Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in NewsTagged caleb orecchio, Steve Ditko

Caleb Orecchio

Posted on July 9, 2018July 9, 2018

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07/07/2016

HarrisonJuly 7, 2016NewsHarrison is here today previewing the 4th Annual Comics Workbook Competition, revisiting an old/new interview with a veteran artist, giving an update from Richmond, VA’s best artists, and finishing with something sharp. ————————————————————————————————— COMICS WORKBOOK COMPOSITION COMPETITION 2016 THE SANTORO CORRESPONDENCE COURSE and The Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency presents the COMICS WORKBOOK COMPOSITION COMPETITION 2016 ———————————————— 1st place – $500 cash prize to the winner 2nd place – $250 credit at Copacetic Comics 3rd place – $100 credit at Copacetic Comics plus four $50 honorable mention prizes from Big Planet Comics ———————————————— Create a 16 page signature comic book narrative to the specifications below ———————————————— DEADLINE: August 30 2016 at midnight (that’s 11:59 EST) ———————————————— Find all the details HERE! ————————————————————————————————— From the Vault: Arvell Malcolm Jones Interview CBR News: What about the challenges or difficulties you may have faced while getting into the comics biz? AJ: Well, Marvel and DC were interesting places in the early ’70s. Racism was there, but not the kind you would think. People were trying to be very open minded, but they only could draw on what they knew. I spent a lot of time getting to know people. It was hard at first because, in some cases, we had nothing in common but our love of the industry. Plus, the industry is very much like a little Hollywood: it’s about who you know, as well as how good you are. Many of the people I worked with I’d know for sometime through the convention route, or from zines, like Roy Thomas (when we had our zine, Roy was our source for news at Marvel) and Paul Levitz. Marvel and DC tried to be open to us but, in a way, they didn’t know quite how to relate to us. It helped that most of my friends from Detroit helped to open doors. We would take a 13 hour drive and spend the night with Al Milgrom and his roommate, hang at Rich’s, then go see John Romita at Marvel, get our butts spanked, and go back to Detroit to work on our samples again. – via Comic Book Resources Read the rest of the interview with veteran artist Arvell Malcolm Jones here. ————————————————————————————————— Richmond’s Finest Check out some of the new work from our friends from Richmond, VA, Cameron Weston Nicholson, Richie Pope, and Chris Visions. Support and share please. Cameron Weston Nicholson Cameron’s got a sale on his latest comic, Burgundy. IF you’ve been waiting to pick up some work from Cameron, now’s your chance before these comics are gone! Send him a message via instagram and he’ll hook you up. https://www.instagram.com/p/BHhqpeqg-jZ/ Richie Pope Along with having the illustration below in the New York Times, Richie has made available the second (and final) edition of Newdini in print. Get it now! http://richiepope.bigcartel.com/product/newdini Chris Visions You can now buy your copy of Chris Visions’ #LunchtimeLoosies VOL. 1 at http://chrisvisions.bigcartel.com – A color collection of beautiful observational drawings made with mixed media. ————————————————————————————————— Share this page: [...]

