Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in NewsTagged Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum, Caitlin McGurk, caleb orecchio, jenny robb, Kevin Huizenga, leo baxendale, Lucy Caswell, luke healy, noah van sciver, retrofit comics, sally ingraham, Sammy Harkham, Simon Moreton, TCAF 2017, Tom Scioli, william cardini, Yuichi Yokoyama

Caleb Orecchio

Posted on April 30, 2017April 30, 2017

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Frank’s Comics Corner #1 – Fantastic Four #233

Comics WorkbookFebruary 11, 2017EssaysFrank’s Comics Corner 2-4-2017 Share this page: [...]

02/08/2017

Juan FernándezFebruary 8, 2017los Cómics / NewsJuan José con un poquito sobre: Sirio de Martín López Lam; talleres en #GRAFBCN2017; Chicks on Comics’s full slate of programming; VRDR Scarlet Witch Preview; Inés Estrada’s Alienation 3; La Hora del Bocadillo; La Polola Podcast; Hits with Tits talk posters. Sirio – Martín López Lam (Fulgencio Pimentel – 2016) I’ve been looking for a gripping work of comics poetics that can hold a candle to the winds of narrative… The wait is over. Sirio is here. Lovers in crisis amidst a holiday during low season on the coast, an unresolved death and an even deeper mystery in the observation of nature. Clouds, rocks, the behavior of dogs and children in the neighborhood become signs that are offered to a narrator’s/our stunned eyes. An earthly thriller, many questions and a single answer, or at least an insinuation, in the stars. Sirio. Sirio is a graceful, cloud-like story, intense and as awe-inspiring as a summer storm, combining the best of the titanic visual skills of Martin López Lam with his extraordinary literary sensibility. The texture and atmosphere of these pages confronts us with the underground stream of antagonistic feelings that flow between a man and a woman, in the best tradition of narrators like Raymond Carver, John Cheever, or James Salter. To achieve this, Martín speaks a language that bridges the comics and cartooning idioms of arguably the most Eastern of the great western cartoonists (David Mazzucchelli) and the most western of the great mangaka (Seiichi Hayashi). Sirio confirms Martín López Lam as one of the most gifted and versatile visual narrators of the in contemporary Spanish comics. No comic has buffeted me viscerally the way that Sirio does. The elemental force of Sirio is incredible. Sirio is not yet in English. Alas! Not to worry though, the images do the heavy lifting here. I hope an English translation comes soon so it can grip you tightly. Until then, order a copy from the great Spanish publisher, Fulgencio Pimentel. Practice your Spanish and soak in the images and the words! DO IT! Cómics y noticias que me han llamado la atención esta semana: Chicks on Comics have a full slate of programming this weekend at Fundación PROA in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Don’t miss Power Paola, María Delia Lozupone, María Luque and co. for two amazing afternoons of talks. Marvel’s got a preview of Vanesa R. Del Rey’s work with James Robinson Scarlet Witch #15 – (take note VRDR devotees: on sale February 22nd). Berliac’s got some new comics on Vice – Asian Food Store Junkies – A match made in heaven, or the opposite? You decide… #GRAFBCN2017 has announced several workshops for their March 3-5 comics festival in Barcelona. Among them is a master class con Natacha Bustos y Javi Rodríguez. Sign up for their talleres HERE. Inés Estrada just finished the 3rd issue of Alienation. Copies will be available on Feb. 22 along with the reprint of issue 1! Keep up with her at @inechii on twitter for all the details on her latest works. Along with her own comics she distros some incredible work from Mexico on her shop www.gatosaurio.com, so get hep. On the radio in Spain: La hora del bocadillo – 04/02/17 – La Grieta, tebeos y neurociencia y Generación X. ——— La Polola Podcast is on hiatus! Vacation is vacation. As Sol Díaz Castillo y Marcela Trujillo gear up for their new season they have a contest going while on vacation! Draw your favorite song and catch up with the podcast! It’s always a fun, relaxing and enlightening listen. If you haven’t tuned in to La Polola just yet, Póngale Play. Hits With Tits is exhibiting the show poster work of 40 women in Barcelona. Quique Ramos presents a poster making play-by-play by 6 comics makers and illustrators that’ll be at the CARA B festival on February 17-18: Roberta Vázquez, Nuria Riaza, Conxita Herrero, Cristina Daura, Maria Herrero y Marlene Krause. Echale un vistazo a este medallón estilo Pompeii! Hecho en Pittsburgh. Frank Santoro le encarguo a la gran Airi Maeno que le hiciera unos medallones de plata utilisando uno de sus dibujos. Este dibujo viene de su libro Pompeii. Es algo que podrias imaginar que alguien se pondría hace dos mil años. Unico. Clasico. Un simple medallón de un ser querido. Un retrato. Algo permanente para desafiar a la desaparición. ————————————————————————————————— 2-8-2017 – by Jack Brougham ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 2-8-2017 – by Sally Ingraham ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 2-8-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio ————————————————————————————————— Cozytown – 2-8-2017 – by Juan Fernandez Share this page: [...]

