Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in News

Juan Fernández

Posted on September 5, 2016September 5, 2016

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02/03/2017

Sally IngrahamFebruary 2, 2017NewsSally here with plenty of good company to help kick off your weekend – Annie Koyama, Vanessa Davis, Kate Beaton, Marie Duval, Sofie Louise Dam, Shreyas Krishnan, Gabriella Tito, and more! ————————————————————————————————— Happy 10th Year Anniversary to Annie Koyama and Koyama Press! Despite Kickass Annie’s grumpy appearance (above), she promises many sweet things to come in the next months. We can hardly repay you for being there for the comics community, for your faith in us all, and for the energy and passion you’ve given so freely for a decade. We can only say THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU! ————————————————————————————————— The Ley Lines 2017 Subscription has been announced. Ley Lines comes from Kevin Czap and L. Nichols – it is a quarterly publication that explores the intersection of comics and other art forms and cultures. Four artists pick subjects that interest them and then compose work that compliments and describes their subject. This year Ley Lines will feature Tommi Parrish on William Blake/Lydia Lunch (February 2017), Eric Kostiuk Williams on Kylie Minogue (May 2017), Shreyas R. Krishnan on Abida Parveen (August 2017), and Evan Dahm on the Surrealists (November 2017). Get your Ley Lines 2017 Subscription HERE. I am particularly interested in seeing Shreyas Krishnan‘s book. She is an illustrator, educator, and visual journalist who started making comics more recently – her comic Becoming Rosie won the MoCCA Arts Fest Award of Excellence last year. See more of her work HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Sofie Louise Dam has a new comic on The Nib – it’s about Denmark’s move to take “being trans-gendered” off of all lists of mental disorders. Although Denmark is the first nation in the world to do this, Sofie details why that in itself isn’t nearly enough. More HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Vanessa Davis spoke to Paste about her comic Spaniel Rage, which was published in 2005 but is due to be re-released by Drawn & Quarterly this month. Vanessa talks about what it’s like to look back on work drawn over a decade ago, and the progression of her process since then. The diary comics that make up Spaniel Rage were in fact the very first comics she ever made. “Paste: You mention in your new two-page intro comic that you didn’t know how to make comics when you started this project. How did you learn how to do that? Did you grow up reading comics? Davis: I read Archie comics and Calvin and Hobbes and Garfield, but went to art school from 7th grade onwards, and was really encouraged to abandon anything comics- or illustration-influenced. I always had a cartoony “style” and that was always considered a handicap in my drawing abilities. In college I finally had a couple of teachers who finally just allowed that I knew how to draw as well as I was ever going to, and that the next thing to wrangle was my voice and perspective.“ A comic a day for a month (at a time in her life when the idea of drawing within panels seemed about as impossible as becoming a brain surgeon…!) put Vanessa on a path that she’s remained on to this day. And even if there are things about the Spaniel Rage comics that she might wish she could change, or would do differently now, she’s still glad to have them. “Some people have tattoos they regret—I have comics. But we’re still all going to dance our mistakes around from time to time.“ Read the rest of the interview HERE. See some of Vanessa’s recent short work HERE. ————————————————————————————————— There is still time to submit work for The Strumpet #5 – the theme for this issue is “Origin Stories”, and the deadline is March 1st 2017! “The Strumpet is a transatlantic annual focusing on women telling stories in comics, edited by cartoonists Ellen Lindner and Glynnis Fawkes (as well as, in prior issues, editrix emeritae Jeremy Day and Kripa Joshi). Despite ENORMOUS progress made by women in comics in the last two decades, we still feel that there’s a bit of a lag between the number of women we know who are doing comics (a lot) and those who are getting published regularly (not always a lot). At the end of the day, we can all use another deadline, and a prompt to do new and interesting work. And that’s where The Strumpet comes in.“ Submission details HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Anthologies like The Strumpet are in the tradition of the very first all-girls comics publication, It Ain’t Me, Babe, (1970). The Strumpet is in fact the continuation of Whores of Mensa, which was the brain-child of Mardou. She wanted a publication for women’s comics that was BOTH sexy and clever. As Jeremy Day wrote in a brief history of both The Strumpet and Whores of Mensa: “We wanted to tease apart the idea (and it is a dominant one, especially in comics) that people need to chose between being sexy and being clever. We wanted a comic that wore glasses and got passes; that was cunning, but also stunning.“ You can read about The Strumpet #1 HERE at The Comics Journal. I have been spending a lot of time lately digging up anthologies like these. They are incredible time capsules of various moments in comics history, preserving work by women who made mini comics in the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s – pre-internet-publication days – as well as the early 2000’s. The catalog of work that each collection represents is fantastic. Other anthologies that I’ve rediscovered include Action Girl Comics, which was published between 1994 and 2000 and was edited by Sarah Dyer, and Girltalk (1995-96) edited by Isabella Bannerman, Ann Decker, and Sabrina Jones. And of course there are the groundbreaking publications like Wimmen’s Comix (1970-1991), Tits & Clits Comix (1972-1987), and Twisted Sisters (1976, 1994). There are many more – I just haven’t gotten my hands on them yet! ————————————————————————————————— There is a terrific article about Marie Duval over on Atlas Obscura. Lauren Young writes at length about this forgotten 19th century female cartoonist, who helped bring to life one of the first reoccurring characters in comics history – Ally Sloper. Marie Duval’s husband, Charles H. Ross, was the editor of Judy, a magazine that was a “cheap rival to the likes of popular magazines Fun and Punch, catering towards a primarily lower and middle class and female audience.” While Ross did create and draw the character Ally Sloper first, it was Marie Duval who developed and popularized the strip, doing the bulk of the drawing. ” “Marie Duval is important not only as perhaps Europe’s only popular female caricaturist, and not only as the chief author of the first Sloper,” wrote Kunzle. “She also deserves recognition for her graphic experimentation in an early period of the birth of modern art.” “ Read more about this rad lady HERE. And check out the Marie Duval archive HERE. (Thanks to The Comics Reporter for finding this piece!) ————————————————————————————————— The Last Cheerios Kate Beaton compiled her annual Holiday Comics – read them all HERE. Lauren Weinstein‘s comics on The Village Voice are pretty melancholy these days. Read Normal Person: The Future... Iona Fox tells the story of a guy who successfully organized other undocumented dairy workers and won the right to a drivers licence while changing the structure of policing in Vermont – Part 1 is HERE. Hyperallergic wrote about Gina Wynbrandt and her “pleasantly uncomfortable and brash” comics. Shoutout to Lady’s Comics, a collective from Brazil! Ink Brick is doing a Kickstarter campaign for Issue 8, which will debut in stores around the country this fall. Support the project. ————————————————————————————————— Check out The Art of Vanesa R. Del Rey! We designed it to look like a 1980’s comic book artist’s art book. The text is a transcription of an interview she did at The Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency in 2016. Vanesa is a once in a lifetime talent who studied with George Pratt and who has worked with Grant Morrison. Get a copy of this book HERE! ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 2-3-2017 – by Gabriella Tito ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 2-3-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

