Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in NewsTagged Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum, cartoon crossroads columbus, cxc 2017

Caleb Orecchio

Posted on October 2, 2017October 10, 2017

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01/19/2018

Sally IngrahamJanuary 18, 2018NewsSally here with a fabulous new exhibition at the Library of Congress, Phoebe Gloeckner in her studio, Brie Moreno, Ramona Fradon, and more! ————————————————————————————————— The Library of Congress has a new exhibition – Drawn to Purpose: American Women Illustrators and Cartoonists – which “is dedicated to exploring the lesser-known, centuries-spanning contributions of female artists who broke into these male-dominated fields.” Curated by Martha Kennedy, the exhibition is vast, detailed, and will be up through October 2018. “The exhibit features nearly 70 pieces from in an impressive array of 43 artists, with work from the 19th century to today. The artwork ranges from Alice Barber Stephens’ Impressionist-influenced illustrations to Anne Harriet Fish’s elegant, fine-line drawings that graced more than 30 Vanity Fair covers to Roz Chast’s frenzied and funny cartoons in The New Yorker. Even so, Kennedy saw she had more ground to cover, so she wrote a companion book (out in March) and curated a second rotation of the show, with an entirely different lineup of artists, to replace the current one in mid-May. “There are a lot of women who did really interesting, innovative work who have been overlooked and are worthy of further study,” Kennedy says.“ An article on Smithsonian details the exhibition, and it is full of the names of creators and artists to research and get to know. Start there, and then plan a trip to D.C. – or two, if you want to see both halves of the show! Read all about it HERE. ————————————————————————————————— The Michigan Daily visited Phoebe Gloeckner recently and talked autobiography and its place in comics. “On one hand, Phoebe argues that stories involving heavier, real topics work well as graphic novels because “the more specific something is, the more relatable it becomes. I think in a sense it’s easier to do that with comics because instead of describing the wallpaper, you’re drawing the wallpaper, it’s there.” The concept that graphic novels allow readers to visualize their characters exactly the way the author sees them, however, is a double-edged sword. When asked if presenting readers with one specific image made them focus more on the content and less on the imagination, Phoebe responded with questions of her own. “When you read Maus, do you just accept the person looks like a mouse? Or someone is cartoony with simplified features? This too gives you room to interpret what they look like in real life.” “ Gloeckner also discusses her current project, another type of storytelling, but one that “uses cloth dolls and elaborate, miniature film sets to represent the violent scenes of Ciudad Juarez in Mexico.” Read the whole piece HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Brie Moreno is featured on It’s Nice That, talking about the direction her work has taken recently. “…Brie also notes that her style has developed as a result of “really turning away from finalising all my drawings on the computer,” she tells It’s Nice That. “I love using the computer for creating guides and altering the size of my compositions, but when it comes to the finished product I’m obsessed with the naive quality of smeared up felt tips, crumpled newsprint and happy accidents.” In turn, there is a lush tangible quality to each of Brie’s singular drawings. Even when displayed on a digital screen they evoke that crinkly paper texture that develops from layering and layering felt tip pens to make the page a little fluffy. The appearance of this texture has also evolved from Brie experimenting with using A3 newsprint as a base, “I really look forward to seeing the originals fade and deteriorate with time,” she explains.“ Plenty more comics and drawings to see HERE. ————————————————————————————————— The Comics Reporter found the drawing pictured above on Roger Langridge’s blog, where Langridge also posted his take on inking Ramona Fradon‘s pencils – I’m just here for Fradon’s Metamorpho however! I’m reading Liz Prince‘s Be Your Own Backing Band at the moment, which collects some of her comics that were first published on the website If You Make It, which is devoted to punk music and culture. Check out her comics HERE. Episode 263 of the Comics Alternative podcast includes a review of The Strumpet #5, around the 44 min. mark – listen HERE. Nidhi Chanani has a comic up on Mutha Magazine – Eggs: A Comic on Stillbirth, Loss, and Breakfast. On PEN America’s Illustrated PEN “Meg Lemke presents cartoonist Lisa Lim’s How I Went From Being An Apolitical to A Little More Political Asian” – HERE. Tegan O’Neil reviews Hazel Newlevant‘s Sugar Town on The Comics Journal. Black Mask is publishing a new comic written by Lonnie Nadler and Zac Thompson which may be interesting – Her Infernal Descent – which is about a middle-aged mother who visits hell, guided by Agatha Christie and William Blake, in an effort to get her family back. The Comics Beat has the story. ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 1-19-2018 – by Sally Ingraham ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 1-19-2018 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

