Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in NewsTagged anders nilsen, andrea tsurumi, brooklyn book festival, Cameron Arthur, DNA, Eadweard Muybridge, Jack Kirby, ny art book fair, RNA, sally ingraham, SPX

Aaron Cockle

Posted on August 28, 2017August 28, 2017

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10/11/2016

Aaron CockleOctober 10, 2016NewsAaron here today with CW festival events for this upcoming weekend; Chinese Comics; Agnes Martin; Dog City 3; Screening Dash Shaw; Reviewing Safe Distance; Some Notable Comics of Note ————————————————————————————————— Comics Workbook will be participating in 2 festivals this weekend in the U.S. and U.K. Cartoon Crossroads Columbus, October 13-16. We will be hosting workshops and tabling. Join Comics Workbook, along with cartoonists Alyssa Berg and Kurt Ankeny, for an immersive weekend of comics creation. We will examine art and the grid, bringing the strong artistic practices of Berg and Ankeny together with the discipline and rhythm of the grid, as laid out by Comics Workbook founder Frank Santoro. Four hours across two days will be filled with the exploration of a variety of techniques and methods which will inspire the beginner, and challenge the established cartoonist. Comics as jazz; comics as architecture; how a simple index card can transform your sequencing and storytelling process – come join us for an hour or four and take your comics making to a new level. The full festival schedule is here. The Lakes International Comic Art Festival, October 14-16. Join Frank Santoro, Aidan Koch, and Connor Willumsen for some cool workshops and visit table 67 in the Comics Clocktower to meet Oliver East and Jack Brougham, among others. We will be hosting 3 special workshops, “Visual Poetry” with Aidan Koch, “The Hammer Party” with Connor Willumsen and “Composition Competition” with Frank Santoro. Visit our event page for more information. ————————————————————————————————— Chinese Indie Comix Writer, critic, and translator R. Orion Martin has an overview of the Special Comix anthologies published in China during the past 10 years or so: Like other iterations of Special Comix, the artists are working in a range of qualities and directing their work towards diverse, sometimes mutually exclusive audiences. Some artists use the poster format to great effect, creating dense visual landscapes that challenge the reader to interpret them. Yayi’s intricately constructed illustration guides the viewer from one symbol-laden visual to another, refusing to settle into any obvious reading. Similarly, New York-based illustrators Lisk Feng and Jun Cen contribute surreal works that seem to a capture a single moment from a much longer tale. Lisk Feng’s work depicts a troop of Boy Scouts and the creatures that haunt them, while Jun Cen presents a naked woman who has just encountered a giant praying mantis encased in a Mignola-esque crystal prison. Though both these artists come from a background in illustration, they use the poster format to build the foundation for a narrative that could develop in multiple directions. Image above by Chihoi, I’m waiting for you to come back (from Special Comix 6: Transform). Additionally, Martin has been conducting interviews with Chinese cartoonists and artists (Yan Cong, Li Kong, Fanqiao Wang), as well as translating work into English (Bu Er Miao). ————————————————————————————————— Agnes Martin on view at the Guggenheim through January 11 One of the few female artists who gained recognition in the male-dominated art world of the 1950s and ’60s, Martin is a pivotal figure between two of that era’s dominant movements: Abstract Expressionism and Minimalism. Her content—an expression of essential emotions—relates her to the earlier group, the Abstract Expressionists, but her methods—repetition, geometric compositions, and basic means—were adopted by the Minimalists, who came to prominence during the ’60s. Martin’s work, however, is more than a bridge between the two. It stands apart by never losing sight of the subjective while aspiring toward perfection. “I would like to represent beauty, innocence and happiness,” she said. “I would like them all to represent that. Exaltation.” ————————————————————————————————— Dog City #3 CW’s intrepid Juan Fernandez recently unearthed some copies of Dog City 3, from 2014. From his Instagram: I found some of the LAST copies of Dog City 3 and took some to @copaceticcomics – the rest of ’em are safe and sound at my place 😉 Want to bring one of these puppies home?