Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Juan Fernández

Posted on May 2, 2016May 3, 2016

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04/18/2017

Aaron CockleApril 18, 2017NewsAaron here today with the Submission Deadline Reminder for RESIST! 2!; Video Steganography; Doig/Walcott; Met Slides at MFTA; Some X-men Stuff ————————————————————————————————— RESIST! Volume 2 “Women’s Voices Will be Heard!” is and remains our central slogan. So many of our values are being challenged, every recent news headline can be a starting point for resistance. Here are topics to spark your creativity: My Body, My Choice / If you think I’m a nasty woman, wait till I raise my daughter / Gay and Trans Rights / Build the Wall / Black Lives Matter / Russia / It’s the Economy, Stupid / Lock him up! / The War on Science / Education and Democracy / Climate Change / Everyone is Welcome Here RESIST! Volume 2 will still be short-run web on newsprint, but that issue will be digest/comic book size, 7.25″ x 10.5″. Anyone can submit comics or illustrated graphics to RESIST! though women and minorities are especially encouraged. Images should be uploaded through the form to the left. They must be under 10mb, JPEG preferred (please no PDFs). We will contact you if we need a high-res. We cannot accept images sent via email. If you have any questions, you can reach us at resistsubmission@gmail.com. We will not be able to respond individually to submissions. We thank you for your patience as we put Vol. 2 together. ————————————————————————————————— Keywords: Video steganography, Information hiding, Spatial domain, Transform domain, Adaptive steganography Mennatallah M. Sadek, Amal S. Khalifa, and Mostafa G. M. Mostafa posted this PDF about communication concealment. Here is the abstract: Steganography is the art and science of secret communication, concealing the very existence of a communication. Modern cover types can take many forms such as text documents, audio tracks, digital images, and video streams. Extensive research has been done on image steganography in the previous decade due to their popularity on the internet. Nowadays, video files are drawing much more attention. They are transmitted more and more frequent on internet websites such as Facebook and YouTube imposing a larger practical significance on video steganography. Information hiding in video has a variety of techniques, each of which has its strengths and weaknesses. This paper intends to provide an up-to-date comprehensive review on the various video steganographic methods found in the literature in the last 5 years. Furthermore, since security and robustness are very important issues in designing a good steganographic algorithm, some relevant attacks and steganalysis techniques are also surveyed. The paper concludes with recommendations and good practices drawn from the reviewed techniques. ————————————————————————————————— Two crafts converge in Morning, Paramin At the New York Review of Books blog, Julian Lucas looks at the recent collaboration between painter Peter Doig and the poet Derek Walcott: The stunning result is less a dialogue than a shared dream, Doig’s paintings a pilgrimage along which Walcott lights votive candles for all that he has loved. The unreal atmosphere resembles Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities, Marco Polo narrating the oneiric empire of Kublai Khan. Walcott drifts between ekphrasis and personal reflection, often working in near sonnets that, like those of Midsummer (1984), demarcate a season in his life. It is old age, palpable in a disencumbered style (“My disenchantment with all adjectives/is deepening, a certain sign of age”), and discovering its footprints across a landscape where two lives, and two Caribbeans, blend. The poems are suffused with twilight, but the dominant register is celebration, delight in the fresh eyes of a painter whom Walcott addresses much as Shakespeare does the young man of the sonnets: with an injunction to preserve beauty in the world, to produce and reproduce, perhaps even to inherit. ————————————————————————————————— Reduce, Reuse, Recycle James Barron at the NY Times covers the recent donation by the Metropolitan Museum of Art of its slide library to Materials for the Arts, and what MFTA was able to do with the slides: Materials also commissioned five artists for an exhibition, and, unexpectedly, the two curators assigned to the project bridged the digital divide. One was Omar Olivera, 37, who remembers submitting a Kodak Carousel tray filled with slides of his work to get into Brooklyn College. The other, Hallie Bahn, 25, said she never had to use slides. By the time she arrived at Kenyon College in Ohio in 2009, slides were obsolete. “These to me are archaic remnants of predigital life,” she said, sounding almost as if she were talking about remnants of prehistoric life. The Paleolithic types in France had their caves. Mid-20th-century photographers had their slides — and their Kodak Carousel projectors, to show them. (The exhibition will be on display at Materials for the Arts, on the third floor of 33-00 Northern Boulevard in Long Island City, Queens, until June 2.) ————————————————————————————————— Why Marvel Fired an Artist for Inserting Religious and Political Messages into an X-Men Comic Over at the Hyperallergic blog, R. Orion Martin gives a rundown of the recent controversy involving the Indonesian artist Ardian Syaf and some coded religious references he put in an X-men super-hero comic: The references themselves are so subtle that editors and audiences in the US failed to notice them. For instance, in a scene where the X-Men are playing baseball (perhaps the most wholesome category of standby X-Men scenes), the character Colossus is wearing a T-shirt that reads “QS 5:51.” Later in the comic, Kitty Pryde partially obscures a street sign that says “Jewelry” (in the comics, Pryde is Jewish), while a nearby sign reads “212.” QS 5:51 refers to Surah 5, verse 51, a controversial passage of the Quran that, like certain Bible passages such as Leviticus 18:22, has special weight in a contemporary political context. The passage is interpreted in some contemporary translations to mean: “Take not the Jews and the Christians as leaders/advisors.” The verse’s meaning is a particularly sensitive issue in Indonesia, which has the largest Muslim population in the world. ————————————————————————————————— Dash Shaw wrote a piece for the Metrograph theater program book about watching Speed Racer on magic mushrooms. See what he has to say abut Speed Racer HERE! The Metropraph theaters are playing Dash’s new movie My Entire High School Sinking Into the Sea across the country this week and for the next few weeks – go here for a complete list of showings and go see the movie! ————————————————————————————————— A Cosmic Journey – 4-18-2017 – by Cameron Arthur ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 4-18-2017 – by Gabriella Tito ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 4-18-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

