Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in EssaysTagged captain america, Jack Kirby

Bill Boichel

Posted on July 16, 2016May 15, 2019

Explore

09/11/2018

Aaron CockleSeptember 11, 2018NewsJason Lutes; Sharad Sharma; Dash Shaw; Comics Carousel; Brooklyn Book Festival ————————————————————————————————— ‘Otherwise it’s all just a bloodbath, right?’ Josh Kramer talks with Jason Lutes about the new Berlin collection: What were your main narrative inspirations for Berlin? From a straightforward, mechanical, storytelling perspective, the comics of Herge, right? All of my basic “Comics 101” self-education that I got was from studying Tintin both growing up and then as an adult. And then once I sort of figured out the conventions that Herge was applying, then tinkering them and changing them and making them my own in a lot of cases. In terms of like tone, for Berlin specifically, tone and technique, I think I was I was thinking a lot about Wings of Desire by Wim Wenders, which I had seen in my early 20s, which was very affecting. And the novel Berlin Alexanderplatz by Alfred Döblin which takes a very kind of impressionistic view of the city at the time. And both of those works do a lot of drifting in and out of the consciousness of various people on the street. So those had a big effect on how I ended up telling the story. And then beyond that I would have to say it’s probably a combination of any number of indie films that I absorbed when I was in art school or after. I remember I watched a lot of Jim Jarmusch. Then I remember there was this one year at the Seattle Film Festival where I had press passes. I would just go walk into a movie theater and sit down and watch movies for four hours, not knowing what they were going to be. I think there was a period there where I kind of just immersed myself in cinematic visual storytelling. I think Herge, Alfred Döblin and Wim Wenders would be the three big ones that were the obvious influences. ————————————————————————————————— The 222nd meeting of the NY Comics & Picture-story Symposium will be held on Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2018 at 7pm at Parsons School of Design, University Center, 63 Fifth Avenue, room UL 105 (lower level). Free and open to the public. Skype presentation. Sharad Sharma on Grassroots Comics: By the people, for the people. Via Skype, Sharad Sharma, will share hundred of stories of common people using Grassroots Comics that tell a local story. They are a communication tool for all citizens that can transcend the barriers of language, literacy, media access, social classes and even resources. For these reasons, grassroots comics have been extremely successful in both rural and urban, remote and low literacy areas widely in Indian subcontinent. The simple format and participatory methodology made the grassroots comics popular worldwide. In last 20 years his organization World Comics has conducted more than 1200 comics workshop in most remote and disturbed areas of the globe and trained over 1,00,000 common people. He will also share the impact of his work. www.worldcomicsindia.com ————————————————————————————————— “My Entire High School Sinking Into the Sea” Screening and Q&A As part of After School Special: The 2018 School of Visual Arts Alumni Film & Animation Festival, we are pleased to present graphic novelist, animator, writer, director, and SVA alumnus Dash Shaw’s first feature-length animated film, My Entire High School Sinking Into the Sea (2016). Shaw will be on hand following the film for a Q&A. The feature will be preceded by the short film series Makin’ Things and the world premiere of the short film Noise by another multi-hypenate artist/director and SVA alumnus, Jim McKenzie. The Q&A will be moderated by current student Stephanie Kim (BFA 2019 Illustration). Tuesday, September 11, 2018, 7:30-10PM SVA Theatre 333 West 23rd Street New York, NY 10011 ————————————————————————————————— Comics Carousel at Society of Illustrators A special Carousel at the Society of Illustrators for the Brooklyn Book Festival. Presentations of graphic novels and comics as read by the artists: Jordan Crane (We Are All Me) Maria Hoey (COIN-OP Comics Anthology) Paul Levitz & Tim Hamilton (Brooklyn Blood) Connie Sun (@cartoonconnie) Ngozi Ukazu (Check, Please!) Kriota Willberg (Draw Stronger) and more! The event will be followed by a book signing. Hosted by: R. Sikoryak (Terms and Conditions, The Unquotable Trump) THIS IS AN OFFICIAL 2018 BROOKLYN BOOK FESTIVAL EVENT Society of Illustrators 128 East 63rd Street NY, NY 10065 Monday, September 17, 2018, 7-9pm Tickets: $10 General Admission ————————————————————————————————— Brooklyn Book Festival Comics-related Panels: September 16, 2018, 12pm Find Your Family Brooklyn Historical Society Library, 128 Pierrepont St Refugees, outcasts, inheritors of hard history — whoever we are, we all struggle to find the human connections that make us safe. Caldecott Award-winning illustrator/author David Small (Home After Dark), New Yorker cartoonist Liana Finck (Passing for Human), and anthropologist Bessora (Alpha) explore the universal yearning for defining and keeping what we think of as family. Moderated by agent and editor Anjali Singh, Ayesha Pande Literary. September 16, 2018, 1pm TV vs. Reality Brooklyn Historical Society Library 128 Pierrepont St When on-air celebrity and imagery shape your earliest memories, how do you reconcile it all with the hard realities of adulthood? Catch the wide-ranging experiences, from quiz kids to musicals to stand-up comedy, of comics creators Michael Kupperman (All The Answers), Box Brown (Is This Guy for Real?), and Rina Ayuyang (Blame This on the Boogie). Moderated by Joan Hilty, Comics Editor at Nickelodeon. September 16, 2018, 2pm Two-Ways — Weird Romance Brooklyn Historical Auditorium, 128 Pierrepont St Two astoundingly accomplished team-ups of authors explore their many attractions to weird romance and speculative fiction, and all the things that happen when you create genre-bending graphic novels in collaboration! Audrey Niffenegger and Eddie Campbell (Bizarre Romance) and Alex de Campi and Katie Skelly (Twisted Romance) . Moderated by Tor Books editor Diana Pho. September 16, 2018, 4pm The Graphic City Brooklyn Historical Auditorium, 128 Pierrepont St In alternately gripping, funny, and tragic graphic novels about urban history, Julia Wertz (Tenements, Towers & Trash), Peter J. Tomasi (The Bridge), and Jason Lutes (Berlin) take us high up to skyscraper views of two great cities flanking the Atlantic — and beyond. Moderated by Publishers Weekly senior news editor Calvin Reid. ————————————————————————————————— Cement Mixer – 9-11-18 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