09/07/2018

Sally IngrahamSeptember 7, 2018NewsSally Ingraham here with work by Bronson Smillie and Cory Feder, plus other news and comics! ——————————————————————————————— Here on the site we have a new Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency Report, written by Bronson Smillie, who joined us in Pittsburgh in July of 2018. He’s currently based in Montreal, QC, where he is finishing a painting and drawing undergrad at Concordia University. Originally from Calgary, he organized and facilitated Calgary’s first ever Queer Zine Fair in 2017 – an event called We Are Not an Island that was presented in conjunction with Calgary’s Sled Island Festival. It was Calgary’s biggest zine fair ever and featured over 30 artists/collectives. Even with this rich experience in comics and community building under his belt, Bronson was able to find a lot to dig into with us in Pittsburgh. “The ! air conditioned ! bedroom/work-space was the perfect place to dive head first into my work. As someone that is easily distracted in new environments, it was nice to be able to shut myself into a quiet space. Each morning I would devour a handful of comics/zines selected from the extensive and ever-growing library at the Residency. I would recommend spending as much time reading comics as you do drawing them while you are a resident. They offer such an amazing resource and I got to read things that I had never had access to before. I worked on a 10 page mini-comic that I’ve since completed and took time to digitize my entire stamp collection (boring but satisfying). I wanted to explore a new way of image-making while I was at the residency and broke away from the more rigid, panel-based comic making I was used to in order to explore more experimental ideas I had been tossing around for a while.“ Read the rest of his report HERE! ——————————————————————————————— The results of the 2018 Comics Workbook Composition Competition are in! Read all about it HERE! Pictured above is the comic strip by Cory Feder which placed 1st in the competition. About her strip, the judges wrote: “Our decision to award Cory Feder First Place recognizes Feder’s creation of an ambitious yet simple, multi-layered poetic sequence that cuts through notions of language. This is the kind of strip that can be read and re-read ad infinitum to continue gleaning new meaning. Feder’s comic is the kind offhand remark, the cadence of which, you keep thinking about for years. This complex concoction of intuitive drawing and deft use of juxtaposition made for a winning combination.“ See more of Cory Feder’s work HERE. We look forward to hosting her at the Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency sometime soon! ——————————————————————————————— Sign up for the Comics Workbook Workshop sessions at Small Press Expo 2018 – full details HERE! ——————————————————————————————— Weekend Reading The Comics Journal recently republished an interview with Marie Severin from 1986 – read it HERE. Marie Severin passed away last week at the age of 89. HERE is the Journal‘s tribute to her. There are new reviews of Fiona Smyth‘s Somnambulance and Jessica Campbell‘s XTC69 over on Page 45. Paste Magazine has an exclusive preview of Leah Moore, John Reppion, and Sally Jane Thompson‘s upcoming A Conspiracy of Ravens (out in early October) HERE. Share this page: [...]

08/30/2018

Caleb OrecchioAugust 30, 2018NewsCaleb Orecchio here. I think about Asterios Polyp by David Mazzucchelli all the time and I know you do too. ————————————————————————————————— ————————————————————————————————— Once I read a comic book At midnight, 2009, Asterios Polyp, the name of it, The Petty Bickering Deities Strike again (on the Page) Yes ma’am life never gets tired of resurrecting ————————————————————————————————— ———————————————————— Cement Mixer – 8-30-18 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

