Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Juan Fernández

Posted on June 28, 2017June 28, 2017

Explore

Frank Santoro @ SPX 2016

Comics WorkbookOctober 8, 2016Santoro School / School Updateshttps://vimeo.com/185881298 SPX – September 17th 2016 Exerpts from the 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.) Share this page: [...]

05/18/2018

Sally IngrahamMay 17, 2018NewsSally here with comics by Sacha Mardou, Jessica Campbell, Hope Larson, and more! ———————————————————————————— Sacha Mardou has a comic up on MUTHA Magazine called Someday, My Witch Will Come. She writes: “According to journalistic science, women are likelier to go though a midlife crisis earlier than men, between the ages of 35-44. Well my midlife crisis certainly showed up on schedule, as this comic details. I discovered that you don’t learn to be a whole human being all by yourself, you need to ask for help. I’m still learning, it being a process, not a destination, as they say. I hope that by sharing this story it might help other women feel okay about the kooky stuff we do on this path to Self-Realization (whatever that means).“ See the whole comic HERE! There is also a comic published this month by Grace Farris on MUTHA Magazine which you should check out – Of Firsts and Donuts. ———————————————————————————— Alenka Figa reviews Jessica Campbell‘s new comic XTC69 (out from Koyama Press this month) for Women Write About Comics. She comments: “While mostly focused on biting commentary and indulgent plot, XTC69 also contains some moments of sharp realness that contrast its usual tone. In an early scene, Human Jessica can’t climb up a cliff face and has to piggyback ride on Alien Jessica’s back. Human Jessica’s skirt rides up revealing her underwear, and when they get to the top she clumsily readjusts it. These details are small, but they’re unsexy and real. Jessica is already emotionally vulnerable from learning her entire world is essentially gone, and then has to face her physical vulnerability. Campbell’s character designs are simple and lack the familiar level of detail used to exploit women’s bodies; despite the thick line work and cartoony style, the women in the comic are awkwardly real. In a comic full of commentary on misogyny, it’s small details like this through which Campbell shows how easy it is to draw outside of the male gaze.“ Read the whole review HERE. John Seven also reviews XTC69 for The Comics Beat – read his review HERE. Jessica Campbell‘s most recent comic for Hyperallergic can also be read HERE. ———————————————————————————— Hillary Brown sat down with Hope Larson to discuss Larson’s newest comic – All Summer Long – for Paste Magazine. They talk about Larson’s shift from being primarily an artist to a writer, and about the role of music in her life, among many other things. “Paste: One of the things I see as recurring in your work is this determination not to take a narrative where most people would (i.e., the idea that Bina and Austin would end up together is made to seem ridiculous). Is that intentional? Larson: No, it’s not. I’m one of those people who feels that there’s nothing new under the sun, and all the stories have been told, and all you can do is write honestly, in the hopes that it will feel new and resonate with readers. I’m definitely not trying to gotcha anyone. I just do my best to understand the characters and write them making the choices that feel true to them.“ Read the interview HERE. ———————————————————————————— Weekend Snacks Koyama Press has announced their Fall 2018 lineup and I’m pleased to note that Mickey Z‘s Space Academy 123 is being collected! Keiler Roberts also has a new comic coming out, and so does Britt Wilson. There is an excerpt from Lucy Bellwood‘s upcoming comic 100 Demon Dialaouges up on Boing Boing – check it out HERE. Colleen Frakes is the daily comics diarist for The Comics Journal this week – see her Cartoonist’s Diary HERE. Kriota Willberg offers 5 Things You Can Do to Reduce Drawing Pain – part of the Get a Grip! series on The Comics Beat. ———————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 5-18-2018 – by Sally Ingraham Share this page: [...]

