Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in NewsTagged CBLDF, Comic Arts Brooklyn, comics workbook roller derby league, julia gfrorer, Kevin Czap, lyn chevli, lynda barry, shade the changing girl, she changed comics

Sally Ingraham

Posted on November 4, 2016November 4, 2016

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03/12/2018

Caleb OrecchioMarch 11, 2018NewsCaleb Orecchio here with Dirty Plotte #1 by Julie Doucet, and other news. ————————————————————————————————— I was rummaging through the back-issues at Copacetic Comics here in Pittsburgh, and I miraculously came across a copy of Julie Doucet’s Dirty Plotte #1. Whatta treat! The idea of finding it “in the wild” was almost as exciting as finding it period. That’s a classic Comics Workbook lesson in format. Imagine if Doucet had made her comics in various ACME Novelty dimensions, I’d never find the individual issues ever! This encounter and subsequent reading of the issue reminded me of Doucet’s intensity as a cartoonist. An unfettered intensity and earnestness in both narrative and drawing. A simultaneity that basically went unrivaled among her comics graduating class (the exception probably being Chester Brown). Even in our current comics community, I am hard-pressed to think of any cartoonist that revels so deeply and gleefully in one’s day-to-day routine of life, fantasies and bodily functions—and in a completely fun and personal way. Which is fine, it’s just something I notice. That day at Copacetic, I also took home Frank Miller and Lynn Varley’s Ronin #1, an old Marvel Team-Up, an issue of Special Forces by Kyle Baker, and Destroyer Duck #2 by Steve Gerber and Jack Kirby; but Dirty Plotte #1 was the real stand-out find of the day I think. Check out Mardou’s appreciation of Doucet’s work on this very site. ————————————————————————————————— if you don’t know, now you know Thee great Eddie Campbell has a brand spankin’ new website, complete with an amazing and hilarious limited weekly webcomic. Michael Dooley has two reviews up on Print, one on Monograph by Chris Ware, and the other on Fun by Paolo Bacilieri. Sean Howe on the thee great Billy Graham at The New York Times. ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 3-12-2018 – by Sally Ingraham Share this page: [...]

Simon Hanselmann Bad Gateway Tour with Joe Matt Cameo Appearance

Chris Anthony DiazAugust 14, 2019The Diaz ArchiveSimon Hanselmann Bad Gateway west coast signing tour, Green Apple on the Park, San Francisco, Friday evening, August 2, 2019 and Skylight Books, Los Angeles, Saturday evening, August 3, 2019 Share this page: [...]

Art Trip: Comics With O’Keeffe

Sally IngrahamMay 19, 2016Art Trip / EssaysI’m standing in the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, NM, staring at an index card in startled delight. It holds O’Keeffe’s notes for a large painting she made in 1963, and it hangs beside that painting, nicely framed. A famous index card. I glance around at the other folks in the gallery, looking for some shared excitement. People circle, pressing earbuds into their heads so that the audio tour they downloaded to their smart phones can inform them about the stuff on the walls. They don’t seem impressed by the index card. I can’t stop staring at it. “Look!” I want to say, “It’s a panel! From a comic! Look everyone!” I was drawn to Georgia O’Keeffe’s paintings of flowers and desert landscapes as a kid. Her love for New Mexico resonated with my own longing for that land, so when I traveled through Santa Fe in 2006, the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum was at the top of my list of stops. I liked the flowers and the landscapes and the bleached white bones back then. Ten years later I am in this museum again, and now it is O’Keeffe’s tiny pencil drawings that pull me in. The sketches that prefaced paintings. First-take watercolor nudes that are mostly splashes of color. Small paintings that seem to be missing their black lines. That index card. Most of what I’m drawn to is work O’Keeffe did when she lived in Canyon, Texas, between 1916-1918. This period is considered the prelude to her career, the formative years when she really began to develop her abstractions. She was not quite 30. A little series she did of Palo Duro Canyon almost makes me cry. The simple, quick strokes seem similar to drawings I have made of the New Mexican landscapes around Santa Fe. I’m the same age that O’Keeffe was when she made them, and – this is “The Land of Enchantment” after all – I suddenly feel strongly connected to her spirit. I whip some index cards out of my bag and copy the series. For a minute, it’s like I’m there on the edge of the canyon with her, drawing in the sunshine… And I’m looking at her stuff and seeing comics, yes. That’s where my brain lives constantly, these days. The index card is a panel for a comic. The Palo Duro Canyon drawings aren’t a series – they’re a sequence. Her paintings without lines prove how lively comics can look without being pinned down by traditional inks. Her small “notes” for larger paintings tell me the story I’m truly interested in. “Colors and shapes make a more definite statement than words,” O’Keeffe wrote in 1976. Especially when they take on the shapes and colors of comics. The statement that O’Keeffe’s work is making to me is reflective of what’s in my own head and heart, but that’s the uniquely fluid exchange between a creator and and the person experiencing the creation. I went to the museum because I’m about to leave New Mexico and it seemed necessary to “check in with Georgia”. I expected to see her flowers and cattle skulls and cottonwood trees in front of blue mesas, and feel somewhat wistful about the land I’m leaving behind. Instead I discovered the comics in her work, and made the peculiar realization that my move back to the East Coast right now puts me on a similar path to the one O’Keeffe took when she left Canyon, TX, to move to New York City. The world recognized her as an artist to be reckon with there. Who knows what will happen to me? I left the museum feeling the opposite of wistful. After all, I had spent the afternoon drawing comics with O’Keeffe – just two gals, jotting down the world in quick, sure strokes, on simple – yet powerful – index cards. I’ll never leave home without them! ————————————————————————————————— (Palo Duro Canyon, TX, a few days later, standing in roughly the same spot that Georgia O’Keeffe stood to make her pencil drawings 100 years ago, perhaps to the day. Funny ol’world.) ————————————————————————————————— Art Trip is a series that features reflections on art and comics, and the adventures that transform those who seek it out. Experience more on Comics Workbook soon. ————————————————————————————————— Sally Ingraham makes comics wherever she ends up, and is currently making them (on index cards) as she moves from Santa Fe, NM, to Pittsburgh, PA. You can see her work HERE. Share this page: [...]