Rowhouse Residency Report – Nick Fowler

Comics WorkbookJuly 26, 2018Residency Reports / School UpdatesNick Fowler is a cartoonist based in San Francisco, CA. He joined us in Pittsburgh, PA, for a weeklong Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency in June of 2018. Here are his thoughts about visiting the city and his Rowhouse Residency experience. ——————————————————————————————— Nick Fowler here: I was very nervous on my Greyhound ride from New York to Pittsburgh. I didn’t know exactly what to expect from my time at the Rowhouse and it was a fairly spontaneous decision to take part in it. The weeks leading up to my residency were spent packing all my belongings from my three years in New York City at The School Of Visual Arts, and then shipping them back home to San Francisco. It just so happened that there was a last-minute opening at the Rowhouse the week I was scheduled to move back home, so I jumped at the opportunity, thinking it would serve as a buffer between three confusing years of art school (think Art School Confidential with cartoonists) and my indefinite time back home. There, I would be looking for part-time jobs, reacquainting myself with the friends I had left and relearning, in some ways, a vastly different San Francisco from the one I left three years ago. In an attempt to quell my fears and distract myself, I read Connor Willumsen’s Anti-Gone on the Greyhound. It blew me away – a comic about the role of entertainment in a capitalist dystopia reminiscent of J.G. Ballard’s Drowned World by way of Moebius’ Airtight Garage in which, for the majority of the comic, the main characters spend their time buying things. Talking about this comic any more would require writing an entire article. The first night, Sally Ingraham picked me up from the Greyhound station and we talked about our respective comic-making histories. She showed me around the Rowhouse and introduced me to the other permanent resident, Audra Stang. The first day at the residency, Caleb Orecchio drove me to Copacetic Comics where Sally was working. On the car ride over, we talked about Dash Shaw, Connor Willumsen and SVA. I have been going to comic book stores my whole life, and I honestly think Copacetic is one of the best, if not the best I’ve ever been to. It’s often hard to find a comic store that has a thorough collection of both old back issues and small press stuff. Usually, I find that if a store specializes in one, it’s significantly lacking in the other. Despite being a fairly small store, Copacetic somehow has both in spades (and more). While at Copacetic, Caleb and Juan Jose Fernandez started a conversation about why Craig Thompson’s Blankets doesn’t hold up for them. The conversation, as I remember it, was centered around the way Craig’s loss of faith was portrayed in the comic. The details would be hard for me to articulate here, as it was gloriously convoluted and drew from their past experiences with Christianity and Catholicism, most of which was lost on me, as I was raised culturally Jewish. Nevertheless, to hear such an impassioned discussion about Blankets and its place in the pantheon of comics history was a thrill. I stood there smiling like a doofus. I felt like I was where I needed to be. Afterwards, seeing how overwhelmed I was with the store, Juan gave me some great recommendations and I went home with an issue of Street Angel and the 2003 edition of The Ganzfeld. 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 (as demonstrated above) 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. On my fourth day, I decided to take a break from drawing and walk around the neighborhood. Pittsburgh itself feels special. It’s a quiet, beautiful city with tons of history. It’s the kind of place where people watch Frasier with the door open. Eventually I found a baseball field in an alcove down a long set of stairs, surrounded by trees. I sat there as the sun set, watching a man fly a drone in the middle of the diamond while a deer looked on and the sound of passing trains echoed throughout the park. The day before I left, I went down the block to Frank’s house. Having both lived in San Francisco, we compared our respective SF’s. His being the romantic-sounding post-earthquake, pre-dot com boom and mine being the nebulous post-dot com boom, pre-tech boom. The conversation eventually turned to bay area punk, Cometbus, Kembra Pfahler, and inevitably, comics. Having just returned from a trip to Europe, Frank was ready to lay out his bountiful experience and frustrations with the North American comics landscape. Frank is a walking comic history course. At a certain point, he mentioned how when he was younger, he would listen to Bill Boichel of Copacetic Comics go on these long, weaving tangential rants, and just say, “What next?” Egging him on and soaking up everything he could. This was exactly how I felt talking to Frank. He ended the conversation by telling me, “You’re going to struggle.” The various car rides and conversations with Sally, Caleb, Audra and Frank were equally as inspiring as having unlimited drawing time. Advice I’d give to future residents is to balance your time between drawing and socializing with the Rowhouse crew. I tried to achieve a balance myself, but ended up spending most of the time indoors drawing. Some pages from my stay: ——————————————————————————————— Keep up with Nick Fowler HERE! For more information about the Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency visit this page or email santoroschool@gmail.com Share this page: [...]

