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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08/02/2016

Aaron CockleAugust 1, 2016NewsAaron Cockle here today with Mickey Z circa 2012-2013; Bill Sienkiewicz revisits old work; syndicated comic strip pulled for some reason or another; The Routledge Companion to Comics costs $240???; Dabaie/Hart Comics; Rowhouse Auction continues ————————————————————————————————— Mickey Z‘s 2012-2013 output for CW is this week’s Featured Comic. ————————————————————————————————— X-Men: Post-Apocalypse At the big comic convention recently held in San Diego that promotes all of the big super-hero movies, artist Bill Sienkiewicz spotted some work he’d made for a super-hero comic 30 years ago being used to promote the release of a super-hero movie. As an artist with a grievance, Sienkiewicz went to the only place these days where one’s frustrations can be vented, and stated: This practice is hardly unusual standard operating procedure for corporations. Even so, it still rankles. I’m one guy. I’ve been doing this comic-book thing for years. I’m aware most everything is Work-Made-for-Hire. Still, I received no prior notification (a common courtesy), no thank you ( ditto), no written credit in any form whatsoever either on the piece or in connection with the premium, absolutely no compensation and no comp copies of the album. Aside from the discussion of why these corporate, hegemonic, known-to-be-exploitative structures are still propped up by consumers (and creators), there’s a conversation to be had about making a living through your art-making. Is the short answer ‘We deserve better’? Or do we get the comics, art, culture, politicians, etc we deserve? ————————————————————————————————— Grammar Confusion or Terrorist Plot? Pearls Before Swine creator Stephan Pastis had a comic strip pulled from syndication on July 27, possibly due to an implied reference to the Islamic State, the Salafi jihadist militant group that follows a fundamentalist, Wahhabi doctrine of Sunni Islam. Facebook has blacked out the strip on Pastis’s page, but it’s been posted numerous times in the comments section. Apologies for linking to Facebook so much today. Betsy Gomez at the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund had this to say about the matter: As private entities, newspaper editorial staff are certainly within their rights to make decisions about the content they run in their papers. However, the removal of the strip raises concerns over self-censorship. Further, removal of a cartoon as relatively inoffensive at Pastis’s buys into the fear that terrorists like those who attacked Charlie Hebdo and other cartoonists around the world are trying to instill in the populace. The answer to such fear isn’t to remove a cartoon, but to support the free expression of those who would question the terrorists’ actions and the authorities that overreact to terrorist attacks by stepping on fundamental freedoms. ————————————————————————————————— I Can’t Believe This Book Costs $240 The Routledge Companion to Comics, edited by Frank Bramlett, Roy T. Cook, Aaron Meskin, 456 pages, $240. I understand that this is a textbook of some kind, or as the book’s description says: This cutting-edge handbook brings together an international roster of scholars to examine many facets of comics and graphic novels. Contributor essays provide authoritative, up-to-date overviews of the major topics and questions within comic studies, offering readers a truly global approach to understanding the field. Maybe the whole thing was Risographed, and that’s why it costs so much? There don’t appear to be any samples or excerpts available, but if anyone at Routledge/Taylor & Francis would like to send CW a review copy, we’d be happy to take a look at it and let you know what we think. ————————————————————————————————— Ali’s House The strip, made by Marguerite Dabaie and Tom Hart for King Features Syndicate back in 2008, has found a home at Go Comics. ————————————————————————————————— Rowhouse Auction Items: July 31-August 6 New items available for this week. Email Frank Santoro at santoroschoolATgmail for a password if you don’t already have one. If you already have a password, it is the same from last week. All funds go to helping keep the lights on and further developing the school. Share this page: [...]

03/08/2016

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

11/07/2017

Aaron CockleNovember 7, 2017NewsAaron Cockle today with WHOSE HOPES? WHOSE FEARS? WHOSE VALUES? WHOSE JUSTICE?; Civil Disobedience (at MIT); Brooklyn š! & CAB 2017; Adversarial Objects ————————————————————————————————— Barbara Kruger, Performa 17, Nov 1-19, 2017 Barbara Kruger has issued terse, fine-edged directives in her instantly recognizable—and frequently appropriated—visual style of block text in white Futura Bold font over a blood-red background for more than four decades now. Though she has remained loyal both to her straightforward messages concerning consumerism and feminism, and her canvases of billboards, public buses, newspapers, magazine covers, and buildings, it is ironic that the most visible example of its imitation is by street wear labels, which vacillates between mainstream luxury sportswear and cultivators of a speculative rare-edition consumer class. For Performa 17, Kruger reclaims her signature style in a high-profile public square in central New York City—a prime branding and real-estate profiting opportunity—by branding a skate park, free and open to the public, as well as its periphery walls, and stairs, with her designs addressing and interrogating ideals around feminism, consumerism, and modern mass media. ————————————————————————————————— List Projects: Civil Disobedience, MIT List Visual Arts Center Social and political movements are born out of the urgent desire to make abstract principles concrete. Public demonstration is one way to voice opposition to a government’s actions believed to be unjust, illegitimate, or unconstitutional. In the streets and on college campuses, in town halls, churches and prisons, in public parks and reservations, civil disobedience has long been a tool of activism. Whether taking the form of mass occupation or individual statement, political protest is ingrained in American culture. List Projects: Civil Disobedience is a program of documentaries, news footage, citizen journalism, artist’s films and videos focusing on moments of political resistance and public demonstration from the early 20th century through today. Presenting records from the historical Civil Rights and women’s movements, gay liberation and AIDS activism, the Black Lives Matter movement, and recent Women’s Marches recognize the history of resistance, and considers the role that artists and documentarians play in chronicling and confronting abuses of power and social injustice. Though this exhibit recently closed, there is a substantial amount of photo and video work from the show posted at Contemporary Art Daily. ————————————————————————————————— Baltic Comics Magazine looks at Brooklyn Guest-edited by Desert Island’s own Gabe Fowler, the 30th issue of š! features work by Brooklyn area (and Brooklyn-esque?) cartoonists (A. T. Pratt, Alabaster Pizzo, Austin English, Ben Mendelewicz, Caroline Paquita, Courtney Menard, Daniel Zender, Gabrielle Bell, Heather Benjamin, Jane Mai, Jen Tong, Kevin Hooyman, König Lü. Q., Lily Padula, Natalie Andrewson, Rob Corradetti, Sabin Cauldron, Siobhán Gallagher, Thu Tran, Thomas Toye, Tyler Boss, Whit Taylor). A book release will be held at Desert Island on Wednesday, November 8, at 7pm. ————————————————————————————————— ALSO, the venerable, venerated Comic Arts Brooklyn festival will be taking place this Saturday, November 11, 2017. More info, including exhibitor and programming details, can be found here. ————————————————————————————————— Fooling Neural Networks in the Physical World with 3D Adversarial Objects We’ve developed an approach to generate 3D adversarial objects that reliably fool neural networks in the real world, no matter how the objects are looked at. Neural network based classifiers reach near-human performance in many tasks, and they’re used in high risk, real world systems. Yet, these same neural networks are particularly vulnerable to adversarial examples, carefully perturbed inputs that cause targeted misclassification. Our process works for arbitrary 3D models – not just turtles! We also made a baseball that classifies as an espresso at every angle! The examples still fool the neural network when we put them in front of semantically relevant backgrounds; for example, you’d never see a rifle underwater, or an espresso in a baseball mitt. ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 11-7-2017 – by Sally Ingraham ————————————————————————————————— Cozytown- 11-7-2017 – by Juan Fernandez ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie 11-7-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

