Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in NewsTagged gabriella tito, how to be alive, Katie Skelly, koyama press, my pretty vampire, sex fantasy, sophia foster-dimino, tara booth

Sally Ingraham

Posted on August 31, 2017September 1, 2017

Explore

Comics Workbook at SPX 2016

Sally IngrahamSeptember 25, 2016Festivals and ShowsRough and ready documentation while we work on making some polished videos! Share this page: [...]

07/26/2017

Juan FernándezJuly 26, 2017los Cómics / NewsEmpezamos el día con La Polola EN VIVO con Sebastián Ilabaca; Antonio Altarriba y Sergio García; Mincho Magazine #13; Dis-Tinta, la historieta actual en argentina; Autoras de Cómic; Krazy Kat y el Museo Reina Sofía; La Competencia de Composición de Comics Workbook 2017; y los tebeos de Cómics Workbook! —————————————————————————————————Cuerpos del delito. Entrevista a Antonio Altarriba y Sergio García en Bilbao24horas: Cuerpos del delito es la historia de Miroslav Matjevic, francotirador serbio-bosnio; Ratko Petrovic y su banda, contrabandistas serbio-bosnios; François Laplanche y el Sargento Hervé Dumont, y algunos cascos azules del regimiento francés de Sarajevo. Cuatro vidas diferentes entrelazadas por una ciudad (Sarajevo), un año (1994) y la fragilidad del ser humano. Contiene un póster en el que aparece la historia en la silueta de un cadáver con la historia completa. Bilbao24Horas: ¿Qué es Cuerpos del delito? Sergio: Cuerpos del delito, básicamente, es un contenedor de historias. La idea surge de los dibujos que hace la policía en el suelo cuando alguien muere, generalmente asesinado. Lo que pretendíamos es descubrir que historia tiene ese dibujo de tiza. Lo que hicimos fue dibujar la silueta de un soldado y en el interior contar su historia y la de su muerte, todo ello en un formato póster. Todo ello acompañado por los maravillosos textos de Antonio. Unos relatos cortos que complementan la historia y que, a su vez, también están ilustrados. Antonio: Lo que me gusta del formato es la complementariedad de lecturas entre los textos, que cuentan la historia de los 4 personajes protagonistas, las ilustraciones y el póster. Se van superponiendo por capas niveles de lectura de la historia. Si solo ves el póster puedes ver la acción. Es una primera capa en la que vemos los desplazamientos de los personajes en la geografía de Sarajevo. Los textos con sus ilustraciones le dan profundidad a esa acción. Allí vemos sus motivaciones, lo que les ha llevado a ese punto e, incluso, lo que sucede después de ese momento que les ha llevado al asesinato. Me parece una idea innovadora. Léelo todo AQUI. ———————————————————————————————— A post shared by Comics Workbook (@comicsworkbook) on Jul 24, 2017 at 8:33pm PDT ¡Está aquí por fin! LA Competencia de Composición de Comics Workbook 2017. Esta vez el formato se trata de paginas con una cuadrícula de 6 viñetas utilizando en las proporciónes tradicionales de cómics norteamericanos – ¡con un giro! Encontraras todos los detalles aquí: http://comicsworkbook.com/comics-workbook-composition-competition-2017/ FECHA DE LÍMITE 5 de septiembre de 2017, ¡así que empiecen! El 1er premio es una estadia en nuestra residencia de arte, la Rowhouse Residency en Pittsburgh, PA. OJO: Si necessitan ayuda entiendiendo las direcciones (a vezes son un poquito confusas!), mandenme un mensaje: fernandez.juan.j@gmail.com ————————————————————————————————— 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 el ilustrador Sebastián Ilabaca EN VIVO en Chile acerca de las personas que lo apoyaron e inspiraron, de su paso por la escuela de cine, de su forma de ilustrar, los materiales que usa, su visión, proyectos a futuro y mucho más! The newest edition, #13, of Mincho Magazine, the illustration and graphic arts magazine is now available. Autoras de Cómic iniciaron un llamamiento por twitter para que les recomendéis cómic, tebeos, fanzines hechos por autoras. Es un thread asombroso, por que la mayoria estan disponibles en Español! Dis-Tinta, la coleccion de tonalidades de la historieta argentina actual, editada por Liniers y Martín Pérez fue reseñada por La Nación. El Museo Reina Sofía en Madrid se apunta al cómic con el que es, a mi entender, el mejor cómic de la historia: Krazy Kat de George Herriman con su nueva exhibición Krazy Kat es Krazy Kat es Krazy Kat. ———————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 7-26-2017 – by Sally Ingraham ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 7-26-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

