Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Aaron Cockle

Posted on April 23, 2018April 24, 2018

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06/07/2017

Juan FernándezJune 7, 2017los Cómics / NewsEmpezamos el día con Isabel Méndez y los derechos de ls traductores; Fernanda Frick en La Polola; Ines Estrada; Sol Díaz; Tercer Encuentro Internacional de Narrativas Dibujadas; y por supuesto los tebeos de Comics Workbook! ————————————————————————————————— Y los traductores… ¿tienen derechos de autor? Isabel Méndez nos presenta un guía genial sobre los derechos del autor. En este mundo de intercambio cultural internacional, los traductores son inestimables! Si tienes algún interés en el mundo de traduccíon, tienen que léer este articulo. ¿En qué consisten los derechos de autor de los traductores? Si eres traductor, debes tener en cuenta que nuestra legislación te atribuye los mismos derechos que a cualquier otro autor. Esto es, tendrás derechos patrimoniales y derechos morales. Conocer bien tus derechos te ayudará a proteger y reivindicar mejor tu trabajo. Los derechos patrimoniales te servirán para explotar la traducción y los derechos morales te servirán, entre otras cosas, para que se reconozca la autoría de tu trabajo y aparezcas, por ejemplo, en los créditos de la obra. También, como cualquier otro autor, tendrás derecho a registrar tu obra. Al igual que con el resto de autores, muchas veces los traductores son trabajadores asalariados, por lo que la cesión de los derechos de las traducciones que realicen bajo un contrato laboral, deberán quedar bien determinadas y reflejadas en el mismo. Es conveniente leer en este caso el artículo 51 de nuestra Ley de Propiedad Intelectual, dedicado a la transmisión de los derechos de un autor asalariado. Léanlo todo AQUI! ————————————————————————————————— Cómics y noticias que me han llamado la atención esta semana: Sol Díaz Castillo y Marcela Trujillo tienen una nueva edicion de La Polola Podcast! Las chicas conversan con el gran dibujante Fernanda Frick, directora, animadora y dibujante. Hablamos acerca de su nuevo corto “Here`s the plan”, cómo empezó su carrera, su experiencia en la animación, sus estudios, temores, ideas, planes y mucho más!! Ya puedes léer Alienation #3 de Inés Estrada en línea. Léanlo si les gusta el sci fi, hentai & conversaciones intensas. Esta historieta fue adaptada a HTML maravillosamente. La Universidad de Santiago y @PLOPGaleria convocan al Tercer Encuentro Internacional de Narrativas Dibujadas! Para este año, el eje del Encuentro será Narrativas gráficas: sociedad, política y género, y el plazo para enviar las propuestas de ponencias es hasta el lunes 12 de junio de 2017. Pueden ver la entretenida entrevista que Carlos Reyes le hizo a Sol Díaz en un nuevo VIÑETAS DEL FIN DEL MUNDO. La semana pasada Drawn & Quarterly annuncio la publicacion de Sadboi por Berliac. Hubo una reacción inmediata en línea, ya que dibujantes y lectores señalaron las declaraciones públicas sobre personas transgénero realizadas por el dibujante, algunas dirigidas agresivamente a la artista Sarah Horrocks, quienes descomprimieron sus interacciones y pensamientos en Twitter. Después de dos días de investigación y pensamiento, D & Q, que al igual que muchas editoriales pequeñas, se basa en relaciones bastante íntimas con sus autores, ya no sentía que podía apoyar Berliac dado su comportamiento. La declaración de la compañía está aquí. La declaración de Berliac en respuesta a la situacíon está en su Facebook. ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 6-7-2017 – by Gabriella Tito ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 6-7-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

08/10/2018

Sally IngrahamAugust 9, 2018NewsSally Ingraham here with Penelope Bagieu’s “California Dreamin'” – plus a look at “Dakota North” and other news and comics! ————————————————————————————————— I thoroughly enjoyed Penelope Bagieu‘s California Dreamin’: Cass Elliot Before The Mamas & the Papas (2017). It’s a great use of the comics medium as a vehicle for biography. Bagieu tells the story of Ellen “Mama Cass” Elliot’s life leading up to the formation of the band The Mamas & the Papas, using the narrative voice of dozens of people who were part of her life. Her childhood and teens are revealed by members of her family and her first voice teacher, and then the story is picked up by friends, lovers, and bandmates. A complexity of prose-based biography is introducing and keeping straight all these people who surround a famous figure – providing the context for their relationship and explaining why their view matters. Handled poorly, it can be confusing and boring. However, Bagieu uses comics to neatly circomvent any such issues – each chapter simply begins with the name of the new narrator, and then plummets into their version of the story. Bagieu’s characterizations brilliantly capture the personality of the narrator while continuing the construction of the larger-than-life Cass Elliot. The humor and warmth of her drawings make the story wonderfully compelling. Cass is lovingly brought to life, full of passion and awkward grace. The musical world she tumbled through is well captured, and somehow even the sound of her voice seems to float up out of the pages of the book. The moment when she and future members of The Mamas & the Papas begin to write California Dreamin’ is a highlight of the comic, hilariously revealed from the viewpoint of Cass’ mother. Penelope Bagieu is a French cartoonist who has followed up her first graphic novel – (Exquisite Corpse, 2015) – with two terrific offerings published in America recently – this book (2017), along with the excellent 2018 collection Brazen: Rebel Ladies Who Rocked the World. Keep an eye on her – I can only assume and hope that she will continue to make good work that will entertain and enlighten us! Check out Michael Cavna’s Washington Post review of California Dreamin’ HERE for more thoughts on this comic. ————————————————————————————————— There’s an excellent writeup on Dakota North over on The Comics Journal, a “revisit” by Keith Silva of the 1980’s 5-issue series. I am really fond of this series, but am somewhat astonished to note that there is a deluxe reprint now available. Exciting times! The series was the only comic written by Martha Thomases (ever), and it’s female, regular-powered hero, was remarkable for it’s time. Keith Silva has all the details on how Dakota North came to be, what the series was up against, and why it was cancelled, so I won’t reiterate that here – read the article. Briefly: “And yeah, like any (super)hero worth her salt, Dakota does indeed ride a motorcycle out of a service elevator and into a New York fashion shoot. She also rides the same motorcycle up an escalator in a chic Manhattan department store. She shakes off sheikhs, battles a bloodthirsty raptor, and outfoxes a monster truck in Rockefeller Center. And does so with fierce aplomb, style, and a sense of adventure. Dogged and defiantly independent, Dakota North is a fashion-forward comic whose style never caught on. To say Dakota North was an outlier is a disservice to outliers. The moment Ms. North starts stylin’ is when the ground began to shift under comics—Dakota North #3 comes out the same month as Batman: The Dark Knight #4 and Watchmen #1 . Now, it would be an act of hubris and hyperbole to say two neophyte creators like Thomases and Salmons (even with a wily vet like Hama at the helm) would come close to equaling the murder’s row of Frank Miller, Klaus Janson, Lyn Varley, Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons, and John Higgins. Proximity to greatness does not make something great, and Dakota North is not on par with the craft, canniness and inventiveness of those ’80s masterpieces. And yet what Dakota North lacks in artistic pedigree it makes up for in chutzpah, idiosyncrasy, and how it outdistances its peers in representation and female agency. So subtle is it in its subversion, representation, and agency it almost passes as insignificant, almost. What Dakota North wanted was be seen as an equal in her world and the world writ large. She was a disruption of the status quo and way ahead of her time, perhaps even today. That’s why Dakota North matters.” Read the rest HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Other News of Note Phoebe Gloeckner is the Guest Editor of 2018’s Best American Comics – more info HERE. For any UK readers – Posy Simmonds has an exhibition of original artwork and unseen sketches – details HERE. Also, Paul Gravett recently listed Posy Simmonds’ Tamara Drewe as one of four highly recommended graphic novels – HERE. The New Yorker has a short feature on it’s Women Cartoonists – Then and Now. The Harvey Award nominees have been announced – lots of good stuff on the list – check it out HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Share this page: [...]

