Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in los Cómics, NewsTagged caleb orecchio, sally ingraham

Juan Fernández

Posted on May 3, 2017May 3, 2017

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Connor Willumsen Draws PRIS from BLADE RUNNER

Chris Anthony DiazMay 24, 2016The Diaz Archiveconnor willumsen’s portrait of daryl hannah as PRIS in ridley scott’s BLADE RUNNER (1982, USA) for my ILLUSTRATED MOMENTS IN CINEMA/TELEVISION collection. the commission done in pencil was completed in 2015. willumsen’s candid portrait taken at CAB 2014 in williamsburg, new york and color by graham willcox Share this page: [...]

08/05/2016

Sally IngrahamAugust 5, 2016NewsFriday, and what a week! Sally here to sift through it with you: I’ve got Audra Stang’s new comic, a bit more time spent with Caitlin McGurk (and Lucy Caswell for good measure!), interviews and words of wisdom from Marjane Satrapi, Emma Watson, Mari Naomi, Yumi Sakugawa, Andrea Tsurumi, and me (in a more official capacity than my usual Friday ramblings…) 1…2…3…GO! ————————————————————————————————— Audra Stang spent a very productive 3 days at the Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency in Pittsburgh, PA, in July, and now she is serializing the comic she made during that time (first page pictured above). See what she has shared so far HERE and look for updates every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday in August! ————————————————————————————————— I (Sally Ingraham) got interrupted the other day while I was working at the Rowhouse, by Frank Santoro and a camera crew, and ended up talking about teaching comics, researching comics, and my ideas about “comics roller derby”. Part One is above – watch Part Two HERE. Expect MUCH MORE from the Comics Workbook Roller Derby league soon…! ————————————————————————————————— Columbus Alive profiled Caitlin McGurk yesterday, and although CW correspondent Harrison Prince mentioned it in our Thursday news post, I wanted to spend a little more time with her. I think McGurk is an incredibly rad lady, and she’s following the sort of path through comics and library science that I aspire to. As the piece states: “Caitlin McGurk was destined to work in the comics industry. There were telltale signs during her childhood on Long Island. She remembers obsessively collecting and organizing comic book cards and admiring the pictures in the “Stations of the Cross” while waiting in the communion line at her Catholic church. “That was probably my first experience with sequential art because there these beautiful stained glass or carved images with a little bit of text,” McGurk said. “I’d study the image and read the text a thousand times.” Following high school, McGurk put out her own mini comics and zines and interned at an auction house where she catalogued – and fell in love with – underground comix (small press or self-published comic books). She interviewed famous cartoonists like Chester Brown for her senior college thesis on memory and consciousness in the graphic novel, and went on to obtain a master’s degree in library and information science from Long Island University.” Erica Thompson via Columbus Alive Caitlin McGurk is now an associate curator at the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum in Columbus, OH. There she is able to stay on target regarding one of her life goals – that is, making her own “…contribution to the world of comic scholarship…about celebrating the unsung history of women in comics.” One of McGurk’s recent pieces of comics scholarship was an in-depth look at the work of Etta Hulme (1923-2014), who was the chief editorial cartoonist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram for 36 years. Caitlin McGurk writes: “During her long and industrious career, Etta provided a consistent voice in cartooning. Her path wasn’t always easy; she was one of the only women to be hired as a full-time newspaper cartoonist, and was frequently carped for her boldly liberal views in a conservative Texan town. Etta laughed off criticism and even threats; her endless wit and terrific determination are best illustrated by her daily cartoons.” – Caitlin McGurk via the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum Blog You can see pictures of some of the Etta Hulme collection that the BICLM hosts HERE, and read more of what McGurk