The Plan – “Columbo” tells all

Comics WorkbookOctober 29, 2015School UpdatesAnd now here’s something we hope you’ll really like: Frank Santoro doing his best Columbo imitation to tell you all about the plan to build the Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency in Pittsburgh,PA (read to yourself in your best Columbo voice) Howzitgoin? Good, good. Me? Good, thanks. I gotta tell ya though I’m sorry to bother you again, but y’see somethin’s been troubling me and I can’t stop thinking about it. Kept me up all night. and the dog too cuz he thought I was getting up to take him to Cincinnati. What’s that? Oh. Sorry. Cincinnati is what I call the park. Cuz if I say “park” or “walk” then he gets crazy. So we say Cincinnati around here. Yeah. So. Where was I? Oh yeah. This thing has been bothering me and it’s this thing about commodity form as community form. What’s that? Oh. “Commodity form as community form.” Yeah, it’s a mouthful. And sort of puzzle. What does it mean? I don’t know. Or I think I know. Either way, I keep thinking about it. People ask me, “Frank, what’s this I hear you are buying the house next door and turning it into your schoolhouse?” I say, yeah, it’s true. The old man who owned the property passed away. Well, no one’s been living there for twenty years. He was this old guy who lived in Florida most of the year and had a bunch of properties all over the neighborhood. I’ve wanted to buy it forever but the old man wouldn’t budge so we thought maybe someday. Anyways, the day arrived and the nephew who cut the grass, y’know, to keep the place nice over the years—well, the nephew stopped by and asked me if i wanted to buy the place. That they weren’t gonna put it on the market. Was I interested, he says? Was I interested? Of course, I’m interested. I said yes, I’ll buy it. Trouble is, you see, I don’t have the money. Yeah, I know. Foolish of me, wasn’t it? I had to say yes, though. Otherwise it’s on the market and bang it’s gone. This way I have a chance at least. So I’m scraping together the money as fast as possible. Boy, I’ll tell ya though, it’s humbling. Passing the hat is a humbling experience. Why should I help this fool is what most of them are thinking, I know. It’s ok, I understand. I am foolish. But foolish choices have gotten me this far—so I gotta ride out the lucky streak. If it’s a complete disaster and I can’t get the house, well, at least I took a shot. A shot not taken is a shot missed, they say. But, it’s gotta be a good shot. You gotta take a good shot to score. Anyhow, can I get you a coffee or a tea? Sorry, I got alot on my mind and I gotta just talk it out, if you don’t mind. Can’t sleep. Cream and sugar? No, ok. Here ya go. You’re welcome. Let me get one, myself. Hold on. There we are. Ok. So, about the house. We’re gonna do an IndieGoGo campaign. Yeah, “crowdfunding”. Yeah, I know. It’s an interesting idea which we think we have to try. I mean, we gotta take the shot, right? Take it to the hoop. What’s that? Oh. Sorry, when I say “we” I mean we, like, the school. I’m gonna make it a school next door. I like having the correspondence course for comics but I think it’s time to try to do more. I’ve been trying to figure out for years how I can expand my school—start having my students teach in some way—but I can never figure it out because the correspondence part of it is so personal. Teaching in a classroom is different. But how do you get a classroom? Do I have to join my school to another school to get their classroom? But most comics are done alone by the person making them in a room. Classrooms are good for teaching some artforms but not so great for teaching others, y’know what I mean? Like how do you teach writing in a classroom? Go around peering over the shoulders to read what they are doing? No, it’s gotta be something different. Like a residency. Like the student can live in the classroom. Work in the classroom of course, but also, sleep in the classroom and eat there too. Most cartoonists I know work out of their homes. So maybe if I can have a house that is a residency where the student can have classes everyday and then do the hard work in private in the same space—that might just work. Especially if the teacher lives on the same street and his mother makes really awesome spaghetti sauce and the student doesn’t have to worry about what to make for dinner. An airbnb with comic book lessons. Something like that. The students I have already are pretty psyched about it. Many of them live in far flung backwater comics towns and here in Pittsburgh, well, we are a prime time comics town. Always have been, but things are really hoppin’ here now. So I dunno. I think it could work, cuz the students I already have would be the first wave of residents. We already know each other even if we never met in person. And then they can come here and we can work with the game plan we already know and come up with new strategies for making forward thinking comics. Does that sound hokey? I’m sorry, forgive me, I get carried away. See, I just think that for the artform to grow there need to be different types of interdisciplinary learning institutions that are outside of the traditional academy. Like there needs to be a big ecosystem. People say, why do we need a comics school? There aren’t many jobs in comics so why churn out these kids with no job prospects? Well, I’m not interested in that. I’m interested in churning out ninjas. I don’t see many jobs out there for ninjas. It’s understood that if you want to be a ninja you are doing it for the love of ninjadom–not for personal glory or gold. I mean, what professional ninja goes around telling people they are a ninja? I’ve never seen a “ninja needed” advertisement anywhere. This is why I’m intrigued by this “commodity form as community form” thing. What’s that? Oh, did I make that up? No, no, Bill Boichel came up with that one. Back in the 80s. His whole thing was that he had this comic book store in an economically depressed steel town back in the 