09/05/2017

Aaron CockleSeptember 4, 2017NewsAaron Cockle here today with Comics Carousel; Anders Nilsen’s new book; Josh Bayer returns to the New York Comics & Picture-story Symposium; Workshops at SPX ————————————————————————————————— ————————————————————————————————— ‘But those books were both black and white. Color kind of forces your hand regarding borders.’ Paste Magazine has a nice piece about Anders Nilsen’s new book, Tongues, and the process that went into its making. “Panel design and structure matter a lot to me. I did a bit of teaching from 2012 to 2015 or so and one of the things I found myself focusing on with certain students was how panels work and what happens to storytelling when they change in various ways. Some cartoonists do great things with a simple grid. My two biggest comics influences, Hergé and Chester Brown, use very simple panel structures in their comics, and they were brilliant with it. But I can’t keep from playing around with panels. Partly it’s because I find measuring out rectangles very boring, but it’s also, I think, partly because I studied painting, and so I can’t help but think about the visual composition of a page as more than just a collection of rectangles. It was something I wanted to explore in this book from the outset and so this small sketch is my original idea for how to structure the panels in this opening dream sequence.” ————————————————————————————————— Josh Bayer, Adam McGovern and guests, Sept. 5, 2017 at 7pm The 190th meeting of the NY Comics & Picture-story Symposium will be held on Tuesday, Sept. 5, 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. Josh Bayer, Adam McGovern and guests on All Time Comics All Time Comics is a comic-book series that resists categorization. Part modern reworking of Bronze age comics superhero aesthetics, part a Mad Magazine-like Gonzo attempt to sidestep and weave that aesthetic back on itself. Published by Fantagraphcs, All Time Comics has created a space for a dialogue between older veteran creators like Herb Trimpe and Al Milgrom and younger Alternative Comics mainstays like Ben Marra and Noah Van Sciver. Join Josh Bayer in a lively discussion with comics writer/historian Adam McGovern. (Panel may include special guest artist/writers, schedules permitting). Josh Bayer is the author of Raw Power and Theth from Retrofit Comics, the editor of the Suspect Device Comics anthology series, as well as 2016’s The Black Hood. His work’s been selected for The Best American Comics series in 2016 and 2017. He is the founder of his own “Comics Are The Enemy Press” and he is currently releasing his All Time Comics imprint from Fantagraphics. ————————————————————————————————— Comics Workbook Cartoon Workshops If you’re planning to be at the upcoming Small Press Expo in Bethesda, MD, please consider attending one or all of the workshops the CW will be conducting: ————————————————————————————————— Frank Santoro made a comic book about his parents and now he needs help making a handbound copy of the book for each of them. It’s a good story. Check out the Indiegogo campaign HERE – or if you want to contribute via PayPal, look at the campaign HERE. ———————————————————————————————— A Cosmic Journey – 9-5-2017 – by Cameron Arthur ———————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 9-5-2017 – by Gabriella Tito ———————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 9-5-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