08/02/2017

Juan FernándezAugust 2, 2017los Cómics / NewsEmpezamos el día con Power Paola y autobiografía ficticia; Sarah Glidden y el Arte de la Guerra; La Polola; Juan Mediavilla; Caminos da HQ; Enrique’s Shadow; y los tebeos de Cómics Workbook! ————————————————————————————————— POWERPAOLA- Dibujos nómadas y autobiografía ficticia Abril Castillo Cabrera les ofrece sus reflecciones sobre la relación entre la ficción y la no-ficción que bailan juntas en el mundo de autobiografía: Powerpaola escribe autobiografías (“no-ficción”) y confiesa su dificultad para escribir historias que no sean las suyas (“ficción”). Con todo, ha tomado la decisión de hablar de su vida y ponerla en orden para narrarla en forma de novela gráfica. Ese ejercicio provee de un distanciamiento que parecería volverla ajena a ella misma. Pasa lo mismo cuando uno se acuesta en un diván por primera vez y ante el silencio del psicoanalista comienza a tejer un relato; se trata de poner en orden situaciones, personajes y sentimientos que vuelan como luciérnagas desamparadas que metemos en un frasco. Algunas brillan y otras no. Algunas mueren y otras sobreviven. Así son los recuerdos que tenemos, esa materia de la que nos hacemos y recreamos. Algunas partes de nuestra infancia llegan a nuestra vida adulta y otras son liberadas para siempre. Unas de pronto regresan y bien nos reconfortan o nos destruyen. Pero todas nos conforman: las personas con las que estuvimos y con las que estamos, las pérdidas y los nuevos encuentros, los lugares tangibles y los imaginarios, lo que leemos y lo que escribimos. Su trabajo inicialmente plantado desde la no-ficción pronto se vio zurcido con las imágenes de su madre antes de que ella naciera o al dibujar un escenario que Paola nunca habitó; todo eso es imaginación que construye una descripción objetiva de un recuerdo que no tiene. En su primer libro, Virus tropical, recreó la génesis de su propia vida y seleccionó a los personajes y los lugares. Quizá en el camino contestó varios porqués sobre sí misma, pero esta podría ser sólo una de las mil razones por las que en general un artista se vuelca a hacer algo. El resultado no es ninguna verdad, sino una atmósfera a la que podemos acceder, un relato con un principio y un cierre, una reelaboración de su vida y un puente que tiende con la vida de los demás que la leemos. Léanlo AQUI – Read it all HERE. ————————————————————————————————— El Arte de la Guerra Sarah Glidden tiene un nuevo comic este fin de semana en El País Semanal sobre arte y violencia. Nos ofrece reflexiónes sobre Goya, Picasso y el papel del arte en nuestra cultura. (ed. Brush up on your spanish if you need to because this is a GREAT read.) ————————————————————————————————— Los cómics y las noticias que me han llamado la atención esta semana: Sol Díaz Castillo y Marcela Trujillo tienen una nueva edicion de La Polola Podcast! Las chicas conversan acerca de la sanacion, de ayudarse a si mismas, de poner atención a sus problemas y a solucionar sus dolencias de maneras diversas. También les presentan a su practicante Sol Bravo (@sunmorales)! Una joyita de El Víbora de Juan Mediavilla, que sólo se publicó en un número de El Víbora, sacado de en línea. Instituto Itaú Cultural de São Paulo published two videos recorded at its Caminos da HQ in 2016. One on female protagonism in comics, with statements by cartoonists Ana Recalde, Cris Eiko, Carol Rossetti and Germana Viana. Another on independent comics production in the Brazilian comic book market. Enrique’s Shadow is now online – comic about one of the 90,000+ people who have disappeared during the conflict in Colombia this is Enrique’s story told by his sister Jacinta. Commissioned by the International Committee of the Red Cross to Positive Negatives and drawn by Lindsay Pollock. ———————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 8-2-17 – by Gabriella Tito ———————————————————————————————— Share this page: [...]

