Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in NewsTagged comix 4 orlando, exhibition, flag press, gabby schulz, Inkstuds, Luke Pearson, ratigher, Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, Sean Ford, Warren Craghead

Aaron Cockle

Posted on June 27, 2016June 28, 2016

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09/25/2018

Aaron CockleSeptember 25, 2018NewsJulie Doucet; L. Nichols; Best American Comics; Richard McGuire; Everything is Connected at the Met Breuer; Art in Brussels ————————————————————————————————— Dirty Plotte—The Complete Julie Doucet by Austin English By the end of Dirty Plotte, the panels become increasingly dense and claustrophobic—beautifully so, but a trap all the same. The imposition of the rules of comics come to a head: clear, pure storytelling, the same character over and over, refine-refine-refine your style—a far remove from the infinitely open plane Doucet grafted onto the medium when Plotte began. An author of endless skill, she observed these principles and easily mastered them. Could the wide canvas of the early issues have been similarly exhausted? ————————————————————————————————— L Nichols: Day One ————————————————————————————————— The Best American Comics 2018 Panel discussion at Strand Book Store, NYC, Wednesday, October 3, 7pm “I love comics. Comics is (Comics ARE?) a perfect language, robustly evolving and expanding like any other living language,” writes Phoebe Gloeckner in her Introduction to The Best American Comics 2018. This year’s collection includes work selected from the pages of graphic novels, comic books, periodicals, zines, online, and more, highlighting the kaleidoscopic diversity of the comics language today. Join us as panelist Bill Kartalopoulos, Julia Gfrörer, Julian Glander, Kevin Hooyman, and Julia Jacquette talk about this year in comics. ————————————————————————————————— Richard McGuire: Art for the Street – 1978-1982 September 27 – November 4, 2018; Opening: Thursday, Sept. 27, 6-8 pm Alden Projects, 34 Orchard Street, NYC “A shadow is a strong and simple graphic,” McGuire explains. “The titles evolved from a Burroughs-esque cut-up method — just grabbing selected phrases that caught my ear. I would make lists. Later, I made a stencil. I would see what worked best with that image as a ‘sound picture’.” Incorporating cryptic phrases such as “Moved Then Set on Fire” (1979); “Holes and Corners” (1980); “Doubles are Inevitable” (1980); and “Different Nervous Rhythms (1981); McGuire’s Ixnae Nix drawings transmogrify the layout and content of quotidian newspapers into personalized tabloids in which the central silhouette appears with “a crypto-mystical graphic style, a great touch,” to borrow Glenn O’Brien’s 1981 praise in Interview magazine. The stream-of-consciousness poetics of McGuire’s Ixnae Nix drawings share explicit aesthetic dialogue with Basquiat and his early poetics, but later, these conversations arguably go both ways. McGuire’s Incident Instantly Becomes Memory , to name one, shared a pivotal stage with Basquiat, Haring, and others at the New York / New Wave show, curated by Diego Cortez at P.S. 1, Queens in 1981, and clearly anticipates some of Basquiat’s later pictorial developments. The Ixnae Nix drawings also confabulate with Keith Haring’s early street-based work, particularly with the latter’s Xeroxed collages of cut-up newspaper headlines, which he began in 1980. McGuire stopped his wheatpasting activities in early 1981—around the same time that Haring first began making chalk drawings in the subway. ————————————————————————————————— Everything Is Connected: Art and Conspiracy The first half of the exhibition comprises works by artists who hew strictly to the public record, uncovering hidden webs of deceit—from the shell corporations used by New York’s largest private landlord, interconnected networks encompassing politicians, businessmen, and arms dealers. In the second part, other artists dive headlong into the fever dreams of the disaffected, creating fantastical works that nevertheless uncover uncomfortable truths in an age of information overload and weakened trust in institutions. ————————————————————————————————— 09-25-2018 – by Niall Breen Share this page: [...]

