Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in NewsTagged Bronson Smillie, comics workbook composition competition 2018, comics workbook rowhouse residency, Cory feder, spx 2018

Sally Ingraham

Posted on September 7, 2018

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02/07/2018

Juan FernándezFebruary 7, 2018los Cómics / NewsJuan empieza el día con La Matadragones de Jaime Hernandez, La llegada de la Brigada, y una gira desde Lone Mountain! ————————————————————————————————— The Dragon Slayer: Folktales from Latin America – Jaime Hernandez with an introduction by F. Isabel Campoy In case, you’ve missed it, Jaime Hernandez is bringing a fresh take on timeless stories in his new collection of folktales,The Dragon Slayer: Folktales from Latin America . In classic TOON Books fashion, there’s a quality bibliography and appendix for those eager readers looking to dig deeper into these stories. As a great treat, it’s being released in Spanish and English editions, both paperback and hardcover. Guided by the classic works of F. Isabel Campoy and Alma Flor Ada, Hernandez’s first book for young readers brings the sights and stories of Latin America to a new generation of graphic novel fans around the world. Want to see how it all comes together? TOON Books has uploaded a nice selection of preview pages for you to dig into on their site. ————————————————————————————————— Sol Díaz Castillo y Marcela Trujillo tienen una nueva edicion de La Polola Podcast! “¡¡Último capítulo de la segunda temporada!! Y nos despedimos con una gran sorpresa; en abril publicaremos el primer número de nuestra revista de cómic hecho por mujeres, (¡al fin!) se llamará “Brígida” por Isabel Molina, Pati Aguilera, Marcela Trujillo(Maliki) y Sol Díaz.Les contamos de los detalles, las primeras colegas invitadas que nos acompañarán, las ideas para el futuro y mucho, mucho más. Además nos acompañan unos audios de un Patreon amigo, y un reporte de Panchulei desde Angoulême.” ————————————————————————————————— On a note of personal, North American interest: John Porcellino will be doing a small tour in support of his new D+Q book, From Lone Mountain (available March 20!). Please see below for dates. (Yes, Pittsburgh, lucky you, of course Porcellino will be stopping by Copacetic Comics.) Though I have some of the zines that this book brings together, I’m eagerly awaiting this collection of comics and stories by Porcellino. If anything, having this body of work together makes a nice package for non-comics readers to unravel into their lives. From Lone Mountain collects stories from Porcellino’s zine King-Cat—John enters a new phase of his life, as he remarries and decides to leave his beloved second home Colorado for San Francisco. Grand themes of King-Cat are visited and stated more eloquently than ever before: serendipity, memory, and the quest for meaning in the everyday. ————————————————————————————————— Collected from the thousands of pages of material that Frank has left scattered all over the digital landscape, these 4 PDF collections contain Frank’s best writing on comics and comics making from the past decade. Theory and process, reviews and discoveries, journeys both physical and spiritual. Check out the “Best of Frank Santoro” PDF collections, available HERE! ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 02-07-18 – by Sally Ingraham ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 02-07-18 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

08/21/2017

Caleb OrecchioAugust 20, 2017NewsCaleb Orecchio here with your Monday edition of the Daily News with some thoughts on drawing sparked by Eleanor Davis and the reputable discipline of Leslie Stein and Gary Panter–and remember not to go blind looking at the eclipse ———————————————————————————————— Recently, a friend of mine lent me Eleanor Davis’ recent Koyama Press release, You & A Bike & A Road. I read it on Tumblr when she was serializing it live (I think) as she embarked on her cross-country bike adventure which the book illustrates; but I never really took the time to notice how immediate the drawing is. From what I understand, these pages were drawn first take as she was making her way through her journey, like a diary, which is really impressive. The drawings are sparse and noodley, yet feel perfectly complete–and they teem with a pertinent energy. Last time I was in Pittsburgh, Frank Santoro talked a lot about Gary Panter and how he draws constantly. Even while you’re having a conversation, he’s just drawing away, “He’s just someone who draws all the time no matter what.” On the most recent episode of Greg Hunter’s “Comics Decalogue,” Katie Skelly talks about going to a bar with Leslie Stein and Gary Panter and, basically confirming Frank’s story, that both Stein and Panter drew while conversing the entire time they were hanging out. I think this idea of being a “drawer” is often lost on most cartoonists. I mean, we all draw, right? But how many of us REALLY draw all the time–and how many of us can draw in any other way than our “style?” Now, I’m not throwing shade to style, but I think it’s worth thinking about. When I was going to school for graphic design, the designer Timothy Goodman came to talk to us and one of his big statements I took away from his lecture was, “Don’t have a style.” His reasoning mostly pertained to the idea that having a style will basically hinder your creativity. Now, most cartoonists are not being asked to create an ad in 3 hours for Time Magazine like a highly in-demand designer like Goodman, BUT can anyone really argue that style often does limit the kind of stories a cartoonist can make? In fact, most styles can even limit a cartoonist to a demographic–speaking strictly, and generally, in marketing terms. What am I getting at? I’m not trying to preach or sound like I have THE answers, but what I like about Davis’ recent book is the fact that it is drawn. It’s not inked with a brush with every stroke carefully crafted and feathered. It’s just drawn. Ever seen a Brian Chippendale comic? He just draws them (mostly). Crumb? Moebius? (Conflict of interest warning:) Frank Santoro? Just drawn. I like “professionally” inked comics and comics where traditional craft is essential, but there is an immediacy that is stripped at every step of the process. It’s like going acoustic, once you add a drum kit, you have to turn up the volume on everything else and the intimacy gradually is drowned out. I’m working out these thoughts as I go–thanks for reading. Next week–Kirby’s 100th birthday:) ———————————————————————————————— yikes! I’ve been so pumped about drawing and Kirby’s 100th that I almost forgot other comics existed in the world. Here are some links I found after I came back to our reality. Don’t miss that eclipse. Here, everyone is going to be talking about this so get your info about the eclipse. If you want more info, try a google search. Yo, today is Marie Severin’s birthday. You know who Marie Severin is right? Get acquainted. Heroes punching Nazis has becoming a particularly pertinent topic lately. Speaking of Kirby, I’m suspicious of the new highly hyped-up Mister Miracle comic, but maybe it’s good–who knows. ———————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 8-21-2017 – by Sally Ingraham ———————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 8-21-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