08/14/2018

Aaron CockleAugust 13, 2018NewsOn Vacation/Process Post ————————————————————————————————— I was on vacation last week, so I don’t really have much in the way of comics news for this week. My apologies! While on vacation, I tried to get some work done, mostly sketching, but also some penciling and inking in my sketchbook, trying to keep my hand moving. I didn’t really work on anything of substance, comics-wise, I’m kind of at a point with my current work-in-progress that some time away from it would do it some good. Here are some pictures: some of my materials, sketches, and some tracing/drawthrough exercises I did in my sketchbook. What else? I finished Joan Didion’s Miami, about U.S./Cuba in the 1980’s: Many Havana epilogues have been played in Florida, and some prologues. Florida is that part of the Cuban stage where declamatory exits are made, and side deals. Florida is where the chorus waits to comment on the action, and sometimes to join it. The exiled José Martí raised money among the Cuban tobacco workers in Key West and Tampa, and in 1894 attempted to mount an invasionary expedition from north of Jacksonville. The exiled Fidel Castro Ruz came to Miami in 1955 for money to take the 26 Julio into the Sierra Maestra, and got it, from Carlos Prío. Fulgencio Batista had himself come back from Florida to take Havana away from Carlos Prío in 1952, but by 1958 Fidel Castro, with Carlos Prío’s money, was taking it away from Fulgencio Batista, at which turn Carlos Prío’s former prime minister tried to land a third force in Camagüey Province, the idea being to seize the moment from Fidel Castro, a notably failed undertaking encouraged by the Central Intelligence Agency and financed by Carlos Prío, at home in Miami Beach. And I read Tree of Smoke, Denis Johnson’s novel about psychological operations and the Vietnam War: The nights were wild with stars, otherwise empty and cold. For warmth he kept fifty-five-gallon drums full of diesel-soaked sand burning around the place. He made a circuit among the maze of conveyor belts under gargantuan crushers and was never done. The next evening the same belts, the same motions, even some of the same pebbles and rocks, it stood to reason, and the same cold take-out burger for lunch at the dusty table in the manager’s trailer at 2:00 a.m.; washing his hands and face first in the narrow john, his thick neck brown as a bear’s, sucking water up his nostrils and expelling the dust in liverish clumps. Not long after his lunch the roosters alone on neighboring small farms began to scream like humans, and just before six the sun arrived and turned the surrounding aluminum rooftops to torches, and then at six-thirty, while Houston punched out, the drivers came, and they lined their trucks nose-to-ass and one after another drove beneath the largest hopper of all to wait, shaken by their machines, while wet concrete cascaded down the chute into each tanker before they went out to pour the foundations of a city. OK, thanks for reading. I’ll return to regularly-scheduled news posting next week. ————————————————————————————————— Vision Box – 8-14-18 – by Cameron Arthur ————————————————————————————————— Cement Mixer – 8-14-18 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

