Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in NewsTagged akira kurosawa, alyssa berg, andrew burkholder, daniel elkin, emily roxworthy, lizzie fitch/ryan trecartin, marcus tullius cicero, medievalpoc, sara lautman, theo ellsworth, tillie walden

Aaron Cockle

Posted on July 11, 2016July 12, 2016

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08/20/2018

Caleb OrecchioAugust 20, 2018NewsCaleb Orecchio here with some thoughts on Michael DeForge’s upcoming new book, Brat. ————————————————————————————————— Michael DeForge is a marathon runner of a cartoonist literally and figuratively. He has kept a steady pace for years and shows no signs of stopping to take a breather or sprinting into a burst of desperate speed. From the outside he seems to have simply found a comfortable stride while maintaining a focused mindset that allows for consistently great work. From the outside, the burden of promise that was laid upon our hero’s back in the late aughts and early teens seems to not be a burden at all. Or is he already miles ahead of the burden? Or behind it? I don’t think it matters because DeForge only seems interested in keeping his own pace of comic-making. I am always pleased to open up a DeForge book because you never know what you are going to get, and you are never disappointed. The work is always funny, weird, witty, clever, enjoyable to look at, etc. His new book Brat from Koyama Press is, as they say, no exception. Brat is laid out in a wonderful six-panel grid which is the simplest of the comic book metronomes and creates a nice, spacious rhythm. DeForge is in no hurry to come to a climax or to cram the pages with detail. The reader follows the story from one panel to the other without breaking a sweat which is immensely enjoyable. I will elaborate on this rhythm and other aspects of this work next time. ————————————————————————————————— Share this page: [...]

