Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in NewsTagged amy lockhart, anthology film archives, austin english, bill taylor, Jerry Saltz, john podesta, joyce rice, lyonel feininger, micah lee

Aaron Cockle

Posted on November 20, 2017November 21, 2017

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06/19/2018

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

10/11/2016

Aaron CockleOctober 10, 2016NewsAaron here today with CW festival events for this upcoming weekend; Chinese Comics; Agnes Martin; Dog City 3; Screening Dash Shaw; Reviewing Safe Distance; Some Notable Comics of Note ————————————————————————————————— Comics Workbook will be participating in 2 festivals this weekend in the U.S. and U.K. Cartoon Crossroads Columbus, October 13-16. We will be hosting workshops and tabling. Join Comics Workbook, along with cartoonists Alyssa Berg and Kurt Ankeny, for an immersive weekend of comics creation. We will examine art and the grid, bringing the strong artistic practices of Berg and Ankeny together with the discipline and rhythm of the grid, as laid out by Comics Workbook founder Frank Santoro. Four hours across two days will be filled with the exploration of a variety of techniques and methods which will inspire the beginner, and challenge the established cartoonist. Comics as jazz; comics as architecture; how a simple index card can transform your sequencing and storytelling process – come join us for an hour or four and take your comics making to a new level. The full festival schedule is here. The Lakes International Comic Art Festival, October 14-16. Join Frank Santoro, Aidan Koch, and Connor Willumsen for some cool workshops and visit table 67 in the Comics Clocktower to meet Oliver East and Jack Brougham, among others. We will be hosting 3 special workshops, “Visual Poetry” with Aidan Koch, “The Hammer Party” with Connor Willumsen and “Composition Competition” with Frank Santoro. Visit our event page for more information. ————————————————————————————————— Chinese Indie Comix Writer, critic, and translator R. Orion Martin has an overview of the Special Comix anthologies published in China during the past 10 years or so: Like other iterations of Special Comix, the artists are working in a range of qualities and directing their work towards diverse, sometimes mutually exclusive audiences. Some artists use the poster format to great effect, creating dense visual landscapes that challenge the reader to interpret them. Yayi’s intricately constructed illustration guides the viewer from one symbol-laden visual to another, refusing to settle into any obvious reading. Similarly, New York-based illustrators Lisk Feng and Jun Cen contribute surreal works that seem to a capture a single moment from a much longer tale. Lisk Feng’s work depicts a troop of Boy Scouts and the creatures that haunt them, while Jun Cen presents a naked woman who has just encountered a giant praying mantis encased in a Mignola-esque crystal prison. Though both these artists come from a background in illustration, they use the poster format to build the foundation for a narrative that could develop in multiple directions. Image above by Chihoi, I’m waiting for you to come back (from Special Comix 6: Transform). Additionally, Martin has been conducting interviews with Chinese cartoonists and artists (Yan Cong, Li Kong, Fanqiao Wang), as well as translating work into English (Bu Er Miao). ————————————————————————————————— Agnes Martin on view at the Guggenheim through January 11 One of the few female artists who gained recognition in the male-dominated art world of the 1950s and ’60s, Martin is a pivotal figure between two of that era’s dominant movements: Abstract Expressionism and Minimalism. Her content—an expression of essential emotions—relates her to the earlier group, the Abstract Expressionists, but her methods—repetition, geometric compositions, and basic means—were adopted by the Minimalists, who came to prominence during the ’60s. Martin’s work, however, is more than a bridge between the two. It stands apart by never losing sight of the subjective while aspiring toward perfection. “I would like to represent beauty, innocence and happiness,” she said. “I would like them all to represent that. Exaltation.” ————————————————————————————————— Dog City #3 CW’s intrepid Juan Fernandez recently unearthed some copies of Dog City 3, from 2014. From his Instagram: I found some of the LAST copies of Dog City 3 and took some to @copaceticcomics – the rest of ’em are safe and sound at my place 😉 Want to bring one of these puppies home?