Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in NewsTagged Annie Mok, Frank Santoro, gabriella tito, how ink is made, Jim Rugg, meg & mogg in amsterdam, old books, prince, radical zines, rules for dating my daughter, simon hanselmann, The Comics Journal, university of kansas, zona #02

Sally Ingraham

Posted on April 22, 2016

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06/07/2018

Comics WorkbookJune 6, 2018NewsSam Ombiri with reflections on John’s Worth #3 by Jon Chandler! ———————————————————————————— Sam Ombiri here: As I impatiently wait for Jon Chandler’s John’s Worth issue 4, I wonder to myself what caused him to make these kinds of comics; these comics that go in certain specific directions? These comics really hit in a way that’s tough to articulate. I heard that the first issue, at least, was made with the idea of the first mark being the final mark. There’s the feeling that Jon has put himself at risk with each drawing, and that he has to think quickly, on his feet, to solve any design issues that arise. Of course, in comics there’s always an element of improv – whether it’s early in the process or late. With John’s Worth it feels late in the process. I especially want to talk about the 3rd issue – there’s something special about issue 3. John calls himself “Jack” in this issue so as to be able to do his job with anonymity. There’s no direct reference to the sPeX unit in this issue. The sPeX unit is this Borroughs-esque/Cronenberg-esque creature that is a living organism, but also a drug; or rather, who knows what it is. The characters only refer to sPeX as a drug, seemingly because they have no idea what else to refer to it as. Jon, as the author, isn’t in a rush to comment on anything and specify what’s what. Make no mistake – it’s not out of laziness. Rather, it’s something like CF said – “Imagine inviting someone over and taking their coat, then offering them snacks, then getting them a drink, then putting a blanket on them and putting their feet up for them and asking them if they’re comfortable, then telling them where the towels are and so on. By trying so hard to be a good host, you become the worst host ever.” Jon isn’t overbearing on any of the concepts at play within the work, but there’s a real precise construct going on in the work, and there’s nowhere it’s more apparent than in the 3rd issue. For example, there’s a gun that was introduced at the beginning of the story, when “Mary” and “Larry” thought that John (whom they were approaching) might be a threat. Later on, a lot of time has passed since they realized that John was the person they were supposed to complete their job with. So then, while they’re just relaxing and unwinding,, the story simultaneously unwinds, and it’s signified simply by the gun being on the floor. The gun speaks to how, for the time being, they have no care in the world. The fact that there is a construct present convinces me that this environment I’m in is real. If there’s disorientation, then the disorientation is real, because there’s a rhythm to latch onto. John’s hallucinations in issue 3 are really tame. I found that if I blinked twice I could miss whatever effect the sPeX unit was having on John, but the effect of the sPeX unit is felt more as a result. If the story was a rollercoaster, I get the sense that the rollercoaster is stopping briefly, after it had been climbing so that it could drop. So this leisure is utilized for us to get a sense of potential participants of the next issue, and we learn about John himself a bit. I’m really dissatisfied with suggesting that these moments of leisure are nothing but a stepping stone for something else. I’ve noticed a certain attitude that’s especially prominent among people who watch all the popular anime and read the popular manga – a complete lack of gratitude. Readers will look at great moments of a chapter or episode or whatever, as something to just set up something else which will happen down the line. They don’t revel in what they’ve been given thus far, despite how generous the creator has been. I guess this attitude is in the alt comics community too; always looking at what comics could be, completely forsaking what they are now. I really wouldn’t want to devalue that marvelous knife throwing scene especially, as it’s a worthwhile read. Do yourself a favor and read all of the John’s Worth comics. – Sam Ombiri ———————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 6-7-18 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

10/05/2018

Sally IngrahamOctober 4, 2018NewsSally here. Busy week. I’m working on completing, and starting, a couple of personal comics projects. I’m also (as usual) reading three different comics at once – Rina Ayuyang‘s Blame This on the Boogie, Emma Rios‘ I.D., and Fun Home by Alison Bechdel. Whichever one I finish first I’ll write about next week! For the time being, here’s a roundup of what everyone else has been writing and thinking about, comics-wise, lately. Laura Howell (pictured above) was the first female cartoonist to produce a strip in The Beano (an 80-year old British children’s comic magazine) – 12 years later she is still working for them. Read about her HERE. The mysterious “Olivia Jaimes“, current and much discussed artist behind the rebirth of the strip Nancy, made an appearance at CXC recently (in a disguise) – Rocko Jerome was there and offers a full report. Annie Koyama announced the spring lineup of books for Koyama Press – including the latest from Emily Carroll (above). See what else is coming up HERE. Joe McCulloch reviews Lale Westvind‘s Grip #1 over on The Comics Journal – and words fail him. The Washington Post compares notes on the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation process with Ann Telnaes and Signe Wilkinson, among other editorial cartoonists. The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum is now accepting applications for the 2019 Lucy Shelton Caswell Research Award – details HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Sally Ingraham Share this page: [...]

