Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in los Cómics, NewsTagged caleb orecchio, jack brougham, sally ingraham

Juan Fernández

Posted on May 10, 2017May 11, 2017

Explore

4/25/2016

Juan FernándezApril 25, 2016NewsNew comic by Emil Friis Ernst; Kris Mukai with handy process/printing tips; Santoro and Moynihan conversation from the archives; Abhay Khosla with real talk; and a look at COMIC TRAGICS in Perth, Australia. ————————————————————————————— New Comics – All In A Day’s Work I’m happy to announce that we are featuring All In A Day’s Work, a new short story by Emil Friis Ernst, exclusive to Comics Workbook. Emil is a young cartoonist and illustrator currently studying graphic storytelling at The Animation Workshop in Viborg, Denmark. All In A Day’s Work is a hand drawn doozy of color and tension. A 10 page comic that deftly uses the 6 panel grid to great effect. Go on and give it a read! You’ll feel it in your gut, I swear. ————————————————————————————— Publish or Perish Kris Mukai has what you dorks lusting after dipping your feet into risograph printing. She’s put together a tight printing resource zine that’s sure to have all the nitty gritty you need to get started making books of all kinds. Whether it’s web risograph resources, how to start thinking in color or simply basic comics materials you might want to use, she covers it all. Good, fun casual stuff that may save your life one day… Earlier this year I was asked to teach a risograph class at the SVA Risolab. The course I developed focused on writing/drawing comics, zine production, and risograph printing. Because I moved in the middle of the semester, I ended up co-teaching the class with Patrick Crotty of PEOW! fame. These are a few of the hand-out materials that I wrote for the class. The information is sort of… half there, it’s not set in stone and the hand-outs are meant to be accompanied with in-class explanation/workshops. One of the joys of risograph printing is that there’s always exceptions to the rules.. Check out Mukai’s awesome printing resource zine here. ————————————————————————————— From The Archives Here’s a good one from the Comics Workbook Archives that we’ve unearthed for you: Frank Santoro in coversation with Jesse Moynihan. Lots of juicy process talk, along with discussions of personal creative space. Frank Santoro: You mentioned to me once—unless I’m misremembering–that you had an offer to do a Forming animated cartoon and turned it down to keep it for yourself – you talked about that Forming was your “space” and no one else’s – and maybe that you may do an animated version yourself – I forget. Jesse Moynihan: If I remember, I was just saying that initially Frederator had asked if I wanted to do an adaptation of Forming for their channel. I told them something like, “Only if I have all the rights to it,” and of course they said “no”. I didn’t expect them to say “yes”! No production company would. That’s sort of my impossible ‘deal’ with Forming. If someone wanted to adapt it into another medium – my only way of agreeing to it is if I retained exclusive rights and control over all the content. Forming is my baby, man. It’s a place where I don’t have to answer to anyone. It’s a totally pure, streamlined place. I make up an idea within this world and I draw it. Then I put it on the internet. It’s so easy and simple. So regardless of how the rest of my career goes, I’ll always have that in my pocket, unless I give it up like a bozo! Santoro: Have you been approaching the website or the way the the comic is seen online serially any different since book one came out? Like I mean, has having the book made you think AT ALL differently about the webcomic version. Nothing major – I just wonder how it feels seeing it as a book instead of a stack of originals and dots on a screen. Moynihan: Yeah as I was serializing the first volume I had no solid intention to print, so every page was self contained. A lot of the gags and thematic ideas would resolve on the last panel. Once I held a copy of the first book in my hand, I think my consciousness shifted slightly and I started spacing my action and jokes out a bit more. I would let ideas spill out over a few pages and land wherever felt natural. I started to feel less pressure to sell a single page as a self contained thing. I think the second book breathes better because of that; maybe to the detriment of how it reads online. I’m definitely now in the mind mode of, “This will eventually be printed.” so I’m putting in two page spreads and stuff like that. It’s not a super radical change, but I can tell the difference. Read the rest… ————————————————————————————— Comics Tire Fires Abhay Khosla does some aerial maneuvers up and around the continually burning wreckage that were last week’s/every week’s comics industry sexual harassment discussions surrounding. If you treat like it’s about one evil villain who needs to be held to account,who gives a fucking shit? That’s a sucker’s game. It’s never about one guy. One guy can’t do all that much bad all by themselves – it really takes a shitty village, a shitty shitty village. It’s about a culture. Comics has a culture. Here it is. Trying to find heroes in that culture is a sucker’s game. It’s a culture about constantly telling stories about anonymous savior figures emerging out of the shadows to save people… because you can’t imagine people standing up and saving themselves and saving each other – where you count on that not to happen in order to maintain status quos that should not be permitted. Read it all here. ————————————————————————————— COMIC TRAGICS in Perth COMIC TRAGICS is a great exhibition that just recently opened to the publicat THE ART GALLERY OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA in Perth, Australia. I’m really excited to see how this comics focused exhibition earnestly and intelligently presents the work. The show includes work by 9 artists: Gabrielle Bell (US), Stephen Collins (UK), Aisha Franz (Germany), Anders Nilsen (US), Tommi Parrish (AUS), John Porcellino (US), Ron Regé Jr (US), Dash Shaw (US) & Emma Talbot (UK). I want to take note that I think this kind of exhibition is really ground breaking for the comics art form: contemporary comics presented in the historical context and continuity of the comics medium and on their own terms. Curator Robert Cook and company have really done a great job, here. Don’t just take my word for it, here’s some of what Ron Regé Jr. who had some work in the show has written on his blog: The show is huge, and amazing! I have an entire room dedicated to my work! Artists Emma Talbot, Tommi Parrish & I were brought to the center of Perth for a week. We gave several public talks, attended opening parties, and were interviewed by TV, radio & print. It was so much fun! Curator Robert Cook put together a large and unprecedented sort of comics exhibition. It’s a specifically curated exhibit of contemporary art – that just happens to be full of comics. The Art Gallery is the central art museum in the city. It is open free & daily. There are no stores in Perth that sell the sort of graphic novels that are represented in the exhibit. Share this page: [...]