$27 bux postpaid. US shipping only. “The comics expo in a box.” Mad props to Closed Caption Comics for setting the bar way back when. For those of you not yet in the know: Dog City is a small press comics magazine dedicated to publishing quality minicomics. Each issue of Dog City consists of a curated selection of minicomics packaged in an artfully designed cardboard box. Dog City 3 features comics by: Jennifer Lisa, Sophie Goldstein, Caitlin Rose Boyle, Luke Healy, Simon Reinhardt, Amelia Onorato, dw n me, Allison Banister and Tom O’Brien with a collaborative mini, Iris Yan, D. Rinylo – prints and posters by Laurel Lynne Leake and Steven Krall + reprints a selection of strips from the now-forgotten newspaper series Who’s Zoo, which has been restored and compiled by Reilly Hadden! ————————————————————————————————— Making My Entire High School Sinking Into the Sea Wednesday, October 12, 7pm, as part of the New York Film Festival, at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, 144 West 65the Street, NYC With My Entire High School Sinking into the Sea, playing in this year’s Main Slate, celebrated graphic novelist Dash Shaw and his team have created a beautifully layered, colorful, and entertaining new animated film. Shaw’s first feature is a comic adventure about friends overcoming their differences and having each other’s backs in times of crisis, and its marvelously complex characters are voiced by Jason Schwartzman, Lena Dunham, Reggie Watts, Maya Rudolph, and Susan Sarandon. This discussion—featuring writer-director Dash Shaw, lead animator Jane Samborski, and producer Kyle Martin—will go behind the scenes to explore the making of this distinctive new movie. ————————————————————————————————— James K. Hindle’s mini-comic, Safe Distance, is reviewed over at Sequential State Hindle sets the stage of the comic with a bizarre chemical spill that only affects his apartment. The strange spill causes an overgrowth of plants and trees inside his apartment, eventually causing the destruction of his home and his disconnection from the rest of the world. The metaphor of destructive change, acceptance, and growth links closely with the way death affects families and people. No matter where you are when you start, you aren’t the same at the end. The grieving, the anger, those final questions – they all change you irrevocably. ————————————————————————————————— B.A.C. 2016 The Notable Comics list from The Best American Comics 2016 has been posted, see if you (or someone you may care dearly for and/or feel massively ambivalent about) are on the list! Thanks to series editor Bill Kartalopoulos for compiling and painstakingly linking to each of the cartoonists and their individual works on the list. And here’s a quick note from Bill K about the B.A.C. series: As Series Editor of The Best American Comics, it is my job to attempt to see as many of each year’s most interesting comics as I can. The majority of these arrive as submissions through our public postal address (below). Others I find by attending comics festivals, consulting with colleagues, reaching out individually to artists and publishers, visiting comic books stores, endlessly scanning the internet, and generally keeping my antenna up at all times. After nearly a year of looking and reading, I forward to each year’s Guest Editor a selection of more than one hundred outstanding works. From this pool of material, the Guest Editor selects the pieces that will appear in each year’s Best American Comics (while retaining, as well, the latitude to bring in some work they may have discovered independently). On the subject of our process, I cannot urge any artist or publisher strongly enough to submit work to Best American Comics. We have a completely open submission process, and all work that is submitted will be considered. Please send work, labeled with contact information and date of publication, to: Bill Kartalopoulos Series Editor The Best American Comics Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company 3 Park Avenue, 19th floor New York, NY 10016 ————————————————————————————————— Have you seen the recent collaboration between Frank Santoro and master jeweler Airi Maeno? Want to help us get Connor Willumsen to The Lakes International Comic Art Festival? Share this page: [...]