06/12/2017

Caleb OrecchioJune 12, 2017NewsCaleb Orecchio here with some thoughts on Brighter Than You Think: Ten Short Works by Alan Moore—plus some links ————————————————————————————————— Though Alan Moore has not really drawn a comic since the late 70’s, he is so obviously the auteur of the comics he writes that I am tempted to consider him a “cartoonist.” I mean, not really, but I think a more articulate, alternate-dimension version of myself could make a strong case for that designation. Regardless of the artist, Moore’s comics have an undeniable feel and pace, even when drawn by a sub-par cartoonist—AND is never out-shined by a particularly excellent cartoonist. The latest installment of Uncivilized Books’ “Critical Cartoons” series, Brighter Than You Think: Ten Short Works by Alan Moore with essays by Marc Sobel, has been my in-between-other-readings book for about a month now. I like not reading it all the way through at once because 1.) it is a collection of short stories over almost 20 years so it makes sense to pace myself, and 2.) Moore’s work is just too damn dense to swallow in one sitting. If you add Marc Sobel’s essays that follow each comic, you’re looking at a very annotated and involved effort that requires time for thinking and reflection with each story. Something I find very interesting about Moore is his awareness of the artist. He seems to know how to “use” an artist better than any writer I know of, which, to me, aids him in diversifying the types of stories he can tell. He uses them like a solo cartoonist might pick a color to evoke mood, or use a certain brush to evoke a certain era of comics’ past. Using an artist like Mark Beyer can help to abstract a story and give it a heightened sense of reality and playfulness, whereas using an artist like Stephen Bissette can help ground a story to real-life and make a comic more like a documentary. If you’re writing a story for Peter Bagge, the writing is funny and whimsical (Moore’s ability to write comedy is WAY under appreciated in my opinion); and you write strange stories of flight and fantasy for Rick Veitch. I always found his collaboration with Melinda Gebbie, “This Is Information” (a “reaction” comic to 9/11), to be very interesting. Moore wisely keeps character at arm’s length and is communicating in symbols and metaphors; and Gebbie’s art is key because she can draw cartoony caricatures, she can draw realistic rendering of hands clasping in desperation, or she can precisely and patiently draw a falling house of cards (harder than you think). The breadth and nuance of her skills matches the breadth and nuance of emotions Alan Moore implements in this story about a devastating and monumental event. There’s so much I could say about Moore, and there’s so much people have already said. If I were a better writer I could better explain the value of such a great contributor to comics clearer. The best I can really do is point you to the work, and right now I’m pointing you to Brighter Than You Think. Go grab a copy at Uncivilized Books’ website. ————————————————————————————————— if you don’t know, now you know There were several links I was hoping to share today, but came to find out Sally covered most of them here on Friday (I was involved with my sisters wedding all weekend so I’m a few days behind). Go back and check out Sally’s post if you haven’t already, featuring good stuff from Trina Robbins, Jillian Tamaki, Eleanor Davis, and more. Adam West, Batman star and icon to, I’m sure, more than a few comics fans, has died at age 88. Anita Gates has an obituary over at The New York Times. I thought Chris Mautner expressed the brilliance of Alan Moore’s Providence quite well in this article on The Smart Set. The way he briefly-yet-impressively articulates Jacen Burrows’ contribution to the work was overdue I think. The Panic Fables by Alejandro Jodorowski have finally been collected and translated to English. Get a copy from Copacetic Comics. The legendary Steve Ditko is still at it, and you can contribute to his latest Kickstarter (though the goal was met very rapidly with plenty of days still to go) to get a copy of the new Mr. A which marks the 50th anniversary of the character. ————————————————————————————————— Blinkers – 6-12-2017 – by Jack Brougham ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 6-12-2017 – by Sally Ingraham ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 6-12-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

