Comics Workbook

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Posted in NewsTagged emil ferris, Gabrielle Bell, jessica campbell, Kyung Me, Lala Albert, nnedi okorafor, sally ingraham

Sally Ingraham

Posted on December 14, 2017

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11/11/2016

Sally IngrahamNovember 11, 2016NewsSally here with some odds and ends as you head into the weekend! ————————————————————————————————— Spend some time today with Carol Tyler’s Soldier’s Heart (Fantagraphics, 2016) – read Annie Mok’s review of the collection via The Comics Journal. Get a copy HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Jessica Campbell was interviewed by Culture Trip this week about her new book Hot or Not: 20th-Century Male Artists (Koyama Press, 2016). “You take a lighthearted, humorous approach to your definitive sexual judgments, but your book is obviously a simultaneous commentary on a very real historical – and contemporary – issue surrounding the objectified female figure. What do you want your readers to take away from Hot or Not? My hope is that the absurdity of this idea – of gauging men’s work by their appearances – will make evident the absurdity of doing the same to women. And while I don’t really think it’s the case that women artists are discussed in terms of how “hot” they are, an artist’s appearance is not irrelevant to their careers. What gender someone presents as, race, class, sexuality, nationality all become relevant the further an artist strays from straight, white, male, etc. There are so many exhibitions where the only curatorial construct is that all of the artists are black, or women, or queer, and that doesn’t really address the problem. That further surreptitiously implies the white, male and straight as “neutral” positions and everything else as charged.“ Read the full interview HERE. ————————————————————————————————— There was an interview with Liz Suburbia in Razorcake awhile back that I just stumbled across. Her book Sacred Heart was recently published by Fantagraphics. “Natalye: What specifically about zines and punk influenced your direction? Liz: I think most of all it’s been the big DIY principle of making and sharing your own shit with your friends, instead of just consuming what the culture at large is manufacturing with a bottom line in mind. It’s the idea that wanting to do something is enough—you don’t have to be at a certain skill level, you don’t have to have a certain number of people paying attention, and it doesn’t matter if it’s forgotten a year from now or if it ever gets any kind of notice or makes any money. When you’re just making a zine or writing a song or whatever for your own edification, or to share with your friends because you love them and you want to do something fun for them, it keeps you in the moment. It’s what helps us feel alive. And the freedom that comes from that can open up a space for amazing things, like art and ideas that really push boundaries and platforms for people whose voices don’t get heard otherwise. My surface aesthetic tastes are fickle, but that core world view is going to enliven and sustain me until the day I die.“ Read the rest of the interview HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Dash Shaw: “I fulfilled my fantasy of being a Classics Illustrated cartoonist by doing a short comic of Willa Cather’s “O Pioneers!” for the latest issue of The Happy Reader.” Nice one Dash! Check out a recent interview with Dash on making the film My Entire High School Sinking Into the Sea HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Jim Rugg: “I follow a lot of skateboarders and skate companies for Street Angel research. One of my favorite resources is Girl Is Not a 4 Letter Word. It’s founder, Cindy Whitehead’s goal is to give women in action sports the same opportunities and recognition as their male counterparts. She pursues that goal daily by interviewing and promoting female action sports athletes on her company’s website.“ That’s something we can definitely get behind – check out the website HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Color first. lines second #comicsworkbook A photo posted by Gabriella Tito (@gabriella.tito) on Nov 1, 2016 at 9:27am PDT Recent work by Gabriella Tito. ————————————————————————————————— Sally started an eBay store to help out the Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency and also her own comics-making projects. Check it out HERE! Share this page: [...]

11/25/2016

Sally IngrahamNovember 25, 2016NewsSally here, eating Thanksgiving leftovers for breakfast and offering up a few comics and thoughts on creation for your Friday morning. ————————————————————————————————— Gabe Fowler has announced that the new issue of Smoke Signal will be guest edited by Françoise Mouly and Nadja Spiegelman and will be a special all-woman issue (the print version at least, although anyone can submit to the website) titled RESIST. It will debut in Washington DC on Inauguration Day in a full-color edition of 30,000 copies. You can submit comics and art HERE. Deadline to submit is ASAP and definitely by Dec. 10th if you want your work in the print version. Learn more about the project HERE. There are almost hourly comics going up on the website that Gabe created for this project – check them out HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Lauren Weinstein on The Village Voice this week: I essentially spent my Thanksgiving in the last two panels of Lauren’s comic, although I left my can of cranberry sauce at home so I could snack on it later! ————————————————————————————————— Yes, I spent part of my Thanksgiving trolling around under bridges in Pittsburgh, and the rest of the day watching Buster Keaton’s The General several times in a row while drawing. I have been thinking about strip comics and designing gags a lot recently, and have been reading and copying Peanuts and Krazy Kat. It is useful to think about the way visual gags work in movies as well, and even though filmmakers have had 100 years to work on it, no one has surpassed Keaton. Here’s a look at his greatness by the fantastic Tony Zhou of the YouTube channel Every Frame a Painting: ————————————————————————————————— Here on the site yesterday we published some thoughts by Tyler Landry and Sam Ombiri about work in progress – they were riffing on the actual work of Cameron Weston Nicholson. I have a lot of respect for these folks, all of whom have been part of the Comics Workbook family for awhile, and this piece was a treat. I especially liked this bit from Sam: “Sketches/process work is the most honest/real documentation. It doesn’t always show up in apparent ways in all works but sometimes it shows up in the final work, which usually rocks. I like to be reminded when I’m looking at a drawing that it’s a drawing made by a person who isn’t always graceful.“ Read the whole article HERE. ————————————————————————————————— We have added an Events page to the website – check it out HERE! Comics Workbook will be heading to Genghis Con this weekend. Come hang out! Details HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Comics Workbook has announced the Winter Semester of the Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers – course starts Dec. 29th 2016! 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. Santoro School 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 small jpgs of images – dont post to your blog pls -specific url links to any comics work you have done. Send applications to: santoroschoolATgmail ————————————————————————————————— I missed out on one of my usual days at Copacetic Comics this week due to the holiday, so I don’t have much in the way of new comics to report on. Back with that next week. Meanwhile, the last few times I’ve worked at the shop I’ve listened to a CD that contains the complete symphonic works of Beethoven, which someone must have burned for Bill Boichel, the owner of our local comics heaven. I’ve therefore had Beethoven on the brain and I find his music to be very well suited to the chilly, grey turn that November took very decidedly a week ago. I’ll leave you with his 7th Symphony, and maybe the sun will come back out next week. 🙂 Cheers – Sally 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: [...]

