Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in News

Juan Fernández

Posted on June 6, 2016June 6, 2016

Explore

11/01/2018

Caleb OrecchioNovember 1, 2018NewsCaleb Orecchio here with a strip by Jimmy Swinnerton ————————————————————————————————— What a lovely strip from one of our earliest pioneers, Jimmy Swinnerton. What I enjoy about many of these early strips is the simplicity. The background is held for the entirety of the strip while the action unfolds without a hitch like a stage. I find this simple way of cartooning makes for seamless reading. The first panel sets the scene along with the players, and once you have understood that this is the environment (stage) and these are the characters you are free to sit back and “watch.” There is no effort on the readers part to evaluate changing settings or new characters. This, also, I think is the key to much of comedy in comics. I think that this is why, for example, DeForge’s comics are so effective as humor. The characters look the same in every panel and their habitat is simply rendered. The words become the main focus because the reader has already downloaded the rest of the information right off the bat. And if the words and action are funny, the comic will be funny. Make sense? I look at this Swinnerton comic all the time. It is a reminder that simplicity in comics speaks volumes once ink is laid to paper. ————————————————————————————————— Niall Breen – 11-1-18 Share this page: [...]

10/10/2016

Juan FernándezOctober 10, 2016NewsJuan here with: this weekend’s Comics Workbook events in Kendal and Columbus; Carla Speed McNeil and Ben Katchor interviewed by Heidi McDonald; Frank Santoro’s SPX riff highlights; Igort’s “Ukrainian and Russian Notebooks”; Brandon Graham sketchbook comics; Fantagraphics and Matt Furie’s Pepe the Frog; Chris Ware writes on Pushwagner’s Soft City; Ron Wimberly on The Lot Radio; Maxine Frank and Robin Bougie on porn comics. ————————————————————————————————— This weekend is just around the bend and Comics Workbook is coming at you full force in Kendal, UK and Columbus, OH! If you’re stateside, you should know that Comics Workbook is coming to Cartoon Crossroads Columbus! October 13-16th 2016. We will be hosting workshops and tabling. Join Comics Workbook, along with cartoonists, Alyssa Berg and Kurt Ankeny, for an immersive weekend of comics creation. We will examine art and the grid, bringing the strong artistic practices of Berg and Ankeny together with the discipline and rhythm of the grid, as laid out by Comics Workbook founder Frank Santoro. Four hours across two days will be filled with the exploration of a variety of techniques and methods which will inspire the beginner, and challenge the established cartoonist. Comics as jazz; comics as architecture; how a simple index card can transform your sequencing and storytelling process – come join us for an hour or four and take your comics making to a new level. More information on our CXC exploits to come soon – the full festival schedule is here! All of you in the UK, may we have your attention!! Comics Workbook is coming to The Lakes International Comic Art Festival! October 14-16th 2016! Join Frank Santoro, Aidan Koch, and Connor Willumsen for some cool workshops and visit table 67 in the Comics Clocktower to meet Oliver East and Jack Brougham among others! We will be hosting 3 special workshops, “Visual Poetry” with Aidan Koch, “The Hammer Party” with Connor Willumsen and “Composition Competition” with Frank Santoro. Tickets for the main events at this year’s Lakes International Comic Art Festival are on sale now. Check out the show or Visit our event page for more information! ————————————————————————————————— https://vimeo.com/185881298 If you want a feel of what you can expect, check out our newly edited video of Frank’s primo riffs from SPX 😉 – filmed in Bethesda, Maryland on September 17th 2016. Our video features excerpts from his workshop with Cameron Weston Nicholson