Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in News

Juan Fernández

Posted on June 27, 2016June 27, 2016

Explore

02/02/2018

Sally IngrahamFebruary 1, 2018NewsSally here with the myth of the Wonder Woman, plus Vanessa Davis, Little Dot, Ulli Lust, and more! ————————————————————————————————— There is a lengthy, intense essay on Artforum by Sarah Nicole Prickett titled Serious Sex Battle – it is about the myth of the “wonder woman”. She digs into comics, literature, and film and discusses the ways that pop culture has tried and repeatedly failed to make women “super” – often by stripping them of all the real things that in fact make them super. For example: “The scholar Michele Wallace argues in Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman (1978) that the black woman doesn’t need a costume. She is already held to be a “woman of inordinate strength.” She “does not have the same fears, weaknesses, and insecurities as other women, but believes herself to be and is, in fact, stronger emotionally than most men. Less of a woman in that she is less ‘feminine’ and helpless, she is really more of a woman in that she is the embodiment of Mother Earth.” Ergo, says Wallace, she is a superwoman, burdened by the source of her powers.“ Prickett talks about Wonder Woman quite a bit, of course, both the strengths and weaknesses of the character and what she represents. She also brings up Miss Fury, Scarlett O’Hara, Tim Burton’s take on Cat Woman, and a whole lot more. Devote an hour at least to sifting through this piece (one that Prickett spent a few years writing!) Read the whole essay HERE. ————————————————————————————————— There is a nice interview with Vanessa Davis on Pocko, which digs into her career as a whole so far, her influences, and the choices she’s made along the way. “Pocko: Your father was a commercial artist and photo-journalist. Can you see any of his work in your own? How did your childhood affect your career? Davis: It feels natural (if not always easy) for me to live and work within an uncertain freelance lifestyle. The humility of struggle and uncertainty mixed with the rush of work and money… that’s always been sort of central to my experience, but both my mom and dad worked doing what they loved, so that’s just paramount, by any means necessary, to me. It is a high-maintenance lifestyle, but it feels almost just cultural or religious or something–I can’t get away from it. My dad definitely had an eye for the absurd and could criticize his subjects by merely portraying them. But he also maintained a sort of joy for the chaos of this world. That’s definitely something I aspire to in my work and in my own viewpoint.“ Read the whole interview HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Michael Dooley has another great article on Print, this time tying a famous comic book character of the 1950s/60s – Little Dot – to today’s art scene and specifically the work of Yayoi Kusama (who is, if it’s possible, even more dot-happy than Dot). The article includes multiple scans of old Little Dot comics, and this excellent reminder of what made them interesting: “If you’ve never heard of this one-time comic book celebrity, it’s because Little Dot hasn’t been getting around much anymore. She started out in 1949 as a back-up feature in kids’ comics like Richie Rich but soon earned her own title. As originally conceived by cartoonist Vic Herman, she was designed with a distinctive flair and personality. But in 1953 her appearance melded into Harvey’s house style. She was softened and rounded out, which rendered her barely distinguishable from Little Audrey and Wendy the Good Little Witch. But from a marketing angle, it was a huge success. Like the gluttonous Little Lotta, Dot fits neatly into Harvey’s formula of one-dimensional, obsessive-compulsive personalities. The less said about the actual stories, the better, because what’s truly fascinating is that this kid is completely dot-crazy, hooked on circles. She’s constantly compelled to reconstitute her surroundings to conform to her own private fetish. And why not? She may simply be an instinctual Design Modernist, sensing the dot as infinite, supremely iconic, the purest, most perfect single form in the universe. Not to mention that her very existence is totally dependent on the CMYK/benday process. Insert a shout-out to Pop Art’s Roy Lichtenstein here.” Check out the rest of this enjoyable read HERE. ————————————————————————————————— France Culture asked ten authors to make a comic about their relationship to Chris Ware, in the event that he won a big prize at Angouleme. Ulli Lust made the little scene pictured above. As it turns out, neither Chris Ware or Ulli Lust won prizes this year at Angouleme, so when she shared the strip Ulli said it could have an alternate title: In the same boat again with Chris Ware. ————————————————————————————————— An announcement went out this week from the organizers of the Pittsburgh Indy Comix Exposition: Dear Friends of PIX — We know some of you have been wondering about the status of PIX 2018. To make a long story short: there will NOT be a PIX 2018. We apologize for the late announcement of this fact. We are, however, already working on PIX 2019 and plan to return to the August Wilson Center in April 2019. We will make a formal announcement in the summer of this year. Thank you for your past support. Stay tuned… —Team PIX ————————————————————————————————— Sticky Notes Apply for the Lucy Shelton Caswell Research Award, offered by the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum – applications due by March 1st – more details HERE! The Daily Beast has a lengthy profile on Trina Robbins – read it HERE. Sara Lautman writes a comic for the New Yorker about Cow Tools and a new tattoo – HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Collected from the thousands of pages of material that Frank has left scattered all over the digital landscape, these 4 PDF collections contain Frank’s best writing on comics and comics making from the past decade. Theory and process, reviews and discoveries, journeys both physical and spiritual. Check out the “Best of Frank Santoro” PDF collections, available HERE! ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 2-2-2018 – by Sally Ingraham ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 2-2-2018 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

