Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in los Cómics, NewsTagged caleb orecchio, jack brougham

Juan Fernández

Posted on March 29, 2017March 29, 2017

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Jackie Kirby – Rowhouse Residency Report

Comics WorkbookJuly 3, 2017Residency Reports / School UpdatesMy name is Jackie Kirby. I am a poet and comics author. I am twenty-two years old, and live in New York City. Recently, I graduated from The New School with a BA in Cultural Studies. I have been making comics and writing poetry seriously for three years now. As my poetic and comics practices evolved, they became more and more intertwined. Now, the differences between what I publish as “poetry” versus “comics” has more to do with marketing and publishing than it does with genre or form—but then genre is the formal violence of marketing and publishing. But, “whatever.” I spent a week in Pittsburgh at the Rowhouse Residency this June 2017. As recent graduate without the privilege of a future in plastics, I was anxious on how to proceed. If I was to call myself a “poet” and a “comics author,” what should I do to validate or realize those claims? Additionally, I had a bit of a foothold in the world of poetry, through school and time spent in and around the New York poetry cliques. I didn’t, however, have anything of the sort in the world of comics. Poets can often be easily impressed by the integration of visual arts into poetry, and don’t know anything of comics. I was excited, albeit nervous, to see how I could enter into the world of comics, and if my work was intelligible or interesting to comics readers in contrast to poetry readers. With the time and space provided by the residency, I was able to develop a routine and work ethic that works for my particular habits and skills. Through my conversations with Frank Santoro, I was able to visualize a path going forward with my work, begin to feel grounded in the world of comics, affirm my beliefs in the value of my own aesthetic project, and gain valuable tools and modes of thought towards the furthering of my craft. Frank’s approach to composition in comic books clicked with me as a way of connecting poetry and comics. Without sounding too prescriptive, I think poetics should seek to emancipate possibility and meaning from language, or at least restructure it. Frank and I spoke a lot about meter and geometry, but I think the integration of comics into poetry and vice versa has a greater political value. In comics, “language” as we know it is subverted through its integration with non-alphabetic symbols. The job of a poet is to keep language alive, and if poetry is to be relevant it must be written in the contemporary idiom. The integration of words and images in everyday life is increasing, and pictoral languages are becoming more common. The integration of comics and poetics is only logical considering. Before coming to the residency I had spent the last year working on a set of works called Finding Eurydice. The first is a poetry chapbook subtitled “Transmissions from Orpheus,” and the second is a comic “translation” of the chapbook subtitled “A Border Comic.” In these works, I used the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice as a way of expressing the experience of transfeminity, and experimented formally as a way of enacting that experience. At risk of being too pretentious, I’ll quote the introduction from my reflection on A Border Comic: Finding Eurydice is a comic. Finding Eurydice is a poem, or book of poems. It’s both, but it’s not quite one or the other. Words are often only images. Images are abstracted into words. Its “graphic narrative” is mostly formal, and moves associatively. Much of its “text” is illegible. It doesn’t fit right. Finding Eurydice is a hybrid work. It is a comic-poem which transgresses forms and signs. This formal transgression produces a new vocabulary for the enactment of transgender subjectivities and experiences historically made impossible to verbalize. Entering the project, I asked: If an artistic production is a body, or an extension of the body, and the body is always already gendered, how can the formal restructuring of and deployment of “trans-” trajectories of movement into a literary or artistic mode of production aide in the revelation of new possibilities of gender embodiments and transgender subjectivities? In Finding Eurydice, the comic, the poem, and Orpheus are all made trans, opening up new space for transness to exist in language. Both works can be read online: Finding Eurydice: Transmissions from Orpheus Finding Eurydice: A Border Comic My conversations with Frank were thoughtful, engaging, and exciting. Among the most interesting aspects of our discussions was comparing analogies of music and poetry to comics. I know very little when it comes to music. Half-kidding – it’s one of the few popular art forms I’m not a snob about, and I’ve tried to keep it like that. Frank, on the other hand, is a total music nerd. I came into his house for espresso one afternoon and he presented me with a piece of scrap paper on which he had written “2/3 3/4 rectangle riff seen from a poet’s pov in relation to ‘meter’ / and relation to ‘the Breath’ or Dylan’s ‘long line of spit.’ ” Frank and I chatted for hours regarding this. He would riff for fifteen minutes or so about music and I would respond with a riff on poetics. Forty five minutes could go by without comics being explicitly mentioned once, but the composition and formal techniques of comics practice underlaid every moment. When I brought this up, Frank brushed it off, saying “Of course we could talk about how Robert Crumb is this or that but we both know that.” What’s interesting is what we can learn from each other. In conclusion, I will list a few highlights of my time at the residency: – Frank took a class with Kathy Acker and said “She was so mean! In the best way.” This is exactly what I want to hear about Kathy Acker. – Kathy Acker chose her pen name from her husband’s last name (Acker) and a nickname extracted from her birth-name (Karen) and not because the titular character from the comic-strip Cathy says “Ack!” as her catchphrase, and is therefore a Cathy “Ack!”-er. This is exactly what I don’t want to hear about Kathy Acker. – I fell down all the stairs at the residency. In all fairness, however, wearing slippery socks, a maxi-skirt that’s hanging too low, and carrying forty things in your arms while descending a steep wooden staircase is the set-up to a punchline involving falling down all the stairs, and Frank provided excellent first-aid. – When Sally picked me up from the train station, we went to a bar for dinner where Anthony Bourdain had recently shot an episode of some show he does where he pretends he’s in a scene in Coffee & Cigarettes and I find Anthony Bourdain conceptually hilarious (I believe Hayes Davenport called him “the misanthrope of food television”) but realized I don’t have any solid jokes to make and ended up asking a lot of questions about the ins and outs of Anthony Bourdain’s TV production. ————————————————————————————————————— Check out more work by Jackie on her website, and follow her on Instagram. For more information about the Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency visit this page or email santoroschoolATgmail Share this page: [...]

