Aaron here today with Kyung Me Comics; RIP Pepe; Review of Crickets 6; Interview with Keiler Roberts; Dash Shaw at SVA; Font Maps
—————————————————————————————————
Copy Kitty
The featured comic on the CW site this week is Copy Kitty, by Kyung Me.
—————————————————————————————————
Pepe the Frog, RIP?
Marykate Jasper talks about Matt Furie’s ‘Death of Pepe the Frog’ comic, whose wake was recently depicted in Fantagraphics’ World’s Greatest Cartoonists comic for Free Comic Book Day:
Feelings-wise, I’m a little torn. I love Furie’s bold, take-that rejection of a hate group’s co-opting of his art. But I’m also sad that true control of this fun, easily meme-able character was taken from him in such a way. It must be disturbing to see your “blissfully stoned” frog character used by actual Nazis to facilitate jokes about genocide and hate.
—————————————————————————————————
‘This could be the final chapter of Blood Of The Virgin, or it could not.’
arecomicsevengood posted about Sammy Harkham’s most recent issue of Crickets, #6:
The scenes of driving around L.A. seem like they were researched specifically to achieve the pleasure someone takes in seeing the area where they live in a movie, taken from a time before they lived there. This new issue is good scene after good scene, capturing a flow of feelings. There is none of the internal monologue that makes up the sort of novels I mentioned. It’s unspoken, one can read that sort of thing elsewhere if they want to fill in the blanks. One feels as if it’s totally possible the characters might have read these sorts of novels, just as they go to see the sort of movies they’re making. The work alluded to fills in the milieu of the character’s emotional landscape.
—————————————————————————————————
‘It happens to be mine, but I no longer need people to connect to me because of it.’
Krystal DiFronzo talks with Keiler Roberts, whose new book, Sunburning, debuts this weekend at the Toronto Comic Arts Festival:
KD: I’ve always found your pacing dynamic and this book is a great example of it. Some of the bits are one page snapshots while others develop into fully realized memories or mini-memoirs. There’s no dividing line between them, no titling to alert the reader immediately that one chapter has ended while another has begun. It connects all the stories in a way that feels most alike actual memory and thought. One moment you focus on a trauma and another moment your daughter, Xia, is saying some genius line like, “My tummy is horrified.” This feels very deliberate, how do you go about planning your books?
KR: Thank you! When I’m writing individual stories, I don’t know where they’ll be located in a book. I lay them all out on the floor and find an order that creates an emotional line that I like. I’m drawn to contrast and inconsistency. Maybe it’s the effect of bipolar rapid cycling on my personality, or maybe it’s just that jokes are funnier when they’re paired with something dark.
The themes that emerge aren’t planned before I begin. I didn’t set out to write so many stories with a medical component. I’d like to write more about my close friends and my teaching job because they are huge parts of my life that make only brief appearances in the book. This is where the line exists that separates my stories from my life, though. Powdered Milk has never been a totally accurate picture of my life. It’s all honest and true, but so much is excluded. It might just be about timing, though. I finally wrote Xia’s birth story, which wasn’t traumatic at all. I can’t predict which events will turn into comics, or when.
—————————————————————————————————
Dash Shaw Discusses the Unique Beauty of Comics and More [Video]
Next up in the SVA Features series is Dash Shaw (BFA 2005 Illustration), a comic book writer/artist, animator and author of the critically acclaimed graphic novels Cosplayers, Doctors, New School and Bottomless Belly Button, published by Fantagraphics. He has also written Love Eats Brains (Odd God Press), GardenHead (Meathaus), The Mother’s Mouth (Alternative Comics) and BodyWorld (Pantheon Books). Shaw’s feature-film debut, My Entire High School Sinking into the Sea, starring the voices of Jason Schwartzman, Lena Dunham, Reggie Watts, Maya Rudolph and Susan Sarandon, is currently in theaters.
—————————————————————————————————
in an exercise to investigate the ways in which machine learning can be applied to various creative challenges, designers at IDEO are bringing artificial intelligence to the world of typography. recognizing font choice as one of the most frequent visual decisions a designer makes, the IDEO team wanted to create an insightful and valuable tool that lets designers look at letterforms in an entirely new way. using AI and convolutional neural networks to draw higher-vision pattern recognition, IDEO created ‘font map’ — an interactive interface comprising more than 750 fonts that users can digitally engage with and explore.
—————————————————————————————————
Announcing the Summer Semester of the Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers!
8 weeks! 500 bux! Payment plans are available! Summer Course starts June 1st 2017!
Applications are due by May 25th.
Visit THIS page for more details and email santoroschool@gmail.com with applications and questions!
—————————————————————————————————
A Cosmic Journey – 5-9-2017 – by Cameron Arthur
—————————————————————————————————
Suzy and Cecil – 5-9-2017 – by Gabriella Tito
—————————————————————————————————
Joanie and Jordie – 5-9-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio