Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

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Aaron Cockle

Posted on September 11, 2017September 12, 2017

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02/07/2017

Aaron CockleFebruary 6, 2017NewsAaron here today with Roman Muradov; ‘Elitist Empathy’; What we talk about when we talk about ‘A study of issues relating to the collection, care, and accessibility of zines in institutional and alternative collections in the UK’; 2 Robs at TCJ, writing about comics; Ley Lines; INK BRICK; Furie explains Pepe, Pepe explains Furie ————————————————————————————————— Roman Muradov on How I Didn’t Write Certain of My Books To hell with narrative and self-expression! Instead: constraints and repetition (and repetition)! This talk sets Idleness against Inspiration, and namedrops an indecent number of French names in the process. Reader, attend!! The 176th meeting of the NY Comics & Picture-story Symposium will be held on Tuesday, Feb. 7, 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. Roman Muradov is an award-winning illustrator and the author of (In A Sense) Lost & Found, Jacob Bladders and the State of the Art and the End of A Fence, as well as a French collection Aujourd’hui Demain Hier. He has a Gold Medal from the Society of Illustrators, a habit of long aimless walks, and an imaginary dog named Barchibald. ————————————————————————————————— NOTHING LEFT TO LEARN 13 nearly 60 pages of content regarding race, post-liberal America, and the election. essays and rants from Jason Lee illustrations by Laura PallMall “Things That Kill More Americans than ISIS” SPECIAL INSERT: for the first time in print “Greek Church,” a 15 page comic by PallMall for an extra 25 dollars you can purchase the original drawing of any illustration from the zine. please email laurapallmall at gmail dot com before ordering this option to confirm the availability of your desired drawing. 50% of all proceeds from this zine forever will go to CAIR. NOW AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER. ————————————————————————————————— Zines in the Academy? Siobhan Britton’s University College London’s dissertation, What we do is secret? A study of issues relating to the collection, care, and accessibility of zines in institutional and alternative collections in the UK, has been posted for your downloading/reading pleasure. Here is the abstract: Fanzines, or ‘zines’ are self published magazines with small print runs, where the entire process from creation to distribution is done by the maker and generally not created for profit. Their subject matter can be almost anything. They are distinctly anti-commercial a, often acting as an outlet for alternative or marginalised voices, which are often ignored by mainstream publishing. The UK has a strong zine culture, and an increasing number of libraries here are developing zine collections. There are also a number of alternative spaces such as self organised zine libraries and anarchist social centres which do the same thing. The first chapter sets out the context of the dissertation, and flags up the fact that most of the research and literature about zine collections in both institutional and alternative spaces is very USA-centric. As a result the study of UK zine collections is important in terms of the focus of this dissertation. Chapter two considers the way that zines might be defined. Using a combination of face to face and written interviews with people responsible, and fieldwork in the form of visits, this dissertation examines a selection of both institutional and alternative zine collections located in UK and examines how they collect, care for, and make accessible their collections in the third and fourth chapters. The concluding chapter draws examines the issues that UK institutional and alternative zine collections face, including the argument for and against collecting zines at all. Although this study does not consider every institutional or alternative zine collection in the UK, and therefore cannot be considered comprehensive, it aims to give an idea of the range of collections that exist here. ————————————————————————————————— Dueling Roberts at The Comics Journal Rob Kirby reviews the recent Spanish Fever anthology, edited by Santiago Garcia: The talent roster in Spanish Fever ranges from well-known pros like Miguel Gallardo and Max, to newer artists like Ana Galvañ and Clara-Tanit Arqué. There’s a wide variety of narrative and visual styles, ranging from traditional underground comix to the ubiquitous European “big nose” style to work that would look at home in an American minicomic. In subject matter, the stories range from autobiographical, political, and quotidian to surreal and just flat-out weird. It’s an eclectic stew that comes together agreeably, making a good case for the vibrancy of the Spanish comics scene, though a few weaknesses keep it from being a truly top-notch compendium. In his introduction, Eddie Campbell notes that the new Spanish comics all share the importance of authorial voice, i.e., that they feature characters that are pure expressions of the authors, beholden to no meddling publishers or corporations. Garcia’s forward to the collection extrapolates on this theme, offering a mini-history of Spain’s comics leading to its current artistic renaissance amid the country’s current economic crisis. And Rob Clough gives a characteristically comprehensive run-down of some short-form comics highlights from 2016: 26. Faded Frankenstein, by E.A. Bethea. Bethea’s scratchy, scrawled line is a perfect complement for her poetic and heartfelt prose about missing friends, fading memories, and the images of jobs past. 27. Zebidiah Part 3, by Asher Z. Craw. Part autobio story about embracing one’s identity as a trans person, and part magical realist adventure, the genius of the story is the way Craw wrapped both up together in telling the tale of Zebediah and Eula-Lee, who were pursued by the forces of evil into their modern-day incarnations as Asher and Lillie (Craw’s actual wife) Craw. 28. Paper Pencil Life #4, by Summer Pierre. This is a clearly written and cartooned collection of diary strips about life as an artist, a mother and sharp observer of the world around her. 29. Sorgin, by Amelia Onorato. This is an immaculately constructed and heartbreaking story about genocide and resistance, told with a humane and restrained touch. 30. Self, by Meghan Turbitt. This is a warped, hilarious deconstruction of trashy women’s magazines reorganized around Tubitt’s own personal obsessions. ————————————————————————————————— ART, CULTURE, AND SOCIETY COMICS Ley Lines 2017 Subscription Ley Lines is a quarterly publication dedicated to exploring the intersection of comics and the various fields of art & culture that inspire us. Each issue features a different artist’s take on a different subject matter taken from the larger context of art making, past and present. Our 2017 Ley Lines are: Tommi Parrish on William Blake/Lydia Lunch (February 2017) Eric Kostiuk Williams on Kylie Minogue (May 2017) Shreyas R Krishnan on Abida Parveen (August 2017) Evan Dahm on the Surrealists (November 2017) Price includes shipping!(additional shipping applies for orders outside the US). Subscriptions include new 2″ vinyl sticker designed by Eric Kostiuk Williams. Each issue is 24 pages, 1 color risograph printing by Issue Press, half-letter size, saddle stitch binding. ————————————————————————————————— POETRY COMICS INK BRICK’s FIRST KICKSTARTER IS LIVE! Starting this fall, our journal issues will debut in bookstores across the country! To celebrate this milestone, we’ve invited some of our favorite cartoonist-poets to create a special issue. We’re crowdfunding it, and we need your help to support comics poetry and grow this movement. ————————————————————————————————— The iconic frog’s original creator finally clearly defines his enigmatic brainchild, once and for all ————————————————————————————————— Learn more about the Rowhouse Residency and apply HERE – join us for a week or two in Pittsburgh, PA, and take your comics making to a new level! ————————————————————————————————— The Cosmic Journey – 2-7-2017 – by Cameron Arthur ————————————————————————————————— 2-7-2017 – by Jack Brougham ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 2-7-2017 – by Gabriella Tito ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 2-7-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio ————————————————————————————————— Cozytown – 2-7-2017 – by Juan Fernandez Share this page: [...]

04/04/2017

Aaron CockleApril 3, 2017NewsAaron here today with the Agony of Ben Katchor; NET ART; The Disappointment of Katie Fricas; BLUTCH; Thurber/Wegman, Wegman/Thurber; The Careful Massacre of the Bourgeoisie. ————————————————————————————————— ‘a voice emanating from a Lower East Side automat.’ Ben Katchor in conversation with his Metropolis editor, Belinda Lanks: I know people like to ask about what kind of pen I use, what kind of paper, like there’s a secret to this. I tell them, “You can sit at my table with the same pen and paper, and it’s not going to help you, because you didn’t work at figure drawing and storytelling for years.” You build up these skills. Just like somebody who makes chairs is more likely to make a great chair. When you do anything in a serial production, there are just these micro seconds of creativity, then the rest of it is just the craft of making the thing. There’s the workmanlike approach where you just say, “Here’s this thing I want to demonstrate.” I’ve practiced drawing for decades and know how to use language in some limited way, and I can put these together and make this plausible story or demonstration. ————————————————————————————————— NET ART Rhizome.org has posted an anthology of internet art from the past 30-odd years: This two-year online exhibition will present 100 artworks from net art history, restaging and contextualizing one project each week. Devised in concert with Rhizome‘s acclaimed digital preservation department, Net Art Anthology also aims to address the shortage of historical perspectives on a field in which even the most prominent artworks are often inaccessible. The series takes on the complex task of identifying, preserving, and presenting exemplary works in a field characterized by broad participation, diverse practices, promiscuous collaboration, and rapidly shifting formal and aesthetic standards, sketching a possible net art canon. ————————————————————————————————— The Casual Disappointment of Bjarne Melgaard At the Hyperallergic blog, Katie Fricas voices/draws her reaction to the Bjarne Melgaard show at Red Bull Arts New York (220 W 18th Street, Chelsea, Manhattan) through April 9. ————————————————————————————————— Blutch in NYC The 183rd meeting of the NY Comics & Picture-story Symposium will be held on Tuesday, April 4, 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. Blutch on “A European Education.” I am currently working on a book called Variations (Dargaud, September 2017), where I recreate a series of famous graphic novel sequences by great masters of European comics. This work forces me to ask myself questions regarding the ambiguous nature of sequential art. Neither literary nor plastic, it is what Harold Rosenberg, referring to painting, once defined as an anxious object. How do we decode it? Where does it stand in our society? A graphic novel can receive a Pulitzer, cartoonists’ work is exhibited in great museums while the art establishment is still indecisive on weather to consider it a minor or a major art. Personally, I call my work ‘paradoxal literature.’ The pages that compose Variations follow each other with no beginning or end. Just fragments of stories that allow me to reach what I feel is hidden somewhere beyond the boundaries of my storytelling: sequential art as a brand new form of poetry. That is, a form of literature ‘to observe.’ Sculpted literature. ————————————————————————————————— No Maine is an Island William Wegman & Matthew Thurber Opening April 1, 7 to 10pm William Wegman and James Thurber, together at last. What’s that? A filing clerk sent the invitation to the wrong Thurber. Too late to retract the invitation now. But when Wegman met Thurber he was crestfallen. That is, he dropped a tube of toothpaste into the toilet. I don’t know why they decided to meet in the bathroom. Maybe it seemed like gender-neutral territory. Foolish Thurber left some Wegmans too close to a scented candle and…whoops. It seems they’ve started to copy each other’s drawings. To become the other’s ‘evil twin’…but let’s not be naive here!…a ‘good’ drawing? an ‘evil drawing’? No such thing exists…we all know that. We…did you close the chimney flue? You fool, don’t you know bad drawings can crawl down the chimney like bats, like leopards, like Wegmans and Thurbers???? There is however, possibly at this moment in your unattended studio washroom a witch, laughing at you in the mirror. Come on now…enough is enough. Are you being serious? Or are you just halving Fun? “No Maine Is An Island” includes new call-and-response drawings by William Wegman (b.1943) and Matthew Thurber (b.1977), as well as a selection of Wegman drawings from the ’70s and ’80s. The exhibition remains on view, by appointment, through May 7. Teen Party is located at 874 Greene Avenue, Apt 2A, in Brooklyn. ————————————————————————————————— Stories-within-stories are the best kind of stories Not ‘comics-related’ specifically, but Mr. Robot strikes me as a particularly ‘comic book-y’ show; this is the movie-within-the-show from the second season, The Careful Massacre of the Bourgeoisie. A reminder to us that these massacres of the bourgeoisie should be, above all else, careful. ————————————————————————————————— Check out Portraits by Connor Willumsen. This magazine sized 16-page beautifully printed booklet (by WestCan – who also printed thee Santoro School Handbook) of portraits by the great Connor Willumsen is now available. Edition of 500. Connor will be a special guest at the Pittsburgh Indy Comix Expo this coming weekend. If you’re in the region come meet him and other great cartoonists! ————————————————————————————————— A Cosmic Journey – 4-4-2017 – by Cameron Arthur ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 4-4-2017 – by Sally Ingraham ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie –4-4-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