01/22/2016

Juan FernándezJanuary 21, 2016Newshello world, Lots of little things for you to nibble on today. Emily Carol just published her newest work Some Other Animal’s Meat on her website emcarroll.com. A quotidian tale of body horror and physical anxiety, it’s a smartly paced vertical scroll comic that breaks the story up into nine short black and white chapters. There’s an eerie calm through it all. Great stuff. Horror fans take note. Benjamin Urkowitz‘ newest comic, The Beauty Theorem is out at Hazlitt Magazine. Cheeky, spirited reflection on the rigorous, scientific study of metaphysics and its intersection with universal poetics. Heady concepts paired with goofy, cartooning and beautiful coloring. Steep yourself in it. Julian Lytle visits and chats with SPX’s Warren Bernard about forgotten Black Cartoonists, cooning, collecting comics and art, and of course SPX. So I had the pleasure of meeting and talking to Warren Bernard, executive director of @spx and author of the book Cartoons for Victory. I met him at this past year’s SPX and was kind enough to invite me over to his house to see his extensive collections of comics, cartoons, and books library then to talk to me for this here show. This might be the closest to an interview I’ve done so I hope you enjoy it. Check out the blog post to see some a pic of stuff from the visit and please check out @spx if you haven’t and a link to the book. [soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/242740702″ params=”color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false” width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /] “An Art of Intervals” is raising is an upcoming art show that features the work of four young female comic artists, Abigael Puritz, Wendy Xu, Grace Passerotti, and Autumn Crossman. Showing at the Brooklyn, New York arts space, Tarot Society, from February 26th through February 28th, they hope to raise the funds to cover the cost of shipping the work to the gallery as well taking care of the expenses of opening night. Additionally, they are in the process of making new work specifically for this show to be released on the opening night. The majority of the funding will go toward collecting and publishing all of this new work in a zine that will be available both through this fundraiser and at Tarot Society for the duration of the show. Cameron Weston Nicholson has just reached the halfway mark in his fundraiser goal of $1,500 to acquire a risograph machine for selfpublishing in the RVA community. You can learn more on how to support his effort by hopping on over to his gofundme campaign. Having this printer will not only let me make a name for myself in the comics world but also be able to become a publisher in the future! I’ve got awesome ideas and big goals for my future and i want to share those possibilities with you. One major thing i can help is representation of people of color in the comic’s world. It is a goal to help push that forward. (One of the many goals) Giving the opportunity to share their stories to the world. Giving ones the chance to read this stories from beautiful people, beautiful story tellers. Once i obtain the printer I’ll have to do a few test runs to get used to the machine and get all of the kinks out. So a few months after acquiring the printer I’ll be able to open up shop for local (Virginia) jobs only. Later this year i should be able to open up shop for the US, and in the future internationally. It’s honestly going to take a lot to get that far but with your help I’ll be able to start this long journey. Share this page: [...]