80s. And it was the only place in the neighborhood kids could hangout without an adult. Like you see in store windows “only two kids allowed at a time” or “children must be accompanied by an adult” and all that stuff? Yeah, Bill’s store was never like that. Christ, he had couches. Kids would sit there and read. A kid who was flunking English class probably would be READING at the comic book store without a care in the world. And so, you know, Bill is a thoughtful guy and he’d start putting all this relevant material into these kids’ hands. Like he’d give a kid a Black Panther comic and tell him his theory that that “the Black Panther party” was named soon after the comic came out back in the 60s. Like he didn’t just take their quarters for beat up back issues of comics, he actually fucking cared about these kids. And that really did something to me, cuz I was one of those kids too. There was NO WAY OUT of my post-idustrial wasteland existence, really. Except there was—thru comics. Bill preached the gospel of comics and I signed up for the choir. He taught me about “commodity form as community form”. Meaning that what we buy and sell creates a community. And how do you engage your community in which you are buying and selling? And what are you buying? And what are you selling? Bill would make his own comics in the basement of the store and then print them on the xerox machine down there and then go upstairs and put it on the rack for sale. He rearranged my thinking of how a maker of art can get their work into the world. Bill was publishing comics made by the kids who hung out at the store. He had us selling our comics at our high schools. He “published” our work for us and taught us how to make money from our art. They weren’t teaching me that in high school art class. He taught us how to fish essentially. The guy changed my life. So I want to do the same thing in my own way. I know how hard it is to gain an education in comics. How to learn the craft and how to survive in this godforsaken industry and on the circuit of church basement shows? I can help you. Really. We can help you. I have over 150 students now and I want to bring each student, if they are willing, thru the residency schoolhouse and help them level up so that they can go back into their community and pass on what Bill passed on to me. What Bill passed on to me is really something I can’t even explain except that it is part of the necessary oral tradition of art. Especially comics. Comics is such an insanely difficult thing to study because so much of the art is obscured by the marketplace. How do you balance the two when the form itself is, as they say, the bastard child of art and commerce? I know: you provide a space where the student can LIVE AND WORK. Where there is no separation between art and life or between your school’s awesome classroom and your hovel on the otherside of town. A place where the student can have a total immersion in the private process of making comics while still being tethered to a strong community. What’s in it for you, you ask? Well, that’s a good question. Maybe if you are, simply, a comics fan— then someday in the future you can read the work by some of the school’s students and you’ll enjoy it. That’s probably all that is in it for you. But if you are a comics snob who is also interested in seeing the form grow then maybe you will consider supporting the school because you know that I am one passionate motherfeyer about comics and I really, really want to push the form itself to grow and to absorb new voices and disciplines to create a Jeet Kune Do-type comics style. A style, an approach to comics making that is firmly rooted in the 21st century. What does it mean it be a comics maker in the 21st century? How does a comics maker navigate the marketplace or navigate a marketplace that doesn’t exist for them? Making comics on the xerox machine and selling them by hand is still the business model. So something has got to give. Help me help my students figure this out so that the next generation won’t have such a hard time of it. That’s what you’ll get out of supporting the school: knowing that you made a difference, potentially, in the direction of the form itself. More coffee? So, yeah. I’m selling my collection through a private auction and now this: we’re going to do an IndieGoGo crowdfund to raise money to buy the house and start working on it. The house needs alot of work to get it up to code for inspections. But first we gotta raise the money for the down payment. If you feel like helping out you can buy something or donate here. If you want to check out the private auction then send me an email: santoroschoolATgmail. Everyone is asking why I’m doing a private auction. It’s because some of the famous artists giving me artwork to sell don’t really want to be part of a crowdfund and all that. Plus it is a way of avoiding eBay fees and that kind of thing. It is also a way of keeping the books and art in my collection IN the community because in theory the people buying stuff are comics snobs (haha, that’s a term of respect). So, for me, this plays into the “community form as commodity form thing”. Like I’m selling the collection I amassed for years—a collection that was made thru purchases made within the community—to buy a house to teach comics. So hopefully if you, the comics fan, buy something from the auction then I am selling my commodities to buy a meeting place for the community. See, how pretty that is? It’s like a circle. The end is in the beginning. I want some kid to sit on the couch at our school and read comics and maaaaybe take a workshop and get interested in comics as A WAY OUT in a spiritual sense and possibly in a financial sense. Like it’s a trade. A 21st century skillset. How to arrange words and images. Visual literacy. I mean, that’s the internet, right? Commodity form as community form. Community form as commodity form. Take awhile, think about it. I’ll be here if you wanna stop by later. Share this page: [...]