Ch2: The Comic Figure (FACC)

Juan FernándezJanuary 1, 2016ResourcesShare this page: [...]

04/12/2016

Aaron CockleApril 11, 2016NewsINK BRICK; Tsurumi/Chapman/Lidston; ‘O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo?’; Virtual Reality & its Discontents; Grids & Gestures & Nick Sousanis; Drawing Center Run-down; Nancy in the 1980s ————————————————————————————————— Poetry Comics INK BRICK, the premier micro-press for poetry comics, has extended the submissions deadline for its 5th issue to Sunday, April 17. Please consider submitting and/or supporting this organization. ————————————————————————————————— Upcoming Book Release Events at Desert Island Thursday, April 14, 7-9pm: Andrea ‘Why Would You Do That?’ Tsurumi Thursday, April 22, 7-9pm: Robyn ‘Twin Bed’ Chapman and Colin ‘Age of Elves’ Lidston ————————————————————————————————— Romeo ————————————————————————————————— New Media Same Old Problems The Storyteller’s Guide to the Virtual Reality Audience ————————————————————————————————— Grids & Gestures Cartoonist and educator Nick Sousanis has Kickstarted jump-started an online collective comics-making activity based on his teaching that will most likely be of interest to anyone who frequents this newsblog. From his website: ‘Over the last few years, I’ve found it to be a great way to get people with no prior drawing experience to very quickly start thinking about the spatial considerations comics makers attend to and at the same time, gets them to realize how much they know about drawing that they didn’t know they knew. ‘ ————————————————————————————————— Comics & Zines in NYC The Drawing Center recently posted a shortlist of the best places to find comics, zines, and artist books in NYC. ————————————————————————————————— Revisiting ‘How to Read Nancy’ by Mark Newgarden and Paul Karasik From 1988, always worth another look. ————————————————————————————————— Share this page: [...]

Sunday is a Good Day to Visit a Museum: Part One

Alyssa BergApril 28, 2016Art Trip / EssaysOn Sunday I visited The Rubin Museum of Art in NYC. The Rubin shows ancient to contemporary painting, sculpture, and ritual objects from the Himalayas and surrounding region with their permanent collection focusing on Tibetan art. My objective was to see the exhibit Please Altar Everything, work by avant-garde performance artist and musician (Throbbing Gristle, Psychic TV) Genesis Breyer P-Orridge. The exhibit includes installation, sculpture, sigils, altars and gold-leafed paintings. As I walked through the exhibit, I felt especially connected to the sculptural, tactile altarpieces (some with tags that said: please touch!) and sigils (used in spells and for manifesting). Both altars and sigils are creative acts steeped in ritual and devotion. After the Genesis show, I spent some solitary time in the Tibetan Buddhist Shrine Room, the highlight of another exhibit at The Rubin called Sacred Spaces. It is a contemplative space – dark, with drone-y Buddhist chanting and an altar filled with ornate objects of worship. I also had the chance to explore some of the permanent collection of the Rubin – statues of deities and paintings made with the most vibrant and saturated pigments. The visit to the Rubin brought my attention to ritual, meditation and devotion in artistic practice – in other people’s practice and my own. ————————————————————————————————— Part 1: Ritual in Preparing the Space/It’s the Simple Things The daily act of going to my desk and preparing the space is an important ritual. It is the practice before the practice, the thing I do before I do the thing I do. Is calling my studio area a sacred space too heavy-handed? Well, my hands are heavy holding all this Palo Santo and sage that l am burning to clear any bad vibrations from the aforementioned sacred space. Most of the time when I sit down at my drawing table, it’s a mess. Like, a ridiculous mess from the previous night. I’m often impressed by the chaos I can create in a short amount of time. I start drawing/painting with an organized and peaceful space but as I make what I’m making, I’m not thinking about my love of an organized and peaceful space. I’m grabbing, mixing color, crumpling pages, digging for scraps, sharpening my pencils letting the shavings lie where they fall, cutting/trimming with abandon, etc. By the end of the night when I’m finished working, I don’t have the will or desire to clean, but I usually have a finished page. The next day the act of cleaning and organizing is my pre-drawing ritual, a simple meditation. It is an act that requires care and attention but not a lot of thought. It’s gives me a moment to see, appreciate and take stock of my supplies, clean my brushes, file my scraps away and put pens & pencils back in their homes. By clearing the physical space I clear the mental/emotional/psychic space in preparation for a new blank page that lies ahead. Chaos/Calm ————————————————————————————————— Look for Part 2 of this ongoing series next week! ————————————————————————————————— Alyssa Berg makes comics in Brooklyn, NY. You can find her work HERE. Share this page: [...]