05/27/2016

Sally IngrahamMay 27, 2016NewsSally here with new stuff from Sacha Mardou, wise and funny words from Dan Nadel and Alexi Worth, clowns with Nils Balls, and a Philadelphia walkabout from Meghan Turbitt. ————————————————————————————————— Sacha Mardou has a double hit today on our news, with a comic she made for The Common Reader (a publication of Washington University in St. Louis) and a review she wrote for Comics Workbook. First up, Sacha’s review of The Complete Wimmen’s Comix is a rumination on an important and challenging anthology, recently collected into a two volume set by Fantagraphics. “Reading the two-volume release of The Complete Wimmen’s Comix made me think about those sort of cultural assumptions and blank spots. The first volume in particular feels like a powerful raw gust of real comics history. … Another aspect that occurs to me is that volume one is essentially my mother’s generation making those comics (I was born in ’75) which makes the lack of respect for cultural niceties and cartooning norms seem even more punk rock and revelatory, as well as being somewhat nostalgic. It reminds me of looking though my aunt’s closet in the early 1980’s and finding all her old platform shoes and boots. My childish trespassing got me yelled at after the event, but I’m glad to own that childhood memory of trying on and walking around in those beautiful and weird, too-big-for-me ‘space’ shoes.” Read the rest of Sacha’s review HERE. For a different look at The Complete Wimmen’s Comix, check out this in-depth review by Alex Duebin on The Comic’s Journal from March 2016. Well, I say “review”, but it includes conversations conducted via phone, skype, google chat, and e-mail over a period of a year or so with many of the women who made comics for the anthology – a true “oral history”, well worth a gander. ————————————————————————————————— Sacha Mardou’s comic for The Common Reader (above) was published in “The Aging Issue”. It feels very, very real somehow…! ————————————————————————————————— Art in America published a followup to Dan Nadel‘s killer essay on Paper Radio recently. It’s a conversation between Dan, Alexi Worth (who wrote an article in January for A.i.A about Jack Kirby’s superhero art) and A.i.A‘s editor Julia Wolkoff. They dig into the complexities of comics, and more specifically, the intentional and accidental wonders that appeared under a culture of crushing deadlines. As Alexi Worth describes: “The earlier comics artists were, for the most part, pencil serfs. Kirby began as an inbetweener for film, and much of the work he produced early on wasn’t credited at all. But there was something productive and interesting about the lack of art expectations. Kirby was reflexively creative. And his creativity was, somehow, enabled by the ruinous deadlines and enormous production demands of the industry. At one point he was pretty much drawing all of Marvel himself—one guy. Instead of making him more of a hack, it made him more of an artist.“ Dan Nadel breaks out some more stories about the Paper Radio guys – Benjamin Jones and Christopher Forgues, or CF – whom he continues to call “the two most important cartoonists of their generation.” “One famous story: they sent Gary Panter, who was their artist spirit-god, one of their early zines that was baked in chocolate. Gary thought it was LSD and immediately threw it away. It’s one of the only copies of that work they made.“ It’s good stuff – check out the whole discussion HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Nils Balls is staying on top of the Pittsburgh City Council with his comic reports for The Glassblock – see above and more HERE! ————————————————————————————————— Meghan Turbitt released her Philadelphia Sketchbook this week! Developed for Comics Workbook between 2015-2016, it features full-color sketches of her varied adventures and the details that caught her eye around the city during that period. Get a glimpse at more pages here, and a copy for yourself HERE! ————————————————————————————————— See you knocking round the universe next week folks! Cheers – Sally Share this page: [...]

08/29/2017

Aaron CockleAugust 28, 2017NewsAaron Cockle here today with Mitochondrial Comics (sort of); Andrea Tsurumi; Programming Schedules for Small Press Expo + Brooklyn Book Festival + NY Art Book Fair; Jack Kirby in NYC; Anders Nilsen, also in NYC ————————————————————————————————— “We can create a layer of abstraction where you don’t need to know about RNA folding to design a circuit out of RNA” This may be a stretch, as far as comics news goes, but with this new method of data storage, we may one day be able to carry around comics (and a lot of other things) within our bodies: To get a movie into E. coli’s DNA, Shipman and his colleagues had to disguise it. They converted the movie’s pixels into DNA’s four-letter code—molecules represented by the letters A,T,G and C—and synthesized that DNA. But instead of generating one long strand of code, they arranged it, along with other genetic elements, into short segments that looked like fragments of viral DNA. E. coli is naturally programmed by its own DNA to grab errant pieces of viral DNA and store them in its own genome—a way of keeping a chronological record of invaders. So when the researchers introduced the pieces of movie-turned-synthetic DNA—disguised as viral DNA—E. coli’s molecular machinery grabbed them and filed them away. The movie they stored was a 36-by-26-pixel GIF of one of the first moving images ever recorded: a galloping mare named Annie G., by Eadweard Muybridge in 1887. The team was able to retrieve it, along with a separate image, with about 90 percent accuracy by sequencing the bacterium’s genome. ————————————————————————————————— New Work by Andrea Tsurumi Tsurumi has been busy, providing illustrations for Reshma Saujani’s book, Girls Who Code: Learn to Code and Change the World, along with work at the Nib, Trumpcare is Bad News for Freelancers, and she also has a launch party for her new book, Accident!, on Thursday, October 5 at Books of Wonder in NYC. Keep up the good work, Andrea! ————————————————————————————————— Programming Schedules for Upcoming Shows Small Press Exposition Brooklyn Book Festival New York Art Book Fair ————————————————————————————————— Life and Legacy of Jack Kirby – August 27-30, 2017 As a follow-up to Caleb’s post from yesterday: On view until Wednesday, August 30 at One Art Space, 23 Warren Street, Street Level Gallery 1, NYC. ————————————————————————————————— ————————————————————————————————— A Cosmic Journey – 8-29-2017 – by Cameron Arthur ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 8-29-2017 – by Sally Ingraham ————————————————————————————————— Share this page: [...]