Expanding the Festival Toolkit – 2017

Juan FernándezOctober 6, 2017Festivals and ShowsJuan here: I just came back from CXC 2017 and I am still bathing in its warmth. It’s a good feeling. As I do around this time of the year, I’ve been thinking about the future of comics events in America. How we move into that future. I’m typing out loud, so forgive me for dreaming too big. Comics, as we engage with them today in the United States’ existing festival ecosystem, are facing a cultural choking point. There’s a huge role that comics can and should be playing in broader cultural discussions. But they’re not and our Festivals have something to do with this. It’s 2017 and it is essential to reframe the discussion of comics shows. Comics making and comics reading practices need more breathing room. To grow. To continue expanding. We need to nurture interdisciplinary approaches to experiencing comics. We need our festivals to make this their guiding principle. Comics making no longer needs to be limited to being a collectible, genre-oriented narrative art form. It’s time that it be seen as a mode of communication with breadth and depth, that can survive in any kind of market-driven cultural ecosystem. We need to celebrate the cartoonists and comics for whom the craft is but one aspect of their life’s work. Not just the cartoonists’ cartoonists. Our festivals can do that. What do we want? To bring together cartoonists from across the country and the world. To bring together a hungry readership from the host city. To create a physical space that inspires comics making practices across generations. To nurture a space that honors the work, thought, and spirits of those participating. What are kinds of things are we getting? SPX The US’s premier small press show. This is where many publishers seek to release their comics. There’s an insularity to this show that is both a boon and a curse. Pro: Easy access to artists and publishers that you want to meet + ensures great attendance at workshops and panels during the festival. Con: It seems limited in developing to be more than a weekend style, old school comic-con celebration. Has been developing deeper, promising ties with the Library of Congress, but those ties haven’t appeared to have programmatic effects. This show has rock solid attendance of folks from the D.C. and Maryland area, along with people from around the United States. CXC Historically focused, it seeks to fold in the public into a conversation about the mediums past, present, and future. The sales aspect of this show isn’t fully developed as it is only in its third year. Its host city hasn’t trained its audience yet. Has a deep, fully integrated connection with a robust institution (Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum) that supports the cartooning arts year round. CAB/CALA You can find and buy “the good stuff” here. These shows happen in dense metropolis’ like NYC, LA, London, Madrid and the like. This is where you find pioneering work sprinkled from table to table. These shows don’t have a massive overhead of complex programming (though they may have some) that takes center stage for the fest. They’re zine fairs and art book fairs on steroids. Regional Zine Fairs – Paperjazz/Pittsburgh Zine Fair These are the backbone of a broad self-publishing ecosystem. They do best when the cost of entry is low and when they have a community focus. The stakes are low and the focus has historically been on self-authorization above authorial prestige. These have limited capacity of growth before they lose their petri-dish identity. How do we get there? First off, identify the kind of show that you are trying to make. Is it a zine fair? Is it an international festival? Is it a regional show? Focus on making it the best version of that kind of show as possible. Everyone tends to go bigger and bigger and bigger, associating that growth with success. When you pursue growth as a primary indicator of success festivals wind up either growing unsustainably and burning out or losing their ability to focus on their intended vision becoming amorphous blobs. Here are the nuts and bolts of something that’s been taking form across the discussions that I’ve been having recently. Hear me out. Centralize Sales Our current system is embarrassingly inefficient. It is an ineffective use of getting tens of dozens of skilled comics makers and storytellers in one city for a week or weekend. No more exhibitors expected to stand behind tables hawking wares. Nowadays with everyone behind tables, people are barely interacting. There’s a vital cross-pollination that just doesn’t happen. What does it look like when a show does away with the flea market model? One thought is that you establish a festival shop. You get an experienced comics retailer to run the shop. You have them hire a trusted staff. You pay that staff. The shop gets a cut. 30/70. In a model like this, it costs you no money to have your work available. Under this new kind of model, if you are a guest you sign up to be involved in citywide comics programming. Signings, gallery exhibitions, lectures, workshops. This is the kind of thing that you get Arts and Cultural councils involved in. You sign up because you want to be part of the programming. With a model like this, you free up the artists and suddenly new horizons open up. Among those horizons are sources for financing. Imagine collaborating with a city’s municipal parks: guided bike tours where throughout the tour you make stops, learn about