Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in NewsTagged 2dcloud, Cameron Arthur, comics & medicine conference, florine stettheimer, Françoise Mouly, jorge zenther, magie umber, pan terzis, RM Rhodes, roz chast, ruben pellejero, sally ingraham

Aaron Cockle

Posted on May 22, 2017May 23, 2017

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03/12/2018

Caleb OrecchioMarch 11, 2018NewsCaleb Orecchio here with Dirty Plotte #1 by Julie Doucet, and other news. ————————————————————————————————— I was rummaging through the back-issues at Copacetic Comics here in Pittsburgh, and I miraculously came across a copy of Julie Doucet’s Dirty Plotte #1. Whatta treat! The idea of finding it “in the wild” was almost as exciting as finding it period. That’s a classic Comics Workbook lesson in format. Imagine if Doucet had made her comics in various ACME Novelty dimensions, I’d never find the individual issues ever! This encounter and subsequent reading of the issue reminded me of Doucet’s intensity as a cartoonist. An unfettered intensity and earnestness in both narrative and drawing. A simultaneity that basically went unrivaled among her comics graduating class (the exception probably being Chester Brown). Even in our current comics community, I am hard-pressed to think of any cartoonist that revels so deeply and gleefully in one’s day-to-day routine of life, fantasies and bodily functions—and in a completely fun and personal way. Which is fine, it’s just something I notice. That day at Copacetic, I also took home Frank Miller and Lynn Varley’s Ronin #1, an old Marvel Team-Up, an issue of Special Forces by Kyle Baker, and Destroyer Duck #2 by Steve Gerber and Jack Kirby; but Dirty Plotte #1 was the real stand-out find of the day I think. Check out Mardou’s appreciation of Doucet’s work on this very site. ————————————————————————————————— if you don’t know, now you know Thee great Eddie Campbell has a brand spankin’ new website, complete with an amazing and hilarious limited weekly webcomic. Michael Dooley has two reviews up on Print, one on Monograph by Chris Ware, and the other on Fun by Paolo Bacilieri. Sean Howe on the thee great Billy Graham at The New York Times. ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 3-12-2018 – by Sally Ingraham Share this page: [...]

05/31/2016

Aaron CockleMay 30, 2016NewsKurt Ankeny Comics; Blank City; Saltz-on-Guston; Louise Bourgeois; Rokudenashiko; Kartalopoulos-on-Manouch; Robyn Chapman/Paper Rocket; Pigeon Anarchy; Spectacle of the Situation ————————————————————————————————— CW continues its look this week at Kurt Ankeny’s In Pieces: Someplace Which I Call Home. ————————————————————————————————— Wei Shao’s Blank City via Socks Studio Being built is no limit to the multi-dimensional world, everything is a standardized city. Space is normalized into a single cube, the cube is given the function, the function must comply with the specification. Life has been standardized in size cubes, they are given the same rhythm of life, follow the simple life, with all copied. Supreme goal, everyone in the “right space” to do “the right thing.” –(Hazardous translation by g.translate from Japanese original) ————————————————————————————————— Philip Guston Hauser & Worth Review Guston must have known the return to figuration couldn’t be denied any more. And still he refused. He was in a battle of wills with his art. It must have been nightmarish. So much so that he stopped painting altogether for three years after the last canvas in this show. He didn’t show his work again until 1970. Critics had slammed that work as “displeasingly raw”; the canvases were said to have “unpleasant texture.” His colleagues were shocked, suspicious, and thought he was trying to hop on the Pop bandwagon; one painter friend asked why he had “to go and ruin everything.” Lee Krasner was said to find the work “embarrassing.” New York Times critic Hilton Kramer lambasted Guston as “a mandarin pretending to be a stumblebum,” dismissing the work as “cartoon anecdotage … funky, clumsy and demotic,” and concluding “We are asked to take seriously his new persona as an urban primitive … and this is asking too much.” But the die was cast. While Pollock was the first to truly break through to pure non-objective painting, it was Guston who was the first to break out. And yet nobody seemed to understand. He’d risked everything and lost. – Via Dan Nadel at TCJ ————————————————————————————————— Louise Bourgeois at Hiram Butler Gallery ————————————————————————————————— Rokudenashiko And, lucky for her, the police and media continue to give Rokudenashiko a platform on which to promote her art. “I mean it when I say I am grateful to the police,” she said. Without them, she knows not nearly as many people would have seen her work. “Kind of ironically, they had to take all of these pictures of my art for their case. The prosecution had like a $90,000 camera to take these really specific pictures of my work from every imaginable angle, 16 slides per piece. I wouldn’t have ever been able to pay for any of that on my own, so now I have these amazing gelatin prints of my work. They’ve performed an act of art themselves.” – Dayna Evans at NY Mag ————————————————————————————————— Ilan Manouch: Defamiliarizing Comics with Bill Kartalopoulos But “l’affaire Katz” was not quite over. In 2011 Spiegelman had published MetaMaus, a book about the making of Maus. Manouach and his publisher burned the shredded remnants of Katz and had the ashes mixed into printer’s ink that was then used to publish MetaKatz, a 2013 book about the brief life and destruction of Katz and the issues raised by the experience, including contributions from a variety of artists and critics. MetaKatz “had a lot to say about different things such as resampling in comics, or the history of rip-offs in comics, or the problem of using animal metaphors,” said Manouach. “I think this for me is the prototype of a book form. It’s a book that creates discussion, that creates polemics, and another book that responds to these polemics. I think it’s a perfect example of how I imagine dialectics to be.” -via Bill Kartalopoulos at World Literature Today ————————————————————————————————— Robyn Chapman & Paper Rocket Comics ————————————————————————————————— Katie Fricas Comics ————————————————————————————————— Tino Sehgal at Martin-Gropius-Bau Berlin His eponymous show at Martin-Gropius-Bau is beyond a doubt entertaining and spectacular, but it is neither radical nor subversive. These situations that entertain the crowds and are sold for substantial profit would make Guy Debord turn in his grave. On the surface, the lack of objects in combination with politically infused content make his work look novel and insurgent. But Sehgal is only formally employing devices of the radical practice of the avant-garde, and he is using them with very different intentions. His brand of “immaterial art” is not about the dematerialization sought by those who coined the idea and wanted to oppose the creation of commodities in a capitalist system. With his version of immaterialism, he has managed to create a new type of commodity that is highly sought after in the art market and, by doing so, has apparently filled a void. ————————————————————————————————— Share this page: [...]