12/12/2017

Aaron CockleDecember 12, 2017NewsAaron here today with Shaw/Willumsen; Fox & Gal; Hernandez/Salinger; Josef Albers in Mexico (at the Guggenheim); Polish Animation; Domino Print Mag ————————————————————————————————— ‘I think of the workspace as like mood and posture, surfaces and height, very physical, and then communication or information possibilities are something else.’ Caleb linked to this in yesterday’s newspost, Dash Shaw’s interview with Connor Willumsen, but it’s worth a read if you haven’t yet had the chance. It’s always nice to see cartoonists talking with each other about the work. : But it’s an accumulation of all of these decisions that you’re making. You’re deciding to not draw these things and to draw things in a different way… I get what you’re saying, that it’s intuitive, but you’re still creating the conditions. It’s not like those things happen to you. : Right, but I guess I am sort of nurturing a perspective as if they are just happening to me. I’ve been giving some workshops lately and I’ve been telling people that it helps to get through a page, continue the narrative, by just blowing the space on the page they’re currently working on, you know, like waste a lot of space and draw something small in an expansive void. The way I look at the way the book did turn out has a lot to do with how I was feeling while I was making it, because I was trying to make it quick, like as close as I could to the speed of reading a comic, which is impossible, and so I was subject to my immediate state during any particular page. So if I was feeling bogged down with a page, if it I was feeling it was becoming too laborious for me in its detail or pace, if it was boring me, I would blow a lot of space on the page to get through that moment and start fresh at the next, and my thinking is if I had a intuition that that needed to happen, just for my own wellbeing in that moment, the reader would have similar intuitions during the reading experience. Like if I’m getting bogged down by a page so is the reader, and to give myself drawing space is to give the reader space at the same appropriate moment, as if at the same moments we would feel the same moods or rhythms, even though we can’t possibly read and draw at the same speed. ————————————————————————————————— Almanac 2017, Orbiting, Meow De Vivre Over at the High-Low blog, Rob Clough looks at recent work by Iona Fox and Penina Gal. Fox’s comics have two built-in advantages. First, in her occupation as a farmer and mountain cabin caretaker, she simply does things that no other cartoonist talks about. Second, her sense of humor is extremely sharp, and she’s able to bring humor to any situation. Fox also brings the perspective of someone with a number of intellectual interests, as her degree is in geology, she knows quite a bit about meteorology and it goes from there. Her self-caricature is one of my favorites, with a “fox curl” on top of her head and a collection of freckles, knobby knees and jumbled limbs. Her strips can range from a relationship strip about geese to a beautiful series of shots of sunsets. The strips pre and post Trump’s election certainly have a different tone, as she touches both on politics and protecting those around her. There are strips about undocumented dairy workers and their struggle for improved conditions. … Meow De Vivre is a much sillier project, but it’s also visually distinctive. Originally designed for gallery space at a hair salon, Gal actually does something original with cat cartooning. The “Singles In Your Area” page is hilarious, with profiles from “OK Catnip”. There are “pawdicures”, trash talk about dogs, cat selfies, cat haute couture, and a clever collage. Gal has an eye for gag humor that’s never been obvious in some of her other work (with the exception of Glamera, which she did with Betsey Swardlick), but it stands out here in page after page celebrating cats as familiar creatures or as performing drag. Once again, Gal’s watercolors are the main attraction, grabbing the eye without looking too garish. Being in a gallery, that use of color was obviously crucial for an audience, but it worked just as well on the page. ————————————————————————————————— Reading ‘Catcher in the Rye’ Today Via Gilbert Hernandez, over at the NY Times. ————————————————————————————————— Guggenheim Museum Presents Josef Albers in Mexico Albers’s collaged images also suggest a nuanced relationship between the geometry and design elements of pre-Columbian monuments and the artist’s iconic abstract canvases and works on paper. Several of the latter are titled after key sites in Mexico, and formal resonances between the two bodies of work become apparent, especially when viewed together as in the Guggenheim presentation. Albers’s embrace of pre-Columbian imagery may be considered within the complex and often-fraught history of modernist artists looking toward non-Western cultures for source material. His work contrasts with that of the revolutionary Mexican artists with whom he met on his trips, including Diego Rivera. At the same time, Albers’s long-term commitment to studying Mexican art and architecture also positions him as a prescient figure in the history of post–World War II American art, when artists such as Donald Judd, Ad Reinhardt, and Robert Smithson looked toward ancient traditions with a new sensitivity and self-awareness. ————————————————————————————————— At Anthology Film Archives: The 70th Anniversary of Polish Animation Polish jazz and abstract art, posters in motion and inspired collages created by outstanding visual artists like Jan Lenica and Walerian Borowczyk – it can all be found in Polish animation. These films are almost invariably auteur works: the directors themselves discover the stories, write the scripts, draw, paint, shape the plasticine, sculpt the plaster, and sometimes even record the musical scores for their films. Polish animation has long been celebrated for its dark, black humor and courage in exploring the human psyche. Under communism, it mastered the art of the metaphor, in order to elude censorship. Social satire has always been a Polish specialty. ————————————————————————————————— Domino Books‏ @DominoComics New PRINT mag about comics from DOMINO, coming in mid 2018. Coedited by me & @LFlipowitz w/ beautiful first ish cover from Jesse McManus! ————————————————————————————————— The Winter Semester of thee Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers starts January 18th 2018! 8 weeks – 500 bux – coaching for as long as you need. The course is hard, but Frank will push your comics making practice to a new level, getting you to think about timing and color in new ways. Makes a great holiday gift for yourself – or for a loved one who is interested in comics. Apply by midnight (EST) on Dec. 25th and get $100 off the course price. Full details and how to apply can be found HERE! ————————————————————————————————— Vision Box – 12-12-2017 – by Cameron Arthur ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 12-12-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