09/27/2016

Aaron CockleSeptember 27, 2016NewsAaron here today with Discipline; Dykes in Print/Boiled Angel/CBLDF; Maintenance Art; Nadel/Dunham; Remembering Kim Thompson; Ford/Walden; French Comics in the USA; Portraits & Swinespritzen ————————————————————————————————— Dash Shaw is posting Diary Comics this week at TCJ, where he discusses the process of his work-in-progress, Discipline: This book is a long comic book, but it does not have any speech balloons or panel borders. The illustrations and the hand-written cursive text float on the page. This activates the negative space of the page, which lends the book a spacious stillness, or a quiet, “Quakerly” tone. This spacing relates to Civil War-era illustration, where elements hover inside of articles. Also, this allows me to write and draw all of the elements separately, so the book is easier for me to edit. With the conventional comic approach, usually the insertion of a panel throws off all of the other panels in the book. Because of the collage-like structure of my book, I can easily insert illustrative moments and pieces of text and research/write while still making new drawings. ————————————————————————————————— Censorship: Don’t Do it! In celebration (?) of Banned Books week, Pen.org has a piece by Jennifer Camper, Dykes in Print: And the Guardian revisits the Mike Diana Boiled Angel trial and the origins of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund: Set up in 1986, the CBLDF exists to fight censorship of comic books, protect the First Amendment right to free speech and, more pragmatically, to provide legal representation for comics creators facing prosecution. Founder Denis Kitchen was running Kitchen Sink Press, a publisher of underground comics, when he heard about a police raid on Friendly Frank’s comic shop in Chicago. Six officers had seized seven titles, including erotic comic Omaha the Cat Dancer, Robert Crumb’s anthology Weirdo and SF-smut comic Heavy Metal, and arrested manager Michael Correa. Friendly Frank’s was shut down for five days, but not before one of the arresting officers told newspapers there was a “satanic influence” in the comics seized. Kitchen was appalled. “I realised immediately that if police officers with built-in Satan detectors could get away with making arrests and seizing objectionable comic books, much more than the comics industry was at stake,” he says. He swiftly raised $20,000 for a fighting fund, helped by comics heavyweights like Crumb and Frank Miller. “It was gratifying to see that sudden unity among the comics community,” Kitchen says. “I was more used to people squabbling.” ————————————————————————————————— Mierle Laderman Ukeles: Maintenance Art at Queens Museum This first survey of Ukeles’ work is organized by the Queens Museum’s Larissa Harris and guest co-curator Patricia C. Phillips, who initiated the project in 2012. The show will span five decades, from her work as a pioneer of feminist performance to a practitioner of public art, in which Ukeles invites us to reconsider indispensable urban systems and the workers who maintain them. Ukeles is undoubtedly best-known for her 36+ year role as the official, unsalaried Artist-in-Residence at New York’s Department of Sanitation. Unprecedented when it began in 1978, this residency has now become a model for municipalities engaging with artists as creative agents. ————————————————————————————————— Dan Nadel on Carroll Dunham’s drawing at Hyperallergic: Dunham and his peers had emerged from a conceptual and process-oriented New York milieu in which a number of artists were exhibiting and redefining drawing as a primary medium, including Barry Le Va, Dorothea Rockburne (who Dunham and Kendrick assisted), Mel Bochner, and Sol Lewitt. Connecting these and other artists was the removal of both the image and the artist’s sensuous touch, replaced with rigorous conceptual procedures. In contrast, Terry Winters notes that he and Dunham “saw drawing and making things by hand as a way out of or into art. We were reconnecting with gesture and touch, and their capacities to register other kinds of information not available through logic.” They were also finding kinship with artists that were not highly considered at the time, such as the mid-20th century German painter and photographer Wols and the American post-war painter William Baziotes, both of whose work defied categorization and remained outside of the contemporary dialogue. ————————————————————————————————— At the ever-enduring Comics Reporter blog, Tom Spurgeon remembers Fantagraphics publisher Kim Thompson, and looks at the aging of the ‘alt-comics’ crowd: The thing that stuck in my head, though, throughout today, was how many people texted and e-mailed that they thought Kim was older than 60 when he passed away. I think that’s because Kim and Gary Groth and their roughly same-age peers were either the first generation of alt-comics publishers or the first generation since the first generation to enter mainstream comics in a significant way. So you have a lot of people 55-65 with trackable careers two, three, four decades long in an established arts industry, which is rare outside of a few precocious creative talents. ————————————————————————————————— Sean Ford recently conducted an interview with Tillie Walden, posted on Inkstuds. ————————————————————————————————— French Comics Framed Festival NYC, 27 September-5 November Sept 27 – Nov. 5: French Comics Framed – Exhibition The Cooper Union, Foundation Building, 7 East 7th Street, NY 10003 Oct. 4: Panel by Asaf & Tomer Hanuka The Society of illustrators, 128 East 63rd Street, NY, NY 10065 Oct 6-9: Meet our artists on booth #1558 at New York Comic Con and on the Artist Alley Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, 655 W. 34th St., NY, NY 10001 Oct. 6, 7pm: French Comics On Screen: Film Adaptations of Franco-Belgian Graphic Narratives The School of Visual Arts, 209 E 23rd St, 3rd floor Oct. 7, 6:30pm : How to Draw a Life: The Rise of Graphic Biography in France Museum of the City of New York, 1220 Fifth Avenue, NY 10029 Oct. 8, 1:30-2:30pm: Drawing From the World: Franco-Belgian Comics in Global Context New York Comic Con (room 1B03), Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, 655 W. 34th St., NY, NY 10001 Oct. 8, 7pm: Reconstructing Comix: The “Architecture” of Franco-Belgian Graphic Narratives, from Tintin to Today The Great Hall of Cooper Union, Foundation Building, 7 East 7th Street, NY, NY 10003 Nov. 1, 7pm: Panel discussion: Drawing the unspeakable Columbia University 116th St & Broadway, NY, NY 10027 ————————————————————————————————— Help send Connor Willumsen to the UK for The Lakes International Comic Arts Festival in October! He will be teaching workshops with Frank Santoro and Aidan Koch while there – if you’re in the area check it out. To help him get to the show, Comics Workbook is offering two new Connor publications. Portraits and Swinespritzen – both limited editions, both incredible. Share this page: [...]

