Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in NewsTagged caleb orecchio, gabriella tito, Gabrielle Bell, Glynnis Fawkes, jillian tamaki, jordie bellaire, kabi nagata, Katie Skelly, maggie umber, simon hanselmann, ulli lust, vanesa del rey

Sally Ingraham

Posted on August 18, 2017August 18, 2017

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05/02/2018

Juan FernándezMay 2, 2018los Cómics / News Marcela Trujillo, Power Paola, Elisa McCausland, Autoras de Cómic + Digital Comics Museum’s Access Month —————————————— Los cómics y las noticias que me han llamado la atención esta semana: ~ en Español y “sometimes in English” ~ —————————————— Digital Comics Museum – Access Month For this month of May 2018 every user who donates to the Digital Comics Museum, the best site for downloading FREE public domain Golden Age comic books, will be given FTP access as an alternate method to download files from the 21000+ Digital Comic Museum collection. For each dollar donated donors will receive 5 gigs of file downloads over the next 31 days from the day the donation was made. Click on the Donate link here (or at the top of the page) to contribute to the cause and receive your FTP login info in an email. For the last two years our FTP Access Month has been remarkably popular. Donations to the site are vital for keeping our server bill covered. These FTP Access Months help DCM build a reserve fund for those months we come up short in our monthly goal of $288 or if there is an emergency such as a hard drive that needs replacing in our servers. —————————————— De Frente Me Escondo – Cali, Colombia Este sábado 5 de mayo, desde las 3:00 p.m. en el Museo la Tertulia inaugurará la exposición y conversatorio “De frente, me escondo”, que intentará poner en escena el mundo de la artista colombo-ecuatoriana Power Paola con sus dibujos. —————————————— Marcela Trujillo y los Abusadores de Poder – Chile Hoy en el DesconCierto, dibujante Marcela Trujillo revela vergonzoso episodio de abuso de poder y acoso laboral de Rodrigo Salinas, Carlos Reyes y otros editores de Feroces Editores. Me acusaron que me había robado la plata. Llamé y les devolvieron la plata al día siguiente. Y a la semana hicieron programa en Internet donde invitaron a dibujantes y dijeron: ‘Invitamos a una dibujante chilena muy conocida, Marcela Trujillo, que venga Maliki’… y llegó una vedette argentina, casi en pelotas, con plumas, bailando. Estaban todos súper curados en el video. Le tocaban el poto, le ponían la cabeza entre las tetas y en la tele ponían ‘Marcela Trujillo, Maliki‘, ¡todos mis nombres! La hicieron dibujar y ella dibujó un corazón y empiezan ‘ah que dibuja bonito la Maliki’. Yo no lo podía creer, eran mis editores, mis amigos, eso no se puede hacer. Cómo tan machista, tan indigno. Después me llamó la hermana de Rodrigo para retarme porque hablaba mal de su hermano en Internet. Eso fue lo único que recibí de ellos, porque nunca nadie me pidió disculpas. Léanlo todo AQUI. —————————————— Fanzine Magazine – 26/04/2018 Ya disponible el #FanzineMagazine donde Mireia Pérez y Víctor Coyote hablan largo y tendido con Elisa McCausland sobre la trayectoria del colectivo de Autoras de Cómic y de otras cosas ocultas… Además Cynthia Alfonso les recomienda a viva voz sus canciones para dibujar. —————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 5-2-2018 – by Sally Ingraham Share this page: [...]