“Goodnight and Good Luck”: On Finishing Your Comic

Jillian FleckMarch 30, 2016Essays / ResourcesTry finishing your comic. I get it, thereʼs that little voice running through comics culture that says: real comics donʼt end. It would not be difficult to connect this to the latest DC or Marvel reboot. Alternatively, look at any popular webcomic artist; their comics donʼt end either. There is just something about comics, unlike any other medium, in which seriality (or infinity) are somehow inherent. The individuals and corporations behind these serial publications have an economic interest in the story never ending. If it does, theyʼre out of business. Iʼm assuming though, your situation, friend, is a little different. Iʼm assuming your interest in not ending your comic is entirely self motivated. Iʼm also assuming you suspect you might not be cut out for this, though most likely youʼd never admit it. Take a step back from this culture of the infinity narrative, and realize the Sisyphean mission you are volunteering for. How long do you think you could write the same story? Five years? Ten years? How strong does your passion need to be to sustain such extended output? How good are you at gritting your teeth? What do you hope to achieve by it? Iʼm not saying that there is nothing to achieve, Iʼm simply encouraging you to question this. You have the choice to finish your comic, and I would encourage you to do so. The sweetest, most refreshing thing about finishing your comic is that it is finally over. Not on hiatus, not to be continued, no spin-off, and no redo. Over, the end, goodnight and good luck. Now that youʼre finished, letʼs go to the beach. Your studio honestly smells like garbage water, and the skin around your mouth is stained from too much coffee. Letʼs sketch the seagulls fighting over garbage, and eavesdrop on those around us. We could read about German Expressionist film, or write songs, I donʼt know how you creatively refill: letʼs hear some of your ideas. You are finished with your comic after all, you have time to do stupid, silly things like this. Iʼm not saying quit, Iʼm saying remember why you wanted to do comics in the first place. This is why I encourage you to finish your comic, so you can get up tomorrow and begin your next one. It can be about whatever you want, and can be drawn however you choose. Itʼs entirely new and up to you. Just think, if you finish it in one day, tomorrow you wonʼt have to suffer under the decisions of the past. If you finish your comic in one go, you could put it up on the wall and look at it, think about why you did what you did. Then the day after, maybe you can build on that. Or do something different. You can set challenges for yourself. Can you tell a complete story in a single page? Inside a triangle? On a roll of toilet paper? Yeah, of course itʼs stupid, and childish, and isnʼt going anywhere, and isnʼt for anyone, and isnʼt worth anything. Think about those values for a moment, those which say what you do needs to be serious, purposeful, intentional, worthwhile, and lucrative. Those are values that you have put on your own work. Some of them might be helpful to you, but remember the kind of comics culture those values are ultimately upholding. Think about the comics that would fall into these worthwhile categories, you know the ones. Big fat volumes, or slender albums, beautifully bound, with thick introductions that quote Thierry Groensteen – “Yes, yes – oh god yes!! Gimme that sweet legitimacy daddy!!!” Get real, come on, snap out of it. Think about what you value in comics, not what these other clowns are pushing, and do that. Do it a bunch of different times, in a bunch of different ways. Suss it out, take your time, play, and relax. Try setting up a structure that is forgiving, something you could leave tomorrow if you had to, or pick up in fifteen years time if you wanted. It would be very good if you could be kind to yourself, and not treat your mind and body as if it were a machine. If you read this and think “No, thereʼs no way I can play with comics, if I do Iʼll never be Osamu Tezuka!”, then I have bad news for you friend: youʼre already not Osamu Tezuka. You are you, and the comics you make and the way you make them, do not need to be defined by the values that came before. Take what you need, not what you can carry – itʼs a stranger journey than you can imagine. Finish your comic, itʼs time to move on. ————————————————————————————————— Jillian Fleck is a comic artist from Calgary, Alberta, currently studying comics at the University of Dundee. Check out her work HERE. Share this page: [...]

11/04/2016

Posted on November 4, 2016November 4, 2016 by Sally Ingraham

Sally here, ready to shout about some cool comics and the women who make them. I’ve got notes on Lynda Barry, Julia Gfrörer, the She Changed Comics project, Lyn Chevli, Shade the Changing Girl #1, the CW Roller Derby “of the mind” League – plus an interview with Kevin Czap and Comics Workbook at CAB.

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Comics Workbook will be at Comic Arts Brooklyn this Saturday, Nov. 5th – find us upstairs at table 27! Frank Santoro, Juan Fernandez, Jenn Lisa, and John Kelly will be there, with other Comics Workbook students and friends stopping by throughout the day.

Thee incredible Ronald Wimberly will be signing at our table at 2 pm!

Just when I thought it was safe to pack up the purel! I’m guesting at @comicsworkbook table at @comicartsbklyn this Saturday at 2pm. I’ll have Prince of Cats, Attack on Titan, and Something Wicked this Way Comes (The original to this is still available $300. Hit me in my DMs) #comicartsbrooklyn #comicbookworkbook #RonaldWimberly #FrankSantoro #GratNin #PrinceofCats #Hanzōbō

A photo posted by Ronald Wimberly (@ronaldwimberly) on Nov 3, 2016 at 3:32pm PDT

Also catch Whit Taylor and Alyssa Berg and Aaron Cockle tabling downstairs!

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*Shade the Changing Girl #1* – Cover by Becky Cloonan – Interior by Marley Zarcone and Kelly Fitzpatrick

I finally had a minute to pick up Shade the Changing Girl #1 while working at Copacetic Comics this week. Steve Ditko’s original Shade the Changing Man series (1970s), and Peter Milligan’s wild reworking of the Shade stories (1990s) seemed to be lurking around, wondering what these GIRLS were going to do with the material. I was curious too (I spent a fair amount of time this past summer just staring in awe at some of those Brendan McCarthy covers of Milligan’s Shade).

