidency – and if you’re interested in joining us in Pittsburgh yourself, email santoroschool@gmail.com for more info! ————————————————————————————————— Miranda Harmon was thinking about the X-Men recently (above). See the rest of her musings HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Fish Fry Friday M. S. Harkness is a cartoonists from Minneapolis, Minnesota who is headed to Pittsburgh this summer for a Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency – come hell or high water! Donate to her travel expenses if you can – this gal will probably crawl here if she has to, but it would be nice if she could at least take the train – check out her Generosity campaign HERE – and send M.S. Harkness to Pittsburgh! The PEN America feature Illustrated PEN has an excerpt from Thi Bui’s new book, The Best We Could Do – HERE. Pinup Girl Clothing has released a line of Los Hernandez Brothers clothes, which uses fabric with designs pulled from their large body of work. Cartoonist Sarah Dyer (who is best known for the 90’s Action Girl anthology) is the Art Director for the line, so anyone ELSE who thinks this is a marvelous fashion development can join me in thanking Sarah for it! More about the line HERE on The Comics Beat – and you can order the clothing HERE. Sophie Goldstein treated herself to a Patreon for her birthday – support her HERE. Women Write About Comics reviews Peter Bagge’s new book Fire!!: The Zora Neale Hurston Story. ————————————————————————————————— Blinkers – 3-24-2017 – by Jack Brougham ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 3-24-2017 – by Gabriella Tito ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 3-24-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

Residency Report: Caleb Orecchio July 2016

Comics WorkbookJuly 31, 2016Residency Reports / School UpdatesCaleb Orecchio and Frank Santoro in conversation in the backyard of the Rowhouse Residency, Pittsburgh, PA – July 2016 Video: Michael Pisano – Editing: Sally Ingraham Share this page: [...]

Jack Brougham on LICAF 2016

Comics WorkbookOctober 25, 2016Festivals and ShowsQuite often comics conventions feel like they exist in little bubbles. Once you’re inside the hall/centre/shack/bunker the event is taking place in, you get the sense you could be anywhere. The organizers of The Lakes International Comic Art Festival (LICAF) seem to be having none of this. Visiting Kendal for the weekend of the festival is like entering a parallel universe where comics and cartooning are part of the fabric of public life. Walk out of the Clock Tower for a breath of fresh air and a can of fizzy pop, and you might see Dr Who and Batman walking side by side down the High Street, or Chewbacca and a Storm Trooper having a chat and posing for selfies with weekend shoppers. (note: Frank Santoro was caught grabbing a selfie with Chewbacca – check out his LICAF adventures HERE!) Queuing for sandwiches you can admire the mad drawings of superheroes plastering the windows, made by local school kids. There’s a real sense that the festival has pushed its tendrils into the local community, and vice versa. Stumbling home late at night to your lodgings, you might chance across original art from Oliver East’s The Homesick Truant’s Cumbrian Yarn, lit by slanting yellow street light. It helps that the festival takes place in Kendal. It’s a pretty special place, with fantastic and fantastical grey stone architecture everywhere. I was generously put up in an attic flat in an enormous, labyrinthine house just outside the town centre, which set a tone of enchantment for the rest of the weekend (thanks to my generous hosts, Mandy and Geoff!) Walking from my accommodation to the town centre on Sunday I was taken with the strange rock formations on the crest of the hill above the town. The day previously I had been chatting to fellow CW alumnus Niall Breen and he mentioned he was going to go walking in the hills. How many other comics festivals or conventions are there you can take a break by walking out of town and up a mini mountain? Can’t be many. (note: check out Niall’s LICAF story HERE.) I was there to help man the Comics Workbook table in the main hall of the Clock Tower, the market section of the festival. While this meant being out of action for many talks and workshops, there was a real buzz in the halls with loads of great folk stopping by to say hello. It was me and the aforementioned Oliver East behind the table for the weekend. The atmosphere was lively, with plenty of people coming by to browse and chat. I got to meet several cartoonists whose work I have admired for years, and was introduced to several whose work I hadn’t been familiar with. The organizers seem to have deliberately gone out of their way to involve as many makers as possible from every corner, edge, nook, cranny and crack of the field of small press comics. Art comics similar to those on the CW table were well represented, as were superheroes, genre fiction, cute stuff and animal comics. The range of styles, content, genres and sensibilities represented by the sellers in the market was really impressive. Being behind the table was a great opportunity to see different networks of comics makers and enthusiasts forming. This was really exciting. I was particularly taken with a concept Simon Russell is developing which involves establishing a new (to me, at least) model for independent makers of all sorts to sell side by side at small scale curated events. Less financial risk for the creator, and less creative ghettoisation, which in a field like comics is especially welcome. For a maker involved in self-publishing, this is what festivals like LICAF are all about – forging connections with other makers and enabling creative communities to be built. I’ve been thinking a lot recently about closing the circle between creating and publishing and publishing small and often in cheap little editions, road-testing stories in public, and building larger narratives or works from small individually published units. So far so confused? – excellent. Anyway, arriving at the table with this in the back of my mind it was great to see the organizers had hired Comics Workbook a photocopier so we could run off copies of the zines and comics produced in the CW workshops that took place on Saturday morning. Workshops are great and everything, but when you can demonstrate to people how easy it is to start running off copies of your own stuff to share, that’s something else. Sunday I drove off in beautiful afternoon sunshine to a friend’s house nearby. As I drove down narrow winding roads scattered with the first leaves of autumn I saw enormous bales of hay or straw wrapped in bright fuchsia plastic, like relics of a future cartoon universe cast back in time. Then, rounding a tight corner, a field of sheep all dyed bright orange, suddenly came into view. It was as if the spirit of LICAF had seeped out into the surrounding countryside, creating these surrealistic eruptions from the lush green hillsides. I’m looking forward to coming back next year for more of the same. ————————————————————————– Jack Brougham makes comics outside London, England. You can find his work HERE. Share this page: [...]