02/02/2017

Sally IngrahamFebruary 1, 2017NewsSally has the comics and news today – Ronald Wimberly and Jim Pluk on tour, Ladycastle on shelves, Aya on the big screen, Adam Griffiths in Pittsburgh – and Sam Ombiri brings thoughts on changing minds. ————————————————————————————————— From Ronald Wimberly: “Happy Black History Month The last two years, to celebrate the impact black people have had on our history, I’ve drawn 12 Black luminaries, past and present, alongside their own words. This year I’ve drawn 14 new ones and collected them and those from the last two years together in a book coming out on the 8th (2/8/2017) from Image Comics. Ask for it at your local book stores, galleries, museum shops, etc. You can even cop it on your kindle or comixology. I’m even working on an audiobook version where I describe the picture to you while simultaneously reading the quote. Nah. This month I’ll be making several stops alongside the east coast, signing and talking. If you’re around, please come say hi! 2/15/17 1900-2100: WASHINGTON D.C.; FANTOM COMICS Catch me at Fantom Comics from 7 till 9pm signing books and chatting with the homie Julian Lytle. 2/19/17 1300-1700: COLUMBUS, OHIO; CMA I’ll be doing a signing followed by a closing reception for my show at the Columbus Museum of Art. Come by, drink some wine, eat some cheese and chat me up. 2/22//17 1800-2000: PITTSBURGH, PA; COPACETIC COMICS Still working out the details on this, but pretty excited to check out your town Pittsburgh! 2/24/17 RHODE ISLAND TBA “ We are super excited that Ron is coming to Pittsburgh this month, and if he is coming anywhere near you be sure to look him up! ————————————————————————————————— I paused my perusal of the excellent tumblr Superheroes In Full Color to go look up what Marguerite Abouet has been doing lately. She is an Ivorian writer who currently resides in Paris, and is the author of the award-winning series Aya (the artwork is by her husband Clément Oubrerie). The series was adapted into a movie, which has recently been screened at a number of French and African film festivals. In November of 2016 Aya of Yop City was screened at the 4th Ake Arts and Book Festival, in Abeokuta, Nigeria. Nmadiuto Uche sat down with Marguerite to talk about the film and the comic series and their conversation was recently posted online. “You have mentioned on two different occasions here at Ake that you were not sure how Nigerians will receive Aya. Why were you so anxious? Even though Nigeria and Cote D’Ivoire are not far from each other geographically, the culture may not be familiar. Thus, there is a lot of prejudice. Nigerians think that Ivoirians are people who party all the time and drink a lot. I mean, someone even asked after the movie screened if I was sponsored by a beer company. Often, we have a simplistic vision of other African countries and this is not good. I am African first before being Ivoirian. I do not allow countries in the West to speak badly about Africa and we should not do the same among ourselves. When I mentioned I was coming to Nigeria, people said I was crazy and the country is dangerous. As I said, I do not like prejudice. In every country, there are dangerous and good places. So, all of this was going through my mind before Aya was screened. I was happy that people laughed and had a good time with the film. It is important to respect others. We share almost the same customs. For example, when Adunni and the Nefertiti band performed, I loved it. It reminded me of something similar from an ethnicity in Cote D’Ivoire, which is why we have this profession, to create dialogue and discuss. Even though, I do not like to fly, I make the time to travel and have conversations with people at festivals like this.“ Read the rest HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Sam Ombiri here: This one guy was telling me that he doesn’t like comics, but he was lumping all comics to fit the singular context of “the comics that he read that he wasn’t too fond of”. “Comics” were one thing in his mind, and this wouldn’t shift. No matter how much I tried to change his trajectory of thought regarding “what comics are”, his stance wouldn’t budge. He kind of presented a similar attitude when talking about what magical realism is. He said “No, I don’t like comics I like books.” While I had the floor in the conversation, he kept repeating “Comic books? Graphic novels? Comic book? Graphic novel? Comic book? Graphic novel?” One thing I can’t quite explain was the subtle tone he was using when he was saying “Graphic novels? Comic books?” He wasn’t abnormally impolite, he was just super opinionated about comics and what they are. It felt like terminology he was really hanging onto…and I find here, just as I found in that conversation, that I’m very bad at explaining things. There was this other guy I was talking to about different rappers whom we were familiar with – and then out of the blue he asks “Are you talking about rap or hip hop?” To which I respond ??? – as this was a distinction that he had clearly created in his mind, which only he had access to. It kind of reminds me of when people say “Oh, X genre is not music.” To which I say “Who cares?” I certainly don’t. The associations barely play a role in how I interact with the work (or at least I try to keep it that way, and I fail more often than not. Haha.) This person going around insisting on what’s music and what’s not is, again, creating a distinction in their mind that only they have access to. Which is fine, I’m fairly certain everyone does this – but this expectation that everyone will automatically be on board with it seems a bit…(I can’t come up with the word). I could kind of peer into the mind of the first person whom I was talking to (or trying to talk) about comics with. He kind of had a dismissive tone when talking about these “Comic books? Graphic novels?” I couldn’t bring myself to bring, say, “art comics” or, uhhh, “literatury comics” into the conversation. I feel that if our conversation had gone on, and I might have gotten him to say something other than “Comic books? Graphic novels?” He’d probably have eventually thought, “I could probably find comics that I’d like, but who has the time?” It was a tad frustrating, and I wish I could hide my frustration better and act calm and collected, but it was like, “Not all books are Twilight or whatever – why apply this principle to comics like this guy is?” I guess what this has got me wondering is (and this is putting my question in a very clumsy way – this question is still abstract in my mind, and I’m not too good at forming it) “What role do these associations play?” Or no, maybe it’s “Are these associations there to make a space for people to speak with authority, even when they’re still ignorant of what they’re talking about, and are unable to bring up specifics, or interact with what they’re talking about?” Or no, maybe that’s still not my question well represented… – Sam Ombiri This Is Totally a 4-Panel Comic – Sam Ombiri ————————————————————————————————— Ladycastle #1 was just released! I’ve been eagerly awaiting this new feminist take on the princess left in a tower trope… Ladycastle is a 4-part mini-series written and created by Delilah S. Dawson, with art by Ashley A. Woods (who is also part of the creative team for the series Niobe: She Is Life). Geeks of Doom describe Ladycastle as a “candid look into what would happen if all the knights and soldiers went off to war and (mostly) got themselves killed. Bordering on satirical, this story focuses on a group of ladies that refuse to accept the roles that their society tries to place on them. From a picky princess who isn’t going to marry a prince just because the king insists, to a blacksmith’s wife who is apparently just as good of a ‘smith as her husband.“ Back in November the ComicsAlliance spoke to Delilah Dawson and Ashley Wood about the project (which comes from Boom! Studios): “CA: Feminist takes on fantasy and princess stories seem to be having a real moment right now, especially in comics. Do you see this book as part of a conversation or movement? DD: I come to comics from the world of novels and mainstream publishing, where Young Adult books led the charge for putting women in power. Both publishing — especially Science Fiction and Fantasy — and comics can often feel like arenas with a tradition of older straight white dudes being in power, and I love that new voices are bringing in better representation of the real world and new ideas of who gets to wield power there. It feels less like a moment and more like a much-needed charge for balance. AW: Most definitely. Delilah tackles certain tropes head on and flips them around to show that all female characters aren’t the same, just like women and people in real life. What I like most about the princess of Ladycastle – Aeve – is that she refuses to let another person define her life or put her in a box. She rejects that with every fiber of her being, from the way she expresses herself (not what one would typically call “ladylike”), to the way that she dresses. I think redefining who a princess is and how she acts is a powerful way to show young female readers that they don’t have to wait to be rescued to be their own person.“ Read the rest of the interview HERE – and look for Ladycastle in your local comics shop. Also be sure to check out Niobe: She Is Life (#4 just came out) which is written by teen actress Amandla Stenberg and drawn by Ashley A. Wood. It is, to quote Amandla, “officially the first comic book to be written by a black girl, starring a black girl , and illustrated by a black girl .” More about the comic and Amandla’s mission HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Jim Pluk and the Starchild Tour 2017 is coming to your town – if you live in Berlin or Rome, that is! Catch Jim Pluk – a fantastic cartoonist from Columbia – in Berlin on February 3rd and in Rome on February 11th. At both events Jim will be releasing new fanzines and his comic Canosa’s Welcome (Perfectly Acceptable Press, 2016) along with 150/200 drawings and paintings. In Rome there will also be a little conversation about Canosa’s Welcome with Gabrielle di Fazio of the blog Just Indie Comics. If you’re in the area be sure to go see Jim in person. Check out more of his work HERE – get a copy of Canosa’s Welcome HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Adam Griffiths has joined us in Pittsburgh for a week-long Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency. He is a cartoonist from Takoma Park, MD, whose mission in life is to “Draw forever!“ About his work, Adam has written: “In its purest form, cartooning is a medium for simple, intellectual storytelling. I approach my cartooning as a visionary agent, skating the edges of contemporary art, illustration, outsider art, and underground comics art. Through my drawing process, I can play out the various symbolisms and mutabilities of historical imperialism and the class system. The images I complete are a mix of preconceived ideas and stream-of-conscious drawing; I want the drawings to pose conceptual riddles about the structure of society.“ It is a great pleasure to host Adam this week and we look forward to seeing more of what he makes here, and in the future. Keep up with Adam via Instagram – @grifftones. For more information about the Rowhouse Residency visit this page – and keep up with the project via @rowhouseresidency ————————————————————————————————— Bread Crumbs I missed this when it came out and now it’s extra depressing but…Keith Knight has a comic essay on Fusion that is a tribute to Obama. Here’s the New York Times Book Review’s take on the new George Herriman bio – Invisibly Black: A Life of George Herriman, Creator of Krazy Kat Chris Ware also writes about Krazy Kat for The New York Review of Books – To Walk in Beauty ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 2-2-2017 – by Sally Ingraham ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 2-2-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