02/09/2017

Sally IngrahamFebruary 8, 2017NewsSam Ombiri and Sally Ingraham bring the Thursday news – Sam riffs on books within books and title cards, and Sally shares news from John Jennings, Chris Ware (on George Herriman), Fantom Comics in D.C., Darrin Bell, and Ronald Wimberly and his new book. ————————————————————————————————— Sam Ombiri here: I was reading Infomaniacs and at the same time I was reading The League of Divine Wind by a certain Tsunanori Yamao – they both addressed this one issue I feel all the time; it’s a really simple concept that’s often tackled. (To Be Or)Not to be still yapping about my petty frustration with what I was yapping about last week…but…it amazes me how a book by an imaginary author commands more respect than a real human being’s work. [Editor’s Note: In Runaway Horses by Yukio Mishima, a character is given a copy of the pamphlet The League of Divine Wind and part of the rest of the story involves him reading it…] I think since The League of Divine Wind is a book within a book, the actual author can give his own book rave reviews in the narrative. (The author being who he is, I’m very, very sure he didn’t care about his reception whatsoever, or at least that’s what I’m guessing.) That might be a good solution to someone who keeps having bad reception. I think Matt Thurber said something like, “World building is a good solution for your frustration of getting lost all the time.“ I was watching Simpsons Season 3 I think. There’s one episode where Homer saves the town from a meltdown – that was just amazing. It was broken down into what felt like seasons, or chapters of emotions running through Homer, but without giving this so much attention that it was nauseating. Like an example of that more recently would be in Moonlight – the way it’s chapters were broken down. It kind of felt like something that I couldn’t quite get with. I felt as I was watching it – and this was confirmed by an article I was reading (I think it was an interview) – that it was an attempt to be Claire Dennis. It was while watching those title cards which broke down the chapters that I felt a little agitated – as his [Moonlight‘s director, Barry Jenkins] solution to what Claire Dennis accomplished was with the cheapest, most easy means possible. It felt a bit dishonest, and of course it more than likely wasn’t – and to some effect it worked – but there’s something nagging at me, telling me that there is too little being accomplished in the way Barry Jenkins is biting Claire Dennis. Claire Dennis bites too of course, but it always feels earned. At least with what I’ve seen. The way Barry bit felt exploitative and a tad immature. It just felt that way. I’m not speaking of the whole movie, just the parts of the movie where the title cards of the chapter were forced in. I remember in an essay about Sundays y Cybele it said something like, “Some feel the music in the movie is pretentious.” The writer of the essay came off as if he was in on it, and smart, and so down to earth that he could admit something – something that didn’t affect his enjoyment of the movie. Which is fine. The thought didn’t even cross my mind when watching Sundays y Cybele. While the aforementioned part of the essay bothered me, I feel it’s a bit of a similar thing going on here with those title cards, except it wasn’t a scenario where it didn’t effect my enjoyment. The music wasn’t what I despised, it was something else. It was the title cards and the music with the title cards. There were parts that were real impressive, but…I don’t know. As an aside. I’m not a good writer by any means. By any means! Criterion has to do something about their essays, though, seriously. I’m not speaking about the one that came with Sundays y Cybele, and I’ve only read a few, (and it’s a pretty weird generalization to make, as the essays come from all over) but I’m real surprised at how bad they can be. There are some really good ones. (Like this one on Tarkovsky and Solaris by Akira Kurosawa.) Anyway, it was really impressive the way the Simpsons did this thing they did. It starts off with Homer saying if they look up idiot in the dictionary my picture will be there, and then this picture comes to his head of him in the dictionary with the word idiot written there, and then it’s used the rest of the episode in this impressive way. – Sam Ombiri Sam Ombiri – 2-9-2017 ————————————————————————————————— Sally here: Eight years after the publication of Black Comix – an anthology edited by Professor John Jennings and Dr. Damian Duffy that collected art and essays celebrating the African American independent comics community – we are excited to announce that Black Comix Returns will be hitting bookshelves soon! The original publication featured “over 50 contributors, including Dawud Anyabwile, Eric Battle, Kenji Marshall, Afua Richardson, Larry Stroman, Rob Stull, Lance Tooks, and many, many more.” It sold out with remarkable speed. The comics industry changed a bit over the last eight years, and many new creators have arrived on the scene, so instead of simply reprinting the book John and Damian are creating a whole new anthology. Check out the Kickstarter campaign HERE. They made their first goal in a few days, and with almost a month left they have some big dreams and stretch goals to reach. They have over 100 artists and writers involved – including Kyle Baker, Keith Knight, Ronald Wimberly, Whit Taylor, Ben Passmore, Chris Visions, Tanna Tucker, and Ashley A. Woods – the book is guaranteed to be incredible! Back the project and look forward to the book. Take a moment to get to know Professor John Jennings while you’re at it – he has been called “the soul of black comix” and is the co-founder/organizer of The Schomburg Center’s Black Comic Book Festival in Harlem, the co-founder and organizer of the MLK NorCal’s Black Comix Arts Festival in San Francisco and also SOL-CON: The Brown and Black Comix Expo at the Ohio State University. He earned an Eisner award for the collection The Blacker the Ink: Constructions of Black Identity in Comics and Sequential Art, which he co-edited. He is an artist and writer as well as an editor/scholar/educator – look for his most recent book, Blue Hand Mojo: Hard Times Road coming out in March 2017. ————————————————————————————————— We linked last week to the incredible piece on Krazy Kat that Chris Ware wrote for The New York Review of Books – but it deserves a second look. Adapted from an essay which will appear in the catalog of an exhibition on George Herriman at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, in Madrid, Spain (opening in October 2017), the piece is Chris Ware’s love letter to Krazy Kat and the strip’s mysterious author, George Herriman. Chris Ware theorizes that although Herriman successfully passed as white all his life, he voiced his true identity through his strip in not-so-subtle ways. The details that Ware delves into – Krazy’s banjo, for example (seen above) – are fascinating, and he writes beautifully about what might have gone through Herriman’s head as he drew the strip. “Lately, I’ve been wondering if Herriman knew that one day his secret-in-plain-sight would be uncovered, that America would change, adapt and grow up enough as a people to understand Krazy Kat in all of its psychological and poetic depth. I’m not sure if we’ve yet reached that point, but what myself and other cartoonists already knew—that the strip was already the greatest ever drawn—is now magnified, multiplied and maximized. Krazy Kat is not just one of the greatest comic strips, it’s one of the strangest, most inventive, emotional, and personal works of art of the twentieth century. In their admiration for Herriman, Philip Guston, Willem de Kooning, and Jack Kerouac sensed something in his line and voice that was endemically American, deeply felt. Herriman should now take his rightful place as one of the most original African-American voices of the early twentieth century, contemporary with, if not predating, Richard Wright and Zora Neale Hurston as one of the first writers to understand the racial animus of America and to try to fix the essence of black consciousness on paper. That Herriman made it come alive, sing, dance and suffer in an art form barely fifty years old is all the more astonishing. For decades, we’ve all been reading and laughing and, most of all, feeling for Krazy Kat, who passed right under our eyes as a living drawing on a page. But what we were really feeling came straight from the heart. It was the very soul of George Herriman himself.“ Read the rest of the piece – To Walk in Beauty – HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Fantom Comics in Washington, D.C., is hosting a rad event on February 15th 2017. Ronald Wimberly will be there signing Prince of Cats and Black History In Their Own Words, and there will also be a roundtable discussion with Ron, Chris Visions, Shannon Wright, and Chris Kindred. If you’re in the District be sure to check this out! Event details are HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Darrin Bell is an award-winning cartoonist whose work “navigates issues such as civil rights, pop culture, family, science fiction, scriptural wisdom and nihilist philosophy while often casting subjects in roles that are traditionally denied them. According to Darrin, “There’s nothing more fundamentally all-American than a square peg that insists on filling a round hole.” “ He has a daily comic strip called Canderville – check it out HERE – and is also the creator of Rudy Park – follow it HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Wired lists Ronald Wimberly’s Black History In It’s Own Words among their 5 Comics You Absolutely Must Pick Up This Month. The Comics Alliance is helping folks sort through The Best Comics Ever (This Week) – a.k.a. their recommendations on which comics to read as they come out – and their list also include’s Ronald Wimberly’s Black History In It’s Own Words this week, among others. ————————————————————————————————— Announcing the Spring Semester of thee Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers! The course starts March 7th 2017. Apply by February 26th to get 100 bux off! The course is 8 weeks long – payment plans are available. Application guidelines: – 3 figure drawings done on blank 3 x 5 index cards – 3 landscape drawings done on blank 3 x 5 index cards – 3 still life drawings done on blank 3 x 5 cards – draw in a contour line style –think Matisse – no under-drawing – draw directly in ink – just send me small jpgs of images – dont post to your blog pls – send specific url links to any comics work you have done. If you haven’t done comics before that is not a problem. Email santoroschoolATgmail to apply! More details HERE. ————————————————————————————————— 2-9-2017 – by Jack Brougham ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 2-9-2017 – by Gabriella Tito ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 2-9-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio ————————————————————————————————— Cozytown – 2-9-2017 – by Juan Fernandez Share this page: [...]