01/31/2017

Aaron CockleJanuary 30, 2017NewsAaron here today with Quimby’s NYC Grand Opening Extravaganza; Philip Guston and the Nixon Years; a review of some Obama Family Comics; Russian Futurist Sound Poems; Kartalopoulos at Angoulême; Festival of the Photocopier; Laura Park; Box Brown Wrestling Comics. ————————————————————————————————— GRAND OPENING QUIMBY’S BOOKSTORE NYC SATURDAY FEBRUARY 4, 2017, 7–10pm At 7:00 PM, Steven Svymbersky will give a short slide show talk on the history of zines followed by champagne and hors d’oeuvres. This event is also the opening for the first major survey of works by sculptor and collage artist, Eric Kirsammer. Quimby’s Bookstore NYC 536 Metropolitan Ave Brooklyn, NY 11211 ————————————————————————————————— Guston on Nixon Hauser & Wirth recently concluded it’s exhibit of Philip Guston‘s work from the 1970’s focusing on Richard Milhous Nixon, former president of the United States. The New York Times wrote a piece about the show, and Guston’s relationship with Philip Roth: Mr. Roth owns several of the Nixon drawings. “I always wanted Philip to publish them in a book,” he said. “But he was loath to do that then. He wasn’t sure about whether to go public with them. I think he didn’t want to be sullied as a cartoonist. But actually the people who didn’t like those wonderful last paintings sullied him as a cartoonist anyway.” Through the ’50s and most of the ’60s, Guston was a leading Abstract Expressionist, greatly admired for the shimmering elegance of his painting. But in the mid-60s, in one of the most famous about-faces in art history, he began to repudiate his own work. “American Abstract art is a lie, a sham, a cover-up for a poverty of spirit,” he wrote. Abandoning abstraction, he started to make paintings that weren’t just figurative but amounted to a catalog of comic-strip crumminess: light bulbs; rusted nails; old shoe soles; hairy legs; hooded, slit-eyed Klansmen smoking fat cigars. The world of Guston eventually came to look, as a number of critics pointed out, a lot like the world of R. Crumb. ————————————————————————————————— ‘He doesn’t have a name but his first name is Allergy Doctor’ J. Caleb Mozzocco takes a look at Steven Weissman’s second book chronicling the Obama administration (and family), Looking For America’s Dog, still the most accurate depiction of those times that we are ever likely to see. The Obama that emerged was maybe the ultimate comics character; after all, there are few figures that are at once as iconic and as protean as our presidents, upon whom we project, well, everything. The President of the United States, any president of the United States, is the Comics Character of a Thousand Faces. (And do note that most newspaper comics characters are confined to a single strip by a single artist or studio, whereas whoever the president is appears in scores of different editorial cartoons by scores of different artists every single day.) Looking For America’s Dog is similar in format to Barack Hussein Obama, filled with discrete, four-panel gag strips that wind in and out of an overarching quest narrative. And it’s similar in construction; a black-and-white sketchbook comic constructed with judiciously chosen uses of bright color and dialogue balloons with their long, thin tails apparently glued atop the pages. The aesthetic is a peculiar mix of dashed-off and labored-over. It is also, owing to the fact that it is of course a more recent work, a much more confident and accomplished book, with a much stronger through line: Bumbling Biden left the White House gate open, and America’s dog Bo ran away. (“God Damn You, Joe Biden,” a frustrated president says as he trudges through the snow, calling “Bo-oh!!”) ————————————————————————————————— Zaum, which translates into “beyond the mind” At Hyperallergic, Claire Voon looks at Russian sound poetry, made available online by the Getty Research Institute, that serves as an interactive companion to Explodity: Sound, Image, and Word in Russian Futurist Book Art, curated by Nancy Perloff. “Recurring verbal, visual, and vocal references to the folklike and the primitive, reversibility and mirror forms, the fourth dimension, and apocalypse dominate the artistic expression of these books,” as Perloff writes in her introduction. “Moreover, futurist poets and painters intended their books to be heard as well as read.” ————————————————————————————————— Dispatch from France Bill Kartalopoulos was on the ground at this year’s Angoulême Festival, and posted some great images. ————————————————————————————————— ————————————————————————————————— Info about the upcoming Laura Park workshop at the Sequential Artist’s Workshop, February 27 – March 3, 2017. ————————————————————————————————— The Great Sasuke: Japan’s Masked Wrestler Turned Masked Politician If there was ever a time for some Box Brown Japanese wrestling/politics comics, that time is now. ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 1-31-2017 – by Sally Ingraham ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 1-31-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio 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: [...]

10/10/2017

Aaron CockleOctober 10, 2017NewsAaron here today with ARTZINES; Kurt Ankeny; Brigitte Findakly and Lewis Trondheim; Gary Panter; Juan Fernández ————————————————————————————————— ARTZINES is a transmedia research project run by artist publisher antoine lefebvre editions. This research project aims to produce a reference book on the subject of contemporary art zines. As an artist researcher, it is important for lefebvre to imagine new creative ways of doing research. Therefore, ARTZINES.INFO will allow the public to access the unedited data of this research project as it is collected. This online database and the zines produced by ARTZINES during this research process will show the progress made toward the publication of the book. ————————————————————————————————— Kurt Ankeny: Mining the Mind’s Eye Kurt Ankeny talks about the reasoning and philosophy behind why he finds drawing from imagination and memory such a strong approach to cartooning, and how this creates deeper truths via non-photographic image making. The 195th meeting of the NY Comics & Picture-story Symposium will be held on Tuesday, Oct. 10, 2017 at 7pm at Parsons School of Design, 2 West 13th Street, in the Bark Room (off the lobby). Free and open to the public. ————————————————————————————————— ‘This humorous episode takes on additional absurdity when the subject shifts to a military coup on the next page.’ Mark Peters at Salon.com has some nice things to say about the new book by Brigitte Findakly and Lewis Trondheim, Poppies of Iraq: Like any great comic, even one about the real world, “Poppies of Iraq” creates its own reality for readers to get lost in — a world told via plain, blunt language and non-realistic, cartoony figures that interweave the personal and political. One of the most subtly brutal sequences in the book involves a marriage. In a tense two pages, Trondheim presents three short conversations consisting of the words “So?” and “Completely.” ————————————————————————————————— Gary Panter: HIPPIE TRIP, Oct 12 — Nov 11, Marlborough Contemporary Viewing Room, 545 West 25th Street, NYC. Via Dan Nadel. ————————————————————————————————— Expanding the Festival Toolkit If you haven’t already, please take a look at Juan Fernández’s post about future possibilities and approaches to comics festivals: Centralize Sales Our current system is embarrassingly inefficient. It is an ineffective use of getting tens of dozens of skilled comics makers and storytellers in one city for a week or weekend. No more exhibitors expected to stand behind tables hawking wares. Nowadays with everyone behind tables, people are barely interacting. There’s a vital cross-pollination that just doesn’t happen. What does it look like when a show does away with the flea market model? One thought is that you establish a festival shop. You get an experienced comics retailer to run the shop. You have them hire a trusted staff. You pay that staff. The shop gets a cut. 30/70. In a model like this, it costs you no money to have your work available. Under this new kind of model, if you are a guest you sign up to be involved in citywide comics programming. Signings, gallery exhibitions, lectures, workshops. This is the kind of thing that you get Arts and Cultural councils involved in. You sign up because you want to be part of the programming. With a model like this, you free up the artists and suddenly new horizons open up. Among those horizons are sources for financing. Imagine collaborating with a city’s municipal parks: guided bike tours where throughout the tour you make stops, learn about the city while doing landscape drawings and comics strips of the experience… A series of readings at a bookstore. Gallery exhibitions. Movie screenings at an arthouse theater. There are so many venues that would be amenable to programming: libraries, universities, community centers, theaters, bookstores, parks… Most of these venues have programming budgets that could fund materials and labor for artists. ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 10-10-2017 – by Sally Ingraham ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 10-10-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

7/18/2016

Juan FernándezJuly 18, 2016NewsJuan Fernandez here with: Shannon Wright’s MAY FLOWERS; ShortBox 2; J. A. Micheline on Megan Purdy, Claire Napier, Zainab Akhtar; Google’s digital erasure; Nik James; new STREET ANGEL; this week’s rowhouse auction. —————————————————————————— May Flowers – Shannon Wright I’m happy to announce that we are featuring Shannon Wright’s May Flowers on the site this week. May Flowers was made by Shannon Wright in 2015 for Frank Santoro’s Correspondence Course. She took the principles that Frank teaches and implemented them in a gorgeous fashion, really setting the bar a full notch higher. Shannon is a cartoonist and illustrator who recently graduated from VCU. —————————————————————————— ShortBox 2 – LIVE The neat 2nd edition of Zainab Akhtar and Clark Burscough’s quarterly, independent comics box is now taking preorders. This edition features an exciting collection of work by Carolyn Novak, Ben Passmore, Lucie Bryon, Lizzy Stewart, Bailey Sharp, Lisa Hanawalt and Honey Parast. Beginning today, we are opening pre-orders for ShortBox #2, containing all the items listed below (and some sweets- we got you). Pre-orders will run for 10 days, until midnight on July 28th, and buying one guarantees you’ll receive a box. —————————————————————————— J. A. Micheline on inspiring women working in comics today Comics Bulletin editor and AV Club contributor, J. A. Micheline reflects on the tireless work of Megan Purdy, Claire Napier, Zainab Akhtar over on www.womenwriteaboutcomics.com/. —————————————————————————— Save your Work – Lest your Digital Overlords Deny you Access A terms of service violation has caused the practically complete deletion of Dennis Coopers’ digital body of work by Google. It’s a tale of face palming frustration across the board. From the aching reminder to back up one’s work to the reminder that Google is the world’s most powerful organization when it comes to preserving and storing information, it’s a head ache all over. I’m look at you, digital artists! Artist Dennis Cooper has a big problem on his hands: Most of his artwork from the past 14 years just disappeared. It’s gone because it was kept entirely on his blog, which the experimental author and artist has maintained on the Google-owned platform Blogger since 2002 (Google bought the servicein 2003). At the end of June, Cooper says he discovered he could no longer access his Blogger account and that his blog had been taken offline. —————————————————————————— Go look: NIK JAMES Nik James//UNOVIS has created a new website for their work. Take note lovers of dynamic anatomy, fusion comics, and fearless narrative experimentiation: make some time and give their work a look.There’s lots to dig into. —————————————————————————— —————————————————————————— New Private Rowhouse Auction – 7.17-7.24 Last but not least, we have a new private auction up at auction.comicsworkbook.com! Lots of old and new comics for you to take home. 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. —————————————————————————— until next time, Juan Fernandez Share this page: [...]