06/13/2018

Juan FernándezJune 13, 2018los Cómics / NewsArelis Uribe; Margarita Valdés; 30 Millones de Naves; Berliac; el panorama de la ilustración española – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Los cómics y las noticias que me han llamado la atención esta semana: ~ en Español y “sometimes in English” ~ La Polola #78 – Arelis Uribe Sol Díaz Castillo y Marcela Trujillo tienen una nueva edicion de La Polola Podcast! Las chicas conversan con la escritora y periodista Arelis Uribe. Conversaron entre bombas, de quiltras, vida, calle y feminismo, compartió parte de su historia, recuerdos y proyectos. Es un viaje entre conceptos, libros, preguntas y mucho más. – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – La dibujante Margarita Valdés entrevistada Pablo Andulce, Más Deco Explícanos la necesidad de una revista de cómic hecha por mujeres. Cuando vi los cómics de Maliki en The Clinic sentí alivio de leer a una mujer hablando con honestidad de su cotidianidad, su sexualidad, o sus fracasos, sin florituras. Casi siempre veía aparecer, desde un autor hombre, una mujer idealizada, casi inhumana, con la que no me identificaba nada (esto no solo con los cómics, también en los libros, películas, etc.). Aunque ha cambiado para bien desde esos años hasta ahora, las voces femeninas siguen siendo escasas. En Chile hace algunos años Melina Rapimán hizo Tribuna Femenina, también de cómic de mujeres; participé de uno de sus números. Ahora con Brígida es buenísimo que se reabra ese espacio, y que sea un proyecto con varios números y que incluyan autoras de otros países. – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Novedades – 13 Millones de Naves La revista de cómics, 13 Millones De Naves les ofrece un monton de reseñasnuevas para ayudarlos en decidir su lectura de verano: Röhner de Max Baitinger, TheEndOfTheFuckingWorld de Charles Forsman, la 4ª entrega del Gus de Cristophe Blain, lo nuevo de Enki Bilal, el nª 3 de Sex Criminals y más! – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Un Degenerado. Entrevista con Berliac L. De Paoli y Santi Sanchez Kutika, Revista Kamandi Quizás hay un asunto sensible, la referencia fotográfica. Noto en muchas conversaciones de dibujantes en las que siempre se lo menciona peyorativamente, y para mí es desatender un poco cómo funciona en el manga la referencia fotográfica y la necesidad de imponer un cierto realismo a los escenarios. Yo veo SADBOI y entiendo el sentido holístico que tiene dentro de la obra… Siento que todavía hay un cierto tabú en el uso de referencias. ¿Cómo funciona para vos? Lo peyorativo es una cuestión puramente ideológica, una cosa es decir de modo descriptivo: “el manga usa referencias fotográficas”, y otra muy distinta es el tono normativo según el cual “en la historieta de verdad (la argentina) eso no se hace”. Pero eso esconde una mirada superficial del manga. La referencia fotográfica no es una cuestión de dibujo, sino que ayuda a leer mejor, es una cuestión narrativa, no estilística. En este sentido transicionar al manga también consistió en cambiar de ética de trabajo, e incluso ya nos vamos por el terreno filosófico si nos detenemos a pensar en la figura del autor en sí. En occidente, autor es aquel que deja su impronta en toda la obra. En el manga, en cambio, pasa por otro lado, por lo que no se ve. El manga en ese sentido es también superar el deseo de querer ser visto. Sino por ejemplo, el sistema de asistentes sería imposible. – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Mujeres ilustradoras, el panorama de la ilustración española Rigo, Momoko En momoko.es, os hablan esta mañana del panorama de la ilustración en manos de mujeres ilustradoras en España. Hay un gran número de ilustradoras españolas que están triunfando actualmente, viendo en muchos casos su trabajo impulsado por el poder de las redes sociales. Esta corriente artística y esta forma de consumo inmediato a través de las redes está cambiando los códigos tanto en el mundo de las artes plásticas como en el de la literatura. En Momoko os dejamos una lista de algunas de las mujeres ilustradoras españolas que más relevancia tienen actualmente, ¡las admiramos a todas y cada una de ellas! – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Suzy and Cecil – 06-13-2018 – by Gabriella Tito Share this page: [...]

