Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in NewsTagged Absenteism, Connor Willumsen, Economics, Ohgigue, Peanuts, SARAH FERRICK, Will Tempest

Harrison

Posted on March 3, 2016April 27, 2016

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Jack Brougham on LICAF 2016

Comics WorkbookOctober 25, 2016Festivals and ShowsQuite often comics conventions feel like they exist in little bubbles. Once you’re inside the hall/centre/shack/bunker the event is taking place in, you get the sense you could be anywhere. The organizers of The Lakes International Comic Art Festival (LICAF) seem to be having none of this. Visiting Kendal for the weekend of the festival is like entering a parallel universe where comics and cartooning are part of the fabric of public life. Walk out of the Clock Tower for a breath of fresh air and a can of fizzy pop, and you might see Dr Who and Batman walking side by side down the High Street, or Chewbacca and a Storm Trooper having a chat and posing for selfies with weekend shoppers. (note: Frank Santoro was caught grabbing a selfie with Chewbacca – check out his LICAF adventures HERE!) Queuing for sandwiches you can admire the mad drawings of superheroes plastering the windows, made by local school kids. There’s a real sense that the festival has pushed its tendrils into the local community, and vice versa. Stumbling home late at night to your lodgings, you might chance across original art from Oliver East’s The Homesick Truant’s Cumbrian Yarn, lit by slanting yellow street light. It helps that the festival takes place in Kendal. It’s a pretty special place, with fantastic and fantastical grey stone architecture everywhere. I was generously put up in an attic flat in an enormous, labyrinthine house just outside the town centre, which set a tone of enchantment for the rest of the weekend (thanks to my generous hosts, Mandy and Geoff!) Walking from my accommodation to the town centre on Sunday I was taken with the strange rock formations on the crest of the hill above the town. The day previously I had been chatting to fellow CW alumnus Niall Breen and he mentioned he was going to go walking in the hills. How many other comics festivals or conventions are there you can take a break by walking out of town and up a mini mountain? Can’t be many. (note: check out Niall’s LICAF story HERE.) I was there to help man the Comics Workbook table in the main hall of the Clock Tower, the market section of the festival. While this meant being out of action for many talks and workshops, there was a real buzz in the halls with loads of great folk stopping by to say hello. It was me and the aforementioned Oliver East behind the table for the weekend. The atmosphere was lively, with plenty of people coming by to browse and chat. I got to meet several cartoonists whose work I have admired for years, and was introduced to several whose work I hadn’t been familiar with. The organizers seem to have deliberately gone out of their way to involve as many makers as possible from every corner, edge, nook, cranny and crack of the field of small press comics. Art comics similar to those on the CW table were well represented, as were superheroes, genre fiction, cute stuff and animal comics. The range of styles, content, genres and sensibilities represented by the sellers in the market was really impressive. Being behind the table was a great opportunity to see different networks of comics makers and enthusiasts forming. This was really exciting. I was particularly taken with a concept Simon Russell is developing which involves establishing a new (to me, at least) model for independent makers of all sorts to sell side by side at small scale curated events. Less financial risk for the creator, and less creative ghettoisation, which in a field like comics is especially welcome. For a maker involved in self-publishing, this is what festivals like LICAF are all about – forging connections with other makers and enabling creative communities to be built. I’ve been thinking a lot recently about closing the circle between creating and publishing and publishing small and often in cheap little editions, road-testing stories in public, and building larger narratives or works from small individually published units. So far so confused? – excellent. Anyway, arriving at the table with this in the back of my mind it was great to see the organizers had hired Comics Workbook a photocopier so we could run off copies of the zines and comics produced in the CW workshops that took place on Saturday morning. Workshops are great and everything, but when you can demonstrate to people how easy it is to start running off copies of your own stuff to share, that’s something else. Sunday I drove off in beautiful afternoon sunshine to a friend’s house nearby. As I drove down narrow winding roads scattered with the first leaves of autumn I saw enormous bales of hay or straw wrapped in bright fuchsia plastic, like relics of a future cartoon universe cast back in time. Then, rounding a tight corner, a field of sheep all dyed bright orange, suddenly came into view. It was as if the spirit of LICAF had seeped out into the surrounding countryside, creating these surrealistic eruptions from the lush green hillsides. I’m looking forward to coming back next year for more of the same. ————————————————————————– Jack Brougham makes comics outside London, England. You can find his work HERE. Share this page: [...]

TCAF 2016 | Chippendale, Mickey, Como, Marra, Minette, Jesjit

Juan FernándezJune 3, 2016Festivals and ShowsShare this page: [...]