07/19/2016

Aaron CockleJuly 18, 2016NewsAaron Cockle here today with May Flowers in July; The Return of the Nib; Veterans Comics; Theaster Gates; Copier Art; Marie Jacotey; On Essaying; Rowhouse Auction ————————————————————————————————— Shannon Wright Comics CW’s Featured Comic this week, May Flowers, comes from Shannon Wright. ————————————————————————————————— The Nib is Back The political cartoon, comics journalism, humor and non-fiction website is back with expanded media coverage. The Nib will be covering the Republican National Convention in Cleveland this week, with correspondence work from Rob Rogers and Sophie Yanow, among others. ————————————————————————————————— When I Returned The White River Junction VA Medical Center and The Center for Cartoon Studies collaborated on a project that helped military veterans process their experiences through comics. This work came about through the involvement of James Sturm, cartoonist and co-founder of CCS, and chaplain and cartoonist Kurt F. Shaffert, both who have worked with veterans in the past. During his time at the VA, Sturm discovered that comics are a powerful medium for working with post-traumatic stress disorder, in particular. “PTSD is the inability to integrate past and present, which has a devastating effect on the future,” Sturm said. But comics help people literally visualize time, so they can help veterans break down complex histories into manageable chunks. “Each panel is a discrete unit of time,” he elaborates. “And when you put 8, 9, 10 panels on a page, you’re integrating the past, present, and future into a … whole.” Comics, Shaffert believes, are the language we need when we talk about war experiences because they’re physical and visual and funny and tragic and profound all at the same time. “Extraordinary experiences require extraordinary language,” he said. “Anybody who’s experienced PTSD has experienced things that are outside of everyday experience. … In order to be able to process events that are traumatic, you need to find … a form of communication that deals with the immature, the impolite, the gross, the grotesque, the obnoxious, the obscene.” Page above by Jeff Lok. A PDF of the book can be downloaded here. ————————————————————————————————— How to Build a House Museum Art Gallery of Toronto opens a show this week of installation work by Chicago-based artist Theaster Gates. The show is described as: an immersive exhibition exploring the potential of the house museum—historically important landmarks that have been transformed into legacy sites. Gates proposes new ways of honouring and remembering Black experience and explores the potential of these spaces through music, dance, video, sculpture and painting. Organized as a world of symbolic structures and their associated objects, the exhibition is dedicated to Black luminaries including George Black, Frankie Knuckles and Muddy Waters. How to Build a House Museum invites visitors to tour the house museum in its many possible forms: as an architectural monument, historical representation, or site of freedom. ————————————————————————————————— Pati Hill: Photocopier An exhibition of Pati Hill’s copier work was on view at Arcadia University Art Gallery this past April. Meredith Sellers at Hyperallergic reviewed it: Stepping into the gallery, I gazed at the show, curated by Richard Torchia, as it presented grids, lines, and vitrines bursting full of Pati Hill’s delicate, remarkable images, all made on the rather unremarkable IBM Copier II. My cynicism was obliterated. I felt a stunning empathy for these images of daily life, laid bare on the cold, smooth glass of a hulking electronic machine, contextualized by snippets of writing that dipped in and out of memory, metaphor, wit, and the kinds of fleeting thoughts one thinks but never utters aloud. ————————————————————————————————— Obviously I really like fashion and depicting clothing High fashion and cartooning are rarely spoken of in the same breath, but Marie Jacotey recently collaborated with McQ Alexander McQueen for a new line of handbags by drawing some promotional comics. ————————————————————————————————— I like to think of the essay as an art form that tracks the evolution of consciousness as it rolls over the folds of a new idea, memory, or emotion. Essayist John D’Agata has edited a new anthology of work, The Making of the American Essay, the third and final of his “A New History of the Essay” series published by Graywolf Press. Susan Steinberg interviewed D’Agata about the work, the differences between essay and non-fiction writing, and the concepts of ‘genre’, ‘fact’, and ‘truth’ at Electric Literature: Steinberg: If memory is unreliable, perspective is subjective, and emotion is unfixed, then what is the function and/or responsibility of “fact” in essays? I ask because I’m curious about your relationship to fact, but I’m also curious about your thoughts on readers’ fixations on the notion of truth. If a misconception about essay writers is that they’re truth-tellers, then do they often run the risk of disappointing the reader? How can essay writers confront or undo what seems to be an impossible-to-fulfill expectation? D’Agata: Facts are akin to images, for me. That probably strikes some as a perverse statement, but I say it as someone who turns to essays for literary experiences only, and for that reason, when I’m reading I don’t need facts to do much more than resonate with the rest of the story that’s being told. But that’s not the case with every reader, of course. We’re all looking for different things and have different expectations when we read. Yet for that very reason we do a disservice to both the essay and its readership by suggesting that everything that falls beneath the umbrella of “nonfiction” ought to be written by the same rules and for the same audience. There are some nonfiction books that traffic primarily in facts, by which I mean that we value them for the facts and information that they introduce to us and the ways in which they organize them. And those books are great. I’m a rabid reader of history and science, for instance, and I turn to those genres because I want the information that their dustjackets proffer: A Story about X and How It Changed the World. And while I appreciate those books being well written and am always down for great storytelling, I’m not necessarily expecting that from those books or looking for that when I read them. When I read a memoir, on the other hand, I’m hoping to bear witness to an exhilaratingly expressive voice and am therefore expecting a completely different literary experience. I don’t care about the facts in that case; I care about the story. ————————————————————————————————— Rowhouse Auction for July 17-24 New private auction items up at auction.comicsworkbook.com. Email Frank Santoro at santoroschoolATgmail for a password, if you don’t already have one. If you already have a password, it is the same from last week. All funds go to helping keep the lights on and further developing the school. 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01/11/2018

