Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in NewsTagged adam mcgovern, anders nilsen, brooklyn book festival, jennifer camper, Josh Bayer, Julia Alekseyeva, kevin sacco, lisa lim, New York Comics & Picture-story Symposium, r. sikoryak, teva harrison

Aaron Cockle

Posted on September 4, 2017September 5, 2017

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10/31/2017

Aaron CockleOctober 30, 2017NewsAaron here today with Schneemann; Walker; Ernst; Reinhardt; Short Run 2017 ————————————————————————————————— Interior Scroll Here’s something from the Kinetic Painting show at MoMA PS1 (via PS1’s Instagram): While we can’t show you the photo documentation of Carolee Schneemann’s iconic performance work, “Interior Scroll,” on Instagram, above is a portion of the scroll itself on view in our new exhibition “Carolee Schneemann: Kinetic Painting.” From the second of only two performances of the piece in 1977, the scroll reads: I don’t take the advice of men who talk only to themselves PAY ATTENTION TO CRITICAL AND PRACTICAL FILM LANGUAGE IT EXISTS FOR AND IN ONLY ONE GENDER These powerful reflections were a response to a screening at the Telluride Film Festival, where Schneemann’s films “Fuses” and “Plumb Line” were included in a program entitled “The Erotic Woman.” Schneemann objected to the program for being proscribed by the male imagination, and having a contradictory effect to the films themselves. Explore more documentation of “Interior Scroll” and other seminal performances by Carolee Schneemann in her retrospective #KineticPainting on view through March 11. ————————————————————————————————— ‘She said she was thinking of Thomas Eakins’s surgical theater paintings as she was also imagining house slaves disemboweling their master with a soup ladle.’ At the New York Review, Darryl Pinckney looks at the recently closed Kara Walker exhibit, Kara Walker: Sikkema Jenkins and Co. is Compelled to present The most Astounding and Important Painting show of the fall Art Show viewing season! I sometimes find myself remembering the great Sphinx of white sugar that Kara Walker built three years ago in an unused, emptied-out sugar refinery in Brooklyn along the East River: A Subtlety, or the Marvelous Sugar Baby, an Homage to the unpaid and overworked Artisans who have refined our Sweet tastes from the cane fields to the Kitchens of the New World on the Occasion of the demolition of the Domino Sugar Refining Plant. The refinery was enormous, the walls streaked with sugar. In the distance, the large figure of a Mammy rested in her Egyptian pose, a bandana on her head. The small basket-carrying boys made of dark red molasses who attended her were melting in the summer heat, folding over onto the floor. The large and roving crowd was quiet, as if under a spell. People took photographs of themselves standing between her creamy-looking arms. ————————————————————————————————— Max Ernst: Beyond Painting, Museum of Modern Art, NYC, through January 1, 2018 This exhibition surveys the career of the preeminent Dada and Surrealist artist Max Ernst (French and American, born Germany, 1891–1976), with particular emphasis on his ceaseless experimentation. Ernst began his pursuit of radical new techniques that went “beyond painting” to articulate the irrational and unexplainable in the wake of World War I, continuing through the advent and aftermath of World War II. Featuring approximately 100 works drawn from the Museum’s collection, the exhibition includes paintings that challenged material and compositional conventions; collages and overpaintings utilizing found printed reproductions; frottages (rubbings); illustrated books and collage novels; sculptures of painted stone and bronze; and prints made using a range of techniques. Several major, multipart projects represent key moments in Ernst’s long career, ranging from early Dada and Surrealist portfolios of the late 1910s and 1920s to his late masterpiece—a recent acquisition to MoMA’s collection—65 Maximiliana or the Illegal Practice of Astronomy (1964). This illustrated book comprises 34 aquatints complemented by imaginative typographic designs and a secret hieroglyphic script of the artist’s own invention. From MoMA’s Instagram: Max Ernst’s love of puns was likely fostered by Sigmund Freud’s book “Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious.” Here, the Dada artist overpainted a page from a sales catalogue showing women’s hats printed in an orderly grid. Ernst added more cut-and-pasted hats to make the phallic tower at the left. This visual pun relates to Freud’s identification of the hat—the requisite accessory of the bourgeois man—as a common symbol of repressed desire, adding new meaning and gender ambiguity to the cliché inscribed on the work, “C’est le chapeau qui fait l’homme” (“The hat makes the man”). ————————————————————————————————— ‘A lot of the best horror movies give you the sense that the movie you’re watching is itself somehow evil.’ Today (Tuesday, October 31, 2017) is Halloween, and what better way to celebrate than looking back at Simon Reinhardt’s reviews of horror movies from this past month. Reinhardt reviews some classics (TBOF, seen below; The Fog) as well as some rarities and gems (Kuroneko; Beyond the Darkness) and newer works (Prevenge; Butter on the Latch). Take a look, maybe your favorite horror movie was reviewed. ————————————————————————————————— SHORT RUN 2017, Saturday, November 4, 2017 ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 10-31-2017 – by Gabriella Tito ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 10-31-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio ————————————————————————————————— Cozytown – 10-31-2017 – by Juan Fernandez [1][2] Share this page: [...]