04/13/2018

Sally IngrahamApril 12, 2018NewsSally Ingraham here with Nancy and her new artist, Olivia Jaimes, plus many more “Inking Women”! ————————————————————————————————— The Washington Post reported earlier this week that for the first time in 85 years, the comic strip Nancy will be drawn by a woman! Olivia Jaimes takes on the legacy, and the future of the strip. ” “Nancy has been my favorite sassy grouch for a long time,” Jaimes says in a syndicate statement. “I’m excited to be sassy and grouchy through her voice instead of just mine, and I can complain to the whole world about things that bother me instead of just my friends and family.” “ Read the rest of the Washington Post story HERE. In a new story from yesterday, the Washington Post digs in deeper, covering the origins and history of Nancy, why Roz Chast loves it, and what Olivia Jaimes brings to this new iteration of it – along with a look at her first strip, which was published Monday. The internet continues to be “mums the word” on who Olivia Jaimes really is (the name is a psyeudonym) and what the webcomics that so impressed her new syndicate were… Heidi MacDonald and Mike Peterson have both theorized that her webcomic may have been a bit too “naughty” to sit in company with Nancy. We shall see where all this leads. ————————————————————————————————— Here’s a very worthy addition to the comic historian’s bookshelf. As much as I’ve been attempting to thoroughly familiarize myself with female cartoonists working in America, the tradition of women working in comics in the UK is just as lengthy and rich – and here’s the proof. In fact, editors Nicola Streeten and Cath Tate state that women have been making comics in England since 1760…! Britain’s first true comic character, Ally Slopper, was created by a woman named Marie Duval. I have bumped into info about Marie Duval before, and wrote about her HERE, but this was a new one to me: “In 1920, Mary Tourtel created Rupert Bear for the Daily Express, and nearly a hundred years later her character is still going strong.“ Mary Tourtel wrote and drew Rupert stories for 15 years, before her eyesight began to fail and Punch cartoonist Alfred Bestall took it over. There’s a bit more about Mary Tourtel HERE. There is more info on The Inking Women HERE on the publisher’s website, as well as in this article. This is definitely a book I need to track down in person, however – I’ll get on that ASAP! Incidentally, The Inking Women editor Nicola Streeten is one of the founders of Laydeez Do Comics, a woman led comics forum in the UK (with branches increasingly worldwide) . Read about the project HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Chris Anthony Diaz shares a terrific photo journal of MoCCA 2018 for Comics Workbook – check it out HERE! ————————————————————————————————— Weekend Snacks Leela Corman has a new comic up on Tablet Magazine about a visit to Buchenwald which left her feeling defiantly alive – read it HERE. Hillary Brown looks at Penelope Bagieu’s Brazen: Rebel Ladies Who Rocked the World – for Paste Magazine. Jessica Campbell takes on the tricky topic of “when your friend becomes a famous artist” – for Hyperallergic. Do you hate Cathy (the comic strip by Cathy Guisewite)? If so, you are far from alone, but Juliet Kahn wants you to question why you hate it/her and asks you to consider why Cathy is perhaps one of the more important comic strips of last few decades. HERE on The Comics Journal. While you’re on the Journal, check out Alejandra Gutiérrez‘s A Cartoonist’s Diary which has been going live this week and will be wrapping up today. Hazlitt has an interview with Anna Haifisch about her new comic Von Spatz and other weirdness – HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 4-13-2018 – by Caleb Orecchio 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: [...]