02/16/2017

Sally IngrahamFebruary 15, 2017NewsSam Ombiri riffs on Henry Darger and Hideo Furukawa, and Sally shares updates from the Fifth Annual Black Comic Book Festival and other comics news! ————————————————————————————————— Sam Ombiri here: I’ve really been into this Henry Darger documentary – The Realms of the Unreal. It’s really good. There’s this amazing part where they are recounting a time when Henry lost one picture – one that I think was one of his main references for drawing the girls. (Editor’s Note: “The girls” are the Vivian Girls, characters in Darger’s 15,000 page fantasy novel The Realms of the Unreal.) He held in such high regard that the story changes as a result, and he punishes his characters until he can find the picture. That part was amazing. I kind of skipped all over the place as a result of my low attention span, so I don’t remember where it was. I think my attention span wass also lowered because this documentary reminded me of the ones I’d see in elementary school that I wouldn’t pay attention to. At times I feel Henry Darger would purposely lie to himself in order to go through with a certain aspect of the story, and then get away from that lie. At least I’d like to think that, but maybe I’m the one doing that. There’s a part in this video where Jesse Moynihan talks about how there’s still power in rearranging history and things aren’t tied down to one telling. Or in what feels like a similar spirit, Hideo Furukawa, who is known for sometimes writing remixes of already written books, says “Music can be divided into melody and the rest, and you can take out either of them separately. If you take out the former, you “cover” that music; if you take out the whole of the latter, you “remix” it. Likewise, fiction is divided into the narrative and the rest.” At the beginning of his novel Belka Why Don’t You Bark he puts at the beginning, “Yes I admit this is fiction but then what isn’t?” He also put after that, “This book is dedicated to Boris Yeltsin; Hey Boris I know your secret!” Hideo continued, “The narrative needs some vehicle, which is provided by different storytellers each age. In other words, the same narrative can change their vehicle, and in that sense the simple re-telling (covering, you might say) is always possible. Remixing is, for me anyway, an attempt to go beyond that, to take the whole of the preceding work.” Hideo Furukawa is someone who’s often referred to as a chameleon for doing all kinds of experiments with the way he writes his books. (Side Note: I like CF’s idea that experimenting just means not taking yourself seriously and that you go into a state where the ordinary laws of creativity don’t apply. I think it’s what he said.) Here’s one experiment Hideo Furukawa did, for example: There’s this book called Tribes of Arabian Nights that takes place in Cairo. Because there were more and more books coming into Japan that needed to be translated, he claimed that he didn’t write the novel, he was just translating it. (At least that’s what I think could be his reason. This is just speculation on my part – this was the automatic reason that formed in my mind. The more I think about it though that’s like every country.) I’m not too sure what Hideo’s remixes are like. Thankfully there’s gonna be one that’s being released in English in June which I’m excited to read. Although, I’d rather just read one of his actual novels. I read part of something he did for Tale of Genji, but it wasn’t strictly speaking a remix – it wasn’t a retelling. To my knowledge it doesn’t have the same rules as his remixes. For one thing, he re-titled it 300 Treacherous Women, instead of Tale of Genji Remix (which would make for a pretty hilarious title. My one friend was telling me about how this musician who I think is part of the Brainfeeder collective recorded Pomegranates by Parajanov. My immediate reaction was ha ha oh no!) Hideo’s version of the story was more based on a ghost coming and proclaiming how, until the story was modified back to how it actually happened, this one woman would keep giving unrest to this other woman. I assume his remixes are different. Hideo said, “For the remix of Kenji Miyazawa’s The Bears of Mount Nametoko the bears appear in the ‘Mount Nametoko’ story. In Japan bears are something of a deity, reigning over the mountains (the natural world). They don’t appear in towns (the human world). Hunters, however, play the role of mediators, and turn part of the mountains into commodities, which are circulated in the towns. What we witness here is the violent contact between nature and man. We are made to face the fact that bears are something which are not cattle but are eaten, and humans allow themselves to take something out of nature to keep themselves alive in this world. Kenji Miyazawa, as author Kenji, kept writing about this staggering fact. When Japan was violently attacked by nature in 2011 (the year of the Great East Japan Earthquake), I thought I, as author Hideo Furukawa, had to retell those stories written by Kenji. I could re-tell the stories, precisely because Kenji had already told them.” – Sam Ombiri ————————————————————————————————— Sally here – Over on Vice there’s a video of Ronald Wimberly speaking at the Schomburg Center during the Fifth Annual Black Comic Book Festival. Wimberly tells us about growing up in D.C., his new book, and what it means to have black representation in comics. Check it out HERE (watch the full episode of ‘Daily VICE’ on go90.) There was a nice write-up of the Fifth Annual Black Comic Book Festival (which took place Jan. 13th and 14th 2017) on Okay Africa – it includes lots of pictures! Even better than pictures, The Blerdgurl offers up Part One of her interview series with creators at the Black Comic Book Festival this year – check it out below! ————————————————————————————————— The Comics Reporter draws our attention to a treasure-trove of Ta-Nehisi Coates‘ thoughts about writing The Black Panther, posted on The Atlantic – HERE. From his interest in the Dora Milajae – the all-female troop of bodyguards to the King – and how he uses them to talk about feminism in the story, to the poetry that opens and closes issue #3, to his thoughts on Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing, there’s a lot of interesting stuff to unpack. ————————————————————————————————— From the Comics Workbook TV archives – Bill Boichel riffs on Jackie Ormes. She was the first African-American woman to be a syndicated cartoonist. She is one of the nominees for this year’s Will Eisner Hall of Fame inductees. ————————————————————————————————— Announcing the Spring Semester of thee Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers! The course starts March 7th 2017. Apply by February 26th to get 100 bux off! The course is 8 weeks long – payment plans are available. Application guidelines: – 3 figure drawings done on blank 3 x 5 index cards – 3 landscape drawings done on blank 3 x 5 index cards – 3 still life drawings done on blank 3 x 5 cards – draw in a contour line style –think Matisse – no under-drawing – draw directly in ink – just send me small jpgs of images – dont post to your blog pls – send specific url links to any comics work you have done. If you haven’t done comics before that is not a problem. Email santoroschoolATgmail to apply! More details HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Blinkers – 2-16-2017 – by Jack Brougham ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 2-16-2017 – by Sally Ingraham ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 2-16-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio ————————————————————————————————— Cozytown – 2-16-2017 – by Juan Fernandez Share this page: [...]

