Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in NewsTagged basil wolverton, Bernie Wrightson, plop!, sally ingraham, sergio aragones, steve skeates, Wally Wood

Caleb Orecchio

Posted on April 9, 2018April 9, 2018

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05/22/2018

Aaron CockleMay 22, 2018NewsThought Bubble; Recently Closed Exhibitions: LeWitt, Nevelson, Pendleton + Hockney; English on Wood; If Crisis or War Comes (To Sweden) ————————————————————————————————— THOUGHT BUBBLE Through June 23 at Aicon Gallery, 35 Great Jones Street, NYC. From NY Art Beat: a group exhibition featuring the work of Dhruvi Acharya, Chitra Ganesh, Amitabh Kumar, Sa’dia Rehman, Nisha Sethi, Anuj Shrestha, Himanshu Suri and Salman Toor. The exhibition explores the use of comics, graphic novels, and art which unites text and image into a single work, to examine how artists from South Asia and its diaspora are deploying new ways of seeing, representing and communicating their experience in the visual realm. ————————————————————————————————— LeWitt, Nevelson, Pendleton Mar 21, 2018 – May 04, 2018 David Hockney: Something New in Painting (and Photography) Apr 05, 2018 – May 12, 2018 ————————————————————————————————— Notes Toward a Future Understanding of Wally Wood Austin English looks at the life and work of Wally Wood: Here’s one more sad story from The Life and Legend of Wallace Wood related by Wood’s peer and art-partner Harry Harrison, describing what it was like to work for Fox Comics in 1949: The art director would say, ‘Well, yeah, this is great stuff but we don’t pay very much. Know what I mean? I think the rate at Fox was $23 per page for ten-page stories. And while he was talking, he’d slip you a note saying something to the effect that they also expected kickbacks of $5 a page. This made a big difference to us in the rates, of course. But all these guys took kickbacks, and if you didn’t go along with it, you wouldn’t get any work…We would slide in this ten-page pile of crap with a real good splash page for the first page on top. He would look at only the first page and count the other nine, flipping through them fast. Nobody really cared about the quality. Nobody looked at these books, no one read the things very carefully. So he’d count the pages. We’d give him the $50 or whatever it came to—-$5 a page in kickbacks—and then we’d get our check in the mail from Fox, not necessarily in a week or two but in a month or so, sometimes slower than that. The money owed would add up… ————————————————————————————————— IMPORTANT INFORMATION FOR THE POPULATION OF SWEDEN ————————————————————————————————— Vision Box – 5-22-2017 – by Cameron Arthur ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 5-22-18 – by Caleb Orecchio 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: [...]

09/14/2018

Sally IngrahamSeptember 14, 2018NewsSally here – in Bethesda, MD, for Small Press Expo 2018, that is! Once again Comics Workbook is running a series of free comics workshops for the show – see the details HERE and come check them out if you’re at SPX on Saturday or Sunday this weekend! Follow our Instagram – @comicsworkbook – for updates and news from SPX, and maybe a sneak peak of some of the comics holdings at the Library of Congress. I’ll be back with the regular comics news next week! Share this page: [...]