09/21/2018

Sally IngrahamSeptember 21, 2018NewsSally Ingraham here with my Small Press Expo 2018 memories and pictures! (See Juan Fernandez’s SPX report HERE, and read Caleb Orecchio’s thoughts HERE.) ————————————————————————————————— I headed to Bethesda a day early and on Friday I was fortunate enough to tag along on SPX Director Warren Bernard’s annual field trip to the Library of Congress with some of the Expo’s special guests. At the Library of Congress we got to see some of the comics holdings that are kept in the Prints and Photographs collection. Here’s a few that I took note of: After looking at the comics holding for a bit, Emma Ríos, Rina Ayuyang, Liv Strömquist and her son and their travel companion, Kate Harmon, and myself, made the long dangerous trek underground through the maze of the Library of Congress (there were tunnels involved!) to find the Jefferson Building and the Drawn To Purpose show. There was a nice timeline of work made by female cartoonists and illustrators, including the Little Lulu strip I shared at the top of this post, and this Brenda Starr, Reporter piece by Dale Messick: We found our way back to the Madison Building in time to catch Carol Tyler‘s big presentation on her life and comics. Having formed a bond over the morning, Emma Ríos, Rina Ayuyang, Kate Harmon and I continued to hang out for the rest of the day. And as we were leaving the Library of Congress in search of lunch, who should we bump into but Congressman John Lewis…?! (Check out the March trilogy that Congressman John Lewis wrote with Andrew Aydin and Nate Powell HERE.) It was a real treat to explore Washington D.C. with my dear friend Kate Harmon, guided by our pal Adam Griffiths, and get to know Emma Ríos and Rina Ayuyang along the way. I knew Spanish cartoonist Emma Ríos‘ work from the Image titles Pretty Deadly, with Kelly Sue DeConnick, and Mirror, with Hwei Lim. In 2016 she put out a comic that she drew as well as wrote (the first comic she has written in English), called I.D., which I’ve been meaning to read (and I was so delighted later in the weekend when she gave me her last copy!) Here’s an interview with Emma from last year that details more of her comics adventures. Rina Ayuyang is originally from Pittsburgh, PA, so we hit it off right away! I’m super excited to read her new book, just out from Drawn & Quarterly – Blame This on the Boogie (get a copy of it HERE). Getting to meet cartoonists like Emma and Rina is why I come to SPX every year. I’m interested in the quick friendships that form because of the common interest that pulls us together. You’ve never met before, and may come from different career/publishing backgrounds, but especially in groups of women I have found that there is a powerful connection and a desire to support and celebrate all the varied comics-making paths that we’ve traversed. I felt that strongly with Emma and Rina, and although our encounter was more incidental, with Liv Strömquist as well. (Check out Liv’s powerful new book The Fruit of Knowledge HERE.) By the end of day on Friday Kate Harmon and I were having dinner with Fiona Smyth, due to a quick invitation in the hotel elevator (another key part of the success of SPX – everyone is in the same hotel!) I am such a big fan of Fiona’s work, and was lucky enough to meet her during her visit to Pittsburgh, PA, a few years ago. It was terrific to catch up and congratulate her in person on her new book, just out from Koyama Press – Somnambulance. Saturday and Sunday at SPX I was completely engrossed in running the Comics Workbook-hosted workshops. These workshops provided a veritable crash-course in comics making, beginning with Juan Fernandez‘s highly energetic intro to image-making as language. This was followed by Dash Shaw‘s in-depth exploration of comics writing, and Molly Ostertag‘s (standing room only!) session on digging a fresh story out of yourself. There were numerous other offerings (we ran 8 workshops this year!) including a clay sculpture workshop with Liz Reed and a Kickstarter intro course with Camilla Zhang. (Big shoutout to Caleb Orecchio for being doorman on Saturday and wrangling the enthusiastic and lengthy lines of folks who attended – and for his own great workshop on Sunday! And to Kate Harmon for helping with supply runs and the door on Sunday!) Saturday night is always bonkers – for me it’s a balance of hanging out with the Comics Workbook and Pittsburgh Comics Salon crew, and finding my more far-flung comics friends to catch up with (Andrew White, M. S. Harkness, Iona Fox!) But despite great conversations and late hours kept, I somehow got up on Sunday morning and drove 30 minutes to Great Falls Park, VA, to pursue the topic of all my own comics lately – BIRDS! Sunday at SPX went by in a flash, and before I knew it we were packing up the workshop room, and I was making a last round of the Expo floor to find cartoonists I’d missed before they in turn packed up and took off. Dinner with Kate Harmon and Emma Ríos and Fiona Smyth, followed by late-night chats with Iona Fox, and then the show was officially over for me. I crawled into bed to sleep for a bit before racing back to Pittsburgh, PA, on Monday morning in time to work at 10 AM… Phew! Thanks to Warren Bernard, Lynda Bernard, Rob Clough, Danethin Mejia, and Eden Miller for the organization behind the show, and especially their help in making the workshops happen. Thanks to Juan Fernandez, Liz Reed, Dash Shaw, Molly Ostertag, Jason Rodriguez and the Latin American Youth Council, Mosi, Camilla Zhang, and Caleb Orecchio for delivering such stellar workshops! And many, many thanks to all the folks who turned up to learn about comics with us over the weekend. See you next year for SPX 2019! ————————————————————————————————— 09-21-2018 – by Niall Breen Share this page: [...]

Vanesa R. Del Rey – Process

Sally IngrahamDecember 9, 2016Tool TalkFeaturing Vanesa R. Del Rey // vrdelrey.com Video by Michael Pisano, Di-ay Battad and Juan Fernandez // michaelpisano.com // cargocollective.com/di-ay // juanjosefernandez.com Soundtrack // Victoria’s Other Secret // Galapagoose Check out The Art of Vanesa R. Del Rey HERE. Share this page: [...]