07/25/2018

Juan FernándezJuly 25, 2018los Cómics / NewsSan Diego Comic-Con International 2018 by way of Chris Anthony Diaz, the Eisners, New Latin Wave, Cornish Fellowship Residency, Lauren Weinstein on Paula Modersohn-Becker, Frank Santoro’s Pittsburgh to be published in the US Here on the site, Chris Anthony Diaz offers a beautiful glimpse of his time at San Diego Comic-Con International 2018. These photos were taken in the downtown San Diego Convention Center Exhibit Hall, Thursday, July 19, 2018. Jaime Hernandez shooting rubber bands, Manuele Fior in America, margaritas tacos and lots of smiles… Los Eisners- 2018 Over on High-Low, Rob Clough explains the nature of how the Eisner’s are awarded. It’s a convoluted process that lags behind history in terms of the culture that it reflects. It’s a solid system, but not perfect – Clough explains why: I was happy to see so many women and people of color win Eisners this year, in unprecedented fashion. Indeed, Marjorie Liu, for example, was the first woman to ever win a Best Writer award. Taneka Stotts, Roxane Gay and Alitha Martinez became just the second, third and fourth black women to win Eisners, and Jackie Ormes became the first black woman in the Eisner Hall of Fame. Emil Ferris continued to rack up every award for My Favorite Thing Is Monsters. The slate this year was more skewed this year toward the mainstream than last year’s slate, when I was a juror, though it was still quite solid. However, when it came time for voting last year, the people who did the voting chose a lot of the same old things. This was really disappointing, but not surprising. This year, it was surprising to see who won, and I think it might represent a shift in those who are choosing to vote. Autoras de Cómic les ofrece un hilo de autoras de cómic premiadas/homenajeadas en los Eisners. Lleno de entrevistas, previews, y ensayos, este hilo les sirve como buena introduccíon a las obras de estas mujeres, si no las conocéis! New Latin Wave Festival 2018 is looking for applicants to the Book and Zine component of their show on September 30th. It’s a one day show held at the Brooklyn Bazaar Brooklyn, NY and the table is FREE! Check out their website for more information: https://newlatinwave.com/2018-book-zine-fair-registration/https://newlatinwave.com/ *DEADLINE July 29th* New Latin Wave esta buscando vendedores de comics, zines y libros para el proximo New Latin Wave Festival 2018. El festival es un dia en Brooklyn Bazaar y la mesa es gratis! The Third Year of the Cornish CCS Fellowship Residency Applications for the Cornish Cartoon Studies Fellowship are open! It’s a month-long residency is held during the height of New England’s fall foliage season and includes a $3000 stipend. Think this might be good for you? The deadline to apply is August 15! You can learn more here: https://www.cartoonstudies.org/cornishccsfellowship2018/ Being an Artist And Mother Lauren Wienstein, The New Yorker Wienstein’s piece about Paula Modersohn-Becker is up at the New Yorker. It’s a deft, natural and masterful reflection on motherhood and art history. In Rachel Masilamani’s words, “This says everything about mothering and art making.” New York Review Comics anunció ayer que publicarán el libro de Frank Santoro, Pittsburgh, en 2019. POR FIN! Esto significa que el libro se verá impreso en inglés y mantendremos las mismas dimensiones que la edición francesa original de Éditions çà et là, como dios manda. Y que piensan los criticos franceses? Pues les ha encanta este chef-accompli de Santoro. Ahora falta encontrar una editorial en España o Latinoamérica que publiqueesta obra maestra… Share this page: [...]

05/23/2017

Posted on May 22, 2017May 23, 2017 by Aaron Cockle

Aaron Cockle here today with Roz Chast (and Françoise Mouly); Pan Terzis; Graphic Medicine; Florine Stettheimer; Maggie Umber; Dieter Lumpen

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Back of Motherboard embroidery piece, Roz Chast

‘I like taking on complicated, detailed projects, especially if I’m not a hundred-per-cent sure how they’re going to turn out.’
Françoise Mouly looks at the wonderful embroidered piece Roz Chast made for the May 15, 2017 issue of the New Yorker, including an animation of the process that went into making the cover.

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A spread from Trapper Keeper #4 by Brenna Murphy

‘Each issue has a secret formula that I have to discover. ‘
Frank Santoro continues his survey of recent developments in Art Comics Risography – this week he talks with Pan Terzis:

People want to show up. They want to look at your thing in person, hold it in their hands. They want to talk to others in person about it and look at it at their own pace, without the publisher or distributor knowing how long they spent lingering on a page or whether they got to the end of the book in the same time as 76.3% of other consumers. All of this activity is still happening in the context of capitalist systems of production, supply and demand and distribution, but I think that people who work with this kind of cultural ephemera must know on some level that the real art is what happens in between the object and the viewer, and the consumer of that piece of art and the person they describe it to. It’s inherently a social act, and this can manifest through all stages of the process. People-power is what drives this activity, and just like a blade of grass can slowly destroy a piece of concrete given enough time to push to the surface, I think DIY culture might be the key to breaking out of the mechanistic, algorithm driven nightmare that our tech overlords are driving us towards.