06/27/2016

Posted on June 27, 2016June 27, 2016 by Juan Fernández

Juan here with: Warren Craghead’s COLONIALISM; Rowhouse Auction June 26-July 2; Simon Hanselmann interviewed; Vanesa Del Rey art available; Mari Naomi shares Sorese’s CURVEBALL; Ethical Sloth #6 submission deadline approaches;John Martz’ BE GOOD; LINE: AN ART STUDY.

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Featured Comics: Colonialism – Warren Craghead
I’m happy to announce that we are featuring Warren Craghead III’s Colonialism on the site this week. Made in 2013 by Warren Craghead for Comics Workbook, Colonialism is a series of wild little one page comics. Poetic comics that mix observational drawings and notes with reflections, while dancing in a playful blend of digital and analogue drawing.

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New Private Rowhouse Auction
We have a new private auction up at auction.comicsworkbook.com. 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. note: Connor Willumsen is offering commission sketches.
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Elsewhere:

“I’m Love and Rockets-ing this shit” – Simon Hanselmann

Alex Dueben interviews Simon Hanselmann over on The Beat. Great questions, great answers. Do yourself a favor and dig in.

Dueben: You vary the design of your pages but you always work in a grid. What do you like about working that way? What do you think that enables you to do?

Hanselmann: I’m just all about pacing. I want the reader to be able to process the information as fast as possible for a smooth read. This is also why I work in color, I think the color codifies everything and makes it easier for the brain to decipher. I’ve thought about experimenting with “crazy” layouts but I just don’t see the point. It wouldn’t serve the work.

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How to Draw Comics: the Vanesa Del Rey Way

Cadence Comic Art is selling all of Vanesa Del Rey’s inked pages from available for Spider-Women Alpha (Marvel Comics). Support Vanesa and snatch ’em up while you can! If you’re looking to buy comics pages from a contemporary cartoonist, look no further. Vanesa’s a killer and her art is exquisite.

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Curveball: Excerpt
Mari Naomi shares an excerpt of Jeremy Sorese‘s queer sci-fi graphic novel, Curveball, over on PEN America. If you have not yet been able to get your hands on Sorese’s work, here’s your chance to see how his narration and poetics intertwine. Sorese’s debut is juicy stuff!

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Ethical Sloth #6
3 days left to take part in the next issue of Ethical Sloth.

Ethical Sloth is a zine of queer* comic artists for other queer* comic artists and everybody else.

Like many other zines, this zine is completely d.i.y., so there‘s no money_reward in for you, but being part of this new rad & fierce comic-zine! And you‘ll get free issues and the master-print, if you want to print‘n‘sell your own copies. Sounds perfect?

The deadline for the sixth issue»Breakups And Downs« is July 1, 2016. Specifications are: A5, comic and_or illustration. Language: any. Topic: »Breakups And Downs«. Technical stuff: A5, 300dpi, b/w (please leave a white border)

For more info reach out to: Dana »Dossie« Moustache & Yori »Janet« Gagarim: ethical.sloth@gmail.com

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Be Good
John Martz presents his short story, Be Good, online. It’s a good one. Design, fragile egos and tacos come together for some good old fashioned hyucks.

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Thin Line, Thick line, Strong line, Feeble Line
Line: An Art Study by Edmund J. Sullivan, originally published in 1922, covers the basics of drawing using only line: drawing materials, types of line, freehand drawing, drawing solid objects in line, perspective, shadows and figure drawing. It’s online at archive.org for you to bury your nose in. Go forth and take what you need!

Written by Edmund J. Sullivan Line: An Art Study merges the traditional nineteenth-century style of illustration with elements of Art Nouveau, begins by introducing readers to the freehand drawing of abstract lines and advances to the freehand drawing of natural forms, consisting mainly of plane surfaces or single lines. Subsequent chapters illustrate and discuss representations of the third and fourth dimensions, the picture plane, formal perspective, and the drawing of solid objects, including their depiction in shade and shadow, and their modelling. Additional topics include shadows, reflections, and aerial perspective as well as figure drawing.

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’til next time,
Juan

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Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in News