10/26/2018

Sally IngrahamOctober 26, 2018NewsSally here with some comics curiosities to fill your Friday lunch break! ————————————————————————————————— Abraham Riesman has a conversation with Julie Doucet on Vulture – he concludes by reminding us not to ever believe that we “know” her. Interesting and thoughtful read – HERE. Abraham Riesman also interviews Fiona Staples for Vulture, talking Saga (of course) – check it out HERE. The Comics Journal features a new interview with Ariell Johnson, owner of Philly’s Amalgam Comics & Coffeehouse, which is now over 2 years old and still going strong – chart the progress HERE. Catch up on the Dear Pepper advice column by Liana Finck that comes out every other Thursday on The New Yorker – HERE. Here’s a recent interview with Liana Finck on The Comics Beat, where she talks about her new book, Passing For Human. I found an article about female cartoonists in Turkey, including Ramize Erer, whose work is pictured above. Read about her HERE. Check out the Publishers Weekly review of Mickey Z‘s Space Academy 123. Gil Roth talked to Nora Krug on his Virtual Memories Show recently – she is the creator of the newly released memoir Belonging: A German Reckons with History and Home, which is on the top of my TBR pile at the moment. Listen HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Cement Mixer – 10-26-18 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

02/09/2018

Sally IngrahamFebruary 8, 2018NewsSally here with Caitlin McGurk talking Edwina Dumm, the Apple Mary/Mary Worth comic strip story, and Six Chix! ————————————————————————————————— Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum Associate Curator Caitlin McGurk was a guest on Episode 4 of the Library of American Comics & EuroComics Podcast, with Dean Mullaney and Kurtis Findlay. She talked about the upcoming American Comics Essentials Vol. 11, which collects Edwina Dumm‘s “Tippie” comic strip from 1945. Listen to the podcast HERE. Check out the Edwina Dumm LOAC Essentials book HERE – it will be coming out soon, and features an introduction by Caitlin McGurk. I am a huge fan of Edwina Dumm and am personally so excited for this collection! ————————————————————————————————— I like to root around in the archives of the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum, both in person and online. I was systematically going through the list of creators the other day, looking for WOMEN, and I came across June Brigman. I remembered that she was the last artist who worked on the comic Brenda Starr, Reporter (a long-running strip that has a fantastic, complete history of female creators – but that’s a tale for another day!) I looked into what she is currently working on, and noted that she is the artist behind the strip Mary Worth (syndicated by King Features). Mary Worth is an interesting comic strip. It’s been around since 1938 or so, making it one of the longest running “continuity” strips ever. It’s like a soap opera, with loads of characters and swirling plot lines, but it is centered on Mary – a 60-something widow and former teacher. Currently written by Karen Moy and drawn since 2016 by Brigman, it touches on all sorts of social issues and features classic cliff-hanger endings. You can read it HERE. Mary Worth was created by writer Allen Saunders and artist Dale Connor in 1938, but it has an interesting and somewhat debated connection to an earlier strip called Apple Mary. Martha Orr (the niece of Carey Orr, a cartoonist with the Chicago Tribune) started Apple Mary in 1934. It was about an old woman named Mary, who sold apples out of a pushcart, and tended to her crippled grandson Dennie. (You can see an example of the strip at the top of this section.) The strip was successful, but Martha had to quit making it after about 4 years, in favor of raising her own family. This is when Mary Worth appeared, but whether it was made to fill the popular hole that Apple Mary had left, maintaining some of the same tone and subjects, or whether it was the true evolution of Apple Mary, is up for continuing debate. Don Markstein notes on his Toonopida page for Apple Mary that “Whatever the case may be, as the Great Depression lifted, Apple Mary was left behind. There is little to be seen of her in the Mary Worth of today.” Here’s another Apple Mary strip by Martha Orr, one that does feature her being called Mary Worth by name. I like the idea of this character existing for 84 years, bookended by female creators. Next time I’m at the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum I’ll have to take a look at the one original Apple Mary strip by Martha Orr that they house in the archive! See it online HERE. ————————————————————————————————— I recently discovered a really unique comic strip called Six Chix. It’s a daily strip syndicated by King Features and created by six women cartoonists – they each have their assigned day, and then they rotate for the Sunday strip. “Isabella Bannerman draws Mondays; Martha Gradisher draws Tuesdays; Susan Camilleri Konar draws Wednesdays; Mary Lawton draws Thursdays; Benita Epstein draws Fridays; and Stephanie Piro draws Saturdays. Each cartoonist writes and draws with her own style and perspective. In any given week, you might find gags about the economy, technology, zombies, pirates or health care — and the main characters will be female and funny.“ The strip began in 2000 and was the idea of Jay Kennedy, the editor-in-chief at King Features at the time. You can read it online at the Six Chix website and learn more about the cartoonists HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Collected from the thousands of pages of material that Frank has left scattered all over the digital landscape, these 4 PDF collections contain Frank’s best writing on comics and comics making from the past decade. Theory and process, reviews and discoveries, journeys both physical and spiritual. Check out the “Best of Frank Santoro” PDF collections, available HERE! ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 2-9-2018 – by Gabriella Tito Share this page: [...]