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SAVE THE DATE:
2017 Comics & Medicine Conference: Access Points
June 15-17, 2017, Seattle Public Library Central Branch

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Florine Stettheimer: Painting Poetry

The artist Florine Stettheimer (1871–1944) is an icon of Jazz Age New York. Born to a wealthy Jewish family in Rochester, she studied at the Art Students League in New York City and then in Europe, where she encountered two profound influences: the Symbolist painters and poets and, on the eve of the Great War, the Ballets Russes. Returning to Manhattan, she hosted an elite salon together with her sisters Carrie and Ettie and their mother, Rosetta, attracting many of the leading lights of the artistic vanguard. Her circle included Alfred Stieglitz, Carl Van Vechten, Georgia O’Keeffe, Elie Nadelman, Gaston Lachaise, and many others. Among her intimate friends was Marcel Duchamp.

Through over 50 paintings and drawings, a selection of costume and theater designs, photographs and ephemera, as well as critically acclaimed poems, the Jewish Museum will offer a timely reconsideration of this important American artist, revealing Stettheimer’s singular and often satiric vision and significant role in American modern art. The exhibition highlights the artist’s distinctly personal style of painting, Stettheimer’s position amidst New York’s artistic elite and avant-gardes, and her continued influence on artistic practice today.

May 5-September 24 at the Jewish Museum, 1109 5th Ave at 92nd St, NYC.

Florine Stettheimer, Family Portrait II, 1933. Oil on canvas 46¼ x 64⅝ in. (117.4 x 164 cm). Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of Miss Ettie Stettheimer, 1956. Image provided by The Museum of Modern Art / SCALA / Art Resource, New York

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2dcloud in Toronto
Maggie Umber has a nice photo-recap of the TCAF show:

Some of my favorite 2dcloud convention moments – talking with Carta’s wife Emily about our shared adoration of Junji Ito and Emily Carroll. @cartamonir letting me read Ghost Call on her phone since my Tumblr app never let me read the end last Halloween. Meeting @tommipg and watching them embroider a beautiful panel, meeting @goodcomicsbykim and being astonished by her energy and exhaustion, her humor and her seriousness. Blaise rearranging the 2dcloud table into a better format that sold more books. Juliacks casual yet persistent (and very successful) sales style and her gorgeous book trailer. I was also very excited to meet @artbl0g Xia Gordon when we did a panel together. 2dcloud is publishing a mini-comic with her soon!!!!!!

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Heavy Metal issue #121, July 1989 – Pages 34&35 Caribe: Dieter Lumpen by Ruben and Zentner

‘To be sure, these are the adventures of a white European wandering through the wreckage of a post-war world.’

Lastly, RM Rhodes looks at The Adventures of Dieter Lumpen, by Jorge Zentner and Ruben Pellejero:

Pellejero uses color and a confident line to build on top of a very solid foundation. The real appeal of the series are the settings. The premise is that shortly after the war, a German named Dieter Lumpen gets a job as a chauffeur and the first page of the first story finds him being chased through an Istanbul market by a man with a gun. From there, he travels to the Agean, Haifa, India, Sri Lanka, Paris, Manaus, Tunisia and the Caribbean. The appeal of these destinations is Pellejero’s ability to render them almost like a documentary film maker, matter of fact about amazing sights, which adds verisimilitude. The amount of detail on each page means that every time you return to a page, you notice something new. And the stories are very rereadable.

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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!

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A Cosmic Journey – 5-23-2017 – by Cameron Arthur

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Suzy and Cecil – 5-23-2017 – by Sally Ingraham

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Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Aaron Cockle

