Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in NewsTagged daniel clowes, Data is Nature, fanzines, guy debord, jillian fleck, John Porcellino, jonathan guyer, lauren purj, nomographs, Phoebe Gloeckner, the golden ration, tiernan morgan, Turkey

Aaron Cockle

Posted on August 15, 2016August 15, 2016

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02/26/2016

Sally IngrahamFebruary 26, 2016NewsEmil Friis Ernst offered up a new comic this morning, based on a text by Cathrin Peterslund… …and Simon Moreton recently posted his Hilltop Walking Comics (see the whole thing HERE). Drop yourself into two different wordless worlds, and find yourself floating in a cosmic pond or blustered along a hilltop ridge. Stay awhile, if you like. Then go lose yourself entirely in Si Fuera un Alma en Pena/If I was a suffering soul, a comic by Colombian cartoonist Jim Pluk – online HERE. After that, check out this awesome interview with Ronald Wimberly, up on Paste! The topic is Ron’s new comic GratNin, which is being published exclusively on the comic book app Stēla. He and Paste talk process (designing for a mobile-only platform), origins and inspiration, and what the heck a “Proust Knuckle” is anyway. Inspired by 80’s martial arts movies and manga, GratNin may strike one initially as more lighthearted than Ron’s previous work. However, while Ron admits to an indulgent element to the comic, he definitely isn’t just playing around. “As for GratNin specifically, I have looked at Sanpei Shirato in how he used genre as a tool to address social issues. I am also interested in continuing or countering dialogues on race, sex, gender and ethics that I have found in shonen manga. My goal is to continue the discussion with the manga vernacular, though I often just slip into my own thing.” Read the whole interview HERE. Over on Greenpointers there’s an interview with Julia Wertz which is also well worth a read. Check it out. She’s working on a new book about Greenpoint which will indulge her love for drawing cityscapes. “…I always enjoyed drawing random things and sets for apartments way more than I liked drawing people. People don’t interest me… things and spaces do, at least from an artistic standpoint.” She sends out a bit of advice to her younger self or anyone else who is considering getting into comics: “… just get to work. Don’t sit around waiting for the right publisher or the right pen or notebook, just do it. Start right now. The only people who survive in comics are those who truly love making comics, and if you truly love it, you’ll already be doing it, you won’t be wasting time trying to figure out how.” The new issue of Tender Journal was just released! This UK online publication is a platform for female-identified writers and artists, and the current issue features work by cartoonists Sarah Ferrick and Maggie Umber among other worthies. Read it HERE. And that’s our Friday morning comics news walkabout. Enjoy the weekend! – Sally Share this page: [...]

Charlottetown Comics Club

Comics WorkbookJanuary 22, 2017School UpdatesTyler Landry shares thoughts on running a weekly comics club in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada – a Comics Workbook “satellite school”! ————————————————————————————————— I’ve been running the Charlottetown Comics Club (CCC) weekly, since the spring of 2016. At first in my home with a few trusted friends, then we moved to a public place – the back room of a local comic shop, Lightning Bolt Comics, where anyone and everyone is welcome to join. I sought to model this club on a few basic ideals. First, the continued development and expansion (for myself, and members) of the foundation of comics-making skills I learned through Frank Santoro’s Correspondence Course, and, by extension, the inundation of ideas, influences, and examples flowing through Comics Workbook. Second, to gather locally operating cartoonists (of all levels and persuasions), who often toil in silence/obscurity at home, in a place where we can feel comfortable working and growing alongside each other, for mutual benefit and general good feels. Some members come and go, some are very consistent. This can make group activities challenging, especially where things carry over from one week to the next, but I’ve managed to run a handful of pretty successful exercises so far. We do some smaller warmups and drills, as well as some larger/longer projects with full-on story card development. There are also members who bring their own bread-and-butter comics work, or projects they’re already knee-deep in, and just draw away among their peers. I encourage everyone to bring in their own work, new and old, and also to share comics they like (or don’t like) with the group. Discussing these things can only make us smarter and ultimately more demanding of the quality and caliber of the content we seek to read and create in comics. This is so important. At its core, this club upholds the methods and values that I’ve been taught, and seeks to grow and share them with the wider community here. I strongly believe that this kind of “part-of-the-total-package”, modular thinking is key to creating, editing, and clearly executing good comics. I pull from any and all sources I can find value in, and there are endless examples, but Comics Workbook is solid. There’s tangible proof in the CW pudding. This way of thinking, and the use of these methods has enabled me to focus my ideas and raw skills into actual complete comics – something that used to be very hit/miss for me. I wouldn’t be doing the work I’m doing now if this door hadn’t been opened. I’m passionate to a fault about comics being THE medium for storytelling, beautiful artwork, and expression of ideas. I don’t know nearly as much as I should about the history of comics, or its major/middle/minor players, but I’m seeking that knowledge, always. I want to participate in the realization of the expanding potential of this medium, and this club is another way in which I, and its other members, can do just that. ————————————————————————————————— Tyler will continue to share work by members of the club, bios of these Prince Edward Island cartoonists, and details about the projects the CCC complete. If you are interested in joining the club please email santoroschoolATgmail and we will put you in touch with Tyler. ————————————————————————————————— Tyler Landry is a graduate of the Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers. His recent comics includes Vile 1: Cowards Hole, Vile 2: Lonesome, and Hermit Crab Real Estate. Get copies of his work HERE. Check out work in progress and other cool stuff by Tyler HERE. Keep up with the Charlottetown Comics Club via Tyler’s Instagram – @clavcity. Share this page: [...]