12/18/2017

Caleb OrecchioDecember 18, 2017NewsCaleb Orecchio here with positive vibes and the usual gang of links to other news. ————————————————————————————————— When my extended family ask about how my comics are going I throw myself into a frenzy of roundabout explanations and unconfident, disconnected thoughts, leaving my loved ones confused and unsure of my life decisions—or I simply change the subject. This weekend when I visited some extended family I brought copies of my book to give to them. Everyone was glad to see and own physical fruit of my–until that moment, to them, theoretical–labors. One of my aunts hugged me, tears welling up. “I remember you drawing since you were little.” I watched my family examine and flip through my book–I have to admit, it was really satisfying. I often think of being an “independent” cartoonist in terms of being a folk singer, and I think this is the closest thing (for me, so far, anyway) to standing in a room of people while playing my version of “Goodnight Irene” or something. I let the “song” speak for itself, and the crowd responded positively. ————————————————————————————————— if you don’t know, now you know Cynthia Rose writes about the French comics festival, SoBD over at TCJ.com. If you are interested in supporting Cartoon Crossroads Columbus–a really great comics festival–consider donating to the cause. More info here from Tom Spurgeon at his The Comics Reporter. Alex Hoffman reviews William Cardini’s great comic, Tales from the Hyperverse, at Sequential Slate. Ben Towle reviews Tristan & Yseult by Agnés Maubpré and Singeon over at his blog, Benzilla.com. Dan Schindel talks Cerebus the Aardvark over at Hyperallergic.com, the remarkable (to few and myself) and ultimately tragic (to most and myself) self-published anomaly. ————————————————————————————————— The Winter Semester of thee Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers starts January 16th 2018! 8 weeks – 500 bux – coaching for as long as you need. The course is hard, but Frank will push your comics making practice to a new level, getting you to think about timing and color in new ways. Makes a great holiday gift for yourself – or for a loved one who is interested in comics. Apply by midnight (EST) on Dec. 25th and get $100 off the course price. Full details and how to apply can be found HERE! ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 12-18-2017 – by Gabriella Tito ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 12-18-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