wrote about her! It’s no coincidence that the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum employs incredible women like Caitlin McGurk – after all it was founded by the tremendous Lucy Shelton Caswell (pictured below during a recent interview – we’ll be keeping our ears peeled for it!) Here’s our fearless founder Lucy Shelton Caswell being interviewed today by WOSU about the life of Frank Higgs – Milton Caniff’s dear friend and inspiration for the Terry And The Pirates character “Dude Hennick” A photo posted by Billy Ireland Cartoon Library (@cartoonlibrary) on Aug 3, 2016 at 1:51pm PDT As Tom Spurgeon wrote in a 2014 interview with Caswell: “Caswell is an accomplished author about comics, and has done significant work in bringing cartoon art to bear in the teaching of history. My favorite comics-related moment of 2013 was the long, deserved moment of applause Caswell received during the Billy Ireland opening ceremony. The comics community owes her more than it can ever repay. She is a role-model for every non-creative to work in proximity to this great art form, and for everyone else besides.” – Tom Spurgeon via The Comics Reporter Spurgeon and Caswell dig deep into history and comics and the history of comics in the rest of the interview – check it out HERE. And keep Lucy Caswell on your radar – her work is nowhere near finished. ————————————————————————————————— There is an interesting interview over on Rookie with Yumi Sakugawa – Madeline Keyes-Levine asked her a series of questions and Yumi Sakugawa answered with “…magical, illustrated responses, featuring some cat friends, the pros of self-publishing (pictured above), and an exercise you can do to start meditating literally whenever you want.” Check out the whole thing HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Daniel Barron conducted an interview with Mari Naomi recently for Yay!LA Art and Culture Magazine, and things got intense. “Sometimes you need to cross the line to know where it is. That’s something I think about as I am seated for coffee with illustrator Mari Naomi. After an hour discussing her history and work I feel like I’ve said too much about myself, anxious to tiptoe back wherever the line is. Call it a testament to the honesty of her work, whose loose, confessional nature makes one desire to meet it in the middle.” – Daniel Barron Get to know them both, I guess, HERE. ————————————————————————————————— It really was a big week for women cartoonists, with at least two more items that we found for you. Andrea Tsurumi appeared on the Virtual Memories Show podcast with Gil Roth – “Rising comics star — don’t blame me, that’s what Publishers Weekly just called her — Andrea Tsurumi joins the show to talk about her new collection, Why Would You Do That? (Hic & Hoc Publications). We get into her off-kilter sense of humor and why I love it, why she chose that title, the most sadistic children’s book ever written and why she adapted it, the comics industry’s saving grace (it’s too small to fail), staged photos during the Civil War, the challenge of teaching comics, her attempt at a work/art/life balance, the comics, cartoons and picture books that influenced/warped her, why she left New York, the truth about cakes vs. pies, and more!” – Gil Roth Give it a listen HERE! Then of course there is the Emma Watson/Marjane Satrapi interview for Vogue that is making Harry Potter fans, at the very least, learn a thing or two about comics. And feminism. And Iran. It’s really quite good. “…I think it’s extremely important that we try to change our lives around ourselves. When I was 30 years old, I said, “I’m going to change this world,” and after 10 years, the world was changing me. I became a cynical person who did not believe in anything anymore. And so I said, “I am losing even myself,” and then decided “Okay, from now on I’m going to change myself, and if I change myself, I have changed a little bit of this world. I will try to be a better person.” I don’t always succeed in that because the nasty side of me is big, but I try . . . I try.” – Marjane Satrapi Read the rest HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Let’s keep up this pace, ladies! And the rest of you too of course. Don’t let the doldrums of summer get you. More comics news coming your way Monday – till then, cheers. – Sally Share this page: [...]

