Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in NewsTagged audra stang, caleb orecchio, gabriella tito, GG, hannah k. lee, jackie kirby, juan fernandez, Katie Skelly, lale westvind, lynda barry, roz chast, tara booth, thi bui, ulli lust

Sally Ingraham

Posted on October 12, 2017October 13, 2017

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11/03/2016

Sally IngrahamNovember 3, 2016NewsSam and Sally with the Thursday comic news – featuring Anya Davidson, Yona Harvey, Ariell Johnson, Ron Husband, Cameron Weston Nicholson, and new work from Sam Ombiri himself. ————————————————————————————————— Sam Ombiri here with a “Comment Section Review”: Anya Davidson’s work got bombarded with negative comments in the A.V. Club comment section recently. I’m pretty crazy about her work, and I don’t want to act like there is no room for the folks who have dislike of Anya’s work, but I feel the commentators completely fail to acknowledging a comics scene outside of theirs, so they just see Band For Life as “a bunch of random scribbles that Fantagraphics put out.” I wonder what they read to make themselves so repulsed with Anya’s work. To some degree that’s really cool that it repulsed them to the degree that it did, because I wonder in what universe are the drawings in Band For Life considered horrible, in what universe?! I just say that because I lack that perspective. Sammy Harkham said he feels, or I guess more so felt at the point at which he said it: that “context is everything, it’s weird, but context is everything.” I don’t know if I agree with that completely but I do agree. Michael DeForge said that the people commenting live in a bubble and haven’t come into contact with anything like Band For Life. Jesse Moynihan said somewhere how when he debuted with his first Adventure Time episode, he went on 4chan (I think) to see the response for it and people were saying “why are these drawings so bad?” I guess the context there is that it doesn’t resemble anime enough for them. It’s really cool that they could sense there was a different energy in those drawings though. What are these people in the A.V. comment sections reading, though, that’s got them so full of themselves and their tastes? They probably just don’t want their scene “contaminated.” – Sam Ombiri Sally here, and I’m with Sam when it comes to being crazy about Anya Davidson’s work – so for the record and for the ignoramuses out there, here’s a list of recent reviews and interviews with this badass cartoonist, brought to you by folks who don’t live in bubbles: The Comics Journal, with Dan Nadel himself blowing the trumpets – “…her comics are a joy to look at. Her thick-thin strokes dance on the page and her characters are always-recognizable graphic icons. Hers is a Kurtzman-esque cartooning technique that she can apply to any scenario of her choosing…” Paste, on Anya’s “noisy, weird art” – “Her work, which evokes the bombastic action of Jack Kirby as immediately as it does a riot grrrl zine, is bold and brash. Her bulky, blocky figures clash and collide with one another in a cacophony of pen and ink. It’s the kind of genre-busting, high- and low-culture-blending comic perfectly at home in a post-Fort Thunder alternative comics scene, and for those in the know, Davidson has been a cartoonist to follow.” The Comics Beat – “Anya Davidson’s Band for Life is one of the boldest graphic novels of the year, an eye splitting trip into the lives of an indie punk rock band and their misadventures. Call it Josie and the Pussycats for the post-iTunes generation.” You can get a copy of Anya Davidson’s Band for Life HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Here’s a recent comic by Sam Ombiri: ————————————————————————————————— Pittsburgh’s poet/professor Yona Harvey is getting ready for the Nov. 9th debut of a new Marvel series – The World of Wakanda – which she is authoring along with Roxane Gay (they are the first black female authors to work for Marvel) and Ta-Nehisi Coates (author of the current Black Panther series, which The World of Wakanda spins off of). In conversation with Wayne Wise for the PGH City Paper this week, Yona said “I think my poetry skills helped with the voice and characterization,” – when asked about the differences between writing poetry and writing a comics script. “The Zenzi story is only 10 pages, so concision is necessary. She feels that the page-to-page and line-to-line transitions are very similar to what she does with the forms of poetry she writes. Finding the ‟voice and the music and the sound,” were important to her. Comics are a different language, but the beats and rhythms felt familiar.” – via PGH City Paper Comics Workbook will be at Phantom of the Attic next week when the comic debuts and Yona Harvey is there to celebrate the release. Read the rest of the PGH City Paper article HERE. Check out more work by The World of Wakanda artist Afua Richardson HERE. ————————————————————————————————— While poking around Paste I came across another recent “first black woman” story, this one about Ariell Johnson, “the founder and president of Amalgam Comics & Coffeehouse, Inc. in Philadelphia, and the first black woman on the East Coast to own her own comic book store“. She has garnered an appearance on a variant cover of Invincible Iron Man #1, illustrated by Elizabeth Torque. Ariell says it was the X-Men‘s Storm who got her into comics, and although she had to scrape bottom to find diversity in superhero comics as a kid, that is finally changing. Her comic book shop is part of that. Read the article HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Cameron Weston Nicholson dug up this story about Ron Husband for us: although Floyd Norman is often credited as being the first black Disney animator, that title actually belongs to Ron Husband. Cameron is an animator himself, so he understands the amount of work that goes into just seconds of action – and knows that the title of “animator” is one that has to be earned. “From the early days at Disney until the 1980’s, an artist had to produce 100 feet of animation to get a screen credit.” Ron actually pulled this feat off, and you can read about his career HERE. He got into the educational side of animation as well, visiting schools and becoming a sort of ambassador, and currently runs a blog featuring process posts and other tidbits from his wealth of animating knowledge – check it out HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Check out some of Cameron Weston Nicholson‘s latest sketches and drawings, via his Instagram (@prof_weston): Before bed. ? A video posted by Cameron•Weston Nicholson (@prof_weston) on Nov 1, 2016 at 6:30pm PDT Also, take a minute or 60 to view the footage of Cameron’s SPX 2016 Comics Workbook-hosted workshop if you haven’t yet – “Comics are a symphonic mixture of picture & word.” ————————————————————————————————— Comics Workbook got a nice shout out from Down the Tubes, a British comics website that has been reporting on comics since 1999. Mel Brooks was writing about the academic workshops at The Lakes International Comic Art Festival, which Frank Santoro, Aidan Koch, and Connor Willumsen were a large part of – check out the report HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Check out Swinespritzen – and Portraits, the other new book from Connor Willumsen – HERE. Share this page: [...]