02/18/2016

Juan FernándezFebruary 18, 2016NewsAlabaster Pizzo has a new one for ya. A little ditty if you will. Alabaster has been making interesting comics out of seemingly innocuous material like amazon reviews for wooden rulers. Real clever. This piece maintains the same exciting formal cheekiness. You can read SOLID ADVICE here. The fifth and final chapter of my Kris Mukai‘s latest comic, Angels’ Share is now online at Hazlit! You read the whole thing by accessing the other chapters via her author page on Hazlit. As an aside, I’d like to point out that serialized comics stories are a big deal. Never underestimate them. Good way for people to work on longer form work and a good way to keep comics in the layman’s everyday experience. The story in Angels’ Share takes place around the same time as Mukai’s story in Weeping Flower . Mukai blends text, image and animation seamlessly to create a microcosm of grief and frustration, wrapped in phantasmagoric digital figuration. Cool stuff. 2dcloud has been reaching for the stars in their forthcoming publishing season. They have taken to kickstarter for supporting their campaign. They aim to release an ambitious collection of work by Sarah Ferrick, Andy Burkholder, Austin English, Leon Sadler, Caroline Hennessy, Nicholas Verstraeten, Katherine Poe, Leslie Weibeler, Connor Willumsen, among others. They are at 19% of their goal. At this rate, we’ll only reach 59%. Please donate whatever you can if you love 2dcloud. Their artists are making difficult work and that makes their books a harder sell, but we believe in them. We believe that there is an audience for their work. Prove us right! Don’t just listen to us here at Comics Workbook, Mari Naomi has sounded off on the inspiring work that Raighne and Megan Hogan have been doing with 2dcloud. Give Mari Naomi a listen and consider supporting this ambitious crowdfund.. The work 2dcloud publishes is experimental without being pretentious, entertaining without compromising taste, and oh so exciting. 2dcloud are true pioneers. It is so important that they continue existing, putting voices in the mix that might not otherwise find homes. So here’s why I’m writing this: Right now, 2dcloud is trying to grow. They’ve hooked up with Consortium to distribute their books, which is a huge coup for everyone involved (especially their authors!). But working with a distributor has its challenges, particularly in the money department. You can read about the nuts and bolts in their blog post, which you should check out if you’re curious at all about how publishing works: https://medium.com/@2dCloud/can-indie-publishers-afford-to-grow-4e509d702333#.y8wo6886a From overseas, there’s a great piece over at Fumettologica on the legacy of Bill Sienkiewicz. Some good italian thinking right there. Read it here. Be sure to hit that translate button! It’s a bumpy read after translation but it’s a rewarding reflection on the arc of Sienkiewicz’s artist evolution and creative commitments. Some things, you understand well, are never easy to deal with. So the author has preferred to avoid a traditional script, building the dense pages of the volume of an exhausting succession of memories, metaphors, fragments of visions and mental spaces . Definitely a choice of effect, carried out with such vehemence to go to involve the rare segments set in the real world. These, though regarded with almost external eye – although remain narrated by the protagonist – we seem indistinguishable from the most symbolic sections. As if to say that for some people, achieve the objective world view is impossible . As can be straining, their eyes will always remain too conditioned by the noise and the hood of desperation in their head. A disastrous condition, impossible to understand for anyone not have ever tried on his own skin. Elijah Brubaker has made a short recording of his process working on his newest work, This Is All We Have. As a comics maker you can absorb a lot in a minute of watching this video. If you’ve never worked physically before. lettered with a nib, or used a light box to allow you to draw on separate sheets of paper, you might learn a thing or two! And LAST BUT NOT LEAST: Anya Davidson takes a big bite out of Brian Chippendale’s Puke Force over at the Comics Journal. One hell of a good read. Her writing digs deep into Brian’s latest work and it connects dots from all over the multiverse in its exploration of satire in the modern era. With each new generation there are new crises to confront and new inventions that change the way human beings function in the world and relate to one-another. And with each new generation comes a new crop of artists to help us contemplate the events of the day through the lens of their work. In the wake of the plague, death bed scenes and vanitas paintings became popular-a reminder to the viewer not to become too attached to the things of this world because death is always close at hand. In his fourth graphic novel, Puke Force, Brian Chippendale bravely tackles the perils of modern American life. The book begins where the action in his earlier book, Ninja, left off. Share this page: [...]

