Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in NewsTagged Adonis Pantazopoulos, czap books, Entrevinetas, FILBO, Holaholanda, puiupo, tiktok comics, ulcera

Juan Fernández

Posted on April 20, 2016April 20, 2016

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06/11/2018

Caleb OrecchioJune 11, 2018NewsCaleb Orecchio here with thoughts on Michael Comeau’s, Winter Cosmos, and more! ———————————————————————————— Despite not having a frame of reference for the punk rock zine culture aesthetic Comeau emulates with Winter Cosmos (published by thee great Koyama Press), I really enjoyed it. Every spread is interesting. There is not a visual dull moment therein. Even after I read the book, I went back to flip through the images to “read” it again. The experience of the book is like reading an issue of What If… starring the Fantastic Four exclusively in Kirby’s collage-y Negative Zone. I can’t help but assume Comeau was inspired by this or some similar Negative Zone-related musing when he decided to make a comic about scientists in space. I had a good time reading this book. There is plenty of wit and humor within the writing, but also within the visual aspects. There is something both inherently funny and inherently fascinating about collage depicting science fiction. The pacing of the read itself is excellent. Even if the book were wordless, Comeau’s visual narrative is strong enough to pace the reader in a way that most wordless comics can’t due to their narrative approach (i.e. leaning on a cinematic or literary idea of narrative rather than an inherently comic book idea of narrative). Winter Cosmos is dynamic enough to hold a reader on a purely visual level and that, to me, is a high compliment to a cartoonist. ———————————————————————————— if you don’t know, now you know Frank Santoro’s new book, Pittsburgh, is out in France and we have round up of French reviews here on the site, as well as where you can purchase the book if you’re in the states from Pittsburgh’s own Copacetic Comics. Speaking of which, see what the the great Copacetic Comics Company has new for June HERE on the site! Oh look! You can even buy Winter’s Cosmos by Michael Comeau! Did I mention this comes highly recommend? Did you catch the TCJ interview with The Beguiling owner, Peter Birkemoe? Process Party has a Columbus, OH scene report. ———————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 6-11-18 – by Sally Ingraham Share this page: [...]

The Hannah K. Lee Interview

Chris Anthony DiazSeptember 20, 2018Interviews / The Diaz ArchiveRecently nominated in the 2018 Ignatz Awards Outstanding Collection category for her book Language Barrier, congrats to Hannah K. Lee! Here is an interview conducted before Language Barrier was announced as a Koyama Press publication, which is content gathered from Lee’s zines Issues and Close Encounters along with new work, exclusive to the book. A couple of years ago, I first discovered this work through these zines as well as in commercial periodicals like The Pitchfork Review. I view lee’s illustrations not only like cartooning/comics but also influenced by graphic design/iconography and typography. Her work begins from these disciplines but becomes more and ultimately something unique after. Special thanks to Hannah K. Lee for her time doing this interview and providing earlier drafts of her Issues sketches for #2 and #3, offering further insight visually into her process. Graham Willcox color finished the three photos of Lee below, taken at CAB 2015 and TCAF 2014. Annie Ishii (right) This interview was conducted in 2015 via email. Chris Anthony Diaz: In Shoes Over Bills no. 2, there’s a dichotomy in the page layout of materialism and desires (shoes) on the left side of the two-page spread and monthly obligations and needs (bills) on the right side of the spread, rendered in your colorful, stylized, retro graphics and typography. It’s a potent expression of what choices a young woman faces, enticed by beauty to spend her earnings on. Like two sides of a debate, one side wooing her to buy gratification in possessions or the other side pitching her to commit to practicality, like eating. How did this zine come about for you and what was the original impetus of this theme? (The dichotomy appears again in Everyone Else Is Younger And More Talented, so it appears to be a theme or expression that you are concerned with.) Hannah K. Lee: Issues #2: Shoes over Bills was first a smaller chapter of a bigger project I wanted to do called No Money Mo Problems, A “lifestyle guide for impoverished freelancers”. A lot of those ideas were stupid, so I extracted Shoes over Bills and made it its own project. I started it right before I started my corporate day job, when I was learning about boring adult things like money management and regular visits to the dentist. (This is a sketch for Shoes over Bills, before it was a zine) CAD: What attracts you to product graphic iconography, which is the theme in Mascots no. 3? and please speak a little how it manifests its expression in your graphic illustration, which appears to have a graphic influence of russian constructivism. HKL: Issues #3: Mascots first came about when I drew portraits of the Zig Zag man and the Chiquita Banana girl. I made the rest of Mascots with the risograph and overprint techniques in mind, which went well with the limited color palettes often seen in product iconography. Any kind of restriction will force you to find ways to say more with less. When it comes to working with a riso, the color choices are limited and the threshold for showing details is low. As a result, it seems that my work has been becoming more graphic as I exercise more restraint. CAD: How do you come up with merging the ordinary and familiar with the fantastic and surreal in your illustration? HKL: I studied Illustration in school, and we were trained to look for analogs and ideas in weird places to convey a concept, while trying to stay away from cliches. Every project I start begins with words, and then I write down everything that comes to mind that relates to those words. My sketchbook is actually 90% written gibberish that only makes sense to me, instead of thumbnails and doodles. CAD: Color (especially red appears consistently and predominately in your risograph publications) and typography are strong facets of your graphic imagery. Where do you find your inspiration and what do you look at regularly? HKL: Besides the work of other working illustrators, designers, and letterers, I like looking at packaging (fruit boxes and crates, foreign candy), flags, old and ornate rugs/textiles, pop music ephemera, Tumblr teens, fashion, clever logos, bad logos, old calligraphy, illuminated manuscripts, those kids’ Golden Books, I like to absorb and/or pick apart everything. When it comes to certain jobs that require a lot of research, I look at the design and illustration of that particular era and let that inform how it’ll turn out. For example, I just did a piece about the origins of ska, so I looked at a lot of 60’s album art coming out of Kingston. CAD: How has risograph printing affected your published output in these three publications: Mascots and Shoes Over Bills and Everyone Else Is Younger And More Talented? HKL: Someone told me once that if I make something to sell or to promote myself with, it’d better be something the recipient would want to keep. So with that in mind, it should be useful, meaningful, beautiful, or at least 2 of those. I like working with the risograph because it’s an efficient and cost-effective way to make your zine beautiful. There’s a resurgence going on in zine culture that’s very much about thematic or narrative self-expression and considered presentation. Despite my recent output though, I actually don’t think it’s always necessary to make your zine pretty! With a good idea or story, sometimes a xerox is all you need. Share this page: [...]