Frank’s 1st Workshop Tour

Chris Anthony DiazJanuary 29, 2016The Diaz ArchiveAll Photos by Chris Anthony Diaz and colored by Graham Willcox. Frank Santoro’s first ever workshop tour – San Francisco’s Mission Comics and Art – 2012 Share this page: [...]

10/17/2017

Aaron CockleOctober 16, 2017NewsAaron here today with E.A. Bethea; Aidan Koch; Kara Walker; Thierry Groensteen; Connor Willumsen ————————————————————————————————— Book of Daze Domino Books is publishing a collection of E.A. Bethea work: Bethea, a simple interpretation might offer, chronicles the web of living in the world (and with her work, we are zeroed in on life in New York City, as this collection reveals itself as a truly local work of art about a city that paradoxically rarely receives its due—for every 1,000 works that gloss over the truth of the city, we have a book like this that has its eye on the reality of daily life in the five boroughs) with a heart and a mind sometimes at odds and sometimes simpatico. But Bethea gives us something more complex: at times, the work feels dead-pan as it shifts from exhilaration to resignation without a change in visual presentation, but it’s here where we have a guide to the heart of Bethea’s project. The often uniform nature of the pages and the highly non-uniform nature of what is contained within become a catalog of days or weeks or years. One page offers a subdued period in life, while the next (seemingly) similar page offers a day full of regret. Bethea talks about her work relating to cinema, specifically calling attention to what happens between one of her panels and the next. The shifts in emotion and carefully chosen images alongside highly precise language feel like walking into a film where the entire crew–from director to actor to gaffer—united in one mind to make something highly exquisite. ————————————————————————————————— Transmitter presents: In Search Of OCTOBER 20 – NOVEMBER 19, 2017 OPENING RECEPTION FRIDAY, OCTOBER 20, 6–9 PM AIDAN KOCH • DAWIT L. PETROS Transmitter is pleased to present In Search Of, an exhibition pairing the work of Aidan Koch and Dawit L. Petros, two artists who, despite their disparate media, take related approaches to pictorial space in order to create open-ended narratives, notable as much for the space within them as for the connections between different moments. Taking its title from Bas Jan Ader’s In Search of the Miraculous, this exhibition considers these artists’ work in terms of questions and histories of migration, and the search, whether for the sublime or for survival, which underlies human movement. In addressing these issues, Koch and Petros both make significant use of abstraction, and range in their interests from a mythological past to the factual present, and beyond, to the possible future. ————————————————————————————————— ‘A prominent critic posted on Instagram that they felt “uncomfortable” being in the room, perhaps a desired effect of the artist.’ Jessica Bell Brown at Hyperallergic takes another look at the Kara Walker show that recently closed: Ironically, most of the works in Walker’s show will go to museums that will proudly collect them, while for the sake of political neutrality many will likely remain timid when the time comes to roll up their sleeves and speak truth to power. As difficult and divisive as her images are, they point to a reckoning that we can no longer afford to ignore. Racism will remain inseparable from America’s history, its present, and its future. It penetrates every crevice and corner of our institutions, and pervades every fiber of our collective being. Walker’s work does not signal an impending culture war; it is a reminder that the previous ones never ended. ————————————————————————————————— ‘Overall, I’m glad this book exists.’ Nick Mullins on Ann Miller’s translation of Thierry Groensteen’s COMICS AND NARRATION: The other major theme in this book, which I briefly mentioned above, is rhythm. Groensteen mostly discusses panel layout, but also considers how words affect rhythm. While I liked this, I wished that he had gone further. Layout creates rhythm of course, but so does the relative visual density of the panels. So does the amount of time in the intervened. As I showed above, Groensteen hints at this possibility. Again, the fact the Jason chooses to end his page with a panel that implies a longer space of intervened time creates a change in rhythm to the end of the page. If Groensteen didn’t say this explicitly, he pointed the way. In other words, he has invited us to continue where he left off, which is one of the great gifts of well-written theory. ————————————————————————————————— Anti-Gone En Plein Air Connor Willumsen provides some insights (‘Cartooning is a lot like magic’, ‘Sometimes I ask myself, why would I want to be a cartoonist?’) in this new video, published by Koyama Press 2017, directed by Fatine-Violette Sabiri. Get a copy of Anti-Gone, along with two zines – a 20 page bootleg, and a special collage zine – as well as a unique Anti-Gone drawing, as part of the exclusive Connor Willumsen bundle from Comics Workbook – available HERE. Brian Nicholson reviews Anti-Gone, calling it the “book of the year”. ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 10-17-2017 – by Gabriella Tito ————————————————————————————————— Cozytown – 10/17/2017 – by Juan Fernandez ————————————————————————————————— Share this page: [...]