On Being a Woman in the Manly World of Daniel Clowes

MardouNovember 14, 2016EssaysEditor’s Note: This is one essay that you’ll need to read all the way through to the end in order to really appreciate what Ms. Mardou is getting at here. We’re confident that you’ll be glad that you did. The novelist John Updike (1932-2009) experienced a feminist backlash during his long career. Possessed of laser vision (perhaps aided by his early calling to be a watercolorist and cartoonist) his pen was akin to x-ray on the lives of those smart New England housewives who formed his muse. The critic Anna Shapiro spoke for a consensus when she opined: “It was the way he depicted women. It was the way he described them – us. You felt yourself squirming, wanting to pull a blanket over you, preferably lead-lined, to shield yourself from the merest stray phrase or casual observation. Not because they were sexual and incited one’s modesty. It was not like being stripped. It was like being splayed open on the examining table under the glare of medical lamps while satirical remarks were made; it was being seen looming with comic grotesqueness through a telescope; it was the most unfriendly leering by someone saying, You see? You see? How could anyone love that?” You know, I don’t fully agree. When I first read Updike, in my twenties, these heroines of Updike’s fiction struck a chord. These were not the bland, homogeneous impossibly beautiful ‘Girl-Next-Doors’ of Hollywood or TV. These were ordinary dames: with freckles, graying hair, stretch marks, big hips and fat asses. They could be annoying, or adorable. They drank too much and got sloppy. They were usually married, indulged in affairs on the side, fell in love against their better judgment and even accidentally killed their children sometimes. But somehow, they recovered and held it together like women do. And Updike couldn’t get enough of them. They were interesting in their ordinariness. The men in Updike’s world were equally messy, but seemed to fly apart easier. They spiral out of control, run away, give themselves heart attacks, or resign themselves to sadder, humbled second lives. The outright misogyny perceived by Updike’s contemporaries just didn’t hold true to my mind. It was too complicated to dismiss that easily. Which brings us to Daniel Clowes. His depictions of women are at times, unflinching (is this how men really see us?) Is this how MY gynecologist unconsciously feels? These ‘splayed’ early stories prompted female reader intervention: Did Natalie Larios change the direction of Clowes’s work? One can only guess. Well, at any rate, whilst Updike would be followed to the grave by charges of women hating, Clowes gets roasted for outright humanity hating. Here we have from a review of ‘Wilson’: “Some readers will wonder whether the world really needs another maladjusted, illustrated misanthrope. (See also the work of Adrian Tomine, Ivan Brunetti, Robert Crumb — and Daniel Clowes. Obviously the Oscar-nominated creator of Ghost World, among several other rightly beloved comics, has a way with misanthropy.)” Neither Updike nor Clowes shied away from the darker underbelly of humanity, but just as I think dismissing Updike’s close inspection of womanhood as misogynistic quite cuts it, nor do I think the misanthropy identified in Clowes’s work is quite on the nose either. Consider this dark snippet: There’s more to this than murder, there’s conscience and awareness of what else could have been. I’m going to argue that Clowes’s comics are shot through with humanity and that the main manifestation of ‘what else could happen’ comes to light through his depictions of women. I see similarities with Clowes and Updike in so far as they are both known for their precise, finessed detail, their craftsmanship. I should also point out that in comics and literature respectively, Clowes and Updike are both heirs to Vladimir Nabokov’s crown. Both artists cite him as a big influence. Thematically this carries over too. Updike’s notable for his main themes of God, sex and America. What are Clowes’s themes? Sex and America? Sure. God? Well, yes, it’s there. Mortality certainly looms as themes in both men’s work as in Nabokov’s before them. So let’s start with sex. It’s a preoccupation in Clowes’s work. Many of Clowes’s story feature men who chase their existential need to be mated and they can’t do ‘life’ alone. They are drawn to the power of the Dyad! Clowes, like Updike has created a series of women with so much complex verisimilitude over many years of books. Women are both salve and salvation in the bitter worlds both men paint – at times – so acidly. It’s hard to know where to start, so let’s start with this: As fate would have it, I was 22 years old myself when I read that for the first time and knowing Clowes to be a little unusual in his definition of ‘beautiful’ it gave my mawkish, raw self a sense of hope! Clowes made another case for ditching the mainstream aesthetic in 1995’s short story, Caricature (Hollywood’s bland actresses are also impossible to draw, so forget THEM) but this goes beyond fashion. Mainstream’s rejects are not just – to his refined mind – physically lovely but they ‘saved him’ according to his most overtly autobiographical story to date: ‘A different type of lonely, naïve urban misfit-girl’. I knew this girl! I knew many of her English, 1990s counterparts. This was real to me. And ‘they saved’ his life! Who knew we were that significant? We sure weren’t feeling appreciated at the time. But I digress. Here’s a sentiment we hear repeated over and over in Clowes’s fiction. The women save, rescue and redeem the men. And just the idea of them will do it! Note: Women are often essential to the well-being of Clowes’s men. Even when they exist in auxiliary, care-taking roles they often get wrapped up in notions of sexual devotion. And here David Boring’s one-shot date: This speaks to a deep need in Clowes’s men folk I think (Please look after me! Please fuck me!). One can only speculate what’s going on with the guys (another time, another essayist!) but this ‘need’ is played out, conversely, when the beloved heroines disappear from view. Like Updike’s heroes who all too readily veer out of control, Clowes shows their lives graphically flying apart on the page. Witness David Boring losing his Wanda: Or Marshall losing Natalie to the night, his world is reduced to abstract geometry: And Jack literally dissolving into organic compounds after losing his girl, Patience. What are we to infer from this? That women are the cosmic glue that hold the balance of humanity together? Perhaps it is something to that effect. The ever-lurking God of John Updike’s prose is the typical protestant patriarch who must be worshiped and placated by knee-mail and missionary sex positions. Clowes’s stance on God seems a little more no-nonsense: I’d argue that Clowes’s notions of God are a little more aligned with Nabokov’s gnarled McFate. In Invitation to a Beheading Nabokov spares his protagonist’s sufferings in a cruel (not too fictitious) world by removing the veil and dismantling the novel around his head. Clowes takes this tack too with anti-heroes like Epps in stories like Gynecology, in the warped logic of Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron and to a lesser extent David Boring, where God mockingly pops up, but we really can’t be sure what exactly is going on (is David already dead for the second two acts? That’s my theory; I mean who survives a bullet to the forehead with such alacrity and vigor?). Well at any rate, Clowes seems happiest deferring the universal questions to the ladies. Here’s Naomi in David Boring (and we already heard from his mom): When not retrieving men from the maw of the void, perhaps more powerfully, Clowes depicts women relating to each other. The friendship of Becky and Enid proves to have ‘inter-generational staying power’ according to the Millennial misfit-girl zine, Rookie. Their unwinding friendship crosses the Generation X/Millennial divide speaks to women about their selves, clothes, boys, identity, friendships etc. I like this scene here as it reminds me of my own high school best friend whom I was haplessly willing to shed as she saw right through my grunge girl makeover in 1991/1992. Clowes would tell the Comics Journal in May 2001 that his wife, Erika, being twenty when he met her, did influence the writing of Ghost World to an extent and that, in his own twenties: “I had a teenage neighbor next door who was this really smart French girl who would always come over and tell me her problems… She was very uncensored and she was really struggling to figure herself out. Enid is mostly, I think, based on a combination of two or three girls I knew in art school.” Undoubtedly Ghost World’s generation-hopping validity speaks to its ability to ring true. It’s charming, has pathos, and is cutely vulgar and achingly raw. The older I get, the harder I find Nabokov’s Lolita as a book to enjoyably reread, but I think of dear old crummy-toothed Nabokov himself, riding buses in the early 1950s, sitting behind teenagers so as to immortalize their slang and cadence. Ghost World has that ‘interloper’ quality too. Well, Enid and Becky get a book to themselves, but subsequent young women characters share space in more diversely textured stories. The women of Ice Haven are exceedingly well delineated I think. Vida, this obscure-literature loving, future Hollywood sell-out (uhh? Is that you, Clowes?) is particularly memorable. Julie Patheticstein and Violet Vanderplatz are two wronged women who team up in an unlikely friendship. Patience endures a humiliating stage in her development under the kind mentoring of the older waitress, Nancy. And Vida just adores her old grandmother, the fading poetess Ida Wentz. There’s a subtle alter-world of quiet kindness and acceptance in his books and when you look for the women, you’ll find it there. It would be a miserable life for the men if not for this quiet, subplotted influence. Even grumpy-pants Wilson benefits from the tender mercies of his daughter, and then from his life companion, Shelly. But the women here aren’t just in it for the men’s sake, let’s remember that. Clowes’s most stirring heroines often get to blow the joint at the end. Naomi walks out of David Boring’s warped (after?) life: We can’t help but note how pathetic and inept David looks next to this smart, deserving woman who packs her bags, vowing to escape the coming apocalypse. Good for her! Vida leaves for Hollywood: Violet leaves her bullshit non-marriage and step-family behind, and of course Enid is going to get on that bus before the story’s done. What is going on here? The women get more choices than Clowes’s men. From Clay Loudermilk to Daniel Pussey to David Boring the men inhabit this spectrum of sad indignities like Fate’s blind somnambulists. The women are operating on a more awakened level I think. Dan Clowes writes women so damn well that they overshadow the men they deal with on every page that they interact together. Why is this so? Is it because of feminism? Post modernism? Punk rock? What’s driving this? The boys and men of Ghost World don’t stand a chance at outshining these women (which is why I personally balk at the movie adaptation giving a sexual role to the Bearded Windbreaker character. Oh come ON! I don’t care if it is Steve Buscemi, restore Brad Renfro’s impromptu blowjob please. Director’s cut. ‘Nuff said.) Maybe one way we can understand what Clowes is getting at with all these astutely rendered female characters is getting back to the cosmic glue notion. Consider this quote I read in a diet book years ago, it really stuck with me: ‘Healthy yin energy is the stuff of relationships. Currently believed to be on expand mode, the universe courses up and through a woman, pulling both partners towards their primary connection with a larger whole. No wonder we got burned as witches.’1 Clowes’s career then can be seen as thus. He represents the quiet fire of the Ink Stud, using his male gaze to exalt ordinary women and ‘Ugly Girls’ in a way that Updike tried and spluttered at and Nabokov, in his born-in-1899 way, exquisitely failed (seriously, Charlotte Haze is a blow to middle-aged women everywhere). Comics-wise, women and their pesky bodies have openly been a preoccupation for cartoonists since the 1960’s (2). Womanly speaking, I don’t see much to relate to in the world of Robert Crumb or Chester Brown say, nor do I personally identify with the gorgeous cartoony chicks of the Hernandez universe. But Clowes’s women keep ringing true. And maybe it’s because his male gaze isn’t wielded with a leer or as a controlling force – it’s a means of understanding. 1 Jessica Porter, A Hip Chicks Guide to Macrobiotics, Penguin, 2004 p269 2 Well there’s George Grosz, he was pretty girl crazy too, but the Sixties is when it began to splurge out, right? ————————————————————————————————— Sacha Mardou is a Brit making comics in St Louis, Missouri. Sky in Stereo is her most recent comic. Share this page: [...]