Frank Santoro’s 2016 LICAF Workshop – Notes for Attendees

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

8/31/2016

Juan FernándezAugust 31, 2016los Cómics / NewsJuan here with your weekly Spanish language comics news round up! El fin del CW Composition Contest;Sol Díaz Castillo y Marcela Trujillo charlan con Katherine Supnem; la evolucion de Spanish Fever; Mireia Perez sobre Ben Marra; Edd Muñoz sobre El Publicadero en Manizales; el nuevo libro de Connor Willumsen, Portraits. ————————————————————————————————— Le concours – C’est fini The Comics Workbook Composition Competition 2016 is over! You can read all the entries HERE. Entries were still pouring in until the stroke of midnight, but it is over! – we are trying to get everyone’s comic reblogged here and added to the master list – if you don’t see your comic on the list yet, today DO NOT WORRY – if it was in our email before 11:59pm EST tonight then you are officially entered in the competition! We will post the final list later today! This has been the biggest explosion of comics we’ve ever gotten for this competition! We will be spending the next few days working with our judges to pick the winners – be patient – check out all the entries – reblog your favorites – AND THANKS FOR JOINING US THIS YEAR! ————————————————————————————————— [soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/279783030″ params=”color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false” width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /] Escucha @lapololapodcast, un podcast del cómic femenino con Sol Díaz Castillo y Marcela Trujillo! It’s always a fun, relaxing and enlightening listen. If you haven’t tuned in to La Polola just yet, Póngale Play 😉 En este capítulo se habla de los discursos y el dibujo, de como cuestionar las cosas y a uno mismo en lo que hacemos, de la marginalidad, el underground, la filosofía y más. Las chicas conversan con Katherine Supnem, dibujante chilena, sobre estos temas y su experiencia como dibujante de cómics feminista, profesora de filosofía, dibujante de escenografías, under y marginal. ————————————————————————————————— Charlando con Emma Rios Kaboom, la nueva seccion de El País dedicada a la exploracion del mundo del comic contemporaneo, compartió una mañana con la artista y arquitecta gallega, Emma Rios. Léanlo HOY! Angel Luis Sucasas: ¿Cómo cambia tu método cuando escribes y cuando dibujas? Emma Rios: Escribiendo, trabajo mucho desde los personajes pero al mismo tiempo soy muy conceptual. Nunca doy demasiadas explicaciones. Como escritora no me mola nada hacerlo. Lo que quiero es que el lector se sienta parte del mundo, que escuches cosas. Hablábamos antes de Dark souls y de cómo te enteras de las cosas por lo que dicen los personajes, por el contexto. En ID lo transmitía mucho a través de la gestualidad corporal. Normalmente se trata de decidir de qué coño me apetece hablar. En ID estaba claro que quería hablar de la aceptación… Es un cómic muy político. Tiene mucho que ver con una situación en la que yo me encontraba en el curro. Yo trabajo para gente extranjera. Eso significa una barrera idiomática y cultural. Y soy relativamente introvertida y me cuesta enfrentarme a esto. Me cuesta ser el centro de atención y me cuesta tener esa actitud, que allí es tan natural, de “¡Compra mi tebeo, compra mi tebeo”. Así que acabé distribuyendo eso en varios personajes para enfrentarme a ello. Yo estoy hasta las narices de que se me trate como alguien especial. Mira, lo que hago no es especial. Tu idea de lo que hacen las mujeres no es la realidad. Las mujeres hacen muchas cosas. ————————————————————————————————— Sobre Panorama//Spanish Fever – La Historia de su publicación, su importancia y mas… La antología de cómics española, Panorama cruza el charco! Sergio Jiménez Foronda le da un gran vistazo a la nueva edición de Panorama (Astiberri 2013), ahora Spanish Fever (Fantagraphics 2016). Los creadores han gozado de total libertad para producir sus trabajos, permitiéndoseles ser ellos mismos en cada palabra y en cada trazo. El resultado es una heterogénea panorámica de estilos y temáticas que hace más de un año llamó la atención de Fantagraphics, que se puso en contacto con Astiberri para exportar la obra. “Ha sido fundamental la participación de la Fundación Spain Arts & Culture de la Emabajada de España en Wahsington, que apoyó esta edición sufragando la traducción del libro y permitiendo que una selección de los autores que participan en el libro puedan viajar a EEUU y participar en diferentes eventos que servirán para promocionarlo”, explica García. Entre ellos se encuentra el festival de cómics norteamericano Small Press Expo, que se celebra en North Bethesda (Maryland), una cita a la que García ya había acudido numerosas veces y a la que le hace ilusión volver “para participar desde el otro lado de la mesa, para estar en el papel de profesional publicado en EEUU“. ————————————————————————————————— Mireia Pérez sobre Ben Marra Mireia Pérez escribe una carta de amor, bien merecida, a los comics del dibujante americano Ben Marra. Llevo puestas las gafas violetas desde la facultad y ya nunca me las podré quitar. Este punto de vista me acompaña a donde voy, sea de paseo, al cine o a leer. Tienes que saber esto, querida lectora, porque los tebeos de Marra transcurren en un universo donde los hombres llevan armas y son siempre los protagonistas y las mujeres son casi siempre putas o stripers, van en ropa interior y suelen ser vejadas a la primera de cambio. Y es que todo lo que fabrica Marra con sus manos (dibuja prácticamente sin boceto y a mano alzada cargada de tinta) emerge de la sátira y está cincelado con una pátina de ironía, algo que no tenían los tebeos en los ochenta y que viene exactamente de la misma cocina donde se fraguó la novela gráfica: el cómic undergraund americano. ————————————————————————————————— Edd Muñoz y El Publicadero En La Patria, Edd Muñoz nos cuenta sobre lo que nos podemos esperar en este segundo año de El Publicadero, encuentro de autoedición. Hoy es común encontrar muchos cómics de autores colombianos en las librerías, lo que no ocurría antes. ¿Es un buen síntoma? Claro. El Publicadero existe para debatir sobre el trabajo de esas personas y responde a unos eventos sobre cómic que se están realizando en Colombia, unos con más apoyo que otros. Hay una movida alrededor de la historieta y buscamos despertar el interés por los contenidos dibujados con una programación que incluye conversatorios y talleres. ————————————————————————————————— Portraits by Connor Willumsen. Este libro de 16 páginas bellamente impreso (por WestCan – que también imprimio el Manual de la Escuela Santoro) de retratos del gran Connor Willumsen está disponible para pre-pedido. De momento, sólo ofrecemos pre-pedidos para los Estados Unidos. Ofreceremos pre -pedidos para pedidos fuera de EEUU después de que mandemos el libro a los impresores. Dalé click AQUI para pedir tu pre-order! http://auction.comicsworkbook.com/2016/08/18/portraits-by-connor-willumsen-pre-order/ ————————————————————————————————— hasta la proxima! JF Share this page: [...]