Posted on May 22, 2017May 23, 2017

Explore

05/12/2016

HarrisonMay 12, 2016NewsMaple syrup and guts for the Daily News Recap of May 12, 2016. ————————————————————————————————— RVA in the TDot Hey ya’ll, Cameron here with a pre-Toronto Comic Arts Festival news special. Real busy here, gearing up for TCAF . Last year I did a Richmond, Virginia Line Up for SPX. This year a few of us got into TCAF so I’d like to make a little round up of the marvelous people who will be there! Melissa Duffy! A lovely comic artist who always knows how to take our mind to mysterious parts of thought. Website Tumblr Catch her at TABLE 237! Kyle Katterjohn! Mysteriously creating in the depths of Richmond, he always come up with the most compelling characters and ideas. Website Tumblr Catch him around the same table with Melissa! TABLE 237! Tres Dean! A local writer in the area who loves, loves, loves wrestling more than anyone I know. Check out some of the comics he’s written! Gumroad – Twitter Also at the table with Melissa and Kyle! Chris Visions! I’m sure you’ve heard of this dude before! Just an anomaly at art, and one of the best dancers ive met, no seriously, dont challenge him in a dance off. Website – Tumblr – Twitter TABLE 265! Cathryn Virginia! Her compelling illustrations will suck you in and have you wondering “like how.. but wait, woaaaah.” She’s always creating such vibrant ideas and images. Website Tumblr Twitter TABLE 231! Richie Pope! A fellow friend who is always challenging the medium no matter what it is. Also if you wanna learn about rap and hip hop, this is your dude. Website Tumblr Twitter TABLE 231! Cameron W. Nicholson (myself) I’m cool, hip, and won’t stop till I get to direct 8 movies. Then maybe I’ll become a football player. For now though i’m going to keep throwing animation, comics and illustrations at you! Website Tumblr Twitter TABLE 231! There are too many nice things I can say about each and every one of these great people. Come by the tables and say hi, get a hi-five, or even a hug. We’re all in this together to make comics and be amazing people! Hope to see ya’ll there! -Cameron Share this page: [...]

The Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency

Comics WorkbookJune 13, 2016School UpdatesThe Rowhouse doors are open! We are accepting applications for 2018 and 2019 Residencies! The Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency was founded by Frank Santoro in the spring of 2016, thanks to the incredible support of the comics community and a successful Indiegogo campaign in 2015. Check out the Indiegogo campaign video HERE! Now in it’s 3rd year, the Rowhouse is a busy place, as we run residencies for aspiring and experienced comics makers alike, and host certain master cartoonists who are making a point of coming through Pittsburgh to spar in the Comics Workbook dojo. Facilitated by Sally Ingraham, with the assistance of Frank Santoro, Juan Fernandez, and other members of the Comics Workbook crew, the Rowhouse Residency is a transformative place of discipline, study, and creative energy. __________________________________________________________ Email santoroschool@gmail.com for more info about how to apply for a residency and find more details about the program below! Check out our School Updates and News – Read the Residency Reports Follow our Instagram (@rowhouseresidency) – Visit the School Store __________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ Application details are below – visit Pittsburgh and make comics in 2018 or 2019! Please email santoroschool@gmail.com to apply. The application process is more like a conversation – please kick it off by telling us a little bit about yourself, sharing some of your comics or art work, and detailing what your goals might be for your time at the Rowhouse. Folks have enjoyed residencies that were a weekend to a month long, and we provide different fee structures for the various lengths of stay. You are guaranteed a private room in our comfortably furnished Rowhouse, space and time to work, instruction and mentoring from Frank Santoro and other members of the Comics Workbook team, plus access to Frank’s extensive comics library and the resources of the greater Pittsburgh comics community. We are currently accepting Residents for a minimum of a week and longer. Email santoroschool@gmail.com for more details! __________________________________________________________ So what exactly is the Rowhouse Residency? And who the hell are we, anyways? The Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency is facilitated by Sally Ingraham, with the assistance of Juan Fernandez and local members of the Comics Workbook team. However, it all begins with Frank Santoro. In his words: “I’ve been making and writing about comics since 1988. My work has been exhibited at the American Academy of Arts and Letters in New York and the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh. Allegedly, I’m a good egg and one of the most passionate proselytizers for comic books and visual literacy that you will ever meet. I’m from Pittsburgh, PA and I want to make this city the best place in the world to learn comic book making. Beyond that and closer to home I want to improve the neighborhood I am from. I grew up in this neighborhood in Pittsburgh called Swissvale – and my family has been on this tiny little street since 1933. This was a booming steel town hamlet and then it went into decline. Now, the city and the neighborhood are on the upswing. I want to be a part of that change and now my schoolhouse residency is anchor on this street and in this neighborhood. I’ve traveled all over the world and there is something special about Pittsburgh besides my own nostalgia or hometown pride. The Rowhouse Residency is now a part of the incredible ecosystem of learning institutions here in Pittsburgh. We are such an interesting city, I think, because we have this combination of a hard working blue collar mentality and a broad appreciation of the arts. I know it’s because of the ecosystem of museums, libraries, universities and independent learning institutions we have in Pittsburgh. Everyone from here has been to the Carnegie Museum and a Steeler game. City of Champions in more ways than one. Even if you know very little about comic books please consider that comics are where many kids learn to read. Comics are words and pictures. And words and pictures are the internet. So the artform of comics promotes “visual literacy”. Learning comics is like learning music or learning how to communicate with more than just words. And that’s the world we live in today. We are creating a dojo for students much like a martial arts academy. The beginner student will learn from more experienced students. We run the school like a sports clinic. What’s wrong with your swing? We can fix it. The dojo sparring sessions (so to speak) are recorded and broadcast. We have a “broadcast booth” and a radio show. We interview veterans and rookies and make room for friendly competition in order to push the boundaries of what is possible in the art form. This is not your regular comic book academy. This is a ninja academy, a samurai school, a Jedi academy. I do a really good Yoda impression. The student can live for a day, a weekend, a week or a month at a time in the same space. That way, the student-resident can have a total immersion in the process. Most cartoonists work out of their home, so why have an expensive school building and make the student live in a crappy dorm or apartment off campus? Why not just give them a desk and their own bedroom? The residents take classes with me in the living room of the house. And my mom lives up the street and makes great spaghetti sauce and lasagna. So it’s a family affair. We broadcast lessons and publish the work of residents through the local powerhouse, Copacetic Comics. Bill Boichel, the proprietor of Copacetic Comics in the Polish Hill section of Pittsburgh, is my Yoda. I want to pass on the lessons he taught me to a new generation of Jedis. The circle is now complete.” __________________________________________________________ Email santoroschool@gmail.com for more info about how to apply for a residency Check out our School Updates and News – Read the Residency Reports Follow our Instagram (@rowhouseresidency) – Visit the School Store __________________________________________________________ Share this page: [...]

