Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Juan Fernández

Posted on December 21, 2016December 21, 2016

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03/01/2017

Juan FernándezMarch 1, 2017los Cómics / NewsJuan José con un poquito sobre #GRAFBCN2017; Bas Backer on Chicks on Cómics; Inés Estrada’s Booklyn 2012; Mireia Pérez; Núria Pompeia; Berliac; Salva Rubio on Jiro Taniguchi; 100 Años de TBO; CW Daily Comics. Cómics y noticias que me han llamado la atención esta semana: ESTE FIN DE SEMANA: #GRAFBCN2017. Esta a la vuelta de la esquina. GRAF is coming to Barcelona. Here’s all the info you need for #GRAFBCN2017‘s programming. March 3-5 at the wacky warehouse space, Fabra i Coats. It’s the ninth edition of the Festival so it should get pretty wild. – If you’re following from home, check out twitter and tumblr for the #GRAFBCN2017 to get some insights on. Want to know who’s going to be there? Here ya go. Need more info? Here’s Mireia Pérez with the scoop you need on #GRAFBCN2017 over on RTVE’s La Hora del Bocadillo, Spain’s weekly national comics radio hour. (Fast forward to minute 48). Descubre a Núria Pompeia en la exposición ‘Núria Pompeia, sola ante el peligro’. Fundación Gin‘s digital editorial cartooning museum, Humoristan, has got a great online exhibition of Pompeia’s work with highlights from Maternasis and Las Metamorfosis. Berliac‘s got some new comics on Vice – Asian Food Store Junkies – S01-E03 This week will horrify your taste buds. Inés Estrada’s dropped a zine she made, quick and dirty after her time at Comic Arts Brooklyn in 2012. “I was going to make a zine of my comics diary of Brooklyn 2012 (cus I never did) but fck it… who cares about 2012″ Now you can read it online. Inspiring, fast, six panel autobio. Salva Rubio offers a great reflection on the work of the late Jiro Taniguchi. Especially of interest given it’s a Spanish perspective on the manga titan. The theme here is the eternal return. This March, it will be the 100th anniversary of the first issue of “TBO”, the popular illustrated magazine that gave name to Spanish comics, tebeos. To commemorate this the newly published, Antoni Guiral‘s 100 Años de TBO, tells the history of a publication which passed the great names of twentieth century Catalan comic. Take a tour of a century “TBO”. (In Catalan!) Bas Backer ha hecho un relato hermoso de su paso por Buenos Aires, el encuentro con amigos y actividades de Chicks On Comics. A nice report, filled with photos and drawings of time passing through the amazing Chicks on Comics show and Buenos Aires. A nice long distance relationship travelogue, haha! ————————————————————————————————— Berliac offers some fresh cuts over at Fumettologica, the central axis of the conversation being his work editing and contributing to Kuš! #25’s Gaijiin Manga. Short and sweet but goes in deep with his thoughts on gekiga, the western gaze and his own evolution as an author. How do you explain the current popularity of Gekiga in the western comics scene? Now they’re getting published and before they were not, simple as that. If you want to dig deeper, I guess the publishers finally realized that since the late seventies, Western adults grew up with manga and anime, and we just needed a cultural approval from well-respected publishers, to re-unite with our childhood love without feeling embarassed about it. Put that together with the concept that publishers from liberal countries have of what a Graphic-Novel is supposed to be (basically realistic stories about the suffering of people from far away countries, to be enjoyed from the comfort of our sofas), and there you go: Gekiga provides us with both. Here lies another reason why I like to call my own work Gaijin-Gekiga: if Gekiga was the Japanese expression, in a dramatic comics form, of their own collective anxieties in times of hypercapitalism, then I can undoubtedly say that the main focus of my work is the very same one, only about my own place and time, of course. I have the impression that not many well-known cartoonists are really talking about what’s going on right here and now, on this side of the world, on a collective scale. In Graphic-Novels, all I see is either boring lectures about foreign or past war conflicts from an “objective”, Western point of view, or feel-good stories about individual self-improvement, and in the most successful cases, a combination of the two. These stories are just two different ways of patting our backs and telling ourselves how great we Westerners are. Gekiga was a beautiful, dignifying way to accept the crushing reality of post-war defeat. Western narratives of today, on the contrary, insist on that we’re on the winning side, even when our reality clearly points to the opposite (see Donald Trump). I’m not saying there’s dignity in being a loser, but in seeing reality for what it is. Drama without exaggeration. That is the essence of Gekiga. Now that a few months has passed from the release of the Kus, can you say that the anthology also served as a bond between the artists of this possible new western manga scene? Bonds among artists always exist, but maybe not explicitely. to the point not even we are aware of it. Many of the artists involved discovered each other’s work in that issue of š! As I said in another interview, it is not the artists’ task or responsablity to make that bond intelligible for the public, but the publishers’, gallerists’, and journalists’. As an author, I’m not too concerned about it. As a co-editor of š! #25, I certainly hope we provided a grain of sand to this cause. ————————————————————————————————— The Spring Semester of the Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers is starting soon! The semester has a rolling start date, but it will officially kick off on March 7th. We will continue taking applications past that date – Frank is always willing to make it work for your schedule. Just apply! The course is 8 weeks long – 500 bux – payment plans are available. More details can be found HERE. Email santoroschoolATgmail to apply ————————————————————————————————— Blinkers – 3-1-2017 – by Jack Brougham ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 3-1-2017 – by Gabriella Tito ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 3-1-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio ————————————————————————————————— Cozytown – 3-1-2017 – by Juan Fernandez Share this page: [...]