10/03/2017

Aaron CockleOctober 3, 2017NewsAaron here today with the continuing Cartoon Crossroads Columbus recap. ————————————————————————————————— If you haven’t already, please take a look at Caleb Orecchio’s excellent write-up of the recent Cartoon Crossroads Columbus festival. Caleb pretty much covers the entire show, it’s definitely worth the read. ————————————————————————————————— I was in attendance at that show as well, but only managed to take a few photos. ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 10-3-2017 – by Gabriella Tito Share this page: [...]

07/27/2017

Sally IngrahamJuly 27, 2017NewsSam Ombiri on Gabrielle Bell’s Everything is Flammable – plus other comics and news! —————————————————————————————————— Sam Ombiri here: The reason for my enthusiasm for Everything Is Flammable by Gabrielle Bell is hard to pin down – but I’ll try! I liked how everything flows without interruptions. There’s a seamless transition between what’s going on in her head and what’s happening around her, in what’s treated by her as her reality. She doesn’t treat any incoming moment with more reverence than the last. I got a surprising amount from the book – I just expected to have some fun reading another Gabrielle Bell book, but I kept feeling a lot from panel to panel. I’d read it and keep reading it, and I’d savor it. Gabrielle throws you these incredibly insightful things about life, but they are given no more weight than what was happening earlier. What’s great is that they are open ended insights – ones that you as the reader continue to work out as her stories continue. There’s a part in book where Gabrielle is saying how she is wanting to go see if her Mom is alright after a house fire, but it’s so that she can be a hero – it’s really funny and speaks to the spirit of the book, that spirit of celebrating these minor victories. I’m addicted to reading them. The quests aren’t minor, but the triumphs aren’t a bigger event than those small, small moments of failure we might experience. Everything moment is given the same weight as far as the way they are portrayed. The stories in the comic aren’t desperate to build for “a moment”. For example, Gabrielle may have a part where she’s about to check on her mother after an accident happened, and she says “And I have to admit my own selfishness in wanting to go. First, to draw comics about it…” This attitude doesn’t show, exclusively, an attempt to exploit every possible event. Gabrielle tells very little and conveys a lot. Take the little things you love about people – you don’t have to escape into fantasizing and romanticizing these things about people. You don’t have to look too far to find them, every detail in life doesn’t always lead to a climatic ending. It’s consistent in Gabrielle Bell’s fiction and her auto bio that she seems uninterested in big endings or big conclusions, based on the work I’ve read. I think, as a result, there’s more of what I can believe in the reality that Gabrielle Bell portrays. Related to this: I’m thinking of Gabrielle’s segment in Tokyo! – the Interior Design part directed by Michel Gondry. In contrast to the rest of Gondry’s filmography, it felt like the most nuanced and layered portrayal of this certain (for lack of a better term) mysterious nature of life. Even Gondry commented, and this might be him speaking as a comics maker himself, on how much Gabrielle can convey in just one panel. – Sam Ombiri Get a copy of Everything is Flammable by Gabrielle Bell HERE. —————————————————————————————————— 7-27-2017 – by Sam Ombiri on the eve of Microsoft Paint’s passing – more info HERE —————————————————————————————————— Sally here – Ronald Wimberly did some character designs (above) recently for LeSean Thomas’ new animated short Children of Ether. The Blerdgurl writes: “What I think makes Thomas’ Children of Ether so significant is that not only is he an African-American artist and director who worked exclusively with a Japanese team to create Children of Ether, the main character, Rhonda, is also woman of color, a rare image in the world of anime.“ Read more HERE. —————————————————————————————————— Above is an excerpt from a comic about Abdi, part of a 14 comic series about various Somalian people published by PositiveNegative. “In collaboration with the Open Society Foundations (OSF) we produced a series of fourteen comics, based on personal testimonies, that highlight integration issues of the Somali communities across seven cities of Europe – London, Leicester, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Malmo, Oslo and Helsinki. The focus of the project was to accompany the OSF policy research on the same subjects and locations and to engage a wide, general audience and challenge negative media stereotyping of the Somali community.“ Read all of the comics HERE. Read about the Somali diaspora HERE. —————————————————————————————————— It’s the most wonderful time of the year! Thee Comics Workbook Composition Competition 2017 has been announced! This year it’s a riff on the 6-panel grid, in the traditional North American comic book size – but with a twist! Full details HERE. —————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 7-27-2017 – by Gabriella Tito —————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 7-27-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