09/15/2016

Sally IngrahamSeptember 15, 2016NewsSally here to introduce a new Daily News team member and run you through the Comics Workbook happenings this week, in between making books and packing the car for the big trip to Small Press Expo this weekend…! ————————————————————————————————— This week we are joined by Samuel Ombiri, a Pittsburgh cartoonist and one of the cornerstones of our monthly Pittsburgh Comics Salons (pictured above). To kick off his CW Daily News career, Sam shares some thoughts on “Furukawa and Nara”. He writes: “An Interview With Yoshimoto Nara Above is a link to a dialogue that’s pretty inspiring to me in kind of a symbolic manner (Hideo Furukawa is probably my favorite author – or maybe not). I found an album where he’s featured in a track (and there’s a track by Oval and the Zs – it almost feels like a dream, but I wish I could speak Japanese in this dream I’m having.) I don’t have a favorite artist, because it would be physically painful to pick one, but let’s pretend that Yoshimoto Nara is my favorite artist (though to be honest I don’t know too much about him – Ian Jones-Quartey did a really cool short based off his work https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrpmIZlFpWY ) So on a shallow level …words and images… and I guess.. comics right? Though I don’t know if their words and images would compliment each other too well if put together, but I look at howww they are maybeee people with massive strengths in their own domain, and them coming together to talk gives me power……..If I was better at writing I’m sure I’d be able to articulate this concept better – that’s it! I give up! “The only thing I allow myself to expect is that something unexpected will happen or appear through the course of writing. This ‘something unexpected,’ which underlies the work in a piece of writing should be independent from the writer, and only then does this ‘something’ emerge. In this way the writer is simply a bridge between the piece and image to be delivered. The writer wouldn’t need to claim ‘This is My work. Read My story.” – Hideo Furukawa “As for me, I don’t care much about the audience and their reactions nowadays. It might be another effect of aging. What I wish now is that my works remain for, say, 200 years after my death. I hope they are strong enough, in various senses to over to overcome the disappearance and death of the person who’s created them.” -Yoshimoto Nara Thanks for sharing this Sam – here’s the link again to the full conversation between Furukawa and Nara. Sam will continue to contribute news items and his own thoughts in the coming weeks – and probably a comic or two! ————————————————————————————————— Bethesda, MD – where we will be this weekend, in force – look for the blue shirts! Some of the fantastic workshops Comics Workbook is offering at SPX this weekend will be standing room only based on the signup numbers! We hope to see you there. Full Small Press Expo details HERE! ————————————————————————————————— Applications for the fall semester of the Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers are due September 16th 2016 – course starts September 23rd. FULL DETAILS HERE. The course is filling up, so if you are interested make sure to shoot us an email asap at santoroschoolATgmail…! ————————————————————————————————— Once again presenting this unique opportunity to get a rare Connor Willumsen book. “Swinespritzen” is now available from Comics Workbook. Connor and Frank Santoro reprinted this classic wacky pack originally produced for Breakdown Press in 2014. We have recreated the original item right down to the envelopes, paper, and crappy glue-job that Connor manifested one late night at Kinkos. We will have these at SPX but this is an extremely limited edition – so if you want one email santoroschoolATgmail or DM @santoro.frank on Instagram! ————————————————————————————————— I’ll be back with more news tomorrow (and hopefully full of the mysterious calm that descends right before a momentous occasion…?) Cheers – Sally Share this page: [...]

