Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in NewsTagged chilling adventures in sorcery, gray morrow, red circle, sally ingraham

Caleb Orecchio

Posted on June 25, 2018June 25, 2018

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05/17/2018

Comics WorkbookMay 16, 2018NewsSam Ombiri on Gabrielle Bell’s “Cody”! ———————————————————————————— Sam Ombiri here: Sometimes I think about “Cody”– a story by Gabrielle Bell that appears in Kramers Ergot 8 – and about how much it does with so little. I guess I could question what does it matter that it does? After all, “doing so much with so little” can seem to be the mission of comics, if comics were to have a mission. Maybe I’m complimenting Gabrielle Bell’s success on that mission. The fact that Bell did so much with so little is not more important than what was actually done. I’m just really struck with this amazing story, and I’m trying to find ways to express how much I sensed the success of “Cody” in utilizing the comics form (not to rob the genuine intentions of comic and what it’s aiming to do). Well, that’s a lie. Truth be told, the very first time I read the comic, because it didn’t tell me how to feel and the drama wasn’t calling so much attention to itself, I kind of just skipped over all that was happening. I read through elements in the story, not really engaging with said elements. Like, for example, a friendship dissolving between Audrey’s dad and Cody, because nobody is paying any mind to it. Not even Cody, who is being so mistreated. While Audrey’s dad can be blamed for leaving Cody behind to be arrested, it isn’t for reasons that aren’t hard to guess, displayed by how Cody treats Audrey. At the same time, the way everything ended unfairly on his end, it’s easy to see why he doesn’t feel like he owes anyone anything. The way Gabrielle drew Cody being arrested conveys to me his realization that nobody truly cares about him. I wonder if Gabrielle gave him a dog to be less lonely? Anyway, Audrey’s dad is confronted with having to take responsibility for the man he used to be, not to mention the torment he has clearly been subjecting his wife to, and possibly at one point considers escaping it all, maybe with Cody?Would all this drama then be more effective if I was told what to feel? The way the comic is drawn feels so surreal, because it’s presented like nothing’s changed from the work that I’ve typically read from Gabrielle Bell. It’s hard to describe the feeling; it’s like if someone had told me that Ali: Fear Eats the Soul was directed by Douglas Sirk. It’s even crazier, because it’s Gabrielle Bell doing a comic that is so unlike her typical work – which is mostly autobiographical – but there’s no loud announcement that there’s a major shift. It’s so quietly done that it’s almost suspicious. I mean, for sure Gabrielle Bell’s regular work is not so unlike “Cody”, but the other purely fictional work I’ve read from her has been Cecil and Jordan in New York. This feels wholly unexpected for me. I mean in her autobio work she’s so good at portraying events or lack thereof in her life – it makes sense that her fiction would be this ridiculously good. The beginning is just as terrifying as the ending of the strip that comes before it in Kramers 8. I’m not talking about Leon Sadler’s thankfully comforting page, in between this unsettling horror, but the one before it in the story Kevin Huizenga had covered. There is something horrifying about Gabrielle Bell starting her story with a car crash, one whose only purpose is to remind our narrator of Cody, someone she once knew. It’s like, people have died and for no reason other than the minuscule purpose of making the main character briefly think about a guy named Cody. This isn’t a thing that I have to think long and hard about – I immediately feel it when I read the image and the words, but when I think about it some more it’s even more frightening. This is because the first panel is on the field in the past (most likely – nothing in the rest of the strip suggests otherwise) where the story takes place, so the setting is introduced already. Then a car crash “introduces” Cody, and one that’s not by any means loud – the way it’s drawn is especially ambivalent. The main character, Audrey, is looking at it, but her face is away from us. This oddly reminds me of Carlos Gonzalez’s comics. The way he draws his stories – while his stories and the way they’re drawn are incredibly grounded, whatever it may be that you’re being presented with, you’re not being told, at least by the drawings, what to be horrified with or what to find strange and what not. It’s like something Anders Nielsen said in an Inkstuds interview, that “sometimes in comics it’s best not to show things. So even a character’s expression – if a character is having an emotional response or little revelation or something, it’s almost always better to have their heads turned away from the camera. And I think of violence happening off-screen is sort of like the same thing. It’s more visceral, and it happens in the readers head instead.” It’s not a totally similar feeling that I get when I read “Cody”, but I just don’t know, I’m really troubled when I read the beginning. Just something about how the words that lead us to this incident are so casual – “Mostly I don’t think about it, but sometimes something will remind me of Cody.” It’s so casually and ambivalently spoken. I mean, on the list of horrifying images in comics this isn’t at the top of the list, and yet this is incredibly tragic and horrifying. I think it’s that such little care is given…it vaguely reminds me of the rhythm that Terrence Malick’s Badlands had – it speaks to the abrupt nature of life. Another comparison that came to mind was Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles. I refer to how the drama is muted and every detail is there for a reason. The drama is there if you engage with it, and there are these points in the story where it viceraly hits. “Cody”, like all the comics in Kramers 8, really knew how to hit in this specific way that’s so flabbergasting and disorienting, and at times, as shown by Bell’s “Cody”, incredibly compelling. – Sam Ombiri Get a copy of Kramers Ergot 8 HERE and check out Gabrielle Bell’s “Cody”. ———————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 5-17-2018 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