09/01/2017

Posted on August 31, 2017September 1, 2017 by Sally Ingraham

Sally here with reviews of work by Sophia Foster-Dimino, Tara Booth, and Katie Skelly, plus other news worth knowing.

————————————————————————————————

I’ve been reading a PDF version of Sophia Foster-Dimino‘s new comic (sent out as an advance review copy), which is being released by Koyama Press in the next few weeks. It’s called Sex Fantasy and it is going to be lovely. It collects the mini comics she’s been making in limited editions for over 4 years, translating them into a little square book of 440 pages. Each page will contain a single panel, and perhaps folks will be inclined to zip through the book at speed but I recommend taking time to savor this one.

Each “sex fantasy” is a poem which manages to capture something about human interactions, attractions, anxieties, and those brief moments of connection or total disconnect. The pieces are funny, whimsical, and sad, some all at the same time. I like Sophia’s playful, but elegant line.

I made myself stop reading the PDF version since I want to thoroughly enjoy the book when it is released. If you’re curious to check it out in the meanwhile, you can see some of the pieces HERE on Sophia’s website.

An excerpt from one of the pieces, formatted as it originally appeared

Be sure to look for the entire Fall lineup of comics from Koyama Press – new work by Connor Willumsen, GG, Noel Freibert, Patrick Kyle, and Hannah K. Lee!

————————————————————————————————

Tara Booth‘s How to Be Alive was part of the spring 2017 collection from Retrofit Comics, but it was only released in the past few weeks. I don’t always go for comics that go careening around a page without panels or a grid to contain them, but I do enjoy Tara’s work. The simple sequencing is effective, the gags are funny, and of course her color and patterning is exactly as loud and as bright as I like it. She captures what it’s like to be caught inside her body and emotions quite well. There is a sort of joy in her drawings and paintings, whether she is lying on the floor wracked with anxiety, popping a zit or cutting her bangs, or delighting in comfy PJs.

Get a copy of How to Be Alive from Copacetic Comics. Check out more of Tara Booth’s work HERE and follow her on Instagram.

————————————————————————————————

Katie Skelly‘s new comic from Fantagraphics is a big hardcover that collects the series she started drawing in 2015. My Pretty Vampire tells the tale of Clover, a young vampire who escapes the imprisonment of her brother to seek freedom and blood. How she became a vampire and how her brother was involved is deliberately unclear, but to me that was the only truly intriguing part of the story. Katie is playing with the horror genre, making her pretty blonde play the roll of both virginal survivor and slasher, but the comic fizzles before the end. Clover evades the pursuit of her brother and his hired detective, manages to stay out of the sun, mostly, and kills a bunch of folks. There seems to be a thread of abuse and certainly the potential for revenge, but that remains just a promise.

You can expect erotic episodes in Katie’s work, and this comic has its share, plus it features Katie’s first use of full color. She was inspired by the spot coloring in Barbarella by Jean-Claude Forest, and tried to go for the grotesque effect of almost overwhelming color (according to this interview on CBR). Maybe it’s because of the large format with lots of space, but the block coloring of the piece doesn’t appeal to me. (I just keep thinking about Photoshop’s paint bucket.) There are some interesting spreads, but overall I didn’t find this comic to be as strong as I’d expected.