11/22/16

Aaron CockleNovember 21, 2016NewsAaron here today with Daryl Seitchik; The End of Paper Jam; Comics for Troubled Times; More Mould Map; Cursed, Accursed Books; KGB Comix Night; Sign up for the Correspondence Course, why don’t you? ————————————————————————————————— On Exits Rob Clough reviews Daryl Seitchik’s new book over at the TCJ blog. Seitchik’s work has always addressed isolation, alienation and the nagging sense of anxiety that comes when one doesn’t feel like they fit into society. That sense of alienation in part addresses her status as a woman and the othering that is experienced on a daily basis, but there’s a more existential level to it as well. The classic problem of existentialism as a way of understanding the world is that it has absolutely no connection to ethics, the central question of which is “What do we do about others?” I might exist, but how do I connect with others, especially in a world where so many human relationships are what the philosopher Martin Heidgegger might describe as Zuhandenheit, or “ready-to-hand”. That is, we think of others as a means to an end and not unlike other objects in the world that have a certain function. ————————————————————————————————— No More Paper Jams Robin Enrico announced that he would be ending the bi-annual Paper Jam Small Press Festival after a 3-year run. This was a wonderful show, emphasizing small press work, featuring a different set of artists each show, free to the public, free to table at, it will be missed. That said. If there is never another Paper Jam, I am proud of what my co-curators and I have accomplished. In many ways there might not need to be another edition of Paper Jam. In the three years since I put on the first the festival, there has been an explosion in the number of micro conventions happening in New York City. I see small press events happening almost every week now. Three years ago this was far from the norm. I could not ask for a better outcome. I would happily hand this torch in a new form to someone else to carry forward. ————————————————————————————————— Situationist International Comics James Barrett has posted a bunch of comics work from the Situationist International, an organization of social revolutionaries made up of avant-garde artists, intellectuals, and political theorists, prominent in Europe from its formation in 1957 to its dissolution in 1972. Three detoured comics and an appropriated image from the Situationist International. These are copyright free if not used for the purposes of profit. Taken from “Leaving the 20th century: The Incomplete Work of the Situationist International”. Speaking of SI, here’s an excerpt from ‘The Situationists and New Forms of Action Against Politics and Art’, by René Viénet, Internationale Situationniste #11, October 1967, translated from the French by Ken Knabb: What we have to do is link up the theoretical critique of modern society with the critique of it in acts. By detourning the very propositions of the spectacle, we can directly reveal the implications of present and future revolts. I propose that we pursue: 1. Experimentation in the détournement of photo-romances and “pornographic” photos, and that we bluntly impose their real truth by restoring real dialogues . This operation will bring to the surface the subversive bubbles that are spontaneously, but only fleetingly and half-consciously, formed and then dissolved in the imaginations of those who look at these images. In the same spirit, it is also possible to detourn any advertising billboards — particularly those in subway corridors, which form remarkable sequences — by pasting pre-prepared placards onto them. 2. The promotion of guerrilla tactics in the mass media — an important form of contestation, not only at the urban guerrilla stage, but even before it. The trail was blazed by those Argentinians who took over the control station of an electronic bulletin board and used it to transmit their own directives and slogans. It is still possible to take advantage of the fact that radio and television stations are not yet guarded by troops. On a more modest level, it is known that any amateur radio operator can at little expense broadcast, or at least jam, on a local level; and that the small size of the necessary equipment permits a great mobility, enabling one to slip away before one’s position is trigonometrically located. A group of Communist Party dissidents in Denmark had their own pirate radio station a few years ago. Counterfeit issues of one or another periodical can add to the enemy’s confusion. This list of examples is vague and limited for obvious reasons. The illegality of such actions makes a sustained engagement on this terrain impossible for any organization that has not chosen to go underground, because it would require the formation within it of a specialized subgroup — a division of tasks which cannot be effectual without compartmentalization and thus hierarchy, etc. Without, in a word, finding oneself on the slippery path toward terrorism. We can more appropriately recall the notion of propaganda by deed, which is a very different matter. Our ideas are in everybody’s mind, as is well known, and any group without any relation to us, or even a few individuals coming together for a specific purpose, can improvise and improve on tactics experimented with elsewhere by others. This type of unconcerted action cannot be expected to bring about any decisive upheaval, but it can usefully serve to accentuate the coming awakening of consciousness. In any case, there’s no need to get hung up on the idea of illegality. Most actions in this domain can be done without breaking any existing law. But the fear of such interventions will make newspaper editors paranoid about their typesetters, radio managers paranoid about their technicians, etc., at least until more specific repressive legislation has been worked out and enacted. 3. The development of situationist comics. Comic strips are the only truly popular literature of our century. Even cretins marked by years at school have not been able to resist writing dissertations on them; but they’ll get little pleasure out of reading ours. No doubt they’ll buy them just to burn them. In our task of “making shame more shameful still,” it is easy to see how easy it would be, for example, to transform “13 rue de l’Espoir ” into “ 1 blvd. du Désespoir ” merely by adding a few elements; or balloons can simply be changed. In contrast to Pop Art, which breaks comics up into fragments, this method aims at restoring to comics their content and importance. 4. The production of situationist films. The cinema, which is the newest and undoubtedly most utilizable means of expression of our time, has stagnated for nearly three quarters of a century. To sum it up, we can say that it indeed became the “seventh art” so dear to film buffs, film clubs and PTAs. For our purposes this age is over (Ince, Stroheim, the one and only L’Age d’or, Citizen Kane and Mr. Arkadin, the lettrist films), even if there remain a few traditional narrative masterpieces to be unearthed in the film archives or on the shelves of foreign distributors. We should appropriate the first stammerings of this new language — in particular its most consummate and modern examples, those which have escaped artistic ideology even more than American “B” movies: newsreels, previews and, above all, filmed ads. ————————————————————————————————— “Penguin books-style pamphlets describe ancient lizard-people and mushroom parasites” The Mould Map 6: TERRAFORMERS exhibition is reviewed by Jacob Charles Wilson at The Double Negative. What’s clear is that the idea of the future has continually been presented and understood through publishing cultures. The concept of Terraformers itself resembles the design and aims of the British magazine Quest, or an issue of the radical ecological DIY magazine Whole Earth; drawing on hippy culture, late-‘60s technocratic solutions, and communist, feminist leanings. Given Frost and Sadler’s own backgrounds are in publishing, I wanted to find out why they decided that this issue should be an exhibition. “Many of the artists whose comics and graphics we’ve published also work with sculpture, video, textiles or painting etc.”, they tell me; “works that don’t necessarily translate well or at all in print. Also, it’s been such a pleasure meeting people in the space. If they follow Mould Map, or have never heard of it, it’s just been a much more social project for us. “On the downside, the longevity of a printed artefact is hard to replicate, which makes us quite concerned about documenting things properly, so we’ll be using photography, drone video footage and 3D scanning equipment to capture the show.” ————————————————————————————————— Protect Your Library the Medieval Way, With Horrifying Book Curses Sarah Laskow looks at Marc Drogin’s book Anathema! Medieval Scribes and the History of Book Curses. Given the extreme effort that went into creating books, scribes and book owners had a real incentive to protect their work. They used the only power they had: words. At the beginning or the end of books, scribes and book owners would write dramatic curses threatening thieves with pain and suffering if they were to steal or damage these treasures. They did not hesitate to use the worst punishments they knew—excommunication from the church and horrible, painful death. Steal a book, and you might be cleft by a demon sword, forced to sacrifice your hands, have your eyes gouged out, or end in the “fires of hell and brimstone.” ————————————————————————————————— Post-Thanksgiving KGB Comix Night Co-hosted by Robyn Chapman and Robin Enrico. Sunday, November 27, 7-9pm, KGB Bar, 85 E 4th St, NYC. Featuring readings by: A. T. Pratt Whit Taylor Steph Guez (better known as Stephanie Rodriguez) Robyn Chapman Bjorn Daniel Miner ————————————————————————————————— Comics Workbook has announced the Winter Semester of the Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers – course starts Dec. 29th 2016! 8 week course – 500 bux – 10 spots available – apply by Dec. 13th 2016 and get $100 off course fee! Email santoroschoolATgmail for more details. Santoro School 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 small jpgs of images – don’t post to your blog pls -specific url links to any comics work you have done. Send applications to: santoroschoolATgmail Share this page: [...]

PIX 2016 | Bill Griffith Interview

Juan FernándezJune 20, 2016InterviewsCWTV interviews Bill Griffith, one of underground comics’ founding fathers, about his almost 50 years of making work. Bill is the creator of Zippy the Pinhead (among 3,407 other things) // en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Griffith Get Bill’s latest, the beautiful graphic memoir INVISIBLE INK // copaceticcomics.com/comics/invisible-ink-my-mother-s-secret-love-affair-with-a-famous-cartoonist Video by Michael Pisano and Di-ay Battad // michaelpisano.com // cargocollective.com/di-ay Share this page: [...]