02/15/2018

Comics WorkbookFebruary 14, 2018NewsSam Ombiri on Noel Freibert’s Old Ground! ————————————————————————————————— Sam Ombiri here: What’s so special about comics? If someone asked me that, I’d point directly to Old Ground by Noel Freibert. Among my vague, imaginary mental list of favorite comics right now, Old Ground is up there; seriously. Everything seems to be in place in the book, and for me it couldn’t be more perfect. This is a comic that can’t be described in a way that would do it justice, as lazy as I might sound in saying that. Some scenes cause me to laugh a certain kind of laughter. It’s kind of a nervous laughter, but not necessarily out of being too frightened or weirded out to respond “properly”. It feels like Noel draws the way he does so he can simultaneously restrict himself, and through that free himself to go to certain places with his comics that wouldn’t be accessible to him (or anyone else for that matter) otherwise. This might be what accounts of my nervous laughter – some of the gags presented perhaps lack of a point of reference. The comic is a real shock to the system because the drawings and the story are virtuosic. The comic is simultaneously cute, frightening, menacing, intensely dramatic, intensely goofy, and so on and so on. Somehow Noel made all these shifts register really well, and every moment resonates with the moment before, surprisingly harmoniously for such a chaotic book. He lingers in moments so that the events can properly register. He isn’t in any rush to show us his cooler-looking drawings. I say this because a lot of times comics fall flat for me in their refusal to be comics. The drawings might be labored over, but the sequence of events or images have no pulse whatsoever, so to speak. Not so with Old Ground, not by a long shot. When the comic is focused on the two people buried in the grave, it goes on and on because it needs to, and then as the comic progresses Noel uses this established rhythm of the two people in the grave, and plays with it. He doesn’t just play with it – he confronts it. This comic doesn’t feel like Noel did it at a distance, with vague suggestions that aren’t a part of him. At least that was the feeling I was getting from reading the book. Noel is committed to displaying this vague feeling he has and pursuing it to the end (or no end). That’s what makes it such a compelling read – and the results are evident there in the book. In the story, one of the corpses in the grave claims to be 5, and the other claims to be 8 (but I suppose if they’ve been able to talk for as many years as they’ve been buried, maybe they’re even older). As one of the corpses – called Silver Spoon – put it, the worms maybe have eaten Cliffie’s (the other corpse) memory. The way Silver Spoon says it seems to be alluding to this only happening to Cliffie. The age seems to be more connected with the age when they died than the length of time they’ve been thinking. Although at the end of the story even this is questionable. What would they be thinking about? How frogs were believed to be able to consume evil spirits, and how this means they can eat anything? They talk about how they’re dead and what that means to them. Silver Spoon suggests that Cliffie’s parents deserved to die in the fire in which they perished (for no reason whatsoever!) Meanwhile, we’re also entertained by two wacky people whose goal is to demolish the graveyard. One is called Renaldo and is a very likeable character. I felt bad with how he was kind of forced into this situation by his boss, who is such a hilarious character. The story at a certain point turns into Silver Spoon trying to convince Cliffie that Renaldo and his boss aren’t his parents. The interaction between the corpses reminded me of Jim Bored’s adventures in Powr Mastrs 3. The way the characters’ imaginations take shape, which is symbolically realized through each of the books’ creators’ efforts (Noel for Old Ground and CF for Powr Mastrs), are of the same nature. The pacing of it is based off of boredom, so it’s a good excuse for imagination to suddenly take vivid shapes. I mean, there’s also a good amount of differences, like how it’s a dialogue in Old Ground, as opposed to a monologue in Powr Mastrs, or how instead of someone who is still alive but forgetting, it’s two dead people remembering (albeit not with much luck). I guess Jim Bored is also about remembering, but I think what Noel was saying with the comic partly is: dead people are not only forgotten by others – they’re also forgotten by themselves. So their goal of remembering is quite different from what Jim Bored’s goal was (which seemed to be self preservation and survival). If you haven’t read Old Ground it’s probably in your best interest to do so. The ending of the story is an especially good one, with so many great moments leading up to it. The characters are excellent, and the sequences have done more than just simply blow me away; they’ve really astounded me. The lines Noel draws really bend to his mysterious whims. The drawings suggest they’re based off of simplicity, but it’s a trick. When I begin reading the comic I’m lured in and at the same time Noel is bent on driving me through this story, which has these sudden bursts of hyperkinetic movements. When motion is conveyed it’s a real marvel to read. – Sam Ombiri Read more about Old Ground (Koyama Press, 2017) HERE, and get a copy of the comic HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Collected from the thousands of pages of material that Frank has left scattered all over the digital landscape, these 4 PDF collections contain Frank’s best writing on comics and comics making from the past decade. Theory and process, reviews and discoveries, journeys both physical and spiritual. Check out the “Best of Frank Santoro” PDF collections, available HERE! ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 2-14-2018 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

