Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in los Cómics, NewsTagged #GRAFMAD2017, caleb orecchio, catalina infante, Dr Fausto Fanzine, gabriella tito, juan fernandez, la polola, Latino Comics Expo, Marcela Trujillo, power paola, Ramon Esoño

Juan Fernández

Posted on November 8, 2017November 8, 2017

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06/19/2018

Aaron CockleJune 19, 2018NewsParadise Systems; NYer at SOI; Desert Island; Dank Meme Machine ————————————————————————————————— Paradise Systems on publishing and distributing underground Chinese comics Fei Liu spoke with R. Orion Martin about comics in China: says the biggest challenge with indie comics in China is the lack of a network of independent bookstores. To overcome that, many artists distribute their stories in the form of tiaoman 条漫(web based strip comics — which can sometimes be like fan works, not unlike doujinshi of Japanese manga that have amassed huge cult followings) — of which many comics Paradise Systems prints are reformatted in. Tiaoman comics are popular on social media sites like Douban, a media site for youth culture that’s “a little like Tumblr but with Rotten Tomato’s review function” which allows for cult-like analysis and adoration. The comic artists Paradise Systems publishes are already Douban celebrities and now also have WeChat pages, which is China’s more mainstream social media network — though, finding indie comics on WeChat is often harder because you have to find and friend people already invested in the culture to see the content. ————————————————————————————————— Funny Ladies at The New Yorker: Cartoonists Then and Now July 24-October 13, 2018, The Society of Illustrators in NYC, curated by Liza Donnelly. In art, when the standards for what is considered “good“ are broadened to include more approaches, it leads to more diversity of thought and more creativity. That’s what happened under Lee Lorenz and Harold Ross’ editorship. In addition, the increase of women cartoonists under their editorships happened during times of positive cultural change in attitudes towards women. This is happening now. As the result of an effort led by senior editor David Remnick and newly hired cartoon editor, Emma Allen, The New Yorker now has a greater percentage of women cartoonists than ever. This exhibition is a commemoration of some of the women who drew cartoons for The New Yorker past and present. It’s a celebration of their creativity and fortitude as they pushed past cultural stereotypes to create humor and offer the world laughter from all points of view. ————————————————————————————————— Neighborhood Joint: The ‘Punk Rock’ Comic Book Shop Beyond the meritocratic inventory system, Desert Island proselytizes offbeat creativity through its annual fall festival, Comic Arts Brooklyn, together with the Pratt Institute. It also publishes an all-illustration newspaper, which comes out a few times a year called “Smoke Signal,” now in its 29th issue. Copies of the publication, whose pages have carried works by Mad magazine legends alongside up-and-comers like Abby Jame, are free to customers. ————————————————————————————————— Dank Learning: Generating Memes Using Deep Neural Networks Via Abel L Peirson V and E Meltem Tolunay We introduce a novel meme generation system, which given any image can produce a humorous and relevant caption. Furthermore, the system can be conditioned on not only an image but also a user-defined label relating to the meme template, giving a handle to the user on meme content. The system uses a pretrained Inception-v3 network to return an image embedding which is passed to an attention-based deep-layer LSTM model producing the caption – inspired by the widely recognised Show and Tell Model. We implement a modified beam search to encourage diversity in the captions. We evaluate the quality of our model using perplexity and human assessment on both the quality of memes generated and whether they can be differentiated from real ones. Our model produces original memes that cannot on the whole be differentiated from real ones. ————————————————————————————————— Thee Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers Summer Session starts NOW! Floating start date! Apply anytime between now and July 12th 2018 to join the summer course. Email santoroschoolATgmail for more details. Ask about the Fall Course if now is too busy for you! The course is 8 weeks – 500 bux for 8 weeks plus access to Frank’s coaching for as long as you need. Payment plans are available. Put your summer to good use! ————————————————————————————————— Vision Box – 6-19-2018 – by Cameron Arthur ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 6-19-18 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

08/13/2018

Caleb OrecchioAugust 13, 2018NewsCaleb Orecchio here with thoughts on a Barry Windsor-Smith strip, and other news. ————————————————————————————————— “You ask why? I say why not?” — BWS’ note on the above piece in Opus. This strip has no “joke” in the traditional sense, but there is a payoff. A punchline. “POH!” 1, 2, 3, POH! It’s so simple. What is a four panel strip other than three panels that, traditionally, set up a punchline? Jack White, a musician and upholsterer, has noted that it takes three staples for a material to be considered upholstered at the bare minimum; this is his observation of the beauty within simplicity. Here Barry Windsor-Smith does not busy himself (or the reader) with a plot within three panels to bring us to the fourth, he simply stalls us and then squeezes the trigger. POH! It’s actually kind of funny, or at least amusing. What I find very interesting about this strip, is that it isn’t contrived in any way. Obviously, I presume, this was made privately. Maybe as a joke to himself or his assistant or studio mates or whatever. It does not matter. I am simply pointing out the simplicity, looseness and playful nature of the piece. There is a solid art and drawing background behind the images: the wash, the marks, the 270 degree turn; but they all briskly collide to make the joke, POH! This is a perfect strip. I’m not going to argue the point, but consider how few cartoonists make strips like this. Consider how few cartoonists make comics for fun. Musicians play music for fun. Football players throw the ol’ pigskin around for fun. Consider this, fellow cartoonists, for twenty minutes a day, as a warm-up, make a four-panel strip for fun that you’ll never show anyone. I guarantee you will be surprised by what will come out of that exercise. Many perfect comics are made in sketchbooks and will never be seen by anyone until the sketchbooks of that cartoonist are published, like the above example (also I think the sketchbooks of Chris Ware and Gary Panter apply). Perfect comic strips can be painstakingly rendered by Ernie Bushmiller, but they don’t have to be. Sometimes, they are made by Barry Windsor-Smith as a joke is all I’m saying. ————————————————————————————————— Share this page: [...]