09/26/2018

Juan FernándezSeptember 26, 2018NewsJuan here with a Hannah K. Lee interview by Chris Diaz from 2015 and our upcoming workshops at Cartoon Crossroads Columbus Here on the site we’ve got an interview of Hannah K. Lee by Chris Anthony Diaz. This interview was conducted in 2015 via email. Chris Anthony Diaz: In Shoes Over Bills no. 2, there’s a dichotomy in the page layout of materialism and desires (shoes) on the left side of the two-page spread and monthly obligations and needs (bills) on the right side of the spread, rendered in your colorful, stylized, retro graphics and typography. It’s a potent expression of what choices a young woman faces, enticed by beauty to spend her earnings on. Like two sides of a debate, one side wooing her to buy gratification in possessions or the other side pitching her to commit to practicality, like eating. How did this zine come about for you and what was the original impetus of this theme? (The dichotomy appears again in Everyone Else Is Younger And More Talented, so it appears to be a theme or expression that you are concerned with.) Hannah K. Lee: Issues #2: Shoes over Bills was first a smaller chapter of a bigger project I wanted to do called No Money Mo Problems, A “lifestyle guide for impoverished freelancers”. A lot of those ideas were stupid, so I extracted Shoes over Bills and made it its own project. I started it right before I started my corporate day job, when I was learning about boring adult things like money management and regular visits to the dentist. This weekend, the Comics Workbook team will be in Columbus for Cartoon Crossroads Columbus(CXC). We’ll be focused on facilitating comics creation for attendees this time around. We are offering 3 hours of comics workshops across the weekend and will have drop in activities and take home workbooks at our table on the marketplace floor. This is the first time we lean into the education mindset fully so we’re excited to see how it goes! If you’re in Columbus, be sure to stop by and say hello. I’ve just taken a moment to review the programming for the weekend and the quality is off the charts. Cartoon Crossroads Columbus’ programming is incredible. The amount of things happening in just one hour on Saturday at the Columbus Metropolitan is crazy! Needless to say, if you like comics, get yourself to Columbus this weekend to meet and engage with the finest makers of comics in North America. Don’t believe me? At 2pm, the following events will all be going on concurrently in the library: Cartooning In The Time Of Trump, Part One: Mid-Term Mania A Life’s Work with Lynn Johnston, Jason Lutes, Jim Woodring Spotlight On Hartley Lin And Young Frances Radical Praxis In Comics: Comics Practice As A Way Of Life And Community Katie Skelly Spotlight Talk about hitting it out of the ballpark. I know I shouldn’t be surprised by this week of superb comics programming coming from the CXC organizing team and all their partners, but it’s really hitting me the degree to which this is the USA’s Angoulême. What a time to be alive making comics… That’s it for now! See you in Columbus. 09-26-2018 – by Niall Breen Share this page: [...]

08/17/2016

Juan FernándezAugust 16, 2016NewsJuan here with your Wednesday morning updates! the LAST DAY of the Daniel Clowes Benefit Auction, Jack Davis, John Baldessari, mixing colors, and more! ——————————————————————————————————————— Daniel Clowes Auction Items Up Through TODAY, August 17, 1pm EST All proceeds benefit the Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency. Check it aht! ——————————————————————————————————————— Drew Friedman on Jack Davis’ career as a TV Guide cover illustrator “TV Guide’s art director’s had a long track record of using some of the top caricaturists of the day for their covers and for interior work, including many assignments by Al Hirschfeld and more recently Ronald Searle: Jack Davis would eventually create nearly two dozen covers for TV Guide over the next dozen years, plus many interior drawings.” – Drew Friedman Read more about it HERE. (via The Comics Reporter) ——————————————————————————————————————— Wonderfully Offbeat Assignments That Artist John Baldessari Gave to His Art Students (1970) “In 1970, when conceptual artist John Baldessari was teaching studio art at the experimental CalArts campus near Valencia, CA, the assignments he handed out to his class were art in themselves. Humorous, confounding, sometimes very specific but often like zen koans, the assignments must have come as a shock, especially to those students with a more traditional sense of what constitutes art. They probably didn’t know that Baldessari was questioning art itself and in the middle of a crisis. That year he had taken all his previous painted work from 1953 – 1966 and cremated it at a San Diego mortuary. He turned from painting to photography. And he expected his students to rethink everything they thought they knew.” via Open Culture Read the rest of the article HERE. ——————————————————————————————————————— 271 Years Before Pantone, an Artist Mixed and Described Every Color Imaginable in an 800-Page Book “In 1692 an artist known only as “A. Boogert” sat down to write a book in Dutch about mixing watercolors. Not only would he begin the book with a bit about the use of color in painting, but would go on to explain how to create certain hues and change the tone by adding one, two, or three parts of water. The premise sounds simple enough, but the final product is almost unfathomable in its detail and scope. Spanning nearly 800 completely handwritten (and painted) pages, Traité des couleurs servant à la peinture à l’eau, was probably the most comprehensive guide to paint and color of its time. According to Medieval book historian Erik Kwakkel who translated part of the introduction, the color book was intended as an educational guide. The irony being there was only a single copy that was probably seen by very few eyes.” – via This Is Colossal More HERE. ——————————————————————————————————————— Listen to over an hour of background music from the 1967 Spider-Man Animated Series “The music from the 1967 Spider-Man animated series is jazzy and catchy. Unfortunately the music has never been released in a format that would allow us to enjoy it completely. I often wondered what it would be like to capture the music from a series that never did a soundtrack, but I don’t have to wonder any longer. YouTube user, 11db11, went through the entire run of the series and attempted to capture the audio in its complete form, removing voice and sound effect when possible. This labor of love, which I imagine took a good amount of time, is over and hour-long and an addicting listen.” – via The Retroist Further thoughts HERE. Dig even deeper with this old article from the radio station WMFU! ——————————————————————————————————————— Data Mining Reveals the Six Basic Emotional Arcs of Storytelling “These guys have used sentiment analysis to map the emotional arcs of over 1,700 stories and then used data-mining techniques to reveal the most common arcs. “We find a set of six core trajectories which form the building blocks of complex narratives,” they say. Their method is straightforward. The idea behind sentiment analysis is that words have a positive or negative emotional impact. So words can be a measure of the emotional valence of the text and how it changes from moment to moment. So measuring the shape of the story arc is simply a question of assessing the emotional polarity of a story at each instant and how it changes.” – via MIT Technology Review Find out more HERE. ——————————————————————————————————————— until next time! JF Share this page: [...]