and Frank Santoro Filmed and edited by Tyler Q Tucker and Sally Ingraham (Watch the rest of the workshop footage HERE.) ————————————————————————————————— ⚡ Heidi McDonald interviews Carla Speed Mcneil and Ben Katchor on More to Come over on Publishers Weekly. ————————————————————————————————— ⚡PEN America is featuring a glorious excerpt from Igort’s “Ukrainian and Russian Notebooks” over in The Illustrated Pen series. In “The Ukrainian and Russian Notebooks: Life and Death under Soviet Rule”, award-winnng illustrator Igort details the assassination of Anna Politkovskaya, Russian journalist and human rights activist who spoke out against Vladimir Putin and the Second Chechen War, and the Holodomor, the government-sanctioned famine in Ukraine in 1932. Below, an excerpt from the book. ————————————————————————————————— ⚡ Brandon Graham has shared some sketchbook work that might inspire you to pour yourself into some autobiografiction of your own. Life throws us all curve balls. It’s amazing to see how Graham can make all his comics breathe. It’s two simple pages. ————————————————————————————————— ⚡ Fantagraphics Books makes a public statement on the recent politicized use of Matt Furie’s Pepe the Frog. Fantagraphics Books wants to state for the record that the one, true Pepe the frog, as created by the human being and artist Matt Furie, is a peaceful cartoon amphibian who represents love, acceptance, and fun. (And getting stoned.) Both creator and creation reject the nihilism fueling Pepe’s alt-right appropriators, and all of us at Fantagraphics encourage you to help us reclaim Pepe as a symbol of positivity and togetherness, and to stand by Matt Furie. ————————————————————————————————— ⚡ Chris Ware writes on Pushwagner’s Soft City (Unearthed, translated and reprinted by New York Review Comics) Soft City is something of a miracle. Not only for existing in the first place, but for surviving at all. Drawn between 1969 and 1975 by the Norwegian artist Hariton Pushwagner (now often just Pushwagner, though born Terje Brofos in 1940), it languished in obscurity for decades and was very nearly lost before finally being issued in book form by the Norwegian publishers No Comprendo in 2008, following a messy legal dispute involving the artist and his former dealer. Most pointedly, however, it is a miracle of its native medium—the comic strip—for its startling and disquieting vision in a form that had never before quite seen anything like it. Funny, or maybe not so funny, that it would take forty years for the rest of the world to realize it. ————————————————————————————————— ⚡ Ron Wimberly visits and covers the Lot Radio. Wimberly has cooks up a really satisfying comics essay for the New Yorker on a project that has kept popping up around me on the internet. Read it all over HERE and listen to the Lot live HERE. ————————————————————————————————— ⚡ Maxine Frank and Robin Bougie chat with VICE about making porn comics. They talk feminist frame works, process, and pervy fan art. What is your take on feminist porn, and would you describe your work that way? Maxine: I’m interested in the idea of feminist porn and telling from a woman’s perspective. I tend to focus on women characters and what they want in a situation rather than drawing a parade of women for the male lead to fuck. I don’t know if I would describe it as feminist, but if someone said “here’s a feminist interpretation of it,” that would be very interesting. While I don’t necessarily consider the comics feminist, I am myself a feminist. Some people have this very 80s idea of the anti-porn feminist, but there’s so many ways to be one. ————————————————————————————————— Have you seen the recent collaboration between Frank Santoro and master jeweler Airi Maeno? Check out the Pompeii Medallion HERE. Want to help us get Connor Willumsen to The Lakes International Comic Art Festival – this way please! ————————————————————————————————— Until next time, Juan Share this page: [...]