“How we were thinking” – The Zeitgeist and The Complete Wimmen’s Comix

MardouMay 26, 2016EssaysMystic novelist Doris Lessing interspersed her autobiographies with news clippings and thought-snippets that she’d saved from the years she was writing about. It’s not something you see very often in personal biography; history books are preferred when pulling in contextual ‘fact’. Instead Lessing supplies us with flavors of 60’s London (such as “in cinemas and theatres we stood up for the national anthem”). There’s something so evocative about how she pulls on that shared current of her time. Some of ‘the times’ get culturally hardened and recorded in history books, but lots of it doesn’t. In a similar vein, singer Ian Svenonius notes the transient attitudes of the Then-and-Now, using The Velvet Underground as an example , “…groups that failed in their own era despite catchy tunes, cool shades, turtlenecks and solid connections might have ‘felt’ bad to their audience…conversely, groups which might have felt ‘right’ at the time (the Grateful Dead, Grand Funk, Free etc) may seem confusing to listeners of a later era who are not privy to the pheromones said groups were releasing at their concerts.” Reading the two-volume release of The Complete Wimmen’s Comix made me think about those sort of cultural assumptions and blank spots. The first volume in particular feels like a powerful raw gust of real comics history. The pretty pink and black covers (with inset blue, bruise-like half moons) kicks off with Trina Robbin’s anthology It Aint Me, Babe (1970) and then the complete run of Wimmen’s Comix. I’ve read individual issues before and was somewhat ambivalent. Getting to read the whole gamut is a much different experience, especially the aforementioned first volume (1970-1985). The second volume contains a lot of great stuff too (and more of the artists I’d cite as direct influences on my own work such as Julie Doucet, Phoebe Gloeckner and Alison Bechdel) but the first volume stands out. It seems more experimental, wilder and much less conventional. I wouldn’t have name checked any of these artists in the 70’s/early 80’s as personal influences but this book has made me look with fresh eyes. There’s bold storytelling, some crazy comics layouts and lewd, unapologetically sexy content. It’s in stark relief to the relative lack of risk-taking I permit myself. (And yeah, I’m going to keep thinking about that one). Another aspect that occurs to me is that volume one is essentially my mother’s generation making those comics (I was born in ’75) which makes the lack of respect for cultural niceties and cartooning norms seem even more punk rock and revelatory, as well as being somewhat nostalgic. It reminds me of looking though my aunt’s closet in the early 1980’s and finding all her old platform shoes and boots. My childish trespassing got me yelled at after the event, but I’m glad to own that childhood memory of trying on and walking around in those beautiful and weird, too-big-for-me ‘space’ shoes. It’s not just surface and style though, the content is a match to the macho mores of its time. I’m old enough to remember the casual chauvinism of early 80’s primetime TV shows, as much as I remember seeing housewives with black eyes in the supermarket on Saturday mornings. Though, I was in 1980’s Northern England and not 1970’s San Francisco – yet it’s close enough to spark that consciousness. It’s kind of the thrust these feminist cartoonists were aiming at I think. This volume has also made me re-evaluate Aline Kominsky-Crumb’s work. I found her book Need More Love a little tiresome in tone but reading her juxtaposed with other women artists in this context is such an enjoyable experience. Set amongst her generational peers it’s easier to see the frank humor and flippant skill in her work. She’s so great! A lot of the comics here do miss their mark artistically but it’s not important overall. There was enough I found exciting (and fun!) in these volumes to remind me of the direct power of comics in print – a single cartoonist to a single reader through ink and paper, sharing the highs and degradations of the female experience. This is a big, beautiful, door-opening book and I’m really glad it’s out there. ————————————————————————————————— Sacha Mardou is a Brit making comics in St Louis, Missouri. Sky in Stereo is her most recent comic. Share this page: [...]

