Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in los Cómics, NewsTagged Bef, Decur, El Publicadero 2017, la polola, Mireia Perez, Monica Ceberia, Muriel Bellini, Paloma Valdivia

Juan Fernández

Posted on September 6, 2017

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01/09/2017

Juan FernándezJanuary 8, 2017NewsA month of diary comics by Hannah Kaplan; Simon Reinhardt’s Mystery Town; Michael Deforge’s twitter comics; Gary Panter; Dash Shaw on Moonlight; Robyn Chapman’s 2016 Micro-Press Survey; Weird chat robot theater; and daily strips by Juan Fernandez, Caleb Orecchio and Gabriella Tito. Juan here. It’s getting bone chillingly cold here in Pittsburgh. We’re starting to burn the shitty minicomics to stay warm…it’s getting rough out here. Hope you’re warm at least, dear reader! ————————————————————————————————— The 2016 Micro-Press Survey is now live! If you’re a micropublisher, would you take a moment to fill it out? Robyn Chapman puts this together every year and its an invaluable resource for the scene as it ebbs and flows in energy and size. New for the 2016 Yearbook: Publishers that only publish anthologies will now be included in the Micro-Press Yearbook. If you only publish anthologies, please complete the regular 2016 Survey. If you’d like to recommend some anthology publishers for the list, please contact Robyn at robertaraechapman (at) gmail (dot) com. Weird robot theater – You can now watch Two Google home bots chat live. They go at it on a variety of topics, usually bickering back and forth. There’s a text stream in case you can’t quite make out what they’re saying. If you want a fun comics excercise, jot down some of their exchanges and use them as the fuel for a dialogue in a strip. Weird AI (fueled by cleverbot‘s AI) that creates a quiet, DADAist bit of chat logs you could imagine Samuel Beckett scripting. Philadelphia based cartoonist Hannah Kaplan is making a diary comic everyday this month. Catch up with the past week and tune in for the rest of the month. Highly recommended if you like the work of Gabrielle Bell, Julie Delporte or Sacha Mardou. ————————————————————————————————— Did you know Simon Reinhardt released twelve issues of Mystery Town in 2016? 1 Every month. You can read them all (plus the first two issues, from 2015) right here: http://mystery-town.tumblr.com/all Featuring guest comics from Luke Healy, Reilly Hadden, Nik James, Dean Sudarsky, Aaron Cockle and yours truly. The diligence and commitment of a King Cat zine with the far out obliqueness of comics by CF. Simon Reinhart has been putting out these monthly issues in a really fun and smart distribution model for zines. He makes the print ready PDF available online for free for you to print at home and brings copies around with him to give away wherever he exhibits. It’s clever in that the physical version of these comics is available for distribution anywhere, without him having to do a crazy amount of work printing and distributing. What I think is the most beautiful part of this is the nature of distortion in these zines. He’s playing around with different kinds of visual distortion and abstraction of images through his cartooning and the digital and analogue reproduction techniques he uses. Physical drawings scanned, photographed, halftoned, dithered… And of course, each zine comes out printed differently according to the kind of printer that is being used by the reader at home. So, hop on over to Mystery Town, print some issues out, staple them together, have a read and leave it somewhere for someone to find it. CW students, here’s my word to the wise: Consider self-publishing a monthly zine. Whatever writing or drawings you make that month, include it in the zine. Give it a cool name like SIRK or DEEP GIRL. Hold yourself to that deadline. Keep production simple. Black and white xerox it. Some months will be great, some months will be not so great. That’s ok. What’s most important is that you’ll be processing your world on your own terms through your comics. You can do it. ————————————————————————————————— Michael DeForge is publishing a new comic on his Twitter thread…! The first episode is shown above, and there have been further updates since then. Check it out – follow Michael on Twitter – @michael_deforge. ————————————————————————————————— Dash Shaw was one of a number of contributors to a cool feature on Talkhouse Film – The 2016 Talkies: Talkhouse Film Contributors’ Top Films of the Year. The favorite theatrical releases of 2016 were voted on and then graphic and written responses were shared, including Dash’s illustration for the movie Moonlight (above). Check out the rest of the list HERE. ————————————————————————————————— The pages pictured above are from Gary Panter’s ground-breaking and totally hilarious Cola Madnes. “Cola Madnes was created by Panter primarily for his Japanese audience (who named a cafe in Nagoya ‘Gary Panter Squar’ in his honor) using a manga-style two-panel-per-page layout that paid silent and respectful homage to the work of Toho Studios (creator of Godzilla) and comic book legend Jack “King” Kirby. Cola Madnes was Gary Panter’s artistic “holy mission” way back in 1983. A project that was spawned from sketch-book jottings to rise up phoenix-like 18 years later as a smoldering piece of graphic and literary art that deserves to be stacked alongside J.G. Ballard’s Crash and William S. Burroughs’ Naked Lunch.” – via Fantagraphics.com Gary Panter generously donated this seminal book – along with 100 Drawings, where Gary documents many of his best commissions – to Comics Workbook to help support the Rowhouse Residency and our other projects. Get copies of both at the school store – HERE. ————————————————————————————————— 1-9-2017 – by Juan Fernández ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 1-9-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 1-9-2017 – by Gabriella Tito Share this page: [...]