05/30/2018

Juan FernándezMay 30, 2018los Cómics / NewsEntreviñetas + TCAF, Gutterfest #6, Ronald Wimberly, Laura Knetzger ————————————————————— Desde este año Entreviñetas inicia una alianza con TCAF. La alianza empieza con una primera convocatoria para que un autor canadiense trabaje con un autor colombiano en un cómic. The Toronto Comic Arts Festival (Toronto, Canada) and Entreviñetas Festival (Bogotá and Medellín, Colombia), in alliance with the Ministry of Culture of Colombia, are proud to announce the launch of the Blind Date project (Cita a ciegas). This collaborative creative project will support two comic artists — one from Canada, and one from Colombia — to create a shared digital graphic work over the course of one month, using the internet to develop the piece from their respective places of residency. The selected Canadian artist will receive $1000 CAD to support the creation of this work. The selected Colombian artist will receive 5 million Colombian pesos. Please see the detailed application for information about how to apply to participate. Léanlo todo AQUI. ————————————————————— GUTTERFEST #6 Lydia Metral saco fotos en Barcelona de La Festa de l’Autoedició – GUTTERFEST #6. Todos salieron guapitos. ————————————————————— Ronald Wimberly Revisits Island #15 – a critique of critique – The fact that the cover to Island, the first page of January, caused such a stir before many had read the interior pages is a testament to its power as a comment on the theater of identity and fame. In a way we all played out materially, what Dilraj put down in that magazine. The material reality of the lack of political subjectivity in the creative environment that produced, published, and critiqued that magazine was made apparent. Brandon Graham demonstrated his editorial blind spot and his lack of social intelligence in how he discussed the work. Many of the critics, myself among them, demonstrated a lack of political, historical, and critical subjectivity when we rushed to contribute our hot takes. One thing in particular that bothered me was a sentiment that these aesthetics would somehow be better if the author was black.; Dilraj Mann, as I understand, is south asian. I don’t ascribe to this. I think given the context we have to judge the aesthetics on their own. And if we are going to expand the subjectivity and say that people who were wounded by those aesthetics get a crack at using them, the fact that historically, the aesthetics of Sambo come from the depiction of a South Asian boy (I go into this history in LAAB#0), should also carry some weight. I mean, take a hard look at Mr. popo. Read it all HERE. ————————————————————— Laura K Plays 11: Legend of Mana Laura Knetzger offers up a comic on falling through the inscrutable margins in Legend of Mana for ZEAL on Medium! A satisfying little poetic reflection on another classic videogame. If you’re a fan if that unshakeable feeling of longing from certain mysterious fantasy games, you’ll know what Laura’s talking about… Additionally, Laura Knetzger’s put a bunch of diary comics and sketches on her patreon, so if you don’t already, it’s a great time to pledge! ————————————————————— Share this page: [...]

