Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in NewsTagged cwcc2016, Ed Piskor, Jonas Goonface, zona 3

Sally Ingraham

Posted on September 1, 2016September 1, 2016

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11/30/2017

Sally IngrahamNovember 30, 2017NewsSam Ombiri on Carlos Gonzalez’s Test Tube, Meg Lemke and Gene Luen Yang in conversation, and a bit more diversity in comics news. ————————————————————————————————— Sam Ombiri here: I have been reading Test Tube by Carlos Gonzalez, and this comic feels like it’s mutating me and my reality. I wasn’t aware that a comic can wrap around my brain. It did this by using very familiar images, with unfamiliar modes of presentation that somehow mysteriously register. Carlos is bringing to attention how unfamiliar these familiar drawings are. He’s somehow simultaneously doing so much and so little to convey what objects, characters, and settings are, yet it all somehow renders so clearly. Which I guess is cartooning, but there seems to something in this system Carlos has introduced. He’s really mastered manipulating our mind at the bare minimum, but with the effort in design turned up to the maximum, to indicate at every turn of the story that something’s afoot. It also could just be satisfying at an aesthetic level. On my end it’s great to look at, but it simultaneously conveys the nature of the story. From what I’ve seen, it seems when Carlos is making comics he’s not always fully aware of where the story’s going to go. Of course there’s always an element of improvisation with most every art form. Whether it’s at the beginning or later down the road in the whole process, there’s always an element of improvisation. For Carlos it seems to be late in the whole process. Where it’s too late to make changes as a result of committing to a certain feeling. He seems to sacrifice control in order to stay true to the feeling he set out to express. For some makers this can cheapen their work, but it’s not the case for Carlos. I think it’s how welcoming and sensitive he is to surprises – these surprises that come along the way, that I’m guessing he ran with because of his commitment to satisfy that longing for a complete story. That’s what I get personally as a reader. It’s not just the way the story plays out – the jokes have this immediate, intuitive, and spontaneous punchiness to them that isn’t in anyway contrived. After wandering back and forth, back and forth through these characters lives, the story all leads to an event, unexpectedly. The way Carlos introduces us to all these elements that will eventually take shape is brilliant – he starts with when the event has already taken place, and then the one character whom we are familiar with is recounting. I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to be shocked, after seeing all the strange things that had happened to the characters before what happened towards the end. By the time I got towards the end of the book, I was convinced there wasn’t anything stranger that could happen. I was wrong. I had to know that something had to be building up. I did, but I didn’t expect it to be a smallish incident. Towards the end of the book the characters don’t feel like pawns in a big sci-fi epic as they did at the beginning. I imagined the book going that direction, that it’s in this claustrophobic, personal macro state, and it’ll expand and expand. However, the story to my surprise and to my delight stayed in the same scale, no matter what was going on. So even this scientist’s big experiment felt like a homemade experiment. “Low key” is the word for the event towards the end of the story, that’ll supposedly continue in our world. I was thinking about the ending to Videodrome – of course if you watch that movie in Pittsburgh, that movie’s going to have an even stranger effect on you. Basically Carlos made it seem like this character is somewhere out there, and she’s gotta do this thing to survive emotionally, so I sympathize with her, even though she’s going doom us all. Maybe I ought to be more optimistic about this higher form she’s going to turn us all into. Read this book if you can, you’ll be glad you did. There’s also a really cool intro by Noel Freibert at the beginning that’ll make you even more confused about this book than you thought you could be. Noel told me he included some stuff from knowing Carlos into the intro, so it might function more to introduce the reader to Carlos more than the book itself, which made it make more sense. – Sam Ombiri Get a copy of Test Tube by Carlos Gonzalas HERE. For another review of this comic, read Anya Davidson’s thoughts on The Comics Journal – HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Sally here – Mege Lemke interviews Gene Luen Yang, the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, over on Mutha Magazine. They talk about his project Reading Without Walls, and it’s mission to get kids and parents “exploring books about characters who look or live differently than you, topics you haven’t discovered, or formats that you haven’t tried.” They talk about how to get reluctant readers to read, how kids are now usually allowed to read comics in school, and the big issue of diversity in comics/publishing as a whole. “MUTHA: What’s your take on this: As I’m sure you’re aware, there’s a real focus in young adult publishing community right now on responding to the criticism from the Own Voices Movement, essentially the idea that there needs to be more space for people of color and people of different sexualities to write their own stories. Resulting in pushback against, say, white writers writing as another character of color, but also characters of color writing other characters of color. This has caused writers to become cautious about writing across cultures. GENE LUEN YANG: Here’s how I approach it. In my own writing life and in my work teaching writing, I believe that writing is an act of bravery. You have to get over so much fear just to put your story on the page. Facing that blank page is terrifying. When I sit down to write, I’ll want to do anything else. I’ll want to go wash dishes, I’ll want to go reorganize my label collection, anything, right? I am very reluctant, especially when I think about my students, of introducing more fear in their heads. So, I would never tell a writer that they cannot write outside of their experience. I almost think that it’s the defining job of a writer to be able to go outside of their own experience. But I would say: don’t let that fear that you feel allow you to stop writing the story you want to write. You should let that fear drive you to do homework. You should let that fear drive you to humility. Approaching experiences that aren’t your own with a certain humility. Including people who are insiders into your support group, either as editors or as beta readers. There is a greater responsibility. However, you’ll see like 80 percent of the stories told about minority demographics are told by outsiders. That is a problem. That is a problem.“ Yang goes on to say that ultimately it is on the publishers, the gatekeepers, to make sure they are publishing work by POC creators and not just asking their “stable” of white writers to toss some diversity into their work. Plenty of other interesting notes in the interview – read it HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Speaking of a white writer tossing some diversity into their work, The Comics Reporter has a breakdown of the recent shocker from Marvel’s new Editor-in-Chief, CB Cebulski – he once wrote comics under the pseudonym Akira Yoshida, and had a whole secret identity for this person. Understandable uproar has ensued. Tom Spurgeon writes: “Comics culture is not just a roll-your-eyes cattle prod these days, it’s as under fire as any individual publishing move. Rightfully so: comics culture dictates a lot in terms of how our industries operate. This latest looks like a series of actions possible only in the context of a broken professional culture. This is not just the case of a freelancer adopting a pseudonym to get more work. This was someone giving themselves work that could have gone to someone else, and creating a context for that work more attractive than the work would be by itself. By assuming a Japanese identity and writing stories soaked in orientalist stereotypes, Cebulski and Marvel slipped any blame that might be theirs for the content of such work, and avoided criticism for the general breakdown of creators being hired by the company. “ Read the rest of the story HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 11-30-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

