Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in NewsTagged claes oldenburg, comic sans, gabriella tito, jason shiga, Mark Newgarden, Michelangelo Buonarroti, nancy, Paul Karasik, yayoi kusama

Aaron Cockle

Posted on November 14, 2017November 14, 2017

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12/2/2016

Sally IngrahamDecember 2, 2016NewsSally here with comics by Ulli Lust, Mai-Li Bernard, Laila Milevski, and the CW Roller Derby League, a Standing Rock and Resist! check-in, plus new stuff from Carol Tyler and Vanesa R. Del Rey. ————————————————————————————————— One of my favorite comics is Ulli Lust‘s Today is the Last Day of the Rest of Your Life. I traversed it’s 450 pages again this past summer and found that I heartily agree with Jaime Hernandez’s review of the book: “Ulli Lust really nails my favorite part of storytelling. Bumming cigarettes, learning how to hitchhike – the small details that create great character.” The haphazard travels of Ulli’s then 17-year old self from Vienna to Sicily, described in lively pencil drawings, are the “stranger than fiction” stuff that life is made out of. I’ve had similar adventures (perhaps a little less perilous) and tromping through Today is the Last Day always makes me want to get on the road again, while simultaneously making me especially grateful for my warm house and glass of wine and comparatively sane companions. It’s been awhile now since this book was released, and it is out of print and out of stock most places. (You can amazingly still get a copy from Copacetic Comics however!) I’m always keeping an ear open for news of more work by Ulli Lust, and was thrilled when she mentioned back in September that she had drawn page 333 of her new book! Today I was poking around on her website again and I noticed that for a few months this year she was publishing a comic series in an English language magazine from Berlin, the Exberliner. She has four of the comics up on her website – here’s the first one: You can check out the rest of them HERE – (use the arrows at the top of the page to move forward.) The second comic is pretty hilarious, and the third hit me right in the gut – I have so been there (yesterday morning, for example…read it to see what I mean!) ————————————————————————————————— My internet wanderings took me from the Exberliner to a German comics blog where there was a blurb about Ulli Lust. It appears that this site – Dreimalalles – has concluded its comics reporting, but it seems to be an interesting archival document about the German comics scene in the last few years. They hosted the German version of Matt Madden’s Style Exercises: 99 Ways to Tell a Story as well as a webcomic called Pigments by Mai-Li Bernard. Mai-Li was born in Vietnam and currently makes comics in Angoulême, France. According to her Dreimalalles bio (translated by Google…) she “playfully explores the possibilities of narrating stories with reduced means“. This is apparent in Pigments, which is about two lovers. It follows their interactions and conversations, many of which end in dark thoughts… Check out the rest of this work HERE. And more of Mai-Li Bernard’s work can be found HERE. cafébabel interviewed Mai-Li in January of this year, right before France’s Angoulême International Comics Festival, where her book Mortelle Vinasse (Deadly Wine) was an official selection. “cafébabel: Mortelle Vinasse is a mute comic strip. Why the choice of a story without text? Mai-Li Bernard: I am not very comfortable with words. Paradoxically, I have a great interest in linguistic tools and everything related to the mechanisms of language. That’s why I like making comic strips without text. The subject of my Master’s dissertation was the process of reading silent comic strips. I have to mitigate this absence of text through the way I work. In reality, there’s a lot of dialogue in my strips – they are very talkative! I use a very minimal language, quasi-autonomous, which is close to pictograms. The reader is forced to analyse the images. I built the story so that during the first reading they can appreciate all this information. I wanted something playful that called for a participatory reading.