The Comics That My Parents Read

Gloria RiveraApril 25, 2017EssaysI’ve been meaning to write something about these comics since I found out about them a year ago. Before this I never knew my parents read comics in their youth. They both grew up in Mexico (b. 1964 and 1966) in small pueblos, and left their houses at 14 and 19 to work. I was so curious as to what interested them enough as kids to capture their attention week after week. What captivated them had to actually interest the town as a whole in order to be read. They explained that children in the pueblos were poor and could only afford an issue here and there, and swapping comics with other kids was the only way they could finish the adventures. Even more removed – they paid to read to whichever child in the pueblo had the issue they needed to read next. For reference of the sort of social ecosystem my parents grew up in, my father herded sheep on a mountain and my mother was from a poor family of 5, leaving her house at 14 to work at an orphanage. Their childhood has eluded me most of my life, and I was curious as to the kind of stories that would be popular to humble roots like theirs. The majority of the comics I will be introducing were created in the 1960’s and 1970’s. From the 1930’s to the 1970’s the comics industry was strong in Mexico, with their own original titles in addition to translated American versions. La pequeña Lulú (Little Lulu) and La Mujer Maravilla (Wonder Woman) – both pictured above – were enjoyed, alongside comics of Mexican origin such as Chanoc (1959), Kaliman el Hombre Increible (1965), Rarotonga (1951), and Hermelinda Linda (1965) among many others. ————————————————————————————————— Going by year of debut, Rarotonga is a series within the larger comics title of Lagrimas, Risas y Amor (Tears, Laughter, and Love) published by Editorial Argumentos (also known as EDAR). Rarotonga is drawn by Antonio Gutierrez and has a total volumes of 216 issues. Other titles by Gutierrez include Yesenia, Rubí, and El pecado de Oyuki. Rarotonga (excerpted from above) tells the story of a jungle queen/goddess of the eponymous island, who seduces a professor/doctor visiting the isle – she is the goddess of love and death after all (as are all women). She has special powers she attempts to use upon the foreigner (who needs lust when you can magically seduce any man with your powers, right?) However he seems to resist her – for the sake of his pre-established marriage. Rarotonga is essentially a jungle-novella, suitable for the publication Lagrimas, Risas y Amor which ran romance comics, which were often adapted into films and telenovelas. The story itself is more than a trashy love story, as it also touches on themes of western civility and reason against uncolonized magic and lust. Visually, Mexican comics around this time have this value-heavy shaded look to them, and as the distribution later increased for comics in Mexico the comics were reprinted in color (speculatively lowering the quality of the comic artwork). The sepia tone comics (Rarotonga and Kaliman) initially enjoyed at fully newsprint size, later were reduced to the size of a pulp novel (4.5 x 7 roughly). Eventually comics in Lagrimas, Risas y Amor reached audiences in Spain, Venezuela and even Japan. The bodacious Rarotonga was liked by women as much as men. In a society where machismo reigns, Rarotonga piqued the interest of young women. (However, as it was told to me, boys would tease girls in the pueblos with big asses – calling them “Rarotonga”!) ————————————————————————————————— Chanoc, written by Martin de Lucenay and Angel Mora, are “adventures of sea and jungle”, that take place in the Gulf of Mexico. Chanoc is our rebellious hero who little by little sees a change in character as he adventures and protects his older godfather, Tsekub. Chanoc is developed within the port of Ixtas – the names and setting are all of Mayan origin, Chanoc being a deity in myth, but a pearl diver in this adventure. This is interesting because in Mexican comics history, pre-Columbian codices are arguably Latin America’s earliest form of comics. Mora draws Chanoc influenced by 1950’s and 60’s American comics, without letting go of themes and story traditions found in Mexican comics. Chanoc begins as a simple story of a young man against the sea, but eventually our protagonist is responsible for convincing the Mexican government to spend their economic resources on feeding the hungry instead of contracting more arms. This is all done with a flair of humor of course, which reflects on Mexican cinema of the time (Cantinflas and Tin-Tan) – political but humorous. ————————————————————————————————— Kaliman (above) is one of the most popular Mexican comics, which ran for 26 years starting in 1965. The first printing of 100,000 copies sold so quickly it had to be reprinted the same week of its launch. The series covers 39 different stories from 1965 to 1991. The story of Kaliman began as a radio show, in 1963, and with popularity became a comic book in the next few years. The comic is drawn by Rene del Valle. Kaliman is born in a fictitious setting in India. In the kingdom of Kalimantan he is found in a floating basket by a prince, Abul Pasha, who adopts him as his own son. Kaliman is later kidnapped with the intention of murder, and escapes. As Kaliman’s quest continues, he travels to other regions such as Tibet, and develops himself through teachings of judo, karate, and jiu jitsu, defeating enemies and defending justice. Like Rarotonga, Kaliman was originally printed in sepia tones, with an unpopular color reprint afterward. ————————————————————————————————— Hermelinda Linda is a satirical comic published between the decade of the seventies and the end of the eighties in Mexico by Editormex Mexicana, and later released as two films. The author of the original Hermelinda Linda series is controversial – traditionally attributed to Óscar González Guerrero, but in a different publication to José Cabezas García. The actual comic itself began under the title “Brujerias” (Witchcraft) and was re-named to sell better to its superstitious audience. The character of Hermelinda Linda is a vulgar looking witch who uses her sorcery to achieve the desires of her clients and herself. She has the ability to change into beautiful women, animals, anything with her potions, and uses her gifts to do odd jobs for others that come to her. The comic relies heavily on dark comedy, macabre, and mischief – jokes between the heinous Hermalinda Linda and beautiful women, and double entendre jokes. Below are some frames from the movie. Share this page: [...]