Aidan Koch at LICAF

Comics WorkbookOctober 27, 2016Festivals and ShowsAidan Koch discusses a collaborative project during a workshop she led at The Lakes International Comic Art Festival 2016. Share this page: [...]

06/27/2016

Juan FernándezJune 27, 2016NewsJuan here with: Warren Craghead’s COLONIALISM; Rowhouse Auction June 26-July 2; Simon Hanselmann interviewed; Vanesa Del Rey art available; Mari Naomi shares Sorese’s CURVEBALL; Ethical Sloth #6 submission deadline approaches;John Martz’ BE GOOD; LINE: AN ART STUDY. ————————————————————————————————— Featured Comics: Colonialism – Warren Craghead I’m happy to announce that we are featuring Warren Craghead III’s Colonialism on the site this week. Made in 2013 by Warren Craghead for Comics Workbook, Colonialism is a series of wild little one page comics. Poetic comics that mix observational drawings and notes with reflections, while dancing in a playful blend of digital and analogue drawing. ————————————————————————————————— New Private Rowhouse Auction We have a new private auction 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. note: Connor Willumsen is offering commission sketches. ————————————————————————————————— Elsewhere: “I’m Love and Rockets-ing this shit” – Simon Hanselmann Alex Dueben interviews Simon Hanselmann over on The Beat. Great questions, great answers. Do yourself a favor and dig in. Dueben: You vary the design of your pages but you always work in a grid. What do you like about working that way? What do you think that enables you to do? Hanselmann: I’m just all about pacing. I want the reader to be able to process the information as fast as possible for a smooth read. This is also why I work in color, I think the color codifies everything and makes it easier for the brain to decipher. I’ve thought about experimenting with “crazy” layouts but I just don’t see the point. It wouldn’t serve the work. ————————————————————————————————— How to Draw Comics: the Vanesa Del Rey Way Cadence Comic Art is selling all of Vanesa Del Rey’s inked pages from available for Spider-Women Alpha (Marvel Comics). Support Vanesa and snatch ’em up while you can! If you’re looking to buy comics pages from a contemporary cartoonist, look no further. Vanesa’s a killer and her art is exquisite. ————————————————————————————————— Curveball: Excerpt Mari Naomi shares an excerpt of Jeremy Sorese‘s queer sci-fi graphic novel, Curveball, over on PEN America. If you have not yet been able to get your hands on Sorese’s work, here’s your chance to see how his narration and poetics intertwine. Sorese’s debut is juicy stuff! ————————————————————————————————— Ethical Sloth #6 3 days left to take part in the next issue of Ethical Sloth. Ethical Sloth is a zine of queer* comic artists for other queer* comic artists and everybody else. Like many other zines, this zine is completely d.i.y., so there‘s no money_reward in for you, but being part of this new rad & fierce comic-zine! And you‘ll get free issues and the master-print, if you want to print‘n‘sell your own copies. Sounds perfect? The deadline for the sixth issue»Breakups And Downs« is July 1, 2016. Specifications are: A5, comic and_or illustration. Language: any. Topic: »Breakups And Downs«. Technical stuff: A5, 300dpi, b/w (please leave a white border) For more info reach out to: Dana »Dossie« Moustache & Yori »Janet« Gagarim: ethical.sloth@gmail.com ————————————————————————————————— Be Good John Martz presents his short story, Be Good, online. It’s a good one. Design, fragile egos and tacos come together for some good old fashioned hyucks. ————————————————————————————————— Thin Line, Thick line, Strong line, Feeble Line Line: An Art Study by Edmund J. Sullivan, originally published in 1922, covers the basics of drawing using only line: drawing materials, types of line, freehand drawing, drawing solid objects in line, perspective, shadows and figure drawing. It’s online at archive.org for you to bury your nose in. Go forth and take what you need! Written by Edmund J. Sullivan Line: An Art Study merges the traditional nineteenth-century style of illustration with elements of Art Nouveau, begins by introducing readers to the freehand drawing of abstract lines and advances to the freehand drawing of natural forms, consisting mainly of plane surfaces or single lines. Subsequent chapters illustrate and discuss representations of the third and fourth dimensions, the picture plane, formal perspective, and the drawing of solid objects, including their depiction in shade and shadow, and their modelling. Additional topics include shadows, reflections, and aerial perspective as well as figure drawing. ————————————————————————————————— ’til next time, Juan Share this page: [...]

09/05/2017

Posted on September 4, 2017September 5, 2017 by Aaron Cockle

Aaron Cockle here today with Comics Carousel; Anders Nilsen’s new book; Josh Bayer returns to the New York Comics & Picture-story Symposium; Workshops at SPX

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‘But those books were both black and white. Color kind of forces your hand regarding borders.’
Paste Magazine has a nice piece about Anders Nilsen’s new book, Tongues, and the process that went into its making.