Providence, RI Scene Report

Frank SantoroNovember 26, 2011Riff Raff / Scene ReportsThis article originally appeared on The Comics Journal 11/26/2011 This week’s scene report is brought to you by Jacob Berendes. A couple of years ago at SPX someone left a copy of Mothers News at my table – at the time it was a one sheet newspaper with comics and weird local flavor bits of gossip, funny drawings and funny puzzles. I thought it was great – figured out it was from Providence – but didn’t know who made it. I subscribed to it – yes an honest to goddess monthly publication – and it quickly became one of my favorite rags ever. Somewhere along the way I found out it was Jacob who was stoking the fire – so I asked him to write about the comic book goings on of Providence, Rhode Island. Please enjoy! —————– PROVIDENCE COMICS SCENE REPORT by Jacob Berendes (by Frank’s request) Providence RI was big for comics in the 1990s and the first decade of the 2000s, especially for works in the “art comics” genre, which doesn’t exist. People ask all the time what the fabled comics scene is like now, and I should say, with some caveats, that it’s pretty sweet. There’s a few crazy fuckers going hard as hell, and that’s almost all you need. Some institutions first: Ada Books is a good independent bookstore that sells zines and comics and hosts comic-related events (Anders Nilsson came last month, Porcellino Dec 5th). The RISD library has a great comics section that is a wonderful place to spend a rainy day (although they are maybe cracking down on non-alumni, boo dat). AS220 is a nebulous non-profit show venue / bar / developer / print shop that has a nice offset press that you can take classes on, then use whenever to print 1000 of your shitty thing. Time Capsule Comics in nearby Cranston has a nice selection of back issues, this past summer they had a wild $1 everything sale, it was like get get get, everyone was stacking up. Armageddon Shop is a metal / hardcore / punk record store co-run by Ben from DROPDEAD, but they also stock local zines, comics, and noise tapes, and recently started stocking a ton of old LAST GASP comics, which is weird. Amigos is a small publisher that this year opened a retail location in Providence’s historic erotic dance district. There used to be other comics stores around but they dried up / got priced out. Since the Borders closed down there isn’t even a place to shoplift manga from! C’est la vie… C’est la guerre… People: well, most of the Paper Rodeo / Fort Thunder alumni are gone to other (not necessarily greener) pastures. List of ex-pats: Jim Drain “went real” in art terms, which in this context means “moved to Miami”. Mat Brinkman is in Colorado, and just released a board game called Cave Evil that is appropriately mega-sick. Leif Goldberg and Erin Rosenthal moved to Vermont and have a totally cute child. Leif also has a new collaborative poster project called Exploded View. Melissa Mendes has a new book out of her Freddy stories, but I haven’t seen it yet, since her and Chuck Forsman moved out of Providence for some reason (I think it had to do with how Providence can be a complete nightmare hellzone). Chuck has a new comic out called “The End Of The Fucking World”. Still here / new: Paul Lyons still lives in town and last year published the excellent anthology MONSTERSand drew AND screenprinted great goopy covers for it. Brian Chippendale still haunts the streets, goes to shows, puts out CDRs,sleeps in papier mache huts, and twitters turd jokes into the void. He has a newish record out on Load, under the name “Black Pus”, which is technically a one-person band but at the same time is like a multi-character band, if that makes any sense. CF has really been burning the night lately, he’s got a few new tapes coming out (as Mark Lord), the first one is out already on Mickey Z’s bizarre PRICE TAPES label. What’s really wild about the new tapes is that they are all recorded in the off moments when he’s not grinding away on the next POWR MASTRS book, which is going to be a face melter. I think he’s at like three 9 kill right now (that’s 99.9% kill), he’s on fire, let the motherfucker BURN. James McShane is allegedly working on a new book for BCGF, though it might just be a nice folio edition of his “City Sketchbook” column from Mothers News, which is still going to be super nice, as he is a master of nuance. He’ll be kicking at BCGF with me and Mickey Zacchilli, who is definitely NOT a master of nuance, but will have a new issue (#5) of her insane and mighty comic book RAV, and maybe some posters (ps- buy these shirts before they’re gone forever). Katrina (last name not necessary, like Jason, or Freddy) is not new on the scene but is maybe someone you haven’t heard of- they have an excellent zine called ROT that really is a zine, not an idiotic whiny SPXy autobio comic or a loosely bound pile of psychedelic farts. Also Katrina has a comic coming out in the next issue of MRR, a cool band called GROKE (Moomin ref), AND they’re allegedly related to Walt Kelly! I tell you an apple doesn’t fall far from a tree unless thrown, and even then, it remains an apple… I would say that the number one most hotly anticipated book of the year (and last year) is the Providence Comics Consortium collection. PCC is a comics class for kids, that takes place in a variety of public libraries. One thing they do is put together a sort of Guide To The Marvel Universe book of characters the kids create, then the characters are given out to local cartoonists to script up and draw. Chippendale, CF, Mickey Zacchilli, Jackie H Curtiss, and plenty of other heavy hitters all drew up stories that they are just WAITING to see in printed form. I keep calling them like “where is the book? why aren’t you printing it right now?”. They stopped picking up the phone… Are you reading this, PCC instructors? Is there anything I can do to hasten the printing of this book? It’s driving me crazy!!!!!!!! As for me, I publish a newspaper called Mothers News that is free and good. It is 12 pages long and has 2 pages of new comics from CF, Brian Chippendale, Mickey Zacchilli, Katrina, Mike Taylor, Chuck Forsman, Melissa Mendes, Charlotte DeSedouy, Kate Schapira, Jackie H Curtiss, Mike Deforge, James McShane, and kids from the Providence Comics Consortium. It is not a goofy newspaper in the Paper Rodeo model, it is a real newspaper with columns, writing, and information. Please see mothersnews.net for more about it, to order a subscription, to place an ad, or for any reason you might visit a website. Alsooooo in the “full disclosure” department, I run a distro for Providence and New England underground art, it’s called Chipsylvania. Uh, and for the record it’s not named after Chippendale, he doesn’t run the town. It’s named after Chip King, guitarist for the excellent doom band The Body. He runs the town. In conclusion, I would like to say that Providence is a lot like the wikipedia entry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Providence_(comics): Providence, located in the South Pacific Ocean, southwest of Hawaii at 20°N 165°W, is an artificial island made of parts from Cable’s old space station Graymalkin. It first appeared in Cable & Deadpool #6. Providence was intended to be a place where the best minds on Earth could gather, live, and find new ways of doing everything in hopes of giving the world a peaceful future. Providence is open to all who wish to immigrate there, though all residents must undergo various psychological and skills tests. —————— Except for location and first appearance, I’d say that’s about right! We are supportive of each other, we party and jam together, but the psychological tests part is very accurate- those tests are called “winter”, “bringing something to the table”, “unemployment”, and “probably no one paying attention to you for at least one year”. Subscribe to the paper. SEE U IN THE PIT! Live Aid 1985 Queen-Radio Ga Ga 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

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Meter, Geometry and Comic Form