Caleb Orecchio @ CXC 2016

Caleb OrecchioOctober 23, 2016Festivals and ShowsTHURSDAY After pulling an all nighter Wednesday, printing my comic Thursday, and weaving through and from Dayton to Columbus, Ohio, I arrived just in time to meet Sally Ingraham and Kurt Ankeny at Cartoon Crossroads Columbus for the seven o’clock John Canemaker program on Windsor McCay’s Little Nemo. You had to see it to believe it folks. We watched McCay’s first two films and participated in the third, Gerdie the Dinosaur. Canemaker played the role of McCay as McCay would have exhibited Gerdie during his vaudeville act. I won’t even try to describe it. You had to be there. During this dramatic occasion, Lucy Caswell sat directly in front of me. The goddess and founder of what has become the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum. A year or two ago, Jeff Smith was giving a talk, a celebration of Will Eisner, at the Billy Ireland. Lucy sat in front of me then too. Then, as now during Canemaker’s Little Nemo presentation, Caswell acted as she would have in a Southern Baptist church. When the speaker made a particularly poignant remark, she said to herself and God, “That’s right.” When she saw her favorite images, she put her hand to her heart and whispered, “Amazing.” After all these years, comics and cartooning continues to astonish her. In a way, we really owe CXC to Lucy Caswell. Thank you. I’m an Ohio native. My grandparents grew up in Columbus. All of my grandpa’s stories of getting into fights and general mayhem take place on High Street and Goodale Avenue. I grew up in Marysville which is thirty minutes NW of Columbus. I live in Dayton now, but it didn’t make this festival feel any less like a homecoming. Oh aych! Aye oh! MARDOU First thing on Friday, Juan Fernandez, Sally Ingraham, Emil Friis Ernst, and myself headed to Mardou’s comics narrative presentation. Sacha is fantastic. She read from some of her recent work which had the whole room hanging on her every word and image. The fact that she read every line of dialogue added to the charm of the hour we spent in her world. During the exhibition portion of the festival, Sacha Mardou tabled with Comics Workbook. Her table, and the table I was manning were only a pillar apart. When I had a moment to breath, I’d look over to see if she was free to sell me her book, Sky in Stereo. Both days, she sold out. Don’t sleep on this cartoonist, she is a force to be reckon with! CAITLIN MCGURK AND THE BILLY IRELAND I could have wept seeing all the art at the Billy Ireland, just like every time I go there. Caitlin McGurk took us on a fantastic tour through the collection, moving through doors that would call the cops if you shut them too slow. Seth and Ben Katchor were among my fellow tourists. Seth, cane and hat and all, walked out of Dominion and to my left, gracefully listening to McGurk reveal the secrets and show off the bowels of the world’s biggest cartoon collection archive. Katchor and I drooled all over an original Krazy Kat Sunday. The center of the piece was a tree Krazy was sitting under. Herriman had scratched away the ink on top of the plant for texture. I almost broke down sobbing. Caitlyn McGurk was an excellent guide. Her knowledge was second to none, her enthusiasm was infectious. She loves her job and you can tell. She knows everything. She pulled out some original Canffs and let us all die there on the spot and come back to life enlightened by the whole process. Did you know Caniff would draw his Sundays, then rearrange the panels for different periodical orientations? Modularity. Caniff grew up in Dayton. It seems he and I are doing our careers in reverse. THE STATE OF THE INDUSTRY “OFF THE RECORD” A panel moderated by thee incomparable Tom Spurgeon and featuring Keith Knight, Brendan Burford, Shena Wolf, Chip Mosher, and Rich Tommaso, was excellent. Three “gatekeepers” (evidently a controversial designation) and two cartoonists. The talk provided perspective into how to make comics a career, something that should be discussed more often. Spurgeon was an excellent moderator and asked the tough questions. Brendan Burford, General Manager of King Features Syndicate, stood out to me. Forward thinking, intelligent, and passionate about comics. He talked about trying to develop comic strips that are worthy of our medium’s history and, looking forward, how cartoonists can be secret weapons in other industries, like Virtual Reality. He sees the cartoonists as a bridge, an essential and unique group of people with skills that can elevate other media. I talked to him a bit after the panel was over. He’s charming, social, and quick-witted. He has an extensive knowledge of the history of comics. I showed him my latest comic. As we were talking, his longtime buddy Nate Powell came over to say Hi. Fresh off March 3, Powell was energetic and kind. I went to leave, to let them catch up, but Brendan told me to stay. It was great listening to these old friends talk and laugh and catch up. The day was joyously interrupted; thee unstoppable Carol Tyler and thee prolific Sergio Aragones shared the honor of Masters of the Medium awards, presented by Tom Spurgeon and Jeff Smith. Spurgeon and Tyler got a bit weepy, and in response, so did others. Sergio and Smith cracked jokes which was, for me, like seeing Chaplin and Keaton high-five. Mr. Burford flagged down Sally, Juan, Emil, and I at the after party Katie Skelly hosted. It was soon after midnight, and my brain was slowing to a halt. Brendan, however, had more energy than ever. His vision of the future of comics and cartoonists is an optimistic one. “Cartoonists are secret weapons!” he kept saying like a prophet. I was trying to keep up with him among the loud music as he floated off the floor; luckily Juan and Sally picked up my slack and hung with Brendan’s wild ideas. This guy is the guy to talk to people! SATURDAY COmics! Gitcha COmics heah! Gitcha COmics! The first day of exhibiting at the Columbus Metro Library Downtown branch – I manned the Comics Workbook table along with Sally, Juan, and Emil. We were surrounded by our CW comrades – Kurt Ankeny, Whit Taylor, Alyssa Berg, and the aforementioned Mardou. This was my first time tabling, but Sally and Juan trusted me while they were off helping, recording, and running CW workshops. I should mention we sold out of Simon Hanselmann’s Truth Zone almost immediately. Some people would pass by and say I’ll be back later to get this. I just smiled and waved as Hanselmann’s fans came out of the shadows with their pizza stained t-shirts and Redbull in hand, handed over all their rent money to get this rare gem. A presence many attendees and would-be-buyers noticed was missing was our fearless leader, Frank Santoro. People recognized his longboxes (the only ones at the show to my knowledge) and his amazing books. If I had played a drinking game where, whenever I heard “Is Frank here?” I had to take a shot…I’d be dead. Which is fine. It just showed me what an influence he has on people. People who only met him last year and bought a handful of bad 80’s black and white comics, missed him. I hope we did him justice as comic sellers. EMIL FRIIS ERNST is the current resident of the Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency, all the way from Denmark. A living breathing Macbeth, we had skipped the Trudeau talk the night before and walked down High Street to find cigarettes for me. Emil is not only an excellent young cartoonist, but an all-around nice guy. We bonded over being early-twenty-something introverts, weary form brushing shoulders with giants all day. He was very nice to answer all my dumb-American questions about his mystical, foreign land of Vikings and wonder. We laughed, to my amazement, to shared senses of humor. He even bought me a beer! xoxo Emil! ERIC REYNOLDS Once I heard the new Love and Rockets was being sold at the Fantagraphics table, I ran over and picked up my copy before it sold out. Eric Reynolds was running the joint and I introduced myself. I thanked him for the editorial input he had on the SPX Celebrates Fantagraphics 40th Anniversary book I designed. He was very friendly and approachable. RYAN SANDS and I chatted briefly about our mutual internet acquaintance, Cameron Arthur, a teenage up-and-comer cartoonist from Texas. We talked Mickey Z too. He sees her as a great American cartoonist that should be celebrated as such. I agree. He told me a secret about Mickey Z’s next book Rav Collection 2, but it’s a secret so I can’t say. Don’t sleep on Mickey Zacchilli or Youth in Decline! ROBIN MCCONNELL of Inkstuds fame visited the CW table and bought GG’s A Mysterious Process. Juan had him check out Emil’s book All In A Day’s Work as well. Robin noted, “I