“Panel design and structure matter a lot to me. I did a bit of teaching from 2012 to 2015 or so and one of the things I found myself focusing on with certain students was how panels work and what happens to storytelling when they change in various ways. Some cartoonists do great things with a simple grid. My two biggest comics influences, Hergé and Chester Brown, use very simple panel structures in their comics, and they were brilliant with it. But I can’t keep from playing around with panels. Partly it’s because I find measuring out rectangles very boring, but it’s also, I think, partly because I studied painting, and so I can’t help but think about the visual composition of a page as more than just a collection of rectangles. It was something I wanted to explore in this book from the outset and so this small sketch is my original idea for how to structure the panels in this opening dream sequence.”

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Josh Bayer, Adam McGovern and guests, Sept. 5, 2017 at 7pm
The 190th meeting of the NY Comics & Picture-story Symposium will be held on Tuesday, Sept. 5, 2017 at 7pm at Parsons School of Design, 2 West 13th Street, in the Bark Room (off the lobby). Free and open to the public.

Josh Bayer, Adam McGovern and guests on All Time Comics
All Time Comics is a comic-book series that resists categorization. Part modern reworking of Bronze age comics superhero aesthetics, part a Mad Magazine-like Gonzo attempt to sidestep and weave that aesthetic back on itself. Published by Fantagraphcs, All Time Comics has created a space for a dialogue between older veteran creators like Herb Trimpe and Al Milgrom and younger Alternative Comics mainstays like Ben Marra and Noah Van Sciver. Join Josh Bayer in a lively discussion with comics writer/historian Adam McGovern. (Panel may include special guest artist/writers, schedules permitting).

Josh Bayer is the author of Raw Power and Theth from Retrofit Comics, the editor of the Suspect Device Comics anthology series, as well as 2016’s The Black Hood. His work’s been selected for The Best American Comics series in 2016 and 2017. He is the founder of his own “Comics Are The Enemy Press” and he is currently releasing his All Time Comics imprint from Fantagraphics.

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Comics Workbook Cartoon Workshops
If you’re planning to be at the upcoming Small Press Expo in Bethesda, MD, please consider attending one or all of the workshops the CW will be conducting:

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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.

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A Cosmic Journey – 9-5-2017 – by Cameron Arthur

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Suzy and Cecil – 9-5-2017 – by Gabriella Tito

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Joanie and Jordie – 9-5-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio

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Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Aaron Cockle

Posted on September 4, 2017September 5, 2017

Explore

01/15/2018

Caleb OrecchioJanuary 15, 2018NewsCaleb Orecchio here with thoughts on Dash Shaw’s Spider-Man story from Strange Tales II, and more news.————————————————————————————————— Last week I talked a bit about Dash Shaw’s Doctor Strange comic from the first volume of the indie-cartoonist-superhero-anthology, Strange Tales. This week I was thinking about his Spider-Man comic for Strange Tales II. A meta, meditation on the Sam Rami movies, with a quote from Toby Maguire about his famous upside-down kissing scene with Kirsten Dunst at the end. This idea runs parallel with a Spider-Man v Mysterio fight with the latter using his “vapors of deception! Deceit!” I enjoy this comic as much as I enjoy all Dash Shaw comics. Shaw is usually not without something to say in his work: Spider-Man is on “some kind of elaborate film stage,” trapped by Mysterios deceitful fog until he finds his way out and falls into “Garbage! That’s where the spiders thrive!” Out of the theater and into the trash where he belongs. Where Spider-Man is best. I like this comic because Shaw is “selling out” (one could argue by working with Marvel) whilst simultaneously calling a childhood obsession (from Marvel) “garbage,” yet, lovingly. There is an irony that resides in this story and its circumstances that I relish. It’s an earnest love letter to trash. I always enjoy rereading this one. ————————————————————————————————— if you don’t know now you know Alex Wong talks to Jason Shiga at TCJ.com. I somehow missed that Chris Ware was a guest on RiYL. Conan the Barbarian is returning to Marvel in 2019. The latest guest on Inkstuds is Zach Hazard Vaupen. Have you checked out our own Sally Ingraham’s birding blog? Check out William Cardini’s Skew on Study Group if you’ve been snoozing. ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 1-15-2018 – by Sally Ingraham Share this page: [...]