Richard Diebenkorn’s Sketchbooks at the Cantor Museum

Comics WorkbookJanuary 15, 2017EssaysJesse Rimler reports on the Richard Diebenkorn Sketchbook show that hung at the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University last summer. ————————————————————————————————— The painter Richard Diebenkorn (1922-1993) is probably best known for his abstracts, especially his large Ocean Park series. He also painted from life, and is included in the group of artists now known as the Bay Area Figurative movement, along with Elmer Bischoff, David Park and Joan Brown, among others. These painters moved in and out of abstraction while never abandoning the figure and landscapes as subjects. The Cantor Museum recently acquired 29 of Diebenkorn’s sketchbooks. My favorite works by Diebenkorn are his prints and drawings, so I was excited to see these up close. Plus, as someone who keeps a sketchbook and has spent the last several years trying to learn how to draw better, I’m always curious to see anyone’s sketchbook and raw drawing style. It turns out there isn’t much difference between Diebenkorn’s sketchbook drawings and his etchings – he had a lively, spontaneous line and an unfailing sense of composition no matter the medium or size. Here are few of my favorites from this great collection: Though these are worth seeing in person, one cool thing is that the Cantor has scanned all of his sketchbooks and put them online HERE. This exhibit made me think about the general use of a sketchbook. Diebenkorn called his sketchbook his “portable studio,” and it’s clear he took drawing in these beatup spiralbounds as seriously as he did etching on a copper plate or painting on a canvas. I think some comics makers, myself included, tend to treat their sketchbooks as something completely different from their final art. The idea of closing the gap between the two is appealing to me, and Diebenkorn’s example is inspiring. On the practical side, I liked how Diebenkorn used fairly inexpensive sketchbooks, often with a low page count. He felt free to glop on gouache or use heavy ink washes, and so almost always used one side of the page. This was exciting to me, as I’ve found the use of a pricey, bound, moleskin-style sketchbook to be a little inhibiting. It’s nice to work with a pad with few pages – if you dislike the run you’ve been on in your current sketchbook, you’re not tied to it for very long. I also love the look of the old Strathmore books. I went out and got a bunch of Strathmore drawing pads. The covers aren’t as nice these days but the size and lack of pretense freed me up a bit. These little ones are 4 bucks and have pretty good off-white paper. At 24 pages, I filled several up pretty quickly. Satisfying! Here are a few of my recent sketches: ————————————————————————————————— Jesse Rimler makes comics in the Bay Area. You can see more of his sketches and comics by following him on Instagram – @rimblecomics. His submission to the Comics Workbook Composition Competition can be seen HERE. Share this page: [...]

05/28/2018

Caleb OrecchioMay 28, 2018NewsGone fishing ———————————————————————————— We will be back tomorrow at our normal programming schedule. Have a good one! ———————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 5-28-18 – by Gabriella Tito Share this page: [...]