can tell that he’s part of the cult.” CHARLES BURNS Maybe you’ve heard of him? Mr. Burns stopped by to pick up some DC romance comics. Juan and I chatted with him briefly and I asked him which was weirder, DC romance comics or Charlton romance comics? Charlton of course. BEN KATCHOR AND KEVIN CZAP Mr. Katchor looked through every single CW-made comic at the table thoroughly, which was exciting to see. As we started to make small talk, Tom Spurgeon announced that Kevin Czap was receiving the Emerging Talent award with $7,500 from Jeff Smith and Vijaya Iyer. By the end of Czap’s humble and gracious speech, Mr. Katchor had been intercepted. Next I saw him he was at Nate McDonough’s table. NATE MCDONOUGH What a guy. I was delighted to be right next to Nate’s table. A Pittsburgher who has ties to my Dayton, OH. So nice and so prolific. I swear he knew 50% of the attendees that passed by his table. Lot’s of hugging and catching up at Nate’s place. I bought his latest graphic novel, Naptime – a comic that has a cover I watched Nate draw on a floppy red folder, on his lap, when there was at least forty-feet of open table in front him. This was only a couple months prior to CXC. BEN SEARS had a residency at the CW Rowhouse a couple weeks after me this past summer, and was drawing in the next room when Frank and I had an iChat meeting about some graphic design I was doing for him. I introduced myself and we traded notes on the Residency. I bought his book Night Air and he drew in it. Nice guy, that guy. JOE MCCULLOCH picked up a copy of Matt Seneca’s 200 Deaf Boys that CW was selling and smiled. Before he spoke, I had no idea this was Jog the Blog himself. “Have you read that comic?” I asked him (and everyone else who glanced at it because it’s my favorite comic right now.) He replied, “Yeah, I’m a friend of Matt’s.” His voice and cadence were unmistakable. I told him how much I LOVE the McCloud/Sculptor take-down episode of Comic Books Are Burning in Hell. He laughed and said something like, “Some days I think that was one of my shining achievements, and other days I think I will carry it with me forever like the chains of Jacob Marley.” (note: the latest episode of Comic Books Are Burning in Hell is all about Joe and Chris’ CXC adventures – listen HERE!) CHRIS ANTHONY DIAZ The man behind the excellent photos. Juan introduced us. Chris is great. He’s a collector with great taste and a self-disciplined photographer. He showed me some photos of Noah Van Sciver, mustache and all, for possible future author photos. He regaled me with some fantastic Alvin Bueneventura stories. He talked about how he and Alvin were once making bookplates for a Charles Burns book in a hotel room. Chris is kind and engaging. I drove he and I out to Mr. Burns’ presentation at CCAD and I had the good fortune to sit next to Chris and watch him in action; removing his glasses after each photo to check the lighting that didn’t seem to cooperate in the dark auditorium. Unfortunately I had to abandon Chris at CCAD for I had taken ill. My all-nighter was catching up with me and I wasn’t feeling so hot. Chris was understanding and said he could find a ride back. The next day I apologized to him and explained my workaholic situation. He was nice about it. I gave him my comics and he took my photo. Chris is such a great guy and I hope to meet up with him again in the future. AT THE MOTEL…after abandoning Chris at CCAD and getting the key from my roommates, I turned on the Buckeye game and laid down. We were getting man-handled by Wisconsin and I fell asleep in the third quarter I think. Falling into a deep, restorative slumber was unfortunate because I had the only key! Luckily, I awoke to find all my roomies sleeping angelically. They made it in somehow, and the Buckeyes ended up winning in overtime. Go Bucks! SUNDAY AS THE DEER PANTETH FOOOOR… Last day of the festival and the last day to sell things. Sally had already sold out of one of her books. Juan, Emil, and I were fighting for second. Some stoners had a eulogy for the soldout Truth Zones. Lot’s of chatting and laughing and a grand time was had by all. I almost forgot to mention the CXC volunteers! They were amazing! I wish I would have got their names. These nameless angels tirelessly made the expo a more comfortable place. If I needed water, they sensed it and came flying over bringing me more water bottles than I asked for. When you’re talking all day, taking periodic smoke breaks, and feeling a bit under the weather, these people are knights in shining armour. They also helped us find carts to carry the egregious amount of supplies we brought for workshops to our cars in one trip. Thank you CXC volunteers! SALLY INGRAHAM AND JUAN FERNANDEZ Thee Comics Workbook co-pilots never sat down until they laid down to sleep. These two are the beating heart of CW and without them, Frank would be convulsing on the Rowhouse floor, muttering about 9-panel grids and the Golden Section. They work day and night to bring the comics gospel to the world in not one, but TWO languages. I am honored to have shared the weekend with them. KURT ANKENY It was great to finally meet Kurt. I bought his new comic, Dark Desert Dawn. All the drawing in this one is “first-take”, though you wouldn’t know it because it’s drawn so well. I hate him for that. 🙂 Look for his fresh-off-the-press graphic novel, In Pieces: Someplace Which I Call Home. It’s an achievement to be proud of, Kurt. WHIT TAYLOR During the craziness of the festival, nobody bothered to introduce us (SORRY CALEB AND WHIT!! xo – Sally), so I introduced myself to Whit on the last day. I knew her comics and writing on comics already so it was nice to finally meet her. A veteran at this point, she brought up a lot of good points about comic festivals and what we can do better as a community. ALYSSA BERG painted her way into my heart when she came out with Alpenglow, the 2015 Comics Workbook Composition Competition best in show. I was jealous when I first read it, but her fantastic use of color and the way she moves the reader through space were undeniable. Alyssa was the heart of the personality for the CW crew I think. Whip smart and funny as hell. THE END By the end of the show, the entire mystique of being around my heroes like Jeff Smith and Sergio Aragones had evaporated. I felt like I wasn’t some young buck – I felt like I belonged there. Finally, from out of the clouds and floor above, Jeff Smith announced, “CXC is over!” We all scrambled to leave so as to avoid being pepper sprayed by the library security guards. As we were leaving Carol Tyler waved and spoke to the entire room of exhibitors shouting, “Thank YOU CXC! I LOVE YOU!” The CW crew left the CXC expo floor, gratefully thanking a weary Tom Spurgeon for such an amazing four-day weekend. Thanks again Tom! Time to eat and recharge. Juan and Emil (our two bilingual crew members) left for Pittsburgh and Sacha caught a plane to St. Louis. The remaining CW crew was: Alyssa, Whit, Kurt, Sally and myself. The former three had free drink stubs for the bar at their hotel so we went back there to cash in. Kurt shared with Sally and I because he doesn’t drink. We talked, gossiped, whooped and hollered. Then the old people kicked us out and we made our way to High Street for food. We walked for what seemed like days, trying to make a nutritious decision. This was fine. We chatted, cackled, tooted and scooted our way through the streets, stopped an unwieldy child from being crushed in traffic, shared back stories, made fun of goofy store windows, and finally found a restaurant to eat at. After we ate, we parted ways. They to the last after party of CXC, and me to Dayton in hopes that I could manage a decent amount of sleep so I could make it to work on time. Which I didn’t. But that’s okay. CXC was a blast. I look forward to seeing all my new pals again. I see why cartoonists are such a tight-knit group. You see each other maybe once or twice a year and only for a few fleeting, busy days. I’m nostalgic already. See you all again soon. ———————————————————————- Thanks to Lucy Caswell, Jeff Smith, Tom Spurgeon, Caitlin McGurk, the Billy Ireland Museum, CCAD, The Columbus Museum of Art, Sol-Con, Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus Metropolitan Library, the CXC volunteers and everyone who made CXC possible. And a special thanks to Frank Santoro, founder, fearless leader, and Jedi master of Comics Workbook. Without whom, the life I live now in cartooning and in general, would not exist. Thank you thank you thank you. –CO Caleb Orecchio makes comics in Dayton, OH. You can find more of his work HERE. For the rest of our complete CXC coverage check out the special “round up” report HERE. Share this page: [...]