Frank Santoro’s 2016 LICAF Workshop – Notes for Attendees

Frank SantoroOctober 6, 2016Classesthee Comics Workbook crew from the USA Aidan Koch, Frank Santoro, and Connor Willumsen at The Lakes International Comic Art Festival 2016 presentation notes and videos During this presentation I will be referring to this master blog post – please open it in a separate window: http://coldheatcomics.blogspot.com/2015/02/notes-for-comics-symposium.html ================================ Watch these videos later – https://vimeo.com/185881298 ================================ watch the above and consider that “comic books” are the intersection of art and commerce and watch at the end for the doodle by Michelangelo ============================ 1:02 inversion of the traditional hierachy of art – where the doodle, so to speak, is the height of the craft ============================================ 1:04 on becoming a writer incrementally =============================== watch the above and draw a loved one from memory – in your sketchbook – or on a scrap of paper – but it has to be a drawing made with real effort – as if you had someone like a parent or respected elder or friend who knew the loved one and were judging if it looked like the person or not =============================================== Aidan’s work connects to what Dyer speaks of–the inversion of the traditional hierarchy. She isn’t so interested in the “graphic novel” as a proving ground for being a cartoonist in 2016 – the fragments expand the conversation of what is possible within the form and much like Lawrence’s most poetic and mysterious works, like his travel diaries, expand what the idea of a novel is or can be. ============================== Connor’s work connects to Berger’s idea of fighting disappearance Connor’s drawings of loved ones are done “in real life” and through video phone calls and his sequential narratives are often presented “unbound” and exist as numbered drawings and not necessarily as a book at all ========================================================== =================================================== Berger on Storytelling as a space time that exists like music ========================================================= I read a Guy Davenport essay about a Eudora Welty novel which used a very clear symbolism of the Persephone myth and I adapted that symbolism into a “melody” with a 4/4 time signature – I was also thinking about the 8 of an octave–or at least humbly attempting to draw a myth in 8 panels without the normal sequencing–I want a more “all at once” reading. The panels are numbered and it can be read “across the spread” or in a traditional zig-zag or even out of order and I believe the “song” is still heard; the melody is clear and the symbolism there to peel away like an onion. In the Welty novel the symbolism is spread through the characters and the period drama of a southern American wedding in the early 20th century. A sprawling literary use of the symbolism. I wanted to see if I could distill it down to the most core “notes” or “sounds” by using words and pictures (color and line) in the most simple and (i hope) clear way possible to present the symbolism with drawing. =================================== Watch the above “Berger 4” video and then watch the video of Aidan’s “original” drawings made for her books (below) ============================= I feel that Aidan’s work, like Connor’s, and my own, is rooted in the belief that drawing is a language. Letters and words are symbols after all. Lines. Shapes. Words written are but lines drawn, aren’t they? Even the printed word or the word on a computer screen is an image. Comic books are simply words and images together. Comic books and graphic novels and even comic strips have been overly concerned with character serial narrative “soap operas” than they have been with the poetry and mystery of visual literacy. ============================= =========================================== ============================================= Click on the below and then click back. Layout Workbook 3 Back? Great. Then, of course, there is the idea and the reality of genre narratives, like a vampire story or a science-fiction story. These comic books are very different than the “poetic comics” we are discussing here today. HOWEVER, I think that as Berger says “Metaphor is our guide” and so the super-hero escapism of many mainstream comics reflects our 2016 world me thinks (like a Black guy who wants to be bulletproof). In cartooning circles, how one draws is like how one speaks or writes. Connor’s “digressive” drawn line offers a type of “familiar” language that comics are often phrased. The digressiveness is disciplined in service of the genre. Genre and style are just raincoats, umbrellas under which to play within convention and to stretch the idea of what is familiar–the time in the narrative is experienced through the space depicted on the page with such stylized lines—a language unto itself within complex, many drawer-d toolbox that is the craft of comics. (said with a straight face – comic book drawing and this type of pen and ink drawing is often impenetrable by non-initiates) ============================================================ Dyer talks about metaphor and the fictive below (:48) and I think his ideas connect to how cartoonists can use style like a jazz musician and metaphor and invented scenes to serve the wild heights of style – even Aidan can engage in the style game, the dynamism of comics and the space, the glimpse, between the “genre” of western art’s depiction of the figure and how the figure is depicted in *most mainstream comic books ========================== ================================================================== ============================== ============================== ============================== Share this page: [...]