01/03/2017

Aaron CockleJanuary 3, 2017NewsAaron here today with some NYC shows of note; Leanne Shapton looks back at 2016; New Sikoryak; Connor Willumsen; Joanie and Jordie & Suzie and Cecil ————————————————————————————————— Agnes Martin at the Guggenheim Museum through January 11 Hilton Als wrote about Martin in the New York Review last July: Martin contradicted all that nihilism. She used the grid as a forum for belief—a space where the viewer as well as the artist could contemplate the hand making the thing being observed. In her well-considered 1971 appreciation of the artist, Kasha Linville wrote: Once you are caught in one of her paintings, it is an almost painful effort to pull back from the private experience she triggers to examine the way the picture is made. The desire to simply let yourself flow through it, or let it flow through you, is much stronger…. Her paintings exert themselves differently, depending on their line, their pattern, and the quality of the ground color on the canvas. Some are less lyrical, evincing aggression or tension…. Others suggest spaciousness or vast space, again without using illusionistic devices or the egotistical implication of infinitely extendible surface. One pauses at the extraordinary line “the egotistical implication of infinitely extendible surface.” Unlike her male predecessors, not to mention contemporaries, Martin didn’t use the grid as a means of describing the infinite—the infinite “I” of being an artist. Instead, her work ends at the canvases’ edge.One begins and then one finishes; the grace is in the doing. Her touch was her personality; looking at canvases such as Friendship, of 1963 (made of incised gold leaf), or the ghostly Grass of 1967, one sees various lines that begin with verve, grow faint and then run out, slowly and calmly, like a swimmer beginning strong and then using wide, unhurried strokes once they see the shore. “Line is where she speaks most personally,” Linville said. “It is her vocabulary as the grids are her syntax.” Kerry James Marshall: Mastry at the Met Breuer through January 29 Francis Picabia: Our Heads Are Round so Our Thoughts Can Change Direction at the Museum of Modern Art through March 19 ————————————————————————————————— The Top Pinks and Purples of 2016 Via Leanne Shapton at the New Yorker. 9. Willy Wonka’s frock coat, as worn by Gene Wilder in the 1971 movie; 10. Sky at dusk over Greenport, Long Island; 11. Cotton candy at the Four Seasons Restaurant; 12. Supermoon; 13. Hillary Clinton’s lapels; 14. Walls of Cecily Brown’s show at the Drawing Center ————————————————————————————————— The Unquotable Trump R.Sikoryak with a new mash-up for 2017. ————————————————————————————————— Connor Willumsen’s Portraits continues to enthrall. This magazine sized 16-page beautifully printed booklet (by WestCan – who also printed thee Santoro School Handbook) is available HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 1-3-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 1-3-2017 – by Gabriella Tito Share this page: [...]

07/24/2018

Aaron CockleJuly 24, 2018NewsNatural Process; Bell/Porcellino/Duchamp; More ‘R. Mutt’; More Grip ————————————————————————————————— “Will you come see the ‘real’ webpage painting at the museum? Or will you see it ‘virtual’ through the web?” Via Rhizome.org’s Net Art Anthology: Natural Process is an installation that translates the iconic circa-2003 Google search engine home page to the form of a large-scale painting, and then back to digital media via webcam. This double remediation, enacted by Japanese net art duo exonemo (Kensuke Sembo and Yae Akaiwa) was exhibited at the Mori Art Museum in 2004, at a moment when artists were increasingly interested in the slippage between art’s circulation online and in the gallery. The painting was purchased by Google, and has not been exhibited publicly until now; it is on view through March 10, 2019 at ICC Tokyo and as part of Net Art Anthology. ————————————————————————————————— A Trip to the Museum With Cartoonist John Porcellino Always nice to see cartoonists visiting museums. ————————————————————————————————— Speaking of Marcel Duchamp… The iconic Fountain (1917) is not created by Marcel Duchamp In 1982 a letter written by Duchamp came to light. Dated 11 April 1917, it was written just a few days after that fateful exhibit. It contains one sentence that should have sent shockwaves through the world of modern art: it reveals the true creator behind Fountain – but it was not Duchamp. Instead he wrote that a female friend using a male alias had sent it in for the New York exhibition. Suddenly a few other things began to make sense. Over time Duchamp had told two different stories of how he had created Fountain, but both turned out to be untrue. An art historian who knew Duchamp admitted that he had never asked him about Fountain, he had published a standard-work on Fountain nevertheless. The place from where Fountain was sent raised more questions. That place was Philadelphia, but Duchamp had been living in New York. … Who was living in Philadelphia? Who was this ‘female friend’ that had sent the urinal using a pseudonym that Duchamp mentions? That woman was, as Duchamp wrote, the future. Art history knows her as Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven. She was a brilliant pioneering New York dada artist, and Duchamp knew her well. This glaring truth has been known for some time in the art world, but each time it has to be acknowledged, it is met with indifference and silence. Via Theo Paijmans. ————————————————————————————————— Grip Vol. 1 If you didn’t get the chance this past Friday or over the weekend, please take some time to read Sally Ingraham’s review of Lale Westvind’s excellent new book, Grip, out now from Perfectly Acceptable Press. ————————————————————————————————— Vision Box – 7-24-18 – by Cameron Arthur ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 7-24-18 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