12/10/2018

Caleb OrecchioDecember 10, 2018NewsCaleb Orecchio here reporting from Calypso’s island ————————————————————————————————— I’m mad at myself. I am in the middle of moving (geographically I am literally in between my old place and new place) and have been separated from my cartooning tools. At this point I am not sure if I left them at the place I was living or if I left them at the place I am moving into. I currently reside somewhere between those two places in hopes I can get a car at a decent price to continue the journey. Ah the life of a cartoonist. At times I feel like Theseus looking for trouble and overcoming it with valor and grace. At other times, I am Odysseus, plaything of the gods. Stranded for years upon an island I cannot escape. I think a lot of cartoonists, particularly veterans, feel like Odysseus. Slave to the whims of the gods they have offended and the ones they have glorified. Hungry to fill their banquet hall with the blood of those who have trespassed upon them. It feels good to complain. Complaining can be of good use if you can triangulate your gripes and nullify them. Really I feel like Hercules. Hoping my labors can exult me as immortal to the heavens, or at least in the Billy Ireland collection for eternity. I’ll shoot an arrow at the Sun if I have to. ————————————————————————————————— Share this page: [...]

San Francisco, CA Scene Report

Frank SantoroDecember 10, 2011Riff Raff / Scene ReportsThis article originally appeared on The Comics Journal 12/10/2011 This week’s scene report is brought to you by my old friend Gabby Gamboa. I remember meeting Gabby in 1992 when I walked into Comic Relief on Haight Street in San Francisco to sell my zines. She was the mini-comics buyer. I lied and said that I didn’t make them. I was too shy. She became a good friend and I’m happy that she agreed to do a scene report for that cow town known as SF. Please enjoy. Also, I will be posting a full Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival report soon. Thanks to Dan, Gabe, Bill and everyone who helped put on the show. It was the best con ever on the fun meter for me. XO. INTERMISSION FUNNIES with MICHAEL DEFORGE San Francisco CA Scene Report by Gabby Gamboa It seems like a million things have happened recently, there is so much to report. Fall started with SF Zine Fest, which was once again held at the County Fair Building in Golden Gate Park. It was an inspiring, energetic show that reminded me a lot of APE when APE first started. APE itself was a bit too large and unfocused for my taste this year. There seemed to be a larger emphasis on selling crafts and prints, much less on books and comics. Most people I spoke to said that sales were way down (curse this economy!) and everyone seemed to have a different opinion on what was wrong with the show and how to fix it. It will be interesting to see what direction the show will take in the future, especially now that Wondercon has moved to Anaheim. As a former Comic Relief employee, I was saddened when the Berkeley store shut down recently amid chaos, but from the ashes grew two new very good comic shops that are worth a visit: Fantastic Comics on Shattuck Avenue, and The Escapist on Claremont Ave. Here in San Francisco, the institution that is Al Kizziah just closed his Al’s Comics store after 22 years, and will be selling comics online and at trade shows. After a long absence, Marc Arsenault has restarted Wow Cool, his comics, zines, and music mail order empire, proving that it is indeed the 90’s all over again. You should buy some great comics at wowcool.com. Isotope (The Comic Book Lounge) continues to be a friend to creators and the indie-comics crowd. They recently presented their Isotope Award for excellence in minicomics to Katie Longua for her comic “Rok.” Seeing her around APE in a viking helmet made me nostalgic for some of the cool comics dames who have since moved away. Isotope also hosted a Halloween-themed book party with local cartoonists Lark Pien, Thien Pham, and First Second Books’ Mark Siegel. Isotope is currently hosting a series of comics creation classes taught by Ed Luce, creator of the seriously awesome Wuvable Oaf. Matt Wobensmith and Ed Luce run Gotblud Vintage Zine Store, which sells and buys vintage zines and minicomics, stocks all of your Wuvable Oaf needs, and hosts events with visiting artists like Tom Neely and Dave King (designer of the Crass logo). Needles and Pens continues to be another good place to get hard-to-find minicomics, much like the Rock Paper Scissors Collective in Oakland. Mission Comics and Art on 20th Street just celebrated its 2nd anniversary. It is a brilliant store with the best of everything. Like Isotope, Mission Comics takes comics seriously, so if you want action figures or trading cards, look elsewhere. Owner Leef Smith is very knowledgeable and he is a great supporter of the local comics community. He turns his store into an all-night studio for 24 Hour-Comics Day, he hosts a graphic novel book club and a lending library. In October the Mission Comics Gallery exhibited the Francois Vigneault-curated show Tales, which featured quirky fantasy art by cartoonists such as Dylan Horrocks, Jesse Reklaw, Ben Catmull, Andrice Arp, Kane Lynch, and many others. The December show will be original art from Mari Naomi’s Kiss and Tell graphic novel. Another great thing about Mission Comics is that they host a monthly creator meet-up. There are several other on-going creator meet-ups happening in the Bay Area, including a Berkeley Jupiter Comix Jam that has been happening for at least a decade. And I suppose that OWS is a meet-up of sorts. Cartoon journalist Susie Cagle was arrested along with a lot of other journalists and legal observers for standing off to the side during the riot that followed the shut down of the Port of Oakland. I have been enjoying her sketches from the scene. The Cartoon Art Museum had a great retrospective of local legend Lloyd Dangle’s now defunct Troubletown strip. One of the worst side effects of the demise of the newspaper is the end of great strips like this. They have an exhibit up now that I’ve been meaning to check out celebrating 100 years of The Wizard of OZ comics and newspaper strips. Opening December 17 is “Black and White and Read All Over: Comics of the New Millennium” featuring post-2000 comic strips, including Richard Thompson, Stephan Pastis, Keith Knight, Mark Tatulli and others. And ordering goodies from the online museum store is a great way to support them. Rina Ayuyang and Thien Pham are putting out the monthly Comix Claptrap podcast. Imagine The View, but about comics. Or Fresh Air, but about comics. Thien’s Elizabeth Hasselbeck is a great counter-point to Rina’s Terry Gross. Okay, it’s not like either of those things, but you should give it a listen if you haven’t already. Lit Quake is a weeklong San Francisco literary festival during which a dizzying variety of authors read from their works at venues all over the heavily mustachioed Mission District. I attended When Pictures Speak Louder Than Words at ZSpace. The highlights were a reading /mock-bickering session from Game Over by Gene Yang and Thien Pham (man that guy is everywhere!), Jon Macy reading his classy, yet sexy Teleny and Camille, Christine Shields reading from her beautiful limited-edition children’s book, and MariNaomi reading a creepy comic about bedbugs that can be found on the delightful therumpus.net. I was sad to have missed the LitCrawl event the next night at Mission Comics where Kane Lynch, Justin Hall, Rick Worley, and MariNaomi, but I heard it was smashing. In mainstream news, local publisher Image comics is still making up for torturing us in the 1990’s by putting out great stuff like the Walking Dead and the upcoming Danger Club. Besides stealing some of the best former Comics Relief employees (shout out to Todd Martinez and Biggles @Biggletron), they are also planning to celebrate themselves at the recently announced Image Expo at the Oakland Convention Center on February 24-26. They are welcoming exhibitors and artists, so a Wondercon replacement this may become. We suffered a tragic loss this Fall of cartoonist and Sparkplug publisher Dylan Williams. Though he had lived in Portland since the late 1990’s, he grew up in Berkeley and had a great impact on the Bay Area comics scene. He had been an employee of both Stand Up Comics and Comic Relief. He was an artist and founding member of the Puppy Toss collective, of which I was also a member. He was the main drive behind the unwieldy Puppy Toss minicomics publishing and distribution catalog, which he would finally get right all on his own with Sparkplug. He left behind many friends here, and we memorialized him with a gathering generously held at cartoonist Scott Hsu-Storaker’s house, and then again at a very teary-eyed panel at APE. He will be profoundly missed. As I write this I am getting ready for the East Bay Alternative Press Book Fair at Berkeley City College on December 10. Cartoonists such as Jaime Crespo (winner of Season 2’s America’s Favorite Vato! ), Kane Lynch, Sophie Yanow, MariNaomi, and many others will be there. I will be sharing a table with Primahood creator Tyler Cohen, and I will be selling my new Miss Lonelyhearts minicomic, and original art. By the time you read this, this event will already have occurred. I hope to have seen you there. If you had a time machine, you could go back and visit me on this night as I write to share in my eager anticipation of my future/your past event. Then we could both travel to the future and enjoy the release of my upcoming work concerning a group of young people who abuse their time machine to visit insignificant historical events. But then I would have to travel back again to this night to stop myself from writing this passage so no one can steal my awesome idea for my time travel comic before I get a chance to write it myself. Share this page: [...]