07-18-2018

Juan FernándezJuly 18, 2018los Cómics / NewsNew at Copacetic Comics for July; Isabel Molina, Paloma Domínguez y Pati Aguilera en La Polola; Pablo Selín; Marcela Trujillo en La sororidad de los kilos; Elizabeth Casillas sobre Brecht Evens – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Here on the site, Copacetic Comics’ Bill Boichel reviews the new arrivals to the shop. Lots of juicy stuff this July. ~ Santoro, Westvind, Regé AND MORE! Have a look around and pick up a copy of any of these books in the online shop if they tickle your fancy. – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – La Polola Podcast #80: Isabel Molina, Paloma Domínguez y Pati Aguilera Sol Díaz Castillo y Marcela Trujillo tienen una nueva edicion de La Polola Podcast! Las chicas conversan con Isabel Molina, Paloma Domínguez y Pati Aguilera en el espacio E.N.D del GAM. Paloma compartió parte de sus estudios acerca de la mujer en el cómic, su interés por las mujeres autoras, la mirada femenina en la creación, las dificultades e inspiraciones, y mucho más. – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Pablo Selín – Trueno enrollado (Dobles de Proximidad) Pablo Selín nos da un vistazo a la serie de cómics que el creo recientemente para “Dobles de proximidad” una exposición curada por Patricio Kind en Chile. “Dobles de proximidad” es un proyecto de exposición en el que Patricio Kind, artista visual y docente en Facultad de Artes en UDP, llevo cuatro años trabajando de forma muy orgánica y a pulso, sin fondos. La exposición es un encuentro entre artistas chilenos y extranjeros, cuya edad fluctúa entre los 30 y 40 años. La muestra propone un encuentro de artistas nacionales e internacionales, nacidos en la década del 70’ y 80’. Distintos intereses temáticos confluyen con el fin de dar a conocer diferentes líneas de exploración visual, enfatizando en la experimentación de materiales. Las obras seleccionadas son heterogéneas, incluyendo pinturas, instalaciones, videos, dibujos, esculturas, entre otros. El lugar para su exhibición es el Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Santiago, sede Parque Forestal. La exposición se inaugura el jueves 5 de Julio del presente año y estará abierta hasta el 30 de Septiembre. Pablo Selín: Hace como 4 años Patricio Kind, el curador de la muestra, tuvo acceso a mis cómics a través de mi pareja y le parecieron interesantes. Empezamos a hablar y me invitó al primer proyecto de exposición con lo que me vi en medio de la pregunta de qué hacer con cómics en un contexto de museo y como podrían funcionar bien ahí. Muchos de los artistas de la exposición son gente que conozco desde hace tiempo y con la que compartí espacios en la década pasada con otro tipo de trabajos. Selín: Respecto de los dibujos, pensé en crear un “grid” o grilla que pudiera servir para unos cómics de ese tamaño pero que mantuvieran una gran cantidad de detalles y “micronarrativas”, a partir de esa grilla fui creando una historia bastante dispersa en el que hay una especie de desastre trascendental en la tierra. Al mismo tiempo me preocupaba de que se produjeran dinámicas de ritmo e interacción entre los distintos elementos y que cada “página” pudiera funcionar por su cuenta desde lejos y desde cerca. Mientras hacía los dibujos pensé mucho en Chris Ware, en las páginas dominicales de Garfield y en los libros de Donde está Wally de Martin Handford, entre otras cosas. CROWDFUNDING EL CATÁLOGO – El curador de la exposición, Patricio Kind, está juntando fondos para poder imprimir el catálogo y cubrir gastos asociados a la producción. Y bueno, sería bacán si pudieran ayudar a concretar el proyecto, ya sea con difusión de la campaña en redes sociales o un aporte monetario o hablándolo por ahí. Estan a mitad de la campaña con alrededor de un 45% de los fondos reunidos. Apúntate hoy! – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – La sororidad de los kilos – Marcela Trujillo El nuevo capitulo de la Sororidad de los Kilos, les ofrece una conversación con la historietista y pintora Marcela Trujillo junto a la psicóloga Karolina Lama. En estos programas, Lama conversa con mujeres sobre los kilos de más y de menos, feminismo, redes sociales, estereotipos, abuso, depresiones, terapias, sanaciones, salud y mucho más. La entrevista con Trujillo presenta una bella intersección de todo esto con la gestion de los cómics. – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – “No Todo es un Juego” – Entreseña de Pantera por Brecht Evens Revista Cactus, Elizabeth Casillas Pantera tiene apariencia de cuento infantil, pero no lo es. Y aunque contiene ciertos elementos de este género, empezando por el formato apaisado y siguiendo por su protagonista, lo cierto es que está más próximo al realismo mágico. La aparente normalidad con la que Cristinita percibe a Pantera y a sus amigos contrasta con la angustia del lector. Todo está tranquilo, con una estética de ensoñación inocente, hasta que lo que podemos entender como la típica historia de una niña y su amigo invisible se deforma en una narrativa oscura sobre abusos sexuales. El ceño del lector se va frunciendo poco a poco, la historia sucede con tal fluidez que asusta. – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Share this page: [...]

Connor Willumsen Draws PRIS from BLADE RUNNER

Chris Anthony DiazMay 24, 2016The Diaz Archiveconnor willumsen’s portrait of daryl hannah as PRIS in ridley scott’s BLADE RUNNER (1982, USA) for my ILLUSTRATED MOMENTS IN CINEMA/TELEVISION collection. the commission done in pencil was completed in 2015. willumsen’s candid portrait taken at CAB 2014 in williamsburg, new york and color by graham willcox Share this page: [...]

09/07/2018

Posted on September 7, 2018 by Sally Ingraham

Sally Ingraham here with work by Bronson Smillie and Cory Feder, plus other news and comics!

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Work made by Bronson Smillie during his Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency

Here on the site we have a new Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency Report, written by Bronson Smillie, who joined us in Pittsburgh in July of 2018. He’s currently based in Montreal, QC, where he is finishing a painting and drawing undergrad at Concordia University. Originally from Calgary, he organized and facilitated Calgary’s first ever Queer Zine Fair in 2017 – an event called We Are Not an Island that was presented in conjunction with Calgary’s Sled Island Festival. It was Calgary’s biggest zine fair ever and featured over 30 artists/collectives. Even with this rich experience in comics and community building under his belt, Bronson was able to find a lot to dig into with us in Pittsburgh.

“The ! air conditioned ! bedroom/work-space was the perfect place to dive head first into my work. As someone that is easily distracted in new environments, it was nice to be able to shut myself into a quiet space. Each morning I would devour a handful of comics/zines selected from the extensive and ever-growing library at the Residency. I would recommend spending as much time reading comics as you do drawing them while you are a resident. They offer such an amazing resource and I got to read things that I had never had access to before. I worked on a 10 page mini-comic that I’ve since completed and took time to digitize my entire stamp collection (boring but satisfying). I wanted to explore a new way of image-making while I was at the residency and broke away from the more rigid, panel-based comic making I was used to in order to explore more experimental ideas I had been tossing around for a while.“

Read the rest of his report HERE!

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The results of the 2018 Comics Workbook Composition Competition are in! Read all about it HERE!

Pictured above is the comic strip by Cory Feder which placed 1st in the competition. About her strip, the judges wrote:

“Our decision to award Cory Feder First Place recognizes Feder’s creation of an ambitious yet simple, multi-layered poetic sequence that cuts through notions of language. This is the kind of strip that can be read and re-read ad infinitum to continue gleaning new meaning. Feder’s comic is the kind offhand remark, the cadence of which, you keep thinking about for years. This complex concoction of intuitive drawing and deft use of juxtaposition made for a winning combination.“

See more of Cory Feder’s work HERE.

We look forward to hosting her at the Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency sometime soon!

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Sign up for the Comics Workbook Workshop sessions at Small Press Expo 2018 – full details HERE!

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Weekend Reading

The Comics Journal recently republished an interview with Marie Severin from 1986 – read it HERE. Marie Severin passed away last week at the age of 89. HERE is the Journal‘s tribute to her.
There are new reviews of Fiona Smyth‘s Somnambulance and Jessica Campbell‘s XTC69 over on Page 45.
Paste Magazine has an exclusive preview of Leah Moore, John Reppion, and Sally Jane Thompson‘s upcoming A Conspiracy of Ravens (out in early October) HERE.