01/22/2016

Juan FernándezJanuary 21, 2016Newshello world, Lots of little things for you to nibble on today. Emily Carol just published her newest work Some Other Animal’s Meat on her website emcarroll.com. A quotidian tale of body horror and physical anxiety, it’s a smartly paced vertical scroll comic that breaks the story up into nine short black and white chapters. There’s an eerie calm through it all. Great stuff. Horror fans take note. Benjamin Urkowitz‘ newest comic, The Beauty Theorem is out at Hazlitt Magazine. Cheeky, spirited reflection on the rigorous, scientific study of metaphysics and its intersection with universal poetics. Heady concepts paired with goofy, cartooning and beautiful coloring. Steep yourself in it. Julian Lytle visits and chats with SPX’s Warren Bernard about forgotten Black Cartoonists, cooning, collecting comics and art, and of course SPX. So I had the pleasure of meeting and talking to Warren Bernard, executive director of @spx and author of the book Cartoons for Victory. I met him at this past year’s SPX and was kind enough to invite me over to his house to see his extensive collections of comics, cartoons, and books library then to talk to me for this here show. This might be the closest to an interview I’ve done so I hope you enjoy it. Check out the blog post to see some a pic of stuff from the visit and please check out @spx if you haven’t and a link to the book. [soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/242740702″ params=”color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false” width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /] “An Art of Intervals” is raising is an upcoming art show that features the work of four young female comic artists, Abigael Puritz, Wendy Xu, Grace Passerotti, and Autumn Crossman. Showing at the Brooklyn, New York arts space, Tarot Society, from February 26th through February 28th, they hope to raise the funds to cover the cost of shipping the work to the gallery as well taking care of the expenses of opening night. Additionally, they are in the process of making new work specifically for this show to be released on the opening night. The majority of the funding will go toward collecting and publishing all of this new work in a zine that will be available both through this fundraiser and at Tarot Society for the duration of the show. Cameron Weston Nicholson has just reached the halfway mark in his fundraiser goal of $1,500 to acquire a risograph machine for selfpublishing in the RVA community. You can learn more on how to support his effort by hopping on over to his gofundme campaign. Having this printer will not only let me make a name for myself in the comics world but also be able to become a publisher in the future! I’ve got awesome ideas and big goals for my future and i want to share those possibilities with you. One major thing i can help is representation of people of color in the comic’s world. It is a goal to help push that forward. (One of the many goals) Giving the opportunity to share their stories to the world. Giving ones the chance to read this stories from beautiful people, beautiful story tellers. Once i obtain the printer I’ll have to do a few test runs to get used to the machine and get all of the kinks out. So a few months after acquiring the printer I’ll be able to open up shop for local (Virginia) jobs only. Later this year i should be able to open up shop for the US, and in the future internationally. It’s honestly going to take a lot to get that far but with your help I’ll be able to start this long journey. Share this page: [...]

Comics As Music – Frank Santoro

Sally IngrahamNovember 12, 2016ClassesPIX April 2nd 2016 Filmed by Michael Pisano – Edited by Michael Pisano and Sally Ingraham Share this page: [...]

05/03/2017

Posted on May 3, 2017May 3, 2017 by Juan Fernández

Empezamos el día con unlocalizador de residencias; Liniers y Julieta Botto; Los Premios Eisner; Acción Cultural Española; Power Paola y Serge Bloch; Vanesa R. Del Rey; La Política Retratada; Alfonso Zapico y los tebeos de Comics Workbook.

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Localizart.es
Infórmate sobre las residencias artísticas a las que puedes optar en Europa y América Latina como creador de cómics. Puedes utilizar el localizador de residencias y espacios para la producción artística en América Latina AQUI.

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En un intercambio más que entretenido, Liniers conversa sobre cómics, literatura y sobre su propia editorial, la editorial común con Julieta Botto:

JB -Tu proyecto editorial es de cómic, pero, a la vez, pareciera que se acerca más al de libro de arte. ¿Cómo definirías a La editorial común?

L -A La editorial común no la veo como de libros de arte, la veo como de libros de cómic. Es una editorial de novelas gráficas, si se quiere, y de algunos libros de humor gráfico, pero eso es del mundo del cómic. La razón por la que comenzamos con esta editorial es porque la Argentina es una especie de usina muy gigantesca y muy poderosa de artistas dentro del mundo de la historieta, y muchas veces veía que libros de autores argentinos se publicaban en Europa, se publicaban en los Estados Unidos y no se publicaban en la Argentina. Es como si los discos de Calamaro o las películas de Darín no se vieran en la Argentina, me parece que estamos cometiendo un error cultural. Así que la idea de La editorial común fue usar Macanudo, que sabemos que es un libro que se vende, para bancar, por ahí, libros que son más difíciles de vender, pero que son mucho mejores que Macanudo. Y para encontrar ese tipo de material, buscar autores nuevos en América Latina. Traer libros de afuera que ayuden a abrir la cabeza al público argentino. Esa es un poco la idea.

