Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in NewsTagged caleb orecchio, cxc, gabriella tito, juan fernandez, Mardou, phil dokes, Rob Clough, whit taylor, zack soto

Juan Fernández

Posted on October 11, 2017October 11, 2017

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08/14/2017

Caleb OrecchioAugust 13, 2017NewsCaleb Orecchio here with thoughts on comics by Matt Seneca, and other news. ———————————————————————————————— Flipping through my some of my magazine-sized comics, I ran into my copies of Matt Seneca’s Trap; The Magazine About Drugs. Seneca is someone who I feel like doesn’t get talked about enough. Below are some thoughts: Matt Seneca‘s comics are painfully brutal and at times seem gratuitously so. His work reads like the cartoonist has been to hell and back. The work never flinches, never covering up the grotesquely violent or sexually perverse. It has been a while since I have read a cartoonist’s work that is so consistently visceral. You can read his debut work online, here. You can buy his other in-print comics here. I think a lot of people know Seneca from the podcast Comic Books Are Burning in Hell and his comics criticism. I was a bit suspicious when I heard he was also a cartoonist AND a critic, but the latter he is no longer unless you count the podcast. I was pleasantly surprised by his comics. Though at first glance they seem a bit rugged, his storytelling is what won me over at first. Seneca’s religious horror epic 200 Deaf Boys is a very conscious and complete story, a quality that seems to be lost on most self-published cartoonists (or really most comics makers in general); and though many would argue that Seneca’s drawing is a bit lack luster, I would argue that it gets exponentially better with each comic he makes–particularly when he uses color. In his latest and greatest work so far, Trap: The Magazine About Drugs vol. 2 no. 3: Frankie Teardrop, Seneca reaches new personal bests. He continues, as he’s always done, to not draw panel borders. This technique really comes to life in this particular strip where he will often alternate colors within a panel, rendering the use of borders unnecessary. He also expands on his use of not automatically using black lines as outlines. The color and use of black are one and the same for Seneca which makes for really nice and bright images that feel loose and alive. Not a lot, that I can find, has been written about Seneca’s comics. The links on his tumblr to reviews have been moved, removed or deleted. Like I said before, his work is riddled with the brutally violent and sexually explicit. Their is a lot of pain and anger in his work–but it is all completely and utterly earnest with little irony which gives his stories a sense of reality that the most autobiographic of cartoonists struggle to render. Seneca has an upcoming comic called The Infinite Prison. It looks great and the pencils already suggest that it will be awesome. Excited to see how it turns out. ———————————————————————————————— if you don’t know, now you know Never Comes Tomorrow – 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. Check out the latest episodes of Study Group’s Process Party. The latest guest being Darryl Ayo and Gina Wynbrandt. There was a fair amount of hubbub around Rich Tommaso’s recent lamentations on the poor amount of comic shops ordering his latest book. Seems like he took a breath and talked a bit about it with Aaron McPherson on TCJ.com. Not sure how I feel about this League of Regrettable Heroes stuff, but Heidi Macdonald’s interview with the author at least has me intrigued. SPX is almost upon us. This will be my first year attending and look forward to the experience. Check out their site and read up on what’s happening with the show this year. I like hearing when libraries intensify their focuses on comics. The people in Salt Lake City have spoken! ———————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 8-14-2017 – by Gabriella Tito Share this page: [...]