05/15/2017

Caleb OrecchioMay 14, 2017NewsCaleb Orecchio here. Some good comics are on Instagram. Did you know that? Plus I’m very very excited for Koyama Press’ Fall 2017 lineup. Are you? Also people can’t stop talking about Sammy Harkham’s Crickets. ————————————————————————————————— I made the lists below for a friend I was talking to about my comic strip (Joanie and Jordie—just scroll down), and how they enjoy seeing it everyday on Instagram (always nice to hear). It’s a very convenient way to view comic strips, they said. Do other people do comic strips on Instagram, they asked—of course they meant other than the legion of memes and bad nerd/fan clickbait crap civilians refer to as “comics” sometimes. I said yeah: It’s interesting to me—to my knowledge, Comics Workbook’s own “Suzy and Cecil” was the first real traditionally minded comic strip to come out of the comics community on Instagram. And one specifically made to fit the format to boot. I think maybe Michael Deforge’s “Leaving Richard’s Valley” came about around the same time (exclusively on Twitter originally) – followed closely by Jim Rugg’s “Running Comic,” where he documents his training for the Pittsburgh Marathon, and Mickey Z’s “Space Academy 123.” I like that cartoonists are constantly adapting to the next best available format to get our stuff out there. Since the slow and quiet fall of tumblr cartoonists are making their Instagrams a prominent place to put out work, and the work is morphing to its new platform. Instead of short serialized comic book pages every few weeks or months on tumblr, Instagram allows good use for square (literally) four-panel daily strips. I think it also helps that real civilians are on Instagram, whereas tumblr or deviant art was preaching to the choir. ————————————————————————————————— if you don’t know, now you know Koyama Press has announced their Fall 2017 lineup and it’s gonna be a good Fall. My favorite comics podcast, Comic Books Are Burning in Hell has a new episode where they talk about the new Crickets. I love to listen to these dudes talk comics. Speaking of Crickets, you all read TCJ’s great interview with the author, Sammy Harkham right? Part one here and part two here. TCAF was this past weekend. I’m sure we’ll have some sort of coverage this week. Stay tuned. Tyler Landry did a workshop, did you go to it? The NY Times has a weekly comic called Welcome to the New World, about “the true story of a Syrians family’s journey to America.” Which is great. Non-ficiton contemporary stories like these are what we need to help create empathy and awareness for a.) people who don’t know what this kind of thing is like and b.) the people living it. Cool cool. However, the actual cartooning is achingly dull and elementary. There is no emphasis or even an attempt at visual rhetoric here. It drives me crazy that “high-profile” mainstream comics fucking suck and are not done by cartoonists within the comics tradition; but instead are drawn by the most boring hack illustrators. Oh well, it’s comics journalism after all—I can’t help but notice that The Sculptor obviously had an influence on the look of this work. ————————————————————————————————— Announcing the Summer Semester of the Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers! 8 weeks! 500 bux! Payment plans are available! Summer Course starts June 1st 2017! Applications are due by May 25th. Visit THIS page for more details and email santoroschool@gmail.com with applications and questions! ————————————————————————————————— Blinkers – 5-15-2017 – by Jack Brougham ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 5-15-2017 – by Gabriella Tito ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 5-15-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