Léela AQUI!

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Cómics y noticias que me han llamado la atención esta semana:

Los Premios Eisner colocan siete obras con firma española entre lo mejor del tebeo. Paco Roca, Emma Ríos y Albert Monteys entre otros!
Atención autores españoles de cómic: Acción Cultural Española convoca a su residencia de novela gráfica en Angouleme.
Un diálogo dibujado por Power Paola con Serge Bloch para Revista Arcadia.
Vanesa R. Del Rey tiene 3 obras increibles en el Line Art show de Gallery Nucleus. Por supuesto, estan en venta!
No os perdáis esta exposición, La Política Retratada, que repasa la relación humor gráfico y política a través de 200 viñetas en el Palau Robert Barcelona si estas de visita!
Reseña de la segunda entrega de La Balada del Norte de Alfonso Zapico en 13 Millones de Naves. Otro logro gráfico-histórico!
Ya podéis ver la entrevista completa que le hizo Carlos Reyes a Carla Berrocal en la Plop Galería durante mi estancia en Santiago. El programa se grabó el 28 de marzo en Plop Galería, Santiago de Chile.

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Suzy and Cecil – 5-3-2017 – by Sally Ingraham

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Joanie and Jordie – 5-3-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio

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Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in los Cómics, NewsTagged caleb orecchio, sally ingraham

Juan Fernández

Posted on May 3, 2017May 3, 2017

Explore

San Diego Comic-Con International 2018

Chris Anthony DiazJuly 24, 2018The Diaz ArchiveMy first Comic-Con ever! So my apologies, I tried my best to take as many photos as possible, but this show is overwhelming, yet a lot of fun. Also, I lugged around too much stuff to get signed, which i brought — yes excuses! Anyways, this is all I ended up with despite going in with a more extensive list of cartoonists I wanted to photograph! Oh well, hopefully next year I end up taking more. San Diego Comic-Con International 2018, downtown San Diego Convention Center Exhibit Hall, Thursday, July 19, 2018 Share this page: [...]