12/08/2016

Sam OmbiriDecember 8, 2016NewsWe’re here today with Johnny Ryan escapades, Alexis Zirrit colors, George Herriman’s new biography, and notes on Box Brown via Adam Griffiths. ————————————————————————————————— Sam Ombiri here: For all those Johnny Ryan fans out there, there’s this fun podcast called Bone Zone hosted by Davey Johnson (sometimes), Randy Liedtke, and Brendon Walsh (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmGAwNylqXA). It might get a little in jokey at times, so I don’t know how it sounds to a new listener. My favorite part in this episode was when they were calling a bunch of comic book shops and asking people if they had a bunch of imaginary titles. They would, at times,add little details here and there, so that the titles sounded more plausible. They would ask while trying to hold back laughter so most people couldn’t tell something was up, and there was a slight distortion in reality. They were greeted with skepticism – but then they’d add a small detail like “I think it was published by Oni press”, and then people who were familiar with Oni Press were suddenly way less skeptical. “We just got a bunch of Oni Press last week,” you’d hear the shopkeepers in the background yelling. “Yeah they’re asking for all these obscure titles – do we have Money Boys? or what was that other one? Cum Tuba?” To which Johnny would add, “Yeah, Cum Tuba by Chris Ware.” Then out of all this nonsense, this story about 3 brothers looking for comics, from a list that their sick dad had given them, constructs itself. At one point like 10 wild dogs begin chewing their sick dad’s comics. Some of these comics sound like a bunch of fun to draw – I’m really into drawing a comic called Money Boys, just basing off the multiple premises that come to mind when I hear the name. This episode of Bone Zone was also a good reminder of how I still need to read Prison Pit. There’s a lot of stuff that I always need to get to, but then I don’t. I like this thing that Brandon Graham (I think it was him) said – how, in comics, there’s just constantly great stuff being created, and that no one has all the time to read it all. He makes sure to note how you’d think he’d find it depressing, but it’s just the opposite for him. There’s always this thing of, when you discover something that possibly will be really rad, you want to preserve the little mystery of it. (Like how my listening to Chll Pll has been a nearly 2 year process, from it being recommended by a friend, to me listening to it slowly.) Maybe it’s a result of the immediacy of information in the internet, and “knowing” isn’t everything. Gary Panter said in this one talk that how physical mediums are fetishistic. I think that’s a good way of describing it, although I need to find a better word than “fetish” to describe things these days, just because of its modern definition – it only fits in the one context so then it’s forced to be used as a metaphor. This might not be a bad thing, especially for someone like Refn. I don’t know how to say this, but I’m reminded of how at the Oscars (which feel like a huge joke these days) when they present the animation awards, they use the extremely shallow depiction of animation – that you can “draw anything” and make anything happen, unlike in live action movies. It’s such awful thing to say. – Sam Ombiri ————————————————————————————————— Tyler Landry here, and it’s time to talk about Alexis Ziritt. Dude is a machine. Open up Space Riders at any page and feel your mind explode. BOOM! This is a serious action trip with all the trimmings, but what I want to focus on specifically is the colors. Flipping through my copy of Space Riders, a couple of things strike me, color-wise. First, this comic is vibrant. Every color that’s ever been imagined is in here somewhere. It’s fearless. The next thing that hits me is the way in which the colors CHANGE from page to page, spread to spread. Alexis uses different combos of straight palettes – where a suit is its own color, the flesh is its own color, the landscape is its own color, etc. But these are mixed with really intense moody scenes with light cast from viewscreens, explosions, or atmosphere. This is where the work really shines, in my opinion. Regardless of the approach, straight or moody, there’s great attention to how those colors help to move you through the work. Let’s look at some of this deep, moody shit: Both of these pages make extensive use of color as mood, and as focus. In the top image, the ship has taken damage, as has the morale of its crew – perfectly communicated with everything bathed in RED emergency lightning, punctuated with shots of YELLOW sparks. The crew members are