10/04/2017

Juan FernándezOctober 4, 2017los Cómics / NewsEmpezamos el día con Daniel Blanco; José Muñoz y Maria Luque; Inés Estrada; Rodrigo la Hoz; #GRAFMAD2017 y los tebeos de Cómics Workbook! ————————————————————————————————— Juan here: Well, folks, made it through the gauntlet. I had a brilliant time at CXC as Jenn Lisa and Sean Knickerbocker’s hype man & dutiful assistant. Comics Workbook held it down and got the good word into the hands of Columbus aplenty through workshops, back issues and conversations. It’s great to have a crew like Comics Workbook where we’ll have a core crew running programming and officially representing (Frank Santoro, Sally Ingraham, Audra Stang, Caleb Orecchio, and Connor Willumsen) while also having “agents” floating around the festival. It was good to be in the company of folks like Aaron Cockle, Kurt Ankeny, Adam Griffiths, Marina Harkness. All of us doing our thing. A huge thank you to the CXC staff and volunteers for helping establish a show that best honors cartoonists and building a deep city wide infrastructure. Most specifically, I’d like to thank the CXC Executive committee, the people who make this show what it is and tirelessly keep it going–Jeff Smith, Lucy Caswell, Vijaya Iyer, Kathleen Glosan, Tom Spurgeon and Melody Reed. Got to catch up with the great Iona Woolmington. Hearts on fire for her. Picked up fresh Comics School USA #8 from Kevin Huizenga. Can’t wait to sink my teeth into his notes. Watched Kat Fajardo receive the CXC emerging talent and felt the waves of excitement. Still running on that energy. Talked autobio comics with Breena Nuñez. Watched Jenn Lisa find kindred spirits at this show talking autobio and DIY and talking about the garbage aspects of the intersection of ego and publishing. This is a big deal for me and her. Good stuff. CXC 2018 is 9/27-9/30. Thursday through Sunday. Mark your calendars and make your pilgrimage to Columbus. Stay tuned for my annual Expanding the Festival Tool Kit post. After bathing in the warmth of CXC and swimming through a year of shows and festivals, I’ve got lots of thoughts. And I hope you do too, so chime in. Tonight in Pittsburgh we’ve got our monthly comics salon: If you’re in Pittsburgh, be sure to stop by for some drawing exercises, coffee, shop talk, and solidarity. Tonight we’ll be riffing off of Connor Willumsen’s latest workshops, focusing on distilling action, observation and dialogue into their essential bits across tight but flexible architectures of the page. We’ll be guided by the principles he’s developed over the past couple of years, most visible in his latest work, Anti-Gone, published by Koyama Press. Anyway here’s the usual comics gold I bring you every week from Latin America and Spain. A little lighter a haul than usual, but just as shiny. *Turn on your translation devices* ————————————————————————————————— Los cómics y las noticias que me han llamado la atención esta semana: Sol Díaz Castillo y Marcela Trujillo tienen una nueva edicion de La Polola Podcast! Las chicas conversan con Daniel Blanco sobre sus inicios en el dibujo, su infancia en la religión mormona y su vida en peñalolen rodeado de animales y perros. Les contó acerca de su formación casi autodidacta y su amor por la filosofía y la teoría. Finalmente les habló de su editorial Endorsain y el gusto de hacer libros de autor distintos y originales Lo que va del cómic argentino: Martín Pérez escribe en las #Entreviñetas de El Espectador acerca de la obra de José Muñoz y Maria Luque Inés Estrada sale de gira: AUSTIN, DALLAS, TOKYO, CIUDAD DE MEXICO, LOS ANGELES y les ofrece un nuevo calendario para el 2018 en la tienda Gatosaurio. Rodrigo la Hoz les da tres consejos para contar historias en viñetas en Revista Bacánika. Abierta la convocatoria para participar en #GRAFMAD2017 ¡Hasta el 16 de octubre! ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie -10-04-2017- by Caleb Orecchio ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 10-4-2017 – by Sally Ingraham Share this page: [...]

11/08/2017

Posted on November 8, 2017November 8, 2017 by Juan Fernández

Empezamos 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!

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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.

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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.

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Suzy and Cecil – 11-08-2017 – by Gabriella Tito

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Joanie and Jordie – 11-08-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio

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Cozytown – 11-08-2017 – by Juan Fernandez

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Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Juan Fernández

Posted on November 8, 2017November 8, 2017

Explore

11/23/2017

Sally IngrahamNovember 22, 2017NewsSally here with Egyptian comics, cartoonists on immigration, and a Happy Thanksgiving. ————————————————————————————————— The Atlantic has a great article about Egypt’s cartoonists – sort of a scene report of the Cairo Comix Festival, which took place in September, and an on-the-ground report of the comics scene as a whole in Egypt, where telling the truth is difficult and increasingly dangerous. “Despite a small readership—or perhaps thanks in part to their relative invisibility—comics in Egypt are blossoming in the shadows. “There is no distribution in Egypt. There are no graphic novel publishers. There is no real way to make a living publishing comics here,” says Sara El Masry, co-owner of an organization called MAZG that runs cartooning workshops throughout the country. But as other means of expression have been shut down, the cartoonist festival has grown, according to its organizer. With few eyes on them, these graphic storytellers are depicting the truth as they see it.“ The article profiles a number of comics makers from the country, including Mai Koraiem whose work is pictured above. “Other cartoonists at the festival approached their subjects with bare fists, particularly when it comes to gender politics in Egypt. In Traveler’s Diary, Mai Koraiem uses a rough, expressive inkwash technique to detail the history of women’s rights in Egypt and the Middle East. Through a journalistic narrative, Koraiem tells the story of the ascendance of a violent misogynist culture, and the unraveling of liberal feminist values she argues first found purchase in Cairo in the 1960s. In a small ongoing thread at the bottom of the page, Koraiem links the personal and political by including a comic strip narrating her own experiences with street harassment and sexual assault.“ Read the rest of the article HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Columbus Alive features the new exhibit at the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum, which looks back at how the topic of immigration has been covered by cartoonists over the last 150 years. “The resulting exhibit, “Looking Backward, Looking Forward: U.S. Immigration in Cartoons and Comics,” reveals that while the particulars of immigration may not have remained constant, the push-and-pull of public opinion as reflected in comics — and shaped by cartoonists — is something that hasn’t changed as the United States has considered the philosophical, political and practical implications of immigration. “There is a very rich history of cartoonists commenting on what’s going on in the world in terms of immigration to the United States, reflecting what people are thinking and saying, but also, we think, impacting how people are thinking about it,” Curator and Assistant Professor Jenny Robb said. “So we wanted to take a look back at the past 150 years and see how cartoonists dealt with it in their work. And not just editorial cartoonists, but in comic strips and comic books and, more recently, graphic novels.”“ The image above is the exhibition’s featured comic. “Robb and Gardner chose Joseph Keppler’s 1893 artwork “Looking Backward” as the exhibition’s featured image because of its timeless message, Robb said. The cartoon depicts “people who have immigrant pasts and have benefited from the opportunities in the U.S. in 1893, are now trying to stop new immigrants from coming over, forgetting their own past,” Robb said. “You could run that today; it would just be a different group of people.” “ Read the whole article HERE. The exhibit is up through April 15th 2018. ————————————————————————————————— On The Nib Rawand Issa details why Being Illegal is Unbearable – for Syrian refugees in Lebanon. ————————————————————————————————— Here in the USA we are celebrating Thanksgiving today – an often controversial holiday, as many cartoonists take note of. Lauren Weinstein‘s weekly Normal Person for Village Voice details the types of politically tense turkeys that grace many tables – HERE. Lauren’s also got a Thanksgiving comic in Seattle’s The Stranger: Here’s Roz Chast for The New Yorker of course: ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 11-23-2017 – by Sally Ingraham ————————————————————————————————— Share this page: [...]