12/01/2017

Sally IngrahamDecember 1, 2017NewsSally here with comics by November Garcia, Lina Ghaibeh, Emil Friis Ernst, and much more! ————————————————————————————————— Emil Friis Ernst spent last autumn here in Pittsburgh with us at the Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency and abroad on his own in the city. He was on loan from The Animation Workshop in Denmark, and he got to spend nearly 3 months making comics and exploring our strange American culture. He recently published the comic he made during that time – Disconnector – which you can view in full on his website, HERE. The comic is about a lonely inventor and his robot (drawn and painted on this lovely grey paper that I remember well from when Emil was here!) Take some time to check it out, as well as some of his other comics which you can also find on his website. ————————————————————————————————— Ryan C. reviews November Garcia‘s Malarkey, the series of auto-bio comics made by this terrific Filipino cartoonist, over on Four Color Apocalypse. I’m with Ryan when he says that November is bound to break through in the near future, and having met her in person at SPX this year I couldn’t be more delighted to have this talented and funny comics maker in the scene. About Malarkey, Ryan writes: “Simply put, Garcia’s varied-length strips are every bit as familiar to somebody who “speaks comics” fluently as they are to someone who’s “comics illiterate.” Her figure drawing is efficient, practical, and betrays more than a hint of warmth and, dare I say it, innocence, while her stories tend to revolve around daily-life complexities that, in the hands of a less-attuned artist, would be depicted in a matter ten times more grim : neuroses (insecurity being first and foremost on the list), family dysfunction, doomed relationships, and alcoholism. There’s no way this stuff should be fun, but in Malarkey, God help me, it is.“ Read the rest of the review HERE and get copies of issues 1 and 2 over at Spit and a Half Distro. ————————————————————————————————— Lina Ghaibeh shares a comic about growing up in Syria during the Assad regime on The Nib, titled An Education in Fear. Read the whole thing HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Also, also There’s a new comic by Glynnis Fawkes up on Mutha Magazine titled Can You Play Now – see it HERE. Hilary Brown interviews Leslie Stein and talks about her new book Present and what it means to her to live in the present – HERE. Sarah Glidden is the guest on Episode 59 of Process Party – they talk travel, journalism, and how cartooning fits into both. Check it out. On The Comics Beat Alex Lu interviews Alisa Kwitney about the female friendships at the heart of her series Mystic U (from DC Comics). Read the interview HERE. Sophie Goldstein talks to Alex Dueben of Smash Pages about House of Women and more – HERE. RiLY features Nicole Georges – and her dog – on Episode 243 – listen HERE. ————————————————————————————————— The Winter Semester of thee Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers starts January 18th 2018! 8 weeks – 500 bux – coaching for as long as you need. The course is hard, but Frank will push your comics making practice to a new level, getting you to think about timing and color in new ways. Makes a great holiday gift for yourself – or for a loved one who is interested in comics. Apply by midnight (EST) on Dec. 25th and get $100 off the course price. Full details and how to apply can be found HERE! ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 12-1-2017 – by Sally Ingraham ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 12-1-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

09/08/2017

Sally IngrahamSeptember 7, 2017NewsSally here with new work from Hannah K. Lee, and Sheree Domingo, plus other comics and news! ———————————————————————————————— I was excited to perused the advanced review PDF of Hannah K. Lee‘s book debut, coming out from Koyama Press next week. Language Barrier collects several of Hannah’s zines and comics, as well as a new piece. The design of the book looks beautiful, from the end papers, to the full color comics and the scans of zines (I really like the aesthetic of scans of existing books, for some reason!) The new comic is great (no spoilers allowed yet) and it’s nice to revisit some of the riso printed zines that Hannah made in 2012/2014 which are long out of print. I love her Shoes Over Bills zine, which is contained in this collection, and is a striking visual game of balance between wants and needs… Hannah’s work as a commercial illustrator and letterer comes into play nicely in this collection. I like when the text in a comic or zine is as much an artistic and visually stimulating part of the work as the drawings are, and Hannah definitely plays with her words in these pieces. Check out more of Hannah K. Lee’s work HERE, and keep an eye out for her book in shops around Sept. 12th 2017, or at the Koyama Press table at SPX next week! ———————————————————————————————— Electrocomics (Ulli Lust’s online comics publishing platform) just released a comic by Sheree Domingo called Omegawolf (above). You can download the comic HERE. I like Sheree’s use of watercolors, with a 3 color palette and no blackline. The story is about a brief connection between a boy and a wild “omegawolf”. You can find more of Sheree’s work HERE. ———————————————————————————————— Women Who Draw organized an international art project last month, which Topic recently compiled and published. “On August 13, 2017, at precisely 12:00 pm Eastern Standard Time, 88 artists all over the world stopped what they were doing, looked up, and drew the sky. What each artist saw was unique to the time, the weather, and the place. The locations ranged from Tel Aviv to Brooklyn, Buenos Aires to rural Georgia. Some saw different hues of blue. Some saw black, pink, or gray. Some saw stars or clouds or fog or rain. Here it was summer. There it was night. In one place a fire left a heavy brown haze. Whatever sky the artist saw, they captured it on paper in their own unique style. They were, at that exact moment, separate skies. But when we view these drawings together, they become one far-stretching, simultaneous world view. They become a portrait of one shared sky.” —Wendy MacNaughton and Julia Rothman, co-founders of Women Who Draw See the entire One Sky project HERE. ———————————————————————————————— Boundless by Jillian Tamaki is reviewed on the LA Review of Books – HERE. Paste Magazine‘s “Required Reading: Comics” roundup for the week reminded me that I want to read Bombshells United #1, which is written by Marguerite Bennett and drawn by Marguerite Sauvage, and just came out. The A.V. Club took a look at a preview copy recently, which you can check out HERE. Arianna Margulis‘ Instagram comic But Like Maybe is something of a phenomenon, earning her a nod from The New Yorker this week. There’s a review of Anna Haifisch‘s new book Drifter in the German Art Magazine – read it here. Ulli Lust is having a book release party in Berlin this month – here are details for the party on Sept. 10th 2017 – and here’s a look at Ulli’s new book courtesy of Lauren Weinstein! Liana Finck explores “who does a story belong to?” when it comes to loved ones, and making comics about them – on Topic, HERE. ———————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 9-8-2017 – by Sally Ingraham ———————————————————————————————— Share this page: [...]