Maggie Cheung from ITMFL by Kevin Wada

Chris Anthony DiazJuly 19, 2016The Diaz ArchiveMainstream comics high fashion cover artist Kevin Wada’s watercolored portrayal of Maggie Cheung as Mrs. Chan (Su Li-zhen) from graphic designer/photographer Wing Shya’s on-set photograph in Wong Kar Wai’s IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE (2000, Hong Kong/China) for my ILLUSTRATED MOMENTS IN CINEMA/TELEVISION. The illustration was completed around Winter 2013 in ink and watercolor, and Kevin’s photo was taken at Comix Experience, Wednesday, June 22, 2016. And Graham Willcox did the color on Kevin’s portrait Share this page: [...]

08/02/2016

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

FRANK’S TIPS FOR TABLING

Juan FernándezMay 6, 2016Resources8 tips for tabling at a comics convention from Frank Santoro. NSFW for cussin’. Video by Michael Pisano. Share this page: [...]

8/8/2016

Juan FernándezAugust 8, 2016NewsJuan here with your news for the day: Locas Reimagined by the CW Derby Team; Rep. John Lewis speaks with Rachel Maddow; ARM’S LENGTH by K.L. Ricks; Applied Comics in Action: Doctors Drawing Mickey Mouse; Paul Gravett interviews Alexander Tucker; Ken Parille on Comics Criticism in 2016; Krazy Kat: The Comic Art of George Herriman reviewed by Bill Boichel; new STREET ANGEL; special weekly Rowhouse Auction preview: CLOWES. ————————————————————————————————— Locas Reimagined I’m happy to announce that we are featuring a collaborative comics jam by the Comics Workbook Roller Derby Team on the site this week. The team copied and transformed Jaime Hernandez’ 1984 story, Locas Starring Hopey. This bout featured work by Allie Doersch – Alyssa Berg – Anna Mancini – Gabriella Tito – Sacha Mardou – Jillian Fleck – Jackie Huskisson – Jennifer Lisa In case you’ve been sleeping under a rock, Comics Workbook Roller Derby is the world’s only all-female, cartoonist-operated “roller derby of the mind” league. The league is comprised of strong, diverse, and independent women from the international comics community. ————————————————————————————————— Memorializing a life in the Civil Rights Movement Congressman John Lewis speaks with Rachel Maddow over at MSNBC about his work with Andrew Aydin and Nate Powell on their graphic novel trilogy, March. March brings readers a vivid comics account of Lewis’s “lifelong struggle for civil and human rights, meditating in the modern age on the distance traveled since the days of Jim Crow and segregation… Book One spans Lewis’s youth in rural Alabama, his life-changing meeting with Martin Luther King, Jr., the birth of the Nashville Student Movement, and their battle to tear down segregation through nonviolent lunch counter sit-ins.” The third and final installment is out now. It’s great to see Lewis speak of the road map he’s tried to create to guide and inspire a new generation to the way of peace, love and non-violence, to follow the moral obligation of taking action in the face of injustice. ————————————————————————————————— Arm’s Length Pt. 1 K.L. RICKS‘ newest comic, Arm’s Length is out over at Hazlitt Magazine. It’s an enticing first chapter. Damn, if this comic doesn’t breathe. Ricks’ inking is smart, evocative and efficient. Inspiring stuff. Ricks’ knows how to leave you hanging, hungry for more… ————————————————————————————————— Applied Cartooning in Action: Doctors Drawing Mickey Mouse Cartoonist Benjamin Schwartz writes over at The New York Times about the role that comics can play in the professional development of medical practitioners. It’s a brief look at the holistic nature of cartooning and the effects of the craft on it’s practitioners’ empathy and perspective. The concept of doctor as storyteller is not a new one, nor is the idea that it’s a critical component of a doctor’s identity. What’s changed in recent years is the idea that storytelling is a skill that can be taught directly in the classroom—that it’s not some vague life skill that can only be learned through experience (or, worse, the type of ability one either does or doesn’t have). Credit for this development goes in large part to Dr. Rita Charon, an internist at Columbia University Medical Center. In the early two-thousands, she formalized a program in narrative medicine, with a stated mission to train health-care workers “to recognize, absorb, metabolize, interpret, and be moved by the stories of illness.” ————————————————————————————————— Paul Gravett interviews Alexander Tucker Paul Gravett and Alexander Tucker, author of World in the Forcefield, talk about alienation from the art world, the relationships between music, painting and comics, conveying spiritual concerns through comics over on Gravett’s site. Be sure to dive into Tucker’s existential boredom if you’re hungry for something new. I’m interested in how you see the relationship and dialogue between your music-making and your comics/art-making? The thing I didn’t like about the fine art world was having to tie up concepts and ideas into neat little fully formed packages, what I feel about music and comics is this attempt to create a fluid way of expressing ideas, the process can become the actual piece of work and the lessons learned can weave themselves into the work throughout the act of making the song or comic page. colloquial, slightly cynical everyday speech. What are your ideas behind this? I’ve always liked the balance between the mundane and philosophical, the everyday and the fantastical. Since my early teens my love of surrealism and directors like David Lynch, Derek Jarman and Terry Gilliam introduced the concept of reality’s thin veil between the spirit world and our own. ————————————————————————————————— Ken Parille on Comics Criticism in 2016 Parille’s got a satisfying piece on the state of comics criticism in 2016. 7 hot takes. It’s real, it’s honest and it gets to the core of the idea that it’s only good comics that will foster the growth of comics as a form. Anything else is likely to just be hot air. Parille puts forward an idea I’d been thinking about for a little. Comics criticism and discussion in a hyperfractured mainstream? What does that look like? How does it exist and not eat itself alive? Enter post-relevancy. It might sound silly, but it’s a useful sentiment: Relevancy criticism often plays an ironic joke on its writer. We’re convinced that we matter when calling out the man and his corrupt ideology, but perhaps our truth-to-power musings and mumblings only advance the corporate agenda: “Everybody’s talking about the scandalous new issue of Wondrous Lad! So I bought a copy and tore it apart on my blog!” We excitedly create free buzz for mega-corporations and they move more units. Who’s the chump now? Not the post-relevancy comics critic. She refuses to be co-opted, to be an unsuspecting shill for shit. An aesthetic adventurer with a sublime sensitivity to image, form, and detail, she seeks out comics that the mainstream ignores — yes, even fears! She heroically undertakes the sub-minimum-wage, time-consuming, socially-unrewarding, and emotionally-alienating journey of reading and writing about comics with deliberate care. She returns from her solitary excursions with something revelatory — and irrelevant — to offer us. She’s my role model. ————————————————————————————————— Krazy Kat: The Comic Art of George Herriman reviewed by Bill Boichel Bill Boichel’s got a hearty review of the 1986, desert-island classic, Krazy Kat: The Comic Art of George Herriman on the site this week. Few people can write as insightful reviews as Bill, so it’s an honor to be able to share his writing with you here. This is an oldie but a goodie <3 Where to begin with such a book. It is clearly and definitely the best book ever done on Krazy Kat, which is, at least in our estimation, the greatest work ever produced in comics form. Ergo, it is, Copacetically speaking, the best single volume of comics ever produced. In other words, it wins the Deserted Island Award™: If there were one comics related book we’d take with us to a deserted island, this would undoubtedly be it. And as if that weren’t enough, it has now been reissued in an economy softcover edition that’ll only set you back a double sawbuck. Think of it – a lifetime of pleasure and consolation for what it would cost you to spend a few hours in a bar. And they say there is no God. ————————————————————————————————— —————————————————————————— New Private Rowhouse Auction – 7.31-8.6 Last but not least, I’d like announce that this week’s Rowhouse auction will start Wednesday at noon NYC time. We will be auctioning off artwork and other rarities generously donated by the great Daniel Clowes over on eBay. Stay tuned for details – or email Frank here santoroschoolATgmail.com – You won’t want to miss this! —————————————————————————— until next time, Juan Share this page: [...]