the city while doing landscape drawings and comics strips of the experience… A series of readings at a bookstore. Gallery exhibitions. Movie screenings at an arthouse theater. There are so many venues that would be amenable to programming: libraries, universities, community centers, theaters, bookstores, parks… Most of these venues have programming budgets that could fund materials and labor for artists. Programming Throughout the Year When all of your programming happens over a weekend, you’re banking a lot of things to the lineup to ensure good attendance over the course of 2-3 days. That’s a lot of stress. This winds up putting a lot of pressure on media marketing for your event. There will always be this stress, but you can alleviate that pressure by ensuring that your festival’s work is on people’s radar throughout the year. Spread the festival’s programming across the year. Small happenings can go a long way. Readings, comics salons, artist lectures, residencies. Have your festival lead small local pop up book fairs during gallery crawls. Collaborate with the local zine fair. Do monthly lectures in collaboration with the local art school. Organize a monthly reading group with your local library. A festival will naturally have deep connections with publishers and artists and can provide a huge service to libraries, schools, cities, theaters and the like. You can help them develop their programming and they can help foot the bill of an artist’s materials, lodging, and travel. Have the festival be the city’s comics aggregator. If anyone thinks about comics in your city, you’d do well to have them associate the festival with the art form. Limited guests Imagine this: You bring 4 special guests. A comics journalist, an art comics maker, a storyboard artist, a memoirist. They all have unique expertise. Not only in their craft but in the subject matter that they work with on the regular. Pair the journalist up with a panel of other journalists from the host city and have a discussion on geopolitical instability in the middle east. Bring the art comics maker and have them do a performance with a dance troupe. Record a conversation between the memoirist and an archival libraries memoir specialist, get the storyboard artist to discuss their work with paleontologists. You organize community programming around those specific guests. You look at their strengths and their areas of expertise. You show your city that comics are a pathway to expertise. Why limit the number? For maximum impact. You want to foster a cultural conversation across your city that is not diluted by droves of artists. Anyone who is interested in comics in your city will experience the perspectives of those invited. Together. Rather than seeing a list of 80 exhibitors and only engaging with 7 of those artists an attendee will in some way or another experience all the invited guests. You suddenly have a city’s local community on the same page. They’ve heard the same talks. They’ve seen the same demonstrations. Those artists impacts ripple out through that local area with much greater intensity. This is effective. It is more cost-effective. You can focus on certain artists and pair them up with institutions that wish to fund your activities. You get way more bang for your buck from your programming. Your programming funds your festival and it pays the artists an equitable wage. Can this be more challenging than charging admission and charging exhibitors + selling ad space? Yes, a little more challenging, but far more promising. Of course, all this can and should be co-programmed with local artists. Your local artists will be the beating heart of this cultural project as time progresses. You are building a cultural institution that is fostering the arts, with a focus on comics and cartooning. This allows for an international and regional dialogue to develop organically among makers and readers tied to where you’re at. Who will be able to do this work? Few working cartoonists will be able to do this. This kind of work becomes a full-time job and if you’re coming at it with comics money, nothings going to happen. Which is why it is essential to reframe this discussion of comics shows. No more glorified flea markets. Honestly, I don’t care what books are new by this year’s hot new young cartoonists. That kind of thought just keeps you in a headspace of exploitation and commodity creation. I want more people to be reading and making more comics thanks to these festivals. Helping people engage on all sides of the comics equation as reader, advocate and creator is the way to go. It’s good for society. (More elaborate arguments on that in the future, this is Comics Workbook so you can just take it as an assumption of that as an organizational belief.) Autoptic in Minneapolis has had these kinds of aspirations, but because it has primarily steered by working cartoonists but that show is still trying to find its rhythm and flow. Just as many comics makers and cartoonists find ways to diversify their personal income, organizers should do the same. What kind of cultural value can you generate to find support in your city or state? Festivals like Entreviñetas in Colombia and TCAF in Toronto are the future. Period. If you’re not up to date on the incredible work that is being done in Colombia, check out Frank’s tour diary from 3 years ago. And then hop on over to their site. TCAF too. Some of you are in the trenches already. Thank you. The rest of us? Let’s get to work. Share this page: [...]

11/14/2016

Juan FernándezNovember 14, 2016NewsJuan here with the good stuff: Juan Fernandez on CAB 2016; Heidi Macdonald’s CAB recap; Ben Jones interviewed; Angela Stempel at the NY Comics and Picture-Story Symposium; Four takes on Noah Van Sciver’s Blammo #9; Eleri Mai Harris on the American election; CBLDF on Rayma Suprani. ————————————————————————————————— ⚡️I went to CAB with Jenn Lisa last Saturday. I had a ball and I wrote about my time here on the site. Seeing everyone come together in a gymnasium like that lit a flame that very few things are going to be able to stamp out in the coming months. I’m ready to face the coming winter. Gabe Fowler’s got the market place down to a science. So, naturally, I’m interested to see the ways in which CAB continues to evolve. Will it stabilize into being an amped up zine fest and wild style art book fair that focuses exclusively on the marketplace? Will someone step in to lend a hand to the team to develop some track of programming during the weekend or the week before? To return to it’s BCGF format. Does that matter? Who’s ready to step up to the plate? On the floor I heard some people discuss this being the last CAB. And damn, that’s a little pessimistic. For what it’s worth, CAB can’t be beat for a lot of reasons. Easy access via transportation. Trains, plains, buses, cars all make their way easily to NYC. For the most part either you know someone in the City or there’s an affordable place to stay for a night or two. The crowds are great. People are squeezing CAB into their busy Saturday. It’s just one of many things they’re doing so they bring an incredible energy into the space. Most people likely just heard that there was something cool with comics going on in that one church in Brooklyn. That’s a good place to be. Gabe’s curation can’t be beat. You wan’t to find the coolest books published in a year? You can’t do any better in the US than coming to CAB. Oh and people come ready to spend money. Real money. ————————————————————————————————— ⚡️Heid MacDonald shared her CAB Coverage over on Publisher’s Weekly. Her big take away was similar to mine: Though scaled down in Size, robust sales. Because the show was planned a bit later than usual, there were fewer debut books. Indie mainstays Fantagraphics and Drawn & Quarterly were represented by artists like Drew Friedman and Adrian Tomine, but did not have booths. Nevertheless the books that did make it sold out quickly, including several very limited editions from even smaller publishers, such as the third volume of Connor Willumsen’s Treasure Island, an experimental comic from Breakdown Press; and Charles Burns’ Free Shit from French art publisher Le Dernier Cri. Although the event served to spotlight the number of talented cartoonists who still call New York home, many of the same artists cited the difficulty of maintaining a small press comics scene amid the rising costs and rents of New York City. “It’s harder to have a scene when everyone is broke and stressed out about money,” Skelly observed. ————————————————————————————————— ⚡️ Ben Jones did a killer interview over on HyperAllergic with Nicole Rudick focusing on his recent exhibition at The Hole NYC. Very inspiring, very enlightening. It cuts across all artistic disciplines and argues for drawing as a fundamental practice in the 21st century. My words, not his 😉 Nicole Rudick: Are these paintings of new comics? Ben Jones: I want to give you the two narratives. There’s the concept of the show, which is hopefully how the audience perceives it and how I approached it creatively — to make a zine first and then to have a meta-art show where I’ve hung the “originals” from the zine. Typically, you’d show the originals in this way at a comic-con or a coffee shop or something like that. I intentionally wanted to present the show in that conceptual context, as a novelty. I took that to the furthest extent by adding the fake red dot you’d see at a coffee-shop art show, to indicate that the work had been bought. As a painter, I’m constantly chasing that magical, ethereal line or stroke or gesture that is half muscle memory or trance action. You get a lot of that with handwriting and with quick sketching. I’ve fabricated ladders and furniture and video installations that take months of concepting the installation and executing the animation. This is something entirely different — it’s a one-to-one connection with an idea or a drawing or a mark. There’s a narrative to a lot of these pieces and a linear way to think about them, but then we also get to think about comics and about the formal aspects of comics, because comics aren’t just linear storytelling and gags. There is a nuanced, visual-language fuckery that I think is important. Think of Saul Steinberg changing the way people draw in the 1950s or Robert Crumb in the sixties — there are one or two people who have really changed the way we think and draw and understand line drawing. So this is also me firing a shot across the bow. ————————————————————————————————— ⚡️ Have you seen Bill Kartalopoulos’s Instagram? He’s posting a lot of protest art from the last 50 yrs or so. Find something that moves you and research it. There’s extremely fertile ground in these images. ————————————————————————————————— ⚡️Eleri Mai Harris is coming back to America. Thank god. In this political climate, comics stateside need her more than ever. She’s got a new comic on identity, politics and patriotism over on the NIB. Don’t sleep on this Australian-American journalist and cartoonist. ————————————————————————————————— ⚡️ CBLDF on Rayma Suprani, Venezuelan Cartoonist’s Political Exile Rayma Suprani has long been one of the best-known and most fearless political cartoonists in Venezuela, but for almost a year she and her work have only been “in” the country virtually, through social media. After El Universal, the newspaper where she had worked for more than 20 years, was bought by anonymous supporters of President Nicolas Maduro in 2014, Suprani was fired in short order and eventually forced to flee to Miami where “I can be more useful because my creativity can flow without worrying.” Suprani had often skewered Maduro’s now-deceased predecessor Hugo Chavez and stood up to the oppression of his populist movement known as Chavismo, but journalist Cesar Miguel Rondon tells PRI’s The World that Maduro’s government is even worse: They behaved like punks on a street corner. You don’t have the rule of law here. Every single day it’s more openly the exercise of a dictatorship instead of a democracy. So, ‘we don’t like Rayma. Rayma, you should go.’ It’s as simple as that. ————————————————————————————————— ⚡️Angela Stempel on Picturing Worlds: abstraction, rhythm and “reality” in animated spaces. This Tuesday at the NY Comics and Picture-Story Symposium! In this presentation, Angela Stempel will present her works of experimental animation that explore abstract shapes, the dissolution of the physical form and of photographic certainty in narrative and non-narrative pieces. She will discuss her influences, contemporary work and how she deals with the representation of time and energy. ————————————————————————————————— ⚡️ Four Shots get fired at BLAMMO #9: Alex Mansfield, Daniel Elkin, Justin Giampaoli, Keith Silva blast through Noah Van Sciver’s latest release. Enter the dude zone, haha. It’s good to see a single issue of comics get unpacked to this degree. More of this, please! For the past decade, cartoonist Noah Van Sciver has been publishing his one-man anthology series, BLAMMO. Kilgore Books has recently released the latest in the series and we here at Comics Bulletin were so impressed with it that we knew we had to devote some time and energy into unpacking our reactions. Each of the following writers were tasked with choosing a single page or panel from Blammo #9 and use it as a platform for talking about the book as a whole. None of the writers read what the other was working on during this process (Ed. Note: Except for Elkin — he sees everything). As testament to the thematic unity of Blammo #9, the writers all ended up talking about the same ideas of spirituality, artistic integrity, and the human desire to connect. ————————————————————————————————— In case you missed it, our indefatigable Sally Ingraham started an eBay store to help out the Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency and also her own comics-making projects. Check it out HERE! ————————————————————————————————— until next time! Juan Share this page: [...]

