Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in NewsTagged Connor Willumsen, CWRD, gabriella tito, ignatz award nominations, katie fricas, Leslie Stein, meghan turbitt

Sally Ingraham

Posted on August 19, 2016

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08/05/2016

Sally IngrahamAugust 5, 2016NewsFriday, and what a week! Sally here to sift through it with you: I’ve got Audra Stang’s new comic, a bit more time spent with Caitlin McGurk (and Lucy Caswell for good measure!), interviews and words of wisdom from Marjane Satrapi, Emma Watson, Mari Naomi, Yumi Sakugawa, Andrea Tsurumi, and me (in a more official capacity than my usual Friday ramblings…) 1…2…3…GO! ————————————————————————————————— Audra Stang spent a very productive 3 days at the Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency in Pittsburgh, PA, in July, and now she is serializing the comic she made during that time (first page pictured above). See what she has shared so far HERE and look for updates every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday in August! ————————————————————————————————— I (Sally Ingraham) got interrupted the other day while I was working at the Rowhouse, by Frank Santoro and a camera crew, and ended up talking about teaching comics, researching comics, and my ideas about “comics roller derby”. Part One is above – watch Part Two HERE. Expect MUCH MORE from the Comics Workbook Roller Derby league soon…! ————————————————————————————————— Columbus Alive profiled Caitlin McGurk yesterday, and although CW correspondent Harrison Prince mentioned it in our Thursday news post, I wanted to spend a little more time with her. I think McGurk is an incredibly rad lady, and she’s following the sort of path through comics and library science that I aspire to. As the piece states: “Caitlin McGurk was destined to work in the comics industry. There were telltale signs during her childhood on Long Island. She remembers obsessively collecting and organizing comic book cards and admiring the pictures in the “Stations of the Cross” while waiting in the communion line at her Catholic church. “That was probably my first experience with sequential art because there these beautiful stained glass or carved images with a little bit of text,” McGurk said. “I’d study the image and read the text a thousand times.” Following high school, McGurk put out her own mini comics and zines and interned at an auction house where she catalogued – and fell in love with – underground comix (small press or self-published comic books). She interviewed famous cartoonists like Chester Brown for her senior college thesis on memory and consciousness in the graphic novel, and went on to obtain a master’s degree in library and information science from Long Island University.” Erica Thompson via Columbus Alive Caitlin McGurk is now an associate curator at the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum in Columbus, OH. There she is able to stay on target regarding one of her life goals – that is, making her own “…contribution to the world of comic scholarship…about celebrating the unsung history of women in comics.” One of McGurk’s recent pieces of comics scholarship was an in-depth look at the work of Etta Hulme (1923-2014), who was the chief editorial cartoonist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram for 36 years. Caitlin McGurk writes: “During her long and industrious career, Etta provided a consistent voice in cartooning. Her path wasn’t always easy; she was one of the only women to be hired as a full-time newspaper cartoonist, and was frequently carped for her boldly liberal views in a conservative Texan town. Etta laughed off criticism and even threats; her endless wit and terrific determination are best illustrated by her daily cartoons.” – Caitlin McGurk via the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum Blog You can see pictures of some of the Etta Hulme collection that the BICLM hosts HERE, and read more of what McGurk wrote about her! It’s no coincidence that the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum employs incredible women like Caitlin McGurk – after all it was founded by the tremendous Lucy Shelton Caswell (pictured below during a recent interview – we’ll be keeping our ears peeled for it!) Here’s our fearless founder Lucy Shelton Caswell being interviewed today by WOSU about the life of Frank Higgs – Milton Caniff’s dear friend and inspiration for the Terry And The Pirates character “Dude Hennick” A photo posted by Billy Ireland Cartoon Library (@cartoonlibrary) on Aug 3, 2016 at 1:51pm PDT As Tom Spurgeon wrote in a 2014 interview with Caswell: “Caswell is an accomplished author about comics, and has done significant work in bringing cartoon art to bear in the teaching of history. My favorite comics-related moment of 2013 was the long, deserved moment of applause Caswell received during the Billy Ireland opening ceremony. The comics community owes her more than it can ever repay. She is a role-model for every non-creative to work in proximity to this great art form, and for everyone else besides.” – Tom Spurgeon via The Comics Reporter Spurgeon and Caswell dig deep into history and comics and the history of comics in the rest of the interview – check it out HERE. And keep Lucy Caswell on your radar – her work is nowhere near finished. ————————————————————————————————— There is an interesting interview over on Rookie with Yumi Sakugawa – Madeline Keyes-Levine asked her a series of questions and Yumi Sakugawa answered with “…magical, illustrated responses, featuring some cat friends, the pros of self-publishing (pictured above), and an exercise you can do to start meditating literally whenever you want.” Check out the whole thing HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Daniel Barron conducted an interview with Mari Naomi recently for Yay!LA Art and Culture Magazine, and things got intense. “Sometimes you need to cross the line to know where it is. That’s something I think about as I am seated for coffee with illustrator Mari Naomi. After an hour discussing her history and work I feel like I’ve said too much about myself, anxious to tiptoe back wherever the line is. Call it a testament to the honesty of her work, whose loose, confessional nature makes one desire to meet it in the middle.” – Daniel Barron Get to know them both, I guess, HERE. ————————————————————————————————— It really was a big week for women cartoonists, with at least two more items that we found for you. Andrea Tsurumi appeared on the Virtual Memories Show podcast with Gil Roth – “Rising comics star — don’t blame me, that’s what Publishers Weekly just called her — Andrea Tsurumi joins the show to talk about her new collection, Why Would You Do That? (Hic & Hoc Publications). We get into her off-kilter sense of humor and why I love it, why she chose that title, the most sadistic children’s book ever written and why she adapted it, the comics industry’s saving grace (it’s too small to fail), staged photos during the Civil War, the challenge of teaching comics, her attempt at a work/art/life balance, the comics, cartoons and picture books that influenced/warped her, why she left New York, the truth about cakes vs. pies, and more!” – Gil Roth Give it a listen HERE! Then of course there is the Emma Watson/Marjane Satrapi interview for Vogue that is making Harry Potter fans, at the very least, learn a thing or two about comics. And feminism. And Iran. It’s really quite good. “…I think it’s extremely important that we try to change our lives around ourselves. When I was 30 years old, I said, “I’m going to change this world,” and after 10 years, the world was changing me. I became a cynical person who did not believe in anything anymore. And so I said, “I am losing even myself,” and then decided “Okay, from now on I’m going to change myself, and if I change myself, I have changed a little bit of this world. I will try to be a better person.” I don’t always succeed in that because the nasty side of me is big, but I try . . . I try.” – Marjane Satrapi Read the rest HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Let’s keep up this pace, ladies! And the rest of you too of course. Don’t let the doldrums of summer get you. More comics news coming your way Monday – till then, cheers. – Sally Share this page: [...]