06/28/2018

Comics WorkbookJune 28, 2018NewsSam Ombiri shares thoughts on C.F.’s collection “Mere”. ————————————————————————————————— Sam Ombiri here: The satisfaction in reading Mere by C.F. (PictureBox, 2012) is that C.F. isn’t deconstructing comics in a smart or clever way – one that’s lacking catharsis – but in an incredibly personal way. These comics are amazing as a document, but I don’t want to reduce the work to just “document”. Art to me, as it’s considered a superfluous endeavor, is made 1000 times more useless, 1000 times less potent, when it’s forcefully made to pander to ideas of usefulness outside of art. To impose that brand of efficiency on art contradicts the final product as a work of art. I was thinking of how in the comic Pompeii by Frank Santoro, Flavius’ paintings in that story are just used to block other things – one painting blocks all the ash and lava and fumes from the volcanic explosion taking place, while his other painting – the landscape – it’s only purpose is to cover up the affair he’s having with the princess. I was thinking about how Flavius’ paintings were reduced to props, to serve the one function of blocking a window (though I’m sure against Flavius’s will) and his other earlier painting, the landscape, just exists to cover up Flavius’ lies. This is what I perceive to happen when art is forced to be made useful, when it’s made to lose all quality of being art, for the sake of being made useful. I mean, of what artistic value is Flavius’ painting? If the painting’s only function is to block all the ash, all the lava, all the sulfur, of what artistic value is Flavius’ painting? It was only Marcus’s drawing on the wall that was truly evocative and comforting in that moment when Marcus and Lucia were trapped in Flavius’ burning studio. So back to C.F. – when I say Mere is a document, I mean a personal document of art in that it doesn’t care what it’s documenting. Rather it is more preoccupied with how it’s documenting it. I mean to say C.F. knows what he’s doucumenting, but we readers don’t know. Instead we feel. We feel what he’s documenting, based on comics we read in the book, and what C.F. has said about the comics that he made in this period. I can discern that the work is a personal document. Mere is a great document of many things that couldn’t otherwise be written by words. This might be a cop out on my part, except that I have a strong conviction that this is the case. While the work is all over the place – it is a collection of minicomics after all – there’s still a distinct focus throughout it in functioning as a personal document. C.F. had to invoke the environment in which it’s some manga he’d be reading – the whole thing with Main Dice for example isn’t isolated. The story is really straightforward, with undeniable moments that are undeniable perhaps because they are at the service of construct. There’s a saying, “In rhythm there is image, in image there is knowing, in knowing there’s a construct” – so that’s to say there’s a real construct in the comic which gives us so little, yet because the comics are at the service of a construct, so deeply. I might add, when approached not as an obligation, but with natural sense of pleasure, it’s a privilege to be at the service of this construct. It’s the phrase “work of art” that I take to mean work coming out of art. In the story Crossdown the wrong part of the broken projector falls down and continues it’s decent, past the character who was deeply affected by a movie at the beginning of the story. The story doesn’t focus on this character, so we don’t even know this character’s name. This scared character is coming out of the movie theater, still experiencing terror from the movie which was being projected at the same theater where that broken part was tossed out the window. This broken part is then kicked down by the scared man into the basement or underground passage in which Main Dice is navigating. Main Dice is hit on the head by this part – the scene is drawn with the anticipation of the broken part falling on his head. This prompts Main Dice to shine the light to see what hit him as it had landed on the floor of this now dark room. This leads him to discover a motorcycle. Now, the plausibility of these moments especially register. This story is at the service of a construct – it has rhythm (which it later purposefully forsakes in order to rush itself in a different direction, to make some sort of a discovery – my guess is that it was the scenario taking priority, maybe becoming self aware or rather portrayed as becoming self aware, and then portrayed as becoming completely selfish in that it engulfs the entire comic, forsaking all other elements that made it up). When reading C.F.’s contribution to Kramers Ergot 8, (which I believe was done around the same time as some of the comics in Mere) I have to wonder where did this comic surface from? The placement in Kramers #8 makes it out to be something that somehow just makes sense for it to exist – but it doesn’t make any sense for the comic itself to exist, despite its existence. I heard C.F. say that if you find a zine just anywhere, you just don’t know. With these comics in Mere I just don’t know. C.F. was saying he wanted to make a that has a manga attitude, and he suggested that for manga the editors are more preoccupied with the characters, rather than the scenarios. This immediately made me think of Sammy Harkham, who was C.F.’s editor (for Kramers #8) talking about how before anything else he wants to know where a story takes place, and what that place might say about a character. What I take away