06/11/2018

Caleb OrecchioJune 11, 2018NewsCaleb Orecchio here with thoughts on Michael Comeau’s, Winter Cosmos, and more! ———————————————————————————— Despite not having a frame of reference for the punk rock zine culture aesthetic Comeau emulates with Winter Cosmos (published by thee great Koyama Press), I really enjoyed it. Every spread is interesting. There is not a visual dull moment therein. Even after I read the book, I went back to flip through the images to “read” it again. The experience of the book is like reading an issue of What If… starring the Fantastic Four exclusively in Kirby’s collage-y Negative Zone. I can’t help but assume Comeau was inspired by this or some similar Negative Zone-related musing when he decided to make a comic about scientists in space. I had a good time reading this book. There is plenty of wit and humor within the writing, but also within the visual aspects. There is something both inherently funny and inherently fascinating about collage depicting science fiction. The pacing of the read itself is excellent. Even if the book were wordless, Comeau’s visual narrative is strong enough to pace the reader in a way that most wordless comics can’t due to their narrative approach (i.e. leaning on a cinematic or literary idea of narrative rather than an inherently comic book idea of narrative). Winter Cosmos is dynamic enough to hold a reader on a purely visual level and that, to me, is a high compliment to a cartoonist. ———————————————————————————— if you don’t know, now you know Frank Santoro’s new book, Pittsburgh, is out in France and we have round up of French reviews here on the site, as well as where you can purchase the book if you’re in the states from Pittsburgh’s own Copacetic Comics. Speaking of which, see what the the great Copacetic Comics Company has new for June HERE on the site! Oh look! You can even buy Winter’s Cosmos by Michael Comeau! Did I mention this comes highly recommend? Did you catch the TCJ interview with The Beguiling owner, Peter Birkemoe? Process Party has a Columbus, OH scene report. ———————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 6-11-18 – by Sally Ingraham Share this page: [...]