only a slightly lightened version of that color, barely elevating them from their background. This helps bake the gravity of their situation into your brain as you read through the page. Then, as the discussion heats up, we’re treated to hints of GREEN glow from the viewer, exploding into a bigger viewscreen shot of a pile of angry aliens right outside – in GREEN. This color play from RED to GREEN = direct contrast, jarring change, intense move. On the bottom, again, an overall mood is set in hot PINK, but this one has a constant cool BLUE undertone, shown in the characters themselves, selectively. This creates a triangular slide, down which your eyes move, towards the edges…and it slams itself wide open in the YELLOW panel, where the characters heat up, and one darts across the page to meet the other in a devastating headbutt. Then, the scene pulls out and settles again, with nearly everything melting into the haunting PINK background – except for Capitan Peligro, cold and bold in BLUE, delivering a one-liner as tough as his nose-crushing blow in the previous panel. And – let’s not forget the burst and trickle of GREEN, reminding us just how significant this wound really is. – Tyler Landry Get a copy of Space Riders from Copacetic Comics – HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Sally here – The eagerly anticipated Krazy: George Herriman, A Life in Black and White by Michael Tisserand was released on Tuesday, Dec. 6th. Both the cartoonist and the biographer are originally from New Orleans, and a passing interest in George Herriman turned into a 10 year research project for Michael Tisserand after Hurricane Katrina nearly destroyed their city. ” “I had to teach myself to be an historian,” Tisserand said. “I didn’t anticipate the amount of difficulty it would be finding Herriman’s work.” Like a snake handler, Tisserand uncoils the confusing racial politics of New Orleans in the Jim Crow era, where the descendants of slaves and the descendants of so-called free people of color suffered segregation, discrimination and violence at the hands of the white population. As Tisserand explains, when Herriman was 10 years old, his parents fled the South for a new beginning in California, where personal reinvention was possible. As Tisserand wrote, “Herriman was a black man born in New Orleans.” But upon reaching the Pacific, Herriman’s parents “had obscured their identity and ‘passed’ for white.” Had they not done so, Tisserand points out, the creator of the immeasurably influential Krazy Kat cartoon could never have received the classical education that he did, found work in major American newspapers, or bought a home in the Hollywood Hills, owing to universal racism.” – via NOLA.com Read the rest of the above article about the book HERE. There’s another good piece in Gambit, HERE. And The Wall Street Journal names Krazy Kat the “most ingenious strip of the 20th century“. In addition, there is a great “Konversation” with Michael Tisserand over on The Comics Journal – check it out HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Adam Griffiths interviewed Box Brown recently for his ‘Zine Tree” series. They talk about Brown’s work (his newest book is Tetris: The Games People Play) and how he chooses his stories. AG: Three works of yours, Andre the Giant, Powerman, and Tetris, all seem to grapple with the theme of unconventionality, aspiration and conformity? If you agree with that to any such degree, how would you say you choose the stories that you tell? BB: I think that’s been my life experience. I identified with Andre as the person that had to operate on the outskirts of life. I think he felt like he was an outsider. I think for the early part of my life I felt that way a lot. Of course in high school but then I kind of still suffered from identity issues into my 20’s. It wasn’t until I discovered making comics that I discovered who I was. Until then I never felt like I fit in, but outwardly strangely I had figured out how to fit in. It just always felt like an odd fit. Read the rest of the interview HERE. Adam Griffiths is a cartoonist from the D.C. area who will be joining us at the Rowhouse in Pittsburgh for a Residency early next year. Be sure to check out more of his work HERE. ————————————————————————————————— The Winter Semester of the Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers Starts December 29, 2016. 8 week course, $500, 10 spots available, apply by December 13, 2016 and get $100 off course fee. Email santoroschoolATgmail for more details! ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 12-8-2016 – by Sally Ingraham 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: [...]