07/09/2018

Posted on July 9, 2018July 9, 2018 by Caleb Orecchio

Caleb Orecchio here with brief thoughts on Steve Ditko, and other news!

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from Charlton Action Featuring “Static” Vol. 2 No. 11, 1985

You’ve probably heard by now that Steve Ditko has passed away. Thee great Steve Ditko. I’ve been going through my annual Ditko obsession these past few months which makes his passing all the more surprising. For a while, I’d figured he’d live forever–and he will, being survived by his work.

Often, I can’t decide if I’m more in awe of his strange imagination, his incredible storytelling chops, his amazing formalistic skills or his unstoppable work ethic. Ditko is a true inspiration to cartoonists, or at least to this cartoonist.

I could go on and on, but am wary of adding to the noise. “What can be said that hasn’t been said before?” I’ve already written multiple columns about Ditko’s work and will continue to do so, so I’ll not exhaust my praise and admiration here.

I constantly find new challenges as a cartoonist, formalistically and idealistically, in Ditko’s work. I am constantly blown away by the man’s innumerable innovations. I am sure he is on the Astral Plane, navigating the cosmos with the other long-lost comic book greats. Or maybe not. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d spend the afterlife working in isolation, and mastering his art as he did in this life.

Below are three of my favorite Ditko spreads lately. Two of which I’ve written about on this site.

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from “The Hanged Man” from The Many Ghosts of Doctor Graves Vol. 11, No. 68, 1981 (Charlton)

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from “A Voice in the Fog” from Haunted Vol. 3, No. 14, 1973 (Charlton)

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from “Dream World!” from Chamber of Chills Vol. 1, No. 19, 1975 (originally from Tales to Astonish, 1961) (Marvel)

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if you don’t know, now you know

Michael Dean has written an obituary for Ditko over at TCJ.com.
Also on TCJ.com, an obituary for Harlan Ellison (also by Dean), along with the infamous 1979 Comics Journal interview with Gary Groth.
In case you are curious what The Comics Reporter’s latest Five For Friday was…
Scott Cederlund on Young Frances by Hartley Lin at Panel Patter.
Robin McConnell has read some comics recently, and talked to Mariko Tamaki.
Finally, on TCJ’s latest installment of Retail Therapy, we get a look at Mission Comics.

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Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in NewsTagged caleb orecchio, Steve Ditko

Caleb Orecchio

Posted on July 9, 2018July 9, 2018

Explore

08/15/2018

Juan FernándezAugust 15, 2018NewsThinking out loud here today on publishing and patronage. The market will never, effectively, support what the world needs creatively. Patronage is essential for that. Naturally, publishers can function as patrons, but I see it happen less than I’d like to. I’ve been thinking a lot about this, since I heard that Annie Koyama was going to close the doors on her book publishing and transition to more focused arts patronage. I’m excited for that. The reason being that comics’ commodity form feels broken. When publishers big or small say, “buy our books or we won’t be able to exist”, there’s a problem. It’s not on them, but it leads me to believe that our paradigm for publishing is broken. A short reflection on Eric Reynolds’ conversation with Timothy Hodler on Amazon’s disruptive print-on-demand practices makes this clear. The form is flourishing en masse, the distribution method is failing us collectively. This intersects with failures of capitalism and culture, of course – in other spheres you can separate them a good bit, but comics, being born as a commodity form wind up inextricably connected to the market. To be clear, I see a huge issue, when the responsibility of the “success” of works implicitly falls on the shoulders of the consumer. Crowdfunding is a hybrid of these ideas, so there’s an evolution there towards the future. Some extremely smart and creative people like Spike Trotman and others have figured out how to use this system to make their comics flourish in the market. Though they succeed in existing in a market, what often times happens is, the campaigns fail to integrate the work into existing ecosystems of libraries, stores and schools in a way that traditional publishers are able to engage with. In this way reader and consumer end up being one and the same. For it’s own needs, the comics market, inside and outside of crowdfunding conflates consumer and reader. If you’re not around to buy it, you’ll likely never experience the work. To be clear, this isn’t a dig on crowdfunding, though I wish more crowdfunded publications were able to bridge that gap in how the campaigns were designed. It’s not easy! I know! I’m just thinking out loud here about the larger issue of how comics wind up “locked up” in their own cultural space. When comics can be reproduced and shared, like music, by being saved to hard drives, by being clipped onto the fridge, by being shared with friends by loaning our copy of a book or pointing a friend to the library, we harness comics’ ability to “float” as cultural experiences. To connect us to each other, and to new knowledge. When this happens, comics occupy a role that becomes personal, independent of our relations to what’s going on in the comics market, a space that will likely never be hospitable to new ideas. Though I own plenty of comics, I read most comics through the library. My students read comics online, webcomics via sites and through social media. These experiences allow stories, jokes, images and abstractions to flow through our minds without forcing our hand in financial transactions. In these experiences, comics, especially strips become viral, they become important, they become part of our stories. It’s in this spirit that we here at Comics Workbook shout the mantra: commodity form as community form. If you or someone you know is interested in private patronage for forward thinking and passionate comics making, please send me a message. I’d love to talk to you. I’m working on a project through Comics Workbook that aims to create an equitable work environment for comics-makers, particularly oriented around comic strips. This is important work as comics are a vital, contemporary art form that has an extremely flimsy infrastructure. This all comes from things that I’ve learned thanks to the Kelly Strayhorn Theater‘s Future Makers program, my work at the Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council, conversations with Johanna Lasner and The Copacetic Comics Company‘s Bill Boichel and my time here with Comics Workbook. Share this page: [...]