09/12/2017

Posted on September 11, 2017September 12, 2017 by Aaron Cockle

Aaron Cockle today with results of the 2017 Composition Competition; Kara Walker; Sally Ingraham; Trevor Paglen; CBLDF at SPX

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Comic Workbook Composition Competition 2017 Winners
Congratulations to all who created and submitted work for this contest. We really enjoyed reading each and every work.

FIRST PLACE – Weeklong Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency ($500 value)

Sienna Cittadino – Girl’s Bathroom

SECOND PLACE – $250 gift certificate at Copacetic Comics

Chris Kohler – Living Room

THIRD PLACE – $100 gift certificate at Copacetic Comics

Sara Sarmiento – Deep Clean

HONORABLE MENTIONS – $50 gift (each) at Big Planet Comics

Jillian Fleck – Push Thru

Louis Deux – Touristing

Simon Reinhardt – Slow Theft

Foxitalic – Hangover Haiku

It is our hope that all of the makers who participated in this contest have been TRANSFORMED in some way – artistically, personally, spiritually, and/or physically (improved eye-hand coordination? yes!) – by the time and energy dedicated to the creation of their submissions. Everyone who took part in this exercise has completed a hero’s journey.

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Kara Walker, September 7 – October 14, 2017

Sikkema Jenkins and Co. is Compelled to present The most Astounding and Important Painting show of the fall Art Show viewing season!

Kara Walker, Storm Ryder (You Must Hate Black People as Much as You Hate Yourself)

Collectors of Fine Art will Flock to see the latest Kara Walker offerings, and what is she offering but the Finest Selection of artworks by an African-American Living Woman Artist this side of the Mississippi. Modest collectors will find her prices reasonable, those of a heartier disposition will recognize Bargains! Scholars will study and debate the Historical Value and Intellectual Merits of Miss Walker’s Diversionary Tactics. Art Historians will wonder whether the work represents a Departure or a Continuum. Students of Color will eye her work suspiciously and exercise their free right to Culturally Annihilate her on social media. Parents will cover the eyes of innocent children. School Teachers will reexamine their art history curricula. Prestigious Academic Societies will withdraw their support, former husbands and former lovers will recoil in abject terror. Critics will shake their heads in bemused silence. Gallery Directors will wring their hands at the sight of throngs of the gallery-curious flooding the pavement outside. The Final President of the United States will visibly wince. Empires will fall, although which ones, only time will tell.

Kara Walker, Christ’s Entry into Journalism

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The SPX Interviews: Sally Ingraham on Teaching and her Daily Strip Suzy & Cecil
CW’s Sally Ingraham is interviewed over at The Beat, in the first of a series of SPX-related pieces. Congrats, Sally!

Philippe Leblanc: You’re working on creating a comics curriculum for girls. Can you tell us a little bit more about this project.

Sally Ingraham: We all need good examples to follow, and it’s especially important for girls to have other cool women to look up to. As I pursue my own development I have been looking for masters of the medium that I can more readily identify with, and this has led me to the obvious conclusions: There are and have been loads of female cartoonists, but their work is still under-documented, less celebrated, and straight up forgotten. I’m interested in developing a comics curriculum for girls that documents, celebrates, and remembers the women who came before us while making new spaces for the women working today, and the ones that will be making comics tomorrow. I won’t exclude the comics of the many male cartoonists whose work I admire and aspire to, but I want to push the balance in a different direction with my own curriculum, placing the emphasis on female creators first. I’m in the development stages at the moment, still learning as much as I can from whomever will teach me, but I’ve discovered very quickly that I can’t sit around waiting for someone else to make the moves that I see opening up on the board – I’ve got to stay in the game.

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Trevor Paglen: A Study of Invisible Images
September 8 – October 21, 2017

Trevor Paglen, A Study of Invisible Images. Installation view, 2017

Trevor Paglen’s A Study of Invisible Images is the first exhibition of works to emerge from his ongoing research into computer vision, artificial intelligence (AI) and the changing status of images. This body of work has formed over years of collaboration with software developers and computer scientists and as an artist-in-residence at Stanford University. The resulting prints and moving images reveal a proliferating and otherwise imperceptible category of “invisible images” characteristic of computer vision.