07/13/2018

Sally IngrahamJuly 13, 2018NewsSally Ingraham here with news and comics from Rachel Masilamani! ————————————————————————————————— Rachel Masilamani lectured at the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh last night, and in a lead-up to the event 90.5 WESA’s Bill O’Driscoll ran a feature about Masilamani and her comics. She talked about how Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics made her turn to the medium: ” “I had never thought to look critically at what I was doing when I read a comic, and then that made me really excited to try to do it on my own,” she said. “I thought, ‘Here I am, I’m a person who loves to tell stories and a person who loves to draw. Why didn’t I try this before?’” “It became really exciting to me to realize that there was a way that you can build stories and really welcome people in a new way, different than standing and talking, different than just writing, and different than illustrating someone else’s words,” she said. “ Masilamani’s main comics project of the last few years has been Nonpartum, which has been serialized on Mutha Magazine (read it here). This comic is her examination of pregnancy and motherhood and how the eyes of society view both from all angles. ” “I really want everybody to think about motherhood, and to think about how children are born, how we think about women, how we approach motherhood as a whole,” she said. “And I think that the form that I’m using opens a whole topic up to a new set of people who might not have realized that they wanted to read about it and they wanted to think about it.” “ Read the rest of the article and listen to the radio spot HERE. Juan here! Last night was really important for me as Rachel is a friend and an inspiration. She, in combination with Bill Boichel, are the very reason that I started making comics in Pittsburgh in 2010. I snapped some photos for posterity. Here’s hoping we can record a talk like this with Rachel to share with you online! Rachel offered up some great riffs and thoughts to serve as connective tissue across all her work. She’s making some truly titanic, contemporary comics that I can’t wait for you to see in the coming years. I wanted to appreciate Rachel a little with you all, she is quite simply, the primary reason why I started making comics. I made my first self-published comic,in response to a zine of Rachel’s that I’d found at Copacetic Comics’ old location in Squirrel Hill. It was this small, black and white zine for a $1 ‘Singing Contest’ was this amazing, relatively wordless story about a young girl living at the American-Mexican border. All the humans essentially don’t speak in words. All the word balloons are just filled with images. And there are these magical helpers, and they’re just animals from the desert and end up helping this girl in the story. In a traditional sense, she draws expertly in a naturalist mode. She works with color in a gorgeous way where she can lay another layer of meaning in her work just with the color, but it is not about the “good” drawing taking the work to this next level. Rather it’s about the way that the drawings and the words interconnect. Her ability to stitch and weave meaning and braid thoughts together. She’s able to achieve this lyrical prose that is just like utterly poetic in the combination of the images and the words. Her approach, he said, is experimental but accessible. What a godsend. She’s doing really deep, complicated communication and she’s able to do that and not lose you. Rachel does a really amazing job at inviting people to share that space with her on the page. She’s the reason why I started and is one of the reasons why I soldier on, trying to make beautiful things with images and words in this land that we call, comics. With that, I’d like to invite you to read all her work over on Mutha Magazine! Above is a page from the 4th chapter of Nonpartum – read all of it HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Weekend Reading! Lisa Lim shares the story of her “Bad-Ass Grandmother” on Mutha Magazine – read it HERE. Check out Angie Wang‘s comic about searching for a cherished dish – Water-Boiled Fish – on Eater. G. Willow Wilson (co-creator of Ms. Marvel) is going to take over the writing of Wonder Woman in November...Paste Magazine has the details. Hyperallergic takes a look at Eleanor Davis‘ Why Art? – HERE. The London Free Press has a quick feature on Lisa Hanawalt‘s upcoming Coyote Doggirl. Here’s your quarterly reminder to check out the Women Write About Comics website! ————————————————————————————————— Share this page: [...]

06/06/2016

Posted on June 6, 2016June 6, 2016 by Juan Fernández

Juan Fernandez here! We start Monday at Comics Workbook with: a newly stocked SCHOOL STORE; Oliver East’s COTTONOPOLIS; Genevieve Castree’s time of need; Roman Muradov in conversation with Tim Hensley on INKSTUDS; Puiupo and Adonis interviewed by Kevin Czap; Eleri Mai Harris on the origins of the Islamic State; Kramers Ergot/ Ganges Mini Tour 2016 Dates.

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On the site:

School Store STOCKED
We have some new items up on the school store – ZONA #03 was just released, plus there are some cool comics sets and other collectibles/delectables – check it out!

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Cottonopolis by Oliver East

I’m happy to announce that this week we are featuring Oliver East’s Cottonopolis series on Comics Workbook. Made from November 2014 through January 2015 by Oliver East for Comics Workbook, Cottonopolis is a series of 6 panel comics that, among other things, blurs the lines between the historical documentation of a place and the documentation of identity. In their own mysterious way, these comics unpack moments in a life that swirl in the history of Manchester, England.

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Off the site:

HELP GENEVIÈVE ELVERUM AND HER FAMILY FACE CANCER

In May of 2015, Geneviève Elverum (Cartoonist: Geneviève Castrée/ Musician: Woelv/Ô Paon) was out of the blue diagnosed with inoperable stage 4 pancreatic cancer. In the last year that she has undergone necessary treatment, Geneviève and her husband, Phil, have had to deplete all their savings to face the medical costs associated with this illness. At the moment, Phil is reaching out for financial help.