08/18/2017

Sally IngrahamAugust 18, 2017NewsSally here with new work by Ulli Lust, Redlands #1 by Jordie Bellaire and Vanesa Del Rey, a look at Simon Hanselmann’s character Booger, and more! ———————————————————————————————— I have really enjoyed all of the New York Review Comics as they have come out, so I was THRILLED to discover that new work from Ulli Lust will be in my hands soon via NYRC! Look for Voices in the Dark (an adaptation of the novel The Karnau Tapes by Marcel Beyer) in October 2017. The site has a good write-up of the book and some excerpts from it – view them HERE. From Publishers Weekly: “The narrative switches between two small cogs in the relentless machinery of the Reich: Hermann Karnau, a sound engineer who progresses from arranging the speakers at Nazi rallies to conducting bizarre aural experiments on concentration camp prisoners, and Helga, the eldest daughter of Joseph Goebbels, who, along with her siblings, is destined to be murdered by her parents in Hitler’s bunker. Lust’s loose, deceptively simple art, tinted in washes of faded color, creates a mood of deepening claustrophobia as the complicit Karnau and the innocent Helga descend toward the same fate. It’s a rare adaptation that, rather than simply transcribing the source material, transcends it.“ This is the English version of the comic Flughunde (Airports) which came out in Berlin in 2013. It was well received there – here’s some of the press that Ulli has collected on her website. An excerpt from the original version: The comic that Ulli Lust has been working on for the past 3 or 4 years will be released in Germany and France this autumn…which means we probably won’t see it in the States until 2018 if not later. Sad face. That makes the NYRC edition of Voices in the Dark that much more exciting of course! ———————————————————————————————— Vanesa Del Rey and Jordie Bellaire bring fury and flame in the opening chapter of Redlands. I like the rich red and gold and black coloring of the comic, and the way it crashes straight into a violent moment of pain and power, as a coven of witches wrenches a Floridian town out of the hands of the patriarchy. The intentions of the creators are definitely on display in the first issue, and I can get behind the “righteous anger” that Jordie Bellaire has spoken of a couple of times. I am curious to see where the story goes, how the wrath of the first issue transitions into something more nuanced – what the “calm center” of the storm will be. I believe I linked to this interview on Multiversity Comics with Jordie Bellaire and Vanesa Del Rey before, but reading through it again today after having seen Redlands #1 myself is interesting. This bit rings true for sure: “Without giving too much away, this issue read completely unlike anything I was expecting. What’s it like trying to create a sense of horror in the reader when what most of the characters in the issue are afraid of are your main characters? JB: I wanted the characters to appear very morally ambiguous and again, tie into the trope that men fear educated, strong, liberated women. If the readers are afraid of the main characters (the witches), that’s great! But they should also be afraid or at the very least disgusted by the rest of the cast. It’s a pretty upsetting place, as is the world. Everyone is an enemy of someone, anyone could be a villain.“ Read the rest of the interview HERE. And hustle to your comics shop to pick up Redlands #1 if you haven’t already! ———————————————————————————————— I found this article by Sam Riedel on Medium to be a thoughtful read – Let’s Talk Comics: Booger, Gender, and Simon Hanselmann’s “One More Year”. Booger doesn’t get a lot of press time, generally, but she is one of the more complex characters in Simon Hanselmann’s wild world. Unlike many transfem characters, she is not “virtuous”. Riedel addresses that point: “On the still-uncommon occasions that transfem characters show up in fiction (and aren’t two-dimensional stereotypes), they’re often forced to be virtuous because they represent all trans people everywhere. Who wants to be represented by a douchebag? Other marginalized communities also suffer from this tendency, an unintended consequence of “diversity casting” that maintains structural whiteness, cisnormativity, and so on. … Since our stories are so often misunderstood, there’s an implicit demand that we be shown in the most palatable light, but that robs our stories of the all-important shades of grey.“ Booger has the shades of grey covered. She is never quite as actively “bad” as the other characters, but her particular ways of being messed up are, in a way, more brutal. Read the rest of Sam Riedel’s thoughts on Booger HERE. Get a copy of One More Year HERE. ———————————————————————————————— Other News in Brief The Ignatz Award nominees have been announced, and there are lots and lots of comics by women on the list! Michael Cavna shares the list on The Washington Post. Katie Skelly is on Episode 22 of Comic Book Decalogue – here on The Comics Journal. Also on the Journal, Rob Kirby reviews Glynnis Fawkes‘ Greek Diary, and Katie Skelly covers Kabi Nagata’s My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness. Jason Rhode tries to navigate the maze of gender diversity in the comics industry, doing a decent job of summarizing a lot of the conversations and controversies that have been going on in the last year, in particular, and across the decades more expansively – read the article on Paste Magazine HERE. Here’s a nice review of Maggie Umber‘s Sound of Snow Falling. Part 2 of Gabrielle Bell‘s comic Little Red and Big Bad is up on The Paris Review – read it HERE. Boundless by Jillian Tamaki is reviewed on Paste Magazine by Zainab Akhtar – she calls Jillian “undeniably one of the finest cartoonists of this generation.“ ———————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 8-18-2017 – by Gabriella Tito ———————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 8-18-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