08/23/2018

Caleb OrecchioAugust 23, 2018NewsCaleb Orecchio here with more thoughts on Michael DeForge’s new book from Koyama Press, Brat. ————————————————————————————————— Earlier this week, I wrote about Michael DeForge’s “pace” as an author as well as within his comics, specifically his new book Brat, by use of the grid. Today I want to point out his use of symbolic imagery and repetition. Every character is a symbol. Brat’s “protagonist,” Ms. D is the character in the two non-sequential images above. The tippy top image is her most basic character model while the image beneath is a distorted version of this, an exaggeration. The exaggeration calls attention to itself by being “off-model” and communicates a more extreme than usual emotion. Ms. D is very angry and DeForge communicates this in a simplistic way as you can see. Below is another example of distortion where D’s face gradually distorts from panel to panel to communicate restrained frustration while talking to her mother. The distortion is not over-exaggerated right away in the immediate page below, but our memory of D’s uncomplicated model is ingrained in our head so we can’t help but notice a change. It’s kind of a subtle-not-subtle approach to emotion that the reader picks up on immediately as a visual cue due to the simplicity of the character model (and the dialogue). As DeForge moves us through space, we see cars, building, trees, etc. All these elements are rendered in their simplest symbolic form. They draw little attention to themselves while still communicating a sense of place and a sense of visual pleasure. They serve their purpose without taking over. Repetition is also key to DeForge’s storytelling. Repetition of the grid, repetition of character models, repetition repetition. This patterin-ing of information creates a nice beat as all grids do, but the pattern of symbol-based images adds to the smooth rhythm of the book. Maybe “adds” is not the right term. The rhythm sustained by repetition minimizes the effort the reader has to extend. It’s “easy” to read. And when you add the fact that every object is recognized immediately, the reading is immensely pleasurable. After a while you are not aware you are reading. You just are. That’s what I’m getting at, Brat (and all of DeForge’s work) is pleasurable to look at and read. The combination of sparse symbolic information, the grid and the repetition of these elements is a combination that gets to the heart of comics. It’s a pattern that creates a rhythm that the reader can get lost in. From what I can tell, DeForge just keeps jogging along in no rush to reach some transcendental finish-line of the mind that others may expect or have expected in the past. He steadily continues to run at his own pace thank God. ————————————————————————————————— Cement Mixer – 8-23-18 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