The Adventures of Dieter Lumpen

Comics WorkbookMay 22, 2017EssaysRM Rhodes presents commentary on The Adventures of Dieter Lumpen by Jorge Zentner and Ruben Pellejero ————————————————————————————————— Jargon is awesome. Comics has a lot of it. One of the more interesting terms is the artistic technique of spotting black areas. This is often shortened to “spotted blacks”. That is, determining what areas of a given page and/or panel should be inked in before color is applied. It’s one of many artistic techniques one can pick up while making comics. To date, I haven’t picked it up. But I know what to look for, which means I can appreciate it when I see it. There’s an entire group of arguments whose style relies heavily on spotted blacks, if you want to look for examples. The most obvious is Hugo Pratt, whose Corto Maltese series is a masterwork of the style. Milo Manara, who worked with Pratt, has a much more elegant line, but the blacks give his linework its characteristic solidity. Frank Miller was inspired by Pratt and even named an island in Dark Knight Returns after Corto Maltese. Tim Sale provided the forward for the recent collection of The Adventures of Dieter Lumpen by Jorge Zentner (writer) and Ruben Pellejero (artist). To bring the whole thing around full circle, Pellejero was recently chosen to be the artist on a reboot of Corto Maltese. The Adventures of Dieter Lumpen is the best series of stories I’ve read in Heavy Metal, by far. I was very excited when IDW announced that they were printing a collection, including material never printed in English before. For the record, that’s three short stories – Time Bomb, His Master’s Voice, and A Question of Skin – and the long story The Reaper’s Price. All of the other stories were printed in Heavy Metal between 1987 and 1990. One story – Games of Chance – was only printed in black and white in Heavy Metal and is printed in color in the collection. Reading that story in black and white helped me see how good Pellejero’s spotted blacks are. He relies very heavily on shadow and profile to add drama. After the initial batch of short stories, there are three longer ones. The short stories are clearly written to be serialized in anthologies – the staple serialization format in European comics markets. The longer stories could be printed in standalone albums, which drives the tone and complexity of the series. The shorts are wrapped around a single location or idea and the longer ones have much more complex themes because they have room to breathe and stretch out. Pellejero uses color and a confident line to build on top of a very solid foundation. The real appeal of the series are the settings. The premise is that shortly after the war, a German named Dieter Lumpen gets a job as a chauffeur and the first page of the first story finds him being chased through an Istanbul market by a man with a gun. From there, he travels to the Agean, Haifa, India, Sri Lanka, Paris, Manaus, Tunisia and the Caribbean. The appeal of these destinations is Pellejero’s ability to render them almost like a documentary film maker, matter of fact about amazing sights, which adds verisimilitude. The amount of detail on each page means that every time you return to a page, you notice something new. And the stories are very rereadable. To be sure, these are the adventures of a white European wandering through the wreckage of a post-war world. The nationality of the main character isn’t really brought up, and the backstory is never explored. He was clearly old enough to serve in the war and somehow managed to walk away without any physical injuries. He’s now wandering the back corners of the non-white portion of the world, somehow miraculously encountering the only white people in the area. It’s a world that’s right on the cusp of post-colonialism and the tensions are on the page. Not everyone is ready to stop fighting – Lumpen finds himself caught up in revolutionary actions in Palestine, India and Tunisia. In almost every story, he (or a companion) are looking for something. And, almost inevitably, there is some kind of violence along the way. In every case, Lumpen is a reluctant hero, mostly running away from confrontation whenever possible. Even the most peaceful story, Caribbean, has some violence. We find Lumpen living in relative obscurity in the Caribbean (duh), only to have his peace shattered by the arrival of a film crew. He agrees to act as the lead actor in the pirate movie they are there to shoot. The entire process of making a film is wonderfully compressed into two pages. In Heavy Metal, these were printed as a two page spread. In the collection, they are back-to-back, which somewhat ruins the effect. It’s easily the best story in the collection. It’s the second of the longer stories and it is very much about a man giving away a chance at fame. As a mediation on celebrity and stardom, it’s very effective. There is a mix of action and pensiveness through the whole series and this story rests on the search for a quiet place to grow old in peace. The Reaper’s Price, the final story in the collection, is a real beast. It’s longer than any of the other stories and is a distinct departure from the rest of the series. Most obviously, every other story is about a specific place. This one features Lumpen travelling to multiple locations. It’s also presented in such a way that leaves the reader unclear if the story is real or some kind of dream. There are elements that could be described as supernatural or mystical throughout the series, and at least one of the shorts is a ghost story. But all of those genre elements were grounded in a distinctly real narrative. This story contains a number of deeply allegorical elements. And the art style changes to suit the situation, making it the most complex story in the collection artistically and conceptually. If you want a solid comic from a pair of European masters, The Adventures of Dieter Lumpen is highly recommended. ————————————————————————————————— RM Rhodes is the curator of the Heavy Metal Magazine tumblr. He lives and works in Washington, D.C. His current project is a weekly online anthology called The Rumor published on the Comics Workbook tumblr – see issues of it HERE. Check out more of his comics at Louis Deux. Share this page: [...]