Meter, Geometry and Comic Form

Comics WorkbookJuly 31, 2017Essaysby Jackie Kirby Above, I have taken the opening couplet of Andrew Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress” (1681) scanned and annotated by Phillip Hobsbaum in Metre, Rhythm, and Verse Form (1996) and translated it into an 8-panel grid spread using values of red as a accentual tool. Approaching comics with the assumption that they are or can be included within the scope of poetic practice, one is brought to draw a connection between the formal structures through which time and meaning are manifested on the page: in the comic, geometry and the grid; and in the poem, meter and verse form. Here, I will present what could generously be called “notes” towards a theory of meter and geometry. I apologize now for the inevitable imperfection of the metaphor, but I find this to be an important and positive aspect of the connection between the two, rather than a caveat negating any use the metaphor may provide. Meter is the method of measuring verse by counting elements of it. It is a primarily mathematical system; it was called “numbers” by the Classical poets. Most often, the poet is counting syllables, as many languages exist primarily as a succession of syllables. Through different uses of meter, different methods of counting and measuring, different patterns of arrangement, writers create prosody, or a system of language. Within each language there exist many theories of organization, each of which is catered to both the language the writer uses and the purpose for which she wishes to use it. English poetry uses an accentual-syllabic metrical system, where the units being counted are syllables, and their pattern is defined by the arrangement of more or less strongly emphasized, or accented, syllables. Other languages use different systems. Languages which do not accentuate as strongly, such as French, will use something more akin to a purely syllabic meter, where forms are defined by the counting of syllables and ordering of numbers. This was also used by Ancient Irish and Welsh poets. Classical Greek and Latin poets based their prosody on the number of syllables and the length of time it takes to speak each syllable, creating patterns by arranging longer and shorter syllables. This is all to say, meter is a tool that must be developed accounting for the idiosyncrasies of the language in which one wishes to write. By looking at the metrical forms used by poets across different languages, and restructuring them for use in the language of comics, one can produce comic forms with increased complexity without decreasing (and perhaps even increasing) their legibility. In an initial attempt at translating verse form to comic form let us equate syllables with panels, and spreads with lines. Each row of panels will represent a metrical foot. Stress is produced relationally, and in comics one can use size, color, density, and a myriad of other visual techniques to “stress” a panel. The actual size of each panel per “foot” or row is up to your own discretion but I prefer to use a more qualitative than quantitative approach to my “comics scansion.” The first verse form I’d like to look at is dactylic hexameter, or Homer’s verse. It is the verse used in the Iliad and Odyssey, and later in Latin by Ovid and Virgil. Its historical use has equated it with the most grandiose poetic narratives, and cues a reader that she is reading a grand epic. Dactylic refers to the primary foot pattern of the poem, a dactyl being a long or stressed syllable followed by 2 short or unstressed syllables, while hexameter refers to the number of feet per line, which is 6 in this case (as opposed to pentameter , tetrameter , etc.). Using the system of translation previously established, a “dactylic hexameter” comic, would consist of spreads with 6 rows of 3 panels each, with the primary pattern being to stress the first panel of each row. Visually, this can easily lead us to a spread of 2 pages using a 9-panel grid. Another notable element of Homer’s verse is that the third and sixth feet may be spondees rather than dactyls. A spondee is a foot composed of 2 equally weighted syllables. This could provide a spread looking something like this. Alternatively, one could equate the panel to a metrical foot, and the page to a line. This would produce 6-panel grids, with each spread serving as a couplet. These are only a few different, relatively conservative, attempts at translating a single poetic verse form into comics. These are not prescriptions as to what certain meters must look like in comics, but demonstrations of the ways meter and verse form can be used to develop a prosody of comics. There is such a plethora of verse forms, all with their own particular uses that can be translated into comics. As shown in the Marvell scansion above, the 8-panel grid is quite suited for translating iambic tetrameter, which is used most commonly in the ballad form. This connection could lead to all sorts of comics practices or translated ballads. The harmony of a metered line is based on the same mathematical principals that produce visual harmony in geometric patterns. For instance, the sonnet, one of the most commonly used poetic forms, consisted originally of an octave (8-line stanza) followed by a sestet (6-line stanza). Poetry scholars have connected this with the golden ratio (8/5) with an extra line added to complete an even-numbered rhyme scheme. I have annoyed (to say the least) a number of English department chairs by insisting that poetry is simply linguistic mathematics. Certainly it’s (a bit) more than that, but much of poetics is applied mathematics, just as comics are. ————————————————————————————————————— Jackie Kirby is a poet and comics maker living in New York City. A recent graduate from The New School with a BA in Cultural Studies, she has been making comics and writing poetry seriously for three years. Check out work by Jackie on her website, and follow her on Instagram. Read Jackie’s Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency Report for more thoughts on comics and poetry. Share this page: [...]