08/18/2017

Posted on August 18, 2017August 18, 2017 by Sally Ingraham

Sally here with new work by Ulli Lust, Redlands #1 by Jordie Bellaire and Vanesa Del Rey, a look at Simon Hanselmann’s character Booger, and more!

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I have really enjoyed all of the New York Review Comics as they have come out, so I was THRILLED to discover that new work from Ulli Lust will be in my hands soon via NYRC! Look for Voices in the Dark (an adaptation of the novel The Karnau Tapes by Marcel Beyer) in October 2017. The site has a good write-up of the book and some excerpts from it – view them HERE.

From Publishers Weekly:

“The narrative switches between two small cogs in the relentless machinery of the Reich: Hermann Karnau, a sound engineer who progresses from arranging the speakers at Nazi rallies to conducting bizarre aural experiments on concentration camp prisoners, and Helga, the eldest daughter of Joseph Goebbels, who, along with her siblings, is destined to be murdered by her parents in Hitler’s bunker. Lust’s loose, deceptively simple art, tinted in washes of faded color, creates a mood of deepening claustrophobia as the complicit Karnau and the innocent Helga descend toward the same fate. It’s a rare adaptation that, rather than simply transcribing the source material, transcends it.“

This is the English version of the comic Flughunde (Airports) which came out in Berlin in 2013. It was well received there – here’s some of the press that Ulli has collected on her website.

An excerpt from the original version:

The comic that Ulli Lust has been working on for the past 3 or 4 years will be released in Germany and France this autumn…which means we probably won’t see it in the States until 2018 if not later. Sad face.

That makes the NYRC edition of Voices in the Dark that much more exciting of course!

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Vanesa Del Rey and Jordie Bellaire bring fury and flame in the opening chapter of Redlands. I like the rich red and gold and black coloring of the comic, and the way it crashes straight into a violent moment of pain and power, as a coven of witches wrenches a Floridian town out of the hands of the patriarchy.

The intentions of the creators are definitely on display in the first issue, and I can get behind the “righteous anger” that Jordie Bellaire has spoken of a couple of times. I am curious to see where the story goes, how the wrath of the first issue transitions into something more nuanced – what the “calm center” of the storm will be.

I believe I linked to this interview on Multiversity Comics with Jordie Bellaire and Vanesa Del Rey before, but reading through it again today after having seen Redlands #1 myself is interesting. This bit rings true for sure:

“Without giving too much away, this issue read completely unlike anything I was expecting. What’s it like trying to create a sense of horror in the reader when what most of the characters in the issue are afraid of are your main characters?

JB: I wanted the characters to appear very morally ambiguous and again, tie into the trope that men fear educated, strong, liberated women. If the readers are afraid of the main characters (the witches), that’s great! But they should also be afraid or at the very least disgusted by the rest of the cast. It’s a pretty upsetting place, as is the world. Everyone is an enemy of someone, anyone could be a villain.“

Read the rest of the interview HERE. And hustle to your comics shop to pick up Redlands #1 if you haven’t already!

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From “Megg, Booger, and Warewolf Jones” by Simon Hanselmann

I found this article by Sam Riedel on Medium to be a thoughtful read – Let’s Talk Comics: Booger, Gender, and Simon Hanselmann’s “One More Year”. Booger doesn’t get a lot of press time, generally, but she is one of the more complex characters in Simon Hanselmann’s wild world. Unlike many transfem characters, she is not “virtuous”. Riedel addresses that point:

“On the still-uncommon occasions that transfem characters show up in fiction (and aren’t two-dimensional stereotypes), they’re often forced to be virtuous because they represent all trans people everywhere. Who wants to be represented by a douchebag? Other marginalized communities also suffer from this tendency, an unintended consequence of “diversity casting” that maintains structural whiteness, cisnormativity, and so on. … Since our stories are so often misunderstood, there’s an implicit demand that we be shown in the most palatable light, but that robs our stories of the all-important shades of grey.“

Booger has the shades of grey covered. She is never quite as actively “bad” as the other characters, but her particular ways of being messed up are, in a way, more brutal. Read the rest of Sam Riedel’s thoughts on Booger HERE.

Get a copy of One More Year HERE.

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Other News in Brief

The Ignatz Award nominees have been announced, and there are lots and lots of comics by women on the list! Michael Cavna shares the list on The Washington Post.
Katie Skelly is on Episode 22 of Comic Book Decalogue – here on The Comics Journal.
Also on the Journal, Rob Kirby reviews Glynnis Fawkes‘ Greek Diary, and Katie Skelly covers Kabi Nagata’s My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness.
Jason Rhode tries to navigate the maze of gender diversity in the comics industry, doing a decent job of summarizing a lot of the conversations and controversies that have been going on in the last year, in particular, and across the decades more expansively – read the article on Paste Magazine HERE.
Here’s a nice review of Maggie Umber‘s Sound of Snow Falling.
Part 2 of Gabrielle Bell‘s comic Little Red and Big Bad is up on The Paris Review – read it HERE.
Boundless by Jillian Tamaki is reviewed on Paste Magazine by Zainab Akhtar – she calls Jillian “undeniably one of the finest cartoonists of this generation.“

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Suzy and Cecil – 8-18-2017 – by Gabriella Tito

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Joanie and Jordie – 8-18-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio

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Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Sally Ingraham

Posted on August 18, 2017August 18, 2017

Explore

Chicago, IL Scene Report

Frank SantoroJanuary 8, 2012Riff Raff / Scene ReportsThis week’s Scene Report is brought to you by Edie Fake. Thanks Flakes! —– It’s important to say one thing straight off the bat: Chicago loves comics like no other place I’ve ever been. It’s town is full of oddballs and oddities, a fermented blend of cheap rent, cheap beer, bad weather and good house shows…and somehow the result is a veritable hotbed of activity in all directions. Let’s start this report on my block. Down four flights of stairs from my apartment you’ll find Anya Davidson working furiously on her next graphic onslaught in a studio surrounded by many animals and no windows. She’s made these super lush silkscreened comics for years, usually in itty-bitty editions of five or so, but now she’s also got some killer pages in the Kramer’s E. that just came out, so get on it. When we make it out the door of the building and just head down the block, we’ll be at Robin Hustle’s house. Hustle not only draws perverse zine-comic hybrids about hair, milk and sex economies, she’s also spearheaded the reawakening of a Chicago punk free paper, to be known henceforth as The Land Line. This is the reincarnated version of the monthly paper called The Skeleton News that ran itself fabulously ragged for about two years while I was outta town. The Land Line is going to be quarterly and also free, content-rich and dirty, just like good soil. The first issue debuts right around the new year. There’s a million folks meeting, working and partying to make it happen…on the visual end, Grant Reynolds notably took on the helm of “Comics Editor” and recent transplants Mika Lee and Otto Splotch are throwing down some real brain bender drawings for it. A couple blocks further down the street towards my P.O. Box we run into this household that is a crazy pit of comics talent. Leslie Weibler, Andy Burkholder and Max Morris are all holed up together living with a collective library of approximately a million great comic books, spurring each other onward towards greatness. Dane Martin used to live here and Blaise Larmee too. Max can talk comics in a real way for days without stopping and he just launched a great Chicago comics anthology called “Vacuum Horror” at this year’s BCGF. There goes the neighborhood! Let’s expand a little…One of my favorite places in town is Spudnik Press. Started four years ago by Angee Lennard (who also draws the geriatric comic Mossdale Estates), the press has grown exponentially even during the year I’ve been a member. Part of the thrill of this shop is you might run into the likes of Lilli Carré printing some gorgeous, witty edition, or Sanya Glisic blowing your mind with her cosmic-ly perverse Struwwelpeter prints. Artist book maker Aaron Smith just got the AB Dick offset press up and running and it’s a force to be reckoned with, along with the functional facilities for letterpress, silkscreen, etching, woodblock and litho printing. Add to this the number of active copy scams in town and the fact that Aaron Renier just scored a free Risograph machine and we’ve got a print renaissance on our hands. …Which reminds me of Keith Herzik’s big show that just happened at the historic Hyde Park Art Center which included 4 zillion comics and posters he’s made plus a frozen pizza he accidentally cooked for 6 hours. Keith’s got colors on lockdown that no one has names for yet. That’s the sort of thing we encourage round these parts. …Which reminds me of the “Cartoon Ink” show Christa Donner, Jeremy Tinder and Surabhi Ghosh curated a few months back at the School of the Art Institute which showcased some of SAIC’s young guns like Sua Yoo, Wax Wing, Emily Fundis, Sarah Drake and William Cleveland next to the likes of Chris Ware, Anders Nilsen and Jeffrey Brown. Hey -right- Chicago’s a great place to learn comics in a school, if that’s your bag! When local rabble-rouser Anne Elizabeth Moore isn’t busy teaching zinemaking in Cambodia, starting her own tripped-out grad school or calling the comics industry on its own shit, she also teaches comics at the ‘tute. The comics-inclined SAIC student body has staged an impressive Small Press and Comics Symposium two years running and puts out an anthology Xerox Candy Bar. Comics historian Hillary Chute is down at University of Chicago, as is Paul Hornschemeier, as will be Alison Bechdel in the spring. Curmudgeon-with-a-heart-of-gold, Ivan Brunetti teaches at Columbia College where his passionate students like Onsmith and David Alvarado crank out the gorgeous anthology Linework. Ivan just re-released his iron-clad comics syllabus as a concise and potent little instruction volume that I am working through with Marian Runk at our biweekly gay comics coffee klatch. Jeremy Tinder is a good guy to know – not only is he awesome in a general way, he’s also one of the solid forces behind the weekly rendez-vous of Chicago’s notorious Trubble Club. TC roll call will break your drawing-chops-o-meter: frequent offenders include Aaron Renier, Nate Beaty, Carrie Vinarsky, Corinne Mucha, Grant Reynolds, Lilli Carré, Joe Tallarico, Sam Sharpe, Rachel Niffenegger, Ben Marcus, Bernie McGovern, Jo Dery, Becca Taylor, Travis Lampe and the unstoppable Laura Park– plus a rotating cast of out-of-town visitors. When I started going to this thing I thought that no way was I going to enjoy drawing against someone else’s panel, but it turns out that it’s actually utterly inspiring. Trubble Club is a beast unto itself! Not only is it a running contest to see who can be the most vile and crude, it keeps you loose and lucid and it’s like DIY drawing school, to boot. Trubble will be putting out it’s first full color edition momentarily courtesy of some Post Family support and we get to do an installation and curate a comics reading room at the DePaul Museum next year for a Chicago Imagists show they’re staging. On the note of shows staged, I wanna be sure to mention that people are doing some pretty amazing things with performative comics here. Does this even happen in other towns? Ezra Clayton Daniels used to throw infamous and rowdy Comics Art Battles back in the day, and since he just moved back to town I guess that means we should all look out. Brett Koontz makes brilliant comic books about post-apocalyptic sci-fi lifestyles and then turns them into these (also brilliant) backyard theater productions so you can figure out who he based each character on. Lyra Hill just started the world’s most exciting comic book reading series, Brain Frame, that alternates between feeding you jell-o shots and splashing you with fake blood. Lyra herself always goes above and beyond at these happenings and then hands the stage over to hams like Ian McDuffie and Krystal DiFronzo. It’s made me cry tears of joy and laugh food into my nose and I look forward to it every month like as if it were Halloween or something. It’s definitely a town where comics and art have met, fallen mad in love and now they’re having a baby. Just take a look at Paul Nudd’s crud, or check out Kerry James Marshall’s RYTHM MASTR paintings. And check out Deb Sokolow’s drawings. Did I mention the Imagists? That Yoshida shit runs deep! Even the Museum of Contemporary Art here is down, staging the giant Jim Nutt show last year as well as a special exhibit called “New Chicago Comics”. A few months ago Ruby Thorkelson got the local feminist gallery, WomanMade, to put on a great show of comics work from women and trans identified artists called “Underground” which included an amazing, amazing reading room. Also of underground note, The Chicago Underground Library got a new home and a new name after sustaining major damages last winter. Now it’s called Read/Write and it’s still rad all over. Additionally, Joe Tallarico has not-so-secretly been improving the underground comics stronghold in the Art Institute Library, as well as rooting some old-school Hot Nuts like George Hansen out of the woodwork. Joe’s been busy on the print end too, doing comics making and editing for the long running freak sheet, Lumpen which just up and turned 20. Also aging gracefully is Roctober, the best music/comics magazine in the universe; they’re about to turn twenty just as the clock strikes issue #50 Who else turned twenty this year? Oh, why, Quimby’s Books, the infamous weirdo comics and zines shop, my current place of employment and a truly astounding place to hang. I’ve been coming to Quimby’s since shortly before it moved to its current location in ’94, back when I was a zitty, obnoxious teenager and Dan Clowes was probably down the street drawing Eightball. Twenty years in now, this beast has made itself an international hub of self-publishing and small press comics, not only by keeping our eyes peeled for interesting experimental stuff on paper but also by accepting anything and everything folks send our way. For a good part of it’s run, the shop has been owned by Eric Kirsammer, who guides with a gentle hand and keeps us stocked in twisted art. Traditionally, the floor has been handled by rabid self-publishers like my powerhouse co-workers Liz Mason and Neil Brideau. There’s no telling how many minds have been blown in these walls, I certainly count mine among them. Deep scene resource 4eva. Can’t forget the other stores around here- Quimby’s is not the only game in town, especially if you’re a traditionalist. Our sister store, also under the mindful proprietorship of Kirsammer, is the stocked-to-the-gills Chicago Comics which I will proceed to call whenever I am confused about Marvel. There’s also Brainstorm for a passionate mix of superheroes, videos, and funny jokes. Challengers carries its own eccentric combo of local and mainstream work. I’ve only been into Vigilante once, but I liked it, and then if you go up so north it’s suburbia, Comix Revolution holds court and holds down the fort. What’s a better place to wrap things up than the future? For Chicago, that means getting a solid annual independent comics festival started here. Originally dreamed up by my Quimbyian coworker Neil (who also helped jump start the Chicago Zine Fest a few years ago), the Chicago Alternative Comics Expo (or CAKE, for short) finally has its ducks in a row – a plum location at Columbia College’s Ludington Building, a solid date (June 16th and 17th, 2012) and a gorgeous promotional poster by Laura Park. Applications are open until the first of January, the tables are truly affordable and things are really starting to get up and rolling to make it happen. CAKE’s core team of organizers (Neil, my neighbors Max and Andy along with Grace Tran, Jeff Zwirek, Nick Drnaso and myself) are starting the exciting work of mapping how we want the space set up and imagineering what the programming will look like. …So things are brewing in Chicago, in the past, in the now, and in the near next- If I were you I’d come check it out. Share this page: [...]