04/22/2016

Sally IngrahamApril 22, 2016NewsZona #02 in the flesh, Santoro on Hanselmann, wise words from Annie Mok, Gabriella Tito reflecting on reflections, some radical zines and a couple of really, really old books. ————————————————————————————————— HOT OFF THE PRESSES! The eagerly awaited Zona #02 was just released by Comics Workbook, and these things are absolutely smoking. 24 pages of Santoro story, totally unique, only 100 in the world, signed and numbered. Get thee one HERE. ————————————————————————————————— I was shouting about Simon Hanselmann last week, but that was just a taster for this week’s big news – Meg & Mogg in Amsterdam was released by Fantagraphics this week, and was immediately greeted with rave reviews and general fireworks. One such firework was Frank Santoro’s review for The Comics Journal. “Remember when you were into a show and one season was good and the other season kind of sucked? Like season two of The Wire? What a let down. They fixed it, but still. Anyways, the new season of Megg & Mogg is out and it doesn’t suck. The intensity of seeing the gang for the first time is there again the second time. The follow up to a successful season one is always tough, and Simon makes it look easy. The drawing, the jokes, the color. The cover. Preserving the format of Megahex and also the shuffling of drawing styles. All that together makes for an extremely satisfying experience.” Check out the whole review HERE. Buy the book HERE (which you really should, since it comes with a FREE copy of Minihex – “a collection of rare, controversial and previously unpublished work packaged in a full-color mini comic.”) And for the complete Simon experience, grab yourself a copy of thee Complete Truth Zone bootleg, only available HERE through Comics Workbook. ————————————————————————————————— Also on The Comics Journal this week, Annie Mok reviews Mike Dawson’s book Rules for Dating My Daughter. “Mike Dawson delivers an uneven collection of personal essay-style memoir comics, occasionally thoughtful, but often thoughtless in its concern for others.” Annie strives to find a balance between the strengths and failings of the book, drawing attention to the complex relationship between the cartoonist and their audience. Read the review HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Points that Annie Mok brings up in the article mentioned above are a good lead-in to a meditation that Gabriella Tito wrote for Comics Workbook on how we, as the cartoonist, reflect ourselves in comics – intentionally or not. “From my own experience in making abstract comics and comics without relatable humans, I realize I have drawn content from a particular emotion or thought I was feeling at the time. Maybe a song inspired me to put something on paper. You probably have done this too, given the nature of abstract works. Usually, the less I thought about the content, the more fluid the comic was.” Check her thoughts out HERE and join the conversation. ————————————————————————————————— We’ve got zines on the mind around the CW Daily News headquarters this week, with Harrison highlighting the traveling “Zines of the Zone” library yesterday – and now me, with this tidbit – The University of Kansas recently acquired over 1,000 zines from a “defunct radical library”, adding to a collection of over 100,000 items in KU’s Wilcox Collection of Contemporary Political Movements at the Kenneth Spencer Research Library. The collection as a whole just turned 50 years old, and this recent acquisition marks a movement toward a larger zine focus. Frank Farmer, a professor of English who organized the transfer, had this to say about zines: “They’ve always had a kind of amateurish and unofficial quality to them, but they are an index to a certain history, a certain strain of history in this country, about self publishing.” There’s more info about these radical zines HERE, and you can also explore and download over 830 of the zines from the collection. Information sharing at it’s finest. ————————————————————————————————— I’m sidetracking even further from comics, for a moment, here – but check out this Guardian article about two of the earliest known books written by female writers in English…! “A new exhibition from Wellcome Collection, This is a Voice, which explores the human voice, brings them together for the first time, after the British Library agreed to the loans.” They date from 1436 (The Book of Margery Kempe) and shortly after 1373 (Julian of Norwich’s text). This story amused me: “Only one known manuscript exists of Margery Kempe’s story: its whereabouts were unknown from around 1520 until the 1930s, when it was discovered in the cupboard of a country-house during a game of ping-pong. One of the players stepped on the ball and while searching for another, the The Book of Margery Kempe manuscript fell out of a cupboard.” The idea of these texts surviving somehow, and being still cherished today, made me think of something Frank wrote about a few weeks ago – the idea of making one really great comic. Maybe you only make the one, but someone out there will pick up a copy of it…and maybe it ends up in the back of a cupboard somewhere, eventually to fall on the head of a ping-pong player who will love it. Maybe…? ————————————————————————————————— Finally, above is an oddly gorgeous video that shows how color and ink is created from the raw ingredients — powder, varnish, and passion. It was made by The Printing Ink Company, a small business based in Ontario, Canada, who have been making ink with absolute loving care since 1977. Pretty cool. ————————————————————————————————— RIP Prince… ————————————————————————————————— Until next week folks! – Sally Share this page: [...]

06/28/2017

Posted on June 28, 2017June 28, 2017 by Juan Fernández

Empezamos el día con TARANTULA; Matias Prado en La Polola;2do Encuentro de Fanzineras; Álvaro Pons; CuCo8; Sole Otero; Joan S. Luna y Suehiro Maruo; y los tebeos de Cómics Workbook!

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Reseña: Tarantula por Fabian Rangel, Jr y Alexis Ziritt.

Growing up, having older family members who were also film buffs, I got exposed to movies that probably only film students get to see, at any age. I remember the first time, I saw Pink Flamingos, I was pretty freaked out. I remember the first time, I saw The Howling, and thought that Australians knew how to make movies better than we do. I also remembered when I watched The Good the Bad and The Ugly, and being blown away not only by Eastwood’s use of visual cues but also by Sergio Leone’s understanding of human nature.

This led me to dig more into European cinema, specifically the ones made by Italian directors, and I found some masterful ones, even the pulpy ones. The movies made by Dario Argento and Mario Bava, were the ones that intrigued me, as they understood their audience and the real meaning of entertainment value. What these two auteurs also brought to the world of film and of entertainment, is a genre all by itself, “Satanic Noir”, a genre that blended exploitation movies with elements of Devil worship. I thought for sure, most of those movies were of a bygone era, that is until I read Tarantula, which brought me back to that period when I discovered those movies.

Read it all over on Graphic Policy.

Ya, por fin, pueden comprar TARANTULA! – Buy today.