Shade the Changing Girl comes from creative team Cecil Castellucci (writer), Marley Zarcone (pencils), and Kelly Fitzpatrick (color), and at a glance, it certainly has the right look.

stcg_1-preview_2 — Art by Marley Zarcone, Colors by Kelly Fitzpatrick

The story ties easily into earlier Shade while quickly forging it’s own plot line: university dropout Loma (a big fan of lunatic poet Roc Shade) steals the “madness coat” from a museum on the planet Meta, and zips to Earth where she takes up residence in the body of a dying teenage girl. It doesn’t take Loma long to realize that dealing with high school, the uncontrollable madness, and the folks on Meta who want the coat back will make life a lot more difficult than she anticipated. Cecil Castellucci (whom I know from her work on The Plain Janes – which Jim Rugg did the artwork for) so far seems to be rocking this, and I’m pretty excited to see where the story goes.

Here’s an interview with Castellucci from July that details her own excitement about the project. Issue #2 came out this week – I’ll be aiming to get my hands on it asap.

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The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund started the She Changed Comics project last year – it was a series they ran on their Tumblr during Women’s History Month. They successfully Kickstarted a book in the spring of 2016, and it has just been released. The book was another one that I managed to check out this week during my time at Copacetic Comics.

Meant to be much more than just an overview of (the dreaded phrase) “women in comics”, the book claims to be “the definitive history of the women who changed free expression in comics, with profiles of more than 60 groundbreaking female professionals and interviews with the women who are changing today’s medium“.

While a book that clocks in at 170 pages can hardly be called comprehensive, it did feel like a great who’s who of important names, drawing from the breadth of comics history and the mainstream, syndicated, and alt-comics scenes. Cartoonists, publishers, and editors all got a shout out – Edwina Dumm to Jackie Ormes to Marie Severine to Diane Noomin to Kate Beaton to Roz Chast to Fiona Staples to Francoise Mouly to Karen Berger. With two pages devoted to each person, the book is definitely a good resource and a nice thing to have on hand when some idiot wants to claim that women don’t make or read comics. Almost entirely written by women as well. My only complaint is that there weren’t enough pictures!

Get a copy of the book HERE.

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One of the women who gets a mention in the book above is Lyn Chevli, the co-founder of Tits & Clits – the first comic book written, drawn, and published solely by women (beating the first Wimmen’s Comix to the newsstands by just a few weeks in July of 1972). Lyn recently died, at the age of 84, and Joyce Farmer (her Tits & Clits publishing partner) provided a remembrance of her on The Comics Journal – read it HERE.

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2776 — Lynda Barry – photo by Jeff Miller

Lynda Barry of course also makes the CBLDF’s list of women who changed comics, thoroughly, constantly, and wonderfully. She is featured in The Guardian this week, riffing on “comics, creativity, and Matt Groening”. Her career has zigzagged through the comics industry, beginning in the syndicated world with the strip Ernie Pook’s Comeek (which ran for 30 years), bumping into a novel or two along the way, and now exploding in both the classroom at the University of Wisconsin (where she was recently named as the UW-Madison’s first recipient of the Chazen Family Distinguished Chair in Art) and a lively lecture circuit, where she preaches the gospel of creativity.

Read the article HERE.

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You can see some pages from Julia Gfrörer‘s new book Laid Waste (Fantagraphics, November 2016) over on Flood Magazine, part of an interview with Julia that digs into her interest in the Middle Ages and the origins of this particular dark story. Check it out HERE.

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14713625_10157560239345285_3897244744955311804_n — Kevin Czap receiving the CXC 2016 Emerging Talent Award – photo by Rebecca Perry Damsen

Kevin Czap was awarded the CXC 2016 Emerging Talent Award a few weeks ago during Cartoon Crossroads Columbus. In the words of Tom Spurgeon, who presented the award to an astonished Kevin, “…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.”

Alyssa Berg caught up with Kevin a week later and continued the conversation about CXC, comics, and community – and the type of energy a person consciously puts into their work. Their conversation is featured here on the site today.

Catch Kevin and Czap Books at Comic Arts Brooklyn this weekend!

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The Comics Workbook Roller Derby League has shared the results of a recent “roller derby bout”. The group is constantly expanding, while dialing in a deeper team practice and refining the goals and projects that we’re about. Much more to come – meanwhile, check out some comics we’ve made recently.

14670892_1112575185486806_5937216544833535169_n — Gabriella Tito

See the rest of this “derby bout” HERE.