04/18/2018

Juan FernándezApril 18, 2018los Cómics / NewsBRÍGIDA, Quique Alcatena, Elisa McCausland + TEBEOSFERA, y Alexis Ziritt! —————————————— Los cómics y las noticias que me han llamado la atención esta semana: ~ en Español y “sometimes in English” ~ Este viernes, 20 de abril, a las 19 hrs. en PLOP Galeria se lanza BRÍGIDA, revista de historietas hechas por mujeres de Sol Díaz, Marcela Trujillo, Isabel Molina , Catalina Mendoza, Karina Cocq, Paloma Valdivia, Katherine Supnem, Pati Aguilera y Sol Undurraga entre otras! Quieren saber más? Sol Díaz charlo con Belén Roca Urrutia de el Desconcierto sobre el nacimiento y el crecimiento de BRÍGIDA. ¿Cómo se crea el proyecto “BRÍGIDA”? Es una inquietud que compartimos, desde hace un tiempo, con el equipo editorial de la revista. Nos hemos dado cuenta, en el día a día como ilustradoras, que el dibujo es un medio muy mirado en menos por el resto de las expresiones artísticas. Hay dos prejuicios muy arraigados en la gente, que impiden que se acerquen, siquiera, a conocer más sobre lo que está pasando: el primero, que “los monos” son cosa de niños. La ilustración, por el contrario, no puede ser más transversal. En estos días no es tanto, pero siempre al dibujo se le da esta connotación infantil; el segundo tiene que ver con las historietas y los superhéroes. Siempre con historias fantásticas, siempre con la mina tetona… estilos de dibujo y narraciones que, personalmente, no me llaman la atención. Muy masculinizado todo. Con “Brígida” queremos desmontar estos prejuicios y mostrar que hay harto trabajo, hecho por mujeres, cada una con su propio rollo. El primer número incluye el trabajo de Margarita Valdés, Magdalena Armstrong, Camila Barrales, Catalina Bustos, Karina Cocq, Otto, Sofía Flores, Amanda Mijangos, Florencia Olivos, Paloma Valdivia, Sol Undurraga, Katherine Supnem y Arolas Uribe,además de las colaboraciones de las cuatro editoras: Isabel Molina, Pati Aguilera, Marcela Trujillo y yo. Léanlo todo AQUI! —————————————— LA IMAGINACIÓN AL PODER. ENTREVISTA CON QUIQUE ALCATENA Hoy les invito léer la segunda parte de la entrevista al Quique Alcatena en Revista Kamandi. Hablaron en profundidad de su paso por la industria estadounidense, su desencanto con la maquinaria norteamericana, sus colaboraciones con los guionistas y sus proyectos actuales… Léanlo todo AQUI. —————————————— Les presento n° 6 de la revista TEBEOSFERA , con un dossier monográfico coordinado por Elisa McCausland sobre del tema “CÓMIC Y FEMINISMO”. Es un a coleccíon maravillosa de ensayos! Léanlo todo AQUI. Last but not least, exciting things are happening in the world of Alexis Ziritt… Check out this update from his Artist Shop! (It’s”all over” the place 😉 ) —————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 4-18-2018 – by Sally Ingraham – – – – – – – Joanie and Jordie – 4-18-2018 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

04/09/2018

Posted on April 9, 2018April 9, 2018 by Caleb Orecchio

Caleb Orecchio here with thoughts on Plop! and other news.

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A couple of months ago, I wrote about a 1979 article in an issue of The Comics Journal where the cover story by Steve Skeates calls for the death of the superhero and the further advocation of comics like Howard the Duck and Plop! Read all about it here if you want.

I was recently flipping through my copies of Plop! with new eyes due to Skeates’ insistence that this was the title that could have saved comics. Friends, I must say, the comics industry had to have been in such a sordid state if Plop! and Howard the Duck were the ponies to bet on.

I mean, I kinda like Plop! It’s silly, but rarely funny. The best part about the books are usually the covers (a la Basil Wolverton and Wally Wood). I enjoy Sergio Aragonés’ strips that ring-in each issue and then cap it off. There is also enough Bernie Wrightson comics within the series to encourage my forgiving attitude. But ultimately, Plop! is a bust.

It’s not funnier than MAD or any other fellow rip-off like Cracked. It might be funnier than Crazy (Marvel’s hat in the ring of MAD rip-offs). I love Aragonés’ strips he writes and draws himself, but typically he is charming up some boring script intended to be clever. Plop! is almost 100% void of cleverness. Wrightson’s comics often are interesting to look at, but in the end are illustrating a really stupid script that doesn’t stick the landing. Each story fails, unlike its EC Comics predecessor, to end each story with a cherry on top or in a neat little bow.