06/23/2017

Sally IngrahamJune 23, 2017NewsSally here with plenty of things to dig into this week – Jenny Zervakis’ The Complete Strange Growths; the new Warmer anthology; a lively discussion of “youth-comics”; and much more. ————————————————————————————————— The Complete Strange Growths 1991-1997 by Jenny Zervakis (lovingly published by John Porcellino via Spit and a Half Distro, 2017) is one of the best collections of comics that I have read in some time. The 13 issues capture the story arc of a few years of Jenny’s life, finding and illuminating incidental moments and making a world out of visits to botanical gardens, a trouble-making brother, the war-time Spam eaten by a Greek father, road trips, comic con visits, and fever dreams. The drawing isn’t interested in itself, it is merely a vessel there to hold and pour out stories – and therefore the drawing is full of life and perfect small details. The collection also captures the time it was made in and for – 90’s mini-comic culture, the rush of making and giving away zines on a regular basis, the fun of mailing a letter and a stamp to a maker and getting back their latest effort. Influenced by the work of Harvey Pekar, and an inspiration to the likes of John Porcellino, Jenny was riding some quality currents. In a way Strange Growths is also a comic that I feel like I’ve been searching for since I embarked on a study of alternative comics (and ones made by women, specifically). The poetry, the thoughtfulness, the desire to capture the mood of a moment…I was certain that there were women who were making work like this in the 90’s, who were making comics that weren’t as focused on the body and the blunt reality of being female. While I am interested in comics about sex, body image, and self-esteem, I’m even more interested in what the bus driver has to share, dreams about grandmothers, and interactions with nature. There is a different mystery and truth to discover there, and Jenny is tapped into that font of wisdom in a way that I aspire to. I loved The Complete Strange Growths, and put it immediately on my shelf next to Today Is the Last Day of the Rest of Your Life by Ulli Lust, Gast by Carol Swain, and One Hundred Demons by Lynda Barry. You can get a copy of the comic from Copacetic Comics, or from Spit and a Half. For a much less subjective review of the book, check out Rob Kirby’s thoughts over on The Comics Journal. ————————————————————————————————— Abraham Riesman writes about the rise of “youth-comics” on Vulture, citing them as the driving force behind sales and interest in the medium at the moment. “Eva Volin, a librarian based in Alameda, California, told me, “We’re in the middle of a graphic-novel renaissance inasmuch as not only are kids reading comics, but comics are being written for kids.” ” “At a glance, it all makes perfect sense. Why wouldn’t young readers gravitate toward a medium that can so brilliantly mix visuals and text in a way that makes a story relatively easy to digest? And why wouldn’t publishers cater to them? And yet, up until recently, there was a near-total disconnect between kids and comics.“ Riesman notes that the shift began with manga, the forever disdained comics medium which many (librarians) turned their noses up at. In a Twitter response to thoughts along these lines, Landry Q. Walker (creator of many “youth-comics”) affirmed that it was manga that made the difference – although the effect wasn’t felt immediately because…manga. “Over 15 years ago I spoke to a comics club at a high school – all girls. I talked about this at a panel at SDCC, and the crowd got angry. The consensus of the crowd was that these girls weren’t reading “real comics”. Just manga. And for some reason, this was “bad”. All those years of discussion on “how do we get girls to read comics”. They were, but apparently they were doing it “wrong”? WTF? It’s this failure to embrace trends that is choking the life out of the mainstream comics industry. The fear of change.“ It took the appearance of Bone by Jeff Smith and Babymouse by Jennifer L. Holm and her brother Matthew Holm to really start the engine in the mid-2000’s. Gene Luen Yang’s American Born Chinese was the first comic-book finalist for the National Book Award. And then came Raina. Abraham Riesman likens Raina Telgemeier to Elvis – and makes a good argument for it. Read the rest of his excellent article on the “youth-comics explosion” HERE. Over on The Comics Beat Heidi MacDonald is also looking at the numbers, and seeing similar trends in comics readership. She offers up the top 5 bestsellers on the Bookscan chart for last week: “1. BITCH PLANET, VOLUME 2: PRESIDENT BITCH 2. MY LESBIAN EXPERIENCE WITH LONELINESS 3. WONDER WOMAN VOL. 1: THE LIES 4. WONDER WOMAN VOL. 2: YEAR ONE 5. MARCH: BOOK ONE” Delving into the intricacies of each publication for a minute, and quoting Abraham Riesman’s article a bit, Heidi then offers up her own response (with me in the background waving pompoms and punching the air): “Let me spell it out for you: girls and women, black and white, cis and trans alike, are the driving force behind comics readership expansion. This has been happening for a while, but it’s a full on avalanche now. It’s also something I saw coming 25 years ago. (No one else is gonna pat me on the back so I gotta do it myself.) Seeing the devoted fandoms that female content-consumers developed for anything that interested them, ESPECIALLY genre material like paranormal romance, horror and fantasy – I had a hunch that once they turned their spotlight on comics, the full force of female fandom would bowl over the fragile shreds of male safe spaces like a Mack truck through a pile of empty Axe cartons. What does this shift mean? Well, for one thing, it means that Marvel–and DC too! – had better start paying attention to new readers instead of pandering to the dwindling ranks of AARP-card carrying pap-pap Bronze Agers. I mean, I know it’s hard to move beyond your own viewpoint, but business is business.“ Read the rest of Heidi’s thoughts HERE. As for me, I’m off to CCS in a week to attend a workshop/think-tank with New Yorker art editor Françoise Mouly, who among numerous other ventures, is the driving force behind the publishing company for early readers called Toon Books. I plan to spend a lot more time and energy thinking about this stuff and probably making comics for, and with kids in the future. ————————————————————————————————— The Huffington Post featured the comics anthology Warmer which is being edited by Madeleine Witt and Andrew White. “In an interview with HuffPost, White said, “As co-editors of Warmer, Madeleine and I wanted to make a book to offer comfort for those already fearful about climate change. So for the most part, Warmer doesn’t aim to convince anyone of anything. We imagined Warmer in part as a book that will function to encourage and support activists; to comfort those who, like ourselves, are wrestling with the grief of climate change.” “ There is an excerpt from the collection accompanying the feature, with comments from the makers. Check it out HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Noticed via Facebook – Caitlin McGurk was unpacking a new collection of art recently donated to the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum. “…incredible collection of original cartoon art just donated. Phoebe Gloeckner! Dori Seda! Carol Lay! Lynda Barry! Roberta Gregory! Mary Fleener! And more! 113 original pages by 15 amazing women.” “I could spend the rest of my career writing about the stuff in this collection that was just donated to The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum… maybe I will!” – Cairlin McGurk I smell a new exhibit, and it’s one I will be at the opening for…! ————————————————————————————————— Fish and Chips Bill Boichel reviews Boundless by Jillian Tamaki for the Copacetic Comics website – we’re sharing the review HERE on the site. BookRiot interviews Grace Ellis and Shae Beagle, creators of Moonstruck – HERE. Cory Doctorow reviews Emil Ferris‘ My Favorite Thing is Monsters on BoingBoing. The Comics Beat reviews new comics by Laura Kenins, Sophie Yanow, and Tyler Landry. Sacha Mardou recently revisited a comic from 2015 about her pregnancy – it originally appeared on Mutha Magazine, but is seen here on Narratively. ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 6-23-2017 – by Gabriella Tito ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 6-23-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