12/22/2017

Sally IngrahamDecember 21, 2017NewsSally here with Chris Ware and Caitlin McGurk’s incredible CXC 2017 interview, Ed Piskor’s X-Men Grand Design, Aidan Koch x 2 for the week, and much more! ————————————————————————————————— I have been dying for the CXC 2017 interview between Chris Ware and Caitlin McGurk (who was interviewing who, in the end?) to be put online, and it’s finally up on The Wexner Center for the Arts website. You can listen to the full interview HERE. Adam Griffiths masterfully broke down his impressions of this talk, and it’s worth revisiting – find it in his CXC 2017 report HERE. Here’s the best bit: “We as an audience are becoming redundant in order to allow Ware to mirror the brain’s experience of memory for us. Where did Ware get the concept of “comics as an art of memory?” Why in fact, Ware states, rather meekly, he got it from a paper that his stagemate, Caitlin McGurk wrote! The room warms to Ware as the surprised McGurk, suddenly joyful, becomes flustered and confused, flushed and slightly embarrassed. Ware has delivered his sweet, sweet punchline… The agreement that Ware has set us up for here is that we’ve been having a discussion about McGurk, not Ware, since we began, and that we will now remember, “Comics are an art of memory,” in all its redundant, charitable, pitiable human glory. Too clean!” Caitlin herself wrote recently on social media: “Back in September I had the privilege of interviewing Chris Ware (by his request!) in front of a sold-out theater at Wexner Center for the Arts as part of Cartoon Crossroads Columbus. This was one of the most exciting and terrifying experiences of my professional life, but about halfway through there was a moment in the interview that made it genuinely life-changing for me. I am overwhelming grateful not just for Chris’s work, but for his generosity, kindness, and support.” This interview is one of my favorite memories from the past year, simply as an audience member, so take the time to give it a listen and prepare to have your mind messed with and your heart warmed. ————————————————————————————————— I’m so excited about Ed Piskor’s X-Men Grand Design! #1 came out on Wednesday of this week, and I tried to be early to Ed’s signing at Phantom of the Attic, but there was already a lengthy line. The comic sold out within an hour. In fact, if you didn’t pick up a copy on Wednesday you might have to wait for the reprint, as I think the issue is sold out everywhere! And it’s really, really good. I couldn’t help myself, and I wrote the gushing review, as an Ed Piskor AND an X-Men fan, which you can read here on Comics Workbook. About the comic itself I wrote: “The comic is a remarkable formalist masterclass. The 4-tier variations are unusual, especially the tall thin panels, and very exciting, keeping pace with the quick action of the story while harking back to comics from past ages, including the 1940’s. The use of color coding riffs on things Piskor did in Hip Hop Family Tree, but is utilized even more perfectly here (Magneto’s purple powers, Professor Xavier’s psychic communication, and especially the use of bright white in otherwise full color/sepia-toned pages, as a sort of guideline through the story). Piskor’s take on the characters are fun and feel right, and many of the pages are really beautiful, due to content and execution.” And then perhaps even more remarkable is the legacy of Ed Piskor and his work: “It’s worth mentioning that Piskor is from Pittsburgh, the city of bridges. With this project he has become a new bridge in his own right, spanning the divide between alternative and mainstream comics, between Fantagraphics and Marvel. No one has ever really done both – or at least not successfully. From his humble beginnings – self-publishing Wizzywig, and creating markets where there were none, putting work out online like Hip Hop Family Tree before getting noticed by Fantagraphics – until now, Piskor has operated with a true DIY spirit and worked really, really hard everyday at his craft. With this dedication and drive he developed unique projects, and built a fan base in the alternative comics scene that is rivaled by few. Now with Piskor’s work on X-Men Grand Design, those fans will follow him over to mainstream comics, and similarly the potential for fans of X-Men to start picking up Hip Hop Family Tree and other alternative comics is huge. This is Piskor as the bridge, creating new comics readers and fanning the flames of a struggling market. This is good news for every comics maker in the industry today.” Read the whole review HERE. For another look at the comic and the thoughts of Ed Piskor himself, check out this interview on The Comics Beat, conducted by Al Frost. ————————————————————————————————— Austin Lanari writes about the work of Aidan Koch over on Foggy at Best. The article is called Between Geometry and Gesture: (Some of) The Work of Aidan Koch, and it more specifically digs into After Nothing Comes, which collects a series of zines from across several years (Koyama Press, 2016). Lanari begins by saying: “The work of Aidan Koch stands out to me among a lot of other work because I believe you can read a single Aidan Koch comic and understand, in a deep way, what she’s all about. Other work that makes a strong first impression for me does so through its novelty or virtuosity. But reading Koch, I notice two things: that I feel like I’m part of the creative process in an intimate way and that I feel like she’s really onto something.” Read the whole article HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Other Comics News of Note Laura Park is profiled on Hyperallergic and talks about her autobiographical work and her “exhibition connected to her three-week residency at the Columbus Museum of Art“. The show is up at the Museum through Feb. 11th 2018. Read about it HERE. Henry Chamberlain interviews Hillary Chute about her new book Why Comics? From Underground to Everywhere over on Comics Grinder. Read it HERE. Pittsburgh’s The ToonSeum gets a write-up on SyFy Wire with a focus on the current show Wonder Woman: Visions, which features the work of Trina Robbins and many local female artists. Check it out HERE. Emil Ferris‘ My Favorite Thing is Monsters tops the 2017 PW Graphic Novel Critics Poll. Read about it HERE. ————————————————————————————————— 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. ————————————————————————————————— Comics Workbook’s Daily News is taking a holiday break the week of Dec. 25-29! Our news team will return, refreshed, on January 1st 2018. Happy Holidays from all of us here at Comics Workbook! ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 12-22-2017 – by Gabriella Tito Share this page: [...]

02/15/2018

Comics WorkbookFebruary 14, 2018NewsSam Ombiri on Noel Freibert’s Old Ground! ————————————————————————————————— Sam Ombiri here: What’s so special about comics? If someone asked me that, I’d point directly to Old Ground by Noel Freibert. Among my vague, imaginary mental list of favorite comics right now, Old Ground is up there; seriously. Everything seems to be in place in the book, and for me it couldn’t be more perfect. This is a comic that can’t be described in a way that would do it justice, as lazy as I might sound in saying that. Some scenes cause me to laugh a certain kind of laughter. It’s kind of a nervous laughter, but not necessarily out of being too frightened or weirded out to respond “properly”. It feels like Noel draws the way he does so he can simultaneously restrict himself, and through that free himself to go to certain places with his comics that wouldn’t be accessible to him (or anyone else for that matter) otherwise. This might be what accounts of my nervous laughter – some of the gags presented perhaps lack of a point of reference. The comic is a real shock to the system because the drawings and the story are virtuosic. The comic is simultaneously cute, frightening, menacing, intensely dramatic, intensely goofy, and so on and so on. Somehow Noel made all these shifts register really well, and every moment resonates with the moment before, surprisingly harmoniously for such a chaotic book. He lingers in moments so that the events can properly register. He isn’t in any rush to show us his cooler-looking drawings. I say this because a lot of times comics fall flat for me in their refusal to be comics. The drawings might be labored over, but the sequence of events or images have no pulse whatsoever, so to speak. Not so with Old Ground, not by a long shot. When the comic is focused on the two people buried in the grave, it goes on and on because it needs to, and then as the comic progresses Noel uses this established rhythm of the two people in the grave, and plays with it. He doesn’t just play with it – he confronts it. This comic doesn’t feel like Noel did it at a distance, with vague suggestions that aren’t a part of him. At least that was the feeling I was getting from reading the book. Noel is committed to displaying this vague feeling he has and pursuing it to the end (or no end). That’s what makes it such a compelling read – and the results are evident there in the book. In the story, one of the corpses in the grave claims to be 5, and the other claims to be 8 (but I suppose if they’ve been able to talk for as many years as they’ve been buried, maybe they’re even older). As one of the corpses – called Silver Spoon – put it, the worms maybe have eaten Cliffie’s (the other corpse) memory. The way Silver Spoon says it seems to be alluding to this only happening to Cliffie. The age seems to be more connected with the age when they died than the length of time they’ve been thinking. Although at the end of the story even this is questionable. What would they be thinking about? How frogs were believed to be able to consume evil spirits, and how this means they can eat anything? They talk about how they’re dead and what that means to them. Silver Spoon suggests that Cliffie’s parents deserved to die in the fire in which they perished (for no reason whatsoever!) Meanwhile, we’re also entertained by two wacky people whose goal is to demolish the graveyard. One is called Renaldo and is a very likeable character. I felt bad with how he was kind of forced into this situation by his boss, who is such a hilarious character. The story at a certain point turns into Silver Spoon trying to convince Cliffie that Renaldo and his boss aren’t his parents. The interaction between the corpses reminded me of Jim Bored’s adventures in Powr Mastrs 3. The way the characters’ imaginations take shape, which is symbolically realized through each of the books’ creators’ efforts (Noel for Old Ground and CF for Powr Mastrs), are of the same nature. The pacing of it is based off of boredom, so it’s a good excuse for imagination to suddenly take vivid shapes. I mean, there’s also a good amount of differences, like how it’s a dialogue in Old Ground, as opposed to a monologue in Powr Mastrs, or how instead of someone who is still alive but forgetting, it’s two dead people remembering (albeit not with much luck). I guess Jim Bored is also about remembering, but I think what Noel was saying with the comic partly is: dead people are not only forgotten by others – they’re also forgotten by themselves. So their goal of remembering is quite different from what Jim Bored’s goal was (which seemed to be self preservation and survival). If you haven’t read Old Ground it’s probably in your best interest to do so. The ending of the story is an especially good one, with so many great moments leading up to it. The characters are excellent, and the sequences have done more than just simply blow me away; they’ve really astounded me. The lines Noel draws really bend to his mysterious whims. The drawings suggest they’re based off of simplicity, but it’s a trick. When I begin reading the comic I’m lured in and at the same time Noel is bent on driving me through this story, which has these sudden bursts of hyperkinetic movements. When motion is conveyed it’s a real marvel to read. – Sam Ombiri Read more about Old Ground (Koyama Press, 2017) HERE, and get a copy of the comic 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! ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 2-14-2018 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