Comics WorkbookJanuary 10, 2018NewsSam Ombiri here with thoughts on DNA Failure: British Weapon Comics by Leon Sadler, Jonathan Chandler, and Stefan Sadler ————————————————————————————————— Sam Ombiri here: DNA Failure: British Weapon Comics is Leon Sadler making comics with Jonathan Chandler and Stefan Sadler. The deal is Leon’s comics are really good, Jon’s comics are really good, and Stefan’s comics are really good, and together they compliment each other’s energy, better than ever. They all have this playful reverence for storytelling in comics that exist for existence’s sake. Or a “sake” not spoken of yet. This sensibility that’s really attractive doesn’t deviate from their enthusiasm for the story. Far from it – it only serves to take their stories to higher heights. As I’m reading this, I’m wondering what corner of a human’s mind can possibly have the capacity to make this stuff up? I’m not thinking of just the especially surreal events in the comic. I’m also thinking, for example, of how quickly these guys can ascribe a character’s role purely from their facial features. This is a wonder. As I read I’m really savoring each moment. This book is so much fun. What’s astounding is the complete lack of cynicism, which I know stems from sincerity, and it’s just what they do, but I can’t help but commend their lack of cynicism. It’s hard to talk about this comic, about this stuff, partly because I’m guilty of this too in my own comics. What is it I’m guilty of? There’s this one corner of webcomics – you see it in a lot of deviant art pages…probably the easiest place to find stuff like this is if you go to the Bad Webcomics wiki – and it feels like this is the stuff these guys are into. I’ll try to explain more clearly. (I’m not sure about Jon and Stefan, but I’ve read Leon has an intensely visceral reaction to things because there’s too much emotion in them.) This comic and what I’m trying to get at partly reminds me of what Jessica Ciocci of Paperrad said about amateur work: “When you see amateur work, you see the mistakes a professional would try and cover up – like when a person’s homemade Web site has a JPEG scaled up incorrectly. That’s the kind of stuff we like. It’s acknowledging that there are these unspoken rules about how you are supposed to do something – and when you break that rule you are acknowledging that the rule exists.” I think the inclination for most people is to pat themselves on the back instead of pushing further when they realize this rule exists. They try to outsmart the inherent perceived stupidity, instead of just engaging with this stuff as it is (if they don’t just flat out turn it into a punchline). It’s what puts Paperrad above Everything Is terrible (as cool as they are). It’s that same thing that is so great about people like Leon, Jon, and Stefan. I can’t help but think about how Dash Shaw was once talking about how for the most part, in the west at least, whenever people approach limited animation, it’s rarely without cynicism. Take those Adult Swim cartoons like Perfect Hair Forever or 12 OzMouse, in contrast to this community on YouTube which used to use programs like Pencil or the Corel software that would come with their Wacom tablets, to make wolf animations. Animations without cynicism. People like Tribble of Doom or Fluffylovey. What I’m saying is that with DNA Failure the success is three tier. Tier 1 is the lack of cynicism towards this zone of comics, Tier 2 is pushing enthusiasm – as in, they don’t feel compelled to contextualize this stuff just to prove that they’re smart. People (myself included) don’t always believe in the potency of this stuff. They don’t think it is independent of our recognition of it. I mean, sometimes it can be good to give it contextualization, but I don’t think it helps in cases where the potency of the work that one might be re-appropriating (at least for this bad webcomic stuff) is purely based on your recognition of it. It reveals this masked cynicism and masked vanity, or maybe arrogance is a better word. So then it’s not Tier 2 – it’s more like you’re in tier -2. DNA Failure reaches Tier 3, which is a complete mystery to me. I just don’t know – it’s not even three tier success now, it’s like a 2,000,000 tier success. There are many places comics can go if you open your eyes – DNA Failure opened mine. The comics in here are really fantastic. That’s another thing; when people (like me) re-appropriate this stuff, if it’s comics, they (by they, I mean we) tend to completely both forget and dismiss the comics aspect of it. We forget that it’s a comic with a story of some sort, and they (again, me included) maybe even forget that it’s a lot of fun to draw. Although when I say “fun” I don’t mean to say that you always have to draw with a bunch of wild strokes. (CF’s impression of Jack Kirby crosshatching) It doesn’t have to be fun but it certainly can be, especially when we’re talking about this zone of comics. The impulse to draw these types of comics commonly comes, after all, from having fun. (I’m using “fun” for lack of a better word, though not at the complete lack of it. I’m also thinking about how CF said that the spirit of cartooning is “just go ahead and draw.”) However, all the fun is taken out of it when it becomes a contest to see whose work is superior because of how “smart” it is. When I see this type of re-appropriation done (again, myself included), so much of it is this masked cynicism propelled by pretension. DNA Failure is amazing for so many reasons, number one because it doesn’t have any of that. There are really terrific moments in these comics and really great sequences, and instead of these guys patting themselves on the back, they just reach higher and higher and it’s really cool to see. I was very sad when I ran out of pages to read. – Sam Ombiri Read more about the comic HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Frank Santoro and Simon Hanselmann, CAB 2013 – photo by Chris Anthony Diaz, colored by Graham Willcox International Students: 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. ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 1-11-2018 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

04/24/2018

Posted on April 23, 2018April 24, 2018 by Aaron Cockle

Aaron here today with Global Art Comics; Frank in Italia; Print Slam #8; Paradise Systems; Cy Twombly; Remote Mind Control

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Save the date! April 27th: SPRING GROUP SHOW | GLOBAL ALT COMICS!

Featuring work by Trina Robbins, Mary Fleener, Lauren Weinstein, Powerpaola, Gina Wynbrandt, Conxita Herrero, Tommi Parrish, Gabrielle Bell.

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Do you have any peculiar habits or routines before starting to draw?

I try to do drawing warmups. I like to copy Archie comics. It lets my brain draw without thinking, without inventing. And Archie comics have a type of cartoony realism which I think is perfect to copy. Ideally, I warm up for 30 minutes or so before beginning to work on my own comics. Although as my comic nears completion, I warm up less because I feel confident about my direction. Also, I obsessively make coffee on the stovetop with my Bialetti caffettiera. I have to drive far away to find Lavazza coffee at the Italian grocery in a different neighborhood. American coffee is crap.

Frank Santoro is interviewed at Fumettologica, in support of the publication of Pompeii in Italy, and Frank’s trip this week to Naples Comicon. An excerpt from the Italian edition has been posted as well.

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Paradise Systems: Woshibai, Lisk Feng and Jun Cen in conversation

April 27, 2018, 6-8 PM

Shanghai-based cartoonist Woshibai reads from his new book Migraine, newly released by Paradise Systems. Woshibai will be joined by New York-based cartoonists Jun Cen and Lisk Feng in conversation about Chinese comics and the illustration community. Jun Cen will also have copies of his book Negative Space availanble, which was recently published in China.

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Cy Twombly: Coronation of Sesostris
Through April 28, 2018, 980 Madison Avenue, NYC

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‘EM stands for electromagnetic.’
Curtis Waltman at Muckrock found some good graphics in a recent Freedom of Information Act request:

As part of my ongoing project looking at fusion centers’ investigations into Antifa and various white supremacist groups, I filed a request with the WSFC. I got back many standard documents in response, including emails, intelligence briefings and bulletins, reposts from other fusion centers – and then there was one file titled “EM effects on human body.zip.”