01/10/2018

Juan FernándezJanuary 10, 2018los Cómics / NewsJuan empieza el día con el Puchi Award 2018 y Paul Karasik & Mark Newgarden charlando sobre Nancy! ———————————————— Los cómics y las noticias que me han llamado la atención esta semana: ~ In English and en Español ~ Deadline reminder: Jan. 10th 201 – TODAY -. La Horchata Zine is accepting submissions from creators of Central American ancestry. New Deadline: submissions for Ink Brick no. 9 are due Monday, Feb 19, 2018! Do yourself a favor and submit your comics-poetry, won’t you? Belgian cartoonist and autobio-comics champion, David Libens, is starting to publish his current notebook online. His recent comics and zines have been coming from this notebook. There’s some really amazing autobiography in here. First take cartooning, grappling with depression, love and the nuisance that is the call of the void. Earnest, painful and funny. The First 12 pages are available here. Happy reading. La Casa Encendida y Fulgencio Pimentel siguen buscando un libro. La convocatoria de #PuchiAward 2018 está abierta a todo tipo de géneros y formas: ficción, no ficción, novela, poesía, cómic, álbum ilustrado, ensayo, libro de cocina, geografía… Hasta el 25 de enero. The Latino Comix Expo is coming to Brownsville, Texas! Exhibitors can apply for a table, fans can get their your tickets! Cynthia Alfonso and Óscar Raña have created a new video for Spanish Psych-pop band Dois – this comes via with their new experimental animation studio called RAPAPAWN. Check out the European Fuzzy Vector Goop Abstraction in action. Paul Karasik & Mark Newgarden talk on the Virtual Memories Show with Gil Roth about their glortious achievement – How to Read Nancy, a decade-long experiment in close comics reading and visual literacy. Listen here. ————————————————————————————————— Frank Santoro and Simon Hanselmann, CAB 2013 – photo by Chris Anthony Diaz, colored by Graham Willcox International Students: The Winter Semester of thee Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers starts January 16th 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. His experience and ideas have influenced the likes of Connor Willumsen, Michael DeForge, and Simon Hanselmann (quote “I consider Frank Santoro to be my L. Ron Hubbard”) among many others. Dig into something new in the new year! Full details and how to apply can be found HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 1-10-2018 – by Sally Ingraham ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 1-10-2018 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