10/05/2018

Sally IngrahamOctober 4, 2018NewsSally here. Busy week. I’m working on completing, and starting, a couple of personal comics projects. I’m also (as usual) reading three different comics at once – Rina Ayuyang‘s Blame This on the Boogie, Emma Rios‘ I.D., and Fun Home by Alison Bechdel. Whichever one I finish first I’ll write about next week! For the time being, here’s a roundup of what everyone else has been writing and thinking about, comics-wise, lately. Laura Howell (pictured above) was the first female cartoonist to produce a strip in The Beano (an 80-year old British children’s comic magazine) – 12 years later she is still working for them. Read about her HERE. The mysterious “Olivia Jaimes“, current and much discussed artist behind the rebirth of the strip Nancy, made an appearance at CXC recently (in a disguise) – Rocko Jerome was there and offers a full report. Annie Koyama announced the spring lineup of books for Koyama Press – including the latest from Emily Carroll (above). See what else is coming up HERE. Joe McCulloch reviews Lale Westvind‘s Grip #1 over on The Comics Journal – and words fail him. The Washington Post compares notes on the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation process with Ann Telnaes and Signe Wilkinson, among other editorial cartoonists. The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum is now accepting applications for the 2019 Lucy Shelton Caswell Research Award – details HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Sally Ingraham Share this page: [...]

07/12/2017

Juan FernándezJuly 12, 2017los Cómics / NewsEmpezamos el día con Jaime y Gilbert Hernandez; Amanda Mijangos y Armando Fonseca en La Polola;Klari Moreno; Cornet; Begoña García-Alén; E. Muñoz y CuCo 8; y los tebeos de Cómics Workbook! ————————————————————————————————— Punk, Latinidad, & Reviving Their Seminal ‘Love and Rockets’ Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez talk shop over on Remezcla: It’s like people were waiting for it. Latinos have been thirsty for that kind of representation. What I don’t understand is why, after 35 years, representation is still a problem. Do you have any ideas about why that is? Jaime: I think there’s a hell of a lot more Latino creators than I knew about back then. They’re doing it their way, some differently than I would. Which is cool. Everyone’s got their own view. I think the problem is still when money is involved. Whenever money is involved there’s going to be stereotypes. Everything is going to be done to please whitey. Money is going to steer you toward the money – and who is the 1%? You find out that the people in control of the TV studio or the movie studio or whoever is paying the check for this art – they don’t care. They don’t care about other cultures. When they find out that, “Oh well golly! Lots of Latin people spend money on our product” they don’t know what to do! The bottom line is when money is involved someone is going to get shorted. You’ve said, “The more ethnic I am, the more attention I get.” Why do you think that is and why does it work? Gilbert: I think I become more truthful when I get closer to who I am and where I’m from. I can tell a more truthful story and even a funnier and darker story because I’m just reflecting who I am. There’s a small element though, I hate to say, is it’s safe for non-Latino readers. It’s on paper. The characters are drawings. They’re not a threat. When it becomes a pop singer or actress or actor, they’re in your face. That’s a real person there. I think are a little tougher to take for some people. ————————————————————————————————— Cómics y noticias que me han llamado la atención esta semana: Jueves 3 de Agosto – Evento para recaudar fondos para el 2do Encuentro de Fanzineras. Santiago de Chile/Metro Irarrázabal. Organizado por @Comiqueraschile . Sol Díaz Castillo y Marcela Trujillo tienen una nueva edicion de La Polola Podcast! Las chicas conversan con Amanda Mijangos y Armando Fonseca, dos talentosos ilustradores Mexicanos. Hablan acerca de su trabajo, la importancia de buscar una mirada propia en la ilustración, la experimentación, la relación con los editores, sus proyectos personales y el proyecto que los trae a Chile, la obra de teatro “Risas de Papel” que estará en cartelera en Teatro Ictus, donde ellos hacen ilustración en vivo que dialoga con el actor. Un toquecito de historia: Cornet, Dibujante Catalan del siglo XX, fue uno de los artistas más populares que se formó en ‘¡Cu-Cut!’ – Humoristan.org les ofrece un vistazo a su vida en imagenes! Véte de cañas con Klari Moreno en Madrid con su entrevista en Segundo Premio. Moreno: «Defiendo la autoedición como acto político» Hay nuevo número de el espectador de Begoña García-Alén. El mejor de la serie, sin duda! E. Muñoz les ofrece un tronco de ensayo en CuCo 8:“El cómic como lenguaje visual híbrido y su vigencia en la era digital contemporánea”. ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 7-11-2017 – by Sally Ingraham ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 7-11-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