12/21/2016

Posted on December 21, 2016December 21, 2016 by Juan Fernández

Juan con un poquito sobre Sandwich Mixto, Save the Fanzine, el primer encuentro de auto-editoras del cómic realizado por mujeres feministas “COMIQUERAS”, GRAF busca voluntarios, Alexis Ziritt y Fabian Rangel Jr., Tenderete 13, Inés Estrada y más!

Hace un año oir hablar de Sandwich Mixto. Estaba en ruta desde Madrid a Zaragoza y alguien en el tren me conto sobro una fanzine-o-teca en el mercado San Antón Martín. No entendi bien como funcionaba, pero me recorde el nombre, Sandwich Mixto. Hasta enero del 2015, Sandwich Mixto fue un estudio de diseño, fanzinería y bar que se encuentraba en uno de los puestos del Mercado de Antón Martín, uno de los más antiguos y tradicionales de Madrid. Hoy en dia es mejor pensar en Sandwich Mixto como una isla móvil. Es a la vez una editorial, taller y estudio de arte y estudio de diseño.

Virginia de Diego – Nacimos como una iniciativa –valga la redundancia– mixta, cuyo objetivo es la creación, distribución y difusión de la cultura local, independiente y de calidad (de a lo largo y ancho de nuestra geografía), estando enfocada especialmente en las prácticas editoriales independientes, su gráfica y metodología, o aquellas en las que el formato libro es algo más que un libro.

El año pasado se mudaron desde aquí…

Hasta aquí

Quieres aprender más? Leé te esta entrevista en Fanzinant o sientate un ratito con Virginia de Diego y disfruta lo que fue Sandwich Mixto. Imaginate con una birra en la mano y un fanzine fresco en la otra!

Un proyecto, muy especial, que el equipo de Sandwich Mixto mantiene en línea, es SAVE THE FANZINE. Pienso que la siguiente cita es muy interesante con respeto a la idea del fanzine, la autoedicion y como creamos sentido de nuestras vidas.