“ Mai-Li feels like she is part of the OuBaPo school of thought (which is “the artistic equivalent of OuLiPo (that emphasized self-imposed constraints in literature, ed.) created by Raymond Queneau and François Le Lyonnais.” (I used to be super obsessed with this group – I had a whole sub-category on my blog devoted to reviews of books by Raymond Queneau and Georges Perec…) The topic of women in comics comes up in the interview, of course, as it took place right after that notorious Angoulême Grand Prix 2016 list came out… There are some other good moments in the conversation too – check it out HERE. Get a copy of Mortelle Vinasse HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Laila Milevski‘s Enter, Holy Pilgrim just came out! It is the 9th book in the Ley Lines series published by Czap Books and Grindstone Comics (November 2016). It is about a troubled serf who is seeking spiritual guidance while on a pilgrimage. You can see pages from the book HERE at Laila’s website. Get a copy HERE. Also check out Drawing Antonioni, a comic series Laila drew for Comics Workbook in 2014 – the whole thing is available HERE. ————————————————————————————————— I wrote about a recent Comics Workbook Roller Derby League bout – some of the gals and I copied a whole Locas story by Jaime Hernandez. It was pretty nuts to trace these highly detailed pages, to get the gestures and expressions of these familiar faces down to my satisfaction. Labor intensive, to say the least, and incredibly eye-opening for myself and the other women involved in the project – all of whom are intent on pushing themselves to new levels and continuing to develop as cartoonists. Check out the rest of the pages HERE – mine are p.6-10. ————————————————————————————————— There is a hideous lack of news coverage of the ongoing situation at Standing Rock – but The Nib featured a comic by Jen Sorensen that weighed in a bit – here’s a panel: Read the rest HERE. ————————————————————————————————— You can now help support the Resist! project by ordering a “supporters copy” – the proceeds will go towards production costs – more info HERE. Be sure to keep checking for the Daily Image – which is actually being updated every few hours with new comics from folks – mostly women – from around the country. Intense stuff. Print ran a brief feature on the project – Gabe Fowler’s intent is for the project to have “a strong and powerful roar of female voices without meddling by men“, which is why he tagged New Yorker art editor Françoise Mouly to be the editor. ” “Oy! I’m so overwhelmed with work and projects as it is,” she told him. “But this is exactly the kind of project I’d drop other things for!” Mouly mentioned it to her daughter, writer Nadja Spiegelman, who immediately signed on and drew up a list of their favorite artists, and also put together a website in order to place an open call for submissions.“ This free special issue of Gabe Fowler’s Smoke Signals will be handed out “by the tens of thousands from the back of a van during the Women’s March in Washington D.C.” on January 21st, 2017. ————————————————————————————————— Carol Tyler just released a teaser cover for her new book Fab4 Mania, due out from Fantagraphics late Summer/Fall of next year. If you’re eager to stay on top of developments for this book, here’s the FB page. ————————————————————————————————— I love Vanesa R. Del Rey‘s work – her drawing chops are a constant source of inspiration and sometimes jealousy to me. Her Instagram feed is one of the best, full of process posts and badass ladies. It’s been fun to be on the edges of a Comics Workbook publishing project involving her work, and I’m so excited to see the finished book – The Art of Vanesa R. Del Rey. Check out the video: You can pre-order a copy of the book HERE! ————————————————————————————————— It’s high time for a new gif, but this one continues to crack me up – and it is exactly what the school email feels like. I help field applications for the Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers, and can report that the Winter Semester is filling up rapidly. It starts December 29th, and you have until the 28th to submit an application – but only 12 days now to get in on the early application discount! The details: 8 week course – 500 bux – 10 spots available – apply by Dec. 13th 2016 and get $100 off course fee! More details can be found HERE – or email santoroschoolATgmail. ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 12-2-2016 – by Sally Ingraham More via @suzy_and_cecil ————————————————————————————————— Enjoy your weekend folks. I’ll be spending it drawing more strips like the one above, getting a start on making some Xmas presents, and hanging out at Copacetic Comics! Cheers – Sally Share this page: [...]