12/15/2017

Posted on December 14, 2017 by Sally Ingraham

Sally here to finish the week with work by Kyung Me, Gabrielle Bell, Nnedi Okorafor, and more!

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Kyung Me, graphite on paper, 11 x 14″, 2017

Kyung Me is having a solo exhibition at Selena Gallery in Brooklyn, NY. It opens tomorrow, December 16th, 7-10pm (34 Troutman St #3.)

“Kyung Me’s intricate, hypnotic drawings map out puzzled narratives revealing a mysterious cat and dream like scenery that dismantle linear time. For this exhibition, the artist will present her new original drawings focused around her reinvention of the Cheshire cat.

Kyung Me’s invented characters operate as stand-ins for herself, as a means of understanding relationships with herself and others. In her latest autobiographical series, Copy Kitty, the artist explores the perverse qualities of obsessive romantic relationships. Through sensitively rendered graphite drawings, Kyung Me creates an immersive world full of dread and humor that both satirizes and eulogizes the naïveté of an immature, paranoid, yet earnest love.“

Some of Copy Kitty – {Prelude} – appeared here on Comics Workbook in May – see the comic HERE. Also be sure to check out Kyung Me’s Bad Korean, and other comics and art on her website.

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from *Everything is Flammable* by Gabrielle Bell

Brian Nicholson wrote about Gabrielle Bell‘s Everything is Flammable, and E.A. Bethea’s Book Of Daze recently on his blog Longbox Coffin. He wasn’t blown away by either, but I think the reviews are pretty fair to both works. I liked one note he made regarding creators of autobio comics:

“You have to be a certain kind of person to make an autobio comic: Introverted and removed enough to be observing the people around you for being strange, outgoing enough to know those people are interesting, capable of deadpan wit, possessing enough free time to tell the stories of things that have transpired while they’re still fresh in your mind. …

If you were reading straight prose, or poetry, the author’s voice would distinguish itself from others more, but comics can use their visuals to achieve a sort of leveling effect. The narrator is a witness, to give events a throughline, but less of a defining presence in their own right. If they were more overbearing, and dominated their surroundings, they would want to dominate the reader as well, and so would write fiction.“

Read the full review, and Brian’s thoughts on Book of Daze as well, HERE.

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I read a lot of comics, mostly alternative and small press stuff of course, but I dip into mainstream comics occasionally too. I keep tumbling into the world of Black Panther – especially after local Pittsburgh poet Yona Harvey joined the creative team for a minute last year. The series has been struggling against any number of foes in the industry and market, but Marvel is trying again this week with a digital version of the comic, available exclusively through comiXology.

The reason I’m genuinely excited for this release is because Black Panther: Long Live the King is written by one of my favorite sci-fi novelists – the Hugo/Nebula/World Fantasy award-winning Nnedi Okorafor.

The Comics Beat has a write-up on the series, and they share some thoughts from Nnedi Okorafor:

” “I had a lot of questions about Wakanda, so I brought the lens deep into it… You’ll see the Black Panther interacting with tech-hacking village kids, vibranium-affected wildlife, and off-grid communities in Wakanda known as “mute zones”. Not only is this a deeply personal story about T’Challa, you’ll also see a side of the African country of Wakanda that no one’s seen before. Oh and there’s a mysterious monster in the countryside causing problems for everyone.” “

Nnedi Okorafor’s novels combine African locales and characters with supernatural events and weird science in a way that is truly mind-bending, spooky, and often beautiful, so I have high hopes for her ability to channel some bonkers/brilliant new energy into Black Panther. Fingers crossed.

Comics Workbook

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Posted in NewsTagged emil ferris, Gabrielle Bell, jessica campbell, Kyung Me, Lala Albert, nnedi okorafor, sally ingraham

Sally Ingraham

Posted on December 14, 2017

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01/03/2017

Aaron CockleJanuary 3, 2017NewsAaron here today with some NYC shows of note; Leanne Shapton looks back at 2016; New Sikoryak; Connor Willumsen; Joanie and Jordie & Suzie and Cecil ————————————————————————————————— Agnes Martin at the Guggenheim Museum through January 11 Hilton Als wrote about Martin in the New York Review last July: Martin contradicted all that nihilism. She used the grid as a forum for belief—a space where the viewer as well as the artist could contemplate the hand making the thing being observed. In her well-considered 1971 appreciation of the artist, Kasha Linville wrote: Once you are caught in one of her paintings, it is an almost painful effort to pull back from the private experience she triggers to examine the way the picture is made. The desire to simply let yourself flow through it, or let it flow through you, is much stronger…. Her paintings exert themselves differently, depending on their line, their pattern, and the quality of the ground color on the canvas. Some are less lyrical, evincing aggression or tension…. Others suggest spaciousness or vast space, again without using illusionistic devices or the egotistical implication of infinitely extendible surface. One pauses at the extraordinary line “the egotistical implication of infinitely extendible surface.” Unlike her male predecessors, not to mention contemporaries, Martin didn’t use the grid as a means of describing the infinite—the infinite “I” of being an artist. Instead, her work ends at the canvases’ edge.One begins and then one finishes; the grace is in the doing. Her touch was her personality; looking at canvases such as Friendship, of 1963 (made of incised gold leaf), or the ghostly Grass of 1967, one sees various lines that begin with verve, grow faint and then run out, slowly and calmly, like a swimmer beginning strong and then using wide, unhurried strokes once they see the shore. “Line is where she speaks most personally,” Linville said. “It is her vocabulary as the grids are her syntax.” Kerry James Marshall: Mastry at the Met Breuer through January 29 Francis Picabia: Our Heads Are Round so Our Thoughts Can Change Direction at the Museum of Modern Art through March 19 ————————————————————————————————— The Top Pinks and Purples of 2016 Via Leanne Shapton at the New Yorker. 9. Willy Wonka’s frock coat, as worn by Gene Wilder in the 1971 movie; 10. Sky at dusk over Greenport, Long Island; 11. Cotton candy at the Four Seasons Restaurant; 12. Supermoon; 13. Hillary Clinton’s lapels; 14. Walls of Cecily Brown’s show at the Drawing Center ————————————————————————————————— The Unquotable Trump R.Sikoryak with a new mash-up for 2017. ————————————————————————————————— Connor Willumsen’s Portraits continues to enthrall. This magazine sized 16-page beautifully printed booklet (by WestCan – who also printed thee Santoro School Handbook) is available HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 1-3-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 1-3-2017 – by Gabriella Tito Share this page: [...]

12/21/2017

Sally IngrahamDecember 20, 2017NewsSam Ombiri on Aidan Koch’s The Blond Woman, plus new work from Tini Howard and Gilbert Hernandez! ————————————————————————————————— Sam Ombiri here: When I open a comic, and look at the page as a whole, I’m immediately confronted with multiple moments all at once. Maybe it is as a result of this that comics are really good for experiencing and then re-experiencing moments. The images in The Blonde Woman by Aidan Koch are so beautiful that when I go to another panel, I get this overwhelming need to go back to the panel I was reading prior. I get the feeling that I’ve not spent enough time with the panel I was looking at beforehand. In part 1 of The Blond Woman there are contradictions in the flow of time. Aidan uses this to convey a recurring force, for lack of a better term, that is present in the main character’s life. She wakes up, feels the need to brush her hair and is seemingly surprised, or to a certain extent seemingly troubled that it is still night. It seems that in her dreams she’s trying to get somewhere, and when she wakes up it’s the same story. The moon isn’t a trustworthy indicator of time – although at first it is the moon that told us and the Blonde Woman that it is night. Later on however, the moon turns crescent and red. We are only able to arrive in this state of experiencing time in this manner because Aidan has established that this isn’t one night, but a number of nights, and since all the nights can now be accessed, a red crescent moon can appear. A very menacing red, and the crescent shape edges seek to pierce. Through images and sequencing of the images the feelings of the main character, as a result, are very viscerally felt. The candles, at least in Part 1, are a more reliable signifier for immediate passage in time as opposed to multiple nights being conveyed simultaneously. I’m left wondering “Will dawn come for the character?” at the end of Part 1. In the last chapter of the book – Part 4 – there’s what seems to be, for me, a real surprise about the main character, and it turned the whole book on its head. In between that uncertainty of how to react, or what to think, I find that it really makes me relate to the character. It certainly makes what I at first saw as her friends’ unwarranted frustration make more sense. Aidan is able to communicate so much with so little. As readers we can circle this emotional space, and we see familiar structures and there’s so much information to derive from them. It’s not just information, because despite the efficiency of the images there’s too much beauty and sincerity coming from the images to refer to what’s in the images as “information”. That portrays the images in the book too coldly. Throughout the whole book, even in the end where there’s a melancholic tone, there’s a real warmth. There’s a real undeniable warmth to the pleasant moments and unpleasant alike. – Sam Ombiri Get a copy of The Blond Woman HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Sally here – The Comics Beat has a preview of Tini Howard’s and Gilbert Hernandez’s new series, Assassinistas, which came out yesterday. You can catch Black Crown editor Shelly Bond talking to Gerard Way about the series as well in a couple of videos. See for yourself how “Howard is writing it her way” but in his can’t be beat style “Hernandez knows his way around dangerous women talking about waffles, hair dye and weapons.” Preview and video conversations HERE. ————————————————————————————————— The Winter Semester of thee Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers starts January 16th 2018! 8 weeks – 500 bux – coaching for as long as you need. The course is hard, but Frank will push your comics making practice to a new level, getting you to think about timing and color in new ways. His experience and ideas have influenced the likes of Connor Willumsen, Michael DeForge, and Simon Hanselmann (quote “I consider Frank Santoro to be my L. Ron Hubbard”) among many others. Dig into something new in the new year! Full details and how to apply can be found HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 12-21-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

01/13/2017

Sally IngrahamJanuary 12, 2017NewsSally here, reveling in this week’s collection of cool women who have made or are currently making comics: Elizabeth Stohn, Julie Doucet, Rachel Masilamani, Jessica Abel, Sarah Glidden, Audra Stang, and more! ————————————————————————————————— I’m delighted that we are featuring Rachel Masilamani here on the site this week. Juan Fernandez wrote a thoughtful piece about her comics, highlighting work made between 2000 and 2013. Rachel began making comics in Baltimore in 1997, and has stuck with the form through thick and thin. She won a Xeric Foundation grant, moved to Pittsburgh, became a librarian, started a family, and never stopped self-publishing her comics, which often deal with intense subject matters. I am a big fan of her work and have so much respect for her as a creator – it’s an honor to share the city of Pittsburgh with badass cartoonists like Rachel. Read Juan’s thoughts on her work HERE. Juan doesn’t dig into Rachel’s more recent work, the NON PARTUM series that she published on Mutha Magazine – you can check those comics out HERE. Megan Purdy of Women Write About Comics composed a collection of essays about the comics as they were coming out in early 2015. Here are her thoughts on Plan B-200, followed by The Subject, Spontaneous, Habitual, Inevitable, and finally We Conceive. ————————————————————————————————— Dan Nadel shared this incredible blog post about the work of Elizabeth Stohn on The Comics Journal this week. The author of the post – Jim Linderman – found these comic strips (above) in a sketchbook and gathered as much info as he could about the young woman who made them 100 years ago. Really cool stuff – be sure to check it out. (Make time also to peruse Jim’s blog further – he’s been called “one of the world’s greatest pickers” by the New York Times, and his blog and the books he’s authored about the bits of American art and history he collects are wonderful!) ————————————————————————————————— Sarah Glidden has a new comic up on Tablet called A Temple in Time. “When the news became too much to bear, I tried observing an ‘internet Shabbat,’ where I could unplug one day a week. It didn’t quite work as planned.” The first page is shown above – you can read the rest is HERE. ————————————————————————————————— I got to read Jessica Abel‘s Trish Trash: Rollergirl of Mars while working at Copacetic Comics this week – I’d been looking forward to it for awhile. I love the world of rollerderby, and Jessica has basically taken that sport and propelled it into the future. Life on Mars is tough, and 15-year old Trish wants to become a pro “hoverderby” player and escape her family’s moisture farm. Things start to work out for her and her dream is within reach, but then a native Martian shows up and may just “dust” her plans. As it says on the Trish Trash website: “Check Trish out if you (or someone you love) is totally into sci-fi, rollerderby, reading about kickass girls, reading about kickass girls who are not white, and/or semi-dystopian post-environmental-collapse speculative fiction (oh wait, that’s everyone, isn’t it?).“ It certainly describes me, and despite not being entirely engrossed by the story I still have high hopes for it’s continued development. The “behind the scenes” Tumblr for the book is pretty fun, so while we’re waiting for the next installment you can explore the concept of rollerderby + Mars to your heart’s content. ————————————————————————————————— Poking around the 2dcloud website recently revealed an interview with Julie Doucet. It’s unclear who conducted the interview with her – the whole thing is oddly formatted and frankly frustrating to read – but it was interesting to dig into some of Julie’s thoughts about her present work, and her continuing relationship with comics – which is at the moment one of disconnect and disinterest, and extreme frustration over people trying to MAKE her current work “still be comics” in some fashion. “Julie: i simply had more than enough of it when i quit. had enough of the all boy crowd (something i was comfortable with for a long time) i simply lost interest in it. of course i kept reading my friends comics, but no more than that. when i say i feel i can’t connect, i mean i don’t know what’s going on in comics these days, i’m totally out of touch, i don’t know what the hell comics people are talking about, don’t know the new names, the new titles, the new publishers etc… 2dcloud: Reading Julie Delporte’s beautiful Journal recently, she mentions something about your new work still being comics in its own way. Do you think of your work in this way? Julie: i am not sure i agree with what Julie Delporte says. i work pretty much with words only! what i do is more like Dada poetry, if you like…i swear comics people INSIST to death, i HAVE to be doing comics whatever i do!! i’ve heard that kind of affirmation one million times!!! i don’t get it! why isn’t it normal to to other things?? like in visual arts, you can do whatever you like and be coherent in your work. why why why why am i not allowed to do just that?“ Check out the rest of the interview HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Various and Sundry’s Sara Lautman completes her week as The Comic Journal‘s diarist – her comics are HERE. She Does the City conducted a lovely interview with Annie Koyama this week – HERE. Mariana Harkness is organizing Headlocks for Hope – a fundraiser that brings pro-wrestling fans together in support of Planned Parenthood and The Southern Poverty Law Center. Check out the campaign HERE and pick up some artwork by Mariana, Box Brown, Pete Faecke, and others. Lauren Weinstein‘s strip on The Village Voice is quite exciting this week… The Rockettes Start the Revolution! Miranda Harmon drew up her memories from attending MICE last year – and shared a resolution: “In the coming years I will continue to make things, and resist, and survive.“ Eleanor Davis‘ upcoming You & A Bike & A Road (Koyama Press, May 26th 2017) made the National Post‘s list of 5 graphic books that are “a winning draw for 2017“. ————————————————————————————————— Superstar Comics Workbook student Audra Stang is back in Pittsburgh for her second Rowhouse Residency! She joined us in July of 2016 for a long weekend and drew the entire first draft of her comic Pale, Sick, and Magic (read it HERE – also check out Rob Clough’s review of that comic, as well as Love My Like an Autograph HERE.) Audra is joining us for a week this time. She is christening the new residency space for us, filling it with index card drawings and good energy – and digging into her new long-form comic project with the determination of a recent college grad who has every intention of making comics a lifetime adventure, and not just the thing she fought with her art professors about for 4 years…! It’s thrilling to have her back and I can’t wait to see what Audra gets done in the next week. You can read about her first residency experience HERE. If you are interested in applying for a Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency or just looking for more info, visit this page or email santoroschoolATgmail – we will happily answer any questions you might have! ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 1-13-2017 – by Sally Ingraham ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 1-13-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio ————————————————————————————————— 1-13-2017 – by Juan Fernández Share this page: [...]