Gloria Rivera – Rowhouse Residency Report

Comics WorkbookApril 2, 2017Residency Reports / School UpdatesGloria Rivera is a comics artist from Canyon Country, CA. An alum of the Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers, and a member of the CW Roller Derby League, she joined us in Pittsburgh for a Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency March 23rd-29th 2017. Here are Gloria’s thoughts about her experience, in her own words. ————————————————————————————————————— The Quick List of What Happened: 22 pages completed, drawing to color w/lettering – comic 1 6 complete pages (B & W) – comic 2 Yona Harvey and Ed Piskor lecture at the Harris Theater Visit to the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh Copacetic Comics visits various nature walks, incidental birding with Sally Ingraham I had no expectations for my residency when I had arrived – only to work. I had followed Frank Santoro’s online presence for a few years prior and had taken his online correspondence course, but really couldn’t say that I had any idea of what kind of a teacher Frank was in person, or how much of a gift being in this space could be, not only referring to the Rowhouse, but to Pittsburgh – a town constantly working its bellows to support its comics scene. The first day I had arrived, I met Sally Ingraham. I was really blown away by Sally, who works as a coordinator for the Rowhouse Residency and holds various responsibilities for Comics Workbook. She is exhaustively knowledgeable, hardworking, and compassionate. She asked me what I had come to Pittsburgh to work on, and we sort of agreed that this first day I would work in solitude on my comic that I had started half a year earlier, until I felt I had gained some momentum, and then we would go from there, gauging if/when I wanted outside conversation. For the majority of my stay, the rhythm I kept to was non-stop working until a personal moment was offered (whether it be a walk, dinner with Frank and Sally, or short trips through the city), taking those moments, being present, and then continuing my work. Any time spent with other cartoonists (Frank, Sally, one of Sally’s 9-yr old students, cartoonists in a lecture, a.k.a Ed Piskor) was used to further my stride into my work. On the second day of my residency I met Frank. We had dinner at his house, where he was working on his new book. He is spirited, purposeful, mindful, and has endless passion for his work. He told a brief history of Pittsburgh, intertwined with his own of growing up, leaving and returning. It’s a story of dedication and belonging which I think not many people of MY generation are comfortable with, as many seem to be constantly striving for “better”, but without knowing, really, what “better” is. Aside from the stories Frank told about the city, he also gave me insight into the reality of living as a comics maker, which I would not have been privy to, and which until then I really was only guessing at. Some may be disheartened by these sort of conversations, but I am excited by how real it made things for me, despite it being a gauntlet. Topics for the week were: comics making process, the value of comics as a physical object/printing, the strengths of the avant-garde (non-narrative) against those of the narratively structured comic (two very different modes of storytelling), visual literacy, and comics community (inclusive of audience, publishers, comics friends, and family). The talks were long, but the time passed quickly. I tried my best to respect both Sally and Frank’s personal time to work, as they had mine. When Frank approached my work for advisement he was very objective, and I wanted his worst, so that I could do my best. Still, I think he saw my being in the work, and was courteous with his critique. Before coming to Pittsburgh I had half of my comic completed – 25 pages – and I completed the remaining 22 there. I completed as much as I did from August to November of 2016 in a week at the Rowhouse! I won’t say it was easy, but provided with the time to concentrate and motivation from the community, I was happy to put in any amount of time that my work demanded. Any formal education I had before comics was always for painting, and the more serious I allow myself to become about comics making, the more I see they are not so dissimilar. Frank is really great about sharing his knowledge and relating it to that which you came with. He was generous in his talks, while asking me to be accountable for the information I did know. One night Frank had casually presented me with some reading material; recommendations – mostly comics (Yuichi Yokoyama, Rich Buckler) – and among them two catalogues of Philip Guston paintings (it turns out that Frank is not only a comics expert, he is well versed in art history as a whole). Although in the past I have kept Guston as a sort of painting mentor (through books and image), I was surprised when I was presented with these catalogues – to be looking at his work during this comics residency. Phil Guston was a painter who understood the politics associated with images, but always kept a personal relationship with his visual library. Imagine your images are made of characters, places, things, each one a word, a letter, all making up your language. You hold this close to you. This is comics. What follows is an excerpt from a book of collected writings on Phil Guston: “Now, I think the original revolutionary impulse behind the New York School , as I felt it anyway, and I think my colleagues felt it, in the way we talked all the time, was that you felt as if you were driven into a corner against the wall, with no place to stand, just the place you occupied. And it’s as if the act of painting itself was not making a picture, because there are plenty of pictures in the world. Why make more pictures, clutter up the world with more pictures? But it’s as if you had to prove to yourself that truly the act of creation was still possible. Whether it was possible.” (Guston 58) I never expected to have felt this myself, to be able to talk to a group of people about images in such an earnest way – always internal conversation, now externalized. Frank and Sally offered their criticism, and experience, and questioning. I am working everyday to be worthy of comics as my form, and regardless, I put the pen to the paper – but over time I’ve forgotten to ask the big questions. Now I am more than willing to report that while the uninterrupted work time, the comics lectures, and accessible reading material was what whipped me into completing my goal, what I am bringing home with me – more than another book done – is a sense of what true community is, and the importance of holding your peers to standards that will benefit them in the longer run. It’s with great enthusiasm that I support the agenda of Comics Workbook, and the Residency program, and look forward to furthering my involvement with them to make better work (my own and that of others). ————————————————————————————————————— Check out more work by Gloria on her website, follow her on Instagram, and look for her new comic soon! For more information about the Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency visit this page or email santoroschoolATgmail Share this page: [...]