03/08/2016

Juan FernándezMarch 8, 2016NewsThey did it. 2dcloud reached their Kickstarter goal. It was a stretch but they had that long game. Art wins again. If you haven’t had a chance to check out the work that they are publishing i their upcoming season, I encourage you to check out their crowdfund campaign. There might be something right up your alley. Now in their twenty-eighth year, the Lambda Literary Awards have announced their nominations. The Lambda Literary Awards celebrate achievement in lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) writing for books published in 2015. The awards ceremony on June 6, 2016, will be held at the NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts (566 LaGuardia Pl, New York, NY 10012). It’s exciting to see the work that was chosen from the world of comics. Check out all the nominations here. LGBT Graphic Novels Curveball, Jeremy Sorese, Nobrow Honor Girl, Maggie Thrash, Candlewick Press The Less Than Epic Adventures of TJ & Amal, EK Weaver, Iron Circus Comics O Human Star: Volume One, Blue Delliquanti, Self-published Wuvable Oaf, Ed Luce, Fantagraphics Books NEW at SPIT AND A HALF!!! Lisa Carver, Ian Sundahl, and some great French imports from Editions Tanibis (in English and/or wordless!): Sylvie Fontaine and Paul Kirchner! All the good stuff over at www.spitandhalf.com. John P. is doing God’s work. Andrew White made a free PDF collection of his favorite among the one page comics he posted on Comics Workbook from 2012 to 2014. You can still read all 350 or so strips online, but Andrew thought it might be nice to have a pared down and easier to read version of the material available. Even if many of the strips are rough or haphazard, this was an important body of work through which I began to address some of the topics that are important in my comics today. I hope you like it. Nick Gazin chit chats with Peter Bagge over at VICE. While you’re at it, read up on the 5 Musical Urban Legends comics Bagge has done already for VICE. The series continues with the form that Bagge developed for Magnet Magzine. The Who, Mick Jagger, Chuck Berry, Michael Jackson and Prince. Who’s next?! Read the whole thing over on VICE. You never really learned how to draw, but your comics look great. Most people who try to make comics without learning to draw make garbage. How did you figure out the drawing style you have? Well, I can draw people and things that look like what I’m drawing while looking at it/them. But that bores me, and I assume it would bore the viewer of the results as well. So I prefer to draw from my mind’s eye, and I take my chances from there. I’m almost never happy with the results, though, so I have a hard time arguing with anyone who thinks my art looks awful. Initially, I was trying to duplicate the way old cartoons look, specifically ones directed by Bob Clampett. Later on, I was also mimicking early comics drawn by Harvey Kurtzman, in his old Hey Look! one-pagers and such. It’s a very polarizing drawing style, though. Goodreads has all these rave reviews ofWoman Rebel by all these woman’s studies majors who love the content of the book but give it three or four instead of five stars, simply because they can’t stand my art! Cartoonist and movie critic, Julian Lytle, sat down with Rocky Hadadi to talk 2015 Film on the most recent installment of Ignorant Bliss. This was recorded before the Oscars so there is a lot of talk about the nominees and a little TV talk. Good talk, good music, good banter. Listen in for a while. Chris Mautner took some time to write about Michael Deforge‘s latest work, Big Kids and the themes and story mechanisms in Deforge’s work more generally. Read on. Despite its small size, Big Kids manages to hold just about all of the ideas and themes DeForge has been exploring up to this point. The secret societies, the adolescent angst, the strange body transformations, the antisocial hero desperate to find acceptance — they all coalesce in this slim book. If you were looking for a starting point in DeForge’s bibliography, this might be the place. Would you like to be Nat. Brut’s first Artist-in-Nonresidence? It’s like an artist residency – but not. You will get a month’s worth of gift cards to cafés around New York City and activate the whole city as your workplace! The residency will last April 1-30, 2016, at the end of which all or part of your work will be published in Nat. Brut. Who can apply? Artists or writers of any medium, with a work sample. We are limiting our first round to applicants who identify as people of color. HOW TO APPLY Apply now until 11:59 on March 31 using our online application here:https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1XSbc4qqQQOOPGYm0TjplyLGWOpqJlMlXY7o8EFcdFp4/viewform?c=0&w=1 that’s it for today. juan fernandez, over and out. Share this page: [...]

Fumetto 2016!