05/23/2016

Juan FernándezMay 23, 2016NewsJuan Fernandez with: Berliac’s Gwai-Lo of the Heart; Jessica Abel on becoming a professional; Sara Lautman and Sophia Foster-Dimino; Matt Furie; Abhay Khosla on Dan DiDio; New comics from Matt Seneca + Cameron Weston Nicholson; Comics in the Globe and Mail. ————————————————————————————————— Gwai-Lo of the Heart We’re happy to feature Gwai-Lo of the Heart by Berliac on the site this week. Made in 2015 for Comics Workbook, Gwai-Lo of the Heart is a clever and mysteriously striking series of 4 panel comics that plays with the associations usually made with the West’s gaze towards manga.These little comics pack a poetic. punch. Can you dig it? Read it all here. ————————————————————————————————— Art and Commerce – Raising the Bastard Jessica Abel has put together an honest look over on her site at why you shouldn’t be disregarding the finances of your comics making practices if you want to be a professional. Jessica Abel: I hear so many aspiring cartoonists, writers, artists, audio producers, and other creatives saying something along the lines of: “I’m hoping to really master this art form so that I can achieve my dream of becoming a professional _____.” But mastering the art form, finishing work that is at a professional level, this counts for maybe 40% of what it means to become a professional…whatever. Mastering your art form is how you become a great artist. It is not how you become a professional. ————————————————————————————————— Sara Lautman and Sophia Foster-Dimino in Conversation Foster-Dimino: Making art, even commercial illustration, is a tricky premise, because you want to distinguish yourself from the crowd, but not so much that you become an aberration, so you look within yourself to try to mine what makes you unique, but you also look out to confirm that your uniqueness is still relatable—it’s a very delicate balance, a struggle between wanting to experiment and make progress versus wanting to play it safe and stay predictable. People want to see growth from themselves and the world, but not too much too quickly. I think many folks have an innate sense for this. But a mood disorder by nature warps your metrics. ————————————————————————————————— Myspace -> Meme -> Mainstream Creator of Boy’s Club, Matt “Big Dog” Furie getting the credit he’s due. It’s about time! Here’s a great look at Furie’s invisibly effective comics technique by George Elkind. L.A. TACO interview (2016). VICE interview (2015) TMSIDK Podcast interview (2012) Boy’s Club is now available from Fantagraphics! ————————————————————————————————— ISSUE, RULE, APPLICATION – Abhay Khosla on Dan DiDio For many years, I know I’ve complained about Dan DiDio, and this has seemed like an especially worthy topic to discuss given recent events. So below is some of my own reasoning that I’ve had in believing that Mr. DiDio should have been removed many years ago from his position at DC, a belief I only feel more urgently given recent events. In an ideal world, he would be promoted higher in a corporate hierarchy to a position of irrelevancy, to a position that actually utilized whatever strengths Mr. Davis and others might see in him, while removing him far from the day-to-day nuts & bolts of the mainstream comics industry, where I will argue below he is unsuited. Read it all in depth over at Savage Critic. ————————————————————————————————— Burgundy Cameron Weston Nicholson’s got a new comic for sale post-TCAF. Visual Poetry, mixing the hue with who. Illustrated Poetry with visual definition, feeling. An 18 Page Poem comic. Will come signed with a doodle by yours truly. Get ’em while you can! Only 22 left 😉 ————————————————————————————————— Frankie Teardrop and 200 Deaf Boys Matt Seneca’s latest comics are now available in his webstore. Frankie Teardrop, a brutal, action packed superhero parody and the 4th and final part of 200 Deaf Boys, a Christian mysticism horror show. ————————————————————————————————— 2016 Igntatz Submissions Deadline – June 7th Since 1997, the Ignatz Awards have been intended to recognize outstanding achievements in comics and cartooning by small press creators or creator-owned projects published by larger publishers. If you would like your recent work to be considered for the Ignatzes, now’s the time to send in your comics. Submission details are available here! ————————————————————————————————— The Globe & Comics Sean Rogers over at The Globe and Mail has reviewed After Nothing Comes by Aidan Koch,, Bird in a Cage by Rebecca Roher and, Kramers Ergot 9. It’s exciting to see quality, independently produced work reviewed online and in print by a publication with such wide range. ————————————————————————————————— Until next time! Juan Share this page: [...]

06/25/2018

Posted on June 25, 2018June 25, 2018 by Caleb Orecchio

Caleb Orecchio here with thoughts on Chilling Adventures in Sorcery #3, featuring the art of Gray Morrow, and other news!

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I was delighted to pull this issue out of the Comics Workbook vault. It’s an all Gray Morrow issue of Chilling Adventures in Sorcery published by Archie Comics’ imprint, Red Circle. I enjoy Morrow’s comics immensely. I just look at the pictures. Morrow’s gift (other than his virtuosic drawing ability) is his knack for making interesting pages.

the scientist on this spread, from what I can tell, is a Morrow self-portrait

Comics like Orion (for Heavy Metal) and Edge of Chaos (a limited series for Pacific Comics) feel much more from Morrow’s head if you will. Imagined. They’re great. In contrast, comics like the one featured here today, feel more stitched together to me. More collage-y. In a good way.

Usually I detest any whiff of photo-reference in comics, but Morrow makes it work. Occasionally the sequencing is a little wonky and the referenced images juxtaposed with the imagined images can be jarring, but overall the pages are pleasing to the eye. There is a dynamism to his work that makes up for a lot.

Simply, Morrow’s comics are always interesting. He seemed to have a real desire to “wow” the reader. Every page is crammed with interesting imagery. And those colors! Morrow was one of those cartoonists who seemed to think in color as he made the comic, as opposed to most who only use color as an afterthought. Have you ever seen Orion in those old Heavy Metals? Those are hand painted.

Is it just me, or is there a swagger to his work? Like, I can imagine him at the drawing board and drinking a glass of Dewar’s and laughing to himself, knowing how impressed I’d be in however many years I’d be born to see the work.

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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!

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if you don’t know, now you know

There’s a new book of CF drawings and you can get one What Things Do
Laura Lannes is the latest guest on TCJ’s Comic Book Decalogue
Rob Clough reviews Young Frances by Hartley Lin (Ethan Rilly)
Also on TCJ.com, a review by Matt Seneca and a look at Fantom Comics in Washington D.C.