07/06/2018

Sally IngrahamJuly 5, 2018NewsSally Ingraham here with news and comics from Ulli Lust, Hannah Berry, Joana Mosi, and more! ————————————————————————————————— Ulli Lust has an exhibition at Cartoonmuseum Basel, June 30-Oct. 28th 2018. She composed a photo report about the show HERE, for those of us likely to miss it. There is also an article about the retrospective on Aargauer Zeitung, which is a passionate testimony to the effect Ulli Lust and her work has on people. It begins (excuse the rocky translation out of German by Google translate…!): “None draws as furiously as the Viennese Ulli Lust – and no one shows them as affectionately as the Cartoonmuseum Basel. The greeting in the Cartoonmuseum is clear: The painted face of Ulli Lust on the glass pane at the entrance to the exhibition, hair wild, look adventurous. Behind this glass front, so much is now clear, hides an artist who prefers to fall mercilessly, than cautiously gropes. Rather than miss a pretty label. Behind this glass front is Ulli Lust and she does not mean for no reason.“ Decipher the rest HERE – or if you speak German, I hope you enjoy this article. ———————————————————————————————— There is an interesting and quite funny interview with Hannah Berry on Comics Grid about how her comics relate to her interest in law, and vice versa. She is a British cartoonist and the creator of Detectives Britten and Brülightly, among other works. Berry’s work is dark, and serious, and very British (they talk about this in the interview) but as you might expect, she mixes in the right balance of humor. “Thomas Giddens: Just thinking a bit more about the kind of ways you engage with particular issues. Is humour important? It seems like there’s some moments of your work that are quite amusing. In Britten and Brülightly for instance, it’s very dour, it’s very sombre, it’s very serious, and then there’s a talking teabag. Hannah Berry: Yes, yes, I do try to sneak the odd little joke in here and there, because I think you can reach people; there’s something about humour that really connects people. I think it’s a way of really getting onto a person’s wavelength. I mean, maybe some of my humour falls flat—as much as I’d love to be, I’m not looking over everyone’s shoulder as they read my books. Someday, hopefully, with the internet, but who knows. But I do think there’s something with humour that really helps you connect with the reader. It’s a similar thing to horror, I suppose. There’s sort of a build-up and you’re trying to get a very distinct reaction from a person, and I think I can do that. I do a weekly cartoon strip for the New Statesman which is again not really political. I tweet them every week or thereabouts, and the ones I think are the absolute successes, the ones that will probably win me some kind of future prize, they’re the ones that do alright, you know? They’re okay. But the ones that I sort of do in a hurry and I think are less good, they’re the ones that do really well. So maybe my sense of humour is not what everybody else’s is, or maybe I just can’t understand Twitter, I don’t know; maybe I’m doing something a little bit awry, perhaps. But I do think it’s an important factor, yes, and also because, you know, it’s nice to read a funny book every now and then.“ Read the whole interview HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Check out work by Joana Mosi, a Portugese cartoonist and teacher based in Lisbon. Above is part of a short comic that I enjoyed – see the rest HERE. Her most recent book is Spineless Cactus (Nem Todos os Cactos têm Picos) which you can see more of HERE – and read a review about HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Weekend Snacks Nicole Hollander is the guest on Episode 279 of RiYL – check it out HERE. Publishers Weekly talks to Lisa Hanawalt about her upcoming comic Coyote Doggirl (Drawn & Quarterly, Aug. 2018) and all her “weird little horses” – HERE. The Comics Alternative podcast digs into the entire spring catalog from Koyama Press – including new comics by Jessica Campbell and Fiona Smyth. Listen to Episode 285 HERE. The Portland Mercury has a review of Geneviève Castrée‘s last book – A Bubble – published two years after her death, and made for Castrée’s daughter. Frank Young reviews Cathy Malkasian‘s Eartha for The Comics Journal – HERE. Paste Magazine sits down with Alisa Kwitney, the writer behind Mystik U. Read the interview HERE. Mariko Tamaki is the latest guest on Inkstuds – listen HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 7-6-2018 – by Gabriella Tito Share this page: [...]

08/06/2018

Caleb OrecchioAugust 6, 2018NewsCaleb Orecchio here with early morning thoughts and other news. ————————————————————————————————— “Sometimes I think that I know too much.” Talking to a friend recently while he was visiting Pittsburgh, we discussed this feeling of knowing “too much” about comics. The thought seems silly in retrospect. Obviously you can’t know too much about comics, but the breadth of history and accessibility of the medium can be overwhelming. We asked ourselves: Should I try to draw like Jaime Hernandez? Should I try to write like Alan Moore? Should I learn to paint? Will I ever be as good as my heroes? Who is better, Ditko or Kirby? Ware or Mazzucchelli? Bushmiller or Schulz? Fisher or Herriman? Crane or Caniff? Does it matter? Will there ever be another publisher like PictureBox? Was Moebius actually a good cartoonist? Do these pants make my ass look fat? Have you been eating your vegetables? Do you watch gladiator movies? We are frustrated to find that our work does not live up to our knowledge. “It’s a slow process,” we have to remind ourselves. “But Mazzucchelli was working at Marvel while still in college! And Trevor Von Eeden started working for DC on his own character when he was 17! And don’t get me started on Xaime!” Hahahaha! We had a big laugh at the expense of our lack of confidence. What else can we do? Quit? We put the success of our heroes aside, and went back to our drawing boards. ————————————————————————————————— if you don’t know, now you know Matt Seneca wrote about the BWS classic Weapon X over on TCJ.com. Speaking of The Comics Journal, you might know by now that it is coming back as a printed object (separate from TCJ.com). AND Nemo is coming back too! Rob Clough reviews the new King-Cat on High-Low. ————————————————————————————————— 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: [...]

05/02/2016

Posted on May 2, 2016May 3, 2016 by Juan Fernández

Maggie Sutrov’s plein air comics, Dan Nadel chronicles Paper Radio; Clean Sweep; Creators For Creators; Koyama Press in the news; Rokudenashiko; Jason Moran; Remembering Harold Cohen.
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New Comics – Maggie Sutrov
Comics Workbook is featuring a collection of comics drawn and painted by teacher and artist, Maggie Sutrov this week. Made on site and in the moment, these comics represent an under-examined mode of comics making. Join Maggie for a walk on the page. Here’s hoping her work gets you inspired to make observational comics of your own.
Check it out here!

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Inside front cover of Christopher Forgues’s Low Tide #5, November 2001.

Punk and Hippie
Dan Nadel has put together a killer reflection on the collaborative work Ben Jones and Christopher Forgues(CF) did as Paper Radio over on Art in America. It’s something else. A Comics Comics boomerang that smacks you hard across the face. Nadel explores the roots of their comics, growing up in Massachusetts, subversive fan fiction, and the monumental impact of their short lived collaboration in the early 2000s. So many great details in this piece:

Jones and Forgues found their own ways into making comics, but neither made a hierarchical distinction between mediums.Everything was fair game, except perhaps the remote-seeming New York art world. As Forgues recalls, “The idea of being an artist seemed absurd.” The venues, audiences, and markets for gallery art appeared totally foreign. “I’m going to do an installation? Where? I’m gonna paint on canvas? How? Where am I gonna show? At a coffee shop? Art seemed like the past, and a zine was the present and tangible . . . a way to proceed.”

