Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in NewsTagged Annie Mok, anthony cudahy, caleb orecchio, Cameron Arthur, Gabrielle Bell, Mohammad Sabaaneh, Paul Laffoley, sally ingraham, Sophie Calle

Aaron Cockle

Posted on April 24, 2017April 24, 2017

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08/30/2017

Juan FernándezAugust 30, 2017los Cómics / NewsEmpezamos el día con Carla Berrocal; Jueves Furioso de Dibujo; Simon Hanselmann; la Convocatoria de Voluntarios de Entreviñetas; La Polola con Brittany Tullis; Graficas Pro Aborto Libre; Alex Fito; Berliac y los tebeos de Cómics Workbook! ————————————————————————————————— Sobre el Proceso de Trabajo – Carla Berrocal Antes de nada, debo decir que no creo que exista un método de trabajo que sea bueno o malo o que sea el método definitivo. Creo, sencillamente, que existen miles de formasdistintas de afrontar un encargo, tantas como dibujantes. El mío es uno más de esos miles de métodos. No creo que sea el mejor ni de lejos, pero si que pienso que puede ser interesante compartirlo con vosotros. Siempre con la idea de establecer un diálogo y aprender cosas que puedan resultar interesantes para todos. Así pues, ¿cómo trabajo? ¿cómo afronto un encargo? ————————————————————————————————— Jueves Furioso de Dibujo con Virginia Abrigo 31/09 – 18:00-20:00 Plataforma Lavardén Mendoza 1085, 2000 Rosario, Santa Fe ————————————————————————————————— Simon Hanselmann: la vida no es bonita, ni siquiera en cómic En tiempos de Tumblr, de bloggers sobrevalorados, de fotos de perfil manipuladas por Photoshop y relaciones interpersonales supeditadas a una interfaz friendly, algunos pensamos que una vuelta al existencialismo honesto y deprimente es algo casi necesario. Por eso nos gusta reivindicar a Simon Hanselmann. Y no es que estemos de acuerdo con eso de levantarnos cada mañana planteándonos la existencia entre lacrimosos accesos de frustración, no. No del todo. Pero en esto coincidimos: empieza a resultar imprescindible un poco de reality bite, una dosis medicinal de realidad sucia que levante la alfombra y deje al aire toda esa porquería que se ha ocultado debajo con insistencia. Porque, sin entrar en discursos grunges, es dolorosamente cierto que la realidad, aunque pretendamos lo contrario, no suele ser algo que pueda retocarse con un filtro trendy ni reconstruir recortando el trozo que queremos mostrar. A pesar de que podamos tener momentos felices, la felicidad no es una imagen y, por lo tanto, nunca podrá permanecer demasiado tiempo. Léanlo todo en Literary Notes. ————————————————————————————————— ENTREVIÑETAS, plataforma cultural colombiana, invita a todas las personas en Colombia con interés en donar su tiempo para ayudar en la navegación del #FESTIVALENTREVIÑETAS como Voluntarios de la *red viñetera*. El voluntariado supone a menudo un desafío, pero significa también adquirir nuevos conocimientos y realizar actividades gratificantes. En el voluntariado no se recibe un pago y se entiende como una donación de tiempo y conocimiento para comprender y atender a los detalles que permitirán llevar el festival a buen puerto en sus sedes de este año: BOGOTÁ Miércoles 20 al domingo 24 de septiembre 2017 MEDELLÍN Miércoles 11 al domingo 15 de octubre de 2017 Convocatoria de Voluntarios ————————————————————————————————— 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 la académica Brittany Tullis acerca de sus estudios acerca del cómic feminista latinoamericano (grabado con público en Galería Plop!). Brittany comparte sus visiones acerca de la mujer y su rol creativo, la necesidad de replantear como nos vemos socialmente, críticar los roles impuestos y entrar en nosotros mismos a través del cómic y cómo éste a su vez tiene el poder de generar realidades que terminen en un cambio cultural. Aquí las compañeras de Gráficas ProAborto Libre y su campaña por un aborto libre en Chile. Alex Fito repasa algunos de los tótems de la historia del cómic en su último trabajo, una recopilacion en formato concertina. Una auténtica gozada que mezcla las influencias estética’s de Chris Ware y Max. Berliac‘s got a new Asian Food Store Junkies – Manga is Masturbation. The international fracas digs into the “scene” on an empty stomach… Tereixa Constenla offers a solid and interesting overview of the recent transformations in the Spanish Comics Industry in El_Pais. ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 8-30-2017 – by Gabriella Tito Share this page: [...]