11/24/2017

Sally IngrahamNovember 23, 2017NewsSally here with work by Jessica Campbell, Jessica Abel and Meg Lemke, Sophie Goldstein, and more! ————————————————————————————————— Hillary Brown talks House of Women with Sophie Goldstein on Paste Magazine. About the comic itself Hillary writes: “Alternately spiky and luscious, it draws you in by receding. She writes with economy, but the resulting story isn’t irritatingly arty or hard to follow; it’s not drawn by a comics artist only for other comics artists who speak the lingo and can read the subtext. It’s no surprise, in fact, that Margaret Atwood (restless, relentless experimenter, unafraid to leap into any genre that grabs her interest, including comics) is an inspiration for this female-centered and complexly feminist story of colonization and controlled social dynamics. Goldstein provides no easy answers—the book is thematically driven rather than focused on plot first and foremost—but she knows how to be just difficult enough.“ Read the interview HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Jessica Campbell has a comic about The Bad Behavior of Men in Comics up on Hyperallergic – it’ll probably make you squirm or steam, depending, because she brings up all kinds of things that no one likes to talk about. Read it HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Meg Lemke interviews Jessica Abel about her new book Growing Gills over on Mutha Magazine. Jessica has spent her life making comics, working in arts education, and developing theories about maintaining creative focus – something that I’d say the majority of us struggle with. This book came out of a series of online courses she taught and a working group she managed – where instead of dealing with issues like “how can I tell better stories?”, for example, the overwhelming chorus from her students and peers was “how can I deal with my paralyzing anxiety and procrastination?!” In Growing Gills Jessica offers some working theories she’s developed (although she struggles with the same issues in her own life on a regular basis.) In the interview Jessica and Meg talk about organization, self-forgiveness, and process over progress. “MUTHA: You talk in the book also about process over project outcomes, can you unpack that more? JESSICA ABEL: What’s destructive is when people want to make art, but don’t want to sell art. AND at the same time they feel they can’t be artists if they aren’t attempting to be professionals. “If I’m not showing in a gallery, am I really an artist? If I don’t have a mainstream publisher, am I a writer?” Yes, you are. It may be that the business side is not what you’re interested in; it requires sacrifice of your creative time to do the work required to be a “pro.” People miss that the selling part is a separate project. If they can recognize and commit to selling as a separate project, great. If you constantly find yourself saying “I don’t want to do the things needed to sell my work,” then maybe you need to rethink the underlying model. Maybe the creative work on its own is what you need to feed your psyche. Make room in your life for your work without worrying about making it pay for itself. Maybe it’s enough to share it with your family, friends, or put it up for free on Medium. Don’t confuse the creative work with your childhood dreams of fame.“ This speaks to me right now, as a good reminder that making comics and making money can’t always be the same thing, and if I’m sacrificing making good comics in favor of making money, then I need to reevaluate. The book is long and full of good stuff, but if you don’t have time to squeeze reading it into your already busy life, at least read this interview, which unpacks a lot. Check out Growing Gills HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Thanksgiving Leftovers (always better the next day!) Melanie Gillman‘s webcomic As the Crow Flies has been released by Iron Circus Comics – the A.V. Club reviews the comic HERE. GG discusses I’m Not Here over on Smash Pages. NPR reviews Body Music by Julie Maroh – apparently “earnest romanticism buoys it over the trouble spots“. Read the review HERE. Drawn + Quarterly is publishing new work by Rina Ayuyang and the last work of Geneviève Castrée – both comics coming in 2018. ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 11-24-2017 – by Gabriella Tito ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 11-24-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