03/09/16

Aaron CockleMarch 9, 2016Interviews / NewsGary Panter Printed Matter. The Rozz Tox Effect: Publications by Gary Panter, 1972-2016 is on view now through March 19 at the new Printed Matter space in NYC. Curated by Dan Nadel. Smoke Signals. The two most recent issues of Gabe Fowler’s Smoke Signal features work by Al Columbia, among many other talented artists. An interview from 2010 with Columbia and Nicole Ruddick can be found at the fondly-remembered Comics Comics blog. High-Focus Drawing. James McMullan has a 12-part series of drawing exercises posted on the NY Times Opinionator blog. Graph Paper Templates. Generated Paper + Printable Paper Aspen #8. The Fluxus Issue ‘pass To move past; go by. To pass someone on the road. To let go without notice, action, re mark, etc. ; leave unconsidered; disregard; overlook. Pass the preface and go on to the text. To go across or over extreme threshold etc.; cross. To undergo; they passed the worst night of their lives. To go beyond a point, degree, stage, etc.; transcend; exceed; surpass. To cause to go or move onward. To pass a rope through a hole. To live during a portion of time spent. He decided to pass a year abroad improving his German. To live through without tedium, how to pass the time. To cause to circulate or spread. To pass rumors all over the Naval base. To convey, transfer or transmit; deliver. To convey from one person, hand, etc. to another. Please pass the mustard. He passed a remark about every passer-by. To discard, void from the body as excrement. To transfer to a teammate. To go or move onward; proceed. To come to or toward, then go beyond. To pass by. To pass through. To go away; depart. The lightheaded feeling will pass in a minute. To come to an end. To die. To take place; happen; occur. To go by or move past. To go about or circulate; be current. To serve as a marginally acceptable sub stitute; the facsimile is not very good but it will pass. To live or be known as a member of a racial or religious or ethnic group other than one’s own, especially to live and be known as a white person, although having some negro ancestry. To undergo transition or conversion. To pass from a solid to a liquid state; bring to pass; come to pass; pass away; pass for; to be ac cepted as; be considered; material that passed for silk; pass-off; to pass-off a spurious Rembrandt on someone. He passed himself off as a doctor; pass-on; pass-out; pass-over; pass wind.’ Share this page: [...]

02/27/2017

Sally IngrahamFebruary 27, 2017NewsEasing into the week with Jesjit Gill on riso printing, something new from Gabby Shultz, a Rowhouse Residency experience, more on Annie Koyama’s recent gift to the BICLM, and the latest strips from our team of daily cartoonists! ————————————————————————————————— Frank Santoro interviews Jesjit Gill of Colour Code Printing for Part 2 of his Risograph Workbook on The Comics Journal. “FS: What is your risograph origin story? When did you first encounter risograph? I assume you were interested in printmaking before you discovered riso printing. Jesjit Gill: I studied printmaking, primarily screenprinting, at OCAD in Toronto. After graduating I did a residency at AS220 in Providence, Rhode Island, where I got to learn how to use a small offset press. While I was there I visited Mickey Zacchilli and saw a riso for the first time. I think I had a vague idea of what they were but when I saw one working for the first time it blew me away. At that time it perfectly encapsulated what I loved about screenprinting and what I wanted to get out of offset printing, but it was so much easier to handle in terms of costs, materials, and space. As soon as I got home from the residency, I was on the lookout for a used riso and soon after I went splits on one with Patrick Kyle and Michael Deforge.“ Read the rest HERE! ————————————————————————————————— Adam Griffiths offers a detailed report of his experiences in Pittsburgh during a Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency. He found that a new environment, distanced from his normal spaces and routines, brought greater focus. “I felt very concentrated on completing the work, and was very satisfied with the quality of the drawings. Part of focusing on completion has nothing to do with how fast you’re working – it’s more like being a kind of live television actor with floor marks that you need to hit during scenes. If you miss the mark, or a line, you play through anyway, and plot to sneak in the part you meant to express later. I would work on a page for as long as I could – if I hit a dead end, I’d go to the mini-library I’d set up on the floor in the front room and look through comics until I was ready to start working again. The privacy of the Rowhouse made that feasible – I just kind of tore all over the place unrelentingly, joyfully.“ Read more HERE. For more details about our residency program visit this page or email santoroschoolATgmail.com ————————————————————————————————— Gabby Shultz has a “sudden unexpected new book for sale”…! He writes on his blog: “Alec Longstreth’s bizarre, Fitzcarraldo-like obsession with publishing my awful diary comics (previously only seen on this extremely obscure & neglected website) has beaten the odds and reached fruition! A Process of Drastically Reducing One’s Expectations is an almost 400-page collection of the diary comics and doodles i scrawled out in Iowa City and Chicago, during hopefully the most hopeless and miserable period of my life. It (the book) is now for sale *cheap* through Alec’s new Phase 8 imprint…“ Get a copy of the book HERE. ————————————————————————————————— The Comics Reporter has an interview with Annie Koyama about her recent gift of over 250 pieces of original artwork by contemporary American cartoonists to the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum. “SPURGEON: Do you remember how the collection stopped being just a few pieces you were buying from friends and people you liked and started having its own weight and momentum? Did that change how you approach your purposes? KOYAMA: I do. I was at TCAF and I was talking to Jim Rugg. I knew that he was bringing his ballpoint pen drawings for sale and I really loved them. It seemed that no one else was doing that kind of work at the time. After gently berating him for charging too little for his work, I took a couple of pieces home. Looking at them later, I realized how selfish it felt to hold onto those pieces and have very few people ever see them in the flesh. So I started thinking about where I could place them so that anyone could see them. For a while I considered trying to organize a gallery/museum space but then realized how insane it would be to add another full-time job onto what I do now. I need regular reminders that I am not 20 any more, it seems.” Read the rest HERE. Get a copy of Storeyville HERE! ————————————————————————————————— Have you seen the trailer yet for Dash Shaw’s My Entire High School Sinking Into the Sea? If not, view it HERE. ————————————————————————————————— The Spring Semester of the Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers is starting soon! The semester has a rolling start date, but it will officially kick off on March 7th. We will continue taking applications past that date – Frank is always willing to make it work for your schedule. Just apply! The course is 8 weeks long – 500 bux – payment plans are available. More details can be found HERE. Email santoroschoolATgmail to apply ————————————————————————————————— Blinkers – 2-27-2017 – by Jack Brougham ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 2-27-2017 – by Gabriella Tito ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 2-27-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio —————————————————————————————————Cozytown – 2-27-2917 – Juan Fernandez Share this page: [...]