07/24/2018

Aaron CockleJuly 24, 2018NewsNatural Process; Bell/Porcellino/Duchamp; More ‘R. Mutt’; More Grip ————————————————————————————————— “Will you come see the ‘real’ webpage painting at the museum? Or will you see it ‘virtual’ through the web?” Via Rhizome.org’s Net Art Anthology: Natural Process is an installation that translates the iconic circa-2003 Google search engine home page to the form of a large-scale painting, and then back to digital media via webcam. This double remediation, enacted by Japanese net art duo exonemo (Kensuke Sembo and Yae Akaiwa) was exhibited at the Mori Art Museum in 2004, at a moment when artists were increasingly interested in the slippage between art’s circulation online and in the gallery. The painting was purchased by Google, and has not been exhibited publicly until now; it is on view through March 10, 2019 at ICC Tokyo and as part of Net Art Anthology. ————————————————————————————————— A Trip to the Museum With Cartoonist John Porcellino Always nice to see cartoonists visiting museums. ————————————————————————————————— Speaking of Marcel Duchamp… The iconic Fountain (1917) is not created by Marcel Duchamp In 1982 a letter written by Duchamp came to light. Dated 11 April 1917, it was written just a few days after that fateful exhibit. It contains one sentence that should have sent shockwaves through the world of modern art: it reveals the true creator behind Fountain – but it was not Duchamp. Instead he wrote that a female friend using a male alias had sent it in for the New York exhibition. Suddenly a few other things began to make sense. Over time Duchamp had told two different stories of how he had created Fountain, but both turned out to be untrue. An art historian who knew Duchamp admitted that he had never asked him about Fountain, he had published a standard-work on Fountain nevertheless. The place from where Fountain was sent raised more questions. That place was Philadelphia, but Duchamp had been living in New York. … Who was living in Philadelphia? Who was this ‘female friend’ that had sent the urinal using a pseudonym that Duchamp mentions? That woman was, as Duchamp wrote, the future. Art history knows her as Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven. She was a brilliant pioneering New York dada artist, and Duchamp knew her well. This glaring truth has been known for some time in the art world, but each time it has to be acknowledged, it is met with indifference and silence. Via Theo Paijmans. ————————————————————————————————— Grip Vol. 1 If you didn’t get the chance this past Friday or over the weekend, please take some time to read Sally Ingraham’s review of Lale Westvind’s excellent new book, Grip, out now from Perfectly Acceptable Press. ————————————————————————————————— Vision Box – 7-24-18 – by Cameron Arthur ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 7-24-18 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