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Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in NewsTagged Bronson Smillie, comics workbook composition competition 2018, comics workbook rowhouse residency, Cory feder, spx 2018

Sally Ingraham

Posted on September 7, 2018

Explore

07/27/2018

Sally IngrahamJuly 27, 2018NewsSally Ingraham here with comics and news from Nick Fowler, Annie Koyama, Believer Magazine, and much more! ————————————————————————————————— Here on the site Nick Fowler writes about his recent Rowhouse Residency: “One of the most important things that was cemented for me during my time at the Rowhouse was the immense importance of environment. In both a social sense…and a more literal, spatial sense. The room at the Rowhouse had a bed, a table and a box of Love and Rockets (#17-28 if I remember correctly). And nothing else. Every day I would wake up and take two steps to the drawing table to either draw, or to read Love and Rockets and then draw. For the week I was there, there was nothing else I had to do. It felt like a splash of cold water on my face.“ Read the rest of Nick’s Residency Report HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Annie Koyama has announced that she is changing the way in which she supports artists. She will conclude her time as a publisher in 2021, closing the doors of Koyama Press. Her focus will shift to channelling her financial support and incredible positive energy directly into the hands of specific artists whom she chooses to be a patron of. She spoke to The Comics Journal about “switching gears”: ” “I will not tell the artists how to do anything,” Koyama said. “There are no strings attached. Once I decide to work with an artist, as I have always done with the press, I put enough trust in them and their project not to interfere. They don’t need my creative help, they need money.” How this next venture will work is still being formulated. Though the projects she supports will not be owned by Koyama, recipients of these “micro-grants” will be expected to fulfill their end of the bargain, whether if be self-publishing the project, offering a performance, or whatever Koyama and the participating party agree to. Additionally, the publisher expects to continue to pursue broader methods of support by hosting financial and business literary workshops and supplementing residencies. Her support will not be limited to cartoonists, either. Koyama recently supported a feature film and is already contributing support to projects with several fine artists. “I am choosing the artists because I like their work,” Koyama said. “I feel that they deserve a higher profile. I know that they can’t do it on their own. What I am most interested in is taking people who are known for one discipline and for example, helping them to try another discipline. For example, people who are good at drawing already but really want to work on a little stop motion animation. Or they want to go off and learn to play the trumpet, try sculpture, learn printmaking or start community art related initiatives.” Read the rest of the article and full announcement HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Believer Magazine has updated their website and built an archive for the comics that have appeared in the printed mag. Above is a page from Leela Corman‘s story Kraut – read the rest HERE. You will also find comics by Andrea Tsurumi, Ann Xu, Jennifer Camper, Anna Haifisch, and others. Check out the archive! ————————————————————————————————— Hyperallergic features an article about Carol Tyler and her new comic Fab4 Mania – HERE. Lauren Weinstein‘s Normal Person now appears at popula.com – here’s the latest strip! Mimi Pond also has a new comic up at Popula – Blind Dates of the Near Future. Jessica Campbell‘s latest comic on Hyperallergic – Musings About Life Today – can be read HERE. Anders Nilson writes about the process and responsibility of finishing a friend’s last book – A Bubble, by Geneviève Castrée (who passed away in 2016) – on The Comics Journal. Here’s an excerpt from Nancy Peña’s Madame Cat – on Paste Magazine. ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 7-27-2018 – by Gabriella Tito Share this page: [...]

03/01/2017

Juan FernándezMarch 1, 2017los Cómics / NewsJuan José con un poquito sobre #GRAFBCN2017; Bas Backer on Chicks on Cómics; Inés Estrada’s Booklyn 2012; Mireia Pérez; Núria Pompeia; Berliac; Salva Rubio on Jiro Taniguchi; 100 Años de TBO; CW Daily Comics. Cómics y noticias que me han llamado la atención esta semana: ESTE FIN DE SEMANA: #GRAFBCN2017. Esta a la vuelta de la esquina. GRAF is coming to Barcelona. Here’s all the info you need for #GRAFBCN2017‘s programming. March 3-5 at the wacky warehouse space, Fabra i Coats. It’s the ninth edition of the Festival so it should get pretty wild. – If you’re following from home, check out twitter and tumblr for the #GRAFBCN2017 to get some insights on. Want to know who’s going to be there? Here ya go. Need more info? Here’s Mireia Pérez with the scoop you need on #GRAFBCN2017 over on RTVE’s La Hora del Bocadillo, Spain’s weekly national comics radio hour. (Fast forward to minute 48). Descubre a Núria Pompeia en la exposición ‘Núria Pompeia, sola ante el peligro’. Fundación Gin‘s digital editorial cartooning museum, Humoristan, has got a great online exhibition of Pompeia’s work with highlights from Maternasis and Las Metamorfosis. Berliac‘s got some new comics on Vice – Asian Food Store Junkies – S01-E03 This week will horrify your taste buds. Inés Estrada’s dropped a zine she made, quick and dirty after her time at Comic Arts Brooklyn in 2012. “I was going to make a zine of my comics diary of Brooklyn 2012 (cus I never did) but fck it… who cares about 2012″ Now you can read it online. Inspiring, fast, six panel autobio. Salva Rubio offers a great reflection on the work of the late Jiro Taniguchi. Especially of interest given it’s a Spanish perspective on the manga titan. The theme here is the eternal return. This March, it will be the 100th anniversary of the first issue of “TBO”, the popular illustrated magazine that gave name to Spanish comics, tebeos. To commemorate this the newly published, Antoni Guiral‘s 100 Años de TBO, tells the history of a publication which passed the great names of twentieth century Catalan comic. Take a tour of a century “TBO”. (In Catalan!) Bas Backer ha hecho un relato hermoso de su paso por Buenos Aires, el encuentro con amigos y actividades de Chicks On Comics. A nice report, filled with photos and drawings of time passing through the amazing Chicks on Comics show and Buenos Aires. A nice long distance relationship travelogue, haha! ————————————————————————————————— Berliac offers some fresh cuts over at Fumettologica, the central axis of the conversation being his work editing and contributing to Kuš! #25’s Gaijiin Manga. Short and sweet but goes in deep with his thoughts on gekiga, the western gaze and his own evolution as an author. How do you explain the current popularity of Gekiga in the western comics scene? Now they’re getting published and before they were not, simple as that. If you want to dig deeper, I guess the publishers finally realized that since the late seventies, Western adults grew up with manga and anime, and we just needed a cultural approval from well-respected publishers, to re-unite with our childhood love without feeling embarassed about it. Put that together with the concept that publishers from liberal countries have of what a Graphic-Novel is supposed to be (basically realistic stories about the suffering of people from far away countries, to be enjoyed from the comfort of our sofas), and there you go: Gekiga provides us with both. Here lies another reason why I like to call my own work Gaijin-Gekiga: if Gekiga was the Japanese expression, in a dramatic comics form, of their own collective anxieties in times of hypercapitalism, then I can undoubtedly say that the main focus of my work is the very same one, only about my own place and time, of course. I have the impression that not many well-known cartoonists are really talking about what’s going on right here and now, on this side of the world, on a collective scale. In Graphic-Novels, all I see is either boring lectures about foreign or past war conflicts from an “objective”, Western point of view, or feel-good stories about individual self-improvement, and in the most successful cases, a combination of the two. These stories are just two different ways of patting our backs and telling ourselves how great we Westerners are. Gekiga was a beautiful, dignifying way to accept the crushing reality of post-war defeat. Western narratives of today, on the contrary, insist on that we’re on the winning side, even when our reality clearly points to the opposite (see Donald Trump). I’m not saying there’s dignity in being a loser, but in seeing reality for what it is. Drama without exaggeration. That is the essence of Gekiga. Now that a few months has passed from the release of the Kus, can you say that the anthology also served as a bond between the artists of this possible new western manga scene? Bonds among artists always exist, but maybe not explicitely. to the point not even we are aware of it. Many of the artists involved discovered each other’s work in that issue of š! As I said in another interview, it is not the artists’ task or responsablity to make that bond intelligible for the public, but the publishers’, gallerists’, and journalists’. As an author, I’m not too concerned about it. As a co-editor of š! #25, I certainly hope we provided a grain of sand to this cause. ————————————————————————————————— 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 – 3-1-2017 – by Jack Brougham ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 3-1-2017 – by Gabriella Tito ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 3-1-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio ————————————————————————————————— Cozytown – 3-1-2017 – by Juan Fernandez Share this page: [...]