Sally IngrahamApril 27, 2016Festivals and ShowsComics Workbook special correspondent Raúl Burgos Paredes brings us this exciting report from his trip to Fumetto on Saturday, April 23rd ————————————————————————————————— I had the pleasure of attending the Fumetto festival in Luzerne last Saturday. Although I would have liked to attend more days and for longer periods of time, personal constraints did not make it possible – nevertheless the experience I had was very rewarding. Knowing beforehand that my time in Luzerne would be limited, I planned ahead what I wanted to explore and left open the possibility for randomness. My main motivations were the “Small Press Heaven” and the exhibitions of Frémok and Lorenzo Mattotti. When I arrived at the festival’s main meeting point I headed directly to explore the Small Press Heaven. My first interaction was with the Latvian publiser kuš!. They publish a great deal of their books in small format, A6, which I find especially appealing. I treated myself to several of their mini kuš!, which are individual artists’ comics, and also to some of their regular numbers where they publish a large amount of artists in the same issue. Then I talked with the people of Stripburger (Slovenia), Kutikuti (Finland) and Centrala (Poland). They were all really friendly, and enthusiastic to discuss their publications and aims. All I can say is that the books I bought are all great discoveries because even if I had seen some of what they publish on the net, it can never be the same as having them in your hands in a neatly printed form. They’re all sometimes fun, at times odd, and overall very unique and highly recommendable. Afterwards I found out that there would be a panel discussion with Frémok’s artists Yvan Alagbé and Olivier Deprez. I impatiently headed there and listened to their talk, where they discussed the history of Frémok as a collective. They also gave details about their editorial concept, which is non hierarchical. They seek to incorporate the use of mixed techniques to have, as a result, works that depart from the classical comics style. Frémok’s works are highly poetic and experimental as well. For example, they talked about Match-Catch, which is a book that was made by some of Frémok’s people in collaboration with handicapped artists. Something I found quite interesting was their visible commitment to producing books that have a different kind of vision, a vision that clearly reflects artistic freedom. The moderator of the panel discussion inquired about how comfortable they were in financial terms, taking into account that the works of Frémok are not maybe bestsellers because of their style. Both Olivier and Yvan were emphatic in being both keen and confident to maintain their artistic freedom, not thinking too much about financial matters. For Yvan, it’s a chosen lifestyle, he prefers to be joyfully producing the work he does than maybe being more financially comfortable, but producing works that he would not feel like doing. This response was very much inspiring! Then I headed to the Fremok’s exhibition and reception. By the way, I did not know there would be one so I was quite happy to know that I would be able to interact more with the artists while having a glass of wine. This was a really fantastic exhibition where the works were smartly ordered to create a world of its own. I was delighted to see in original some of the works I appreciate the most. During the reception I could talk more in detail with Mr Alagbé about Match-Catch. He explained to me that they regarded handicapped people as independent artists of their own and that they were not imposing limits on them. He said that Frémok’s artists had to adapt to them and not the other way around. The result is a formidable book in which narrative is not linear and therefore, very dynamic. Personally, I’m not very much into narrative styles in general, I’ve always preferred to read a poetry book than a novel, and Frémok’s books are poetical imagery linked with sometimes poetic writing. I highly recommend école de la misère by Yvan Alagbé, coloforme by Etienne Beck, and plus si entente by Dominique Goblet and Kai Pffeifer. During the exhibition I also talked a little bit with Kai Pffeifer and I told him I was surprised to realize that the original works did not differ that much from their form in a the published book. He explained to me that first of all the editorial committee was formed by the artists themselves and that they placed high importance first, to the scanner, and second, to the printing process. He explained with great detail the complex printing process, but I can not tell you more about it because I forgot and it encompassed things I did not know. Then I headed to see Lorenzo Mattotti’s exhibition named Oltremai. Oltremai is another world of its own, all in black and white, populated by dark and ever moving characters. As you enter the exhibition room you sense you’re entering something special by starting to notice the soft and eerie music that accompanies the works. The imagery contained in it is fantastic, sometimes mythological, and an aspect that astonished me is the flow that can be felt in each individual work. The whole works do not follow a narrative and the pieces are nameless. The book of Oltremai, big and heavy, does good justice to the original works of the exhibition. Finally I headed to the train station to catch my train back home (Neuchâtel). To make my travel more enjoyable I started drawing some of my impressions of the festival. One of those drawings is my interpretation of Yvan Alagbé. To conclude, I would like to say that it was overall a very gratifying experience and I was very much pleased to interact with publishers and artists alike. Surely something to repeat in 2017! ————————————————————————————————— Raúl Burgos Paredes is a Mexican tripolar social scientist who has been living in Switzerland for the last 7 years. He finds time, in the midst of writing his dissertation, to explore his drawing abilities and enjoy all the comics he can find. You can see more of his work HERE. Share this page: [...]

08/16/2018

Caleb OrecchioAugust 16, 2018NewsCaleb Orecchio here with a Kirby Fantastic Four sequence I’ve been thinking about. ————————————————————————————————— I swear I think about this Kirby sequence from Fantastic Four no. 18 once a week. When I was a growing up, superheroes were becoming more and more “realistic.” That’s what the fans wanted. “Believable” superheroes. They demanded superheroes follow the logic of The Bourne Identity or something. Captain America was invading the Middle East (The Ultimates), The X-Men wore leather jackets (The New X-Men), I could go on and on. I loved that crap and still do in a nostalgic way, but as I would start investigating comics’ history in reverse I began to appreciate the unrestricted imagination of the early masters. The Golden Age superheroes had such whacky, bizarre adventures that had their own hermetically sealed logic. If you’ve ever read really early Jack Cole, for instance, you know what I’m talking about. That’s a big factor in my appreciation of Kirby. Throughout his career, without exception, The King maintained a sense of unchained imaginative ferocity from The Golden Age that the Silver Agers didn’t quite harness (and into the modern age). This is a small example, but when I think of this sequence of The Super Skrull transforming his head into a battering ram to headbutt The Thing I am reminded of how such whacky imagery burns itself into the folds of the brain. ————————————————————————————————— Share this page: [...]

