Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in los Cómics, NewsTagged Camila Barrales, La Mujer Rota, La Primavera del Libro, Malaimagen, Ramon Esoño

Juan Fernández

Posted on October 18, 2017October 18, 2017

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10/11/2016

Aaron CockleOctober 10, 2016NewsAaron here today with CW festival events for this upcoming weekend; Chinese Comics; Agnes Martin; Dog City 3; Screening Dash Shaw; Reviewing Safe Distance; Some Notable Comics of Note ————————————————————————————————— Comics Workbook will be participating in 2 festivals this weekend in the U.S. and U.K. Cartoon Crossroads Columbus, October 13-16. We will be hosting workshops and tabling. Join Comics Workbook, along with cartoonists Alyssa Berg and Kurt Ankeny, for an immersive weekend of comics creation. We will examine art and the grid, bringing the strong artistic practices of Berg and Ankeny together with the discipline and rhythm of the grid, as laid out by Comics Workbook founder Frank Santoro. Four hours across two days will be filled with the exploration of a variety of techniques and methods which will inspire the beginner, and challenge the established cartoonist. Comics as jazz; comics as architecture; how a simple index card can transform your sequencing and storytelling process – come join us for an hour or four and take your comics making to a new level. The full festival schedule is here. The Lakes International Comic Art Festival, October 14-16. Join Frank Santoro, Aidan Koch, and Connor Willumsen for some cool workshops and visit table 67 in the Comics Clocktower to meet Oliver East and Jack Brougham, among others. We will be hosting 3 special workshops, “Visual Poetry” with Aidan Koch, “The Hammer Party” with Connor Willumsen and “Composition Competition” with Frank Santoro. Visit our event page for more information. ————————————————————————————————— Chinese Indie Comix Writer, critic, and translator R. Orion Martin has an overview of the Special Comix anthologies published in China during the past 10 years or so: Like other iterations of Special Comix, the artists are working in a range of qualities and directing their work towards diverse, sometimes mutually exclusive audiences. Some artists use the poster format to great effect, creating dense visual landscapes that challenge the reader to interpret them. Yayi’s intricately constructed illustration guides the viewer from one symbol-laden visual to another, refusing to settle into any obvious reading. Similarly, New York-based illustrators Lisk Feng and Jun Cen contribute surreal works that seem to a capture a single moment from a much longer tale. Lisk Feng’s work depicts a troop of Boy Scouts and the creatures that haunt them, while Jun Cen presents a naked woman who has just encountered a giant praying mantis encased in a Mignola-esque crystal prison. Though both these artists come from a background in illustration, they use the poster format to build the foundation for a narrative that could develop in multiple directions. Image above by Chihoi, I’m waiting for you to come back (from Special Comix 6: Transform). Additionally, Martin has been conducting interviews with Chinese cartoonists and artists (Yan Cong, Li Kong, Fanqiao Wang), as well as translating work into English (Bu Er Miao). ————————————————————————————————— Agnes Martin on view at the Guggenheim through January 11 One of the few female artists who gained recognition in the male-dominated art world of the 1950s and ’60s, Martin is a pivotal figure between two of that era’s dominant movements: Abstract Expressionism and Minimalism. Her content—an expression of essential emotions—relates her to the earlier group, the Abstract Expressionists, but her methods—repetition, geometric compositions, and basic means—were adopted by the Minimalists, who came to prominence during the ’60s. Martin’s work, however, is more than a bridge between the two. It stands apart by never losing sight of the subjective while aspiring toward perfection. “I would like to represent beauty, innocence and happiness,” she said. “I would like them all to represent that. Exaltation.” ————————————————————————————————— Dog City #3 CW’s intrepid Juan Fernandez recently unearthed some copies of Dog City 3, from 2014. From his Instagram: I found some of the LAST copies of Dog City 3 and took some to @copaceticcomics – the rest of ’em are safe and sound at my place 😉 Want to bring one of these puppies home?$27 bux postpaid. US shipping only. “The comics expo in a box.” Mad props to Closed Caption Comics for setting the bar way back when. For those of you not yet in the know: Dog City is a small press comics magazine dedicated to publishing quality minicomics. Each issue of Dog City consists of a curated selection of minicomics packaged in an artfully designed cardboard box. Dog City 3 features comics by: Jennifer Lisa, Sophie Goldstein, Caitlin Rose Boyle, Luke Healy, Simon Reinhardt, Amelia Onorato, dw n me, Allison Banister and Tom O’Brien with a collaborative mini, Iris Yan, D. Rinylo – prints and posters by Laurel Lynne Leake and Steven Krall + reprints a selection of strips from the now-forgotten newspaper series Who’s Zoo, which has been restored and compiled by Reilly Hadden! ————————————————————————————————— Making My Entire High School Sinking Into the Sea Wednesday, October 12, 7pm, as part of the New York Film Festival, at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, 144 West 65the Street, NYC With My Entire High School Sinking into the Sea, playing in this year’s Main Slate, celebrated graphic novelist Dash Shaw and his team have created a beautifully layered, colorful, and entertaining new animated film. Shaw’s first feature is a comic adventure about friends overcoming their differences and having each other’s backs in times of crisis, and its marvelously complex characters are voiced by Jason Schwartzman, Lena Dunham, Reggie Watts, Maya Rudolph, and Susan Sarandon. This discussion—featuring writer-director Dash Shaw, lead animator Jane Samborski, and producer Kyle Martin—will go behind the scenes to explore the making of this distinctive new movie. ————————————————————————————————— James K. Hindle’s mini-comic, Safe Distance, is reviewed over at Sequential State Hindle sets the stage of the comic with a bizarre chemical spill that only affects his apartment. The strange spill causes an overgrowth of plants and trees inside his apartment, eventually causing the destruction of his home and his disconnection from the rest of the world. The metaphor of destructive change, acceptance, and growth links closely with the way death affects families and people. No matter where you are when you start, you aren’t the same at the end. The grieving, the anger, those final questions – they all change you irrevocably. ————————————————————————————————— B.A.C. 2016 The Notable Comics list from The Best American Comics 2016 has been posted, see if you (or someone you may care dearly for and/or feel massively ambivalent about) are on the list! Thanks to series editor Bill Kartalopoulos for compiling and painstakingly linking to each of the cartoonists and their individual works on the list. And here’s a quick note from Bill K about the B.A.C. series: As Series Editor of The Best American Comics, it is my job to attempt to see as many of each year’s most interesting comics as I can. The majority of these arrive as submissions through our public postal address (below). Others I find by attending comics festivals, consulting with colleagues, reaching out individually to artists and publishers, visiting comic books stores, endlessly scanning the internet, and generally keeping my antenna up at all times. After nearly a year of looking and reading, I forward to each year’s Guest Editor a selection of more than one hundred outstanding works. From this pool of material, the Guest Editor selects the pieces that will appear in each year’s Best American Comics (while retaining, as well, the latitude to bring in some work they may have discovered independently). On the subject of our process, I cannot urge any artist or publisher strongly enough to submit work to Best American Comics. We have a completely open submission process, and all work that is submitted will be considered. Please send work, labeled with contact information and date of publication, to: Bill Kartalopoulos Series Editor The Best American Comics Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company 3 Park Avenue, 19th floor New York, NY 10016 ————————————————————————————————— Have you seen the recent collaboration between Frank Santoro and master jeweler Airi Maeno? Want to help us get Connor Willumsen to The Lakes International Comic Art Festival? Share this page: [...]