02/26/2018

Caleb OrecchioFebruary 26, 2018NewsCaleb Orecchio here with more on Barry Windsor-Smith, and other news. ————————————————————————————————— It’s just another Saturday morning in the big city. June 9th, 1973. Eastbound 26th Street is blocked by two refrigerator trucks who stalled at the Lexington intersection. Horns resound in fury. Barry Smith looks up from the desk he’s working at to see the commotion. His mind starts to swirl. The window from the apartment looking over New York City becomes a vision of sublime psychedelia. Cosmic phenomena burst forth displaying a beautiful array of heavenly bodies, he can see lightyears away. Smith feels a nudge to his perceived center. This was the second time in 24-hours Smith had experienced this happening. He will have a much more intense revelation tomorrow. It’s springtime in London, 1966. Barry Smith and a friend are strolling across a field, a couple and their dog walk just ahead. The dog turns and barks. Everyone looks over their shoulder. Above the field hovers a UFO. Smith can just make out the details of the underside’s tubes and ducts, shadowed by the blinding light emitting from the cluster of lights that blazed from the center. The ship rises and eventually disappears to the west. Everyone left the scene without a word. Five years later in 1971, Smith’s aforementioned friend tells our hero about a dream he had recently. He describes the spaceship he and Smith saw in 1966. Our hero is unable to tell him that it wasn’t a dream. Back to 1973. It’s Sunday, or it was Sunday June 10th, 1973. Smith has had his third vision in as many days. In fact, the encounter lasted into the next morning. It’s now Monday, almost 4:00 am. His body is rendered completely and utterly exhausted. He can hardly stand. He stumbles from the studio, down the stairs and into the streets of New York in 1973 on the corner of 26th Street and Lexington Avenue. Two men are fighting just outside the door. A cop car wails past them, making them scarce. Smith heads for home just a couple blocks down. Every ounce of strength the experience left him with sustains his balance as he heaves one foot in front of the other. Just short of a football field from his destination, two men emerge from the shadows. One brandishes a knife. In an act of sheer survival, our hero emits a barbaric and violent scream—charging headlong towards his foe. The would-be assailants step aside, letting our hero pass in peace. In the summer of 1973, Smith was no longer the regular artist on the Marvel comic book series he had started with Roy Thomas, Conan the Barbarian; but he was working on an adaption of “Red Nails,” the last Conan story by Robert E. Howard, for the new Marvel magazine Savage Tales. On top of this, he was adapting, for the same mag, Howard’s poem, “Cimmeria.” Not to mention helping his friend and studio-mate with concepts for advertisements for big-name clients. Stories of June 1973 taken from Opus Volume 1 by Barry Windsor-Smith. UFO story from Streetwise, an anthology of autobio comics; Smith’s story is called “UFO POV.” ————————————————————————————————— if you don’t know, now you know Frank Santoro is blind-auctioning a copy of Fantastic Four #52, first appearance of Black Panther, on this very site. It’s for a good cause, follow the link for details. Bill Boichel, proprietor of Copacetic Comics here in Pittsburgh, is interviewed on local podcast, The Gross Street Podcast. Alex Dueben interviews David Collier at TCJ.com. I’ve been going back to this CBR.com preview of the first volume of Inside Moebius until I come up with the funds to hold it in my hands. ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 2-26-2018 – by Sally Ingraham ————————————————————————————————— Share this page: [...]

02/22/2018

Juan FernándezFebruary 22, 2018NewsJuan stepping in for Sam here with comics and comments from Austin English and Mari Naomi! ————————————————————————————————— Where I’m Coming From (Part 2) Another excellent exploratory archive post comes to us from Austin English over on The Comics Journal. Grab a coffee and dig in. The first half of this column explained the intentions behind it, but let’s rehash things for a moment: as we all converge together to discuss, draw, or simply read comics, most of our knowledge is shared (Peanuts, a vague notion of Wimpy requesting things he cannot afford) whether we endorse or react against it—but our experience of zines is a personal one. Geography, a personal pantheon of aesthetics, varying levels of enthusiasm for continuing to amass piles of paper into one’s life: all of this contribute to a unique archive of “containers of human creativity” (to use a phrase cartoonist Jason T. Miles once employed to describe zines). I was intrigued by people’s reactions to the first installment of this series. Some expressed excitement at seeing one of the first zines by artist Margot Ferrick. The work in question is from 2012, not ancient history in the least, but Ferrick’s work has changed considerably since that moment. As I said before, zines disappear arbitrarily and without warning. A reader’s favorite artist may have made something deeply heartfelt in the very recent past, but the work and the attitudes expressed may forever be obscured. With this in mind, for the final installment in this series, I’ve tried to write about a great many zines, in the hopes that works that have moved me might open up forgotten corners of what is possible in cartooning (which is the not so secret intention of this column in general). You can read it all here. (After you’re done, start working on your next zine.) ————————————————————————————————— COMICS ARE FOR WHITE MEN: backstory Mari Naomi offers up an illustrated backstory of the Cartoonists of Color and Queer Cartoonists databases. This comic originally appeared in NEW FRONTIERS, an anthology published by SI Universe. Big ups to Mari Naomi for managing this huge project. ————————————————————————————————— 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! Share this page: [...]