Paglen’s exhibition focuses on three distinct kinds of invisible images: training libraries, machine-readable landscapes, and images made by computers for themselves. For Machine-Readable Hito, for example, Paglen took hundreds of images of artist Hito Steyerl and subjected them to various facial recognition algorithms. This portrait of Steyerl presents the images alongside metadata indicating the age, gender, emotional state and other signifiers that the algorithms have interpreted from the images. In another portrait in the show, Paglen trained facial recognition software to read the face of philosopher Frantz Fanon. A ghostly image of Fanon shows the facial signature–the unique qualities of a face as determined by biometric recognition software–used by computer vision to identify an individual.

To make the prints in Adversarially Evolved Hallucinations, Paglen trained an AI to recognize images associated with taxonomies such as omens and portents, monsters, and dreams. A second AI worked in tandem with the first to generate the eerie, beautiful images that speak to the exuberant promises and dark undercurrents characterizing our increasingly automated world.

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CBLDF at SPX
This year’s annual Small Press Expo Lecture is The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund: Comics & The Power of Intellectual Freedom

Friday, September 15, 2017, 12-1PM, Library of Congress Madison Building, West Dining Room, 6th floor; Metro Stop: Capitol South

A trend that began in the 1940s continues today—challenges to comic books! Charles Brownstein, Executive Director of the non-profit Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, will share the history of comic book censorship from the medium’s origins to the present day. Participants will learn about the history of comic book censorship, and how that history still informs challenges to graphic novels happening right now. Learn what CBLDF does to protect this valuable medium, discover some of the most frequently challenged comics and graphic novels, and what you can do to make a difference. Emerge from this session with a new or renewed passion for comics, graphic novels, and manga and as a strong advocate for protecting this form of free speech! A selection of comic books from the Serial and Government Publications Division will be on display. This is the sixth annual SPX festival program sponsored by the Serial & Government Publications Division. http://www.loc.gov/rr/news/calendar.html

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A Cosmic Journey – 9-12-2017 – by Cameron Arthur

This concludes A Cosmic Journey – look for the whole comic archived here on Comics Workbook soon!

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Suzy and Cecil – 9-12-2017 – by Sally Ingraham

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Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in News

Aaron Cockle

Posted on September 11, 2017September 12, 2017

Explore

Happy Holidays from Comics Workbook!

Sally IngrahamDecember 25, 2017NewsHappy Holidays from all of us here at Comics Workbook! 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. Do yourself a favor and get ready for the new year: Subscribe to the most exciting comics news site in the world. ⚡ Comics Workbook Daily News ⚡ SUBSCRIBE VIA EMAIL TODAY Share this page: [...]

The Hannah K. Lee Interview

Chris Anthony DiazSeptember 20, 2018Interviews / The Diaz ArchiveRecently nominated in the 2018 Ignatz Awards Outstanding Collection category for her book Language Barrier, congrats to Hannah K. Lee! Here is an interview conducted before Language Barrier was announced as a Koyama Press publication, which is content gathered from Lee’s zines Issues and Close Encounters along with new work, exclusive to the book. A couple of years ago, I first discovered this work through these zines as well as in commercial periodicals like The Pitchfork Review. I view lee’s illustrations not only like cartooning/comics but also influenced by graphic design/iconography and typography. Her work begins from these disciplines but becomes more and ultimately something unique after. Special thanks to Hannah K. Lee for her time doing this interview and providing earlier drafts of her Issues sketches for #2 and #3, offering further insight visually into her process. Graham Willcox color finished the three photos of Lee below, taken at CAB 2015 and TCAF 2014. Annie Ishii (right) This interview was conducted in 2015 via email. Chris Anthony Diaz: In Shoes Over Bills no. 2, there’s a dichotomy in the page layout of materialism and desires (shoes) on the left side of the two-page spread and monthly obligations and needs (bills) on the right side of the spread, rendered in your colorful, stylized, retro graphics and typography. It’s a potent expression of what choices a young woman faces, enticed by beauty to spend her earnings on. Like two sides of a debate, one side wooing her to buy gratification in possessions or the other side pitching her to commit to practicality, like eating. How did this zine come about for you and what was the original impetus of this theme? (The dichotomy appears again in Everyone Else Is Younger And More Talented, so it appears to be a theme or expression that you are concerned with.) Hannah K. Lee: Issues #2: Shoes over Bills was first a smaller chapter of a bigger project I wanted to do called No Money Mo Problems, A “lifestyle guide for impoverished freelancers”. A lot of those ideas were stupid, so I extracted Shoes over Bills and made it its own project. I started it right before I started my corporate day job, when I was learning about boring adult things like money management and regular visits to the dentist. (This is a sketch for Shoes over Bills, before it was a zine) CAD: What attracts you to product graphic iconography, which is the theme in Mascots no. 3? and please speak a little how it manifests its expression in your graphic illustration, which appears to have a graphic influence of russian constructivism. HKL: Issues #3: Mascots first came about when I drew portraits of the Zig Zag man and the Chiquita Banana girl. I made the rest of Mascots with the risograph and overprint techniques in mind, which went well with the limited color palettes often seen in product iconography. Any kind of restriction will force you to find ways to say more with less. When it comes to working with a riso, the color choices are limited and the threshold for showing details is low. As a result, it seems that my work has been becoming more graphic as I exercise more restraint. CAD: How do you come up with merging the ordinary and familiar with the fantastic and surreal in your illustration? HKL: I studied Illustration in school, and we were trained to look for analogs and ideas in weird places to convey a concept, while trying to stay away from cliches. Every project I start begins with words, and then I write down everything that comes to mind that relates to those words. My sketchbook is actually 90% written gibberish that only makes sense to me, instead of thumbnails and doodles. CAD: Color (especially red appears consistently and predominately in your risograph publications) and typography are strong facets of your graphic imagery. Where do you find your inspiration and what do you look at regularly? HKL: Besides the work of other working illustrators, designers, and letterers, I like looking at packaging (fruit boxes and crates, foreign candy), flags, old and ornate rugs/textiles, pop music ephemera, Tumblr teens, fashion, clever logos, bad logos, old calligraphy, illuminated manuscripts, those kids’ Golden Books, I like to absorb and/or pick apart everything. When it comes to certain jobs that require a lot of research, I look at the design and illustration of that particular era and let that inform how it’ll turn out. For example, I just did a piece about the origins of ska, so I looked at a lot of 60’s album art coming out of Kingston. CAD: How has risograph printing affected your published output in these three publications: Mascots and Shoes Over Bills and Everyone Else Is Younger And More Talented? HKL: Someone told me once that if I make something to sell or to promote myself with, it’d better be something the recipient would want to keep. So with that in mind, it should be useful, meaningful, beautiful, or at least 2 of those. I like working with the risograph because it’s an efficient and cost-effective way to make your zine beautiful. There’s a resurgence going on in zine culture that’s very much about thematic or narrative self-expression and considered presentation. Despite my recent output though, I actually don’t think it’s always necessary to make your zine pretty! With a good idea or story, sometimes a xerox is all you need. Share this page: [...]