03/07/2018

Juan FernándezMarch 7, 2018los Cómics / NewsJuan with some thoughts on examining what it means to write when making comics! ————————————————————————————————— The other night, over dinner here in Pittsburgh, Jenn Lisa and I were talking about making autobio comics and she asked “Are comics mostly writing? Only?”. It made me stop in my tracks. That’s a good question. To me, comics are more writing than they are drawing. That writing process though, is one that far different from this common notion: And the drawing? In comics, the drawing is really just about the recording of images. To clarify, the writing – tt’s how those recorded images are arranged and presented. I just heard someone say that the dirty secret of comics is that it is mostly writing and if you haven’t done good writing all you made was a pretty picture. And everything in me wants to dispute that. It isn’t that cut and dry to me. – Jenn Lisa I agree and disagree. Yes, the dirty secret is that comics is mostly writing. That is true. I firmly believe that. But the only people that I ever hear touting that idea usually have a very narrow definition of writing. So how does that affect you as a comics maker? Well, indulge me in a tangent. This one is for all you folks that hate the planning and foresight that you see kill joy and beauty in many comics makers practices. It’s an idea you might already be familiar with, but I just want to sing the song more fully into the ether. We don’t hone in on meaning by having a creative process that follows a straight line, the reality is that most of us spiral in on that meaning, by diligent work. But what if you don’t know what you’re trying to say? That’s ok. You can still make comics without knowing what you’re trying to say, so long as you know that you’re trying to say something. Your comics will still have an impact, even if you’re not communicating exactly what you intend. How do you get to that meaning? There’s this thing that happens, in comics making, and art in general that I’d like to talk about. What is the nature of the back and forth between the work a reader does and the work a writer does? Writer here being the operative name for the person making the comic. Sam Ombiri and I have talked about it at length during the Pittsburgh Comics Salons monthly meet ups. If I take 14 random drawings from my pile of post it notes and arrange them across 4 pages, and I give it to you in a little booklet, your brain, the readers brain, stitches together a patter of cohesion. That pattern will vary connect disparate elements. Make order out of chaos. They try to figure out a pattern. Why are these images together? The reader does all this work without trying. They can’t help it. As a comics maker, that is a tool that we are using. A reader is naturally going to be interpreting what we assemble together. As a result, we can be playful, intuitive in what we draw and how we arrange what we draw. It will be stitched together by the reader. You don’t need to shove the connective tissue of narrative and symbolism down a reader’s throat. You don’t need to know everything you are trying to do. That’s all pretty explored territory conceptually among many comics makers. The part where my conversations with Sam get interesting is when we talk about signal processing a little more in depth. The signal interpreted by the listeners brain CAN be the same one that you are making. BUT, it can also not be that, while still being an interesting signal. The meaning you intend can be communicated, and you can work at figuring out how to effectively communicate that meaning so that they get what you intended them to get out of the written sequence. There’s a beautiful dance between signal and noise that we are working through when we create art for others to interpret. But no matter what, their brain is going to interpret a signal. The realization was a breakthrough. You can choose how intentional you are about the signal you are transmitting. With that knowledge, you can allow the process of drawing and writing and editing to flow more intuitively. Allowing yourself. You can choose to simply be a radio antenna with your drawings on the page, and how you arrange those drawings on the page in ways that feel intuitively, “right” or “good” to you – your comic will beam a signal to the brain of the other through the reading experience, whether you are aware of that signal or not. This is a model of aural communication, just swap out aural for visual 😉 Don’t be afraid to allow the process to be a Rorshach test of your subconscious. You can see what comes out in your drawing, your arranging. Allow for the accidents! Keep moving. Keep making marks, keep tracing, keep moving your index cards. You don’t have to know what you’re looking for, you just need to know that you’re looking. The paper trail you leave in your search for truth in your comics, that’s your writing. All that said, in a more grounded sense, the process of editing, that traditional refining that we do as cartoonists, that’s where writing is also happening. Every step of the way, where you change, add or subtract meaning, that’s writing. Color blocking is writing. How you scoot images, how you erase, what you add after initial drawings and after you let work sit for a little while, that’s all writing. The intentional arrangement of anything, to be parsed and understood a certain way, that’s writing. So yes, comics are mostly/only writing. But not in the way you think they are. * It’s funny to me that the “writing” in panels and across pages in comics found as lettering is fundamentally drawing. That’s a point Kevin Huizenga drives home to his students. More on that, another day. ————————————————————————————————— Los cómics y las noticias que me han llamado la atención esta semana: ~ en Español y in English ~ En el último #FanzineMagazine Paloma García Zúñiga habla de “Necrópolis del Este” y el gran MAX les cuenta su música para dibujar con Victor Coyote y Mireia Pérez. Escúchalo aquí. Having trouble with anxiety attacks? Well fret no more! Kat Fajardo offers up an illustrated guide on remedies and why it works. Check out this Pay-What-You-Wish publication and consider sending it to a loved one! Esteban Hernández charla en Cafe con Vistas sobre tebeos y su Moneda músical. Podrá ser miercoles, sí, pero también hay nuevo número de Revista Cactus. Lo puedes leer ya enterito y gratis, aquí: http://bit.ly/2Fbz6CW Inés Estrada gives you the low down on How to Avoid Boredom over on vice.com ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 3-7-2018 – by Sally Ingraham Share this page: [...]