08/04/2016

HarrisonAugust 4, 2016NewsHello, this is Harrison. Here is the comics and arts news of August 4, 2016. ————————————————————————————————— http://profweston.tumblr.com/post/148417347211/trying-some-comics-outttt Cameron Nicholson Recent comic experiments by this Richmond, VA, cartoonist. More here. ————————————————————————————————— Lettering your own work is fun as hell. Starting to get a hang of it. #comic #comics #wip #studio #photoshop #lettering #comiclettering #hardwork #blackartist #onemanband A photo posted by Skuds McKinley (@skudsink) on Aug 3, 2016 at 2:41pm PDT Skuds McKinley “Draw everyday. 4 to 6 hours every day. No excuses! If you want to be a comic book artist you have to do this, you have to be fast and be cognizant of deadlines. Draw things that you really enjoy. If you love manga or Spider-Man, draw that stuff!! Don’t just draw things that are popular, it’ll come off as fake. Push yourself to the limit to be a good artist. Learn perspective drawing, learn anatomy, learn how to draw vehicles. Draw everything! This will put you ahead of the guys that draw the same crap over and over again. Try not to spend so much time worrying about a style or comparing yourself to others, you’ll just be shooting yourself in the foot. Just focus on being a good artist who can draw anything thrown at them. Over time your style will start to show itself.” – Derek Skuds Mckinley Jones Follow @skudsink for daily drawing updates. A couple of Skuds’ books are for sale on the school auction – see below. ————————————————————————————————— ? ? ? “When Manchester-based photographer Mishka Henner first stumbled upon these seemingly abstract images on Google Earth, he had no idea what he was seeing; with research, the artist realized that these tentacle-like scars on the earth were created by the meat industry. The harrowing satellite-sourced images that constitute The Feedlots convey the sheer scale of intensive farming in America, where the need to maximize profit all too often takes precedence over concerns for sustainability and animal welfare.” – Elizabeth Sulis Gear for Feature Shoot Here. ————————————————————————————————— “Can I touch yours?” “As a mixed-race child growing up in a predominately white suburb, my features were an anomaly to the unexposed eye.” Whit Taylor in the Nib. ————————————————————————————————— McGurk At Work “After gaining experience at Marvel Comics and the Center for Cartoon Studies in Vermont, McGurk moved to Columbus to work as a visiting curator at the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum, which houses the world’s largest cartoon and comics collection. In just over four years, she has moved up to associate curator for outreach, organizing exhibits and public programs. She is also an assistant professor.” – Erica Thompson for Columbus Alive More Here. ————————————————————————————————— Sad Sack Share this page: [...]

10/13/2017

Posted on October 12, 2017October 13, 2017 by Sally Ingraham

Sally here with Thi Bui, Lale Westvind, Sophie Goldstein, Jackie Kirby, and much more!

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First of all, can we please collectively freak out over this Lale Westvind cover on the upcoming Kramers Ergot 10…?! I can’t stop looking at it, and April 2018 seems like a very long time from now…

Lale has a comic inside the collection as well, and it will also include work by Anna Haifich, Noel Frieberg, Adam Buttrick, Archer Prewitt, Andy Burkholder, Will Sweeney, Dash Shaw, James Turek, Rick Altergott, CF, Aisha Franz, Kim Deitch, Ron Regé Jr., John Pham, Robert Crumb, Sammy Harkham, and I think Simon Hanselmann just Tweeted something about having a page in it…! So it’s going to be a good one, obviously.

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Michael Tisserand (author of Krazy: George Herriman, a Life in Black and White) interviews Thi Bui on The Comics Journal. Her comic, The Best We Could Do, has been garnering praise and acclaim while starting important conversations since its release earlier this year. It is the story of her family’s escape from 1970s Vietnam and the reverberating impact of that on her life. It’s a difficult, but beautiful memoir – and the interview is excellent too. Thi had a lot to deal with when it came to making this comic (which she worked on for 12 years.) She has thoughtful responses to questions about working around the American narrative of the Vietnam War, and releasing her work into the present moment where the issue of immigration is so volatile.

“Images we pick up from movies stick around for a long time. If your idea of what Vietnamese people look and sound like comes from movies like Full Metal Jacket and Platoon, then I have a lot of work to do to replace those caricatures with carefully observed characterizations of real Vietnamese people. Some people are able to do this entirely in prose; for me, drawing was in my arsenal, so I used it. My hope is that my images will stick around and influence people’s ideas of Vietnamese people for the better — not because I portrayed them all as model minorities, but because I showed them as fully formed human beings who can be wonderful, average, or total assholes, just like everybody else.”

“In a time of so much anxiety and quickly moving bad news, I hope to bring a slower kind of thinking to the table. If you can give yourself a little time and headspace to filter away the 24-hour news and its effects on your psyche, the divisiveness of politics, and the way hurt triggers more hurt in a vicious cycle, you can more clearly see what matters, at the end of it all. And then you know what you have to fight for.“

Read the whole interview HERE.