03/29/2016

Posted on March 29, 2016March 30, 2016 by Aaron Cockle

Marcel Broodthaers in NYC; Bernadette Mayer & Experimental Writing; PMF VII; FUCK OTHER FORMS OF ART; O Risograph, my Risograph!

—————————————————————————————————

Belgian artist Marcel Broodthaers (1924-1976) is experiencing something of a renaissance here in NYC, what with the room devoted to his book work at the most recent New York Art Book Fair, a show currently at Paul Kasmin Gallery, and the expansive career retrospective now on view at the Museum of Modern Art.

—————————————————————————————————

Bernadette Mayer’s List of Journal Ideas + Writing Experiments

—————————————————————————————————

Aidan Koch @ Open Space + the Seventh Annual Publications & Multiples Fair (PMF VII), April 9-10, 12-6pm each day at the Baltimore Design School, 1500 Barclay Street. The fair is free and open to the public.

—————————————————————————————————

Jef Czejak’s essay from 2001 about funding for comics projects within the art-funding community still has relevance. That whole issue of The Comics Journal, #238, guest-edited by Tom Devlin, is full of useful information.

—————————————————————————————————

Risograph Tutorials on YouTube. There are some semi-slick, corporate videos that are kind of fun to watch, if you’re in to that sort of thing.

—————————————————————————————————

SPECIAL NEWS ITEM
Please consider supporting the Retrofit Kickstarter. They have an ambitious publishing schedule in place with an amazing group of artists producing high quality comics work.

—————————————————————————————————

Share this page:

Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in NewsTagged Aidan Koch, bernadette mayer, jef czekaj, marcel broodthaers, PMF VII, Retrofit, risograph, the comics journal #238