06/28/2016

Posted on June 27, 2016June 28, 2016 by Aaron Cockle

Aaron Cockle with Warren Craghead Comics; Pioneers of the Comic-Strip; Comix 4 Orlando; Hilda on Netflix; Flag Press!; Schulz/Ford; Rowhouse Auction Continues

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Colonialism by Warren Craghead
CW’s Featured Comics continues this week with work by Warren Craghead III from 2013.

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Pioneers of the Comic Strip: A different Avant-Garde
June 23–September 18, 2016
Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt
Spectacular, large and colorful – this is how comic strips captured their audience. Around 1897, the middle classes, working classes and the army of immigrants were equally fascinated by the unfamiliar visual experience they encountered in US newspapers. The comic strip was the first illustrated mass medium in history, reproduced millionfold. In a society without television and the Internet that was quite a radical development. With an extensive exhibition, SCHIRN presents the pioneers of the comic strip, who set the artistic and substantive standards of early comic strips in an experimental and progressive way. This also highlights the relationship of comic strips and colorful newspaper supplements with the developments in visual arts at the time. The SCHIRN presents the cultural history of the comic strip in an outstanding series of selected works, primarily by American illustrators: Winsor McCay, Lyonel Feininger, Charles Forbell, George Herriman, Cliff Sterrett and Frank King. Unforgettable is Herriman’s absurd humor in Krazy Kat (from 1913), the expressionist, cubist and surrealist imagery by McCay and Sterrett, Feininger’s comic series for the Chicago Tribune (from 1906/07), or Gasoline Alley by King (from 1921), told in real time over a period of three decades. With Forbell’s Gesamtkunstwerk Naughty Pete (1913), a today rather unknown draftsman can be rediscovered in this exhibition. He was among those many artists who, albeit only for a short yet extremely progressive time, devoted themselves to comic strips, but quickly vanished due to lack of success.
— Via e-flux

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COMIX 4 ORLANDO Benefit
Come enjoy a night of fantastic comix presented by queer artists! These include: Yao Xiao, Max Wittert, Hazel Reed Newlevant, Bishakh Som, Chris Russo, Kat Fajardo, +more TBA. They will be raising funds to support those affected by the Pulse attack in Orlando. Your donations can get you raffle tickets to win a fabulous prize bundle of work made by our featured artists. $10 SUGGESTED donation. No one will be turned away. (Every $5 will get you one raffle ticket!) PLEASE COME AND SUPPORT! Tuesday, June 28, 8-10PM at Over the Eight, 594 Union Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11211

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Hilda is coming to Netflix
As revealed in a recent New Yorker profile, Luke Pearson‘s Hilda will be coming to Netflix in 2018.

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E’ nata Flag Press!
Translated from the Italian via Google Translate: Perhaps not everyone knows that along with Ratigher I founded a small publishing house, the Flag Press, who intends to publish comics in a single format, horizontal poster 70 × 100[cm; 27.5X39.4″] with two facing pages… I already thought of cubes, boxes or phones but actually no, it was poster, as he revealed to me a few months later inviting me to become his shoulder in the enterprise (by the way do not try to trick me the idea of Phone Books, Comics in the form of phone). Since then we have seen fit to what we wanted to do with Flag Press, and, beyond the choice of authors, our vision has focused on the concept of “history.” To both like trials, comic absurd and sometimes even seemingly meaningless, but what we want to accomplish here is to tell on a poster, make an object that narrative has always been mainly figurative, also making it possible for authors indulge graphically on the largest publishing format possible. And I believe that theory, practical and even Ratigher theory is really the “manifesto” of this our idea, with a story full of characters, the dialogues pressing, small cartoons and the aircraft giant is cut in two by the white space between the boards. Ah, on the back of the poster are in black and white the English translation of the story. In the future, if the cartoonist would write in English, on the back you will find the translation in Italian.

Look for work from Ruppert & Mulot, Manuele Fior and Dash Shaw. Image above by Ratigher, Flag Press #1: “Teoria, pratica e ancora teoria”.