$27 bux postpaid. US shipping only. “The comics expo in a box.” Mad props to Closed Caption Comics for setting the bar way back when. For those of you not yet in the know: Dog City is a small press comics magazine dedicated to publishing quality minicomics. Each issue of Dog City consists of a curated selection of minicomics packaged in an artfully designed cardboard box. Dog City 3 features comics by: Jennifer Lisa, Sophie Goldstein, Caitlin Rose Boyle, Luke Healy, Simon Reinhardt, Amelia Onorato, dw n me, Allison Banister and Tom O’Brien with a collaborative mini, Iris Yan, D. Rinylo – prints and posters by Laurel Lynne Leake and Steven Krall + reprints a selection of strips from the now-forgotten newspaper series Who’s Zoo, which has been restored and compiled by Reilly Hadden! ————————————————————————————————— Making My Entire High School Sinking Into the Sea Wednesday, October 12, 7pm, as part of the New York Film Festival, at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, 144 West 65the Street, NYC With My Entire High School Sinking into the Sea, playing in this year’s Main Slate, celebrated graphic novelist Dash Shaw and his team have created a beautifully layered, colorful, and entertaining new animated film. Shaw’s first feature is a comic adventure about friends overcoming their differences and having each other’s backs in times of crisis, and its marvelously complex characters are voiced by Jason Schwartzman, Lena Dunham, Reggie Watts, Maya Rudolph, and Susan Sarandon. This discussion—featuring writer-director Dash Shaw, lead animator Jane Samborski, and producer Kyle Martin—will go behind the scenes to explore the making of this distinctive new movie. ————————————————————————————————— James K. Hindle’s mini-comic, Safe Distance, is reviewed over at Sequential State Hindle sets the stage of the comic with a bizarre chemical spill that only affects his apartment. The strange spill causes an overgrowth of plants and trees inside his apartment, eventually causing the destruction of his home and his disconnection from the rest of the world. The metaphor of destructive change, acceptance, and growth links closely with the way death affects families and people. No matter where you are when you start, you aren’t the same at the end. The grieving, the anger, those final questions – they all change you irrevocably. ————————————————————————————————— B.A.C. 2016 The Notable Comics list from The Best American Comics 2016 has been posted, see if you (or someone you may care dearly for and/or feel massively ambivalent about) are on the list! Thanks to series editor Bill Kartalopoulos for compiling and painstakingly linking to each of the cartoonists and their individual works on the list. And here’s a quick note from Bill K about the B.A.C. series: As Series Editor of The Best American Comics, it is my job to attempt to see as many of each year’s most interesting comics as I can. The majority of these arrive as submissions through our public postal address (below). Others I find by attending comics festivals, consulting with colleagues, reaching out individually to artists and publishers, visiting comic books stores, endlessly scanning the internet, and generally keeping my antenna up at all times. After nearly a year of looking and reading, I forward to each year’s Guest Editor a selection of more than one hundred outstanding works. From this pool of material, the Guest Editor selects the pieces that will appear in each year’s Best American Comics (while retaining, as well, the latitude to bring in some work they may have discovered independently). On the subject of our process, I cannot urge any artist or publisher strongly enough to submit work to Best American Comics. We have a completely open submission process, and all work that is submitted will be considered. Please send work, labeled with contact information and date of publication, to: Bill Kartalopoulos Series Editor The Best American Comics Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company 3 Park Avenue, 19th floor New York, NY 10016 ————————————————————————————————— Have you seen the recent collaboration between Frank Santoro and master jeweler Airi Maeno? Want to help us get Connor Willumsen to The Lakes International Comic Art Festival? Share this page: [...]