Bill Boichel on Captain America

Posted on July 16, 2016May 15, 2019 by Bill Boichel

Share this page:

Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in EssaysTagged captain america, Jack Kirby

Bill Boichel

Posted on July 16, 2016May 15, 2019

Explore

Art Trip: Comics With O’Keeffe

Sally IngrahamMay 19, 2016Art Trip / EssaysI’m standing in the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, NM, staring at an index card in startled delight. It holds O’Keeffe’s notes for a large painting she made in 1963, and it hangs beside that painting, nicely framed. A famous index card. I glance around at the other folks in the gallery, looking for some shared excitement. People circle, pressing earbuds into their heads so that the audio tour they downloaded to their smart phones can inform them about the stuff on the walls. They don’t seem impressed by the index card. I can’t stop staring at it. “Look!” I want to say, “It’s a panel! From a comic! Look everyone!” I was drawn to Georgia O’Keeffe’s paintings of flowers and desert landscapes as a kid. Her love for New Mexico resonated with my own longing for that land, so when I traveled through Santa Fe in 2006, the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum was at the top of my list of stops. I liked the flowers and the landscapes and the bleached white bones back then. Ten years later I am in this museum again, and now it is O’Keeffe’s tiny pencil drawings that pull me in. The sketches that prefaced paintings. First-take watercolor nudes that are mostly splashes of color. Small paintings that seem to be missing their black lines. That index card. Most of what I’m drawn to is work O’Keeffe did when she lived in Canyon, Texas, between 1916-1918. This period is considered the prelude to her career, the formative years when she really began to develop her abstractions. She was not quite 30. A little series she did of Palo Duro Canyon almost makes me cry. The simple, quick strokes seem similar to drawings I have made of the New Mexican landscapes around Santa Fe. I’m the same age that O’Keeffe was when she made them, and – this is “The Land of Enchantment” after all – I suddenly feel strongly connected to her spirit. I whip some index cards out of my bag and copy the series. For a minute, it’s like I’m there on the edge of the canyon with her, drawing in the sunshine… And I’m looking at her stuff and seeing comics, yes. That’s where my brain lives constantly, these days. The index card is a panel for a comic. The Palo Duro Canyon drawings aren’t a series – they’re a sequence. Her paintings without lines prove how lively comics can look without being pinned down by traditional inks. Her small “notes” for larger paintings tell me the story I’m truly interested in. “Colors and shapes make a more definite statement than words,” O’Keeffe wrote in 1976. Especially when they take on the shapes and colors of comics. The statement that O’Keeffe’s work is making to me is reflective of what’s in my own head and heart, but that’s the uniquely fluid exchange between a creator and and the person experiencing the creation. I went to the museum because I’m about to leave New Mexico and it seemed necessary to “check in with Georgia”. I expected to see her flowers and cattle skulls and cottonwood trees in front of blue mesas, and feel somewhat wistful about the land I’m leaving behind. Instead I discovered the comics in her work, and made the peculiar realization that my move back to the East Coast right now puts me on a similar path to the one O’Keeffe took when she left Canyon, TX, to move to New York City. The world recognized her as an artist to be reckon with there. Who knows what will happen to me? I left the museum feeling the opposite of wistful. After all, I had spent the afternoon drawing comics with O’Keeffe – just two gals, jotting down the world in quick, sure strokes, on simple – yet powerful – index cards. I’ll never leave home without them! ————————————————————————————————— (Palo Duro Canyon, TX, a few days later, standing in roughly the same spot that Georgia O’Keeffe stood to make her pencil drawings 100 years ago, perhaps to the day. Funny ol’world.) ————————————————————————————————— Art Trip is a series that features reflections on art and comics, and the adventures that transform those who seek it out. Experience more on Comics Workbook soon. ————————————————————————————————— Sally Ingraham makes comics wherever she ends up, and is currently making them (on index cards) as she moves from Santa Fe, NM, to Pittsburgh, PA. You can see her work HERE. Share this page: [...]