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Vison Box – 4-24- 2018 – by Cameron Arthur

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Joanie and Jordie – 4-24- 2018 – by Caleb Orecchio

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Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Aaron Cockle

Posted on April 23, 2018April 24, 2018

Explore

BOY by Hellen Jo

Chris Anthony DiazJune 21, 2016The Diaz ArchiveHellen Jo’s watercolored portrayal of Tetsuo Abe as Toshio Omura and Tsuyoshi Kinoshita as Peewee in Nagisa Oshima’s BOY (1969, Japan) for my ILLUSTRATED MOMENTS IN CINEMA/TELEVISION collection. The illustration was completed around Spring 2009 in ink and watercolor, and Hellen’s photo was taken at Comic Arts Los Angeles, Sunday, December 6, 2015. And Graham Willcox did the color on Hellen’s portrait Share this page: [...]

04/05/2016

Aaron CockleApril 5, 2016NewsMoCCA Recapitulation; Sarah Horrocks; Edie Fake; Aidan Koch; Chester Brown; Julie Delporte; O RisoLAB, My RisoLAB!; Retrofit Comics ————————————————————————————————— MoCCA 2016 This past weekend, the Society of Illustrators hosted it’s annual Museum of Comic and Cartooning Art (‘MoCCA’) Arts Festival in some desolate, blasted-out, post-industrialized urban hinterland Manhattan’s far west side. Attendance seemed pretty good at the 2-day show. If anyone who tabled at/attended the show has anything to say about it (Was it a ‘good’ show? What does ‘good’ even mean? Like, did you make a lot of $$$ at the show, or enough to cover your table, or is that something people talk about these days? Did anyone get donuts at the car wash donut shop? How were the panels? What were the highlights of the show, comics-wise? IS this a snapshot of the current ‘industry’? Do we all wish it was 2005 again and that we were back in the Puck building? Does anybody miss that Armory space?, Where do we go from here, etc etc???)…please feel free to leave a comment at the bottom of this newsblog. ————————————————————————————————— Horrocks on Horrocks; Edie Fake at Marlborough Chelsea; Aidan Koch’s After Nothing Comes; Chester Brown’s Mary Wept Over the Feet of Jesus; Delporte in Moominland ————————————————————————————————— Summer Risography 6-8 week artist residency in NYC. Application deadline is April 22. ————————————————————————————————— 3 Days Left Please consider supporting the Retrofit Comics Kickstarter. Image above by Alabaster Pizzo. Share this page: [...]