Bucket of Blood

MardouSeptember 8, 2016EssaysWomen self-censor. Think about all the non-pregnant women of childbearing age that you know. A quarter of them are probably menstruating right now. So what? Is that statistical fact even a big deal? Yeah. Kinda. I think so. You’re sat here reading these words on a screen because a woman once had a functioning menstrual cycle many years ago. The thing is, for something that’s so common and abundant and ordinary (PERIODS), we don’t see or hear much about it. Which is quite odd and antiquated if you think about it. I mean, how does society benefit to be so shielded* from our menses? Or for that fact, from our lactating breasts or our miscarriages or our ‘women’s troubles’, etc etc? (*I don’t mean literally. I don’t want anyone to have a tampon thrown at them, thanks.) This little essay is a personal response to the comics of Julie Doucet, which, since I first encountered them in my early twenties, served to rock my world. They forced me to question the kind of comics I wanted to make, my attitudes towards the female experience on and off the page, towards biology, sex and shame. All that stuff factored in my response to Julie Doucet’s comics. Plus they look and read great. They still hold this timeless, glorious power for me. I’m so freaking glad she made the comics she did! Let us take a look! I love these panels from Doucet’s Leve ta Jame, Mon Poisson Est Mort (pictured above). So serious and elegant, the details of the bathroom perfectly rendered, that toilet paper! (Julie draws the toilet quite a lot in her comics. Deal with it). Look at the little sweattels on her beatific forehead. This is about using imagination and humor to dealing with a familiar, tiresome fact of life (tampon overfull in the night). The ‘I succeed’ makes me chuckle, the gush of blood is not so terrifying, is it? It’s rendered in black ink after all. It’s cute even. Well it got me thinking, this comic does present an unusual sight, does it not? A relieved woman, legs akimbo bleeding it to the toilet bowl from her levitating hover. Where are all the other women getting their periods in comics, or on screen? Sure, there’s Stephen King’s Carrie. She once had her period. I also seem to remember Brook Adams rummaging for a Tampax in Gas, Food Lodgings in 1992. Well so what about literature? Uterine bleeding was never fully acknowledged by the literary establishment until 1957 when Anna Wulf famously forgot her tampons in the novel The Golden Notebook, which ultimately won Doris Lessing a Nobel Prize, so groundbreaking was this depiction. Doris described the smells, stained sheets, the nebulous grotty feeling, the worry of accidentally bleeding through her dress in front of her male colleagues. The Golden Notebook unleashed a free-for-all spurting of literary menstrual blood from Sylvia Plath all the way to Philip Roth (hey, Roth, want to really shock? Lovingly whip a tampon out of your female protagonist. She probably won’t mind). Those creators recognized some latent dark power when they needed it. It’s a useful taboo, creatively. It speaks to those dark fears and misunderstood feminine powers right? And then there’s Julie, baring all with a shrug and a grin. God, how I love comics…. When I was in high school a girl from another grade bled through her skirt and obliviously walked through the teenage crowd. A female teacher came up behind her with her sweater outstretched, tied it around the unsuspecting girl’s waist and hustled her away. There it was the biggest fear in all my years of high school in plain sight. I saw it! It happened to that girl I saw, it can happen to you too, teenage female! Never relax, never let down your guard! And…OH JULIE, you can’t do that! You can’t grow to King Kong proportions and drown the streets in your inky period blood whilst on the rampage for a box of Tampax. You just can’t do that! This page (above) is the equivalent of a teenage air punch and I wished I owned the original. I would put it on the wall in my dining room in a heartbeat. The comic strip ends on sweet note. I don’t feel like the menstruating women of the world ask for all that much. Tax-free sanitary products and a little understanding would be a start though. In Jedi terms our menstrual cycles can be understood to have two aspects, the waxing of the full moon, the ‘light’ and wonderful powers of the fertile period and the dank, smelly and scary shadow world of the menses. The ‘Dark’ side. This is known to us, albeit unconsciously. “Researchers at the University of Mexico…concluded that the financial reward for being a topless-lap dancer are far greater during the fertile part of the menstrual cycle with dancers earning nearly twice as much a peak ovulation time.”1 The same pattern played out with waitresses at truck-stop café diners, researchers discovered. Waitresses found their tips peaked during ovulation (the pleasant part) and waned as the cycle moved towards menstruation (ew gross!). In other words, according to Earth Feminist writer, Uma Dinsmore-Tuli: “Our culture has a clear message to us: that we are rewarded for ovulating and devalued for menstruating…that menstruation is worthless to men and thus should be disregarded and rendered invisible.”2 Julie Doucet’s comics don’t ‘render invisible’ this aspect of her biology but nor is she just letting it all hang out. She renders the female existence (and female-as-artist) experience in a relatable, funny, transformative way. Sex, masturbation, miscarriage, dreams of pregnancy are not held as taboos. Taboos can harm us, repress us, and shame us. And for what? To be stiffed on tips when you get your period (read: men know anyway). Why are we hiding all this bleeding?) This page (above) from Julie is a dream comic from her 2007 book 365 Days. It’s personal to her so I’m not going to attempt to interpret it – but I do want to point out that it’s full of imagery familiar to many women. Here she dreams of a liquefied baby in a yogurt cup called ‘Liberte’, a line of women with their successfully acquired babies, and getting your period yet again. These are familiar symbols for any woman who’s given thought to pregnancy, either wanting or not wanting it. Or both. It’s perfectly simple, complex, elegant, dashed off – it’s the absolute mastery Doucet has with pen and paper that makes difficult things look easy. And she writes with a clarity and honesty about themes with are common to many women, specifically perhaps, to women who want to create things and not just babies. Here’s a fetus and a fashion model! I mean, woah! She takes bullshit women’s magazines and turns them into something transcendentally awesome. And this (above). It’s so funny, pretty, ironic. And smart. We the ladies, are the expansive force of the universe, are we not? Women’s lives contain many interconnected cycles. And we overlap – put us in a house together and our menstruation will become synchronous. We’ll bleed together, more or less. And things have changed, generationally. I’m personally having more periods than my grandmother who birthed and nursed six babies ever did. All this bleeding is the new normal, at least in the Western world, for now. All this latent creative female energy and we’re so embarrassed about it? We should own our cyclic power. That’s what I get from Julie Doucet’s comics. She connects to her inner forces, laughing and with a self-assured shrug, over many, many accomplished pages. 1 Hallinan, Joseph T, 2009 Errornomics: Why We Make Mistakes and How We Can Avoid Them, p.47 2 Dinsmore-Tulli, Uma, 2014 Yoni Shakti: A Woman’s Guide to Power and Freedom Through Yoga and Tantra, p.259 ————————————————————————————————— Sacha Mardou is a Brit making comics in St Louis, Missouri. Sky in Stereo is her most recent comic. Share this page: [...]

09/06/2017

Posted on September 6, 2017 by Juan Fernández

Empezamos el día con Autoras de Tebeo de ayer y hoy; Bef, Decur y Paloma Valdivia en La Polola; Convocatoria El Publicadero 2017; Mónica Ceberia y Mireia Pérez; Muriel Bellini y los tebeos de Cómics Workbook!