“Who knows their own story? Certainly it makes no sense when we are living in the midst of it. It’s all just clamour and confusion. It only becames a story when we tell it and retell it. Our small precious recollections. That we speak again and again to ourselves or to others. First, creating the narrative of our lives, and keeping the story from dissolving into the darkness…”
Nick Cave, 20.000 Days on Earth

SAVE THE FANZINE is a digital and online archive for self-published books. Not intended to replace the physical object, its purpose is to pay homage to the self-publising culture and to record these unique publications. It’s a killer record of contemporary zine making in Spain! Make an account and take dip. Water’s fine. Ponte a explorar, estos fanzines son increíbles. Este proyecto es una joya que no deja de darme inspiración.

Cómics y noticias que me han llamado la atencion:

TRUEKBLOG comenta sobre el primer encuentro de auto-editoras del cómic realizado por mujeres feministas “COMIQUERAS” en Santiago, Chile
GRAF busca voluntarios para su próxima edición en Barcelona #GRAFBCN2017
Alexis Ziritt y Fabian Rangel Jr. se reunen para traernos SPACE RIDERS GALAXY OF BRUTALITY #1 -scheduled to debut this March now has an online preview! Dale un vistazo.
Tenderete 13 se acerca en Valencia, España! Han anunciado los participantes. Puedes encontrarlos en su tumblr. Tendra lugar el 4 y 5 de Enero.
Inés Estrada ha compartido un trozito de su cómic, Alienación #1. Leélo y compra #1-#3 si te gusta!

From Comics Workbook:

Suzy and Cecil 12-21-16 by Sally Ingraham

⚡️Comics Workbook anuncia el comienzo del semestre de invierno del Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers – el curso empieza 29.21.2016!

Curso de 8 semanas – 500 dolares – 10 estudiantes – presentate para el curso!

Email santoroschoolATgmail for more details.

Direcciones para la Solicitud de Ingreso al Santoro School :

-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.

Manda tu solicitud a: santoroschoolATgmail

hasta la proxima,
juan

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Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in los Cómics, News

Juan Fernández

Posted on December 21, 2016December 21, 2016

Explore

Residency Report: Pokémon GO Edition

Comics WorkbookAugust 15, 2016Residency Reports / School UpdatesAudra Stang visited the Rowhouse in July of 2016. She accomplished an incredible amount in the three days she was in Pittsburgh, setting new Rowhouse records for “crushing it”. She shared some journal notes with us recently that describe many of her impressions and experiences of her residency. I’ve shared excerpts from them below, mixed with some of the process drawings and doodles that she made while she was here. – Sally ————————————————————————————————— Audra Stang wrote: “My visit to the Rowhouse was my first ever residency… I came with the goal of totally drawing out a story that I only had a hazy idea of called Pale, Sick, and Magic; this seemed fitting, considering I only had a vague idea of what a residency would entail.“ “While I had corresponded with Frank during and following his Spring 2014 Correspondence Course, I wasn’t sure how the transition from online correspondence to ‘irl’ would work. During the online course I could process information in my own time, in my own working space, and could leisurely spend thirty minutes mulling over the phrasing of a two-sentence email I was writing – what if I didn’t function well in this different setting?“ “The work space at the residency afforded me time that was not broken up by work, class, etc, which I expected; I didn’t expect that not having my computer on the desk would affect me in such a positive way. This is not leading into a “we are slaves 2 modern tech” maxim; it was just easier to draw from memory than to Google a reference image on my phone, and it prevented me from taking unnecessary detours. Not so when a desktop is sitting in front of me; I should know better anyway, as drawing from photo reference was discouraged in the course.“ “I loved Frank’s house; there was great stuff everywhere – in the living room, guest room, kitchen, work area, basement, etc. Comics that I had previously only read cruddy scans of online were now physically in front of me in pristine condition. I read a lot – I didn’t go to bed until 4:30am one night because I was too busy looking through a huge Gary Panter collection and proofs for Cold Heat that I stumbled upon in the guest bedroom. I would pause while drawing to flip through a book and “accidentally” read the whole thing. I read more comics in three days than I had read in three months.“ “I loved visiting Copacetic Comics. I just sat and read comics standing in the store, sitting on the floor, on the porch, etc. I found more books that I had previously only read via .jpeg-y scans. I have followed Copacetic on tumblr for years, but the store was still beyond my wildest comics dreams.” “Between Frank, Sally, and I we had great conversation – not just about, but often returning to, comics. It fed into the “cycle” – draw by day and tour Pittsburgh by night. Or draw by night and explore Pittsburgh by day. It was a charged atmosphere but in a positive way – I was full of energy. Franks uses language that masterfully evokes the feeling of being “in the game” and gets you hyped for the next comics bout.“ “Frank is really respectful, i.e. he didn’t talk down to me, but he could have, considering his extensive knowledge of comics and strong body of work. Respect is transformative. Regarding gender/women in comics and being a woman who draws comics: my relationship with comics was never treated as cute or diminutive in Pittsburgh. I never expected it to be – but it happens, even with great, wonderful, well-intentioned friends. Frank “gets” it, and it’s evident both in his speech and actions.“ “Sally is amazing as well; I talked to her about what I’d come up with so far for Pale, Sick, and Magic over coffee before I went to start drawing it on first day. She also helped me process a lot of what Frank was saying – Frank said a lot of good stuff and so very frequently that it was difficult to capture it all. Sally helped me retain more than I would have on my own. Also, Frank and Sally both waited for my train with me the morning I left, and I really appreciated that, especially because it was an hour late. They went to great lengths to give me an extensive tour of Pittsburgh and to make me feel welcome. I felt humbled by the amount of respect and care that was taken in shaping my experience. I’m already ready to go back.“ Sally here, to conclude. Each person who visits the Rowhouse has as much of an impact on the Comics Workbook team as we do on them, and Audra was no exception. She taught us all about Pokémon Go, for example, and as she reports in the comic above, we spent a considerable amount of time driving around the city harassing people on the streets – to their actual delight…! Far above and beyond that, the conversation that filled the Rowhouse during her stay was fuel on the fire for all of us. The transformative power of respect that Audra mentioned is something that she and I discussed at length. Frank has this way of handing the keys over to each of his students, and then he trusts them drive the car like Speed Racer. This sort of empowerment from a mentor and teacher is an incredible boost to anyone who might aspire to be a comics master, but to a woman in this field it holds extra impact. We live in hope that before too long, that sort of distinction won’t be part of the conversation. That will take a bit more work, however, so knowing that Audra left Pittsburgh and her Rowhouse Residency with a new sense of her own outstanding worth as a cartoonist means that Frank and the Comics Workbook team is on the right track. Let’s keep this conversation going! ————————————————————————————————— Audra went home and finished Pale, Sick, and Magic, which is currently being serialized on the Comics Workbook tumblr – catch up with it HERE. We will also be archiving it here on the site and printing it this autumn, so stay tuned. You can see more of Audra’s work HERE. ————————————————————————————————— If you have questions about the Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency or are interested in applying for one yourself, please check out our Info Page and/or email santoroschoolsATgmail, and keep up with all the latest happenings HERE. Share this page: [...]