Comics WorkbookJuly 31, 2017Essaysby Jackie Kirby Above, I have taken the opening couplet of Andrew Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress” (1681) scanned and annotated by Phillip Hobsbaum in Metre, Rhythm, and Verse Form (1996) and translated it into an 8-panel grid spread using values of red as a accentual tool. Approaching comics with the assumption that they are or can be included within the scope of poetic practice, one is brought to draw a connection between the formal structures through which time and meaning are manifested on the page: in the comic, geometry and the grid; and in the poem, meter and verse form. Here, I will present what could generously be called “notes” towards a theory of meter and geometry. I apologize now for the inevitable imperfection of the metaphor, but I find this to be an important and positive aspect of the connection between the two, rather than a caveat negating any use the metaphor may provide. Meter is the method of measuring verse by counting elements of it. It is a primarily mathematical system; it was called “numbers” by the Classical poets. Most often, the poet is counting syllables, as many languages exist primarily as a succession of syllables. Through different uses of meter, different methods of counting and measuring, different patterns of arrangement, writers create prosody, or a system of language. Within each language there exist many theories of organization, each of which is catered to both the language the writer uses and the purpose for which she wishes to use it. English poetry uses an accentual-syllabic metrical system, where the units being counted are syllables, and their pattern is defined by the arrangement of more or less strongly emphasized, or accented, syllables. Other languages use different systems. Languages which do not accentuate as strongly, such as French, will use something more akin to a purely syllabic meter, where forms are defined by the counting of syllables and ordering of numbers. This was also used by Ancient Irish and Welsh poets. Classical Greek and Latin poets based their prosody on the number of syllables and the length of time it takes to speak each syllable, creating patterns by arranging longer and shorter syllables. This is all to say, meter is a tool that must be developed accounting for the idiosyncrasies of the language in which one wishes to write. By looking at the metrical forms used by poets across different languages, and restructuring them for use in the language of comics, one can produce comic forms with increased complexity without decreasing (and perhaps even increasing) their legibility. In an initial attempt at translating verse form to comic form let us equate syllables with panels, and spreads with lines. Each row of panels will represent a metrical foot. Stress is produced relationally, and in comics one can use size, color, density, and a myriad of other visual techniques to “stress” a panel. The actual size of each panel per “foot” or row is up to your own discretion but I prefer to use a more qualitative than quantitative approach to my “comics scansion.” The first verse form I’d like to look at is dactylic hexameter, or Homer’s verse. It is the verse used in the Iliad and Odyssey, and later in Latin by Ovid and Virgil. Its historical use has equated it with the most grandiose poetic narratives, and cues a reader that she is reading a grand epic. Dactylic refers to the primary foot pattern of the poem, a dactyl being a long or stressed syllable followed by 2 short or unstressed syllables, while hexameter refers to the number of feet per line, which is 6 in this case (as opposed to pentameter , tetrameter , etc.). Using the system of translation previously established, a “dactylic hexameter” comic, would consist of spreads with 6 rows of 3 panels each, with the primary pattern being to stress the first panel of each row. Visually, this can easily lead us to a spread of 2 pages using a 9-panel grid. Another notable element of Homer’s verse is that the third and sixth feet may be spondees rather than dactyls. A spondee is a foot composed of 2 equally weighted syllables. This could provide a spread looking something like this. Alternatively, one could equate the panel to a metrical foot, and the page to a line. This would produce 6-panel grids, with each spread serving as a couplet. These are only a few different, relatively conservative, attempts at translating a single poetic verse form into comics. These are not prescriptions as to what certain meters must look like in comics, but demonstrations of the ways meter and verse form can be used to develop a prosody of comics. There is such a plethora of verse forms, all with their own particular uses that can be translated into comics. As shown in the Marvell scansion above, the 8-panel grid is quite suited for translating iambic tetrameter, which is used most commonly in the ballad form. This connection could lead to all sorts of comics practices or translated ballads. The harmony of a metered line is based on the same mathematical principals that produce visual harmony in geometric patterns. For instance, the sonnet, one of the most commonly used poetic forms, consisted originally of an octave (8-line stanza) followed by a sestet (6-line stanza). Poetry scholars have connected this with the golden ratio (8/5) with an extra line added to complete an even-numbered rhyme scheme. I have annoyed (to say the least) a number of English department chairs by insisting that poetry is simply linguistic mathematics. Certainly it’s (a bit) more than that, but much of poetics is applied mathematics, just as comics are. ————————————————————————————————————— Jackie Kirby is a poet and comics maker living in New York City. A recent graduate from The New School with a BA in Cultural Studies, she has been making comics and writing poetry seriously for three years. Check out work by Jackie on her website, and follow her on Instagram. Read Jackie’s Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency Report for more thoughts on comics and poetry. Share this page: [...]

07/16/2018

Caleb OrecchioJuly 16, 2018News Caleb Orecchio here with thoughts on “copying,” and other news. ————————————————————————————————— WHAT IF comics adopted this attitude that resembled folk music where, particularly during the revival in the fifties and sixties, someone who wrote their own material was an anomaly as oppose to a standard expectation? The majority of folk musicians learned to play songs like “John Henry” and “Old Blue” before they wrote “Blowin’ in the Wind” or “Black is the Color” and so on. In fact, I’d argue that the reason folk music from that era remains so listenable to this day(to palated ears) because it was so rooted in tradition. These musicians understood this tradition and fused it with their modern sensibilities which created this new understanding of the past and present. Now, I’m not saying comics could or should mirror musical trends of the fleeting Greenwich Village folk revival, and yet, I am amused at the ideas of comic “covers.” Not that this is a new idea. Below is probably my favorite Paul Pope comic, and it is a “cover” (or I guess we can use the word “adaption” since cartoonists make books and not records) of OMAC #1 by Kirby. A reinterpretation, with a 21st Century shake-up. It’s a good comic, and I think worth looking at. The idea is more or less excepted (or expected) among the big two. One of my favorite recent comics is Ed Piskor’s X-Men comic, and part of my infatuation lies in the idea of Piskor making this elaborate yet condensed adaption of the X-Men saga. On top of that, I can’t count the times I’ve come across the rehashing of a Spider-Man or Batman origin story. These are practically folk tales in and of themselves. Or, for you readers who read exclusively indie comics, Kramers 8 features a story by Kevin Huizenga that he adapts from a comic in the Public Domain. I find that interesting. There are actually many other examples in indie comics, but they always tend to be put in the “apocryphal” category of the comics bible. Which I understand, but I wonder if we could change our attitude about these things? I don’t really have an “argument” to convince you, dear reader, that covering or adapting comics into a new comic is a good idea. I just think it’s something to consider. I think the idea would bear fruit. Of course, I hope cartoonists don’t stop making their own stories, but be honest, how many comics really contain good stories these days? Seriously. I think one should at least consider “covering” comics as an exercise when they start out down this winding road of cartooning. ————————————————————————————————— if you don’t know, now you know R.C. Harvey on Eddie Campbell’s The Goat Getters over on TCJ.com. See an issue of The Many Ghosts of Doctor Graves by Ditko over at Four-Color Shadows blog. Rob Clough on Ben Sear’s Ideal Copy. ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 7-16-18 – by Sally Ingraham Share this page: [...]