11/15/2017

Juan FernándezNovember 15, 2017los Cómics / NewsEmpezamos el día con Kat Fajardo; Juana Neumann, Delius y Clara Lagos en La Polola; Jordie Bellaire & Vanesa R. Del Rey; Ramón Esono Ebalé; Berliac; Victor Coyote y Mireia Pérez; Julie Doucet en Madrid; y los tebeos de Cómics Workbook! ————————————————————————————————— Spotlight on Kat Fajardo Over on No Echo Carlos Ramirez interviews Kat Fajardo, the winner of the 2017 Emerging Talent Award at Cartoon Crossroads Columbus (CxC), creator of comics such as Gringa! and the Bandida series. CR: What are the toughest aspects of what you do from a business standpoint? Are you constantly networking and reaching out to editors for gigs? KF: I think finding the energy to make art after working my day job is the toughest part of being a freelancer. Today, social media is insanely important for artists, but you would need time and consistently create work in order to make your online presence known. Thankfully, I work at a cafe in the mornings, so after work I chug down a red eye and work the rest of the night at my studio. The weeks before convention season are the hardest. Printing and assembling zines while working long hours is incredibly energy-draining! But it’s worth it once you get yourself to the convention. I love selling comics behind a table, you get to meet your readers, other cool artists and editors in person. I can’t stress enough the importance of attending comic and zine festivals as an artist, I’ve made great business connections that way. However, most of my recent networking with publishers have been made all thanks to my literary agent, Linda Camacho. Because of her hard work, I was able to work on cool projects like creating the cover for The First Rule of Punk by Celia C. Pérez, as well as a few more exciting projects coming up! Read it all here. ————————————————————————————————— Los cómics y las noticias que me han llamado la atención esta semana: Sol Díaz Castillo y Marcela Trujillo tienen una nueva edicion de La Polola Podcast! Las chicas conversan con Juana Neumann, Delius y Clara Lagos acerca de sus inicios, sus vidas, sus primeros pasos en el cómic, nos contaron acerca de sus proyectos, sus referentes, su visión de la historieta, el dibujo y mucho más! If you’ve been digging Jordie Bellaire & Vanesa R. Del Rey‘s @VDelRey’s Redlands, check out PanelxPanel magazine #2 for 80+ pages of exclusive essays, interviews and craft pieces about the first issue. Equatorial Guinea Cartoonist Ramón Esono Ebalé now imprisoned without charge for 55 days. International cartoonists join call to #FreeNseRamon. ‘Berliac, el dibujante de cómic que reivindica el robo cultural como esencia creativa’ – Víctor Parkas habló con Berliac sobre Sadbøi PlayGrounder. Dibujar es pensar. Jorge Carríon escribe en @nytimesES sobre George Herriman y William Kentridge, las exposiciones del Museo Nacional Reina Sofia. En el último #FanzineMagazine Victor Coyote y Mireia Pérez entrevistan a Alfredo, premio nacional de ilustración. Colaboró también @miriampersand en Canciones para Dibujar y ¡hablamos de lettering! Puedes escuchar el podcast aquí. “Ferocidad e inocencia, actitud punk y costumbrismo, decenas de sueños transgresores y retazos de vida adolescente en toda su crudeza”. Palabras de @f__pimentel sobre Julie Doucet, que visitará La Casa Encendida en Madrid este sábado 18 a las 12h. ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 11-15-2017 – by Sally Ingraham ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 11-15-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