And this one:

Both Jones and Forgues drew, as they still do, in pencil, which was unheard of at the time in professional circles but appropriate for Paper Radio’s primary printing technique: photocopying. Without the need for the photostat process by which older comics were created, there’s no need for ink. They produced flat and open figures through their airy, calligraphic approach. Paper Radio never attempted illusionistic realism; instead, the drawings invite projection from readers, which the artists saw as a way of initiating an intimate exchange with their audience. As Forgues puts it, “I was thinking about how to make this work with the least amount of stuff possible. That sounds easy or lazy, but it’s actually incredibly hard. The whole mission of cartooning is, with a few lines, to bring something across that’s real in the mind. The whole magic of what it is to represent something on a surface. The space is there, and you fill it with your brain.” By foregrounding, and deepening, the interaction that happens in all kinds of reading, Forgues and Jones understood Paper Radio as connected to performance, which was integral to so much of the culture pouring out of Fort Thunder.

Read it all here on Art in America.

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Clean Sweep
CF has released 3 new works that you don’t want to sleep on:
THERMAL PRINTED RECEIPT MAGAZINES PRINTED ON 25ft LONG BPA FREE PAPER
Dumb, beautiful and soon to be out of stock. CF takes on the scroll. Minds are sure to melt.
See what it’s all about over on the Free-CF site.

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A Neo-Xeric Grant
Image Comics and Iron Circus Comics have teamed up to create the Creators For Creators grant. Seems like good stuff for makers who feel they have the chops to get a big break from two independent publishing powerhouses.

The goal of the Creators for Creators grant is to help pave the way for the next generation of comics creators by supporting their work financially and through mentorship, as well as providing opportunities for their creations to reach a wide audience. We plan to give $30,000 to a single cartoonist or writer/artist duo in order to support the creation of a new and original work of a length between sixty-four and one hundred pages over the course of a single year. The recipient will be selected by committee according to rigorous criteria.

Submissions opened yesterday. Learn more here.

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Koyama Corner
Koyama Press has been featured in the culture section of FADER, the music magazine. It’s great to see Koyama Press, and Annie in particular, getting profiled for audiences outside of comics circles. Zainab Akhtar puts together a nice profile of the publisher for folks outside of the very comics publishing bubble that Koyama press has spent it’s existence trying to bust. From the article, here’s Michael Deforge on Annie Koyama:

“She was a comics reader, but Koyama Press didn’t start out primarily as a comics publisher, so she didn’t have that weird, insular point of view that some people who’ve spent too long in comics can develop,” says DeForge. “She didn’t have preconceived notions about what a ‘proper’ comic looked like, what a sellable one looked like, or the formats they should be printed in.”

Check it all out here.

MANKO MANKO MANKO
Robert Kirby takes a good look at Koyama Press’ What is Obscenity by Rokudenashiko over on The Comics Journal. It’s great to see this book make it through people’s hands and gain momentum as a vessel for Rokudenshiko’s thoughts and experiences as a Japanese woman.

Ultimately, Rokudenashiko’s greatest weapon is her refusal to capitulate to the attempts at belittling and dismissing her: when she claims “Rokudenashiko”/”Good for Nothing”, as as her own, she ties herself to a long and noble activist tradition of reappropriation (for example, feminists reclaiming “bitch,” to express strength and independence, and the LGBT community’s use of “Queer” to connote solidarity among its different factions and to state opposition to sexual binaries). Also, she tells us, “I’ve always liked to fight.” The fact that the authorities prove utterly clueless about crowdfunding, among many other things, only strengthens her resolve and defiance.

Read it all on The Comics Journal.

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STAGED in NYC
The work of musician/composer/artist Jason Moran is being exhibited in Bushwick gallery, Luhring Augustine through July 30th. Moran’s work links music and visual art in a way that deeply explores racial entanglements in American cultural production. This exhibition is an especially notable one for how it explores the flow of music through space and time via architecture and the performance of remembered music. It’s jaw dropping stuff.

STAGED will include a range of objects and works on paper, including two large-scale sculptures featuring audio from Moran’s STAGED series that were recently exhibited in the 56th Biennale di Venezia. Based on two historic New York City jazz venues that no longer exist (the Savoy Ballroom and the Three Deuces), the sculptures are hybrids of reconstructions and imaginings. Works on paper and smaller objects will be in dialogue with the stage sculptures on many levels: citing performance and process, employing sound, and exploiting the visual history of jazz in America.

It’s interesting to see how the history of Jazz is treated in the world of fine Art, when it’s not just seen as an ancillary development to the narrative of arts movements. It’s really striking when Jason speaks in the above video about the role and Jason Moran’s body of work speaks to how the music transforms from healing to hurt. Makes you think.

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Harold Cohen Has Passed Away
Last week, on the 27th of April, code artist, Harold Cohen, passed away at age 88.

Cohen, a computer scientist and artist, developed AARON, code which could generate unique visual compositions autonomously in 1973, starting with abstract and later with more representational subjects. Interestingly in the 1990s, Cohen’s compositions were translated to the physical realm, drawn and painted by plotters onto canvas.

The blog, Prosthetic Knowledge, has a good look at his AI and its evolution for those interested in his legacy.

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That’s all for today. Until next time.
Stay dry.