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#sallyingraham #comics

A video posted by Sally Ingraham (@sally_ingraham) on Nov 2, 2016 at 9:57pm PDT

Have a fantastic weekend folks, and get up to some mischief. Don’t let November get to you yet – and don’t forget to turn your clocks back an hour on Sunday! – Sally (Rogue)

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Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in NewsTagged CBLDF, Comic Arts Brooklyn, comics workbook roller derby league, julia gfrorer, Kevin Czap, lyn chevli, lynda barry, shade the changing girl, she changed comics

Sally Ingraham

Posted on November 4, 2016November 4, 2016

Explore

02/07/2018

Juan FernándezFebruary 7, 2018los Cómics / NewsJuan empieza el día con La Matadragones de Jaime Hernandez, La llegada de la Brigada, y una gira desde Lone Mountain! ————————————————————————————————— The Dragon Slayer: Folktales from Latin America – Jaime Hernandez with an introduction by F. Isabel Campoy In case, you’ve missed it, Jaime Hernandez is bringing a fresh take on timeless stories in his new collection of folktales,The Dragon Slayer: Folktales from Latin America . In classic TOON Books fashion, there’s a quality bibliography and appendix for those eager readers looking to dig deeper into these stories. As a great treat, it’s being released in Spanish and English editions, both paperback and hardcover. Guided by the classic works of F. Isabel Campoy and Alma Flor Ada, Hernandez’s first book for young readers brings the sights and stories of Latin America to a new generation of graphic novel fans around the world. Want to see how it all comes together? TOON Books has uploaded a nice selection of preview pages for you to dig into on their site. ————————————————————————————————— Sol Díaz Castillo y Marcela Trujillo tienen una nueva edicion de La Polola Podcast! “¡¡Último capítulo de la segunda temporada!! Y nos despedimos con una gran sorpresa; en abril publicaremos el primer número de nuestra revista de cómic hecho por mujeres, (¡al fin!) se llamará “Brígida” por Isabel Molina, Pati Aguilera, Marcela Trujillo(Maliki) y Sol Díaz.Les contamos de los detalles, las primeras colegas invitadas que nos acompañarán, las ideas para el futuro y mucho, mucho más. Además nos acompañan unos audios de un Patreon amigo, y un reporte de Panchulei desde Angoulême.” ————————————————————————————————— On a note of personal, North American interest: John Porcellino will be doing a small tour in support of his new D+Q book, From Lone Mountain (available March 20!). Please see below for dates. (Yes, Pittsburgh, lucky you, of course Porcellino will be stopping by Copacetic Comics.) Though I have some of the zines that this book brings together, I’m eagerly awaiting this collection of comics and stories by Porcellino. If anything, having this body of work together makes a nice package for non-comics readers to unravel into their lives. From Lone Mountain collects stories from Porcellino’s zine King-Cat—John enters a new phase of his life, as he remarries and decides to leave his beloved second home Colorado for San Francisco. Grand themes of King-Cat are visited and stated more eloquently than ever before: serendipity, memory, and the quest for meaning in the everyday. ————————————————————————————————— 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 – 02-07-18 – by Sally Ingraham ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 02-07-18 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