03/27/2017

Sally IngrahamMarch 26, 2017NewsBeginning the week with Ryan Sands and Frank Santoro talking risograph printing, new work from Ron Rege Jr. and Brian Chippendale, thoughts on creating comic strips from Ben Katchor, and more. ————————————————————————————————— The Risograph Workbook series on The Comics Journal continues with Ryan Sands, publisher at Youth in Decline, sharing his riso story. “People ask me about risograph a lot, and I get hesitant to characterize it as a look or aesthetic unto itself. The machine is just a means to production, and how artists mess with it and use it is a reflection of their priorities and style – Mickey uses the riso to maintain spontaneity and a handmade griminess to the comics, while someone like John Pham applies his printmaking emphasis and precision to create these really sharp and dense books full of color and gradients. Then there are folks like Ryan Cecil Smith, and Colour Code Printing‘s Jesjit Gill, who want to push the color blending and technique as far as possible, recreating (and sometimes surpassing) the sharpness of CMYK offset printing. A risograph machine is just tool that allows creators & publishers to speed up & expand on an existing approach.” – Ryan Sands Read the rest of the conversation between Ryan and Frank Santoro HERE. ————————————————————————————————— On The Comics Beat Phillipe Leblanc reviews Frank Santoro’s Escape To The Unfinished #2 (Breakdown Press, 2015). “The key to understanding Frank Santoro’s work in Escape to the Unfinished #2 lies in the feelings memories evoke. A river running under a multi-span bridge, a silhouette standing at the end of a hiking trail in the woods, an industrial building surrounded by overgrown vegetation. All of these anchored by the recurring image of a woman. She’s on the cover of the book, and throughout multiple panels in the comic, always looking directly at the reader. The whole comic is framed on fragments of memories. It’s mostly silent, with a single exchange between two characters in the whole comic. … By simply presenting scenery and tying it to the memory of a loved one, Santoro manages to create feelings of sorrow and heartache.“ Read the whole review HERE. ————————————————————————————————— What Parsifal Saw is the latest comic from Ron Regé Jr. (Fantagraphics, 2017). It collects Regé’s work since The Cartoon Utopia (which was just released in a new softcover edition.) Bill Boichel writes about What Parsifal Saw: “The two key pieces here are “Cosmogenesis,” illustrating the “secret doctrine” of Madame Helena Blavatsky, the key figure in the history of Theosophy (which had a significant influence on the first generation of modernist artists, notably Piet Mondrian and Wassily Kandinsky), and “Diana,” Regé’s unique spin on W*nder W*man…Ron Regé, Jr. has been striving conscientiously to forge a visual language to channel spiritual forces through comics, continuously evolving his approach, and in the process creating a singular and highly rewarding body of work.“ Get a copy of the book HERE. In January Ron Rege Jr. spoke to The Creators Project on VICE about his work, and explained how he uses the simplicity of drawing to explore and impart hidden, sacred knowledge. The Cartoon Utopia (originally published in 2012) documents a large part of that journey, and What Parsifal Saw continues it. ” “In a spiritual sense, my ideas always seem to focus on some sort of attempt to explain the unexplainable,” Regé says. “I’ve always been trying to look through the mirror, so to speak. Experiences like deja-vu, lucid dreaming, and a sense of reincarnation are things I’ve always felt in my heart. I’ve never been able to really understand how or why we live in these cultures and societies that are so disconnected from the earth and our true selves. I’ve never sensed that things like rules or money are anything other than made-up illusions. I’m always looking for that eternal DMT moment in the back of my dreams where I came from. These things shaped my life and my work, and I seem to always be becoming more aware of what it all is.” “ Read the rest of the feature on VICE‘s The Creators Project. Get a copy of The Cartoon Utopia HERE. ————————————————————————————————— I enjoyed this short documentary from 2000 about Ben Katchor and his comic strip Julius Knipl, Real-Estate Photographer. Katchor guides the viewer through a grey landscape of jumbled skyscrapers and lonely warehouses, commenting on the funny names of stores and the pleasant nostalgia of functioning ruins. His love for walking the city inspired him to make a cartoon character who did the same thing, and week after week he found something to put in his strip that came directly from standing on the street himself. “You see the city in terms of your bodies ability to move around it. Every inch of pavement is a whole world of activity. When they remake a sidewalk you really feel like something has been ripped up, some artifact, some record of all the people who have passed over it.“ Calling himself a “middle-man in the memory business“, and comic strips a “low-level commodity“, Katchor still recognizes that everything has a story if you know how to look for it, and with a shrug and a smile, says “Once in awhile in a strip you’ll see this crack in the facade of everything – of the commercial world. There’s some great dramatic moment of revelation.” ————————————————————————————————— As the comics award season begins, Michael Cavna, of “Comic Riffs” on The Washington Post, offers his list of comics that ought to win an “Oscar”. He fears worthy comics such as Rolling Blackouts by Sarah Glidden (above), Patience by Dan Clowes, and Mooncop by Tom Gould may be overlooked – plus 7 others – so as you make convention and award ceremony rounds this year, perhaps you will be inspired to put your vote in for some of his picks – the rest are HERE. ————————————————————————————————— The paintings above recently moved from Brian Chippendale’s studio to Safe Gallery in Brooklyn, NY, where they join an instillation by Greek artist Ioanna Pantazopoulou. The gallery writes about Brian’s show: “Brian Chippendale’s airy new paintings unveil a secret inner world assembled from raw drawing, scrawled notes, and compulsive doodles. By shedding the density of his past work, Chippendale trades out his heavily-populated collages for visually lighter canvases. The artist’s characteristic rainbow-hued palette remains at play as he edits out the layered space with white to carve out a new arena for expression. In some moments Chippendale actually makes punctured shapes through his surfaces as an alternate layer of mark-making. The laminated surfaces serve as the backbone of the paintings while bursts of marks hover in space. The drippy color-drenched squiggles, sprayed like fragments of graffiti, serve as futuristic hieroglyphics with buoyant and vibrant results.“ More about the show HERE. More work by Brian Chippendale can be seen HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Get a limited edition 4-color silk screen printed version of the 2017 PIX poster (above) made by Carol Tyler in honor of Jay Lynch. “The 11″ x 17″ print featured a 4 color silk screened image of Jay’s most famous characters, Nard n’ Pat as drawn by cartoonist Carol Tyler in a limited edition of 50, signed by Carol Tyler. Proceeds from the sale of this fine art print will benefit the National Cartoonists Society Foundation, which provides financial assistance to cartoonists and their families in times of hardship.“ Pre-order one HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Blinkers – 3-27-2017 – by Jack Brougham ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 3-27-2017 – by Sally Ingraham ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 3-27-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