03/29/2018

Comics WorkbookMarch 28, 2018NewsHere’s Sam Ombiri on Sophie Goldstein’s House of Women! ————————————————————————————————— Sam Ombiri here: At times when I read comics I’m really invested in the scenario being presented, and I don’t really identify the characters well enough. I’m reading the story and I have to interrupt myself to study who is who. With House of Women by Sophie Goldstein, however, I was really struck by the characters’ various expressions, and the gestures the characters would make. I was impressed by how much information was conveyed through this, and in ways that aren’t that obvious. I was just reading and reading, invested in the scenario, but I found that I was experiencing who each character was in a different way. It wasn’t just their distinctive design – it had more to do with their facial expressions, and the moments that took place really stuck in my mind after reading because I could feel who the characters were. Before the characters could speak, I felt a deep understanding of who they were. Whenever characters would act a certain way, it would come as no surprise because just their facial expressions would communicate so much. This was more so for Sarai, Kizzy, Rhivka, and Aphra than for Mr. Dean or the aliens (above). And that makes sense. It’s the equivalent of shining a spotlight. For example, it’s not unlike Aphra to look so cross – she’s clearly a very level-headed person, so when she looks cross or worried, it’s for good reason. When Kizzy appreciates the smell of the blossoms or is really taken by children, it’s very expected. Rhivka, for good reason, is hard to pin down and her absence is really felt. She looks like someone who would be mysteriously absent while the other women are gathered. All the expressions a character has ever made has molded that character’s face, and their gestures dictate the shape of their body. I was really struck by this – maybe because the style the book is drawn in is seemingly trying to get in the way of the story. It seems like there are things that should be obscuring my understanding and such, but the story is so clearly laid out – even the word balloons tell me where to go as a reader. What’s alluded to is what’s being said, making a rhyme with the image and words. Maybe I’m also thinking about how straightforward the visual narration in The Oven was, whereas in House of Women Sophie Goldstein is more specific with how moments should unfold. The book is very aware of a reader reading the pages – each moment is paced very distinctly. If a scene is of the women walking up a hill (above), the page is drawn in such a way that you feel it, you feel the moment passing slowly. It’s a case of using the comics medium to its full extent. This is perhaps like it’s filmic counterpart, Black Narcissus. I was anticipating a retelling of Black Narcissus because of how much Sophie emphasized it as a major influence – though truth be told, to me it was very far from that. I see maybe, for lack of a better term, iconography from Black Narcissus (like the title itself for example), and certain moments from Black Narcissus playing out in the book, but it simultaneously feels independent of the movie and any comparison to it would be inappropriate. What happened to Rhivka is perhaps comparable to Sister Ruth in Black Narcissus, but Rhivka is more aware of what’s happening to her. There is also this Cronenberg-esque mutation that one of the alien natives has gone through. This was actually a fantastic point in the book. The alien’s mutation was amazing. I really liked the design of the aliens in the book. All the drawings in this book are enjoyable both to look at, and to read – from the way the story is told through the panels, to the way the sounds the characters are hearing is communicated, and the words the characters say to each other. All great. – Sam Ombiri Get a copy of House of Women by Sophie Goldstein HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Announcing the Spring Semester of thee Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers 8 weeks! $500 bux! 10 spots available! Rolling start date because of spring break – start as early as March 30th 2018. Deadline to apply is April 12th. Read all about the course HERE and email santoroschool@gmail.com for more details or to apply. ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 3-29-2018 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

03/28/2016

Juan FernándezMarch 28, 2016NewsJuan Fernandez here today to start your week off with the latest: Comics readings, workshops and expos in Pittsburgh; Bill Griffith and Art Spiegelman reflect with Karen Green; HTMLFlowers’ sincere and open interview on Inkstuds; Jessica Campbell with the hyucks; OpenToonz in the hands of millions . ————————————————————————————————— BLITZBURGH No beating around the bush here, there’s a load of comics happenings this week in Pittsburgh, big and small. Comics readings, free workshops and PIX. Lots of different ways to soak up the comics! More information on PIX. This Friday, the Lili Café in Polish Hill will celebrate PIX by hosting a night of comics readings and performaces by Carl Antonowicz, Juan Fernandez (me), Sophie Goldstein, Cynthia Lee, Jennifer Lisa, Rachel Masilamani and Noah Van Sciver. Copacetic Comics, on the third floor, will be open late for a post-reading hang out. Find out more here. To celebrate PIX 2016 on Saturday, Comics Workbook is offering a full day of hands on comics instruction and training in partnership with the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh – South Side. Come bring work for critique, practice your comics composition, or simply try your hand at comics making for the first time. We have activities to embolden the hearts and enliven the spirits of professional and amateur comics makers alike. 3:30-4:30 PM Legendary Underground comics artist Bill Griffith will be conducting a FREE hour-long drawing workshop (with handouts) as part of this year’s PIX activities. That’s right, learn how to draw from the creator of Zippy the Pinhead. There will be Comics Workbook workshops all day long at the Carnegie Library on the South Side. Please RSVP. – More workshop schedule updates to come. – ————————————————————————————————— Green, Griffith and Spiegelman Here on the site, John Kelly has brought us some snippets from Bill Griffith and Art Spiegelman’s latest public talk. Former Arcade magazine editors and Underground Cartooning legends Bill Griffith and Art Spiegelman discuss their early days as artists at a talk given March 16, 2016 at Columbia University commemorating Griffith’s announcement that he will be bequeathing a large portion of his personal art archives to the University. The talk was moderated by Karen Green, Columbia’s Librarian for Ancient & Medieval History and Graphic Novels. Check ’em out here! ————————————————————————————————— Inkstuds: HTMLFLOWERS HTML Flowers aka Grant Gronewold joined Robin over on Inkstuds to talk about his art, comics and music. We also coverchronic health conditions in modern medical bureaucracy, mortality, and the urge to make comics. His series of mini comics, No Visitors, is availabe for order right now,. Grant’s also got a book out from Space Face Books called Virtual Candle as well as his collaborations with Simon Hanselmann in Werefolf Jones and Sons. This interview right here, It’s a good one, folks. Listen to it over on Inkstuds. ————————————————————————————————— Best Jokes? Jessica Campbell is back with the hyucks. Dig into them all over on her site, bestjokes.tumblr.com. ————————————————————————————————— OpenToonz Last but not least, the robust 2D animation software suite, OpenToonz was made open source through a partnership between Italian developer Digital Video and Japanese company Dwango. Big ups to them. If you hadn’t caught wind of this yet, it is a game changer for 2D animation production, the kind that is going to lead to an increase in drawn animation production. For the comics maker and animator in a pinch, this powerful, free alternative to Adobe and Toonboom is a godsend. Go forth and make! Download it here – https://opentoonz.github.io/e/index.html A How to get started tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMskd30Y9Js For more info in case your install doesn’t work properly on that check this forum out. https://groups.google.com/forum/… Share this page: [...]