Comics Community Heart: an Interview with Kevin Czap

Alyssa BergNovember 1, 2016Interviews“The Emerging Talent Award – this goes to a cartoonist whom we feel has plenty of promise as a cartoonist and has shown themselves to be a solid and giving community member as well… We love everything we’ve ever learned about you, in terms of your comics community heart.” —Tom Spurgeon, during the presentation of Jeff Smith and Vijaya Iyer’s Emerging Talent Award to Kevin Czap at CXC, 2016. By a combination of good luck and being an early bird at a pick-your-own-table convention, I ended up tabling close to Kevin Czap of Czap Books during the recent Cartoon Crossroads Columbus expo. This proximity allowed for neighborly chats and also afforded me a front-row spot when they were awarded the CXC 2016 Emerging Talent Award. Jeff Smith and Vijaya Iyer presented Kevin with a $7,500, no-strings-attached award in the form of a novelty check. It was a special moment to witness at CXC – a generous display of support for a deserving artist. A week later, I met up with Kevin in Providence, Rhode Island, to continue the conversation about CXC, comics and community. Alyssa: Tell me a little bit about winning the Emerging Talent Award at CXC. What was that like for you? Kevin Czap: I’ve been going to shows in Columbus with that crowd for a long time. I do a lot of shows – this year I’m going to be doing a total of 14 or 15, more than I usually do. So I know a lot of people, but there are a number of people I don’t necessarily think they know who I am, or I’m not necessarily on their radar… I’m just going about my thing. I didn’t expect it at all. It felt nice in that regard – plugging away at this thing and trying to be a part of the larger conversation of comics that I feel a part of is being represented at CXC. So the award felt like acknowledgement, that you are being noticed and heard, which feels nice. I’m doing all of this stuff without expectation of reward, it’s just what I what I want to do, but it’s definitely nice to see some traction. A: You recently did a Kickstarter for the 2017 collection from Czap Books that more than doubled the amount of money you asked for, and you won this Emerging Talent Award, both within a short span of time. It’s pretty wild, right? KC: I was thinking about that on the drive home and I was crying a lot. Not only that, last year Annie Koyama approached L. Nichols and I about funding Ley Lines, and she gave us a big check for printing the whole line for a year (as well as to pay the artists). And she just did that again for next year. I’ve collected close to what my salary was at my old full-time job to put into making comics, just out of people’s kindness and support of me. It’s too much (laughs). A: It’s the perfect amount! What was your old full-time job? KC: I was a web and graphic designer for a marketing firm in Northeast Ohio. It took good care of me but as I was becoming more ambitious with comics-things that had various facets of identity, the time got to be too much. I was spending the whole day thinking about the comics work that I was not getting done. A: It’s a leap of faith, as an artist, to leave a full-time job. KC: This award validates that decision even more. And also with the Kickstarter, I’ve been able to see the gains that I’ve made since leaving that job, and all of the time I’ve been able to put to good use. A: You have a lot of projects going at once: your own comics, publishing other people’s work, Ley Lines… In addition to those projects you are going to 15 festivals this year. It’s a pretty basic question but how do you manage your time? KC: In the beginning of the year, I figured out a really nice system of dividing up the days into specific blocks so everything is being worked on continually. But then after the first couple of big shows I fell off that a little bit. Now I’m trying to catch back up and get in to it again. Generally I just have a million to-do lists. I realized there are things I really don’t want to do, like call somebody on the phone or ask a stranger a question where the ‘no’ could be a scary thing. But if I put it on the to-do list, I have to cross it off. A: Do you love crossing things off? KC: It’s the greatest thing in the world. A: I was just reading Fütchi Perf and I’m wondering about the process that goes into your comics. KC: I’ve been trying to speed it up a little bit. Generally I’ll have ideas and over a couple months, they’ll formulate. Different bits and pieces of an idea will grow and crystallize and an image will pop out of that. I feel like I work better in smaller chunks. Fütchi Perf was made in discreet units over time. The first couple stories were for specific publications or tasks. I was living in Cleveland and the local alt-weekly had a comics issue: ‘do Cleveland of the future.‘ I did a single page that I later adapted to the first story in Fütchi Perf. A lot of them are based off of experiences I’ve had. I try to shove across any plotting ideas I have. ‘Alright that doesn’t matter, what is the feeling, what do I keep obsessing over?’ The story I was just talking about, I was trying to capture the feeling of going to my first house show – going down this hill and there is this weird house and it’s going to change your life but you don’t know it yet. From there I’ll have the images and then I try to run through the actions in my head. I’ll write out the lyrics or phrasing of the song. I’ve always been obsessed with this idea of somehow translating the feeling or structure of a song to a comic. Some of the more recent work I’ve done I’ll literally try and dissect the structure of song lyrics and try and transcribe that to panels. But for Ley Lines, it was different. I wrote all of the words first. I had some images like I usually do but it was writing out the actual lines, then rewriting and editing before drawing. A: Your Ley Lines book, The Letting Go, was inspired by a conceptual artist (Bas Jan Ader)? KC: Yeah, it’s an artist I learned about in college who I’m still interested in. I was reading a lot of writing about his work and my friend gave me a copy of a documentary about his life and work. I was thinking about these things in general and trying to shove that into a more personal, auto-biographical thing. A: I work with auto-bio in my own work but I try to pull away from the specific and make it more of a relatable feeling. With the auto-bio stuff, is that really close to you? KC: I feel like it’s really personal but it’s heavily coded. There’s a very thick screen. Some of the lines or words are directly things I’ve thought about my own situation but taken out of context to be more relatable and capture a feeling. Everything I do is really earnest, but there is a layer of self-consciousness about that because you have a sense that people don’t take earnestness seriously or it’s an easy route to being bad. There’s always an awareness of that. I don’t want it to be naive, but I do think that earnestness and honesty are important. A: When I made Alpenglow for the Comics Workbook competition, I made a conscious decision to re-imagine that story through kinder eyes. I have the tendency to go toward a heavy-hearted place but I wanted to be more positive, for myself and the people who would read it. When you’re making your work are you conscious of what’s being put out into the ether…of wanting to put positive vibrations into the universe (I’m sorry, I’m a half-hippie!)? KC: No, totally. That’s a lot of where Fütchi Perf started coming from. That idea of how can I turn this into positive energy that I can put into the world? It’s partly what I’m putting out into the world but it’s also what I’m putting into myself, too. I realized at some point it’s very easy to grow negativity in your own mind and I could see where that path leads. How can you correct that behavior, or view it another way? It is a lot of explicitly taking something and flipping it to see, what’s another outcome of this, what do you actually want to happen? A: That’s interesting that you say ‘what do you actually want to happen’ because as I was reading Fütchi Perf, in the first story, a character is “chosen to receive a sizable arts grant.” KC: Oh, ha, I forgot about that. That’s so funny because that specifically came out of not getting a grant and I thought, wouldn’t it be great if I had? A: Tell me about the comics community and how you might add to it. KC: As far as the community goes, my role – if I can do anything, I want to be able to bridge some gaps and constantly be true to my idea of comics being a very diverse and interesting medium full of possibility and not about any one particular way a comic looks or is made. A lot of it involves me constantly questioning and revisiting my own assumptions and tastes. I think it’s valuable to revisit those assumptions. Part of why it seemed important to me to go into publishing, besides liking it – promoting other people’s work and putting books together which is fun – is being very aware that the culture and history of comics is editable. It’s created by active involvement. ———————————————————————————————————————— One of my favorite things to see is a work in progress or sketchbook from an artist I admire. I asked Kevin if they would bring something in progress along to our meeting. KC: Right now I’m working on some things, but it’s all writing at this point. This is a recent sketchbook. It started as all ballpoint pen, and more recently I brought in the highlighter. With the line drawings, it’s like a wall I can’t get past. I want to do more blocky color. ———————————————————————————————————————— Kevin Czap – a.k.a. “Comics Mom” – has been making comics since they were a child in Northern Virginia. They live in Providence, RI, where they run the publisher and distro Czap Books. Their most recent work is The Letting Go (Ley Lines #8 – August 2016). Catch up with Kevin at Comic Arts Brooklyn this weekend (Nov. 5th 2016)! Alyssa Berg makes comics in Brooklyn, NY. You can find her work HERE. Share this page: [...]