05/03/2017

Juan FernándezMay 3, 2017los Cómics / NewsEmpezamos el día con unlocalizador de residencias; Liniers y Julieta Botto; Los Premios Eisner; Acción Cultural Española; Power Paola y Serge Bloch; Vanesa R. Del Rey; La Política Retratada; Alfonso Zapico y los tebeos de Comics Workbook. ————————————————————————————————— Localizart.es Infórmate sobre las residencias artísticas a las que puedes optar en Europa y América Latina como creador de cómics. Puedes utilizar el localizador de residencias y espacios para la producción artística en América Latina AQUI. ————————————————————————————————— En un intercambio más que entretenido, Liniers conversa sobre cómics, literatura y sobre su propia editorial, la editorial común con Julieta Botto: JB -Tu proyecto editorial es de cómic, pero, a la vez, pareciera que se acerca más al de libro de arte. ¿Cómo definirías a La editorial común? L -A La editorial común no la veo como de libros de arte, la veo como de libros de cómic. Es una editorial de novelas gráficas, si se quiere, y de algunos libros de humor gráfico, pero eso es del mundo del cómic. La razón por la que comenzamos con esta editorial es porque la Argentina es una especie de usina muy gigantesca y muy poderosa de artistas dentro del mundo de la historieta, y muchas veces veía que libros de autores argentinos se publicaban en Europa, se publicaban en los Estados Unidos y no se publicaban en la Argentina. Es como si los discos de Calamaro o las películas de Darín no se vieran en la Argentina, me parece que estamos cometiendo un error cultural. Así que la idea de La editorial común fue usar Macanudo, que sabemos que es un libro que se vende, para bancar, por ahí, libros que son más difíciles de vender, pero que son mucho mejores que Macanudo. Y para encontrar ese tipo de material, buscar autores nuevos en América Latina. Traer libros de afuera que ayuden a abrir la cabeza al público argentino. Esa es un poco la idea. Léela AQUI! ————————————————————————————————— Cómics y noticias que me han llamado la atención esta semana: Los Premios Eisner colocan siete obras con firma española entre lo mejor del tebeo. Paco Roca, Emma Ríos y Albert Monteys entre otros! Atención autores españoles de cómic: Acción Cultural Española convoca a su residencia de novela gráfica en Angouleme. Un diálogo dibujado por Power Paola con Serge Bloch para Revista Arcadia. Vanesa R. Del Rey tiene 3 obras increibles en el Line Art show de Gallery Nucleus. Por supuesto, estan en venta! No os perdáis esta exposición, La Política Retratada, que repasa la relación humor gráfico y política a través de 200 viñetas en el Palau Robert Barcelona si estas de visita! Reseña de la segunda entrega de La Balada del Norte de Alfonso Zapico en 13 Millones de Naves. Otro logro gráfico-histórico! Ya podéis ver la entrevista completa que le hizo Carlos Reyes a Carla Berrocal en la Plop Galería durante mi estancia en Santiago. El programa se grabó el 28 de marzo en Plop Galería, Santiago de Chile. ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 5-3-2017 – by Sally Ingraham ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 5-3-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