Juan Fernández

Posted on June 27, 2016June 27, 2016

Explore

06/26/2018

Aaron CockleJune 26, 2018NewsLatinx Comics; ECTO PETROL PATROL; Saltz on Art Shows; Handbook for/of Tyranny ————————————————————————————————— Tales from la Vida: A Latinx Comics Anthology Edited by Frederick Luis Aldama In the Latinx comics community, there is much to celebrate today, with more Latinx comic book artists than ever before. The resplendent visual-verbal storyworlds of these artists reach into and radically transform so many visual and storytelling genres. Tales from la Vida celebrates this space by bringing together more than eighty contributions by extraordinary Latinx creators. Their short visual-verbal narratives spring from autobiographical experience as situated within the language, culture, and history that inform Latinx identity and life. Tales from la Vida showcases the huge variety of styles and worldviews of today’s Latinx comic book and visual creators. New Tongues Untied Samuel Teer (with Marina Julia), “MIXED” Amber Padilla, “Wongo-Wongo” Stephanie Villareal Murray, “A Veces Sueño en Español” Lila Quintero Weaver, “La Charla” Carlos “Loso” Pérez, “_______-American” Adam Hernandez, “No Time for Titles” Jandro (with DT Watson), “What Concerns Me” Dangerous Truths . . . Clearing New Identity Spaces Frederick Luis Aldama (with John Jennings), “It Could’ve Been . . .” Jaime Crespo, “White Shoulders” Breena Nuñez Peralta, “They Call Me Morena for a Reason” Roberta Gregory, “California Girl” Vicko, “El Entender” José Cabrera, “el cabrón” Serenity Serseción, “Latinx” Ivan Velez, “Que Significa?” John Jota Leaños (with Dustin García), “Kaleidoscopic Latinx Indigeneities” Zeke Peña, “A Nomad’s Heart” New Mythos Liz Mayorga, “Brainstorming Session” Jenny Gonzalez-Blitz, “The Witch’s Curse” Dustin Nathanial García, “Saved” Ilan Stavans (with Roberto Weil), “Rite of Passage” Daniel Parada, “A Cacaopera Tale” Myra Lara, “Forked-Tongued & Tongued-Tied” Raúl González, “New Citizen Conqueror” Kelly Fernandez, “The Ciguapa” Jaime Hernandez, “La Blanca” Eric Esquivel (with Macropoulos), “El ChupaSoyMilk” Jason “J-Gonzo” González, “My Life as a Pocho” Rico Cuatlacuatl, “Jaguar Warrior Astral Traveller” Betwixt & Between J. M. Hunter, “Lost in Triangulation” Gilbert Hernandez, “I’m Proud to Be an American Where at Least I Know I’m Free” Crystal González, “Latino in Disguise” Alberto Ledesma, “My Most Significant Moment as a Latino” Héctor Rodríguez, “Güerito” Rafael Rosado, “El Año Que Me Divi-di En Dos / The Year I Split in Two” Stephanie Rodriguez, “No Te Hagas La Pendeja” Bending Time, Space, and Forms Candy Briones, “The Mayan Prophesy” Eric J. García, “Chicano Codices Presents” Alejandro Juvera (with Jeremiah Lambert), “Where the Heart Is” Andrés Vera Martínez, “Down on the Riverbed” Mapache Studios Fernando and Rodrigo, “A Little Canción about My People” Fernando Balderas Rodriguez, “Aztec of the City: Behind the Beginning” Israel Francisco Haros Lopez, “Re-Membering” Bodies That Matter LeighAnna Hidalgo, “Reproductive Rebel” José Alaniz, “Mordido” Jules Rivera, “The Continuum” Theresa Rojas, “Melva” Celina Hernandez, “Prolactinoma” Jaime Cortez, “El Border Xing” Grasiela Rodriguez, “Tap Into Your True Self” Mike Centeno, “Being Here” Juan Argil, “Güero” Pop Cultura Is Nosotros David Olivarez, “Inspiration” Miguel “Miky” Ruiz, “The Day I Discovered My Alter Ego” John Gonzalez (with Julian Aguilera and Michele Gonzalez), “Borax Boys” Albert Morales, “Super Impacto vs. the World” Javier Hernandez, “Mexican-American Splendor” Ray Zepeda (with J. M. Hunter), “Nuevo Latino” Richard Dominguez, “Wanna Know How I Got Started?” Carlos Saldaña, “Birth of Burrito” Ricardo Padilla (with Javier Hernandez), “Mi Barrio, 1976” Dave Ortega, “Your Name Is the Rio Grande” Rafael Navarro, “Mi Voz” William Nericcio (with Guillermo Nericcio García), “A Mexican-American Semiotic Odyssey or Streets of Laredo Ex-Pat” Mark Campos, “Mi Destino Es Comprenderla y No Olivdarla” Kat Fajardo, “Gringa” Victor Avila, “One Time, One Night” David Herrera, “Commencement” Chris Escobar, “A Monstrous Life” John Picacio, “A New Loteria” ————————————————————————————————— ECTO PETROL PATROL 2018 New animation by Matthew Thurber ————————————————————————————————— A Modest Proposal: Break the Art Fair This is from a few weeks back, Jerry Saltz talking about the state of art fairs, small and large galleries, and staggering amounts of money. It’s hard to say if smaller galleries could do fairs without the bigger galleries but my guess is that most bigger galleries, once they see a smaller fair picking up speed will want a piece of that action too. The smaller galleries may have more power than they think if they band together, make demands, put pressure back on the big art fairs rather than dancing exclusively to the art fair tune. The NADA and Independent fairs are now doing this nicely; more well-curated medium and small gallery fairs sprouting up might provide viable alternatives to these galleries paying gigantic costs for little return. With all this in mind, I spoke to a number of part-owners, directors, and other functionaries of art fairs and asked whether art fairs can be fixed. All agree that things need fixing. The bad news is that I came away thinking that while I really like these people, they don’t really have the impulse to fix things because these are the things that work so well for them. Fairs as they are now aren’t broken, they say. I kept sputtering back, “They’re not broken for you yet.” ————————————————————————————————— Handbook of Tyranny New book of infographics by Theo Deutinger, via Jonathan Bell at Wallpaper. The breadth of information here is never less than fascinating. Discover which 14 countries ‘welcome every citizen from any country in the world with a valid passport without any visa restrictions,’ or the myriad designs for keeping people out (and in) of the world’s many contested and conflicted border zones. This is a graphic project rich in hidden history and unsavoury elements. Aficionados of graphic design will be fascinated by the iconographic breakdown of the flags and logos of the world’s most notorious terrorist groups, from ETA to ISIL, but the shock value of a refugee camp map of Africa is much greater. ————————————————————————————————— ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 6-26-18 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

04/16/2018

Caleb OrecchioApril 16, 2018NewsCaleb Orecchio here with John Porcellino’s recent stop in Pittsburgh, and other news. ————————————————————————————————— He has seen but half the universe who has never been shown the house of Pain. –Ralph Waldo Emerson This past Friday, John Porcellino stopped by Copacetic Comics here in Pittsburgh while on tour for his book, From Lone Mountain, a collection of his King-Cat “comics and stories” from 2003 to 2007, published by Drawn and Quarterly. This was the first signing at Copacetic I’ve attended since I moved to Pittsburgh this year. It was great. Porcellino did his song and dance at Kaibur Coffee (same building as Copacetic but two floors below) by taking us, via slideshow, through excerpts of his book and giving background details and tangents revolving around the events therein. John laid bare his soul during his presentation as he does with every annual release of King-Cat. Pain and Joy are one, and the audience often found ourselves laughing in hindsight at the misfortunes along with our hero. After the presentation and rather intimate audience Q&A, we hiked up to Copacetic where books were signed and comics were talked about. It was great. Not only could you chat with John Porcellino, but you could also hangout with the Pittsburgh crowd: Sam Ombiri, Sally Ingraham, Juan Fernandez, Jenn Lisa, Audra Stang, Nate McDonough, and many others. I showed Sam my favorite King City gag, while Juan waxed different ways to read and comprehend information with Audra and Sally. I clumsily talked about Pittsburgh roads vs every other American road system with John P as he signed my copy of his book. I asked Bill Boichel (Copacetic proprietor) if he agreed that Red Nails was Barry Windsor-Smith’s best work, and I think he did. Then we started talking about Kaluta. Lots of things seemed to be going on. The hours went by quickly. It was a beautiful day. Only several days before, the city was snow-capped, but today it felt like how I imagine California feels on its best days. On the Copacetic Balcony, you could see the beautiful old buildings over the hills that run through the city and the purple dusk. Thanks to John P. for coming to Pittsburgh and thanks to Bill Boichel and Copacetic Comics for hosting. ————————————————————————————————— if you don’t know, now you know TCJ.com launched a bi-weekly column called “Retail Therapy.” Every other week will evidently feature an interview with a comics retailer. First up, Portland’s Floating World Comics. Who, will be publishing Zack Soto’s debut The Secret Voice graphic novel. Your Chicken Enemy has the scoop on upcoming Uncivilized Books titles. TCAF 2018 is right around the corner! It will be here before you know it! Eddie Campbells limited weekly strip ended. Did you see it? ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 4-16-2018 – by Gabriella Tito ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 4-16-2018 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