02/16/2017

Sally IngrahamFebruary 15, 2017NewsSam Ombiri riffs on Henry Darger and Hideo Furukawa, and Sally shares updates from the Fifth Annual Black Comic Book Festival and other comics news! ————————————————————————————————— Sam Ombiri here: I’ve really been into this Henry Darger documentary – The Realms of the Unreal. It’s really good. There’s this amazing part where they are recounting a time when Henry lost one picture – one that I think was one of his main references for drawing the girls. (Editor’s Note: “The girls” are the Vivian Girls, characters in Darger’s 15,000 page fantasy novel The Realms of the Unreal.) He held in such high regard that the story changes as a result, and he punishes his characters until he can find the picture. That part was amazing. I kind of skipped all over the place as a result of my low attention span, so I don’t remember where it was. I think my attention span wass also lowered because this documentary reminded me of the ones I’d see in elementary school that I wouldn’t pay attention to. At times I feel Henry Darger would purposely lie to himself in order to go through with a certain aspect of the story, and then get away from that lie. At least I’d like to think that, but maybe I’m the one doing that. There’s a part in this video where Jesse Moynihan talks about how there’s still power in rearranging history and things aren’t tied down to one telling. Or in what feels like a similar spirit, Hideo Furukawa, who is known for sometimes writing remixes of already written books, says “Music can be divided into melody and the rest, and you can take out either of them separately. If you take out the former, you “cover” that music; if you take out the whole of the latter, you “remix” it. Likewise, fiction is divided into the narrative and the rest.” At the beginning of his novel Belka Why Don’t You Bark he puts at the beginning, “Yes I admit this is fiction but then what isn’t?” He also put after that, “This book is dedicated to Boris Yeltsin; Hey Boris I know your secret!” Hideo continued, “The narrative needs some vehicle, which is provided by different storytellers each age. In other words, the same narrative can change their vehicle, and in that sense the simple re-telling (covering, you might say) is always possible. Remixing is, for me anyway, an attempt to go beyond that, to take the whole of the preceding work.” Hideo Furukawa is someone who’s often referred to as a chameleon for doing all kinds of experiments with the way he writes his books. (Side Note: I like CF’s idea that experimenting just means not taking yourself seriously and that you go into a state where the ordinary laws of creativity don’t apply. I think it’s what he said.) Here’s one experiment Hideo Furukawa did, for example: There’s this book called Tribes of Arabian Nights that takes place in Cairo. Because there were more and more books coming into Japan that needed to be translated, he claimed that he didn’t write the novel, he was just translating it. (At least that’s what I think could be his reason. This is just speculation on my part – this was the automatic reason that formed in my mind. The more I think about it though that’s like every country.) I’m not too sure what Hideo’s remixes are like. Thankfully there’s gonna be one that’s being released in English in June which I’m excited to read. Although, I’d rather just read one of his actual novels. I read part of something he did for Tale of Genji, but it wasn’t strictly speaking a remix – it wasn’t a retelling. To my knowledge it doesn’t have the same rules as his remixes. For one thing, he re-titled it 300 Treacherous Women, instead of Tale of Genji Remix (which would make for a pretty hilarious title. My one friend was telling me about how this musician who I think is part of the Brainfeeder collective recorded Pomegranates by Parajanov. My immediate reaction was ha ha oh no!) Hideo’s version of the story was more based on a ghost coming and proclaiming how, until the story was modified back to how it actually happened, this one woman would keep giving unrest to this other woman. I assume his remixes are different. Hideo said, “For the remix of Kenji Miyazawa’s The Bears of Mount Nametoko the bears appear in the ‘Mount Nametoko’ story. In Japan bears are something of a deity, reigning over the mountains (the natural world). They don’t appear in towns (the human world). Hunters, however, play the role of mediators, and turn part of the mountains into commodities, which are circulated in the towns. What we witness here is the violent contact between nature and man. We are made to face the fact that bears are something which are not cattle but are eaten, and humans allow themselves to take something out of nature to keep themselves alive in this world. Kenji Miyazawa, as author Kenji, kept writing about this staggering fact. When Japan was violently attacked by nature in 2011 (the year of the Great East Japan Earthquake), I thought I, as author Hideo Furukawa, had to retell those stories written by Kenji. I could re-tell the stories, precisely because Kenji had already told them.” – Sam Ombiri ————————————————————————————————— Sally here – Over on Vice there’s a video of Ronald Wimberly speaking at the Schomburg Center during the Fifth Annual Black Comic Book Festival. Wimberly tells us about growing up in D.C., his new book, and what it means to have black representation in comics. Check it out HERE (watch the full episode of ‘Daily VICE’ on go90.) There was a nice write-up of the Fifth Annual Black Comic Book Festival (which took place Jan. 13th and 14th 2017) on Okay Africa – it includes lots of pictures! Even better than pictures, The Blerdgurl offers up Part One of her interview series with creators at the Black Comic Book Festival this year – check it out below! ————————————————————————————————— The Comics Reporter draws our attention to a treasure-trove of Ta-Nehisi Coates‘ thoughts about writing The Black Panther, posted on The Atlantic – HERE. From his interest in the Dora Milajae – the all-female troop of bodyguards to the King – and how he uses them to talk about feminism in the story, to the poetry that opens and closes issue #3, to his thoughts on Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing, there’s a lot of interesting stuff to unpack. ————————————————————————————————— From the Comics Workbook TV archives – Bill Boichel riffs on Jackie Ormes. She was the first African-American woman to be a syndicated cartoonist. She is one of the nominees for this year’s Will Eisner Hall of Fame inductees. ————————————————————————————————— Announcing the Spring Semester of thee Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers! The course starts March 7th 2017. Apply by February 26th to get 100 bux off! The course is 8 weeks long – payment plans are available. Application guidelines: – 3 figure drawings done on blank 3 x 5 index cards – 3 landscape drawings done on blank 3 x 5 index cards – 3 still life drawings done on blank 3 x 5 cards – draw in a contour line style –think Matisse – no under-drawing – draw directly in ink – just send me small jpgs of images – dont post to your blog pls – send specific url links to any comics work you have done. If you haven’t done comics before that is not a problem. Email santoroschoolATgmail to apply! More details HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Blinkers – 2-16-2017 – by Jack Brougham ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 2-16-2017 – by Sally Ingraham ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 2-16-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio ————————————————————————————————— Cozytown – 2-16-2017 – by Juan Fernandez Share this page: [...]