09/01/2016

Sally IngrahamSeptember 1, 2016NewsFor Thursday we have a new Ed Piskor article, Zona #3 reviewed, the (nearly totally updated) list for the 2016 Comics Workbook Composition Competition entries, Jonas Goonface’s work in review, and some insights on teaching and kids. ————————————————————————————————— Ed Piskor is having an amazing year – and back in his hometown of Pittsburgh, PA, folks are feeling the the power of this force of nature. From the Pittsburgh City Paper: “Accolades for Piskor include last year’s coveted Eisner Award for best reality-based work, for HHFT Book 2. This year, he’s in mad demand as a speaker. In September alone, after an appearance at the Small Press Expo (SPX), in Maryland, he’ll speak at the Library of Congress’ National Book Festival, the country’s largest such fest. SPX executive director Warren Bernard calls HHFT “one of the finest pieces of graphic-novel history that’s ever been done.” Piskor’s fellow Pittsburgh-based comics artist Frank Santoro goes further. Santoro, also a critic, is internationally known for his comics, but he says that commercially and artistically, Piskor has reached another level entirely. “He’s now the most dominant player in the game I’ve ever seen,” says Santoro. “Ed has just gone above and beyond what has been thought possible.” ” via Bill O’Driscoll Read the whole article HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Chris Beckett dug into Comics Workbook publication Zona #3 on the blog he writes with Dan Flemming – Warrior27. “I have enjoyed every issue of ZONA thus far, but this most recent publication, with its wide variety—not only in artistic approach but also in genre and storytelling style—has been the best issue to date. All of these artists created insightful and engaging narratives—in only 10 pages—that stand with the best comics being produced by today’s larger publishers. You need to check this out. Now.” – Chris Beckett Read the whole review HERE. Get a copy of Zona #3! ————————————————————————————————— http://comicsworkbook.com/composition-competition-entries-2016/ The Comics Workbook judging team will be making the announcement about winners any moment now – stay tuned! Meanwhile, check out all the terrific comics that came out of this year’s competition – which garnered more than the last three competitions put together. Quite an amazing outpouring of comics and hard work…! ————————————————————————————————— Another Pittsburgh cartoonist – Jonas McGluggage (Goonface) – had his work review recently on Comic Bastards. “Follow the Leader‘s second issue reads like a bloody version of a William Blake poem. Depictions of naiveté and purity permeate a narrative that, at its core, is a commentary on youth and acceptance. Larranceville’s local park is a carnivorous Neverland filled with hungry Lost Boys.” – Ben Boruff Read the rest of the review HERE. Check out more stuff by Jonas Goonface HERE. You can keep up with Follow the Leader HERE. ————————————————————————————————— There was an eye-opening article on The New York Times recently about “What Kids Wish Their Teachers Knew”. “The responses were eye-opening for Ms. Schwartz. Some children were struggling with poverty (“I wish my teacher knew I don’t have pencils at home to do my homework”); an absent parent (“I wish my teacher knew that sometimes my reading log is not signed because my mom isn’t around a lot”); and a parent taken away (“I wish my teacher knew how much I miss my dad because he got deported to Mexico when I was 3 years old and I haven’t seen him in six years”).” – DONNA DE LA CRUZ Read the rest HERE. Share this page: [...]