03/23/2016

Juan FernándezMarch 23, 2016NewsHagio Moto in the limelight; Julie Doucet’s latest; New York Review Comics announced; Rolling Black Outs stacked; Denver Indepent Comics Expo. ————————————————————————————————— Hagio Moto spotlight on Urasawa no Manben There is a great sub of the 1st episode of the 2nd season of Urasawa Naoki no Manben with author Hagio Moto. Don’t miss a behind the scenes look at the life and work of the founding mothers of shōjo manga! For those hungry for more, check out Matt Thorn’s TCJ interview of Hagio-san from 2005. Urasawa Naoki no Manben (which, roughly translated, means “Naoki Urasawa‘s Manga Exertions”) is hosted by veteran manga artist Naoki Urasawa (Monster, Pluto,20th Century Boys) and follows different artists each episode, watching them draw their manga from scratch and exploring what differentiates their styles. Amazing show, with a great format for comics makers by comics makers. Watch the subbed episode over on Daily Motion. ————————————————————————————————— Carpet Sweeper Tales There’s Nice write-up of the new Julie Doucet book, Carpet Sweeper Tales book by Joe McCulloch over at TCJ. Doucet, in a four-word introduction, requests you read everything in the book out loud – this is much harder than it seems, as some of the text is made up of symbols, and many of the words are broken down to some (not all) of their component letters. In this way, the book also evokes experimental vocal performance – Meredith Monk, for instance. Check it out over on the Comics Journal. ————————————————————————————————— New York Review Comics New York Review Books has announced their new line of classic comics reprints, New York Review Comics. In the tradition of NYRC Classics, NYRC will present new editions of out-of-print masterpieces and new translation of books that have never been published in English. The books will be of all sorts, from intimate memoirs to absurdist gags, from graphic novels to dizzying experiments. NYRC is coming out of the gate reprinting Mark Beyer’s Agony, an impeccable first choice. This is very, very exciting. If you’ve never had a chance to before, Mark Beyer’s delightfully mordant Agony, at Lithub now. ————————————————————————————————— http://sarahglidden.tumblr.com/post/141552146632/5-years-279-pages-rolling-blackouts-is-finally Rolling Black Outs Sarah Glidden shows how all her hard work piles up. You can get a look at Sarah’s process on the book over on her site. Lots of behind the scenes looks at her thumbnails, watercolors and all around design. Rolling Blackouts details Glidden’s two-month long journey through Turkey, Iraq, and Syria. Glidden accompanies her two friends—reporters and founders of the journalistic non-profit The Seattle Globalist—as they research stories on the Iraq War’s effect on the Middle East and, specifically, the war’s refugees. Joining them is a former Marine and childhood friend of one of the journalists whose deployment to Iraq in 2007 adds an unexpected and sometimes unwelcome viewpoint, both to the people they come across and perhaps even themselves. Rolling Black Outs will be published by Drawn and Quarterly this October. ————————————————————————————————— Denver Independent Comics Expo – DINK The inaugural DINK is this Weekend. Get the scoop on DIN over on their site. They’ve got a crazy amount of panels and workshops. Check out the smorgasbord and see what’s up your alley. Share this page: [...]