06/13/2016

Juan FernándezJune 13, 2016NewsJuan Fernandez here with: Kurt Ankeny’s IN PIECES PT.2 ; New items in the School Store; Forthcoming Jansson Biography in Film; Summer Pierre’s DEAR FRIEND; Spike Trotman interviewed; Cannibals at Copacetic. On the Site: http://comicsworkbook.com/in-pieces-someplace-which-i-call-home-24/ In Pieces: Someplace Which I Call Home – Kurt Ankeny We’re excited to feature the second installment of a new graphic novel by Kurt Ankeny, creator of Saltwater Snow and A Bomb, and co-author of the Santoro School Handbook for Making Better Comics on Comics Workbook this week. In Pieces: Someplace Which I Call Home is a collage-portrait of a small New England town. Reflections in pencil that sweep across the grid. Check it out and Pre-Order a copy today! ————————————————————————————————— School Store: New Comics Packs We have some new items up on the school store that went up this weekend and they’ve have been selling fast. Don’t miss your chance to grab: ZONA #03, Gary Panter Combo, Matt Seneca pack, and TCAF 2016 4-Pack. ————————————————————————————————— Off the site: Nybörjare – The Beginner: A Forthcoming Jansson Biography Finnish production company Helsinki-filmi is making a biography movie about multi-talented Tove Jansson. Helsinki-filmi is one of the leading production companies in the Nordic Region and many of their films have been distributed widely all over the world. A biography movie of Tove Jansson has been prepared behind the closed doors for many years. Production company Helsinki-filmi has signed an agreement with Jansson’s heirs and the filming is scheduled to start in 2018. The film is produced by Annika Sucksdorff together with Aleksi Bardy. Bardy also leads the group of scriptwriters, Jarno Elonen and Eeva Putro. ————————————————————————————————— Dear Friend by Summer Pierre Reflections from the road in this latest installment of the Illustrated PEN. Meditations on travel via Summer Pierre. Perfect reading for those of you on the road this summer. ————————————————————————————————— Make it then tell everybody: C. Spike Trotman On the latest episode of Dan Berry’s podcast, Make it then Tell Everybody, C. Spike Trotman of Iron Circus talks about being The Man, developing and trusting your taste, and the difference between digital dollars vs meat money. ————————————————————————————————— NEW AT COPACETIC: Follow the Leader Jonas McLuggage has some new comics at Copacetic. Self-published in Pittsburgh, Follow the Leader is a badass comic about cannibals fighting the mafia in the 80’s. Gorgeous full bleed pages of lovingly colored intrigued. Jonas is a killer. Don’t sleep on the kid! From Bill Boichel at Copacetic Comics: Jonas McLuggage’s long-in-the-works online comics series, Follow the Leader at last sees the light of day as an actual, honest-to-gosh comic book, and it’s a real beaut! 36 pages of knock-your-socks off drawing and coloring power this strange tale that puts an all-new twist on the kids vs. the powers-that-be theme. Only 200 signed and numbered copies printed. Don’t miss this destined-to-be-a-collectors’-item, Made-in-Pittsburgh comic book! These won’t be around forever… ————————————————————————————————— until next time, JF Share this page: [...]