10/02/2017

Posted on October 2, 2017October 10, 2017 by Caleb Orecchio

Caleb Orecchio here with your Monday edition of the Daily News providing a CXC wrap-up.

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Sally Ingraham, Audra Stang, and Frank Santoro

What a weekend. A long weekend. From September 28th to October 1st I attended Cartoon Crossroads Columbus with Comics Workbook, and I have no regrets.

First I must thank Frank Santoro who, apart from being my favorite cartoonist, is the fearless leader of Comics Workbook –without whom, my experience of these festivals would be lacking any sense of purpose. Thanks Frank! Also have to thank Sally Ingraham who keeps me and the other kids in check and with things to do–she also serves as an inspiration of work ethic in comics.

Next I should thank the CXC Executive committee, the people who make this show what it is and tirelessly keep the wheels going–Jeff Smith, Lucy Caswell, Vijaya Iyer, Kathleen Glosan, Tom Spurgeon and Melody Reed. Thanks for putting on such a great show.

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FIRST DAY–Thursday September 28th

Got there in time to meet the rest of the Comics Workbook crew and see Kevin Huizenga’s talk about his use of time in comics. As you may have guessed, the talk was very in-depth and interesting. I thought it was cool that he remembers, vividly, drawing his first comic. He ran through his Ganges catalog and gave us examples of how he plays with time and how time has many different perspectives. You, dear reader, probably already know this, but he is extremely smart and I was really impressed with the amount of research that goes into each issue of Ganges.

And so we, the CW crew hung out and around OSU campus and caught up with each other and generally palled around. The official CW caravan crew was Frank Santoro, Sally Ingraham, Connor Willumsen, Audra Stang, and Kurt Ankeny driving in from Pittsburgh–then myself who came in from Dayton, OH. We also saw the likes of Adam Griffith, Phil Dokes, Juan Fernandez, Jenn Lisa, and Aaron Cockle that weekend.

Of course, how could I not mention the Billy Ireland. What you’ve heard is true. It’s amazing. Often, peoples hearts stop and their eyes get teary. I’ve written much on this before and so have others, so I won’t take up any more space on here about this subject.

SECOND DAY–Friday September 29th

First thing I saw was Leslie Stein’s tutorial on watercolor and other various materials she uses. Very fun lecture. Stein did great crowd work and was entertaining while she drew. I found it interesting just how much of an education this was for a lot of people in the audience who didn’t even know what a micron pen was(!). Side note, I think microns should die a quick and sudden death–but that’s just me.

Audra, Kurt and I got lunch and hung out. They gave me some tips on drawing portraits–they are both very accomplished in this field, among others, and I am often quite jealous of their ability.

At 3:00pm, was the Chris Ware spotlight moderated by Caitlin McGurk. My friends, you could not have seen a better talk. Chris Ware was, as usual, completely and utterly fantastic–funny, intelligent, self-deprecating–everything you’d ever want from the man. And Caitlin McGurk was an excellent interviewer, she could hold her own and her intellect matched Ware’s. In fact, Ware surprised her by mentioning how an article about memory that she wrote when she was nineteen, changed the way he thought about memory–the article was recommended by Chester Brown–and much of her ideas in that article made their way into Building Stories. Like I said, the interview was amazing, I could not be happier with the experience.

Chris Ware and Caitlin McGurk–sorry for bad lighting

Real quick, I’ll share one of the anecdotes that Ware shared about his daughter (when she was six)–I’m paraphrasing:

Ware: Okay, Daddy has to go upstairs to work.

Daughter: Daddy, you’re not going upstairs to work, you’re going upstairs to blame yourself.

(Uncontrollable laughter by crowd)

Then at 5:00pm comes The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum 40th Anniversary Reception. Got to spend quality time with Audra and Connor before the awards for Master Cartoonist and Transformative Cartoonist were awarded to Kyle Baker and Howard Cruse, respectively, by Tom Spurgeon and Jeff Smith. Before the awards were passed out, Jeff Smith gave a very touching thank you to all the staff, volunteers and sponsors of CXC. What was particularly touching was Smith’s thank you to Lucy Caswell–who was his mentor and, I think it’s fair to say, we would not know Jeff Smith as we know him today if not for Lucy.

THIRD and FOURTH DAY–Saturday September 3oth—Sunday October 1st

First day of Expo and Marketplace. Comics Workbook had our table next to Connor Willumsen’s which was nice. Frank ran both tables expertly. Watching him table, one learns the ropes. He’s certainly the best tabler I’ve seen–maybe only rivaled by his own mentor, Bill Boichel. People love going to Frank’s table and talking to him and commenting on “back issues” or anything that comes to mind.

It was fun to see him talk to the likes of Rob Clough, Peter Bagge, Matt Fraction, Tom Spurgeon, Jeff Smith, etc. etc. People have such a respect for Frank. He’s the man.

Connor Willumsen had workshops literally every hour while the library was open–AND he would occasionally come up to his table and draw sketches, sign and draw in his book–Anti-Gone, it’s amazing–for people. Connor’s amazing, dude can draw straight to ink like a master. I’d be mad at him if he wasn’t such a kind, thoughtful person.