04/17/2017

Sally IngrahamApril 16, 2017NewsDigging into a new week with news and comics from Dash Shaw, Frank Santoro, Eleanor Davis, Sam Alden, Jen Sorensen, and M. S. Harkness. ————————————————————————————————— Dash Shaw writes about curating the pop-up shop at the Metrograph theater in New York City, where his film My Entire High School Sinking Into the Sea opened on April 14th 2017 – on The Comics Journal. The shop carries: “…rare DVDs, film-related books, and issues of Cahiers du Cinéma. They asked me to pick books and DVDs that felt related to my movie, or that a cinema-going audience would be interested in.” Included in the selection is Frank Santoro’s Incanto (above). Dash Shaw writes that Frank: “…painted the key exterior background paintings in High School Sinking. This particular zine by Santoro is lovely and poetic, and also, to me, utterly hilarious, because a section of it comes from a Speed Racer episode. Santoro told me that this was drawn after working as Francesco Clemente’s assistant. Clemente would often interpret preexisting old drawings, so that inspired Santoro to adapt a two-second Speed Racer moment. It’s perfect – like seeing something you’ve seen before for the first time. He captures the stillness of those Speed Racer cartoons with their minimal background paintings.” Incanto is out of print and a rare find, so if you don’t stop by the Metrograph pop-up shop in April to get a copy, you might still be able to find it at Copacetic Comics – HERE. Read about the rest of Dash’s picks for the shop and be sure to catch My Entire Highschool Sinking Into the Sea in a city near you soon! Here are some recent reviews of the film/interviews with Dash: “Drawn to Disaster” – Filmmaker Magazine interview “The Strife’s Aquatic” – NPR movie review Q&A from Denver Alamo Drafthouse screening, with artist Andrew Lorenzi “Alt Comix Artists Revives Classic Animation Tech” – Inverse feature “Resplendent Teenage Turmoil” – Fandor Keyframe interview Dash Shaw will be coming to Pittsburgh for a screening of his movie on April 25th 2017 at the Rowhouse Cinema! Full event details are HERE. Creator and director Dash Shaw along with cartoonist Frank Santoro will kick off the Pittsburgh Premiere of “My Entire High School Sinking into the Sea” with a live interview followed by a sneak preview showing of the film. VIP tickets include everything above plus a private Meet & Greet in the Bierport taproom (limit 30 people)! Tuesday, April 25th 7:15pm $12 Regular Ticket: Live Interview & Screening $20 VIP Ticket: Live Interview & Screening AND private Meet & Greet post screening. If you are in the region be sure to come out for this event! For a list of other screenings around the country visit this page. ————————————————————————————————— You can find an excerpt from the upcoming You & A Bike & A Road by Eleanor Davis (Koyama Press, May 2017) on Illustrated PEN, presented by guest editor MariNaomi. She writes: “Eleanor Davis puts out consistently great work, so much that it amazes me when I’m surprised (each and every time) by how wonderful her work is. This book is no exception, filled with moments that are full of joy, pain, beauty, and trouble. Using minimal lines and words, Eleanor conveys so much about the spectrum of emotions involved with being human.“ See the excerpt HERE. ————————————————————————————————— M. S. Harkness has offered a preview of her upcoming comic Tinderella – see it HERE. Marina is coming to Pittsburgh this summer for a Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency, and she will be working on Tinderella and other comics while she is here in July. Unperturbed by a tentative post-graduation financial state, Marina has been creating the ways and means to get to Pittsburgh – she’s determined to cause some havoc around here, come hell or high water – but you can help her get here with a little more comfort and ease by contributing to her Generosity campaign. She – and the Comics Workbook team – thank you in advance! ————————————————————————————————— Sam Alden published part 2 of 4 of his comic Sledgehammer on Hazlitt….in February – I somehow missed it, so possibly you did as well. Check it out HERE. New on Hazlitt is Rory Frances‘ Look Outside – view part 1 HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Jen Sorensen is interviewed on The Comics Beat. She talks about making political cartoons, being the comics editor at Fusion, and what it means to be a cartoonist in the present world. “Dueben: You won the Herblock Award a few years ago and you said that your job is “worrying about how humanity is destroying itself.” Which is a good line, but do you think that is the role of the cartoonist in some way? Sorensen: I’m doing a lot of worrying about humanity destroying itself these days. I think it is an important role of a political cartoonist. I think sometimes it’s probably more acute than others. It’s something that’s hard to deal with sometimes. Right now I find that these aren’t really funny times. There are ludicrous characters and you can make fun of Trump and these ridiculous nominees, but at the same time I don’t want to normalize him. I find myself not even wanting to draw him. I mean, I do and I will, but I don’t want to treat him like any other President. I’ve been struggling with that. How to be humorous at a time when things are just very serious. I guess what I wind up doing is somewhat darker humor, darker cartoons, and more informative cartoons that say, this is what’s happening, can you believe it? With the Bush administration things were terrible and there were definitely some dark times, but I felt like you could make fun of Bush for being a buffoon and the implications just weren’t quite as grave. It’s a different time now.“ Read the rest HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Blinkers – 4-17-2017 – by Jack Brougham ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 4-17-2017 – by Christian Southgate Christian is a member of the Charlottetown Comics Club (Prince Edward Island, Canada) which is headed by Comics Workbook alum Tyler Landry – more about Christian Southgate and the CCC HERE! ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 4-17-2017 – 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: [...]