05/07/2018

Caleb OrecchioMay 7, 2018NewsCaleb Orecchio here with thoughts on Free Comics Book Day 2018. ———————————————————————————————————— Another year, another Free Comic Book Day. I’m mad at myself because I can’t seem to find the stack of free comics I cherry-picked at Copacetic Comics, and am beginning to have the suspicion that I left them at the shop while perusing the sweet deals Bill Boichel was offering. D’oh! There were some real good free comics this year. Jim Rugg’s Street Angel represented Image while D+Q offered an excerpt of Jason Lute’s recently finished Berlin, and I was looking forward to reading some Prince Valiant and Mickey Mouse strips. But if I’m being honest, the deals are really the reason I look forward to FCBD every year. The free comics are the icing on the cake. Of course, going to Copacetic and talking to Bill is worth the trip in and of itself. When someone mentioned Prince Valiant, Bill pulled out some Valiant Sunday pages from some 1940’s newspaper. You can ask Bill most anything about comics and he probably he has an opinion on it. I like to throw clay pigeons and watch Bill shoot them out of the air. Like I said, I seem to have forgotten my FCBD comics, but as one does at Copacetic I found plenty of gold. I did mental math to budget my indulgence since I was bringing copies of my comic Poor Little Joanie for restock (they were nearly sold out) and figured they’d help supplement my comics buying. We talked about this we talked about that. Bill gave me some feedback on my latest secret project, and made me feel good about what I’m doing. I left the store with an amplified electric charge. Then to Spirit, a really cool pizza place slash bar here in Pittsburgh where Juan Fernandez had a zine table set up as part of Spirit Walls 3 where local graffiti artists were collaborating on a mural on the restaurant’s outside wall facing the parking lot. I bought some comics from Juan’s table and he graciously offered me his chair while he sat on two stacked milk crates and we talked comics. Juan has a lot of ideas, so many ideas and so little time. I always learn something with Juan. He told me the Spanish comics magazine TBO was so popular, it became the generic word for comics in Spain, “tebeo.” Think how people in New Jersey call all soda, “coke.” Eventually it started to rain so I helped him pack up, then we got a couple of slices at the bar and talked more comics and life. There was a pro wrestling match going on upstairs which would sound like claps of thunder occasionally. Then J. Malls, the great Pittsburgh DJ, was getting warmed up for Title Town. The bartender told us that it’s a real popular show where Pittsburghers gather and form lines around the block to get down. Juan and I however, needed to get to Schenley Park to catch the end of Pittonkatonk Brass BBQ where we saw What Cheer Brigade and Keleta and Super Yamba Band. Both bands were like snake charmers and all the Pittsburghers crammed into Vietnam Veteran’s Pavilion moved together like a city possessed. I’m happy to be here in Pittsburgh. The city is gradually pulling me out of my shell and reversing some negative introverted tendencies one accumulates when you work from home. It helps that I hang out with a lot of cool cartoonists around here and they help get me out of the house in a way walking my dog can’t. ———————————————————————————————————— if you don’t know, now you know Jim Rugg talks Street Angel with Chris Aiken at BlackNerdProblems.com. Kevin Huizenga “teases” a Ganges graphic novel. Tegan O’Neill interviews Craig Thompson at TCJ.com in support of the re-release of his graphic memoir, Carnet de Voyage. Sam Theilman talks with the infamous Frank Miller at The Guardian. ———————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 05-07-18 – by Gabriella Tito Share this page: [...]