03/23/2018

Sally IngrahamMarch 22, 2018NewsSally here covering over 100 years of women making comics, from Rose O’Neill to Dale Messick to Fiona Smyth to Jessica Campbell, and much more! ————————————————————————————————— Koyama Press always has a terrific lineup of new comics, and the Spring 2018 collection is no exception. I’m particularly excited for Jessica Campbell‘s comic (pictured above), the first lengthy story she’s told for a long while. Although I enjoy her comics which appear regularly on Hyperallergic (there’s a particularly funny one HERE, about “Residencies” vs. “Retreats“) and got a kick out of 2016’s Hot Or Not: 20th-Century Male Artists (also from Koyama Press), I am always left wanting MORE from Jessica Campbell. Therefore, I am thrilled to report that the new work, XTC69, is chapters long (120 pages!). And a quick look at review copy PDF proves that it is funny and weird and drawn in a 6-panel grid…and I made myself stop reading since I want to save my joy for the real thing. Coming out in May! Here’s the blurb on it: “Explorers from an all-women planet have found men to breed with, but have they found studs or duds? Commander Jessica Campbell of the planet L8DZ N1T3 and her crew are searching for men to breed with when they discover the last human on Earth, the cryogenically frozen Jessica Campbell. With a new, but familiar crewmember, the search for men continues, but will it be worth it?“ This is a great time to mention that Jessica Campbell was the most recent guest on Anya Davidson‘s podcast – listen to Mindkiller Episode 12 HERE. ————————————————————————————————— I am perhaps equally excited for Fiona Smyth‘s collection Somnambulance, also out from Koyama Press in May. Another cartoonist whom I want more of in my life, this is 300+ pages of Fiona’s work, spanning her career by showcasing comic strips and mini comics and other work from the mid-80’s through 2017. “Over thirty years of comics that feature Fiona’s world of sexy ladies, precocious girls, and vindictive goddesses is revealed in all its feminist glory. This is recommended reading for sleepwalkers on a female planet.“ Black and white, and color, this is going to be a real pleasure to dig into. Fiona Smyth has been working steadily for 30 years, and is a real inspiration to me. With this collection, I look forward to having something new to put into the hands of other women who are interested in reading and making comics! ————————————————————————————————— If you are in any of the cities listed above, be on the lookout for Aline Kominsky-Crumb, the force of nature herself, on the move along with her new book Love That Bunch (Drawn & Quarterly, May 2018) which collects her autobiographic comics and tells the tale of a woman “coming of age” in the 1960’s as only Aline could. HERE is the list of events and details about who Aline will be caught in conversation with. Love That Bunch will be another career-spanning collection, with comics from the 1970’s along with a new story. You can read more about it HERE, and see an excerpt from it HERE. ————————————————————————————————— The Fabulous Fifties is one of those “fabulous” archival blogs, where a collector posts scans of old comic strips, etc. This one is run by Ger Apeldoorn, and he has a vast collection of stuff. The blog is a treasure chest. A recent post offers up several dozen comic strips, all of which were published on Apeldoorn’s birthday, Sunday March 15th, 1959. I skimmed through the list with great pleasure, and found a couple of strips to share here today. Above is a strip by Gladys Parker, one of the very few female cartoonists who was working between the 1930’s and 50’s. She took over Ethel Hays‘ popular strip Flapper Fanny Says before developing her own strip, Mopsy, in 1939. Mopsy was very successful, and Gladys drew it until 1965. Below is one of the Brenda Starr, Reporter strips by Dale Messick. The series began in the mid-40’s and was at the height of it’s popularity in the 50’s. Dale Messick drew it until 1980, after which it was carried on by a couple of individuals or writer/artist teams – all of them female. Ramona Fradon took it over from Dale Messick, and when the strip concluded in 2011 (!) it was being written by Mary Schmich and drawn by June Brigman. ————————————————————————————————— Last but not least Smithsonian.com has an article about Rose O’Neill (b. 1874) and her iconic creation – Kewpies (one pictured above). These benevolent elves/cupid-like creatures were an national sensation, starring in comics and becoming a doll, etc. Rose O’Neill started out as the only woman on staff at Puck magazine, but the success of Kewpies brought her fame and wealth, and a better platform to fight for women’s right to vote and other issues of gender and racial equality. Read all about her HERE. Lynda Barry (herself!) covers Pénélope Bagieu‘s Brazen: Rebel Ladies Who Rocked the World for The New York Times Book Review – read her thoughts HERE. (There’s an interesting discussion of the dramatic difference that a small decision made: removing Bagieu’s handwritten text – in French, for the strips as they originally appeared in Le Monde – for generic “handwritten” block text in the English version…) Meredith Gran is running Octopus Pie again from the beginning – so new readers, now is your chance to hop on board. I would say that this is a pretty rare occurrence for a webcomic, and there is even an article on Slate about that, and why you should read it. Octopus Pie kicked off (again) on March 19th 2018 – read it HERE! Philippe Leblanc reviews Kiku Hughes‘ The Ghosts We Are and the Ghosts We Will Be – on The Comics Beat. ————————————————————————————————— Announcing the Spring Semester of thee Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers 8 weeks! $500 bux! 10 spots available! Rolling start date because of spring break – start as early as March 30th 2018. Deadline to apply is April 12th. Read all about the course HERE and email santoroschool@gmail.com for more details or to apply. ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 3-23-2018 – by Gabriella Tito ————————————————————————————————— Share this page: [...]