05/10/2017

Posted on May 10, 2017May 11, 2017 by Juan Fernández

Empezamos 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.

—————————————————————————————————

Begoña García-Alén, La cueva (Fosfatina, 2016)

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:

Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in los Cómics, NewsTagged caleb orecchio, jack brougham, sally ingraham

Juan Fernández

Posted on May 10, 2017May 11, 2017

Explore

07/02/2018

Caleb OrecchioJuly 1, 2018NewsCaleb Orecchio here with thoughts on “Dream World!” by Steve Ditko, and other news! ———————————————————————————————— Okay so Frank was selling this comic, Chamber of Chills no. 19 on Instagram (a 1975 Marvel reprint comic mostly re-presenting comics from Tales to Astonish), and I had to steal it for the time being until it was sold. It contains the Ditko strip, “Dream World” which is really striking. In glorious 9-panel grid, Ditko (and Lee) very tactfully build upon layers of dreams that wake the protagonist only to find he is still dreaming. Think Inception. Ditko uses the 9-panel grid expertly and waltzes us through this man’s dream layers. 1-2-3, 1-2-3-, 1-2-3. Something I find interesting is that the action takes place in the middle tiers whereas the top and bottom tiers are close-ups which show the protagonist’s expressions and emotions (or realizations and reactions). He expertly zooms in and out for emphasis in a way that isn’t tedious, but useful (and natural somehow). Look! you can “read” the strip across the spread without having to follow the rigid comics zigzag reading format and it still makes sense visually. You could also scan the spreads randomly and easily decipher the idea of the pictures. It’s so simple. Really this is a comic where “nothing happens,” which is its strength. It actually reminds me of David Hockney’s Gregory Swimming, Los Angeles, March 31st 1982 (below). Hockney is thinking about and showing how we see and look. An argument could be made that Ditko is showing how we think, and in such a simple way that it resembles how we look or see. ———————————————————————————————— if you don’t know, now you know Michael Dooley talks to Robert Williams and over at TCJ.com. While you’re there, read the latest installment of Austin English’s column, “10 Cent Museum“. Here on the site we have Ian Densford’s Rowhouse Residency report! Happy to see a new episode of Make It Then Tell Everybody. ———————————————————————————————— Thee Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers Summer Session starts NOW! Floating start date! Apply anytime between now and July 12th 2018 to join the summer course. Email santoroschoolATgmail for more details. Ask about the Fall Course if now is too busy for you! The course is 8 weeks – 500 bux for 8 weeks plus access to Frank’s coaching for as long as you need. Payment plans are available. Put your summer to good use! ———————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 7-2-18 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

01/08/2018

Caleb OrecchioJanuary 8, 2018NewsCaleb Orecchio with thoughts on Dash Shaw’s Doctor Strange comic, and other news ————————————————————————————————— I’ve been thinking about Dash Shaw’s Doctor Strange story in Strange Tales #1 (2009) (above), and how it contrasts to Ed Piskor’s new X-Men comic—X-Men: Grand Design is 100% sincere X-Men superhero comics, as oppose to Shaw’s tongue-in-cheek, yet sincere in its own way, superhero comic. Piskor’s X-Men is a “real” comic about the X-Men, and may affect the canon. Dash Shaw’s superhero comic was to editors and Marvel readers alike, a non-canon, non-consequential story by an artist they’ve never heard of. “Does he work for DC?” Almost everyone in that first volume of Strange Tales made short Marvel comics that were obviously by an “indie” cartoonist. Almost every story was “humorous,” the kind of humorous that can make a fanboy/fangirl confused and mad that an outside source is tampering with his/her livelihood. Shaw’s Doctor Strange was very funny and silly, it’s like if Wes Anderson wrote a superhero script. This utterly ignores any characterization Doctor Strange might have, which is why, as an alt comics reader, I like the comic. This is exactly the opposite to the kind of comic that pleases Marvel/mainstream fans. What Shaw does that is completely and utterly sincere is a homage to Doctor Strange’s creator, Steve Ditko, by having our hero fight his nemesis in “the dream dimension.” Two pages of really colorful and pretty Ditko-esque combat fills our eyes to a high-point on the pleasure meter. I think about these pages often. Then Shaw brings us back to his fun, silly world of superhero parody where Doctor Strange must now stay awake by drinking coffee, resisting a contagious yawn. There is a comical knowingness there. There is the consciousness of the cartoonist when reading this work that does not exist (or exist in such hostility to the status quo) with a “straight” superhero/mainstream work. Which again, is why an alternative reader would enjoy Doctor Strange by Dash Shaw, one may even say, “that’s my favorite non-Ditko Doctor Strange comic!” While a modern Marvel fan may argue that it is unrealistic that Doctor Strange would make his own soup. ————————————————————————————————— if you don’t know, now you know Austin Enlgish continues his 10 Cent Museum column over at TCJ.com. Cynthia Rose on Annie Goetzinger over TCJ.com. I feel that I have found at least 10 stories about dudes stealing a bunch of comic books said to cost a lot of money. Here is another one. The guy who has been doing Nancy for over 22 years is quitting. Can you imagine if Noah Van Sciver or someone took over Nancy? What if comic strips were good?? There is a Google app that turns your videos into “comic strips.” Basically seems like the same method Greg Land uses to make his work. ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 1-8-2018 – by Gabriella Tito Share this page: [...]