Richard Diebenkorn’s Sketchbooks at the Cantor Museum

Comics WorkbookJanuary 15, 2017EssaysJesse Rimler reports on the Richard Diebenkorn Sketchbook show that hung at the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University last summer. ————————————————————————————————— The painter Richard Diebenkorn (1922-1993) is probably best known for his abstracts, especially his large Ocean Park series. He also painted from life, and is included in the group of artists now known as the Bay Area Figurative movement, along with Elmer Bischoff, David Park and Joan Brown, among others. These painters moved in and out of abstraction while never abandoning the figure and landscapes as subjects. The Cantor Museum recently acquired 29 of Diebenkorn’s sketchbooks. My favorite works by Diebenkorn are his prints and drawings, so I was excited to see these up close. Plus, as someone who keeps a sketchbook and has spent the last several years trying to learn how to draw better, I’m always curious to see anyone’s sketchbook and raw drawing style. It turns out there isn’t much difference between Diebenkorn’s sketchbook drawings and his etchings – he had a lively, spontaneous line and an unfailing sense of composition no matter the medium or size. Here are few of my favorites from this great collection: Though these are worth seeing in person, one cool thing is that the Cantor has scanned all of his sketchbooks and put them online HERE. This exhibit made me think about the general use of a sketchbook. Diebenkorn called his sketchbook his “portable studio,” and it’s clear he took drawing in these beatup spiralbounds as seriously as he did etching on a copper plate or painting on a canvas. I think some comics makers, myself included, tend to treat their sketchbooks as something completely different from their final art. The idea of closing the gap between the two is appealing to me, and Diebenkorn’s example is inspiring. On the practical side, I liked how Diebenkorn used fairly inexpensive sketchbooks, often with a low page count. He felt free to glop on gouache or use heavy ink washes, and so almost always used one side of the page. This was exciting to me, as I’ve found the use of a pricey, bound, moleskin-style sketchbook to be a little inhibiting. It’s nice to work with a pad with few pages – if you dislike the run you’ve been on in your current sketchbook, you’re not tied to it for very long. I also love the look of the old Strathmore books. I went out and got a bunch of Strathmore drawing pads. The covers aren’t as nice these days but the size and lack of pretense freed me up a bit. These little ones are 4 bucks and have pretty good off-white paper. At 24 pages, I filled several up pretty quickly. Satisfying! Here are a few of my recent sketches: ————————————————————————————————— Jesse Rimler makes comics in the Bay Area. You can see more of his sketches and comics by following him on Instagram – @rimblecomics. His submission to the Comics Workbook Composition Competition can be seen HERE. Share this page: [...]

08/03/2018

Sally IngrahamAugust 3, 2018NewsSally Ingraham here with a look at Aisha Franz’s Shit is Real – plus other news and comics! ————————————————————————————————— Aisha Franz‘s new comic – Shit is Real (Drawn & Quarterly 2018) – begins in a wilderness at the edge of a city. The main protagonist, Selma, is crawling toward a city, and you realize that this may be a sort of dream or fantasy – one that she abruptly snaps out of, just in time to be dumped by her boyfriend. Selma drifts in and out of this fantasy world as the comic continues, which accurately portrays the ways that such fantasies both help us through difficult times, while probably causing more harm than good. Selma struggles, for the majority of the story, to relate to her best friend, to connect with other people she encounters, to do laundry or cook for herself. She is lonely and just as lost in the urban monotony of the city as she is in the bizarre sci-fi world of her dreams. The only creatures whom she seems to connect to are a giant fish (who occupies the fantasy) and a cat who belongs to the woman in the next apartment. When Selma discovers that she can access this apartment, some of the fantasy becomes reality, and the line between the two blurs. Aisha Franz uses the comics medium quite effectively to tangle and untangle the threads of the story. There are many quiet moments, where the sequencing of simple movements or no movement at all conveys immense emotion. The comic is about the inner life of Selma – whether that is inside her head, or inside the lonely space she occupies in her life – and Franz is able to show this very well. The fantasy sequences mesh with the slightly futuristic urban environment of the “real” world, and there is a vibrancy to the drawing despite the softness of the pencil lines. Thoughtful and actually funny in a few spots, this is an excellent followup to Earthling (which also dealt with female loneliness). You can read an excerpt from Shit is Real HERE. For other reviews of the comic check out these ones at Publishers Weekly and Broken Frontier. LA Review of Books also has an interview with Aisha Franz HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Comics News of Note The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum has a spotlight on their Nicole Hollander collection – read about it HERE. Lauren Weinstein is the guest on Episode 31 of Comic Book Decalogue – HERE. Philippe Leblanc has his Small Press & Indie Comics Galore roundup on The Comics Beat – he always finds the good stuff! Margaret Stohl talks Captain Marvel and why now is the best time to be a female hero – on The Guardian. Columbus Alive has a feature about Annie Koyama and her donation to The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum – read it HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 8-3-2018 – by Gabriella Tito Share this page: [...]

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