03/13/2017

Sally IngrahamMarch 13, 2017NewsGrab your cup of coffee and dig into a new week with us – we have news and comics from Berliac, Sophie Yanow, Jim Rugg, Jaime Hernandez, and more. ————————————————————————————————— The Winter 2017 semester of the Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers drew to a close a few weeks ago, and now several of the students have completed their course comics and graduated. November Garcia‘s Cycle can be seen in full HERE – and Drew Lerman‘s Boucher’s House is HERE. The course is hard, but those students who stick with it and create a 16 page, full color comic, usually have the sense that they’ve just finished a hero’s journey. Congratulations to these and every other student who has made it through the woods, over the mountain, down the river – but there is no sunset for you to ride off into just yet – simply more fantastic comics to make! (To apply to the Spring 2017 semester of the course visit this page.) ————————————————————————————————— Berliac‘s new book SADBØI is available now in Norway, and he shared a translation of a review on his site recently – the review appeared in the publication Morgenbladet. “Berliac’s embrace of Gekiga aesthetics falls under what the Americans define – and often condemn – as cultural appropriation, ie a consumerist approach to aesthetics and forms of expression with roots in (minority) cultures which one is not a part of. And in his book SADBØI, this transposition of a traditional Japanese form of expression into a European context plays a central role. … The story of how the protagonist rejects the roles Norwegian society offers to people like him, fits into the artistic tradition in which Art functions as a magical realm where society’s rules and regulations can be redefined. SADBØI is a compressed sociological essay based on Jean-Paul Sartre’s treatise about social outcasts in his tribute to the writer Jean Genet, “Saint Genet” (1952). By disguising these ideas about social integration in a visual language that is based on what may be perceived as an illegitimate use of culturally determined forms of expression, Berliac creates a dynamic that makes the book something far more than just a pastiche.” – Aksel Kielland Read the rest HERE. Berliac is an Argentinean cartoonist who now lives in Berlin. We don’t have specific dates for when SADBØI will appear in the States – but it will hopefully be soon. ————————————————————————————————— R.J. Casey interviewed Sophie Yanow for The Comics Journal last week – they talk about her initial focus on autobio comics and her more recent interest in comics journalism, which has kept her extremely busy over the past year or so. “What are people’s reactions when you tell interview subjects or sources that you will be drawing them for your journalism comics? Do you tell them? I do tell them. Usually I just say something like, “I draw portraits along with quotes” because it’s the quickest way to get an understanding across. Most people who object are more concerned with having a picture taken as reference than the actual drawing. Your autobio work can get fairly abstract or minimal in terms of line work, but your comics for The Guardian and The Nib are much more representational. Is that a conscious shift in style? Sometimes in my journal comics I want to keep things abstract enough that folks won’t be able to identify who the “characters” are, since I’m not always drawing those comics with explicit consent. They are more like a diary. When I’m doing journalism, I either have consent or the legal right to talk about someone doing something in public. The goal is totally different. I don’t make the autobio comics to inform the public about issues.“ Read the rest HERE. Check out Sophie Yanow’s new book What Is A Glacier?, available to pre-order from Retrofit Comics, HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Image Comics has a Spotlight on Jim Rugg and his Street Angel comics, in anticipation of their release in April of Street Angel: After School Kung Fu Special. “IC: STREET ANGEL is remarkable for a number of reasons, with its utter lack of irony and great sense of design being high on the list. STREET ANGEL plays fantastic ideas straight—why was this the right tone for a story that could’ve easily been an ironic riff on pop culture? RUGG: I don’t want to make something that’s “so bad it’s good” or a “guilty pleasure.” I enjoy a lot of “trash” culture like wrestling, exploitation movies, and old comic books. And I don’t apologize for it. Street Angel is a kid with problems. It’s important to me that readers identify with her character. Struggling to fit in or to overcome your situation is universal. I like the juxtaposition of different tones. With STREET ANGEL, there’s a lot of room to bring in different genres and to combine the fantastic with the mundane. Expanding her world by focusing on some of the smaller details of her friendships, alliances, and enemies is something I want to share with readers. To that end, STREET ANGEL is the readers’ guide into this fantastic world. Irony would create a distance between readers and Jesse. I want to create a closeness. I want the reader to cheer for Jesse. She may not be the smartest, cleanest, or friendliest kid, but her heart’s in the right place.“ Read the rest HERE. I am definitely looking forward to more Street Angel – look for this in shops around 4/26! ————————————————————————————————— Panel Patters relives Jaime Hernandez’s The Death of Speedy 30 years later: “So much has happened in Maggie’s life since the death of Speedy. She found Hopey again but their love has become something different, maybe purer but not as bright or burning. Ray has been in and out of her life and had so much change because of Maggie, and not always for the better. Maggie and Ray’s love for each other is just as pure as Maggie and Hopey’s but has a whole different essence to it. Ultimately, Speedy was a moment in Maggie’s life but it’s shaped the character that she’s become over the past 30 years. From mechanic to punk to apartment manager and back to mechanic, the great thing about Jaime Hernandez’s portion of Love and Rockets is that we’ve gotten to see these women and men grow up, make mistakes and learn lessons (some of them the right ones and many of them the wrong ones.) And we, the readers, get to how these moments like the death of Speed alter the trajectory of these characters lives.” – Scott Cederlund Read the rest HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Quilt Scraps In a complex article on The Comics Beat which analyzes the BookScan sales analysis of the graphic novels and comics market for 2016…it becomes clear that comics aimed for a younger audience are doing best (18 out of 20 top sellers are for younger readers) and that Raina Telgemeier is making comic sales history. (“Altogether, Raina’s eight books sell a staggering 1.3 million copies for $14.4 million dollars in sales. To put that in context, that means that nearly 5% of all dollars generated by all graphic novels listed (all 21k of them!) are coming from the pen of one woman: Raina Telgemeier.” Read the whole report HERE. Jacob Khepler writes for The Outline when he’s not working on Mother’s News – last week he gave the world a heads up about planning for the 200th anniversary of Frankenstein, coming March 11th 2018! Read more HERE. Jeff Lemire talks to Paste Magazine about his comic Royal City – the first issue debuted from Image Comics last week – more HERE. Phillipe Leblanc interviewed Maggie Umber for The Comics Beat – they talked about her new book Sound of Snow Falling which follows a pair of great horned owls throughout a winter in the forest – HERE. The Comics Alliance rounds up a gallery of the “weirdest Silver Age flash panels“. ————————————————————————————————— The Spring Semester of the Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers has begun! There is a rolling start date for this semester of the course and we are continuing to take applications. Just apply! The course is 8 weeks long – 500 bux – payment plans are available. More details can be found HERE – or email santoroschoolATgmail. Check out a comic by Winter 2017 course grad November Garcia HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Blinkers – 3-13-2017 – by Jack Brougham ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 3-13-2017 – by Gabriella Tito ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 3-13-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio ————————————————————————————————— Cozytown – 3-13-2017 – by Juan Fernandez Share this page: [...]

TCAF 2016 – Lookaround

Frank SantoroJune 29, 2016Festivals and ShowsShare this page: [...]