Phil Elverum: We are asking the world to please donate money to us. Treatment is ongoing. Nobody in our household has been able to work for over a year. Geneviève has not made any new work. Phil has not made any music or been able to perform or do anything. Life is 100% occupied by this humongous medical battle (plus the already overwhelming reality of raising a baby with less than 2 fully available parents). We don’t know what the future holds and how long this uncertainty will last. In any case, the amount we’ve spent over the last year alone has left us in a precarious financial position as a family.

Genevieve and Phil are asking for help through a GoFundMe campaign. Any amount helps.

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[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/267747519″ params=”color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false” width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /] Roman Muradov interviews Tim Hensley on Inkstuds

Muradov:Dan Clowes described Wally Gropius as “a work of unassuming genius that rewards on ever-deepening levels on each re-reading” and this quote applies just as well to Tim’s two other books, Ticket Stub and, most recently, Sir Alfred Number 3, a comic-strip biography of Alfred Hitchcock that is unlike anything you may expect from the phrase “comic-strip biography.”

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Puiupo and Adonis

Kevin Czapieski interviews Puiupo & Adonis Pantazopoulos, the author’s of Czap Book’s latest release, the Brazilian sci-fi comic Úlcera.

K – Adonis, what is your background? You paint as well as make comics, did you go to art school?
A – “I did, here in São Paulo there’s an art school called Quanta that I attended between 2010~2012 and I’ve recently dropped out of an animation college (I did only one period, [laughs]).”

K – Puiupo, you’re currently studying animation, right? What kind of animation influenced that decision – is there anything out there that you’re really excited about?
P – “Well, I’m really into modern Japanese animation and it’s been my main influence since I started drawing. [Being] Masaaki Yuasa has to be my life goal without a doubt (laughs). I am also very exited about the pace that the Brazilian animation scene has been growing at recently, and I want to be a part of it’s growth, if I manage to stay motivated (laughs).

Generally, an animation major was the thing that made more sense for me at the time, coming from comics and all, you know. But I don’t want to restrain myself to it, personally or professionally. I have a deep interest in comics and animation just as much as I have for fashion, painting, and performance. I hope to get the time to work on these other creative areas at some point.”

Read it all here.
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Islamic State Illustrated
Eleri Mai Harris has written and illustrated a well researched piece of comics journalism on the origins of the Islamic State over on the ABC. For those interested, Harris and her team have compiled lots of references for you to dig into after reading this piece of comics journalism to further educate yourself.
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Kramers Ergot / Ganges MINI TOUR 2016

June 10-12th – Chicago – QUIMBY’S
June 14th – Toronto – THE BEGUILING
June 15th – Pittsburgh – COPACETIC COMICS
June 16th – New York City – DESERT ISLAND

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see you Wednesday! Until then, keep your volume knobs turned all the way up.
-Juan

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Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in News