05/11/2017

Aaron CockleMay 11, 2017NewsAaron filling in today with a pre-TCAF run-down. ————————————————————————————————— The Toronto Comic Arts Festival (TCAF) is scheduled for Saturday-Sunday, May 13-14. Here is a brief listing of some of the many wonderful event offerings that may be of interest to our regular and patient readers: Gengoroh Tagame My Brother’s Husband – Exhibition by Gengoroh Tagame May 9th to May 30th, 2017 @ Toronto Reference Library, 789 Yonge Street, 1st Floor Display Room (Near the Browsery), Free The Toronto Comic Arts Festival is proud to a host a small display of materials from the creation of My Brother’s Husband, the new graphic novel series by TCAF Featured Guest Gengoroh Tagame. Winner of the Excellence Award for manga at The 19th Japan Media Art Festival, My Brother’s Husband is the moving story of a Japanese man learning to accept his late brother’s Canadian husband, the first LGBT person he’s ever met, who is visiting Japan. Upon winning the award, a small display of roughly 16 pieces of Tagame’s artwork, from layouts, to penciled pages, to final artwork, was assembled to be displayed for the award ceremony. It is this exhibition of materials, with additional English language material, which will be exhibited at Toronto Reference Library this May, as a part of The Toronto Comic Arts Festival. My Brother’s Husband will make its English-language debut at The Toronto Comic Arts Festival, May 13th and 14th, 2017, from Pantheon Books, a division of Penguin Random House. TCAF would like to thank Toronto Public Library, and Pantheon Books, for their assistance with this exhibition. ————————————————————————————————— ————————————————————————————————— The German Comics Pavilion Featuring Anna Haifisch, Ulli Lust, and Martina Schradi Saturday May 13, 9am-5pm & Sunday May 14, 10am-5pm The Appel Salon, Novella Room, Toronto Reference Library 2nd Floor Presented in association with the Goethe-Institut, Internationaler Comic-Salon Erlangen, Germany @ Canada 2017: Partners from Immigration to Innovation, the Federal Foreign Office and the German Comics Association The Toronto Comic Arts Festival is proud to welcome a special pavilion of cartoonists, publishers, associations, and gallery shows from Germany! Germany is home to a thriving comics and artistic scene, and at TCAF 2017 you’ll be able to sample some of the diverse wares, thanks to a special international exchange between TCAF and Internationaler Comic-Salon Erlangen in Germany, with the incredible support of the Goethe-Institut. The pavilion is located on the second floor of Toronto Reference Library in the Appel Salon. TCAF will travel to Erlangen in 2018 with a cadre of Canadian cartoonists, to complete the exchange. Exhibiting in the pavilion will be cartoonists Anna Haifisch, Ulli Lust, and Martina Schradi, as well as Internationaler Comic-Salon Erlangen and The German Comics Association, and German comics publisher Rotopol (who will also be present but exhibiting on Toronto Reference Library’s first floor, so look for them there). The Pavilion will also house 3 small art exhibitions, including: “Ach, So Ist Das? (Oh, is that so?),” a survey of contemporary LGBTI society; a survey of contemporary German comics curated by comics journalist Lars von Törne for the Frankfurt Book Fair and presented here in collaboration with the German Comics Association; a selection of prints by Anna Haifisch. ————————————————————————————————— Tyler Landry will be representing Comics Workbook at TCAF with a special workshop on Sunday, May 14th, in the Writers Room, on the 3rd floor of the Toronto Reference Library. 12:30pm – Comics Workbook : Composing a Spread – This workshop is about visual storytelling. Learn essentials of generating ideas, building a page, editing, and refining a functional comic spread layout. This workshop is PERFECT for beginners, or anyone more seasoned who wants to try a different approach to bringing their ideas to the page This workshop is being facilitated by Tyler Landry (Comics Workbook Member, Santoro Correspondence Course Alumnus, Cartoonist, Art Director, Head of the Charlottetown Comics Club) ————————————————————————————————— Other Programming Highlights Saturday, May 13: 11:00 AM – Koyama Press 10th Anniversary Celebration – Koyama Press is now 10 years old! Join founder and publisher Annie Koyama, as well as a slew of artists whose work she has helped usher into the world, as they reflect back on the past 10 years, challenges and highlights of independent comics, and what their plans would’ve been had Koyama Press not come along. The comics world would be very different, that’s for sure! Happy Birthday KP!Panelists: Michael DeForge, John Martz, Jane Mai, Fiona Smyth, Aaron Leighton, Anne Koyama. Moderator: Dustin Harbin. 