Of course you must judge it for yourself – get a copy of My Pretty Vampire HERE.

NPR did one of their “cover crushes” on My Pretty Vampire – see what inspired Katie’s cover design HERE.

————————————————————————————————

Less Subjective News

Emma Allen is the new humor and cartoon editor at The New Yorker. Artsy features a profile on her.
Rob Kirby reviews Summer Pierre‘s Paper Pencil Life #5 on The Comics Journal.
Julia Wertz offers an excerpt from her upcoming book – Tenements, Towers & Trash: An Unconventional Illustrated History of New York City, out in October – which provides a brief history of the Village Voice.
Speaking of the Village Voice, they recently announced that they’re discontinuing the print edition of the paper after 62 years. Lauren Weinstein‘s strip Normal Person appeared in the print edition for over a year, but I think it will continue being published online – regardless, her most recent strip details what will be lost when the Village Voice is purely virtual.
Jessica Campbell is publishing comics on Hyperallergic (I had neglected to notice before!) – her most recent one is about Gauguin…
Hilary Brown reviews Mimi Pond‘s The Customer is Always Wrong on Paste.

————————————————————————————————

Comics Workbook is hosting workshops at SPX 2017 and I’m pleased to say that this year instead of running tech and passing out index cards, I’ll be doing that stuff PLUS leading a workshop myself, along with Audra Stang (the pair of us are pictured above).

For a complete list of the workshops VISIT THIS SITE – and please signup in advance for the workshops you want to attend, as they will fill up quickly.

————————————————————————————————

Frank Santoro made a comic book about his parents and now he needs help making a handbound copy of the book for each of them. It’s a good story. Check out the Indiegogo campaign HERE – or if you want to contribute via PayPal, look at the campaign HERE.

————————————————————————————————

Suzy and Cecil – 9-1-2017 – by Gabriella Tito

————————————————————————————————

Share this page:

Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in NewsTagged gabriella tito, how to be alive, Katie Skelly, koyama press, my pretty vampire, sex fantasy, sophia foster-dimino, tara booth

Sally Ingraham

Posted on August 31, 2017September 1, 2017

Explore

05/15/2017

Caleb OrecchioMay 14, 2017NewsCaleb Orecchio here. Some good comics are on Instagram. Did you know that? Plus I’m very very excited for Koyama Press’ Fall 2017 lineup. Are you? Also people can’t stop talking about Sammy Harkham’s Crickets. ————————————————————————————————— I made the lists below for a friend I was talking to about my comic strip (Joanie and Jordie—just scroll down), and how they enjoy seeing it everyday on Instagram (always nice to hear). It’s a very convenient way to view comic strips, they said. Do other people do comic strips on Instagram, they asked—of course they meant other than the legion of memes and bad nerd/fan clickbait crap civilians refer to as “comics” sometimes. I said yeah: It’s interesting to me—to my knowledge, Comics Workbook’s own “Suzy and Cecil” was the first real traditionally minded comic strip to come out of the comics community on Instagram. And one specifically made to fit the format to boot. I think maybe Michael Deforge’s “Leaving Richard’s Valley” came about around the same time (exclusively on Twitter originally) – followed closely by Jim Rugg’s “Running Comic,” where he documents his training for the Pittsburgh Marathon, and Mickey Z’s “Space Academy 123.” I like that cartoonists are constantly adapting to the next best available format to get our stuff out there. Since the slow and quiet fall of tumblr cartoonists are making their Instagrams a prominent place to put out work, and the work is morphing to its new platform. Instead of short serialized comic book pages every few weeks or months on tumblr, Instagram allows good use for square (literally) four-panel daily strips. I think it also helps that real civilians are on Instagram, whereas tumblr or deviant art was preaching to the choir. ————————————————————————————————— if you don’t know, now you know Koyama Press has announced their Fall 2017 lineup and it’s gonna be a good Fall. My favorite comics podcast, Comic Books Are Burning in Hell has a new episode where they talk about the new Crickets. I love to listen to these dudes talk comics. Speaking of Crickets, you all read TCJ’s great interview with the author, Sammy Harkham right? Part one here and part two here. TCAF was this past weekend. I’m sure we’ll have some sort of coverage this week. Stay tuned. Tyler Landry did a workshop, did you go to it? The NY Times has a weekly comic called Welcome to the New World, about “the true story of a Syrians family’s journey to America.” Which is great. Non-ficiton contemporary stories like these are what we need to help create empathy and awareness for a.) people who don’t know what this kind of thing is like and b.) the people living it. Cool cool. However, the actual cartooning is achingly dull and elementary. There is no emphasis or even an attempt at visual rhetoric here. It drives me crazy that “high-profile” mainstream comics fucking suck and are not done by cartoonists within the comics tradition; but instead are drawn by the most boring hack illustrators. Oh well, it’s comics journalism after all—I can’t help but notice that The Sculptor obviously had an influence on the look of this work. ————————————————————————————————— Announcing the Summer Semester of the Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers! 8 weeks! 500 bux! Payment plans are available! Summer Course starts June 1st 2017! Applications are due by May 25th. Visit THIS page for more details and email santoroschool@gmail.com with applications and questions! ————————————————————————————————— Blinkers – 5-15-2017 – by Jack Brougham ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 5-15-2017 – by Gabriella Tito ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 5-15-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