10/30/2017

Caleb OrecchioOctober 29, 2017NewsCaleb Orecchio here with thoughts and ramblings on Chester Brown’s Yummy Fur brought on by reading Brian Evenson’s book, Ed vs. Yummy Fur–and other news.————————————————————————————————— A recent conversation I had with Comics Workbook’s fearless leader, Frank Santoro, about Chester Brown’s Yummy Fur has got me all hot and bothered about the title again. Every so often I go back and flip through my copies and marvel at the energy of Brown’s early strips, and the absolute beauty and power of the later stuff going into Underwater. YF is the promise of the undergrounds fulfilled as a vessel for looking inward and taboo exploitation, and there is virtually limitless aspects of the title to consider and examine as a 21st Century cartoonist. Consequently, I recently read Ed vs. Yummy Fur: Or, What Happens When a Serial Comic Becomes a Graphic Novel by Brian Evenson, published by Uncivilized Books–being their debut title in their line of prose comics criticism, Critical Cartoons. The book compares and contrasts “Ed, The Happy Clown” as a serial within Yummy Fur, and Ed, The Happy Clown the graphic novel. Now, I will admit that the book left a lot to be desired due to the titular focus of Ed which I felt limited the scope of Evenson’s point. However, I was fascinated with Evenson’s consideration of Brown’s Gospels as being inextricably linked to the reading of “Ed” within Yummy Fur. Brown’s Gospels (being The Book of Mark and the unfinished Book of Matthew) are a bit lost on my generation (millennials). This is no doubt due the fact they haven’t been reprinted into a book, but also I think it is simply difficult to understand the significance of such a work during the time of its publication. From what I can gather, no cartoonist had really done a Bible adaption in such a faithful (ha), straight-forward, and non-judgmental way (at least, certainly, for “Mark” this is particularly true). The only other widely-known comics Bible adaption I know of from up to that point is Mayer and Kubert’s, which could basically be considered easily-digestible, white-washed propaganda. In an interview with Brown from Evenson’s book, Evenson says (or writes, because I assume the interview took place over email or at least that’s what it feels like–I wouldn’t be surprised if Evenson just gave Brown a questionnaire to fill out and mail back), “Issue #4 [of Yummy Fur] is one of the few issues of comics I remember being really shocked by. I think it was less because of the sex and murder at the end of the Ed material in that issue and more because we go straight from that to an adaption of the Biblical book of Mark.” I think what Yummy Fur readers were expecting from Brown’s “Mark” was biting satire and exploitation, and obviously the lack of both and the general neutrality of the adaption shocked his fans more than any “parody” could have. However, I think if Brown had published “Ed” and the Gospels in their own separate books, the effect Evenson talks about experiencing would be less severe or memorable. After reading this, and the rest of Ed vs. Yummy Fur, I can’t help but see YF as anything less than one complete work–as oppose to a book containing many serialized stories. All comics in YF from “Ed” to “Showing Helder” to “The Little Man” to “Fuck”, (AND the letters pages) etc. have an interesting give and take with the Gospels they share a book with. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that there is an unsevered umbilical chord connecting the early pre-“Ed” material to the later autobio stuff; and going further into Underwater. I see Yummy Fur being the record of a developing cartoonist constantly tinkering with his craft, and a self-aware conscience looking at it’s old-self in the face. When you read the “Playboy” stories, the juxtaposition of the Gospels are impossible to ignore while reading about young Chester’s religious upbringing. It’s like the Gospels and the teachings of Christ are always in the back of Brown’s mind and dictate his actions and motivations for better or for worse. Anyone still here? Well if you are, here is what I’m picturing in my head: A multi-volume, “The Complete Yummy Fur.” Everything reprinted (including Vortex house-ads–like, literally just scan mint copies of Yummy Fur cover to cover and sew them together) even the letters column, aka “The Fur Bag”–of course all this would be done as a bootleg, to Chester Brown’s chagrin I assume. The last volume would be subtitled; the complete Underwater. Unedited, these volumes would contain an interesting insight into an individual’s reckoning with their “conflicting” interests, political views, personal stories, and relationships with readers and “the times”. Something to chew on for 21st Century cartoonists like myself. -CO BONUS: Lookit this! An observant, Tom K from the 90s in the letter pages of Underwater. Tom would go on to publish Evenson’s book in 2014. ————————————————————————————————— if you don’t know, now you know Jim Rugg on Paste Magazine talking Street Angel. Fantagraphics has a sale going on until tomorrow! Don’t miss out! Need to know what the program for CAB 2017 looks like?? Here it is. Karl Stevens is the latest guest on Process Party. Campbell White is the latest guest on Inkstuds. ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil– 10-30-2017 – by Sally Ingraham —————————————————————————————————Joanie and Jordie – 10-30-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio ————————————————————————————————— Cozytown– 10-30-2017 – by Juan Fernandez Share this page: [...]