05/23/2017

Aaron CockleMay 22, 2017NewsAaron Cockle here today with Roz Chast (and Françoise Mouly); Pan Terzis; Graphic Medicine; Florine Stettheimer; Maggie Umber; Dieter Lumpen ————————————————————————————————— ‘I like taking on complicated, detailed projects, especially if I’m not a hundred-per-cent sure how they’re going to turn out.’ Françoise Mouly looks at the wonderful embroidered piece Roz Chast made for the May 15, 2017 issue of the New Yorker, including an animation of the process that went into making the cover. ————————————————————————————————— ‘Each issue has a secret formula that I have to discover. ‘ Frank Santoro continues his survey of recent developments in Art Comics Risography – this week he talks with Pan Terzis: People want to show up. They want to look at your thing in person, hold it in their hands. They want to talk to others in person about it and look at it at their own pace, without the publisher or distributor knowing how long they spent lingering on a page or whether they got to the end of the book in the same time as 76.3% of other consumers. All of this activity is still happening in the context of capitalist systems of production, supply and demand and distribution, but I think that people who work with this kind of cultural ephemera must know on some level that the real art is what happens in between the object and the viewer, and the consumer of that piece of art and the person they describe it to. It’s inherently a social act, and this can manifest through all stages of the process. People-power is what drives this activity, and just like a blade of grass can slowly destroy a piece of concrete given enough time to push to the surface, I think DIY culture might be the key to breaking out of the mechanistic, algorithm driven nightmare that our tech overlords are driving us towards. ————————————————————————————————— SAVE THE DATE: 2017 Comics & Medicine Conference: Access Points June 15-17, 2017, Seattle Public Library Central Branch ————————————————————————————————— Florine Stettheimer: Painting Poetry The artist Florine Stettheimer (1871–1944) is an icon of Jazz Age New York. Born to a wealthy Jewish family in Rochester, she studied at the Art Students League in New York City and then in Europe, where she encountered two profound influences: the Symbolist painters and poets and, on the eve of the Great War, the Ballets Russes. Returning to Manhattan, she hosted an elite salon together with her sisters Carrie and Ettie and their mother, Rosetta, attracting many of the leading lights of the artistic vanguard. Her circle included Alfred Stieglitz, Carl Van Vechten, Georgia O’Keeffe, Elie Nadelman, Gaston Lachaise, and many others. Among her intimate friends was Marcel Duchamp. Through over 50 paintings and drawings, a selection of costume and theater designs, photographs and ephemera, as well as critically acclaimed poems, the Jewish Museum will offer a timely reconsideration of this important American artist, revealing Stettheimer’s singular and often satiric vision and significant role in American modern art. The exhibition highlights the artist’s distinctly personal style of painting, Stettheimer’s position amidst New York’s artistic elite and avant-gardes, and her continued influence on artistic practice today. May 5-September 24 at the Jewish Museum, 1109 5th Ave at 92nd St, NYC. ————————————————————————————————— 2dcloud in Toronto Maggie Umber has a nice photo-recap of the TCAF show: Some of my favorite 2dcloud convention moments – talking with Carta’s wife Emily about our shared adoration of Junji Ito and Emily Carroll. @cartamonir letting me read Ghost Call on her phone since my Tumblr app never let me read the end last Halloween. Meeting @tommipg and watching them embroider a beautiful panel, meeting @goodcomicsbykim and being astonished by her energy and exhaustion, her humor and her seriousness. Blaise rearranging the 2dcloud table into a better format that sold more books. Juliacks casual yet persistent (and very successful) sales style and her gorgeous book trailer. I was also very excited to meet @artbl0g Xia Gordon when we did a panel together. 2dcloud is publishing a mini-comic with her soon!!!!!! ————————————————————————————————— ‘To be sure, these are the adventures of a white European wandering through the wreckage of a post-war world.’ Lastly, RM Rhodes looks at The Adventures of Dieter Lumpen, by Jorge Zentner and Ruben Pellejero: Pellejero uses color and a confident line to build on top of a very solid foundation. The real appeal of the series are the settings. The premise is that shortly after the war, a German named Dieter Lumpen gets a job as a chauffeur and the first page of the first story finds him being chased through an Istanbul market by a man with a gun. From there, he travels to the Agean, Haifa, India, Sri Lanka, Paris, Manaus, Tunisia and the Caribbean. The appeal of these destinations is Pellejero’s ability to render them almost like a documentary film maker, matter of fact about amazing sights, which adds verisimilitude. The amount of detail on each page means that every time you return to a page, you notice something new. And the stories are very rereadable. ————————————————————————————————— Announcing the Summer Semester of the Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers! 8 weeks! 500 bux! Payment plans are available! Summer Course starts June 1st 2017! Applications are due by May 25th. Visit THIS page for more details and email santoroschool@gmail.com with applications and questions! ————————————————————————————————— A Cosmic Journey – 5-23-2017 – by Cameron Arthur ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 5-23-2017 – by Sally Ingraham Share this page: [...]

04/20/2016

Posted on April 20, 2016April 20, 2016 by Juan Fernández

Comics Workbook: El Rincón: Tiktok; The Historic Mexican and Mexican American Press collectio; Libros Mutantes ’16; Feria Internacional del Libro Bogotá; Úlcera; El Tiempo de Mi Casa; Chancha via Circuito.

Buenos dias a todos y bienvenidos a esta nueva émision del Rincón! Juan here with your Wednesday Spanish and South American comics round up. Let’s start off with the juicy stuff, the stuff you I’m betting you’ll get lost in. Empezemos con lo mas jugoso!

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Tapeando con los comics Tiktok
TikTok Comics is an online comics hub for a kaleidoscope visually experimental comics centered around Spain. They offer their comics in Spanish AND English. Quienes son Tiktok?

Somos una pequeña organización polimorfa sin ánimo de lucro ubicada en el Estrecho de Herschel. Este es un espacio-tiempo dedicado al cómic porque sí. ¡Disfrutadlo! Es una orden. Tik-tok-tik-tok…

We are a small polymorphous organization located in the Strait of Herschel.
This is a space-time devoted to comics for no reason. Enjoy it! That’s an order.
Tik-tok-tik-tok …

The site is curated and edited by Alexis Nolla, Marc Gustá, Andrés Magán, Ana Galvañ, Pau Anglada y Miriam Persand. They have so many wide ranging comics contributions, it’s hard to know where to start! If you need help, check out the authors section. No te pierdas en los archivos! Don’t get lost in the archives! – You’re going to want to bookmark this one. Or at least make sure you follow them on twitter or tumblr as they update a couple of times every week.

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El_Paso_Morning_Times_Company_Spanish — El Paso Morning Times – 1917-07-15 – Page 02

Historic Mexican and Mexican American Press Collection

Thanks to the University of Arizona there is now a database you can peruse, full of 150 years of regionally published newspapers chronicling Mexican and Mexican-Amercan history online. Among the 20 publications that have been curated, researched and digitized for the Historic Mexican and Mexican-American Press Archive you’ll find political cartoons in their natural context about the border from 100 years ago. Entre todas las 20 publicaciones del archivo encontraras bastantes caricaturas políticas sobre la frontera Mexicana desde hace un siglo.