from that, is that the reality of the comic might as well be a character in an empty space (like one of those comics Anders Nielsen did when switching up his style in Monologues For The Coming Plague.) Personally that’s what drew me to reading comics, but not in such a conscientious visceral manner – it was rather just something at the back of my mind. I know C.F. is always claiming that his work is made for him to be comfortable and that he likes how his work challenges him. He enjoys that the challenge presented in front of him is scary. That it’s scary is what makes it interesting, and he wouldn’t enjoy it otherwise. So his work is at the service of the art form as a result. When talking of the nature of the work in Mere there was a vaguely apologetic tone and small sense of regret that the work is selfish and not serving the form as it ideally should for him (or so it would seem). This form that utilizes, or rather is utilized by, simple shapes like circles, squares, triangles which according to C.F. seem too universal to penetrate, because they’re too simple and refer to too many things. In the same way a basic shape like a circle or square or a triangle is broad, C.F. is presenting the idea of comics in the broadest sense. In the same way simple shapes are difficult to penetrate these comics are also difficult, because in a personal way C.F. has condensed genre, and what not. As the reader, I can only guess at how it conceptually ties to how comics function. However, C.F. himself said if he was condensing genre it’s in a personal way. Similar to his name when making comics (C.F.) it is aesthetically driven, not imbued with the idea of efficiency. If it were otherwise, the other aliases he’s had would be shorter for the sake of simplicity. Case in point – his other aliases like Brown Recluse Alpha or Universal Cell Unlock. If efficiency was in mind with the name C.F. as opposed to Christopher Forgues, it’s to reflect the inefficient efficiency of cartooning. The most efficient thing when wanting to show an image is taking a photo, or rendering something as realistically as possible so that there’s no opportunity for failure in communicating; not cartooning. It’s like the title Mere. Mere what? How many more marks can evoke with so little? Not that the significance lies purely on this aspect of a little doing a lot. Again, it’s not doing a lot. Again, not for the sake of efficiency; to optimize what can be accomplished and what can be done with so little. If comics were at the service of efficiency and optimization, in the sense that it’s already been made known ahead of time everything that a comic is exclusively able to do, what possible need is there for to work to be read? If work is purely to pander 100% to one’s sensibility of cool, because it exists only for the sake of efficiency and nothing else whatsoever, what can it possibly offer as art? To an extent in the comics in Mere these questions are asked. It takes so much to convey things sometimes, and sometimes so little. One often needs to pander to the more in-optimized zone of cartoon or as C.F. put it, in a more romanticized fashion, “Turning your back on everyone you know, turning your back on your whole life so that things can come out that you didn’t plan or you don’t intend, things you don’t understand because that’s what art is for, that’s what creativity is for, to ask questions. Questions you have aren’t always the questions you think you have.” Mere possesses comics that subvert genre by condensing them in personal ways, possibly in ways that change our outlook entirely or have shifted our outlook in a direction that hasn’t been determined – rather it’s all questioned, i.e. “turning your back.” There are certain stories in Mere that are purely straightforward. That the focus is more on the scenario takes priority, and so the story carries on in this way. Like this character Main Dice, who we know next to nothing about. In fact, in his second appearance, he is completely redesigned. From my vantage point, this is not done in order to comment on how in manga a timeskip happened and all the characters are completely redesigned, for example like when Dragon Ball became Dragon Ball Z, and the characters have grown up. Then there’s the element in American comics there are multiple versions of superheros – like how there’s the Blue Beetle called Ted Kord, and the Blue Beetle called Jaime Reyes; or how there’s the Robin called Dick Grayson or the Robin called Jason Todd and there’s the Robin called Tim Drake. Main Dice’s redesigns, to my understanding, aren’t a comment on all this. It seems to me that what it is instead is a document of the personal effect these aspects of comics have had on C.F. Even as I had recently, on a whim, read the third volume of Dragon Ball Z (which is really amazing,) I couldn’t help but identify with what C.F. had said – that the tendency in manga is that the editors are more preoccupied by the scenario than the characters. I’d zipped through 174 pages of action without realizing it, and the nature in which the action was being communicated was the same nature in which most of the comics in Mere unfolded – especially the first two comics in Mere that feature Main Dice. – Sam Ombiri Get a copy of Mere by C.F. HERE! ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 6-28-18 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

04/22/2016

Posted on April 22, 2016 by Sally Ingraham

Zona #02 in the flesh, Santoro on Hanselmann, wise words from Annie Mok, Gabriella Tito reflecting on reflections, some radical zines and a couple of really, really old books.