10/10/2017

Aaron CockleOctober 10, 2017NewsAaron here today with ARTZINES; Kurt Ankeny; Brigitte Findakly and Lewis Trondheim; Gary Panter; Juan Fernández ————————————————————————————————— ARTZINES is a transmedia research project run by artist publisher antoine lefebvre editions. This research project aims to produce a reference book on the subject of contemporary art zines. As an artist researcher, it is important for lefebvre to imagine new creative ways of doing research. Therefore, ARTZINES.INFO will allow the public to access the unedited data of this research project as it is collected. This online database and the zines produced by ARTZINES during this research process will show the progress made toward the publication of the book. ————————————————————————————————— Kurt Ankeny: Mining the Mind’s Eye Kurt Ankeny talks about the reasoning and philosophy behind why he finds drawing from imagination and memory such a strong approach to cartooning, and how this creates deeper truths via non-photographic image making. The 195th meeting of the NY Comics & Picture-story Symposium will be held on Tuesday, Oct. 10, 2017 at 7pm at Parsons School of Design, 2 West 13th Street, in the Bark Room (off the lobby). Free and open to the public. ————————————————————————————————— ‘This humorous episode takes on additional absurdity when the subject shifts to a military coup on the next page.’ Mark Peters at Salon.com has some nice things to say about the new book by Brigitte Findakly and Lewis Trondheim, Poppies of Iraq: Like any great comic, even one about the real world, “Poppies of Iraq” creates its own reality for readers to get lost in — a world told via plain, blunt language and non-realistic, cartoony figures that interweave the personal and political. One of the most subtly brutal sequences in the book involves a marriage. In a tense two pages, Trondheim presents three short conversations consisting of the words “So?” and “Completely.” ————————————————————————————————— Gary Panter: HIPPIE TRIP, Oct 12 — Nov 11, Marlborough Contemporary Viewing Room, 545 West 25th Street, NYC. Via Dan Nadel. ————————————————————————————————— Expanding the Festival Toolkit If you haven’t already, please take a look at Juan Fernández’s post about future possibilities and approaches to comics festivals: Centralize Sales Our current system is embarrassingly inefficient. It is an ineffective use of getting tens of dozens of skilled comics makers and storytellers in one city for a week or weekend. No more exhibitors expected to stand behind tables hawking wares. Nowadays with everyone behind tables, people are barely interacting. There’s a vital cross-pollination that just doesn’t happen. What does it look like when a show does away with the flea market model? One thought is that you establish a festival shop. You get an experienced comics retailer to run the shop. You have them hire a trusted staff. You pay that staff. The shop gets a cut. 30/70. In a model like this, it costs you no money to have your work available. Under this new kind of model, if you are a guest you sign up to be involved in citywide comics programming. Signings, gallery exhibitions, lectures, workshops. This is the kind of thing that you get Arts and Cultural councils involved in. You sign up because you want to be part of the programming. With a model like this, you free up the artists and suddenly new horizons open up. Among those horizons are sources for financing. Imagine collaborating with a city’s municipal parks: guided bike tours where throughout the tour you make stops, learn about the city while doing landscape drawings and comics strips of the experience… A series of readings at a bookstore. Gallery exhibitions. Movie screenings at an arthouse theater. There are so many venues that would be amenable to programming: libraries, universities, community centers, theaters, bookstores, parks… Most of these venues have programming budgets that could fund materials and labor for artists. ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 10-10-2017 – by Sally Ingraham ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 10-10-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