05/05/2016

HarrisonMay 5, 2016News Daily views of daily news. For Thursday were looking for the free stuff, talking about (visual) language, paying attention to style, and cooking up soul. ————————————————————————————————— Freebies Tell your friends and family, Free Comic Book Day is Saturday. Find a store here and try not to get stingy. ————————————————————————————————— “Look at him. In a couple of years he could become another Picasso.” “I watched Style Wars today – it’s been on my list ever since reading that bit of Hip Hop Family Tree by @edpiskor. I made a bunch of “scene” cards and arranged them this way – next time I’ll arrange them a different way. Turns out I like drawing break dancers almost as much as I like drawing graffiti.” Sally Ingraham Putting this idea from my CW colleague in my briefcase for the near future. ————————————————————————————————— Eye Emoji. Paintbrush Emoji. “A critique is an oral or written discussion strategy used to analyze, describe, and interpret works of art. Critiques help students hone their persuasive oral and writing, information-gathering, and justification skills.” ————————————————————————————————— Ideas and Language By Cameron Nicholson Your ideas are pure, but in order to make your ideas connect, you must learn the language they understand and speak. Once you’ve learned the stepping tones of their language you can get your ideas through. Then they HAVE to listen. Now that you have them listening, captivate them. Captivate them for the sake of YOU creating; you’re not catering to their needs. Your ideas are way more powerful than you think, the language barrier is what halts understanding from artist to viewer. These Language Barriers in art are why artists and non-artist get scared or become stagnant, but then we realize these languages are the “foundations.” Knowing these foundations are the basic words of art. “Whether or not you agree now, you will begin to at least listen once I start speaking your language.” If I started a track with a sample of Otis Redding’s “Try a Little Tenderness” that led into my song or beat, a listener can become indirectly invested to continue listening. For people who love Otis or that sound you already feel comfortable and invested in him & those sounds. It’s how mixing and sampling became so big in Hip Hop. Fan Art uses the languages you already comfortable with and gets you to keep listening. Everyone has different taste, but the idea is to learn the foundation/language of that “art form” to speak your thoughts. Thus the idea of languages in/of art. Morning thoughts and ideas forming in this odd head of mine. I’ll keep cracking at these ideas until they make sense to everyone. Smooth music to relax, drink some tea or even work too. Richmond, Va’s DJ Harrison makes some insanely amazing beats. Each track can give you energy to do many different things. I personally like “Vault Series #6 Trio 1967” just some great things there. When doing comics, think of beats per panel. 1, 2, 3, 4. 1, 2, 3, 4. Comics as music, music as comics. https://djharrison.bandcamp.com/ ————————————————————————————————— Live! Sop up this soul with your breakfast bread. Happy Thursday. Share this page: [...]

04/07/2017

Sally IngrahamApril 7, 2017NewsSally here to close the week with work by Anya Davidson, Lale Westvind, Cara Bean, Lauren Purje, Rebecca Roher, and more. ————————————————————————————————— Ryan Carry writes a glowing review of Anya Davidson‘s Lovers in the Garden for Daily Grindhouse: “Don’t look now, but it appears as though toiling away with too little recognition for far too long is finally paying off for superb cartoonist Anya Davidson, who is having something of a “moment”…“ “Set smack dab in the middle of New York’s 1970s heroin epidemic, this comic definitely wears its Serpico-style “police thriller” and blaxploitation influences proudly on its sleeve, but rather than wallowing in storytelling standards of days gone by instead filters them through a decidedly singular artistic lens to come up with a truly unique and instantly memorable reading experience.“ “Intricate without feeling forced, complex without belaboring its own cleverness, Lovers In The Garden is essential reading that will richly reward careful second, third, fourth (and more) perusals.“ Read the rest of the review HERE. Anya Davidson will be in Pittsburgh. PA, this weekend as a special guest at the Pittsburgh Indy Comix Expo. If you’re in the region come meet her and get a copy of Lovers in the Garden. ————————————————————————————————— Lale Westvind is also a special guest at PIX this Sunday, April 9th, and she will have a new comic to debut there – Joan Doe the Drone Pilot and Mary the Drone! Check it out at PIX, and catch Lale at a Comics Workbook workshop along with Connor Willumsen and Frank Santoro (4-5 PM – details HERE.) If you can’t make it to PIX you can pre-order the comic – ships out after the 9th. ————————————————————————————————— Cara Bean adds an important comic to the archives of Illustrated PEN – Rob Kirby is is the guest editor who presents it: “Her beautiful story, “The Art Class is a Sanctuary City,” is quietly defiant and political, but rendered with love and deep empathy. Reading it, my first thought was how lucky Bean’s students are to have her as a teacher. My second thought was how the work of teachers can go a long way in building inspiration, and battling against hate and fear.“ See the whole comic HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Heidi MacDonald reports on MoCCA 2017 for Publisher’s Weekly, writing that the show drew it’s largest crowd ever. Lots of pictures from the event and a who’s who of exhibitors and their new work – HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Rebecca Roher has teamed up with gynecologist Dr. Aparna Sridhar to help share info about various types of contraceptive options. Birth Control Tales is an online comic available for free – you can find out about IUDs via this comic, and hormonal implants HERE. There are at least two more comics in the works. Rebecca is based in Toronto, and well-known for her comic Mom Body (2015), which you can read HERE, and read all about on The Huffington Post. Dr. Aparna Sridhar grew up reading Tintin and after seeing Mom Body she realized that comics could be a non-threatening way to share important info about contraception. She approached Rebecca to suggest a collaboration. The Globe and Mail has the rest of the story HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Lauren Purje has a regular comic on Hyperallergic (March 27th, 2017 strip pictured above). She is from Dublin, OH, and is also a painter. She is now based out of Brooklyn, NY. Her comic strip series delves into her creative practice and her collection of odd art-related jobs around the city. Check out the whole thing HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Dame Darcy is on tour! Catch her somewhere in AZ, WA, CA, OR, or NY in April – full schedule HERE. With Dame Darcy you get a lot of bang for your bux. Check it out: “Performance art / opera singing over home made trax plus reading and signing of Meat Cake Bible compilation graphic novel 500 pages of DD work for 25 years published by Fantagraphics. Plus other books, hand made prints, and tarot cards, plus tarot reading!“ ————————————————————————————————— Gloria Rivera shares thoughts on the work of Erik Nebel here on the site: “Erik Nebel, from a formal standpoint, uses the elements of color, scale, pattern (repetition) to create a connection with their audience without means of establishing “character” descriptions. We look to Erik’s images of fluid, moving, form-ambiguous figures across the page, with the only rigidity in their work in the sequencing across the template of three rectangular panels. It is a primitive instinct to read groups of figures as multiple persons when placed in the same space, so the setup of the comics are a defining line, implying a narrative. It’s a simple mechanism (the three panel grid) but without it, it would be a different kind of comic. If anything, the stationary structure of the grid enhances Erik’s graceful forms, and stark choices in color/contrast. Comics made for print usually see a loss in translation to the digital screen, but this is where Erik does their best to exploit the gap between the two. Nearly every strip they create vibrates between lines, flat against flat.“ Read more HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Lentil Soup A new baby isn’t keeping Lauren Weinstein from making comics – she is already back at The Village Voice with a new episode of Normal Person. Julie Doucet got her first retrospective at Fumetto – details HERE. We found a video on Facebook that gives a glimpse inside the show – check it out. Paste Magazine features Kim Reaper, a new comic by Sarah Graley – details and images from issue #1 HERE. Amadeo Gandolfo writes about a number of female cartoonists and other women working in the industry – lots of pictures and some good names to look up – get Google to translate it out of Spanish for you – HERE. Check out these sketchbook comics by Sarah Glidden from her winter travels in Europe. ————————————————————————————————— As mentioned, Comics Workbook will be at the Pittsburgh Indy Comix Expo on Sunday, April 9th. We will be hosting a workshop series with instructors from the school – Frank Santoro, Juan Fernandez, Caleb Orecchio, me (Sally Ingraham) – as well as special guests Carol Tyler, Lale Westvind, and Connor Willumsen! More details HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Blinkers – 4-7-2017 – by Jack Brougham ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 4-7-2017 – by Gabriella Tito ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 4-7-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