04/17/2018

Aaron CockleApril 17, 2018NewsAaron here today with Latin American Art; Remembering Geneviève Castrée; Banksy/Zehra Doğan; Retrofit Comics 2018 Subscription ————————————————————————————————— Radical Women: Latin American Art, 1960–1985 At the Brooklyn Museum through July 22: The artworks on view range from painting and sculpture to photography, video, performance, and other new mediums. Included are emblematic figures such as Lygia Pape, Ana Mendieta, and Marta Minujín, alongside lesser‐known names such as Cuban‐born abstract painter Zilia Sánchez; Colombian sculptor Feliza Bursztyn; Peruvian composer, choreographer, and activist Victoria Santa Cruz; and Argentine mixed‐media artist Margarita Paksa. The Brooklyn presentation also includes Nuyorican portraits by photographer Sophie Rivera, as well as work from Chicana graphic arts pioneer Ester Hernández, Cuban filmmaker Sara Gómez, and Afro-Latina activist and artist Marta Moreno Vega. ————————————————————————————————— “Poetry seemed useless in the context of actual annihilation.” On Studio 360, Kurt Anderson talks with Phil Elverum, husband of Geneviève Castrée, who passed away in 2016, about Elverum’s recent Mount Eerie albums, which are about Castrée’s death. Her last book, A Bubble, will be published in June by D&Q. ————————————————————————————————— Zehra Doğan/Banksy Patricia Mastricolo at the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund wrote about the Banksy mural protesting the imprisonment of Turkish artist and journalist Zehra Doğana few weeks back: This first night the mural was revealed, a projection of the dark painting Doğan is imprisoned for showed over the mural. Based off a photo Doğan saw, she painted the rubble of a Kurdish town, destroyed by tanks, with the Turkish flag flying over the town. She painted the tanks as surreal monsters. The Turkish government said that the painting compromised military security, even though it was based on a government photograph. ————————————————————————————————— Retrofit Comics 2018 All the Sad Songs – Summer Pierre Fashion Forecasts – Yumi Sakugawa I Love You – Sara Lautman John, Dear – Laura Lannes Our Wretched Town Hall – Eric Kostiuk Williams The Prince – Liam Cobb Survive 300 Million 1 – Pat Aulisio Survive 300 Million 2: Serpentine Captives – Pat Aulisio The Troublemakers – Baron Yoshimoto TRUMPTRUMP vol. 2: Modern Day Presidential – Warren Craghead III Understanding – Becca Tobin The Winner – Karl Stevens ————————————————————————————————— Vision Box – 4-17-2018 – by Cameron Arthur ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 4-17-2018 – by Caleb Orecchio 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: [...]

10/18/2017

Posted on October 18, 2017October 18, 2017 by Juan Fernández

Empezamos el día con Sofía Álvarez Watson; Ramón Esono; Begoña García-Alén; Mohammad Barrangi; Inés Estrada; Berliac; La Polola; La Primavera del Libro y los tebeos de Cómics Workbook!

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La Watson y uno de sus participantes de Medellín en Amor dibujado. FOTO: MANUEL CARTAGENA

Dibujar el amor es el trabajo de Sofía Álvarez Watson

Juan David Umaña Gallego nos cuenta en El Colombiano:

“Llegué a Medellín con 105 anécdotas recogidas entre Buenos Aires y Bogotá. De aquí me llevaré unas 10 y luego estaré en Quito para después regresar a Buenos Aires y decidir qué hacer con ellas”, dice la ilustradora.