05/11/2016

Juan FernándezMay 11, 2016NewsTatá Timbó; Carolina Rey on Joung Yumi; Cuadernos del Cómic; Angeli spotlight; Aidan Koch interview; Hernandez Brothers appreciation; new books at Spit and a Half distro; Abhay Khosla on Copra; Cole Closser and the Leroy Lettering System; New Statesman open call. ————————————————————————————————— Shop Spotlight: Tatá Timbó Located in the heart of the San Telmo neighborhood of Buenos Aires, Tatá Timbó is a studio space and book store that specializes in the visual arts. It’s a literary arts space that focuses on youth development through the visual arts founded by Mercedes Fox, Verónica Kaplansky, and Guido Amante. By combining the idea of a studio and a book store they seamlessly blend arts with reading and writing for all ages. Visual literacy and verbal literacy. Children get the opportunity to work freely and wildly while also benefitting from arts mentorships that help them hone their craft. This all allows youth to find artistic mediums and processes they enjoy. El Sol de San Telmo offers a good look at Tatá Timbó’s mission and genesis. This past weekend they put together a small zine fair to bring together the publishing energies of their community. It’s cool stuff. Really exciting to see this kind of thing in Buenos Aires. Among the participants for this zine fair: Nicolás Mealla, Jorge Quien, Musaraña Editora, Marcela Oliva, Juan Vegetal, Pedro Mancini, Delius, Pablo Picyk, PowerPaola, Pablo Besse, Fuga Serigrafía, Luz Marchio, Diego Perrotta, Are you a cop or what?, Alfonso Piantini, Daniela Ruggeri, Miscelánea Total, Fuga Serigrafía, Lino Divas, and Hotel de las Ideas. ————————————————————————————————— Joung Yumi Carolina Rey, creative director of Rey+Naranjo Editores appreciates the work of Korean artist, Joung Yumi during Korea day at la Feria Internacional de Libros in Buenos Aires 2016. ————————————————————————————————— CuCo – Cuadernos del cómic Cuadernos del Cómic is a free digital magazine dedicated to the study and critique of comics edited by Octavio Beares and Gerardo Vilches. It is published twice a year in Madrid, Spain. It’s in the vein of old-school academic journals, but in Spanish, with spanish comics coverage. You’ll want to sink your teeth into this one. ————————————————————————————————— Angeli Retrospective – 40 Years at Folha Folha de Sao Paolo has a feature on the cartooning career of Angeli, one of the forefathers of modern graphic humor in Sao Paolo. Whether you need to brush up on your portugese or you just have to smash that translate button, there’s lots of comics for you to feast your eyes on in this feature. ————————————————————————————————— Aidan Koch interview over at BOMB Magazine. CM You set up an exercise for yourself, in which you deconstructed classical paintings. Some of these are in The Elements of Painting. And there’s a recurring interest in deconstructing classical images or classical symbols in your work. AK For sure, and also life and space and other types of images, too. Seeing what’s important, or what you can make important by pulling things in or out. Like using myself for reference—by not drawing in the background, I’m only focusing on character, but if I started drawing other details, then suddenly there’s all this concrete information that’s competing. So being able to choose where the emphasis lies, all the time, panel by panel, seems really essential in learning about pacing and building. And when looking at paintings, it’s often hard to focus. Especially ultra-dynamic ones or ones that have many characters or little actions happening. Medieval paintings are insane because there’s so much going on all the time. I’ll draw in museums a lot because it makes me look at a painting much more than giving it ten seconds and moving on. Because then you miss all these teeny tiny nuanced emotions or gestures. In case you missed the news on Monday, we are currently featuring Aidan Koch’s The Elements of Painting here on the site. These strips were originally created for and featured on Comics Workbook in 2013. The full collection is now a 14pg, b/w offset on newsprint in an edition of 500. You can buy it directly from Aidan Koch on her site. ————————————————————————————————— Abhay Thinks He Can Write About COPRA Better Than You — Nowhere to Hide – Nowhere to Cry – I Sunk Your Battleship Edition: 666 Abhay Khosla with the comics criticism gold over on Savage Critics. Khosla writes like nothing else. Read it and weep. For the last few years, one of my favorite comics to read has been Michel Fiffe’s COPRA. It’s a comic that I really pretty unabashadely love– one of the few being put out right now where I would talk about it in those terms. But for the last few years, one of my least favorite comics to read people talk about has been Michel Fiffe’s COPRA. ————————————————————————————————— BOLD NEW COMICS at SPIT AND A HALF John Porcellino has got the good stuff over on the Spit And A Half distro site. Hanselmann, Ord, Doucet, KUŠ, Irene, Clotfelter, Van Sciver, de Dionyso, Booth, Picukane, Moisseinen, Franz. Won’t last for long. Get it while you can. ————————————————————————————————— Cole Closser and the Leroy Lettering System I’m an advocate for hand-lettering. I think some comics suffer when the text doesn’t come from the same hand as the line art. That inconsistency can be jarring—and usually ruins my immersion in a story. I letter everything in my books, from the dialogue to the page numbers and front matter. I generally use my own handwriting or imitate old alphabets (like in that first picture), but when I was workin’ on Bow White for my last book, Black Rat, I wanted the lettering to look like the story had been translated from another language. I wanted it more mechanical. I wanted Leroy lettering ————————————————————————————————— Love and Rockets appreciated on The Guardian People are waking up to the master work that is Love and Rockets. Nice.It’s a good time to be alive in comics. ————————————————————————————————— New Statesman has an open call for back page cartoonists. Make something witty & make some $$$. Shoot for the stars, hungry cartoonists and send some samples. ————————————————————————————————— See you next time, hasta la proxima 😉 -Juan Share this page: [...]