Dig around and see what you can find. No te imaginas lo que podrás encontrar… I suggest exploring the El Paso Morning Times. It is an especially good comics resource, chock a block with cartooning from 1914-1918. Tiras y caricaturas por todos lados!

The Historic Mexican and Mexican American Press collection documents and showcases historic Mexican and Mexican American publications published in Tucson, El Paso, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Sonora, Mexico from the mid-1800s to the 1970s. The collection covers important periods in Mexican-American history, from the Mexican Revolution to the Bracero Program to the Chicano Movement. There are about 1,900,000 Latino and Hispanic population in Arizona and more than 50 million in the United States. Having this collection available to the public through digitization of these materials, will raise awareness to issues that advance the image and identity of Latinos in American politics and media and their contributions to the United States.

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Libros Mutantes
Esta feria en Madrid empieza este fin de semana y seguro que sera bien chula. This fair is sure to be a doozy. Lots of exciting programming.

Libros Mutantes is focused on the relation between publishing and visual arts. Throughout the year they organize different events in order to bring this creative universe closer to the public. The main event in their calendar is Libros Mutantes Madrid Art Book Fair, held at La Casa Encendida.

Since 2010, this Art Book Fair gathers a wide selection of national and international art books, independent publications and zines, and attracts a wide audience, making Libros Mutantes the largest and most comprehensive Spain-based project aimed at researching and spreading the creations of independent publishers. Autoeditoriales que son igualmentes “High y low”… There’s going to be so many books all over the spectrum, so self-publishing nerds you won’t want to miss this.

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Feria Internacional del Libro Bogotá
From now until May 2nd, Bogotá is going hard with their international book fair. La Feria Internacional del Libro de Bogotá (Filbo) es el evento de promoción de la lectura y la industria editorial más importante de Colombia. You can think of FILBO as Colombia’s equivalent to ALA Conference. It’s big, and it’s a big deal to comics publishing houses! This year, Colombia has partnered up with the Netherlands to create a cross-cultural dialogue via literature.

Empieza el conteo regresivo de la #FILBo2016 y queremos que tú seas el protagonista, ¿cuáles son tus recomendados? ?https://t.co/8wS0pbyA6b

— Alcaldía de Bogotá (@AlcaldiaBogota) April 13, 2016

In light of this dialogue with the Netherlands, our friends over at Entreviñetas, one of Latin America’s leading comics festivals, are presenting a series of programs and exhibitions that celebrate 20th & 21st century dutch cartooning and comics making. Their collaboration Hola Holanda: es Cómic runs from April 25th – May 12th.

Las tradiciones gráficas y narrativas de los Países Bajos han encontrado en el cómic un fértil camino para la creación de historias. Renovador a la vez que evocativo, tan fascinante por su delicadeza visual y su ingenio para el relato, el cómic revela una conversación inspiradora con la imagen y la palabra del pueblo neerlandés.

La organización cultural Entreviñetas, a propósito de la participación de dicho país como invitado de honor a la Feria Internacional del Libro de Bogotá 2016, presenta un recorrido breve y múltiple por la obra de los autores más distintivos de las últimas décadas del siglo XX y las primeras del XXI. Son ellos quienes componen el novedoso panorama del cómic neerlandés. Invitamos así a una exposición que, de manera abierta y flexible en su cronología, exhibe por primera vez en Colombia el trabajo de 16 artistas en 80 piezas.

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On display for the first time in Colombia will be the work of 16 artists //Artistas en exhibición:

Joost Swarte (1947, Heemstede)
Peter Pontiac (1951, Beverwijk – 2015, Ámsterdam)
TYPEX (1962, Ámsterdam)
Erik Kriek (1966, Ámsterdam)
Marcel Ruijters (1966, Róterdam)
Barbara Stok (1970, Groningen)
Tobias Schalken (1972,’s-Hertogenbosch)
Milan Hulsing (1973, Ámsterdam)
Boris Peeters (1974, Kampen), Lamelos collective
Aleks Deurloo (1975, Kampen), Lamelos collective
Sam Peeters (1976, Kampen), Lamelos collective
Jeroen Funke (1976, Kampen), Lamelos collective
Tim Ethoven (1985, Den Haag)
Lennard Kok (1988, Utrecht)
Aimée De Jongh (1988, Róterdam)
Ludwig Volbeda (1990, Oosterhout)

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Puiupo + Pantazopoulos

Over here in the states, Czap books has announced that they are publishing Brazil-based artists Puiupo and Adonis Pantazopoulos’ visceral sci-fi headtrip, Úlcera. From Kevin Czap it’s going to be “In the vein of Jodorowsky mixed with Masaaki Yuasa (Kaiba).”