05/01/2017

Posted on April 30, 2017April 30, 2017 by Caleb Orecchio

Caleb here with Crickets 6 and Ganges 6, comics news out of Columbus, OH, Tom Scioli, and more!

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Tom Scioli’s weekly webcomic, Princess, continues to utterly mop the floor with most other contemporary genre comics. Scioli’s recent oeuvre has impressively combined the aesthetic intelligence of an “art comic,” with the most entertaining aspects of a mainstream superhero/scf-fi comic. It’s amazing to me with what he got away with on his fantastic run on Transformers vs G.I. Joe for IDW, and not to mention his current run of “Super Powers” shorts for DC’s Cave Carson.

Once a bonafide and accepted Kirby clone (or Life Model Decoy), Scioli has cracked his own code and has morphed into something more uniquely himself while continuing the Kirby tradition in a similar way Barry (Windsor-) Smith did in the early 70’s. Check out Scioli’s recently re-released love letter to Kirby, American Barbarian.

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I recently got my copies of Crickets 6 by Sammy Harkham and Ganges 6 by Kevin Huizenga from What Things Do, which included an attractive print by Sammy Harkham.

I cannot say enough about just how good these two cartoonists are. In a way they make an interesting yin and yang.

Harkham’s straight-forward narrative style somehow combines the efficiency of a one-shot American comic with the lackadaisical European take-your-time-and-relax way of storytelling. Does that make sense? It’s slow and fast at the same time which creates this steady line-drive of a story that is clear, organic, and wholly satisfying to read. I particularly enjoyed (SPOILER!) and funny fist fight on a flight of stairs.

Kevin H’s comic is a line drive too, but it’s claustrophobic (in a good way) and not nearly as light and atmospheric as Harkham’s. Ganges 6, in the tradition of it’s past issues, demands that you scrutinize the comic as thoroughly as the comic scrutinizes its subjects. Every panel is crammed to the borders with information and symbols and word balloons. Most of it anyway. The parts that let us breath are welcome and help to balance the overload of information. We are just as relieved as Glenn is when he finally finds some peace before being thrown back into a world of endless thinking and distractions.

Get these comics at whatthingsdo.com.

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Sally touched on this particular subject last week, but I was in Columbus, OH on Saturday, just passing through on my way back from my little sister’s college graduation, where I came across a copy of Alive, Columbus’ weekly alt newspaper. It contained an article on the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum founder Lucy Caswell and the “The Billy’s” 40th anniversary, a highlight of an exhibit called “Tales From the Vault: 40 Years/40 Stories” by curators Caitlin McGurk and Jenny Robb, AND Noah Van Sciver’s weekly comic for Alive -“The Introvert’s Club”.

This isn’t the first time I’ve been passing through C’bus and found an issue of Alive that covered comics pretty heavily (granted one of those times was during CXC, but still). The folks at the Billy Ireland and the Columbus comics community in general seems to be pretty in-tune with the overall culture there. When people call Columbus “Comics Town, USA” I think it may be a bit of an overstatement, but you certainly can’t deny their involvement in their community.

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If you don’t know, now you know

British cartoonist Leo Baxendale dies at 86. The Guardian has an obituary.
Simon Moreton reflects on 10 years of comic-making, autobio comics, and his fathers passing.
Just Indie Comics has a preview of William Cardini’s new Retrofit book, Tales From the Hyperverse. You can preorder/support Cardini’s new book plus several other new Retrofit releases by donating to their Kickstarter. It’s probably worth it for the new English-translated Yokoyama book alone!
TCAF is just around the corner, eh (Saturday May 13 through Sunday May 14). Check out what is planned for programming during this big honking festival.
Here’s a review of Luke Healy’s How to Survive in the North from Women Write about Comics.
Free Comic Book Day is this coming Saturday. Overall it’s a sucky day where I wait in line with a bunch of smelly nerds and civilian parents holding their kids’ hands just so I can get the Fantagraphics contribution. This year though I’m going for the Fanta book AND The Incal for the Humanoids FCBD debut featuring 30 pages from the classic.

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Suzy and Cecil – 5-1-2017 – by Sally Ingraham

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Joanie and Jordie – 5-1-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio

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Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Caleb Orecchio

Posted on April 30, 2017April 30, 2017

Explore

08/30/2018

Caleb OrecchioAugust 30, 2018NewsCaleb Orecchio here. I think about Asterios Polyp by David Mazzucchelli all the time and I know you do too. ————————————————————————————————— ————————————————————————————————— Once I read a comic book At midnight, 2009, Asterios Polyp, the name of it, The Petty Bickering Deities Strike again (on the Page) Yes ma’am life never gets tired of resurrecting ————————————————————————————————— ———————————————————— Cement Mixer – 8-30-18 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