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Suzy and Cecil – 6-25-2018 – by Sally Ingraham

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Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in NewsTagged chilling adventures in sorcery, gray morrow, red circle, sally ingraham

Caleb Orecchio

Posted on June 25, 2018June 25, 2018

Explore

06/02/2016

HarrisonJune 2, 2016News @h_gprince is collecting comics and arts news for Thursday, June 2, 2016. Today we’ll board the drunken boat, take a glance at process, and finish off by hunting heads. On a Boat PLEASE SHARE: Drunken Boat, the venerable online literary journal for experimental writing (15+ years running), is introducing a dedicated comics section beginning with our fall 2016 issue. We are seeking both form-melting and traditionally formal comics from a diverse range of artists, so whatever comics or comics-like things you’re making, send us your best. Submitted work should be previously unpublished (though feel free to contact us if this distinction is hazy), between one and twenty-five pages, and comprising either one or multiple pieces. Works will be displayed online, which offers some leeway with regards to size specifications. We simply ask that you familiarize yourself with the journal and use common sense when submitting. We’re open to figuring out a way to present your comics in the best possible fashion. The submissions deadline for our fall issue is 6/30/2016, so get to work! You’ll find our submissions page here. If you have any questions, feel free to email at nick@drunkenboat.com. -Nick Francis Potter, Drunken Boat comics editor Processing “Reading about other cartoonists’ process always interests me, but I’ve never really written about my own way of creating comics art because it’s usually as simple as can be – pencils, letters, inks, and colors all on the same sheet of paper in that order, no computer intercession to speak of. But for my latest comic, the bootleg Punisher/Dazzler blowout TRAP: FRANKIE TEARDROP, I employed a pretty different way of working that I thought one or two of you might be interested in looking behind the scenes of.” – Matt Seneca. This is how I do most my drawings. First attempt at using a time lapse thing, what do you think? #illustration #sketchbook #timelapse #animegirl #process A video posted by Matt Layzell (@m_layzell) on Jun 1, 2016 at 8:36am PDT Processing(g) “This is how I do most my drawings. First attempt at using a time lapse thing, what do you think?” – @m_layzell http://layzellbros.com/ Hunters Share this page: [...]

07/18/2017

Aaron CockleJuly 18, 2017NewsAaron Cockle here today with Helen Jo; Safari Festival Reminder; Chitra Ganesh; Helen Frankenthaler ————————————————————————————————— ‘Without a car, commuting into the city via public transit becomes a nightmare.’ Alex Wong talks with Helen Jo about Jo’s translation of Yeon-sik Hong’s Uncomfortably Happily: Do you think, compared to other books, there was less of a risk of the original material being lost in translation in Uncomfortably Happily? Because of all the universal themes that are covered in the book? I think that something may always be lost in translation. Translating from one language to the next is not mathematics. Even if you strip away all of the cultural context and stick to the academic bare bones of a language itself, you can’t fit a Korean peg into an English hole. Each language is a system of words, connotations, innuendo, context, unspoken intentions, and none of it is exactly equal to its foreign counterparts. I think a good translation is mindful of that fact, and tries to re-interpret the intent behind the words for the new audience. I may not have been able to provide an exact translation, because an exact translation cannot truly exist, but I did my best to bring the intention and meaning and context of each and every page to the English reader. ————————————————————————————————— Safari Festival 2017 ————————————————————————————————— Tales of Amnesia This is just a link to an image search for Chitra Ganesh’s Tales of Amnesia comics. ————————————————————————————————— As in Nature: Helen Frankenthaler Paintings / No Rules: Helen Frankenthaler Woodcuts Helen Frankenthaler has two exhibitions currently at the Clark Institute in Williamstown, MA, USA. ————————————————————————————————— A Cosmic Journey – 7-18-2017 – by Cameron Arthur ———————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 7-18-2017 – by Sally Ingraham ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 7-18-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

Jaime Hernandez Talk with Jordan Crane at The Last Bookstore

Chris Anthony DiazJanuary 31, 2018The Diaz ArchiveJaime Hernandez in conversation with Jordan Crane for Fantagraphics Studio Edition: Jaime Hernandez, published by Fantagraphics Books. The Last Bookstore, old downtown Los Angeles, Monday, December 11, 2017. (Click images for different external links related to Jaime Hernandez and Jordan Crane.) Share this page: [...]

