Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in NewsTagged comiquecon, Connor Willumsen, cxc, lauren weinstein, leela corman, meg lemke, pen illustrated, Sacha Mardou, shannon wright

Sally Ingraham

Posted on October 21, 2016October 21, 2016

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Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency – Fundraising Video

Comics WorkbookSeptember 29, 2015School UpdatesCampaign video credits: Video by Michael Pisano | michaelpisano.com Soundtrack by DJ Thermos | facebook.com/DjThermos 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: [...]

03/14/2016

Juan FernándezMarch 14, 2016NewsJuan Fernandez here with lots of interesting bits and bobs from the comics world. There’s something here for everyone. Let’s jump right in. Here’s a juicy one for ya, Rachel Davies in conversation with Julie Doucet over at Rookie Mag! They talk about embracing the unknown and following creativity to new media. Good stuff. Doucet is an interdisciplinary artist that has historically been pigeon holed as solely a comics maker. They talk about all that and more. Read it here. You said you did printmaking in college but did you ever experiment with printmaking when you were younger than that? What did you work in as a teenager? Oh, I was drawing with a felt-tip pen all the time. Did you always see art as something you would do professionally? I guess so, yeah. At the time, there was a crisis in the ’80s so there were no jobs for anybody. You could go to school and be an artist and it wouldn’t make it any difference because you wouldn’t have a job anyway. Being an artist sounded like the right thing to do because I was drawing all the time and I had a talent for it. Robyn Chapman has launched a new crowdfunding campaign to fund the spring line of Paper Rocket Comics. Chapman is smart in how she uses kickstarter as a pre-order system to help defray the cost of production. She has run 7 successful funding campaigns for Paper Rocket so you can be sure she knows what she’s doing. She’s in it for life and it’s worth seeing how she’s does what she does. Learn more about the Kickstarter on their page! Whit Taylor is giving a talk tomorrow on Autobiography, Identity, and Self-Reflection in Comics Tuesday, March 15, 2016 7–9pm Join NYC-based, New Jersey-born cartoonist, editor, and comics writer, Whit Taylor as she talks about her work in the context of autobiography, identity, and self-reflection. She will present and discuss several of her comics, including The Anthropologists, a semi-autobiographical account of three strangers venturing into the Australian Outback together for a week of unexpected adventures, and her most recent work Ghost, a mind-expanding journey to remote and unanticipated landscapes, in a story of exploration, self-discovery, and healing. You can listen and be part of the conversation at the Interference Archive – 131 8th St, Brooklyn, New York 11215. More info over on facebook. Kendra Yee has posted a short new comic that reflects on windows and how we percieve others while securing privacy for ourselves. Great imagery that really breathes and colors that swim together well. – read Part 1 – read part 2 – 2d Cloud has announced the nitty gritty details of Mirror Mirror 2, the second edition of their flagship anthology. It’s going to feature new comics and drawings by: Lala Albert / Clive Barker / Heather Benjamin / Sean Christensen / Nicole Claveloux / Sean T. Collins / Al Columbia / Dame Darcy / Noel Freibert / Renee French / Meaghan Garvey / Julia Gfrörer / Simon Hanselmann / Hellen Jo / Hadrianus Junius / Aidan Koch / Laura Lannes / Céline Loup / Uno Moralez / Mou / Chloe Piene / Josh Simmons / Carol Swain From what they’ve announced, seems that the focus is going to be around horror / pornography / the Gothic / the abject, which should come as no surprise with Julia Gfrörer and Sean T. Collins at the helm. It’ll be out next winter, with some advanced comics floating around in the Fall. And for a little boost in assuring you that what you’re doing is important, how ’bout you reflect on Chuck Jones legacy? Zach over at Practice Positive takes a look at Chuck Jones and what it meant to master both craftsmanship and universality in art. Really useful ideas that can be put into practice by any and all comics makers. Read it here. The whole essence of good drawing—and of good thinking, perhaps—is to work a subject down to the simplest form possible and still have it believable for what it is meant to be. A heads up for you Chicagoans, The Chicago Alternative Comics Expo (CAKE) will be holding its 4th annual art auction fundraiser at 7:00 pm on Friday, April 8th, at the The Hideout Inn, located at 1354 W Wabansia Ave. The event will be hosted by intermedia artist Lyra Hill. The event will feature live and silent auctions of over 20 pieces of art by past special guests and exhibitors of CAKE, including Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez, Eleanor Davis, and Dash Shaw. The event will also feature live comics readings by local artists Samuel Nigrosh. Molly Colleen O’Connell, and Sam Nigrosh. More info here. [soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/249959191″ params=”color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false” width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /] Simon Moreton joined Robin McConnell over on Inkstuds to chat about his new book from Uncivilized Books, Plans That We Made. Simon has a really beautiful minimal style of story telling that works really nicely. Simon’s work can be found in his Smoo mini comics. If you’ve been sleeping on Simon Moreton, I suggest you dig into his work soon. It’s quiet, but extremely grounded work in the tradition of minimal autobiographical cartooning pioneered by John Porcellino. Well worth a listen! This Nicole Georges‘ Sagittarian Matters brings you a BETH DITTO MAILBAG TAKEOVER!!! Musician & fashion designer Beth Ditto & Nicole Georges answer questions & riff on self-deprecation, grace, gratitude, punk feminism, polyamory, and MORE. The self-deprecation riff alone is worth the listen! To close things off, I wanted to let you know that Archive.org has recently made David W Niven‘s incredible archive of early jazz available for download. Feast your ears, babies. 650 tapes · 1,000 hours · 1,378 WAV files · 637 GB · 691 JPEG scans of cassette liner cards & literature. Meticulously Collected, Compiled, and Narrated by David W. Niven, 1930-1993. Generously Donated by David W. Niven to the Foxborough High School Jazz Program, Stephen C. Massey, Director, 2010. Archived to CD-Quality Digital Audio by Kevin J. Powers, 2010-2011.An Early Jazz Recording Collection by David W. Niven over and out, Juan Fernandez Share this page: [...]