02/14/2017

Aaron CockleFebruary 14, 2017NewsAaron here today with Podcasts for Grownups; Gerhard Richter Comics; (SOME)BODY at Adam Baumgold Gallery; Open Access at the Met; Frank S and Mickey Z, talking Risography; Daniel Clowes, talking on u-tube (with French subtitles!) ————————————————————————————————— The Comics for Grownups crew takes a look at Last Look by Charles Burns, Everything Is Teeth by Evie Wyld and Joe Sumner, and The Unquotable Trump by R. Sikoryak. ————————————————————————————————— Often standing alone, the Biped is a loner in a world of the replicas. J.Hoberman looks at some lost Gerhard Richter cartoons at the New York Review: Comic Strip’s austerely sketchy terrain is sometimes darkened by the artist’s thumb and palm prints. On other pages, Richter employs clusters of dots to suggest a desert. (The Biped dives into the sand on one page to surface in the next.) Richter’s drawings are annotated by pages or passages of elegantly blotchy, largely indecipherable writing with a family resemblance to Cy Twombly’s calligraphy; the use of ominously unreadable dialogue balloons, obscure crypto maps, and ornate official stamps suggest Saul Steinberg as another point of reference. ————————————————————————————————— (SOME)BODY February 18-April 8, 2017 Adam Baumgold Gallery 60 East 66 Street, NYC Featuring work by: LYNDA BARRY • POLINA BArSKAYA • Marc bell • BARTON LIDICE BENES • todd bienvenu • BETTE BLANK • VARUJAN BOGHOSIAN • ERNIE BUSHMILLER • DANIEL CLOWES • JOE COLEMAN • WILLIAM COPLEY • STUART DAVIS • ROY DeFOREST • MARCEL DZAMA • RAFAEL FERRER • dan fischer • JOHN GUTMANN • AL HANSEN • KIRK HAYES • NADIRA HUSAIn • SUE GERARD • JAIME HERNANDEZ • ALeX KatZ • ella kruglyanskaya • TALA MADANI • RICHARD MCGUIRE • JIM NUTT • christina ramberg • PETER SAUL • SETH • SAUL STEINBERG • MARK TANSEY • ADRIAN TOMINE • Ernest tino trova • CHRIS WARE • RACHEL WHITEREAD • DAVID WOJNAROWICZ • CRYS YIN • RAY YOSHIDA ————————————————————————————————— Creative Commons Zero at the Met The Metropolitan Museum of Art recently released a massive amount of work to the online masses: As of today, all images of public-domain works in The Met collection are available under Creative Commons Zero (CC0). So whether you’re an artist or a designer, an educator or a student, a professional or a hobbyist, you now have more than 375,000 images of artworks from our collection to use, share, and remix—without restriction. This policy change to Open Access is an exciting milestone in The Met’s digital evolution, and a strong statement about increasing access to the collection and how to best fulfill the Museum’s mission in a digital age. ————————————————————————————————— O Risograph, My Risograph! Over at the TCJ blog, Frank Santoro has several questions for Mickey Zacchilli about riso printing: Personally, I am fascinated with how risograph printing has changed making color comics. Before risograph was around the choices were expensive offset or expensive print on demand. And often dealing with those printers was difficult. The “pro” riso printers I have engaged are not faceless sales reps on the phone who have no experience making comics. So riso printers and their enthusiasm for the materials has reinvigorated the small press scene – which has drifted into “book publishing” (like giant offset press books) – and I was hoping you could speak to that? Yeah, I think that riso printing really has opened up a lot of options for people in a lot of ways! Especially in terms of self publishing! I really prefer being able to do something myself if I can, when I can. I think it’s important to keep the overhead low, because I think that books and zines are really important to offer to people at a price that is reasonable, that they can afford. I guess that’s why I don’t really like the “art chic” end of riso-printing, because it really is an affordable way to make a book or zine extra fun, and playing like it’s “high end” or “high art” is unfair and also just not true. But who am I? ————————————————————————————————— À l’occasion de son exposition à la Galerie Martel, Daniel Clowes nous parle de son parcours Clowes talking about comics and film, film and comics, in his usual way. ————————————————————————————————— Announcing the Spring Semester of thee Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers! The course starts March 7th 2017. Apply by February 26th to get 100 bux off! The course is 8 weeks long – payment plans are available. Application guidelines: – 3 figure drawings done on blank 3 x 5 index cards – 3 landscape drawings done on blank 3 x 5 index cards – 3 still life drawings done on blank 3 x 5 cards – draw in a contour line style –think Matisse – no under-drawing – draw directly in ink – just send me small jpgs of images – dont post to your blog pls – send specific url links to any comics work you have done. If you haven’t done comics before that is not a problem. Email santoroschoolATgmail to apply! More details HERE. ————————————————————————————————— A Cosmic Journey – 2-14-2017 – by Cameron Arthur ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 2-14-2017 – by Sally Ingraham ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 2-14-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio ————————————————————————————————— Cozytown – 2-14-2017 – Juan Fernandez Share this page: [...]