06/14/2016

Aaron CockleJune 13, 2016NewsAaron Cockle with In Pieces Part 2; Art crit; Dan Clowes WTF?; Kramers Ergot on the road; Cult of Claymation Cthulhu; Dada@MoMA; “Sonata in primordial sounds” ————————————————————————————————— CW’s Featured Comics continues this week with Part 2 of Kurt Ankeny’s In Pieces: Someplace Which I Call Home. ————————————————————————————————— In the sense that he starts with the idea that the canvas is a limited area to be divided, to be designed, he is following a European tradition. It is the opposite of the concept of the image which unfolds and spreads out, as in the panoramas of the Hudson River School or the panoramas of American Action-Painting where the edges of the canvas are the last facts to be considered, not the first. Many abstract painters today, for instance, work on unstretched canvas tacked to the wall and decide on the size and proportions of the painting after it is finished. This would be as unworkable an approach for Davis as it would for Mondrian or Léger, since the exercise of will and consciousness can only be accomplished within a fixed space. For artists who insist on complete control, the world must be square; there must be boundaries to act against. — Elaine De Kooning on Stuart Davis circa 1957 via ARTNews ————————————————————————————————— Cartoonist and writer Daniel Clowes brings the world of underground comics into Marc ‘s garage. They talk about the great comic artists who paved the way, the difficulty in translating some graphic novels to film, and the similarities between creating comics and performing standup. Plus, filmmaker Ezra Edelman stops by to talk with Marc about his documentary OJ: Made in America. ————————————————————————————————— This Wednesday in Pittsburgh and this Thursday in Brooklyn. ————————————————————————————————— Pingu’s The Thing, by Lee Hardcastle ————————————————————————————————— Dadaglobe Reconstructed reunites over 100 works created for Dadaglobe, Tristan Tzara’s planned but unrealized magnum opus, originally slated for publication in 1921. An ambitious anthology that aimed to document Dada’s international activities, Dadaglobe was not merely a vehicle for existing works, but served as a catalyst for the production of new ones. Tzara invited some 50 artists from 10 countries to submit artworks in four categories: photographic self-portraits, photographs of artworks, original drawings, and layouts for book pages. The exhibition brings together these photographs, drawings, photomontages, and collages, along with a selection of related archival material, to reconstruct this volume. Though never published, due to financial and organizational difficulties, Tzara’s project addresses concerns about art’s reproducibility that continue to be relevant today. — via Museum of Modern Art [Image above: Francis Picabia. Tableau Rastadada. 1920. Cut-and- pasted printed paper on paper with ink, 7 1⁄2 x 6 3⁄4″ (19 x 17.1 cm). Gift of Abby Aldrich Rockefeller (by exchange), 2014. © 2016 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris] ————————————————————————————————— Julie Doucet’s Carpet Sweeper Tales Doucet’s fragmented and reconstituted sound-language echoes Kurt Schwitter’s Dada “sound-poems” and the zaum, or transrational poetry, of Russian Futurist Aleksei Kruchenykh. Both Schwitter and Kruchenykh abstracted words in order to liberate language from meaning: their letterforms are descriptive rather than prescriptive. In Schwitter’s “Ursonate,” which roughly translates to “sonata in primordial sounds,” the four movements are interspersed with a coda that comprises the German alphabet read backward; each of the three iterations is meant to be read aloud with a different pitch and tempo. Much of the poem relies on the repetition of sounds—“Lanke trr gll / Ziiuu lenn trll? / Lümpff tümpff trll.” Kruchenykh’s “Hum of Hillclimbing Locomotive” is a collection of sounds that approximate not just the noise of a train engine but also, importantly, its laboring momentum: “boro / choro / two / one / hubb / sham / ga / gish! / boro sorko ba.” In the same way, Doucet’s collection of sounds and patterns isn’t an unruly mess: she harnesses the constructed ejections and exclamations together, and they accrue a syntax. — Via Nicole Ruddick at TCJ ————————————————————————————————— Share this page: [...]

08/11/2017

Sally IngrahamAugust 10, 2017NewsSally here with Jenny Zervakis and Jackie Ormes, plus other comics and news from the wide world of #VisibleWomen! ———————————————————————————————— This comic turned up in the latest box we received at Copacetic Comics from Spit and a Half Distro and I couldn’t have been happier. I loved the Strange Growths collection that John Porcellino put out for Jenny Zervakis earlier this year, which covered the comics she made from 1991 to 1997 (issues 1-13 – get a copy of the book HERE!) Strange Growths #14 (1998) carries on with 7 short stories and a lengthy letter from the brother who showed up in more than a few of her earlier comics. The collection showcases the poetic way that Jenny captures the weirdness of life, with overheard conversations, dream sequences, housing woes and tragic animal deaths, and the shortness and sweetness of it all. I particularly enjoyed the story Like a Butterfly With One Wing. Simple drawings, no text, and the mysteries of nature and humans. Get a copy of Strange Growths #14 from Spit and a Half, and pick up issues #15 and #16 as well. ———————————————————————————————— I read Nancy Goldstein’s biography of Jackie Ormes a few years ago (Jackie Ormes: The First African American Woman Cartoonist), and ever since then I’ve been meaning to visit the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh to take a look at Jackie’s comics in The Pittsburgh Courier. I finally made it last week, and was thrilled to discover the debut of her very first published strip – Torchy Brown in “Dixie to Harlem” – in the May 1st, 1937 copy of the paper. Jackie had been a proofreader and reporter for the Courier right out of high school, but with the debut of her comic strip she became the first Black woman to become a professional newspaper cartoonist. The Courier ran Torchy Brown for a year. It’s the story of an adventurous girl from Mississippi who decides to venture north with the aim of becoming a star at the Cotton Club. Here is the first month’s worth of strips: I’m blown away by how good Jackie was at cartooning right off the bat. She’s a terrific artist, great at characterizations, and the strip is quite funny. Action and adventure, physical humor, glamour – it’s all there in the first 5 strips. Jackie moved with her husband to Chicago shortly afterward, and published a few shorter running strips in The Chicago Defender (most notably Candy, about a wise-cracking domestic worker, which ran for 4 months). By September 1945 she was back in the Courier however, with Patty-Jo ‘n’ Ginger, which ran for 11 years and featured the snappy political commentary of little sister Patty-Jo, and the silent foil of gorgeous big sister Ginger. I’ll be heading back to the library to catch up with those ladies! Torchy Brown made a second appearance later in Jackie’s career, in Torchy in Heartbeats (1950 – ran for 4 years). I highly recommend Nancy Goldstein’s bio if you’re at all curious about Jackie Ormes – it’s thorough, and full of pictures. For further reading at the moment, check out this article from the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum on Jackie. “No matter the strip, Ormes was presenting African American women in a way that no other cartoonist in the papers had done previously. Her characters were demure and dynamic, involved in and commenting on current events, sporting the latest fashions. They were upper class women.” – Caitlin McGurk ———————————————————————————————— In Other Words Mimi Pond‘s latest comic – The Customer is Always Wrong – just came out from Drawn and Quarterly. Mimi chats with Jezebel, covering the service industry, cocaine, and writing for The Simpsons. The Comics Journal has a review of The Customer is Always Wrong – HERE. Kelly Sue DeConnick started the Twitter sensation #VisibleWomen, a hashtag that serves as a database for women working in comics. She talks about the project HERE on Player.One. Over on HuffPost they’re also talking about #VisibleWomen, and proclaim that “The Comic Book Industry Officially Has No Excuse Not To Hire Women“. Julia Gfrörer is in the pet issue of The Portland Mercury talking about why cats attack (and why they attack HER) – HERE. Here’s an interview with Anya Davidson on Cool Yeah Right from earlier this year. And one with Daria Tessler from this week! Renae De Liz offers a tutorial on how to “De-Objectify” women in comics – HERE on Heroic Girls. ———————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 8-11-2017 – by Sally Ingraham Share this page: [...]