09/21/2017

Sally IngrahamSeptember 20, 2017NewsSally here with upcoming local and regional comics events that you don’t want to miss! ————————————————————————————————— This evening in Pittsburgh, Connor Willumsen, Noel Freibert, and Patrick Kyle will be reading and signing their new books at Copacetic Comics – 6-8PM. Details HERE. Catch the guys tomorrow in Columbus, OH, at Kafe Kerouac! Next weekend you can find Connor Willumsen at Cartoon Crossroads Columbus as a special guest and the featured Comics Workbook workshop leader. Here’s the complete programming schedule for the show. Even though I am fresh off of a fantastic trip to the Small Press Expo, I am already raring to go for CXC, which blew me away last year with its programming designed especially for cartoonists. ————————————————————————————————— Also in Pittsburgh, the 7th annual Pittsburgh Zine Fair is this Sunday, Sept. 24th 2017. 2-8PM. Full details HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Also, also – coming right up, PaperJazz Small Press Festival. Comics Workbook will be in Ohio for Cartoon Crossroads Columbus, but one of these years I’m going to make the tough choice and head to Bushwick instead…! Check out the show HERE and go to it if you’re in the area. ————————————————————————————————— The fall semester of thee Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers starts October 1st 2017. 8 weeks of comics instruction that will bang your practice into shape – 500 bux. Full details about the course and how to apply can be found HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 9-21-2017 – by Sally Ingraham Share this page: [...]

Noah Van Sciver’s FANTE BUKOWSKI

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

PIX 2016 | Grace Ellis Interview

Juan FernándezMay 30, 2016InterviewsCWTV Interviews Grace Ellis, Lumberjanes co-creator and writer, about her time with the series. more from Grace // ohheygrace.tumblr.com/ // twitter.com/gracecellis Video by Michael Pisano and Di-ay Battad // michaelpisano.com // cargocollective.com/di-ay Share this page: [...]

Leave a Reply Cancel reply