04/19/2018

Comics WorkbookApril 18, 2018NewsSam Ombiri on Joe Daly’s The Red Monkey – plus Frank Santoro at Naples Comicon in Italy! —————————————————————————————————————————— Sam Ombiri here: When reading comics, or engaging with any art form really, there’s this confrontation with internal noise that I have to dealt with – that for unknown reasons I feel desperate to make sense of. I wonder…this whole comics thing…what’s it for? Different artists at different times speak to me, to help make sense of it all, and I’m certain this is what it’s like for everyone who reads comics. For me this week, I’m not saying Joe Daly’s The Red Monkey rectified ALL of this ongoing anxiety, but reading The Red Monkey was in some ways an answer to some of my questions – in a big way, really. This isn’t the first time Joe Daly’s book has given me a real gut punch. Daly’s comics in general feel like a really sincere reaction to the energy that comics poses. When I say sincere, I mean he makes comics that don’t seem concerned with the reception that will be given to the book that he’s made. Every drawing he made was at the service of the form, and engaging with the ideas he is engaging with, as opposed to aiming to get attention and accolades. Telling a story means less and less for people. It’s too simple; too boring. People feel desperate to make comics more useful, and as a result can forsake the form altogether, and that’s not without its consequences – comics feel increasing impotent. With The Red Monkey, it doesn’t feel like Daly wonders how people will consume it. He engages with comics like it’s something to make things that are difficult to understand, understandable. As though comics are an effective way for any reader to be confronted with what’s not understandable. I remember Stan Brakhage quoting Bresson (in a conversation Bresson was having with Godard) about how it’s important to convince your audience to like you – and making a thing aesthetically pleasing so that you can take your audience certain places. The Red Monkey was so easy to read, without it’s simplicity being a big deal, and the environment was so well rendered – never did I have to ask where I was or what the the character was doing. It’s this clarity that’s important when making stories. With that in mind, I’m reminded of a moment in Daly’s Highbone Theater and how I was sucked into Palmer’s idea about 9/11 without questioning it or mocking it, because of how infectious the narrative was. It’s in the same fashion that I’m sucked into the madness going on in The Red Monkey. That’s what art can do. I keep having this recurring stupid mini revelation, or rather I had this thought a year ago, and it’s nothing impressive, but it’s really stuck with me. This revelation has to do with how potent attitude is, how it goes into making any piece of art have a certain energy that defines it. There’s a moment towards the beginning of the story when the main character gets roped into babysitting for his neighbor. He tries to find a comic for the kid, and he tells the kid that he’s babysitting (who is a fantastic character), to be careful with the comics, and that comics are like his religion. That’s the energy I’m referring to that I find over and over in Daly’s comics. – Sam Ombiri Get a copy of The Red Monkey by Joe Daly over at Copacetic Comics, where coincidentally there is a wicked deal on the book as Bill Boichel is also eager to get more folks hep to Daly – check it out HERE. —————————————————————————————————————————— Sally here – the Naples Comicon Instagram account was buzzing yesterday, as famed Italian paleontologist Alberto Angela was caught at the National Archeological Museum of Naples, in Italy, looking at original artwork from Frank Santoro’s Pompeii (above). Alberto Angela is a popular TV presenter and commentator for science-based programs. He is the author of A Day in the Life of Ancient Rome, among other texts, and has lectured on the tragedy of Pompeii. He seemed taken by Frank’s depictions, or as the Naples Comicon put it, he “could not resist the charm of the show“. There are over 30 pages from Pompeii on display at the museum, in an exhibition which is being held in conjunction with Frank’s appearance as a special guest at the Naples Comicon (April 28-May 1 2018). The show opened yesterday (April 18th) at MANN and will continue until May 31st 2018. More details on the show can be found HERE. During Comicon Frank will be participating in a panel with Blutch, whose graphic novel Peplum also takes a look at Ancient Rome. Details on the panel are HERE. If you’re in the area, be sure to attend Comicon and meet Frank, and don’t miss the exhibition at MANN! —————————————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 4-19-2018 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