10/13/2017

Sally IngrahamOctober 12, 2017NewsSally here with Thi Bui, Lale Westvind, Sophie Goldstein, Jackie Kirby, and much more! ———————————————————————————————— First of all, can we please collectively freak out over this Lale Westvind cover on the upcoming Kramers Ergot 10…?! I can’t stop looking at it, and April 2018 seems like a very long time from now… Lale has a comic inside the collection as well, and it will also include work by Anna Haifich, Noel Frieberg, Adam Buttrick, Archer Prewitt, Andy Burkholder, Will Sweeney, Dash Shaw, James Turek, Rick Altergott, CF, Aisha Franz, Kim Deitch, Ron Regé Jr., John Pham, Robert Crumb, Sammy Harkham, and I think Simon Hanselmann just Tweeted something about having a page in it…! So it’s going to be a good one, obviously. ———————————————————————————————— Michael Tisserand (author of Krazy: George Herriman, a Life in Black and White) interviews Thi Bui on The Comics Journal. Her comic, The Best We Could Do, has been garnering praise and acclaim while starting important conversations since its release earlier this year. It is the story of her family’s escape from 1970s Vietnam and the reverberating impact of that on her life. It’s a difficult, but beautiful memoir – and the interview is excellent too. Thi had a lot to deal with when it came to making this comic (which she worked on for 12 years.) She has thoughtful responses to questions about working around the American narrative of the Vietnam War, and releasing her work into the present moment where the issue of immigration is so volatile. “Images we pick up from movies stick around for a long time. If your idea of what Vietnamese people look and sound like comes from movies like Full Metal Jacket and Platoon, then I have a lot of work to do to replace those caricatures with carefully observed characterizations of real Vietnamese people. Some people are able to do this entirely in prose; for me, drawing was in my arsenal, so I used it. My hope is that my images will stick around and influence people’s ideas of Vietnamese people for the better — not because I portrayed them all as model minorities, but because I showed them as fully formed human beings who can be wonderful, average, or total assholes, just like everybody else.” “In a time of so much anxiety and quickly moving bad news, I hope to bring a slower kind of thinking to the table. If you can give yourself a little time and headspace to filter away the 24-hour news and its effects on your psyche, the divisiveness of politics, and the way hurt triggers more hurt in a vicious cycle, you can more clearly see what matters, at the end of it all. And then you know what you have to fight for.“ Read the whole interview HERE. ———————————————————————————————— Jackie Kirby is cranking out work this fall – from her own creations to these terrific “Kirby Cut-Ups” (above, riffing on Jack Kirby and Stan Lee’s Fantastic Four) she posts something on her blog almost everyday. Follow her on Tumblr or Instagram (@musclegirl2666) for a good example of how to keep your hand moving, your mind sharp, and your comics-making practice on point. Check out more of her comics HERE. Also be sure to read her article for Comics Workbook from this past summer, on Meter, Geometry and Comic Form! ———————————————————————————————— Here in Pittsburgh there will be a release party for House of Women by Sophie Goldstein on Saturday, Oct. 14th, at Copacetic Comics (7 PM- 9 PM). Event details are HERE. You can see a preview from the book on Sophie’s website, and get a copy HERE. ———————————————————————————————— The Candy Store Sequential State has a review of GG‘s I’m Not Here – a comic that perhaps relies “on the reader’s intuition“. Kawai Shen of Cute Juice Comics also “analyzes” I’m Not Here, saying that it is “made of clues and feelings rather than answers“. It’s Nice That has a good interview with Tara Booth. Etelka Lehoczky of NPR didn’t really like Ulli Lust‘s Voices In The Dark – the reasons are somewhat interesting however. Katie Skelly “shines a light” over on The Comics Journal… Jacob Shapiro, who runs Fantom Comics in D.C., is guest curating some reviews on Our Comics, Ourselves – he checks out Hannah K. Lee‘s collection Language Barrier HERE. The New York Times visits Roz Chast and talks her new book and where she looks for salvation these days. Lynda Barry‘s The Good Times Are Killing Me just came out from Drawn and Quarterly – you can check out an excerpt of the book HERE. Audra Stang has been publishing a new comics story called Little Minnow – read the whole thing so far. ———————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 10-13-2017 – by Gabriella Tito ———————————————————————————————— Cozytown – 10-13-2017 – by Juan Fernandez ———————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 10-13-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