02/08/2018

Comics WorkbookFebruary 7, 2018NewsSam Ombiri on Nick Drnaso’s Beverly – plus other comics and news! ————————————————————————————————— Sam Ombiri here: With Beverly, Nick Drnaso is clearly not making a story just to flex his muscles or impress us. Although there’s no mistake about it – this book is really impressive. However, all this – the complexity of the stories and the characters that are drawn mysteriously, in a sparse way – felt like it was done out of the necessity of being loyal to the ideas that Drnaso wanted to convey. Often in the book there’s a sense that Drnaso doesn’t let us look at the real problem that his characters seem to be vaguely aware of, instead blaming other red herrings, no matter how extreme they can end up being (like in the end of “Lil’ King”, which was easily my favorite story). Or for example, in the first story towards the end when a character named Tim walks into Rich’s office, Rich is upset, and we don’t ever find out the reason (at least as far as I know). I think the reason would make for a very unsatisfactory reading, and would really simplify things in a bad way. In “Virgin Mary”, Mary’s face is only shown at the beginning, and for the rest of the story it’s hidden. “Virgin Mary” is narrated like one of those crime investigation specials that air on TV, and this element kind of builds on something in an earlier story. In the second story, which is titled “The Saddest Story Never Told”, a character named Cara (who was subtly introduced in the first story) is watching an “advance copy” of a new Sitcom that is being test marketed. She is watching it with her mother, and the comic just becomes us watching the sitcom. Thankfully, it is not a gimmick that Nick Drnaso is implementing in an exploitative manner. That is to say, it’s beautifully mundane, but Drnaso isn’t just flexing his avant garde muscles at the expense of the story – he executes it with great simplicity. Because a TV is square and panels can be square, Drnaso just changes the size of the panels to match the TV, and the panel size remains consistent for the duration of the tape. The sitcom is really uninteresting and that’s what’s so great. It reveals a lot about the way Drnaso tells his stories. He isn’t rushing to brag about how cynical he can be, by being ironic and bashing how uninteresting the TV show is. Rather, he makes it interesting, but not too interesting, and I’m just speaking about the sitcom itself. Nevermind how Cara’s mother is desperately trying to project a more optimistic future for her and her children through this tape. The sitcom is actually engrossing! Drnaso somehow simultaneously conveys how uninteresting this sitcom is and makes it interesting. There’s actually an aspect to the way he draws that distantly seems to be uninteresting, but it’s not, in fact. It’s far from uninteresting. So later on in “Virgin Mary”, the way the story is narrated (again, like a crime investigation special) feels like a heightened reality, something that the TV show’s suburban dwellers usually watch, which ends up contributing to the way they see reality. That then becomes the story we are reading, both from the way it’s narrated and what’s happening in the story itself (innocent people are blamed for a kidnapping). To me, viewing the story this way automatically can be attributed to how in “The Saddest Story Never Told” there was a very little to indicate the difference between what was TV and what was real life. The only information I got, really, was that when it was TV sound was coming out of the panel instead of just being in the panel. “Virgin Mary” is such an amazing point in the book – it’s like a big cry being let out. And that’s just one part among six great stories. Nick Drnaso gives a very specific amount of detail, and the stories move along rather rapidly – my eyes automatically go from panel to panel, as the story is so clearly laid out. It might even be my hundredth time reading the story, but it keeps me engaged every time. I can jump into any section, and it’s just as easy for me to recapture the essence of each moment as when I read it the first time. It’s clear that Beverly was made to be enjoyable to read, and the success of the comic is, for lack of a better term, almost severe. It’s strengths are obvious when you read it, so I don’t need to go on praising it. You don’t have to believe the stories in the book, because the book believes them for you. – Sam Ombiri Get a copy of Beverly by Nick Drnaso HERE. Congratulations to Nick for winning the New Talent prize at the 2018 Angoulême International Comics Festival for the French edition of Beverly! Keep an eye out for Nick’s new book Sabrina, coming from Drawn & Quarterly in May. ————————————————————————————————— News of Note Shannon Wright drew the first Google Doodle of February, kicking off Black History Month with a celebration of Carter G. Woodson. Read about it HERE. Beyond the Longbox profiles Ronald Wimberly, who talks about the origins of his works, his thought process, and upcoming projects – HERE. There’s an interview with Robb Armstrong (creator of the comic strip JumpStart, one of the most widely-syndicated strips by an African-American author ever) on The Sentinel. Read it HERE. Check out this interesting article about the Peanuts character Franklin – it covers the backstory of his introduction to the strip by Charles Schulz, and his continuing history. ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 2-8-2018 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