04/20/2018

Sally IngrahamApril 19, 2018NewsSally Ingraham here with work and news from Anya Davidson, Ramona Fradon, Gabriella Tito, and many more! ————————————————————————————————— Leah Mandel speaks to Anya Davidson about her work and the comic she made for The FADER – part of a comics feature in the spring issue where six cartoonists were asked to imagine a “future earth”. “Anya’s piece is like trading cards for the 2045 election, and she’s envisioned a race between a sea creature, the general of the Human’s Resistance Army, a cryogenics CEO, his kill-bot underling, a rat-human hybrid, and a Bernie Sanders-like Professor Roland Fredericks, Leader of the Democratic Republic of New Hampshire. Beauregard Trask, CEO of Traskorp Cryogenics, is the Republican nominee. His tagline? “Life begins after death.” All in all, not too far off.“ Anya is asked why she made a one-pager comic that isn’t necessarily narrative driven. Her answer: “I feel like some people are marathon runners, some are sprinters, and some are in between. As a cartoonist, I’m a marathonist. My normal format when I’m working on books, left to my own devices, is making longform works. When I’m asked to do shorter form work, for me the idea of putting a narrative on a single page is like, How would I even…? I love writing long dialogue. I’m kind of a maximalist, so the idea of trying to fit any kind of a narrative in that small of a space — I know it’s possible and there are people who do it beautifully — but how would I fit a story on a single page?“ Anya is working on a new book for Breakdown Press and doing her weekly podcast – Mindkiller – plus playing out more often with her band Lilac. She’s busy! Read more about what she’s up to and her thoughts about the future HERE. ————————————————————————————————— James Romberger has a con report for Big Apple Con at The Comics Beat – he snapped a pic of Ramon Fradon and scribbled this info about her: “Fradon deserves a lot of appreciation for the quality of her work and as perhaps the only female artist to rise to prominence at DC Comics in the Golden Age up through the Silver Age and beyond. She has always drawn with great fluidity and dynamism. Her beloved works include a long run on Aquaman and her co-creation, the incredibly bizarre Metamorpho and later in the seventies on Plastic Man, Super Friends and a series of moody, exceptionally expressive stories for DC horror titles. So she surely saw it all in her career, and yet she persevered in comics, eventually taking over the Brenda Starr daily/Sunday strip from 1980 to 1995.“ James Romberger’s other big discovery at the con was of particular interest to me, and it is unrelated to women in comics – HOWEVER, Sy Barry (pictured above) was a guest at the con, and he turns out to be the mysterious uncredited artist behind the famous Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story comic (which I wrote about recently)…! “Now, the truth is at last revealed. Barry says that he was given the job by the Capp Studio, which was run by Li’l Abner cartoonist Al Capp’s brother, Elliot Caplin. Barry stated that his name had been on the cover of the very first edition of the MLK comic, but for later printings his signature was replaced by a text box.“ Read more about this and the rest of the Big Apple Con HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Gabriella Tito has a new comic out called Heartsick. You can get a copy by emailing her – the info is above! Here’s a look inside. Gabriella Tito is a Floridian cartoonist and an alumni of the Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers. She has completed two residencies in Pittsburgh at the Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency, and has been co-creating the Suzy & Cecil comic strip with me (Sally Ingraham) for over a year. Keep up with her HERE and be sure to grab a copy of this rad new comic! ————————————————————————————————— While We’re on the Subject Françoise Mouly writes about Eleanor Davis‘ Why Art? for The New Yorker – read the review HERE. Keren Katz was a recent guest on the Process Party podcast – listen HERE. The Doug Wright Award nominations have been announced – among the nominees for Best Book are GG, for I’m Not There (Koyama Press), and Connor Willumsen, for Anti-Gone (Koyama Press). More details HERE. Check out Jessica Campbell’s new gallery show, Who Dis?, which features her “carpet paintings” – plus a radio interview on Chicago’s WDCB 90.9 FM – HERE. The Comics Journal has a feature piece on German cartoonist Olivia Vieweg. Her comic Endzeit was recently released in Germany, and is being serialized in English HERE on the web. Read about her comics and film projects HERE at tcj.com. Heidi MacDonald shares thoughts on her participation on a recent comics project – The 100 Pages that Shaped Comics list that Abraham Riesman initiated for Vulture. If you haven’t seen the list yet, it’s some good weekend reading – HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 4-20-2018 – by Gabriella Tito Share this page: [...]