Una de esas historias, la primera en realidad, relata como dos enamorados decidieron encontrarse en una estación de tren, pero con tal mala fortuna que cada uno se ubicó en una entrada diferente esperándose por más de una hora. Después de esperar ese tiempo los dos decidieron ir a la puerta contraria y se encontraron. Un inicio romántico para una historia que no termina bien.

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– Ramón Esono en la Bienal de Curitiba, donde presentó su obra ‘218: Catalina en el País de las Maravillas’. –

Ramón Esono, a la cárcel por dibujar contra Obiang

Ramón Esono sigue en la cárcel y nosotros seguimos pendientes de su estado. Dibujar no es delito.

Ramón Esono lleva en la prisión de Black Beach, Malabo (Guinea Ecuatorial), desde el 16 de septiembre, sin que los cargos contra él ni los motivos que han provocado esa detención estén muy justificados. Las autoridades del régimen de Teodoro Obiang apuntan a un supuesto delito por blanqueo de capitales, pero se intuye que las razones reales obedecen a un castigo por las críticas que Esono realiza desde su actividad artística, principalmente como ilustrador.

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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! En este capítulo las chicas se fueron a recorrer La Primavera del Libro, en el parque bustamante (Santiago, Chile). Participaron del duelo de dibujantes entre Katerine Supnem, Malaimagen y Sol Díaz, entrevistaron a distintos personajes, dibujantes, editores, revisaron libros, cantaron, y reíron. Entre los entrevistados están los dibujantes Malaimagen, Christiano y Camila Barrales, hablaron con las editoras de los hermosos libros de La Mujer Rota, Neon, Vasalisa, Francisca Cárcamo de Pánico ediciones, y la grosa y divertida Lola Larra de Ekaré.
Inés Estrada: “Millions of years of evolution for us to all be bored on our phones right now…” The last issue of her Alienation comic will be available from her webshop, Gatosaurio this weekend. If you haven’t picked up all previous 5 issues, you’d be remiss not to get all 6 for $25.
Miguel A. Pérez-Gómez reseña Nuevas estructuras de Begoña García-Alén – el lector como constructor.
Este sábado a las 20 no se pierdan a Berliac en una gran charla moderada por Lucas De Paoli en Libreria del Fondo en Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Conozcan a Mohammad Barrangi, el elegido por Tragaluz Libros como premio de ilustración. Aquí el intercambio de magnolias entre Barrangi y Juliana Muños Toro.

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Suzy and Cecil – 10-18-2017 – by Sally Ingraham

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Cozytown – 10-18-2017 – by Juan Fernandez [1][2]

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Joanie and Jordie – 10-18-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio

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Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in los Cómics, NewsTagged Camila Barrales, La Mujer Rota, La Primavera del Libro, Malaimagen, Ramon Esoño

Juan Fernández

Posted on October 18, 2017October 18, 2017

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06/06/2017

Aaron CockleJune 6, 2017NewsAaron Cockle here today with Davis/Tamaki; Alex Katz in the Subway; Line Hoven & Nora Krug; Ware on Steinberg; CAKE Reminder; Marginalia; NY Times Comics ————————————————————————————————— ‘I am constantly bewildered by the juxtapositions of city-life.’ Eleanor Davis in conversation with Jillian Tamaki, in support of Tamaki’s new book, Boundless: ED: Did you write “World Class City” after you realized you were gonna leave New York? JT: Oh yes. Definitely. I had always had a very weird, uncomfortable relationship with New York, but it was my home and leaving was very melancholy despite being 100% the right decision. ED: I read it in the voice of someone who is in love with a thing, but is aware of being in denial about its flaws. A keening sort of mournful love. JT: Oh, I never fell in love with the place. But, I’m glad. I prefer that, instead of it seeming sarcastic. ED: How did you decide the images for it? JT: To be honest, I can feel increasingly confined by the image part of comics. Perhaps because often, for more commercial works, the images need be a lot more literal? I feel like images can “lock” an idea. To depict someone specific can be nice sometimes – the books I do with Mariko are always about specificity of time and place and character. But sometimes it’s nice, when reading prose, to have the ideas and concepts more open. They can feel more universal or possibly even symbolic. So I guess this comic was about trying to stretch that word-image relationship. I don’t want to show you what kind of person thinks this way, acts this way, etc. ————————————————————————————————— ‘Lost Romance Will Soon Be at Your Neighborhood Itch.’ Alex Katz with some early-career subway drawings: Later this month, the Cleveland Museum of Art will mount “Brand-New & Terrific: Alex Katz in the 1950s,” an exhibition of the paintings that Katz made in the decade after he graduated Cooper Union and spent two influential summers at the Skowhegan School in Maine. “It rolls out of this,” he acknowledges of the work in that show. “I changed styles the minute I got out of school. In a practical sense, it was one of the dumbest things I ever did in my life. I applied for a Fulbright. I had three teachers who gave me A’s on the jury. And one of them said to me: ‘Alex, why did you send this? It’s crap. We couldn’t do a thing for you.’ ” ————————————————————————————————— Ferocious Ink: Line Hoven & Nora Krug MFA Visual Narrative and the Goethe-Institut New York present an evening with authors and illustrators Line Hoven and Nora Krug. Hoven and Krug will present their explorations of German identity in their graphic work and discuss ways of weaving the personal, cultural and historical into new forms of storytelling. Tuesday, June 6, 7-10pm, School of Visual Arts SocDoc Auditorium, 136 West 21 Street, ground floor. Free and open to the public. RSVP here. ————————————————————————————————— ‘As a cartoonist myself, I am dismayed that there’s little in the show I can steal…’ Caleb Orecchio linked to this Chris Ware catalog essay for the Along the Lines: Selected Drawings by Saul Steinberg show at the Art Institute of Chicago in yesterday’s newspost, but I wanted to post an excerpt, it’s always nice to see cartoonists writing about other cartoonist’s work: One can’t overstate the importance of Steinberg’s working for reproduction, of his creating drawings to be disseminated to the mailboxes, laps, and, I guess, bathroom walls, of receptive readers and not, at least initially, to museum walls. The Museum turns on an eminently Steinbergian tool—the rubber stamp—and, as a lithograph, manipulates the idea of reproduction while pictorially lampooning and dissembling it. Identical figures are plunked out to represent visitors and viewers of (what else?) official stamps of approval; over the museum’s horizon, stamps rise like suns, the entire composition grounded and buttressed by illegible signatures and, of course, more stamps. As a visa-seeking emigré in his early life, Steinberg’s fascination with legal seals is easily understandable. Riverfront and Certified Landscape pivot on the objectively ridiculous but fundamentally necessary imprimatur of government made corporeal, territorially imprinted as a skein of walls and fences. Steinberg quietly added his own signature directly into the rather unaccommodating landscapes—are they farms, factories, or concentration camps?—rather than putting it in the traditional antiseptic nonspace outside the pictorial “border.” But in The Museum, Steinberg bundles the stamp’s sanctioning power and aesthetics into the frame of the art itself, stamping his own authorizing red imprimatur in that expected nonspace outside the image, along with his signature (legible, one notes) and, as a digestif, a blind stamp (a stamp without ink, visible by the impression it leaves on the page), just to snuff out any lingering doubt about the drawing’s authenticity and, by proxy, the artist’s own legitimacy. ————————————————————————————————— Chicago Alternative Comics Expo (CAKE) Saturday and Sunday, June 10 and 11, 2017 11 am – 6 pm Center on Halsted 3656 N Halsted FREE and open to the public! http://www.cakechicago.com Promotional artwork by Anya Davidson. ————————————————————————————————— Marginalia at the Drawing Center Marginalia: Open Sessions 10 declares our present geo-political and ideological constructs to be permeable and malleable. The artists in this exhibition view borders and barriers as material through which to build new avenues of both trespass and solidarity. Marginalia features Daniel Bejar, Ana Peñalba, Sue Jeong Ka, Carolyn Lambert, Srinivas Mangipudi, Irini Miga, and Rodrigo Valenzuela. Drawing is a mode of inquiry throughout the exhibition Valenzuela visualizes the American dream in deserted landscapes; Bejar traverses communities tenuously linked through political maneuvering; Peñalba sketches visionary architecture from the waste of the present; Ka explores the aesthetics of deportation; Miga archives tender and almost unnoticeable gestures; Lambert finds legible marks deep in Arctic ice; and Mangipudi creates notebooks inviting strangers to add their marginalia. Curated by Lisa Sigal and Nova Benway. ————————————————————————————————— New York Stories Caleb linked to the New York Times Magazine’s all-comics issue yesterday as well, but it’s definitely worth another look. ————————————————————————————————— A Cosmic Journey – 6-6-2017 – by Cameron Arthur ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 6-6-2017 – by Sally Ingraham ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 6-6-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