11/17/2016

Sam OmbiriNovember 17, 2016NewsSam Ombiri brings more thoughts on originality and Sally Ingraham follows up with comics by Shannon Wright and Keith Knight, a quick visit with Yona Harvey and Roxane Gay, the Winter Semester of the Santoro Correspondence Course, and Connor Willumsen’s Punisher pages for sale – plus March: Book 3’s big award. ————————————————————————————————— Sam Ombiri: A Shout-out to David O’Reilly I had more thoughts I wanted to share about originality that I didn’t mention last week, or I guess I feel I didn’t clarify. This is all concerning me, and how I approach originality – I am not an authority to impose. I’m not anti-originality, I guess I’m more thinking I’m anti-concern and preoccupation with originality. I’m not fully sure in which particular context that this struggle for originality would fit. I’m not sure even how to fully name a context of originality. The only thing that comes to my head is how when Lil Dicky became popular, he kept saying in interviews how he’s “different and original” and he repeats that so many times in different interviews to the point where it feels like a joke. Even if you forsake all these other underground hip hop artists, like say Heems, Busdriver, Open Mike Eagle, Danny Brown, Kitty, of course I have to mention Ride, or even if, as some of Lil Dicky’s fans were claiming, Lil Dicky meant in a more mainstream context that he’s so different – there’s the other context. (But even in that context he’s not in any way different.) Even then, as much as anyone can insist they’ve achieved originality and therefore they should be praised, someone can always come along and deny that. In the essay by David O’Reilly that I’ve been thinking about there’s an awesome quote by Tarkovsky – I won’t quote it for a couple reasons, a minor one being that it’s irrelevant. So I’ll just quote a different one, and for the sake of me making a point we’ll pretend he used this quote instead. Tarkovsky said that when he saw The Trial of Joan of Arc, he was touched by “the absolute independence of the spectator in regard to this film. A total independence in the sense that the film never appears to be a spectacle, but rather nature, life itself. If one wants to watch, one watches, if one doesn’t, one doesn’t. If one wants to see it as art one may, otherwise not. Such a strong independence from public and critical opinion remains for me the exemplary attitude of a director towards his audience.” He says later in the interview “when people tell me during the shooting of my film that a certain scene is in a way reminiscent of Bresson – and this has happened – I will immediately change the approach to avoid any resemblance. If there’s such an influence, it doesn’t show on the surface of my work. This is an influence of a deeper nature. It’s a moral influence between artists, without which art cannot exist.” Sammy Harkham said how he was really influenced by Brian Chippendale’s Ninja mini comics while Sammy was doing Somersaulting where the “melodrama is demilitarized” and the events made minor. It’s probably that type of indirect influence. I don’t know if Tarkovsky’s intentions were concerned with originality. It seems to be an altogether different impulse, similarly to the other quote in David O’Reilly’s essay (disregard the first sentence in the quote in relation to the last quote): “A preoccupation with originality of form is more or less a fruitless thing. A truly original person with a truly original mind will not be able to function in the old form and will simply do something different. Others had much better think of the form as being some sort of classical tradition and try to work within it.” I think everything but the last sentence is on a different wavelength than Josh Bayer’s idea of originality being a red herring. I think I would replace the last part of the quote with Josh Bayer’s thoughts on originality being a red herring. ————————————————————————————————— Sally here with some other comics and news from this week. From the Washington Post: “ “March: Book 3,” a graphic novel about the later years of the civil rights movement, won the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature on Wednesday night in New York.“ Congratulations to Rep. John Lewis and the creative team behind the book (including illustrator Nate Powell)! Co-writer Andrew Aydin had two take-aways from the big win, one being that the story of the civil rights movement could continue to be passed on to young people. The other was “Let the prejudice against comic books be buried once and for all!” We applaud that sentiment. Read the rest of the Washington Post article HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Shannon Wright is still making almost daily comics and sharing them on her Instagram. A recent strip: Because I’m not asking whether or not you wanna sleep with the dude or marry him. Get over yourself fellas. #comics #masculinitysofragile #blackartist #womenartists A photo posted by Shannon Wright (@shannondrewthis) on Nov 13, 2016 at 7:09pm PST Follow Shannon at @shannondrewthis for more. ————————————————————————————————— Essence has a feature on Yona Harvey and Roxane Gay’s work on the Black Panther spin-off series World of Wakanda – they talk about some of the challenges of taking on a Marvel Universe storyline. “Storytelling is storytelling, so it’s not that different, save for working within the comic format of panels,” said Gay. “The biggest difference for me was thinking more explicitly in terms of scene.” Harvey’s challenge was the formal outline. “I felt so resistant to the outline. In poetry, I experiment and draft and then shape the story through the placement of the poems. Total opposite of writing comics.” via Essence Read the rest of the article HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Keith Knight on The Nib recently: He has more Th(ink) strips on his website – check them out HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Comics Workbook has announced the Winter Semester of the Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers – course starts Dec. 29th 2016! 10 spots available – apply by Dec. 13th 2016 and get $100 of 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 me small jpgs of images – dont post to your blog pls -specific url links to any comics work you have done. Send applications to: santoroschoolATgmail ————————————————————————————————— Connor Willumsen is selling his Punisher pages http://connorwillumsen.com/punisher/ #connorwillumsen #comicsworkbook #punisher #frankcastle A photo posted by @santoro.frank on Nov 16, 2016 at 5:39pm PST Connor Willumsen is selling the original pages from his Punisher story – check them out here. Share this page: [...]