09/01/2016

Sally IngrahamSeptember 1, 2016NewsFor Thursday we have a new Ed Piskor article, Zona #3 reviewed, the (nearly totally updated) list for the 2016 Comics Workbook Composition Competition entries, Jonas Goonface’s work in review, and some insights on teaching and kids. ————————————————————————————————— Ed Piskor is having an amazing year – and back in his hometown of Pittsburgh, PA, folks are feeling the the power of this force of nature. From the Pittsburgh City Paper: “Accolades for Piskor include last year’s coveted Eisner Award for best reality-based work, for HHFT Book 2. This year, he’s in mad demand as a speaker. In September alone, after an appearance at the Small Press Expo (SPX), in Maryland, he’ll speak at the Library of Congress’ National Book Festival, the country’s largest such fest. SPX executive director Warren Bernard calls HHFT “one of the finest pieces of graphic-novel history that’s ever been done.” Piskor’s fellow Pittsburgh-based comics artist Frank Santoro goes further. Santoro, also a critic, is internationally known for his comics, but he says that commercially and artistically, Piskor has reached another level entirely. “He’s now the most dominant player in the game I’ve ever seen,” says Santoro. “Ed has just gone above and beyond what has been thought possible.” ” via Bill O’Driscoll Read the whole article HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Chris Beckett dug into Comics Workbook publication Zona #3 on the blog he writes with Dan Flemming – Warrior27. “I have enjoyed every issue of ZONA thus far, but this most recent publication, with its wide variety—not only in artistic approach but also in genre and storytelling style—has been the best issue to date. All of these artists created insightful and engaging narratives—in only 10 pages—that stand with the best comics being produced by today’s larger publishers. You need to check this out. Now.” – Chris Beckett Read the whole review HERE. Get a copy of Zona #3! ————————————————————————————————— http://comicsworkbook.com/composition-competition-entries-2016/ The Comics Workbook judging team will be making the announcement about winners any moment now – stay tuned! Meanwhile, check out all the terrific comics that came out of this year’s competition – which garnered more than the last three competitions put together. Quite an amazing outpouring of comics and hard work…! ————————————————————————————————— Another Pittsburgh cartoonist – Jonas McGluggage (Goonface) – had his work review recently on Comic Bastards. “Follow the Leader‘s second issue reads like a bloody version of a William Blake poem. Depictions of naiveté and purity permeate a narrative that, at its core, is a commentary on youth and acceptance. Larranceville’s local park is a carnivorous Neverland filled with hungry Lost Boys.” – Ben Boruff Read the rest of the review HERE. Check out more stuff by Jonas Goonface HERE. You can keep up with Follow the Leader HERE. ————————————————————————————————— There was an eye-opening article on The New York Times recently about “What Kids Wish Their Teachers Knew”. “The responses were eye-opening for Ms. Schwartz. Some children were struggling with poverty (“I wish my teacher knew I don’t have pencils at home to do my homework”); an absent parent (“I wish my teacher knew that sometimes my reading log is not signed because my mom isn’t around a lot”); and a parent taken away (“I wish my teacher knew how much I miss my dad because he got deported to Mexico when I was 3 years old and I haven’t seen him in six years”).” – DONNA DE LA CRUZ Read the rest HERE. Share this page: [...]