07/04/2017

Aaron CockleJuly 4, 2017NewsAaron Cockle here today with Jackie Kirby at the Rowhouse Residency; Leonara Carrington; Babel Unbound; some dispatches from the CBLDF; Florine Stettheimer; William Blake ————————————————————————————————— Jackie Kirby writes about their Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency this past June here on the site. A poet and a comics maker, they really dug deep into their practice while they were here and had a lot to share and teach Frank and Sally and the Pittsburgh comics community in their turn. “My conversations with Frank were thoughtful, engaging, and exciting. Among the most interesting aspects of our discussions was comparing analogies of music and poetry to comics. I know very little when it comes to music. Half-kidding – it’s one of the few popular art forms I’m not a snob about, and I’ve tried to keep it like that. Frank, on the other hand, is a total music nerd. I came into his house for espresso one afternoon and he presented me with a piece of scrap paper on which he had written “2/3 ¾ rectangle riff seen from a poet’s pov in relation to ‘meter’ / and relation to ‘the Breath’ or Dylan’s ‘long line of spit.’ ” Frank and I chatted for hours regarding this. He would riff for fifteen minutes or so about music and I would respond with a riff on poetics. Forty five minutes could go by without comics being explicitly mentioned once, but the composition and formal techniques of comics practice underlined every moment. When I brought this up, Frank brushed it off, saying “Of course we could talk about how Robert Crumb is this or that but we both know that.” What’s interesting is what we can learn from each other.” Read more of Jackie’s thoughts HERE. You can read more Rowhouse Residency Reports HERE – and learn more about the Residency program HERE or email santoroschoolATgmail for more info. ————————————————————————————————— ‘Even though you won’t believe me / my story is beautiful’ At Hyperallergic, Elisa Wouk Almino looks at some books by Leonara Carrington: In her memoir and fiction — and, in retrospect, her visual art as well — Carrington strives to understand people’s “systems;” to peer into them and visualize all their beautiful or ugly selves, often through animal incarnations, as in fables. Evil characters have hair “like black vipers” or “a little bird’s laugh,” and good ones have skin that glints like stars. In Pamela Robertson-Pearce’s 2000 film about women Surrealist artists, Gifted Beauty, Carrington advises, “We have to listen to the soul … and to know when it’s a soul. … Each soul has a daemon.” It seems to me that both her writing and visual art takes up this very exercise — a kind of study of the human soul. ————————————————————————————————— Babel Unbound Closing July 8 at the CIT Wandesford Quay Gallery in Cork, Ireland, Babel Unbound, by Leslie Mutchler and Jason Urban. Referencing a series of historical works intertwined with the function and performance of the library, such as Aby Warburg’s Atlas Mnemosyne, Borges’ The Library of Babel, and Walter Benjamin’s Unpacking my Library, the artists contemplate the library of today- one filtered through reproducibility, access to information and an ever-evolving understanding of curation, aesthetics and the archive. The library is a fertile place for exploration, a place that most often prioritizes use over display whereas the gallery is a site that prioritizes display over functionality. Babel Unbound attempts to do both; and while doing so slowly becomes aware of itself, as illegible, complicated, incomplete… ————————————————————————————————— At the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund A couple of recent posts of note from Maren Williams at the CBLDF: Cartoonists Under Threat Worldwide Two years after the attack on Charlie Hebdo staff, the world’s free expression focus has largely shifted away from cartoonists. That certainly does not mean the danger has disappeared, however, as a recent 30-page report from the French nonprofit Cartooning for Peace/Dessins Pour la Paix shows. The report brings together profiles of cartoonists under threat and background information on the free speech situation in the countries where they work — or from which they’ve been forced to flee. New TSA Rules May Require Books to be Scanned Separately Air travel in the U.S. may be about to get a bit worse for the literate, as the Transportation Security Administration is reportedly testing a new requirement for passengers to remove books and other paper items from their carry-on luggage during security screening. While the TSA says the proposed new policy arises only from scanning machines’ limitations in discerning explosives from other contents of packed bags, there is no doubt that privacy concerns can and will arise.Testing of the new procedures quietly began last month at a handful of small airports including Colorado Springs, Boise, and Lubbock. Since that time, according to the Wall Street Journal, passengers at larger airports have also encountered new rules on paper goods but those rules may “change line by line, airport by airport.” ————————————————————————————————— ‘You might say she took the red, yellow and blue that Mondrian was just discovering and added purple, orange, pink and black.’ Roberta Smith at the New York Times reviews the Florine Stettheimer: Painting Poetry show: The first Stettheimer cult was the one she painted. After a disappointing — and premature — solo show at Knoedler in 1916, she exhibited most frequently at her private salons. The women in her scenes were almost always her mother and sisters. The men were for the most part movers and shakers of the small New York art world, dandies, if not gay, who frequented the salon and admired Stettheimer. ————————————————————————————————— William Blake and the Age of Aquarius September 23, 2017 – March 11, 2018 Block Museum of Art Northwestern University William Blake and the Age of Aquarius will consider parallels between Blake’s time and mid-twentieth-century America, touching on such issues as political repression, social transformation, and struggles for civil rights. Blake’s protests against the conventions of his day were inspirational for many young Americans disillusioned by perceived cultural tendencies of social uniformity, materialism and consumerism, racial and gender discrimination, and environmental degradation. This generation sought in Blake a model of independence, imagination, and resistance to authority. The exhibition will feature American artists for whom Blake was an important inspiration and will include more than 130 paintings, prints, drawings, photographs, films, and posters, as well as original Blake prints and illuminated books from collections throughout the United States. ————————————————————————————————— A Cosmic Journey – 7-4-2017 – by Cameron Arthur ———————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 7-4-2017 – by Sally Ingraham ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 7-4-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

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