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Gabby Schulz Interviewed by Sean Ford
SICK is the story of the author being laid down by an illness in his cramped Brooklyn apartment. The story begins as a Kafka-esque exploration of the trials and tribulations of trying to attain treatment without having the insurance or money to do so, but soon morphs into a brutally frank self-assessment of not only the narrator’s personal failures, but also the failures of predominantly white Western culture and the systems and structures we’re all beholden to and a part of.
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Private Rowhouse Auction Continues
We have a new private auction up at auction.comicsworkbook.com. email Frank Santoro at santoroschoolATgmail for a password, if you don’t already have one. If you already have a password, it is the same from last week. All funds go to helping keep the lights on and further developing the school. Note: Connor Willumsen is offering commission sketches.
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Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in NewsTagged comix 4 orlando, exhibition, flag press, gabby schulz, Inkstuds, Luke Pearson, ratigher, Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, Sean Ford, Warren Craghead

Aaron Cockle

Posted on June 27, 2016June 28, 2016

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01/29/2018

Caleb OrecchioJanuary 29, 2018NewsCaleb Orecchio here with thoughts on amazing, dumb back-issues that won’t leave my brain, and other news. ————————————————————————————————— One of my favorite parts of comics culture is the scrounging for back-issues, which often feels like trying to find a lost wedding band in yesterday’s garbage—in a good way. I get a sincere rush from finding wacky crap from comic’s past. As I was scavenging the longboxes and finding some excellent garbage this past week, I was reminded of some things Chris Ware said in his recent RiYL interview: “Most great works of art don’t work in the present, they work in the memory.” ” will draw things in a certain way, especially in his more recent work, that is very uncomfortable or strange. I know he’s looked at comics by cartoonists who might be considered awkward or almost naive just as a way of making an image that has–as I think of it, personally–hooks that hang in your brain and stay with you.” In a recent back-issue find, Kull the Destroyer #19 (1976), there’s this sequence of “SHEMENON–THE GOD OF FIRE AND ICE–!” a wraith, a skeleton encapsulated in diamond whose “SOLE PURPOSE WAS TO FILL HIS CRYSTALLOID FLESH WITH LIFE!!” Very campy, classic mid-seventies Marvel stuff that the staff at The Comics Journal would have used as toilet paper. To read this comic in any way as to understand the narrative is a fool’s errand, and not worth the time of intelligent, discerning people. Yet! the images will not leave my mind! I find myself returning and going back over the fight between our hero and this jewel-encrusted executioner from hell! Old dumb boy adventure comics featuring superheroes, barbarians and flights of action-packed fever-dreams tend to fall into the “Minor Prophets” category of the comics “Bible.” When all the history of comics is laid before us, it’s comics like Kull the Destroyer #19 that tend to get ignored for various reasons; but it’s these very kinds of comics that tend to infest our subconscious and become active images in our memory when least expected—like an annoying radio jingle or something. Have you ever met a real Kirby-hater? Maybe you are one. You hate his comics for reasons others love him. People hate/love his weird knees, or they hate/love his square hands, or they hate/love the way he draws action or machines or whatever. Both parties remember the same things. Whether you like the art or not, the image is permanently branded onto the folds of your brain. ————————————————————————————————— if you don’t know, now you know Ty Burr writes about How to Read Nancy, at the The Boston Globe, plus, the authors of said book, Paul Karasik and Mark Newgarden, sit down for a radio interview. On the latest episode of Comic Books Are Burning in Hell, the boys talk about their favorite comics of 2017. Paul Tumey on Mark Campos, the Seattle mini comics maker at TCJ.com. The latest Process Party episode features Jason T. Miles, and on the same site, Study Group Comics, Will Tempest begins a web comic. Ryan C. has a guest spot on Your Chicken Enemy, he writes about Forsman’s Slasher. ————————————————————————————————— 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! ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 1-29-2018 – by Sally Ingraham ————————————————————————————————— Share this page: [...]