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Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in NewsTagged Brecht Evens

Juan Fernández

Posted on May 2, 2016May 3, 2016

Explore

10/11/2017

Juan FernándezOctober 11, 2017NewsReflections on the existing comics festival paradigm in the United States + your daily strips from Comics Workbook! ————————————————————————————————— Juan here: Expanding the Festival Tool Kit – 2017 has been floating around the internet since Monday and people have been chiming in their thoughts, reflecting on the existing comics festival paradigm. Warts and all. Seeing as how the goal of this post on Comics Workbook was to start a conversation, I’d like to keep that conversation going today. I just came back from CXC 2017 and I am still bathing in its warmth. It’s a good feeling. As I do around this time of the year, I’ve been thinking about the future of comics events in America. How we move into that future. I’m typing out loud, so forgive me for dreaming too big. Comics, as we engage with them today in the United States’ existing festival ecosystem, are facing a cultural choking point. There’s a huge role that comics can and should be playing in broader cultural discussions. But they’re not and our Festivals have something to do with this. It’s 2017 and it is essential to reframe the discussion of comics shows. Comics making and comics reading practices need more breathing room. To grow. To continue expanding. We need to nurture interdisciplinary approaches to experiencing comics. We need our festivals to make this their guiding principle. Read it here. ————————————————————————————————— Rob Clough has posted his reflections on CXC over on The Comics Journal. They touch on many of the things I bring up in the Toolkit, with the focus being on CXC. Check it out: This gets to the heart of what should make a successful comics show. Whatever local resources are available, make sure to use them. If you have a good local comics scene, make sure to include it. If there are beautiful or unusual venues available, take advantage of them. If there’s a local university nearby interested in comics, get their support. If the organizers have ways to incorporate arts other than comics, by all means one should do this. Mixing music, zines, video games, photography, or other arts into the event has been successful for many. Programming should be more than a distraction; it should be carefully considered and the heart of your show. Keep your ambitions low to start, don’t look to make money, and consider getting sponsorships and/or crowdfunding to cover your costs instead of passing it on to the artists and attendees. Below are some thoughts I’d like to highlight from comments here and over on Facebook. They’re loose and scattered but they offer good starting points to several discussions: Hold shows in a nice bar with some music, have a big comic car rally and everyone pull up and sell them out of the trunk of your car, have it at a train station, We keep talking about people reading comics more, well, it we’re only selling them in the same old places, what do we expect. Make it more a part of society, not just social media. – Phil Dokes The Caption Show in the U.K. had the kind of format you’re talking about, you’re free to interact, go to workshops, listen to talks and hangout in the bar and at the end of the show you get a wad of cash from sales at the big mutual table. I went twice and it was beautiful. Location was a big part of it, on the banks of the river in Oxford, England. – Mardou The fear on the part of an organizer of of course is of course that comics makers won’t attend a festival that they are not tabling at. It’s too foreign a concept to many comics makers. They might balk at the idea of having to be involved with programming as opposed to hand selling their books. So, one idea proposed is to make the exhibition aspect of the fest to be geared towards book debuts. The festival becomes an event for press. In such an ecosystem, everyone in local and national press knows that if they want to interview artists, this is where they do it. Like a “Comics-Cannes”. CXC is doing this well, already in its third year. While it’s true that SPX is where a lot of people shoot to debut books, that’s not the focus in the market place. For the most part it’s a free for all. If a festival handled this in a way that was considered across the board… that’d be interesting. – Juan Fernandez Two of the big keys for the future: 1. shows held in places with academic institutions willing to help fund aspects of the show; 2. shows held in places with city councils that earmark money toward the arts. – Rob Clough One other thing that I wrote about in my upcoming article that I think Juan would agree with–simply cloning the flea market +/- some programming model in every city ignores the unique resources that those cities might have available. When putting on a show, it’s important to tap into every local resource possible, be it a library, a university, a unique venue, a blended arts scene, a vibrant downtown, a monthly art walk, a great local comics shop, etc. – Rob Clough creating better transparency about the application process. Some shows are great about this, but others are inconsistent in their messaging. Of course this is tied in to Juan’s point about how a show deals with increased applications and growth. – Whit Taylor I think that The Projects’ “show store” idea (was) a good one, but anecdotally at least 1-2 of the guests felt like they missed out on the part where they interact with the fans/may have had softer sales because of this.The Projects wasn’t really “about” selling books- more about getting artists in dialog and collaboration, but I do feel like something similar that also had dedicated signing times might be a good balance. – Zack Soto After reading the article, I’d have to say that the only reason Short Run wasn’t singled out as part of the way of the future is that the author hasn’t attended. They are fast becoming the hub of the Seattle scene because of their year long programming and outreach. I also think it’s weird that TCAF is listed as “the future” (I agree in many ways) but TCAF is just as much a flea market show about collecting the hot new books by the hot new creators as any other show. Maybe more than most! – Zack Soto That’s a good point about the confusion with seeing TCAF as the future – It’s confusing because it has one of the “hottest” show room floors for buying books out of most show imo – for me the future oriented aspect is the programmatic one with TCAF – In the ways that they link up with cultural embassies from different countries to put together exhibitions and to bring guests to the show + use the city as a campus. CAB does this too but their center of gravity has hovered close to the gymnasium flea market + the gaming/comics/cartooning programming – and the educational panels earlier in the week. There’s also the aspect of how the programming starts up a month or so in advance with happenings across Toronto and then builds up steam for the main weeekend. – Juan Fernandez It would be awesome if someday there was a grand database indexing each individual archive. So if I typed in “Supermonster 12”, it would tell me which archives had physical copies, and where digital copies existed. So much art has disappeared from my generation of cartoonists (1987-2000, roughly), the last generation prior to the internet. That’s why projects like John P. collecting Jenny Zervakis’ book are so important. – Rob Clough I think every good show should consider having a gallery space associated with it. The Laura Park show associated with CXC was eye-opening, but it doesn’t have to be in a formal institution. We did this at DICE, and while it got a little clunky, it helped connect people with original art in a indirect, non-transactional manner. (And people could sell art if they wanted.) – Rob Clough What do you think? ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 10-11-2017 – by Gabriella Tito ————————————————————————————————— Cozytown – 10-11-2017 – by Juan Fernandez ————————————————————————————————— Caleb Orecchio – 10-11-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