03/31/2016

HarrisonMarch 31, 2016News Cameron Weston Nicholson and Harrison G. Prince here with news and musings on work music, vegetables, blocks, and other things. ————————————————————————————————— Cameron Weston Nicholson is an exciting and talented artist out of Richmond, VA who’s work can be found on Comics Workbook. Here he is on music, mindset, and poetry. Sometimes you just can’t find that right side of the pillow right? One side is too cold, the other too hot, and the middle ground is where you end up sleeping with no pillow at all. While working I try to find music that powers my mind (depending on the project). Lately, poems have been my main priority. So how do you find that middle ground between music that doesn’t take your thoughts away from words you’re trying to conjure? I’ve got a couple remedies that work for me, but could possibly help you aswell. With news updates comes busy times. Here are some choices of music that mellow out and empower my mind simultaneously. “Breakfast with Ringgo” is a series of YouTube videos that have been keeping me going day and night. Listening to recordings of beat makers is soothing for a couple reasons. You have music (mainly beats) which automatically puts your mind in a trance, but you also have the subtle commentary of those in the room. This series makes you feel like you’re listening to a podcast. Hearing a “voice” is comforting when it’s miscellaneous and choppy. True Body is a local band based in Virginia Beach, Va that has caught my attention. Experimental with beautiful synths and a great voice on top of it. These are just two things that can get your fingers warmed up for any intense/good day of working. Give them a try, relax, and remember to drink some water! ————————————————————————————————— Mexican/Texan artist Ines Estrada made a funny update to her Pachecomics series a few days ago. Don’t open this one around kids, prudes, or the humorless. Also, make sure to check out the Gatosaurio collective from San Antonio for more comics and art too. ————————————————————————————————— Continuing off of what Jillian was talking about yesterday about finishing work, the video above from filmmaker Ze Frank shares some interesting thoughts about idea generation and getting unstuck. This particular passage (8:08) about rhythm and recognition resonated with me…. “Almost everything you do has a rhythm, and the rhythm gets established without you knowing it. For example, if you listen to yourself talk, you record yourself or something like that, you’ll notice that you have very specific rhythms, and often people when they speak in public get into a pattern of speaking in the same, exact, way. I think there is a pattern of expectation and release that in and of itself kind of starts to wash out because we tend to stop listening to patterns once we’ve identified them. So the challenge is to identify as many rhythms as possible, in all facets of the media that you’re making, and then break them.” ————————————————————————————————— Along with Cam’s choices, here’s my old school pick for the week. Listen with your good headphones. Until next week. -Harrison Share this page: [...]

09/01/2016

Posted on September 1, 2016September 1, 2016 by Sally Ingraham

For Thursday we have a new Ed Piskor article, Zona #3 reviewed, the (nearly totally updated) list for the 2016 Comics Workbook Composition Competition entries, Jonas Goonface’s work in review, and some insights on teaching and kids.

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Ed Piskor is having an amazing year – and back in his hometown of Pittsburgh, PA, folks are feeling the the power of this force of nature. From the Pittsburgh City Paper:

“Accolades for Piskor include last year’s coveted Eisner Award for best reality-based work, for HHFT Book 2. This year, he’s in mad demand as a speaker. In September alone, after an appearance at the Small Press Expo (SPX), in Maryland, he’ll speak at the Library of Congress’ National Book Festival, the country’s largest such fest. SPX executive director Warren Bernard calls HHFT “one of the finest pieces of graphic-novel history that’s ever been done.”