07/19/2017

Juan FernándezJuly 19, 2017los Cómics / NewsEmpezamos el día con Sole Otero; La Polola EN VIVO; Vanesa R. Del Rey y Jordie Bellaire; Laura Vazquez; Pablo Vigo; Las charlas del Tenderete; Carmen de Mairen; y los tebeos de Cómics Workbook! ————————————————————————————————— “Oscilando entre claros y oscuros, entre momentos luminosos y agobiantes” Sole Otero charla con Micaela Soquiransky en Indie Hoy sobre su novela grafica más reciente, Poncho Fue: MS: Hay mucha síntesis en tu dibujo, pero a la vez es un trabajo súper gestual… SO: Esto tiene un poco que ver con que trabajo hace más de 15 años haciendo libros para chicos. Esos rasgos de dibujo infantil ya me quedaron y no se me van más. Supongo que ya es como un agregado del libro que una historia que es más bien oscura tenga ese contraste con el dibujo. Y en el libro me salió así porque yo dibujo así. De hecho ahora se me ocurrió hacer una historia que quiero que estéticamente sea oscura y me estoy empezando a proyectar de guionista para otra persona. Ese dibujo más macabro, estilo Edward Gorey, que a mí me gustaría para esa historia, no me sale. MS: ¿Y qué autores considerás influencias tuyas? SO: Mis influencias no son solamente historietas. Cuando arranqué con esta historia pensaba en Nick Hornby, por ejemplo, el de Alta fidelidad o En picado. Me gusta cómo analiza los vínculos entre las personas y trata de encontrar algo positivo en las cosas medio hostiles. También me gustan Boris Vian, Ítalo Calvino, Helen Oyeyemi, Sofia Coppola, Miyazaki, Murakami, Tezuka, Manu Larcenet, Marjane Satrapi… PowerPaola, por más que sea una amiga, también es una gran influencia. Como dibujantes también me gustan Isabelle Arsenault y Olivier Tallec. Ya no los miro tanto, pero en otro momento fueron los que me ayudaron a forjar un poco más el estilo. Un montón de cosas; hasta hice manga durante un tiempo… quería dibujar como Masakazu Katsura. Fui pasando por un montón de estilos; hubo una época en la que cambiaba de manera de dibujar de un año a otro. Léanlo todo 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! Las chicas conversan con la dibujante argentina Sole Otero EN VIVO en la presentación de sus libros “Poncho fue” y “La Pelusa de los días” en Galería Plop!. Hablamos de como se gestaron esos proyectos, sus vivencias personales versus la ficción de sus historias, compartió con los asistentes sus procesos, bocetos e ideas, proyectos para el futuro y mucho más. Vanesa R. Del Rey y Jordie Bellaire hablan con Multiversity Comics sobre su nueva colaboración, “Redlads” – Brujeria y politica en tinta. Revista Kamandi les ofrece una reseña crítica de Laura Vazquez sobre “Lo Salvaje” de Pablo Vigo. Tenderete, Festival de autoedición gráfica y sonora por excelencia de Valencia ha grabado y compartido las charlas y los debates del festival 2017. Todos los videos estan en línea (Me resalta la charla: “Anarco: Gráfica y movimientos sociales“, un grupo de Ilustradores en debate.) “La mujer perfecta: tiene pene y tiene teta”: Elizabeth Casillas habla aquí sobre la biografía en cómic de Carmen de Mairena en Revista Cactus. ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 7-19-2017 – by Gabriella Tito Share this page: [...]