3/03/2016

Posted on March 3, 2016April 27, 2016 by Harrison

“This wasn’t universally true of the comic book industry, but it was true enough for long enough in this country to inhibit the medium’s growth to full potential. Oddly, in the 1980s, a compensatory effort to make comic books more appealing to older readers erred in another direction by supposing that “mature themes” would enable comics to grow up. Although that’s probably valid to some extent, the notion too frequently took flight by mistakenly equating “social issues” or “personality portrayal” with “mature themes.” – R.C. Harvey on the Economics of Comics

Connor Willumsen is looking to supplement the cost of a move by taking commissions and selling original drawings. If you’re interested email him at mail@connorwillumsen.com.

Also Sarah Ferrick and Connor talk about their work on We Should Be Friends Podcast below.

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Will Tempest just uploaded part 4 of his series Massive Crustacean.

Artist GG continues with parts 20-22 of her series These Days. If you like her work support it on Paypal or Patreon.

Illustrator and Animator Jonathan Djob Nkondo (a.k.a. Absenteism) uploaded this excerpt a few months back from his series Square 1. Not sure if there is going to be second printing for Square 1 but these web pieces are good too.

Unrelated, but here’s a song for a rainy day.

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Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in NewsTagged Absenteism, Connor Willumsen, Economics, Ohgigue, Peanuts, SARAH FERRICK, Will Tempest

Harrison

Posted on March 3, 2016April 27, 2016

Explore

01/09/2017

Juan FernándezJanuary 8, 2017NewsA month of diary comics by Hannah Kaplan; Simon Reinhardt’s Mystery Town; Michael Deforge’s twitter comics; Gary Panter; Dash Shaw on Moonlight; Robyn Chapman’s 2016 Micro-Press Survey; Weird chat robot theater; and daily strips by Juan Fernandez, Caleb Orecchio and Gabriella Tito. Juan here. It’s getting bone chillingly cold here in Pittsburgh. We’re starting to burn the shitty minicomics to stay warm…it’s getting rough out here. Hope you’re warm at least, dear reader! ————————————————————————————————— The 2016 Micro-Press Survey is now live! If you’re a micropublisher, would you take a moment to fill it out? Robyn Chapman puts this together every year and its an invaluable resource for the scene as it ebbs and flows in energy and size. New for the 2016 Yearbook: Publishers that only publish anthologies will now be included in the Micro-Press Yearbook. If you only publish anthologies, please complete the regular 2016 Survey. If you’d like to recommend some anthology publishers for the list, please contact Robyn at robertaraechapman (at) gmail (dot) com. Weird robot theater – You can now watch Two Google home bots chat live. They go at it on a variety of topics, usually bickering back and forth. There’s a text stream in case you can’t quite make out what they’re saying. If you want a fun comics excercise, jot down some of their exchanges and use them as the fuel for a dialogue in a strip. Weird AI (fueled by cleverbot‘s AI) that creates a quiet, DADAist bit of chat logs you could imagine Samuel Beckett scripting. Philadelphia based cartoonist Hannah Kaplan is making a diary comic everyday this month. Catch up with the past week and tune in for the rest of the month. Highly recommended if you like the work of Gabrielle Bell, Julie Delporte or Sacha Mardou. ————————————————————————————————— Did you know Simon Reinhardt released twelve issues of Mystery Town in 2016? 1 Every month. You can read them all (plus the first two issues, from 2015) right here: http://mystery-town.tumblr.com/all Featuring guest comics from Luke Healy, Reilly Hadden, Nik James, Dean Sudarsky, Aaron Cockle and yours truly. The diligence and commitment of a King Cat zine with the far out obliqueness of comics by CF. Simon Reinhart has been putting out these monthly issues in a really fun and smart distribution model for zines. He makes the print ready PDF available online for free for you to print at home and brings copies around with him to give away wherever he exhibits. It’s clever in that the physical version of these comics is available for distribution anywhere, without him having to do a crazy amount of work printing and distributing. What I think is the most beautiful part of this is the nature of distortion in these zines. He’s playing around with different kinds of visual distortion and abstraction of images through his cartooning and the digital and analogue reproduction techniques he uses. Physical drawings scanned, photographed, halftoned, dithered… And of course, each zine comes out printed differently according to the kind of printer that is being used by the reader at home. So, hop on over to Mystery Town, print some issues out, staple them together, have a read and leave it somewhere for someone to find it. CW students, here’s my word to the wise: Consider self-publishing a monthly zine. Whatever writing or drawings you make that month, include it in the zine. Give it a cool name like SIRK or DEEP GIRL. Hold yourself to that deadline. Keep production simple. Black and white xerox it. Some months will be great, some months will be not so great. That’s ok. What’s most important is that you’ll be processing your world on your own terms through your comics. You can do it. ————————————————————————————————— Michael DeForge is publishing a new comic on his Twitter thread…! The first episode is shown above, and there have been further updates since then. Check it out – follow Michael on Twitter – @michael_deforge. ————————————————————————————————— Dash Shaw was one of a number of contributors to a cool feature on Talkhouse Film – The 2016 Talkies: Talkhouse Film Contributors’ Top Films of the Year. The favorite theatrical releases of 2016 were voted on and then graphic and written responses were shared, including Dash’s illustration for the movie Moonlight (above). Check out the rest of the list HERE. ————————————————————————————————— The pages pictured above are from Gary Panter’s ground-breaking and totally hilarious Cola Madnes. “Cola Madnes was created by Panter primarily for his Japanese audience (who named a cafe in Nagoya ‘Gary Panter Squar’ in his honor) using a manga-style two-panel-per-page layout that paid silent and respectful homage to the work of Toho Studios (creator of Godzilla) and comic book legend Jack “King” Kirby. Cola Madnes was Gary Panter’s artistic “holy mission” way back in 1983. A project that was spawned from sketch-book jottings to rise up phoenix-like 18 years later as a smoldering piece of graphic and literary art that deserves to be stacked alongside J.G. Ballard’s Crash and William S. Burroughs’ Naked Lunch.” – via Fantagraphics.com Gary Panter generously donated this seminal book – along with 100 Drawings, where Gary documents many of his best commissions – to Comics Workbook to help support the Rowhouse Residency and our other projects. Get copies of both at the school store – HERE. ————————————————————————————————— 1-9-2017 – by Juan Fernández ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 1-9-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 1-9-2017 – by Gabriella Tito Share this page: [...]