11/01/2016

Aaron CockleOctober 31, 2016NewsAaron here today with NY Comics & Picture-story Symposium events for this week; Wertz at the NYer; Drawing the Unspeakable; more Mould Map 6; ‘An Update on the Largest Prison Strike in US History, Now Ongoing’; Ankeny’s MICE Recapitulation ————————————————————————————————— There are three upcoming events at the NY Comic and Picture-story Symposium, in support of Illustration Week 2016: David Kunzle on Töpffer and Cham: the amateur and the professional The 168th meeting of the NY Comics & Picture-story Symposium will be held on Thursday, Nov. 3, 2016 at 7pm at Parsons School of Design, University Center, 63 Fifth Ave., room L105 (lower level). Free and open to the public. Two caricaturists dominate the emerging field of the French comic strip from the 1830s onward: the Genevan Rodolphe Töpffer and the Parisian Cham (pseud. Count Amédée de Noé). The undisputed father of the modern comic strip or graphic novel, Töpffer always pretended to denigrate his “little follies,” as he called them, among other disparaging terms, and which he executed in spare corners of his life as director of a boys’ school and university professor. Cham, by contrast, inspired by and at one point collaborator with the Swiss, quickly became a dominant figure in the French premier magazine of graphic satire, Le Charivari. He engaged full-time in all the major caricature formats then practiced, including close to 40 comic strips or graphic novelettes, published in albums and magazine instalments. They represent a fine contrast in their lives, graphic style and satirical reach. David Sandlin: Hold Back the Rushing Waters, Make the Wind Lie Still The 167th meeting of the NY Comics & Picture-story Symposium will be held on Wednesday, Nov. 2, 2016 at 7pm at Parsons School of Design, University Center, 63 Fifth Ave., room L105 (lower level). Free and open to the public. Artist David Sandlin discusses the influences of country music on his paintings, prints, and comics. Sandlin was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, in 1956. He currently lives in New York and teaches printmaking, book arts, and illustration at the School of Visual Arts. He has exhibited extensively in the U.S., Europe, Japan, and Australia, and his comics and illustrations have appeared in The Best American Comics 2015, 2012 and 2009; The New Yorker; Raw; and other publications. He has received fellowships and grants from the Guggenheim Foundation, the New York Public Library’s Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers, the New York Foundation of the Arts, the Swann Foundation for Caricature and Cartoon, and other institutions. David Kunzle on Chesucristo. The fusion in word and image of Che Guevara and Jesus Christ: the poetry The 166th meeting of the NY Comics & Picture-story Symposium will be held on Tuesday, Nov. 1, 2016 at 7pm at Parsons School of Design, University Center, 63 Fifth Ave., room L105 (lower level). Free and open to the public. Amid the manifold means by which this fusion was made, in narratives of the life of Ernesto Che Guevara, in word and in image, the poetry stands out, likening Che to Jesus in various moments of Jesus’ life and especially death. In the substance and words of various actions recorded in the Gospels parallels are drawn to Che’s sacrificiality; to his embodiment of the creative forces of a “divine”nature; to his omnipresence post-mortem, even his (spiritual) omnipotence. Extracts from the poetry are intoned simultaneously with projection of some of the infinite variations made of the famous, so often christified visage of Che. Based on Kunzle’s recent book, Chesucristo, The Fusion in Word and Image of Che Guevara and Jesus Christ. ————————————————————————————————— A Friend’s Pregnancy Julia Wertz has a piece at the New Yorker’s Culture Desk. ————————————————————————————————— Drawing the Unspeakable The Cultural Services of the French Embassy and the French Comics Association join Comics@Columbia to present a conversation with French cartoonists Kerascoët, Pénélope Bagieu and Catherine Meurisse, discussing the challenges of conveying powerful emotions in a medium often wrongly dismissed as trivial. This event, moderated by cartoonist Kriota Willberg, is part of the FRENCH COMICS FRAMED festival. November 1, 2016, 7–9:30pm, Butler Library, 535 W. 114 St., NYC ————————————————————————————————— Mould Map 6 Texts More info from the recently concluded TERRAFORMERS exhibition: Prison Abolition + Utopianism + Science Fiction by Miranda Iossifidis Exhibition Guide Text Map ————————————————————————————————— Happening Under Your Nose Eleri Harris and Jess Parker look at the largest prison strike in US history, over at the Nib. ————————————————————————————————— MICE 2016 Kurt Ankeny was at the Massachusetts Independent Comics Expo this past weekend, and wrote about it, here: MICE consistently packs in a widely varied crowd, full of people from every age group and background. Part of this is the fact that it is held in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which has one of the most highly educated and diverse citizenries in the nation (it’s home to both Harvard and MIT.) But MICE just has some magic about it. The show has been steadily growing over the past few years. Last year, they broke the 3,000 attendee mark for the first time, and preliminary figures for this past Saturday’s attendance were over 1600, so they seem on par to keep that streak going. People are there to immerse themselves in the comics culture, and to buy, which is always helpful. Share this page: [...]

07/12/2016

Posted on July 11, 2016July 12, 2016 by Aaron Cockle

Aaron Cockle today with Alyssa Berg comics; Kurosawa storyboards; illuminated manuscripts; Fitch/Trecartin in Montreal; Sara (. , : ; — () – [] “” ? ! ‘’ … {}) Lautman; The Graphics of War; Burkholder/Walden/Ellsworth; Rowhouse Auction Continues

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ALPENGLOW
CW’s Featured Comics continues this week with Alyssa Berg’s ALPENGLOW, from 2015. This won the Comics Workbook Composition Competition last year; info about the 2016 competition can be found here.

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Akira Kurosawa: Filmmaker, Painter, Story-board Artist
Kurosawa, from his book Something Like an Autobiography, translated from the Japanese by Margaret Benton:

I intended to be a painter before I became involved in film. A curious turn of events, however, brought me to cinema, where I began my present career. When I changed careers, I burnt all the pictures that I had painted up until then. I intended to forget painting once and for all. As a well-known Japanese proverb says, “If you chase two rabbits, you may not catch even one.” I did no art work at all once I began to work in cinema. But since becoming a film director, I have found that drawing rough sketches was often a useful means of explaining ideas to my staff.