11/21/2017

Posted on November 20, 2017November 21, 2017 by Aaron Cockle

Aaron Cockle here today with Amy Lockhart at Anthology Film Archives; Jerry Saltz on Bill Taylor; Austin English on ‘Feininger’s Grandkids’; Spearfishing Explained (in comics format)

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SHOW & TELL: AMY LOCKHART
At Anthology Film Archives, Thursday, December 7, 7:30pm

An animator with a style and sensibility entirely her own, Amy Lockhart has been drawing pictures of creepy ladies since she was seven years old. Utilizing everything from paper cutouts and puppets to digital tools, Lockhart’s films exude a handcrafted, rough-edged surrealism. Populated primarily by female figures whose body types are as distinctive and transgressive as those of R. Crumb, as well as by a cavalcade of anthropomorphized animals, objects, and shapes, her universe evokes kids-show animation seen through a distinctly demented lens, while also displaying a genuinely childlike, pre-socialized preoccupation with bodily functions. Profoundly intuitive and endlessly surprising, Lockhart’s mysterious and delirious world behaves according to a logic that’s as astonishing as it is inscrutable.

“Amy Lockhart works across a range of mediums including zines, sculptures, paintings, drawings, and animations. Her work exudes an imperfection and oddness that feels very human, at once unpredictable, heartfelt, funny, and disturbing. Many of her works feature an array of stumbling, distorted cartoon characters whose misshapen bodies limp, bend, and bulge, often while smoking, licking, drooling, or crying. Also recurring in her work are disembodied facial features, hands, and limbs, as well as various joyfully rendered muscly women, frequently missing their arms. Such characters drive her work, but there is as much pleasure and interest to be taken in the way they are drawn, animated or constructed as in what they do or who they are. The form of her work has its own rich, non-verbal meaning and content.” – Edwin Rostron, EDGE OF FRAME

SYLVA LINING (1998, 1 min, 16mm)
THE DEVIL LIVES IN HOLLYWOOD (1999, 6 min, 16mm)
MISS EDMONTON TEENBURGER 1983 IN, IT’S PARTY TIME! (2001, 17 min, digital)
MISS EDMONTON TEENBURGER 1983 IN, YOU’RE ETERNAL… (2002, 6 min, digital)
WALK FOR WALK (2005, 10 min, 16mm)
THE COLLAGIST (2009, 2 min, digital)
LANDSCAPE (2012, 8 min, digital)
JESSICA (2014, 5 min, digital)

Total running time: ca. 60 min.

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Jerry Saltz on Instagram

Bill Taylor, via Jerry Saltz’s Instagram

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Austin English at TCJ

I have a personal theory as to why Doucet abandoned comics, one that relates to the context of this column but might not bear out factually. Anyone who wants to correct me should do so. But bear with me: Doucet, being a extremely sophisticated artist, continued to sharpen and evolve. Her mature comics work, My New York Diary, is as sharp a piece of traditional cartooning as one can find in the alternative era. But after that story, Doucet leaves comics. My theory is that Doucet looks at what people define “real” comics as, pushes her work in that direction, and thinks, “Well… why bother with all this if this is what people want?” Her early and later work are, to me, without flaw. But I’d argue that the comics community’s view of what a serious artist must apply themselves to is a pressure that doesn’t need to be grafted on to every artist. And yet the view is so dominant that it’s hard to avoid. Someone like Doucet can master the ins and outs of traditional cartoon integrity but probably notices quicker than most what a closed system it is, how much feeling it excludes and how much one gives up to offer one’s entire art up to it.