Cleveland, OH Scene Report

Frank SantoroNovember 6, 2011Riff Raff / Scene ReportsCleveland, OH scene report by Kevin Czap Despite a less-than-inspiring reputation, or maybe because of it, the past several years have seen a growing number of dedicated Clevelanders building a rich arts culture across all disciplines – design, music, the gallery scene, culinary arts. The comics scene in particular is at the very early stages of this same kind of growth. While there’s always been local comics activity, it’s tended to be fairly isolated. Now, however, we’re seeing concerted efforts to bring these cartoonists together, pooling our efforts to foster a thriving community. This was all put in motion by the establishment of the Genghis Con, a one-day expo focusing on underground and independent publishers, cartoonists and zinesters. The con was founded by Scott Rudge, owner of Astound! comics shop, and John G, the godfather of the Cleveland comics scene. Free to exhibitors and with a low door price for attendees, Genghis Con represents the current state of Cleveland comics. (November 26, 2011 will be the third annual! Come on out!) Cleveland’s a town with a rich comics history, with a host of significant figures calling it home through the years ó Jerry Siegel, Joe Shuster (not to mention Joanne Siegel), Robert Crumb (briefly), Peter Kuper, Brian Michael Bendis. Personal heroes Bill Watterson and Harvey Pekar (we’re working on getting a statue built) are/were lifers. But what is the Cleveland comics scene of the moment? Well, I mentioned John G, who for years was putting out comics like the anthology Shiner, co-edited with Kevin Fagan. John’s work is an indelible part of Cleveland’s visual identity, focusing on poster illustrations for countless rock shows and the popular grilled cheese restaurant Melt, as well as extensive illustration work for the alt weekly Scene magazine. Similarly, we’ve got Jake Kelly, whose Crosston was the first local comic I got here. Jake’s also gone the gig poster route, as well as painting huge murals throughout the city. Other vets in the area include Gary Dumm and Greg Budgett, longtime contributors to American Splendor, and Derf, author of the alt-weekly fixture “The City” and childhood friend of Jeffrey Dahmer. I also mentioned Scott Rudge and Astound!, the best comic shop in town from an indie perspective. There aren’t really any other stores where you can get hand-made comics in Cleveland, and believe me, I’ve looked. Carol & John’s is another great shop, as well as the graphic-novel-friendly indie book stores Mac’s Backs and Visible Voice. And then there’s the new kids. Centered largely around Cleveland Institute of Art students and alumni, there’s been a fresh wave of talent flooding Cleveland’s streets. For instance, Niki Smith, artist on the Zuda-winning digital comic In Maps & Legends, was recently awarded a huge grant from the Community Partnership for Arts and Culture that funded a trip to China to research her graphic-novel-in-progress. Hardcore comics “nerd” Liz Valasco is still fresh from interning at the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum at OSU and is making work I’m especially excited about. One of the reasons I started the PUPPYTEETH anthology was to provide a showcase for Cleveland folks like these (as well as a number of other CIA expats). I’ve also been happy to have the opportunity to teach a community course on the art of comics at CIA. There’s plenty happening apart from CIA, as well. Keith Pakiz is continuing the Watterson visual tradition with his mad-cap Condiment Squad. (side-note: Keith is part of a group of promising cartoonists coming out of BGSU in Toledo. Although the majority live too far away to be considered Clevelanders, they’re honorary members of the scene and I’d be remiss to not drop some names: Jessi Zabarsky, Eric Kubli, Geneva Hodgson being the most active). We’ve also got the Elyria Comic Book Initiative, which is on a mission to indoctrinate the children of Cleveland. It’s encouraging to think that the next generation is already being formed. And finally, Cleveland benefits greatly from its neighbors. Pittsburgh and Columbus are roughly equidistant to us (about a 2 hour drive), so it’s really easy to share and learn from our sister cities. That’s where we are now, lots of activity just beginning to be brought together. One of the nice things about a “city of choice” like Cleveland is that the people living here do so because they want to. We’re all committed to making a better community for ourselves, for neighboring scenes, and for the comics community at large. To paraphrase Ian MacKaye, we’re putting Cleveland on the map. ————————— INTERMISSION FUNNIES by MICHAEL DEFORGE ————————— FRANK’S GOT A NEW AUDIO RECORDER – LOOKOUT FOR FUTURE PODCASTS! **I am accepting “blind” scene reports. 300 words MAX. A few photos. Please send me the HTML ready text with photos already embedded. I am going to begin running more than one scene report a week like Maximum Rock-n-Roll scene reports. Please send them to capneasyATgmailDOTcom. Share this page: [...]