06/13/2017

Aaron CockleJune 12, 2017NewsAaron Cockle here today with The ClairFree System; Pope Hats; Blind Spot and Black Paper; The Republic of Samsung; Printer Steganography ————————————————————————————————— ‘Here, she explains the inspiration behind her images and what she hopes readers to take from her work.’ Sally linked to this piece this past Friday, Claire Landsbaum asked Jillian Tamaki to dissect some of the panels from her story ‘The ClairFree System’, which is included in Tamaki’s new book, Boundless. Tamaki talks about incorporating found objects into the art-making process: This is another sculpture from the Art Gallery of Ontario, but the original artwork was just the child — I created the rest. A lot of this story is about reframing context: taking a classical sculpture or a photograph, which is a specific instant in time, and stripping it of its information to make it universal, which is what I did here. The image itself is about someone’s hopes and dreams for their child — about everyone’s idea of a great parent, which is that they can give their kid everything they want. I’ve heard people say that a new child is a pure, unsullied human being who hasn’t ever made a bad decision — that they’re without sin. I find that extremely hopeful. I don’t have children, but I would imagine the desire to prolong that state is an emotion every parent feels. ————————————————————————————————— ‘I keep returning to this notion: that the best feeling in the world is working really hard at creating something with no guarantee of a positive outcome.’ Ethan Rilly talks about his process for making Pope Hats #5, over at the AdHouse Books blog: Enough people have asked me whether I’m a lawyer that it might be useful to answer here: No, and I never was. Never stepped foot in a law firm. This story might be autobiographical in all the regular faintly embarrassing ways but the lawyer stuff is a good distance outside of me. I did research and interviews. ————————————————————————————————— ‘I pray to Tarkovsky, Marker, and Hitchcock.’ Teju Cole will be exhibiting work June 15-August 11 at Stephen Kasher Gallery in NYC, photos and text from his new book, Blind Spot, as well as an installation piece, Black Paper. The exhibition features over 30 color photographs from the series Blind Spot, each accompanied by Cole’s lyrical and evocative prose. Viewed together, these works form a multimedia diary of years of near-constant travel. In these photographs, we see what Cole has seen, from a park in Berlin to a mountain range in Switzerland, a church exterior in Lagos to a parking lot in Brooklyn; and we are drawn into the texts—which function as voiceovers—with which Cole complicates his already enigmatic images. At stake here is the question of vision, an exploration Cole began following a temporary spell of blindness in 2011, and which he presents here in a photographic sequence of novelistic intensity. The exhibition also presents Black Paper, a visceral photographic response to Cole’s experiences following the election of November 2016. This continuously evolving, large-scale work explores buried feelings, haunted space, and all that can be seen through darkness. ————————————————————————————————— “ABOUT MY WORK AND MYSELF AND ALL THE REST I USED TO SAY:/,” “I HAVE NOTHING TO SAY AND I’M SAYING IT:.” As a continuation of its online Net Art Anthology exhibition, Rhizome features and discusses Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries’s piece, Samsung. The piece Samsung addresses the complex nature of the corporation—its existence not only as an economic entity but also as an emotional phantom, reaching its incorporeal fingers into relationships, daydreams, and fantasies. The text of Samsung, demonstrating many of the formal qualities of poetry, is interspersed with conversational breaks that establish intimacy with the viewer. The tone becomes conspiratorial as the narrator asks, “CAN/I CONFIDE/IN YOU?” There is no option to decline. The viewer is rendered complicit in the narrator’s confession of their adoration of Samsung. ————————————————————————————————— ‘The printouts contained invisible dot patterns added by the printer to identify the worker who sent the print job’ I posted about Video Steganography, the imbedding of hidden information within electronic files, a few weeks back. Recently, the