A Comics Id is Tenderness: Notes on Cartoon Crossroads 2017

Comics WorkbookOctober 5, 2017Festivals and Showsby Adam Griffiths The first book I purchased on the expo floor at this year’s Cartoon Crossroads Columbus was Kyle Baker’s. Earlier this year, I had seen Baker speak at the Schomburg Center in New York about his book, Nat Turner to a roomful of kids. At the time, I had been struck by his ability to communicate; his engagement with the audience seemed intrinsically connected to his unabashed and explicitly mercantile use of language. Odd, how this seemed to captivate both his panel members and the audience, young and old. The persona of the salesman is an American motif – a motif that, under our current political climate, is being reduced to prideless status by the huckster in the Oval Office. When exactly did Americans need to believe that a good businessman’s success is dependent upon rhetorical violence and winner-take-all bullishness? I chose the term ‘A Comics Id is Tenderness’ for this write-up because Baker’s work revisited me several times during this expo. Over the course of the week, it became more and more clear to me that Baker has been a creator who has deftly championed the stories he feels are important to him alongside of his commercial work, who has kindly informed peers of his intentions, who brushes from shoulder the allegedly unforgivable concept of sacrificing creativity for financial gain. More on this later. To the lectures! (Editor: What follows are Adam’s notes and thoughts on the lectures and talks he attended in the two days of CXC programming held on the OSU campus (9-28/9-29), and the two days of the CXC expo which was held at the Columbus Metropolitan Library (9-30/10-1.) ————————————————————————————————— Dan Gearino on Research Methodology Applied to Comics-Making History (Thursday, Sept. 28th 2017, at the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum) Dan Gearino on Phil Seuling: Phil Seuling is regarded as a pioneer of comics fandom during the late 60’s and early 70’s – first when serving as organizer of the annual New York Comic Art Convention and then with his Sea Gate Distributors Company, which laid the groundwork for the direct market system of distributing comics. Did Seuling’s arrest on March 11th, 1973 lead to the creation of the direct market as we know it today? Seemed so, but when Gearino went investigating, he found that the arrest, for ‘distribution of obscene material’, was nowhere near as simple as he thought. While fellow early comics distributors and champions of comics such as Jim Hanley sincerely believed that Seuling’s aggravation with censors was the spark for his history-making wholesale business venture, Seuling’s former business partner Jonnie Luvas could vouch for Seuling’s motivations more clearly. The tricky part here was that Luvas, less a comics fan and more a business ingenue, had moved on from comics. To find this person who could truly vouch for Seuling’s acumen in business, Gearino had to ‘go outside of existing source records,’ and penetrate several outlying personal networks of non-comics lovers. Luvas (yes, Johnny Thunder is named for her) was a key figure in Seuling’s business life who understood that Seuling was actually seeking to escape his passionless teaching gigs. The importance and meaning of this investigation has to do with progressive incarnations of the comics business. Before the direct market, Gearino explains, comics were sold indiscriminately as mass market objects; this was how comics ended up as a part of mainstream culture. You could find them anywhere – on newsstands, in grocery stores, dime shops. By the late sixties, however, this business model was crumbling, and store owners were clearing gluts of low-cost, low-selling comics from their retail spaces. Seuling’s creation of the direct market paved the way for the comics specialty shops of the 1970’s and 80’s. These specialty shops saved comics as we know them, as they could not only sell new comics being made, but also the comics of yesteryear. Comics hoarding found its reward in this new market. Back issues and loyal accumulations of forgotten works could be pulled out of obscurity. ————————————————————————————————— Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum Highlights Tales from the Vault: 40 Years / 40 Stories, curated by Jenny Robb and Caitlin McGurk Comics history is both creativity and industry, here illustrated by selections of original works and artifacts. “Creepy” was the first word that came to mind when regarding this bathing suit from 1950, scribbled on by cartoonists such as Ernie Bushmiller, Milton Caniff, Alfred Androla, Otto Soglow, Ham Fisher and others. The museum has six of these bathing suits, and they were drawn on by these superstar artists at a promotional party for a waterproof ink pen. Life magazine photographed the party and later, deciding the images were not family-oriented enough, declined to publish them. Roe v. Wade Comics Comics has a documented history in its deployment for use in the political arena. Here, we see two causes with inverse agendas using comics as propaganda. You can read either of these comics in full at http://www.ep.tc/junior/ Who Killed Junior? 1973 This comic, published by the organization Right to Life (the largest pro-life organization in the country, now called The National Right to Life), illustrates the abortion procedure from the viewpoint of a destroyed fetus. Abortion Eve, 1973 By “Chin Lyvley” (Lyn Chevli) and “Joyce Sutton” (Joyce Farmer) The hazards of promoting abortion in America in any way are evident here in the authors’ use of psuedonyms. The women both worked as birth control counselors at The Free Clinic in Laguna Beach, California. Under the heading of their company, Nanny Goat Productions, they published this comic which provides arguments for the legality of abortion, and also personal accounts from a diverse array of women about their abortion experiences. I Know! Let’s Drop Taxes Completely and Let Our Kids Worry About ‘Em! 1985 Jim Kammerud for Norfolk Daily Press / Times Herald ————————————————————————————————— Handwritten Notes from Talk and Teach Presentation: Kevin Huizenga on Depicting Time in Comics Form (Thursday, Sept. 28th 2017, at the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum) ————————————————————————————————— SÕL-CON LUNCH BREAK AND TALK-BACK Kat Fajardo, Vicko Alvarez, Lisa Sheperd, Jiba Molei Anderson (Friday, Sept. 29th 2017, in Hal Hall, on the OSU campus) (Editor: Sol-Con is another comics festival that happens on the OSU campus simultaneously, allowing folks to move seamlessly from CXC events to Sol-Con events, as Adam did here and there. On Sat./Sun. the Sol-Con guests and exhibitors joined the CXC expo at the library.) “What is your favorite thing about comics?” was one of the questions asked by the large group of children attending SÕL-CON this year, which, in my year of absence had transformed into an intensive of workshops and instructionals on drawing and storytelling for youth. “My favorite thing,” said moderator Frederick Aldama, “is seeing the younger generations take up making comics.” A real standout during this talk was Chicago-based Tejana Vicko Alvarez, who couldn’t stress enough that the kids present recognize that their taking part in SÕL-CON probably meant that each and every kid there was interested in a life pursuit doing what they loved. “I tried to find a career and got bored of it real quick,” she says, and then admits, “the one thing I enjoyed I was told not to do. It was smartest decision I ever made to come back to art.” She continued, it helps that “I had a really pushy friend,” who encouraged her to follow her calling in comics. “How many of y’all have heard that art is gonna make you money?” Vicko asked the audience. All of the kids raised their hands. “How many of you like art?” All hands raised. At this point, Jiba Molei Anderson, who was watching the talk, joined the panelists onstage. “If I ignore something I love, my mental focus is gonna go out of whack, right?” Alvarez declared. The children agreed with her. “We are all here for the love,” Anderson says. “Even when we’re frustrated we’re not gonna quit. Creative people, to survive we really need to create…that hamster wheel never shuts down.” “But tethering that to real life is always a challenge to me,” said Lisa Sheperd. Lisa Sheperd talked about how doing this expo was moving her back towards comics. “Seeing that spark in you guys’ eyes reminded me of the spark I once had . That’s a great thing that doesn’t happen everyday! I’m putting my work out again because SÕL-CON encouraged me… Don’t let it slide by and let life get in the way.” More Quotes from SÕL-CON Panel “What don’t you like about comics?” was a question from a boy who remained behind with his mother after the other children left for workshops. – “I don’t like posers in art trying to tell me how to create,” said Jiba. -“I don’t like what I see when people not from my community try to tell my story,” Vicko Alvarez said.“What do you see when you see Latinas in the media?” she asked the audience. “Sexy hot mammas!” A woman called out. “Most Latina women look like my mom,” Alvarez continued, and “if you don’t tell your story, somebody else will, and they’ll base it off of stereotype.” -“Mainstream comics look to what we’re doing right here, right now. The problem is, there are not enough people of color working at DC at Marvel,” Jiba Andersen says. “the people here in this room today? Creators of color? We make our own. We do it this way because you have a community that has felt so maligned for so long… They see what we’ve been doing, we’re here and we’ve been here. The problem is that the push-back can’t be handled. They know that we can talk to people who cannot listen through our art.” -Vicko: ” …people put out tragedy porn and that’s not changing a thing.” ————————————————————————————————— Spotlight on Chris Ware (Friday, Sept. 29th 2017, at the Wexner Center, on the OSU campus) A near religious silence had fallen over everyone walking out of the Chris Ware dialogue at the Wexner Center. A masterful storyteller and illustrator, Ware’s talents have been visibly leading the illustration world, in the name of comics, for some time now. His discussion with Caitlin McGurk signaled that he remains unrelenting. As I was listening I realized that Chris Ware’s humorous import is indeed a formula, but that he definitely showed up at this discussion, and probably shows up at every discussion, trying to give away that formula, which is great. Any artist worth her/his salt is always acting within a spirit of generosity. Perhaps Ware is so incurably sad because of how bad he himself believes he is at communicating; a suitable contradiction for a person who has donated their life to creating works of art. The Chris Ware formula (or, American humor in a nutshell) 1) Declarative sentence. 2) Rebuttal of declaration (typically more complex and cruel than it needs to be, so, funny.) 3) Agreement with his own previous rebuttal finally, because self-rejection is an un-frightening, redundant horror that should make you smile warmly. So then what Ware does is he puts the formula to work. The guise here begins with Ware saying: 1) “Comics are an art of memory.” 2) But then, because everyone in the room including Ware is, y’know, kind of old, we then have to have a discussion about how terrible we all are at remembering things. Of course we have to bring this up, because in order to remember what we were just (just!) speaking about, we have to introduce dissonance tension to our brains through aural communication with other humans. We are becoming ridiculously complex here in the service of Ware’s humor: “When you become a cartoonist, you begin to lose track of your language.” We as an audience, are becoming redundant in order to allow Ware to mirror the brain’s experience of memory for us. Where did Ware get the concept of “comics as an art of memory?” Why in fact, Ware states, rather meekly, he got it from a paper that his stagemate, Caitlin McGurk wrote! The room warms to Ware as the surprised McGurk, suddenly joyful, becomes flustered and confused, flushed and slightly embarrassed. Ware has delivered his sweet, sweet punchline. It’s almost too saccharine, nearly syrupy! 