Rochester, NY Scene Report

Juan FernándezMarch 10, 2016Scene ReportsThis week’s Scene Report is brought to you by Steven Arenius of Panoptic Press. Rochester is located in Western New York along Lake Ontario, right across from Toronto. Much of the town as we know it today is thanks to Kodak founder George Eastman, an old-school tycoon who hunted elephants with Teddy Roosevelt and left one of the most concise suicide notes of all time: “My work is done, why wait?” Rochester is also home to Xerox, whose tower is the tallest building in our skyline. Rochester is bisected by the Genesee River, which lends its name to the local brewery and like the Nile runs south-to-north. It has been home Susan B. Anthony, Frederick Douglass, and Phillip Seymour Hoffman. We have an abandoned subway, brutally frigid and gray winters, and a signature dish called the Garbage Plate that is best left undiscussed. Rochester’s newsprint art and comics anthology of choice is Hope Mountain News, curated by Mike Turzanski and Pete Lazarski, which has circulated locally since 2011 and has since been archived in full on their website. Their fifth and latest issue, The Million Dollar Canoe, takes a leap in format and style and is (in their words) “64 pages of weird comics, drippy monsters, and two color mysteries.” Pete also has an expansive collection of comic strips full of ghouls and wizards on his website, Imaginary Monsters. Local musician Dave Chisholm is an accomplished comic artist and author of the graphic novels Instrumental and Let’s Go To Utah as well as Tyranny of the Muse, an ongoing webcomic with Eddie Wright. Clayton Cowles is an illustrator and letterer currently working on a number of Image and Marvel titles. Ant Hill is an original ongoing comic series created by Nigel Carrington. The Rochester Teen Set Outsider (now National Teen Set Outsider) is the longest running zine in town and perhaps at the forefront of the medium’s resurgence here. Local poet, publisher, and H_NGM_N Nate Pritts is a wealth of comics knowledge, insight and enthusiasm. We first met him at the Visual Studies Workshop‘s Pub Fair, a great show that specializes in small press and handmade print. Given its size, Rochester is fortunate to have a number of great comic shops. We share a building with Comics Etc., which spotlights local artists and creators with a small exhibition on Free Comic Book Day. The back issues at Wonderland run the deepest and they host a biannual comic show. Dan from Comic Book Heaven has been very supportive in getting our first book on his shelves. All Heroes is home to a holy grail of 50-cent comics running over 20 longboxes deep, where a great deal of time has gone unaccounted for indeed. NeedleDrop Records carries zines and local print as well. The scene is alive and well elsewhere in Western New York as well. Over in Buffalo, the Itinerant Printer Chris Fritton runs the Buffalo Small Press Book Fair with help from the Western New York Book Arts Center. We met Stephen Floyd from One Percent Press there, who along with JP Coovert has been releasing comics for over ten years. Hex Records is a Syracuse-based hardcore label whose Translate zine features comics in addition to reviews, tour diaries, and interviews. The oldest annual convention in the country takes place in nearby Ithaca and is run by their Comic Book Club. We were guests at Ithacon 40 along with Camilo Nascimento and Hunter Schindo of Arhanta Comics, whose atmospheric comics are layered with sound and immersively framed by responsive web design. Queen City Comics and Comics For Collectors are the shops to check out in Buffalo and Ithaca, respectively. Share this page: [...]