Boingboing blog posted a piece about one of the ways the National Security Agency was able to determine the source of leaked information about potential hacking involving the Russians in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, by examining the hidden dot patterns that are used with color printers. There’s been much speculation on exactly how NSA leaker Reality Winner was exposed after giving The Intercept documents that showed the extent to which the security agency suspects Russian meddling (previously) in last year’s general election. On one hand, the filing against her talks of the “creases” seen in the scans The Intercept posted, tipping them off to it being a workplace printout from an insider–an insinuation of casual sloppiness on the reporters’ part. On the other hand, it seemed clear Winner did everything at a work computer anyway and was surely doomed once the story came out and internal investigations began. ————————————————————————————————— A Cosmic Journey – 6-13-2017 – by Cameron Arthur ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 6-13-2017 – by Gabriella Tito ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 6-13-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

Austin, TX Scene Report

Frank SantoroDecember 25, 2011Riff Raff / Scene ReportsThis post originally appeared on The Comics Journal – 12/25/2011 Frank here. This week’s scene report is brought to you by William Cardini. Mr. Cardini just finished my comic book correspondence course. Hopefully, you will someday see the comic that he produced during the course – it’s pretty sharp. In the meantime, please enjoy his report on the Austin comics scene. ————- Austin Scene Report by William Cardini. Despite having been (and in some cases continuing to be) home to various comics legends, such as Chris Ware, Mack White, Cayetano Garza Jr, Shannon Wheeler, and the Armadillo World Headquarters crew, Austin doesn’t seem to have the same reputation among cartoonists as similar cities such as Portland or Minneapolis, but I think it could. Austin has two comprehensive comic book stores, Austin Books & Comics and Dragon’s Lair, that stock everything from local minicomics to Fantagraphics to manga. And if you’re more interested in zines, there’s Monkeywrench, an all-volunteer collective-run radical bookstore. Austin Books shows local artists on their back wall. This is a long distance photo I took from my show there with my wife Glade. You can see their deep back issue racks. The center of my Austin comics scene is Domy Books. An independent bookstore and gallery, Domy started in 2006 in Houston’s hip Montrose neighborhood. In 2008, Domy co-founder Russell Etchen opened an Austin branch of the store, and it’s been a boon. A towering, super friendly red-haired dude, Russell is always eager to make a recommendation or talk about obscure comics, artists, zinesters, and graffiti artists. He makes sure that Domy features a prominent zine section, screenprints, and a slew of art comics. He also curates the gallery section, featuring cartoonists such as Ron Regé Jr and Esther Pearl Watson. Russell also puts together the annual Monster Show, where he asks cartoonists from all over to do a 9×12″ drawing. Photo of this year’s Monster Show opening by Carling Hale. If you squint you can see Jonny Negron. Speaking of Mr. Negron, Austin has a pretty full local creator roster. Here’s a small sample: Jonny Negron – His drawings are charged with raw sexual energy. Ben Snakepit – Ben’s been drawing three-panel punk rock diary comics every day since 2001 Aaron Whitaker and Melinda Tracy Boyce – This comics power couple just moved here from Portland. They do diary and literary comics collaboratively and singly. Zach Taylor – Zach does totally out-there adventures comics and runs the Austin Sketch Group, who meet up every Sunday to draw comics (and they’re not the only draw club in town). You can see most of these folks once a year at STAPLE!, a local indy media/comics festival that’s been getting bigger and better every one of the seven years its run. In general, Austin has a community that’s really supportive of DIY efforts and art. The music, literary, and art scenes ooze over and intermingle with the comics scene. There are a lot of creative people doing a lot of things here. If only it weren’t so damn hot. Share this page: [...]