Printing Comics – by R. M. Rhodes

Comics WorkbookJuly 27, 2017EssaysA common topic of conversation among Those Who Remember is the age of the comics medium. Was Richard Occault’s Yellow Kid really the first comic? Or does that honor belong to Rodolphe Töpffer’s goofy satires? Or does it go back even further than that? And how does the Bayeux Tapestry fit into all of this? The answer to all of these questions is “marketing.” It was in the best interests of the New York newspapers to trumpet that the Yellow Kid was the first of its kind because they were fighting over who got to print it – it was that popular. It’s in the best interests of Francophone historians to promote a local Swiss artist who published in French back in the mid-1800s. And the Bayeux Tapestry is an outlier, lovingly handcrafted propaganda. Honestly, any question of what “was the first comic?” must, almost by default, ask the question “what is comics?” What are the elements that must be present for something to be considered “comics”? From there, the theory goes, it’s just a matter of going through the material until you find the earliest example of something that meets those criteria. The reality is much messier than the theory. I am currently working my way through a copy of The Early Cartoon Strip by David Kunzle, subtitled Narrative Strips and Picture Stories in the European Broadsheet from c.1450 through 1825. (Why I just discovered the existence of a book that was published the year I was born is a mystery for the ages.) Kunzle did a comprehensive deep dive of archives of European art and offered up a consistent definition of the comic strip: There must be a sequence of separate images There must be a preponderance of image over text The medium in which the strip appears and for which it is originally intended must be reproducible, that is, in printed form, a mass medium The sequence must tell a story which is both moral and topical Kunzle starts the introduction to his book with what has become a cliché, but wasn’t in 1973 – the discussion of how comic strips aren’t always funny, so it’s a misnomer. They shouldn’t be called comics, but they are. I believe that’s the underlying reasoning for the fourth criteria for what makes up comics (now and then). Because it really doesn’t make sense that the subject matter or kind of story being told has anything to do with whether something should or should not be considered a comic. You would not argue that a novel is not a novel because the story is a comedy, or vice versa – so why should a comic that had no moral or topic relevance be excluded? Kunzle gives a decent justification that provides a filter that could narrow his search – and thus, his results. But his premise was laughable in 1973 and is laughable today. “Whether it is considered morally harmful or morally useful, progressive or reactionary, the modern comic strip has undeniably strong moral content.” Strong disagreement. But limiting what gets labelled comics due to tone and/or intent ignores the versatility of the medium. Comics can – and should – be anything. One of the intriguing things about Kunzle’s criteria is what’s missing – the lack of proscriptive about what kind of art is used to make the image. This ties in with criteria three – reproducible in a mass medium. Essentially, Kunzle’s research indicates that comics have been around since the introduction of the printing press in Western Europe. And, in the beginning, printing technology was so crude that there really wasn’t room to be picky about what kind of art it was to begin with – it all had to be converted to woodblocks for print anyway. But even a cursory glance at the exhaustively cataloged marginalia by monastic manuscript copyists indicates that cartooning was a well-established skill in the centuries long before the introduction of the printing press. Some of these even look like the Bayeux Tapestry, if you squint. The point being that cartooning and making comics are two distinct, separate skillsets. It is entirely possible to be a cartoonist without ever making comics and it is equally possible to make comics without using cartoons. Which makes this pedant grit his teeth every time someone says that they’re looking forward to seeing “all the cartoonists at SPX,” for example. This begs the question of whether the person making the statement cares about all of the rest of the comics creators in attendance or only cares about cartoonists? I think the requirement of mass reproducibility is the most interesting and least intuitive. It suggests that a solitary page of sequential art that has no intention of ever being sent to print is not really comics. It also suggests the paradoxical concept of copies with no originals – something that seems less and less absurd to artists who have grown up making and sharing their art entirely on the internet with files that can be perfectly replicated with little or no effort. Back in the day, when Kunzle was doing his research, the idea of an entirely digital medium was barely conceived of at Xerox PARC, but was a long way from being evenly distributed. As far as I’m concerned, the mass reproducibility requirement answers the initial question regarding the Bayeux Tapestry – it was never intended to be mass reproduced and, indeed, there was no way for it to be mass reproduced at the time of its creation. In fact, reproducing the entire Tapestry in its current medium would be a major undertaking now. I know from experience that it’s relatively straightforward – if time-consuming – to transform the contents of the Bayeux Tapestry into an eight panel grid. (The whole thing takes up about nine pages.) But that’s not the Bayeux Tapestry, exactly, is it? It’s designed to be read as a continuous strip 70 meters in length. So any faithful reproduction of it ought to be, by rights, in the original format – even a 70-meter-long printout would be a mediated version of the original and lack authenticity. Set aside the question of who would buy it (answer: collectors like me, who enjoy tracking down obscure works) – the real question is “who would have the wall space to display it?” Even the museum at Bayeux has to display the tapestry on three adjacent walls. Kunzle traces the improvements in printing technology as they progress through the centuries in Europe. What’s interesting is how