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PHANTAPHO URSTIK 045 / KIRBY CUT-UPS / JACKIE KIRBY 2017

Jackie Kirby is cranking out work this fall – from her own creations to these terrific “Kirby Cut-Ups” (above, riffing on Jack Kirby and Stan Lee’s Fantastic Four) she posts something on her blog almost everyday. Follow her on Tumblr or Instagram (@musclegirl2666) for a good example of how to keep your hand moving, your mind sharp, and your comics-making practice on point. Check out more of her comics HERE.

Also be sure to read her article for Comics Workbook from this past summer, on Meter, Geometry and Comic Form!

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Here in Pittsburgh there will be a release party for House of Women by Sophie Goldstein on Saturday, Oct. 14th, at Copacetic Comics (7 PM- 9 PM). Event details are HERE.

You can see a preview from the book on Sophie’s website, and get a copy HERE.

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The Candy Store

Sequential State has a review of GG‘s I’m Not Here – a comic that perhaps relies “on the reader’s intuition“.
Kawai Shen of Cute Juice Comics also “analyzes” I’m Not Here, saying that it is “made of clues and feelings rather than answers“.
It’s Nice That has a good interview with Tara Booth.
Etelka Lehoczky of NPR didn’t really like Ulli Lust‘s Voices In The Dark – the reasons are somewhat interesting however.
Katie Skelly “shines a light” over on The Comics Journal…
Jacob Shapiro, who runs Fantom Comics in D.C., is guest curating some reviews on Our Comics, Ourselves – he checks out Hannah K. Lee‘s collection Language Barrier HERE.
The New York Times visits Roz Chast and talks her new book and where she looks for salvation these days.
Lynda Barry‘s The Good Times Are Killing Me just came out from Drawn and Quarterly – you can check out an excerpt of the book HERE.
Audra Stang has been publishing a new comics story called Little Minnow – read the whole thing so far.

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Suzy and Cecil – 10-13-2017 – by Gabriella Tito

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Cozytown – 10-13-2017 – by Juan Fernandez

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Joanie and Jordie – 10-13-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio

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Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in NewsTagged audra stang, caleb orecchio, gabriella tito, GG, hannah k. lee, jackie kirby, juan fernandez, Katie Skelly, lale westvind, lynda barry, roz chast, tara booth, thi bui, ulli lust

Sally Ingraham

Posted on October 12, 2017October 13, 2017

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CARTOON CROSSROADS COLUMBUS 2016, Part l of ll

Chris Anthony DiazOctober 29, 2016The Diaz ArchiveAll photos colored by Graham Willcox Charles BurnsSacha Mardou SethSally Ingraham Noah Van SciverRich TommasoJoseph RemnantTed StearnSean FordCaleb OrecchioGregory BentonChris PitzerJosh BayerRobin McConnellMarc Arsenault Share this page: [...]