08/28/2018

Aaron CockleAugust 27, 2018NewsL. Nichols; Risography!; NY Comics & Picture-story Symposium; Attentional Generative Networks; Ignatz Noms ————————————————————————————————— “Oh crap, I’m drawing myself.” L. Nichols is interviewed by Martyn Pedler at TCJ: You talked about about figuring things out through your art. Did making Flocks change the way you thought about faith, or thought about God? It was very healing. I printed out the first five chapters, made floppies of them, and had people come and tell me how much it meant to them to read it. It means so much to me to hear that. What making Flocks changed is my faith in other people. It helps me feel more connected to myself and connected to others. I always felt like my uncomfortableness about sharing it would be offset by the good that would come of it. Making this always felt like something I had to do. I needed to do this. It wasn’t easy to write. I feel like I relived so much stuff. I’m really glad that my wife is so supportive, and my in-laws are very supportive. I feel very lucky. I tried to end it on a good note. I’m a bit of a sappy person, just naturally, and I was trying to make it not too sappy. But I feel like I’ve ended up in a great place, and I have so much, and I’m so grateful that I have all that I have – so it’s hard for me to look at my past with too much pain. If I hadn’t have gone through that, I wouldn’t be here. If I changed anything, I wouldn’t be me. Writing the book has helped me embrace my past in some ways. To find new comfort in it, and new confidence in myself and who I’ve become. ————————————————————————————————— The Vintage Japanese Copy Machine Enjoying an Artistic Renaissance Atlas Obscura looks at the risograph machine and it’s use in contemporary book-making: Independent publishing houses like Perfectly Acceptable and TXTbooks are helping turn the grainy likability of Risograph printing into a global aesthetic. The myriad color combinations that are possible (Davis’ favorite being “mint and sunflower, 100 percent,” and Terzis celebrating the mix of “any of the complementary colors, because when you put them together they really vibrate”) makes it seem like the Risograph was destined for artistic flourish all along. But Issue Press founder George Wietor challenges the idea of the Riso’s “look” overshadowing its intended purpose: “The simplicity of the Riso brings a specific kind of arts publishing within reach and allows me to work with ink and paper in a way that I would otherwise have difficulty achieving,” he says, “but I am (only very mildly) concerned about elevating the Riso to something more than it is or, I believe, should be—which is a means of production rather than a specific style.” ————————————————————————————————— New York Comics & Picture-story Symposium Fall 2018 Events Calendar Presenters of potential interest to readers of this news-blog include (but are not limited to): September 11: Sharad Sharma on Grassroots Comics: By the people, for the people. In the last 20 years World Comics has conducted more than 1,200 comics workshops in the most remote and disturbed areas of the globe and trained over 1,000,000 people in making comics about local issues. November 13: Jason Lutes speaks about completing his two-decade-long project Berlin December 4: Lala Albert will read from various short and long comics created over the past 4 years, featuring mainly works in sci-fi, erotica and sci-fi erotica genres. She will also discuss the process that went into making some or all of the comics. Check the website for more info. ————————————————————————————————— Text to Image Via Rob Beschizza at Boingboing via AttnGAN: Fine-Grained Text to Image Generation with Attentional Generative Adversarial Networks by Tao Xu, Pengchuan Zhang, Qiuyuan Huang, Han Zhang, Zhe Gan, Xiaolei Huang, Xiaodong He. A research team wrote about how they trained a machine-learning AI to generate images from text descriptions. When fed birds as its dataset, it got very good at painting birds… Try it out here. ————————————————————————————————— Small Press Expo Announces 2018 Ignatz Award Nominees ————————————————————————————————— Cement Mixer – 8-28-18 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