08/29/2017

Posted on August 28, 2017August 28, 2017 by Aaron Cockle

Aaron Cockle here today with Mitochondrial Comics (sort of); Andrea Tsurumi; Programming Schedules for Small Press Expo + Brooklyn Book Festival + NY Art Book Fair; Jack Kirby in NYC; Anders Nilsen, also in NYC

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“We can create a layer of abstraction where you don’t need to know about RNA folding to design a circuit out of RNA”
This may be a stretch, as far as comics news goes, but with this new method of data storage, we may one day be able to carry around comics (and a lot of other things) within our bodies:

To get a movie into E. coli’s DNA, Shipman and his colleagues had to disguise it. They converted the movie’s pixels into DNA’s four-letter code—molecules represented by the letters A,T,G and C—and synthesized that DNA. But instead of generating one long strand of code, they arranged it, along with other genetic elements, into short segments that looked like fragments of viral DNA.

E. coli is naturally programmed by its own DNA to grab errant pieces of viral DNA and store them in its own genome—a way of keeping a chronological record of invaders. So when the researchers introduced the pieces of movie-turned-synthetic DNA—disguised as viral DNA—E. coli’s molecular machinery grabbed them and filed them away.

The movie they stored was a 36-by-26-pixel GIF of one of the first moving images ever recorded: a galloping mare named Annie G., by Eadweard Muybridge in 1887. The team was able to retrieve it, along with a separate image, with about 90 percent accuracy by sequencing the bacterium’s genome.

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New Work by Andrea Tsurumi
Tsurumi has been busy, providing illustrations for Reshma Saujani’s book, Girls Who Code: Learn to Code and Change the World, along with work at the Nib, Trumpcare is Bad News for Freelancers, and she also has a launch party for her new book, Accident!, on Thursday, October 5 at Books of Wonder in NYC. Keep up the good work, Andrea!

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Programming Schedules for Upcoming Shows

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Life and Legacy of Jack Kirby – August 27-30, 2017
As a follow-up to Caleb’s post from yesterday: On view until Wednesday, August 30 at One Art Space, 23 Warren Street, Street Level Gallery 1, NYC.

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A Cosmic Journey – 8-29-2017 – by Cameron Arthur

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Suzy and Cecil – 8-29-2017 – by Sally Ingraham

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Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in NewsTagged anders nilsen, andrea tsurumi, brooklyn book festival, Cameron Arthur, DNA, Eadweard Muybridge, Jack Kirby, ny art book fair, RNA, sally ingraham, SPX

Aaron Cockle

Posted on August 28, 2017August 28, 2017

Explore

Happy Holidays from Comics Workbook!

Sally IngrahamDecember 25, 2017NewsHappy Holidays from all of us here at Comics Workbook! Comics Workbook’s Daily News is taking a holiday break the week of Dec. 25-29! Our news team will return, refreshed, on January 1st. Do yourself a favor and get ready for the new year: Subscribe to the most exciting comics news site in the world. ⚡ Comics Workbook Daily News ⚡ SUBSCRIBE VIA EMAIL TODAY Share this page: [...]