09/14/2016

Juan FernándezSeptember 14, 2016los Cómics / NewsJuan here with your Latin American and Spanish comics news! Hoy tenemos: Dash Shaw dibuja el estreno de MY ENTIRE HIGHSCHOOL SINKING INTO THE SEA; John Kelly apuntado director del ToonSeum en Pittsburgh; Spanish Fever llega a los EE.UU; Entrevista con Jose Domingo; Entrevista con PowerPaola; Taller de Maggie Lynn Negrete en Pittsburgh; Taller con Marco M. Noreña en Colombia; Convocatoria Abierta de Zinebiosís y GRAF – Madrid; Malaimagen invitado a La Polala #11. ————————————————————————————————— Dash Shaw dibuja el estreno de su nueva pelicula My Entire Highschool Sinking into the Sea ————————————————————————————————— SPANISH FEVER: STORIES BY THE NEW SPANISH CARTOONISTS U.S. TOUR The crew has landed and is now in America – Santiago García, Javier Olivares, David Rubín, Ana Galvañ, y José Domingo han llegado! Si tienen la oportunidad de escuchar una de sus charlas o talleres, no se lo pueden perder. Estos son los “heavy hitters” Españoles. Santiago García les puedo contar un poquito sobre la gira! ————————————————————————————————— Entrevista: José Domingo José Domingo shares some thoughts with Meagan Meehan over on Blasting News. BN: How did you come up with the idea for “Adventures of a Japanese Businessman” and “Pablo and Jane and the Hot Air Contraption”? JD: The idea for “Adventures of a Japanese Businessman” came out from a littlesketch on my sketchbook and the feeling it created. Trying to capture that feeling–following the thread of it–resulted in the book. For “Pablo and Jane and the Hot Air Contraption” I was commissioned by Flying Eye Books to create a book about monsters with a core hide-and-seek element but I was given total freedom to develop the story, characters and tone of the book. Read it HERE + and don’t miss José Domingo (and the rest of the Spanish Fever crew) at SPX!!! ————————————————————————————————— Learn to Draw from the Pros! Acompañanos este sabado en Bethesda, Maryland desde las 3-5 durante nuestro taller de Spanish Fever! (Spanish Language Workshop). SPX and Comics Workbook, along with the Spanish Cultural Ministry and Fantagraphics, is pleased to provide Spanish language instruction and presentations with José Domingo and David Rubín. Es un verdadero honor poder presentar una charla + taller con José Domingo y David Rubín. 100% en Español! 100% Gratis! No se lo pierdan! ————————————————————————————————— [soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/281896150″ params=”color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false” width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /] Escucha @lapololapodcast, un podcast del cómic femenino con Sol Díaz Castillo y Marcela Trujillo! It’s always a fun, relaxing and enlightening listen. If you haven’t tuned in to La Polola just yet, Póngale Play 😉 En este capítulo las chicas conversan con Malaimagen, uno de los más prolíficos dibujantes chilenos, autor de libros como “Sin Tolerancia”, “Pase Usted”, “Boleta o Factura”, “Pan y Circo” y el último “Malditos Humanos” entre otros más. Hablamos de sus inspiraciones, sus temas y su relación con la música punk y su grupo punkora, que nos acompaña con la música con dos canciones de su último disco “contra el suelo”. Además dimos los resultados de nuestro concurso del mapa emocional, ¡gracias a todas y todos los que nos mandaron sus dibujos! Y tenemos un gran anuncio: desde este capítulo comenzaremos a ser transmitidas por radio ITACA FM en España ————————————————————————————————— Entreviñetas 2016 – La Feria Vagabunda ¡Pronto comienza la séptima temporada de Entreviñetas en Colombia! El #FestivalEntreviñetas2016 tendrá a Bogotá y Medellín como sedes. Si el cómic es lo que te apasiona y vives en Latinoamérica, no se lo pueden perder! Entreviñetas acabo de anunciar los proyectos que participarán en la Feria Vagabunda en sus versiones Bogotá (24 y 25 de sept) y Medellín (8 y 9 de oct). En la feria encontraras libros, cómics y fanzines que son verdaderamente unicos. Mantente al dia y sigue la pagina de Entreviñetas en FB. Los invitados oficiales del festival seran: Brecht Vandenbroucke (Bélgica), Michael DeForge (Canadá), Olivier Kugler (Alemania), Elenio Pico (Argentina), Aidan Koch (Estados Unidos), Zane Zlemeša (Letonia), Inés Estrada (México), Diana Ojeda (Colombia), Sole Otero (Argentina), Pablo Guerra (Colombia), Marco Tóxico (Bolivia), Hernán Sansone (Argentina), Olea (Chile), Phoebe Gloeckner (Estados Unidos), Benjamin Dix (Reino Unido), ICINORI (Francia), Alexandra Zsigmond (Estados Unidos), Puño (España), Miguel Gallardo (España), Cabizbaja (Colombia), David Avend (Colombia), Jean Paul Zapata (Colombia) ————————————————————————————————— Convocatoria: GRAF – Madrid GRAF, evento en torno al cómic de autor y la edición independiente, tendrá lugar los días 11, 12 y 13 de noviembre de 2016. Para esta ocasión ampliamos la duración de la feria. Al igual que en la anterior edición en Barcelona, esta se extenderá a lo largo de tres días, dando comienzo el viernes a las 17:00h y terminando el domingo a las 14:30h. La organización hace un llamamiento a los editores, autores, artistas y colectivos interesados en participar. Para solicitar espacio en #GRAFMADRID2016 es imprescindible enviar un correo a graf.contacta@gmail.com con el nombre de la propuesta y una web o portfolio de la misma, indicando el tamaño de la mesa solicitada: Stand grande 2 metros = 90€ Stand mediano 1,5 metros = 70€ Stand pequeño 1,20 metros = 50€. (Las medidas puedes sufrir modificaciones. Os avisaremos por e-mail). ————————————————————————————————— Convocatoria: ZINEBIOSIS Fanzineros y fanzineras, ¡todavía está abierta la convocatoria para participar en la muestra Zinebiosis en Bogota! Zinebiosis Muestra de Fazines Colombia / Perú que se inaugura el sábado 24 de septiembre en Rat Trap, Organiza Rapiña y apoya ENTREVIÑETAS. Zinebiosis llega a Colombia, luego por su paso por Perú, compartiendo el intercambio de fazines colombo-peruano. Además de la muestra habrá concierto con las bandas Cadaver, FINAL, Muro y Tumbas!!! ————————————————————————————————— Taller: Marco Noreña (Medellin) Marco Noreña nos viene “full force” con los fanzines! Apuntate a este taller introductorio y de nociones básicas al mundo del cómic y la narrativa gráfica en El Lápiz Azul. El objetivo primordial es el de generar un producto finalizado e incentivar su realización de una forma amena y entretenida, por medio de ejercicios prácticos. 17 de septiembre · Horario: 9.00 am – 12.00 m Receso 2.00 – 5.00 pm Registrate AQUI. ————————————————————————————————— Taller y Charla: Maggie Lynn Negrete (Pittsburgh) The Pittsburgh Comics Salon is pleased to announce this month’s local spotlight artist will be: Maggie Lynn Negrete. Come join us at the ToonSeum (945 Liberty Ave., Pittsburgh, PA 15222) on Thursday, September 15th from 6-8pm. This event is free to all-age attendees and promises an evening of art, conversation, and an atmosphere of solidarity. Maggie is a feminist artist that adapts her medium in response to the dialogue she wishes to create with her audience. Her artwork takes the form of installations, zines, and gallery-ready illustrations and prints. Uniting these various mediums and forms, her design sense manifests through graphic black and white line work with nods to late 19th and early 20th century illustration, psychedelic era poster design and the current renaissance of sign painting. Her visual language is highly influenced by my heritage of typographers, printers and illustrators. This session will consist of a conversation between Maggie Lynn Negrete and Juan Fernandez about identity, typography and education and how they intertwine in her design, cartooning and illustration. Their conversation will be followed by Q+A. ————————————————————————————————— John Kelly – Nuevo Director del ToonSeum (Pittsburgh) Aquí en Pittsburgh, John Kelly, escritor y historiador del mundo del cómic, ha sido nombrado el Executive Director del ToonSeum, nuestro museo del arte del cómic! Kelly sera a la vez responsable por las operaciones cotidianas del museo y la planificación del crecimiento a largo plazo del museo. Kelly, who has written extensively about comics since the late 1980s, had been serving as Vice President of the Museum since June, 2016 and has been heavily involved with it since moving to Pittsburgh in 2011. He has written for The Comics Journal magazine since the early 1990s and his work has appeared in DC Comics, among other publications. A New York native, Kelly is the former Senior Vice President of Communications at the National Basketball Association and also served in senior communications roles at Catholic Charities of the Archdioceses of New York and Columbia University. Aprende mas sobre John Kelly AQUI. ————————————————————————————————— hasta la proxima! JF Share this page: [...]