01:30 PM – Expressive Lines And The Power of Restraint – There are many ways of showcasing expressive art in comics. Join Hellen Jo, Ron Rege Jr., Keren Katz, Maggie Umber, and Xia Gordon as they talk about what goes into composing a page, what influences their art, and how they use expressiveness to tell a story. 2:00 PM – Watercolour and Comics – Julia Bax is an illustrator based in São Paulo, Brazil. She has been drawing comics for the majority of her career, and has been published in the United States, France, and of course, Brazil. In 2015 her book Princesse Caraboo (story by Ozanam) was published by Le Lombard in France. In this album the pages were illustrated using watercolor, and that is the theme of this workshop. Julia will explain her process from layout to completed page, and demonstrate the technique she used in Princesse Caraboo. If you have a love for traditional media and isn’t afraid of getting your hands dirty, this is the workshop for you! 02:45 PM – Spotlight: Marcelino Truong x Thi Bui – With Such a Lovely Little War and The Best We Could Do, Marcelino Truong and This Bui share their powerful and compelling stories about the Vietnam War. Following their families’ experiences in getting out of the country, to the struggles of immigration, these creators explore the traumas of war. Join Marcelino and Thi as they discuss what drew them to comics to tell their stories, and what challenges they still see ahead for Vietnamese communities around the world. Sunday, May 14 10:30 AM – Book Shrinking – Make a miniature version of your favourite zine/comic book/artist book! Bring: A book you’d like to shrink and drawing supplies (preferably dry media, i.e., markers, coloured pencils, pens, scissors and transparent tape/double sided tape). This workshop is being facilitated by Keren Katz (The Academic Hour). 12:00 PM – Comics As Political Resistance – Comics are amazing tools for communicating. This is never more vital than when telling your stories involves speaking out against oppressive systems or political climates. Join Nate Powell (March), Ben Passmore (Your Black Friend), Julia Alekseyeva (Soviet Daughter) and Matt Lubchansky (The Nib) as they talk about how creating and sharing comics can be an act of political resistance in these troubling times. 02:00 PM – So Pretty / Very Rotten – So Pretty / Very Rotten is a collection of comics and essays that are at once academic and intimate, exploring the world of Lolita fashion and cute culture. In celebration of their new book and art show, Jane Mai and An Nguyen will be at the Japan Foundation for a reading and presentation that goes beyond the clothes. 4:00 PM – 10 Years 10 Years: Koyama Press x 2dcloud – Annie Koyama & Raighne talk about 10 years at their respective labels and what the next 10 years might look like. ————————————————————————————————— Wowee Zonk Small Press Showcase The Toronto Comic Arts Festival and Wowee Zonk proudly present the Wowee Zonk Small Press Showcase for 2017. Curated by Toronto Artists Chris Kuzma, Ginette Lapalme and Patrick Kyle, the Wowee Zonk Small Press Showcase highlights some of the best and most exciting work being made in comics, zines, and independent publishing. See below for the entire list of artists! You’ll be able to find all these fantastic folks in the Browsery at the Toronto Reference Library. Patrick Kyle – patrickkyle.com Chris Kuzma – chriskuzma.com Ginette Lapalme – ginettelapalme.com Ted Gudlat – tedgudlat.tumblr.com Keith Jones – Zipzapzoo.com Brie Moreno – boogerbrie.tumblr.com Kendra Yee – kendrayee.com DDOOGG – shop.ddoogg.ca Issue Press – issue.press Swimmers Group – swimmersgroup.com Alabaster Pizzo – alabasterpizzo.com Tommi Parrish – tommipg.tumblr.com Lee Lai – lee-lai.tumblr.com Anya Davidson – anyadavidson.com Colour Code – shop.colourcodeprinting.com Eli Howey – elihowey.ca Sabrina Scott – witchbody.com Jamie Q – jamieq.net Inés Estrada – inechi.com Michael DeForge – michael-deforge.com Adam De Souza – kumerish.com Lily Snowden-Fine – lilysnowdenfine.com Walker Mettling – walkermettling.tumblr.com Ben Sears – freebensears.com Connor Willumsen – connorwillumsen.com Daryl Seitchik – darylseitchik.com Starchild Stela – instagram.com/littlestarchild <3 JG <3 PLANT WORLD PRINTING – plantworld.tictail.com Jenn Liv – jennliv.com Michael Comeau – slomeau.tumblr.com Alicia’s Klassic Kool Shoppe – alicianauta.com Forge Art Mag – forgeartmag.com Perish Publishing – perishpublishing.ca ————————————————————————————————— Announcing the Summer Semester of the Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers! 8 weeks! 500 bux! Payment plans are available! Summer Course starts June 1st 2017! Applications are due by May 25th. Visit THIS page for more details and email santoroschool@gmail.com with applications and questions! ————————————————————————————————— Blinkers – 5-11-2017 – by Jack Brougham ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 5-11-2017 – by Gabriella Tito ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 5-11-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