07/08/2016

Sally IngrahamJuly 8, 2016NewsSally here, with a new comic from Glynnis Fawkes, an interview with Julia Gfrörer, the latest escapades of Street Angel, a gallery visit with Alyssa Berg, further details about the Comics Workbook Composition Competition, and a look at Mary Fleener. ————————————————————————————————— The 4th annual COMICS WORKBOOK COMPOSITION COMPETITION was announced on Wednesday, and has inspired a lot of excitement already. You can feel the collective steam coming out of the ears of cartoonists everywhere as they dig into that grid…(pictured above)! From Frank Santoro‘s competition guidelines: Original art page size: 5.5 x 8.5 inch originals with a 5 x 7.5 inch live area. Three equal “landscape” oriented panels. No exceptions. Each panel will be 5 inches wide and 2.5 inches tall. The “Tezuka Grid”. MEANING: YOU CANNOT CHANGE THE PANEL SIZES. 14 pages with 3 panels per page means you only have 42 panels to tell your story. And two covers. These “specs” were derived from Osamu Tezuka’s proportions for his first manga, The Mysterious Underground Men. It is a classic 2:3 proportion which is the same as traditional North American comic books. See above photos–I determined the live area and then scaled up to a standard North American size which is affordable to print. See my ideas about the two most used comic book proportions HERE. Complete competition guidelines can be found HERE. Deadline is August 30th at midnight (EST). ————————————————————————————————— Over on The Le Sigh Rachel Davies interviewed Julia Gfrörer recently, getting into her dream projects, the nature of collaboration, and where the social media handle she’s gone by for 15 years – thorazos – came from, among other things. From the interview: TLS: How does your approach differ depending on where the work is displayed (ie online, in a mini print zine, or on the human body, in tattoo form)? JF: I’ve never created comics with the web in mind, and the original pages aren’t really precious to me either. The final version of the work is always a printed book. When my comics are posted online, or displayed in a gallery, I think of that more as documentation, and the book is still the actual thing. (And even the book is only stack of paper, the actual story happens elsewhere.) The way I make comics is influenced a lot by the effect of cheap photocopies, and I don’t really obstruct the artifacts of that process – if you compare, for example, this image from Dark Age that was scanned from the original drawing with the same image as it appears in the zine, you can see how blotchy all the fine lines have become. I think that’s beautiful. You can see how it struggled to exist. To me there’s a sense of urgency in handmade things. I make zines because I believe in the Cheap Art Manifesto– I believe part of my calling is to make artwork that is more than an object of commerce. Read the whole interview HERE. Keep up with Julia via her blog HERE, and find her in Kramers Ergot #9, (on special at Copacetic Comics, btw!) ————————————————————————————————— In case you missed it, Jim Rugg is publishing a new Street Angel story – Alcatraz, Jr. – and updates appear on his website MONDAY and THURSDAY. The panels above are from yesterday’s post. What happens next in the lunch room?? Find out HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Alyssa Berg visited the Adam Baumgold Gallery in Manhattan recently and wrote about the current show hanging there for Comics Workbook. The show is called IN A SERIES and features the work of a whole slew of 20th Century and contemporary artists, many among them cartoonists. Alyssa focuses her report on work by Chris Ware, Lynda Barry, and Renée French. Read it HERE. And if you’re in New York, you can check out the show through August 12th. ————————————————————————————————— MUTHA Magazine is currently featuring Glynnis Fawkes in their comics section. She draws some highly relatable stories – suitably titled No Fair Comics – about the trials of being a mother and the tribulations of being a child. Check them out HERE. A taster: ————————————————————————————————— This week I’ve been reading old comics by Mary Fleener – mostly her Slutburger stories from the early 90’s, published by Drawn and Quarterly. I dig her “cubismo” style and the stories are painfully funny. On her website Fleener writes that she was – “…born in Los Angeles when smog was at an all time high, Hollywood was still glamorous, and every woman’s ambition was to own a mink coat. Inherited good art genes from my mother and never wanted to do anything else. Attended Cal State University at Long Beach and majored in Printmaking, but I really learned NOTHING and consider the work I do today as Self Taught. In 1984, after reading an article in the LA Weekly by Matt Groening about “the new comics”, I started drawing and writing my own comic stories. I’d always harbored a secret desire to be a cartoonist, and was greatly influenced by Robert Crumb and MAD MAGAZINE, so I started self-publishing my own “mini comics”. First solo comic was HOODOO (1988), a tribute to the Harlem Renaissance writer, Zora Neale Hurston.” – Mary Fleener Fleener’s work appeared in numerous well-known publications, among them Weirdo, Wimmen’s Comix, and Oddballs. Aline Kominsky-Crumb wrote an intro to Slutburger #1 in 1990, and said “As a woman ‘ahtist’ I’m inspired by Mary’s work…but does she show this stuff to her mother?!” Fleener currently lives in Encinitas, CA, where she plays bass and dulcimer in the band Wigbillies, paints (often on velvet, which is PERFECT), and makes comics. Catch up with her mischief HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Enjoy your (probably real hot…) summer weekend! Sally, out. Share this page: [...]

02/16/2018

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

11/14/2017

Posted on November 14, 2017November 14, 2017 by Aaron Cockle

Aaron Cockle today with Comic Sans; Yayoi Kusama; Claes Oldenburg; Jason Shiga; Nancy; Michelangelo Buonarroti

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‘Hating Comic Sans Is Ableist’
Lauren Hudgins looks at the Comic Sans font, its detractors, and how people with dyslexia use it to read:

Comic Sans and Arial are readily available because they are included by default in many operating systems and word-processing programs, and they are web-safe fonts. A pamphlet from the office of student services at my sister’s school on accommodations for dyslexic students is printed in Comic Sans on blue paper in both English and Welsh. Other common fonts suggested by the British Dyslexia Association include Century Gothic, Verdana, Calibri, and Trebuchet. (Trebuchet was also designed by Connare.)

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Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors

On Instagram, the Broad’s geotag summons a seemingly endless stream of photos of museumgoers – individuals, couples, children – holding smartphones up to Kusama’s reflective surfaces. The rise of art selfies like these has become a bone of contention among the art world elite, inciting a backlash in Kusama’s case. The New York Times’ Roberta Smith called her “a bit of a charlatan” who “stoops to conquer with mirrored ‘infinity’ rooms that attract hordes of selfie-seekers”. The LA Times went further: “The most interesting feature of the rooms is that looking at the ubiquitous photos of them is as fulfilling as actually being there”. Apartment Therapy meanwhile, declared her David Zwirner exhibition “the Instagram exhibit to end all Instagram exhibits”.