Sunday is a Good Day to Visit a Museum: Part Two

Alyssa BergMay 5, 2016Art Trip / EssaysThis series began last week with Part One: Ritual in Preparing the Space/It’s the Simple Things – now we are drawn deeper into the museum and into a new process meditation. ————————————————————————————————— My last stop at The Rubin Museum of Art was the exhibit Gateway to Himalayan Art. What immediately drew my attention were 4 pieces showing the stages of a thangka (scroll) painting. Thangka paintings most often depict deities or mandalas and are used in meditation practice. The paintings are not an expression of an individual artist; they are made by following a strict set of rules. Underneath the forms and colors is a complex grid based on precise measurements according to which deity is being depicted. In the process pieces at the Rubin, areas of the underlying grid of sacred geometry are left visible. I love seeing works in progress or unfinished artwork–a chance to spy the secrets that lie underneath the surface. But also, look at that grid! Yes, it’s true I am a student of Frank Santoro and, no, I am not going to go deep into practical and/or theoretical grid-talk. If you want that, get it from the man himself (the comments section is full of gems, too). If you prefer having your information in hard copy, it’s available that way, also. As a person who has spent many+ hours drawing and re-drawing and drawing again the grid, it was an easy jump in my mind from this: to this: ————————————————————————————————— Part 2: Meditation on the Grid/Free Your Mind Recently I was in the audience at a panel discussion where someone asked the artists about ‘creative block’ and how to over-come it. The answers ranged from ‘just getting off of the couch’ to knowing that there are ups and downs in creative work. If I might add my own answer to the question no one asked me: Sometimes my mind is unwell, or full of complicated messy things or unable to think of new ideas (‘creative block’, I guess?). When I am in this state, I let my wild, creative mind rest. One way to do this is by going into a gentle analytical and physical practice. I sit down at my desk and pre-draw pages of panels and grids. Similar to preparing my workspace as mentioned in Part One, pre-drawing panels and grids is a simple concentration-meditation that doesn’t require much thought (common theme: freedom from the mind!). I get out my ruler, triangle and compass and start to push my pencil across the page making the prescribed lines. I am not inventing them. There is a formula and I’m following that formula. In my comics, I almost exclusively use a four-panel grid. Through years of repetition comes ease and comfort in getting to a single-pointed mind-concentration. In this concentration I’m not working out story ideas or fixing problems. I’m just there, holding the pencil in my hand, running it along the ruler. On certain days I’ve ended up with a stack of 20 pages of panels with varying elements of the grid or sometimes a single page with different color lines on top of lines on top of lines… It is an easy practice that is calming and allows some space to open up. And at the end of the practice, as an added bonus to a relaxed mind, I have pages at the ready for the days when the last thing I want do is draw a straight line. ————————————————————————————————— Look for Part 3 of this ongoing series next week! Read Part One HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Alyssa Berg makes comics in Brooklyn, NY. You can find her work HERE. Share this page: [...]