08/05/2016

Sally IngrahamAugust 5, 2016NewsFriday, and what a week! Sally here to sift through it with you: I’ve got Audra Stang’s new comic, a bit more time spent with Caitlin McGurk (and Lucy Caswell for good measure!), interviews and words of wisdom from Marjane Satrapi, Emma Watson, Mari Naomi, Yumi Sakugawa, Andrea Tsurumi, and me (in a more official capacity than my usual Friday ramblings…) 1…2…3…GO! ————————————————————————————————— Audra Stang spent a very productive 3 days at the Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency in Pittsburgh, PA, in July, and now she is serializing the comic she made during that time (first page pictured above). See what she has shared so far HERE and look for updates every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday in August! ————————————————————————————————— I (Sally Ingraham) got interrupted the other day while I was working at the Rowhouse, by Frank Santoro and a camera crew, and ended up talking about teaching comics, researching comics, and my ideas about “comics roller derby”. Part One is above – watch Part Two HERE. Expect MUCH MORE from the Comics Workbook Roller Derby league soon…! ————————————————————————————————— Columbus Alive profiled Caitlin McGurk yesterday, and although CW correspondent Harrison Prince mentioned it in our Thursday news post, I wanted to spend a little more time with her. I think McGurk is an incredibly rad lady, and she’s following the sort of path through comics and library science that I aspire to. As the piece states: “Caitlin McGurk was destined to work in the comics industry. There were telltale signs during her childhood on Long Island. She remembers obsessively collecting and organizing comic book cards and admiring the pictures in the “Stations of the Cross” while waiting in the communion line at her Catholic church. “That was probably my first experience with sequential art because there these beautiful stained glass or carved images with a little bit of text,” McGurk said. “I’d study the image and read the text a thousand times.” Following high school, McGurk put out her own mini comics and zines and interned at an auction house where she catalogued – and fell in love with – underground comix (small press or self-published comic books). She interviewed famous cartoonists like Chester Brown for her senior college thesis on memory and consciousness in the graphic novel, and went on to obtain a master’s degree in library and information science from Long Island University.” Erica Thompson via Columbus Alive Caitlin McGurk is now an associate curator at the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum in Columbus, OH. There she is able to stay on target regarding one of her life goals – that is, making her own “…contribution to the world of comic scholarship…about celebrating the unsung history of women in comics.” One of McGurk’s recent pieces of comics scholarship was an in-depth look at the work of Etta Hulme (1923-2014), who was the chief editorial cartoonist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram for 36 years. Caitlin McGurk writes: “During her long and industrious career, Etta provided a consistent voice in cartooning. Her path wasn’t always easy; she was one of the only women to be hired as a full-time newspaper cartoonist, and was frequently carped for her boldly liberal views in a conservative Texan town. Etta laughed off criticism and even threats; her endless wit and terrific determination are best illustrated by her daily cartoons.” – Caitlin McGurk via the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum Blog You can see pictures of some of the Etta Hulme collection that the BICLM hosts HERE, and read more of what McGurk wrote about her! It’s no coincidence that the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum employs incredible women like Caitlin McGurk – after all it was founded by the tremendous Lucy Shelton Caswell (pictured below during a recent interview – we’ll be keeping our ears peeled for it!) Here’s our fearless founder Lucy Shelton Caswell being interviewed today by WOSU about the life of Frank Higgs – Milton Caniff’s dear friend and inspiration for the Terry And The Pirates character “Dude Hennick” A photo posted by Billy Ireland Cartoon Library (@cartoonlibrary) on Aug 3, 2016 at 1:51pm PDT As Tom Spurgeon wrote in a 2014 interview with Caswell: “Caswell is an accomplished author about comics, and has done significant work in bringing cartoon art to bear in the teaching of history. My favorite comics-related moment of 2013 was the long, deserved moment of applause Caswell received during the Billy Ireland opening ceremony. The comics community owes her more than it can ever repay. She is a role-model for every non-creative to work in proximity to this great art form, and for everyone else besides.” – Tom Spurgeon via The Comics Reporter Spurgeon and Caswell dig deep into history and comics and the history of comics in the rest of the interview – check it out HERE. And keep Lucy Caswell on your radar – her work is nowhere near finished. ————————————————————————————————— There is an interesting interview over on Rookie with Yumi Sakugawa – Madeline Keyes-Levine asked her a series of questions and Yumi Sakugawa answered with “…magical, illustrated responses, featuring some cat friends, the pros of self-publishing (pictured above), and an exercise you can do to start meditating literally whenever you want.” Check out the whole thing HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Daniel Barron conducted an interview with Mari Naomi recently for Yay!LA Art and Culture Magazine, and things got intense. “Sometimes you need to cross the line to know where it is. That’s something I think about as I am seated for coffee with illustrator Mari Naomi. After an hour discussing her history and work I feel like I’ve said too much about myself, anxious to tiptoe back wherever the line is. Call it a testament to the honesty of her work, whose loose, confessional nature makes one desire to meet it in the middle.” – Daniel Barron Get to know them both, I guess, HERE. ————————————————————————————————— It really was a big week for women cartoonists, with at least two more items that we found for you. Andrea Tsurumi appeared on the Virtual Memories Show podcast with Gil Roth – “Rising comics star — don’t blame me, that’s what Publishers Weekly just called her — Andrea Tsurumi joins the show to talk about her new collection, Why Would You Do That? (Hic & Hoc Publications). We get into her off-kilter sense of humor and why I love it, why she chose that title, the most sadistic children’s book ever written and why she adapted it, the comics industry’s saving grace (it’s too small to fail), staged photos during the Civil War, the challenge of teaching comics, her attempt at a work/art/life balance, the comics, cartoons and picture books that influenced/warped her, why she left New York, the truth about cakes vs. pies, and more!” – Gil Roth Give it a listen HERE! Then of course there is the Emma Watson/Marjane Satrapi interview for Vogue that is making Harry Potter fans, at the very least, learn a thing or two about comics. And feminism. And Iran. It’s really quite good. “…I think it’s extremely important that we try to change our lives around ourselves. When I was 30 years old, I said, “I’m going to change this world,” and after 10 years, the world was changing me. I became a cynical person who did not believe in anything anymore. And so I said, “I am losing even myself,” and then decided “Okay, from now on I’m going to change myself, and if I change myself, I have changed a little bit of this world. I will try to be a better person.” I don’t always succeed in that because the nasty side of me is big, but I try . . . I try.” – Marjane Satrapi Read the rest HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Let’s keep up this pace, ladies! And the rest of you too of course. Don’t let the doldrums of summer get you. More comics news coming your way Monday – till then, cheers. – Sally Share this page: [...]