01/16/2018

Aaron CockleJanuary 15, 2018NewsAaron today with Richard Hell; 2 from Liana Finck; The representation of the Spanish Civil War in North-American comic strips ————————————————————————————————— Richard Hell’s Small Press Publishing At White Columns: White Columns will host a small exhibition of Richard Hell’s 50-year history – 1968-2018 – as a small press writer, publisher, editor and designer. Hell, under his original name of Richard Meyers, began his first small literary magazine and press at the age of 17, shortly after arriving in New York City. The magazine was called Genesis : Grasp, as was the press. Genesis : Grasp ran for six issues (numbers 1-5/6, 1968 – 1971), and also released three authors’ first books and two folders of broadsheets. Richard’s small press endeavors have proceeded, under a variety of names (Ernie Stomach, Theresa Stern, Richard Meyers; Genesis : Grasp Press, Dot Books, CUZ Editions …), up through the present, in publications often typeset and printed, as well as designed, by Hell. ————————————————————————————————— A Loner’s Guide to Planning and Cancellation + The Distance Test Some recent work from Liana Finck. At Topic At Catapult ————————————————————————————————— Francisco Manuel Sáez de Adana Herrero on The representation of the Spanish Civil War in North-American comic strips. The 204th meeting of the NY Comics & Picture-story Symposium will be held on Tuesday, Jan. 23, 2018 at 7pm at The New School, University Center, 63 Fifth Ave, UL 105 (lower level). PLEASE NOTE NEW LOCATION. Free and open to the public. The North-American comic strip of the early twentieth century has manifested itself, on many occasions, as a powerful means of transmission of history. In that role, the form of reproduction is a determinant factor since the comic strips were published together with the news of the time and, for that reason, they had an audience of several million readers. Many times the comic strips played the role of showing the public what was happening outside the United States, especially in the years before Pearl Harbor, when American society was more concerned with what was happening within its own borders than with international events. This study shows how an event such as the Spanish Civil War is represented in the comic strips of the late 30’s and how this shows the American society’s position towards this conflict. Francisco Sáez de Adana is Professor at the the Franklin Institute of American Studies of the University of Alcalá in Spain. He works as a comic scholar, mainly focused on American comics, interested in that medium as a way to depict historical events. He has published five chapters in books, seven papers in Spanish and international journals, and several communications In international conferences. He imparted a seminar on Miton Caniff and American culture at the University of Salerno in Italy. He organizes a summer course on comics imparted in the University of Alcalá which is celebrated annually from 2014. ————————————————————————————————— Share this page: [...]