01/10/2017

Aaron CockleJanuary 9, 2017NewsAaron here today with A Vernacular of File Formats; The False Grandmother; Joe Sacco: SJW; Still and Moving Images; Kirby/Slash; Sara Lautman Comics; EX-VOTO ————————————————————————————————— RAW, BMP, GIF, PNG, TARGA, TIFF, PSD, JPEG, MOV, DV, WMV, AVI, ETC Glitch artist Rosa Menkman’s discourse on what is lost, distorted, and potentially gained by these technologies we find surrounding ourselves, circa 2010. Type to enter text Tango between a corrupt format and its user. ! ! ! ! Contents ! the ! There is not sufﬁcient data. Please enter data art is a practice that studies and researches Glitch ! Static! vernacular of ﬁle formats in exploitative manners to ! ! You have too Noise Art > Filter art > when Cool becomes Hot >>>>>>> ! ! Uncompressed!! deconstruct and create new, brutalist (audio)visual works. m u c h However, glitch artists often the ! ! Lossless! ! ! c h a r a c t e r ! Glitches are hot; proof can be found on MTV, Flickr, in go beyond this formal approach; coffee table that the glitch Lossy! not exists A p p l y club and in the bookstore. While thethey realize book Glitch: ! ! does ! ! ! Moving image! ! g a u s s i a n Designing Imperfection without human perception and therefore have a more (2009) has introduced the glitch inclusive approach to digital material. ! ! MOV ! ! ! blur. design aesthetic to the world of latte drinking designers, and ! ! DV ! ! ! The materiality of glitch art is constantly mutating; it exists Kanye West used glitches to sing about his imperfect love ! ! WMV! hand the ! life, the awkward, shy and physically ugly celebrate underrelies on the one as an unstable assemblage that the ! ! AVI! ! You still have header “Glitched: Nerdcore for life”. operation and content of the apparatus (the construction, ! ! ! the writer/artist, ! ! quirks! Clone Glitch has transformed from cool and on Its no more then a work, medium) to hot. the other hand the s t a m p f o r brightly colored bubblegum wrapper that doesn’t by the any and the interpretation ask for reader and/or user (the meaning). s m o o t h involvement, or offers any stimulus. Inside I ﬁnd gum that I surface keep chewing, hoping for some new explosion of good taste. But the more I chew, the less tasty / rubbery it gets. Glitch design fulﬁlls an average, imperfect stereotype, a ﬁlter or Your ﬁle has commodity that echoes a “medium is the message” standard. i n v a l i d m a r k e r s . ————————————————————————————————— Turturro Reads Calvino Online (with accompanying images by Kevin Ruelle) As our present reality grows every more unreal, there may be no writer more fitting to read that Italo Calvino. Calvino was most famous for his fabulist fiction, works of literary fiction inspired by fairy tales — a form he studied and collected in the 1956 book Italian Folktales. ————————————————————————————————— Galvanizing Social Justice Through Comics As part of the University of Michigan’s Penny Stamps Lecture Series: Leading graphic historical novelist Joe Sacco will chronicle how and why he uses the graphic novel format to catalyze social justice and human rights struggles in the US and around the world. Thursday, January 19, 5:10-6:30pm at the Michigan Theater, 603 E Liberty St, Ann Arbor, MI 48104. Hopefully he’ll talk about BUMF as well. ————————————————————————————————— Film and Comics: Mutually Exclusive, or Exclusively Mutual? Allan Haverholm talks about The Hulk and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, split screens, paneling, juxtaposition, and good stuff like that. The juxtaposed split screens in Hulk only serve as disturbances in that they try to emulate complicated comics (page) layouts that are not easily conveyed in moving images. Instead, we shall move on to a more surprising, more challenging, and eventually more successful implementation of comics formalities in film: Long story short: the element of split screens emulating comics page elements disturb rather than add to the storytelling, taking the viewer out of the natural immersion of believing in the (rather surreal) narrative of an irradiated, superpowered green giant. ————————————————————————————————— KIRBY/SLASH Andrei Molotiu has some pretty sweet Jack Kirby pages put into context with other artists and their art. Very artistic! Image below: Jack Kirby + Hannah Hoch ————————————————————————————————— Sara Lautman is the featured Diarist this week at The Comics Journal. ————————————————————————————————— The Vivid Violence and Divine Healing of Ex-Voto Paintings Allison Meier looks at religious artwork at the Hyperallergic blog: In 19th-century Mexico, the content of ex-votos stayed the same — a depiction of the accident, illness, or misfortune in question, along with the intervening saint or other heavenly presence — but the materials changed. There were fewer canvases and more works on tin. Rather than meticulous, idealized scenes, ex-votos became theatrical and free-form, often created by self-taught artists. By the 20th century, contemporary artists were drawn to this dramatic folk art. Alexxa Gotthardt at Artsy recently described how Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo collected Mexican votive paintings, many of which are now on view in the Museo Frida Kahlo in Mexico City. Kahlo owned over 400 ex-voto paintings, and one of a woman who survived being stabbed in bed is said to have inspired her bloody 1935 “A Few Small Nips.” Take a look to see your favorite sky-god smiling down at the calamities they have caused for you. ————————————————————————————————— Here’s Connor Willumsen talking about his book Portraits while teaching a workshop in England in autumn of 2016. Get a copy of the book HERE! ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 1-10-2017 – by Sally Ingraham ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 1-10-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio ————————————————————————————————— 1-10-2017 – by Juan Fernández Share this page: [...]

08/16/2016

Posted on August 15, 2016August 15, 2016 by Aaron Cockle

Aaron here today with some Jillian Fleck comics; an interview with Phoebe Gloeckner; a schedule of Zinefests; a review of King-Cat #76; Data is Nature; the situation in Turkey; Et tu, the Golden Ratio?; the Society and the Spectacle; Clowes auction continues

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Tell Me All Your Bad Thoughtz on God
Featured Comic this week is by Jillian Fleck, made for Comics Workbook in 2015 as part of Fleck’s Bad Thoughtz series.

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Does knowing how to render in detail a liver or digestive system, did that effect how you draw people from the outside? Did that inform things somehow in ways you didn’t expect?

We never see our own liver, if we’re lucky, right? I remember when I was a kid I was fascinated by this huge painting, I think it was Rubens, Prometheus Bound. He’s tied to a rock and the eagle was tearing at his liver. So there you get to see his liver, and he does too, but other than that there aren’t too many opportunities. But still I wanted to know that somehow. It’s hard to know what’s inside bodies without seeing them. And that education, I was at autopsies and surgeries. So the experience was very direct and it was good for me.

Phoebe Gloeckner interviewed by Nancy Updike over at Jezebel

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Schedule of Zinefests on This Planet Earth Circa 2016
Via FANZINES (the Twitter or the Facebook or the Instagram or the Tumblr)

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John Porcellino’s King-Cat 76 reviewed over at Panel Patter

It’s this universal experience portrayed through specific events that make Porcellino’s comics unique. The ways that he observes the moment when how a dream leads to a memory that’s a decade old or the emotions that seeing an old lady and a man stir up in him strike a chord that’s resonant as part of the human experience. But it’s also in the way that he observes nature that shows how Porcellino makes something specific into something broad and understandable.