Speaking of Connor, he was on a panel with Jeff Smith, Peter Bagge, and Kyle Baker–three giants of comics and some of the most successful cartoonist fiscally and critically. Despite Connor’s relatively low-profile compared to these legends, Connor held his own and impressed everyone on the panel with his cartooning prowess (all three legends took a look at his book during the session) and his ability to hold an audience.

Connor had a busy weekend and a tall tall mountain to climb–and he finished the race a mile in front of the pack. Frank says he’s the “starting center fielder” on the scene these days.

Sally Ingraham took over for Connor during his aforementioned panel because he was double-booked and people still wanted to learn comics. Every time I want to complain about comics and how much it engulfs my life, I remember that Sally is a savage and never complains. She is ready to jump in whenever and wherever CW needs her–and is totally prepared. AND she still manages to make a daily comic.

Audra Stang is a rising star. I heard critics mention her work multiple times throughout the weekend. People are starting to pay attention to her–and you should too.

Audra drawing in Rob Clough’s sketchbook

I have to mention how particularly fun the last CXC after-party at Pins Mechanical was. Evan Dorkin was the host and made everyone howl with laughter. When I arrived, Frank was holding a ping pong tournament where Dustin Harbin was the undisputed champ. We came in when he was battling the great JC Menu. Harbin has an interesting serve that is hard to keep track of, but it was no match for my past youth group skills. Once I came in to play–the pace changed. I never lost a game. Connor came close though–so did Dustin. It was fun–Frank had to bench me because I had beaten everyone and other people wanted to play. haha I say all this to brag about beating a bunch of great cartoonists at ping pong–it’s ridiculous.

All in all, CXC was great. I love going because, 1.) it’s my hometown festival, and 2.) I haven’t been to show that has such a mix of camps and to see all those camps mingling is something to behold. And my comics sold pretty well so no complaints from me.

Thanks again to everyone who makes CXC a great show, from the executive committee to the donors to the board of directors and volunteers. Thank you!

And once again, thanks to Frank and Sally for their support of the Comics Workbook “kids” and our endeavors.

-CO

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if you don’t know now you know

Be sure to check out the great Bill Boichel’s review of John Hankiewicz’s Education on this very site.
Latest Inkstuds interview is with Sophia Foster-Domino.
Speaking of which, Annie Mok talks to Sophia Foster-Domino over at TCJ.com.
Gina Wynbrandt is the latest guest on Comics Decalogue, also on TCJ.
Latest Process Party guest is Christopher Sebela.

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Suzy and Cecil – 10-2-2017 – by Audra Stang

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Comics Workbook

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Posted in NewsTagged Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum, cartoon crossroads columbus, cxc 2017

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Posted on October 2, 2017October 10, 2017

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11/09/2018

Sally IngrahamNovember 9, 2018NewsSally Ingraham here – I am traveling at the moment, going to birding festivals (which are a lot like comics expos!) in TX and NM. I am seeing rare and interesting birds, meeting amateur and professional naturalists and ornithologists and quite a few “bird artists”. When I walk the floor of the vender show at these birding festivals, I see similarities to the small press comics community – but I am one of the few people who plays in both sandboxes. Increasingly, I am a “bird comics” maker. Right before this trip I gathered all of my birding comics into one place – check them out on Instagram by following me at @duck_hollow_comics. My work is documentary and verging on journal comics, especially when I make them on the fly, in the middle of a birding trip, as seen below: Typical “rare bird” behavior! Incidentally, the Golden-Crowned Warbler, which we DID NOT see, is a Central American warbler that has ventured a bit further north than it usually does. The Buff-bellied Hummingbird which you see in the comic above – one of the birds that we DID see – is not a rarity for South Texas, but it is not a species I ever see in my usual haunts of Western PA! (Apologies for my bird nerd moment!) I met another “bird comics” maker at the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival yesterday – Rosemary Mosco, who became well known for her web comics Bird and Moon. Science and nature cartoons! I have been a fan of her work for awhile, and it was terrific to meet her and immediately find a kindred spirit. Just briefly we touched on the interesting and historic significance of science comics, and the relationship between female artists and nature, and the overlooked impact of amateur female naturalists on science, etc. Great stuff. Check out Rosemary Mosco’s work and if you haven’t already, be sure to follow me on Instagram too. See you out there, on the road or somewhere in nature! Share this page: [...]