03/14/2016

Juan FernándezMarch 14, 2016NewsJuan Fernandez here with lots of interesting bits and bobs from the comics world. There’s something here for everyone. Let’s jump right in. Here’s a juicy one for ya, Rachel Davies in conversation with Julie Doucet over at Rookie Mag! They talk about embracing the unknown and following creativity to new media. Good stuff. Doucet is an interdisciplinary artist that has historically been pigeon holed as solely a comics maker. They talk about all that and more. Read it here. You said you did printmaking in college but did you ever experiment with printmaking when you were younger than that? What did you work in as a teenager? Oh, I was drawing with a felt-tip pen all the time. Did you always see art as something you would do professionally? I guess so, yeah. At the time, there was a crisis in the ’80s so there were no jobs for anybody. You could go to school and be an artist and it wouldn’t make it any difference because you wouldn’t have a job anyway. Being an artist sounded like the right thing to do because I was drawing all the time and I had a talent for it. Robyn Chapman has launched a new crowdfunding campaign to fund the spring line of Paper Rocket Comics. Chapman is smart in how she uses kickstarter as a pre-order system to help defray the cost of production. She has run 7 successful funding campaigns for Paper Rocket so you can be sure she knows what she’s doing. She’s in it for life and it’s worth seeing how she’s does what she does. Learn more about the Kickstarter on their page! Whit Taylor is giving a talk tomorrow on Autobiography, Identity, and Self-Reflection in Comics Tuesday, March 15, 2016 7–9pm Join NYC-based, New Jersey-born cartoonist, editor, and comics writer, Whit Taylor as she talks about her work in the context of autobiography, identity, and self-reflection. She will present and discuss several of her comics, including The Anthropologists, a semi-autobiographical account of three strangers venturing into the Australian Outback together for a week of unexpected adventures, and her most recent work Ghost, a mind-expanding journey to remote and unanticipated landscapes, in a story of exploration, self-discovery, and healing. You can listen and be part of the conversation at the Interference Archive – 131 8th St, Brooklyn, New York 11215. More info over on facebook. Kendra Yee has posted a short new comic that reflects on windows and how we percieve others while securing privacy for ourselves. Great imagery that really breathes and colors that swim together well. – read Part 1 – read part 2 – 2d Cloud has announced the nitty gritty details of Mirror Mirror 2, the second edition of their flagship anthology. It’s going to feature new comics and drawings by: Lala Albert / Clive Barker / Heather Benjamin / Sean Christensen / Nicole Claveloux / Sean T. Collins / Al Columbia / Dame Darcy / Noel Freibert / Renee French / Meaghan Garvey / Julia Gfrörer / Simon Hanselmann / Hellen Jo / Hadrianus Junius / Aidan Koch / Laura Lannes / Céline Loup / Uno Moralez / Mou / Chloe Piene / Josh Simmons / Carol Swain From what they’ve announced, seems that the focus is going to be around horror / pornography / the Gothic / the abject, which should come as no surprise with Julia Gfrörer and Sean T. Collins at the helm. It’ll be out next winter, with some advanced comics floating around in the Fall. And for a little boost in assuring you that what you’re doing is important, how ’bout you reflect on Chuck Jones legacy? Zach over at Practice Positive takes a look at Chuck Jones and what it meant to master both craftsmanship and universality in art. Really useful ideas that can be put into practice by any and all comics makers. Read it here. The whole essence of good drawing—and of good thinking, perhaps—is to work a subject down to the simplest form possible and still have it believable for what it is meant to be. A heads up for you Chicagoans, The Chicago Alternative Comics Expo (CAKE) will be holding its 4th annual art auction fundraiser at 7:00 pm on Friday, April 8th, at the The Hideout Inn, located at 1354 W Wabansia Ave. The event will be hosted by intermedia artist Lyra Hill. The event will feature live and silent auctions of over 20 pieces of art by past special guests and exhibitors of CAKE, including Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez, Eleanor Davis, and Dash Shaw. The event will also feature live comics readings by local artists Samuel Nigrosh. Molly Colleen O’Connell, and Sam Nigrosh. More info here. [soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/249959191″ params=”color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false” width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /] Simon Moreton joined Robin McConnell over on Inkstuds to chat about his new book from Uncivilized Books, Plans That We Made. Simon has a really beautiful minimal style of story telling that works really nicely. Simon’s work can be found in his Smoo mini comics. If you’ve been sleeping on Simon Moreton, I suggest you dig into his work soon. It’s quiet, but extremely grounded work in the tradition of minimal autobiographical cartooning pioneered by John Porcellino. Well worth a listen! This Nicole Georges‘ Sagittarian Matters brings you a BETH DITTO MAILBAG TAKEOVER!!! Musician & fashion designer Beth Ditto & Nicole Georges answer questions & riff on self-deprecation, grace, gratitude, punk feminism, polyamory, and MORE. The self-deprecation riff alone is worth the listen! To close things off, I wanted to let you know that Archive.org has recently made David W Niven‘s incredible archive of early jazz available for download. Feast your ears, babies. 650 tapes · 1,000 hours · 1,378 WAV files · 637 GB · 691 JPEG scans of cassette liner cards & literature. Meticulously Collected, Compiled, and Narrated by David W. Niven, 1930-1993. Generously Donated by David W. Niven to the Foxborough High School Jazz Program, Stephen C. Massey, Director, 2010. Archived to CD-Quality Digital Audio by Kevin J. Powers, 2010-2011.An Early Jazz Recording Collection by David W. Niven over and out, Juan Fernandez Share this page: [...]