Oh and when the art is not drawn by Aragonés, Wrightson, Wally Wood, etc., it’s drawn by the worst cartoonists in the business. I can only assume they were in between jobs at DC and trying to make it in the newspaper one-panel strip business. Yikes, it’s just plain bad comics half the time at Plop! Not the kind of comic I’d encourage more of if I’m trying to save the industry and kill the superhero.

But why do I really buy the back-issues if they suck so bad?? The covers!

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if you don’t know, now you know

The National Cartoonists Society has announced their Cartoonist of the Year 2017 nominees.
Sloane Leong is the most recent guest on Process Party.
At TCJ.com, Tegan O’Neil on Crisis on Infinite Earths and Brian Nicholson on Dalston Monsterzz by Dilraj Mann.
Todd Allen at The Beat informs us of a presentation and signing for Mark Burstein’s book, Dave Sheridan: Life with Dealer McDope, The Leather Nun, and The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, at the Cartoon Art Museum in San Fransisco, on April 24th.
Dayton’s son, Mike Peeters is celebrating 50 years of strip making in Dayton, Ohio. Amelia Robinson has the scoop at Dayton Daily News.
I would be remiss not to mention Isao Takahata has passed at age 82. Probably made one the most difficult and emotional movies ever in my opinion.

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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.
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Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in NewsTagged basil wolverton, Bernie Wrightson, plop!, sally ingraham, sergio aragones, steve skeates, Wally Wood