10/24/16

Juan FernándezOctober 24, 2016NewsJuan here with Comics Workbook’s ongoing CXC and LICAF coverage; my own thoughts on strip cartooning; HTML Flowers’ No Visitors – Issue One; Anya Davidson interviewed by Paste Magazine; a shout out to Good Comics by Kim; The Economist takes a look at the power of comics journalism; a Pepe oriented call to action from Matt Furie; Robyn Chapman soliciting stories about challenges or financial woes tabling at North American comics shows; Comics Assistant Professor Job opening at CCAD. One week out and we’re still thinking about CXC on our end! It was a hell of a weekend. Reports and thoughts seeded by CXC have been coming in left and right. I’ve wrangled them all for your convenience. Check them out and if you like what you read, consider making CXC part of your comics adventures in 2017. Here’s what we’ve got for you: The collective blow by blow take on the CXC experience, think of it as a Master post, if you will! Sacha Mardou’s personal CXC adventures Juan Fernandez’s (me ;)) CXC-inspired thoughts on expanding the “comics festival toolkit”. Kurt Ankeny’s post-CXC thoughts Alyssa Berg shares her first convention experience Caleb Orecchio’s detailed and hilarious tale of his CXC experience CXC 2016: 3 Questions for the Crew ⚡Frank and Niall Breen have taken some time to reflect on their experiences in Kendal during the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. You can check those out here to find out why if you’re anywhere near the UK, you’re going to want to add LICAF to your comics appreciation schedule next year. The Lakes International Comic Art Festival 2016 report by Frank Santoro Niall Breen on LICAF 2016 ⚡ On my end, I’ve been thinking about 4 panel comics. A lot. Reading them, drawing them, teaching them… Through all those thoughts,one that I keep coming back to is that of openness of narrative. In today’s cultural landscape of fractured narrative and more broadly the idea of narrative collapse, I’m finding I’m interested in constellations of narrative. Non-linear experiences through a narrative world. Just as how comics creates fertile liminal spaces between panels, it’s my belief that comic strips have the potential to foster inviting spaces between individual strips. No large structures, just small moments. Some link together. Many don’t. Think Cul de Sac, Moomin, Macanudos. All that said, I’m excited to announce that come Mid-November I’ll have a weekday comic strip going live online. I tried the experiment of Daily Comics from 2013-2014. But I fell off that horse. That was at the Center for Cartoon Studies. After I graduated from the Center for Cartoon Studies I had to transition back into a more regular pattern of life. Life’s commitments made it very hard to find that time. I’ve used these past two years to work on different forms and to experiment with technique. I realized that when it comes to comics, I’m here for the bliss of creation. The strip is where I feel that bliss most strongly. I’m ready and I hope you are too! ⚡ It’s exciting to see that The Economist is running a piece on the power and vitality of comics journalism in the current news media environment. It’s great to see the ascendancy of work like Sacco’s and Glidden’s happen real time. Comics journalism is nothing new. It has been around for decades, kept alive by such talented artists as Joe Sacco, who has used the medium to depict everything from a war-torn town in the Gaza Strip to the Eastern Bosnian war. But it has only been in the last few years that it has really started to find its place in the mainstream media. The Nib, founded in September 2013, consists entirely of comics, many of which contain journalism and non-fiction. It has published more than 2,000 works on its website and released a popular 300-page book of its best offerings. The Cartoon Picayune has been around even longer—since April 2011—and showcases a variety of comics journalism online as well as in its yearly publication, which it offers to readers for $4. Even some of the more established publications, such as the New York Times, are making use of the format. In May, it published Patrick Chappatte’s moving five-part piece that takes an in-depth look at the lives of four death row inmates. It is surprising, in the age of tight newspaper budgets and the 24-hour news cycle, that comics journalism is thriving. Ms Glidden says it’s because “it can make people stop and take notice.” Everyone is constantly bombarded by so many images and text that they can simply grow numb to all of the information being thrown their way. It helps that comics journalism is still novel to many people; its format encourages people to take an extra minute to fully consider the information being presented. ⚡ I wanted to share a short and sweet letter from Matt Furie: Dear friends, I need your help making positive pepe the frog memes to battle against evil trolls: Please make a kid-friendly pepe in your style and send it to me at: hashtagsavepepe@gmail.com I’m creating a positive pepe artist database, so include your name. also, please share nice pepe’s with the hashtag: #savepepe thanks! -matt ⚡ Don’t miss this juicy interview with Anya Davidson over on Paste that goes into her work on Band for Life! Paste: I think that love for your characters really shows in the work. A lot of these characters—and it was what really struck me about School Spirit, which was the first work of yours that I encountered—already feel distinct and fully formed when you first meet them. I’d be curious to know more about your process, especially for something serialized like this. How much do you plan, how much just comes from working with them for a few strips, etc.? Davidson: I had a story arc for Band for Life, but I wrote the strips week to week. It kept the project fresh and spontaneous. Sometimes I’d write a few weeks ahead when I knew there was a thread I wanted to draw out. I had a lot of fun working that way. Lovers in the Garden, the book I just finished for Retrofit Comics, was scripted start to finish before I put pen to paper. And my next book is going to be fully scripted, too. For a graphic novel, in my case, just so I can keep everything straight, and so I can hone dialogue, I really prefer scripting. But the strip form uniquely gave me the freedom to improvise. Every cartoonist has their preferred methods—there’s no right way. As far as character development, all my characters are me. I went to see George Saunders speak and a woman asked him how he was able to write the adolescent girl so well in his short story “Victory Lap,” and he said, “Because she’s me.” I also think about people I know: their mannerisms and speech patterns and personal histories. So all of my characters have elements of friends, acquaintances and myself put in a blender. And I like to drop people into stories as they’re happening. I want people to feel like they’ve been dropped in a world that is fully formed—like the story started before they got there. I think that’s most engaging, most surprising. ⚡ If you’re a comics educator that is looking for a new opportunity, check out this job opening at CCAD – Assistant Professor – Comics & Narrative Practice, Illustration ⚡ I want to give the great Robyn Chapman of Paper Rocket Comics a signal boost for her “poll”. She is looking for your thoughts about challenges or financial woes tabling at North American comics shows. She does a great job at compiling small press and minicomics trends in her zine, The Tiny Report. Hey, micro-publishers. I’m looking for a quote or two about the challenges of tabling at conventions. I’d be happy to hear numbers or about financial woes. You can remain anonymous. Please PM me in the next few days if you’re interested. robertaraechapman@gmail.com ⚡ I want to give a shout out to Good Comics by Kim Joo Ha. <3 Kim’s always turning me onto the good stuff via their posts. Kim makes it easier to find art comics and wild zines in this crazy fractured hyperactive internet mediated comics landscape. What a godsend… If you don’t follow their twitter or the Good Comics by Kim blog, I’d check that out. I don’t know how they stay on top of everything, but that doesn’t keep me from appreciating their eye on comics or their writing… Don’t sleep on Kim! Until next time! Juan Share this page: [...]