Juan Fernández

Posted on June 6, 2016June 6, 2016

Explore

06/08/2016

Juan FernándezJune 8, 2016NewsJuan Fernandez with: a Studio Visit with Steven Weissman; COTTONOPOLIS on CW; School Store Restock Selling Fast; Hostia un Libro; Pablo Besse’s ANTITIERRA; El Capitan Trueno; un look a Locas; Club Fosfatina 2000 Vol. 2. On the site: New in the DIAZ ARCHIVE: http://comicsworkbook.com/a-studio-visit-with-steven-weissman/ ————————————————————————————————— Cottonopolis Week continues on CW Made from November 2014 through January 2015 by Oliver East for Comics Workbook, Cottonopolis is a series of 6 panel comics that unpack moments in a life that swirls in the history of Manchester, UK. Spend some time with them today. ————————————————————————————————— School Store: Recent Restock SELLING OUT FAST We have some new items up on the school store that have been selling fast. Don’t miss your chance to grab: ZONA #03, Cold Heat Specials and Blades & Lazers set, Gary Panter postcard set, and Mikey Z’s Venom. Off the site: ¡HOSTIA UN LIBRO! Just around the corner in Madrid, Spain is ¡HOSTIA UN LIBRO! a small press festival in its 3rd year. Comics, poetry, literature, all in the small press mix in this outdoor book fair. Organized by Elisabeth Falomir Archambault, Alberto Haj-Saleh, Francisco Serrano, Pedro Toro, hosts of Hostia un Podcast. ————————————————————————————————— Antitierra – Pablo Besse Real purdy, sexually charged digital edition of a book by argentine cartoonist, Pablo Besse. If you like what you see there, be sure to take a dip into Pablo Besse’s drawings over on his site. ————————————————————————————————— Reflecting on 60 Years Capitan Trueno Jesús Jiménez has wonderful look at the history of Spain’s best selling comic book over at RTVE.es. Inspired by Hal Foster’s Prince Valiant, El Capitan Trueno was a rock ’em sock ’em action comic full of o’ hyucks that took Spain by storm under Franco. Smash that Google Translate button to read it all! ————————————————————————————————— Dandole un look a Locas Ruth García Martín os da un look al primer volumen en la serie Love and Rockets de Jaime Hernandez, Locas 1. RGM: A lo largo de las 272 páginas y 24 vemos una notable evolución narrativa como discursiva en la que se va despojando de lo accesorio para utilizar, o innovar, los recursos necesarios en cada escena. En cierta medida, salvaguardando todas las distancias, su evolución es equivalente a la de Mike Mignola. Ambos tienen una narrativa muy particular con la que han recreado un personal universo y un arte que ha ido limpiándose de artificios innecesarios con el paso del tiempo sin mermar, más bien al contrario, un ápice la calidad. En este primer tomo Jaime Hernández sienta las bases de lo que será su universo Si no han leeido Love and Rockets, os toca empezar vuestra aventura con Los Hermanos Hernandez hoy! ————————————————————————————————— CLUB FOSFATINA 2000 VOL 2. Galician publisher Club Fosfatina has just released a peek at Julia Huete’s killer looking Gran Danes (Above), the first book in Club Fosfatina’s second bimonthly A4 Risograph comics subscription. Subscriptions can be made up until June 30th. Don’t sleep on ’em! FOSFATINA 2000 es una colección bimensual de cómics a dos colores tamaño A4 impresa en RISOGRAFÍA, con una tirada limitada de 150 ejemplares. El segundo volumen de la colección está conformada por las obras de los siguientes autores: Julia Huete, María Ramos, Cynthia Alfonso, Berliac, Nacho García, Los Bravú,Óscar Raña y Berto Fojo. Ocho ediciones repartidas durante todo el año, cada dos meses con dos lanzamientos dobles (Cynthia Alonso / Berliac, Óscar Raña / Berto Fojo). Share this page: [...]

01/30/2018

Aaron CockleJanuary 30, 2018NewsAaron here today with Louise Nevelson; Jennifer Ley; Comic Contracts ————————————————————————————————— Louise Nevelson: Black & White Feb 01, 2018 – Mar 03, 2018 Pace Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of works by Louise Nevelson, marking the gallery’s twenty-seventh solo show for the artist since 1963. The exhibition brings together approximately 20 of Nevelson’s iconic black and white painted wood sculptures, wall reliefs, and installations from the late 1950s through the late 1980s. Louise Nevelson: Black & White will be on view from February 1 through March 3, 2018 at 537 West 24th Street, with an opening reception on Thursday, February 1 from 6 – 8 pm. A full-color catalogue accompanies the exhibition. ————————————————————————————————— Inside Club 57: A Conversation with Artist Jennifer Ley Tuesday, February 13, 1:30pm, The Museum of Modern Art Join us for a conversation with artist Jennifer Ley, who moved to New York City and joined the circle around Club 57 in the late 1970s. An ad gal by day, she created fashion satire and early music videos by night. We will talk about her photo xerox series As Never Seen in Seventeen, handmade pins, and films. The discussion is moderated by educator Petra Pankow. ————————————————————————————————— Comic contracts and other ways to make the law understandable The above comic is a full non-disclosure agreement. Three pictures with text. And the result? Users actually read it and get the basic idea of non-disclosure. No more disputes arose. Are you wondering if this is all legally binding? The answer is yes. Contracts are about intention – and if it is actually made clearer and understandable by pictures then all the better. ————————————————————————————————— 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! ————————————————————————————————— Vision Box – 1-30-2018 – by Cameron Arthur ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 1-30-2018 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