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From the Archive: Data is Nature, or, Everything You Wanted to Know About Nomographs But Were Afraid to Ask

In the visual arts Agnes Denes used nomographs for the basis of some of her philosophical drawings which she argued represented the metaphysical aspect of mathematics conveyed through aesthetics. She wrote, “I love mathematics because I could humanize it, and in turn it gave me perfection and beauty”. In her work The System [1970], she embellished the well known Smith Chart – a nomograph designed for solving radio frequency problems with transmission lines and matching circuits in radio frequency engineering.

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Jonathan Guyer spoke with Public Radio International about the current state of political cartooning after the recent coup attempt in Turkey

Guyer spoke to a number of cartoonists during his month in Istanbul. “Every cartoonist I interviewed in Turkey told me that 2016, irrespective of the recent coup and crackdown, has been the most difficult year for cartoonists on record.” Guyer says about 1,500 people, including cartoonists, celebrities and journalists, are under investigation for insulting the president.

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The Golden Ratio: Design’s Biggest Myth???
This has been making the rounds on various internet platforms.

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The Society, the Spectacle
Over at Hyperallergic, An Illustrated Guide to Guy Debord’s ‘The Society of the Spectacle’, by Tiernan Morgan & Lauren Purj

To be clear, Debord did not believe that new technology was, in itself, a bad thing. He specifically objected to the use of perceptual technologies for economic gain. The spectacle, which is driven by economic interest and profit, replaces lived reality with the “contemplation of the spectacle.” Being is replaced by having, and having is replaced by appearing. We no longer live. We aspire. We work to get richer. Paradoxically, we find ourselves working in order to have a “vacation.” We can’t seem to actually live without working. Capitalism has thus completely occupied social life.

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Daniel Clowes Auction Items Up Through Wednesday, August 17, 1pm EST
All proceeds benefit the Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency.

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Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Aaron Cockle

Posted on August 15, 2016August 15, 2016

Explore

06/09/2017

Sally IngrahamJune 8, 2017NewsFriday with the cool kids – Rhoda Kellogg, Eleanor Davis, Trina Robbins, Katie Skelly, Lisa Lim, Gabrielle Bell, and more! ————————————————————————————————— Brian Belott has designed an exhibition inspired by the work of Rhoda Kellogg, “one of the foremost, undersung researchers of the doodles, wiggles, and dreams that kids draw.” Among his varied art projects, over the last 15 years Belott has been studying children’s art and he repeatedly bumped into Rhoda Kellogg’s name. Her work as a child psychologist and scholar led her to collect over a million pieces of children’s art between 1948 and 1981, but it all wound up in a storage unit in Connecticut until Brian Belott took an interest in the collection. The show he put together includes 300 pieces from Kellogg’s collection, his own work and attempts at making child-like art (or “forgeries” as he calls them, of his favorite kid-produced originals), and the classroom component (pictured above), which is staffed by his friends and peers during weekend workshops. As a teacher of kids myself, and someone who is experiencing a growing fascination with how kids process the world through art, I recognize the “natural force” that Belott describes and am eager to see this show if it does travel (as he hopes) and will certainly be picking up some of the books that Rhoda Kellogg wrote on the subject of children’s art. Learn more about her HERE. Find out more about the “Dr. Kid President Jr.” show via this article on Artsy. ————————————————————————————————— Hillary Brown chats with Eleanor Davis about her new comic You & a Bike & a Road (Koyama Press, May 2017) for Paste Magazine, starting off by wondering if she is perhaps “the most renowned comics artist of her generation“. Eleanor talks about the process of making the book: “I started out drawing every day of my trip because I always wish I was the sort of person who draws every day on a trip. (I’m not). And I was nervous about essentially taking a two-month vacation—what if everyone forgot who I was, what if I lost all my clients, etc. So I wanted something to post online. I kept drawing, however, because my knees were slowing me down, and that meant I was spending less time biking and more time resting and bored. Otherwise I might have let the journal peter out, like most of my journals tend to. When I got home, I wanted to collect the comics because I’m not productive enough to draw 100 pages of comics and then just let them blow away in the wind. At first I only wanted to put out a mini comic, but it was too many pages. I felt very upset about the idea of making it into a book because I didn’t think it had the merit to be a book. The comics are sloppy and self-indulgent, and collected together they have real life’s irritating lack of narrative structure. But once I filled it out a little it came together a little bit. And folks seemed to respond to the comics emotionally, so I thought it might work out.“ Read the rest of the interview HERE. Get a copy of the book HERE. ————————————————————————————————— I have yet to see the new Wonder Woman film, and in an effort to not spoil it by reading too much about it, I have found myself reading about other takes on the character – from Trina Robbins’ solidly Amazonian Diana (no fancy flying or special powers, just TRAINING) to George Perez’s vision, which brought the “wonder” back to Wonder Woman. This article at The Fresh Toast details Trina Robbins’ adventures with Diana. Trina was the first woman to draw a Wonder Woman series, digging into The Legend of Wonder Woman in 1986 (with writer Kurt Busiek). Trina’s artwork in this 4-issue series brought back the Golden Age, and the little girl whom Wonder Woman saves looks more than a bit like Trina as a child. George Perez’s relaunch of Wonder Woman in 1987 was admittedly a bit more exciting. There is an excellent article on Vulture about Perez and what he brought to the continuing saga of the character. Now that a badass female director has made a Wonder Woman film that folks are pretty delighted by (despite it being a DC flick!), I can only hope that good things are in store for Diana and her creators down the road. ————————————————————————————————— And Also Katie Skelly joins Mike Dawson and Zach Soto for Episode 35 of Process Party. Dominique Goblet‘s Pretending Is Lying is reviewed on the Los Angeles Review of Books by Tahneer Oksman. Meredith Gran concludes her long-running web comic Octopus Pie. Lisa Lim writes and draws about how she went from being an “apolitical to a little more political Asian” on Mutha Magazine. Jillian Tamaki goes through her process for one of the stories in her new collection Boundless – at The Cut. Check out Madeleine Witt and Andrew White’s Kickstarter for their upcoming collection Warmer: A collection of comics about climate change for the fearful & hopeful. The Ladybroad Ledger, edited by Stephanie Zuppo, is campaigning for funds to print issue #2. Gabrielle Bell was on The Rumpus Book Club chat near the end of May – her new book Everything Is Flammable came out June 6th. ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 6-9-2017 – by Gabriella Tito ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 6-9-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