Caleb Orecchio

Posted on April 9, 2018April 9, 2018

Explore

04/03/2017

Sally IngrahamApril 2, 2017NewsWe start the week with Wilson and Dan Clowes, on old/new comic by Dash Shaw, insights from HTML Flowers and Michael Comeau, and Gloria Rivera’s CW Rowhouse Residency Report – plus much more! ————————————————————————————————— Dash Shaw wrote a “Filmmaker’s Letter” for Landmark Theater, which will be showing his film My Entire High School Sinking Into the Sea! in locations around the country starting next week (find the complete list of showings HERE). Along with the letter, which details some of his thoughts behind the creation of the film, Dash shares the original mini-comic that inspired the film. The first spread is above – you can see the rest HERE. Read Dash’s Filmmakers Letter and be sure to see the film when it comes through your town! ————————————————————————————————— Daniel Clowes spoke to The Guardian recently about the similarities between the cynical world of his 90’s comics and this new “Trumpland” we live in – plus the experience of making Wilson, the new movie staring Woody Harrelson that is based on his 2010 comic of the same name. I read the comic and then saw the movie last week – Wilson the comic was quite amazing, and the movie didn’t disappoint either. Dan Clowes talks here about a powerful scene in the comic and the movie – and in real life, as it turns out: “You drew the graphic novel around the time your father was dying, and Wilson’s father dies in the book. How much of it is autobiographical? I began writing it when he was in the hospital, on his literal deathbed. He never got to see any of it. When I first began it was just something to keep my mind occupied while I was sitting in the hospital room with him. He was very much like Wilson’s dad, where he was just tuned out. He was clearly in his own head trying to process what was going on. I sort of expected that he would try to impart some, you know, final wisdom to his son, but he had no interest in that whatsoever. He was really just thinking about bigger things that I couldn’t comprehend. That’s a moment in the book, isn’t it? Yeah, it was a surprising moment in life and it was one of those things where we’d always had that kind of strained relationship where we never talked about anything deep or emotional. And I was waiting for that kind of my whole life. “When he’s dying, he’ll finally summon the courage to talk to me in that way!” and that just didn’t ever happen. That was very surprising, in a way. Even though it makes perfect sense: there was always this feeling that we had this unspoken thing between us, and now I realize maybe that thing can’t be put into words. Maybe that’s how it takes form – as an unspoken thing.“ Read the rest of the interview HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Shawn Starr interviews HTML Flowers and talks with him about the evolution of the No Visitors series. “There’s a greater focus on storytelling in No Visitors #2 compared to your earlier work, has your thoughts on writing comics changed? i started trying to really talk about my life in a simple, non fantasy manner. i wanted to build something, see myself changed or change things about my life that i can’t go back and change. show people how painful, rare & sometimes beautiful life with a chronic illness is. No Visitors #1 is basically just scraps and shorts that were all a part of the lead up to developing Little & his lifestyle, in fact i don’t really consider the series properly starting until No Visitors 2. i’ve been working up to this for years, now i’ve arrived and i feel so much myself. i feel like i’m really making the work i’m supposed to have always made in a weird way. lol destiny.“ Read more HERE. Get a copy of No Visitors #2 HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Nicole Burton of Ad Astra Comix interviews Michael Comeau. They discuss his comic Hellberta, which “has been described elsewhere on the internet as “one of the most meaningful and interesting” variations of a Wolverine comic, and I must agree. It explores the Canadian home of one of comic fandom’s most celebrated characters, against a background that is at once both more realistic and more surreal than your garden-variety Marvel title.” Ad Astra Comix is an activism-based comics publisher, so Nicole finds this comic easy to love: “NB: I often find myself fantasizing about the ability of the supernatural (and by extension, superheroes) solving the world’s social and political problems, beyond what I would see in your standard comic book. So I’ve found that Hellberta has been really satisfying for me and other activist folks I’ve shown it to. Would you describe Hellberta as a kind of political revenge porn, like Inglorious Bestards is to nazism or Django Unchained to slavery and racism? MC: I am a straight/cis/white man from Ontario who learned about Albertan activist culture among the oil sands boom while living and traveling with queer and trans people from Calgary. I was unsure how to depict the queer flight from Calgary or the environmental impact of the tar sands so I took a popular myth from the area and supplanted it onto the situation. What would Wolverine do? Superheroes are extensions and exaggerations of our hopes and fears I don’t really see them as rising above anything. I’d rather see them struggle with our same mundane problems in spite them being so exceptional.“ Later in the interview they also dig into the printing process of this exceptional duel-tone comic – good stuff for the printing nerds! Read the rest of the interview HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Vulture has a spring comics preview which details mainstream and alternative comics releases. Among their picks is Simon Hanselmann‘s new book, One More Year (Fantagraphics, April 26th 2017). “…don’t let the straightforward nature of One More Year deceive you — it’s an astoundingly well-crafted and punishingly heartfelt depiction of mental illness and codependence, one that also manages to make you laugh uncomfortably at the horrible decisions made by the characters you’re watching. The use of longstanding visual and narrative tropes only serves to draw you in more and make each disaster all the more relatable.“ More HERE (including a brief write-up on Jillian Tamaki’s Boundless.) ————————————————————————————————— Gloria Rivera wrote a report about her stay at the Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency in March 2017. She came with the single expectation to work hard on making comics – but her experience turned out to be much greater than that. “I am more than willing to report that while the uninterrupted work time, the comics lectures, and accessible reading material was what whipped me into completing my goal, what I am bringing home with me – more than another book done – is a sense of what true community is, and the importance of holding your peers to standards that will benefit them in the longer run.“ Calling Pittsburgh “…a town constantly working its bellows to support its comics scene” Gloria returned home to California with renewed intention and a great sense of purpose. Read more about her experience HERE. Email santoroschool@gmail.com for more info on how to apply for a Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency! ————————————————————————————————— Also also Simon Hanselmann wrote a new episode of Truth Zone – check it out HERE. In related news, Dan Nadel reviews All Time Comics’ Crime Destroyer #1. The New York Times remembers Bernie Wrightson. Gary Panter has a new book coming out from Fantagraphics in May 2017! Keep an eye out for the two-color stamped cloth-bound hardcover book – Songy of Paradise – “an inspired interpretation of John Milton’s retelling of the story of Jesus being tempted by Satan after being baptized by John the Baptist and fasting for forty days and nights in the Judaean Desert“. In this version “Jesus” is a hillbilly named Songy. Stay tuned. Emil Ferris talks about My Favorite Thing Is Monsters on NPR’s Fresh Air. Bill Kartalopoulos looks “near and far for comics” on Commarts. ————————————————————————————————— Blinkers – 4-3-2017 – by Jack Brougham ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 4-3-2017 – by Tyler Landry ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 4-3-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