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Text, Image, Image-as-Text, Text-as-Image
Via Medievalpoc’s essential People of Color in European Art History project, Marcus Tullius Cicero, Aratea (Harley MS 647, ff 2v-17v), 22 constellation figures containing extracts from Hyginus, Astronomica. England (c. 820-11th century).

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Lizzie Fitch/Ryan Trecartin: Priority Innfield
For anyone living in/traveling to Montreal before September 5, an installation of Fitch/Trecartin work at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal.

Priority Innfield is a “sculptural theater” containing four movies and an ambient sound track presented in five pavilions. The movies, Junior War, Comma Boat, CENTER JENNY and Item Falls (all from 2013), unfold at a furious pace without interruption. Shot in a direct, quasi-amateur style, they explore the potential impacts of information technologies on communication, language and identity, and offer a barrage of frenetic images, absurd retorts and exaggerated poses and movements, drawn from a culture based on constant performativity.

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Sara Lautman on the New Punctuation
On the Hairpin site it says this is a 2 minute read, but you should give yourself at least 4 minutes, maybe more. Maybe give yourself 5 minutes, if you can. Good work from Lautman, as usual.
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The Graphics of War: Comics, Animation, and Simulation
If you’re like me, any down-time at your dayjob is spent scouring the internet for random university-level course syllabi from 2011.

Culture, Art, and Technology (CAT) I
The Graphics of War: Comics, Animation, and Simulation

Professor Emily Roxworthy

As alternatives to photography and live action film, this course examines three graphic media that are not usually considered serious candidates for representing global crises such as war: comics, animated film, and videogames. We will ask whether these alternative graphic arts depart from photorealism and the passivity of media spectacles to convey unspoken truths and instill deeply felt understandings about world changing events.

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ITDN, A City Inside, Other Selves
Some capsule reviews from Daniel Elkin at Comics Bulletin of some recent work by Andrew Burkholder, Tillie Walden, and Theo Ellsworth.

RE Burkholder:

There’s little to no narrative in any of the 10 comics that comprise ITDN. Burkholder uses the medium of his comics to explore ideas, raising question after question in the expedition while providing no answers. Understanding is not the point; pursuit is the only goal. Each comic is presented using its own style, form following function as a psychotropic experiment. From the tight conventions of tradition in “The Fury” to the insouciant scribbling of “FUCK THIS” to the thin-line panel transition study of “Street”, Burkholder shows a depth of understanding for the tone of ideas. Each enterprise is an agreement between thought and expression. Each takes its time to shake the reader from the stupor of preconception.

RE Walden:

Other than the incredible craftsmanship in both her art and its execution, the dream-like quality of Walden’s work is what separates it from so many others working today. This is a story about transitioning and passages, what we gather and what we leave behind, as well as an exploration of expectation and uncertainty and the need to define the self.

RE Ellsworth:

Ellsworth calls this book a “psychic chiropractic adjustment” (to be filed under: “Hand Drawn Inner-Space Documentary Comics”). Here he is an artist viewing himself as the one who is in control of creating the Other Selves of his imagination. As he probes deeper and deeper into his self-creations, though, things get weirder and weirder, layering levels of the fantastic and the imaginative, each self in control of itself. Finally his inner workings are so far out that a part of him unleashes the “Reality Control Officers” into his “Personal Imaging Zone” admonishing him to “Go back to reality! Now!” What remains is a battle between inspiration and sense, art versus logic.

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Rowhouse Auction Continues
New for this week of July 11 at auction.comicsworkbook.com. Email Frank Santoro at santoroschoolATgmail for a password, if you don’t already have one. All funds go to helping keep the lights on and further developing the school.

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Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Aaron Cockle

Posted on July 11, 2016July 12, 2016

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06/16/2016

HarrisonJune 16, 2016NewsHarrison is here and the news follows. Today we venture beyond comics, get faster at drawing, and finish with fire. “Please, no more boring comics podcasts” Man can’t live off comics alone. https://longform.org/ nikolehannahjones.com “Choosing a School for My Daughter in a Segregated City” Secrets http://www.infiniteguest.org/secret-skin/ @Mike_Eagle Quickness “Recently I did an interview over at comicsverse.com that was conducted by Jake Grubman. In it, I talk a lot about how I’m trying to be “ruthlessly efficient” in my cartooning, ever since I finished Basewood. “Draw Comics Faster” has been sort of like my second motto (next to “Draw Comics EVERY Day”) based on the great drawing shown above that Nate Beaty sent me when I was still slogging through Basewood. As my time constraints constrict around me (new dad!) it is important that I make the most out of every available minute of drawing time.” Here. Pop “What does Gutter Pop refer to? That was a weird little journey. I was planning on doing a music zine called Gutter Pop, just sort of referring to my friends in the DIY scene that make kind of poppy music but it’s all underground, so I thought Gutter Pop was a fun play. And then I needed a name for the store and I thought it would be fun, because in between the panels is called a gutter, and then the pop is like the pop of pop art.” Read More. ? Share this page: [...]

07/10/2017

Sally IngrahamJuly 10, 2017NewsNews and comics! ———————————————————————————————— Comics News of Note Dan Nadel interviews Simon Hanselmann on The Comics Journal – they speak about Simon’s new book One More Year and a whole lot more. Ben Jones and Diane Martel made an animated video for a new Coldplay song (cowritten by Brian Eno) – more info and a clip from the video HERE. Marguerite Van Cook (The Late Child and Other Animals) and friends buried a time capsule in Manhattan in 1984 – it was uncovered recently and caused quite a stir. Gabrielle Bell is making her daily diary comics this month – keep up with them HERE. ————————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 7-10-2017 – by Sally Ingraham ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 7-10-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