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HOT OFF THE PRESSES! The eagerly awaited Zona #02 was just released by Comics Workbook, and these things are absolutely smoking. 24 pages of Santoro story, totally unique, only 100 in the world, signed and numbered. Get thee one HERE.

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I was shouting about Simon Hanselmann last week, but that was just a taster for this week’s big news – Meg & Mogg in Amsterdam was released by Fantagraphics this week, and was immediately greeted with rave reviews and general fireworks. One such firework was Frank Santoro’s review for The Comics Journal.

“Remember when you were into a show and one season was good and the other season kind of sucked? Like season two of The Wire? What a let down. They fixed it, but still. Anyways, the new season of Megg & Mogg is out and it doesn’t suck. The intensity of seeing the gang for the first time is there again the second time. The follow up to a successful season one is always tough, and Simon makes it look easy. The drawing, the jokes, the color. The cover. Preserving the format of Megahex and also the shuffling of drawing styles. All that together makes for an extremely satisfying experience.”

Check out the whole review HERE.

Buy the book HERE (which you really should, since it comes with a FREE copy of Minihex – “a collection of rare, controversial and previously unpublished work packaged in a full-color mini comic.”) And for the complete Simon experience, grab yourself a copy of thee Complete Truth Zone bootleg, only available HERE through Comics Workbook.

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Also on The Comics Journal this week, Annie Mok reviews Mike Dawson’s book Rules for Dating My Daughter.

“Mike Dawson delivers an uneven collection of personal essay-style memoir comics, occasionally thoughtful, but often thoughtless in its concern for others.”

Annie strives to find a balance between the strengths and failings of the book, drawing attention to the complex relationship between the cartoonist and their audience. Read the review HERE.

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Points that Annie Mok brings up in the article mentioned above are a good lead-in to a meditation that Gabriella Tito wrote for Comics Workbook on how we, as the cartoonist, reflect ourselves in comics – intentionally or not.

“From my own experience in making abstract comics and comics without relatable humans, I realize I have drawn content from a particular emotion or thought I was feeling at the time. Maybe a song inspired me to put something on paper. You probably have done this too, given the nature of abstract works. Usually, the less I thought about the content, the more fluid the comic was.”

Check her thoughts out HERE and join the conversation.

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kuzines01-768x590 — 2001 issue of ‘Transformers’ (via Solidarity! Revolutionary Center and Radical Library/Internet Archive)

We’ve got zines on the mind around the CW Daily News headquarters this week, with Harrison highlighting the traveling “Zines of the Zone” library yesterday – and now me, with this tidbit –

The University of Kansas recently acquired over 1,000 zines from a “defunct radical library”, adding to a collection of over 100,000 items in KU’s Wilcox Collection of Contemporary Political Movements at the Kenneth Spencer Research Library. The collection as a whole just turned 50 years old, and this recent acquisition marks a movement toward a larger zine focus. Frank Farmer, a professor of English who organized the transfer, had this to say about zines:

“They’ve always had a kind of amateurish and unofficial quality to them, but they are an index to a certain history, a certain strain of history in this country, about self publishing.”

There’s more info about these radical zines HERE, and you can also explore and download over 830 of the zines from the collection. Information sharing at it’s finest.

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I’m sidetracking even further from comics, for a moment, here – but check out this Guardian article about two of the earliest known books written by female writers in English…!

“A new exhibition from Wellcome Collection, This is a Voice, which explores the human voice, brings them together for the first time, after the British Library agreed to the loans.”

They date from 1436 (The Book of Margery Kempe) and shortly after 1373 (Julian of Norwich’s text). This story amused me:

“Only one known manuscript exists of Margery Kempe’s story: its whereabouts were unknown from around 1520 until the 1930s, when it was discovered in the cupboard of a country-house during a game of ping-pong. One of the players stepped on the ball and while searching for another, the The Book of Margery Kempe manuscript fell out of a cupboard.”

The idea of these texts surviving somehow, and being still cherished today, made me think of something Frank wrote about a few weeks ago – the idea of making one really great comic. Maybe you only make the one, but someone out there will pick up a copy of it…and maybe it ends up in the back of a cupboard somewhere, eventually to fall on the head of a ping-pong player who will love it. Maybe…?

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Finally, above is an oddly gorgeous video that shows how color and ink is created from the raw ingredients — powder, varnish, and passion. It was made by The Printing Ink Company, a small business based in Ontario, Canada, who have been making ink with absolute loving care since 1977. Pretty cool.

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tumblr_o5zx04TuR51qdbo9eo1_540 — Jim Rugg

RIP Prince…

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Until next week folks! – Sally

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One thought on “04/22/2016”

Caleb Orecchio says:

April 22, 2016 at 2:54 pm

I really appreciate Annie Mok’s review of Dawson’s book on TCJ. The scene seems so small that reviewers are hard-pressed to not hurt the feelings of fellow convention goers or something. I had a lot of problems with that book too and there was a lot of patting-one’s-self-on-the-back, so I was happy to see Mok give an honest review. In fact, it wasn’t harsh enough IMHO.