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Cómics y noticias que me han llamado la atención esta semana:

Sol Díaz Castillo y Marcela Trujillo tienen una nueva edicion de La Polola Podcast! Las chicas conversan con Matias Prado acerca de como construyó su camino en la ilustración, su gusto por el skate, su paso por la mecánica aeronáutica, su amor por las sillas, referentes, viajes y mucho más.
Jueves 3 de Agosto – Evento para recaudar fondos para el 2do Encuentro de Fanzineras. Santiago de Chile/Metro Irarrázabal. Organizado por @Comiqueraschile .
La fanzinoteca del Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno (IVAM) calienta motores con una exposición con los fondos de Álvaro Pons.
En pocos días CuCo 8, la revista de estudio y crítica de historieta, estará disponible en la red. Mientras, tenéis los siete números anteriores en su página: http://cuadernosdecomic.com/
Sole Otero, la autora argentina, visita Barcelona para presentar su primera novela gráfica, “Poncho fue” editado por La Cúpula. entrevista Documentada en video por Underbrain
Joan S. Luna entrevista al gran manga-ka, Suehiro Maruo.

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Suzy and Cecil – 6-28-2017 – by Sally Ingraham

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Joanie and Jordie – 6-28-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio

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Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in los Cómics, News

Juan Fernández

Posted on June 28, 2017June 28, 2017

Explore

11/04/2016

Sally IngrahamNovember 4, 2016NewsSally here, ready to shout about some cool comics and the women who make them. I’ve got notes on Lynda Barry, Julia Gfrörer, the She Changed Comics project, Lyn Chevli, Shade the Changing Girl #1, the CW Roller Derby “of the mind” League – plus an interview with Kevin Czap and Comics Workbook at CAB. ————————————————————————————————— Comics Workbook will be at Comic Arts Brooklyn this Saturday, Nov. 5th – find us upstairs at table 27! Frank Santoro, Juan Fernandez, Jenn Lisa, and John Kelly will be there, with other Comics Workbook students and friends stopping by throughout the day. Thee incredible Ronald Wimberly will be signing at our table at 2 pm! Just when I thought it was safe to pack up the purel! I’m guesting at @comicsworkbook table at @comicartsbklyn this Saturday at 2pm. I’ll have Prince of Cats, Attack on Titan, and Something Wicked this Way Comes (The original to this is still available $300. Hit me in my DMs) #comicartsbrooklyn #comicbookworkbook #RonaldWimberly #FrankSantoro #GratNin #PrinceofCats #Hanzōbō A photo posted by Ronald Wimberly (@ronaldwimberly) on Nov 3, 2016 at 3:32pm PDT Also catch Whit Taylor and Alyssa Berg and Aaron Cockle tabling downstairs! ————————————————————————————————— I finally had a minute to pick up Shade the Changing Girl #1 while working at Copacetic Comics this week. Steve Ditko’s original Shade the Changing Man series (1970s), and Peter Milligan’s wild reworking of the Shade stories (1990s) seemed to be lurking around, wondering what these GIRLS were going to do with the material. I was curious too (I spent a fair amount of time this past summer just staring in awe at some of those Brendan McCarthy covers of Milligan’s Shade). Shade the Changing Girl comes from creative team Cecil Castellucci (writer), Marley Zarcone (pencils), and Kelly Fitzpatrick (color), and at a glance, it certainly has the right look. The story ties easily into earlier Shade while quickly forging it’s own plot line: university dropout Loma (a big fan of lunatic poet Roc Shade) steals the “madness coat” from a museum on the planet Meta, and zips to Earth where she takes up residence in the body of a dying teenage girl. It doesn’t take Loma long to realize that dealing with high school, the uncontrollable madness, and the folks on Meta who want the coat back will make life a lot more difficult than she anticipated. Cecil Castellucci (whom I know from her work on The Plain Janes – which Jim Rugg did the artwork for) so far seems to be rocking this, and I’m pretty excited to see where the story goes. Here’s an interview with Castellucci from July that details her own excitement about the project. Issue #2 came out this week – I’ll be aiming to get my hands on it asap. ————————————————————————————————— The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund started the She Changed Comics project last year – it was a series they ran on their Tumblr during Women’s History Month. They successfully Kickstarted a book in the spring of 2016, and it has just been released. The book was another one that I managed to check out this week during my time at Copacetic Comics. Meant to be much more than just an overview of (the dreaded phrase) “women in comics”, the book claims to be “the definitive history of the women who changed free expression in comics, with profiles of more than 60 groundbreaking female professionals and interviews with the women who are changing today’s medium“. While a book that clocks in at 170 pages can hardly be called comprehensive, it did feel like a great who’s who of important names, drawing from the breadth of comics history and the mainstream, syndicated, and alt-comics scenes. Cartoonists, publishers, and editors all got a shout out – Edwina Dumm to Jackie Ormes to Marie Severine to Diane Noomin to Kate Beaton to Roz Chast to Fiona Staples to Francoise Mouly to Karen Berger. With two pages devoted to each person, the book is definitely a good resource and a nice thing to have on hand when some idiot wants to claim that women don’t make or read comics. Almost entirely written by women as well. My only complaint is that there weren’t enough pictures! Get a copy of the book HERE. ————————————————————————————————— One of the women who gets a mention in the book above is Lyn Chevli, the co-founder of Tits & Clits – the first comic book written, drawn, and published solely by women (beating the first Wimmen’s Comix to the newsstands by just a few weeks in July of 1972). Lyn recently died, at the age of 84, and Joyce Farmer (her Tits & Clits publishing partner) provided a remembrance of her on The Comics Journal – read it HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Lynda Barry of course also makes the CBLDF’s list of women who changed comics, thoroughly, constantly, and wonderfully. She is featured in The Guardian this week, riffing on “comics, creativity, and Matt Groening”. Her career has zigzagged through the comics industry, beginning in the syndicated world with the strip Ernie Pook’s Comeek (which ran for 30 years), bumping into a novel or two along the way, and now exploding in both the classroom at the University of Wisconsin (where she was recently named as the UW-Madison’s first recipient of the Chazen Family Distinguished Chair in Art) and a lively lecture circuit, where she preaches the gospel of creativity. Read the article HERE. ————————————————————————————————— You can see some pages from Julia Gfrörer‘s new book Laid Waste (Fantagraphics, November 2016) over on Flood Magazine, part of an interview with Julia that digs into her interest in the Middle Ages and the origins of this particular dark story. Check it out HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Kevin Czap was awarded the CXC 2016 Emerging Talent Award a few weeks ago during Cartoon Crossroads Columbus. In the words of Tom Spurgeon, who presented the award to an astonished Kevin, “…this goes to a cartoonist whom we feel has plenty of promise as a cartoonist and has shown themselves to be a solid and giving community member as well… We love everything we’ve ever learned about you, in terms of your comics community heart.” Alyssa Berg caught up with Kevin a week later and continued the conversation about CXC, comics, and community – and the type of energy a person consciously puts into their work. Their conversation is featured here on the site today. Catch Kevin and Czap Books at Comic Arts Brooklyn this weekend! ————————————————————————————————— The Comics Workbook Roller Derby League has shared the results of a recent “roller derby bout”. The group is constantly expanding, while dialing in a deeper team practice and refining the goals and projects that we’re about. Much more to come – meanwhile, check out some comics we’ve made recently. See the rest of this “derby bout” HERE. ————————————————————————————————— #sallyingraham #comics A video posted by Sally Ingraham (@sally_ingraham) on Nov 2, 2016 at 9:57pm PDT Have a fantastic weekend folks, and get up to some mischief. Don’t let November get to you yet – and don’t forget to turn your clocks back an hour on Sunday! – Sally (Rogue) Share this page: [...]