09/14/2017

Sally IngrahamSeptember 13, 2017NewsSam Ombiri on Patrick Kyle’s Everywhere Disappeared, plus other comics and news! ————————————————————————————————— Sam Ombiri here: I had a chance to read an advanced PDF copy of Patrick Kyle’s new comic Everywhere Disappeared. (The book has now come out from Koyama Press.) At first I had trouble with this book, but I took the time to read through it twice and I made many discoveries. There is part of the book that feels rather navel-gazy and a bit vain as a result, (for him to be showing work like this). This was an initial misinterpretation on my part, because it looks at first like this new book is just a reflection of how Patrick is a private person. From what I’ve heard him say about this, he is pretty private, and he’ll keep many elements of his work that could be interpreted as personal, hidden. The work then feels somewhat rigid when he’s documenting what we might see as his artistic struggles, and personal struggles. Being who he is, he is doing this in a really roundabout way, and while I enjoyed the book, it’s a little bothersome to sit through. (Although the bothersome aspect became the interesting aspect later.) When I first read the second strip I thought to myself “Does Patrick think his work is in so much demand that we’re willing to sit through this nonsense?!” It’s not as focused as his last book (Don’t Come In Here, 2016), which might answer why any emotional triumph in the beginning of the book feels unearned, and this made me a little nervous, because that was a problem I had with certain parts of Don’t Come In Here. Now I had to read a whole book that was filled to the brim with that problem? I discovered that I should not have worried. I felt at first that there wasn’t any long term investment to be had with Everywhere Disappeared, but as I read more and more of the book, I was proven wrong. Patrick has a big artistic triumph. Everywhere Disappeared is a collection of stories in the form of comic strips. Taken together the book seemed to me to be about taking risks, and people reacting to your insincerity, be it through art or just normal interaction. The first strip functions really well in telling the reader what mindset Patrick is in. The strip that follows just baffled me in how much he’s testing the reader’s patience, as I mentioned above. Then I had to eat my words with the following strips, which were just amazing – hilariously portraying his solutions to his dilemmas in his current role (with the sentiments expressed in the first and second strip, and the answer being the third strip.) Point being, though I felt at first that the second strip was a lousy strip, it really served the book well. It was a step up from just being a self-conscious comic, a major step up – instead of stagnating with his self-consciousness, he advanced. Not only that, but it tells you as the reader that Patrick isn’t suddenly making these big conceptual leaps as a maker. He’s still this guy who you come to to read some fun stuff, and he’s still very much thriving in this territory. At a certain point as a reader of Everywhere Disappeared, even looking back at the Dracula story (the second strip), I realize it’s been really fun and it’s going to continue to be fun. The illustrations are getting tastier and the punchlines are getting funnier. The ridiculous concepts are more acceptable to the reader. There a style that was introduced in the Dracula strip, then a couple strips later we get the pay off with it. Amazing pay off too, when a character does a print with Bart Simpson with Nike for eyes (and that gag only manages to get better). It reminds me of a gag I’d see from Ben Jones, but it’s all Patrick Kyle. By the time I read the strip titled “Glory of the Pile” I knew that I was completely wrong in thinking that Patrick was running out of his bag of tricks. That strip hit me hard. There’s a real impressive element to how Patrick is recycling shapes he normally draws and just uses them here and there, to elicit some kind of emotion or feeling or sentiment he’s trying to get across to the reader. The book speaks its own language now and is super comfortable in it, and this seemingly comes out of nowhere (or everywhere?). – Sam Ombiri Get a copy of Everywhere Disappeared HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Sally here – The Art of Vanesa R. Del Rey was reviewed as an Orbital Comics staff pick recently (Orbital Comics is currently hosting a show of Vanesa’s work!). “Thomas says: I wasn’t aware of Del Rey’s art until her work came in for the show that is currently running in our gallery (until the end of the month) and was absolutely blown away by what I saw. Her work is gorgeous, her line work free and energetic with an exuberant life of it’s own. Even static figures seem to be in motion, breathing with a life of their own. This sketchbook serves two functions; it is a beautiful selection of Del Rey’s work but is as much a glimpse into her life, past, present and future as it is anything else. Interviewed by Frank Santoro, Del Rey is open and forth coming about her work explaining as best as she can her thoughts regarding the human figure, to the influence art has had on her life and is also quite open about her life and her childhood. With a new book out this past month written by the wonderful Jordie Bellaire, Del Rey’s star is in the ascendant and you would be foolish to ignore this talented young artist. Excitingly, Vanesa will be signing here on Saturday 16th September 2017, from 17:00 till 19:00 so come along and pick up a copy of her sketch book or Redlands and say ‘Hi’. Click here for more details.“ Get a copy of The Art of Vanesa R. Del Rey HERE. ————————————————————————————————— There’s a piece in the Washington Post‘s Comic Riffs about Shawn Martinbrough, and how he came to draw Hellboy in a recent one-shot issue of Hellboy and the B. P. R. D. Heavily influenced by the artwork of Mike Mignola as a kid, this was a dream project for Martinbrough, who has been storming the mainstream comics scene for a few decades (more on his story HERE). “Martinbrough…is known for going out of his way to add diversity to the comics he works on. If a story’s script doesn’t specify the race of a supporting or background character, he’ll frequently draw that character as a person of color. That wouldn’t be necessary with this Hellboy story (written by Mignola and Chris Roberson), in which Woodrow, Hellboy’s partner, is a brilliant African American from Chicago. In the story, Woodrow is offended but not shocked when he brushes up against some racism even noticing that the white man he and Hellboy have questions for is more comfortable around a giant demon from hell than a black man. “Hellboy is an average Joe in the form of a large, fantastical red demon with a large stone hand and tail,” Martinbrough said. “The idea of a white guy accepting Hellboy without skipping a beat, but questioning the legitimacy of a black scientist is tragic but, unfortunately, very realistic. The social commentary was a very pleasant and welcome surprise.”“ Read more about it HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 9-14-2017 – by Sally Ingraham Share this page: [...]