Piskor’s fellow Pittsburgh-based comics artist Frank Santoro goes further. Santoro, also a critic, is internationally known for his comics, but he says that commercially and artistically, Piskor has reached another level entirely. “He’s now the most dominant player in the game [that] I’ve ever seen,” says Santoro. “Ed has just gone above and beyond what has been thought possible.” ” via Bill O’Driscoll

Read the whole article HERE.

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Chris Beckett dug into Comics Workbook publication Zona #3 on the blog he writes with Dan Flemming – Warrior27.

“I have enjoyed every issue of ZONA thus far, but this most recent publication, with its wide variety—not only in artistic approach but also in genre and storytelling style—has been the best issue to date. All of these artists created insightful and engaging narratives—in only 10 pages—that stand with the best comics being produced by today’s larger publishers. You need to check this out. Now.” – Chris Beckett

Read the whole review HERE.

Get a copy of Zona #3!

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http://comicsworkbook.com/composition-competition-entries-2016/

The Comics Workbook judging team will be making the announcement about winners any moment now – stay tuned! Meanwhile, check out all the terrific comics that came out of this year’s competition – which garnered more than the last three competitions put together. Quite an amazing outpouring of comics and hard work…!

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Another Pittsburgh cartoonist – Jonas McGluggage (Goonface) – had his work review recently on Comic Bastards.

“Follow the Leader‘s second issue reads like a bloody version of a William Blake poem. Depictions of naiveté and purity permeate a narrative that, at its core, is a commentary on youth and acceptance. Larranceville’s local park is a carnivorous Neverland filled with hungry Lost Boys.” – Ben Boruff

Read the rest of the review HERE.

Check out more stuff by Jonas Goonface HERE.

You can keep up with Follow the Leader HERE.

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There was an eye-opening article on The New York Times recently about “What Kids Wish Their Teachers Knew”.

“The responses were eye-opening for Ms. Schwartz. Some children were struggling with poverty (“I wish my teacher knew I don’t have pencils at home to do my homework”); an absent parent (“I wish my teacher knew that sometimes my reading log is not signed because my mom isn’t around a lot”); and a parent taken away (“I wish my teacher knew how much I miss my dad because he got deported to Mexico when I was 3 years old and I haven’t seen him in six years”).” – DONNA DE LA CRUZ

Read the rest HERE.

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Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in NewsTagged cwcc2016, Ed Piskor, Jonas Goonface, zona 3