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Artwork by Joyce Rice, script by Micah Lee

‘Instead of opening a sketchy attachment on your computer, upload it to Google Drive and look at it in your web browser.’

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Vision Box – 11-21-2017 – by Cameron Arthur

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Suzy and Cecil – 11-21-2017 – by Sally Ingraham

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Caleb Orecchio – 11-21-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio

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Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in NewsTagged amy lockhart, anthology film archives, austin english, bill taylor, Jerry Saltz, john podesta, joyce rice, lyonel feininger, micah lee

Aaron Cockle

Posted on November 20, 2017November 21, 2017

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09/30/2016

Sally IngrahamSeptember 30, 2016NewsSally here with Meg Lemke on censorship, the return of Karen Berger, reviews of work by Whit Taylor, Hazel Newlevant, and Daryl Seitchik, Ulli Lust on “drawing as language”, and Sarah Bowie’s adventures in Angouleme. ————————————————————————————————— On the site we have the first roundup of photos from the Comics Workbook hosted cartoon workshops at the Small Press Expo 2016! Check them out HERE. ————————————————————————————————— The last week in September is traditionally Banned Book Week. This annual event put on by the American Library Association brings attention to the books that have received censorship across the years, but more importantly it is a celebration of the freedom to read whatever you want. Meg Lemke, Editor-and-Chief of MUTHA, wrote a piece for Pen America on Jillian and Mariko Tamaki’s This One Summer, which has been frequently removed from schools and K-12 school libraries for it’s use of “profanity” and “vulgarity”. Comics have always had a close relationship with the firing squad, and Lemke muses on why: “As with other banned comics (such as Alison Bechdel’s lauded Fun Home), we see how easily images read as obscenity to those unfamiliar with the form. They are seen as more dangerous by their accessibility. It is what makes them attractive to younger readers, and too tempting a mark for censorship.” – Meg Lemke for Pen Read the rest of the piece HERE. Read an excerpt from This One Summer HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Karen Berger is BACK! If that name is unfamiliar, get on the same page quick: “For three decades, she worked as an editor at mega-publisher DC Comics, and her long list of accomplishments while there can mostly be traced back to one risky venture: creating and running a mature-leaning imprint called Vertigo from 1993 to 2013. In that position she did more than just about anybody else in comics history to get ambitious, avant-garde, serious non-superhero work in front of a mass audience. The Sandman, V for Vendetta, Preacher, iZombie, Y: The Last Man, Transmetropolitan, 100 Bullets, Hellblazer — those are just a few of the better-known titles Vertigo produced during Berger’s tenure.” – via Vulture.com After a falling out with DC Comics and a silence of 3 years, Karen Berger has returned to the scene, making her return with a new comic she’s edited – Surgeon X – which hit stands on Sept. 28th. More on this story HERE. (via The Comics Reporter) ————————————————————————————————— Rob Clough has reviews of Whit Taylor‘s Wallpaper and Hazel Newlevant‘s Tender-Hearted on High-Low this week! Check them out HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Ulli Lust has a report on the International Comics Festival Boomfest on her blog – check it out HERE and plug into the Russian alternative comics scene for a bit. Speaking of Ulli Lust, she has a preview on her website of one page from the new book she’s been working on over the last 3 years. Page 333: ————————————————————————————————— And to continue speaking of Ulli Lust, she was one of several cartoonists who appear in a series of films about “drawing as language”, made by the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Art. Gabrielle Bell, Ben Katchor, Jooste Swart, and Joe Sacco, among others, are also interviewed. Ulli Lust’s film is below: ————————————————————————————————— The Comics Beat presents a review of Daryl Seitchik‘s Exits (Koyama Press, 2016). “Moving past something might be the central message of Seitchik’s story, and the idea that even as a healthy endeavor it might not look like we expect it and it might have its own set of issues. Claire moves past the corporeal being that she feels is the center of her problems, but pushing that aside to another state doesn’t really solve anything for her, and reality becomes the result of whatever you make of it.” – John Seven Read the rest HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Sarah Bowie is in Angouleme, doing a residency in La Maison des Auteurs – and she is keeping a diary of the adventure. Today’s story: Catch up and keep up with Sarah HERE. ————————————————————————————————— If you haven’t seen it yet, check out the video of Cameron Weston Nicholson‘s workshop at SPX – he riffs on many of the things that I love about making comics myself. Well worth a watch! ————————————————————————————————— Help send Connor Willumsen to the UK for The Lakes International Comic Arts Festival in October! ————————————————————————————————— It’s finally feeling like Fall in Pittsburgh! I have plans to usher October in with some spooky reading and adventures in apple orchards. Have a good weekend folks! – Sally Share this page: [...]