these advances provided greater range and detail for the artists, but that the early works are just as effective as their later counterparts. It’s also interesting to note how similar in process and effect the earliest proto-comics are to the works of Lynd Ward, for example, who produced wordless illustrated novels with one woodblock print per page. In that way, Ward has a more direct connection to the earliest works than contemporary comics creators do today. Kunzle documents how the public’s affection for caricature in the late 18th century drove the adoption of etching over line engraving as a primary means of reproducing art. Engraving was William Hogarth’s medium and his works did a lot to define what engraving and sequential art were capable of. In some ways, caricature, a very informal art style, is a reaction to the excessive formality of Hogarth. One was stodgy and moralistic, the other was quick and simple. Kunzle notes that the emergence of etching…invited the addition of light washes in watercolor. “Sixpence plain, one shilling colored” is a phrase not found upon prints before the advent of caricature. Which begs the question of how Dirk Jansz van Santen became such a prominent and sought-after colorist of engraved prints a century before Hogarth. A major difference is that van Santen did intricate piecework. He hand-illustrated entire atlases, but these were very limited editions. His work could not be mass produced the same way that the original engravings could be. His work became a value add, simply by the nature of the fact that he did them. One of the first superstar colorists, really. By the late 18th century things had changed. JMW Turner did work coloring etchings for the local print-seller when he was a boy. Caricature required less precision to make, print, and color. Every step of the art process was much more accessible to talented (noble) amateurs instead being solely the purview of the trained working class professional infrastructure that had to grow up around the precision required from etchings. In 1787, a younger son of a baronet named Henry Banbury created a seven foot long strip called The Long Minuet as Danced at Bath. Later that year, he produced The Propagation of a Lie, which was only six feet long. These two pieces set of a craze for strips – mostly of much shorter, easier to copy, length. The parallels with the Bayeux Tapestry are obvious, but the medium, subject matter, and technical circumstances were radically different. Töpffer arrived towards the end of this wave of innovation and worked in a caricature style. This was mostly due to his poor eyesight, which kept him from doing the kind of detail work that he might have wanted to do. Töpffer’s innovation was not the caption with the art, nor with the strip arrangement, nor even panel borders, nor even the far more satiric subject matter. Really, Töpffer’s innovation was that he made books – several pages of sequential narrative that were themselves in sequence and had to be read together to make sense of the whole thing. To that point, sequences were constrained to a single page, with multiple strips stacked on top of each other. Or, in the case of Hogarth, they were a series of single page prints, suitable for framing. Sometimes, as in his Before and After series, Hogarth would mount two images on the same page side by side. But if you only wanted one page from his Rake’s Progress, for example, he would sell it to you and be satisfied that you will get the moral message. The rest of the pages made a good complement, but they were not necessary as a set to get the whole story, as it were. Töpffer’s innovation literally changed the context in which sequential art could be presented. Before it was pretty much restricted to single pages, sometimes as a collected set. It was probably inevitable that one branch of printing would collide with another, but Töpffer seems to be the first one to make that connection in a commercially viable context. Ironically, without the encouragement of Goethe, Töpffer probably would not have self-published his works – and even when he did, they were in limited print runs of no more than 500. He was widely pirated in his lifetime and the knock-offs sold far more than the originals ever did. By 1895, when Richard Outcault’s Yellow Kid first appeared in the strip Hogan’s Alley in Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World, and later William Randolph Hearst’s New York Journal. Stylistically, The Yellow Kid was nothing new, but the technology had advanced to the point where the comic could be printed in color, which is what made The Yellow Kid distinctive, and thus, desirable. Indeed, the popularity of the character meant that he appeared in one, then the other, then both newspapers at once until 1898. Certain American comics historians date the advent of the modern comic strip to Outcault, and they’re not wrong, just chauvinistic. Again, the emergence of better printing technology is really what is being acknowledged, not necessarily the content or the artistic style. Like I said at the beginning, it’s all marketing. The fact that one can trace the advances in printing technology through the history of printed visual narrative is pretty impressive. Frank Santoro is clearly on to something with his ongoing interrogation of Risograph printers. Contemporary comics creators have a large variety of choices they can make with regard to their approach to mass reproduction. Unfortunately, many choose the default option, without realizing that default means there are other options. These days, I make 16 page, 8-panel grid comics, which is not unusual. But mine are digitally printed, which is a quantum leap from old-school industrialized print-making – but digital printing suits the complex nature of my digitally-rendered artwork the best. And I make limited-edition, numbered print runs of 25, which pushes the edges of the intention of mass reproduction. There is no burning commercial demand for what I do, which makes 25 copies optimistic at best. But the limited print run calls back to the days of limited edition print sellers. My point being that if one is going to make choices, it’s important to know what those choices signify and what benefits come with each one. Knowing the history helps with that process. Share this page: [...]