01/09/2018

Aaron CockleJanuary 8, 2018NewsAaron here today with an Art from Guantánamo Bay Update; Comic Book Heroes of Taiwan; Austin English on the End of Krazy Kat (and Superman Comics); More Machine Learning ————————————————————————————————— Ode to the Sea An update regarding the Art from Guantánamo Bay post from a few weeks back, via Patricia Mastricolo at the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund: Fortnunately, the Pentagon is backing off its previous threat of incinerating art by the Guantánamo Bay detainees. Unfortunately, they still maintain all of it is the property of the U.S. military and will not be permitted to leave the prison. … The exhibit is free and open to the public and runs through January 26, 2018, at Haren Hall (899 10th Avenue at 59th Street, on the 6th floor in the President’s Gallery, New York City). The exhibit is open Monday to Friday, from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. (except January 15). ————————————————————————————————— Taiwan’s comic book heroes Via the BBC: Hsu Mao-sung, one of Taiwan’s earliest comic book artists, says it may be too late to save the industry. His generation endured censorship during the martial law period from the 1960s to 80s, but he says it didn’t kill off his passion for drawing. ————————————————————————————————— Anything But Reality At TCJ, Austin English takes a long look at some comics from the 1940s-1960s: The strip that follows is June 11th, with the stick now re-purposed to prop up the scarecrow. So, the final interactions of Krazy Kat and Ignatz map out like this: Ignatz tricks Krazy into getting hit by a brick toppling from a growing tree, Ignatz passingly confuses Krazy about oak trees vs. olive trees, Ignatz works to transform a weasel’s color in an issue whose subtleties are (seemingly) obscure to Krazy and finally Ignatz’ brick is discovered with a stick from Offisa Pup while Ignatz writhes in agony, his body beneath ground. After these events, the scarecrow emerges and Ignatz discards his brick. For a brief moment the strip is silent and empty. … The tone of the line defined itself in 1958, partly by a constraint that the comics world imposed on itself. Physical violence, while not banned by the comics code, was to be avoided. So Weisinger took a line of superhero comics and instead of emphasizing brawn, made them into intricate puzzles. Now, these are not puzzles that use the unreliable world as one of its factors in the way a Raymond Chandler novel might. Instead, every story has no relation to anything real (except basic outlines of things like ‘I have a job at a newspaper’ or ‘humans need to eat food to survive’ or ‘ice is cold’)—the comic book world of Superman itself is the only thing the stories use to set up their questions and render solutions. These are mysteries whose only logic is cartooning, and I’d argue that they are more beautiful as science fiction than anything EC ever published. ————————————————————————————————— Adversarial Patch An update from the machine learning front, via Boing Boing: Another key difference here: the researchers achieve their best results using a “white box” technique where they get to design their patches through detailed knowledge of the AI they’re targeting, unlike other adversarial preturbations, which achieved good results with “black box” constraints (designing attacks without any technical knowledge of the AI). The patches they created didn’t work very well on other AI image classifiers. We show that we can generate a universal, robust, targeted patch that fools classifiers regardless of the scale or location of the patch, and does not require knowledge of the other items in the scene that it is attacking. Our attack works in the real world, and can be disguised as an innocuous sticker. These results demonstrate an attack that could be created offline, and then broadly shared. There has been substantial work on defending against small perturbations to natural images, at least partially motivated by security concerns Part of the motivation of this work is that potential malicious attackers may not be concerned with generating small or imperceptible perturbations to a natural image, but may instead opt for larger more effective but noticeable perturbations to the input – especially if a model has been designed to resist small perturbations. Many ML models operate without human validation of every input and thus malicious attackers may not be concerned with the imperceptibility of their attacks. Even if humans are able to notice these patches, they may not understand the intent of the patch and instead view it as a form of art. This work shows that focusing only on defending against small perturbations is insufficient, as large, local perturbations can also break classifiers. ————————————————————————————————— 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. His experience and ideas have influenced the likes of Connor Willumsen, Michael DeForge, and Simon Hanselmann (quote “I consider Frank Santoro to be my L. Ron Hubbard”) among many others. Dig into something new in the new year! Full details and how to apply can be found HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Vision Box – 1-9-2018 – by Cameron Arthur Share this page: [...]

Bill Griffith Searching for Beatnik Comics

Juan FernándezApril 7, 2016EssaysBill Griffith Searching for Beatnik Comics at COPACETIC COMICS PITTSBURGH PA USA – Shot and Edited by John Kelly Share this page: [...]