Aaron Cockle

Posted on March 29, 2016March 30, 2016

Explore

12/19/2016

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

04/05/2018

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

08/03/2017

Sally IngrahamAugust 2, 2017NewsSally here with comics from The Pittsburgh Courier and Oliver Harrington, plus other comics and persons of interest. ———————————————————————————————— I came across a great article on Blavity from earlier this year about our mostly forgotten black political cartoonists – including Oliver Harrington (his work seen above) who some consider to be the greatest political cartoonist of all time. In the 1940’s and ’50s many black political cartoonists voiced powerful and unpopular opinions in publications like The Amsterdam News and The Chicago Defender. Strong anti-racist views made artists like Harrington targets during the McCarthy era however, and like many artists before him, he went into self-exile in Paris. Other cartoonists from that period to remember are Bill Chase and Jan Jackson. “Jan Jackson’s cartoon of two American soldiers running across the Atlantic Ocean to save a European white woman in chains as they turn their back to an American black woman in chains speaks to the selective grieving and racism which were both rampant during the WWII era.” – Orit Mohamed via Blavity Demanding the necessary viewpoint of the black political cartoonist – needed now more than ever before – and bemoaning the lack of a single full-time black cartoonist in any American daily newspapers (as pointed out earlier by Michael Cavna in The Washington Post), the author of the article presents a list of artists working today, including Keith Knight, Cory Thomas, Darrin Bell, Chris Kindred, and Shannon Wright. Read the whole article HERE. ———————————————————————————————— I knew that The Pittsburgh Courier was another famous Black newspaper from the 20th century, so I went to the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh to look at copies of the paper on microfilm. “I’m here for the comics!” I told the librarian who helped me out. I picked a roll of film somewhat at random, and was soon browsing through 1945 newspapers. I found comics by Oliver Harrington, as well as other cartoonists of the time. Here’s the “funny pages” from March 31st, 1945: And here is the same paper’s edition of Harrington’s Dark Laughter comic, staring Bootsie: Later on in Harrington’s Jive Gray strip, the pilot (Jive Gray) has been shot down, but he runs into the person he was sent on mission to find – a female Colonel! I’ll have to go back to the library soon and get printouts of some of these comics – apologies for bad photos of microfilm! But it is a real treat to see these comics “in person” at my local library and get a sense of the time and cartoonists who were being published in national newspapers. More to come next week, including some of Jackie Ormes‘ comics! ———————————————————————————————— Yona Harvey was kind enough to stop by the monthly meeting of the Pittsburgh Comics Salon last night, and I had the pleasure of running her and the other attendees through a classic Comics Workbook drill. The comics community in Pittsburgh is constantly evolving, and is full of an energy that is pretty unique. It’s a place where a talented poet like Yona (who has written stories set in the world of Marvel’s The Black Panther) can spar with Jonas Goonface (currently finishing up a comic series with Boom! Studios) and I (who is publishing the 248th Suzy and Cecil strip below!) and each one of us can challenge and inspire the other. The entire city of Pittsburgh is a comics academy. Join us! ———————————————————————————————— Another way to jump into our floating comics academy is to participate in thee Comics Workbook Composition Competition 2017. Now in it’s 5th year, this iteration is a riff on the 6-panel grid, in the traditional North American comic book size – but with a twist! Full details HERE. ———————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 8-3-2017 – by Sally Ingraham ———————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 8-3-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