07/25/2018

Juan FernándezJuly 25, 2018los Cómics / NewsSan Diego Comic-Con International 2018 by way of Chris Anthony Diaz, the Eisners, New Latin Wave, Cornish Fellowship Residency, Lauren Weinstein on Paula Modersohn-Becker, Frank Santoro’s Pittsburgh to be published in the US Here on the site, Chris Anthony Diaz offers a beautiful glimpse of his time at San Diego Comic-Con International 2018. These photos were taken in the downtown San Diego Convention Center Exhibit Hall, Thursday, July 19, 2018. Jaime Hernandez shooting rubber bands, Manuele Fior in America, margaritas tacos and lots of smiles… Los Eisners- 2018 Over on High-Low, Rob Clough explains the nature of how the Eisner’s are awarded. It’s a convoluted process that lags behind history in terms of the culture that it reflects. It’s a solid system, but not perfect – Clough explains why: I was happy to see so many women and people of color win Eisners this year, in unprecedented fashion. Indeed, Marjorie Liu, for example, was the first woman to ever win a Best Writer award. Taneka Stotts, Roxane Gay and Alitha Martinez became just the second, third and fourth black women to win Eisners, and Jackie Ormes became the first black woman in the Eisner Hall of Fame. Emil Ferris continued to rack up every award for My Favorite Thing Is Monsters. The slate this year was more skewed this year toward the mainstream than last year’s slate, when I was a juror, though it was still quite solid. However, when it came time for voting last year, the people who did the voting chose a lot of the same old things. This was really disappointing, but not surprising. This year, it was surprising to see who won, and I think it might represent a shift in those who are choosing to vote. Autoras de Cómic les ofrece un hilo de autoras de cómic premiadas/homenajeadas en los Eisners. Lleno de entrevistas, previews, y ensayos, este hilo les sirve como buena introduccíon a las obras de estas mujeres, si no las conocéis! New Latin Wave Festival 2018 is looking for applicants to the Book and Zine component of their show on September 30th. It’s a one day show held at the Brooklyn Bazaar Brooklyn, NY and the table is FREE! Check out their website for more information: https://newlatinwave.com/2018-book-zine-fair-registration/https://newlatinwave.com/ *DEADLINE July 29th* New Latin Wave esta buscando vendedores de comics, zines y libros para el proximo New Latin Wave Festival 2018. El festival es un dia en Brooklyn Bazaar y la mesa es gratis! The Third Year of the Cornish CCS Fellowship Residency Applications for the Cornish Cartoon Studies Fellowship are open! It’s a month-long residency is held during the height of New England’s fall foliage season and includes a $3000 stipend. Think this might be good for you? The deadline to apply is August 15! You can learn more here: https://www.cartoonstudies.org/cornishccsfellowship2018/ Being an Artist And Mother Lauren Wienstein, The New Yorker Wienstein’s piece about Paula Modersohn-Becker is up at the New Yorker. It’s a deft, natural and masterful reflection on motherhood and art history. In Rachel Masilamani’s words, “This says everything about mothering and art making.” New York Review Comics anunció ayer que publicarán el libro de Frank Santoro, Pittsburgh, en 2019. POR FIN! Esto significa que el libro se verá impreso en inglés y mantendremos las mismas dimensiones que la edición francesa original de Éditions çà et là, como dios manda. Y que piensan los criticos franceses? Pues les ha encanta este chef-accompli de Santoro. Ahora falta encontrar una editorial en España o Latinoamérica que publiqueesta obra maestra… Share this page: [...]

11/19/2018

Caleb OrecchioNovember 19, 2018NewsCaleb Orecchio here with a wonky layout from a Gray Morrow page. ————————————————————————————————— Mindy Newell serves an incredibly personal PSA to readers in 1986. Within the pages of this two-issue mini-series, aggressive ace reporter Lois Lane investigates the epidemic of missing children sweeping Metropolis and the nation. Nothing will stop her in her pursuit, but is Lois taking on too much by herself? Will she except the help from her friends and estranged sister? The story, though heavy-handed at times, is sincere and written by an author with a purpose. I picked these issues up for the Gray Morrow art and Joe Orlando colors. I’m impressed by Morrow’s resistance, or the appearance of resistance, of relying on photo reference. As a result, there is little in the way of awkward, collage-y images that feel stiff and contrived; a common, yet not always unwelcome (by me), plague of Morrow’s comics. The pages herein are smoothly and professionally cartooned. More or less. Actually Morrow struggles as usual to make a format that even resembles a coherent structure. Below is an interesting example. A variation on the “shattered-glass” approach to comic page formatting. This way of making comics almost always looks clunky. The word balloons are unorganized, the space allowed for figures and backgrounds seems cramped, and the eye has a hell of a time knowing where to look. If you are following the dialogue, the page is divided into two tiers. The middle horizontal gutter dividing the top half from the bottom. I have shown the sequence of panels in accordance to the word balloons below: However, I think Morrow meant the page to read clockwise. Like this: Follow the sequence of the images as I see it. In the third panel, Lois slaps a newspaper with her backhand. In panel 5 the paper is still on the editor’s desk. She appears to pick the paper up in panel 6. They way the dialogue determines the sequence, Lois would have smacked the paper, picked it up, and put the paper back down again. Visually, it doesn’t make much sense. Still, the way I think Morrow intended the sequence to work makes for tricky reading due to the horizontal middle gutter because the reader would have to abandon the traditional rules of comic book reading. I think the editor, Robert Greenberger, made an executive decision and made the page read traditionally not only due to the middle gutter, but due to the fact that the clockwise reading presumably intended by Morrow ruins the flow of the spread by making the reader start in the top left of the spread, down to the bottom left corner and back up to the top left corner of the facing page. As oppose to the traditional pattern of top left to bottom right of the page, and top left to bottom right of the facing page. These are things that jump out at me and urk me. This is a flawed page and makes for confusing comics. I feel that cartoonists make these kind of pages in service to some strange sense of making personal art. Cartoonists must learn from these formatting mistakes and not fall victim to such practices. Keep it simple, stupid. ————————————————————————————————— Share this page: [...]

Bill Boichel on Captain America

Bill BoichelJuly 16, 2016EssaysShare this page: [...]