02/25/2016

Juan FernándezFebruary 25, 2016Newsdamn, it’s cold and gray in Pittsburgh. Bummer. Gotta get toasty somehow… thankfully Tara Helfer‘s got a little 10-panel winter ditty for you. Great pantomime of a hungry young troll girl. Interesting, subtle designs that leave you excitedly filling the narrative blanks. It’s the kind of comic that leaves you smiling imagining the before and after of the sequence. Read her comic here. – Jillian Tamaki has a new comic out on Hazlitt entitled Boundless. She glides through the animal kingdom, giving the reader a taste of what life is like for several critters. The comic is a great empathetic exploration of the human in the natural. No panels, just images and words swimming together. Hop on over to Hazlitt.net to read Boundless. – Tyler Landry has uploaded the gory, grotesque glory that is Shit and Piss 3 over on Ello. It’s a glorious, carnal, fetid, sumptuously human 16 pages. Beautifully choreographed action, spliced with strong poetic imagery. Dive into the muck and give it a read. – If you haven’t yet heard through the grapevine, Sally Ingraham and Maggie Umber are hosting a drawing challenge over at the comicsworkbook.tumblr. It’s the Gato Gif Competition. Do you like to draw? Do you like cats? Do you want to win comics books from Comics Workbook and 2dcloud? Then you best get the inside scoop on the Gato Gif Challenge from Maggie and Sally! – Emma Rios and Hwei Lim Reflect on their collaboration for their work on Image’s new miniseries Mirror. It’s a standalone narrative where the duos been collaborating in new and leftfield ways, dipping into the experimental waters with gusto. Rios, known as the artist on Pretty Deadly, here writes for Lim. Sit down with the two of them over at Comics Alliance and learn more about their collaboration. CA: How have you found the collaborative process together? HL: Emma is incredibly open to all my crazy suggestions, and extremely forgiving of my countless silly questions and backtracking and forgetfulness! ER: Beyond the obvious beauty of her lines and colors, Hwei’s brilliant narrative, and her ability to make characters feel, have always stood out from anything I’ve ever seen. She turns everything into twice as nuanced with very little, a glance, a wink, a joke… in a way that looks almost effortless and natural. If you don´t draw it’s hard to imagine how difficult that is but, literally, it’s bringing life to the pages. Analyzing how she is building Mirror, and comparing the result with what I would have done myself is mind-blowing for me as an artist. If I were the one drawing the book, this story would have looked grittier and more disgusting, because I’m rather visceral and sometimes I just can’t restrain myself when drawing violence and similar stuff. But this light she brings … has transformed the story even since before I started writing a single line. It allows us to work on another level, with cuteness and humor, and is taking the tragedy to a whole new level of pain, haha… The eyes she draws are the saddest eyes, and if they belong to a caged animal, man… I don’t even know how I can even deal with it. Actually I’m always apologizing to her each time I send her stuff that is twisted with a, “Sorry, I’m a horrible person” but she seems to enjoy it. There’s a nice interview with Conor Stechschulte at Broken Frontier. They dig into lots of really interesting aspects of Conor’s comics making processes and the evolution of his creative interests from his years studying art at MICA with the Closed Captioned Comics crew to present day. Read all the nitty gritty here. [and you can pick up Generous Bosom 1 and 2 at the Breakdown Press online store here. ;)] With up to 25 panels per page, the pacing of your comics seems very carefully laid out. Do you plan it out carefully? When I get down to planning the pages, I do work a good deal on it. I think a lot about timing and focus, especially on where the page turns fall. I write out dialog, then thumbnail pages, then do a “Scratch” version of the full-size page, then lightbox the finished drawing from there, and I’m making changes at every stage. Share this page: [...]

10/11/2018

Caleb OrecchioOctober 11, 2018NewsCaleb Orecchio here with some comics I bought from The Billy Ireland’s overflow collection. ————————————————————————————————— This year at CXC, The Billy Ireland Museum was selling comics, magazines, fanzines and books from their collection. These were items that they had multiples of and needed to purge to make space. It was a treasure trove. I passed up a lot of good stuff, but am incredibly happy with the few things I did pick up. I basically picked up trash. I love comics trash. Comics trash is beautiful. Shopping for comics with Frank Santoro and Jim Rugg really made me appreciate this facet of comics. “You’ll never see this again,” they always say when they come across some forgotten comic that was self-published in West Virginia in 1986. One of my favorite aspects of comics is finding this wonderful garbage and then showing it to everyone who is willing to look. I passed around these books like a crazy person with a shopping cart passing out occult books and warning people to not join the boy scouts because they will use you (some people react to these comics in the same way one would react to a crazy person). Others are fellow admirers. When I showed showed some of these comics to Nate McDonough, he picked up this gospel and spread it around to more people. I flipped one of the comics, a William Black comic, I got and sold it to Chris Pitzer, a fellow admirer. “Are you sure you want to sell it?” he asked. Yes! Finding and subsequently showing this stuff around is the best part of the process! Below are the comics I bought, minus Tara of the Lost Continent which I flipped to Chris. Obviously not everything is “trash.” I found a Chinese comic and a Jewish comic about the power of prayer. I use the term “trash” to refer to comics that people don’t want or care about for whatever reason. There is also an issue of The Comics Journal herein which is obviously far from trash. Maybe a better word to use is weird? You decide! ————————————————————————————————— The Lair of Madness No. 1 by various artists (Ellen Balliet, S. Geary, L. Ogan, Dale and Jim Pinkoski, 1972 (D.B. Features) ————————————————————————————————— *someone will have to help me out with the info on this one. I can’t read Chinese ————————————————————————————————— Mendy and the Golem vol. 2 no. 1 written by Leibel Estrin and drawn by Dovid Sears. Colored by Barry Grossman. 1982 (Mendy Enterprises) ————————————————————————————————— The Comics Journal no. 120 edited by Gary Groth, 1988 (Fantagraphics) ————————————————————————————————— Photo by Chris Pitzer featuring Kurt Ankeny and a dumpster diver. See you on Monday folks! I promise I will have the review of Andrew White’s Yearly 2018 I have been hinting at then. ————————————————————————————————— Share this page: [...]