11/15/2016

Aaron CockleNovember 15, 2016NewsAaron here today with Mardou on Clowes; Bianca Xunise Comics; Research & Destroy NYC; European Abstract Formalist Comics; A bystander’s guide to help the person who’s being targeted ————————————————————————————————— Featured this week: On Being a Woman in the Manly World of Daniel Clowes Sacha Mardou takes an in-depth look at the role of women in Clowes’s work. Another strong piece from the CW Roller Derby League. Julie Patheticstein and Violet Vanderplatz are two wronged women who team up in an unlikely friendship. Patience endures a humiliating stage in her development under the kind mentoring of the older waitress, Nancy. And Vida just adores her old grandmother, the fading poetess Ida Wentz. There’s a subtle alter-world of quiet kindness and acceptance in his books and when you look for the women, you’ll find it there. It would be a miserable life for the men if not for this quiet, subplotted influence. Even grumpy-pants Wilson benefits from the tender mercies of his daughter, and then from his life companion, Shelly. ————————————————————————————————— The 94% Bianca Xunise looks at demographics from this past week’s United States presidential election. ————————————————————————————————— RESEARCH & DESTROY The zine collective Research and Destroy New York City has made a good deal of their protest relevant material available online, including RIOT CONTROL; SUPERSTORM SANDY AND NEW YORK CITY’S DARK RECOVERY,OR, THINGS TO BE SEIZED DURING THE COMING INSURRECTION; and RULES FOR PICKETING. Their most recent work, The 2015 Baltimore Uprising: A Teen Epistolary, a tweet zine, was recently reviewed: The chunky, semi-glossy self-published work provides a singular view of the uprising quite separate from the breaking news of the national media or the think pieces churned out after the unrest. A few examples: “now Freddie broke his own neck…so why it take yall so long to tell the public @BaltimorePolice”; “they keep hollerin bout gangs, WE DON’T EVEN HAVE GANGS LIKE THAT NOMORE.”; “yall need to purge a fucking book w/ yall low ass gpa’s.” Collectively, these tweets can teach us things. They send us back to those days when we didn’t know what was happening or what was going to happen next during the violence on Saturday, April 25 downtown, and the rioting on Monday, April 27, and amid the making-it-up-as-they-go-along week of protests prior to that. The tweets capture the larger thing that we keep calling “the uprising” and the “is a revolution happening before our very eyes” excitement and worry. One tweet just declares, “Looking at a lot of shit different now.” ————————————————————————————————— Over at Kim Jooha’s blog, an attempt at a definition of European Abstract Formalist Comics Why “European” Abstract Formalist Comics? The above-listed works are mostly by French artists and all are by Europeans. There are only few Abstract Formalist Comics in other regions. ITDN (2016) by Andy Burkholder and artist books by Sol LeWitt (USA), Re/Forma (2014) by Luis Aranguri (Brazil), 9gbb (2016) by Ryukyung Hotel (South Korea) and works by Yuichi Yokoyama and Tiger Tateishi (Japan) are exceptions, rather than the norm, in their countries and continents. ————————————————————————————————— WHAT TO DO WHEN YOU ARE WITNESSING ISLAMOPHOBIC HARASSMENT: A bystander’s guide to help the person who’s being targeted This came out at the end of August, and has been making the various social media rounds again in light of recent events. By Marie-Shirine Yener at The Middle Eastern Feminist. Share this page: [...]

01/21/2016

Juan FernándezJanuary 21, 2016NewsHello world, Frank’s got your coverage of what has been going on with the Rowhouse so far over at the Comics Journal. Big things happening come February 1st… Bill expounds on the glory that is Kevin Huizenga’s Gloriana on camera in Bill’s Remedial Comics #1. Watch and and see what all the fuss is about. oh and did you hear the news? You can catch Deforge, Drnaso, Chippendale on the East Coast for their Winter tour! Holy shit is right. Chippendale will be on tour promoting Puke Force, DeForge will be on tour promoting Big Kids, and Drnaso will be on tour for his debut of Beverly. Check out all the details here. Paper Jam – the Bushwick zine/comics hang out is just around the corner and they’ve started announcing exhibitors. Loads of new work to check out there if you want go hang out and talk comics/ pick up some new comics and zines. Stay abreast of their tumblr to get the low-down on who’ll be setting up shop. Kevin Czap is first up to bat. Oh and last but not least, we heard it through the grapevine that Lenny the pug has been getting pretty down what with the dark days spent indoors in Pittsburgh. Maybe you could help cheer Lenny up with some love over at the Lenny Fan Club Mailbox? Share this page: [...]

Leave a Reply Cancel reply