10/26/2016

Juan FernándezOctober 26, 2016los Cómics / NewsJuan con un poquito sobre: Daniel Jiménez y Jesús Cossio entrevistan ha Joe Sacco; GRAF Madrid; Alienation 2 por Inés Estrada; “el fracaso de la narrativa gráfica” en Mexico; Publisher’s Weekly on Spanish language comics; Fanzinología Mexicana 1985-2015. ————————————————————————————————— ⚡Joe Sacco habla sobre el periodismo,el hecho de narrar conflictos, y la violencia que el capitalismo permite. Es genial ver esta entrevista. Esta entrevista fue realizada por Jesús Cossio y por Daniel Jiménez en el Hay Festival 2014 de Cartagena. Mi trabajo es sobre la realidad de los conflictos, pero éstos se basan en la naturaleza humana. Yo no podría haber dicho esto hace diez años pero es de lo que tratan mis cómics, en realidad. Algunos de mis libros son acerca de un grupo específico de seres humanos. Por ejemplo, en mi libro sobre la Primera Guerra Mundial veo a los seres humanos convertidos en una masa y cómo la naturaleza humana responde a ese tipo de situaciones. Si existe un interés en el autoritarismo y la xenofobia yace, por decirlo de alguna manera, bajo la sombrilla de mi interés en la naturaleza humana. ————————————————————————————————— ⚡GRAF – Madrid se acerca! Ya puede consultarse la programación y el listado de expositores de #GRAFMadrid2016 que tendrá lugar del 11 al 13 de noviembre de 2016 en Madrid. talleres, musica, encuentros, feria de libros… es obvio que el equipo Mireia Pérez, Iñaki Sanz, Borja Crespo, Gerardo Vilches y Pedro Toro estan montando un monstruo de comics y fanzine fest… ————————————————————————————————— ⚡Alienation 2 por Inés Estrada esta disponible para la venta! Es el segundo volu su segundo volumen de su serie sobre la realidad virtual en el ártico. ————————————————————————————————— ⚡Publisher’s Weekly has a piece on the comics that are making a large impact on the American comics market from Spain and Latin America. (Thanks Heidi!) Paco Roca, Liniers, Power Paola… Heidi McDonald touches on the heavy hitters in comics. The ones have changed how many approach the art form. It’s a nice, concise recapitulation of all the on the ground work that cartoonists and comics publishers have been doing in the past decase. Of course, McDonald’s emphasis here is on what is making it to the states, and at the moment that is primarily Spanish work. If you’ve been following this blog, I think you can imagine that this is soon to change… ————————————————————————————————— ⚡Francisco Haghenbeck nos da un contraste a esta atitud tan optimista. Haghenbeck se enfoca en “el fracaso de la narrativa gráfica” en Mexico. Por supuesto quizás Haghenbeck no no ha buscado bien bajo la superficie? Como, no es una criticá de “la novela grafíca “, osea que conviene proceder con cuidado 😉 A los últimos años, se ha tratado de recuperar la cultura de la narrativa gráfica en México, siguiendo la moda de otros países con una robusta lista de obras de calidad como Francia, Argentina, Japón o Estados Unidos. Cuando yo hice la recopilación e investigación para la exhibición “La vida en cuadritos: 120 años de historieta” (Museo Pape en Monclova; Gran museo de la Cultura Maya, Mérida; y Museo Guanal, Cd. Del Carmen) me di a la tarea de buscar las obras que representaran a nuestro país. Con tristeza, me enfrenté a que en los últimos 25 años hay una gran ausencia de historias de calidad literaria. Desde la muerte del colectivo Taller del Perro de la ciudad de México, y en especial, la novela gráfica Operación Bolívar de Edgar Clement, es notable el vacío. El único maravilloso asomo, apenas el año pasado, es la versión personal de William Burroghs de Bef, Uncle Bill (Sexto Piso, 2015) que, como señal de crisis, fue realizada con el apoyo del Sistema Nacional de Creadores de Literatura y no de narrativa gráfica. ————————————————————————————————— ⚡Y para darle contraste a ese articulo, les quiero decir que la antología de fanzines que Inés Estrada recopilo hace un año, Fanzinología Mexicana 1985-2015 (editada por Enrique Arriaga y Inés Estrada), ahora se puede descargar gratis en Gatosaurio. The underground is alive and kicking. Compilation featuring a selection from the graphic and visual narrative of three decades of mexican fanzines. The work collected was originally self-published in limited runs by and for underground niches formed by punks, queer activists, artists and amateurs among others. This book intends to collect and highlight these obscure publications and also to be a reference for contextualizing mexican zines. This is the first effort of its kind in Mexico. Edited by Enrique Arriaga and Inés Estrada, with material they both collected for la Fanzinoteca del Museo Universitario del Chopo in Mexico City. Arriaga started la Fanzinoteca in 2014 as a zine archive and a cycle of exhibitions at the museum. Book design by Inés Estrada, with a cover illustration by Edwin Sandoval. ————————————————————————————————— ⚡Echale un vistazo a este medallón estilo Pompeii! “Le encargué a la gran Airi Maeno que hiciera unos medallones de plata con sede fuera de mis dibujos. Este dibujo viende de mi libro Pompeii. Es algo que puedo imaginar que alguien se pondría hace dos mil años. Un simple medallón de un ser querido. Un retrato. Algo permanente para desafiar a la desaparición”. – Frank Santoro Puedes comprar uno aquí! ————————————————————————————————— hasta la próxima! juan Share this page: [...]