05/05/2016

HarrisonMay 5, 2016News Daily views of daily news. For Thursday were looking for the free stuff, talking about (visual) language, paying attention to style, and cooking up soul. ————————————————————————————————— Freebies Tell your friends and family, Free Comic Book Day is Saturday. Find a store here and try not to get stingy. ————————————————————————————————— “Look at him. In a couple of years he could become another Picasso.” “I watched Style Wars today – it’s been on my list ever since reading that bit of Hip Hop Family Tree by @edpiskor. I made a bunch of “scene” cards and arranged them this way – next time I’ll arrange them a different way. Turns out I like drawing break dancers almost as much as I like drawing graffiti.” Sally Ingraham Putting this idea from my CW colleague in my briefcase for the near future. ————————————————————————————————— Eye Emoji. Paintbrush Emoji. “A critique is an oral or written discussion strategy used to analyze, describe, and interpret works of art. Critiques help students hone their persuasive oral and writing, information-gathering, and justification skills.” ————————————————————————————————— Ideas and Language By Cameron Nicholson Your ideas are pure, but in order to make your ideas connect, you must learn the language they understand and speak. Once you’ve learned the stepping tones of their language you can get your ideas through. Then they HAVE to listen. Now that you have them listening, captivate them. Captivate them for the sake of YOU creating; you’re not catering to their needs. Your ideas are way more powerful than you think, the language barrier is what halts understanding from artist to viewer. These Language Barriers in art are why artists and non-artist get scared or become stagnant, but then we realize these languages are the “foundations.” Knowing these foundations are the basic words of art. “Whether or not you agree now, you will begin to at least listen once I start speaking your language.” If I started a track with a sample of Otis Redding’s “Try a Little Tenderness” that led into my song or beat, a listener can become indirectly invested to continue listening. For people who love Otis or that sound you already feel comfortable and invested in him & those sounds. It’s how mixing and sampling became so big in Hip Hop. Fan Art uses the languages you already comfortable with and gets you to keep listening. Everyone has different taste, but the idea is to learn the foundation/language of that “art form” to speak your thoughts. Thus the idea of languages in/of art. Morning thoughts and ideas forming in this odd head of mine. I’ll keep cracking at these ideas until they make sense to everyone. Smooth music to relax, drink some tea or even work too. Richmond, Va’s DJ Harrison makes some insanely amazing beats. Each track can give you energy to do many different things. I personally like “Vault Series #6 Trio 1967” just some great things there. When doing comics, think of beats per panel. 1, 2, 3, 4. 1, 2, 3, 4. Comics as music, music as comics. https://djharrison.bandcamp.com/ ————————————————————————————————— Live! Sop up this soul with your breakfast bread. Happy Thursday. Share this page: [...]

08/19/2016

Posted on August 19, 2016 by Sally Ingraham

Sally here with your Friday comics news roundup – a little bleary after a late night comics-making blitz with Gabriella Tito. The Rowhouse is a busy place these days and Comics Workbook is moving ahead at full-steam in a number of directions – I’ve got updates on those projects, as well as some glorious Olympic moments with Katie Fricas, Leslie Stein with some guitar riffs, Meghan Turbitt on the the move, and a brick or two thrown by a mouse named Ignatz.

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Gabriella Tito arrived at the Rowhouse last night for a weekend residency, and she hadn’t been in the house more than 5 minutes before the index cards came out. She and Frank and I sat around until late in the night drawing and discussing comics. Gabriella is a graduate of Frank’s correspondence course and a member of the Comics Workbook Roller Derby League. You can find more of her work HERE – and expect to hear more about this true comics ninja soon.

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Speaking of the Comics Workbook Roller Derby League…the girls have been quietly pumping out articles, reviews, and comics all summer, meeting for “practice” and “derby bouts” every Sunday, honing skills and getting comfortable “skating together”, if you will.

You can find an index of the work that the league has published HERE on the site – follow them on Instagram (@cwrollerderby) – catch up with members of the team at SPX and CXC this year (more details on those appearances soon!) – and stay tuned for other exciting developments as the Comics Workbook Roller Derby League continues to evolve.

More info about CWRD can be found HERE.

Allie and Alyssa — Blind contour comics drawn by Allie Doersch (left) and Alyssa Berg (right) during a Sunday “roller derby bout”

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Katie Fricas jumped on the Olympics bandwagon this week and published a hilarious comic on The Awl about Forgotten Moments From Past Summer Olympics.

Check out the rest HERE!

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The Bandcamp Daily blog recently published a profile on Leslie Stein, which showcases her music as well as her comics (she is a guitarist and vocalist for the rock band Prince Rupert’s Drops).