Reply

Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Sally Ingraham

Posted on April 22, 2016

Explore

06/12/2018

Aaron CockleJune 12, 2018NewsMoore/Mendes; Drnaso & Kupperman; Regé, Jr. ————————————————————————————————— Understanding Detroit: The Nonfiction Work of Anne Elizabeth Moore & Melissa Mendes Sally linked to this last Friday, Alex Dueben’s interview with Anne Elizabeth Moore and Melissa Mendes, about their collaborative non-fiction comics: What do you two think comics can do that an essay or report couldn’t? Moore: This is a question I get a lot, since I’ve done both text-only reporting and comics journalism. There’s a particular story in Threadbare I did with Julia Gfrörer called “Let’s Go Shopping,” about fast fashion retail work. I went into a local H&M—it was years ago, now, so that worker’s not there anymore—and started chatting with one of the retail workers. Now, like factory workers, and many many other workers along the entire garment production and display assembly line, retail workers for most fast fashion outlets sign non-disclosure agreements stating that they agree that they have the right to be fired if they share information about their benefits or wages. This is a nutso clause in any contract designed to keep people from sharing information and organizing to improve their lives, and it’s basically a knife wound to the project of basic democracy, since it means that even though a LOT of people work in the garment industry, few people talk about what it’s like and so, for example, reporters usually struggle to write about it because no one will go on record. But no one knows, or cares, what comics journalism is, so I walked into this H&M and was like, “Yeah we draw this thing and it works like this and I do need a photo for reference but we can hide your identity to protect you and if you want we can draw you in your favorite outfit even if you aren’t wearing it right now, I just need to ask you a few questions that are in complete violation of your NDA are you OK with that?” And she answered everything I asked. Because with comics we were able to protect her, but also depict her in an interesting way, and she was invested in contributing to something she would be excited about. (That Julia drew it was super helpful. She is very very popular with models and fast fashion workers.) That’s an actual example of information that wouldn’t have been accessible without the form of comics. In “Scenes from the Foreclosure Crisis,” Melissa and I were able to do a very similar thing, depict a nonbinary figure, who still has a very clear personality, history, and set of concerns, in a way that wouldn’t bring them undue attention or frustration. Or violence, to be frank. (Detroit is very conservative, actually, so that’s a concern.) In text-based journalism, you’d have to give some kind of identifying distinction, and almost anything I could think of in this case would put my source in danger. Also audience, of course: comics journalism is read by a far less newsy crowd. More young people. I hear from a lot of students that this was sort of their gateway drug to text-based journalism. But it takes a long time, so you have to plan it all carefully. Mendes: Whenever I get this question I always think of Joe Sacco. There’s no way his work (Palestine, The Fixer, etc.) could ever be anything other than a comic. He’s going into these terrifying places, these war zones, and instead of just taking photos, which can be sort of voyeuristic, he’s drawing. There’s no question that it’s through his lens, that it’s his own point of view– he’s making those marks on the paper. There’s no way it could be taken as objective, while it’s possible to write or photograph or record in such a way that you forget there’s a person behind the camera or the keyboard. (I’m sure there are smarter words for what I’m trying to say but I haven’t written a college paper in like fourteen years so…) Does that make sense? Sacco is reporting, but it’s personal, and you feel that as a reader. You can’t escape it, it’s more raw somehow. The handmade aspect of cartooning makes it more human, and we are still able to protect identities, like Anne was saying. ————————————————————————————————— Can You Illustrate Emotional Absence? Ed Park looks at recent work by Nick Drnaso and Michael Kupperman: RE Drnaso: With his fluid framing — fitting anywhere from two to 24 panels to a page — he dictates information delivery, allowing the mind to breathe. His drawing style is at once poetically attuned to details of neighborhoods and interiors (the lit canopy of a gas station at night, the banquette at an antiseptic diner) and deceptively plain when it comes to the people who inhabit them. RE Kupperman: For an artist known for his off-kilter tableaus, this book has a static look, especially in its rendering of boldfaced names from the past. More problematic are the gaps: mysteries unsolved, re-creations that collapse under the weight of a disclaimer. Of a 1943 meeting between Joel and Henry Ford (once a vocal anti-Semite), Kupperman wonders, “What did they think of each other? There’s no way of knowing.” ————————————————————————————————— ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 6-12-18 – by Caleb Orecchio ————————————————————————————————— Share this page: [...]

11/06/2018

Aaron CockleNovember 6, 2018NewsVote Aquí; Art of Native America; Comic Arts Brooklyn Panels ————————————————————————————————— A Brief History of Bilingual Voting José -Luis Olivares at Popula. ————————————————————————————————— Art of Native America At the Metropolitan Museum of Art, October 4, 2018-October 6, 2019. This landmark exhibition in the Museum’s American Wing showcases 116 masterworks representing the achievements of artists from more than fifty cultures across North America. Ranging in date from the second to the early twentieth century, the diverse works are promised gifts, donations, and loans to The Met from the pioneering collectors Charles and Valerie Diker. Long considered to be the most significant holdings of historical Native American art in private hands, the Diker Collection has particular strengths in sculpture from British Columbia and Alaska, California baskets, pottery from southwestern pueblos, Plains drawings and regalia, and rare accessories from the eastern Woodlands. ————————————————————————————————— Comic Arts Brooklyn 2018 The CAB show is this Sundayn November 11, here is some info about the panels and additional events: ————————————————————————————————— Share this page: [...]