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Claes Oldenburg: Shelf Life

Taken together, the sculptures in Shelf Life represent a compendium of the ideas and objects that have resonated throughout Oldenburg’s life and practice, now revealed in completely new relationships. As an artist pivotal to the evolution of contemporary art throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, Oldenburg has approached this latest period of his career as, he said, “a time to decide what one keeps.” These are the images he has chosen to keep.

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‘The Science of Demon’
Jason Shiga guest-blogging at Locus Mag:

Science fiction has always been my favorite genre, especially when the story takes the form of scientific discovery itself. There’s something incredibly satisfying about the classic scientific method of observing, imagining, testing and finally getting a clear answer from the universe about some fundamental way it’s structured. I feel the human mind has a science shaped keyhole in it and hearing a good story or joke or cleverly designed experiment all satisfy that same part of the brain. It could be Sherlock Holmes figuring out that what everyone else thought was a ghost was just a (spoiler for 100 year old story) dog covered in luminescent paint. In a way, I think all great fiction is science fiction of a sort.

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Mark Newgarden and Paul Karasik on How To Read Nancy: The Elements of Comics in Three Easy Panels

The 200th meeting of the NY Comics & Picture-story Symposium will be held on Tuesday, Nov. 14, 2017 at 7pm at Parsons School of Design, 2 West 13th Street, in the Bark Room (off the lobby). Free and open to the public.

Cartoonists and scholars, Paul Karasik and Mark Newgarden use a single three-panel Nancy strip to explain how the medium of comics works.
Everything that you need to know about reading, making, and understanding comics can be found in a single Nancy strip by Ernie Bushmiller from August 8, 1959. Mark Newgarden and Paul Karasik’s groundbreaking work How to Read Nancy (Fantagraphics Books, 2017) ingeniously isolates the separate building blocks of the language of comics through the deconstruction of a single strip.

As much a lecture about visual literacy and the benefits of deep-reading, students, academics, scholars, cartoonists and casual fans will be stunned to understand that the secret language of comics is right before their eyes.

Paul Karasik is the co-author (along with David Mazzucchelli) of the perennial graphic novel classic City of Glass, adapted from Paul Auster’s novel. His cartoons appear in the New Yorker. Paul teaches at the Rhode Island School of Design.

Mark Newgarden is an acclaimed cartoonist and author of the book We All Die Alone, the co-creator of “Garbage Pail Kids”, and the co-author (with Megan Montague Cash) of the award-winning Bow Wow series of children’s books. Mark teaches at Parsons and Pratt Institute.

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Michelangelo: Divine Draftsman & Designer

This exhibition presents a stunning range and number of works by the artist: 133 of his drawings, three of his marble sculptures, his earliest painting, his wood architectural model for a chapel vault, as well as a substantial body of complementary works by other artists for comparison and context. Among the extraordinary international loans are the complete series of masterpiece drawings he created for his friend Tommaso de’ Cavalieri and a monumental cartoon for his last fresco in the Vatican Palace. Selected from 50 public and private collections in the United States and Europe, the exhibition examines Michelangelo’s rich legacy as a supreme draftsman and designer.

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Suzy and Cecil – 11-14-2017 – by Gabriella Tito

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Joanie and Jordie – 11-14-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio

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Cozytown – 11-14-2017 – by Juan Fernandez [1]

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Comics Workbook

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Posted in NewsTagged claes oldenburg, comic sans, gabriella tito, jason shiga, Mark Newgarden, Michelangelo Buonarroti, nancy, Paul Karasik, yayoi kusama

Aaron Cockle

Posted on November 14, 2017November 14, 2017

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Duets with Frank

Chris Anthony DiazJanuary 27, 2016The Diaz ArchiveAll Photos by Chris Anthony Diaz and colored by Graham Willcox. THEE chronicler of north american small press comics. Share this page: [...]

3/17/16

HarrisonMarch 17, 2016News In relevant comic and art related news, 6 South Asian Webcomics you should check out, points about criticism, and learning to look. Thinking about Kim’s piece from the other day and our relationship to criticism in general made me think of artist Zak Smith who gave 68 tips to art critics a few years back. Highlights for me include… “1. Assume any young artist you _don’t_ write about will die of starvation tomorrow. (They won’t, but their art might.)” “7. Go to art fairs. MOVE FAST. Talk to no-one. When you find good art, demand to be alone with it for an hour.” “8. Interview artists. Ask questions _about the art_ not about where they grew up or what they named their dog.” “33. Don’t pretend your opinion is fact. Instead: if you want authority, state your prejudices upfront. Like so. ” “55. Remember the art isn’t just competing with other art, it’s competing with everything else you could do that day. It must win anyway.” Swapna Krishna shares six webcomics from South Asian artists that should be on your radar. Check that post here. https://vimeo.com/154236446 Still thinking about criticism. Filmmaker and critic Kevin B. Lee has been doing annual analysis of the major Oscar nominees for the past few years on Fandor (a website for independent films from around the world), and something he said at the end of this video essay for the Best Picture nominees seemed to resonate with me. He says “This movie (THE BIG SHORT/Adam McKay 2015) reminds me of why I make these Oscar videos in the first place. People ask me why I bother making them, since the Oscars go to whoever has the biggest ad campaign or has the most hype. And sure we can be cynical about it, but at the end of the day, we want to care about something. For me, the Oscars are a way to care about the movies the way I want to care about them. Specifically, how to look at moves to see what’s really good about them, because how do we know how good a movie is, how do we know how good anything is, if we don’t actually look at it?” Time Floats Share this page: [...]