07/21/2016

HarrisonJuly 21, 2016NewsDaily News with Harrison returns with drones, thoughts about war, dark animation, and ends with a question. ————————————————————————————————— Ride or Die “Jasper. We’re picking up a lot of drone noise. I think there’s a watch coming.” Sam Alden‘s Test of Loyalty at Hazlitt. Here ————————————————————————————————— Shadow and Form Jonathan Djob Nkondo’s Dark Day is a conflation of everything I want from contemporary animation; moody, inventive, stark, humorous, surreal, frightening, and impeccably illustrated. Pts. 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. ————————————————————————————————— Before ” “NOddIN” is a collective launched by filmmakers and artists in the wake of the 3.11 Great East Japan Earthquake and related Fukushima nuclear power plant accident. With the cooperation of a large number of Japanese animation artists, we spearheaded this self-production with the aim to animate the words of the book round-robin style, and our collaborative project was begun. After over a year of production including the conception period, we completed our short film.” – The NOddIN team, October 2, 2015 More about the film project here. More about the collective NOddIN here. ————————————————————————————————— Visions of Heroes Friend of Comics Workbook Chris Visions has a collection of fun drawing videos shot by Richmond photographer/videographer Tyler Q. Tucker on his site. Here. ————————————————————————————————— Why? Share this page: [...]

05/29/2017

Caleb OrecchioMay 28, 2017NewsCaleb Orecchio here with a speed round of links, news and announcements for Memorial Day 2017. ————————————————————————————————— The major awards at the National Cartoonists Society’s 71st annual Reuben Awards, which were presented Saturday, May 27th 2017, went to Lynda Barry, who received the NCS’s Milton Caniff Lifetime Achievement Award, and Ann Telnaes, presented with the Reuben Award for outstanding cartoonist of the year. Congratulations! More on the awards and other winners HERE on The Washington Post. ————————————————————————————————— Tyler Landry’s complete Shit and Piss, published by Retrofit/Big Planet, is available from his store, Clavicle Cocoris. Tyler is a master drawer and a furiously singular cartoonist, and I recommend anything he puts out. Check out Tyler’s recent TCAF 2017 Recap here. ————————————————————————————————— Next, Cartoon Crossroads Columbus has announced their line-up for 2017, and it’s going to be a really interesting, eclectic group to say the least. In fact, it’s mind-boggling how good this lineup is, as Tom Spurgeon writes over on The Comics Reporter: “That’s Derf Backderf, Peter Bagge, Kyle Baker, Darrin Bell, Howard Cruse, Lilli Carré and Alexander Stewart, Kelly Sue DeConnick, Kat Fajardo, Emil Ferris, Ann Marie Fleming, Matt Fraction, Jennifer Holm, Kevin Huizenga, Nilah Magruder, Ann Nocenti, Laura Park, Dav Pilkey, Mimi Pond, Dana Simpson, Chris Sprouse, Leslie Stein, Tillie Walden, Connor Willumsen and Judd Winick.” More about the lineup HERE. Very exciting. I can’t wait. ————————————————————————————————— Yesterday, Fantagraphics officially announced their new anthology, Now. The first issue is scheduled for a 2017 September release. Tom Spurgeon talks to the editor, Eric Reynolds on The Comics Reporter. Seems that Now will more or less be picking up where Mome left off. ————————————————————————————————— Today is the last day to take advantage of the “40% off (mostly)” sale at Drawn and Quarterly. ————————————————————————————————— The latest cartoonist to be interviewed on the RiYL podcast is the great David Lloyd (who did the artwork on V for Vendetta by Alan Moore). Lloyd is very opinionated and has a practical point of view on the business of comics, and Brian Heater is always such a good interviewer. Get into it. (A little bird told me to keep an eye out for an interview with Frank Santoro on RiYL soon!) ————————————————————————————————— Last, but never the least, Kevin Huizanga’s masterpiece Ganges recently ended with its 6th issue. Though it is a triumph of modern cartooning, it seemed to me to be overshadowed by counterpart and simultaneously released Cricket 6 by Sammy Harkham. I think it has to do with Crickets being more accessible than Ganges, yet both titles hold a heavyweight belt. Anyway, Scott Cederlund reminds us how great Ganges is over on Panel Patter. ————————————————————————————————— Blinkers – 5-29-2017 – by Jack Brougham ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 5-29-2017 – by Sally Ingraham ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 5-29-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

TCAF 2016 | Ethan Rilly

Frank SantoroJune 3, 2016Festivals and Shows / InterviewsShare this page: [...]