11/21/2016

Juan FernándezNovember 21, 2016NewsJuan here with: Recent work by Juan; the Pittsburgh Comics Salon; Moomins across media; CAKE application deadline; Mike Diana’s arrest warrant cleared; QuickDraw; Secret Acres CAB 2016 report; Tillie Walden and Anna Selheim; March and the National Book Award; Santoro School’s Correspondence Course applications. ————————————————————————————————— ⚡️What have I been working on? Lots of event planning and strip thumbnailing. I’m getting a little too precious in that process as I build a backlog of ideas to work from before going live so I’ve worked out a way to make fast, loose and spirited comics to be shared through instagram. First take drawing. Doodles while reflecting on a couple of ideas. Through widely available tech, I’m arranging comics on the go. No panels, lots of space, text and image in a free floating tension. I’m using the instagram layout app and then editing the images to have. These are digital ephemera. They are jpegs. I’m making art and I don’t care about the publishability of this in print. It’s more relevant to make the work and distribute it digitally. Follow me over on instagram @juan.jose.fernandez to keep up with whatever comes out of this process. It’s a digital process where only the editing and composing happens digitally. All the drawing is done with pen on paper. Usually Pentel Rolling Writers or Papermate Flair tip pens. ————————————————————————————————— ⚡️Just had a session with the Pittsburgh Comics Salon on Saturday at Biddle’s Escape. Warm space, good people. It was good to be together for Pittsburgh’s first snow. I’ve been exhausted these past couple weeks and these gatherings get me through it all. Thanks to the core crew that always comes hungry for comics making I had everyone study, copy and remix some comic books. Jenn Lisa knocked her Multiple Warheads studies out of the ballpark… Top secret exercises. Come to Pittsburgh to find out what’s up. ————————————————————————————————— ⚡️My great friend, Jena Tegeler sent me a link to this funny page, Little Gems, that documents all the stop motion animation Moomin television shows via screen caps. The site, Little Gems is brought together by Steve Wright. Lots of different tv shows captured to keep them from fading into memory. I want to focus on The Moomins. 16 episodes have been captured and summarized by screenshots and text. It’s a beautiful thing to see these miniature puppet worlds bring the Moomins to life. Take a look at the one for “The Winter Bonfire”. The Moomins was a stop motion animated children’s television series based on the Tove Jansson’s Moomin series of books. produced by Se-ma-for and Jupiter Film between 1977 and 1982 for Polish, Austrian and German television. Above all, though, it’s funny to me because of how they mirror Tove and Lars Jansson’s strips – distilled through the web from TV episodes based on novella’s. 3 panels tell the story – Comics all the way through… ————————————————————————————————— ⚡️Alright comics peddlers, don’t forget: the exhibitor application for #CAKEChicago2017 is open until November 28th. People make good money out in the Midwest at this show, so try applying! Apply here. NOTE:If you live way out on the East or West coast and haven’t tabled at too many shows in your life as a comics maker, I would discourage you on applying to go so far to Chicago for CAKE. Look more locally and regionally. You’ll reap better rewards from the energies you spend. These things can get stressful and I want to spare you that.Print some comics and share them in your tristate area first ;)————————————————————————————————— ⚡️Good news in the history of free speech in America – the Kickstarter for Mike Diana film raises enough to clear arrest warrant. Does Freedom of Speech mean anything when authorities see only obscenity? Does an artist’s vision matter when community standards conspire to suppress it? In a small town in Florida back in 1994, Mike Diana learned that the answer was a resounding no. Freedom of Speech doesn’t mean anything when your art is declared obscene. And one man’s art could be another man’s obscenity. Diana’s crime? Publishing a hand-made comic zine called Boiled Angel full of graphic, outrageous, often hilarious confrontational art, full of sex and violence, meant to shock and disturb. But it was a zine only sold to adults by mail. With a print run of only 300 copies, Diana’s zine was NEVER available in comic racks or in stores. And only one copy – count ‘em, one! – was ever sold to a customer in Diana’s hometown. And that one customer was an undercover cop! You can get the details on the completed campaign here. ————————————————————————————————— ⚡️https://quickdraw.withgoogle.com/ This Google Computer is a baby right now but with the right teaching, it’ll know how to decipher your poorly drawn bicycle! I live in Pittsburgh, home of Carnegie Mellon where they run computers round the clock just to build these kinds of neural networks. Go on and try your hand at QuickDraw. It’s fun. I’m always fearful of everything AI related, so this kind of thing scares me, obviously. Nevertheless, this can definitely expand the ways that humans interact in digital environments. Instead of communicating to a database via language abstracted through letters, humans can begin to communicate queries with language abstracted through images. ————————————————————————————————— ⚡️the Secret Acres crew reflects on Comic Arts Brooklyn (CAB) 2016. Sean Ford takes the lead in the recap with Leon and Barry. They write about the feeling that I got this year, that because of the circumstances in the lead up to CAB, there was dominance of many exciting, yet relatively unknown cartoonists. I reckon reviewers and buyers will be unpacking much of the work that was on display over this winter… Perhaps due to the late announcement of CAB this year, (and like eighteen competing comic shows happening across the globe that same day), the show missed a few stalwarts like D+Q, Koyama, AdHouse, Fantagraphics and a spiked punch bowl full of eggnog. Who needs the carbs, anyway? Instead, artist tables dominated for once, interspersed with royalty like Charles Burns, Richard McGuire, and Dame Darcy. This left more time and space to find less obvious gems than one might otherwise. ————————————————————————————————— ⚡️ Over on the Washington Post, Michael Cavna writes on the breakthrough success of Andrew Aydin, Nate Powell, and Congressman John Lewis’s March. “March: Book Three” is the first graphic novel to win a National Book Award. What a time to be alive. This is a huge achievement for the March team. Michael Cavna writes: “March: Book Three,” the third installment in Rep. John Lewis’s powerful civil rights memoir, received the National Book Award on Wednesday evening in Manhattan. Five times before, a graphic novel had been named a finalist for the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature — beginning with Gene Luen Yang‘s “American Born Chinese” a decade ago. Yang, now the Library of Congress’s national ambassador for Young People’s Literature (and a 2016 MacArthur grant recipient), repeated that feat three years ago with “Boxers & Saints.” David Small’s “Stitches” and Noelle Stevenson’s “Nimona” also have been finalists. Yet this year, the building achievement that is “March” could not be denied the ultimate prize. ⚡️ And over at the Guardian, they’ve spoken with Congressman Lewis on his thoughts on the win. It’s especially interesting in the context of the emboldening that racists and misogynists have gotten through the recent election. Congressman Lewis speaks of hope: “I never lost faith, because for every racist idea there was an anti-racist idea,” said the author. “For every killer of the mind there was a lifesaver of the mind. And in the midst of the human ugliness of racism there is the human beauty in the resistance to racism. That is why I have faith. And I’ll never lose my faith that you and I can create an anti-racist America … where black lives matter.” ————————————————————————————————— ⚡️“Novel Graphics” Over on NPR Glen Weldon talks to himself about the usefulness of the term “graphic novel”. Wanting to strike a faux-populist contrarian note about the whole the graphic novel, comics, sequential art taxonomy it comes off as a dizzying bore. As you’ll likely be talking about this great achievement of the March team with grandma and auntie over your turkey when avoiding discussing politics, someone’s going to bring up their confusion over what constititues a comic vs. a graphic novel. Maybe this article will help? Fundamentally, though, only new forms of comics will be able to continue to express the continuum of what comics are and aren’t. The question isnt anymore “how” to make comics or what to call them but what to do with them. For what it’s worth as a bookseller, terms like comic book, trade paperback and graphic novel are all very useful to help understand what people are looking for. And in this world, that money is key. It’s how commodity art forms survive. For what it’s worth, here’s a little throwback from The Comics Journal for flavor. “GROTH: Let me ask you something that was nagging at me. It’s A Good Life is subtitled a “A Picture Novella.” Which seemed like a very self-conscious effort to put a tag on it. SETH: Yeah, it is a pretty self-conscious effort. I very consciously tried to come up with an antiquated-sounding term. I went through a couple of the normal varieties of labels. “A picture story,” or I could have just put “a comic book,” which crossed my mind. It goes without saying that I didn’t want to use the term graphic novel. I just don’t like that term.” – Gary Groth, “Seth,” The Comics Journal 193 (1997) ————————————————————————————————— ⚡️You might remember this comic about Tillie Walden and Anna Selheim‘s experiences at Planned Parenthood. I shared it with you all a while back, when they made it. They are now selling physical copies of this comic for $6, and all proceeds will go to Planned Parenthood. If you want it or if you’re just willing to spread the word, I’m sure they’d appreciate it. You can paypal $6 to Anna Selheim at bighappyjet@gmail.com. You can read the whole thing here: http://tinyurl.com/hwbozlw . ————————————————————————————————— ⚡️Comics Workbook has announced the Winter Semester of the Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers – course starts Dec. 29th 2016! 8 week course – 500 bux – 10 spots available – apply by Dec. 13th 2016 and get $100 off course fee! Email santoroschoolATgmail for more details. Santoro School Application guidelines: -3 figure drawings done on blank 3 x 5 index cards -3 landscape drawings done on blank 3 x 5 index cards -3 still life drawings done on blank 3 x 5 cards -draw in a contour line style – Think Matisse – no under-drawing – draw directly in ink -just send small jpgs of images – dont post to your blog pls -specific url links to any comics work you have done. Send applications to: santoroschoolATgmail ————————————————————————————————— until next time 😉 juan Share this page: [...]