03/15/2018

Comics WorkbookMarch 14, 2018NewsSam Ombiri on Benjamin Marra’s Night Business. ————————————————————————————————— Sam Ombiri here: When I first read Night Business by Benjamin Marra I was really mesmerized. I was coming into the book with Terror Assaulter in the back of my mind – and it had blown my mind. Reading Night Business feels like trying to look up at the sky but then having your head forced to the ground, the ground that you were avoiding looking at because of the mess afoot. At the beginning of the comic, however, Marra gives good reason for the reader to engage with it. I mean it’s not like this isn’t a fun book to read, but the calamity that the characters face feels all too real, and the hope that they reach for seems even more real. At least until nearly the end of the book it does. How can I not keep reading; I can’t! For example, at the beginning we are introduced to a character who is just awful, but the death that she almost immediately suffers kind of counterbalances how awful she is, and I suddenly found myself really sympathetic to this character whom I had disliked. To me it’s just like “How?” I mean murder is such a horrific thing to witness, and Marra goes out of his way to present the murder (and really all the other murders in the book) in the most perverse extreme possible, but the narration of what happened and the way it happened was lyrical and unexpectedly heartfelt. The book was mourning for the tragedy it was indulging itself in a couple seconds ago and the “mourning”, so to speak, doesn’t feel any less heartfelt. There’s another character who sums up that while Krystal wasn’t the nicest person she didn’t deserve to die like she did. Then next time this killer strikes it’s with a much more likable character, and it’s more devastating. I’ll admit I was pretty suspicious of how well Ben Marra knew what my reaction was going to be towards the first character’s death. I’ve been going back and forth on whether the reader should be told what to feel so well; as in the proper reaction being dictated for the reader to have. It seems important for a maker to dictate or at least consider what the reader’s reaction should be, but there’s something that’s a bit disheartening, as reader, to know that the author has gone ahead of me to dictate what I should feel. At the same time, however, that’s what I kind of expect a maker to present to me; isn’t it? There’s this brilliant thing that Austin English said: “Cartooning is made up of artistic choices (like all art) but also information. Bad when info is used unsubtly (most biography comics), interesting when silently embedded into every choice.” That’s what constantly impresses me with Marra’s work – that the information, as Austin puts it, is “silently embedded into every choice.” The comic is also a constant rush, but with a lot of finesse. It’s like watching a Ballerina dance gracefully to heavy metal. The clock is ticking and with every panel I feel it ticking. The bodies are, sadly, piling. At points, one of the main characters (Johnny) keeps taking these pills that give him extra strength, so there’s a moment where he’s captured and we spend that part of the comic just waiting for the torture he’s going through to activate the effects of the pills he took. It’s really cool how this is an element – it’s like a countdown inserted in another count down which causes me to get more invested in the story. It reminds me a lot of Man O’ Metal, where the bulk of the comic is where this superhero is powerless unless electrocuted or set in flames. So there are moments in both these comics where everything becomes about waiting for the character’s powers to activate, to get him out of whatever hurdle he’s in. I resonate with this idea of being empowered by what would ordinarily kill you, which also feels like a major theme in Night Business. Especially with this other character, Cathy, who goes through the most radical shift after she’s been attacked and becomes this unstoppable vigilante. Her transformation is also really lyrical – both the words and the sequence of events and how they’re presented have this amazing feeling. I heard Marra describe Night Business as climbing a mountain after a lot of false starts in trying to make comics. I’m assuming he’s talking about the first part – he clearly feels no qualms in confronting any challenge, be it the way the story unfolds, or the subject matter, despite how impossible it might feel to execute. At no point does it feel like Marra was second guessing himself, but I did get the sense that what he was trying to pull off was difficult, and I could see all the work that went into certain moments when reading it. – Sam Ombiri ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 3-15-18 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

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