06/14/2018

Sally IngrahamJune 14, 2018NewsSally here with a roundup of reviews and commentary on Frank Santoro’s “Pompei”, which was published in Italy in May 2018 by 001 Edizioni! ——————————————————————————— Frank Santoro‘s Pompeii (PictureBox, 2013) was published in Italy in 2018 by 001 Edizioni. Pompei was released during the Naples Comicon (April 28-May 1 2018) where Frank was a special guest. In addition, an exhibition of original artwork from Pompei was held at the Archeological Museum of Naples from April 18-May 31 2018. More about that exhibition can be found HERE. Several Italian critics, comics makers, and fans have written about Pompei since the release of the comic in Italy. Valerio Stivè, who translated Pompei for 001 Edizioni, was kind enough to translate those reviews into English for us. We present them here for you, with links to the original Italian publications where appropriate. The Afterward for the 001 Edizioni edition of Pompei was written by Manuele Fior (translated from Italian here by Valerio Stivè). If my personal library was threatened by a the eruption of a volcano, Pompeii by Frank Santoro is among the few books I would save. The subject of this graphic novel is drawing; drawing the living, that are drawn while they draw, and drawing the dead, who, hugging each other, become drawings. Here, the lines mix up, multiplying the levels of reading, and we don’t know if what we see is a face on paper, on canvas, or on a mural painting. The book is about drawing, and its ability to seduce, to distract from death, to imagine a future, and to establish an eternal testimony. There are no second thoughts in Frank’s line, no rubber strokes, only shameless immediacy that offers itself to the reader in its most direct essence, full of errors and clumsiness. This is the best and only way to express the unique strength of some of his compositions, of the raw sensuality of flesh, and especially, of the most necessary of all, the love between two people. This is a graphic novel that, for its intensity, I can never read in one breath. I have to stop, with shivers on my back, and reach for my heart. This is a book that looks like it was drawn on a stone dug up from the ashes, to which time has erased colors and details, while preserving the deeply human living trace of the intentions of this great cartoonist. – Manuele Fior Daniele Barbieri‘s review of Pompei was originally published on Fumettologica on May 5th 2018. Valerio Stivè translates it from Italian below (with sections in bold retained from Barbieri’s original piece): The idea of narrating a historic event through the personal events of a single fictional character in order to let the reader/spectator empathize with the story and understand the events – then comprehending History in a much deeper way than reading a History book – is not new. In literary fiction, as well as in cinema and comics, that is a common and effective narrative device, as long as the reader is able to understand it. Our present times can become the present of those events (despite the historical and cultural differences); and an every day life that we recognize as familiar suddenly fades into something totally different: the historic event itself. If limited to this, Pompeii by Frank Santoro could be seen as a story like many others, maybe more delicate and emotive. Yet there already are so many tales of the last days of Pompeii, even similar to this… The thing is that there is so much more in here. From the very first pages, even before one could figure out where the story would go, the drawing looks rapid, approximative; almost like a sketch or a storyboard – where the imperfect lines are not erased, but adjusted, leaving the imperfection in plain site. No colours, obviously, just some quick textures for the shadows, with an overall sense of temporariness and instability. Then, the story starts to take shape: Marcus, the main character, is an assistant to a painter who is probably going to become famous and move to Rome. Marcus prepares his colours and helps him with the paintings, while forced to be complicit in the painter’s affair with a princess, that needs to be kept hidden from Alba, his suspicious partner. Marcus has a woman too, Lucia, with whom he left Paestum, where he has no intention to come back: he wants to become a portrait painter in Pompeii – just like his master – to make money and start a family with Lucia. This is the picture of everyday affections and little tensions on which the eruption of the Vesuvius occurs. Obviously, the event leaves everyone astonished. However, Marcus encourages the painter to draw that shocking event right away (while it still has to fully take place). “You can add it to the landscape commission! You’ll be the first to paint the gods in action!” he says. The idea of drawing, which was there since the beginning of the story – but, before this, only in the work of the painter – now becomes more and more relevant. Please read the complete review in English HERE. Francesco Boille wrote about Pompei for Internazionale – you can see the magazine article in Italian above. Valerio Stivè translates it into English below. Pompeii fluidly tells a story of happy every day life of two couples from different social backgrounds, before the apocalypse that happened in August of the year 79 B.C. Santoro uses almost unfinished images that remind us of so many things from the History of Art, from cave painting onwards. He focuses on the act of drawing rather than on the act of painting – as Manuele Fior points out in his afterword – which “offers itself to the reader in its most direct essence”. This serves as a metaphor of the fact that images are only shadows, ghosts of the past, just like every one of us will be someday. Sketches of life and sketches of drawings are mixed up, and Santoro reverses the intense petrified physicality of the molds produced from human bodies in Pompeii into a totally lighter dimension. Looks like Frank Santoro, in contrast to the caducity of all things, is showing that the idea of how the strength of poetry expresses itself at best in its most ethereal form, as a unique way to go beyond time and space. To the cold and conceptual approach of most of American graphic novels, Santoro prefers a European approach, based on a free, soft and aerial line. Redesigned in a such a personal way. He comes up with a masterpiece of poetry in its most pure form, a masterpiece about the idea of poetry itself; and he does that while putting together frail and incomplete fragments of an artistic greatness that once was. – Francesco Boille, for Internazionale May 2018 Simona Di Rosa wrote a review of Pompei for FuoriPosto on May 23rd 2018. Valerio Stivè translates it from Italian into English below. Premiered at Napoli COMICON, Pompeii – a graphic novel published by 001 Edizioni from Torino – is written and drawn by Frank Santoro, and set in Pompeii a few days before the eruption that destroyed the city. The book – a large softcover edition – was published in collaboration with COMICON and the Archeological Museum of Naples, which until May 31st will be hosted an exhibition of original artwork from the book. Frank Santoro resides in Pittsburgh, where he manages artists’ residencies hosting and helping fellow cartoonists. He is not well known in Italy, and yet he is among the most original voices in contemporary avant garde American comics scene, thanks to Pompeii, published in the USA five years ago. Santoro has an artisanal approach to comics making, using poor tools – mostly pencils and markers – perfect to tell a story set in the ancient Pompeii, showing its historic value while supporting a touching plot, deeply touching despite the unavoidable outcome. Please read the complete review in English HERE. Get a copy of Pompeii by Frank Santoro in English from Copacetic Comics – HERE! Also, be sure to check out Frank’s new book, the stunning Pittsburgh (Éditions çà et là, May 2018 – currently available in French only!) You can read more about the book HERE. ——————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 6-14-18 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

11/07/2016

Juan FernándezNovember 7, 2016NewsJuan here coming at you from the road! Just wrapped up a revitalizing Comic Arts Brooklyn experience. I have tons to say. Bustling, profitable, and inspiring. But I gotta get back to Pittsburgh in time for work!! A HUGE thank you to Gabe Fowler for the opportunity to exhibit with Comics Workbook at THE premiere NYC show. Endless thanks to the CAB team and their tireless team of volunteers for making his explosion of print a reality. As always, thanks to Frank Santoro for letting me step up to the plate and sling our comics and propaganda. The dream is alive folks. Droves descended upon Our Lady of Mt. Carmel. Nobody left empty handed and that was a sight to see. For now here’s a quick overview of what we did as Comics Workbook at the show. More photos and reflections to come from me and other fine folks. Holding down the fort throughout most of the day was Jenn Lisa and Ron Wimberly. We had Truth Zone bootlegs, rare comics by Connor Willumsen, new comics by CW alums, zines from Pittsburgh, short boxes with comics rarities for the whole family – a one stop shop, if you will, in the hullabaloo of CAB. The fans saw Wimberly’s bat signal through social media and knew to come out to catch him signing at our table. No surprise to anyone, Ron sold out of Prince of Cats in minutes. The line wrapped around the table and fans we’re elated to meet the comics shinobi himself. It was honor to have him with us at Comics Workbook. Needless to say, I had a blast at CAB 2016 <3 Here are some juicy bits for you to dig from elsewhere on the web: ⚡️New Tiny Report! The great Robyn Chapman has crunched all the numbers from her surveys and has cooked up the latest informational zine on the state of the micro press industry. Order a copy from her today! And be sure to check out the section that includes photographs by thee great Chris Anthony Diaz. ⚡️Forgotten Mother News Interview: Jacob Khepler, beating heart of Providence, RI’s thoughtleading free newspaper, Mothers News, chats with Brian Nicholson on the inspiration for the endeavor and his history working on it through the years – plus what he’s going to do next: “I’m healing, reading, playing music, relaxing my mind, working on some more abstract projects, and thinking about how to do whatever the next thing is without the bad parts of the last thing. I’d really like to do a book collection – I think this would be a good endcap. And the way I see it, I did a good job with the paper on an insane deadline for no money – with time to proofread and someone else doing promotion/logistics, I feel like I could mop a book up.“ ⚡️Rob Clough on Comics Workbook alumnus, Audra Stang: Stang has an exceptional ear for dialogue and has an ability to bring a scene to life (in the case of these comics, either high school or the milieu of a traveling band). Her figure drawing has all the right elements: attention to body language, attention to the way characters interact in space, the nuances of gesture, etc. She also shows an enormous amount of restraint as a storyteller, sometimes even leaving backstories deliberately oblique. Stang has little interest in backstory, except when she’s ready to reveal a detail that has an especially pertinent impact on the story at that moment. ok, until next time!! Juan Share this page: [...]