02/09/2017

Sally IngrahamFebruary 8, 2017NewsSam Ombiri and Sally Ingraham bring the Thursday news – Sam riffs on books within books and title cards, and Sally shares news from John Jennings, Chris Ware (on George Herriman), Fantom Comics in D.C., Darrin Bell, and Ronald Wimberly and his new book. ————————————————————————————————— Sam Ombiri here: I was reading Infomaniacs and at the same time I was reading The League of Divine Wind by a certain Tsunanori Yamao – they both addressed this one issue I feel all the time; it’s a really simple concept that’s often tackled. (To Be Or)Not to be still yapping about my petty frustration with what I was yapping about last week…but…it amazes me how a book by an imaginary author commands more respect than a real human being’s work. [Editor’s Note: In Runaway Horses by Yukio Mishima, a character is given a copy of the pamphlet The League of Divine Wind and part of the rest of the story involves him reading it…] I think since The League of Divine Wind is a book within a book, the actual author can give his own book rave reviews in the narrative. (The author being who he is, I’m very, very sure he didn’t care about his reception whatsoever, or at least that’s what I’m guessing.) That might be a good solution to someone who keeps having bad reception. I think Matt Thurber said something like, “World building is a good solution for your frustration of getting lost all the time.“ I was watching Simpsons Season 3 I think. There’s one episode where Homer saves the town from a meltdown – that was just amazing. It was broken down into what felt like seasons, or chapters of emotions running through Homer, but without giving this so much attention that it was nauseating. Like an example of that more recently would be in Moonlight – the way it’s chapters were broken down. It kind of felt like something that I couldn’t quite get with. I felt as I was watching it – and this was confirmed by an article I was reading (I think it was an interview) – that it was an attempt to be Claire Dennis. It was while watching those title cards which broke down the chapters that I felt a little agitated – as his [Moonlight‘s director, Barry Jenkins] solution to what Claire Dennis accomplished was with the cheapest, most easy means possible. It felt a bit dishonest, and of course it more than likely wasn’t – and to some effect it worked – but there’s something nagging at me, telling me that there is too little being accomplished in the way Barry Jenkins is biting Claire Dennis. Claire Dennis bites too of course, but it always feels earned. At least with what I’ve seen. The way Barry bit felt exploitative and a tad immature. It just felt that way. I’m not speaking of the whole movie, just the parts of the movie where the title cards of the chapter were forced in. I remember in an essay about Sundays y Cybele it said something like, “Some feel the music in the movie is pretentious.” The writer of the essay came off as if he was in on it, and smart, and so down to earth that he could admit something – something that didn’t affect his enjoyment of the movie. Which is fine. The thought didn’t even cross my mind when watching Sundays y Cybele. While the aforementioned part of the essay bothered me, I feel it’s a bit of a similar thing going on here with those title cards, except it wasn’t a scenario where it didn’t effect my enjoyment. The music wasn’t what I despised, it was something else. It was the title cards and the music with the title cards. There were parts that were real impressive, but…I don’t know. As an aside. I’m not a good writer by any means. By any means! Criterion has to do something about their essays, though, seriously. I’m not speaking about the one that came with Sundays y Cybele, and I’ve only read a few, (and it’s a pretty weird generalization to make, as the essays come from all over) but I’m real surprised at how bad they can be. There are some really good ones. (Like this one on Tarkovsky and Solaris by Akira Kurosawa.) Anyway, it was really impressive the way the Simpsons did this thing they did. It starts off with Homer saying if they look up idiot in the dictionary my picture will be there, and then this picture comes to his head of him in the dictionary with the word idiot written there, and then it’s used the rest of the episode in this impressive way. – Sam Ombiri Sam Ombiri – 2-9-2017 ————————————————————————————————— Sally here: Eight years after the publication of Black Comix – an anthology edited by Professor John Jennings and Dr. Damian Duffy that collected art and essays celebrating the African American independent comics community – we are excited to announce that Black Comix Returns will be hitting bookshelves soon! The original publication featured “over 50 contributors, including Dawud Anyabwile, Eric Battle, Kenji Marshall, Afua Richardson, Larry Stroman, Rob Stull, Lance Tooks, and many, many more.” It sold out with remarkable speed. The comics industry changed a bit over the last eight years, and many new creators have arrived on the scene, so instead of simply reprinting the book John and Damian are creating a whole new anthology. Check out the Kickstarter campaign HERE. They made their first goal in a few days, and with almost a month left they have some big dreams and stretch goals to reach. They have over 100 artists and writers involved – including Kyle Baker, Keith Knight, Ronald Wimberly, Whit Taylor, Ben Passmore, Chris Visions, Tanna Tucker, and Ashley A. Woods – the book is guaranteed to be incredible! Back the project and look forward to