02/02/2018

Sally IngrahamFebruary 1, 2018NewsSally here with the myth of the Wonder Woman, plus Vanessa Davis, Little Dot, Ulli Lust, and more! ————————————————————————————————— There is a lengthy, intense essay on Artforum by Sarah Nicole Prickett titled Serious Sex Battle – it is about the myth of the “wonder woman”. She digs into comics, literature, and film and discusses the ways that pop culture has tried and repeatedly failed to make women “super” – often by stripping them of all the real things that in fact make them super. For example: “The scholar Michele Wallace argues in Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman (1978) that the black woman doesn’t need a costume. She is already held to be a “woman of inordinate strength.” She “does not have the same fears, weaknesses, and insecurities as other women, but believes herself to be and is, in fact, stronger emotionally than most men. Less of a woman in that she is less ‘feminine’ and helpless, she is really more of a woman in that she is the embodiment of Mother Earth.” Ergo, says Wallace, she is a superwoman, burdened by the source of her powers.“ Prickett talks about Wonder Woman quite a bit, of course, both the strengths and weaknesses of the character and what she represents. She also brings up Miss Fury, Scarlett O’Hara, Tim Burton’s take on Cat Woman, and a whole lot more. Devote an hour at least to sifting through this piece (one that Prickett spent a few years writing!) Read the whole essay HERE. ————————————————————————————————— There is a nice interview with Vanessa Davis on Pocko, which digs into her career as a whole so far, her influences, and the choices she’s made along the way. “Pocko: Your father was a commercial artist and photo-journalist. Can you see any of his work in your own? How did your childhood affect your career? Davis: It feels natural (if not always easy) for me to live and work within an uncertain freelance lifestyle. The humility of struggle and uncertainty mixed with the rush of work and money… that’s always been sort of central to my experience, but both my mom and dad worked doing what they loved, so that’s just paramount, by any means necessary, to me. It is a high-maintenance lifestyle, but it feels almost just cultural or religious or something–I can’t get away from it. My dad definitely had an eye for the absurd and could criticize his subjects by merely portraying them. But he also maintained a sort of joy for the chaos of this world. That’s definitely something I aspire to in my work and in my own viewpoint.“ Read the whole interview HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Michael Dooley has another great article on Print, this time tying a famous comic book character of the 1950s/60s – Little Dot – to today’s art scene and specifically the work of Yayoi Kusama (who is, if it’s possible, even more dot-happy than Dot). The article includes multiple scans of old Little Dot comics, and this excellent reminder of what made them interesting: “If you’ve never heard of this one-time comic book celebrity, it’s because Little Dot hasn’t been getting around much anymore. She started out in 1949 as a back-up feature in kids’ comics like Richie Rich but soon earned her own title. As originally conceived by cartoonist Vic Herman, she was designed with a distinctive flair and personality. But in 1953 her appearance melded into Harvey’s house style. She was softened and rounded out, which rendered her barely distinguishable from Little Audrey and Wendy the Good Little Witch. But from a marketing angle, it was a huge success. Like the gluttonous Little Lotta, Dot fits neatly into Harvey’s formula of one-dimensional, obsessive-compulsive personalities. The less said about the actual stories, the better, because what’s truly fascinating is that this kid is completely dot-crazy, hooked on circles. She’s constantly compelled to reconstitute her surroundings to conform to her own private fetish. And why not? She may simply be an instinctual Design Modernist, sensing the dot as infinite, supremely iconic, the purest, most perfect single form in the universe. Not to mention that her very existence is totally dependent on the CMYK/benday process. Insert a shout-out to Pop Art’s Roy Lichtenstein here.” Check out the rest of this enjoyable read HERE. ————————————————————————————————— France Culture asked ten authors to make a comic about their relationship to Chris Ware, in the event that he won a big prize at Angouleme. Ulli Lust made the little scene pictured above. As it turns out, neither Chris Ware or Ulli Lust won prizes this year at Angouleme, so when she shared the strip Ulli said it could have an alternate title: In the same boat again with Chris Ware. ————————————————————————————————— An announcement went out this week from the organizers of the Pittsburgh Indy Comix Exposition: Dear Friends of PIX — We know some of you have been wondering about the status of PIX 2018. To make a long story short: there will NOT be a PIX 2018. We apologize for the late announcement of this fact. We are, however, already working on PIX 2019 and plan to return to the August Wilson Center in April 2019. We will make a formal announcement in the summer of this year. Thank you for your past support. Stay tuned… —Team PIX ————————————————————————————————— Sticky Notes Apply for the Lucy Shelton Caswell Research Award, offered by the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum – applications due by March 1st – more details HERE! The Daily Beast has a lengthy profile on Trina Robbins – read it HERE. Sara Lautman writes a comic for the New Yorker about Cow Tools and a new tattoo – 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! ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 2-2-2018 – by Sally Ingraham ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 2-2-2018 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

08/09/2018

Caleb OrecchioAugust 9, 2018NewsCaleb Orecchio here briefly comparing my old comics with Trevor Von Eeden’s. ————————————————————————————————— I was flipping through my dad’s childhood copy of Black Lightning no. 10. Look at how professional Von Eeden’s work was at eighteen. It’s good, good enough to be published by DC. The work looks Golden Age-y at times due to the artist’s unwieldy ambition combined with solid, albeit still developing, drawing chops. I enjoyed this elephant charging scene. Hahahaha! I horse laugh when I consider the comics I was making at eighteen! Oh look, here’s one from my vault. This is from my high school newspaper. Probably late 2010 to early-2011. Don’t laugh. ————————————————————————————————— Cement Mixer – 8-9-18 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

03/19/2018

Caleb OrecchioMarch 19, 2018NewsCaleb Orecchio here with thoughts on a temporary comic book artist, Jeff Purves, and other news. ————————————————————————————————— I really liked Sally’s report last week on Paty Greer/Cockrum. I had a similar experience with a comic book artist’s name I did not recognize. For me it was the name “Jeff Purves” in a copy of The Incredible Hulk #349–I found that Purves, after some digging, had a 19-issue run on The Hulk in late 80’s with Peter David. He’s taking over after the McFarlane run, which is self-evident in the contrived effort of maintaining a McFarlane-y looking Hulk. That’s not a knock on Purves, just something I noticed. This is work-for-hire comics after all. When I initially read the issue, the layouts and action were interesting to me because the clarity and simplicity of the images wreaked of professionalism (as opposed to fanboy-gone-pro, though I’m not ruling that possibility out), which to me meant he had to be some sort of successful illustrator trying his hand at comics. I was more or less right. According to Lambiek and IMDb, he’s an animator. I mean, look at that Spider-Man above, the guy is clearly an educated drawer. I found Purves’ style to be bit stiff at first, but I think it had more to do with the inking of Terry Austin of issue 349; I eventually warmed up to the drawing and am now rather impressed by Purves’ professional, hired-gun vibe. I have a feeling Purves was pretty dependable schedule-wise due the successive amount of issues he contributed to. The work has both a sense of urgency and careful calculation like he knows how to bust out the good stuff that kids love, but ultimately understands that the issue must get out on time. Just thought this was interesting. I’m interested in these weird here-today-gone-tomorrow comic book artists (though nearly 2 years is not an amount of time to sneeze at), because it adds to the wacky history of comics. This guy probably wanted to draw comics as a kid but needed something more financially stable as an adult, so he quits comics and goes to work in animation on such titles as The Simpsons and Mulan. ————————————————————————————————— if you don’t know, now you know Dash Shaw on How to Read Nancy at The New York Review of Books. David Barnett offers up the possibility of Kirby finally getting the praise he deserves from the public at large due to the upcoming New Gods movie. Due to the popularity of his characters in the current line-up of Marvel movies, Jim Starlin allegedly has his own museum exhibit, according to Todd Allen at The Beat. ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 3-19-2018 – by Gabriella Tito Share this page: [...]

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