02/08/2017

Juan FernándezFebruary 8, 2017los Cómics / NewsJuan José con un poquito sobre: Sirio de Martín López Lam; talleres en #GRAFBCN2017; Chicks on Comics’s full slate of programming; VRDR Scarlet Witch Preview; Inés Estrada’s Alienation 3; La Hora del Bocadillo; La Polola Podcast; Hits with Tits talk posters. Sirio – Martín López Lam (Fulgencio Pimentel – 2016) I’ve been looking for a gripping work of comics poetics that can hold a candle to the winds of narrative… The wait is over. Sirio is here. Lovers in crisis amidst a holiday during low season on the coast, an unresolved death and an even deeper mystery in the observation of nature. Clouds, rocks, the behavior of dogs and children in the neighborhood become signs that are offered to a narrator’s/our stunned eyes. An earthly thriller, many questions and a single answer, or at least an insinuation, in the stars. Sirio. Sirio is a graceful, cloud-like story, intense and as awe-inspiring as a summer storm, combining the best of the titanic visual skills of Martin López Lam with his extraordinary literary sensibility. The texture and atmosphere of these pages confronts us with the underground stream of antagonistic feelings that flow between a man and a woman, in the best tradition of narrators like Raymond Carver, John Cheever, or James Salter. To achieve this, Martín speaks a language that bridges the comics and cartooning idioms of arguably the most Eastern of the great western cartoonists (David Mazzucchelli) and the most western of the great mangaka (Seiichi Hayashi). Sirio confirms Martín López Lam as one of the most gifted and versatile visual narrators of the in contemporary Spanish comics. No comic has buffeted me viscerally the way that Sirio does. The elemental force of Sirio is incredible. Sirio is not yet in English. Alas! Not to worry though, the images do the heavy lifting here. I hope an English translation comes soon so it can grip you tightly. Until then, order a copy from the great Spanish publisher, Fulgencio Pimentel. Practice your Spanish and soak in the images and the words! DO IT! Cómics y noticias que me han llamado la atención esta semana: Chicks on Comics have a full slate of programming this weekend at Fundación PROA in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Don’t miss Power Paola, María Delia Lozupone, María Luque and co. for two amazing afternoons of talks. Marvel’s got a preview of Vanesa R. Del Rey’s work with James Robinson Scarlet Witch #15 – (take note VRDR devotees: on sale February 22nd). Berliac’s got some new comics on Vice – Asian Food Store Junkies – A match made in heaven, or the opposite? You decide… #GRAFBCN2017 has announced several workshops for their March 3-5 comics festival in Barcelona. Among them is a master class con Natacha Bustos y Javi Rodríguez. Sign up for their talleres HERE. Inés Estrada just finished the 3rd issue of Alienation. Copies will be available on Feb. 22 along with the reprint of issue 1! Keep up with her at @inechii on twitter for all the details on her latest works. Along with her own comics she distros some incredible work from Mexico on her shop www.gatosaurio.com, so get hep. On the radio in Spain: La hora del bocadillo – 04/02/17 – La Grieta, tebeos y neurociencia y Generación X. ——— La Polola Podcast is on hiatus! Vacation is vacation. As Sol Díaz Castillo y Marcela Trujillo gear up for their new season they have a contest going while on vacation! Draw your favorite song and catch up with the podcast! It’s always a fun, relaxing and enlightening listen. If you haven’t tuned in to La Polola just yet, Póngale Play. Hits With Tits is exhibiting the show poster work of 40 women in Barcelona. Quique Ramos presents a poster making play-by-play by 6 comics makers and illustrators that’ll be at the CARA B festival on February 17-18: Roberta Vázquez, Nuria Riaza, Conxita Herrero, Cristina Daura, Maria Herrero y Marlene Krause. Echale un vistazo a este medallón estilo Pompeii! Hecho en Pittsburgh. Frank Santoro le encarguo a la gran Airi Maeno que le hiciera unos medallones de plata utilisando uno de sus dibujos. Este dibujo viene de su libro Pompeii. Es algo que podrias imaginar que alguien se pondría hace dos mil años. Unico. Clasico. Un simple medallón de un ser querido. Un retrato. Algo permanente para desafiar a la desaparición. ————————————————————————————————— 2-8-2017 – by Jack Brougham ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 2-8-2017 – by Sally Ingraham ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 2-8-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio ————————————————————————————————— Cozytown – 2-8-2017 – by Juan Fernandez Share this page: [...]

10/21/2016

Posted on October 21, 2016October 21, 2016 by Sally Ingraham

Sally here this fine Friday with exciting news from Meg Lemke, comics from Shannon Wright, Lauren R. Weinstein, and Leela Corman, a unique Con this weekend in Detroit, Sacha Mardou’s report on CXC, and a few other tidbits.

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14695593_10101254506560955_5940331307789626104_n — Sacha Mardou with childhood hero Sergio Aragonés – photo by Caitlin McGurk

Here on the site Sacha Mardou shares her recent adventures at Cartoon Crossroads Columbus.

“CXC happened last weekend in Columbus, OH, and I got to represent Team Comics Workbook and also myself as a special guest (this has never happened to me before – count me overexcited and also terrified!) I get in on Thursday night and head to the President’s Reception feeling very wallflowerish as I know literally no one except through Facebook and Instagram. First off I meet Tom Spurgeon (finally!), Jeff Bone and his lovely wife Vijaya, Caitlyn McGurk, and Robin the Inkstud. I nervously nurse my wine and then I am rescued by Sergio Aragonés, who sits next to me with a plate of meatballs and a beer. I’m a vegan but I don’t even care about the meatballs! It’s Sergio Aragonés and I proceed to fannishly monopolize him for the next hour. Sergio! I’ve loved his comics in Mad Magazine since I was eight years old.“

More on what she did and saw at this terrific event HERE.

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PEN America announced this week that Meg Lemke is the newest guest editor of the Illustrated PEN series. This series “aspires to be at the intersection of literature, journalism, and visual storytelling, where images and words come together in an ever-emerging and essential creative form.” Meg Lemke has 15 years of experience with comics in a number of roles, and is currently the editor-in-chief of MUTHA Magazine – so she has a lot to bring to the series, not least –

“…exemplars of the form that showcase the power of comics to tell stories in surprising ways. We talk often about literature letting us ‘see’ a new perspective. Comics can do that quite literally, and when it’s done well, there is a magical interaction between the visuals and text that stimulates a different part of our thinking. In our lives lived online, as readers we are inundated with imagery on the Internet, much of it advertising in margins (or popping up mid-screen). But comics can skillfully interrupt this oversaturation, as it necessitates we slow down and take in visual narrative, for example to parse a plot carried in background scenic details. Reading comics has been compared to reading poetry—they both invite play between the reader and the text on the page (be it broken into stanzas or word balloons).” – Meg Lemke

Read the rest of the piece HERE.