05/16/2017

Aaron CockleMay 16, 2017NewsLATE EDITION: TCAF NOTES As promised, here are some notes and pictures RE: TCAF 2017. I’ll return to my usual posting structure next week, highlighting the ins-and-outs and comings-and-goings within and without the comics community, as well as some more expansive thoughts about TCAF. ————————————————————————————————— Some Books of Note I purchased/traded for a bunch of work, some notables are shown above. Tommi Parrish did the ONESTEPINSIDEDOESNTMEANYOUUNDERSTAND book. Not pictured is the 5th issue of the always-excellent Pope Hats, by Ethan Rilly, which was the first and only book I needed to read as soon as I got the chance. Still working through the stack, there was so much great and beautiful work on display at the show. ————————————————————————————————— Tom Spurgeon’s Recapitulation Over at the Comics Reporter, Spurgeon looks at the show, including some notes on the Sammy Harkham/Kevin Huizenga talk about the past and current state of comics distro-ing: Kevin Huizenga and Sammy Harkham presented on the distributions system as it has an effect on their recent attempts to self-publish. Kevin Huizenga provided a history of distributors — including his own USS Catastrophe effort — that may not have been aces in terms of getting books out there but were deeply personally meaningful for him at the time. Harkham went on an interesting mini-rant about how crowd-funders interfere with his conception of how the artist/audience relationship best works. I like both of those guys a lot and appreciate their seriousness about the comics they made, and thus enjoyed every second of that panel. In an after-panel conversation, Huizenga noted to me how one problem with doing things to help the small-press end things is that there are SO MANY cartoonists that they often bury any such attempts without meaning to. That helped me clarify some thinking I had on industry reform. Huizenga is a smart man and scrambles to points of perspective as well as anyone I’ve ever known, so it’s always great to talk to him. ————————————————————————————————— Random Cellphone Pics ————————————————————————————————— Economies of Scale Something Something There is a part of this work (cartooning, comics, these shows that we attend) that is in a way absurdly, almost aggressively anti-capitalist, while at the same time fitting safely and snuggly within a traditional capitalist framework. I was thinking about this a lot over the weekend, based on what came up in that Harkham/Huizenga talk, as well as some conversations I had with other people/cartoonists, and time spent sitting at my table ruminating. I need to better formulate all of this, obviously, and do some math before going into it more extensively, but these are the thoughts that plague me during these 2-day shows. ————————————————————————————————— ————————————————————————————————— AM EDITION: Aaron here today with sincere apologies. Please bear with me, I was at the Toronto Comic Arts Festival this past weekend, and my flight was delayed Monday evening coming back to NYC, where upon arrival I found that there were extensive (and fairly impressive, actually) traffic delays going out of the airport due to construction. I’ll have some quick notes about TCAF later today, so please check back, and I’ll take a closer look at the show in my post next week. Thanks, as always, for taking the time to read this newsblog and supporting the work we’re doing here at Comics Workbook. ————————————————————————————————— 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! ————————————————————————————————— A Cosmic Journey – 5-16-2017 – by Cameron Arthur ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 5-16-2017 – by Sally Ingraham Share this page: [...]

09/05/2016

Posted on September 5, 2016September 5, 2016 by Juan Fernández

Juan here. It’s Labor Day in the United States, which means no insane barrage of news for today. Just the juicy bits.

Celebrate Labor History

& Mourn the end of summer.

If you’re still hankering for a massive dose of comics jump into this years submissions to the Comics Workbook Composition Contest. There were a record number entries this year and some real gems. Read them all HERE.

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If you haven’t caught wind already, Comics Workbook will be firing on all cylinders at SPX this year.

We are excited to announce that Comics Workbook will be hosting a series of special workshops at SPX this year!
A Danger Room of our own. Learn more about this year’s special Comics Workbook workshops HERE.

We will be at table N8 this year – stop by and say “Hello” – check out new work by Frank and our students – buy some old comics from Frank’s mind blowingly extensive collection. More to come!

We’ll be back full force tomoroow, coming at you like an SPX maelstrom. Hold on to your butts -JF

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Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in News

Juan Fernández

Posted on September 5, 2016September 5, 2016

Explore

01/25/2016

Juan FernándezJanuary 25, 2016NewsHello world, Sophie Yanow‘s got a new comic, Cozy out in Quebec’s comics magazine, PLANCHES. It’s a wordless, blizzard time revelry comic. Good reading for all of you out there buried under a couple of feet on the East Coast. Berliac‘s announced his latest project. SADBØI will be 128 pages long, and will initially be published by Norwegian publisher Jippi Forlag sometime this summer. English version will come out sometime after. Here’s where Berliac’s head is at with SADBØI. Social structures shape the individual into what we call “goodness”, and when it fails, correctional punishment is employed. Is goodness a real choice, then? In a world where Evil is the last bit of freedom left, SADBØI will heroically choose it, and craftfully make it visible to the eyes of everyone. Connor Stechschulte‘s second installment of Generous Bosom is now available for purchase through his online shop. He’s got a special package deal for anyone interested in purchasing Generous Bosom 1 and 2. Matt Seneca has said of GB1, “It’s a beautiful piece of work. It’s tough to make work better than this.” and “Probably the best sex scene I’ve seen in a comic in terms of realism. It’s perfect.” Heidi Macdonald of the Beat called GB2 the “most mindboggling comic of the year”. Dazzling, risograph printed erotic psychological thriller about the rain-soaked night a stranded motorist is forced to spend with a strange, isolated couple. Well worth your time. Sophie Goldstein‘s made the second installment of her 3-part House of Women series available for digital download on Gumroad. Science fiction meets psycho-sexual drama. Mysterious, tense and expansive. On the Pittsburgh front, I’m happy to relay the official communiqué that Comics Workbook’s latest publication, Zona, is now available for purchase on the school store. Zona #01 2016 – includes the work of Gabriella Tito, Harry Moyer, Jack Brougham, and Frank Santoro. 44 pages of comics – check it out HERE Pittsburgh Comics Salon – Saturday Comics Studio Jan 23 2016 Pittsburgh. Great turn out this past Saturday. Good vibes. Real cozy. Comics makers of all ability levels came out and held it down. Had lots of quality books for folks to peruse and copy from. Worked on modular comics composition. I was afraid that the snow was going to keep everyone at home, but folks came out full force. -juan fernandez Share this page: [...]