07/15/2016

Sally IngrahamJuly 15, 2016NewsThis Friday Sally has got exciting news from John Porcellino, an update on Rokudenashiko, Lisa Lim in MUTHA Magazine, Anders Nilsen remembering Geneviève Castrée, a look at Shannon Wright and a past take on Okazaki Kyoko, plus the state of comics affairs in the Middle East, and Audra Stang at the Rowhouse. Dig in. ————————————————————————————————— Lisa Lim shares some of her most beautiful, but haunted memories of her mother on MUTHA Magazine this week. The text below accompanies the image above. “Being in moving vehicles also calmed her nerves. We used to ride the trains just for fun. On the train, I would spread across the car seat, lay my head on my mother’s lap, as if I were in bed. We were as rude as the graffiti, spitters, and kids carrying boom boxers on their shoulders. What can I say? It was the ‘80s.” – Lisa Lim This is an excerpt from a longer story called My Egyptian Fortune Cookie, which Lim originally published in the Nashville Review 2010 Fall Issue. You can view the whole comic on her website, and be sure to check out the other comics she features there. ————————————————————————————————— The Huffington Post dug into the story of “How Rokudenashiko took on the Japanese patriarchy with her adorable lady parts” recently. Although most of the charges against her were dropped in May 2016, she was still fined 400,000 yen for distributing obscene images. Her book What is Obscenity? The Story of a Good For Nothing Artist and Her Pussy (Koyama Press, 2016) has been greeted with fascination and acclaim since it’s publication, and it looks like Rokudenashiko has zero plans of parting ways with her “revolutionary vagina“. From the article: “What Is Obscenity? is an unbelievable true tale of one brave artist and her inspiring vagina, and just how much trouble the two of them have caused together. Through it all, Rokudenashiko has kept a tone of playfulness and resilience, showing there is nothing more threatening than a girl who is willing and ready to play rough. “Since I’ve started my work in manko art, I’ve been fighting back against the old men who complain about it,” she writes. “I’ve decided to keep making even more ridiculous work, with all seriousness. Though this was kind of a joke at first, now I am joking around with every ounce of my body and soul.” – Rokudenashiko via The Huffington Post Read the whole thing here. Purchase a copy of What Is Obscenity? here. ————————————————————————————————— Maren Williams profiles Middle-East and North African comics for the CBLDF, stating: “Without a doubt, the current world hot spot for underground and experimental comics is the Middle East and North Africa–a fact that might surprise many Americans. From Egypt’s Tok Tok to Lebanon’s Samandal to Nadia Khiari’s radical cartoon cat Willis from Tunis, creators across the region are reinventing the format, circumventing government censorship and publishing taboos through the use of crowdfunding and social media.” – Maren Williams via CBLDF If this only whets your whistle, then good – because Williams is riffing on an article in the LA Review of Books by Jonathan Guyer – aptly titled Understanding Arab Comics – which delves in to the anthology Muqtatafat as well as the larger conversation about comics in the Middle East. Guyer writes: “In the past decade, and especially since the 2011 uprisings, talented Arab artists have traded comics for comix. Alternative zines, web strips, graphic novels, and other underground publications encompass a diversity of aesthetics, narrative techniques, and political messages. Today, Beirut, Cairo, and Casablanca each have their own Crumbs, Spiegelmans, and Moulys.” – Jonathan Guyer via LARB Guyer goes on to break down the Muqtatafat anthology, which after a 5 year struggle was finally published by American scholars A. David Lewis, Anna Mudd, and Paul Beran. While the anthology contains work by “the region’s most significant comic creators” – “…Muqtatafat’s format inadvertently reproduces stereotypes about “artists from the Middle East region.” By grouping together contemporary works from Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, and Palestine without explanation, Muqtatafat’s editors assert an underlying connection between these comics without acknowledging the debates about the comic movement’s identity. Muqtatafat avoids some of the most provocative questions surrounding the growing Arab comic movement.” – Johnathan Guyer via LARB Guyer chooses not to avoid those questions, and the article is well worth a close read. Check it out here. ————————————————————————————————— I was pleased to see Shannon Wright‘s name pop up on the Comics Workbook Daily News yesterday, and got myself caught up with her endeavors. An interview with Muse Milk from February 2016 proved a good read. She begins by speaking a little about how she got into comics: “I grew up in Virginia and was the only girl among my brothers. I was very much a tomboy and consumed anything my older brother and older boy cousins were watching and that included a lot of cartoons and a lot of anime. So, when I became exposed to those two things, and realized people drew them, I knew instantly what I wanted to do for a living. There wasn’t a moment I wasn’t drawing my favorite characters or ideas from my head. Even growing up in a Christian household, I brought scraps of paper or composition notebooks to church to keep myself occupied. But it was like a game of trying not to get caught due to the fact my grandpa was the pastor. So yeah, as far as I know, I’ve been drawing since I was a little girl (4 years old as my parents like to stress).” – Shannon Wright Read the rest of the interview HERE. Wright is a Comics Workbook Correspondence Course graduate, and we are looking forward to featuring the comic she completed for the course here on the site very soon. Stay tuned! ————————————————————————————————— From a bit further back in the vaults, the CW news team dug up an overview of Okazaki Kyoko‘s career via the blog Ceiling Gallery (from 2014). Dave Kracker wrote: “When other artists stressed over deadlines Okazaki partied at the club. You know, for research. London Nite, the legendary new wave event at Shinjuku’s Tsubaki House, served as the backdrop for the semi-autobiographical Tokyo Girl’s Bravo. Music was a huge part of her life and she wrote what she knew. In Pink, when the boyfriend Haru “writes” a best-selling novel by copy and pasting lines from other books, the inspiration is more hip-hop sampling than the Beat Generation’s cut-up method. Maybe she got away it because she wasn’t writing for traditional manga anthologies. She got her start in Pump, a zine of reader-submitted material that ran her high school doodles and short essays. After graduation she wrote a short one-shot, Girls At Our Best, for subculture magazine Tokyo Otona Club where she caught the eye of two editors, Ogata Katsuhiro and Otsuka Eiji, who brought her on board their magazine, Manga Burikko, in 1982. Contemporary girl’s comics had lost their edge and Okazaki represented something raw.” – Dave Kracker Check out the rest of the article HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Audra Stang was at the Rowhouse this week doing a 3-day residency. Audra is already an accomplished cartoonist, with work that includes The Ice Ray (2014), a comic made for the Comics Workbook Correspondence Course, and Love Me Like An Autograph (2015). While she was in Pittsburgh, in between sparing bouts with Frank (and myself) in the Comics Workbook “dojo”, Audra also drew a new comic in it’s entirety (pictured above). We will have a Residency Report from Audra to share soon, and of course the comic she made here in Pittsburgh to look forward to, as well as her new webcomic Star Valley, which will be launching at the end of this summer. You can preview it here. ————————————————————————————————— John Porcellino has some great news this week: “The moment we have all possibly been waiting for is upon us: King-Cat #76 is shipping NOW! This new issue features A Trip to the Confluence, Dreaming, Old People in Restaurants, Sports Radio, Fall Signs, Winter Signs, Radishes, Birds, and 9 pages of fascinating Letters to the Editor; plus more. A Weird One — (But Not Bad). (32 digest pages, black and white throughout.)“ For ordering info and other details, click HERE! ————————————————————————————————— Anders Nilsen wrote a heartbreaking “remembrance” for Geneviève Castrée over on The Comics Journal. ————————————————————————————————— Go out this weekend and do something beautiful or make something beautiful with the people whom you love. If it’s a comic, all the better. Cheers – Sally Share this page: [...]