Northampton, MA Scene Report

Frank SantoroJanuary 22, 2012Riff Raff / Scene ReportsThis week’s scene report is brought to you by Colin Panetta. Please enjoy. ———- Hey, I’m going to be telling everyone about the small town of Northampton, MA. We’re about an hour east of the New York state line and an hour and a half west of Boston. We’re pretty close to the center of the state, but we’re branded as Western Massachusetts. We’re riddled with fancy colleges, including Smith, Hampshire and Mount Holyoke, which gives the area a strong NPR vibe. HISTORY Most comics people probably know Northampton for its historical significance. Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird moved here and started Mirage Studios shortly after Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #1 was released. In the ensuing years, the tidal wave of activity that followed their unprecedented levels of success in the comics world and beyond caused a number of historic events to occur here. You can read a lot about it in this recently posted Comics Journal interview with Kevin Eastman from 1998. Suffice it to say that in addition to Mirage Studios itself, the Creator’s Bill of Rights summit was held here and Eastman opened the Words and Pictures comic book art museum downtown, and planted the home offices of his infamous comic book publishing company Tundra right across the street. Main Street, that is. Here’s the building where the Words and Pictures Museum was located: It’s seen better days. Ex-Mirage artist Jim Laswon recently told me that there used to be a giant gargoyle at the top of it that not all the locals were thrilled with (although in general there was a lot of local support for the museum). That gargoyle is gone, but some smaller, distinctly Ninja Turtle-esque ones remain: The block directly across the street used to house the Tundra offices, and the original Mirage Studios before that. (Just the business offices though, Lawson told me the the artists worked in a warehouse space outside of town.) Mirage is now located just off of Main Street, and some of the old staff artists still have studio space there. I’ve been, it’s amazing. Jammed full of three of every Ninja Turtle product ever made, occasionally topped with a random piece of fifteen year old original comic book art. There aren’t many public facing remnants of that time left in town, but these two pieces of local street art show that the shadow of the Turtles still looms large in the area’s consciousness (in fact every long-time local resident has a Ninja Turtles story if you raise the subject): Kitchen Sink Press moved here after they absorbed Tundra, and Denis Kitchen still lives nearby. He also co-founded the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, which was based in Northampton until just a few years ago. To top it all off Disney Adventures, which featured many indie cartoonists in its pages, was also based in Northampton until it folded in 2007. HOT SPOTS The big store in town is Modern Myths. They make a great effort toward catering to every type of person who might go into a comic book store, having distinct sections for superhero floppies, graphic novels, manga and role playing games. In the time that I’ve been here they’ve hosted events with Evan Dorkin, Howard Cruse and the late Harvey Pekar. And they put up with me constantly emailing them at 3am with requests for oddities from the back of Previews, so they’re a very good shop: There’s also Bob’s II Comics N’More, a 90’s throwback store with endless back issue bins. Non-comics stores FOE Gallery and Feeding Tube Records also dedicate some shelf space to comics. As far as events go, last year saw the first comics and illustration themed Paint and Pixel Festival, and we have a monthly Dr Sketchy’s. FOLKS Northampton is a very small town, but we’ve got a few artists kicking around. I mostly draw with a guy named Mark Velard. We table at shows together and post our work online under the name Mysterious Transmissions. Here are a couple panels from Mark’s latest page: I recognised the nice guy with the goofy glasses strap who works at the local art store in one of Tom Spurgeon’s recent “Who Are These People?” posts. Turns out he’s Sam Gaskin, a CCS graduate. He’s got a few different books out, including a mini he did with Matt Furie called Hot Topic. When I told him what my favorite gag in Hot Topic was, he told me it was his favorite too and it’s what he wants to be remembered for when he dies. I assured him I’d let the people know, but you’re going to have to wait to find out which one it is. Here are his book covers: You’ll see the old Mirage artists Michael Dooney, Dan Berger and Jim Lawson around. I love Jim’s work. He made incredible strides in developing a very distinct style, somewhere between Jack Kirby and Paul Pope, during his twenty plus years as a staff artist. I’m helping him put his dinosaur comic Paleo online as a webcomic this year. He’s a comics drawing machine: Bryant Paul Johnson is a nice local face who helped me fact check this article and has been working on a graphic novel in his web-savvy style. Here’s the cover: Colin Tetford occasionally brings his community focused approach to comics making to town, and often sends me a bulleted list of his itinerary when he does. It’s adorable. Local graphic designer Tom Pappalardo has a strip in the local weekly. Hans Rickheit also lives somewhere nearby, but every time I ask him where he just tells me it’s not on any maps. Mark and I had a successful art show in nearby Greenfield with him last year. (Successful in that lots of mentally unstable people wandered in from the street.) Hans is great, Fantagraphics puts his stuff out. Here’s a crazy panel he drew last year: NEIGHBORS The Center For Cartoon Studies is an hour and half north, but you guys already heard all about that. Easthampton, the unassuming next town over, is somehow the webcomics capital of the country. R Stevens of Deisel Sweeties, Jeph Jacques of Questionable Content and Jeffrey Rowland of Overcompensating (plus more, I’m sure) all live in and around there. Rowland runs TopatoCo, an online store that represents all the biggest names in webcomics from Kate Beaton to Ryan North, out of the old Eastworks building. I tried to walk in there and buy something in person once and they looked at me dirty, but they’re super nice folks. Kevin Eastman has an office full of God knows what in the same building (I’ve seen walls of original art from the museum and a full Predator suit when I peeked in), and between those two institutions is legendary back issue warehouse Gary Dolgoff Comics. Share this page: [...]

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