11/08/2017

Juan FernándezNovember 8, 2017los Cómics / NewsEmpezamos el día con el Latino Comics Expo; #GRAFMAD2017; Marcela Trujillo; Dr. Fausto Fanzine; Ramon Esono; La Polola; Power Paola y Santiago Caicedo; y los tebeos de Cómics Workbook! ————————————————————————————————— The Latino Comics Expo – Long Beach, CA – THIS WEEKEND – The Latino Comics Expo (LCX) goes down this weekend, November 11-12. It is the nation’s first convention dedicated to highlighting the work of comic book creators, illustrators and others in the literary and visual arts whose work reflects the influence and celebration of Latino culture. – 2017 Program Info – Founded in 2011 by Bay Area arts patron Ricardo Padilla and Los Angeles cartoonist Javier Hernandez, the Latino Comics Expo has been held at the Cartoon Museum of Art (San Francisco), the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Library at San Jose State University and the Museum of Latin American Art (Long Beach). Since it’s debut show on May 7 & 8 in 2011 in San Francisco, the Expo has hosted a wide variety of creative talent from the world of comics, web comics, illustration and design, political comics, graphic novels, children’s books, filmmakers and animators. Veteran creators, newcomers, independent artists, scholars, female, male, LGBT. All have contributed to making the LCX the premiere showcase for Topics have included self-publishing, crowdfunding, Latina Power, individual author spotlights, historical presentations, scholarly studies, workshops for kids and more. The Expo is a place to celebrate creativity, to educate, inform and learn, and to be able to share the richness of our various Latino cultures. Learn more. —————————————————————————————————#GRAFMAD2017 En 2013 se celebró la primera edición de GRAF. Esta semana se celebra la décima. El fuego sigue ardiendo. ————————————————————————————————— Los cómics y las noticias que me han llamado la atención esta semana: “Beyoncé has embraced the grid.” Marcela Trujillo ha sido invitada al Congreso Internacional de Literatura Y Cultura Femenina Hispánica en Santo Domingo. Esta es la primera vez que invitan a una dibujante. En algunas semanas regresa Dr. Fausto Fanzine para su edición 11 y cada semestre habrá nuevo número. Viva el Cómic Colombiano. ¡Queremos tebeos! No os perdáis la exposición HISTORIETAS DEL TEBEO, 1917—1977 en el Museo ABC. Ramon Esono sigue preso, este cómic su único “delito”. // Still in jail, this comic his only “crime”. Learn more about Esono’s incarcelation in Equatorial Guinea. Sol Díaz Castillo y Marcela Trujillo tienen una nueva edicion de La Polola Podcast! Las chicas conversan con la académica Catalina Infante, quien les contó acerca de su vida, sus viajes, su búsqueda del origen, su mirada editorial, su interés espiritual, el valor que le da al mundo interno y la soledad, entre muchas otras cosas. Acá pueden ver el trailer de Virus Tropical, a black-and-white animated film from director Santiago Caicedo that adapts the graphic novel memoir of Colombian-Ecuadorian cartoonist Power Paola. ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 11-08-2017 – by Gabriella Tito ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 11-08-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio ————————————————————————————————— Cozytown – 11-08-2017 – by Juan Fernandez Share this page: [...]