01/29/2018

Caleb OrecchioJanuary 29, 2018NewsCaleb Orecchio here with thoughts on amazing, dumb back-issues that won’t leave my brain, and other news. ————————————————————————————————— One of my favorite parts of comics culture is the scrounging for back-issues, which often feels like trying to find a lost wedding band in yesterday’s garbage—in a good way. I get a sincere rush from finding wacky crap from comic’s past. As I was scavenging the longboxes and finding some excellent garbage this past week, I was reminded of some things Chris Ware said in his recent RiYL interview: “Most great works of art don’t work in the present, they work in the memory.” ” will draw things in a certain way, especially in his more recent work, that is very uncomfortable or strange. I know he’s looked at comics by cartoonists who might be considered awkward or almost naive just as a way of making an image that has–as I think of it, personally–hooks that hang in your brain and stay with you.” In a recent back-issue find, Kull the Destroyer #19 (1976), there’s this sequence of “SHEMENON–THE GOD OF FIRE AND ICE–!” a wraith, a skeleton encapsulated in diamond whose “SOLE PURPOSE WAS TO FILL HIS CRYSTALLOID FLESH WITH LIFE!!” Very campy, classic mid-seventies Marvel stuff that the staff at The Comics Journal would have used as toilet paper. To read this comic in any way as to understand the narrative is a fool’s errand, and not worth the time of intelligent, discerning people. Yet! the images will not leave my mind! I find myself returning and going back over the fight between our hero and this jewel-encrusted executioner from hell! Old dumb boy adventure comics featuring superheroes, barbarians and flights of action-packed fever-dreams tend to fall into the “Minor Prophets” category of the comics “Bible.” When all the history of comics is laid before us, it’s comics like Kull the Destroyer #19 that tend to get ignored for various reasons; but it’s these very kinds of comics that tend to infest our subconscious and become active images in our memory when least expected—like an annoying radio jingle or something. Have you ever met a real Kirby-hater? Maybe you are one. You hate his comics for reasons others love him. People hate/love his weird knees, or they hate/love his square hands, or they hate/love the way he draws action or machines or whatever. Both parties remember the same things. Whether you like the art or not, the image is permanently branded onto the folds of your brain. ————————————————————————————————— if you don’t know, now you know Ty Burr writes about How to Read Nancy, at the The Boston Globe, plus, the authors of said book, Paul Karasik and Mark Newgarden, sit down for a radio interview. On the latest episode of Comic Books Are Burning in Hell, the boys talk about their favorite comics of 2017. Paul Tumey on Mark Campos, the Seattle mini comics maker at TCJ.com. The latest Process Party episode features Jason T. Miles, and on the same site, Study Group Comics, Will Tempest begins a web comic. Ryan C. has a guest spot on Your Chicken Enemy, he writes about Forsman’s Slasher. ————————————————————————————————— Collected from the thousands of pages of material that Frank has left scattered all over the digital landscape, these 4 PDF collections contain Frank’s best writing on comics and comics making from the past decade. Theory and process, reviews and discoveries, journeys both physical and spiritual. Check out the “Best of Frank Santoro” PDF collections, available HERE! ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 1-29-2018 – by Sally Ingraham ————————————————————————————————— Share this page: [...]