Sally Ingraham

Posted on September 1, 2016September 1, 2016

Explore

08/29/2016

Sally IngrahamAugust 29, 2016NewsSally here to start the week with you: I’ve got Dame Darcy on VICE, the new Rowhouse Residency auction, the last days of the Composition Competition, a major event at the ToonSeum, a brand new column on Comics Workbook, and everything you ever wanted to know about Ben Day Dots… ————————————————————————————————— The Comics Workbook Composition Competition 2016 is drawing to a close! The last day to submit work is August 30th, right up until 11:59pm EST, and not a moment later. That means 8:59pm for the West Coast – no complaining! The entries are coming in at a terrific rate now, and it’s all we can do to keep up with the rush of talent and excitement. THE LIST of entries is updated as often as we can manage, but for those who don’t see their name on the list (yet!) – if you have emailed us your entry and it has been reblogged on the Comics Workbook tumblr then you are IN, no worries. Before you send those entries in PLEASE double-check that you have met all the contest specifications – and thank you for joining the Composition Competition this year. Full contest details HERE. Again, submission deadline is August 30th, 2016, at 11:59 Eastern Standard Time! Good luck!! ————————————————————————————————— The latest auction to benefit thee Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency is a set of 3 pages donated by Sammy Harkham. THEY ARE AMAZING as you can see from the video above. Check out the rest of the action details HERE. ————————————————————————————————— On the site today we are pleased to feature a brand new column! “QUESTIONS is an anonymously curated column that will appear occasionally on Comics Workbook. It presents articles, interviews, drawings, and more under the rubric of a general theme. TRANSITION might refer to: changes in the artistic, personal, or professional life of an individual creator; changes in the wider zeitgeist of a medium or industry, which can in turn affect individual works; and of course the implied passage of time from page to page, panel to panel, that is arguably the central characteristic of comics. TRANSITION features interviews with Cameron Nicholson and Simon Moreton, an article by Kim Jooha, and reviews of work by Warren Craghead, Sarah Ferrick, and Aseyn. Thanks for reading. Thanks to all contributors for their time.“ The anonymous columnist has questions for themselves as well as the folks listed above, and the piece is a wondrous and extensive collection of thoughts on transition. Please dig into it HERE – and look for more Questions columns on Comics Workbook in the future. ————————————————————————————————— Dame Darcy on VICE last week (above). And the 1994 interview from The Comics Journal – HERE. She answered a question about what she liked about the 1800’s to 1920’s: “I like the fact that everybody was uptight and really conservative and bound, and they had these twisted views, this weird morbid society, that they romanticized death because it was around them, it was such a big part of their lives all the time. They accepted death rather than trying to hide it beneath all this crazy youth culture plastic ideology like they do today.” – Dame Darcy via tcj.com I guess she’s still very much into “this Victorian thing” as Darcy Sullivan put it in 1994. It’s probably about time I put my mitts on her Meat Cake Bible (Fantagraphics, 2016)… More about that book HERE on Observer (an interview from earlier in August, right before Dame Darcy went “to sea school to get my captain’s licence“…!) ————————————————————————————————— A recent discovery by the CW Daily News team is the blog Legion of Andy – where you can dig into topics like “The Most Important Colour Printing Technique You’ve Never Heard Of: Resin Grain Chromotypography“, and “Tarzan and the Ben Day Dots – Secrets of 1930s Comic Strip Colour“. In his most recent post, the writer is bidding farewell to his second 8-part series on Ben Day Dots, and welcoming in Craftint. He has fun quotes, like: “Those first engravings were beautiful things. They had the Ben Day process then and those Ben Day men were artists—they could get the colors. Then they got cheaper and cheaper and now finally there’s no Ben Day work at all. They use a different process that’s cheaper and not nearly so good. —Hal Foster, 1971—talking about the early days of his renowned Sunday newspaper strip, Prince Valiant, which started in 1937. Quoted by Phil Normand, here.” This blog is one rabbit warren that you might never find your way out of…! Check it out HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Here in Pittsburgh we are lucky to have one of the world’s only museums dedicated entirely to the art and history of comics – the wonderful ToonSeum! The recent opening party for a new exhibit was attended by many of the region’s cartoonists – including Ed Piskor, Jim Rugg, Frank Santoro, Mark Zingarelli – and local legend Rick Sebak. Sebak described the show later on his Facebook page: “A new show called DRAW ME! opened last night at The ToonSeum. It’s a great collection of artifacts that show some of the ways that people have tried to make money by teaching people to be cartoonists! I love the old cartooning styles, and the amazing collection of stuff gathered by John F. Kelly and Mark Zingarelli. Worth a visit or two for sure!“ The exhibit features part of the collections of John Kelly, Frank Santoro, Warren Bernard, Bill Boichel, and Mark Zingarelli, among others. If you live nearby definitely check it out, and if you live far away, you should still come check it out – heck, Fiona Smyth flew in from Toronto for it! Show runs through October. ————————————————————————————————— I’ll catch up with you again in September- have fun out there! – Sally Share this page: [...]