12/15/2016

Sally IngrahamDecember 15, 2016NewsToday we have Sam Ombiri on film director Robert Bresson, and Tyler Landry on Kyle Baker’s sequencing – plus more Kyle Baker news, Chris Diaz’s photos, Vanesa R. Del Rey’s new book, a comics education sampler, and new Suzy and Cecil. ————————————————————————————————— This is Sam Ombiri. I’m going to be talking more about the reappropriation of methods and style than the movies I talk about here, so I’m more than likely not going to do the films justice as I try to write about them. I watched Funny Games again not too long ago, and parts of it reminded me of Au Hasard Balthazar, which is the number one movie for me – but more importantly, Michael Haneke‘s direction compared to Robert Bresson‘s. I think the main antagonists are just people (or maybe a more appropriate term for them is forces) who purely inflict themselves on their victims. In Funny Games it was just maybe infliction rooted in the overbearing nature of politeness? Maybe? I think Balthazar was rooted in…haha…I don’t know, there’s too many places it goes for me to think about right now. I think the way Haneke used methods akin to Bresson’s weren’t on a (I can’t find a better word than this, I’m probably wrong as I say this) superficial level. Andrei Tarkovsky said “When people tell me during the shooting of my film that a certain scene is in a way reminiscent of Bresson–and this has happened–I will immediately change the approach to avoid any resemblance. If there’s such an influence, it doesn’t show on the surface of my work. This is an influence of a deeper nature. It’s a moral influence between artists, without which art cannot exist.” I was watching part two of Solaris – there were a couple of scenes where faces weren’t in the frame, but as people passed a doorway they’d caress it as they were passing by – to the same effect as when Bresson does it. I can safely say it was not an attempt to copy Bresson, it was just a moment passing by. Bresson said something like the way he films is based on how you pass someone on the street. I think the small scene in Solaris happened as result of just a coincidence of aims, and not so much attention, and reliability was placed not on the methods used in that scene, but instead on what was accomplished. Austin English was saying how for awhile he was a big fan of Hal Hartley, but because his new movies are still made in the same way, he feels that they’re lacking. I couldn’t agree more – whenever I see Hal Hartley’s movies (the few I’ve seen), it leaves a bit of bad taste in my mouth, the way he just uses Bresson’s methods. That’s just me though, and that is not to say it’s bad to reappropriate Bresson’s methods – many of my favorite directors have. I’m even typing about one of them right now. Sammy Harkham said something like how influence is like a shortcut to achieving something you previously wanted to do, but lacked the possible way to. I can’t conjure up a reason for why, but Austin’s frustration with the lack of change and advancement will do. At the root of Bresson there’s a lack of reliance on…what one would typically rely on. He says he doesn’t want to know where he’ll shoot, he doesn’t have professional actors. Maybe since Hal’s dad was a construction worker he’s doomed to make ‘em like he does. Frank Santoro was telling me how Jordan Crane and Kevin Huizenga were coincidentally both doing comics that were taking place over one night, but that one night was taking years to unfold. But pretty I’m sure that the comics aren’t great just because they take place over one night. I’m pretty sure if someone wanted to be on par with their work, they’d have to do more than make the story take place over one night. That’s what Hal Hartley is to me. Although I have to admit Amateur is a real fun movie. It reminds me of how in Please Say Something there’s a reference to the famous Funny Games remote scene. They don’t achieve the same thing, and it’s more than likely a different influence that prompted David OReilly to use that reference in that way – the Haneke influence in Please Say Something wouldn’t be that direct. (I can only guess) So then, what I saw between Au Hasard Balthazar and Funny Games was… I don’t know if I can write about it too well – but their similarities aren’t so direct except for the forces that afflict the people. – Sam Ombiri ————————————————————————————————— Tyler Landry here – let’s take a peek at some of Kyle Baker’s work. Deadpool doesn’t mean anything to me – but this sequence of Baker’s does. What’s striking me here is overall repetition + changed elements over time (panels). Same scene, same pile of bodies, same ornate backdrop – but slightly closer and with less active bodies across the sequence. As Deadpool reduces these guys to chum, the scene becomes more focused on a particular individual – and Deadpool’s attention on him too. He also gets smaller in the scene, and the chaos quiets down, enforcing his/the trajectory. I went on about color last week, buzzing over Space Riders, and although not my primary concern here, I have to give it a mention. Follow those REDs, watch’em boil down to see where the action goes. One more page I wanted to look at, just for its sheer compositional beauty, was this one from a Hawkman story. It’s stark, powerful, and crystal clear. Again, it’s about creating focus – guided by form, by color, by directionality, by connecting elements across the page. Among other things, Baker’s dealing with concentrations of “noise” VS simpler, more solitary forms. The top two panels are almost mirrored – the bird, the plane – balancing noise and larger forms. On the right, a heavier bird shape sorta scoops your view, and dumps you into the middle down below. The central panel is key in using the birds and Hawkman himself as silhouetted parallels, but focusing on him specifically – larger, darker – as the driving force in moving this one forward. He’s advancing to the right, but his body, and the angle of his sword, are turned to the lower left – which lends itself to comfortably directing your eye in the lower left panel. Then, look at the total slickness in which the line of the edge of that windshield slides right across the panel, hops over the co-pilot’s hat, and continues right along the hijacker’s bent arm, DIRECTLY into the pilot’s terrified face. Nice, dude. – Tyler Landry ————————————————————————————————— Sally Ingraham here – funny that Tyler should be thinking about Kyle Baker today, as I was just listening to a podcast with him over on RiYL. Taped at the New York Comic Con amid a great deal of bustle, the interview digs into the intricate hustle that has been life as a cartoonist for Baker. He offers up some good stories about being a business-minded artist, and shares the experiences and decisions that have allowed him to remain independent AND working for two and a half decades. Check it out HERE. (via TCJ.com) Here’s a 15 page preview of Kyle Baker’s Nat Turner (from a piece on Vulture published in 2008). Get a copy of the book and other comics by Kyle HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Chris Anthony Diaz – easily the best photographer working in the comics scene – has kept busy this autumn documenting festivals and special events all across the country, from Columbus, OH, to Seattle, WA, to Los Angeles, CA. He has updated The Diaz Archive, found here on Comics Workbook, with his recent adventures – check them out: Comic Arts Los Angeles 2016 The Fantagraphics 40th Anniversary Party Cartoon Crossroads Columbus 2016 Part II (part 1 can be found HERE). ————————————————————————————————— Check out The Art of Vanesa R. Del Rey – now available from Comics Workbook! Vanesa generously agreed to let us published selections from her sketchbooks, as well as excerpts from an interview she did at the Rowhouse last spring. She is an incredible talent, the “vertical invaider” that we’ve been looking for, and this book offers up a new look at her work, process, and passions. Get a copy HERE! ————————————————————————————————— Give the gift of comics education! The Santoro School Handbook is a great place to start – get a copy HERE. We are still accepting applications for the Winter Semester of the Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers – details are HERE. Maybe you know someone who could benefit from one-on-one coaching? You won’t find a more passionate, or engaging teacher than Frank. Email us at santoroschoolATgmail to find out how you can help a friend or family member get in on the Correspondence Course. You can also check out the Rowhouse Residency program – perhaps the ideal gift for YOURSELF – a crash course in comics making for the newcomers, or a week of uninterupted time dedicated to making that comic you’ve always dreamed about. There are more details HERE – or email us to schedule your visit to Pittsburgh, PA, in 2017! ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 12/15/2016 – by Sally Ingraham Share this page: [...]

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