01/25/2017

Juan FernándezJanuary 25, 2017News Juan José con un poquito sobre: las Tetastristes en Ruda con Malicia;Miguel Ángel Martín; Conversando con Katherine Supnem; La nueva sangre de la poesía colombiana; Alexis Ziritt; Emma Rios; Power Paola y más. Cómics y noticias que me han llamado la atencion esta semana: Miguel Ángel Martín lleva 30 años provocando con sus historias de sexo, violencia y tecnología. Koldo Gutiérrez explora su mundo de sadomasoquisma emocional en profundidad en la Revista Cactus. Conversando con Katherine Supnem. Ruda con Malicia se trasladaron la semana pasada a la casa de las Tetas Tristes y las acompañaron en su feria “Las Tetas se Toman el Puerto”para grabar la edición mas reciente del programa. Escuchen esta edicion sobre los momentos de placer, los festivales y cumbres de rock, sexistas y patriarcales. Comics: La nueva sangre de la poesía colombiana – Una corriente de poetas jóvenes, editoriales independientes y espacios de difusión no convencionales, quiere impedir que esta tradición literaria se estanque. Hay una apuesta por la ilustración y lo visual, llegando a bares y ferias para acercarse a un público juvenil. Alexis Ziritt hizo unos dibujos para LucasFilms al fin del año pasado… Ahora estos dibujos pueden ser tuyos! Visita a http://aziritt.bigcartel.com/ para comprar tu dibujo. Charlando con Emma Rios Kaboom, la nueva seccion de El País dedicada a la exploracion del mundo del comic contemporaneo, compartió una mañana con la artista y arquitecta gallega, Emma Rios. Léanlo HOY! Angel Luis Sucasas: ¿Cómo cambia tu método cuando escribes y cuando dibujas? Emma Rios: Escribiendo, trabajo mucho desde los personajes pero al mismo tiempo soy muy conceptual. Nunca doy demasiadas explicaciones. Como escritora no me mola nada hacerlo. Lo que quiero es que el lector se sienta parte del mundo, que escuches cosas. Hablábamos antes de Dark souls y de cómo te enteras de las cosas por lo que dicen los personajes, por el contexto. En ID lo transmitía mucho a través de la gestualidad corporal. Normalmente se trata de decidir de qué coño me apetece hablar. En ID estaba claro que quería hablar de la aceptación… Es un cómic muy político. Tiene mucho que ver con una situación en la que yo me encontraba en el curro. Yo trabajo para gente extranjera. Eso significa una barrera idiomática y cultural. Y soy relativamente introvertida y me cuesta enfrentarme a esto. Me cuesta ser el centro de atención y me cuesta tener esa actitud, que allí es tan natural, de “¡Compra mi tebeo, compra mi tebeo”. Así que acabé distribuyendo eso en varios personajes para enfrentarme a ello. Yo estoy hasta las narices de que se me trate como alguien especial. Mira, lo que hago no es especial. Tu idea de lo que hacen las mujeres no es la realidad. Las mujeres hacen muchas cosas. Conversando con Power Paola Power Paola habla con Ben Alfaro en Hijos del Atomo los hijos de la tomo sobre su proceso, sus gustos y sus inspiraciones: ¿Qué dibujante o dibujantes han llamado más tu atención y por qué? ¿ Y qué escritores o escritor y por qué? Me gustan los dibujantes que encontraron su propio lenguaje y que dibujan más por una necesidad física que por buscar reconocimiento. Me encanta el Art Brut, dibujantes comoHenry Darger, Daisuke Ichiba, Stephane Blanquet, Caroline Sury. Y artistas comoRaymond Pettibon, Marcel Dzama, David Shrigley, Louise Bourgeois, El Bosco, Rousseau, Francis Alys, Ernesto Neto, etc. De escritores me gustan mucho Rita Indiana, Yuri Herrera, Junot Díaz,Juan Cárdenas y toda esa camada del caribe que tienen un lenguaje mezclado y muy contemporáneo. También disfruto mucho a Murakami, Banana Yoshimoto, Valerie Mrejen, Gabriela Wiener, Patti Smith, Susan Sontag, etc. Me gusta mucho lo autobiográfico y autorreferencial en el cómic y en las novelas, la mezcla de culturas, de lenguajes y de intereses. Me influencio mucho por lo que leo, veo y escucho. Así que siempre tengo referencias en cada proyecto que hago, es mi forma de agradecerles a los que me mostraron una manera de expresar. En Venta: The Art of Vanesa R. Del Rey. La gran Vanesa R. Del Rey le ha dado permiso a Comics Workbook para publicar unas selecciónes de sus cuadernos de bocetos. Hemos diseñado esta publicación para que parezca uno de esos libros de de artistas los años 80. Arte y Entrevista. El texto es una transcripción de la entrevista que hicimos con Vanesa cuando visito la Residencia Rowhouse en 2016. Vanesa es un artista impresionante y inigualable. Puedes comprar tu copia AQUI.Order a copy of The Art of Vanesa R. Del Rey HERE. Frank Santoro, el director de Comics Workbook, nos cuenta un poquito sobre sus experiencias con Vanesa: Me encontré por primera vez con VRDR en un festival de cómics en Toronto (TCAF) en 2014. Había empezado a hacer comics profesionalmente después de un período como un animadora. Fui Sorprendido por su la capacidad de ser como un camaleón de cambiar de estilos, y por su puesto le pedí ver más de sus obras. Desenterró pilas de cuadernos de dibujos de sus días en Cuba, cuando estudiaba el realismo soviético y de trabajaba con George Pratt, maestro de cómics pintados. La educación de Vanesa como artista hace el balance suavemente entre los niveles alto y bajo del arte, así como los valores estéticos del este y el oeste. Es una base asombrosa. Ella es, a la vez, consciente de la historia del arte, la historia de los cómics y la historia de la animación de una manera NUEVA que casi parecía imposible hace quince o veinte años. Debo admitir como un estudiante y fan de cómics que se enfocan en la mezcla de “alto y bajo” y en ” los cómics pintados” — Nunca he visto tal mezcla de habilidades al nivel de VRDR. Feroz. Imparable. Un competidor feroz. Michael Jordan-esque? ¿Es eso posible en la fabricación de cómic? Siempre he dicho que habría un “invasor vertical” en los cómics que podría emplear el “naturalismo” de la escuela de Noel Sickles / Alex Toth pero que podría pintar como una Alice Neel o una Jenny Saville. Creo que “el invasor” ha llegado en forma de Vanesa R. Del Rey. Puedes comprar tu copia AQUI. Sigan a Vanesa por Instagram – @vrdelrey – y http://vrdelrey.com/ ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 1-25-2017 – by Gabriella Tito ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 1-25-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio ————————————————————————————————— 1-25-2017 – by Juan Fernández Share this page: [...]