12/20/2017

Juan FernándezDecember 20, 2017los Cómics / NewsJuan empieza el día con Entreviñetas 2018 y otros trocitos jugosos! —————————— ENTREVIÑETAS 2018 Desde ya te invitamos a marcar las fechas en el calendario del próximo año. #FestivalEntreviñetas2018. Medéllin | 3-6 Mayo – 2018 Bogotá | 26-30 Septiembre – 2018 Aquí puedes lanzar ideas para presentar tu trabajo como autor, editor o gestor en el #FestivalEntreviñetas2018 —> https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdrGer3ywbKGALEScNma0g_4o9L31oXimbrxD2jvQr2bkMkqQ/viewform ————————————————————————————————— Los cómics y las noticias que me han llamado la atención esta semana: Sol Díaz Castillo y Marcela Trujillo tienen una nueva edicion de La Polola Podcast! Las chicas conversan con varios de los participantes de la Furia del Libro 2017: Pato Mena, Karlo Humor, Daniela Thiers, Vero Rodríguez, Carlos Andueza, Marli, Caro Celis, Garvo, Florencia Olivos, Isa Molina, Simón López, Paula Ilabaca, Pamela Aravena y Lucho y sus serigrafías. Revista Kamandi nos ofrece la primera parte de un debate en torno a la idea de “vanguardia” en el cómic. Participan Horacio Muños y Gerardo Vilches. Miguel R. Fervenza‏ le dedico unas líneas al cómic «Vampir» de Joann Sfar y a la estupenda edición de Fulgencio Pimentel. Klari Moreno charla con la dibujante Juan Zhou y lo plasma en forma de original entrevista dibujada. Este 2017 la editorial mexicana, Ediciones Hungría editó un mazo de tarot hecho por Rodrigo Téllez Repetto con personajes, paisajes, objetos y escenas de películas del cineasta sueco Ingmar Bergman y con el cual resignificaron este juego adivinatorio. El cómic colombiano premiado en Japón: ¡Dos Aldos de Pablo Guerra y Henry Diaz ganó medalla de oro en el 11th Japan International MANGA Award! ————————————————————————————————— The Winter Semester of thee Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers starts January 16th 2018! 8 weeks – 500 bux – coaching for as long as you need. The course is hard, but Frank will push your comics making practice to a new level, getting you to think about timing and color in new ways. Makes a great holiday gift for yourself – or for a loved one who is interested in comics. Apply by midnight (EST) on Dec. 25th and get $100 off the course price. Full details and how to apply can be found HERE! ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 12-20-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 12-20-2017 – by Frank Santoro Share this page: [...]

07/10/2018

Aaron CockleJuly 10, 2018NewsPanels to/for the People; Médecins Sans Frontières; Maiden Form; LAAB; Art of/for War ————————————————————————————————— Panels to the People x Vinyl Fantasy Panels to the People is a comics reading showcasing a variety of creators. Come to Bushwick’s best comic book store Vinyl Fantasy for a night of brilliant comics. Admission is FREE! Readings by: Neil Dvorak (Easy Pieces) Michael Giurato April Malig (Goths on Ice, My Dumb Feelings) & more TBA! Thursday, July 12, 7-9pm at Vinyl Fantasy, 194 Knickerbocker Ave, Brooklyn, U.S.A. ————————————————————————————————— Paintings of people I met in Mosul Australian psychologist Diane Hanna turned to art to tell the story of the people she met while providing mental healthcare to people displaced from Mosul, Iraq, during her first field assignment with us. Via Doctors Without Borders. ————————————————————————————————— An Interview With Heather Benjamin, Curator and Participating Artist Of “MAIDEN FORM” Do you have a statement about the exhibition you’d like to share, some over-arching theme or discussion you’d like to be at the forefront? MAIDEN FORM is a show presenting meditations on contemporary notions of femininity. As a starting point, I’m inviting artists to interpret that and explore their own personal experiences through the lenses of any of the following perceived/desired/imposed attributes of conventional femininity, including but of course not limited to – concepts of sensitivity, purity, tenderness, deference, empathy, nurturance, beauty, sexual objectification, fragility, passivity. This is just a cross-section of some of the concepts which contribute simultaneously to the subjugation of all kinds of women, as well as provide structures which we both lean on and transgress against in order to define each of our personal womanhood. Betty Friedan wrote in 1963 that the key to women’s subjugation lay in the social construction of femininity as “childlike, passive, and dependent”, and called for a “drastic reshaping of the cultural image of femininity”. Over 50 years later, in many ways, we have progressed past some of the “classic” stereotypes about womanhood, but in just as many ways, we still struggle to throw off the same chains – and carry new ones as well. And that struggle has never been cut and dry – we can feel pulled in so many directions as we fight to hold onto pieces of our identities and shed others, to embrace one culturally imposed facet of femininity while transgressing against another, and all this happening under the shadow of what is societally or traditionally deemed appropriate or desirable. This show is a collection of artists making work about the multifaceted nature of that struggle, which can be so different for every individual and type of woman. My hope with the show is to create an exhibition of vibrant, poignant, and emotional work about individual experiences of femininity, different takes on personal experiences of womanhood by different kinds of women, with the goal of creating an environment where any kind of woman who walks into the gallery can find something moving and relatable within the body of work as a whole. ————————————————————————————————— LAAB, Ronald Wimberly This was probably posted to CW already, but here’s a youtube flip through of Wimberly’s excellent LAAB magazine. ————————————————————————————————— A conversation with C.C. Tsai, a Chinese artist and illustrator of Sunzi’s classic “The Art of War” (Princeton University Press, 2018), translated into English by Brian Bruya What do you think people most often get wrong about “The Art of War”? I think there is a basic misunderstanding that it’s not really about war — it’s about preventing war. From very early times, the Chinese attitude toward warfare was that you need to end it as quickly as possible. The way to do that was to use irregular fighting: special strategies and tactics so that you could minimize the loss of life and the damage to crops and villages and so on. This started very early in Chinese history. Sunzi says the point of warfare is not the fighting but the winning. He says that anger can turn to happiness later, but a dead person can’t be brought back to life. A country that is lost can’t be brought back either. So the main goal of war from a Chinese perspective is to avoid it at all costs, or to figure out how to win while suffering the least amount of damage. ————————————————————————————————— Vision Box – 7-10-2018 – by Cameron Arthur ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 7-10-18 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