10/25/2016

Aaron CockleOctober 25, 2016NewsAaron here today with Jack Brougham on LICAF; Sonia Landy Sheridan; Comic Arts Brooklyn; Magical Realist Videogames; DADA; Chick Dissections ————————————————————————————————— The Hills and Streets – Jack Brougham on LICAF Here on the site we have a reflection from Jack Brougham on his weekend at LICAF in Kendal and the kinds of thoughts it stirred. I’ve been thinking a lot recently about closing the circle between creating and publishing and publishing small and often in cheap little editions, road-testing stories in public, and building larger narratives or works from small individually published units. So far so confused? – excellent. Anyway, arriving at the table with this in the back of my mind it was great to see the organizers had hired Comics Workbook a photocopier so we could run off copies of the zines and comics produced in the CW workshops that took place on Saturday morning. Workshops are great and everything, but when you can demonstrate to people how easy it is to start running off copies of your own stuff to share, that’s something else. ————————————————————————————————— Generative Systems The Networked Performance blog has an overview of Sonia Landy Sheridan’s Generative Systems program, developed at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in the 1970s. This will be of specific interest to people who use copy machines in their work, or technology in their art-making in general, or who work at institutions that would allow one to do so. With the cooperation of scientists, industry, artists and a unique body of graduate students, Sheridan was able to explore the implications of the communications revolution for the arts. As artist-in-residence at 3M’s Color Research and Central Research Labs, she was able to take back to her students up-to-date industrial experiences. Sheridan shaped her art and teaching on the premise that art, science and technology function as intertwining systems of thought. Additional documentation of Sheridan’s work can be found at the Daniel Langlois Foundation for Art, Science, and Technology. ————————————————————————————————— CAB 2016 Comic Arts Brooklyn, arguably the best show of its kind in these United States (and probably in the top 2-3 comics festivals in all of North America), will be held Saturday, November 5, 11am-7pm at Mt. Carmel Gymnasium, 12 Havemeyer St in scenic Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY, USA. As with previous years, this is a showcase of some of the best alternative/indie/art comics, small press, and self-published work that’s available. Admission is free. Satellite events include: Organized by Gabe Fowler and Desert Island. ————————————————————————————————— Triennale Game Collection Some immersive experiences for people who have access to smartphones. Via Allison Meier at the Hyperallergic blog: For me, the most enjoyable game by far, and the one that kept my attention the longest, is “Neighbor” by Jake Elliott, Tamas Kemenczy, and Ben Babbitt of the American Cardboard Computer. You’re a sombrero-sporting wanderer seemingly on a retreat at a desert compound with the sun-washed colors and modernist shapes of a Ricardo Legorreta building. Like Cardboard Computer’s Kentucky Route Zero, which had its fourth act released last month, there are tones of magical realism in your exploration. Interacting with the sandy environment reveals pleasing tasks like harvesting aloe leaves, making salves at a cauldron, reflecting at a pool, and stowing cherished objects for “the far side.” Offerings left at a monolith might be taken with a can of spinach left in return. And then there’s your cowboy neighbor, whose friendship is gradually developed without words in this serene place. ————————————————————————————————— DADA Backissues Princeton University’s Blue Mountain Project has made all 8 issues of the DADA arts journal from 1917-1921 available. Via Josh Jones at the Open Culture blog: Edited by Tzara and including his manifesto in issue 3, the magazine “served to distinguish and define Dada in the many cities it infiltrated,” writes the Art Institute of Chicago, “and allowed its major figures to assert their power and position.” Dada succeeded a previous attempt by Ball at a journal called Cabaret Voltaire—named for his Zurich theater—which survived for one issue in 1917 before folding, along with the first version of the cabaret. That year, Tzara, “an ambitious and skilled promoter… began a relentless campaign to spread the ideas of Dada…. As Dada gained momentum, Tzara took on the role of a prophet by bombarding French and Italian artists and writers with letters about Dada’s activities.” Whatever Dada was, it wasn’t shy about promoting itself. ————————————————————————————————— Jack T. Chick Under the Microscope Jack T. Chick died yesterday at 92. His bizarre and evangelical “chick tracts” – found at the most desperate places in America; bus stops, subways and street corners everywhere – could probably be considered the most widely distributed mini-comics. Hundreds of Millions have been printed and distributed… His death is a significant comics death, in a hard to define way. His hate-filled messages will not be missed. The Enter the Jabberwock blog has taken the time to dissect and/or eviscerate a good deal of Jack T. Chick’s tract work. From the Dark Dungeons Revisited (Epic Tag-Team Gary Gygax Died For Your Sins Edition) post: The idea that “rock music” is somehow “occult paraphernalia” is pretty hilarious. It’s just these arbitrary designations for things that old, conservative-minded people find generally unpleasant. KNEE SOCKS ARE OCCULT PARAPHERNALIA. I DON’T LIKE PEANUT BUTTER. YOUNG PEOPLE NEED TO PUT MORE CLOTHES ON. TELEVISION HAS TOO MANY COMMERCIALS. IT’S WAY TOO COLD IN HERE. LET’S BURN IT ALL. Share this page: [...]

Spotlight on Laura Pérez Vernetti

Juan FernándezAugust 24, 2016los CómicsQuien es Laura? Unknown to most anglophones (and even many Spaniards), Laura Pérez Vernetti is a spanish illustrator from Barcelona that contributed regularly to the underground Spanish comics magazine, el Víbora, from 1981 until 1991. Her work is distanced from standard aesthetics and conventional narratives, focusing primarily on comics that deal head on with themes of erotica, experimental forms, and socio-politcal commentary (the Spanish Civil War in particular). Additionally, she has adapted the works of Maupassant, De Quicey, Jung and Kafka to comics. A heavy hitter. A more comprehensive bio can be found on the Lambiek Comiclopedia. Most recently she put out an homage to the Portuguese poet, Pessoa. A biography and adaptation of his poems and prose, she published ‘Pessoa & Cia‘ in December 2011 through Luces de Gálibo. Those spanish speakers among you, interested in learning more about this book, which she both wrote and illustrated can check out the short that RTVE aired in January of 2012, along with the article written by Jésus Jiménez. Here’s a taste of her work: Share this page: [...]

10/11/2017

Posted on October 11, 2017October 11, 2017 by Juan Fernández

Reflections on the existing comics festival paradigm in the United States + your daily strips from Comics Workbook!

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Juan here: Expanding the Festival Tool Kit – 2017 has been floating around the internet since Monday and people have been chiming in their thoughts, reflecting on the existing comics festival paradigm. Warts and all. Seeing as how the goal of this post on Comics Workbook was to start a conversation, I’d like to keep that conversation going today.

I just came back from CXC 2017 and I am still bathing in its warmth. It’s a good feeling. As I do around this time of the year, I’ve been thinking about the future of comics events in America. How we move into that future.

I’m typing out loud, so forgive me for dreaming too big.

Comics, as we engage with them today in the United States’ existing festival ecosystem, are facing a cultural choking point.

There’s a huge role that comics can and should be playing in broader cultural discussions. But they’re not and our Festivals have something to do with this.

It’s 2017 and it is essential to reframe the discussion of comics shows. Comics making and comics reading practices need more breathing room. To grow. To continue expanding. We need to nurture interdisciplinary approaches to experiencing comics.

We need our festivals to make this their guiding principle.

Read it here.