3) The agreement that Ware has set us up for here is that we’ve been having a discussion about McGurk, not Ware, since we began, and that we will now remember, “Comics are an art of memory,” in all its redundant, charitable, pitiable human glory. Too clean! ————————————————————————————————— ————————————————————————————————— CXC Award ceremony (Friday, Sept. 29th 2017, at the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum) (Editor: Kyle Baker was awarded the CXC Master Cartoonist Award, and Howard Cruse won the CXC Transformative Work award.) Revelations from the award ceremony: Tom Spurgeon praises Kyle Baker as a “Leticious learner.” After thanking Howard Cruse for his “Masterful work,” Tom Spurgeon asks Cruse to think about getting Stuck Rubber Baby back into print. ‘Oh my goodness, it is a shit-ton of work to re-release a treasured, nearly forgotten book,’ I scribbled. Then it dawned on me: Stuck Rubber Baby isn’t merely a political story about the Civil Rights Movement. It’s a teen mood sugar fiction that affects a whole country.” ————————————————————————————————— The Other Mainstream: Indy Creators on Non-Indy Books Jeff Smith, Peter Bagge, Kyle Baker, and Connor Willumsen (Saturday, Sept. 30th 2017, at the Columbus Metropolitan Library) In this dialogue, we are revisiting Kyle Baker again. What’s unfortunate in this particular discussion is that there is no visible female contribution. However, what ended up happening was that Kyle Baker – long known for his trademark crankiness – opened up to the audience in a way that is (apologies, meme) unexpected. Peter Bagge: “Spiderman (Bagge’s creation → Spider-Man, Startling Stories: The Megalomaniacal Spider-Man – a reinterpretation of the SP origin story) was the best-selling comic I had ever made and the worst-selling Spiderman Comic ever.” Kyle Baker laughs at Peter Bagge’s comment, then goes on to say: Robert Morales, when developing the script for the series “Captain America: Truth,” has used the term ‘drugs’ throughout the entire story. The story details a fictional declassified experiment in which African Americans are the precursor experiment to the secret project that creates Captain America. “We gave the manuscript and art to the publishers and they loved it, but they wanted to replace the term ‘drugs’ with ‘serum,’ so essentially the term “drugs” in Morales’ story came to stand less for something like the Tuskegee experiment and more for the alleged HIV conspiracy.” Baker then described how he revisited some of these themes from this book in Leticia Lerner, Superman’s Babysitter, a short comic he completed in 1999 for the DC Elseworlds 80-Page Giant #1. I’m going to revisit Kyle Baker’s work again at length here, to describe, I guess, what sort of happens with modern commercial illustrators in regards to their relationship with their employers. Baker is willingly immersed in comics mythology – it has replaced any previous myths imbued in him in concern to civilization – everything from religion to gender. Somehow, this deep engagement has made him an indispensable employee within a mainstream corporate media outlet. It may seem that Baker retains a sort of power through publishing these stories that are really important to him and to his progression as a drawer. However, the full picture we don’t get from Baker when he is telling us about these industrial anomalies – these stories he most cares about – is that he’s also completing an insane amount of commissioned work as he gets the access to publish these stories that mean the most to him. To end here, I want to include some quotes by Connor Willumsen, a fresh cartoonist whose work I think represents the next wave of comics, which is COMICS LITERATURE. “You can never predict what people are gonna respect or not.” “With Witchlands, I tried to do it like uh, how these comics are invented?” “I always found out about these rules the hard way.” What was so calming about when Connor spoke of his experience in mainstream comics contemporaneously was that the industry-men sitting next to him quivered at hearing of Connor’s creative travails. Connor’s a young man, no children to take care of, no family to support; his focus remains on the mythology and drawing practice, not on salary. What luxury had those seasoned professionals grown to actually? Who cares? It was nice to see those older industry men loosen up – they all asked Connor if they could take a look at his books later. I don’t know who planned this discussion, or if anyone could foresee that this type of generational showdown might occur, but we were there to witness it. ————————————————————————————————— Howard Cruse, Emil Ferris, Mimi Pond, Derf Backderf: Quotes from Comic Memoir Discussion (Saturday, Sept. 30th 2017, at the Columbus Metropolitan Library) Below are a few quotes from this discussion, in which Emil Ferris, creator of My Favorite Things is Monsters, comes to the realization that these comics people are in fact, her people. “You can’t be afraid to make yourself look like an asshole” -Derf Backderf “That guy who wrote Stuck Rubber Baby is a different guy than who I am today. The guy who wrote that book exists within the soft glow of goodwill.” -Howard Cruse “I could see the danger of getting stuck in a place like that.” – Mimi Pond, on writing about being a waitress in Over Easy and The Customer is Always Wrong. “Fine art was a pile of bricks accompanied by a long explanation… I finally came to the fact that this story was going to be a graphic novel.” – Mimi Pond “When I first encountered Lynda Barry,’s work, I recognized an artist who goes to a place in her head that I’ve seen before in my own head.” – Emil Ferris A question that came up was: ‘Is the persistence of memoir comics a novelty of identity politics these days?’ “All those labels are out the window. If it’s good comics, we want it.” -Derf Backderf ————————————————————————————————— Quotes from SÕL-CON Panel Three: Creators of Color & Industry Moderated by Crystal Gonzalez, J.M Hunter, Carlos Perez, Albert Morales, Andres Vera, and Verzelle James (Sunday, Oct. 1st 2017, at the Columbus Metropolitan Library) “You have to be proactive about finding your market.” “They ask for diversity, and then they say,’uh, it’s a little too diverse.” – Carlos Perez “Respect is key. If you write a story without research, it’s all that you don’t know that gets left out.” -Michael Bendis, cited. When I saw Verzelle James’ comics earlier in the week at SOL-CON, I knew I had to have them. They were/are the best of what comics has to offer – symbology applied, in varied textures of ink, to the surface of a perfectly managed black and white newsprint surface. Seeing his work and getting to speak with him was like diving into a longbox, finding a floppy comic you like, and as you flip through it, the author sidles up and says, “Want me to sign that?” Only eight pages of comics here from 1991. James only had about four comics to sell, some reprints of pin-ups, and all of them were over a decade old. These were his passion projects. During this panel, James discussed how much commercial illustration work he had done. I realized, looking over his books, that whatever had happened to spur these floppies into being was something that he wished to revisit. How had he gotten this work into this conference? How do works of such creative fervor flame up again and manage to find their way into the eye-range of another creator? After the panel, James asked me how I felt about the discussion. “Insight from people in the industry is priceless,” I said. He didn’t seem to have a problem with that answer. Reasonably though, what does success really look like for people of color in the comics industry? I could bring up a few artists, one or two writers, sure! But progress, in and of itself, can masquerade too. I think that if Cartoon Crossroad Columbus is to continue upping the stakes for gender, age, and race inclusivity in comics, then something must be done about the SÕL-CON/CXC partnership. This year, the connection between the events became ever more evident, with Caitlin McGurk and Jenny Robb doing as much equal time as they could between both conferences, and SÕL-CON participants being flagrantly present at CXC events. The best innovation is how exhibitors from both cons are mixed in together during the expo and lectures that take place at the library during the weekend. This year, SÕL-CON took the step of educating youth about drawing, and CXC took the step of giving Kat Fajardo the emerging talent award. The first year of this conference, I remember running from one side of campus to another in order to get the most out of both cons. This year, I definitely did not have to do as much running, but I’m wondering if the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum couldn’t stand to create some dedicated programming to incubate talent outside of the OSU student body that will engage at a community and studio capacity with their collection and resources. ————————————————————————————————— Emil Ferris Spotlight (Sunday, Oct. 1st 2017, at the Columbus Metropolitan Library) First, if you don’t know about Emil Ferris’ My Favorite Things is Monsters, read this article so I don’t have to re-explain the miracle that this book is. Second, I have never read My Favorite Thing is Monsters. It was a book that came out to much acclaim this year, and it wasn’t until I saw Ferris herself, and most significantly, heard her speak that I now feel the impulse to go and get the book. It took Emil Ferris six years to write My Favorite Thing is Monsters. What sold me about the book is what Ferris means by Chicago. “The west is nothing like everywhere else in the world. Everywhere else, the wealth you have is in the older people in your life,” she says. Ferris means ‘old’ Chicago. In her own words, Ferris states that ‘there were all of these older actors and actresses from the silent film era, Georgette Leblanc types who were living alongside survivors of the Holocaust. It was a deeply haunted population…I realized I had access to all of these stories.” “As I was drawing forth my smaller self , love kept being the thing that kept me going…I realized that I wanted my kid to see me kick some ass, and we have to give our daughters badassery.” “The line creates secret unknown things to people from the heart of the creator.” “I began to see that each page I did had a taste. One page had a taste of rosemary and mint. Another tasted of syphillis, though I have never had syphillis…that’s what synthesia does.” ————————————————————————————————— Going to close on Kyle Baker’s work. The best reason to visit a conference like Cartoon Crossroads Columbus is that you get encounters with current and historical works about modern life that aren’t going to be seen elsewhere, all in one room. There is a cornucopia of independent comics creators from all walks of life here and let’s face it: The fine art world doesn’t accommodate unknown milestone creations from the world of comics, and the mainstream world of comics doesn’t accommodate emergent comics that might be unquantifiable within the canon of superbabes, superheroes, blood, guts, and uberships. It’s an in-between world where the sentiment of western middle-class expression is never treated condescendingly as ankle-browed nostalgia or visual brik-a-brak – a place where a commercial illustrator like Baker can let loose creatively, outside of his industrial obligations and have an audience, where an unconventional illustrator like Mimi Pond can fictionalize her own biography as a waitress without interpretational friction – a place where an established editorial cartoonist like Signe Wilkenson can introduce a new audience to her work within the appropriate context of its historical footnotes. It’s intellectual even when it’s pretending to be dumb. It’s philosophical even when it’s aping the pleasures of brain-vacancy. It’s irreverent without portending the inherent complacency of ‘fine.’ It’s comics, and it is the most central American art. ————————————————————————————————— Adam Griffiths is a comics artist from Takoma Park, MD. Catch his ongoing comic – American CRYO – HERE. 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Rowhouse Residency Report – Bronson Smillie