10/24/2018

Juan FernándezOctober 24, 2018NewsJuan and Andrew with an invitation to participate in 2018’s #30dayscomics Juan here! November is right around the corner which means that not only will I finally let myself turn on the heat at my apartment in Pittsburgh, but #30dayscomics will soon be upon us! As the weather chills and most of us become indoor creatures in the Northern Hemisphere, it’s good to come together by working on and sharing comics making challenges, connected by the internet. For those who don’t know, 30 Days of Comics is a month-long challenge. The parameters are pretty simple: Make 1 comic a day for the month of November. They can be anything you like, any format, any style, though most people do 1 page or 1 strip. Just do it everyday. This November, I’m excited to be able to allocate some time (likely at work) to working on my esperanza00 series and to see where these neurotrash digital collages of drawings, jpegs, clippings from articles, poems and facebook posts take me. The idea will be to create a 4 panel comic composed of 3-6 colors in this fashion daily: Needless to say, I’m excited. Here at Comics Workbook we’d like to invite you to participate in this year’s comics making journey. With me today is Andrew White to tell you more about a little this year’s #30dayscomics. Take it away Andrew. Starting on November 1st, I’m going to draw and post one comic per day for a month. I’ve done this almost every year since 2012, with varying success in terms of getting to the end of the month and in terms of the work itself. The cartoonist Derik Badman first took on this challenge, which he called 30 Days of Comics, in 2009 and invited others to join him in 2011. Derik describes the month as, “a time for experimentation, exploring short forms, and a great way to produce work.” That sounds about right to me. Often participants work with some kind of constraint, using the month to experiment with different approaches or new materials. See for example Kevin Czap’s A Lesson in Survival (2012), which appropriates text from Joni Mitchell and is visually very different from Kevin’s other work; or Simon Moreton’s set of printed zines produced near-daily; or Alyssa Berg’s Open Letter to Sleep (2016), an extended meditation on a single topic. Making one comic per day is of course a constraint itself. Personally, I’ve found the month most fruitful when I’ve gotten at a topic that I’ve been turning over in my mind for a while, which hopefully means that it will benefit from a rapid outpouring of work. The 30 Days of Comics Tumblr archive is another place to see how others have approached the month in the past. On that note, the community aspect of 30 Days has been essential for me. We encourage each other to keep going, and I’m still happy with the year when I riffed on the work of other participants. I’ve first met some dear friends thanks to 30 Days. Finally, implicit in the call to make comics daily for a month is the idea that making comics daily might not be possible through the rest of the year. We all benefit from a different balance between thinking about comics and making comics – and sometimes that balance is imposed externally by a day job or other life circumstance. We’re all affected, often negatively, by the idea that productivity is essential to our success as an artist, but we might wish we were more productive as well. For me, 30 Days helps with the difficult project of maintaining that balance. One comic per day isn’t too much work, but 30 comics in total is also significant. It’s okay if you miss a day. It’s okay if you aren’t happy with some of your work. This year I’ll be making four panel comics, inspired by people like Juan Fernandez and Madeleine Witt. My strips will be loosely based on this paper in the academic journal Science. I hope you’ll join us, and that you’ll use the hashtag #30dayscomics so that we can all find each other’s work! 10-24-2018 – Fifi Martinez 10-24-2018 – Niall Breen Share this page: [...]