About the Artists
Puiupo is a Portuguese cartoonist and animator whose work has appeared in a number of Portuguese anthologies like LODAÇAL COMIX, Journal Altamira, and Nemesis.
Adonis Pantazopoulos, a self-described “corretor de imóveis,” makes comics and paintings, the former having appeared on Nébula.

Learn more about Úlcera and order a copy here.
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Less than 24 hours left on our Benefit Auction – Consider supporting or sharing our efforts! https://t.co/PSV43StWpO pic.twitter.com/JTdyssGJZt

— Rowhouse Residency (@comicsworkbook) April 19, 2016

BENEFIT AUCTION ENDS TODAY
Now’s your chance to sweep in and make all the incredible art that Chris Ware donated to Comics Workbook yours. Your support is invaluable to us.

Go on, bid before you miss your chance!
http://www.ebay.com/sch/copaceticcomicscompany/m.html?_trksid=p3692

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Here’s Chancha Via Circuito’s 2010 release, río arriba. Put it on and do your thing. Lo que te dé la gana. It’s slow and it spirals deep into you. Take it easy and take care. Cuidense, chicos.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YjQlLg6bUM

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One thought on “04/20/2016”

JILLIAN says:

April 20, 2016 at 11:52 am

What a great news roundup! Thanks Juan! My brain is on fire with TIKTOK and Puiupo.

Reply

Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in NewsTagged Adonis Pantazopoulos, czap books, Entrevinetas, FILBO, Holaholanda, puiupo, tiktok comics, ulcera

Juan Fernández

Posted on April 20, 2016April 20, 2016

Explore

January Comics Salon 2016

Juan FernándezJanuary 12, 2016ResourcesPittsburgh Comics Salon – January 6, 2016 Good crowd again tonight. Did some easy drawing exercises while we chit-chatted. This is our one year anniversary for meeting regularly and so far so good. Feels less forced. More natural.We highly recommend starting a comics club that meets regularly wherever you live. –FS —————- Juan Fernandez here! Every month during the Salon we focus on exploring a new way of thinking about visual literacy in comics. What does it mean to compose a page? What are the different ways you can draw from memory? The focus today was point of view. This month I brought some photos and wanted participants to create an 8 panel comic. Unbeknownst to the Salon this was my family from Teruel, Spain from 1953. Each participant was to render the scene in 3-5 minutes on a notecard, choosing one of the people in the photograph as the character through whom they would depict the world. They were to draw simple things. Their hands, what they saw above them, an object nearby, a detail of that object, their wrist. After completing 8 drawings, they arranged and added to their sequences in a way they found pleasing. They would be focusing on making be studies in point of view. So why’d we do all this? Alright, hear me out, point of view in comics is an interesting thing. More often than not the goings on in comics pages occur via characters acting out on a “stage”. The camera moves from panel to panel, the setting changes. The reader is a viewer. A voyeur. It doesn’t always have to be this way though. There are ways to make the reader an actor. When you move between a character’s point of view, of their hands and looking up at the sky it’s about their vision. It’s their mindset. The images can expand as the reader improvises how the character’s vision joins them together. Whereas if you draw a whole scene that shows a character over and over, the reader is an outsider in relation to the story, a spectator. The reader is making a mental model of the character, how and why they perceive what they perceive. This mode of unfolding a narrative creates a space for empathy. To understand that character you have to BE that character for a short while, moving back and forth between panels, trying to put together the how and why of a character. The comic is then a living tissue, you’ve extended your mind into it. Those mental jumps that the reader makes between panels, the understanding of why a character holds their gaze or focuses on a new object, it fills the space between the panels with empathy. Aidan Koch, among others, is brilliantly adept at using this technique. Just another tool to think about for your comics making arsenal. -Juan Fernandez Share this page: [...]

12/03/2018

Caleb OrecchioDecember 3, 2018NewsCaleb Orecchio here with some brief thoughts on Kirby’s appeal. ————————————————————————————————— Caleb here. This past semester, I ran an after school comics club for first through fourth graders here in Pittsburgh. Something that I’ve been thinking about lately is that their favorite comics, of the ones I brought in, were far and away my reprints of Jack Kirby Marvel comics (followed closely by Calvin and Hobbes and Ditko’s Spider-Man). They were particularly taken with Black Bolt who made his way into several of the students’ own comics. I think this in part had to do with the fact that they had no previous frame of reference for the character. My students would just sit their and look at the Kirby covers as if they were relics of spiritual truth and mystery. Their is something primal about Kirby that can not be shaken. I don’t think it is controversial to say that Kirby tapped into some deep Jungian gold mine of archetypes. One could argue that this explains the ongoing popularity of his characters. Undoubtedly, Kirby, and the rest of the superhero creators, were participating in a long tradition of hero sagas that has existed since the earliest known literature. The early Marvel characters were fresh and still somewhat familiar. And they stay fresh and familiar in no small part due to the silver and TV screens. Still, despite the intensity and gravitas of the movies, these old comic books still stand as a vital testaments of imagination. I simply find it interesting that a bunch of kids who were hardly interested in anything other than Sonic the Hedgehog and Super Mario Bros. found these stories and pictures fascinating. ————————————————————————————————— Cement Mixer – 12-3-18 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