02/09/2017

Sally IngrahamFebruary 8, 2017NewsSam Ombiri and Sally Ingraham bring the Thursday news – Sam riffs on books within books and title cards, and Sally shares news from John Jennings, Chris Ware (on George Herriman), Fantom Comics in D.C., Darrin Bell, and Ronald Wimberly and his new book. ————————————————————————————————— Sam Ombiri here: I was reading Infomaniacs and at the same time I was reading The League of Divine Wind by a certain Tsunanori Yamao – they both addressed this one issue I feel all the time; it’s a really simple concept that’s often tackled. (To Be Or)Not to be still yapping about my petty frustration with what I was yapping about last week…but…it amazes me how a book by an imaginary author commands more respect than a real human being’s work. [Editor’s Note: In Runaway Horses by Yukio Mishima, a character is given a copy of the pamphlet The League of Divine Wind and part of the rest of the story involves him reading it…] I think since The League of Divine Wind is a book within a book, the actual author can give his own book rave reviews in the narrative. (The author being who he is, I’m very, very sure he didn’t care about his reception whatsoever, or at least that’s what I’m guessing.) That might be a good solution to someone who keeps having bad reception. I think Matt Thurber said something like, “World building is a good solution for your frustration of getting lost all the time.“ I was watching Simpsons Season 3 I think. There’s one episode where Homer saves the town from a meltdown – that was just amazing. It was broken down into what felt like seasons, or chapters of emotions running through Homer, but without giving this so much attention that it was nauseating. Like an example of that more recently would be in Moonlight – the way it’s chapters were broken down. It kind of felt like something that I couldn’t quite get with. I felt as I was watching it – and this was confirmed by an article I was reading (I think it was an interview) – that it was an attempt to be Claire Dennis. It was while watching those title cards which broke down the chapters that I felt a little agitated – as his [Moonlight‘s director, Barry Jenkins] solution to what Claire Dennis accomplished was with the cheapest, most easy means possible. It felt a bit dishonest, and of course it more than likely wasn’t – and to some effect it worked – but there’s something nagging at me, telling me that there is too little being accomplished in the way Barry Jenkins is biting Claire Dennis. Claire Dennis bites too of course, but it always feels earned. At least with what I’ve seen. The way Barry bit felt exploitative and a tad immature. It just felt that way. I’m not speaking of the whole movie, just the parts of the movie where the title cards of the chapter were forced in. I remember in an essay about Sundays y Cybele it said something like, “Some feel the music in the movie is pretentious.” The writer of the essay came off as if he was in on it, and smart, and so down to earth that he could admit something – something that didn’t affect his enjoyment of the movie. Which is fine. The thought didn’t even cross my mind when watching Sundays y Cybele. While the aforementioned part of the essay bothered me, I feel it’s a bit of a similar thing going on here with those title cards, except it wasn’t a scenario where it didn’t effect my enjoyment. The music wasn’t what I despised, it was something else. It was the title cards and the music with the title cards. There were parts that were real impressive, but…I don’t know. As an aside. I’m not a good writer by any means. By any means! Criterion has to do something about their essays, though, seriously. I’m not speaking about the one that came with Sundays y Cybele, and I’ve only read a few, (and it’s a pretty weird generalization to make, as the essays come from all over) but I’m real surprised at how bad they can be. There are some really good ones. (Like this one on Tarkovsky and Solaris by Akira Kurosawa.) Anyway, it was really impressive the way the Simpsons did this thing they did. It starts off with Homer saying if they look up idiot in the dictionary my picture will be there, and then this picture comes to his head of him in the dictionary with the word idiot written there, and then it’s used the rest of the episode in this impressive way. – Sam Ombiri Sam Ombiri – 2-9-2017 ————————————————————————————————— Sally here: Eight years after the publication of Black Comix – an anthology edited by Professor John Jennings and Dr. Damian Duffy that collected art and essays celebrating the African American independent comics community – we are excited to announce that Black Comix Returns will be hitting bookshelves soon! The original publication featured “over 50 contributors, including Dawud Anyabwile, Eric Battle, Kenji Marshall, Afua Richardson, Larry Stroman, Rob Stull, Lance Tooks, and many, many more.” It sold out with remarkable speed. The comics industry changed a bit over the last eight years, and many new creators have arrived on the scene, so instead of simply reprinting the book John and Damian are creating a whole new anthology. Check out the Kickstarter campaign HERE. They made their first goal in a few days, and with almost a month left they have some big dreams and stretch goals to reach. They have over 100 artists and writers involved – including Kyle Baker, Keith Knight, Ronald Wimberly, Whit Taylor, Ben Passmore, Chris Visions, Tanna Tucker, and Ashley A. Woods – the book is guaranteed to be incredible! Back the project and look