The Hensley Interview

Chris Anthony DiazJune 1, 2016Interviews / The Diaz ArchiveTim Hensley’s SIR ALFRED NO. 3 is a tour de force in cartooning and storytelling, paying tribute to past cartoonists and comics, while also taking what came before him and yet creating a comic that is post-modern and unique. It is finally available through FANTAGRAPHICS and John Porcellino’s SPIT AND A HALF. Tim and Alvin Buenaventura did a work for the ages and added to the lore of Alfred Hitchcock and his films as well as the lore of Hensley, Buenaventura and PIGEON PRESS! as Tim stated on his TUMBLR, “They told me I could be anything I wanted… so I became a god.” This is very true that Tim became a “god”… a god of cartooning and comics storytelling that is! This short interview was conducted between March 2014 to May 2014. so, Tim beat me to the punch, completing SIR ALFRED NO. 3 and getting it out to the public, despite Alvin Buenaventura’s passing and the distribution very much in doubt, way before I finally posted this interview! This is no. 5 in a series of short interviews with writer-cartoonists that I have conducted, which began on my TUMBLR page THE SHED but now continues on COMICS WORKBOOK at THE DIAZ ARCHIVE. Tim has a TUMBLR page, which is an archive of his music and songs and writes comics articles on BLOG FLUME. Question 1: In your work, is the absurdness premeditated through the associations of your non sequitors, or do you just follow where a feeling takes you and then end up with the absurd tone in your stories? That’s sort of a chicken-egg dilemma, do I start at absurdity or arrive at absurdity, but maybe more the latter? Your use of the word “absurdness” reminds me of buying a copy of “The Theatre of the Absurd” by Martin Esslin in 1984 in a gift shop in Stratford-upon-Avon, the birthplace of Shakespeare. I was tagging along with one of my father’s music tours, and we ended up there on a side trip. That book was probably my first encounter with academic absurdity. From reading that, I tracked down stuff like Artaud’s “Jet of Blood” and the Andre Massin typographic version of Ionesco’s “The Bald Soprano,” which might be my favorite graphic novel of all time although it is essentially fumetti. I guess that sounds pretentious, but I’m just trying to say I had been exposed to the idea of absurdity as a literary device fairly early on. But I am more interested in the feelings, whether pedestrian or not, than just a kind of Tourette’s assault. Question No. 2: Where do you get the basis creating situations for your strips on well-known figures, like Alfred Hitchcock? There’s enough truth in your situations that the fiction is very believable! From the public library. I’ve been drawing anecdotes about Alfred Hitchcock rather than a more esoteric director because there are so many easy to find books available about him. More than there are on Andre de Toth, who you were talking about at the L.A. Zine Fest, though it might be fun to do a series on famous directors with eye patches. (de Toth, John Ford, Nicholas Ray, Fritz Lang…) It is true that the more situations I draw the more they seem to conflict and become fictional. Question No. 3: What’s on tap next? Can you share any details on your latest comics project? I try to create some kind of onerous “five year plan” to follow with my comics rather than improvise, because I work full-time and am getting older and less indestructible. But I’m loathe to get into the details because someone who works at a normal pace could easily scoop me a few times over, not that I’m really doing anything that unusual. This week a bird built a nest in a crossbeam of our landing and was incessantly tapping on the window above the front door from dawn till dusk. My wife said the bird sees its reflection in the glass and taps at it because it thinks it’s an enemy. I was thinking, “Oh, that must be where ‘bird brain’ comes from,” but then realized it isn’t so different with my comics. I’m probably compulsively attacking myself to protect some transitory whorl of twigs. Or maybe I’m just trying to break the glass to see what’s inside. Question no. 4: How has music influenced your comics and vice versa? Well, comics don’t influence my music since I stopped making records 20 years ago… Both my parents are musicians so the topic’s bound to come up in my comics. Also the topic of silence or both at once. In general, I like to listen to music on headphones and in my car. Two products I’ve enjoyed recently are the Sly and the Family Stone box set Higher! and a compilation put out by Soul Jazz records called Country Soul Sisters. Question No. 5: Which past cartoonists inspire your retro-looking style? (Although I somewhat get a Chris Ware-vibe from the SIR ALFRED strips, especially the tiny four panel ones.) Currently I’m trying to combine Irving Tripp’s Tubby with Owen Fitzgerald’s Bob Hope. Share this page: [...]

Announcing the Spring Semester of thee Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers

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