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Meg Lemke’s first official post for the Illustrated PEN series is about Leela Corman‘s piece PTSD: The Wound That Never Heals, which is an excerpt from We All Wish For Deadly Force (Retrofit, 2016).

Read Meg’s thoughts and the piece by Leela HERE.

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And if you haven’t checked out the comics on MUTHA Magazine in awhile, here’s your reminder – there are a bunch of new ones by Lisa Brown, Tyler Cohen, and Amy Kurzweil among others!

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Today’s comic is pretty personal; not only have I chosen to reveal how much I weigh, but I’m showing a tad of family judgment (which I know EVERYONE has). I started my diet today, it’s a complete 180 of how I’ve been eating all my life and I’m kinda excited about it. So when my grandma asked how I had been, I debated on sharing my health journey because of this very reason. Family can be the worst when it comes to body image. Also, I’m not necessarily doing this diet to lose weight, but to feel better. My sleep pattern has been off, my skin has been getting worse, and I just feel sluggish. I wish people would realize everyone is built differently and weight gets distributed differently. #inktober

A photo posted by Shannon Wright (@shannondrewthis) on Oct 18, 2016 at 9:55am PDT

Shannon Wright has been posting a comic almost every day this month – follow her Instagram account to keep up.

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Lauren R. Weinstein has a new piece in The Village Voice – HERE.

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ComiqueCon is this Saturday, October 22nd 2016, in Dearborn at the Arab American National Museum.

“ComiqueCon is a one-day celebration of the contributions of women to the sequential arts. Launched in 2015 in Metro Detroit, the event brings together comics all-stars and their fans for a wicked awesome day of comics and cosplay! … In an industry that consistently under-solicits women, we’re spotlighting the work of women in comics and encouraging representation and inclusiveness.”

This year’s special guests include Mariko Tamaki, Ashley Woods, and Carolyn Nowak among others. The con founder, Chelsea Liddy, and Kathleen Hiraga, founder and CEO of Pop-Post, were interviewed by Michigan Radio for the Stateside show.

‘ “It’s a really special atmosphere that just happens naturally when you have a bunch of supportive women working for the same industry in a room,” said Liddy, on the differences between ComiqueCon and some of the larger comic cons. She also noted that it’s a safe place for female comic creators to talk about their craft, which hasn’t always been the case. … “It’s about that community becoming a voice and together expanding into a force,” said Hiraga. ‘

Listen to the rest of the interview HERE. Next year I think the Comics Workbook Roller Derby League needs to check this con out!

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Frank’s report on The Lakes International Comic Art Festival is up on the site – HERE. Check out this video from his Instagram feed last weekend of Aidan Koch leading a workshop:

Aidan Koch discussing her collaborative workshop project from LICAF UK 2016 #comicsworkbook @aidanalexiskoch #licaf

A video posted by @santoro.frank on Oct 15, 2016 at 2:11pm PDT

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Today is the last day to get in on the special Michael DeForge auction hosted by Copacetic Comics – HERE.

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It’s Connor Willumsen’s birthday today! Check out his work and help him celebrate. 🙂

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I share Sacha’s excitement about Cartoon Crossroads Columbus – and the Comics Workbook team will be presenting more thoughts, videos, and the official report from Whit Taylor soon. Stay tuned! Cheers – Sally

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Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in NewsTagged comiquecon, Connor Willumsen, cxc, lauren weinstein, leela corman, meg lemke, pen illustrated, Sacha Mardou, shannon wright