White River Junction Scene Report

Frank SantoroOctober 16, 2011Riff Raff / Scene ReportsUp with local comics scene. Down with Marvel. Down with DC. Boycott Disney. Boycott Time Warner. Kill Super Heroes. Do I sound like a broken record? I don’t fuckin’ care! I’m so tired of sifting through “coverage” of the Big Two on comics blogs. You guys are just workin’ for The Man. Knock it off! I should have a “greater concern”? Bullshit. Stop promoting corporate culture in comics. This week’s local comics scene report brought to you by the great Jen Vaughn. Jen lives in White River Junction, Vermont – home of The Center for Cartoon Studies. She is awesome, does awesome stuff and also writes awesomely for the Schulz Library Blog. Don’t forget! My CARTOONING CORRESPONDENCE COURSE starts at the end the end of October! Hurry up and apply – you can do it! I will make you a comics expert in eight weeks! —— Also! Michael DeForge ups the ante again with his story in Thickness number two. I call it a knife fight. He will cut you! The rest of the issue is equally astonishing – lots of different looks – a well edited anthology if there ever was one. It’s also beautifully printed – Ryan Sands crushed this one out of the park, folks. Don’t delay – buy your copy today. INTERMISSION FUNNIES with MICHAEL DEFORGE ———- White River Junction scene report by Jen Vaughn Here in the thicket of White River Junction, a town of small proportions (~2500 people), a lot of cartoonist students dream big. Montreal, Boston and New York are at most five hours away but in this sleepy place often referred to as WRJ or my favorite, the Junc, everything closes around 5pm and good luck on Sundays. My house is behind that green tree on the right The local coffee shop, the Tuckerbox, hangs cartoonist work on the walls year round and is the morning or late afternoon studio space for some. LtoR: Cartoonists Pat Barrett, Josh Kramer, Max de Radigues, Kevin Uehlein and Ben Horak However, there is no shortage of fun and events. Like anywhere, a toonie amidst all all these other toonies and townies must concentrate to keep their butt firmly in their drawing table seat. Thanks to the Center for Cartoon Studies, we have visiting artists every week that come to speak to the school and a lot that just visit! HOLY SHIT, IT’S LYNDA BARRY Cartoonists: Katherine Roy, me and Jon Fine) Dartmouth College is near by with great plays, events and often employs cartoonists. Laura Terry, Katherine Roy and I have made one large mural and have a current exhibit of collegiate fun paintings on display in their student union cafe. —– This is the first place I’ve lived where I draw anywhere I go and people ask ‘Are you a cartoonist?’ instead of ‘artist.’ The villagers know what’s shakin’. Although, if you asked me to describe our activities in three words I’d say “costumes, games and animals.” I’ve pet more goats, pigs and more pigs in my time here than my combined 13 years in Texas. Moving a pig coral at a co-op —– A lot of us like, scratch that, LOVE board games. Night of playing resource management games like Agricola, Carcassone, or Dominion are planned out usually with wine and dinner to boot. Although, it is constantly an odd bag being one of the few female cartoonists in the area with a boyfriend at events with couples. Luckily, we’re all friends so I don’t care about whether I should talk craft with ‘the guys’ or any other subject with ‘the ladies.’ Sometimes its nice to step away from the work. CCS professor Jason Lutes is kind enough let us beta-test his own creation, “Thrilling Tales of Adventure” and hosts a weekly board game night (meanwhile Steve Bissette hosts an often horrifying weekly movie night) LtoR: Cartoonists David Yoder, Joe Lambert, Bill Bedard and Rio Aubrey Taylor play Merchants and Marauders —— In my free time not spent at my day jobs at the Schulz Graphic Novel Library and at the Main Street Museum OR drawing, I spent wrapped up in a butterfly/caterpillar costume as part of the local puppeteer’s gang at Fantasy Technicians. Becoming something else for a bit, whether a butterfly or a pair of shoes, is amazing and I’m totally working on my own articulating costume. And preparing for my week long job in New Orleans next Mardi Gras. Jennerfly. —– Parties usually have a theme, a costumed theme. Like the going away party, Lady Gaga Gone. Featuring toonies Penina Gal, Carol Thompson, Betsey Swardlick, Beth Hetland and me. —– And in any other city you might buy comics at a comic book store but our Border’s closed down AND the local comic shop is more of a game shop (although not a problem for those of us hoping to score the Cthulhu Gloom expansion). The Schulz Graphic Novel Library gets a lot of comic books sent to it by publishers, writers, artists and people who just want to send their favorite to such a grand library. The school also buys a lot of new graphic novels and is open to the public on First Fridays Unfortunately, due to the flood waters of Hurricane Irene, we had to move our library to a temporary storage space but hope to move soon. We save a lot of our buying bucks for conventions, where comics are like currency! —– Here’s my boyfriend, Ryan Anderson and cartoonist, Molly Howard, enjoying comics in our old space —– And here’s a photo of my comics class! —– In the town of White River Junction, friends are around every corner and they like to have a good time. Which is great because I love to pose under silly signs. My town may be small but its heart is huge. at Tunbridge World’s Fair with Linda Walker and cartoonist Rachel Foss Share this page: [...]

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