03/29/2017

Posted on March 29, 2017March 29, 2017 by Juan Fernández

Empezamos el dia con Katherine Supnem;Roberto Massó; Borlocomix; Emma Ríos; Fabian Rangel Jr y Alexis Ziritt; Amaru Distro; Desiree Rodriguez; Berliac; Sol Díaz Castillo y Marcela Trujillo; Manu Garrido y los tebeos del día!

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Cayo Cæctus nos presenta Katherine Supnem en Sacapuntas.cl

(…) lo fundamental es comenzar a cambiar nuestras propias vidas autoconvocándonos y organizándonos junto a otras mujeres. Necesitamos grupos espontáneos de cómics y grupos dirigidos con una finalidad específica para el radical cambio cultural. Tengo las esperanzas puestas en los nuevos hombres, niños, niñas, mujeres, lesbianas, trans, intersexuales, queers, para una cultura no sexista, ni machista.

El trabajo de Lady’s cómics es a punta de cañón, obteniendo recursos desde la propia autogestión, donaciones colectivas y fondos del estado para llevar a cabo este proyecto que rescata la cultura y la historia de las autoras de cómics de Brasil y latinoamérica. Si grupos/colectivos/eventos de este tipo no son imitados, vamos a perder nuestra historia y siempre será el relato de las vencidas (como los relatos de toda América Latina, que parten desde la derrota contra los españoles), siempre seremos las otras, las segregadas, las marginadas de la historia universal del cómic y para que esto no suceda, se debe rescatar con mente y acción arqueológica. No dejemos que se pierda la historia de la historieta hecha por autoras de cómics, por ello es necesario crear eventos bajo la tutela de mujeres. – Katherine Supnem sobre el 2° Encuentro de Lady’s Cómics – Belo Horizonte Brazil

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Roberto Massó presenta un nuevo cómic mural e inédito sobre la ciudad de Madrid inaugurando así la tercera exposición de la quinta temporada de La ciudad en viñetas. Massó presenta una visión múltiple de un día en Madrid, desde el subsuelo al cielo pasando por el asfalto, poniendo de relieve detalles y acciones, algunas imperceptibles y otras que siempre están ahí, pero nos pasan desapercibidas. Edificios, tráfico, gente, rótulos… todo se conecta en su particular visión de la ciudad. La inauguración será el próximo jueves 6 de abril en la 4ª planta de CentroCentro Cibeles a las 19h, y la exposición se podrá visitar de forma gratuita hasta el 2 de julio de 2017.

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“Si alguien me pregunta quien es el mejor dibujante de comics Venezolano mi unica respuesta es Carlos A. Etcheverry . Los demas son puros mamaguevos!” – Alexis Ziritt

Eric Colón Moleiro entrevista a Carlos Etcheverry, dibujante venezolano feroz en Los Angeles:

La película porno perdida que hizo su tía María Conchita en los años setenta, la supuesta homosexualidad oculta de su padre Robert, la leyenda de la hacienda Daktari y las razones que lo han llevado a renegar de su apellido. Carlos (Alonso) Etcheverry es venezolano y vive en California desde hace más de 15 años. Es artista plástico y autor de un comic que ha visto la luz gracias a la editorial R-ev inspirado en torno a un personaje surreal, suerte de arlequín perverso con ropa del altiplano llamado Borlo y asegura -en este entrevista exclusiva que es tan arriesgada como sus historietas- que en su casa se habla mal de Chávez, de su papá y de María Conchita también, por supuesto

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Cómics y noticias que me han llamado la atención esta semana:

Entrevista con Emma Ríos – Emma Ríos comparte sus experiencias como creatriz de MIRROR and PRETTY DEADLY con Nadia Alamah de ComicsVerse.
All new Space Riders is out!!! Hoy en EEUU!!! Coming at you full force via Blackmask Studio’s dynamic duo, Fabian Rangel Jr, Alexis Ziritt. Want to get your hands on this high voltage galactic transmission? Find your local comic shop using Comic Shop Locator or if you don’t have a local spot because you live on the moon, here’s more options: Black Mask Store + ComiXology.
En 2014 Amaru Distro emprendio una gira vía tierra por Suramerica,con el objetivo de dar a conocer el trabajo de creadoras y creadores del fanzine de Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, Perú, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Brasil y Paraguay, ellxs cuentan como es la movida fanzinera en este lado del continente, desde su orígenes, contexto social y cultural, hasta la actualidad. Esta semana Amaru Distro compartió un teaser de documental, Fanzinogamia.
Desiree Rodriguez interviewed by Greg Anderson-Elysee. Columnist and Editorial Assistant for Lion Forge‘s Catalyst Prime, Rodriguez has written for outlets such as: The Nerds of Color and Women Write About Comics in detail on diversity in comics and pop culture, Latinx representation, feminism, and sexuality. She is currently working as an Editorial Assistant on Catalyst Prime for Lion Forge Comics, coming out in May. Dig in!
Berliac‘s got some new comics on Vice – Asian Food Store Junkies – S01-E05 This week’s all about secret origins…
Fabian Rangel Jr.‘s new comics series “Helena Crash” gets a micro-review. It’s pulse pounding, caffeine fueled, sword swinging, machine-gun firing, car crashing sci-fi adventure comic. You know the type.
Sol Díaz Castillo y Marcela Trujillo tienen una nueva edicion de La Polola Podcast! En este capítulo las chicas conversan nuevamente con Katherine Supnem, esta vez de su participación en el reciente festival de historieta que organizaron las amigas Chicks on Comics en Argentina.
Taiyo Matsumoto o el placer de dejarse abrazar por un cómic. A good Spanish appreciation of the singular mangaka by Manu Garrido.