Sally Ingraham

Posted on October 21, 2016October 21, 2016

Explore

06/13/2017

Aaron CockleJune 12, 2017NewsAaron Cockle here today with The ClairFree System; Pope Hats; Blind Spot and Black Paper; The Republic of Samsung; Printer Steganography ————————————————————————————————— ‘Here, she explains the inspiration behind her images and what she hopes readers to take from her work.’ Sally linked to this piece this past Friday, Claire Landsbaum asked Jillian Tamaki to dissect some of the panels from her story ‘The ClairFree System’, which is included in Tamaki’s new book, Boundless. Tamaki talks about incorporating found objects into the art-making process: This is another sculpture from the Art Gallery of Ontario, but the original artwork was just the child — I created the rest. A lot of this story is about reframing context: taking a classical sculpture or a photograph, which is a specific instant in time, and stripping it of its information to make it universal, which is what I did here. The image itself is about someone’s hopes and dreams for their child — about everyone’s idea of a great parent, which is that they can give their kid everything they want. I’ve heard people say that a new child is a pure, unsullied human being who hasn’t ever made a bad decision — that they’re without sin. I find that extremely hopeful. I don’t have children, but I would imagine the desire to prolong that state is an emotion every parent feels. ————————————————————————————————— ‘I keep returning to this notion: that the best feeling in the world is working really hard at creating something with no guarantee of a positive outcome.’ Ethan Rilly talks about his process for making Pope Hats #5, over at the AdHouse Books blog: Enough people have asked me whether I’m a lawyer that it might be useful to answer here: No, and I never was. Never stepped foot in a law firm. This story might be autobiographical in all the regular faintly embarrassing ways but the lawyer stuff is a good distance outside of me. I did research and interviews. ————————————————————————————————— ‘I pray to Tarkovsky, Marker, and Hitchcock.’ Teju Cole will be exhibiting work June 15-August 11 at Stephen Kasher Gallery in NYC, photos and text from his new book, Blind Spot, as well as an installation piece, Black Paper. The exhibition features over 30 color photographs from the series Blind Spot, each accompanied by Cole’s lyrical and evocative prose. Viewed together, these works form a multimedia diary of years of near-constant travel. In these photographs, we see what Cole has seen, from a park in Berlin to a mountain range in Switzerland, a church exterior in Lagos to a parking lot in Brooklyn; and we are drawn into the texts—which function as voiceovers—with which Cole complicates his already enigmatic images. At stake here is the question of vision, an exploration Cole began following a temporary spell of blindness in 2011, and which he presents here in a photographic sequence of novelistic intensity. The exhibition also presents Black Paper, a visceral photographic response to Cole’s experiences following the election of November 2016. This continuously evolving, large-scale work explores buried feelings, haunted space, and all that can be seen through darkness. ————————————————————————————————— “ABOUT MY WORK AND MYSELF AND ALL THE REST I USED TO SAY:/,” “I HAVE NOTHING TO SAY AND I’M SAYING IT:.” As a continuation of its online Net Art Anthology exhibition, Rhizome features and discusses Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries’s piece, Samsung. The piece Samsung addresses the complex nature of the corporation—its existence not only as an economic entity but also as an emotional phantom, reaching its incorporeal fingers into relationships, daydreams, and fantasies. The text of Samsung, demonstrating many of the formal qualities of poetry, is interspersed with conversational breaks that establish intimacy with the viewer. The tone becomes conspiratorial as the narrator asks, “CAN/I CONFIDE/IN YOU?” There is no option to decline. The viewer is rendered complicit in the narrator’s confession of their adoration of Samsung. ————————————————————————————————— ‘The printouts contained invisible dot patterns added by the printer to identify the worker who sent the print job’ I posted about Video Steganography, the imbedding of hidden information within electronic files, a few weeks back. Recently, the Boingboing blog posted a piece about one of the ways the National Security Agency was able to determine the source of leaked information about potential hacking involving the Russians in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, by examining the hidden dot patterns that are used with color printers. There’s been much speculation on exactly how NSA leaker Reality Winner was exposed after giving The Intercept documents that showed the extent to which the security agency suspects Russian meddling (previously) in last year’s general election. On one hand, the filing against her talks of the “creases” seen in the scans The Intercept posted, tipping them off to it being a workplace printout from an insider–an insinuation of casual sloppiness on the reporters’ part. On the other hand, it seemed clear Winner did everything at a work computer anyway and was surely doomed once the story came out and internal investigations began. ————————————————————————————————— A Cosmic Journey – 6-13-2017 – by Cameron Arthur ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 6-13-2017 – by Gabriella Tito ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 6-13-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