01/18/2017

Juan FernándezJanuary 18, 2017los Cómics / NewsJuan José con un poquito sobre las Tetastristes; #GRAFBCN2017; 1er Festival Sudestada de Dibujo e Ilustración; Tarifas de Correos; La Distri;La nueva sangre de la poesía colombiana; de Rivera, de Keko y Altarriba; Gabriel Ebensperger Satt y discriminación homofóbica. Cómics y noticias que me han llamado la atencion esta semana: Miguel Ángel Martín lleva 30 años provocando con sus historias de sexo, violencia y tecnología. , en profundidad: Los que estén en Buenos Aires en febrero no se pierdan el 1er Festival Sudestada de Dibujo e Ilustración el 24 de Febrero. Apuntense! El 1 de enero de 2017 Correos ha eliminado la tarifa especial del paquete postal para los profesionales del sector editorial (libreros, editores, autores, impresores…) que ofrecía a través de la Tarjeta Post Libris, que permitía hacer envíos con número de seguimiento a un precio inferior que los envíos del resto de mercancías. Juan Lassalle a creado una peticion para recuperar estas tarifas. Ayuda a los libros. La Distri en Mentes en Disturbio – Punks de Medellín-Colombia charlan sobre el fanzine – “Tu mirada sigue firme, tu espiritu sigue en alto” – Comics: La nueva sangre de la poesía colombiana – Una corriente de poetas jóvenes, editoriales independientes y espacios de difusión no convencionales, quiere impedir que esta tradición literaria se estanque. Hay una apuesta por la ilustración y lo visual, llegando a bares y ferias para acercarse a un público juvenil. El Museo del Prado sigue apostando por el cómic. Presentación de EL PERDÓN Y LA FURIA, sobre “Las furias” de Rivera, de Keko y Altarriba. Laura Barrachina habla con ellos en @Bocadilloradio3. Resumen/Scene Report de la Feria Libre Feminista “Las Tetas se toman el puerto” en Valparaíso, Santiago de Chile por Emma Truek. Gabriel Ebensperger Satt cuenta sobre su experiencia con discriminación homofóbica en el Infante1415 de la nueva Municipalidad de Providencia, Chile. Puedes ver la conversacion en el FB de Satt. Echale un vistazo a este medallón estilo Pompeii! Hecho en Pittsburgh. Frank Santoro le encarguo a la gran Airi Maeno que le hiciera unos medallones de plata utilisando uno de sus dibujos. Este dibujo viene de su libro Pompeii. Es algo que podrias imaginar que alguien se pondría hace dos mil años. Unico. Clasico. Un simple medallón de un ser querido. Un retrato. Algo permanente para desafiar a la desaparición. Suzy and Cecil – 1-18-2017 – by Gabriella Tito ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 1-18-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio ————————————————————————————————— 1-18-2017 – by Juan Fernández Share this page: [...]