11/13/2018

Aaron CockleNovember 13, 2018NewsD.Duck; FAFC (FSC) ————————————————————————————————— If It Looks Like a Duck Via Yohann Koshy at The Baffler: Dorfman and Mattelart do not impute conspiratorial motives onto Walt Disney. How to Read Donald Duck is a work of ideological criticism: it tells you what his comics do not realize they are saying. The absence of fathers and mothers in the Disney universe—there are only uncles, aunts, nephews, and nieces—serves to naturalize forms of authority, because the nephew cannot challenge his uncle as the child can their parent. The pursuit of money determines many of Donald’s misadventures, but Dorfman and Mattelart observe that there are no working-class occupations in Duckburg, where Donald lives, so “wealth is made to appear as if society creates it by means of the spirit” rather than by the exploitation of labor. Channelling Adorno and Horkheimer on the culture industry, they argue that the problem with Disney’s fantasy world is that it falsely reconciles antagonisms between child and parent, capital and labor: “All the conflicts of the real word, the nerve centers of bourgeois society, are purified in the imagination in order to be absorbed and co-opted into the world of entertainment.” ————————————————————————————————— French Abstract Formalist Comics (French Structural Comics): An Artistic Movement At TCJ, Kim Jooha updates an essay from 2016: I call this new budding movement French Abstract Formalist Comics. They are “Abstract” Formalist comics not because they do not show representational images — they do, and this is a critical difference between them and Abstract Comics — but because they show abstract narrative and study abstract and formalist themes, concepts, and motives. They could also be called French Structural Comics, because they are similar to works of Structural Cinema such as Michael Snow’s Wavelength (1968). They share a physical environment, geography, and period; artistic forms (style, aesthetics of comics); themes and motives; and formal as well as the structural features of comics, printed media, and visual art. They also share a community and platform. The prime example is the anthology Lagon, edited by Alexis Beauclair, Jean-Philippe Bretin, Bettina Henni, and Sammy Stein, all of whom are French Structural Comics artists, though not every work in Lagon is Structural Comics. (For example, Simon Hanselman was in it.) Editions Matiere, which has had the seminal influence on the development of the movement, publishes many FSC. ————————————————————————————————— Share this page: [...]

12/03/2018

Caleb OrecchioDecember 3, 2018NewsCaleb Orecchio here with some brief thoughts on Kirby’s appeal. ————————————————————————————————— Caleb here. This past semester, I ran an after school comics club for first through fourth graders here in Pittsburgh. Something that I’ve been thinking about lately is that their favorite comics, of the ones I brought in, were far and away my reprints of Jack Kirby Marvel comics (followed closely by Calvin and Hobbes and Ditko’s Spider-Man). They were particularly taken with Black Bolt who made his way into several of the students’ own comics. I think this in part had to do with the fact that they had no previous frame of reference for the character. My students would just sit their and look at the Kirby covers as if they were relics of spiritual truth and mystery. Their is something primal about Kirby that can not be shaken. I don’t think it is controversial to say that Kirby tapped into some deep Jungian gold mine of archetypes. One could argue that this explains the ongoing popularity of his characters. Undoubtedly, Kirby, and the rest of the superhero creators, were participating in a long tradition of hero sagas that has existed since the earliest known literature. The early Marvel characters were fresh and still somewhat familiar. And they stay fresh and familiar in no small part due to the silver and TV screens. Still, despite the intensity and gravitas of the movies, these old comic books still stand as a vital testaments of imagination. I simply find it interesting that a bunch of kids who were hardly interested in anything other than Sonic the Hedgehog and Super Mario Bros. found these stories and pictures fascinating. ————————————————————————————————— Cement Mixer – 12-3-18 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

The Fantagraphics 40th Anniversary Party

Chris Anthony DiazDecember 13, 2016The Diaz ArchiveThe Fantagraphics 40th Anniversary celebration at the Fantagraphics Bookstore and Gallery and the Georgetown Stables, Saturday, December 10, 2016, Georgetown, Seattle. All photos colored by Graham WillcoxExhibit and display of the 40 year publishing history of Fantagraphics Books Fantagraphics Books co-founder Gary Groth (center) and Ellen Forney (rear, purple cap) Gilbert Hernandez, Ana Merino and Jaime HernandezFantagraphics Co-founder Mike CatronCharles Burns limited-edition prints for the Fantagraphics 40th anniversary exhibitSimon HanselmannDaniel Clowes and Richard Sala photoJacq Cohen and Simon HanselmannFantagraphics co-publisher Eric ReynoldsPeter BaggeTom SpurgeonTom Van Deusen and Josh SimmonsSimon Hanselman musical performanceSimon Hanselmann signingLarry ReidGeorgetown Christmas carolersJosh Simmons and Shanna MatuszakR.J. CaseyAfterparty at the Georgetown StablesJacq Cohen, Anna Pederson and Simon Hanselmann (front) Gary Groth (it woulda been something if Gary used a shotgun instead of a bat on that 40th anniversary piñata!!!)R.J. Casey, Kristy Valenti and Simon Hanselmann Share this page: [...]

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