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La gran Vanesa R. Del Rey le ha dado permiso a Comics Workbook para publicar unas selecciónes de sus cuadernos de bocetos. Hemos diseñado esta publicación para que parezca uno de esos libros de de artistas los años 80. Arte y Entrevista. El texto es una transcripción de la entrevista que hicimos con Vanesa cuando visito la Residencia Rowhouse en 2016. Vanesa es un artista impresionante y inigualable.

Puedes comprar una copia AQUI.
Sigan a Vanesa por Instagram – @vrdelrey – y http://vrdelrey.com/

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Blinkers – 3-29-2017 – by Jack Brougham

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Suzy and Cecil – 3-29-2017 – by Gabriella Tito

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Joanie and Jordie – 3-29-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio

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Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in los Cómics, NewsTagged caleb orecchio, jack brougham

Juan Fernández

Posted on March 29, 2017March 29, 2017

Explore

11/08/2016

Aaron CockleNovember 7, 2016NewsAaron here today with Triple Canopy CFP; Montreal Expozine & Philly Small Press Zine Faire; Moaz Eleman Comics; Ben Jones Interviewed; CAB Photos; Goethe Color Studies ————————————————————————————————— Canopy Canopy Canopy Triple Canopy has announced a call for proposals for it’s 23rd issue, Vanitas. In an age defined by extremes of finitude and excess, deprivation and luxury, what is vanity? How do we register our own transitoriness even as we strive against decay and senescence, by way of cryogenics labs, biotechnology innovations, spa treatments, and the hoarding of material goods and digital files? This issue explores contemporary meditations on mortality as well as the delights, delusions, and pressures of fleshly existence, and ranges from the much-heralded “end of death” to collective processes of aging to the pursuit of impossible—or nearly impossible—forms of beauty. The name is taken from the opulent, hyperrealist still lifes popularized by Dutch and Flemish painters in the seventeenth century, which symbolize the brevity of human life and essential emptiness of earthly pursuits, even as they advertise the artist’s ability to fix time. These paradoxical images prompt us to consider how and why we strive to overcome death while reminding us of our certain mortality. Apply via the online form. The deadline for submissions is Sunday, November 13, at 11:59 pm EDT. Commission recipients will be announced on December 15. ————————————————————————————————— Upcoming Shows in N.America In Montreal: EXPOZINE 2016 Saturday-Sunday, November 12-13, 11h-18h, free admission. Église Saint-Denis, 454 Laurier E. (main entrance 5075 Rivard, accessible entrance 5050 Berri) In Philadelphia: Philly Small Press Zine Faire Saturday, December 3, 12-5pm. Fleisher Art Memorial, 719 Catharine St, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19147 ————————————————————————————————— Distant Fires: A Sudanese-American ponders how much death a presidential candidate can be responsible for, by Moaz Eleman ————————————————————————————————— Lines of Thought: An Interview with Ben Jones – via Nicole Rudick at Hyperallergic: NR: Do you mean that shows like Adventure Time were created because imagery from the sixties and seventies has become more readily available through sites like Tumblr? BJ: Contemporary animation like Adventure Time is a complete celebration/homage/furthering of the language that Miyazaki, Crumb, Mœbius, and Disney created. If you watch that new Werner Herzog documentary Lo and Behold (2016), he interviews one of the three guys who invented the Internet, who says, “The Internet’s all wrong. A hyperlink isn’t a link. You don’t put Nike.com and click on it and it takes you to Nike, I never meant for that to happen.” A hyperlink was excerpting a stanza from Shakespeare, and when you would click on it, you would go to that part of the play. That’s all that hyperlinks were meant to do. Now, I don’t really care about that, but it shows you that the system of organizing information on the Internet is the Internet. And the fact that we have URLs that are links controls your whole reality, so much so that when you look at how we’re organizing data into platforms like Instagram – I mean, the fact that people are on Instagram all day and not the Internet just shows that how you’re linking to and presenting data is incredibly important. Tumblr was a platform that sped up kids’ understanding what good art was. Now, there are plenty of dolphin GIFs that are shit, but also in three minutes, Johnny Negron — sorry to keep using him as an example — could see every good thing ever made, whereas Chris Forgues and I were lucky to get half of that in our first twenty-four years of life. The Internet is decentralized, but Tumblr is a black hole of curation and appropriation and aggregation. It figured out art. It didn’t figure out the stock market or pornography. ————————————————————————————————— Some photos from this past weekend’s Comic Arts Brooklyn show, if you’re into that sort of thing – From the Publisher’s Weekly blog. See if you can spot your favorite cartoonist and/or human being (who attended CAB on Saturday, November 5). ————————————————————————————————— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Via Maria Popova at the Brainpickings blog, some lovely words and images regarding Goethe‘s theory of color. Goethe believed that there were only two pure colors, blue (“a darkness weakened by light”) and yellow (“a light which has been dampened by darkness”), but he was particularly interested in morphology — the study of forms. His theories of color were also heavily rooted in morphology — from his color wheel, a symmetrical arrangement of six colors against Newton’s asymmetry of seven, to his geometric diagrams of how the relationship between darkness and light shapes color. ————————————————————————————————— Also, today (Tuesday, November 8, 2016) is Election Day in the United States of America, please vote if you are eligible to do so. Share this page: [...]