02/27/2017

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

10/18/2016

Aaron CockleOctober 17, 2016NewsAaron here today with Mould Map 6; Leela Corman; Comics from Spain; Colette Gaiter on the work of Emory Douglas; More Pepe (Sorry, Pepe); Cecily Brown; (Notes For/Towards) Some Capsule Reviews ————————————————————————————————— Mould Map 6: TERRAFORMERS Group Exhibition & Events Series Bonington Gallery, Nottingham 17th September to 21st October 2016 In a break with the publication format of earlier editions, Mould Map 6 will take place as an exhibition / walk-in magazine running over 5 weeks and including talks, screenings, performances and open workshops. Set against the background hum of sci-fi imaginaries common to all Mould Map projects, TERRAFORMERS brings together over 50 practitioners whose work encompasses various approaches to world making, alongside historical visualisations of possible futures and their role in shaping the present. ————————————————————————————————— Life is an ambush. My two birth stories. A Leela Corman comic. ————————————————————————————————— Spanish Fever Panel Discussion from SPX now on Youtube Cómics, tebeos, and novelas gráficas have been making waves on the European comics scene for decades. SPX, in partnership with the Spanish Cultural Center, proudly presents some of the most exciting Spanish talent in the comics scene! Bienvenido a David Rubín, Javier Olivares, Ana Galvañ, José Domingo, and Santiago García. Moderated by cartoonist and teacher Matt Madden. ————————————————————————————————— The 164th meeting of the NY Comics & Picture-story Symposium will be held on Tuesday, Oct. 18, 2016 at 7pm at Parsons School of Design, The New School, 2 West 13th Street, in the Bark Room (off the lobby). Free and open to the public. Colette Gaiter on “Emory Douglas: 50 years of Revolutionary Art” Colette Gaiter will talk about former Black Panther Party Minister of Culture, artist, designer and illustrator Emory Douglas’s work on The Black Panther newspaper in the 1960s and 70s. His subversive and proactive political cartoons, collages and drawings visualized the Black Power movement and galvanized activism that persists into the twenty-first century. He currently travels globally to give talks about his previous work and collaborates with indigenous activists in Australia, New Zealand, Mexico—any place where people use art for liberation from injustice and oppression. ————————————————————————————————— Pepe Pepe Pepe Heer/Pepe The great Jeet Heer has a piece about Pepe the Frog at the New Republic: When the alt-right kidnapped Pepe the Frog, they weren’t just seizing control of Matt Furie’s character, but also defiling an entire artistic tradition of using animal allegories to comment on racism. They were returning cartoon animals to the crudity of blackface creations like Flip the Frog and denying the artistic depth found in works ranging from Krazy Kat to the Muppets to Art Spiegelman’s graphic novel Maus (where the cats are Nazis and the mice Jews). Pepe the Frog, as perverted by its captors, is a kind of inverted Kermit: a frog drained of any humanity. Furie/Pepe Matt Furie: political cartoonist? ————————————————————————————————— Cecily Brown at the Drawing Center through December 18 Via the NY Times: For years, Ms. Brown has taken the images that stay with her and drawn them, not just once but again and again. Sometimes these images are the overwhelming examples of her predecessors, like the masterly 18th-century debauchery of William Hogarth’s painting “Strolling Actresses Dressing in a Barn” or the postmedieval, religiously-tinged excess of Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s “Fight Between Carnival and Lent.” But she also plucks shimmering fragments out of the contaminated tide of sexual imagery that is a fact of modern life — and whether it’s the ecstatically endless variation of the unchanging act itself or the compulsive repetition of pornography, sex seems especially apropos. ————————————————————————————————— Brief, Ephemeral Capsule Reviews Open Country #1, Michael DeForge, 2011, self-published According to Wikipedia: DeForge self-published Open Country #1 in May 2011 and issue #2 in fall 2011. Originally planned as a five-part series, DeForge abandoned it “midway through, destroyed all the artwork for and then threw away all the unsold copies”. We take great comforts in these assured and abandoned works. Late Era Clash #24 & #27, Mike Taylor, 2011 & 2015, Pegacorn Press Fin de siècle Bushwick etc apt-dwelling and loneliness, questionable behavior, the lure of the internet & a workbook about death, respectively. Les nouvelles béguines, Julie Delporte, 2015, self-published Paint and colored pencil and some tape collage. Placement of tape is extremely important. Use of tape in one’s art practice in general. Use of white space on paper – Negative Space etc etc. Hands: An Anti-story, Kimball Anderson, 2015, InkBrick Anderson as a body artist, transcription of hand gestures, process of talking to oneself, balance of pages panels and worded space rubbed out and smudged, first issue in a series. I Never Promised You a Rose Garden Part 1: My Own Private Portland & Part 2: Ken Death is Death, Annie Murphy, 2015 & 2016, self-published Murphy writing about ghosts. River Phoenix, balance of / cohesion of ruled notebook paper and space for image, lab books and writing out text, pacing it out. Portland as a haunted space. Gus van Sant/My Own Private Idaho/River Phoenix. Where it exists in Murphy’s memories. Part 2 and white supremacy in the Pacific Northwest region of the U.S. + Portland history 20 years on. A note on the printing aesthetic: photocopied inkwash. A note on printing aesthetic in general — OC: printed-out greyscale or Riso, maybe? LEC: Riso, screenprinted cover; LNB: Laser-printed?; H: good photocopier probably; INPYARG: see above. Also: wondering about the size of these print runs? Share this page: [...]

Art Trip: Little Black Dress

MardouJune 2, 2016Art Trip / EssaysI just wandered into ‘The Little Black Dress: from Mourning to Night‘ at the Missouri History Museum, not particularly interested in the subject at the get-go. Once I whipped out my pencil, I found myself getting kind of into it. It was popular, lots of people, mainly ladies, many of them dressed up on a Sunday afternoon. There was a nostalgic enjoyment in the air, like people window shopping, remembering old dresses of their own. People felt comfortable here. And it was fun listening into the conversations around me. I got asked some unusual questions whilst I was drawing (including “are you a pattern maker?”) (I also kept thinking of that line from Dan Clowes, whenever he’s stuck watching a boring film, he watches the clothes move and studies the folds. Good advice. Watch the folds.) My favorite part was the glass case containing the sewing machine and dressmaking tools. Suddenly I was thinking about my step-grandma, Ethel, who died a few years ago and of all the years she spent behind her own sewing machine. That special sort of concentration of cutting a pattern out of fabric, transforming the flat material to the body’s shape. When I was in college she reversed-engineered my favorite dress so I suddenly had three of them in different colors. People would ask me about those dresses whenever I’d wear one of them. ————————————————————————————————— Art Trip is a series that features reflections on art and comics, and the adventures that transform those who seek it out. ————————————————————————————————— Sacha Mardou is a Brit making comics in St Louis, Missouri. Sky in Stereo is her most recent comic. Share this page: [...]