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Rob Clough has posted his reflections on CXC over on The Comics Journal. They touch on many of the things I bring up in the Toolkit, with the focus being on CXC. Check it out:

This gets to the heart of what should make a successful comics show. Whatever local resources are available, make sure to use them. If you have a good local comics scene, make sure to include it. If there are beautiful or unusual venues available, take advantage of them. If there’s a local university nearby interested in comics, get their support. If the organizers have ways to incorporate arts other than comics, by all means one should do this. Mixing music, zines, video games, photography, or other arts into the event has been successful for many. Programming should be more than a distraction; it should be carefully considered and the heart of your show. Keep your ambitions low to start, don’t look to make money, and consider getting sponsorships and/or crowdfunding to cover your costs instead of passing it on to the artists and attendees.

Below are some thoughts I’d like to highlight from comments here and over on Facebook. They’re loose and scattered but they offer good starting points to several discussions:

Hold shows in a nice bar with some music, have a big comic car rally and everyone pull up and sell them out of the trunk of your car, have it at a train station, We keep talking about people reading comics more, well, it we’re only selling them in the same old places, what do we expect. Make it more a part of society, not just social media.
– Phil Dokes
The Caption Show in the U.K. had the kind of format you’re talking about, you’re free to interact, go to workshops, listen to talks and hangout in the bar and at the end of the show you get a wad of cash from sales at the big mutual table. I went twice and it was beautiful. Location was a big part of it, on the banks of the river in Oxford, England.
– Mardou
The fear on the part of an organizer of of course is of course that comics makers won’t attend a festival that they are not tabling at. It’s too foreign a concept to many comics makers. They might balk at the idea of having to be involved with programming as opposed to hand selling their books. So, one idea proposed is to make the exhibition aspect of the fest to be geared towards book debuts. The festival becomes an event for press. In such an ecosystem, everyone in local and national press knows that if they want to interview artists, this is where they do it. Like a “Comics-Cannes”. CXC is doing this well, already in its third year. While it’s true that SPX is where a lot of people shoot to debut books, that’s not the focus in the market place. For the most part it’s a free for all. If a festival handled this in a way that was considered across the board… that’d be interesting. – Juan Fernandez
Two of the big keys for the future: 1. shows held in places with academic institutions willing to help fund aspects of the show; 2. shows held in places with city councils that earmark money toward the arts.
– Rob Clough
One other thing that I wrote about in my upcoming article that I think Juan would agree with–simply cloning the flea market +/- some programming model in every city ignores the unique resources that those cities might have available. When putting on a show, it’s important to tap into every local resource possible, be it a library, a university, a unique venue, a blended arts scene, a vibrant downtown, a monthly art walk, a great local comics shop, etc.
– Rob Clough
creating better transparency about the application process. Some shows are great about this, but others are inconsistent in their messaging. Of course this is tied in to Juan’s point about how a show deals with increased applications and growth.
– Whit Taylor
I think that The Projects’ “show store” idea (was) a good one, but anecdotally at least 1-2 of the guests felt like they missed out on the part where they interact with the fans/may have had softer sales because of this.The Projects wasn’t really “about” selling books- more about getting artists in dialog and collaboration, but I do feel like something similar that also had dedicated signing times might be a good balance.
– Zack Soto
After reading the article, I’d have to say that the only reason Short Run wasn’t singled out as part of the way of the future is that the author hasn’t attended. They are fast becoming the hub of the Seattle scene because of their year long programming and outreach.
I also think it’s weird that TCAF is listed as “the future” (I agree in many ways) but TCAF is just as much a flea market show about collecting the hot new books by the hot new creators as any other show. Maybe more than most!
– Zack Soto
That’s a good point about the confusion with seeing TCAF as the future – It’s confusing because it has one of the “hottest” show room floors for buying books out of most show imo – for me the future oriented aspect is the programmatic one with TCAF – In the ways that they link up with cultural embassies from different countries to put together exhibitions and to bring guests to the show + use the city as a campus. CAB does this too but their center of gravity has hovered close to the gymnasium flea market + the gaming/comics/cartooning programming – and the educational panels earlier in the week. There’s also the aspect of how the programming starts up a month or so in advance with happenings across Toronto and then builds up steam for the main weeekend.
– Juan Fernandez
It would be awesome if someday there was a grand database indexing each individual archive. So if I typed in “Supermonster 12”, it would tell me which archives had physical copies, and where digital copies existed. So much art has disappeared from my generation of cartoonists (1987-2000, roughly), the last generation prior to the internet. That’s why projects like John P. collecting Jenny Zervakis’ book are so important.
– Rob Clough
I think every good show should consider having a gallery space associated with it. The Laura Park show associated with CXC was eye-opening, but it doesn’t have to be in a formal institution. We did this at DICE, and while it got a little clunky, it helped connect people with original art in a indirect, non-transactional manner. (And people could sell art if they wanted.)
– Rob Clough

What do you think?
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Suzy and Cecil – 10-11-2017 – by Gabriella Tito

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Cozytown – 10-11-2017 – by Juan Fernandez

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Caleb Orecchio – 10-11-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio

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Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in NewsTagged caleb orecchio, cxc, gabriella tito, juan fernandez, Mardou, phil dokes, Rob Clough, whit taylor, zack soto

Juan Fernández

Posted on October 11, 2017October 11, 2017

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1/07/2019

Caleb OrecchioJanuary 7, 2019NewsCaleb Orecchio here with the weirdest comic book of all time ————————————————————————————————— Stray Cats by Ted Echterling (1991) is like a dream (a fever-dream of a young Doctor Moreau) that wakes you up to a feeling of nausea. It lingers in your mind and puts you into a funk for the rest of the day. The perversion of this comic is that it portrays anthropomorphic animals as ACTUAL animals. A woman holds another cat-sized woman in her hands and treats her like a pet. The felinesque people in turn act like animals. The image is simply unsettling. A grotesquery. Grotesque as it may be, you have to admire the courage to render such personal fancies. It is comics like these where I feel I am seeing the world through the author’s eyes and I, despite my reluctance, respect that vision. Artists dedicate their lives to depict life as they see it, and Echterling (where are you now?) managed to do just that in a strangely direct way. This is the comic that dares to ask, “Are cats people too?” I put this comic in the middle of my apartment to repel mice, dog-lovers and other decent human-beings. Share this page: [...]