01/31/2017

Aaron CockleJanuary 30, 2017NewsAaron here today with Quimby’s NYC Grand Opening Extravaganza; Philip Guston and the Nixon Years; a review of some Obama Family Comics; Russian Futurist Sound Poems; Kartalopoulos at Angoulême; Festival of the Photocopier; Laura Park; Box Brown Wrestling Comics. ————————————————————————————————— GRAND OPENING QUIMBY’S BOOKSTORE NYC SATURDAY FEBRUARY 4, 2017, 7–10pm At 7:00 PM, Steven Svymbersky will give a short slide show talk on the history of zines followed by champagne and hors d’oeuvres. This event is also the opening for the first major survey of works by sculptor and collage artist, Eric Kirsammer. Quimby’s Bookstore NYC 536 Metropolitan Ave Brooklyn, NY 11211 ————————————————————————————————— Guston on Nixon Hauser & Wirth recently concluded it’s exhibit of Philip Guston‘s work from the 1970’s focusing on Richard Milhous Nixon, former president of the United States. The New York Times wrote a piece about the show, and Guston’s relationship with Philip Roth: Mr. Roth owns several of the Nixon drawings. “I always wanted Philip to publish them in a book,” he said. “But he was loath to do that then. He wasn’t sure about whether to go public with them. I think he didn’t want to be sullied as a cartoonist. But actually the people who didn’t like those wonderful last paintings sullied him as a cartoonist anyway.” Through the ’50s and most of the ’60s, Guston was a leading Abstract Expressionist, greatly admired for the shimmering elegance of his painting. But in the mid-60s, in one of the most famous about-faces in art history, he began to repudiate his own work. “American Abstract art is a lie, a sham, a cover-up for a poverty of spirit,” he wrote. Abandoning abstraction, he started to make paintings that weren’t just figurative but amounted to a catalog of comic-strip crumminess: light bulbs; rusted nails; old shoe soles; hairy legs; hooded, slit-eyed Klansmen smoking fat cigars. The world of Guston eventually came to look, as a number of critics pointed out, a lot like the world of R. Crumb. ————————————————————————————————— ‘He doesn’t have a name but his first name is Allergy Doctor’ J. Caleb Mozzocco takes a look at Steven Weissman’s second book chronicling the Obama administration (and family), Looking For America’s Dog, still the most accurate depiction of those times that we are ever likely to see. The Obama that emerged was maybe the ultimate comics character; after all, there are few figures that are at once as iconic and as protean as our presidents, upon whom we project, well, everything. The President of the United States, any president of the United States, is the Comics Character of a Thousand Faces. (And do note that most newspaper comics characters are confined to a single strip by a single artist or studio, whereas whoever the president is appears in scores of different editorial cartoons by scores of different artists every single day.) Looking For America’s Dog is similar in format to Barack Hussein Obama, filled with discrete, four-panel gag strips that wind in and out of an overarching quest narrative. And it’s similar in construction; a black-and-white sketchbook comic constructed with judiciously chosen uses of bright color and dialogue balloons with their long, thin tails apparently glued atop the pages. The aesthetic is a peculiar mix of dashed-off and labored-over. It is also, owing to the fact that it is of course a more recent work, a much more confident and accomplished book, with a much stronger through line: Bumbling Biden left the White House gate open, and America’s dog Bo ran away. (“God Damn You, Joe Biden,” a frustrated president says as he trudges through the snow, calling “Bo-oh!!”) ————————————————————————————————— Zaum, which translates into “beyond the mind” At Hyperallergic, Claire Voon looks at Russian sound poetry, made available online by the Getty Research Institute, that serves as an interactive companion to Explodity: Sound, Image, and Word in Russian Futurist Book Art, curated by Nancy Perloff. “Recurring verbal, visual, and vocal references to the folklike and the primitive, reversibility and mirror forms, the fourth dimension, and apocalypse dominate the artistic expression of these books,” as Perloff writes in her introduction. “Moreover, futurist poets and painters intended their books to be heard as well as read.” ————————————————————————————————— Dispatch from France Bill Kartalopoulos was on the ground at this year’s Angoulême Festival, and posted some great images. ————————————————————————————————— ————————————————————————————————— Info about the upcoming Laura Park workshop at the Sequential Artist’s Workshop, February 27 – March 3, 2017. ————————————————————————————————— The Great Sasuke: Japan’s Masked Wrestler Turned Masked Politician If there was ever a time for some Box Brown Japanese wrestling/politics comics, that time is now. ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 1-31-2017 – by Sally Ingraham ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 1-31-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