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Los cómics y las noticias que me han llamado la atención esta semana:

Sol Díaz Castillo y Marcela Trujillo tienen una nueva edicion de La Polola Podcast! Las chicas conversan con 3 invitados: Bef, dibujante y escritor mexicano, Decur, dibujante argentino y Paloma Valdivia ilustradora chilena, los tres invitados del V Encuentro de Ilustración y Cómic de La Reina este 2017. Hablaron acerca de sus vidas y el dibujo, sus referentes, y contaron acerca de sus publicaciones y al final respondieron algunas preguntas de los asistentes.
‘Presentes: Autoras de tebeo de ayer y hoy’ documental del colectivo @AutorasComic esta en linea en Vimeo. Genial. Edúcate.
Fanzineros y proyectos editoriales de Colombia, El Publicadero quiere que los acompañen a celebrar la diversidad editorial en Manizales el 29/30 Septiembre! Convocatoria El Publicadero 2017.
Álvaro Ortiz viene de subir en pdf el cuaderno de bocetos que se editó hace unos años para celebrar que hace 5 años salió Cenizas!
Reportaje en cómics de Mónica Ceberio y Mireia Pérez sobre la vida en la cárcel de Soto del Real.
TIK TOK Comics os presenta una nueva entrega de DOMINGO, la serie conversacional de Muriel Bellini ¡Disfrutadla!

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Suzy and Cecil – 8-30-2017 – by Sally Ingraham

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Joanie and Jordie – 9-6-2017 – Caleb Orecchio

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Comics Workbook

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Posted in los Cómics, NewsTagged Bef, Decur, El Publicadero 2017, la polola, Mireia Perez, Monica Ceberia, Muriel Bellini, Paloma Valdivia

Juan Fernández

Posted on September 6, 2017

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10/03/2017

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

02/13/2017

Juan FernándezFebruary 13, 2017NewsJuan and Sally tag teaming it today: Drew Alderfer’s THE ROOK; Pixels, tones and the aesthetics of granularity; Berliac on Vice; Fantom Comics Signing and Roundtable; Juan Fernandez at the ToonSeum; Frank Santoro’s Comics Corner #2; and much more! Take note! We are featuring the work of Drew Alderfer – or Meaty Comics – on the site this week. His comic The Rook was made for the Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers in 2014. Check it out HERE! ————————————————————————————————— Pixels, Tones and the Aesthetics of Granularity Juan here! I wanted to share with you a digital painting method I’ve come across, created by Dan Fessler, where he’s developed for his environment work on Chasm a way of turning Photoshop into the most powerful pixel art tool. What he calls “HD index painting”. What’s interesting about this? It works on the granular level of the pixel and plays with abstraction for story telling and evocation in the way that comics and cartooning does. It also does it in an incredibly robust and non-destructive way. It got me thinking about a lot of things. But first, have a look at what makes this technique tick. Why “HD?”: The backbone of this method that makes all the magic happen is the concept of manipulating higher resolution data than the end result. Instead of painting directly with an indexed color palette, you’re always painting in HD which then procedurally gets mapped to the indexed palette. For every color ramp you define your source data is 8bit allowing for a possible 256 colors, with no limit on the number of ramps you define. Typically when dealing with pixel art you’d map that to 32 colors or less. What’s most important though is the indexing is non-destructive. All of the high resolution detail is retained allowing you to do things that no other index painting tool allows, essentially making this the most powerful “pure” pixel art tool in existence. I’m not, necessarily a pixel artist, but I’ve been working extensively in exploring color and compression across digital file formats. Especially through collaging animations. I don’t know why, but I’m really interested in it. It’s the same way that I’m interested in how Jordan Crane and other master screen printers separate their colors in their prints. All of this has me think about halftone and more generally the voice of a story in a visual tradition. For some examples, I’d like you to think about how certain contemporary comics makers, like Laura Knetzeger, Kevin Huizenga, Dan Zettwoch, Sophie Yanow, Ron Wimberly, Mickey Z, or Berliac all use halftones. While many artists use halftone traditions in ways that are used to evoke an aesthetic of nostalgia (most effectively used by Ed Piskor in The Hip Hop Family Tree) these previous artists use them in ways that break from the print based traditions and the limitations of halftones. Instead, they use the half-tone as a framework that provides an aesthetic tool to help create their sequences. They all do this in different ways that create hums, and musical tones in the work. Different line qualities with different size tone dots that result in different feelings. Different voices for the soundless music of their comics. In a way that harkens back to previous technologies and grounds the work within a larger tradition, but that also side steps certain associations and assumptions related to genre. It’s great to think of these tools in a way that allows for more technologically mediated impressionist painting than commercial illustration. If you’d like a bit of a look into different coloring ideologies at the nuts and bolts level, take a look at this post by Dan Fessler on Pixel Purism. And of course, in the weekly “Please think about contemporary AI” department I have an article for you to read – HERE. ————————————————————————————————— There is a new weekly comic by “the mysterious Berliac” on Vice – titled Asian Store Junkies it is about “MSG-addicted youngsters who crave ramen“. Read it HERE. Follow Berliac on Instagram – @yung_qin_berliac. ————————————————————————————————— Reminder to go check out this signing and roundtable if you are in the Washington, D.C., area this week – catch up with Ronald Wimberly, Chris Visions, Shannon Wright, and Chris Kindred at Fantom Comics on Wednesday, Feb. 15th, 7-9 PM! ————————————————————————————————— PCS’s Artist Lecture Series 007: Juan Fernandez Join Juan and the rest of the @pittsburghcomicssalon this Thursday! Come on down to The ToonSeum to catch Juan talk about strip cartooning, expanding & teaching visual literacy, and comics making systems. He’ll cover principles in youth and adult comics education. He’ll show a little of what he’s making & how he does what he does. We’ll play some keygen tunes, dive into Photoshop, and talk about oblique strategies in comics making. The presentation will be followed by Q+A. You can join the Comics Salon at The ToonSeum (945 Liberty Ave., Pittsburgh, PA 15222) – art, conversation, and an atmosphere of solidarity. ————————————————————————————————— Frank’s Comics Corner #2 is here! Gather round one and all. ————————————————————————————————— The Ebb and Flow Enter the lottery for a table at the Small Press Expo this year – the registration form and more details are HERE. You have until February 24th 2017! Get to it. There will be a second issue of RESIST!, due to be released around July 4th. It’s message will be “Picturing the America We Want to Live In.” Submit work. Julia Wertz spoke to Sarah Glidden about her book Rolling Blackouts – via The Comics Journal. Pepe the Frog is making a new appearance in MAD Magazine – the story is HERE on Vulture. And in greater, more personal detail, HERE on the Huffington Post. Françoise Mouly and Genevieve Bormes offer a preview of Emil Ferris’ My Favorite Thing is Monsters for The New Yorker – check it out. There is a review of Charles Burns’ Vortex on Just Indie Comics – for those of you who read Italian! ————————————————————————————————— Announcing the Spring Semester of thee Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers! The course starts March 7th 2017. Apply by February 26th to get 100 bux off! The course is 8 weeks long – payment plans are available. Application guidelines: – 3 figure drawings done on blank 3 x 5 index cards – 3 landscape drawings done on blank 3 x 5 index cards – 3 still life drawings done on blank 3 x 5 cards – draw in a contour line style –think Matisse – no under-drawing – draw directly in ink – just send me small jpgs of images – dont post to your blog pls – send specific url links to any comics work you have done. If you haven’t done comics before that is not a problem. Email santoroschoolATgmail to apply! More details HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Blinkers – 2-13-2017 – by Jack Brougham ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 2-13-2017 – by Gabriella Tito ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 2-13-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio ————————————————————————————————— Cozytown – 2-13-2017 – by Juan Fernandez Share this page: [...]