11/17/2016

Sam OmbiriNovember 17, 2016NewsSam Ombiri brings more thoughts on originality and Sally Ingraham follows up with comics by Shannon Wright and Keith Knight, a quick visit with Yona Harvey and Roxane Gay, the Winter Semester of the Santoro Correspondence Course, and Connor Willumsen’s Punisher pages for sale – plus March: Book 3’s big award. ————————————————————————————————— Sam Ombiri: A Shout-out to David O’Reilly I had more thoughts I wanted to share about originality that I didn’t mention last week, or I guess I feel I didn’t clarify. This is all concerning me, and how I approach originality – I am not an authority to impose. I’m not anti-originality, I guess I’m more thinking I’m anti-concern and preoccupation with originality. I’m not fully sure in which particular context that this struggle for originality would fit. I’m not sure even how to fully name a context of originality. The only thing that comes to my head is how when Lil Dicky became popular, he kept saying in interviews how he’s “different and original” and he repeats that so many times in different interviews to the point where it feels like a joke. Even if you forsake all these other underground hip hop artists, like say Heems, Busdriver, Open Mike Eagle, Danny Brown, Kitty, of course I have to mention Ride, or even if, as some of Lil Dicky’s fans were claiming, Lil Dicky meant in a more mainstream context that he’s so different – there’s the other context. (But even in that context he’s not in any way different.) Even then, as much as anyone can insist they’ve achieved originality and therefore they should be praised, someone can always come along and deny that. In the essay by David O’Reilly that I’ve been thinking about there’s an awesome quote by Tarkovsky – I won’t quote it for a couple reasons, a minor one being that it’s irrelevant. So I’ll just quote a different one, and for the sake of me making a point we’ll pretend he used this quote instead. Tarkovsky said that when he saw The Trial of Joan of Arc, he was touched by “the absolute independence of the spectator in regard to this film. A total independence in the sense that the film never appears to be a spectacle, but rather nature, life itself. If one wants to watch, one watches, if one doesn’t, one doesn’t. If one wants to see it as art one may, otherwise not. Such a strong independence from public and critical opinion remains for me the exemplary attitude of a director towards his audience.” He says later in the interview “when people tell me during the shooting of my film that a certain scene is in a way reminiscent of Bresson – and this has happened – I will immediately change the approach to avoid any resemblance. If there’s such an influence, it doesn’t show on the surface of my work. This is an influence of a deeper nature. It’s a moral influence between artists, without which art cannot exist.” Sammy Harkham said how he was really influenced by Brian Chippendale’s Ninja mini comics while Sammy was doing Somersaulting where the “melodrama is demilitarized” and the events made minor. It’s probably that type of indirect influence. I don’t know if Tarkovsky’s intentions were concerned with originality. It seems to be an altogether different impulse, similarly to the other quote in David O’Reilly’s essay (disregard the first sentence in the quote in relation to the last quote): “A preoccupation with originality of form is more or less a fruitless thing. A truly original person with a truly original mind will not be able to function in the old form and will simply do something different. Others had much better think of the form as being some sort of classical tradition and try to work within it.” I think everything but the last sentence is on a different wavelength than Josh Bayer’s idea of originality being a red herring. I think I would replace the last part of the quote with Josh Bayer’s thoughts on originality being a red herring. ————————————————————————————————— Sally here with some other comics and news from this week. From the Washington Post: “ “March: Book 3,” a graphic novel about the later years of the civil rights movement, won the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature on Wednesday night in New York.“ Congratulations to Rep. John Lewis and the creative team behind the book (including illustrator Nate Powell)! Co-writer Andrew Aydin had two take-aways from the big win, one being that the story of the civil rights movement could continue to be passed on to young people. The other was “Let the prejudice against comic books be buried once and for all!” We applaud that sentiment. Read the rest of the Washington Post article HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Shannon Wright is still making almost daily comics and sharing them on her Instagram. A recent strip: Because I’m not asking whether or not you wanna sleep with the dude or marry him. Get over yourself fellas. #comics #masculinitysofragile #blackartist #womenartists A photo posted by Shannon Wright (@shannondrewthis) on Nov 13, 2016 at 7:09pm PST Follow Shannon at @shannondrewthis for more. ————————————————————————————————— Essence has a feature on Yona Harvey and Roxane Gay’s work on the Black Panther spin-off series World of Wakanda – they talk about some of the challenges of taking on a Marvel Universe storyline. “Storytelling is storytelling, so it’s not that different, save for working within the comic format of panels,” said Gay. “The biggest difference for me was thinking more explicitly in terms of scene.” Harvey’s challenge was the formal outline. “I felt so resistant to the outline. In poetry, I experiment and draft and then shape the story through the placement of the poems. Total opposite of writing comics.” via Essence Read the rest of the article HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Keith Knight on The Nib recently: He has more Th(ink) strips on his website – check them out HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Comics Workbook has announced the Winter Semester of the Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers – course starts Dec. 29th 2016! 10 spots available – apply by Dec. 13th 2016 and get $100 of course fee! Email santoroschoolATgmail for more details. 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 me small jpgs of images – dont post to your blog pls -specific url links to any comics work you have done. Send applications to: santoroschoolATgmail ————————————————————————————————— Connor Willumsen is selling his Punisher pages http://connorwillumsen.com/punisher/ #connorwillumsen #comicsworkbook #punisher #frankcastle A photo posted by @santoro.frank on Nov 16, 2016 at 5:39pm PST Connor Willumsen is selling the original pages from his Punisher story – check them out here. Share this page: [...]