“Though her comics are usually based on her own life, and are infused with her love of music (referencing Alex Chilton, LCD Soundsystem, Ringo Starr, The Band, Neil Young, Michael Hurley, and even the Osmonds), they rarely focus on her experiences as a musician. “I think art has always taken precedence over everything in my life,” Stein says. “I read about Hendrix falling asleep with his guitar in his bed; I fall asleep on the floor next to my drawing table sometimes. Not that I am comparing myself artistically to Hendrix, of course.” “

leslie-600-5 — Detail from a panel in *Eye of the Majestic Creature*

I read the most recent volume (Time Clock) of her long-running series Eye of the Majestic Creature a few weeks ago and found the stories about weird jobs, bad hangovers, and mysterious loneliness to be very funny and heart-wrenchingly familiar. Be sure to also check out her diary comics, which are running on VICE – here’s the most recent update.

The rest of the Bandcamp Daily piece on Leslie Stein is available HERE.

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SPX announced the 2016 Ignatz nominees – HERE.

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Meghan Turbitt is having a Moving Sale! Original drawings from her NYC and Philadelphia Subway Sketchbooks starting at $10 – get all the goodies HERE.

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Comics Workbook is very pleased to present a new book from Connor Willumsen – Portraits. Available now for pre-order – get your copy HERE!

Connor is one of the original CW samurais. He will be joining Frank Santoro at The Lakes International Comic Arts Festival this fall, teaching workshops and sharing his process. Look for him there!

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Go forth and lead extraordinary lives this weekend, folks. Sally out.

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Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in NewsTagged Connor Willumsen, CWRD, gabriella tito, ignatz award nominations, katie fricas, Leslie Stein, meghan turbitt

Sally Ingraham

Posted on August 19, 2016

Explore

05/17/2016

Aaron CockleMay 16, 2016NewsAntonioni Comics Continued; Sophia Foster-Dimino; Genesis Breyer P-Orridge; SPREAD Zinefest; Adam Baumgold Gallery; NYRB Comics Release Party; Boom Box Profile; James Ensor Temptations ————————————————————————————————— CW continues it’s feature of Laila Milevski’s Drawing Antonioni. Please take some time to read/re-read/re-re-read this comic, it’s one of the most creative uses of the Frank Santoro Grid Technique System I’ve seen to date. ————————————————————————————————— New Sophia Foster-Dimino Comic ————————————————————————————————— Genesis Breyer P-Orridge: Try to Altar Everything Exhibition March 11-August at the Rubin Museum, NYC For nearly half a century Genesis Breyer P-Orridge has been questioning the meaning and substance of identity through artistic endeavors, willful reincarnation, and physical shapeshifting. Try to Altar Everything, a selection of paintings, sculptures, and installations, will explore the ways that Hindu mythology and Nepal’s Kathmandu Valley have influenced the artist and h/er work. ————————————————————————————————— SPREAD ZINEFEST I hear Groningen is lovely in June. ————————————————————————————————— Comic Inspirations at Adam Baumgold Gallery ————————————————————————————————— New York Review Comics Release Party Friday, May 27 at 7pm at BookCourt in Brooklyn ————————————————————————————————— On Boom Box The success of “The Lumberjanes” started with grass-roots efforts. Ms. Watters and her fellow creators — Brooke Allen, Grace Ellis and Noelle Stevenson — made copies of the first eight pages, included an order form, and gave them out free. “It was supposed to be eight issues, and then it became something much more, kind of growing ever since beyond our wildest dreams,” Ms. Watters said. ————————————————————————————————— Temptation: The Demons of James Ensor at Art Institute Chicago The exhibition was 2014/2015 but there is still an elaborately designed interactive aspect available to those with an internet connection. ‘Before the compositions I feel anxious and exalted,’ wrote Ensor in 1887, commenting on his work as he began to develop The Temptation. More than a century later, as we explore his monumental achievement, we share something of those emotions. To study the work is at times disturbing but—as we hope you will agree—it is, above all, exhilarating. ————————————————————————————————— Share this page: [...]

Noah Van Sciver’s FANTE BUKOWSKI

Chris Anthony DiazJuly 8, 2016The Diaz ArchiveNoah Van Sciver FANTE BUKOWSKI original art that was unpublished (first, second and fourth photos) and published (inside end covers, third photo) in the book. Plus, a chance to see how Noah colors partially on the original art before completing digitally on the computer. More of Noah’s work can be purchased at Fantagraphics Share this page: [...]