Connor Willumsen Draws PRIS from BLADE RUNNER

Chris Anthony DiazMay 24, 2016The Diaz Archiveconnor willumsen’s portrait of daryl hannah as PRIS in ridley scott’s BLADE RUNNER (1982, USA) for my ILLUSTRATED MOMENTS IN CINEMA/TELEVISION collection. the commission done in pencil was completed in 2015. willumsen’s candid portrait taken at CAB 2014 in williamsburg, new york and color by graham willcox Share this page: [...]

03/30/2017

Sally IngrahamMarch 29, 2017NewsSam Ombiri reviews Dash Shaw’s “Cosplayers”, and Sally brings updates from Darryl Ayo, Ron Wimberly, Chris Kindred, and more! ————————————————————————————————— Sam Ombiri here: I’m going to talk about Cosplayers by Dash Shaw (Fantagraphics, 2016). First of all the art in this comic is, of course, fantastic. I am not sure if that is really a given. Sometimes it feels like the reason I may like Dash’s work is that I am excited, and with that excitement comes a sort of willful blindness. When that blindness is taken away, there is work that holds up and work that does not. This is one of the cases where it does hold up. Dash has denied having a consistent style, and by lacking it claims that he has maybe shot himself in the foot. That has alienated, supposedly – from his vantage point – his audience. I wonder about this, because when I hear fans talk about Dash’s work, his stylistic inconsistency seems to be the main appeal of his work. I myself rather feel that he has a very consistent style. I am not sure when he started being really excited about David Mazzucchelli’s idea of drawing an ambiguous dumb line, a line which does not tell the audience what to think of a character. Maybe it was around the time of New School (Fantagraphics, 2013), but ever since then – and maybe this is just me as the reader projecting this idea into the book – it all feels very much in the same vein. With whatever experimentation Dash does, he latches onto certain successes of his previous experimentation. (I know, crazy right? Who’s heard of such a thing?) Dash said: “The quality of the drawing is based on how close – how tight – the opinion and what it is can be, just fused together so…basically the better the drawing is the more connected it is, and what I think the dumbline did is say ‘Fuck all that, I’m just gonna tell you what it is and you can fucking think for yourself about it. And it had this evenness that- I’m gonna draw this apple, the same way I draw Catwoman and I’m gonna draw Catwoman the same way I draw the guy in the desert. And it had a strange, almost…moral ambiguity. Like, I’ll draw Catwoman, but I don’t know how sexy she is, you know, I’ll give it to you.’ ” – from a 2013 lecture at California College of the Arts This brings a whole new dimension of reality to the work. Normally artists have to satisfy a certain trope that they do not want to interact with – but they have to, in order to get a contrived point across. Like “These are nerds – but wait a minute…these aren’t your average nerds!” With Cosplayers it goes beyond the dumb line – the dialogue is very, very real. Part of Dash’s goal was that he thought it would be cool if Cosplayers were in a comic book shop, and then it was next to, maybe, Superman, and someone would see a comic that is all about them. Maybe as a result of the dumb line it doesn’t entirely feel that way. I’m really glad that he didn’t draw it in the typical anime trend though – instead it references aspects of anime manga in a subtle manner, like in the way the panels are laid out at times. When anime is referenced, it’s with sincerity – not from Dash per say, but from the characters themselves. Even the manga scholar in the comic (who got really frustratingly melodramatic.) There was a part where he was saying, “Be merciful lord of manga please…” That really bummed me out in the worst way, because it felt like Dash wanted me to laugh at the manga scholar. For some reason it felt even worse than anything that came before this that conveyed his misery, including him eating from the trash. Actually, it’s really cool the way he’s looking at the sky, pleading to Tezuka – it feels like “the god of wasted youth” from Sam Alden’s Patron Saint will show up. Instead, we got Professor Panther from BodyWorld, which puts such a big perspective on the manga scholar’s hilarious misery. – Sam Ombiri Get a copy of Dash Shaw’s Cosplayers HERE. 3-30-2017 – by Sam Ombiri ————————————————————————————————— Sally here: Back in February Darryl Ayo was holding out hope for the flowers of spring, and they are finally here! At least in Pittsburgh…(sorry, my dear parents in Maine, who are expecting another foot of snow this weekend…) Darryl writes: “Welcome back to the Valley of the River of Unforgiven Sin where your host and protagonist Angela is undertaking a sacred ritual called “planting a bulb” ~Ayo“ Check out more of his comics HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Ignorant Bliss, a podcast produced by Julian Lytle, has shared Episode 57 which includes the entire “Black History in it’s Own Words” panel featuring Ronald Wimberly, Chris Visions, Chris Kindred, and Shannon Wright which took place at Fantom Comics in Washington DC on February 15th 2017. Listen to it HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Meg Lemke featured an excerpt from Ronald Wimberly‘s Black History in it’s Own Words on Illustrated PEN recently. “Ronald Wimberly created these bold, illustrated quotes of historical black figures—activists, artists, musicians, writers—and launched them as a book collection in February, Black History Month. It is now March, Women’s History Month, and so we feature Wimberly’s illustrations of four inspiring women from the series; because, as the artist put it, “women’s history is black history too.” “ Check it out HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Chris Kindred and Bryan Washington’s A Brief History of Driving While Black is up on Buzzfeed – HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Check out the Santoro School Handbook for Making Better Comics! This 16 page handbook is a quick guide to the tenets of our school. A smash hit on the Comics Workbook tumblr. Printed offset on cardstock by the professionals at The Prolific Group, Winnipeg, Canada. This is not some cheap color xerox or risograph. Looks great, feels great, and even smells great. Get yours today! ————————————————————————————————— Dungeon Lollers – 3-30-2017 – by Tyler Landry ————————————————————————————————— Blinkers – 3-30-2017 – by Jack Brougham ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 3-30-2017 – by Sally Ingraham ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 3-30-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