05/04/2017

Sally IngrahamMay 4, 2017NewsSam Ombiri shares thoughts on Sammy Harkham’s Crickets #6 – plus other comics-related news! ————————————————————————————————— Sam Ombiri here: What a fantastic issue of Sammy Harkham’s Crickets we got (#6)! I have to begin with how we got wonderful drawings from Harkham. Of course there are many comics drawn this way and many not, and I really don’t think about these differences so much, unless I’ve heard the author specifically bringing up the motivations for drawing the way they do. With Harkham’s drawings feeling somewhat rigid, it then becomes hard to penetrate the abstractions being offered – more so because they seem unlikely with this type of drawing. Actually it is really great that they aren’t so obvious to discern, even after “being discovered”, which is a testament to their strength. Harkham says (in Comic Book Decalogue Episode #5, 2015), “The kind of storytelling I’m interested in is making things really stacked and dense so that one thing is going on with dialogue, one thing’s going on visually, and one thing’s going on in the background.” He adds, laughing, “Just to push the anxiety level.” Abstractions are being offered to you. I think this is what is referred to by Harkham as dematerialization of drama; which I believe was first said by William Oldham in conjunction to Harkham’s work. Harkham says, regarding Somersaulting (which appears in his collected stories Everything Together, PictureBox 2012), “Any sort of plops is sort of the creative counterweight for the more quiet, calmer, open, sort of more contemplative sequences to still make it a comic.” – Comic Book Decalogue Episode #5 I think Harkham is still applying that principle to Blood of the Virgin (Crickets #6), but in a different way, thankfully. He’s advancing this new trick he found. What I really like is that Harkham didn’t just want to deal with another medium by making comics. He looks at comics like it’s the best medium, and the things that excite him about other mediums only furthers his enthusiasm for the comics medium. If I may make a contrived comparison, and this comparison isn’t completely parallel to Harkham, Leos Carax is a director who maybe wants to be a musician, so as a result his movies have scenes like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80xOJ2I2oVc Leos Carax says his first movie was called Boy Meets Girl, but all his of movies can be called “boy meets girl” and it’s often the same movie, featuring one guy in love with two women, with the exception of Holy Motors. Likewise, Sammy says his stories are all about denial (a similar denial is exemplified by Burt Lancaster in The Swimmer!) Harkham said in the past that he doesn’t want things to be expressive and moments to hold value over others. I think Harkham must see something similar in Brian Chippendale’s Ninja, where every panel has the same intensity. Or it’s like how Robert Bresson says he wants his actors to be like a virtuoso in portraying their afflictions. Of course other directors do this too – I only bring up Bresson because for me he has exhibited the most success with this mode of approaching expressiveness – in the way that I think Harkham is talking about. Harkham once said that he has a distaste for when sadness is conveyed just by showing a character crying. Harkham’s connection between comics and film has more to do with Emir Kusturica, but I’m going to speak more about intention and methods. Recently, someone brought up the duck motif – they told me they’re excited to see what Harkham will do with it. Personally I think we already saw. It has happened, it’s already an active force in the story. The ambient quality of the duck is what we’ll get. I hesitate to call it a symbol. I feel personally that if I attempt to say what it is, I’ll sully it. I was thinking a lot about how Andrei Tarkovsky said, “Bresson attempts in his films not to be symbolic; he tries to create a form as inexhaustible as nature, life itself. Of course this doesn’t always work. In fact, there are episodes in his films that are extremely symbolic and, therefore, limited – symbolic and not poetic.” (from an interview with Tarkovsky on A Bittersweet Life.) Tarkovsky then continues to say, “An obvious but banal example of this is the rabbit hunt in Mouchette.” I feel like if I rewatch Mouchette, Tarkovsky has officially ruined the scene for me, but you know, I’m only saying that as a joke, as Tarkovsky and Bresson kind of have this whole detached philosophy to the perception of their work. Harkham’s primary concern seems to be to entertain – it’s just the way that symbol works that’s similar. When the duck motif was brought to my attention it felt somewhat ruined. Now, with what Tarkovsky said in relation to Bresson’s rabbit scene, Bresson’s intentions were rather different for this scene – but there’s still something of a consensus. Tarkovsky refers to this as a moral influence between artists, without which art cannot exist. Harkham said, regarding Somersaulting and I’d imagine his work even now, “I realize that when you are directly influenced by someone, it’s not that you want to see something and copy it, it’s that you see someone, it’s a shortcut for a place you wanna go, so I knew the tone for that story and seeing Hopper’s work, in the flesh, just got me that much closer as a way to get there. Realizing that composition and a certain kind of composed quality, really measured quality, could go a long way towards that. So I think the story if I had never seen that show, the story would’ve probably resembled that in a lot of ways, but I probably would’ve taken more of a windy path to get there.“ Tarkovsky also said this one thing which is very similar to what Harkham said: “Just like everybody else who strives for simplicity and depth, I can’t help but identify with what he has achieved in this field. But on the other hand, even if Bresson would never have existed, we would have eventually come across this notion of a lapidary style, simplicity and depth.” It’s a very similar idea in my mind, that these artists with different goals, who operate on different principles, can end up at the same place with the same goals. Or it can even be like Krzysztof Kieslowski says – “People in different places and for different reasons think of the same thing I tried to talk about – things that connect people. I think this feeling, this music, all these notes already exist, scattered somewhere, waiting for the person who’ll put them in order. The fact that two different people at different times, in different places, from different social strata, can put these notes together in the same way seems to be a sign of what connects people.” (from Cinema Lesson in Blue) In The Blood of the