New Waves in Latin American Comics: Colombia

Juan FernándezAugust 24, 2016los Cómics / Scene ReportsThis guest post comes to us from Laura Andrea Garzón Garavito in Colombia Every time I walk into a bookstore I try to check for the comics and graphic novel section. It might not be surprising given that in countries with a comic strip tradition, like the United States or France, there are bookstores entirely devoted to selling such products. In Latin America, places like Mexico and Argentina have given comics an important space among other literature, having both been large scale national creators and international translators of comics. Nevertheless, in many other Latin American countries comics and graphic novels are only just starting to be of common interest for publishers. Take Colombia, for example. Until not long ago, you could only find translations from mainstream comics, such as superhero ones by Marvel or DC, magazines brought from the above mentioned Mexico or Argentina, and sections in the newspaper devoted to translations of comics such as Calvin and Hobbes or Mafalda (an argentinian political cartoon icon). But there was not much regarding local production in Colombia. Until now. These days, in 2016, as I find so many new books, I feel glad this medium has started to find increased interest among readers. And since we have been building our very own national comics tradition, we have been looking to be eclectic in our selections. I find it interesting that the bookstores that have invested in bringing comics closer to the audience in Colombia, which is my case, have chosen authors with alternative works, who do not necessarily respond to the mainstream view of what comics “are”. That might be because this audience is still forming a definition of what comics can be and their readers enter this universe new eyes. In each comic book club I have been in, I have heard the speakers trying to broaden the perspectives of what such a medium can offer, and the relation that it has with other arts, like film, literature, poetry, painting, etc… An important part of expanding the national understanding of the many forms that comics take to have Maus in a shop window, side by side with El Eternauta, but is not enough. You might laugh at that, since Maus has been circulating for so long it seems impossible not have bumped into it. But I often think we are, in our very own parallel reality, in a point, similar to the one Spiegelman found himself when winning the pulitzer prize in 1992: where should we place this type of creations? where do we sell these works? Gary Groth, editor of Fantagraphics, publisher and critic, said in a conference held in Bogotá last year, he felt Colombia’s panorama looked pretty similar to the one he had seen in the United States in the 80’s, which was a time for alternate exploration of both markets and formats. That means thinking comics through various lenses, thinking audiences can be broader than imagined, not only kids or old-time series followers, but a whole spectrum of different ages, backgrounds, genders, and so on. In this scenario, underground comix hadn’t even seen Maus yet! Just like it happened here! For a long time creators, fans and editors had to research their sources for comics elsewhere, either traveling or ordering books, or maybe being able to find some online version of them. That network has enabled relationships between latin american authors in different regions. Communication through the internet has been a way of supplying for the gatherings: it has built a new kindof dialogue around the comics world. It has also made it possible to think of self-publishing in a different way. Circulation for your work has not been limited solely to printed fanzines but also from web-comics. What we have been seeing in Colombia has been a period of transition in which the alternatives avenues for creativity intertwine, giving artists chances of mixing them and creating hybrid works. However, the fact that the definition of what comics are and what they can do is a definition in construction means that the medium is till fight for legitimization. A fight to make comics be seem as a viable medium, not classified as secondary, as less than other types of narrative forms, or framed as for only some type of audiences (by editorials or entities in charge of financing new authors and their projects). It also means that there is a fight to find assure that there are market willings to support the production of comic books in Latin America. The very idea of trusting that this kind of publishing can be supported on a national level may be difficult from country to country. What might be easy for Brazil can be difficult in Peru or Colombia. Now, relations between Latin American countries can help to understand there is indeed viable market for comic books, but, according to Colombian comics critic, script writer and comics editor, Pablo Guerra, Latin America has always been an island in editorial terms. That’s to say Latin American countries have found it difficult to establish connections (even when it comes to traditional forms of literature) between themselves to develop strategies for mutual support, so they do not continue to be regarded as an appendix of Spain, as is done in other international contexts. On the bright side of such situation Daniel Jiménez (editor, cultural manager and director of the colombian comics festival Entreviñetas) notes that there is a healthy situation in the panaroma of Colombian comics: a new generation of cartoonists under 35 years of age. They are a group of hungry creators with a network of interesting cultural and artistic production in the comics medium. They understand that they need to be in dialogue with other cultural traditions, perspectives and tendencies happening in other places around both Latin America and the world. They are critical, they question their reality, they aim to create a dialogue through their work. Latin American artists work in and from the interstitial space between center and periphery, and that is reflected in their production. The fact that there is a young generation also makes it possible for relations around this new forms of making comics to be fresh and non-hierarchical. The idea is that among this demagraphic, it doesn’t matter where you come from but rather what you do and how you do it in comics, along with how you participate of the new channels of distribution. Here is a list of recommendations and highlights of the contemporary Latin American comics situation (Special thanks to Kelly Moctezuma, a young artist, editor and comics curator, for helping me out with this last section so you, dear reader, can enjoy the best of what we’ve got to offer): Hands up for the editorials publishing comic books and graphic novels. Graphic novels might be a difficult format for new readers, as a broad part of Latin American audience can be, as well as an expensive one, but editorials have found their way around this problem: Rey Naranjo and the recently launched Cohete Comics, part of Laguna Libros, and La Silueta in Colombia, Contracultura and Pictorama in Perú, Catalonia in Chile, La Ñatita in Bolivia, MINO in Brazil. Some kick-ass girls worth watching for that still struggle to make a living out of this like PowerPaola, Delius, Sole Otero, Isol, Inechi, Maco, Marcela Trujillo, No Sofía, María Luque, CatalinaBu, Juana Medina. Now some boys worth checking out (I mean, their work) like Luis Echavarría, Fabio Zimbres, Rodrigo de la Hoz, Camilo Aguirre, Henry Díaz, Alejandro Henao, Antolín Olguiatti, Jim Pluk, Joni b, Truchafrita, Pedro Mancini, Jesús Cossio, Marco Tóxico, Eduardo Yaguas. Publications that have (or had) underlined comics in Latin America are alive and growing: Revista Larva, Carboncito, Entreviñetas (which is a section in the national colombian newspaper El Espectador), Dr. Fausto, Graffiti 76% quadrinhos, Gringo Muerto. – Laura Andrea Garzón Garavito Share this page: [...]

Maggie Cheung from ITMFL by Kevin Wada

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