05/18/2018

Sally IngrahamMay 17, 2018NewsSally here with comics by Sacha Mardou, Jessica Campbell, Hope Larson, and more! ———————————————————————————— Sacha Mardou has a comic up on MUTHA Magazine called Someday, My Witch Will Come. She writes: “According to journalistic science, women are likelier to go though a midlife crisis earlier than men, between the ages of 35-44. Well my midlife crisis certainly showed up on schedule, as this comic details. I discovered that you don’t learn to be a whole human being all by yourself, you need to ask for help. I’m still learning, it being a process, not a destination, as they say. I hope that by sharing this story it might help other women feel okay about the kooky stuff we do on this path to Self-Realization (whatever that means).“ See the whole comic HERE! There is also a comic published this month by Grace Farris on MUTHA Magazine which you should check out – Of Firsts and Donuts. ———————————————————————————— Alenka Figa reviews Jessica Campbell‘s new comic XTC69 (out from Koyama Press this month) for Women Write About Comics. She comments: “While mostly focused on biting commentary and indulgent plot, XTC69 also contains some moments of sharp realness that contrast its usual tone. In an early scene, Human Jessica can’t climb up a cliff face and has to piggyback ride on Alien Jessica’s back. Human Jessica’s skirt rides up revealing her underwear, and when they get to the top she clumsily readjusts it. These details are small, but they’re unsexy and real. Jessica is already emotionally vulnerable from learning her entire world is essentially gone, and then has to face her physical vulnerability. Campbell’s character designs are simple and lack the familiar level of detail used to exploit women’s bodies; despite the thick line work and cartoony style, the women in the comic are awkwardly real. In a comic full of commentary on misogyny, it’s small details like this through which Campbell shows how easy it is to draw outside of the male gaze.“ Read the whole review HERE. John Seven also reviews XTC69 for The Comics Beat – read his review HERE. Jessica Campbell‘s most recent comic for Hyperallergic can also be read HERE. ———————————————————————————— Hillary Brown sat down with Hope Larson to discuss Larson’s newest comic – All Summer Long – for Paste Magazine. They talk about Larson’s shift from being primarily an artist to a writer, and about the role of music in her life, among many other things. “Paste: One of the things I see as recurring in your work is this determination not to take a narrative where most people would (i.e., the idea that Bina and Austin would end up together is made to seem ridiculous). Is that intentional? Larson: No, it’s not. I’m one of those people who feels that there’s nothing new under the sun, and all the stories have been told, and all you can do is write honestly, in the hopes that it will feel new and resonate with readers. I’m definitely not trying to gotcha anyone. I just do my best to understand the characters and write them making the choices that feel true to them.“ Read the interview HERE. ———————————————————————————— Weekend Snacks Koyama Press has announced their Fall 2018 lineup and I’m pleased to note that Mickey Z‘s Space Academy 123 is being collected! Keiler Roberts also has a new comic coming out, and so does Britt Wilson. There is an excerpt from Lucy Bellwood‘s upcoming comic 100 Demon Dialaouges up on Boing Boing – check it out HERE. Colleen Frakes is the daily comics diarist for The Comics Journal this week – see her Cartoonist’s Diary HERE. Kriota Willberg offers 5 Things You Can Do to Reduce Drawing Pain – part of the Get a Grip! series on The Comics Beat. ———————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 5-18-2018 – by Sally Ingraham Share this page: [...]

06/03/2016

Sally IngrahamJune 3, 2016NewsSally here with an update from the Rowhouse, a conversation with Phoebe Gloeckner, a new Art Trip with Sacha Mardou, wise words from Lynda Barry, and a couple of unique interpretations of visual or non-visual communication – plus, a very chill anime beat. ————————————————————————————————— It was a busy week around the Rowhouse in Pittsburgh, as the Comics Workbook team had our first residency! Matt and Mahmoud worked with Frank on a comic book based on a game they are developing – but beyond that (the nitty-gritty of arranging and rearranging index cards!), the days were spent in a ferociously exciting exchange of ideas on comics, architecture, music, social-media communication, and so much more. The time is NOW, folks! ————————————————————————————————— Ariel Schrag interviewed Phoebe Gloeckner at MoCCA this year, and a video of the whole conversation is available to view (below). It is a lively discussion between two powerful female voices in comics. Phoebe Gloeckner is known for A Child’s Life and Other Stories and The Diary of a Teenage Girl – both considered to be essential works about adolescent girlhood. Ariel Schrag has also been known to dig into the trials and tribulations of adolescence, via comics such as her autobiographical high school series Awkward, Definition, Potential, and Likewise. The two women talk about Phoebe’s work as a medical illustrator, the filming of The Diary of a Teenage Girl, and many other things. Take an hour to sit down with them! For more information about Phoebe, check out THE Phoebe Gloeckner interview on The Comics Journal. ————————————————————————————————— Having recently moved from Santa Fe, NM, to Pittsburgh, PA, I was somewhat miffed to discover that within a week of my move, the extraordinary Lynda Barry came to speak at a theater in Santa Fe…! Fortunately, a close friend of mine went to the event and was kind enough to report back for me/us. In the words of Comics Workbook extra-special correspondent Julie Kirby: “Rather than field questions she insisted we already knew the answers to, cartoonist Lynda Barry ended her talk at the Lensic Theater in Santa Fe Tuesday night with a dirty joke and a song. Such a satisfying finale after an already intriguing presentation was precisely why nearly 800 people turned out to see her speak, and surprisingly, to hear her sing. While Barry was indeed entertaining and undeniably hilarious -who doesn’t love a collection of awkward figure drawing anecdotes? – I believe she had a much more important purpose. To encourage! To inspire! An adamant proponent of the 30 second drawing, Barry suggested that allowing ourselves too much time, too many opportunities for regret inhibits our art. That recognition does not require exact duplication. Barry demonstrated how familiar shapes – the profiles of Popeye and Marge Simpson, or the outline of the United States – can be reproduced with little accuracy, yet great familiarity still results. She lamented that by 8, 9, 10 years of age we often quit drawing because we believe we are unable to properly depict a nose. (In my personal experience, it was hair.) Barry basically said STOP. Stop editing, stop erasing. Start writing with a paintbrush and without expectations. While even she acknowledged that many of her ideas are not entirely original, her unconventional delivery of them certainly was.” Thanks Julie! ————————————————————————————————— Today on Comics Workbook we’re featuring a new Art Trip piece. Sacha Mardou had a run-in with an iconic dress, and scribbled down her impressions and thoughts for us. Check out Art Trip: Little Black Dress HERE! ————————————————————————————————— On Tuesday, Aaron Cockle featured the work of Ilan Manouach (a cartoonist, musician, publisher, and more from Greece) in his Daily News post. He highlighted part of an essay by Bill Kartalopoulos about Manauach’s work Katz (which is a riff on Art Spiegelman’s Maus). I bring this up again for two reasons – ONE: because Bill Kartalopoulos guest-edited a whole section on comics for World Literature Today, which features numerous essays, interviews, and book lists. Check it out HERE. AND TWO: because the part of the essay on Ilan Manouach that caught my interest was his project Shapereader. Manouach is working on developing a system of comics for the visually impaired! Incredible stuff. Check out the image above. It is a laser-engraved communication board, one of six that accompany a graphic novel called Arctic Circle, which employs the Shapereader repertoire. Below is another such board. The communication boards “…carry the index for 210 different shapes, providing the tactile equivalents for the specific features of the story. They are divided into groups according to their semantic content and function: characters, props, settings, actions, affections as well as graphic and textual devices forming the well-known toolbox of graphic storytelling craft.” In Manouach’s words: “I think comic books are interesting because they are both very material and very immaterial. … Comics is a language, a very immaterial thing, but at the same time it’s a very tangible thing. There are books, they take space, they are printed in Singapore, they travel back to the States, they are carried in distribution, sold in bookstores, etc. I wanted to do a work that takes both of these directions and puts them to the extreme.” Take the time to learn more about this fascinating new “tactile” comic form, and read Bill Kartalopoulos’s essay on Ilan Manouach a few times – there are more projects and ideas in there that neither Aaron or I even touched on…! ————————————————————————————————— Here’s another interesting angle on communication – The Toronto Symphony Orchestra uses “listening guides” that use symbols and what looks almost like Morse Code to aid a listener experiencing a (sometimes overwhelming) live orchestra performance. Over on Creative Review they get into the details of the project with it’s creator – Hannah Chan-Hartley – the managing editor and musicologist at the TSO. ‘In developing the listening guides for Key, Chan-Hartley says she “wanted to remove some of the barriers to comprehension that more ‘traditional’ guides you see in print tend to have. For one, these traditional aids often have a lot of descriptive text, which you have to read through and then remember as you listen to the piece. I wanted my guide to be visual, and one that you can follow along with in ‘real time’ while listening. “Secondly, only people who can read musical notation would find the excerpts in the traditional guides useful, so I wanted a graphic way to represent what is being heard so anyone could understand. “And finally, I wanted the guide to be in a format through which you could visually grasp the overall structure of a symphonic movement or an entire symphony – by showing when the main musical themes are presented, developed, and recur, and thereby help to structure your listening”.’ Read the rest of the article and see lots more pics of the “visual listening guides” HERE! ————————————————————————————————— https://vine.co/v/iEObIUemwFP Our recent Rowhouse residents are guys of many talents – one of their projects is the curation of the Chill Anime Beats tumblr, where you can find many soothing, lonely, lovely Vines like the one above – CHECK IT OUT HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Have a fantastic weekend folks! More sock-knocking-off comics news coming your way on Monday. Cheers – Sally Share this page: [...]