Virgin, the story’s progression isn’t hindered by this other unnamed will to cause Seymour more afflictions slowly revealing itself. Seymour’s running out of places to go. We know he’ll end up face down just like it shows in the cover – the way it all turns out is worse than what I imagined. Especially for how believable it is. Harkham says, “I don’t really strive for realism, but more for specificity.” The order of the tragedy isn’t what’s being relied on really, and it’s not the order that makes it compelling, but it does leave everything grounded. Harkham says that the way he sees it is, “Plot is just a coat hanger to hang ideas and jokes and emotions on to.” The moment where Joy just up and says movies are cheesy – in this moment when Seymour is trying really hard to reach the destination of this major quest he’s been on – has to join the ranks of that which he greatly reveres as important. As a reader at that point, I hadn’t really realized how much of his vision is being denied to him – it had already started. All I could think was “Uh-oh”. It’s these small micro losses that tell you clearly that everything’s coming apart. For some reason I thought that Seymour’s life would maybe get better, despite his struggles. Harkham says, “I realized that what he (Edward Hopper) was doing with his paintings was something that I was really interested in – with a lot of the architectural drawings, and the interior a certain tone that you get out of the everyday objects and everyday spaces, trying to find the divine or the ambiguous – and he kind of does that so well, so it’s a visual touch point for that story I was working on, and I saw the show and there are a couple of exact echoes of the paintings in that story.“ Leos Carax compares cinema unfavorably to dreams, as in dreams you need to invent the way the way people move. Harkham says, “Cartooning is knowing how to use the sickeningly stupid blunt emotion of each panel and build something emotionally complex of it.“ Like designing someone’s car to signify what kind of person it is that drives it, or how Harkham says he likes how in The Swimmer, “It makes sense that the whole time the main character is in his swimsuit.” That the imagery is in complete conjunction with what’s going on with the story, and for one reason or another that’s what he’s aiming for. That the work dictates what’s gonna be in it. “What I liked about comics as a teenager is the same thing I liked about punk rock and what I liked about gory horror movies: It just felt completely trashy and disgusting and stupid. You’d be embarrassed to read a comic on the bus – you still would. But I like that. It’s embracing that surface quality, not trying to make your work look smart at all, and then surprising the reader that this is a little bit richer, more layered, that there’s a lot more going on.” I think what Harkham is saying is similar to how Funny Games lingers on people’s radar as just some fun horror movie to watch – but there’s really a ton of things to unpack there, so then he likes that spot. I’m not so fond of this idea of creating this spectacle of finding a dense story in an underestimated medium. I’m glad that Harkham doesn’t count on this spectacle, as it feels like a cheap trick. I feel similarly about something that Austin English said about how The Disgusting Room was made – he has in his mind come up with this idea that people who’ll read The Disgusting Room will think it’s a newspaper or something, but then be surprised with this imaginative comic (which it is). After hearing that, however, whatever enjoyment I got out of The Disgusting Room went up in flames, because what about the rest of us, where we already know how great comics can be? Or even to an extent I hear Patrick Kyle say he wants to make comics that can only be made as a comic – does that enhance the work being made though? There’s a great essay by Connor Willumsen at the end of this issue of Crickets that talks about these things better than I can, about how what the soundtrack of a movie would be, or the sound design, or a prop, is something you think differently, but not too differently from comics. What the soundtrack is, is similar to the way an author can linger on, let’s say, the gestures of a character, and really slowing things down, to the most minuscule degree. It’s more acceptable, as a medium, to do that, so in turn that might be what a recurring element in a movie might otherwise do. I’m thinking of how it may all be about lingering elements within a work. In Holy Motors a segment of this song plays before the character Mr. Oscar assumes a new identity. In some movies the soundtrack is something else entirely though. The best version of this coming to fruition that I can think of is in Blue from the Three Colors Trilogy – both movies kind of end with a musical number, though I have to insist that the song at the end of Blue is more appropriate than Holy Motors‘ within the story. Connor doesn’t hone in on a cut and paste principle – that’s just easily applied – but the way I remember it, if memory serves (it often doesn’t serve me well), he just says that this is a principle that a maker or a reader can think of in conjunction with what the author might be doing that might otherwise remain obscure. – Sam Ombiri (Additional quotes by Sammy Harkham sourced from the article Sammy Harkham: Naturalism and Specificity, and a Los Angeles Times article – Sammy Harkham, a City’s Comics Crusader.) 5-4-2017 – Sam Ombiri ————————————————————————————————— Sally here – check out this incredible compilation of stock footage from Marvel and DC studios in the 1970’s – you can watch it below. There are lots of wow-inducing moments, but I especially enjoyed a brief glimpse into the beginning of Trevor Von Eeden‘s career – see him at 17 years of age showing some newly drawn pages to an editor at DC Comics – watch for him at minute 8:44! (via The Comics Journal) ————————————————————————————————— Keep an eye out for The Encyclopedia of Black Comics, coming this September from Fulcrum Publishing and Professor Sheena C. Howard (Eisner-award winning author of Black Comics: Politics of Race and Representation). According to her call for writers (which went out last August) she expects the book to include entries on at least “150 Black people in the comics industry who have published significant work in the United States or done notable work in the comics field, being included in the volume (including editors, publishers, illustrators, artists, creators, etc).” You can pre-order the book on Amazon. ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 5-4-2017 – by Gabriella Tito ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 5-4-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