07/11/2016

Juan FernándezJuly 11, 2016NewsJuan Fernandez here with: Alyssa Berg’s ALPENGLOW; the passing of Geneviève Elverum; Katie Skelly on “women in comics”; Spurgeon and Boichel on the state of the industry; An Afternoon with Steven Gilbert; Jim Rugg on digesting How to Draw the Marvel; a new auction to benefit the Rowhouse Residency. ————————————————————————————————— Alpenglow – Alyssa Berg I’m happy to announce that we are featuring Alyssa Berg‘s Alpenglow on the site this week. Alpenglow was made in 2015 for the 2015 Comics Workbook Composition Competition. It came in 1st place in that year’s composition competition. ————————————————————————————————— Geneviève Elverum, RIP After being diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer last spring, Geneviève Elverum has passed away. She was 35 years old. (via exclaim.ca) On his GoFundMe page, Phil Elverum shared the following heartbreaking message: Geneviève died today at 1pm. She was truly driven to work and stay living right up to the last minute, insisting on getting up and going to work in her studio way beyond when many would have surrendered to rest. Last night and this morning she declined quickly and receded into her own eyes as her body vetoed her wishes, her lungs filling with fluid. She died at home with me and her parents holding her, hopefully having reached some last minute peace. It’s all very sad and surreal. So much is left unfinished for her. She was a firehose of brilliant ideas that never turned off. We loved her and everything is weird now. Thank you for all the money, all the support and love. Phil Remembering Geneviève: Geneviève Elverum interview by Tom Spurgeon (2012) Geneviève Elverum interview by Naomi Fry on TCJ (2013) A memory with Elverum via Gabrielle Bell’s diary last night The gofundme for the late Geneviéve Elverum to help her surviving family defray medical expenses. ————————————————————————————————— Katie Skelly talks Craft, the medium and Erotic Comics Kristen Korvette interviews Katie Skelly over on Slutist. How tired are you of talking about “women in comics?” Can the conversation move on to something more nuanced/complex or in your opinion is it still a necessity to highlight the gender disparity in your field? I’m so tired that I could be medically dead. It’s historically and culturally ignorant; like, if you don’t know who Marie Severin is and why she’s important, you don’t fucking know comics. Period. To act like women in comics are new and haven’t existed this entire time is bizarre. But I don’t know if comics is ready for a larger conversation because it’s been stalled in the same gear since the ‘60s. I want to see a woman be heralded as a “master of the medium” with the ease Daniel Clowes or Frank Miller are, which is a way that isn’t questioned. Men are masters; women are gifted, or agile in the medium, or whatever… like it’s always coded as a surprise. I think that takes giving more room to non-white guy comics critics, which I do see happening, but it’s very slow. ————————————————————————————————— More comic books than ever. However… Really interesting comments by Tom Spurgeon on the nature of what kinds of comics are being promoted and consumed most heavily over on Comics Reporter. Tom Spurgeon: One of the reasons I think no one trusts critical discourse in comics right now is because that specific point of view on things is so decidedly inarticulate. It was easy in the 1980s to point out how RAW was better than Marvel Two-In-One (yes, even the Project Pegasus run); it’s harder to make the distinctions we’re asked to make now. A solution you often see, where the critic dons the skin of Greg Cwiklik Buffalo Bill-style, sets an even higher bar and destroys the better-crafted work as just another piece of meretricious disposable fluff like it’s 1992 again, that may thrill the hardcore art crowd but wins few minds. In many hands that kind of rhetoric feels just as convenient as those end-of-the-year lists that have a book from every important publisher. It’s not that people need to adjust their standards, but discuss intelligently the ones they have. I get the sense that a lot of people with their end of year lists could swap out another dozen comics for the ones they selected and be perfectly happy writing either article. Don’t get me wrong: I’m public enemy number one here. I barely even write about comics anymore. I was curious as to what this all meant coming from Spurgeon, so I asked Bill Boichel over at Copacetic Comics what his thoughts on Spurgeon’s comments were. Bill Boichel: The books chosen in the lists that Tom references are simply indicative of the broadening and shifting of the variety, options and tastes now on offer in entertainment comics. These books are simply the Archie, Richie Rich, Dennis the Menace, Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, Superman, Batman, Tarzan, Donald Duck, Uncle Scrooge, Bugs Bunny, etc. of today: a variety of entertainment for different tastes and interests whose primary motive is being successful: generating sales and profits, revenue for the publishers and income for their creators but which nevertheless occasionally, through some particular confluence of personal and historical factors, produce works of lasting genius. They are in an entirely different category from comics produced under the aegis of personal motivation, that are consciously created with of artistic and literary ambition, and the goal of which is personal expression, education and illumination of readers, preserving historic and cultural perspectives that are under-represented and/or at risk of being lost, et al, and in which revenue and income are secondary concerns. This distinction of course cuts across all forms, and is certainly not limited to comics, which in fact has only relatively recently reached the point in its development as a form to avail itself of this distinction. ————————————————————————————————— An Afternoon with Steven Gilbert Gabriele Fazio provides an extensive career spanning interview with Steven Gilbert over on Just Indie Comics. Between Gardenback and The Cult of Gardenback you published the first issue of Colville, right? It should be from 1997… Yes, in the beginning it should have been much smaller, like 25 pages, and it had to be only about the confrontation in the schoolyard. It was loosely based on a true crime story, I clipped the newspaper article when it was happening because I remember reading it and thinking “It could be an interesting comic”. But those were just the bare bones, the story began to grow around the episode of the shooting in the schoolyard. I thought to do a 64-pages comic and I had the bones of the story and a lot of the imagery was in my head. I went up to Keswick, a small town 20 minutes up the highway from Newmarket where the facts actually occurred. My friend Jason Williams lived there, so he knew all the neighborhoods. We drove there one day and took photo references I used for the comic. Do you use a lot of photo references, right? Yes, these researches are part of my methodology, because I don’t write scripts… Never? I tried but I never successfully wrote one, when I finish and read a traditional script with panel descriptions, dialogues and so on, usually the ideas just seem stupid and I can’t use them. The only way I can make comics is to sit down and draw. My process of writing is the creation of the comic. ————————————————————————————————— Jim Rugg on digesting How to Draw the Marvel Way Recently, I found a copy of How To Draw Comics the Marvel Way at a local garage sale for a quarter. I had a copy of this book when I was a kid. I found it within a week of declaring my intent to be a comic book artist. In middle school, I lent it to someone who never returned it. My tastes and influences had changed so I never replaced it. Since then, I’ve referenced it in a ballpoint, notebook drawing (mashing it up with Rob Liefeld’s 90s Xtreme Studio style)… ————————————————————————————————— New Private Rowhouse Auction – 7.10-7.14 Last but not least, we have a new private auction up at auction.comicsworkbook.com! Lots of old and new comics for you to take home. email Frank Santoro at santoroschoolATgmail for a password, if you don’t already have one. If you already have a password, it is the same from last week. All funds go to helping keep the lights on and further developing the school. Connor Willumsen is offering commission sketches that you don’t want to miss out on, all at different tiers. Don’t sleep on your chance to get work by this contemporary heavy hitter. ————————————————————————————————— take care of yourselves <3 Juan Share this page: [...]