TCAF 2017 Recap – by Tyler Landry

Comics WorkbookMay 25, 2017Festivals and ShowsTyler Landry here: The Toronto Comic Arts Festival (TCAF) is the only comics show I’ve ever attended, except for our local small-town con (held in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada) which I did for the very first time this year. There are a couple of reasons for this, and they all fall into the realm of “excuses”, but, that’s how my cookie crumbles. I have, however, been to TCAF every year since 2013, and have been told by con-hoppers of all stripes that it’s one of the best, if not THE best show of its type. To me, it’s always felt huge, diverse, and rewarding in a thousand ways – so I take those observations with considerable weight. I’ve met (and bought comics from) a huge majority of my favorite cartoonists, made loads of new comics friends, and tabled – both independently and with publishers. I always like to arrive in Toronto early on Friday, settle in, walk around the city, have an eat and/or a drink with friends – and get comfortable before the chaos on Saturday morning. Spent a veritable stack of cash on comics right away. Exciting new work from Anya Davidson, Ben Passmore, Connor Willumsen, and Sophie Yanow – to name only a few. This year I spent time tabling with two publishers – signing some of last year’s comics with Study Group (The Coward’s Hole, and Lonesome), and with Retrofit, signing copies of the collected Shit and Piss, which debuted this year at TCAF. It was cool to meet some people who follow my work, and to see others discover it for the first time. This is why I attend TCAF. To participate in a significant way in the comics community, as a cartoonist, an enthusiast, and more recently as a (new) community leader and educator. With that in mind, in addition to signing, I did something sorta new – I ran a Comics Workbook workshop on composing a comic spread. The workshop made use of a standardized 6-panel grid, a quick idea gathering on story cards, and heavy panel-by-panel editing with a printed spread in mind. It was geared towards beginners, but the process we explored is the basis for how I make comics, and can be useful to anyone telling stories in a visual medium. Some of the essential materials I’d requested were missing from the room when we started (index cards, guys!), but we did have a fat stack of copy paper, and before long I had everyone in the (very full) room folding and tearing it into manageable chunks. I brought along some comics I’ve done, a few in-progress spreads, and the associated story cards as examples of the process from beginning to end. After a bit of discussion everyone began to get a sense of modular structure, the importance of editing oneself early, and some basic notions of pacing, dynamics thru motion, tone, and directionality across panels/the spread. Because of our slightly later start, we didn’t delve as deep into the spread as I’d have liked – but everyone got a taste of quick drawing and editing, and at least the beginnings of controlling the flow of information across the spread. By the time we were being kicked out of the room, we were having huge open discussions about the different participants’ comics, talking in terms of pacing, making switcheroos for clarity, capitalizing on directional flow, etc. We could’ve easily spent another 2 hours together as a group and accomplished even more. Being so busy during both days, I didn’t get to take in any additional programming, but Idid have a chance to share a few pints and meals with friends old and new. TCAF definitely does a great job of bringing us all together once a year to gush like fools about the things we love in comics. ————————————————————————————————— Check out more of Tyler’s work HERE and pick up a copy of his new book HERE. Share this page: [...]