06/04/2018

Caleb OrecchioJune 3, 2018NewsCaleb Orecchio here with thoughts on Ben Sear’s latest Double+ Adventure, Ideal Copy. ————————————————————— Often people will compare Ben Sears’ Double+ stories to comics like Tintin or Dragon Ball, and I could even make a convincing comparison to Miyazaki’s first feature Castle of Cagliostro with this new installment; but I see a true spaghetti western influence in Ben’s work. The heroes are treasure hunters not “bounty killers,” but they bring in bad guys for cash. The “sidekick” Hank may be a robot, but is as vital to Plus Man as a horse is to any drifter roaming the American West by way of Italian sets and Spanish locations. There’s a character that is introduced in the new book, Ideal Copy (published be the great Koyama Press), that really gives off a Lee Van Cleef in Death Rides a Horse vibe (the old, reticent veteran with a score to settle). I enjoy all of Ben’s work, but Ideal Copy was a particularly fun issue for me. The story moves along at a pleasurably steady pace. Read. Laugh. Turn the page. Repeat. I think the way the author builds objects within his world interestingly plays a part in this seamless rhythm. It is as if everything is made of thick, malleable Legos that can be rearranged to make anything. Everything has this chunky, charming structure and the designs throughout the book don’t deviate from this visual idea. For example, there are no sleek, chrome muscle cars next to bulky cube-based cars. Every object within the world stands sturdily together. The result is nearly one-hundred percent great despite the occasional action sequence that doesn’t quite read perfectly due to color choices when conveying depth, but overall the blockiness of the environment that fills the Double+ Adventures feels limitless. Sears is the ultimate gamer in his very own Minecraft-of-the-mind, and I really have a ball touring it. I really want to come back to my point about the spaghetti western comparison, and go off the deep end and compare Ideal Copy with Sergio Corbucci’s film The Great Silence and how they mirror one another’s, not only environmental hazards but, subtextual theme of struggling against fascistic entities…but I think I’ll save that one for another time. I’m just happy that Ben has consistently put out a good book every year for the last three years (not to mention the minis before and in between). Here’s to many more! Cheers! You can order a copy of Ideal Copy by Ben Sears from Copacetic Comics! ————————————————————— Frank Santoro‘s new book – Pittsburgh – is now available from Editions çà et là! You find out how to obtain a copy here in the States – HERE – on our site. While you’re there, takes some time to read some thoughtful French reviews featured therein. We’ve gone through the trouble to (Google) translate them for our fellow English-speaking readers. Check it out! ————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 6-4-18 – by Sally Ingraham Share this page: [...]