M. S. Harkness – Rowhouse Residency Report

Comics WorkbookJuly 21, 2017Residency Reports / School UpdatesM. S. Harkness lives in Minneapolis, MN. A recent graduate of MCAD, she makes comics and is a personal trainer. She joined us in Pittsburgh for a Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency in July 2017. Here are her thoughts about visiting the city and her Rowhouse Residency experience. ————————————————————————————————————— I wanted to participate in the Rowhouse Residency as a grad present to myself after grinding for four years in art school, under the excellent tutelage of Kevin Huizenga. I’d never been to Pittsburgh before and I wanted to see Copacetic Comics. I wasn’t sure about what the experience was, but I wanted to make it my summer trip where I could get a lot of work done but still be on vacation. I think I messaged Frank something like “I’m working on Tinderella, I’m going to have like half the book inked so I just wanna grind on that.” So I crowdfunded and made plane tickets happen. It was a really cool experience. I valued the time I had and the opportunity to wander through as a guest. I dunno what the typical residency is – I came in open to doing whatever I could to see the city and improve my craft, but I had a set goal of just churning out pages. So every day I played a lot of music and stretched the shit out of my wrists so I didn’t mess them up too bad with carpal tunnel. I got to go to the Pittsburgh Comics Salon on the 5th and meet Juan Fernandez. Frank looked at my work and gave me good insight onto what he was seeing. But for the most part, I did a lot of drawing and talking with Sally Ingraham about cartooning and teaching, and how much we cared about what we were both doing. That sort of time is really invaluable, especially since I got to do it outside of the setting of a convention, or an expo, where you’re just stressed the fuck out and tired and not really hearing what anyone was saying. I got to watch fireworks and take nature walks with other cartoonists, which is really good after a day of being inside over a table. In total, I inked about 11 pages, so that felt good. I left a stack of Prizefighter’s and Floor Troll minis at Copacetic Comics, so cop those if you haven’t yet. The last night I was in town I got to hang out with my auto bio BFFL Nate McDonough who lived on the whole other side of town and I spent like 60 bucks on Lyft rides to see. He was worth it though, and we stayed up late as hell screaming about the comics we were going to make. I want to do an anthology with him at some point but don’t tell him that!!! Other than Frank telling me ways to improve my process, I did a lot of ‘why’ thinking while I was in Pittsburgh, sort of meditating on my own reasons for doing what I do in comics. It was all really constructive, not that sort of awful anxious shit, just a lot of thinking about what the next steps are going to be once I get this book done and how I want to live and portray my life. I’m only 24 so everything is really cool and exciting and not dumb (in regards to my career – the world itself is shit and awful). I always just want to make things that are entertaining and worth reading. I highly recommend the Rowhouse Residency to all folks. If you make comics but haven’t had the chance to pick the brain of someone who thinks about comics as a language and a science, Frank will give your work the combing it needs to be understood and received. Sally’s a really good resource too – if you’re interested in integrating comics into a teaching curriculum, she’s a powerhouse. Tinderella should be out some time next year, either when it gets picked up and thrown into a publisher’s kickstarter, or when you preorder it from me personally and I get it printed myself. Follow me on Tumblr, Twitter, Instagram or better yet, buy my comics on Bigcartel! Big shout outs to Bill Boichel, it was lovely meeting you <3 Also to Frank and Sally, I’m sorry I stole the keys on accident I hope they got back to you okay in the mail. xoxo M.S. HARKNESS ————————————————————————————————————— For more information about the Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency visit this page or email santoroschoolATgmail Share this page: [...]

02/14/2017

Aaron CockleFebruary 14, 2017NewsAaron here today with Podcasts for Grownups; Gerhard Richter Comics; (SOME)BODY at Adam Baumgold Gallery; Open Access at the Met; Frank S and Mickey Z, talking Risography; Daniel Clowes, talking on u-tube (with French subtitles!) ————————————————————————————————— The Comics for Grownups crew takes a look at Last Look by Charles Burns, Everything Is Teeth by Evie Wyld and Joe Sumner, and The Unquotable Trump by R. Sikoryak. ————————————————————————————————— Often standing alone, the Biped is a loner in a world of the replicas. J.Hoberman looks at some lost Gerhard Richter cartoons at the New York Review: Comic Strip’s austerely sketchy terrain is sometimes darkened by the artist’s thumb and palm prints. On other pages, Richter employs clusters of dots to suggest a desert. (The Biped dives into the sand on one page to surface in the next.) Richter’s drawings are annotated by pages or passages of elegantly blotchy, largely indecipherable writing with a family resemblance to Cy Twombly’s calligraphy; the use of ominously unreadable dialogue balloons, obscure crypto maps, and ornate official stamps suggest Saul Steinberg as another point of reference. ————————————————————————————————— (SOME)BODY February 18-April 8, 2017 Adam Baumgold Gallery 60 East 66 Street, NYC Featuring work by: LYNDA BARRY • POLINA BArSKAYA • Marc bell • BARTON LIDICE BENES • todd bienvenu • BETTE BLANK • VARUJAN BOGHOSIAN • ERNIE BUSHMILLER • DANIEL CLOWES • JOE COLEMAN • WILLIAM COPLEY • STUART DAVIS • ROY DeFOREST • MARCEL DZAMA • RAFAEL FERRER • dan fischer • JOHN GUTMANN • AL HANSEN • KIRK HAYES • NADIRA HUSAIn • SUE GERARD • JAIME HERNANDEZ • ALeX KatZ • ella kruglyanskaya • TALA MADANI • RICHARD MCGUIRE • JIM NUTT • christina ramberg • PETER SAUL • SETH • SAUL STEINBERG • MARK TANSEY • ADRIAN TOMINE • Ernest tino trova • CHRIS WARE • RACHEL WHITEREAD • DAVID WOJNAROWICZ • CRYS YIN • RAY YOSHIDA ————————————————————————————————— Creative Commons Zero at the Met The Metropolitan Museum of Art recently released a massive amount of work to the online masses: As of today, all images of public-domain works in The Met collection are available under Creative Commons Zero (CC0). So whether you’re an artist or a designer, an educator or a student, a professional or a hobbyist, you now have more than 375,000 images of artworks from our collection to use, share, and remix—without restriction. This policy change to Open Access is an exciting milestone in The Met’s digital evolution, and a strong statement about increasing access to the collection and how to best fulfill the Museum’s mission in a digital age. ————————————————————————————————— O Risograph, My Risograph! Over at the TCJ blog, Frank Santoro has several questions for Mickey Zacchilli about riso printing: Personally, I am fascinated with how risograph printing has changed making color comics. Before risograph was around the choices were expensive offset or expensive print on demand. And often dealing with those printers was difficult. The “pro” riso printers I have engaged are not faceless sales reps on the phone who have no experience making comics. So riso printers and their enthusiasm for the materials has reinvigorated the small press scene – which has drifted into “book publishing” (like giant offset press books) – and I was hoping you could speak to that? Yeah, I think that riso printing really has opened up a lot of options for people in a lot of ways! Especially in terms of self publishing! I really prefer being able to do something myself if I can, when I can. I think it’s important to keep the overhead low, because I think that books and zines are really important to offer to people at a price that is reasonable, that they can afford. I guess that’s why I don’t really like the “art chic” end of riso-printing, because it really is an affordable way to make a book or zine extra fun, and playing like it’s “high end” or “high art” is unfair and also just not true. But who am I? ————————————————————————————————— À l’occasion de son exposition à la Galerie Martel, Daniel Clowes nous parle de son parcours Clowes talking about comics and film, film and comics, in his usual way. ————————————————————————————————— 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. ————————————————————————————————— A Cosmic Journey – 2-14-2017 – by Cameron Arthur ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 2-14-2017 – by Sally Ingraham ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 2-14-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio ————————————————————————————————— Cozytown – 2-14-2017 – Juan Fernandez Share this page: [...]