forward to the book. Take a moment to get to know Professor John Jennings while you’re at it – he has been called “the soul of black comix” and is the co-founder/organizer of The Schomburg Center’s Black Comic Book Festival in Harlem, the co-founder and organizer of the MLK NorCal’s Black Comix Arts Festival in San Francisco and also SOL-CON: The Brown and Black Comix Expo at the Ohio State University. He earned an Eisner award for the collection The Blacker the Ink: Constructions of Black Identity in Comics and Sequential Art, which he co-edited. He is an artist and writer as well as an editor/scholar/educator – look for his most recent book, Blue Hand Mojo: Hard Times Road coming out in March 2017. ————————————————————————————————— We linked last week to the incredible piece on Krazy Kat that Chris Ware wrote for The New York Review of Books – but it deserves a second look. Adapted from an essay which will appear in the catalog of an exhibition on George Herriman at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, in Madrid, Spain (opening in October 2017), the piece is Chris Ware’s love letter to Krazy Kat and the strip’s mysterious author, George Herriman. Chris Ware theorizes that although Herriman successfully passed as white all his life, he voiced his true identity through his strip in not-so-subtle ways. The details that Ware delves into – Krazy’s banjo, for example (seen above) – are fascinating, and he writes beautifully about what might have gone through Herriman’s head as he drew the strip. “Lately, I’ve been wondering if Herriman knew that one day his secret-in-plain-sight would be uncovered, that America would change, adapt and grow up enough as a people to understand Krazy Kat in all of its psychological and poetic depth. I’m not sure if we’ve yet reached that point, but what myself and other cartoonists already knew—that the strip was already the greatest ever drawn—is now magnified, multiplied and maximized. Krazy Kat is not just one of the greatest comic strips, it’s one of the strangest, most inventive, emotional, and personal works of art of the twentieth century. In their admiration for Herriman, Philip Guston, Willem de Kooning, and Jack Kerouac sensed something in his line and voice that was endemically American, deeply felt. Herriman should now take his rightful place as one of the most original African-American voices of the early twentieth century, contemporary with, if not predating, Richard Wright and Zora Neale Hurston as one of the first writers to understand the racial animus of America and to try to fix the essence of black consciousness on paper. That Herriman made it come alive, sing, dance and suffer in an art form barely fifty years old is all the more astonishing. For decades, we’ve all been reading and laughing and, most of all, feeling for Krazy Kat, who passed right under our eyes as a living drawing on a page. But what we were really feeling came straight from the heart. It was the very soul of George Herriman himself.“ Read the rest of the piece – To Walk in Beauty – HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Fantom Comics in Washington, D.C., is hosting a rad event on February 15th 2017. Ronald Wimberly will be there signing Prince of Cats and Black History In Their Own Words, and there will also be a roundtable discussion with Ron, Chris Visions, Shannon Wright, and Chris Kindred. If you’re in the District be sure to check this out! Event details are HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Darrin Bell is an award-winning cartoonist whose work “navigates issues such as civil rights, pop culture, family, science fiction, scriptural wisdom and nihilist philosophy while often casting subjects in roles that are traditionally denied them. According to Darrin, “There’s nothing more fundamentally all-American than a square peg that insists on filling a round hole.” “ He has a daily comic strip called Canderville – check it out HERE – and is also the creator of Rudy Park – follow it HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Wired lists Ronald Wimberly’s Black History In It’s Own Words among their 5 Comics You Absolutely Must Pick Up This Month. The Comics Alliance is helping folks sort through The Best Comics Ever (This Week) – a.k.a. their recommendations on which comics to read as they come out – and their list also include’s Ronald Wimberly’s Black History In It’s Own Words this week, among others. ————————————————————————————————— Announcing the Spring Semester of thee Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers! The course starts March 7th 2017. Apply by February 26th to get 100 bux off! The course is 8 weeks long – payment plans are available. Application guidelines: – 3 figure drawings done on blank 3 x 5 index cards – 3 landscape drawings done on blank 3 x 5 index cards – 3 still life drawings done on blank 3 x 5 cards – draw in a contour line style –think Matisse – no under-drawing – draw directly in ink – just send me small jpgs of images – dont post to your blog pls – send specific url links to any comics work you have done. If you haven’t done comics before that is not a problem. Email santoroschoolATgmail to apply! More details HERE. ————————————————————————————————— 2-9-2017 – by Jack Brougham ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 2-9-2017 – by Gabriella Tito ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 2-9-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio ————————————————————————————————— Cozytown – 2-9-2017 – by Juan Fernandez Share this page: [...]