Comics WorkbookSeptember 6, 2018Residency Reports / School UpdatesBronson Smillie is a cartoonist based in Montréal, QC, where he is finishing a painting and drawing undergrad at Concordia University. He joined us in Pittsburgh, PA, for a weeklong Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency in July of 2018. Here are his thoughts about visiting the city and his Rowhouse Residency experience. ——————————————————————————————— Bronson Smillie here: I arrived in Pittsburgh from Montreal in the middle of July, with just a carry-on full of art supplies and a few carefully selected articles of summer attire that would allow me to beat the record-breaking heatwave that had been plaguing Montreal and most of Eastern Canada for weeks. Prior to my departure, I had been trying to gather intel from friends as to what to expect during my stay in Pittsburgh. No matter how hard I dug, it seemed practically no one, apart from a few internet acquaintances, had much information to offer. So, without expectations, I rode the bus from the airport into downtown to meet Sally who would take me to my home for the week. Pittsburgh is undoubtedly the hilliest city I have ever been to. As someone who enjoys walking as a means of sight-seeing, I fantasized about the thigh muscles I would develop after a week navigating the city’s steep inclines. The Residency itself is located in a neighbourhood called Swissvale. As a longterm resident of the neighbourhood, Frank has some really interesting anecdotes about the history of Swissvale that are worth pining for in order to better understand the space and energy of the Residency. Frank’s historical knowledge of the city combined with his historical knowledge of comics affirmed and contradicted preconceived notions I had about the “North American Comics Industry”. It’s all super valuable information, and it was interesting for me to stack his old school values against my new school ideals. It’s safe to say that the rose coloured glasses I showed up to the Residency wearing have been now replaced with a more practical pair of shades. The ! air conditioned ! bedroom/work-space was the perfect place to dive head first into my work. As someone that is easily distracted in new environments, it was nice to be able to shut myself into a quiet space. Each morning I would devour a handful of comics/zines selected from the extensive and ever-growing library at the Residency. I would recommend spending as much time reading comics as you do drawing them while you are a resident. They offer such an amazing resource and I got to read things that I had never had access to before. I worked on a 10 page mini-comic that I’ve since completed and took time to digitize my entire stamp collection (boring but satisfying). I wanted to explore a new way of image-making while I was at the residency and broke away from the more rigid, panel-based comic making I was used to in order to explore more experimental ideas I had been tossing around for a while. It was an extremely rewarding week – for both my thighs and my craft – topped off with drives around the city with both Frank and Sally as well as a trip to visit the uh-may-zing Copacetic Comics to drop off some of my own comics and choose a few to bring back with me as well. Before I headed off to the airport and back to Montreal – Frank handed me a folded newsprint copy of something that he forbid me to open in his presence. I awkwardly shoved it into my carry on and as I sat down on my bus headed back to the airport I opened the gift. It was a short comic by Frank that acted as a first person reflection on Swissvale as well as Frank’s personal memories attached to it. I flipped through pages illustrated by someone with a lifetime of experiences attached to a place I had spent just one week. I realized, by my surprisingly emotional response to what I was reading, that Pittsburgh had effectively gotten under my skin. I understand why, after leaving for many years, Frank has decided to come back to his roots. Frank and Sally are creating a special place for comic makers to come develop and I’m super thankful that I had the opportunity to be a part of it! Keep up with Bronson Smillie HERE! For more information about the Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency visit this page or email santoroschool@gmail.com Share this page: [...]