07/27/2017

Sally IngrahamJuly 27, 2017NewsSam Ombiri on Gabrielle Bell’s Everything is Flammable – plus other comics and news! —————————————————————————————————— Sam Ombiri here: The reason for my enthusiasm for Everything Is Flammable by Gabrielle Bell is hard to pin down – but I’ll try! I liked how everything flows without interruptions. There’s a seamless transition between what’s going on in her head and what’s happening around her, in what’s treated by her as her reality. She doesn’t treat any incoming moment with more reverence than the last. I got a surprising amount from the book – I just expected to have some fun reading another Gabrielle Bell book, but I kept feeling a lot from panel to panel. I’d read it and keep reading it, and I’d savor it. Gabrielle throws you these incredibly insightful things about life, but they are given no more weight than what was happening earlier. What’s great is that they are open ended insights – ones that you as the reader continue to work out as her stories continue. There’s a part in book where Gabrielle is saying how she is wanting to go see if her Mom is alright after a house fire, but it’s so that she can be a hero – it’s really funny and speaks to the spirit of the book, that spirit of celebrating these minor victories. I’m addicted to reading them. The quests aren’t minor, but the triumphs aren’t a bigger event than those small, small moments of failure we might experience. Everything moment is given the same weight as far as the way they are portrayed. The stories in the comic aren’t desperate to build for “a moment”. For example, Gabrielle may have a part where she’s about to check on her mother after an accident happened, and she says “And I have to admit my own selfishness in wanting to go. First, to draw comics about it…” This attitude doesn’t show, exclusively, an attempt to exploit every possible event. Gabrielle tells very little and conveys a lot. Take the little things you love about people – you don’t have to escape into fantasizing and romanticizing these things about people. You don’t have to look too far to find them, every detail in life doesn’t always lead to a climatic ending. It’s consistent in Gabrielle Bell’s fiction and her auto bio that she seems uninterested in big endings or big conclusions, based on the work I’ve read. I think, as a result, there’s more of what I can believe in the reality that Gabrielle Bell portrays. Related to this: I’m thinking of Gabrielle’s segment in Tokyo! – the Interior Design part directed by Michel Gondry. In contrast to the rest of Gondry’s filmography, it felt like the most nuanced and layered portrayal of this certain (for lack of a better term) mysterious nature of life. Even Gondry commented, and this might be him speaking as a comics maker himself, on how much Gabrielle can convey in just one panel. – Sam Ombiri Get a copy of Everything is Flammable by Gabrielle Bell HERE. —————————————————————————————————— 7-27-2017 – by Sam Ombiri on the eve of Microsoft Paint’s passing – more info HERE —————————————————————————————————— Sally here – Ronald Wimberly did some character designs (above) recently for LeSean Thomas’ new animated short Children of Ether. The Blerdgurl writes: “What I think makes Thomas’ Children of Ether so significant is that not only is he an African-American artist and director who worked exclusively with a Japanese team to create Children of Ether, the main character, Rhonda, is also woman of color, a rare image in the world of anime.“ Read more HERE. —————————————————————————————————— Above is an excerpt from a comic about Abdi, part of a 14 comic series about various Somalian people published by PositiveNegative. “In collaboration with the Open Society Foundations (OSF) we produced a series of fourteen comics, based on personal testimonies, that highlight integration issues of the Somali communities across seven cities of Europe – London, Leicester, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Malmo, Oslo and Helsinki. The focus of the project was to accompany the OSF policy research on the same subjects and locations and to engage a wide, general audience and challenge negative media stereotyping of the Somali community.“ Read all of the comics HERE. Read about the Somali diaspora HERE. —————————————————————————————————— It’s the most wonderful time of the year! Thee Comics Workbook Composition Competition 2017 has been announced! This year it’s a riff on the 6-panel grid, in the traditional North American comic book size – but with a twist! Full details HERE. —————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 7-27-2017 – by Gabriella Tito —————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 7-27-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