Aidan Koch at LICAF

Comics WorkbookOctober 27, 2016Festivals and ShowsAidan Koch discusses a collaborative project during a workshop she led at The Lakes International Comic Art Festival 2016. Share this page: [...]

09/09/2016

Sally IngrahamSeptember 9, 2016NewsNine days into September, and Sally’s here to sort through the ruckus of late summer with you. I’ve got Dash Shaw and his new film in Toronto, old pages from Sasha Mardou and new thoughts from her on Julie Doucet, Comics Workbook at SPX, Keiler Roberts on Mutha Magazine, a new Correspondence Course ready to unleash, Jessica Campbell getting some A.V. Club love, Annie Mok on Tillie Walden, the Composition Competition results, a look at Microcosm Publishers, Kyung Me’s first solo show, and a very special last chance… Attention! Proceed. ————————————————————————————————— If you’re in Toronto this weekend, or within a less than an 8 hours drive from the city, I don’t want to hear any excuses – you had better be at the WORLD PREMIERE of Dash Shaw’s new film – My Entire High School Sinking Into the Sea – at the Toronto International Film Festival. The screening is on Sunday at 2:45pm. BE THERE. “Inventive, beautiful, and more than a little bizarre, the animated feature debut from acclaimed graphic novelist Dash Shaw is surely the most delightful disaster movie in cinema history. To say that My Entire High School Sinking Into the Sea is like John Hughes fused with The Poseidon Adventure makes for a snappy pitch — and it’s true — but it doesn’t prepare you for the sheer originality of Dash’s vision. Jason Schwartzman, Lena Dunham, Maya Rudolph, Susan Sarandon, and Reggie Watts supply voices for this story about what it takes to survive adolescence. Literally.” – via tiff Full details and how to get tickets HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Here on the site we have a new essay by Sacha Mardou on taboos and the comics of Julie Doucet. It is – “…a personal response to the comics of Julie Doucet, which, since I first encountered them in my early twenties, served to rock my world. They forced me to question the kind of comics I wanted to make, my attitudes towards the female experience on and off the page, towards biology, sex and shame. All that stuff factored in my response to Julie Doucet’s comics. Plus they look and read great. They still hold this timeless, glorious power for me. I’m so freaking glad she made the comics she did! Let us take a look!“ Read the rest of the essay HERE – it’ll make you laugh and probably squirm too (and you should stop and think about WHY!) ————————————————————————————————— While we’re talking about Sacha Mardou, here’s a page from her Manhole #3 comic – a work that is increasingly difficult to find. Phil Dokes has a copy, and with Sacha’s permission he scanned and shared it – so you can read the whole thing HERE. As Phil puts it: “This is great, and rare (trust me on that) comic Manhole #3. Awesome to have art and words lean on each like she does, you pull one away from the other and it’s Jenga time!” – Phil Dokes Here’s the link again for the rest! ————————————————————————————————— Stop whatever you’re doing and make sure that you are signed up for the terrific workshops that Comics Workbook is hosting at SPX next weekend. Make comics with Carol Tyler, Jeffrey Brown, Charles Burns, Frank Santoro, Cameron Nicholson, Juan Fernandez, and some of the crew from Fantagraphics Spanish Fever! Full workshop descriptions HERE. SIGN UP FOR THE WORKSHOPS HERE! ————————————————————————————————— Ugh…so school, am I right? It’s back in session. Over on Mutha Magazine Keiler Roberts has one part of the endless saga of parents and kids, teachers and kids, kids and kids… Read more about it and poke around on Mutha Magazine for more cool comics – HERE. Read more comics by Keiler Roberts on her website – including Powdered Milk Vol. 1-11. ————————————————————————————————— Speaking of school – the VERY BEST SORT is also back in session. The fall semester of the Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers is a GO! Applications are due Sept. 16th – course starts Sept. 23rd. You’ve always wanted to make comics, right? And all those terrific comics popping up all over Tumblr lately (due to the Comics Workbook Composition Competition 2016, no doubt) has really inspired you – RIGHT? So sign up for the Correspondence Course and take your cartooning to a whole other sphere of being. Do it! ALL THE DETAILS ARE HERE. ————————————————————————————————— There is a preview of Jessica Campbell‘s Hot or Not over on the A.V. Club! They write: “The 20th century brought about