05/24/2016

Aaron CockleMay 23, 2016NewsBerliac Week Continues at CW; Venn Diagram Panel; Kirby Gridz; Safari Festival 2016; Dueling Book Release Parties; Henry Darger at the American Folk Art Museum; Juan Fernández Comics ————————————————————————————————— Featured this week: Gwai-Lo of the Heart by Berliac. Made for Comics Workbook in 2015. ————————————————————————————————— Venn Diagram Panel from MoCCA Festival 2016 Painter and cartoonist Keith Mayerson once called his 1996 graphic novel Horror Hospital Unplugged “too arty for comics” and “too comics for art.” The boundary between those two fields, however structural and arbitrary, may be weakening, but is it happening quickly enough to accommodate the rapidly growing number of artists who are now so productively working in this seam? Moderator Bill Kartalopoulos will investigate these questions and more with three leading lights of contemporary artcomics: Austin English (Gulag Casual), Aidan Koch (After Nothing Comes), and Blaise Larmee (3 Books). ————————————————————————————————— Via Micheal Oeming’s Facebook page. ————————————————————————————————— Safari Festival: New waves in contemporary comics and art. 11am to 6pm, 27 August 2016 Protein, 31 New Inn Yard, London EC2A 3EY safarifestival.tumblr.com | @safarifestival | info@safari-festival.com Safari Festival is a celebration of the new wave of alternative and art comics from the UK and beyond. Taking place over one Saturday at the end of August, the festival is an opportunity for a curated group of cartoonists and publishers to exhibit and sell their artwork, prints and, primarily, comics, and for attendees to experience the best of UK comics’ avant-garde. The artists exhibiting have been selected for their innovative, fearless, diverse approaches to making comics; approaches to cartooning that Safari intends to champion. The festival will be free to attend, and will take place at Studio 2, the Shoreditch gallery space of London-based creative agency, Protein. ————————————————————————————————— Thursday, May 26, 7-pm in Providence and/or NYC ————————————————————————————————— Henry Darger at the Folk Art Museum ————————————————————————————————— I Can See the Birds by Juan Fernández 5.5″x8.5″, Color & Risograph, $6 postpaid (International Shipping). This one is my Yo La Tengo comic on the shoulders of the poetry giant, Mary Oliver. The words are excerpted from her poem, Wild Geese. All drawings are first takes on location here in Pittsburgh. ————————————————————————————————— Share this page: [...]