08/30/2017

Juan FernándezAugust 30, 2017los Cómics / NewsEmpezamos el día con Carla Berrocal; Jueves Furioso de Dibujo; Simon Hanselmann; la Convocatoria de Voluntarios de Entreviñetas; La Polola con Brittany Tullis; Graficas Pro Aborto Libre; Alex Fito; Berliac y los tebeos de Cómics Workbook! ————————————————————————————————— Sobre el Proceso de Trabajo – Carla Berrocal Antes de nada, debo decir que no creo que exista un método de trabajo que sea bueno o malo o que sea el método definitivo. Creo, sencillamente, que existen miles de formasdistintas de afrontar un encargo, tantas como dibujantes. El mío es uno más de esos miles de métodos. No creo que sea el mejor ni de lejos, pero si que pienso que puede ser interesante compartirlo con vosotros. Siempre con la idea de establecer un diálogo y aprender cosas que puedan resultar interesantes para todos. Así pues, ¿cómo trabajo? ¿cómo afronto un encargo? ————————————————————————————————— Jueves Furioso de Dibujo con Virginia Abrigo 31/09 – 18:00-20:00 Plataforma Lavardén Mendoza 1085, 2000 Rosario, Santa Fe ————————————————————————————————— Simon Hanselmann: la vida no es bonita, ni siquiera en cómic En tiempos de Tumblr, de bloggers sobrevalorados, de fotos de perfil manipuladas por Photoshop y relaciones interpersonales supeditadas a una interfaz friendly, algunos pensamos que una vuelta al existencialismo honesto y deprimente es algo casi necesario. Por eso nos gusta reivindicar a Simon Hanselmann. Y no es que estemos de acuerdo con eso de levantarnos cada mañana planteándonos la existencia entre lacrimosos accesos de frustración, no. No del todo. Pero en esto coincidimos: empieza a resultar imprescindible un poco de reality bite, una dosis medicinal de realidad sucia que levante la alfombra y deje al aire toda esa porquería que se ha ocultado debajo con insistencia. Porque, sin entrar en discursos grunges, es dolorosamente cierto que la realidad, aunque pretendamos lo contrario, no suele ser algo que pueda retocarse con un filtro trendy ni reconstruir recortando el trozo que queremos mostrar. A pesar de que podamos tener momentos felices, la felicidad no es una imagen y, por lo tanto, nunca podrá permanecer demasiado tiempo. Léanlo todo en Literary Notes. ————————————————————————————————— ENTREVIÑETAS, plataforma cultural colombiana, invita a todas las personas en Colombia con interés en donar su tiempo para ayudar en la navegación del #FESTIVALENTREVIÑETAS como Voluntarios de la *red viñetera*. El voluntariado supone a menudo un desafío, pero significa también adquirir nuevos conocimientos y realizar actividades gratificantes. En el voluntariado no se recibe un pago y se entiende como una donación de tiempo y conocimiento para comprender y atender a los detalles que permitirán llevar el festival a buen puerto en sus sedes de este año: BOGOTÁ Miércoles 20 al domingo 24 de septiembre 2017 MEDELLÍN Miércoles 11 al domingo 15 de octubre de 2017 Convocatoria de Voluntarios ————————————————————————————————— Los cómics y las noticias que me han llamado la atención esta semana: Sol Díaz Castillo y Marcela Trujillo tienen una nueva edicion de La Polola Podcast! Las chicas conversan con la académica Brittany Tullis acerca de sus estudios acerca del cómic feminista latinoamericano (grabado con público en Galería Plop!). Brittany comparte sus visiones acerca de la mujer y su rol creativo, la necesidad de replantear como nos vemos socialmente, críticar los roles impuestos y entrar en nosotros mismos a través del cómic y cómo éste a su vez tiene el poder de generar realidades que terminen en un cambio cultural. Aquí las compañeras de Gráficas ProAborto Libre y su campaña por un aborto libre en Chile. Alex Fito repasa algunos de los tótems de la historia del cómic en su último trabajo, una recopilacion en formato concertina. Una auténtica gozada que mezcla las influencias estética’s de Chris Ware y Max. Berliac‘s got a new Asian Food Store Junkies – Manga is Masturbation. The international fracas digs into the “scene” on an empty stomach… Tereixa Constenla offers a solid and interesting overview of the recent transformations in the Spanish Comics Industry in El_Pais. ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 8-30-2017 – by Gabriella Tito Share this page: [...]

07/26/2017

Juan FernándezJuly 26, 2017los Cómics / NewsEmpezamos el día con La Polola EN VIVO con Sebastián Ilabaca; Antonio Altarriba y Sergio García; Mincho Magazine #13; Dis-Tinta, la historieta actual en argentina; Autoras de Cómic; Krazy Kat y el Museo Reina Sofía; La Competencia de Composición de Comics Workbook 2017; y los tebeos de Cómics Workbook! —————————————————————————————————Cuerpos del delito. Entrevista a Antonio Altarriba y Sergio García en Bilbao24horas: Cuerpos del delito es la historia de Miroslav Matjevic, francotirador serbio-bosnio; Ratko Petrovic y su banda, contrabandistas serbio-bosnios; François Laplanche y el Sargento Hervé Dumont, y algunos cascos azules del regimiento francés de Sarajevo. Cuatro vidas diferentes entrelazadas por una ciudad (Sarajevo), un año (1994) y la fragilidad del ser humano. Contiene un póster en el que aparece la historia en la silueta de un cadáver con la historia completa. Bilbao24Horas: ¿Qué es Cuerpos del delito? Sergio: Cuerpos del delito, básicamente, es un contenedor de historias. La idea surge de los dibujos que hace la policía en el suelo cuando alguien muere, generalmente asesinado. Lo que pretendíamos es descubrir que historia tiene ese dibujo de tiza. Lo que hicimos fue dibujar la silueta de un soldado y en el interior contar su historia y la de su muerte, todo ello en un formato póster. Todo ello acompañado por los maravillosos textos de Antonio. Unos relatos cortos que complementan la historia y que, a su vez, también están ilustrados. Antonio: Lo que me gusta del formato es la complementariedad de lecturas entre los textos, que cuentan la historia de los 4 personajes protagonistas, las ilustraciones y el póster. Se van superponiendo por capas niveles de lectura de la historia. Si solo ves el póster puedes ver la acción. Es una primera capa en la que vemos los desplazamientos de los personajes en la geografía de Sarajevo. Los textos con sus ilustraciones le dan profundidad a esa acción. Allí vemos sus motivaciones, lo que les ha llevado a ese punto e, incluso, lo que sucede después de ese momento que les ha llevado al asesinato. Me parece una idea innovadora. Léelo todo AQUI. ———————————————————————————————— A post shared by Comics Workbook (@comicsworkbook) on Jul 24, 2017 at 8:33pm PDT ¡Está aquí por fin! LA Competencia de Composición de Comics Workbook 2017. Esta vez el formato se trata de paginas con una cuadrícula de 6 viñetas utilizando en las proporciónes tradicionales de cómics norteamericanos – ¡con un giro! Encontraras todos los detalles aquí: http://comicsworkbook.com/comics-workbook-composition-competition-2017/ FECHA DE LÍMITE 5 de septiembre de 2017, ¡así que empiecen! El 1er premio es una estadia en nuestra residencia de arte, la Rowhouse Residency en Pittsburgh, PA. OJO: Si necessitan ayuda entiendiendo las direcciones (a vezes son un poquito confusas!), mandenme un mensaje: fernandez.juan.j@gmail.com ————————————————————————————————— Los cómics y las noticias que me han llamado la atención esta semana: Sol Díaz Castillo y Marcela Trujillo tienen una nueva edicion de La Polola Podcast! Las chicas conversan con el ilustrador Sebastián Ilabaca EN VIVO en Chile acerca de las personas que lo apoyaron e inspiraron, de su paso por la escuela de cine, de su forma de ilustrar, los materiales que usa, su visión, proyectos a futuro y mucho más! The newest edition, #13, of Mincho Magazine, the illustration and graphic arts magazine is now available. Autoras de Cómic iniciaron un llamamiento por twitter para que les recomendéis cómic, tebeos, fanzines hechos por autoras. Es un thread asombroso, por que la mayoria estan disponibles en Español! Dis-Tinta, la coleccion de tonalidades de la historieta argentina actual, editada por Liniers y Martín Pérez fue reseñada por La Nación. El Museo Reina Sofía en Madrid se apunta al cómic con el que es, a mi entender, el mejor cómic de la historia: Krazy Kat de George Herriman con su nueva exhibición Krazy Kat es Krazy Kat es Krazy Kat. ———————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 7-26-2017 – by Sally Ingraham ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 7-26-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