04/03/2017

Sally IngrahamApril 2, 2017NewsWe start the week with Wilson and Dan Clowes, on old/new comic by Dash Shaw, insights from HTML Flowers and Michael Comeau, and Gloria Rivera’s CW Rowhouse Residency Report – plus much more! ————————————————————————————————— Dash Shaw wrote a “Filmmaker’s Letter” for Landmark Theater, which will be showing his film My Entire High School Sinking Into the Sea! in locations around the country starting next week (find the complete list of showings HERE). Along with the letter, which details some of his thoughts behind the creation of the film, Dash shares the original mini-comic that inspired the film. The first spread is above – you can see the rest HERE. Read Dash’s Filmmakers Letter and be sure to see the film when it comes through your town! ————————————————————————————————— Daniel Clowes spoke to The Guardian recently about the similarities between the cynical world of his 90’s comics and this new “Trumpland” we live in – plus the experience of making Wilson, the new movie staring Woody Harrelson that is based on his 2010 comic of the same name. I read the comic and then saw the movie last week – Wilson the comic was quite amazing, and the movie didn’t disappoint either. Dan Clowes talks here about a powerful scene in the comic and the movie – and in real life, as it turns out: “You drew the graphic novel around the time your father was dying, and Wilson’s father dies in the book. How much of it is autobiographical? I began writing it when he was in the hospital, on his literal deathbed. He never got to see any of it. When I first began it was just something to keep my mind occupied while I was sitting in the hospital room with him. He was very much like Wilson’s dad, where he was just tuned out. He was clearly in his own head trying to process what was going on. I sort of expected that he would try to impart some, you know, final wisdom to his son, but he had no interest in that whatsoever. He was really just thinking about bigger things that I couldn’t comprehend. That’s a moment in the book, isn’t it? Yeah, it was a surprising moment in life and it was one of those things where we’d always had that kind of strained relationship where we never talked about anything deep or emotional. And I was waiting for that kind of my whole life. “When he’s dying, he’ll finally summon the courage to talk to me in that way!” and that just didn’t ever happen. That was very surprising, in a way. Even though it makes perfect sense: there was always this feeling that we had this unspoken thing between us, and now I realize maybe that thing can’t be put into words. Maybe that’s how it takes form – as an unspoken thing.“ Read the rest of the interview HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Shawn Starr interviews HTML Flowers and talks with him about the evolution of the No Visitors series. “There’s a greater focus on storytelling in No Visitors #2 compared to your earlier work, has your thoughts on writing comics changed? i started trying to really talk about my life in a simple, non fantasy manner. i wanted to build something, see myself changed or change things about my life that i can’t go back and change. show people how painful, rare & sometimes beautiful life with a chronic illness is. No Visitors #1 is basically just scraps and shorts that were all a part of the lead up to developing Little & his lifestyle, in fact i don’t really consider the series properly starting until No Visitors 2. i’ve been working up to this for years, now i’ve arrived and i feel so much myself. i feel like i’m really making the work i’m supposed to have always made in a weird way. lol destiny.“ Read more HERE. Get a copy of No Visitors #2 HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Nicole Burton of Ad Astra Comix interviews Michael Comeau. They discuss his comic Hellberta, which “has been described elsewhere on the internet as “one of the most meaningful and interesting” variations of a Wolverine comic, and I must agree. It explores the Canadian home of one of comic fandom’s most celebrated characters, against a background that is at once both more realistic and more surreal than your garden-variety Marvel title.” Ad Astra Comix is an activism-based comics publisher, so Nicole finds this comic easy to love: “NB: I often find myself fantasizing about the ability of the supernatural (and by extension, superheroes) solving the world’s social and political problems, beyond what I would see in your standard comic book. So I’ve found that Hellberta has been really satisfying for me and other activist folks I’ve shown it to. Would you describe Hellberta as a kind of political revenge porn, like Inglorious Bestards is to nazism or Django Unchained to slavery and racism? MC: I am a straight/cis/white man from Ontario who learned about Albertan activist culture among the oil sands boom while living and traveling with queer and trans people from Calgary. I was unsure how to depict the queer flight from Calgary or the environmental impact of the tar sands so I took a popular myth from the area and supplanted it onto the situation. What would Wolverine do? Superheroes are extensions and exaggerations of our hopes and fears I don’t really see them as rising above anything. I’d rather see them struggle with our same mundane problems in spite them being so exceptional.“ Later in the interview they also dig into the printing process of this exceptional duel-tone comic – good stuff for the printing nerds! Read the rest of the interview HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Vulture has a spring comics preview which details mainstream and alternative comics releases. Among their picks is Simon Hanselmann‘s new book, One More Year (Fantagraphics, April 26th 2017). “…don’t let the straightforward nature of One More Year deceive you — it’s an astoundingly well-crafted and punishingly heartfelt depiction of mental illness and codependence, one that also manages to make you laugh uncomfortably at the horrible decisions made by the characters you’re watching. The use of longstanding visual and narrative tropes only serves to draw you in more and make each disaster all the more relatable.“ More HERE (including a brief write-up on Jillian Tamaki’s Boundless.) ————————————————————————————————— Gloria Rivera wrote a report about her stay at the Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency in March 2017. She came with the single expectation to work hard on making comics – but her experience turned out to be much greater than that. “I am more than willing to report that while the uninterrupted work time, the comics lectures, and accessible reading material was what whipped me into completing my goal, what I am bringing home with me – more than another book done – is a sense of what true community is, and the importance of holding your peers to standards that will benefit them in the longer run.“ Calling Pittsburgh “…a town constantly working its bellows to support its comics scene” Gloria returned home to California with renewed intention and a great sense of purpose. Read more about her experience HERE. Email santoroschool@gmail.com for more info on how to apply for a Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency! ————————————————————————————————— Also also Simon Hanselmann wrote a new episode of Truth Zone – check it out HERE. In related news, Dan Nadel reviews All Time Comics’ Crime Destroyer #1. The New York Times remembers Bernie Wrightson. Gary Panter has a new book coming out from Fantagraphics in May 2017! Keep an eye out for the two-color stamped cloth-bound hardcover book – Songy of Paradise – “an inspired interpretation of John Milton’s retelling of the story of Jesus being tempted by Satan after being baptized by John the Baptist and fasting for forty days and nights in the Judaean Desert“. In this version “Jesus” is a hillbilly named Songy. Stay tuned. Emil Ferris talks about My Favorite Thing Is Monsters on NPR’s Fresh Air. Bill Kartalopoulos looks “near and far for comics” on Commarts. ————————————————————————————————— Blinkers – 4-3-2017 – by Jack Brougham ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 4-3-2017 – by Tyler Landry ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 4-3-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

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