05/10/2017

Juan FernándezMay 10, 2017los Cómics / NewsEmpezamos el día con los vanguardistas; Vanesa R. Del Rey; La Polola; Ana Tijoux; Alexis Ziritt; Elizabeth Casillas; Carla Berrocal; Fabian Rangel Jr.; y los tebeos de Comics Workbook. ————————————————————————————————— AvanGard – Y Que? Gerardo Vilches escribe sobre la vangardia contemporanea y internacional de los cómics. Su evolucion, su role y su crítica. Hoy existe una generación de autores que no responden al clásico perfil de fan que sueña con trabajar con sus personajes favoritos y replicar aquello que cautivó su imaginación de niño. Por el contrario, muchos de los artistas de vanguardia provienen de otros campos de expresión, han estudiado Bellas Artes, puede que no hayan leído cómic hasta que una novela gráfica cayó en sus manos de jóvenes adultos y no se sienten en absoluto obligados a respetar ningún canon. ————————————————————————————————— ⚡ 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. 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, quien estudió con George Pratt y quien a dibujado con Grant Morrison. Estamos ofreciendo compras adelantadas a un precio reducido. Sigan a Vanesa por Instagram – @vrdelrey – y http://vrdelrey.com/ Le pedimos a nuestro director, Frank Santoro que nos contara un poquito sobre la fuerza feroz y imparable que es Vanesa R. Del Rey. FS: “Vanesa, I’m quite taken aback by your sheer technical ability which seems to be married to a poetic sensibility. There’s a lightness there. Sometimes illustrators with that ability get heavy-handed. Yet you manage the push-pull between these two sides of yourself–because you’re like a samurai. The humble samurai.” VRDR: “It’s about trying to remember that. I can get all this praise, I can get all these amazing responses from strangers, but at the end of the day—I’m still a student. I’m still learning. The crown doesn’t fit. The crown should never fit.” Este intercambio viene de una entrevista que Frank hizo con Vanesa R. Del Rey, que occurio en la Residencia de Comics Workbook en Pittsburgh, PA USA. 2016. FS: 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¡ ————————————————————————————————— Cómics y noticias que me han llamado la atención esta semana: Sol Díaz Castillo y Marcela Trujillo tienen una nueva edicion de La Polola Podcast! En este capítulo las chicas conversan con Ana Tijoux acerca de sus inicios en el rap, su forma de hacer canciones, su vida como inmigrante, la diversidad y mucho más. . Alexis Ziritt os ofrece una serigrafia bien chula del forro de Space Riders #3. Blanco y Negro. Liempo. Poderoso. En la nueva ediction de Revista Cactus, Elizabeth Casillas os trae lo más transgresor e innovador del cómic actual. Pura vanguardia. Ya hace tiempo, las editoriales en Colombia le apuestan a las novelas gráficas, fanzines y libros ilustrados. Conozca cuáles son. The Fine Art Collective ES entrevisto a Carla Berrocal. Fabian Rangel Jr.‘s new comics series “Helena Crash” gets a micro-review. It’s pulse pounding, caffeine fueled, sword swinging, machine-gun firing, car crashing sci-fi adventure comic. You know the type. ————————————————————————————————— Blinkers – 5-10-2017 – by Jack Brougham ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 5-10-2017 – by Sally Ingraham ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 5-10-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

07/31/2018

Aaron CockleJuly 31, 2018NewsGeneviève Castrée and Anders Nilsen; Escher in Industry City; Evolving Floorplans ————————————————————————————————— Writing about A Bubble Anders Nilsen discusses his work on the posthumous book by Geneviève Castrée: It’s often the case that the right solution to a narrative or visual problem feels like it comes out of nowhere. These bubble don’t feel, to me, like “my style,” but they immediately felt right somehow. They aren’t her style either, they are simply what the book asked for, and finally accepted. I very much like that they are, in a way, not a drawing I’ve done on top of hers, but, because they are a literal digital negation of the toothy yellow paper on which she drew, the bubbles manage, in a funny way, to end up behind her work, as a support. At least I hope that’s how it feels to the reader. White is a color of blankness, is the color of an empty page, and of course, of death. ————————————————————————————————— THE MAURITS CORNELIS ESCHER EXPERIENCE In addition to the Escher works on display, the exhibition includes scientific experiments, play areas and educational resources that will help visitors of all ages to understand the impossible perspectives, disquieting images and seemingly irreconcilable universes which Escher combined to create a unique artistic dimension. Among these special installations will be immersive photo booths constructed to emulate Escher’s hypnotic environments. Visitors will be able to photograph themselves “inside” the worlds of M.C. Escher, including the Relativity Room, which turns normal size and scale on its head, and the “Infinity Room,” in which visitors can see their reflection repeated, seemingly, into infinity. ————————————————————————————————— ‘The results were biological in appearance, intriguing in character and wildly irrational in practice.’ Joel Simon (via Boing Boing) on ‘an experimental research project exploring speculative, optimized floor plan layouts.‘ Two simulations, graph-contraction and ant-colony pathing, are used as ‘growth processes’. Graph contraction is a family of algorithms that aim to create visually appealing layouts of a graphs. Ant-colony algorithms are probabilistic methods for finding optimal paths using a hive of emergent agents. Attribute genes encode meta-parameters that control various aspects of the simulations. This is analogous to developmental genes that establish patterns and guide development. Instead of encoding every path of all the hallways, a few attribute genes can optimize the entire layout. The floor plan genome is a weighted, connected and undirected graph. Every desired room is represented with a node gene that contains information such as the room’s size. Connection genes specify two node genes to span as well as a randomly initialized weight; they are added in a random manner until the graph is connected. Adjacency requirements create a subgraph with maximum edge weight. For example, the cafeteria must be adjacent to the kitchen. The genetic encoding is a generalization of NeuroEvolution of Augmenting Topologies (NEAT) that allows the artificial evolution of neural networks to graphs. This applies historical markers to allow crossover of graphs with varying topology. This allows floor plans to differ in the number of rooms they have. ————————————————————————————————— Cement Mixer – 7-31-18 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

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