04/21/2017

Sally IngrahamApril 20, 2017NewsSally here with the PEN World Voices Festival lineup, a look at female cartoonists in mainstream publications, new work from Cecil Castellucci and Leela Corman, and more. ————————————————————————————————— The PEN World Voices Festival is coming up! Meg Lemke (editor in chief of Mutha Magazine, chair of the Comics and Graphic Novel Committee for the Brooklyn Book Festival, and guest editor of PEN America’s Illustrated PEN series) is making sure that comics are well represented throughout the festival (see poster above!), and female creators especially are being given plenty of space to make some noise. From Rokudenashiko, to Roz Chaste, to Julia Gfrorer, to Gabrielle Bell, female cartoonists from all corners of the comics community are getting together to talk shop and share their work and their opinions. Please make an effort to get to these events and support all of the cartoonists and artists who will be lifting their voices during the festival. ————————————————————————————————— Hazel Cills wrote a detailed report for MTV News on the current place of female cartoonists in mainstream publications. It’s a good moment to take notes, as it was announced recently that Bob Mankoff, the cartoon editor for The New Yorker, would be stepping down after 20 years in the role. Emma Allen will be picking up the reins in a few weeks (while maintaining her role as an editor for the magazine’s Daily Shouts section) and it goes without saying that she’s interested in hiring more female cartoonists. The New Yorker, along with other mainstream publications (especially in their print form), is a “notoriously hard place to submit cartoons” at the best of times, and despite the efforts of editors and staff here and there, comparatively few women succeed in getting their work published with any regularity. “Female illustrators make less money than their male counterparts on average and still have a long way to go when it comes to winning awards. The first Herblock Prize for editorial cartooning that was given to a woman went to Jen Sorensen in 2014, but just last year the prestigious comic artist award Angoulême Grand Prix nominated 30 men and zero women (which caused many male cartoonists, including Daniel Clowes and Chris Ware, to ask to be removed from the list). So while publications are seeking to diversify the bylines of writers and artists, when it comes to the artwork and cartoons published alongside them, the conversation is just getting started.“ The article serves as both a look at the current state of things, and a brief crash-course in the history of female cartoonists (and the wall of white males that they’ve been beating against for a century and more). It brings up an interesting note too about the “self-censoring” that women and POC creators apply to their work, knowing that white male characters are more likely to grab the attention of white male editors. ” “As women we tend to self-censor a lot more,” illustrator and Maryland Institute College of Art professor Shreyas R Krishnan says. “Whether it’s OK to put something in the work or not purely because it doesn’t conform to the default that’s been established.” Krishnan describes working, as an Indian woman, on a commissioned illustration of a female musician of color for white, male art directors. “I tend to abstract skin color, using blue or purple, so that’s what I did,” she says. “But then the art director was like, ‘No, we need her to look like what she looks like,’ and I was like , ‘Sure, I can do that, I just wasn’t sure if you guys would want it that way.’ I was assuming they might not because they were white men.” “ There are many more interesting viewpoints and thoughts in the article – read the whole thing HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Although she is still working on Shade, the Changing Girl, Cecil Castellucci has another comics writing project coming from Dark Horse very soon. Soupy Leaves Home is “a Depression-era hobo odyssey about a young girl fleeing her stifling home to live life free on the rails under the mentorship of an elder vagabond who sees the world a little bit differently than most.” It’s a story that Cecil has been thinking about and working on since 2008. Paste Magazine sat down with her recently to talk about the comic. “Paste: Pearl’s dad isn’t her only obstacle—even other women in her life try to force her into the role of a dutiful daughter. Was it important to you to address gender inequality of the era in addition to Pearl’s specific familial situation? And did your research lead you to any real-world tales of women hoboes living undercover as men? Castellucci: Absolutely it was important. Her family was, as were many others, still reeling from the Great Depression. That definitely plays a part in the dynamic that is going on there, which you can see on page one. Pinched times affect people and how and what they try to hold on to. I think for Soupy’s family, gender dynamics and the idea of being proper and what is proper is what they cling to. You have to remember in 1932 a bobbed haircut was considered scandalous. Pants on women were still kind of weird. women had only gotten the vote a decade earlier. Bennington College, while not the first women’s college, opened its doors that year. Soupy saw herself as a different kind of woman than what her family saw. She thinks of herself as becoming a modern woman, and while the idea about what that meant was emerging, it was still a very difficult road for a girl. Frankly, it still is. And while there was no particular girl or woman hobo that I can point to in my research, every book and documentary and fictional film about hoboes includes girls and women who rode the rails. They oftentimes traveled as boys, not only for safety reasons but for the freedom and ease it granted them.“ Read the rest of the interview HERE – look for the comic on shelves soon. ————————————————————————————————— There is an excerpt from Leela Corman‘s graphic novel-in-progress – Victory Parade – on Tablet Magazine. The story is about a Jewish American soldier named Sam Arensberg who helps “liberate a concentration camp – but the horrors he witnesses haunt his dreams“. See the excerpt HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Shoots and Leaves Sarah Glidden’s Rolling Blackouts: Dispatches from Turkey, Syria and Iraq has won the 2017 Lynd Ward Prize for Graphic Novel of the Year. Read more about it on The Comics Beat. Annie Mok speaks to Gabrielle Bell about Everything is Flammable – on The Comics Journal. AIGA Eye on Design has a review of Eleanor Davis‘ upcoming comic You & A Bike & A Road – read it HERE. Illustrated PEN has an excerpt from Mira Jacob‘s Questions From My Mixed-Race Son – guest editor Meg Lemke introduces it HERE. The Chicago Tribune has a review of Kristen Radtke‘s debut graphic memoir Imagine Wanting Only This. ————————————————————————————————— Blinkers – 4-21-2017 – by Jack Brougham ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 4-21-2017 – by Sally Ingraham ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 4-21-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

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