11/24/2017

Sally IngrahamNovember 23, 2017NewsSally here with work by Jessica Campbell, Jessica Abel and Meg Lemke, Sophie Goldstein, and more! ————————————————————————————————— Hillary Brown talks House of Women with Sophie Goldstein on Paste Magazine. About the comic itself Hillary writes: “Alternately spiky and luscious, it draws you in by receding. She writes with economy, but the resulting story isn’t irritatingly arty or hard to follow; it’s not drawn by a comics artist only for other comics artists who speak the lingo and can read the subtext. It’s no surprise, in fact, that Margaret Atwood (restless, relentless experimenter, unafraid to leap into any genre that grabs her interest, including comics) is an inspiration for this female-centered and complexly feminist story of colonization and controlled social dynamics. Goldstein provides no easy answers—the book is thematically driven rather than focused on plot first and foremost—but she knows how to be just difficult enough.“ Read the interview HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Jessica Campbell has a comic about The Bad Behavior of Men in Comics up on Hyperallergic – it’ll probably make you squirm or steam, depending, because she brings up all kinds of things that no one likes to talk about. Read it HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Meg Lemke interviews Jessica Abel about her new book Growing Gills over on Mutha Magazine. Jessica has spent her life making comics, working in arts education, and developing theories about maintaining creative focus – something that I’d say the majority of us struggle with. This book came out of a series of online courses she taught and a working group she managed – where instead of dealing with issues like “how can I tell better stories?”, for example, the overwhelming chorus from her students and peers was “how can I deal with my paralyzing anxiety and procrastination?!” In Growing Gills Jessica offers some working theories she’s developed (although she struggles with the same issues in her own life on a regular basis.) In the interview Jessica and Meg talk about organization, self-forgiveness, and process over progress. “MUTHA: You talk in the book also about process over project outcomes, can you unpack that more? JESSICA ABEL: What’s destructive is when people want to make art, but don’t want to sell art. AND at the same time they feel they can’t be artists if they aren’t attempting to be professionals. “If I’m not showing in a gallery, am I really an artist? If I don’t have a mainstream publisher, am I a writer?” Yes, you are. It may be that the business side is not what you’re interested in; it requires sacrifice of your creative time to do the work required to be a “pro.” People miss that the selling part is a separate project. If they can recognize and commit to selling as a separate project, great. If you constantly find yourself saying “I don’t want to do the things needed to sell my work,” then maybe you need to rethink the underlying model. Maybe the creative work on its own is what you need to feed your psyche. Make room in your life for your work without worrying about making it pay for itself. Maybe it’s enough to share it with your family, friends, or put it up for free on Medium. Don’t confuse the creative work with your childhood dreams of fame.“ This speaks to me right now, as a good reminder that making comics and making money can’t always be the same thing, and if I’m sacrificing making good comics in favor of making money, then I need to reevaluate. The book is long and full of good stuff, but if you don’t have time to squeeze reading it into your already busy life, at least read this interview, which unpacks a lot. Check out Growing Gills HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Thanksgiving Leftovers (always better the next day!) Melanie Gillman‘s webcomic As the Crow Flies has been released by Iron Circus Comics – the A.V. Club reviews the comic HERE. GG discusses I’m Not Here over on Smash Pages. NPR reviews Body Music by Julie Maroh – apparently “earnest romanticism buoys it over the trouble spots“. Read the review HERE. Drawn + Quarterly is publishing new work by Rina Ayuyang and the last work of Geneviève Castrée – both comics coming in 2018. ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 11-24-2017 – by Gabriella Tito ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 11-24-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

02/16/2018

Sally IngrahamFebruary 15, 2018NewsSally here with comics and comments from Lauren Weinstein, Emily Carroll, Ulli Lust, and Yona Harvey – and much more! ————————————————————————————————— Lauren Weinstein is the most recent guest on Gil Roth’s Virtual Memories Show. “Village Voice cartoonist Lauren Weinstein joins the show to talk about the balancing act of making comics. We get into how she integrates the political and the personal, finds humor alongside near-tragedy, and deals with the temptation to do self-help/identity comics.“ They also talk motherhood and comics-making, teaching comics, and other challenges of navigating the working cartoonist’s life. Listen to the episode HERE. You can get a copy of Lauren’s first collection of the Normal Person comics that run in Village Voice HERE. Her most recent strip dealt with Valentines Day… Find more of the Normal Person comics HERE! ————————————————————————————————— Emily Carroll has adapted the incredible YA novel Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson (which came out in 1999). I read this book when I was a teenager and it has stuck with me. I’ll be curious to see how it translates into the comic form, but a story that is about a girl not speaking should work pretty well – and Emily Carroll’s imagery seems to be up for the visual task. Paste Magazine has an exclusive preview of the book HERE. ————————————————————————————————— There is an excerpt on Lit Hub from Voices in the Dark, the graphic novel by Ulli Lust that came out last year (based on Marcel Beyer’s The Karnau Tapes). Check out a few pages of the comic HERE (one that Publishers Weekly said “transcended” the source material) and get a copy of the book HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Yona Harvey, poet and English professor at the University of Pittsburgh, continues to talk about her experience as the writer on two comic book stories that were part of the Black Panther series. ” “My work — poetry, essays, teaching and comics — primarily aims to make Black women’s lives visible, vibrant and recognizable for other Black women, but I also want my writing to speak to women of all backgrounds,” said Harvey, who calls comic-book writing the unparalleled challenge of her career. “Writing for a comic book takes an unbelievable level of cohesion between the writers and the illustrators. As a poet, accustomed to writing in isolation, that took some getting used to. At the same time, I’ve always loved visual art. So, the biggest joy of the experience was seeing those amazing illustrated pages come together every few weeks.”“ As Black Panther, the latest Marvel movie offering, comes out this weekend, Yona Harvey sees this as a promising moment. ” “Literature should reflect the face of the world in which we live. Comics have always had a diverse readership and the books should reflect that,” said Harvey, who is currently working on a nonfiction collection of essays on depression and mental illness as well as other Marvel projects. “This era in the comic book industry is opening doors for a diverse set of artists and writers, and that is beautiful to see and be a part of. It is as though comics and mainstream media in general is waking up to the imagination, creativity and economic influence of people of color. The Black Panther franchise was at the very beginning of that.”“ Read more HERE on The Pitt Wire. ————————————————————————————————— Weekend Reading! Hilary Brown interviews Jen Wang, on the release of Wang’s new comic The Prince and the Dressmaker (First Second) – read it HERE at Paste Magazine. Paste Magazine also checks out Twisted Romance, a 4-issue anthology series from Image Comics featuring a lengthy who’s who list of talents. Lauren Purjie has some Valentines Day cards “made” by famous artists – on Hyperallergic. The Comics Beat covers the announcement of Kate Gavino‘s new comic, coming out in August. It’s called Sanpaku, and “is a coming of age story, told through Gavino’s own Catholic/Filipino background“. Read more about it HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Collected from the thousands of pages of material that Frank has left scattered all over the digital landscape, these 4 PDF collections contain Frank’s best writing on comics and comics making from the past decade. Theory and process, reviews and discoveries, journeys both physical and spiritual. Check out the “Best of Frank Santoro” PDF collections, available HERE! ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 2-16-2018 – by Sally Ingraham ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 2-16-2018 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