04/20/2018

Sally IngrahamApril 19, 2018NewsSally Ingraham here with work and news from Anya Davidson, Ramona Fradon, Gabriella Tito, and many more! ————————————————————————————————— Leah Mandel speaks to Anya Davidson about her work and the comic she made for The FADER – part of a comics feature in the spring issue where six cartoonists were asked to imagine a “future earth”. “Anya’s piece is like trading cards for the 2045 election, and she’s envisioned a race between a sea creature, the general of the Human’s Resistance Army, a cryogenics CEO, his kill-bot underling, a rat-human hybrid, and a Bernie Sanders-like Professor Roland Fredericks, Leader of the Democratic Republic of New Hampshire. Beauregard Trask, CEO of Traskorp Cryogenics, is the Republican nominee. His tagline? “Life begins after death.” All in all, not too far off.“ Anya is asked why she made a one-pager comic that isn’t necessarily narrative driven. Her answer: “I feel like some people are marathon runners, some are sprinters, and some are in between. As a cartoonist, I’m a marathonist. My normal format when I’m working on books, left to my own devices, is making longform works. When I’m asked to do shorter form work, for me the idea of putting a narrative on a single page is like, How would I even…? I love writing long dialogue. I’m kind of a maximalist, so the idea of trying to fit any kind of a narrative in that small of a space — I know it’s possible and there are people who do it beautifully — but how would I fit a story on a single page?“ Anya is working on a new book for Breakdown Press and doing her weekly podcast – Mindkiller – plus playing out more often with her band Lilac. She’s busy! Read more about what she’s up to and her thoughts about the future HERE. ————————————————————————————————— James Romberger has a con report for Big Apple Con at The Comics Beat – he snapped a pic of Ramon Fradon and scribbled this info about her: “Fradon deserves a lot of appreciation for the quality of her work and as perhaps the only female artist to rise to prominence at DC Comics in the Golden Age up through the Silver Age and beyond. She has always drawn with great fluidity and dynamism. Her beloved works include a long run on Aquaman and her co-creation, the incredibly bizarre Metamorpho and later in the seventies on Plastic Man, Super Friends and a series of moody, exceptionally expressive stories for DC horror titles. So she surely saw it all in her career, and yet she persevered in comics, eventually taking over the Brenda Starr daily/Sunday strip from 1980 to 1995.“ James Romberger’s other big discovery at the con was of particular interest to me, and it is unrelated to women in comics – HOWEVER, Sy Barry (pictured above) was a guest at the con, and he turns out to be the mysterious uncredited artist behind the famous Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story comic (which I wrote about recently)…! “Now, the truth is at last revealed. Barry says that he was given the job by the Capp Studio, which was run by Li’l Abner cartoonist Al Capp’s brother, Elliot Caplin. Barry stated that his name had been on the cover of the very first edition of the MLK comic, but for later printings his signature was replaced by a text box.“ Read more about this and the rest of the Big Apple Con HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Gabriella Tito has a new comic out called Heartsick. You can get a copy by emailing her – the info is above! Here’s a look inside. Gabriella Tito is a Floridian cartoonist and an alumni of the Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers. She has completed two residencies in Pittsburgh at the Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency, and has been co-creating the Suzy & Cecil comic strip with me (Sally Ingraham) for over a year. Keep up with her HERE and be sure to grab a copy of this rad new comic! ————————————————————————————————— While We’re on the Subject Françoise Mouly writes about Eleanor Davis‘ Why Art? for The New Yorker – read the review HERE. Keren Katz was a recent guest on the Process Party podcast – listen HERE. The Doug Wright Award nominations have been announced – among the nominees for Best Book are GG, for I’m Not There (Koyama Press), and Connor Willumsen, for Anti-Gone (Koyama Press). More details HERE. Check out Jessica Campbell’s new gallery show, Who Dis?, which features her “carpet paintings” – plus a radio interview on Chicago’s WDCB 90.9 FM – HERE. The Comics Journal has a feature piece on German cartoonist Olivia Vieweg. Her comic Endzeit was recently released in Germany, and is being serialized in English HERE on the web. Read about her comics and film projects HERE at tcj.com. Heidi MacDonald shares thoughts on her participation on a recent comics project – The 100 Pages that Shaped Comics list that Abraham Riesman initiated for Vulture. If you haven’t seen the list yet, it’s some good weekend reading – HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 4-20-2018 – by Gabriella Tito Share this page: [...]

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