07/22/2016

Sally IngrahamJuly 22, 2016NewsSally here with you today to show off what Renee French and Vanesa R. Del Ray have been drawing lately, check in with Sophie Yanow on the ground at the Republican National Convention and Atena Farghadani in Iran, take a peek at the San Diego Comic-Con, and hear what Mike Kuchar and Anne Bongiovanni are hyped about. ————————————————————————————————— Things are heating up everywhere as the summer progresses, and Sophie Yanow is in the thick of things this week as she makes comic reports for The Nib on the Republican National Convention. Her most recent Mean Streets piece documented some of the goings on around the 4th Street RNC entrance the other day, aptly titled The Clash. Check it out HERE. The Nib has exploded since the recent launch of it’s new website, with comics piling in from all sides. Check back daily for the latest on the Convention and other good stuff – (Get to Know the 2016 GOP Platform by Andy Warner and Sophie Louise Dam is a particularly useful read!) ———————————————————————————————— The Washington Post had an exclusive interview with Atena Farghadani recently. Farghadani is the 29-year-old cartoonist who had been arrested and sentenced in 2014 to more than 13 years in prison after drawing Iran’s parliament as animals. She was protesting her government’s anti-birth control policies. She spent the better part of 2 years in prison, before finally being released in May of this year. Michael Cavna was the first Western reporter to conduct an interview with Farghadani since her release, via email and with the help of the Cartoonists Rights Network International. Farghadani speaks about her imprisonment only briefly, focusing more on her plans to stay in Iran, where she will continue being an activist and a cartoonist. “At the moment, since I’ve arrived at the certainty that there is miracle lying in the art of drawing and painting, I’m more determined to continue doing it than ever.” – Atena Farghadani Read the whole interview HERE. ———————————————————————————————— The San Diego Comic-Con is in full swing, and Michael Dooley wrote a piece for Print about the women who will be getting well-deserved recognition, as featured guests, panelists, and during the Eisner Award ceremony. “This year’s Eisner Awards ceremony will offer a relief to the series of sexist fiascos surrounding the Angoulême Comics Festival’s Grand Prix earlier this year. Around fifty deserving women have garnered 61 nominations in 27 of the thirty categories. A large number of them will be present to accept their honors, including the triple-nominated Joëlle Jones and Colleen Coover as well as SDCC Spotlight guests Kate Beaton and Emily Carroll. I’ve assembled some of the most graphically impressive works from among these artists, and concluded by acknowledging one more from the author of a book that’s sure to be of vital interest to any and all designing cartoon enthusiasts.” – Michael Dooley Check out the full list HERE. ———————————————————————————————— Drawing to @peteholmes ‘s podcast for the upcoming @eatmoreartout show “Slim Pug with Chex Mix” A video posted by Renee French (@reneefrench) on Jul 20, 2016 at 8:09pm PDT I enjoy Renee French‘s work, and find the process videos that she posts on her Instagram account particularly fascinating. The one above is her most recent offering, and since we have a fondness for pugs (Lenny!) around the Comics Workbook headquarters, I had to share it here. Give French’s Baby Bjornstrand (Koyama Press) a look if you haven’t yet experienced how her unique style translates into comics storytelling – HERE. ———————————————————————————————— Open Space conducted a conversation with Mike Kuchar this week. It delves into the relationship between filmmaking and cartooning, both of which Kuchar excels at, and the guys he used to hang out with in California – folks like R. Crumb, Billy Griffith, and Art Spiegelman. It’s a highly entertaining read. “You know, even the stupidest movie or the most despised movie, there’s always something that is a spark. There’s something that can be explored or affects you in a certain way. I love Hollywood movies. That’s how I learned movie making — when I was watching the picture, I was also seeing how they were made, in some ways. And I love junk stuff. I love B-movies, I love the cheap science fiction movies of the fifties. I love to look at paintings too, because in some ways, they also help me as a cinematographer. You see a painting and the colors that are used, the composition — there’s magic in an image. Something will affect you. There’s magic. There’s a sense of atmosphere, light and mood. I always find the mediums are all interchangeable.” – Mike Kuchar via Open Space Read the whole thing HERE – via Dan Nadel at TCJ. ———————————————————————————————— Anne Bongiovanni made the twelfth installment of Comic Book Decalogue over on The Comics Journal – listen to it HERE! ———————————————————————————————— Check out the Summer Set that Uncivilized Books is featuring, especially the new mini-comic from Laura Park – Do Not Disturb My Waking Dream #5. (“Pigeons, French guest stars, face punching, stolen oranges, dogs, true Americans, warts and so much more!“) ———————————————————————————————— And now, what the heck, a process video from Vanesa R. Del Ray to finish up – ?Mr. Bones? #timelapse A video posted by Vanesa R. Del Rey (@vrdelrey) on Jul 13, 2016 at 10:24am PDT ———————————————————————————————— These days you never know what the next week will hold, but we’ll be back to investigate it with you on Monday! – Sally Share this page: [...]