12/04/2017

Caleb OrecchioDecember 4, 2017NewsCaleb Orecchio here with the Monday edition of the Daily News with musings about the uncanny resemblance of James Joyce and Chris Ware..————————————————————————————————— Proof of reincarnation? More than a few people have been comparing Chris Ware to James Joyce since Jimmy Corrigan, which I think is apt. Of course their works share similar qualities, being very detailed oriented among other things. Though they work in different mediums, I can’t help but see a tethered line from Joyce to Ware. They both work to exhaust their mediums—I mean this in a good way. Joyce with the English language in relation to speaking, thinking, seeing, etc.—and Ware with depicting, visually, memory and human actions and interaction, or lack thereof. They both relish relentless detail and intense focus on the subject. A very interesting quality they share is that they are both hailed as possibly the best artists in their medium of the last 100 years, or at least the most groundbreaking— but despite being praised to the high heavens, their is a pride for many about NOT reading their work. “It’s too detailed.” It’s too depressing.” “This is unreadable.” “HAHA no I didn’t read that.” Their is real solidarity in not reading Ware’s masterpiece, Building Stories, that reminds me of the willful ignorance of Joyce’s Finnegans Wake. People just can’t even think about wrapping their heads around something so involved and difficult. I think it’s safe to say that accessibility is king for the average reader of both books and comics. Still, the most amazing thing to me is their uncanny physical resemblance. Is it just me, or could these two be brothers? (see above) It’s a bit spooky when you think about it. Proof of reincarnation? You decide! ————————————————————————————————— The Winter Semester of thee Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers starts January 18th 2018! 8 weeks – 500 bux – coaching for as long as you need. The course is hard, but Frank will push your comics making practice to a new level, getting you to think about timing and color in new ways. Makes a great holiday gift for yourself – or for a loved one who is interested in comics. Apply by midnight (EST) on Dec. 25th and get $100 off the course price. Full details and how to apply can be found HERE! ————————————————————————————————— if you don’t know, now you know Comics Workbook fearless leader, Frank Santoro, writes about Dave Gibbons’ new comics “How To” book over at TCJ.com. Someone I know who works with students with learning disabilities, such as dyslexia, sent me this Pacific Standard article about how comic books can letter their pages better for dyslexic readers. If you don’t know, now you know that The Beat has the info for the 2018 Angoulême festival prize nominees. Roberta Smith reviews David Hockney’s retrospective exhibition at The Met. Nick Gazin reviews some comics over at Vice.com. Did you know that Robin McConnell has a Canadian mini-comic archive website? I did, but often forget it exists. Thought it may be worth linking to today. ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 12-4-2017 – by Gabriella Tito ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 12-4-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

01/25/2017

Juan FernándezJanuary 25, 2017News Juan José con un poquito sobre: las Tetastristes en Ruda con Malicia;Miguel Ángel Martín; Conversando con Katherine Supnem; La nueva sangre de la poesía colombiana; Alexis Ziritt; Emma Rios; Power Paola y más. 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. Koldo Gutiérrez explora su mundo de sadomasoquisma emocional en profundidad en la Revista Cactus. Conversando con Katherine Supnem. Ruda con Malicia se trasladaron la semana pasada a la casa de las Tetas Tristes y las acompañaron en su feria “Las Tetas se Toman el Puerto”para grabar la edición mas reciente del programa. Escuchen esta edicion sobre los momentos de placer, los festivales y cumbres de rock, sexistas y patriarcales. 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. Alexis Ziritt hizo unos dibujos para LucasFilms al fin del año pasado… Ahora estos dibujos pueden ser tuyos! Visita a http://aziritt.bigcartel.com/ para comprar tu dibujo. 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. Conversando con Power Paola Power Paola habla con Ben Alfaro en Hijos del Atomo los hijos de la tomo sobre su proceso, sus gustos y sus inspiraciones: ¿Qué dibujante o dibujantes han llamado más tu atención y por qué? ¿ Y qué escritores o escritor y por qué? Me gustan los dibujantes que encontraron su propio lenguaje y que dibujan más por una necesidad física que por buscar reconocimiento. Me encanta el Art Brut, dibujantes comoHenry Darger, Daisuke Ichiba, Stephane Blanquet, Caroline Sury. Y artistas comoRaymond Pettibon, Marcel Dzama, David Shrigley, Louise Bourgeois, El Bosco, Rousseau, Francis Alys, Ernesto Neto, etc. De escritores me gustan mucho Rita Indiana, Yuri Herrera, Junot Díaz,Juan Cárdenas y toda esa camada del caribe que tienen un lenguaje mezclado y muy contemporáneo. También disfruto mucho a Murakami, Banana Yoshimoto, Valerie Mrejen, Gabriela Wiener, Patti Smith, Susan Sontag, etc. Me gusta mucho lo autobiográfico y autorreferencial en el cómic y en las novelas, la mezcla de culturas, de lenguajes y de intereses. Me influencio mucho por lo que leo, veo y escucho. Así que siempre tengo referencias en cada proyecto que hago, es mi forma de agradecerles a los que me mostraron una manera de expresar. En Venta: The Art of Vanesa R. Del Rey. La gran Vanesa R. Del Rey le ha dado permiso a Comics Workbook para publicar unas selecciónes de sus cuadernos de bocetos. Hemos diseñado esta publicación para que parezca uno de esos libros de de artistas los años 80. Arte y Entrevista. El texto es una transcripción de la entrevista que hicimos con Vanesa cuando visito la Residencia Rowhouse en 2016. Vanesa es un artista impresionante y inigualable. Puedes comprar tu copia AQUI.Order a copy of The Art of Vanesa R. Del Rey HERE. Frank Santoro, el director de Comics Workbook, nos cuenta un poquito sobre sus experiencias con Vanesa: Me encontré por primera vez con VRDR en un festival de cómics en Toronto (TCAF) en 2014. Había empezado a hacer comics profesionalmente después de un período como un animadora. Fui Sorprendido por su la capacidad de ser como un camaleón de cambiar de estilos, y por su puesto le pedí ver más de sus obras. Desenterró pilas de cuadernos de dibujos de sus días en Cuba, cuando estudiaba el realismo soviético y de trabajaba con George Pratt, maestro de cómics pintados. La educación de Vanesa como artista hace el balance suavemente entre los niveles alto y bajo del arte, así como los valores estéticos del este y el oeste. Es una base asombrosa. Ella es, a la vez, consciente de la historia del arte, la historia de los cómics y la historia de la animación de una manera NUEVA que casi parecía imposible hace quince o veinte años. Debo admitir como un estudiante y fan de cómics que se enfocan en la mezcla de “alto y bajo” y en ” los cómics pintados” — Nunca he visto tal mezcla de habilidades al nivel de VRDR. Feroz. Imparable. Un competidor feroz. Michael Jordan-esque? ¿Es eso posible en la fabricación de cómic? Siempre he dicho que habría un “invasor vertical” en los cómics que podría emplear el “naturalismo” de la escuela de Noel Sickles / Alex Toth pero que podría pintar como una Alice Neel o una Jenny Saville. Creo que “el invasor” ha llegado en forma de Vanesa R. Del Rey. Puedes comprar tu copia AQUI. Sigan a Vanesa por Instagram – @vrdelrey – y http://vrdelrey.com/ ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 1-25-2017 – by Gabriella Tito ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 1-25-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio ————————————————————————————————— 1-25-2017 – by Juan Fernández Share this page: [...]