08/08/2017

Aaron CockleAugust 7, 2017NewsAaron Cockle here today with Flipism in the USA; New York Comics & Picture-story Symposium Fall 2017 Schedule; The Black Hood; Whit Taylor/Miranda Harmon; Workers of the World, Conform!; Book-making in the USA ————————————————————————————————— ‘At every crossroad of life, let Flipism chart your course!’ On an episode of the new season of the streaming Netflix series House of Cards, a political crisis in the United States may have to be decided by a coin flip (as determined by that country’s originating document of fundamental principals and established precedents), and the President in this alternate history extols the benefits of Flipism, a philosophy created by Carl Barks for a story in a Donald Duck comic in 1952. To date, Flipism remains as valid as any other belief system currently in practice. ————————————————————————————————— New York Comics & Picture-Story Symposium Fall 2017 Schedule Lectures of specific interest to readers of this newsblog include: September 26 – Katie Fricas October 3 – Sue Coe October 10 – Kurt Ankeny ————————————————————————————————— ‘A number of the cartoonists focus in on the grey, hazy feeling of depression.’ Rob Clough reviews the excellent anthology The Black Hood: An Anthology of Depression and Anxiety, edited by Josh Bayer and Mike Freiheit. With regard to trying to find a way out, Lizz Hickey’s “My Lamictal Side-Effect Diary” is another great fit for this book. There are many cartoonists here who do weird and unnerving autobio as well as bizarre fiction, so it makes sense not only to include them, but that they’d be willing to talk about it in such a blunt manner. Hickey goes week by week and talks about the doses of medication she’s taking and the effects, which range from nervous to sleepy, to normal, to frustrated. The final week seems promising at the highest dose, until she becomes manic, teary, and tired once again–and that’s the end of the strip. No further conclusions are offered. ————————————————————————————————— In other Rob Clough News… At his review blog, High-Low, Clough has started a new series, High-Low Intersection, an occasional (and hopefully soon to be regular) feature that will highlight reviews, essays and interviews by other writers about comics, specifically for this site. They will be posted on High-Low’s regular blank day (Friday) when they appear. There are so many excellent writers about comics and too few of them have a regular outlet for their work. In this first edition, Whit Taylor interviews Miranda Harmon: What advice would you give to fans of your work who are looking to make their own comics? People should come before work if you can help it. When you’re making friends, find your peers instead of chasing down your heroes. Keep reminding everyone that you exist by making comics and showing up. It can feel lonely at first but in my experience people respond to sincerity and kindness. Really listen and get to know people and draw from your own experiences when you make comics. ————————————————————————————————— But, Ostwald complained, in the realms of science and geistige Arbeit—which roughly translates as intellectual work—there had been “virtually no level of organization.” At Triple Canopy, Nader Vossoughian about the history of information standards, standardization of information, and what it all means for someone reading this on a computer screen (or printed out on regular paper, I guess): The imposition of uniformity that was achieved before and after WWII by the German state and party organizations is now more likely to be undertaken by software companies, industrial consortiums, and groups such as the ISO and ASTM International. They claim only to ease the circulation of information and goods, but in fact they make highly political decisions about, for instance, the flow of data in packets through broadband cables. As Andrew Russell asserts in Open Standards and the Digital Age: History, Ideology, and Networks (2014), the rhetoric of openness that characterizes the Internet belies the role of sophisticated (and nearly invisible) forms of hierarchical control. Russell scrutinizes the “system builders” who create the infrastructure on which we rely, and who are “always engaged in ideological and discursive work, not merely technical work.” ————————————————————————————————— Never Comes Tomorrow – Frank made a graphic novel about his parents and he needs help making handbound copies for each of them. Frank Santoro, our illustrious founder/editor-in-chief, is raising some money for a book-making project, and is offering a good deal of historical comics documents in support of this. Please consider helping out. ————————————————————————————————— And remember: ————————————————————————————————— A Cosmic Journey – 8-8-2017 – by Cameron Arthur ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 8-8-2017 – by Gabriella Tito ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 8-8-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

San Diego Comic-Con International 2018

Chris Anthony DiazJuly 24, 2018The Diaz ArchiveMy first Comic-Con ever! So my apologies, I tried my best to take as many photos as possible, but this show is overwhelming, yet a lot of fun. Also, I lugged around too much stuff to get signed, which i brought — yes excuses! Anyways, this is all I ended up with despite going in with a more extensive list of cartoonists I wanted to photograph! Oh well, hopefully next year I end up taking more. San Diego Comic-Con International 2018, downtown San Diego Convention Center Exhibit Hall, Thursday, July 19, 2018 Share this page: [...]

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