the book. Take a moment to get to know Professor John Jennings while you’re at it – he has been called “the soul of black comix” and is the co-founder/organizer of The Schomburg Center’s Black Comic Book Festival in Harlem, the co-founder and organizer of the MLK NorCal’s Black Comix Arts Festival in San Francisco and also SOL-CON: The Brown and Black Comix Expo at the Ohio State University. He earned an Eisner award for the collection The Blacker the Ink: Constructions of Black Identity in Comics and Sequential Art, which he co-edited. He is an artist and writer as well as an editor/scholar/educator – look for his most recent book, Blue Hand Mojo: Hard Times Road coming out in March 2017. ————————————————————————————————— We linked last week to the incredible piece on Krazy Kat that Chris Ware wrote for The New York Review of Books – but it deserves a second look. Adapted from an essay which will appear in the catalog of an exhibition on George Herriman at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, in Madrid, Spain (opening in October 2017), the piece is Chris Ware’s love letter to Krazy Kat and the strip’s mysterious author, George Herriman. Chris Ware theorizes that although Herriman successfully passed as white all his life, he voiced his true identity through his strip in not-so-subtle ways. The details that Ware delves into – Krazy’s banjo, for example (seen above) – are fascinating, and he writes beautifully about what might have gone through Herriman’s head as he drew the strip. “Lately, I’ve been wondering if Herriman knew that one day his secret-in-plain-sight would be uncovered, that America would change, adapt and grow up enough as a people to understand Krazy Kat in all of its psychological and poetic depth. I’m not sure if we’ve yet reached that point, but what myself and other cartoonists already knew—that the strip was already the greatest ever drawn—is now magnified, multiplied and maximized. Krazy Kat is not just one of the greatest comic strips, it’s one of the strangest, most inventive, emotional, and personal works of art of the twentieth century. In their admiration for Herriman, Philip Guston, Willem de Kooning, and Jack Kerouac sensed something in his line and voice that was endemically American, deeply felt. Herriman should now take his rightful place as one of the most original African-American voices of the early twentieth century, contemporary with, if not predating, Richard Wright and Zora Neale Hurston as one of the first writers to understand the racial animus of America and to try to fix the essence of black consciousness on paper. That Herriman made it come alive, sing, dance and suffer in an art form barely fifty years old is all the more astonishing. For decades, we’ve all been reading and laughing and, most of all, feeling for Krazy Kat, who passed right under our eyes as a living drawing on a page. But what we were really feeling came straight from the heart. It was the very soul of George Herriman himself.“ Read the rest of the piece – To Walk in Beauty – HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Fantom Comics in Washington, D.C., is hosting a rad event on February 15th 2017. Ronald Wimberly will be there signing Prince of Cats and Black History In Their Own Words, and there will also be a roundtable discussion with Ron, Chris Visions, Shannon Wright, and Chris Kindred. If you’re in the District be sure to check this out! Event details are HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Darrin Bell is an award-winning cartoonist whose work “navigates issues such as civil rights, pop culture, family, science fiction, scriptural wisdom and nihilist philosophy while often casting subjects in roles that are traditionally denied them. According to Darrin, “There’s nothing more fundamentally all-American than a square peg that insists on filling a round hole.” “ He has a daily comic strip called Canderville – check it out HERE – and is also the creator of Rudy Park – follow it HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Wired lists Ronald Wimberly’s Black History In It’s Own Words among their 5 Comics You Absolutely Must Pick Up This Month. The Comics Alliance is helping folks sort through The Best Comics Ever (This Week) – a.k.a. their recommendations on which comics to read as they come out – and their list also include’s Ronald Wimberly’s Black History In It’s Own Words this week, among others. ————————————————————————————————— Announcing the Spring Semester of thee Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers! The course starts March 7th 2017. Apply by February 26th to get 100 bux off! The course is 8 weeks long – payment plans are available. Application guidelines: – 3 figure drawings done on blank 3 x 5 index cards – 3 landscape drawings done on blank 3 x 5 index cards – 3 still life drawings done on blank 3 x 5 cards – draw in a contour line style –think Matisse – no under-drawing – draw directly in ink – just send me small jpgs of images – dont post to your blog pls – send specific url links to any comics work you have done. If you haven’t done comics before that is not a problem. Email santoroschoolATgmail to apply! More details HERE. ————————————————————————————————— 2-9-2017 – by Jack Brougham ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 2-9-2017 – by Gabriella Tito ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 2-9-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio ————————————————————————————————— Cozytown – 2-9-2017 – by Juan Fernandez Share this page: [...]

Leave a Reply Cancel reply