02/09/2018

Sally IngrahamFebruary 8, 2018NewsSally here with Caitlin McGurk talking Edwina Dumm, the Apple Mary/Mary Worth comic strip story, and Six Chix! ————————————————————————————————— Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum Associate Curator Caitlin McGurk was a guest on Episode 4 of the Library of American Comics & EuroComics Podcast, with Dean Mullaney and Kurtis Findlay. She talked about the upcoming American Comics Essentials Vol. 11, which collects Edwina Dumm‘s “Tippie” comic strip from 1945. Listen to the podcast HERE. Check out the Edwina Dumm LOAC Essentials book HERE – it will be coming out soon, and features an introduction by Caitlin McGurk. I am a huge fan of Edwina Dumm and am personally so excited for this collection! ————————————————————————————————— I like to root around in the archives of the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum, both in person and online. I was systematically going through the list of creators the other day, looking for WOMEN, and I came across June Brigman. I remembered that she was the last artist who worked on the comic Brenda Starr, Reporter (a long-running strip that has a fantastic, complete history of female creators – but that’s a tale for another day!) I looked into what she is currently working on, and noted that she is the artist behind the strip Mary Worth (syndicated by King Features). Mary Worth is an interesting comic strip. It’s been around since 1938 or so, making it one of the longest running “continuity” strips ever. It’s like a soap opera, with loads of characters and swirling plot lines, but it is centered on Mary – a 60-something widow and former teacher. Currently written by Karen Moy and drawn since 2016 by Brigman, it touches on all sorts of social issues and features classic cliff-hanger endings. You can read it HERE. Mary Worth was created by writer Allen Saunders and artist Dale Connor in 1938, but it has an interesting and somewhat debated connection to an earlier strip called Apple Mary. Martha Orr (the niece of Carey Orr, a cartoonist with the Chicago Tribune) started Apple Mary in 1934. It was about an old woman named Mary, who sold apples out of a pushcart, and tended to her crippled grandson Dennie. (You can see an example of the strip at the top of this section.) The strip was successful, but Martha had to quit making it after about 4 years, in favor of raising her own family. This is when Mary Worth appeared, but whether it was made to fill the popular hole that Apple Mary had left, maintaining some of the same tone and subjects, or whether it was the true evolution of Apple Mary, is up for continuing debate. Don Markstein notes on his Toonopida page for Apple Mary that “Whatever the case may be, as the Great Depression lifted, Apple Mary was left behind. There is little to be seen of her in the Mary Worth of today.” Here’s another Apple Mary strip by Martha Orr, one that does feature her being called Mary Worth by name. I like the idea of this character existing for 84 years, bookended by female creators. Next time I’m at the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum I’ll have to take a look at the one original Apple Mary strip by Martha Orr that they house in the archive! See it online HERE. ————————————————————————————————— I recently discovered a really unique comic strip called Six Chix. It’s a daily strip syndicated by King Features and created by six women cartoonists – they each have their assigned day, and then they rotate for the Sunday strip. “Isabella Bannerman draws Mondays; Martha Gradisher draws Tuesdays; Susan Camilleri Konar draws Wednesdays; Mary Lawton draws Thursdays; Benita Epstein draws Fridays; and Stephanie Piro draws Saturdays. Each cartoonist writes and draws with her own style and perspective. In any given week, you might find gags about the economy, technology, zombies, pirates or health care — and the main characters will be female and funny.“ The strip began in 2000 and was the idea of Jay Kennedy, the editor-in-chief at King Features at the time. You can read it online at the Six Chix website and learn more about the cartoonists HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Collected from the thousands of pages of material that Frank has left scattered all over the digital landscape, these 4 PDF collections contain Frank’s best writing on comics and comics making from the past decade. Theory and process, reviews and discoveries, journeys both physical and spiritual. Check out the “Best of Frank Santoro” PDF collections, available HERE! ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 2-9-2018 – by Gabriella Tito Share this page: [...]

11/04/2016

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

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