02/14/2017

Aaron CockleFebruary 14, 2017NewsAaron here today with Podcasts for Grownups; Gerhard Richter Comics; (SOME)BODY at Adam Baumgold Gallery; Open Access at the Met; Frank S and Mickey Z, talking Risography; Daniel Clowes, talking on u-tube (with French subtitles!) ————————————————————————————————— The Comics for Grownups crew takes a look at Last Look by Charles Burns, Everything Is Teeth by Evie Wyld and Joe Sumner, and The Unquotable Trump by R. Sikoryak. ————————————————————————————————— Often standing alone, the Biped is a loner in a world of the replicas. J.Hoberman looks at some lost Gerhard Richter cartoons at the New York Review: Comic Strip’s austerely sketchy terrain is sometimes darkened by the artist’s thumb and palm prints. On other pages, Richter employs clusters of dots to suggest a desert. (The Biped dives into the sand on one page to surface in the next.) Richter’s drawings are annotated by pages or passages of elegantly blotchy, largely indecipherable writing with a family resemblance to Cy Twombly’s calligraphy; the use of ominously unreadable dialogue balloons, obscure crypto maps, and ornate official stamps suggest Saul Steinberg as another point of reference. ————————————————————————————————— (SOME)BODY February 18-April 8, 2017 Adam Baumgold Gallery 60 East 66 Street, NYC Featuring work by: LYNDA BARRY • POLINA BArSKAYA • Marc bell • BARTON LIDICE BENES • todd bienvenu • BETTE BLANK • VARUJAN BOGHOSIAN • ERNIE BUSHMILLER • DANIEL CLOWES • JOE COLEMAN • WILLIAM COPLEY • STUART DAVIS • ROY DeFOREST • MARCEL DZAMA • RAFAEL FERRER • dan fischer • JOHN GUTMANN • AL HANSEN • KIRK HAYES • NADIRA HUSAIn • SUE GERARD • JAIME HERNANDEZ • ALeX KatZ • ella kruglyanskaya • TALA MADANI • RICHARD MCGUIRE • JIM NUTT • christina ramberg • PETER SAUL • SETH • SAUL STEINBERG • MARK TANSEY • ADRIAN TOMINE • Ernest tino trova • CHRIS WARE • RACHEL WHITEREAD • DAVID WOJNAROWICZ • CRYS YIN • RAY YOSHIDA ————————————————————————————————— Creative Commons Zero at the Met The Metropolitan Museum of Art recently released a massive amount of work to the online masses: As of today, all images of public-domain works in The Met collection are available under Creative Commons Zero (CC0). So whether you’re an artist or a designer, an educator or a student, a professional or a hobbyist, you now have more than 375,000 images of artworks from our collection to use, share, and remix—without restriction. This policy change to Open Access is an exciting milestone in The Met’s digital evolution, and a strong statement about increasing access to the collection and how to best fulfill the Museum’s mission in a digital age. ————————————————————————————————— O Risograph, My Risograph! Over at the TCJ blog, Frank Santoro has several questions for Mickey Zacchilli about riso printing: Personally, I am fascinated with how risograph printing has changed making color comics. Before risograph was around the choices were expensive offset or expensive print on demand. And often dealing with those printers was difficult. The “pro” riso printers I have engaged are not faceless sales reps on the phone who have no experience making comics. So riso printers and their enthusiasm for the materials has reinvigorated the small press scene – which has drifted into “book publishing” (like giant offset press books) – and I was hoping you could speak to that? Yeah, I think that riso printing really has opened up a lot of options for people in a lot of ways! Especially in terms of self publishing! I really prefer being able to do something myself if I can, when I can. I think it’s important to keep the overhead low, because I think that books and zines are really important to offer to people at a price that is reasonable, that they can afford. I guess that’s why I don’t really like the “art chic” end of riso-printing, because it really is an affordable way to make a book or zine extra fun, and playing like it’s “high end” or “high art” is unfair and also just not true. But who am I? ————————————————————————————————— À l’occasion de son exposition à la Galerie Martel, Daniel Clowes nous parle de son parcours Clowes talking about comics and film, film and comics, in his usual way. ————————————————————————————————— Announcing the Spring Semester of thee Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers! The course starts March 7th 2017. Apply by February 26th to get 100 bux off! The course is 8 weeks long – payment plans are available. Application guidelines: – 3 figure drawings done on blank 3 x 5 index cards – 3 landscape drawings done on blank 3 x 5 index cards – 3 still life drawings done on blank 3 x 5 cards – draw in a contour line style –think Matisse – no under-drawing – draw directly in ink – just send me small jpgs of images – dont post to your blog pls – send specific url links to any comics work you have done. If you haven’t done comics before that is not a problem. Email santoroschoolATgmail to apply! More details HERE. ————————————————————————————————— A Cosmic Journey – 2-14-2017 – by Cameron Arthur ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 2-14-2017 – by Sally Ingraham ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 2-14-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio ————————————————————————————————— Cozytown – 2-14-2017 – Juan Fernandez Share this page: [...]

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