Rowhouse Residency Report – Jason Robinson

Comics WorkbookMay 24, 2018Residency Reports / School UpdatesJason Robinson is a comics maker, illustrator, and graphic designer living in Asbury Park, NJ. He joined us in Pittsburgh for a weeklong Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency in June of 2017. Here are his thoughts about visiting the city and his Rowhouse Residency experience. ———————————————————————————————— My plan, initially, was to chain myself to the desk and produce so much work. All the work! I was going to get soooo much done. And I did, but not in the way I had anticipated. I spent the first two days, working alongside fellow resident Patrick Bonato, essentially chained to the drawing table. I penciled the second chapter (16 pages) of a story that grew out of the Comics Workbook Correspondence Course I completed in 2015. I enjoyed overlapping with Patrick, especially since I appreciate his comics and (possibly more importantly when sharing a space) we have similar tastes in music. It was nice to work in a shared space and be able to talk constructively about each other’s work and comics in general. Patrick departed the morning of my third day. I felt fortunate that I was able to share part of my residency with a fellow comics maker, but I was also looking forward to some time alone as well. But first, off to Copacetic Comics with Frank & Sally—a sunny, relaxed morning and afternoon of drinking coffee and reading comics…and drinking more coffee and reading more comics. Absurdly caffeinated, I sketched the views from the Copacetic terrace while Frank kept adding to the pile of comics at my side. That morning alone was worth the whole trip. When I got back to the Rowhouse that evening, I worked for a couple of hours. I started tallying up the days I had left and calculating what I could actually accomplish based on my output so far. I decided I would set my current story aside as it was already flowing well, and concentrate on starting something new. Okay, so what do I work on? Drawing blanks and feeling stir crazy, I found myself antsy to get out and see Pittsburgh. Half an hour later, riding up the old Duquenese furnicular, looking out over the city, I realized I might need to shift perspectives and expectations about this trip. It couldn’t be about pure output. I needed inspiration. So after enjoying the sunset over the city, I went to the Andy Warhol Museum. It delivers. I was particularly taken with a small, easily overlookable exhibit detailing his technique for achieving his ink-blotted pen line. When I returned to the house I worked for another few hours, not on my comic, but just exploring different tools, brushes, nibs, and pens—experimenting—playing with different approaches. Day four: I spent the morning drawing on index cards one after the next in a stream of consciousness. Later, I reconnected with some old friends over beer and noodles—and as I unwound, I realized how stressed I’d actually been in my daily life leading up the residency—and that this was the first time in a long time that I wasn’t beholden to someone else’s deadline. Day five: Brunch at Spirit with Frank and Sally (and Tina), bought some choice comics from Frank while his friends dj’d and sold vintage clothing. Came home to work, which at this point in my residency meant devouring the library of comics laying around the row house—basically all of Dash Shaw’s work, Olivier Schrauwen, Sam Alden, Noel Sickles, Roy Crane, Milton Caniff, and falling head over heels in love with everything John Stanley. Day six was filled with daydreams and the jotting down of enough story ideas to last the next five years. In many ways, I feel like I was just getting revved up and here I am at the end, hoping I have the discipline to continue this trajectory or at least ride this wave for a long while. Because only now have the chaotic thoughts begun to settle on the floor of my brain. And I’m able to calmly wander through, picking up bits and pieces, and notice how some seem to connect—to join together like pieces of a puzzle. I joined Frank and Sally for dinner on that last night. And a bit drunk on wine, I tried to convey this feeling by paraphrasing a similar concept I’d read somewhere about a scientist explaining that “it may not look like I’m working when I’m staring off into space, but what I’m really doing is constructing a 3-dimensional puzzle in my head—piecing together bits and bytes of information, and that takes time and focus to carefully construct this puzzle in my mind’s sky so that it may stand on it’s own. So, please don’t interrupt me, or you risk the pieces of the puzzle caving in on each other, imploding into a cloud of ash.” …Fortunately, Frank has a better and much more succinct iteration in his back pocket – “When I’m working, you may not see it, but I’m welding here. I have a helmet on, and my mitt, it grips a fucking torch-of-fire. So stand back, or you’re in danger!” I’ll close with some unsolicited advise to future residents: You don’t have to chain yourself to the drawing table. Of course you may, and obviously there can be great benefits to doing so, I only argue that there are other equally constructive ways to make use of this time you’ve carved out for yourself. Paradoxically, doing “nothing” may be exactly what’s needed to do the next something. P.S. For anyone reading this on the fence about the correspondence course or a possible residency, here’s one more gem from Frank that may help. “Remember, Yoda was just a guy rooting around in Luke’s lunch box.” ———————————————————————————————— Many thanks to Jason for the housewarming gifts he brought along in 2017 (pictured above) and for his support of the creation of the Rowhouse Residency during the crowdfund of 2016! – Frank and Sally and the Comics Workbook team ————————————————————————————————————— Check out work by Jason on his website, and follow him on Tumblr and Instagram. For more information about the Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency visit this page or email santoroschoolATgmail Share this page: [...]