05/22/2017

Caleb OrecchioMay 21, 2017NewsCaleb Orecchio here from my remote Comics Workbook satellite site in Dayton, OH, with my recent loans from my local library. PLUS! Links links links links! ————————————————————————————————— Just wanted to share some recent comic loans from my library. As a cartoonist and comics fundamentalist, I take it upon myself to acquire relics and learn about the strange, vast history that is Comics and its culture. To do that I must scour the Earth for holy and out-of-print works that do not manifest themselves at any common altar or place of business. Below are some of those very works. My spiritual venture is gradual and my knowledge is full of holes, but every day I work to fill them so don’t be surprised if some of these books are par for the course where you come from. I consider myself well versed in the Comics Gospel, but I am always learning. Most of these comics are either published by the late PictureBox or edited by its proprietor, Dan Nadel. In fact, they all are except Girl Stories by Lauren Weinstein—and I suppose it’s worth noting, Weinstein would be published by PictureBox in 2008 with her book Goddess of War, so in a way, the theme stays in tact. Instead of attempting to write about these works, I just want to share them to a.) remind those of who have read and loved the below comics, and to b.) make others still early in their walk with comics aware or, if you will, see the light. ————————————————————————————————— Announcing the Summer Semester of the Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers! 8 weeks! 500 bux! Payment plans are available! Summer Course starts June 1st 2017! Applications are due by May 25th. Visit THIS page for more details and email santoroschool@gmail.com with applications and questions. ————————————————————————————————— I’d also like to make an edit to my post last week about comics on Instagram. This would go in the “more or less daily” section of the checklist: Pittsburgh cartoonist Bill Wehmann has an account called @fuckingdoomed. Please add this account to your checklist. Thanks -CO ————————————————————————————————— if you don’t know, now you know I found this article at The Atlantic to be very interesting. Teachers using a digital comics generator, Make Beliefs Comix! as therapy for students. Process Party, Study Group Comics’ podcast hosted by Zack Soto and Mike Dawson, has a great interview with Tom Spurgeon. With this episode, we are getting some behind the scenes info here on Spurgeon’s oral history book of Fantagraphics, We Told You So: Comics as Art. Spurgeon is always a fun podcast guest. Here is another favorite Fanta related interview with Tom from the Comic Books are Burning in Hell vault. Comic-book artist Rich Buckler passed away this weekend. Buckler was most known for creating the character Deathlok for Marvel. However my favorite Rich Buckler story is found in the lawsuit chapter of We Told You So: Comics as Art. Look it up. Emil Ferris’ hit graphic novel, My Favorite Thing is Monsters, is profiled by Sharon Kennedy Wynne at the Tamp Bay Times. At Publishers Weekly Bridgid Alverson writes about NBM’s 40th birthday. Try to contain your excitement. ————————————————————————————————— Thoughts on the article Graphic Novels Are Trending in English Departments, and That’s a Problem – Take One: Editor’s note: we offer two riffs/rants from Caleb because the article mentioned above is problematic and should inspire discussion in the community, and because Comics Workbook, as part of our educational endeavor, aims to encourage conversation, accountability, and growth. Instead of retracting the original, partially regrettable, comments, we have chosen to clarify and develop the ideas stated, and attempt to rectify statements that were an unintentional blunder. (Feel free to do us the kindness of simply skipping reading “Take One”.) Caleb here: I came across this article about how reading comics in college English courses is a problem. I reluctantly agree with the general sentiment, though it is a tiresome cliche at this point. I’ll extend an olive branch – yes, Bitch Planet is not as sophisticated as The Iliad, and why any professor in any position would assign Bitch Planet to their students is beyond my comprehension. But that’s not what grinds my gears. There seems to be a lack of understanding or lack of emphasis of visual literacy in comics as an object of learning. Every college course that has comics always assigns Fun Home, Persepolis, and Maus. Each one of these titles are the same, formalistically (and they’re boring); the words explain the images, and are basically dense picture books. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed all these books to a degree and their social intelligence values are important, but they represent the most simplistic version of the comics form. What I’m trying to say is that maybe if these professors assigned comics that require a more sophisticated grasp of visual rhetoric like Asterios Polyp by David Mazzuchelli or New School by Dash Shaw or almost ANY Chris Ware book (I could go on and on, I’m just listing, in my opinion, the obvious ones), there would be less resistance towards comics in the classroom. Can you imagine if college kids read Art Out of Time?!—or high school kids?!—it would blow their minds!—and imagine the discussions that would ensue! “How does Fletcher Hanks relate, visually, to William Blake?” But if JUST visual proficiency isn’t enough and they still want the degree of social commentary that Fun Home, Persepolis, and Maus bring to the table, assign Krazy Kat. I defy any dumb person who can read and understand Krazy Kat, it is only for the visually cultivated and the most worldly of reading palettes. Just ask e.e. cummings or Ernest Hemingway. And I’d be remiss not to mention the latest in Uncivilized Book’s “Critical Cartoons” series, Brighter Than You Think: Ten Short Works by Alan Moore by Marc Sobel. Moore was a loud and listened to voice in comics at one time and wrote about the issues he was morally concerned about in ways that were both overt, and symbolic; but always sophisticated. Whatever, I’m rambling. “In five-hundred years from now, who will know the difference.” Take Two: Caleb here – I want to reassess my thoughts on this article. Above is a feverish stream of consciousness rant that I should have whittled down to its simplest idea. Some regrettable, though accidental, implications were made in the fervor of my failed attempt at blind rage rhetoric. I am calm now and have a clearer understanding of what I was trying to say so let me explain: The article in question is a broad argument that comics should be taken out of college English courses, and I agree more or less to the general sentiment. The author of said article, Shannon Watkins, offers Bitch Planet written by Kelly Sue DeConnick and Fun Home by Alison Bechdel as examples of popularly assigned graphic novels (though Fun Home isn’t a novel, it’s a memoir—but whatever). Both of these books are in demand because they are highly accessible works that shed a light on feminism, diversity, LGBTQ issues, and various other important contemporary social concerns. Which is great, however… One of Watkins’ arguments for giving comics the ax is “Texts without pictures require students to exercise abstract reasoning in comprehending the meaning of the text, leaving the accompanying visualizations to their own imagination. The images found in graphic novels, on the other hand, remove much of the need for students to exercise their intellects in order to process the main ideas.” As broad as that argument is, how can you argue with it?Bitch Planet and Fun Home are not particularly sophisticated or intellectual, and generally, (especially with Fun Home) the words describe what is happening in the images. This is true of other “academic comic mainstays” like Maus and Persepolis. I can’t argue with Watkins on this, but what I can argue is that these professors are assigning the wrong comics, because comics are not just dense picture books. Comics are a complex sequence of images and text with a specific syntax. I think if these professors wanted graphic novels that gratify social intelligence like Fun Home and Bitch Planet, they need to dig deeper to more visually sophisticated comics like Goddess of War by Lauren Weinstein or Julie Doucet’s My New York Diary. I mean, haven’t you heard of Lynda Barry or Carol Tyler? Eleanor Davis maybe? If you want to go crazy you should buy a stack of Lale Westvind comics and see what students have to say after reading those (and Asterios Polyp by David Mazzchelli, New School by Dash Shaw, any Chris Ware comic, Art in Time by Dan Nadel—I can do this all day). To me there is a gargantuan misunderstanding of what comics actually are in college academia. They are NOT shortcuts to get 18-year-olds to actually read; they are a visually complex form of narrative whose binary use of text and image create tension, pacing, mood, etc. Sometimes the meaning of the words and image on the same panel are mutually exclusive, which causes an inversion that can result in an inside-out meaning that the word and image could not achieve separately. Sometimes the words become part of the literal image and fuse to create a distortion between what is seen and what is read. Can you imagine the possibilities? Visual literacy is the key here. The ability to read and comprehend comics as visual rhetoric is, as I once heard Lucy Caswell say, “a complex skill.” I’m sure academia will catch up sooner or later as they usually do, but for now I stand as a grumpy cartoonist who can’t get any satisfaction. – CO ————————————————————————————————— Blinkers – 5-22-2017 – by Jack Brougham ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 5-22-2017 – by Gabriella Tito Share this page: [...]

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