01/11/2017

Juan FernándezJanuary 11, 2017NewsJuan con un poquito sobre las Tetastristes; Reconciendo Amanda Baeza y su gran obra Nubes de Talco; la estética de la distorsion;Laura Barrachina entrevista a Conxita Herrero, Joaquín Guirao y Antonio Hitos; Un Faulduo en el foco; Tarantula Preview; The Art of Vanesa R. Del Rey; y tiras de Gabriella Tito,Caleb Orecchio, y Juan Fernandez. Cómics y noticias que me han llamado la atencion: “Las Tetastristes se toman el puerto” – La colectiva de ilustradoras y autoeditoras feministas Tetastristes Cómics estará por primera vez en Valparaiso, en una intima variete de actividades en la casa de Me lo dijo unx TRUEK ubicada en Cerro Concepción, Valparaiso el 1/14. Va haber un montón de actividades, como exposición y venta de material de las Tetastristes Cómics y de lesbilais, además de otras artistas visuales porteñas feministas y revoltosas. Para más información: David Romera de FNAC reseña Nubes de Talco de Amanda Baeza. Esta obra, originalmente publicada por la editorial Fulgencio Pimentel, ya llegara al mundo anglohablante: kuš!komiks is set to translate Amanda Baeza’s Brume (Nubes de Talco) into English this February! Now the global english speaking community can experience Baeza’s tour de force in poetic, abstracted yet cartoony, work of emotional autobiography. Bañate en la estética de la distorsion con Pablo Turnes en la Revista Kamandi. En la ultima edicion de La Hora del Bocadillo en RTVE Laura Barrachina entrevista a Conxita Herrero, Joaquín Guirao y Antonio Hitos. Una hora de jovenes promesas… Sebastián Martínez ha compartido con Comics Workbook un gran tesoro postmoderno escondido: Un Faulduo. Joder, que genial. Dale un momento y ponte a explorar su website. Tienen de todo! Formalmente, Un Faulduo es un colectivo de investigación y experimentación alrededor del campo de la historieta, conformado por Nicolás Daniluk, Ezequiel García, Nicolás Moguilevsky y Nicolás Zukerfeld. Sus colaboraciones hacen un recorrido interdisciplinario que abarca las artes visuales, el cine, la música, las artes escénicas y la literatura. Un Faulduo es el nombre de la revista editada por el grupo. Lleva 10 números realizados desde 2005 y mantiene, desde su aparición y hasta la actualidad, un sistema de rotación de directores (cada número es dirigido por un miembro diferente del staff, lo que obliga a cambios de formato, contenido, técnica). / Un Faulduo is the name of a magazine published by the group. Ten issues have been released since 2005, and each one is led by a different member of the staff, forcing changes in format, content and technique. Han publicado un libro a la vez tradicional y de vanguardia, La Historieta En El (Faulduo) Mundo Moderno. Pop-Collage-Noise-Fanzine-Deconstructivistas. Al fin del cabo, el libroe, es un ensayo visual, que viene desde la tradición de la escritura visual de John Berger. Libremente inspirado en el mítico ensayo “La historieta en el mundo moderno” (Oscar Masotta, 1970), este libro realizado por Un Faulduo (colectivo de investigación y experimentación alrededor del campo de la historieta, formado por Nicolás Daniluk, Ezequiel García, Nicolás Moguilevsky y Nicolás Zukerfeld) se propone pensar la relación entre el lenguaje de la historieta y la forma del ensayo, tomando los propios materiales de la historieta como materia prima para su producción y como una forma que permite analizarse y pensarse a sí misma. Han oido las buenas noticias? Ya pueden pedir Tarantula a todo color! AdHouse esta publicando este primer volumen de la novela policíaca, psicodelica y a la vez satanica del equipo Alexis Ziritt y Fabian Rangel Jr. y Evelyn Rangel. Si no has leido Tarantula te daremos un antojo: aquí tienes tu preview. Hoy les presentamos una nueva publicacion de Comics Workbook: The Art of Vanesa R. Del Rey. La gran Vanesa R. Del Rey le ha dado permiso a Comics Workbook para publicar unas selecciónes de sus cuadernos de bocetos. Hemos diseñado esta publicación para que parezca uno de esos libros de de artistas los años 80. Arte y Entrevista. El texto es una transcripción de la entrevista que hicimos con Vanesa cuando visito la Residencia Rowhouse en 2016. Vanesa es un artista impresionante y inigualable. Puedes comprar tu copia AQUI.Order a copy of The Art of Vanesa R. Del Rey HERE. Frank Santoro, el director de Comics Workbook, nos cuenta un poquito sobre sus experiencias con Vanesa: Me encontré por primera vez con VRDR en un festival de cómics en Toronto (TCAF) en 2014. Había empezado a hacer comics profesionalmente después de un período como un animadora. Fui Sorprendido por su la capacidad de ser como un camaleón de cambiar de estilos, y por su puesto le pedí ver más de sus obras. Desenterró pilas de cuadernos de dibujos de sus días en Cuba, cuando estudiaba el realismo soviético y de trabajaba con George Pratt, maestro de cómics pintados. La educación de Vanesa como artista hace el balance suavemente entre los niveles alto y bajo del arte, así como los valores estéticos del este y el oeste. Es una base asombrosa. Ella es, a la vez, consciente de la historia del arte, la historia de los cómics y la historia de la animación de una manera NUEVA que casi parecía imposible hace quince o veinte años. Debo admitir como un estudiante y fan de cómics que se enfocan en la mezcla de “alto y bajo” y en ” los cómics pintados” — Nunca he visto tal mezcla de habilidades al nivel de VRDR. Feroz. Imparable. Un competidor feroz. Michael Jordan-esque? ¿Es eso posible en la fabricación de cómic? Siempre he dicho que habría un “invasor vertical” en los cómics que podría emplear el “naturalismo” de la escuela de Noel Sickles / Alex Toth pero que podría pintar como una Alice Neel o una Jenny Saville. Creo que “el invasor” ha llegado en forma de Vanesa R. Del Rey. Puedes comprar tu copia AQUI. Sigan a Vanesa por Instagram – @vrdelrey – y http://vrdelrey.com/ Suzy and Cecil – 1-11-2017 – by Gabriella Tito ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 1-11-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio ————————————————————————————————— 1-11-2017 – by Juan Fernández Share this page: [...]

San Diego Comic-Con International 2019

Chris Anthony DiazJuly 23, 2019Festivals and Shows / The Diaz ArchiveSan Diego Comic-Con International 2019, San Diego Convention Center, Exhibit Hall, Thursday, July 18, 2019 Share this page: [...]

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