02/21/2018

Juan FernándezFebruary 21, 2018los Cómics / NewsJuan empieza el dia con Las chicas del lápiz, y más! ————————————————————————————————— Ilustradoras Colombianas: las chicas del lápiz Semana gives us a grand survey of many of the women shining in Colombia’s comics and illustration world. Obviously, this is only a sampling, but it serves to show he fertility of contemporary comics making and illustration in Colombia. Las ilustradoras, historietistas y dibujantes colombianas están conquistando públicos a manos llenas. Powerpaola presentará la película “Virus tropical”, basada en su primera novela gráfica, en la Berlinale. Los libros de Amalia Andrade se han convertido en fenómenos de masas. Y detrás de ellas vienen muchas más. SEMANA habló con algunas de ellas. Hop on over to and get hep to likes of La Watson, Lady Bíonica Mariana Gil Rios and company: ————————————————————————————————— El Colectivo de Autoras de Cómic trabaja por la justa valoración de autoras e ilustradoras en la esfera pública: Por todo lo anteriormente apuntado, así como por lo especificado en la Ley de Igualdad*, que apoyamos la iniciativa del Grupo parlamentario Unidos Podemos-En Comú Podem-En Marea para presentar una proposición no de ley (PNL) sobre ilustradoras y autoras de cómic, tebeo y novela gráfica para su debate en la Comisión de Igualdad. El objetivo es instar al Gobierno, en colaboración con las Comunidades Autónomas, a la creación de un plan de visibilización y un plan de lucha contra la precariedad de las mujeres profesionales del sector del tebeo, el cómic y la ilustración, en particular; y abrir el debate sobre la situación del citado sector, en general. ————————————————————————————————— Los cómics y las noticias que me han llamado la atención esta semana: ~ en Español ~ El último #FanzineMagazine está dedicado enteramente a Arséne Schrauwen, obra del belga Olivier Schrauwen editada por Fulgencio Pimentel. Escúchalo aquí:. Elizabeth Casillas escribe “Sobre contextos, libertad de expresión y el noviazgo entre artista y espectador” en Revista Cactus. El historietista argentino que triunfa en Europa y fue prohibido en Canadá – Berliac charla con La Nacion y da una gran entrevista con Fantastic Mag. ————————————————————————————————— Collected from the thousands of pages of material that Frank has left scattered all over the digital landscape, these 4 PDF collections contain Frank’s best writing on comics and comics making from the past decade. Theory and process, reviews and discoveries, journeys both physical and spiritual. Check out the “Best of Frank Santoro” PDF collections, available HERE! ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 02-21-2018 – by Gabriella Tito ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 02-21-2018 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

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