COMICS WORKBOOK COMPOSITION COMPETITION 2016

Juan FernándezJuly 10, 2016Santoro Schoolthee SANTORO CORRESPONDENCE COURSE and thee Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency presents the COMICS WORKBOOK COMPOSITION COMPETITION 2016 ————————————————- 1st place – $500 cash prize to the winner 2nd place – $250 credit at Copacetic Comics 3rd place – $100 credit at Copacetic Comics plus four $50 honorable mention prizes from Big Planet Comics ————————————————- Create a 16 page signature comic book narrative to the specifications below —————————- DEADLINE: August 30 2016 midnight new york city time ————————————————- PAY ATTENTION!! THIS YEAR IS DIFFERENT! Hereand Here and Here are last three years if you haven’t heard of the contest. This isn’t a scam, silly. Here are the specs: Original art page size: 5.5 x 8.5 inch originals with a 5 x 7.5 inch live area. Three equal “landscape” oriented panels. No exceptions. Each panel will be 5 inches wide and 2.5 inches tall. The “Tezuka Grid”. MEANING: YOU CANNOT CHANGE THE PANEL SIZES. 14 pages with 3 panels per page means you only have 42 panels to tell your story. And two covers. Work may be in color OR black and white – OR – a combination of both. You may also cut paper to the standard panel size of 5 x 2.5 inches and arrange them on your 5.5 x 8.5 paper quarter inch margins east, north and west with a three quarter inch margin south. These “specs” were derived from Osamu Tezuka’s proportions for his first manga, The Mysterious Underground Men. It is a classic 2:3 proportion which is the same as traditional North American comic books. See above photos–I determined the live area and then scale’d up to a standard North American size which is affordable to print. See my ideas about the two most used comic book proportions HERE. International students must use the same specs. No complaining. It is recommended that you use one 8.5 x 11 piece of paper to compose the “spread”. The point is to draw small. And to draw by hand. And to learn how to draw in a “1 to 1″ fashion, as this proportion is perfect for North American “mini-comics” and for makers worldwide to produce comics from office supplies. And can be reduced to make a traditional 100x150mm live area for manga. See thoughts on this subject HERE. Thats 14 pages of story plus two covers. Meaning seven spreads and a front and back cover. A 16 page signature. Follow this example here. THE STORY MUST BE COMPLETE. SERIAL INSTALLMENTS of a longer narrative ARE NOT ELIGIBLE. THE STORY MUST BE NEW. IF YOU REPURPOSE AN OLD STORY THAT HAS ALREADY BEEN PUBLISHED YOU WILL BE DISQUALIFIED. Consider this an exercise in short story writing. I think the 16 page signature is ideal to contain a short story. Adaptations of existing works are not eligible. Like, you can’t copy a sequence from a movie. Photograph or scan your pages and post them on your tumblr AS SPREADS. If you don’t have a tumblr – make one just for this contest. No exceptions! No complaining! Also post the front cover as the lead image and the back cover as the final image. Email me – santoroschoolATgmailDOTcom – that you have posted your entry to your tumblr – complete with your name and title of the work in the text field and that it is for the composition competition 2016 – and I will reblog it on to the comicsworkbook site. I will be posting them – reblogging them – on comicsworkbook as they come in. The good, the bad, and the ugly. I will, however, only be posting stories that stick to the RULES. If you don’t follow the rules, I will not reblog the story and you won’t be eligible for the cash prize. Any questions about the competition – please email me. The competition is open to all. You do not have to be a former student of mine. Former students of mine ARE eligible to compete. Again, If you have any questions about the rules please ask. Better to ask and be safe than to be mad when I disqualify you over some missed detail. Seriously. Remember the page size: 5.5 x 8.5 inch originals with a 5 x 7.5 inch live area. Three equal “landscape” oriented panels. No exceptions. Each panel will be 5 inches wide and 2.5 inches tall. Work may be in color OR black and white – OR – a combination of both. Remember! Email me – santoroschoolATgmailDOTcom – that you have posted your entry to your tumblr – I will reblog it. You may enter as a writer/artist duo. DEADLINE is August 30 2016 at 11:59 pm EST Winners will be announced the following week. please reblog this announcement GOOD LUCK! signed Frank Santoro COMMONLY ASKED QUESTIONS: 1. Can I have gutters in between the panels and can I work digitally. ANSWER: You can have gutters – and you can work digitally. However I still want you to draw it at 5.5 x 8.5 inch original page size with a 5 x 7.5 inch live area – don’t draw large and shrink it down – ideally you are drawing panels that are 5 x 2.5 inches. 2. I understand that we are to post the comics as a two-page spread. But does the comic necessarily need to actually/physically be a spread? What I mean is, do I need to actually divide an 8.5 x 11″ page down the center to make two 5.5 x 8.5″ pages, or can I have two *separate* 5.5 x 8.5″ pages, completely independent of each other, which I then place side by side in order to post a picture on Tumblr? I would hate to draw a sloppy page and have to trash two pages because of it. YES you may use two pieces of paper 3. I assume there is to be no sub-dividing of the three horizontal panels into separate, smaller panels, correct? For example, sub-dividing the top panel into three small vertical panels so that the comic page reads 3 -> 1 -> 1 is reason for disqualification, yes? Correct. 3 panels per page – all 2.5 inches tall x 5 inches wide. No subdividing. 4. Is it alright to work on a page larger than 5.5 x 8.5″ provided that we DO NOT reduce the art in any way, and we DO adhere to the correct panel sizes and space orientation? This would merely be a technical convenience to me as I find it easier to draw on larger pages due to hand positioning/orientation etc. YES 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: [...]

Leave a Reply Cancel reply