11/19/2018

Caleb OrecchioNovember 19, 2018NewsCaleb Orecchio here with a wonky layout from a Gray Morrow page. ————————————————————————————————— Mindy Newell serves an incredibly personal PSA to readers in 1986. Within the pages of this two-issue mini-series, aggressive ace reporter Lois Lane investigates the epidemic of missing children sweeping Metropolis and the nation. Nothing will stop her in her pursuit, but is Lois taking on too much by herself? Will she except the help from her friends and estranged sister? The story, though heavy-handed at times, is sincere and written by an author with a purpose. I picked these issues up for the Gray Morrow art and Joe Orlando colors. I’m impressed by Morrow’s resistance, or the appearance of resistance, of relying on photo reference. As a result, there is little in the way of awkward, collage-y images that feel stiff and contrived; a common, yet not always unwelcome (by me), plague of Morrow’s comics. The pages herein are smoothly and professionally cartooned. More or less. Actually Morrow struggles as usual to make a format that even resembles a coherent structure. Below is an interesting example. A variation on the “shattered-glass” approach to comic page formatting. This way of making comics almost always looks clunky. The word balloons are unorganized, the space allowed for figures and backgrounds seems cramped, and the eye has a hell of a time knowing where to look. If you are following the dialogue, the page is divided into two tiers. The middle horizontal gutter dividing the top half from the bottom. I have shown the sequence of panels in accordance to the word balloons below: However, I think Morrow meant the page to read clockwise. Like this: Follow the sequence of the images as I see it. In the third panel, Lois slaps a newspaper with her backhand. In panel 5 the paper is still on the editor’s desk. She appears to pick the paper up in panel 6. They way the dialogue determines the sequence, Lois would have smacked the paper, picked it up, and put the paper back down again. Visually, it doesn’t make much sense. Still, the way I think Morrow intended the sequence to work makes for tricky reading due to the horizontal middle gutter because the reader would have to abandon the traditional rules of comic book reading. I think the editor, Robert Greenberger, made an executive decision and made the page read traditionally not only due to the middle gutter, but due to the fact that the clockwise reading presumably intended by Morrow ruins the flow of the spread by making the reader start in the top left of the spread, down to the bottom left corner and back up to the top left corner of the facing page. As oppose to the traditional pattern of top left to bottom right of the page, and top left to bottom right of the facing page. These are things that jump out at me and urk me. This is a flawed page and makes for confusing comics. I feel that cartoonists make these kind of pages in service to some strange sense of making personal art. Cartoonists must learn from these formatting mistakes and not fall victim to such practices. Keep it simple, stupid. ————————————————————————————————— Share this page: [...]

06/25/2018

Caleb OrecchioJune 25, 2018NewsCaleb Orecchio here with thoughts on Chilling Adventures in Sorcery #3, featuring the art of Gray Morrow, and other news! ——————————————————————————— I was delighted to pull this issue out of the Comics Workbook vault. It’s an all Gray Morrow issue of Chilling Adventures in Sorcery published by Archie Comics’ imprint, Red Circle. I enjoy Morrow’s comics immensely. I just look at the pictures. Morrow’s gift (other than his virtuosic drawing ability) is his knack for making interesting pages. Comics like Orion (for Heavy Metal) and Edge of Chaos (a limited series for Pacific Comics) feel much more from Morrow’s head if you will. Imagined. They’re great. In contrast, comics like the one featured here today, feel more stitched together to me. More collage-y. In a good way. Usually I detest any whiff of photo-reference in comics, but Morrow makes it work. Occasionally the sequencing is a little wonky and the referenced images juxtaposed with the imagined images can be jarring, but overall the pages are pleasing to the eye. There is a dynamism to his work that makes up for a lot. Simply, Morrow’s comics are always interesting. He seemed to have a real desire to “wow” the reader. Every page is crammed with interesting imagery. And those colors! Morrow was one of those cartoonists who seemed to think in color as he made the comic, as opposed to most who only use color as an afterthought. Have you ever seen Orion in those old Heavy Metals? Those are hand painted. Is it just me, or is there a swagger to his work? Like, I can imagine him at the drawing board and drinking a glass of Dewar’s and laughing to himself, knowing how impressed I’d be in however many years I’d be born to see the work. ——————————————————————————— Thee Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers Summer Session starts NOW! Floating start date! Apply anytime between now and July 12th 2018 to join the summer course. Email santoroschoolATgmail for more details. Ask about the Fall Course if now is too busy for you! The course is 8 weeks – 500 bux for 8 weeks plus access to Frank’s coaching for as long as you need. Payment plans are available. Put your summer to good use! ——————————————————————————— if you don’t know, now you know There’s a new book of CF drawings and you can get one What Things Do Laura Lannes is the latest guest on TCJ’s Comic Book Decalogue Rob Clough reviews Young Frances by Hartley Lin (Ethan Rilly) Also on TCJ.com, a review by Matt Seneca and a look at Fantom Comics in Washington D.C. ——————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 6-25-2018 – 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: [...]