09/14/2016

Juan FernándezSeptember 14, 2016los Cómics / NewsJuan here with your Latin American and Spanish comics news! Hoy tenemos: Dash Shaw dibuja el estreno de MY ENTIRE HIGHSCHOOL SINKING INTO THE SEA; John Kelly apuntado director del ToonSeum en Pittsburgh; Spanish Fever llega a los EE.UU; Entrevista con Jose Domingo; Entrevista con PowerPaola; Taller de Maggie Lynn Negrete en Pittsburgh; Taller con Marco M. Noreña en Colombia; Convocatoria Abierta de Zinebiosís y GRAF – Madrid; Malaimagen invitado a La Polala #11. ————————————————————————————————— Dash Shaw dibuja el estreno de su nueva pelicula My Entire Highschool Sinking into the Sea ————————————————————————————————— SPANISH FEVER: STORIES BY THE NEW SPANISH CARTOONISTS U.S. TOUR The crew has landed and is now in America – Santiago García, Javier Olivares, David Rubín, Ana Galvañ, y José Domingo han llegado! Si tienen la oportunidad de escuchar una de sus charlas o talleres, no se lo pueden perder. Estos son los “heavy hitters” Españoles. Santiago García les puedo contar un poquito sobre la gira! ————————————————————————————————— Entrevista: José Domingo José Domingo shares some thoughts with Meagan Meehan over on Blasting News. BN: How did you come up with the idea for “Adventures of a Japanese Businessman” and “Pablo and Jane and the Hot Air Contraption”? JD: The idea for “Adventures of a Japanese Businessman” came out from a littlesketch on my sketchbook and the feeling it created. Trying to capture that feeling–following the thread of it–resulted in the book. For “Pablo and Jane and the Hot Air Contraption” I was commissioned by Flying Eye Books to create a book about monsters with a core hide-and-seek element but I was given total freedom to develop the story, characters and tone of the book. Read it HERE + and don’t miss José Domingo (and the rest of the Spanish Fever crew) at SPX!!! ————————————————————————————————— Learn to Draw from the Pros! Acompañanos este sabado en Bethesda, Maryland desde las 3-5 durante nuestro taller de Spanish Fever! (Spanish Language Workshop). SPX and Comics Workbook, along with the Spanish Cultural Ministry and Fantagraphics, is pleased to provide Spanish language instruction and presentations with José Domingo and David Rubín. Es un verdadero honor poder presentar una charla + taller con José Domingo y David Rubín. 100% en Español! 100% Gratis! No se lo pierdan! ————————————————————————————————— [soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/281896150″ params=”color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false” width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /] Escucha @lapololapodcast, un podcast del cómic femenino con Sol Díaz Castillo y Marcela Trujillo! It’s always a fun, relaxing and enlightening listen. If you haven’t tuned in to La Polola just yet, Póngale Play 😉 En este capítulo las chicas conversan con Malaimagen, uno de los más prolíficos dibujantes chilenos, autor de libros como “Sin Tolerancia”, “Pase Usted”, “Boleta o Factura”, “Pan y Circo” y el último “Malditos Humanos” entre otros más. Hablamos de sus inspiraciones, sus temas y su relación con la música punk y su grupo punkora, que nos acompaña con la música con dos canciones de su último disco “contra el suelo”. Además dimos los resultados de nuestro concurso del mapa emocional, ¡gracias a todas y todos los que nos mandaron sus dibujos! Y tenemos un gran anuncio: desde este capítulo comenzaremos a ser transmitidas por radio ITACA FM en España ————————————————————————————————— Entreviñetas 2016 – La Feria Vagabunda ¡Pronto comienza la séptima temporada de Entreviñetas en Colombia! El #FestivalEntreviñetas2016 tendrá a Bogotá y Medellín como sedes. Si el cómic es lo que te apasiona y vives en Latinoamérica, no se lo pueden perder! Entreviñetas acabo de anunciar los proyectos que participarán en la Feria Vagabunda en sus versiones Bogotá (24 y 25 de sept) y Medellín (8 y 9 de oct). En la feria encontraras libros, cómics y fanzines que son verdaderamente unicos. Mantente al dia y sigue la pagina de Entreviñetas en FB. Los invitados oficiales del festival seran: Brecht Vandenbroucke (Bélgica), Michael DeForge (Canadá), Olivier Kugler (Alemania), Elenio Pico (Argentina), Aidan Koch (Estados Unidos), Zane Zlemeša (Letonia), Inés Estrada (México), Diana Ojeda (Colombia), Sole Otero (Argentina), Pablo Guerra (Colombia), Marco Tóxico (Bolivia), Hernán Sansone (Argentina), Olea (Chile), Phoebe Gloeckner (Estados Unidos), Benjamin Dix (Reino Unido), ICINORI (Francia), Alexandra Zsigmond (Estados Unidos), Puño (España), Miguel Gallardo (España), Cabizbaja (Colombia), David Avend (Colombia), Jean Paul Zapata (Colombia) ————————————————————————————————— Convocatoria: GRAF – Madrid GRAF, evento en torno al cómic de autor y la edición independiente, tendrá lugar los días 11, 12 y 13 de noviembre de 2016. Para esta ocasión ampliamos la duración de la feria. Al igual que en la anterior edición en Barcelona, esta se extenderá a lo largo de tres días, dando comienzo el viernes a las 17:00h y terminando el domingo a las 14:30h. La organización hace un llamamiento a los editores, autores, artistas y colectivos interesados en participar. Para solicitar espacio en #GRAFMADRID2016 es imprescindible enviar un correo a graf.contacta@gmail.com con el nombre de la propuesta y una web o portfolio de la misma, indicando el tamaño de la mesa solicitada: Stand grande 2 metros = 90€ Stand mediano 1,5 metros = 70€ Stand pequeño 1,20 metros = 50€. (Las medidas puedes sufrir modificaciones. Os avisaremos por e-mail). ————————————————————————————————— Convocatoria: ZINEBIOSIS Fanzineros y fanzineras, ¡todavía está abierta la convocatoria para participar en la muestra Zinebiosis en Bogota! Zinebiosis Muestra de Fazines Colombia / Perú que se inaugura el sábado 24 de septiembre en Rat Trap, Organiza Rapiña y apoya ENTREVIÑETAS. Zinebiosis llega a Colombia, luego por su paso por Perú, compartiendo el intercambio de fazines colombo-peruano. Además de la muestra habrá concierto con las bandas Cadaver, FINAL, Muro y Tumbas!!! ————————————————————————————————— Taller: Marco Noreña (Medellin) Marco Noreña nos viene “full force” con los fanzines! Apuntate a este taller introductorio y de nociones básicas al mundo del cómic y la narrativa gráfica en El Lápiz Azul. El objetivo primordial es el de generar un producto finalizado e incentivar su realización de una forma amena y entretenida, por medio de ejercicios prácticos. 17 de septiembre · Horario: 9.00 am – 12.00 m Receso 2.00 – 5.00 pm Registrate AQUI. ————————————————————————————————— Taller y Charla: Maggie Lynn Negrete (Pittsburgh) The Pittsburgh Comics Salon is pleased to announce this month’s local spotlight artist will be: Maggie Lynn Negrete. Come join us at the ToonSeum (945 Liberty Ave., Pittsburgh, PA 15222) on Thursday, September 15th from 6-8pm. This event is free to all-age attendees and promises an evening of art, conversation, and an atmosphere of solidarity. Maggie is a feminist artist that adapts her medium in response to the dialogue she wishes to create with her audience. Her artwork takes the form of installations, zines, and gallery-ready illustrations and prints. Uniting these various mediums and forms, her design sense manifests through graphic black and white line work with nods to late 19th and early 20th century illustration, psychedelic era poster design and the current renaissance of sign painting. Her visual language is highly influenced by my heritage of typographers, printers and illustrators. This session will consist of a conversation between Maggie Lynn Negrete and Juan Fernandez about identity, typography and education and how they intertwine in her design, cartooning and illustration. Their conversation will be followed by Q+A. ————————————————————————————————— John Kelly – Nuevo Director del ToonSeum (Pittsburgh) Aquí en Pittsburgh, John Kelly, escritor y historiador del mundo del cómic, ha sido nombrado el Executive Director del ToonSeum, nuestro museo del arte del cómic! Kelly sera a la vez responsable por las operaciones cotidianas del museo y la planificación del crecimiento a largo plazo del museo. Kelly, who has written extensively about comics since the late 1980s, had been serving as Vice President of the Museum since June, 2016 and has been heavily involved with it since moving to Pittsburgh in 2011. He has written for The Comics Journal magazine since the early 1990s and his work has appeared in DC Comics, among other publications. A New York native, Kelly is the former Senior Vice President of Communications at the National Basketball Association and also served in senior communications roles at Catholic Charities of the Archdioceses of New York and Columbia University. Aprende mas sobre John Kelly AQUI. ————————————————————————————————— hasta la proxima! JF Share this page: [...]