The Plan – “Columbo” tells all

Comics WorkbookOctober 29, 2015School UpdatesAnd now here’s something we hope you’ll really like: Frank Santoro doing his best Columbo imitation to tell you all about the plan to build the Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency in Pittsburgh,PA (read to yourself in your best Columbo voice) Howzitgoin? Good, good. Me? Good, thanks. I gotta tell ya though I’m sorry to bother you again, but y’see somethin’s been troubling me and I can’t stop thinking about it. Kept me up all night. and the dog too cuz he thought I was getting up to take him to Cincinnati. What’s that? Oh. Sorry. Cincinnati is what I call the park. Cuz if I say “park” or “walk” then he gets crazy. So we say Cincinnati around here. Yeah. So. Where was I? Oh yeah. This thing has been bothering me and it’s this thing about commodity form as community form. What’s that? Oh. “Commodity form as community form.” Yeah, it’s a mouthful. And sort of puzzle. What does it mean? I don’t know. Or I think I know. Either way, I keep thinking about it. People ask me, “Frank, what’s this I hear you are buying the house next door and turning it into your schoolhouse?” I say, yeah, it’s true. The old man who owned the property passed away. Well, no one’s been living there for twenty years. He was this old guy who lived in Florida most of the year and had a bunch of properties all over the neighborhood. I’ve wanted to buy it forever but the old man wouldn’t budge so we thought maybe someday. Anyways, the day arrived and the nephew who cut the grass, y’know, to keep the place nice over the years—well, the nephew stopped by and asked me if i wanted to buy the place. That they weren’t gonna put it on the market. Was I interested, he says? Was I interested? Of course, I’m interested. I said yes, I’ll buy it. Trouble is, you see, I don’t have the money. Yeah, I know. Foolish of me, wasn’t it? I had to say yes, though. Otherwise it’s on the market and bang it’s gone. This way I have a chance at least. So I’m scraping together the money as fast as possible. Boy, I’ll tell ya though, it’s humbling. Passing the hat is a humbling experience. Why should I help this fool is what most of them are thinking, I know. It’s ok, I understand. I am foolish. But foolish choices have gotten me this far—so I gotta ride out the lucky streak. If it’s a complete disaster and I can’t get the house, well, at least I took a shot. A shot not taken is a shot missed, they say. But, it’s gotta be a good shot. You gotta take a good shot to score. Anyhow, can I get you a coffee or a tea? Sorry, I got alot on my mind and I gotta just talk it out, if you don’t mind. Can’t sleep. Cream and sugar? No, ok. Here ya go. You’re welcome. Let me get one, myself. Hold on. There we are. Ok. So, about the house. We’re gonna do an IndieGoGo campaign. Yeah, “crowdfunding”. Yeah, I know. It’s an interesting idea which we think we have to try. I mean, we gotta take the shot, right? Take it to the hoop. What’s that? Oh. Sorry, when I say “we” I mean we, like, the school. I’m gonna make it a school next door. I like having the correspondence course for comics but I think it’s time to try to do more. I’ve been trying to figure out for years how I can expand my school—start having my students teach in some way—but I can never figure it out because the correspondence part of it is so personal. Teaching in a classroom is different. But how do you get a classroom? Do I have to join my school to another school to get their classroom? But most comics are done alone by the person making them in a room. Classrooms are good for teaching some artforms but not so great for teaching others, y’know what I mean? Like how do you teach writing in a classroom? Go around peering over the shoulders to read what they are doing? No, it’s gotta be something different. Like a residency. Like the student can live in the classroom. Work in the classroom of course, but also, sleep in the classroom and eat there too. Most cartoonists I know work out of their homes. So maybe if I can have a house that is a residency where the student can have classes everyday and then do the hard work in private in the same space—that might just work. Especially if the teacher lives on the same street and his mother makes really awesome spaghetti sauce and the student doesn’t have to worry about what to make for dinner. An airbnb with comic book lessons. Something like that. The students I have already are pretty psyched about it. Many of them live in far flung backwater comics towns and here in Pittsburgh, well, we are a prime time comics town. Always have been, but things are really hoppin’ here now. So I dunno. I think it could work, cuz the students I already have would be the first wave of residents. We already know each other even if we never met in person. And then they can come here and we can work with the game plan we already know and come up with new strategies for making forward thinking comics. Does that sound hokey? I’m sorry, forgive me, I get carried away. See, I just think that for the artform to grow there need to be different types of interdisciplinary learning institutions that are outside of the traditional academy. Like there needs to be a big ecosystem. People say, why do we need a comics school? There aren’t many jobs in comics so why churn out these kids with no job prospects? Well, I’m not interested in that. I’m interested in churning out ninjas. I don’t see many jobs out there for ninjas. It’s understood that if you want to be a ninja you are doing it for the love of ninjadom–not for personal glory or gold. I mean, what professional ninja goes around telling people they are a ninja? I’ve never seen a “ninja needed” advertisement anywhere. This is why I’m intrigued by this “commodity form as community form” thing. What’s that? Oh, did I make that up? No, no, Bill Boichel came up with that one. Back in the 80s. His whole thing was that he had this comic book store in an economically depressed steel town back in the 80s. And it was the only place in the neighborhood kids could hangout without an adult. Like you see in store windows “only two kids allowed at a time” or “children must be accompanied by an adult” and all that stuff? Yeah, Bill’s store was never like that. Christ, he had couches. Kids would sit there and read. A kid who was flunking English class probably would be READING at the comic book store without a care in the world. And so, you know, Bill is a thoughtful guy and he’d start putting all this relevant material into these kids’ hands. Like he’d give a kid a Black Panther comic and tell him his theory that that “the Black Panther party” was named soon after the comic came out back in the 60s. Like he didn’t just take their quarters for beat up back issues of comics, he actually fucking cared about these kids. And that really did something to me, cuz I was one of those kids too. There was NO WAY OUT of my post-idustrial wasteland existence, really. Except there was—thru comics. Bill preached the gospel of comics and I signed up for the choir. He taught me about “commodity form as community form”. Meaning that what we buy and sell creates a community. And how do you engage your community in which you are buying and selling? And what are you buying? And what are you selling? Bill would make his own comics in the basement of the store and then print them on the xerox machine down there and then go upstairs and put it on the rack for sale. He rearranged my thinking of how a maker of art can get their work into the world. Bill was publishing comics made by the kids who hung out at the store. He had us selling our comics at our high schools. He “published” our work for us and taught us how to make money from our art. They weren’t teaching me that in high school art class. He taught us how to fish essentially. The guy changed my life. So I want to do the same thing in my own way. I know how hard it is to gain an education in comics. How to learn the craft and how to survive in this godforsaken industry and on the circuit of church basement shows? I can help you. Really. We can help you. I have over 150 students now and I want to bring each student, if they are willing, thru the residency schoolhouse and help them level up so that they can go back into their community and pass on what Bill passed on to me. What Bill passed on to me is really something I can’t even explain except that it is part of the necessary oral tradition of art. Especially comics. Comics is such an insanely difficult thing to study because so much of the art is obscured by the marketplace. How do you balance the two when the form itself is, as they say, the bastard child of art and commerce? I know: you provide a space where the student can LIVE AND WORK. Where there is no separation between art and life or between your school’s awesome classroom and your hovel on the otherside of town. A place where the student can have a total immersion in the private process of making comics while still being tethered to a strong community. What’s in it for you, you ask? Well, that’s a good question. Maybe if you are, simply, a comics fan— then someday in the future you can read the work by some of the school’s students and you’ll enjoy it. That’s probably all that is in it for you. But if you are a comics snob who is also interested in seeing the form grow then maybe you will consider supporting the school because you know that I am one passionate motherfeyer about comics and I really, really want to push the form itself to grow and to absorb new voices and disciplines to create a Jeet Kune Do-type comics style. A style, an approach to comics making that is firmly rooted in the 21st century. What does it mean it be a comics maker in the 21st century? How does a comics maker navigate the marketplace or navigate a marketplace that doesn’t exist for them? Making comics on the xerox machine and selling them by hand is still the business model. So something has got to give. Help me help my students figure this out so that the next generation won’t have such a hard time of it. That’s what you’ll get out of supporting the school: knowing that you made a difference, potentially, in the direction of the form itself. More coffee? So, yeah. I’m selling my collection through a private auction and now this: we’re going to do an IndieGoGo crowdfund to raise money to buy the house and start working on it. The house needs alot of work to get it up to code for inspections. But first we gotta raise the money for the down payment. If you feel like helping out you can buy something or donate here. If you want to check out the private auction then send me an email: santoroschoolATgmail. Everyone is asking why I’m doing a private auction. It’s because some of the famous artists giving me artwork to sell don’t really want to be part of a crowdfund and all that. Plus it is a way of avoiding eBay fees and that kind of thing. It is also a way of keeping the books and art in my collection IN the community because in theory the people buying stuff are comics snobs (haha, that’s a term of respect). So, for me, this plays into the “community form as commodity form thing”. Like I’m selling the collection I amassed for years—a collection that was made thru purchases made within the community—to buy a house to teach comics. So hopefully if you, the comics fan, buy something from the auction then I am selling my commodities to buy a meeting place for the community. See, how pretty that is? It’s like a circle. The end is in the beginning. I want some kid to sit on the couch at our school and read comics and maaaaybe take a workshop and get interested in comics as A WAY OUT in a spiritual sense and possibly in a financial sense. Like it’s a trade. A 21st century skillset. How to arrange words and images. Visual literacy. I mean, that’s the internet, right? Commodity form as community form. Community form as commodity form. Take awhile, think about it. I’ll be here if you wanna stop by later. Share this page: [...]