04/13/2017

Sally IngrahamApril 13, 2017NewsSam Ombiri on Patrick Kyle’s Don’t Come in Here; Gloria Rivera on The Wandering Life of Sanmao; Ronald Wimberly at RISD. ————————————————————————————————— Sam Ombiri here: The first time I read Don’t Come In Here by Patrick Kyle I was glued to it, ready to see whatever, no matter how mundane, happen. From the beginning it felt like it had a lot of potential, and it delivered on this potential. In the beginning of the book, Patrick Kyle is creating empty space, and along with that he brings on board a sense of potential for discovery of this space being explored that constantly warps and morphs but then returns to it’s original form. Each page has two panels with every so often one page with just one panel, so the constant morphing is rhythmic – it’s unexpected but feels very right, and when it doesn’t feel right it’s hilarious. It’s a really funny book, like when the ghosts that appear are being really comically sensitive,and caring way way too much. It’s a wholly unexpected turn to the established rhythm and grounded boredom that has been taking place. The computer is maybe my favorite character, because the computer presents the most surprises. For the most part, the computer just says mundane things, completes mundane tasks, like loading this, searching this, except every now and then it suddenly surprises us, the reader. To the main character it just seems like a normal thing. Patrick said of his books before Don’t Come In Here, “All my comics were just drawing based, they’re just about doing crazy drawings, and that was it, the bulk of my early career is like my juvenile where everything was just about the way things looked. So I feel all my comics like Black Mass, my first book, was all about the visual impact of the whole thing and not really about the writing at all.” The drawings are not only being concernedwith the visual impact in Don’t Come In Here. The drawings are not at the expense of the story, they are working together in harmony. I myself have not read his other mentioned work so I cannot speak to it, but Patrick seems to be criticizing his previous work for them not being so concerned with the writing. “Distance Mover started the same way. It was just all about creating a visual thing. I really never thought too much about writing and storytelling much to be honest until Michael (Deforge) and and I were doing these series, that we call blank comics. Every issue has a theme; like a cop comic basketball comic, Pixar’s Cars comic, Christmas comic and so on, and we did a bunch of them, and the first one I did was just shitty and I kept going, and I was just getting into these really stupid topics and building little stories about them. I felt that really helped my writing out.” He later says “The images are secondary now or maybe there’s a balance between the writing and the images.” So then judging from what Patrick said here, and reading the book, it feels like Patrick is exercising restraint by only drawing a certain way, and drawing certain things, and not just going insane with the drawings and abandoning the story that he has set in mind. It very much shows! At times the character walks and then while the character is walking Patrick does what I read as just a joke of the pace and maybe the mood the character is walking, but then again it could just be the character shape-shifting, or it could be both. Because of the presentation, when change occurs it is, not so much unsettling for us as the readers, but we can imagine for the character that it is. I am really into the extra dimension Patrick adds to doing the most boring tasks. He adds the sense of a bizarre perspective to things like your food expiring, or having the thought that you’ve almost cleaned up everything only for the mess to resurface. It is stuff like that which makes me enjoy really excited about engaging with this medium. Again, the first time I read Don’t Come In Here every event that had happened, and that was going to happen in it despite how mundane, was exciting. – Sam Ombiri Get a copy of Patrick Kyle’s Don’t Come In Here from Copacetic Comics – HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Gloria Rivera writes about Zhang Leping’s manhua The Wandering Life of Sanmao (三毛流浪记) for Comics Workbook: “The drawing of the original black and white comic is superb, and though never published in the US is completely readable through images alone. Except for signage and a handful of panels, the bulk of the comic is pantomime. Even the dialogue expressed between characters is drawn and not written! Although the relationship between words and pictures in comics should never be debased (as it may be in the show-don’t-tell school of comics) the silence experienced in this comic is unbreakable, and this is a comic that keeps you within its timing, only refraining for pauses of humor, a softness. Leping’s work is noble, leaving his reader in awe of how a man who has experienced so much can describe innocence as he does. This particular collection of comics has been adapted into color comics, animation, film and even live theater productions over the span of 80 years.“ Read more HERE and see a lengthy excerpt from the comic. ————————————————————————————————— Ronald Wimberly spoke at RISD awhile back but they finally posted the video of the talk online – check it out HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Blinkers – 4-13-2017 – by Jack Brougham ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 4-13-2017 – by Tyler Landry ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 4-13-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