01/12/2018

Sally IngrahamJanuary 11, 2018NewsSally here with comics by November Garcia, Sara Lautman, Margoux Othats, Corinne Mucha, and much more! ————————————————————————————————— November Garcia, creator of the comics Foggy Notions and Malarkey, is trying her hand at daily comics this year. You can see the first week’s worth HERE. She sez: “So my 2018 resolution is to draw a comic everyday. Haha! What a dunce I am! Turns out, it’s a lot harder than I thought it would be. The big reveal is that my life isn’t very interesting—who knew? But I figure, what the hell, it’s a good exercise and I’m quite stubborn so I might see this thing through. So here it is in all its inane glory…unphotoshopped, unedited, unthought of…whatever. All critiques welcome…my goal here is to get better and I feel that these strips improved with time but I might be biased.“ I think her comics are consistently hilarious, and these don’t disappoint, so I’m sending her good vibes and hope she continues to make them. November is also currently sharing a comic called The Rusty Trombone, which is about her SPX 2017 adventures – you can catch the action HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Sara Lautman‘s latest comic on Electric Literature is very amusing, sort of a “bad lip reading” situation, a literal translation of what she THINKS the lyrics of Auld Lang Syne are. See the whole thing HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Philippe Leblanc reviews Margoux Othats‘ new comic Blanc for The Comics Beat. It is about a girl drawing at home during a snow storm, something many of us have probably done recently as the winter has bourn down upon the East Coast with varying ferocity this year…! Just a small book, but one that Philippe says: “…shines in its simplicity, clarity and style. Margaux Othats’ pencil drawings play with the blank page to great effect. The snow is overwhelming, it engulfed everything and nearly makes you forget that there ever was anything but the blinding white of the snow. The snowball revealing the beautiful, lively green grass underneath happens slowly and gives it a magical feeling. Othats is telling a simple story. It’s about seeing something seemingly impossible to overcome and deciding to try anyway. It’s about coming out of one’s shell and letting hope thaw the frost. With hope and efforts, you can accomplish anything. It’s the perfect comic to start the year with.“ Read the rest of the review HERE. Also please check out Philippe Leblanc’s New Years edition of his usual roundup of small press news HERE. Quite a few good items on the list, including a few things I’d missed (which I’ll link to specifically below). ————————————————————————————————— Read the rest of Corinne Mucha‘s comic (pictured above) HERE. I came across a few of her stories recenly in The Shortpants Observer #1, from 2008, which was edited by Sarah Becan. Both ladies are from the Chicago area, and this issue of The Shortpants Observer also included work by Anya Davidson. Although I can’t find out much more about the anthology, Corinne Mucha has a few notes from when it came out HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Also on the Radar The Canadian publisher Ad Astra Comix released a new graphic novel called The Beast last year, created by Nicole Marie Burton, Hugh Goldring, and Dr. Patrick McCurdy. There’s a review of it up at Women Write About Comics – read it HERE. Cynthia Rose celebrates French artist Annie Goetzinger, who died in Dec. 2017, for The Comics Journal. Sarah Boxer writes about Chris Ware’s Monograph for The New York Review of Books – HERE. Women Write About Comics features Leslie Stein‘s Present – read the review HERE. Elaine M. Will talks about her comic titled Look Straight Ahead, and the mental health journey that led her to create it – HERE. Quick props to myself (Sally Ingrham) here – check out Interesting Ducks for comics and writing on birding in Pittsburgh, PA, and beyond. ————————————————————————————————— Frank Santoro and Simon Hanselmann, CAB 2013 – photo by Chris Anthony Diaz, colored by Graham Willcox 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. His experience and ideas have influenced the likes of Connor Willumsen, Michael DeForge, and Simon Hanselmann (quote “I consider Frank Santoro to be my L. Ron Hubbard”) among many others. Dig into something new in the new year! Full details and how to apply can be found HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 1-12-2018 – by Gabriella Tito Share this page: [...]

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