05/02/2017

Aaron CockleMay 2, 2017NewsAaron here today with Risography!, Kickstarter(s) of Note; Anthologies of Europa; The Necrophilic Landscape; Fax Art; Jacob Khepler. ————————————————————————————————— A p-shop airbrush set to “dissolve” Frank Santoro continues to look at recent use and development of comics printed on Risograph machines. This time around he talks with John Pham: I’ve noticed risograph printers have “meet-ups,” little fairs and conventions. I imagine it is like any other subculture, however this one interests me because of the direct connection to book making. It reminds me of zine culture and comics fandom in a way. Can you speak to how risograph printers are different than other printers, beyond obvious differences in materials? I’ve got a lot respect for the other Riso printers out there, folks like Mickey Z, Colour Code, George Wietor and Sarah McNeil. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m a really sloppy and brutal printer. Printing my books is one of the last steps in my process and at that point I’m usually pretty sleep deprived and grouchy. So I kinda just shove the books through the printer and try to troubleshoot as I go along. This sort of urgency probably creates its own aesthetic but I’m definitely not as knowledgeable or precise as a lot of the printers mentioned above. I think the differences between riso printers and other kinds of printers is pretty negligible, but they’re likely to be more inclined to focus on holistic book making than, say, just prints and covers. ————————————————————————————————— Tiny Report and Retrofit Comics 2 contemporary comics institutions are currently Kickstarting publishing endeavors: Robyn Chapman’s Paper Rocket Minicomics continues its increasingly vital small press efforts, with plans to publish the annual micro-press yearbook, The Tiny Report, as well as the second issue of Colin Lidston’s Age of Elves, for its Spring 2017 line-up. Retrofit Comics is gathering funds for another super-ambitious collection of comics: Combed Clap of Thunder by Zach Hazard Vaupen Steam Clean by Laura Ķeniņš How To Be Alive by Tara Booth Iceland by Yuichi Yokoyama Tales from the Hyperverse by Will Cardini TRUMPTRUMP vol. 1: nomination to inauguration by Warren Craghead III ————————————————————————————————— ‘In this context, the works are comics, sequential art, visual narrative, comics-adjacent storytelling, informatics and some other lumpy labels for stuff that tells a story with pictures.’ Elsewhere on the CW site, Matt Rhodes writes about European comics anthologies: Through the 1920s, there was a series of art journals and publications put out by various art groups in Europe: de Stilj, Dada, Cannibale, Le Couer, Cabaret Voltaire. Due to modern advances in printing technology, it is easier to self-publish zines with better production values. But it’s also interesting to note that the impulse to run an amateur publication of random stuff is perfectly normal. There’s a certain amount of debate regarding how and when the cartooning tradition in Western Europe became the comics tradition of Western Europe. Some point to the broadsheets of the 17 century that introduced the twin concepts of anthologies and episodic storytelling as a precursor to modern sequential art. But it’s more likely that comics as we know them grew up during the 19th Century. And anthologies were an important part of that maturation. ————————————————————————————————— “No one would expect that these two figures are in fact a single man: the fearless detective Lucas Barrette.” Greg Hunter reviews Tracy Auch’s excellent The Necrophilic Landscape over at TCJ: Despite being, unrelentingly, an art comic, The Necrophilic Landscape isn’t shy about utilizing genre conventions. Pulpy, ironic narration describes the detective’s quest, the sort that would not have been on a ’40s radio serial: “No one would expect that these two figures are in fact a single man: the fearless detective Lucas Barrette.” (The detective, for his part, bears a sideways resemblance to McGruff the Crime Dog.) The children’s means of infiltrating the adult world echoes the comedy trope of two kids walking one atop the other in a single large coat. And the story’s dystopian trappings provide a context for Barrette’s fantastical procedure. But the most compelling generic element is one the story shares with horror: the protagonist, Barrette, stands for order and orthodoxy, with the story’s antagonists, the children, deviating from that orthodoxy—and readers are likely to empathize with the antagonists to a degree that the protagonist does not. (By the end of the comic, Barrett hasn’t assumed the role of villain, but he doesn’t have much of a defense to offer on behalf of the prevailing order.) ————————————————————————————————— Fax Machines and Their Discontents For those interested in showing dissatisfaction with the recent talk about the National Endowment for the Arts de-funding, and who are also able to access a fax machine, and who also want to be artistic about it, Claire Voon at Hyperallergic has a piece about organizations contacting United States Congresspeople via fax: The process may sound archaic in 2017, but as Kathryn Schulz recently wrote for The New Yorker, faxes do reach congressional representatives. They get entered into a “constituent-management system” like any other message, and staffers will read each one. And as Schulz reported, personalized forms of material communication actually have more sway on a lawmaker’s opinion than a phone call. Faxing a message may take much more time — but that’s why services like Artifax are particularly handy for amplifying your concerns while adding a little creative flair to your political activism. ————————————————————————————————— Jacob Khepler‘s run at the Outline has ended, but he has preserved the column he wrote weekly from Dec. 2016-April 2017 HERE. Never one to lose momentum, he is currently working on editing a Mothers News collection book among other projects. ————————————————————————————————— A Cosmic Journey – 5-2-2017 – by Cameron Arthur ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 5-2-2017 – by Gabriella Tito ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 5-2-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

