Juan Fernandez here to start your week off right! Your chance to sign up for the OFFICIAL Comics Workbook Cartooning Workshops at SPX; Dash Shaw’s My Entire High School Sinking Into the Sea nails it; A new semester of the Santoro School; The Black Hood: an anthology of Depression and Anxiety; The Tale of Kitty-in-boots – Beatrix Potter’s latest posthumously published work; “Swinespritzen” and Portraits by Connor Willumsen.
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Stop whatever you’re doing and make sure that you are signed up for the terrific workshops that Comics Workbook is hosting at SPX next weekend. Make comics with Carol Tyler, Jeffrey Brown, Charles Burns, Frank Santoro, Cameron Nicholson, Juan Fernandez, and some of the crew from Fantagraphics Spanish Fever! Full workshop descriptions HERE.
SIGN UP FOR THE WORKSHOPS HERE!
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The WORLD PREMIERE of Dash Shaw’s new film – My Entire High School Sinking Into the Sea – just took place at the Toronto International Film Festival – And the movie has opened to some much deserved praise. What a joy. Do yourself a favor and check out what Eric Kohn has to say about it over at IndieWire:
Combing the twitchy look with storytelling that follows suit, “My Entire High School Sinking Into the Sea” is by far the most original animated movie of the year, or any other in recent memory. While Charlie Kaufman’s “Anomalisa” used its own delicate approach to represent one man’s alienated state, “High School” barely even bothers with narrative consistency in its quest to achieve a vivid representation of its protagonist’s experiences. A third act finale, as the survivors make a desperate dash for the exist, goes on for so long that it pitches the whole experience into the realm of avant garde, with coherent images morphing into strobing colors and abstract shapes. (The movie justifiably opens with an epileptic seizure warning.)
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Speaking of school – the VERY BEST SORT is also back in session. The fall semester of the Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers is a GO!
Applications are due Sept. 16th – course starts Sept. 23rd. You’ve always wanted to make comics, right? And all those terrific comics popping up all over Tumblr lately (due to the Comics Workbook Composition Competition 2016, no doubt) has really inspired you – RIGHT? So sign up for the Correspondence Course and take your cartooning to a whole other sphere of being. Do it! ALL THE DETAILS ARE HERE.
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Frank’s in great company on this list put together over by Comicsverse by Luc Boyce. Ben Marra, Liz Suburbia, Tom Gauld and Noah Van Sciver.They’ve all got the fighting spirit and it’s a real pleasure to see others take note. A good and well deserved write for everybody there. Don’t miss any of them at this weekend’s small press explosion: SPX.
We will be at table N8 this year – stop by and say “Hello” – check out new work by Frank and the students – buy some old and rare comics from Frank’s vast collection! We’re coming at you full blast this year.
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The New Depression: The Black Hood
Now available online, it’s The Black Hood: an anthology of Depression and Anxiety is a new collection by the people who brought you “Suspect Device.” This book is determined to do for comics about Depression what Black Flag did for songs about depression. Want to see how it all pans out? Get yourself a copy.
The Black Hood collects pieces by artists like John Porcellino, Box Brown, Tara Booth, Noah Van Sciver, Elizabeth Bethea, Josh Simmons, Mike Freiheit, Pat Aulisio, Katie Fricas, Mike (Late Era Clash) Taylor, Hyena Hell, and many others. Includes a one page comic/interview with Dwid Hellion from famed HC band Integrity, and an essay by artist/writer Eve Wood.
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There is still dancing in the streets over the Comics Workbook Composition Competition 2016 results – if you haven’t checked out the hefty list of comics yet, give it a look HERE! There’s so much to enjoy.
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The NEW Beatrix Potter – The Tale of Kitty-in-Boots
Maureen Corrigan over at NPR’s Book Review has a look at Beatrix Potter’s posthumously published tale, The Tale of Kitty-in-Boots. Like Tupac, Potter is back. Quentin Blake is at the helm with illustrations for this one. To some, for better, to others for worse. Cash grab? Inspired publishing? The stars alining?
It’s definitely an interesting time to see a new book by Beatrix Potter on shelves. Personally, I’m excited to see how this book feels, among her other work, what is no less than a canon of children’s literature unto itself. Check out what Corrigan has to say over at NPR:
Here’s the backstory to this “new” Beatrix Potter book: Two years ago, a woman named Jo Hanks who’s an editor at Penguin Random House in the United Kingdom came upon a reference to a letter that Potter wrote in 1914. In that letter, Potter mentioned working on the manuscript of a story about “a well-behaved prime black Kitty cat who leads a rather double life.”
Hanks dug into Potter’s archives at The Victoria & Albert Museum and she found the manuscript of The Tale of Kitty-in-Boots. Potter had written three drafts of the story and had done one watercolor illustration of Kitty, but for various reasons, she died in 1943 without completing the book.
Skip to the present and this lavish debut edition of The Tale of Kitty-in-Boots.
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To conclude – one last thing that you CANNOT sleep on…!! – Connor Willumsen’s “Swinespritzen” is now available from Comics Workbook.
Who knows for how long though! Connor and@santoro.frank reprinted this classic wacky pack originally produced for@breakdownpress – DM @santoro.frank and He’ll tell you all about it. A favorite of all Connor W fans – people have been bugging us about this for months. These are hard to make so we’re only offering them like this. Keep your eyes peeled at SPX because we might have a some!
ALSO this is probably the last week that you can take advantage of the pre-sale on Connor Willumsen’s new book Portraits. Check it out HERE.
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Well, I’ve got to get to hustling for SPX. Lots of books to finish up and workshops to prepare! Until next time.
-JF