08/15/2016

Juan FernándezAugust 15, 2016NewsJuan here with the news: Rowhouse Residency Benfit Auction of Eightball era time capsule box; Audra Stang’s Rowhouse Residency Report; Chris Kindred on how to hire an illustrator; “Tell Me All Your Bad Thoughtz on God” by Jillian Fleck; Kilgore Books & Comics Fall 2016 Lineup; Ben Juers’ comics review of Sasaki Maki’s DING DONG CIRCUS; Grants and Residency opportunities for cartoonists; J. A. Micheline discussing True Criticism; new STREET ANGEL; MOME Vol. 1 – Summer 2005 reviewed by Bill Boichel. ————————————————————————————————— First off, we have the TOTALLY AMAZING AUCTION of an Eightball era time capsule box, donated by Mr. Daniel Clowes himself to help support the Rowhouse Residency. Check out the video above for a taste of the contents and the firecracker commentary of Jim Rugg and Frank Santoro. Lots o’ hyucks. Personal items, artwork…we weren’t sure we even wanted to part with things like Clowes’ Windsor-Newton Series 7 brush #3… but they are now up for grabs!! All the items in the box could be yours, so jump into the mayhem – auction runs until Wednesday, August 17th at noon EST. Don’t sleep on it. Check it the auction HERE! ————————————————————————————————— Audra Stang’s Residency Report: Pokémon GO Edition Audra Stang visited the Rowhouse this July and accomplished an incredible amount in the three days she was in Pittsburgh, setting new Rowhouse records for “crushing it”. She shared some journal notes with us recently that describe many of her impressions and experiences of her residency. We’ve shared excerpts from them, mixed with some of the process drawings and doodles that she made while she was here. My visit to the Rowhouse was my first ever residency… I came with the goal of totally drawing out a story that I only had a hazy idea of called Pale, Sick, and Magic; this seemed fitting, considering I only had a vague idea of what a residency would entail. Between Frank, Sally, and I, we had great conversation – not just about, but often returning to, comics. It fed into the “cycle” – draw by day and tour Pittsburgh by night. Or draw by night and explore Pittsburgh by day. It was a charged atmosphere but in a positive way – I was full of energy. Franks uses language that masterfully evokes the feeling of being “in the game” and gets you hyped for the next comics bout. Check it out HERE. ————————————————————————————————— “Tell Me All Your Bad Thoughtz on God” by Jillian Fleck I’m happy to announce that we are featuring Jillian Fleck’s “Tell Me All Your Bad Thoughtz on God” on the site this week. “Tell Me All Your Bad Thoughtz on God” is part of Fleck’s on going Bad Thoughtz series and was made in 2015 for Comics Workbook. ————————————————————————————————— Kilgore Books & Comics Fall 2016 Lineup Denver based comics publisher, Kilgore Books and Comics has announced its fall publishing lineup: Blammo #9 by Noah Van Sciver The Plunge by Emi Gennis What Happened by Simon Moreton: The Complete Scorched Earth & Other Stories by Tom Van Deusen You can help support Kilgore’s fall release of four great comics by supporting their Kickstarter. Our mission is bridge the gap between self-publishing and the bigger publishing houses. We want to find talented cartoonists with unique voices and help them when they need it most by ensuring they have professional looking books and plenty of stock. We’re also able to pay royalties up front, and help take some of the logistics off artists which lets them focus on their work. ————————————————————————————————— Sasaki Maki & Abstract Comics Ben Juers has just released a comics review of Sasaki Maki’s Ding Dong Circus. It’s magnificent. All sources cited 😉 It was originally done for Australian literature and culture magazine, the Lifted Brow. It’s a real insightful joy to see comics reflections and criticism in comics. ————————————————————————————————— J. A. Micheline On True Criticism J.A. Micheline has written a new entry to her Critical Jam series of essays on cultural criticism. It’s a great, on the ground, response to Daniel Mendelsohn’s A Critic’s Manifesto published a couple years ago over in the New York Times. For those of you interested in where and how comics criticism can grow and expand as a from in 2016, it’s definitely worth a read. What we fear with the rise of grassroots criticism–and, for that matter, grassroots creation–is the absence of gods and masters. It’s a legitimation crisis. If there is no hierarchical structure, no above and below, and no true and false–then how is one to know one’s place in the world? Without modernist establishments, how am I to know whether I belong in the critical class, whether my arguments are good, whether they carry more weight than the average person’s? ————————————————————————————————— How to Hire an Illustrator Chris Kindred waxes on how to hire an illustrator over in this well thought and thorough piece over at NPR’s Editorial Training blog. The internet is a very visual place. It goes without saying that if you want your story to stand out, it needs a strong photo or illustration of some kind. But commissioning an illustrator can be confusing if you haven’t done it before. This guide will walk you through the entire process, from finding an artist to sending the final payment. ————————————————————————————————— The Sustainable Arts Foundation: $6000 Grants for Artists with Children This goes out to all you cartoonists with children. The Sustainable Arts Foundation is offering awards of up to $6000 to writers and artists with children. The money can be used for costs such as child care, workspaces, new equipment, research and travel. All the stuff that you’re hard pressed to getting when you need to get your comics done. Applications for the Fall 2016 round close on Friday 2 September. Don’t sleep on this opportunity, parents! For more information visit the Sustainable Arts Foundation website. ————————————————————————————————— Grants, Fellowships, and Residencies for Cartoonists! Cartoonist Melanie Gillman, author of As the Crow Flies, has compiled a list of grants and residencies that have demonstrated an interest in comics and cartooning. You can check them all out on their blog. If you know of any others, chime in, all ye faithful! Of course, for a rigorous, comics focused residency experience like no other, you need to look no further than our Rowhouse Residency! Level up and become your best. ————————————————————————————————— ————————————————————————————————— MOME Vol. 1 – Summer 2005 reviewed by Bill Boichel Here’s a little throw back for you. Bill Boichel’s got a hearty review of the first volume of Fantagraphics’ mid-aughts anthology, MOME. Few people can write as insightful reviews as Bill, so it’s an honor to be able to share his writing with you here. This is an oldie but a goodie. Step into our little comics time machine and enjoy <3 This is an excellent semi-regular anthology that is stepping up to meet the demand for new work by the talented generation of cartoonists that have been filling the pages of annual anthologies like Non, Kramers Ergot, Top Shelf, Rosetta, SPX and others. A novel feature of this anthology title is its declared intent to feature the same collective of artists every issue, allowing the artists and audience to grow together and build an ongoing identity that is highly unusual for the world of contemporary comics. Only time will tell how this intention plays out when confronted by the realities of a publication schedule, but we can attest with confidence that it’s off to a solid start. ————————————————————————————————— keep yerr nose to the grindstone and until next time! Share this page: [...]

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