09/19/2016

Juan FernándezSeptember 19, 2016NewsJuan here! SPX just wrapped up. Wotta whirlwind! I’ve got loads to share but I’m on the road today, so only the essentials: Reflecting on our CW workshops; Ignatz Winners; Dash Shaw on instagram. ————————————————————————————————— We had the honor and privilege of presenting our one of a kind comics programming to eager creators at SPX this year. It was a joy to see cartoonists experienced and amateur to gather round for some spirited drawing and discussion. Although n depth coverage of our workshops and the full SPX experience is soon to come this week, a short recap of what went down in THE DANGER ROOM. Saturday September 17th 12:00-1:00 PM Comics with Jeffrey Brown Mr. Brown truly brought the “Star Wars Academy” to a packed audience! Jeffrey Brown was on hand to share storytelling tips and drawing advice. Jeffrey Brown challenged all participants to follow along with creation of a 4 panel slice of life comic. After some diligent work, sll participants recieved personalized reviews of their work. 1:00-3:00 PM Comics Workbook Hangout We were joined by a packed audiencefor an afternoon of comics-crafting. We explored the history of tracing and its benefits. It’s safe to say we are take your comics-making game to a new level. Simple exercises will push you in mind-bending directions. Drop in for a minute or an hour. 3:00-5:00 PM Spanish Fever (Spanish Language Workshop) This SPX, Comics Workbook, was joined by Spanish cartoonists José Domingo and David Rubín for some lively Spanish language instruction and presentations. Many thanks to SPX, Fantagraphics and the Spanish Cultural Ministry and Fantagraphics. 5:00-6:00 PM Cameron Nicholson and Frank Santoro Cameron Nicholson expanded minds as he examined his notions of the comics form and methodologies for creating and refining one’s own comics. Comics Workbook founder and internationally known cartoonist/teacher Frank Santoro piped in with color commentary. Spirits were very high during this uplifting, talk. Sunday September 18th 1:00-2:00 PM Comics with Carol Tyler The great Carol Tyler taught us the ins and outs of her unique mode of autobiographical comics, her history as a painter and the importance of cornering the market on her nibs. A maker who has been defining the form since the 1970’s, Tyler had her audience ebtranced. Carol Tyler will discuss her adventures in comics and share drawing tips and storytelling advice. 2:00-3:00 PM Comics Workbook Hangout Participants took a break from circling the ballroom and channeled their energy into a heaping helping of Dan DeCarlo and Harry Lucie studies. This hangout hammered home the idea of drawing as an exploration of drawing as a way of seeing and knowing. 3:00-4:00 PM Comics with Charles Burns The inimitable Charles Burns brought us a very special presentation wherein we explored his sometimes dark but always thrilling worlds. Participants drew along with him and got one of the heartiest Q&A sessions one could ask for. 4:00-5:00 PM Comics Workbook Hangout In our last, more laid back session, we hopped to it and explored the relationships between filmic techniques and cartooning. Participants left having completed an entire 8 panel, one page More to come this week! ————————————————————————————————— Ignatz Winners 2016 If you haven’t been checking Twitter feverishly to see the results of Saturday night’s Ignatz Winners, Tom Spurgeon’s got what you need! It’s all over on comicsreporter.com ————————————————————————————————— Dash Shaw is on instagram. I’m not messin’ around. It’s true! Hop on over to his account, follow him, and take a look behind the curtain on his latest projects. No better way to glean some insight into the american masters’ cartooning and animation process. All from the comfort of your home. ————————————————————————————————— See you next time with some JUICY, in depth, SPX Coverage. -Juan 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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