Gloria Rivera – Rowhouse Residency Report

Comics WorkbookApril 2, 2017Residency Reports / School UpdatesGloria Rivera is a comics artist from Canyon Country, CA. An alum of the Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers, and a member of the CW Roller Derby League, she joined us in Pittsburgh for a Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency March 23rd-29th 2017. Here are Gloria’s thoughts about her experience, in her own words. ————————————————————————————————————— The Quick List of What Happened: 22 pages completed, drawing to color w/lettering – comic 1 6 complete pages (B & W) – comic 2 Yona Harvey and Ed Piskor lecture at the Harris Theater Visit to the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh Copacetic Comics visits various nature walks, incidental birding with Sally Ingraham I had no expectations for my residency when I had arrived – only to work. I had followed Frank Santoro’s online presence for a few years prior and had taken his online correspondence course, but really couldn’t say that I had any idea of what kind of a teacher Frank was in person, or how much of a gift being in this space could be, not only referring to the Rowhouse, but to Pittsburgh – a town constantly working its bellows to support its comics scene. The first day I had arrived, I met Sally Ingraham. I was really blown away by Sally, who works as a coordinator for the Rowhouse Residency and holds various responsibilities for Comics Workbook. She is exhaustively knowledgeable, hardworking, and compassionate. She asked me what I had come to Pittsburgh to work on, and we sort of agreed that this first day I would work in solitude on my comic that I had started half a year earlier, until I felt I had gained some momentum, and then we would go from there, gauging if/when I wanted outside conversation. For the majority of my stay, the rhythm I kept to was non-stop working until a personal moment was offered (whether it be a walk, dinner with Frank and Sally, or short trips through the city), taking those moments, being present, and then continuing my work. Any time spent with other cartoonists (Frank, Sally, one of Sally’s 9-yr old students, cartoonists in a lecture, a.k.a Ed Piskor) was used to further my stride into my work. On the second day of my residency I met Frank. We had dinner at his house, where he was working on his new book. He is spirited, purposeful, mindful, and has endless passion for his work. He told a brief history of Pittsburgh, intertwined with his own of growing up, leaving and returning. It’s a story of dedication and belonging which I think not many people of MY generation are comfortable with, as many seem to be constantly striving for “better”, but without knowing, really, what “better” is. Aside from the stories Frank told about the city, he also gave me insight into the reality of living as a comics maker, which I would not have been privy to, and which until then I really was only guessing at. Some may be disheartened by these sort of conversations, but I am excited by how real it made things for me, despite it being a gauntlet. Topics for the week were: comics making process, the value of comics as a physical object/printing, the strengths of the avant-garde (non-narrative) against those of the narratively structured comic (two very different modes of storytelling), visual literacy, and comics community (inclusive of audience, publishers, comics friends, and family). The talks were long, but the time passed quickly. I tried my best to respect both Sally and Frank’s personal time to work, as they had mine. When Frank approached my work for advisement he was very objective, and I wanted his worst, so that I could do my best. Still, I think he saw my being in the work, and was courteous with his critique. Before coming to Pittsburgh I had half of my comic completed – 25 pages – and I completed the remaining 22 there. I completed as much as I did from August to November of 2016 in a week at the Rowhouse! I won’t say it was easy, but provided with the time to concentrate and motivation from the community, I was happy to put in any amount of time that my work demanded. Any formal education I had before comics was always for painting, and the more serious I allow myself to become about comics making, the more I see they are not so dissimilar. Frank is really great about sharing his knowledge and relating it to that which you came with. He was generous in his talks, while asking me to be accountable for the information I did know. One night Frank had casually presented me with some reading material; recommendations – mostly comics (Yuichi Yokoyama, Rich Buckler) – and among them two catalogues of Philip Guston paintings (it turns out that Frank is not only a comics expert, he is well versed in art history as a whole). Although in the past I have kept Guston as a sort of painting mentor (through books and image), I was surprised when I was presented with these catalogues – to be looking at his work during this comics residency. Phil Guston was a painter who understood the politics associated with images, but always kept a personal relationship with his visual library. Imagine your images are made of characters, places, things, each one a word, a letter, all making up your language. You hold this close to you. This is comics. What follows is an excerpt from a book of collected writings on Phil Guston: “Now, I think the original revolutionary impulse behind the New York School , as I felt it anyway, and I think my colleagues felt it, in the way we talked all the time, was that you felt as if you were driven into a corner against the wall, with no place to stand, just the place you occupied. And it’s as if the act of painting itself was not making a picture, because there are plenty of pictures in the world. Why make more pictures, clutter up the world with more pictures? But it’s as if you had to prove to yourself that truly the act of creation was still possible. Whether it was possible.” (Guston 58) I never expected to have felt this myself, to be able to talk to a group of people about images in such an earnest way – always internal conversation, now externalized. Frank and Sally offered their criticism, and experience, and questioning. I am working everyday to be worthy of comics as my form, and regardless, I put the pen to the paper – but over time I’ve forgotten to ask the big questions. Now I am more than willing to report that while the uninterrupted work time, the comics lectures, and accessible reading material was what whipped me into completing my goal, what I am bringing home with me – more than another book done – is a sense of what true community is, and the importance of holding your peers to standards that will benefit them in the longer run. It’s with great enthusiasm that I support the agenda of Comics Workbook, and the Residency program, and look forward to furthering my involvement with them to make better work (my own and that of others). ————————————————————————————————————— Check out more work by Gloria on her website, follow her on Instagram, and look for her new comic soon! For more information about the Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency visit this page or email santoroschoolATgmail Share this page: [...]

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