09/28/2018

Sally IngrahamSeptember 28, 2018NewsSally here. I read most of the comics in Mickey Z‘s Space Academy 123 (Koyama Press, 2018) when they were appearing daily on her Instagram last year. However, downing the strip all together in one big gulp last night was very stimulating. I feel ZAPPED! (Very similar to how Ashley Forgiveness feels all the time – without the aid of caffeine – in the story.) This comic appeals to me on many levels. There’s the whacky space academy setting, the characters making a whole lot out of not very much, the reflection on what school really is FOR anyway, the outrageously free drawing style…plus it’s really funny. Knowing, as I was reading the book, that Mickey Z wrote and drew it daily, made the overarching plot lines more fun. Coming up with a new strip every day that is punchy and interesting is a lot of work. There really aren’t any duds in this collection. Each character follows their own bizarre journey, crashing into the others along the way. The simple life of the space station school slowly swings out of whack as Grandfather Computer takes over. Principle Summers is forced to make a big decision (despite the fact that all she ever wanted was to be a simple space chiropractor!) Ashley bounces off walls, Andrew navigates his anxiety, Naomi explores the loneliness that turns her into a bully. Shandy (the youngest character in the story, aged somewhere between 9-12) will do anything to get out of Sunshine Storytime. There’s something so powerful about comics making like this – pure on-the-fly storytelling, using whatever materials are on hand. Some might look at Space Academy 123 and call it sketchy, rough, unrefined. I beg to differ. Mickey Z is a really good cartoonist. To my eyes there is an elegance in these dashed off pages which only comes from practice and skill. Her timing is great. Her drawings contain and transmit the wild rush of strange emotions, the sick sense of failure, the fraying of sanity, and the bold realization of the total absurdity of life. The contrast between which characters experience what is where a lot of the humor lies. The final strip in the collection concludes the overall story magnificently, while summing up nothing at all. It was a real delight to revisit Space Academy 123 and I recommend it, along with the rest of Mickey Z’s work, which you can navigate your way to HERE. ————————————————————————————————— 09-28-2018 – by Niall Breen Share this page: [...]

05/24/2018

Sally IngrahamMay 24, 2018NewsSally here with a Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency Report from Jason Robinson! ———————————————————————————————— Jason Robinson is a comics maker, illustrator, and graphic designer living in Asbury Park, NJ. He joined us in Pittsburgh early last summer for a weeklong Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency. When Jason arrived, he mentioned that he had brought along a few “housewarming gifts” – these turned out to be several boxes worth of kitchen gadgets, pots and pans, a tea kettle, and other goodies for the Rowhouse that future residents and the more long-term resident cartoonists have made delighted use of. This generous gift was just one among many ways that Jason showed his support for the Rowhouse Residency, and if Frank and the rest of the team was able to give him anything in return we are grateful! It’s a treat to revisit Jason’s time in Pittsburgh through his thoughtful and entertaining residency report – here’s an excerpt: “Day six was filled with daydreams and the jotting down of enough story ideas to last the next five years. In many ways, I feel like I was just getting revved up and here I am at the end, hoping I have the discipline to continue this trajectory or at least ride this wave for a long while. Because only now have the chaotic thoughts begun to settle on the floor of my brain. And I’m able to calmly wander through, picking up bits and pieces, and notice how some seem to connect—to join together like pieces of a puzzle. I joined Frank and Sally for dinner on that last night. And a bit drunk on wine, I tried to convey this feeling by paraphrasing a similar concept I’d read somewhere about a scientist explaining that “it may not look like I’m working when I’m staring off into space, but what I’m really doing is constructing a 3-dimensional puzzle in my head—piecing together bits and bytes of information, and that takes time and focus to carefully construct this puzzle in my mind’s sky so that it may stand on it’s own. So, please don’t interrupt me, or you risk the pieces of the puzzle caving in on each other, imploding into a cloud of ash.” …Fortunately, Frank has a better and much more succinct iteration in his back pocket – “When I’m working, you may not see it, but I’m welding here. I have a helmet on, and my mitt, it grips a fucking torch-of-fire. So stand back, or you’re in danger!” I’ll close with some unsolicited advise to future residents: You don’t have to chain yourself to the drawing table. Of course you may, and obviously there can be great benefits to doing so, I only argue that there are other equally constructive ways to make use of this time you’ve carved out for yourself. Paradoxically, doing “nothing” may be exactly what’s needed to do the next something.“ Read the rest of Jason Robinson’s Rowhouse Residency Report HERE! For more info on the Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency please visit this page or email santoroschool@gmail.com ———————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 5-24-18 – by Audra Stang Share this page: [...]

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