01/24/2017

Aaron CockleJanuary 23, 2017NewsAaron here today with Sophie Yanow on the ground in DC; what we talk about when we talk about Chinese Comics; Paper Jazz Festival; Frank Johnson; some light reading (courtesy of The New Inquiry); Dr Seuss, political cartoonist. ————————————————————————————————— Dispatch from D.C. Intrepid reporter Sophie Yanow was at this past weekend’s U.S. presidential inauguration. ————————————————————————————————— The 174th meeting of the NY Comics & Picture-story Symposium will be held on Tuesday, January 24, 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. Orion Martin on The Largest Comics Industry Ever: China’s Pulp Comics Beginning in Shanghai in the 1920s, a vibrant culture of mass produced comics developed in mainland China. These pocket-sized comics, called lianhuanhua, became one of the most popular forms of entertainment in the country and were printed in tremendous quantities. In 1985, the peak year of lianhuanhua production, more than eight billion comics were printed in genres ranging from historical parables to adaptations of Star Wars. Demand for the comics has decreased since the 1980s, but hundreds of thousands continue to circulate in antique stores and online. R. Orion Martin is writer and translator based in Brooklyn, New York. He writes about comics, art, and the ways new understandings of comics can make them more meaningful to our lives. His work has been featured on Hyperallergic, The Comics Journal, and The Hooded Utilitarian. You can find him on Tumblr or Twitter. Here’s the Spring 2017 Symposium schedule as well, if you are interested: ————————————————————————————————— Paper Jam is now Paper Jazz Rising like a phoenix from the ashes, or like Jean Grey/Phoenix, or whatever, The Paper Jazz Festival has emerged as a replacement for the much-loved and now-defunct Paper Jam Festival. We do this in recognition of free-to-table/free-to-attend (or donation-based) fairs that have been running as long or longer than us like Pete’s Mini Zine Fest, NYC Feminist Zine Fest, Zinefeast, Locust Moon, Etc. We will also continue to never repeat exhibitors, which was inspired somewhat by the Toronto Comic Arts Festival’s policies. Our fest has always been a collective of influences, we want everyone in the zine/small press/comics/chapbook/editions community to feel welcome and appreciated. With this rebrand we want to emphasize safer spaces, inclusivity, accountability, and transparency. We encourage folks to reach out to us on tumblr or paperjazzfest@gmail.com. ————————————————————————————————— Frank Johnson, Outsider Cartoonist The Outsider Art Fair was held this past weekend at the Metropolitan Pavilion in NYC, and one of the highlights was the Dan Nadel-curated work of Chicago cartoonist Frank Johnson (1912-1979) at the Chris Byrne booth. From Nadel’s curatorial statement: From as early as 1928 until 1979 he filled 28 notebooks, totaling approximately 1800 pages, with a continuous comic strip detailing the adventures of a fantasy group of friends, “Wally’s Gang”, and completed approximately 100 cartoon drawings. This work was found by his widow after he died. Neither she nor anyone else knew that he drew them, and there is no record of his having published anything or even corresponded with any cartoonists. Nadel’s been aware of Johnson’s work for some time, and wrote an essay about it in the Summer 2005 issue of Folk Art: The American Folk Art Museum Magazine, pages 57-63. ————————————————————————————————— A reading list created by a group of Black, Brown, Indigenous, Muslim, and Jewish people who are writers, organizers, teachers, anti-fascists, anti-capitalists, and radicals. WE studied and pursued methods for revolutionary social change before Trump came to power, and our core focus remains the same: abolishing the ever-enlarging systems of hierarchy, control, and environmental destruction necessary to sustain the growth of capital. With the ascendance of White nationalist ambition to the upper echelons of empire, we have given special attention to struggles waged and endured by marginalized people for whom the fight against capital has always been a concurrent fight against Anglo-Saxon supremacy. Via The New Inquiry ————————————————————————————————— ‘… and the wolf chewed up the children and spit out their bones… but those were foreign children and it really didn’t matter.’ As always, Dr. Seuss provides us some vital context for these times. More of his political cartooning work has been posted as part of the UC-San Diego digital collections. ————————————————————————————————— Look into Donald’s eyes – look DEEPLY. ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 1-23-2017 – by Sally Ingraham Suzy and Cecil – 1-24-2017 – by Sally Ingraham ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 1-24-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio ————————————————————————————————— 1-24-2017 – by Juan Fernández Share this page: [...]

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