02/13/2017

Juan FernándezFebruary 13, 2017NewsJuan and Sally tag teaming it today: Drew Alderfer’s THE ROOK; Pixels, tones and the aesthetics of granularity; Berliac on Vice; Fantom Comics Signing and Roundtable; Juan Fernandez at the ToonSeum; Frank Santoro’s Comics Corner #2; and much more! Take note! We are featuring the work of Drew Alderfer – or Meaty Comics – on the site this week. His comic The Rook was made for the Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers in 2014. Check it out HERE! ————————————————————————————————— Pixels, Tones and the Aesthetics of Granularity Juan here! I wanted to share with you a digital painting method I’ve come across, created by Dan Fessler, where he’s developed for his environment work on Chasm a way of turning Photoshop into the most powerful pixel art tool. What he calls “HD index painting”. What’s interesting about this? It works on the granular level of the pixel and plays with abstraction for story telling and evocation in the way that comics and cartooning does. It also does it in an incredibly robust and non-destructive way. It got me thinking about a lot of things. But first, have a look at what makes this technique tick. Why “HD?”: The backbone of this method that makes all the magic happen is the concept of manipulating higher resolution data than the end result. Instead of painting directly with an indexed color palette, you’re always painting in HD which then procedurally gets mapped to the indexed palette. For every color ramp you define your source data is 8bit allowing for a possible 256 colors, with no limit on the number of ramps you define. Typically when dealing with pixel art you’d map that to 32 colors or less. What’s most important though is the indexing is non-destructive. All of the high resolution detail is retained allowing you to do things that no other index painting tool allows, essentially making this the most powerful “pure” pixel art tool in existence. I’m not, necessarily a pixel artist, but I’ve been working extensively in exploring color and compression across digital file formats. Especially through collaging animations. I don’t know why, but I’m really interested in it. It’s the same way that I’m interested in how Jordan Crane and other master screen printers separate their colors in their prints. All of this has me think about halftone and more generally the voice of a story in a visual tradition. For some examples, I’d like you to think about how certain contemporary comics makers, like Laura Knetzeger, Kevin Huizenga, Dan Zettwoch, Sophie Yanow, Ron Wimberly, Mickey Z, or Berliac all use halftones. While many artists use halftone traditions in ways that are used to evoke an aesthetic of nostalgia (most effectively used by Ed Piskor in The Hip Hop Family Tree) these previous artists use them in ways that break from the print based traditions and the limitations of halftones. Instead, they use the half-tone as a framework that provides an aesthetic tool to help create their sequences. They all do this in different ways that create hums, and musical tones in the work. Different line qualities with different size tone dots that result in different feelings. Different voices for the soundless music of their comics. In a way that harkens back to previous technologies and grounds the work within a larger tradition, but that also side steps certain associations and assumptions related to genre. It’s great to think of these tools in a way that allows for more technologically mediated impressionist painting than commercial illustration. If you’d like a bit of a look into different coloring ideologies at the nuts and bolts level, take a look at this post by Dan Fessler on Pixel Purism. And of course, in the weekly “Please think about contemporary AI” department I have an article for you to read – HERE. ————————————————————————————————— There is a new weekly comic by “the mysterious Berliac” on Vice – titled Asian Store Junkies it is about “MSG-addicted youngsters who crave ramen“. Read it HERE. Follow Berliac on Instagram – @yung_qin_berliac. ————————————————————————————————— Reminder to go check out this signing and roundtable if you are in the Washington, D.C., area this week – catch up with Ronald Wimberly, Chris Visions, Shannon Wright, and Chris Kindred at Fantom Comics on Wednesday, Feb. 15th, 7-9 PM! ————————————————————————————————— PCS’s Artist Lecture Series 007: Juan Fernandez Join Juan and the rest of the @pittsburghcomicssalon this Thursday! Come on down to The ToonSeum to catch Juan talk about strip cartooning, expanding & teaching visual literacy, and comics making systems. He’ll cover principles in youth and adult comics education. He’ll show a little of what he’s making & how he does what he does. We’ll play some keygen tunes, dive into Photoshop, and talk about oblique strategies in comics making. The presentation will be followed by Q+A. You can join the Comics Salon at The ToonSeum (945 Liberty Ave., Pittsburgh, PA 15222) – art, conversation, and an atmosphere of solidarity. ————————————————————————————————— Frank’s Comics Corner #2 is here! Gather round one and all. ————————————————————————————————— The Ebb and Flow Enter the lottery for a table at the Small Press Expo this year – the registration form and more details are HERE. You have until February 24th 2017! Get to it. There will be a second issue of RESIST!, due to be released around July 4th. It’s message will be “Picturing the America We Want to Live In.” Submit work. Julia Wertz spoke to Sarah Glidden about her book Rolling Blackouts – via The Comics Journal. Pepe the Frog is making a new appearance in MAD Magazine – the story is HERE on Vulture. And in greater, more personal detail, HERE on the Huffington Post. Françoise Mouly and Genevieve Bormes offer a preview of Emil Ferris’ My Favorite Thing is Monsters for The New Yorker – check it out. There is a review of Charles Burns’ Vortex on Just Indie Comics – for those of you who read Italian! ————————————————————————————————— 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 – 2-13-2017 – by Jack Brougham ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 2-13-2017 – by Gabriella Tito ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 2-13-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio ————————————————————————————————— Cozytown – 2-13-2017 – by Juan Fernandez Share this page: [...]

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