11/27/2017

Caleb OrecchioNovember 27, 2017NewsCaleb Orecchio here with thoughts on Peanuts, Ron Wimberly’s LAAB, and other news. ————————————————————————————————— Charles “Sparky” Schulz’s birthday was yesterday, he would have been 95. As we all know, Schulz created possibly the most iconic American comic strip, Peanuts. Ever think about how every single newspaper still carries Peanuts? Remember when Snoopy sold us life insurance and would appear at the corner of your screen while watching college football? Has the Charlie Brown balloon at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade ever popped? How many psychiatrists have used Lucy’s football place-holding shenanigans as a metaphor? In fact, how many of those people have a framed image of Lucy’s psychiatrist stand in their office? Who hasn’t seen Linus recite The Nativity Story? My grandmother has a Peanuts recipe book. I saw a woman the other day with a Woodstock tattoo on her calf. How many of you knew who the Red Baron was before Snoopy?—be honest. My friend took his daughter to a theme park where kids could ride in Snoopy’s doghouse. Happiness is a warm cookie®. I could go on and on. Go ahead, think of all the places you’ve seen Good ‘Ole Charlie Brown, Snoopy and the gang. You can come up with a lot if you really think about it. They are everywhere. Comics are symbols, and Schulz mastered and exploited that fact to the max. Now his creations are everywhere, on everything, and still stand virtually untainted despite their overuse. They interact and inform our culture—what more could a cartoonist ask for? ————————————————————————————————— if you don’t know, now you know LAAB (pronounced “Lab”), “The debut issue of Ron Wimberly’s collective newspaper dismantles lethal stereotypes of black representation in sci-fi & pop culture,” is nearing the end of its Kickstarter campaign with 4 days to go and nearly $10,000 left to raise. Wimberly is very smart and an important voice in 21st Century comics, and it would be a shame to not see this project hit its goal. Do what you can to support whether that means spreading the word, or through cold hard cash. Austin English debuts a new column at TCJ.com. Take a look at Winsor McCay editorial cartoons by way of Warren Bernard’s personal collection. Heidi MacDonald’s update on Pixar’s founder over at The Beat—the title says it all. Jason Thompson & Jumana Al Hashal are the latest guests on Process Party. ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 11-27-2017 – by Sally Ingraham —————————————————————————————————Joanie and Jordie – 11-27-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

04/02/2018

Caleb OrecchioApril 1, 2018NewsCaleb Orecchio here with a nice little Ditko story, and other news. ————————————————————————————————— Aw man, lookit that splash page. I was digging through my back issues looking through my Kull the Destroyers I haven’t really looked at yet. Specifically, Kull the Destroyer #15 from 1974. It’s not a particularly interesting story. Those comics usually aren’t unless they feature some strange, spirited creature. So I flip through the entire issue, kind of disappointed, when I come across an interesting Ditko/Lee short story at the end. It’s a five-pager (six if you count the title page). I had a suspicion that this was a reprint of some back-up story to an old Kirby monster comic. After some digging, I found I was more or less right. “Help,” originally debuted in Strange Tales #94 in 1962. The story is real simple. A guy answers his phone and the person on the other line seems to desperately need help. The mysterious caller is supposedly trapped in some dark place and fears his death. Our hero doesn’t believe him, and thinks it’s a gag. Yet, stays on the phone in case it’s real. The tension is actually relatively convincing. It’s classic Ditko. He had knack for making clever little surreal stories that ended with a neat little twist in the last panel. No I’m not going to spoil it for you, you have to look for it yourself. Go. Go to your local place where back issues lay dorment, waiting to be mined. Drink from the fountain of newsprint and ink and mylar packaging and dusty cardboard boxes. Go True Believer, go. ————————————————————————————————— if you don’t know, now you know According to Don Harriosn at Richmond Magazine, Paul Karasik and Mark Newgarden will be at Virginia Commonwealth University to give a lecture today! Looks like you’ll have to register if you want to go. Details here. I somehow missed Charles Hatfield’s review of the latest King-Cat collection, From Lone Mountain by John Porcellino, over at TCJ.com. I always enjoy reading Matt Seneca articles on comics. Rob Clough visited the Center for Cartoon Studies. Hey look, a popular comic strip. ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 4-2-18 – by Gabriella Tito ————————————————————————————————— Share this page: [...]

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