Comics As Music – Frank Santoro

Sally IngrahamNovember 12, 2016ClassesPIX April 2nd 2016 Filmed by Michael Pisano – Edited by Michael Pisano and Sally Ingraham Share this page: [...]

White River Junction Scene Report

Frank SantoroOctober 16, 2011Riff Raff / Scene ReportsUp with local comics scene. Down with Marvel. Down with DC. Boycott Disney. Boycott Time Warner. Kill Super Heroes. Do I sound like a broken record? I don’t fuckin’ care! I’m so tired of sifting through “coverage” of the Big Two on comics blogs. You guys are just workin’ for The Man. Knock it off! I should have a “greater concern”? Bullshit. Stop promoting corporate culture in comics. This week’s local comics scene report brought to you by the great Jen Vaughn. Jen lives in White River Junction, Vermont – home of The Center for Cartoon Studies. She is awesome, does awesome stuff and also writes awesomely for the Schulz Library Blog. Don’t forget! My CARTOONING CORRESPONDENCE COURSE starts at the end the end of October! Hurry up and apply – you can do it! I will make you a comics expert in eight weeks! —— Also! Michael DeForge ups the ante again with his story in Thickness number two. I call it a knife fight. He will cut you! The rest of the issue is equally astonishing – lots of different looks – a well edited anthology if there ever was one. It’s also beautifully printed – Ryan Sands crushed this one out of the park, folks. Don’t delay – buy your copy today. INTERMISSION FUNNIES with MICHAEL DEFORGE ———- White River Junction scene report by Jen Vaughn Here in the thicket of White River Junction, a town of small proportions (~2500 people), a lot of cartoonist students dream big. Montreal, Boston and New York are at most five hours away but in this sleepy place often referred to as WRJ or my favorite, the Junc, everything closes around 5pm and good luck on Sundays. My house is behind that green tree on the right The local coffee shop, the Tuckerbox, hangs cartoonist work on the walls year round and is the morning or late afternoon studio space for some. LtoR: Cartoonists Pat Barrett, Josh Kramer, Max de Radigues, Kevin Uehlein and Ben Horak However, there is no shortage of fun and events. Like anywhere, a toonie amidst all all these other toonies and townies must concentrate to keep their butt firmly in their drawing table seat. Thanks to the Center for Cartoon Studies, we have visiting artists every week that come to speak to the school and a lot that just visit! HOLY SHIT, IT’S LYNDA BARRY Cartoonists: Katherine Roy, me and Jon Fine) Dartmouth College is near by with great plays, events and often employs cartoonists. Laura Terry, Katherine Roy and I have made one large mural and have a current exhibit of collegiate fun paintings on display in their student union cafe. —– This is the first place I’ve lived where I draw anywhere I go and people ask ‘Are you a cartoonist?’ instead of ‘artist.’ The villagers know what’s shakin’. Although, if you asked me to describe our activities in three words I’d say “costumes, games and animals.” I’ve pet more goats, pigs and more pigs in my time here than my combined 13 years in Texas. Moving a pig coral at a co-op —– A lot of us like, scratch that, LOVE board games. Night of playing resource management games like Agricola, Carcassone, or Dominion are planned out usually with wine and dinner to boot. Although, it is constantly an odd bag being one of the few female cartoonists in the area with a boyfriend at events with couples. Luckily, we’re all friends so I don’t care about whether I should talk craft with ‘the guys’ or any other subject with ‘the ladies.’ Sometimes its nice to step away from the work. CCS professor Jason Lutes is kind enough let us beta-test his own creation, “Thrilling Tales of Adventure” and hosts a weekly board game night (meanwhile Steve Bissette hosts an often horrifying weekly movie night) LtoR: Cartoonists David Yoder, Joe Lambert, Bill Bedard and Rio Aubrey Taylor play Merchants and Marauders —— In my free time not spent at my day jobs at the Schulz Graphic Novel Library and at the Main Street Museum OR drawing, I spent wrapped up in a butterfly/caterpillar costume as part of the local puppeteer’s gang at Fantasy Technicians. Becoming something else for a bit, whether a butterfly or a pair of shoes, is amazing and I’m totally working on my own articulating costume. And preparing for my week long job in New Orleans next Mardi Gras. Jennerfly. —– Parties usually have a theme, a costumed theme. Like the going away party, Lady Gaga Gone. Featuring toonies Penina Gal, Carol Thompson, Betsey Swardlick, Beth Hetland and me. —– And in any other city you might buy comics at a comic book store but our Border’s closed down AND the local comic shop is more of a game shop (although not a problem for those of us hoping to score the Cthulhu Gloom expansion). The Schulz Graphic Novel Library gets a lot of comic books sent to it by publishers, writers, artists and people who just want to send their favorite to such a grand library. The school also buys a lot of new graphic novels and is open to the public on First Fridays Unfortunately, due to the flood waters of Hurricane Irene, we had to move our library to a temporary storage space but hope to move soon. We save a lot of our buying bucks for conventions, where comics are like currency! —– Here’s my boyfriend, Ryan Anderson and cartoonist, Molly Howard, enjoying comics in our old space —– And here’s a photo of my comics class! —– In the town of White River Junction, friends are around every corner and they like to have a good time. Which is great because I love to pose under silly signs. My town may be small but its heart is huge. at Tunbridge World’s Fair with Linda Walker and cartoonist Rachel Foss Share this page: [...]

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