07/19/2016

Aaron CockleJuly 18, 2016NewsAaron Cockle here today with May Flowers in July; The Return of the Nib; Veterans Comics; Theaster Gates; Copier Art; Marie Jacotey; On Essaying; Rowhouse Auction ————————————————————————————————— Shannon Wright Comics CW’s Featured Comic this week, May Flowers, comes from Shannon Wright. ————————————————————————————————— The Nib is Back The political cartoon, comics journalism, humor and non-fiction website is back with expanded media coverage. The Nib will be covering the Republican National Convention in Cleveland this week, with correspondence work from Rob Rogers and Sophie Yanow, among others. ————————————————————————————————— When I Returned The White River Junction VA Medical Center and The Center for Cartoon Studies collaborated on a project that helped military veterans process their experiences through comics. This work came about through the involvement of James Sturm, cartoonist and co-founder of CCS, and chaplain and cartoonist Kurt F. Shaffert, both who have worked with veterans in the past. During his time at the VA, Sturm discovered that comics are a powerful medium for working with post-traumatic stress disorder, in particular. “PTSD is the inability to integrate past and present, which has a devastating effect on the future,” Sturm said. But comics help people literally visualize time, so they can help veterans break down complex histories into manageable chunks. “Each panel is a discrete unit of time,” he elaborates. “And when you put 8, 9, 10 panels on a page, you’re integrating the past, present, and future into a … whole.” Comics, Shaffert believes, are the language we need when we talk about war experiences because they’re physical and visual and funny and tragic and profound all at the same time. “Extraordinary experiences require extraordinary language,” he said. “Anybody who’s experienced PTSD has experienced things that are outside of everyday experience. … In order to be able to process events that are traumatic, you need to find … a form of communication that deals with the immature, the impolite, the gross, the grotesque, the obnoxious, the obscene.” Page above by Jeff Lok. A PDF of the book can be downloaded here. ————————————————————————————————— How to Build a House Museum Art Gallery of Toronto opens a show this week of installation work by Chicago-based artist Theaster Gates. The show is described as: an immersive exhibition exploring the potential of the house museum—historically important landmarks that have been transformed into legacy sites. Gates proposes new ways of honouring and remembering Black experience and explores the potential of these spaces through music, dance, video, sculpture and painting. Organized as a world of symbolic structures and their associated objects, the exhibition is dedicated to Black luminaries including George Black, Frankie Knuckles and Muddy Waters. How to Build a House Museum invites visitors to tour the house museum in its many possible forms: as an architectural monument, historical representation, or site of freedom. ————————————————————————————————— Pati Hill: Photocopier An exhibition of Pati Hill’s copier work was on view at Arcadia University Art Gallery this past April. Meredith Sellers at Hyperallergic reviewed it: Stepping into the gallery, I gazed at the show, curated by Richard Torchia, as it presented grids, lines, and vitrines bursting full of Pati Hill’s delicate, remarkable images, all made on the rather unremarkable IBM Copier II. My cynicism was obliterated. I felt a stunning empathy for these images of daily life, laid bare on the cold, smooth glass of a hulking electronic machine, contextualized by snippets of writing that dipped in and out of memory, metaphor, wit, and the kinds of fleeting thoughts one thinks but never utters aloud. ————————————————————————————————— Obviously I really like fashion and depicting clothing High fashion and cartooning are rarely spoken of in the same breath, but Marie Jacotey recently collaborated with McQ Alexander McQueen for a new line of handbags by drawing some promotional comics. ————————————————————————————————— I like to think of the essay as an art form that tracks the evolution of consciousness as it rolls over the folds of a new idea, memory, or emotion. Essayist John D’Agata has edited a new anthology of work, The Making of the American Essay, the third and final of his “A New History of the Essay” series published by Graywolf Press. Susan Steinberg interviewed D’Agata about the work, the differences between essay and non-fiction writing, and the concepts of ‘genre’, ‘fact’, and ‘truth’ at Electric Literature: Steinberg: If memory is unreliable, perspective is subjective, and emotion is unfixed, then what is the function and/or responsibility of “fact” in essays? I ask because I’m curious about your relationship to fact, but I’m also curious about your thoughts on readers’ fixations on the notion of truth. If a misconception about essay writers is that they’re truth-tellers, then do they often run the risk of disappointing the reader? How can essay writers confront or undo what seems to be an impossible-to-fulfill expectation? D’Agata: Facts are akin to images, for me. That probably strikes some as a perverse statement, but I say it as someone who turns to essays for literary experiences only, and for that reason, when I’m reading I don’t need facts to do much more than resonate with the rest of the story that’s being told. But that’s not the case with every reader, of course. We’re all looking for different things and have different expectations when we read. Yet for that very reason we do a disservice to both the essay and its readership by suggesting that everything that falls beneath the umbrella of “nonfiction” ought to be written by the same rules and for the same audience. There are some nonfiction books that traffic primarily in facts, by which I mean that we value them for the facts and information that they introduce to us and the ways in which they organize them. And those books are great. I’m a rabid reader of history and science, for instance, and I turn to those genres because I want the information that their dustjackets proffer: A Story about X and How It Changed the World. And while I appreciate those books being well written and am always down for great storytelling, I’m not necessarily expecting that from those books or looking for that when I read them. When I read a memoir, on the other hand, I’m hoping to bear witness to an exhilaratingly expressive voice and am therefore expecting a completely different literary experience. I don’t care about the facts in that case; I care about the story. ————————————————————————————————— Rowhouse Auction for July 17-24 New private auction items up at auction.comicsworkbook.com. Email Frank Santoro at santoroschoolATgmail for a password, if you don’t already have one. If you already have a password, it is the same from last week. All funds go to helping keep the lights on and further developing the school. 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08/16/2017