09/27/2017

Juan FernándezSeptember 27, 2017los Cómics / NewsEmpezamos el día con Andrea Galazina; El Publicadero en Manizales; Maria Luque y los tebeos de Cómics Workbook! ————————————————————————————————— Juan here: I’ve been blasting through this fall and am running on empty – OOF- the usual SPX circus, organizing the Pittsburgh Zine Fair, scheming for Cartoon Crossroads Columbus (CXC) + organizing press conferences, handling catering and other administrative craziness at the day job at the Arts Council have me running ragged. I know, I know, no complaining, no complaining. It’s all good stuff and the haul will be over come October 12th. Just wanted to let you know how I’m doing . Anyway here’s the usual comics gold I bring you every week from Latin America and Spain. A little lighter a haul than usual, but just as shiny. *Turn on your translation devices* ————————————————————————————————— Andrea Galacina acaba de publicar “¡PUEDO DECIR LO QUE QUIERA! ¡PUEDO HACER LO QUE QUIERA! UNA GENEALOGÍA INCOMPLETA DEL FANZINE HECHO POR CHICAS“, una autoedición sobre el contexto del fanzine feminista en España. La fundadora de BOMBAS PARA DESAYUNAR también da algunos detalles del próximoPICHI FEST y habla sobre el DEPARTAMENTO DE FANZINES de la biblioteca de Mujeres. Ana Flecha les ofrece todos los detalles en esta entrevista en Madriz.com Léanlo todo AQUI. ————————————————————————————————— ¿Ya están listos para el Publicadero en Manizales, Colombia? Acá la programación. Todas las actividades son gratuitas: https://goo.gl/kUdxsQ ————————————————————————————————— Las estampas de color de María Luque – Entrevista “Usa el color como Matisse y los espacios de sus dibujos parecen salidos de algún sueño naíf. Le gusta viajar, los gatos y perseguir a extraños en los museos para luego consignarlos en su libreta de dibujo.” – Andrea Uribe Yepes En la casa de familia Luque en Rosario, Argentina, hay un daguerrotipo de su abuelo Teodosio Luque. Es un cuadro de un señor solemne de barba larga y cara de serio que asustaba a todos. María recuerda que de pequeña el cuadro rodaba por la casa: lo escondían en el baño, debajo de las camas. Cree que ese daguerrotipo lo hizo Cándido López, uno de sus artistas favoritos y de los únicos que manejaban la técnica por la zona. Esto es importante porque cuando empezó la Guerra de la Triple Alianza, su abuelo Teodosio fue enviado como médico y Cándido como soldado. Esa proximidad fue la que generó curiosidad en María y la historia de la cual partió su primera novela gráfica: La mano del pintor (2016). Léanlo todo AQUI. ————————————————————————————————— Frank Santoro made a comic book about his parents and now he needs help making a handbound copy of the book for each of them. It’s a good story. Check out the Indiegogo campaign HERE – or if you want to contribute via PayPal, look at the campaign HERE. ————————————————————————————————— The fall semester of thee Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers starts October 1st 2017. 8 weeks of comics instruction that will bang your practice into shape – 500 bux. Full details about the course and how to apply can be found HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 9-27-2017 – by Gabriella Tito Share this page: [...]

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