05/23/2016

Juan FernándezMay 23, 2016NewsJuan Fernandez with: Berliac’s Gwai-Lo of the Heart; Jessica Abel on becoming a professional; Sara Lautman and Sophia Foster-Dimino; Matt Furie; Abhay Khosla on Dan DiDio; New comics from Matt Seneca + Cameron Weston Nicholson; Comics in the Globe and Mail. ————————————————————————————————— Gwai-Lo of the Heart We’re happy to feature Gwai-Lo of the Heart by Berliac on the site this week. Made in 2015 for Comics Workbook, Gwai-Lo of the Heart is a clever and mysteriously striking series of 4 panel comics that plays with the associations usually made with the West’s gaze towards manga.These little comics pack a poetic. punch. Can you dig it? Read it all here. ————————————————————————————————— Art and Commerce – Raising the Bastard Jessica Abel has put together an honest look over on her site at why you shouldn’t be disregarding the finances of your comics making practices if you want to be a professional. Jessica Abel: I hear so many aspiring cartoonists, writers, artists, audio producers, and other creatives saying something along the lines of: “I’m hoping to really master this art form so that I can achieve my dream of becoming a professional _____.” But mastering the art form, finishing work that is at a professional level, this counts for maybe 40% of what it means to become a professional…whatever. Mastering your art form is how you become a great artist. It is not how you become a professional. ————————————————————————————————— Sara Lautman and Sophia Foster-Dimino in Conversation Foster-Dimino: Making art, even commercial illustration, is a tricky premise, because you want to distinguish yourself from the crowd, but not so much that you become an aberration, so you look within yourself to try to mine what makes you unique, but you also look out to confirm that your uniqueness is still relatable—it’s a very delicate balance, a struggle between wanting to experiment and make progress versus wanting to play it safe and stay predictable. People want to see growth from themselves and the world, but not too much too quickly. I think many folks have an innate sense for this. But a mood disorder by nature warps your metrics. ————————————————————————————————— Myspace -> Meme -> Mainstream Creator of Boy’s Club, Matt “Big Dog” Furie getting the credit he’s due. It’s about time! Here’s a great look at Furie’s invisibly effective comics technique by George Elkind. L.A. TACO interview (2016). VICE interview (2015) TMSIDK Podcast interview (2012) Boy’s Club is now available from Fantagraphics! ————————————————————————————————— ISSUE, RULE, APPLICATION – Abhay Khosla on Dan DiDio For many years, I know I’ve complained about Dan DiDio, and this has seemed like an especially worthy topic to discuss given recent events. So below is some of my own reasoning that I’ve had in believing that Mr. DiDio should have been removed many years ago from his position at DC, a belief I only feel more urgently given recent events. In an ideal world, he would be promoted higher in a corporate hierarchy to a position of irrelevancy, to a position that actually utilized whatever strengths Mr. Davis and others might see in him, while removing him far from the day-to-day nuts & bolts of the mainstream comics industry, where I will argue below he is unsuited. Read it all in depth over at Savage Critic. ————————————————————————————————— Burgundy Cameron Weston Nicholson’s got a new comic for sale post-TCAF. Visual Poetry, mixing the hue with who. Illustrated Poetry with visual definition, feeling. An 18 Page Poem comic. Will come signed with a doodle by yours truly. Get ’em while you can! Only 22 left 😉 ————————————————————————————————— Frankie Teardrop and 200 Deaf Boys Matt Seneca’s latest comics are now available in his webstore. Frankie Teardrop, a brutal, action packed superhero parody and the 4th and final part of 200 Deaf Boys, a Christian mysticism horror show. ————————————————————————————————— 2016 Igntatz Submissions Deadline – June 7th Since 1997, the Ignatz Awards have been intended to recognize outstanding achievements in comics and cartooning by small press creators or creator-owned projects published by larger publishers. If you would like your recent work to be considered for the Ignatzes, now’s the time to send in your comics. Submission details are available here! ————————————————————————————————— The Globe & Comics Sean Rogers over at The Globe and Mail has reviewed After Nothing Comes by Aidan Koch,, Bird in a Cage by Rebecca Roher and, Kramers Ergot 9. It’s exciting to see quality, independently produced work reviewed online and in print by a publication with such wide range. ————————————————————————————————— Until next time! Juan Share this page: [...]

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