huge shifts in the world of fine art, thanks to the technological and cultural changes over those 100 years, but Jessica Campbell isn’t interested in evaluating the merits of the actual artwork in her new graphic novel Hot Or Not: 20th-Century Male Artists. The majority of the major artists during this time are men, and Campbell subjects those men to the objectification women have had to deal with for pretty much all of history by judging them on their physical appearances rather than the quality of their creations. The result is a hilarious, slyly subversive exploration of subjectivity, and the criticisms ultimately reveal more about the critic than they do the artists.” – via the A.V. Club Check out the preview HERE. Find Jessica Campbell at SPX next weekend, hanging out at the Koyama Press table (W10-11A). ————————————————————————————————— Annie Mok interviewed Tillie Walden over on The Comics Journal this week – “Tillie Walden is a young Texas-based cartoonist who has three graphic novellas from UK’s Avery Hill Publishing to her name (The End of Summer in 2015 and I Love This Part and A City Inside in 2016), as well as her upcoming graphic memoir about synchronized skating for First Second, Spinning (fall 2017). Tillie wields a high degree of technical polish with her clean inks and dreamy watercolor tones, always in service of challenging emotional storytelling, often centering around teenage queer relationships. I spoke to Tillie by Skype from her apartment in Austin.” – Annie Mok via tcj.com Read the interview HERE! ————————————————————————————————— There is still dancing in the streets over the Comics Workbook Composition Competition 2016 results – if you haven’t checked out the hefty list of comics yet, give it a look HERE! ————————————————————————————————— Microcosm is a cool publisher that you should definitely check out – a good place to start is via their complete publishing history (pictured above – click on the image to see a larger version!) They are celebrating their 20th anniversary by highlighting a different beloved independent bookstore every month. In August it was “iconic Chicago feminist bookstore Women & Children First” – read more about them HERE. Check out Microcosm’s catalog of Zines (or “bookettes”) HERE! ————————————————————————————————— Check out Kyung Me‘s solo show next week – Opening Reception: Wednesday, September 14th 6-8PM. Show runs September 14th – October 16th. You can read more about her work, and her book Bad Korean via this conversation with The Editorial Magazine. “Kyung Me is a 23-year old artist living in Queens, NY. Intricate, nightmarish and feminine, Kyung Me’s scenes appear to be from a long gone century of strife and tragic romance. We featured her drawing “Rabbit Canal” in issue 13, and here we talk to Kyung Me about her process and her tendency toward melodrama.” – via The Editorial Magazine Get a copy of Bad Korean HERE. ————————————————————————————————— To conclude – one last thing that you CANNOT sleep on…!! – this is probably the last weekend that you can take advantage of the pre-sale on Connor Willumsen’s new book Portraits. Check it out HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Back next week with more news, although like many of you, I’ll be in some sort of tizzy getting ready for SPX! Good luck and have a good weekend! – Sally Share this page: [...]

10/21/2016

Sally IngrahamOctober 21, 2016NewsSally 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. ————————————————————————————————— 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. ————————————————————————————————— 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. ————————————————————————————————— 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. ————————————————————————————————— 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! ————————————————————————————————— 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. ————————————————————————————————— Lauren R. Weinstein has a new piece in The Village Voice – HERE. ————————————————————————————————— 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! ————————————————————————————————— 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 ————————————————————————————————— Today is the last day to get in on the special Michael DeForge auction hosted by Copacetic Comics – HERE. ————————————————————————————————— It’s Connor Willumsen’s birthday today! Check out his work and help him celebrate. 🙂 ————————————————————————————————— 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 Share this page: [...]

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