01/23/2017

Juan FernándezJanuary 23, 2017NewsJuan and Sally have thoughts on visual literacy, comics from the Women’s March, an Island comics club, news of The Beguiling, and much more to start your week. ————————————————————————————————— Today on the site, Tyler Landry shares thoughts on running a weekly comics club in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada – a Comics Workbook “satellite school”! Tyler Landry: I’ve been running the Charlottetown Comics Club (CCC) weekly, since the spring of 2016. At first in my home with a few trusted friends, then we moved to a public place – the back room of a local comic shop, Lightning Bolt Comics, where anyone and everyone is welcome to join. I sought to model this club on a few basic ideals. First, the continued development and expansion (for myself, and members) of the foundation of comics-making skills I learned through Frank Santoro’s Correspondence Course, and, by extension, the inundation of ideas, influences, and examples flowing through Comics Workbook. Second, to gather locally operating cartoonists (of all levels and persuasions), who often toil in silence/obscurity at home, in a place where we can feel comfortable working and growing alongside each other, for mutual benefit and general good feels. ————————————————————————————————— Juan here. Lately, I’ve been really interested in how we create and share information (and truth) across the web. And of course, how visual literacy (and the tools necessary for its preservation) tie(s) into it. Let’s talk out about visual information and the net. Did you know that more than 180,000 of the items in the New York Public Library’s Digital Collections are in the public domain? It’s true! Aaron Cockle showed me that a year ago, the NYPL had announced this new part of their digitally accessible collection. Thanks Aaron. Now everyone has the freedom to enjoy, modify, reuse and share the materials in almost limitless ways! NYPL now makes it possible to download these items in the highest resolution available, directly from the Digital Collections website. They’re BIG files. It’s true, “the interactive visual library” has been upon us for a while thanks to search engines that could deliver images. Nevertheless, searching in that library is for the most part garbage. You have to sift through mountains of visual information just to potentially find what you need. Bummer. Web art that is allowed to grow wildly from that collective visual library, in an art-for-its-own-sake kind of way, has for the most part been visually chaotic and the noise of visual resolution has usually been used as an aesthetic tool. Think Paper Rad. (Of course, there are lots of interesting exceptions like Dina Kleberman’s I’m Google project – not chaotic at all!) What kind of art is possible with tools like Public Domain visual collections? You tell me. Relatedly and more broadly, this kind of thing reveals one of the many reasons why public libraries are so important. They point to a simple truth that everyone is denying. Searching via tools made by creators that work hand-in-hand with corporate interests sucks. It’s never deep enough. It’s never a rich enough experience. The paths to finding high quality, curated collection of visuals, for free, are long, windy, and sometimes non-existent. A private browser like Google, isn’t the most stable place to reliably find images across time. Sorry, private browsers. What we have is the exciting arrival of another institutionally supported manifestation of archive-able visual memory. I’m very thankful. We have Wikipedia, Archive.org, and others, but we still need more. Yes, this news is from last January, but I want to shout about these kinds of projects from the hilltops. Especially in these times of “#alternativefacts”. Why? Because. With the explosion of instantaneous visual communication across the internet, visual forms, digitally transferred, can essentially be considered as shared experiences. The shared experience of “having seen”. This aspect of highly networked communication allows for users to collectively “see” the world through a shared viewpoint. Permission to transform artifacts of visual ephemera, of past visual memories, invites us to step across time and create and modify languages using pre-existing systems of visual communication. It is the power to create knowledge. Captured thought held into stable states that can be comprehended by another person across the network. Truth as recordable and transferrable. Huge props to the late John Berger for helping me understand this and expand his thoughts from the seventies into the present day. So why and how does this matter today? Expanding this all out to copyright, websites ARE the expressions of that thought. And, as such function as the basis for the merging of idea and expression of idea. Everything expressed in “recordable” communication IS an idea within the legal framework. Organizations with corporate money have the power to take away certain “sides” of information. Information nowadays essentially being the mass of recorded experience. That kind of power can shape the mass of collective knowledge, that is the basis from which we collectively determine “truth”. Turning the creation of ideas into a commodity form. As a society, it is only through collectively supported libraries that we can expand what it means be creating, sharing and finding Truth. Commodity form as community form. Please visit your local library today. It may have been a while since you last visited… It may have been just yesterday! Either way, do yourself a favor and open yourself up to serendipity. Get out there, find something interesting and check it out. ————————————————————————————————— Sally here: The Guardian asked cartoonist Katie Fricas to document the Women’s March in Washington D.C. on January 21st 2017 – here are the stories of some of the women who chose to march. Cartoonists were on the streets worldwide that day, and many of them were documenting the march. Here is a sampling of work I gathered from just a quick scan through my Instagram feed: ————————————————————————————————— The Washington Post shared advice from eight creative thinkers to “the sisters who follow in their footsteps“. Among those who spoke out were Lynda Barry, Hilary Price, and Cece Bell. Advice from Hilary Price: “You will face two monsters, an external one and an internal one. The external one is the person who tells you you don’t have what it takes. You need to cultivate a knee-jerk response to this, to the tune of: ‘Go to hell. Yes I can.’ The internal monster needs a much softer touch. She’s trying to protect you from rejection, but her strategies are misguided. She says things like, ‘You don’t have time’ or, ‘This isn’t real work’ or, ‘It’s probably not good enough.’ “Your job is to see through these tactics, then tuck her in, tell her everything is going to be okay, and go back to your desk.” – Hilary Price And Lynda Barry says “always carry a pen and notebook” – read the rest HERE. (via Comic Riffs by Michael Cavna) ————————————————————————————————— There is a lovely piece in The Globe and Mail about The Beguiling, the famous Toronto comic book shop that recently had to move to new digs – a location that one can only hope will someday be filled with as much history as the last place. It won’t be quite the same Beguiling that Michael DeForge discovered as a high schooler, or the one that pulled Jillian Tamaki from New York City to Toronto… The cartoonist Seth finishes out the article: “I will certainly miss the Markham Street location. That place has a special spot in my memory. We all have a lost city inside ourselves – the memory of places that used to be. I’m sorry to add the Mirvish Village shop to that inner lost city, but I am happy to see the Beguiling carry on and prosper. Long live the Beguiling.“ Read the rest HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Don’t Miss: David Mazzucchelli’s interview with Ted Stearn over on The Comic’s Journal: “DM: But long before you were making comics you were thinking about characters and settings and worlds and creating these environments and I think it really shows right from the first comics you made that there was this sense of world-building, or atmosphere— TS: (Nods vigorously) That’s really good, I hadn’t really thought about that a lot, but I think that’s true, and I think the artists and the authors who I admire the most are able to do that. They did reflect on the real world, but they created their own—like, Basquiat did that, and, I don’t know, Goya did that, Charles Burchfield, and a lot of other artists that I admire. They weren’t married to “reality”—you know, so many artists recreating the world in their own vision. That’s what I appreciate about a lot of artists and I guess that’s what I was trying to do, though I don’t think I thought about it consciously, whether it was the sculpture or the paintings or the automatic drawings or the comics…” Comics on The Nib – recently Mary Shyne (Comics Workbook student) on Obama’s Last Mic Drop. ————————————————————————————————— It seems like cartoonists are more needed than ever these days, whether it’s to document and comment on history, tell the stories of forgotten people, or offer insights into how to survive in this increasingly strange world. From comics journalism to political and editorial cartoons to sci-fi fantasy epics to memoirs to off-the-cuff mini comics and zines…we need it all to help us navigate and survive with a semblance of grace. I’ve been incredibly inspired recently by the cartoonists in my life – from Audra Stang, here for her 2nd Rowhouse Residency, to Pittsburgh’s wealth of active and activist-minded artists, to my little 1st grade students who attend an after school comics class that I teach – and I hope that there continues to be many willing minds and hands out there ready to do this work. (If you have always wanted to make comics but aren’t sure where to start, check out the Santoro School Handbook – or our online Correspondence Course – or the Rowhouse Residency!) ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 1-21-2017 – by Gabriella Tito Suzy and Cecil – 1-22-2017 – by Gabriella Tito (Suzy and Cecil strips that appeared this weekend – don’t want you to miss any of the fun! Strips go up seven days a week @suzy_and_cecil) ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 1-23-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio ————————————————————————————————— 1-23-2017 – by Juan Fernández Share this page: [...]