“Goodnight and Good Luck”: On Finishing Your Comic

Jillian FleckMarch 30, 2016Essays / ResourcesTry finishing your comic. I get it, thereʼs that little voice running through comics culture that says: real comics donʼt end. It would not be difficult to connect this to the latest DC or Marvel reboot. Alternatively, look at any popular webcomic artist; their comics donʼt end either. There is just something about comics, unlike any other medium, in which seriality (or infinity) are somehow inherent. The individuals and corporations behind these serial publications have an economic interest in the story never ending. If it does, theyʼre out of business. Iʼm assuming though, your situation, friend, is a little different. Iʼm assuming your interest in not ending your comic is entirely self motivated. Iʼm also assuming you suspect you might not be cut out for this, though most likely youʼd never admit it. Take a step back from this culture of the infinity narrative, and realize the Sisyphean mission you are volunteering for. How long do you think you could write the same story? Five years? Ten years? How strong does your passion need to be to sustain such extended output? How good are you at gritting your teeth? What do you hope to achieve by it? Iʼm not saying that there is nothing to achieve, Iʼm simply encouraging you to question this. You have the choice to finish your comic, and I would encourage you to do so. The sweetest, most refreshing thing about finishing your comic is that it is finally over. Not on hiatus, not to be continued, no spin-off, and no redo. Over, the end, goodnight and good luck. Now that youʼre finished, letʼs go to the beach. Your studio honestly smells like garbage water, and the skin around your mouth is stained from too much coffee. Letʼs sketch the seagulls fighting over garbage, and eavesdrop on those around us. We could read about German Expressionist film, or write songs, I donʼt know how you creatively refill: letʼs hear some of your ideas. You are finished with your comic after all, you have time to do stupid, silly things like this. Iʼm not saying quit, Iʼm saying remember why you wanted to do comics in the first place. This is why I encourage you to finish your comic, so you can get up tomorrow and begin your next one. It can be about whatever you want, and can be drawn however you choose. Itʼs entirely new and up to you. Just think, if you finish it in one day, tomorrow you wonʼt have to suffer under the decisions of the past. If you finish your comic in one go, you could put it up on the wall and look at it, think about why you did what you did. Then the day after, maybe you can build on that. Or do something different. You can set challenges for yourself. Can you tell a complete story in a single page? Inside a triangle? On a roll of toilet paper? Yeah, of course itʼs stupid, and childish, and isnʼt going anywhere, and isnʼt for anyone, and isnʼt worth anything. Think about those values for a moment, those which say what you do needs to be serious, purposeful, intentional, worthwhile, and lucrative. Those are values that you have put on your own work. Some of them might be helpful to you, but remember the kind of comics culture those values are ultimately upholding. Think about the comics that would fall into these worthwhile categories, you know the ones. Big fat volumes, or slender albums, beautifully bound, with thick introductions that quote Thierry Groensteen – “Yes, yes – oh god yes!! Gimme that sweet legitimacy daddy!!!” Get real, come on, snap out of it. Think about what you value in comics, not what these other clowns are pushing, and do that. Do it a bunch of different times, in a bunch of different ways. Suss it out, take your time, play, and relax. Try setting up a structure that is forgiving, something you could leave tomorrow if you had to, or pick up in fifteen years time if you wanted. It would be very good if you could be kind to yourself, and not treat your mind and body as if it were a machine. If you read this and think “No, thereʼs no way I can play with comics, if I do Iʼll never be Osamu Tezuka!”, then I have bad news for you friend: youʼre already not Osamu Tezuka. You are you, and the comics you make and the way you make them, do not need to be defined by the values that came before. Take what you need, not what you can carry – itʼs a stranger journey than you can imagine. Finish your comic, itʼs time to move on. ————————————————————————————————— Jillian Fleck is a comic artist from Calgary, Alberta, currently studying comics at the University of Dundee. Check out her work HERE. Share this page: [...]

Comics Workbook @ SPX 2016: the Cartoon Workshops

Sally IngrahamSeptember 29, 2016Festivals and ShowsHere are just a “few” pictures from the cartoon workshops that Comics Workbook hosted at the Small Press Expo 2016! Check out the video of the full Cameron Weston Nicholson workshop HERE – more videos to come soon – stay tuned! ————————————————————————————————— Photographs by Juan Fernandez, Audra Stang, and Sally Ingraham Share this page: [...]