09/22/2016

Sally IngrahamSeptember 22, 2016NewsSally Ingraham here with Sam Ombiri, bringing you more highlights from SPX weekend and an examination of The Act of Seeing! ————————————————————————————————— SPX is always a whirlwind, but when that spinning vortex touches down now and then, you inevitably bump into someone cool. Frank careened into the great Chris Visions, who just released his Lunchtime Loosies Vol. 1 Deluxe Edition (get it here!) and Ronald Wimberly, who said that other conventions are good – but SPX is the one to beat! ————————————————————————————————— Down in the Comics Workbook workshop room the likes of Charles Burns, Carol Tyler, and Jeffrey Brown regaled folks with their pen and paper choices and other process and storytelling tips over SPX weekend. Cameron Weston Nicholson (pictured above) dug into the relationship between comics and music. “Comics are a symphonic mixture of picture & word. Geometry to form a melodic comic (as pictured above) the red is the “eye” or the “main tempo” the blue is the rhythm and the green activates the bass which brings you back to the beginning.” – Cameron Nicholson ————————————————————————————————— The Comics Workbook workshop space at SPX was also a great place to meet new people – Samuel Sharpe, a DC area cartoonist, attended a “hangout” session and got his first taste of the CW index cards method. He shared some of his own comics with us – More of Samuel Sharpe’s work can be found HERE! ————————————————————————————————— Back upstairs in the expo showroom, Shannon Wright was selling copies of her comic 4-99 (which you can get as a digital download HERE if you missed it at the show!) She was tabling with Chris Kindred, who was debuting Night Hunter at the show (also available as a digital download HERE). Another one of our Richmond, VA, friends – Richie Pope – was also there, showing off his recent killer illustration work. ————————————————————————————————— Whit Taylor was tabling as well, debuting her comic Wallpaper, and keeping her sharp eye on the show as a whole – we will be presenting a full report from her soon! She was interviewed by Jake Grubman at Comicsverse shortly before the show. “By nature, being an autobio cartoonist, it’s easier for me to reveal things about myself even though I’m shy by nature. It was kind of therapeutic for me to work through those things, and…the least I could do was produce something that could be helpful to other people.” – Whit Taylor Read the full article HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Switching gears from SPX coverage now – we have this week’s thoughts from Samuel Ombiri – The Act of Seeing I like the title of the coffee table book Nicolas Winding Refn put out last year – The Act of Seeing. I never think of reading or viewing something like it’s an action I’m performing. So this title brings with it a bunch of excitement for me, and it feels like a bit of a challenge. The book itself has a bunch of cinema posters from…the 60’s and 70’s maybe? He said he approached it no more different than the way he edits his movies. So then, what I wonder is, was he still following the same impulse of what his movies are about? That it’s more about what you don’t see than what you see, which creates, in his words “penetration of the mind”? It reminds me of something CF said, about how when he was younger, he was looking at catalogs of comics he couldn’t get. He would think about what the comic would be like based off the cover. I don’t remember whether he did it naturally out of impulse or if it was a conscious thing he did – I think he did it out of impulse. I kind of wonder if CF drew any comics based off what he thought was in those comics he couldn’t read; his comics have the energy, when I read it, where I feel it’s alluding to that comic book cover from that catalog he was reading (but I’m also imagining what that cover looked like, so I guess I’m just imaging reading it in whole different context…) Maybe this will make more sense; let’s say Refn puts together a catalog of movie posters he hasn’t seen (in the video above he said he only knows 10% of the movies in the poster book, but let’s pretend he knows 0%.) Now this next part is actually true – sometimes when he would have no direction for the movie he was making, so he would look to at the posters he was accumulating for the book for inspiration. He would use the posters of the movies he didn’t know and think about what movie they’d be. (I don’t know if he was using the supposed 90% mysterious posters for this process but let’s just suppose he was – this is part of his “penetration of the mind” spiel, that it creates a new idea). When I saw his new movie, I could imagine the poster he was looking at…the era it was alluding to…the theme…and like… the novelty of the time, from the image and the sound. I don’t want to fully grasp where it’s from, in fact I have no interest in watching these movies myself, not just because it ruins the mysterious quality, but watching those movies would just be reaaaal drag. They sound like the worst movies to watch, but that’s probably just my weakness as a viewer, but it is suddenly easier to watch them filtered through Refn. It’s also convenient, how he has pretty much taken every element that interested me in the posters. So it’s also a bit of shortcut, instead of sitting through those other movies. There are ones he alluded to that I like that are not in the same category of the movies in the book too. These allusions can give me a lot of energy and I really welcome that mystery as much as possible, but that mystery means that I’m also avoiding looking at good work. Anyways this supposed experience – I’ve had it too. I bet I’m not the only one who it has happened to, where I draw a comic, based off of what I think a show that hasn’t aired yet will look like. One time I realized I had done 300 pages without realizing it. – Samuel Ombiri ————————————————————————————————— Final note before we let you go – we now have both of Connor Willumsen’s new publications in hand! The brand new one – Portraits – and the super rare one – Swinespritzen – both limited editions, both incredible. Details about both and where to order them can be found HERE. Proceeds from these books will help send Connor to the UK for The Lakes International Comic Arts Festival in October! Share this page: [...]

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