Comics Workbook @ SPX 2016: the Cartoon Workshops

Sally IngrahamSeptember 29, 2016Festivals and ShowsHere are just a “few” pictures from the cartoon workshops that Comics Workbook hosted at the Small Press Expo 2016! Check out the video of the full Cameron Weston Nicholson workshop HERE – more videos to come soon – stay tuned! ————————————————————————————————— Photographs by Juan Fernandez, Audra Stang, and Sally Ingraham Share this page: [...]

01/11/2017

Juan FernándezJanuary 11, 2017NewsJuan con un poquito sobre las Tetastristes; Reconciendo Amanda Baeza y su gran obra Nubes de Talco; la estética de la distorsion;Laura Barrachina entrevista a Conxita Herrero, Joaquín Guirao y Antonio Hitos; Un Faulduo en el foco; Tarantula Preview; The Art of Vanesa R. Del Rey; y tiras de Gabriella Tito,Caleb Orecchio, y Juan Fernandez. Cómics y noticias que me han llamado la atencion: “Las Tetastristes se toman el puerto” – La colectiva de ilustradoras y autoeditoras feministas Tetastristes Cómics estará por primera vez en Valparaiso, en una intima variete de actividades en la casa de Me lo dijo unx TRUEK ubicada en Cerro Concepción, Valparaiso el 1/14. Va haber un montón de actividades, como exposición y venta de material de las Tetastristes Cómics y de lesbilais, además de otras artistas visuales porteñas feministas y revoltosas. Para más información: David Romera de FNAC reseña Nubes de Talco de Amanda Baeza. Esta obra, originalmente publicada por la editorial Fulgencio Pimentel, ya llegara al mundo anglohablante: kuš!komiks is set to translate Amanda Baeza’s Brume (Nubes de Talco) into English this February! Now the global english speaking community can experience Baeza’s tour de force in poetic, abstracted yet cartoony, work of emotional autobiography. Bañate en la estética de la distorsion con Pablo Turnes en la Revista Kamandi. En la ultima edicion de La Hora del Bocadillo en RTVE Laura Barrachina entrevista a Conxita Herrero, Joaquín Guirao y Antonio Hitos. Una hora de jovenes promesas… Sebastián Martínez ha compartido con Comics Workbook un gran tesoro postmoderno escondido: Un Faulduo. Joder, que genial. Dale un momento y ponte a explorar su website. Tienen de todo! Formalmente, Un Faulduo es un colectivo de investigación y experimentación alrededor del campo de la historieta, conformado por Nicolás Daniluk, Ezequiel García, Nicolás Moguilevsky y Nicolás Zukerfeld. Sus colaboraciones hacen un recorrido interdisciplinario que abarca las artes visuales, el cine, la música, las artes escénicas y la literatura. Un Faulduo es el nombre de la revista editada por el grupo. Lleva 10 números realizados desde 2005 y mantiene, desde su aparición y hasta la actualidad, un sistema de rotación de directores (cada número es dirigido por un miembro diferente del staff, lo que obliga a cambios de formato, contenido, técnica). / Un Faulduo is the name of a magazine published by the group. Ten issues have been released since 2005, and each one is led by a different member of the staff, forcing changes in format, content and technique. Han publicado un libro a la vez tradicional y de vanguardia, La Historieta En El (Faulduo) Mundo Moderno. Pop-Collage-Noise-Fanzine-Deconstructivistas. Al fin del cabo, el libroe, es un ensayo visual, que viene desde la tradición de la escritura visual de John Berger. Libremente inspirado en el mítico ensayo “La historieta en el mundo moderno” (Oscar Masotta, 1970), este libro realizado por Un Faulduo (colectivo de investigación y experimentación alrededor del campo de la historieta, formado por Nicolás Daniluk, Ezequiel García, Nicolás Moguilevsky y Nicolás Zukerfeld) se propone pensar la relación entre el lenguaje de la historieta y la forma del ensayo, tomando los propios materiales de la historieta como materia prima para su producción y como una forma que permite analizarse y pensarse a sí misma. Han oido las buenas noticias? Ya pueden pedir Tarantula a todo color! AdHouse esta publicando este primer volumen de la novela policíaca, psicodelica y a la vez satanica del equipo Alexis Ziritt y Fabian Rangel Jr. y Evelyn Rangel. Si no has leido Tarantula te daremos un antojo: aquí tienes tu preview. Hoy les presentamos una nueva publicacion de Comics Workbook: The Art of Vanesa R. Del Rey. La gran Vanesa R. Del Rey le ha dado permiso a Comics Workbook para publicar unas selecciónes de sus cuadernos de bocetos. Hemos diseñado esta publicación para que parezca uno de esos libros de de artistas los años 80. Arte y Entrevista. El texto es una transcripción de la entrevista que hicimos con Vanesa cuando visito la Residencia Rowhouse en 2016. Vanesa es un artista impresionante y inigualable. Puedes comprar tu copia AQUI.Order a copy of The Art of Vanesa R. Del Rey HERE. Frank Santoro, el director de Comics Workbook, nos cuenta un poquito sobre sus experiencias con Vanesa: Me encontré por primera vez con VRDR en un festival de cómics en Toronto (TCAF) en 2014. Había empezado a hacer comics profesionalmente después de un período como un animadora. Fui Sorprendido por su la capacidad de ser como un camaleón de cambiar de estilos, y por su puesto le pedí ver más de sus obras. Desenterró pilas de cuadernos de dibujos de sus días en Cuba, cuando estudiaba el realismo soviético y de trabajaba con George Pratt, maestro de cómics pintados. La educación de Vanesa como artista hace el balance suavemente entre los niveles alto y bajo del arte, así como los valores estéticos del este y el oeste. Es una base asombrosa. Ella es, a la vez, consciente de la historia del arte, la historia de los cómics y la historia de la animación de una manera NUEVA que casi parecía imposible hace quince o veinte años. Debo admitir como un estudiante y fan de cómics que se enfocan en la mezcla de “alto y bajo” y en ” los cómics pintados” — Nunca he visto tal mezcla de habilidades al nivel de VRDR. Feroz. Imparable. Un competidor feroz. Michael Jordan-esque? ¿Es eso posible en la fabricación de cómic? Siempre he dicho que habría un “invasor vertical” en los cómics que podría emplear el “naturalismo” de la escuela de Noel Sickles / Alex Toth pero que podría pintar como una Alice Neel o una Jenny Saville. Creo que “el invasor” ha llegado en forma de Vanesa R. Del Rey. Puedes comprar tu copia AQUI. Sigan a Vanesa por Instagram – @vrdelrey – y http://vrdelrey.com/ Suzy and Cecil – 1-11-2017 – by Gabriella Tito ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 1-11-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio ————————————————————————————————— 1-11-2017 – by Juan Fernández Share this page: [...]