05/15/2018

Aaron CockleMay 15, 2018NewsLucy Shelton Caswell Research Award Winners; Colleen Frakes; Katie Fricas; Clough/Porcellino; Park on Reynolds; Spatial Frequency Analysis ————————————————————————————————— Announcing the 2018 Lucy Shelton Caswell Research Award Winners The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum (BICLM) is pleased to announce the winners of the first annual Lucy Shelton Caswell Research Award. The award of up to $2500, named for the founding curator of the BICLM, Professor Emerita Lucy Shelton Caswell, supports researchers who need to travel to Columbus, Ohio to use the collections materials of the BICLM on site. Thanks to the generosity of the Will & Ann Eisner Family Foundation, we are able to give three 2018 awards in celebration of the launch of the program. Moving forward, we will give one award per year. We were delighted to receive a large and diverse range of proposals from both national and international scholars and artists. A panel of ten reviewers from a variety of disciplines at Ohio State was appointed to assess the proposals. The recipients for 2018 are: Dr. Daniel Worden, Visiting Assistant Professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology’ School of Individualized Study. He holds a Ph.D. in English and American Literature from Brandeis University. His project is entitled “Oil Comics: Iconographies of Energy, Environment and Motion.” Worden’s research aims to chronicle the imbrication of comics with the oil industry and the normalized use of petroleum as a fuel source, from the late 19th century to the present. Xavier Dapena, Ph.D. candidate in Hispanic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. His project is called “’They do not represent us’: Radical Imageries of Contemporary Spanish Graphic Narratives (1973-2011).” Dapena’s project centers on the intersection of graphic narratives and political imagination and seeks to understand how the political repertoire of images, symbols, and metaphors express three processes: memorialization, precarization, and legitimation. Frank Santoro, creator of Pompeii, Storeyville and other comics. He is also an educator who runs ComicsWorkbook, a training and residency program for cartoonists. His research on “The Ohio School of Naturalist Cartooning” will look at how Billy Ireland’s influence on Edwina Dumm, Noel Sickles, Milton Caniff, and C.N. Landon informed a language of 20th century cartooning that has carried on into the 21st century. Congrats, Frank! ————————————————————————————————— Colleen Frakes: A Cartoonist’s Diary ————————————————————————————————— ‘Stopping for Art and Conversation Along the High Line’ Katie Fricas looks at the group exhibition, Agora, in NYC. ————————————————————————————————— One night group exhibition and book release with work and new publications by: Clark Keatley Leon Sadler Stuart McKenzie Tom Sewell Viktor Hachmang Yannick Val Gesto At Dinner Party Gallery, Thomas Briggs Building, 2-4 Southgate Rd, N1 3JJ. Walk past reception to the door under the stairs. ————————————————————————————————— ‘How do you compare the experience of taking acid with your later practice in Zen Buddhism?’ Rob Clough continues the long interview with John Porcellino, over at The Comics Journal. The long “Mr Dusty” letter from Mr Mike that you printed was epic. That was an intense amount of text to lay down, which made me wonder how you feel about lettering and how your lettering has developed over the years. Did you look to others for inspiration? Did you ever use any kind of guide? Have you ever considered developing your own font? When I first started King-Cat, the lettering was as sloppy as the drawing! I didn’t care about stuff like that. I was just slinging ink. As my drawing got more evolved, the lettering did too. I started to get a kick from lettering more legibly, making those E’s, S’s. When I’m doing it it can be quite enjoyable. One thing I’ve found is I have to concentrate, kind of empty my mind, and focus on things. I can tell when I’m lettering and my mind starts to wander, things get sloppy. Then I pull it back in and keep going. Just like meditation, I guess. For guides, like a large bunch of text like a Snornose page or a letters column, I usually use the edge of a piece of paper as a ruler… line it up with the edge of the page and use it as a guide, siding it down a bit with each new line. But it’s not perfect and half the time I end up inking a page and it’s all on a slant. In my OCD days I would redraw it. Now I just kind of laugh at myself and let it go. Occasionally I’ve ruled bluelines to guide me, and at least once I used graph paper. I think that’s how Cometbus does it. That sure helps, but maybe I don’t really wanna think that much about it. When I look back at my lettering in the OCD years, it floors me, how precise it is! I was nuts! It’s beautiful, but the cost is too much maybe. I don’t know. The whole story of my post-meds career has been learning to balance that spontaneity I had before OCD with the precision I got from it. It’s taken me like ten years to start to figure it out. Font: no. ————————————————————————————————— Mauretania Comics Ed Park looks at the Chris Reynolds collection, The New World. The stories start on solid ground, then twist like dreams. Reynolds sets everything in uniformly sized panels, edged in black like funeral invitations. His impossibly thick line lends weight to these uncanny dramas of lost time. Calling the comics black and white feels insufficient; they’re more like black and white and black. This starkness, and the stabs of poetic word-image interplay, can call to mind his stateside contemporary Raymond Pettibon, while the silent, depopulated spaces that loom throughout—abandoned houses, vacant cinemas, phantom transportation—suggest any number of uneasy de Chirico vistas. ————————————————————————————————— Spatial Frequency Analysis – II The contrast sensitivity as a function of spatial frequency (called CSF) can be obtained psychophysically from the test image below . You will perceive a curve which peaks at some certain optimal frequency in the middle range of the image (depending on the viewing distance) at which the visual system is most sensitive to the contrast. The sensitivity is reduced when the frequency is either too high or too low. ————————————————————————————————— Vision Box – 5-15-2018 – by Cameron Arthur ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 4-15-18 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

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