07/12/2016

Aaron CockleJuly 11, 2016NewsAaron Cockle today with Alyssa Berg comics; Kurosawa storyboards; illuminated manuscripts; Fitch/Trecartin in Montreal; Sara (. , : ; — () – [] “” ? ! ‘’ … {}) Lautman; The Graphics of War; Burkholder/Walden/Ellsworth; Rowhouse Auction Continues ————————————————————————————————— ALPENGLOW CW’s Featured Comics continues this week with Alyssa Berg’s ALPENGLOW, from 2015. This won the Comics Workbook Composition Competition last year; info about the 2016 competition can be found here. ————————————————————————————————— Akira Kurosawa: Filmmaker, Painter, Story-board Artist Kurosawa, from his book Something Like an Autobiography, translated from the Japanese by Margaret Benton: I intended to be a painter before I became involved in film. A curious turn of events, however, brought me to cinema, where I began my present career. When I changed careers, I burnt all the pictures that I had painted up until then. I intended to forget painting once and for all. As a well-known Japanese proverb says, “If you chase two rabbits, you may not catch even one.” I did no art work at all once I began to work in cinema. But since becoming a film director, I have found that drawing rough sketches was often a useful means of explaining ideas to my staff. ————————————————————————————————— Text, Image, Image-as-Text, Text-as-Image Via Medievalpoc’s essential People of Color in European Art History project, Marcus Tullius Cicero, Aratea (Harley MS 647, ff 2v-17v), 22 constellation figures containing extracts from Hyginus, Astronomica. England (c. 820-11th century). ————————————————————————————————— Lizzie Fitch/Ryan Trecartin: Priority Innfield For anyone living in/traveling to Montreal before September 5, an installation of Fitch/Trecartin work at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal. Priority Innfield is a “sculptural theater” containing four movies and an ambient sound track presented in five pavilions. The movies, Junior War, Comma Boat, CENTER JENNY and Item Falls (all from 2013), unfold at a furious pace without interruption. Shot in a direct, quasi-amateur style, they explore the potential impacts of information technologies on communication, language and identity, and offer a barrage of frenetic images, absurd retorts and exaggerated poses and movements, drawn from a culture based on constant performativity. ————————————————————————————————— Sara Lautman on the New Punctuation On the Hairpin site it says this is a 2 minute read, but you should give yourself at least 4 minutes, maybe more. Maybe give yourself 5 minutes, if you can. Good work from Lautman, as usual. ————————————————————————————————— The Graphics of War: Comics, Animation, and Simulation If you’re like me, any down-time at your dayjob is spent scouring the internet for random university-level course syllabi from 2011. Culture, Art, and Technology (CAT) I The Graphics of War: Comics, Animation, and Simulation Professor Emily Roxworthy As alternatives to photography and live action film, this course examines three graphic media that are not usually considered serious candidates for representing global crises such as war: comics, animated film, and videogames. We will ask whether these alternative graphic arts depart from photorealism and the passivity of media spectacles to convey unspoken truths and instill deeply felt understandings about world changing events. ————————————————————————————————— ITDN, A City Inside, Other Selves Some capsule reviews from Daniel Elkin at Comics Bulletin of some recent work by Andrew Burkholder, Tillie Walden, and Theo Ellsworth. RE Burkholder: There’s little to no narrative in any of the 10 comics that comprise ITDN. Burkholder uses the medium of his comics to explore ideas, raising question after question in the expedition while providing no answers. Understanding is not the point; pursuit is the only goal. Each comic is presented using its own style, form following function as a psychotropic experiment. From the tight conventions of tradition in “The Fury” to the insouciant scribbling of “FUCK THIS” to the thin-line panel transition study of “Street”, Burkholder shows a depth of understanding for the tone of ideas. Each enterprise is an agreement between thought and expression. Each takes its time to shake the reader from the stupor of preconception. RE Walden: Other than the incredible craftsmanship in both her art and its execution, the dream-like quality of Walden’s work is what separates it from so many others working today. This is a story about transitioning and passages, what we gather and what we leave behind, as well as an exploration of expectation and uncertainty and the need to define the self. RE Ellsworth: Ellsworth calls this book a “psychic chiropractic adjustment” (to be filed under: “Hand Drawn Inner-Space Documentary Comics”). Here he is an artist viewing himself as the one who is in control of creating the Other Selves of his imagination. As he probes deeper and deeper into his self-creations, though, things get weirder and weirder, layering levels of the fantastic and the imaginative, each self in control of itself. Finally his inner workings are so far out that a part of him unleashes the “Reality Control Officers” into his “Personal Imaging Zone” admonishing him to “Go back to reality! Now!” What remains is a battle between inspiration and sense, art versus logic. ————————————————————————————————— Rowhouse Auction Continues New for this week of July 11 at auction.comicsworkbook.com. Email Frank Santoro at santoroschoolATgmail for a password, if you don’t already have one. All funds go to helping keep the lights on and further developing the school. 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