11/08/2017

Juan FernándezNovember 8, 2017los Cómics / NewsEmpezamos el día con el Latino Comics Expo; #GRAFMAD2017; Marcela Trujillo; Dr. Fausto Fanzine; Ramon Esono; La Polola; Power Paola y Santiago Caicedo; y los tebeos de Cómics Workbook! ————————————————————————————————— The Latino Comics Expo – Long Beach, CA – THIS WEEKEND – The Latino Comics Expo (LCX) goes down this weekend, November 11-12. It is the nation’s first convention dedicated to highlighting the work of comic book creators, illustrators and others in the literary and visual arts whose work reflects the influence and celebration of Latino culture. – 2017 Program Info – Founded in 2011 by Bay Area arts patron Ricardo Padilla and Los Angeles cartoonist Javier Hernandez, the Latino Comics Expo has been held at the Cartoon Museum of Art (San Francisco), the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Library at San Jose State University and the Museum of Latin American Art (Long Beach). Since it’s debut show on May 7 & 8 in 2011 in San Francisco, the Expo has hosted a wide variety of creative talent from the world of comics, web comics, illustration and design, political comics, graphic novels, children’s books, filmmakers and animators. Veteran creators, newcomers, independent artists, scholars, female, male, LGBT. All have contributed to making the LCX the premiere showcase for Topics have included self-publishing, crowdfunding, Latina Power, individual author spotlights, historical presentations, scholarly studies, workshops for kids and more. The Expo is a place to celebrate creativity, to educate, inform and learn, and to be able to share the richness of our various Latino cultures. Learn more. —————————————————————————————————#GRAFMAD2017 En 2013 se celebró la primera edición de GRAF. Esta semana se celebra la décima. El fuego sigue ardiendo. ————————————————————————————————— Los cómics y las noticias que me han llamado la atención esta semana: “Beyoncé has embraced the grid.” Marcela Trujillo ha sido invitada al Congreso Internacional de Literatura Y Cultura Femenina Hispánica en Santo Domingo. Esta es la primera vez que invitan a una dibujante. En algunas semanas regresa Dr. Fausto Fanzine para su edición 11 y cada semestre habrá nuevo número. Viva el Cómic Colombiano. ¡Queremos tebeos! No os perdáis la exposición HISTORIETAS DEL TEBEO, 1917—1977 en el Museo ABC. Ramon Esono sigue preso, este cómic su único “delito”. // Still in jail, this comic his only “crime”. Learn more about Esono’s incarcelation in Equatorial Guinea. Sol Díaz Castillo y Marcela Trujillo tienen una nueva edicion de La Polola Podcast! Las chicas conversan con la académica Catalina Infante, quien les contó acerca de su vida, sus viajes, su búsqueda del origen, su mirada editorial, su interés espiritual, el valor que le da al mundo interno y la soledad, entre muchas otras cosas. Acá pueden ver el trailer de Virus Tropical, a black-and-white animated film from director Santiago Caicedo that adapts the graphic novel memoir of Colombian-Ecuadorian cartoonist Power Paola. ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 11-08-2017 – by Gabriella Tito ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 11-08-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio ————————————————————————————————— Cozytown – 11-08-2017 – by Juan Fernandez Share this page: [...]

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