Juan FernándezAugust 16, 2017los Cómics / NewsEmpezamos el día con el octavo Festival Entreviñetas; Mario Levrero; Flor Monfort; Clitóris: Relatos gráficos para Femininjas; Pablo Turnes; Amadeo Gandolfo; Libreria PUNC; Roberta Vázquez; Fanzination! en el Institut Valencià d’Art Modern; Joaquín Guirao sobre CF; y los tebeos de Cómics Workbook! ————————————————————————————————— ————————————————————————————————— Historietas, el eslabón recuperado de Mario Levrero Álvaro de la Iglesia nos ofrece un refleccíon sobre el artisto uruguayo, Mario Levrero. En casi todas las biografías que pueden leerse por ahí (incluso en las solapas de sus libros) se incurre en el error de presentarnos a Levrero, no como al artista conceptual que fue, sino como un autor polivalente que escribió, sacó fotos, y se dedicó al cine y a las historietas. Como si todo no partiera de una misma cosa, en definitiva: la necesidad espiritual plasmada en la manifestación artística. Decir que Levrero fue, entre tantísimas cosas, guionista de comics, parece no hacerle justicia a Levrero como artista de conceptos. Más correcto sería decir que era un escritor pero, sobre todo, un artista que cultivó varios géneros en pos de una inquietud y no de un mercado específico (¿o acaso alguien tilda a Osvaldo Lamborghini de guionista de historietas, a causa de aquella que hiciera con Gustavo Trigo en 1972, ¡Marc!?) Ahora bien: hasta el día de hoy, para muchos de los seguidores de la obra de Levrero (Levrero el novelista, a diferencia de Varlotta el guionista), las historietas seguían siendo el eslabón perdido. Tanto sus ilustraciones más personales (él no era dibujante, pero lo mismo dibujaba) como las historietas más ambiciosas hechas en colaboración con ese gran dibujante uruguayo llamado Lizán (Edgardo Lizasoain) -publicadas en la primera época de Fierro y Superhumor- pedían a gritos una edición para los fanáticos del escritor. Criatura Editora, el sello uruguayo que suele publicar e Levrero en su país de origen- recoge el guante y nos ofrece este hermoso y necesario volumen titulado Historietas Reunidas de Jorge Varlotta, donde descubrimos varias facetas más de arte levreriano, en este caso decididamente visuales, aunque totalmente en sintonía con su obra literaria. Léanlo todo AQUI. ————————————————————————————————— Los cómics y las noticias que me han llamado la atención esta semana: Flor Monfort les reseña y contextualiza Clitóris: Relatos gráficos para Femininjas. “Humor gráfico y reflexiones feministas recogidas en un arco de tiempo que va del 2010 a la actualidad, con los cambios y atravesamientos que sufrió el movimiento de mujeres y lgbt en estos últimos siete años. Un corpus que permite discutir relaciones de poder, roles, estereotipos desde la gráfica y el texto y, también, una apuesta política y una invitación al orgasmo.” Hay un nuevo bloque del taller de lectura de Pablo Turnes (@blopaturnes) y Amadeo Gandolfo (@kingmob84) en Libreria PUNC (@punclibreria) en Argentina. Entrevista a la dibujante y autoeditora Roberta Vázquez (@bobbypatata) por Javi Godoy ¿Qué hace un fanzine como tú en un museo como este?: nace la fanzinoteca del Institut Valencià d’Art Modern (IVAM) – “Fanzination!, la exposición con la que da por inaugurada una fanzinoteca que se pone en marcha con una colección de 2.109 ejemplares donados por el experto Álvaro Pons” ¿Es CF el autor más influyente en España del que nadie habla o dice que le ha influenciado? Ni idea de porqué se dá este fenómeno: Joaquín Guirao ————————————————————————————————— OJO: La gran editorial, Fulgencio Pimentel, os ofrece unas rebajas maravillosamente filthy – válida solo durante una semana larga, del 8 al 18 de agosto, y hasta fin de existencias. Si quieres ampliar tu coleccíon con unos de los cómics publicados en España. La Semana de la Mugre incluye devoluciones de librerías y ejemplares de exposición que han vuelto a casa después de mucho jaleo; es decir, son libros que han visto mundo, libros más sabios, libros que miran de frente como Ramoncín. Solo por eso, durante unos días estarán disponibles aquí con un descuento de entre el 40% y el 60%. El cruel azar determinará si su ejemplar de usted solo tiene un doblez en una esquinita o muestra signos de haber sido sodomizado por Satán. ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 8-16-2017 – by Gabriella Tito ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 8-16-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