07/05/2016

Aaron CockleJuly 5, 2016NewsAaron Cockle with more of Gabrielle Bell’s July Diary; Barry Blitt Comics; Pablo Auladell; Mould Map 5; Julie Doucet; Nasreen Mohamedi; BUGS! ———————————————————————————————————————————————————— Fireworks ———————————————————————————————————————————————————— Barry Blitt at the New Yorker ———————————————————————————————————————————————————— Behind-the-scenes with Pablo Auladell — via altcomix via zencomix via capegrahicnovels ———————————————————————————————————————————————————— Mould Map 5: Black Box Concealment. Stealth. Unknown unknowns, black swans and sleeper cells. Conspiracy, tactical confusion and counter-intel (UFO narrative smokescreens). Greenwashing, industrial espionage and deceit (VW emissions hacking). Self-surveillance (voluntary driver monitoring for lower insurance premiums / health tracking for life insurance). Mission creep and stealth tax. Behind the scenes, hidden agendas. False flags, dark ops and black magik. Invisibility tech and the occult (hidden from sight), obscured, ambiguous. Invisible infrastructure and the technological sublime. Secret TTIP talks and shadow courts. Far-right extremist scapegoating narratives, deny complexity. Black as the baseline screen state, visions emerging from the darkness in low resolution. Mysterious crashes & disappearances. ‘The Truth’. Server centre as black box, to be embedded in the geological crust of the early Anthropocene, BIG data left to a distant future. Antwan Horfee, Ben Mendelewicz, Blue Firth, Brenna Murphy, Caley Feeney, Daniel Swan, Jonny Negron, Julien Ceccaldi, Lala Albert, Lando, Noel Freibert, Parker Ito, Travess Smalley, Viktor Hachmang, Yannick Val Gesto, Edward Shenk (Poster), GW Duncanson (Comic), Hugh Frost (Patch & Packaging), Leon Sadler (Patch & Black Box Zine) ———————————————————————————————————————————————————— Reading Aloud with Julie Doucet The story lines do not unravel effortlessly, nor do they always cohere. Instead, Doucet seems invested in pairing these word-image collages in order to get us thinking, and feeling, about what’s in front of us. The first three chapters, for instance, follow “Mrs. Jones,” a wide-eyed, full-lipped blonde. “Mrs. Jones is in love!” the title page declares in loose cursive, and what follows is a series of images featuring this whitewashed, perfectly coiffed figure, vacantly staring off into the distance. Whether pictured alone or alongside others, Mrs. Jones does not seem capable of making eye contact, of connecting with her surroundings. Despite the fervid declarations of love so often aimed at her — “Kiddie I AM Dust-resistance for you. ME Clean ‘Magic’ carpet love” — and despite the sentiments that Mrs. Jones at times allows herself to express — “he’s so like a, a roo BOO DOO So Good Me!” — the cumulative effect is of language, and posture, as dead weight. This is not to say the pages don’t draw the readers in. Carpet Sweeper Tales offers entertainment as well as commentary, and flipping through the book is an engrossing, if anti-nostalgic, walk down a memory-less lane. Reading through, and reading out loud, gives one the sense that Doucet is after a kind of lighthearted, feminist anti-fumetti: a montage that makes illegible, or even irrelevant, the submissive pout at the heart of these now fragmented stories and advertisements. — via Tahneer Oksman at Los Angeles Review of Books ———————————————————————————————————————————————————— Nasreen Mohamedi at the Met Breuer Mohamedi mainly worked with gestures of pencil and ink on paper, experimenting with organic forms, delicate grids, and dynamic, hard-edged lines. Her cosmopolitan outlook enabled her to draw upon a range of aesthetic sensibilities, from the poetry of Rilke and Camus, as well as Indian classical music, to the modernist architecture of Le Corbusier’s Chandigarh. ———————————————————————————————————————————————————— BUGS The wonderful science-fiction social satire feature film, BUGS, made by Toronto conceptual art luminaries, Life of a Craphead, is having several screenings next week in New York! Please attend if you can! — via Matthew Thurber ———————————————————————————————————————————————————— Share this page: [...]

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