04/19/2018

Comics WorkbookApril 18, 2018NewsSam Ombiri on Joe Daly’s The Red Monkey – plus Frank Santoro at Naples Comicon in Italy! —————————————————————————————————————————— Sam Ombiri here: When reading comics, or engaging with any art form really, there’s this confrontation with internal noise that I have to dealt with – that for unknown reasons I feel desperate to make sense of. I wonder…this whole comics thing…what’s it for? Different artists at different times speak to me, to help make sense of it all, and I’m certain this is what it’s like for everyone who reads comics. For me this week, I’m not saying Joe Daly’s The Red Monkey rectified ALL of this ongoing anxiety, but reading The Red Monkey was in some ways an answer to some of my questions – in a big way, really. This isn’t the first time Joe Daly’s book has given me a real gut punch. Daly’s comics in general feel like a really sincere reaction to the energy that comics poses. When I say sincere, I mean he makes comics that don’t seem concerned with the reception that will be given to the book that he’s made. Every drawing he made was at the service of the form, and engaging with the ideas he is engaging with, as opposed to aiming to get attention and accolades. Telling a story means less and less for people. It’s too simple; too boring. People feel desperate to make comics more useful, and as a result can forsake the form altogether, and that’s not without its consequences – comics feel increasing impotent. With The Red Monkey, it doesn’t feel like Daly wonders how people will consume it. He engages with comics like it’s something to make things that are difficult to understand, understandable. As though comics are an effective way for any reader to be confronted with what’s not understandable. I remember Stan Brakhage quoting Bresson (in a conversation Bresson was having with Godard) about how it’s important to convince your audience to like you – and making a thing aesthetically pleasing so that you can take your audience certain places. The Red Monkey was so easy to read, without it’s simplicity being a big deal, and the environment was so well rendered – never did I have to ask where I was or what the the character was doing. It’s this clarity that’s important when making stories. With that in mind, I’m reminded of a moment in Daly’s Highbone Theater and how I was sucked into Palmer’s idea about 9/11 without questioning it or mocking it, because of how infectious the narrative was. It’s in the same fashion that I’m sucked into the madness going on in The Red Monkey. That’s what art can do. I keep having this recurring stupid mini revelation, or rather I had this thought a year ago, and it’s nothing impressive, but it’s really stuck with me. This revelation has to do with how potent attitude is, how it goes into making any piece of art have a certain energy that defines it. There’s a moment towards the beginning of the story when the main character gets roped into babysitting for his neighbor. He tries to find a comic for the kid, and he tells the kid that he’s babysitting (who is a fantastic character), to be careful with the comics, and that comics are like his religion. That’s the energy I’m referring to that I find over and over in Daly’s comics. – Sam Ombiri Get a copy of The Red Monkey by Joe Daly over at Copacetic Comics, where coincidentally there is a wicked deal on the book as Bill Boichel is also eager to get more folks hep to Daly – check it out HERE. —————————————————————————————————————————— Sally here – the Naples Comicon Instagram account was buzzing yesterday, as famed Italian paleontologist Alberto Angela was caught at the National Archeological Museum of Naples, in Italy, looking at original artwork from Frank Santoro’s Pompeii (above). Alberto Angela is a popular TV presenter and commentator for science-based programs. He is the author of A Day in the Life of Ancient Rome, among other texts, and has lectured on the tragedy of Pompeii. He seemed taken by Frank’s depictions, or as the Naples Comicon put it, he “could not resist the charm of the show“. There are over 30 pages from Pompeii on display at the museum, in an exhibition which is being held in conjunction with Frank’s appearance as a special guest at the Naples Comicon (April 28-May 1 2018). The show opened yesterday (April 18th) at MANN and will continue until May 31st 2018. More details on the show can be found HERE. During Comicon Frank will be participating in a panel with Blutch, whose graphic novel Peplum also takes a look at Ancient Rome. Details on the panel are HERE. If you’re in the area, be sure to attend Comicon and meet Frank, and don’t miss the exhibition at MANN! —————————————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 4-19-2018 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

10/10/2016

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