01/20/2017

Sally IngrahamJanuary 20, 2017NewsSally Ingraham here to round out your week with an All-Star group of cartoonists and their work: Marie Severin, Dale Messick, Ramona Fradon, Trina Robbins, Em DeMarco, Audra Stang, and more! ————————————————————————————————— I am excited to see that this year Dori Seda will join the 7 other women who have made it into the Will Eisner Hall of Fame (their work is pictured above). The 2017 nominees were announced recently, and Dori is a Judges’ Choice for automatic induction. Out of 17 other nominees, 4 will be chosen by voters, and among those 17 cartoonists are 5 more female candidates. Here’s the whole list. A perk of working somewhere like Copacetic Comics in Pittsburgh, PA, is that when the need calls, I can tear the store apart and come back a few thrilling hours later with an armload of work by every woman listed above, plus all of the women on the 2017 nominees list. I have been sharing my findings this week over on the Comics Workbook Roller Derby League Instagram account – @cwrollerderby – and will continue to do so for the next few days. Here’s a taste of the tremendous talent and influence of a few of these masters of the comics medium: Marie Severin – (inducted into the Will Eisner Hall of Fame in 2001) – spent most of her professional career working for Marvel as a colorist, penciller, and inker. She drew stories for Sub-Mariner and the Hulk and other series. Pictured above is one of her Incredible Hulk stories, from Tales to Astonish #93 (1967), and a story she drew for Wimmen’s Comix #10 (1985). Dale Messick – (inducted into the Will Eisner Hall of Fame in 2001) – is best known for creating the strip Brenda Starr, Reporter in 1940. At it’s peak in the 1950’s the strip ran in 250 newspapers around the country. She drew the strip until 1980, and when she retired she left the ultimatum that Brenda Starr must continue to be drawn by other female cartoonists. Ramona Fradon – (inducted into the Will Eisner Hall of Fame in 2006) – was the artist who took over Brenda Starr, Reporter when Dale Messick retired, although she had been working in the industry since 1950. She worked for DC Comics throughout her career, drawing Aquaman stories and co-creating Metamorpho among other projects. Trina Robbins – (inducted into the Will Eisner Hall of Fame in 2013) – is an incredibly influential underground cartoonist who has worked tirelessly since the 1970’s to provide opportunities and platforms for women in comics. She established the first all-female comic book anthology – It Ain’t Me, Babe – and was one of the main editors of Wimmen’s Comix for 20 years. She worked on the Wonder Woman series, and is also a widely published comics historian – or “her”storian. Pictured above is one of her covers and a story from Wimmen’s Comix #10 (1985). I’ll be back next Friday with more ladies of the Will Eisner Hall of Fame – Marjorie “Marge” Buell, Lynda Barry, and Tove Jansson! ————————————————————————————————— I got a chance to get to know Em DeMarco better last night through a live interview at The ToonSeum – part of the Pittsburgh Comic Salon‘s Lecture Series. She is a cartoonist, journalist, and educator based here in the city of Pittsburgh. Between composing her monthly investigative reporting comics feature for the City Paper, photographing the local punk music scene, teaching comics classes through a partnership between The ToonSeum and the Lauri Ann West Community Center, and venturing into long-form comics projects, Em keeps herself busy…! Her experience with creating stories for radio programming informs her current comics journalism projects (the connection between oral reporting and visual storytelling is worth investigating fully at a later date!), and her insights into translating live interviews into compelling comics made for a lively and thought-provoking discussion. Check out more of her work HERE – and if you happen to be around Pittsburgh on a 3rd Thursday of the month, come join us at The ToonSeum for another conversation with a local comics creator. ————————————————————————————————— Jillian Fleck‘s Lake Jehovah was reviewed over on The Comics Beat – “Fleck mixes all the elements very skillfully, with a deadpan humor that alternates with frantic despair and an otherworldly creepiness that blends into its own tenor. The fantastical elements do well in elevating the psychological ones, and Fleck ends up perfectly plumbing the depths of the bottomless lake, both literally and figuratively, for a portrayal of what it is like to be overwhelmed by the invisible and burdened by the incoherency of the universe.” – John Seven Tom Spurgeon offers some commentary on the first round of voting for the Angouleme Festival Grand Prix over on The Comics Reporter. The artists who have made it to the final round are Chris Ware, Cosey and Manu Larcenet. There has been very little “buzz” around the process this year, which is surprising considering the volcanic eruption surrounding the award this time last year…! Tom delves a bit into the steps taken to oversee a more balanced and inclusive nomination process – and despite my own reaction of “YES!! Chris Ware for the win!” I agree with how Tom concludes: “…even with all three of those great artists in play I think my heart would rather see Posy Simmonds on that list than on the committee to help things run more smoothly.“ RESIST! was printed at 58,000 copies and is being handed out for free today in Washington, D.C. during the Inauguration and tomorrow during the Woman’s March, as well as at similar events around the country. For a complete list of where you can get a copy visit this page. Check out the work of Iona Fox – she’s a cartoonist and farmer working in Vermont. Her stories are always interesting, and while you’re browsing her website be sure to take a peak at the Beaver Cam! There’s a nice review of Inés Estrada‘s Impatience on The Comics Journal. Check it out HERE. ————————————————————————————————— This is Audra Stang‘s second visit to Pittsburgh, and she was getting so much done during her Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency that she extended it for another week! It’s been exciting to watch the story she is working on develop and see her commitment to the form and to her future in the industry and community. If you’re interested in applying for a Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency visit our info page or email santoroschoolATgmail. Follow the @rowhouseresidency Instagram for regular updates on the program and the cartoonists who visit us this year. ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 1-20-2017 – by Sally Ingraham ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 1-20-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio ————————————————————————————————— 1-20-2017 – by Juan Fernández Share this page: [...]

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