03/19/2018

Caleb OrecchioMarch 19, 2018NewsCaleb Orecchio here with thoughts on a temporary comic book artist, Jeff Purves, and other news. ————————————————————————————————— I really liked Sally’s report last week on Paty Greer/Cockrum. I had a similar experience with a comic book artist’s name I did not recognize. For me it was the name “Jeff Purves” in a copy of The Incredible Hulk #349–I found that Purves, after some digging, had a 19-issue run on The Hulk in late 80’s with Peter David. He’s taking over after the McFarlane run, which is self-evident in the contrived effort of maintaining a McFarlane-y looking Hulk. That’s not a knock on Purves, just something I noticed. This is work-for-hire comics after all. When I initially read the issue, the layouts and action were interesting to me because the clarity and simplicity of the images wreaked of professionalism (as opposed to fanboy-gone-pro, though I’m not ruling that possibility out), which to me meant he had to be some sort of successful illustrator trying his hand at comics. I was more or less right. According to Lambiek and IMDb, he’s an animator. I mean, look at that Spider-Man above, the guy is clearly an educated drawer. I found Purves’ style to be bit stiff at first, but I think it had more to do with the inking of Terry Austin of issue 349; I eventually warmed up to the drawing and am now rather impressed by Purves’ professional, hired-gun vibe. I have a feeling Purves was pretty dependable schedule-wise due the successive amount of issues he contributed to. The work has both a sense of urgency and careful calculation like he knows how to bust out the good stuff that kids love, but ultimately understands that the issue must get out on time. Just thought this was interesting. I’m interested in these weird here-today-gone-tomorrow comic book artists (though nearly 2 years is not an amount of time to sneeze at), because it adds to the wacky history of comics. This guy probably wanted to draw comics as a kid but needed something more financially stable as an adult, so he quits comics and goes to work in animation on such titles as The Simpsons and Mulan. ————————————————————————————————— if you don’t know, now you know Dash Shaw on How to Read Nancy at The New York Review of Books. David Barnett offers up the possibility of Kirby finally getting the praise he deserves from the public at large due to the upcoming New Gods movie. Due to the popularity of his characters in the current line-up of Marvel movies, Jim Starlin allegedly has his own museum exhibit, according to Todd Allen at The Beat. ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 3-19-2018 – by Gabriella Tito Share this page: [...]

Hartley Lin Talk with Brian Hibbs at Comix Experience

Chris Anthony DiazJuly 6, 2018The Diaz ArchiveAfter his Young Frances (published by Adhouse Books) book signing, Brian Hibbs interviewed Hartley Lin for the Comix Experience Graphic Novel Club, San Francisco, Wednesday evening, June 13, 2018 Share this page: [...]

Charlotte, NC Scene Report

Frank SantoroOctober 30, 2011Riff Raff / Scene ReportsThis week’s scene report is brought to you by Dustin Harbin. I first met Dustin at Heroes Con back in 2008. Check out this picture of me, Dan and Tim at the ComicsComics panel they had for us. Boy, that was a fun show. Dustin was working for the show’s organizer and was in charge of “Indy Island”- and he got to create this awesome show within a show. There was literally a big spot in the center of the hall that was for us indy guys. Jaime was there. Evan Dorkin was there. The Pittsburgh crew of Jim Rugg, Ed Piskor, and Tom Scioli. Sammy Harkham. Kevin H. Brian Ralph. Me, Dan and Tim. In Charlotte, North Carolina? This was the kind of show that Michael Golden went to. Chris Pitzer introduced me to Matt Wagner – that should tell you what kind of show it was. Lots of great back issues – a classy old school convention. It wasn’t really an “indy” show – but Dustin made it into one. (Or tried to. Long story) That was where I first met Tom Spurgeon. And his hi-larious brother, Whit. Saw Marc Arsenault – whom I hadn’t seen over a decade. There was a Dub music and Hot Rod show slash dance party in the same convention center that year. So in the hotel bar there were a lot of 6 feet tall Amazon women every night. One morning Brian Ralph had this amazing story about getting into the dance party. It was a really fun time and I always think if it wasn’t for Dustin most of us “indy” guys wouldn’t have gone to that show. So, thanks, Dustin. Mr. Harbin has become quite a cartoonist since we first met. I asked him to fill us in on the goings on in his hometown of Charlotte. Check it out after the new DeForge cartoon! Over and out. ———————— INTERMISSION FUNNIES by MICHAEL DEFORGE ———————– Charlotte, NC scene report by Dustin Harbin Charlotte is a weird city, in that it has a fairly large comics readership, but lacks a truly vibrant comics scene; though the seeds are there. Most of the existing comics community is related in some way to Heroes Aren’t Hard To Find, one of the larger comics shops in the country, the organizer of the yearly Heroes Convention, and my employer for most of 14 years. Shelton Drum started out in Charlotte selling comics at flea markets and by mail order back in the 70’s, and then in 1980 he established Heroes in a teeny tiny little space just around the corner from where it is now. In the boom years of the late 80’s and 90’s, Heroes Aren’t Hard To Find had as many as six different stores going at one time, from Florida up through Chapel Hill, North Carolina. I showed up in 1996 just in time to usher in The Great Comic Book Miasma Of The Late Nineties–within a couple years, Shelton had shrunk his mini-empire down to one shop, and since then has focused on just making that shop the best shop. I say that Heroes is the center of the Charlotte comics scene not out of loyalty to my former employer–although I am loyal–but more because I really think there would be no real scene at all without him. Shelton built comics up around here, has consistently–even despite my arguments to the contrary when I was doing the ordering–insisted on carrying the most complete stock possible, and through Heroes Convention has brought thousands of comic book pros to town over the last thirty years. There are other shops in Charlotte, but for my money without the bulwark of Heroes Aren’t Hard To Find through the lean years, Charlotte would just be one of those cities with a couple of crappy strip mall shops that smell like pee and cigarettes. We’re not a particularly culturally rich city; just a few affluent suburbs sprinkled around some banks, with a college about 10 miles away, completely disconnected from the city.†Without a truly vibrant cultural community, Charlotte is mainly a city of consumers, not makers. Apply this in spades to comic books–I can think of maybe half a dozen full time cartoonists working around here. If you look at the really great comics cities, they seem to coalesce around great shops, and are then perpetuated by a community of artists. Think of Pittsburgh, where you have a Jim Rugg, Tom Scioli, and Ed Piskor active in their community, talking to new cartoonists, encouraging and offering advice. That kind of thing is invaluable. You can get it from other communities, online for instance, but it’s not the same as feeling like a part of a real, visceral community–meeting the other artists on equal terms, talking about what you’re doing, learning as you go. Whenever I travel to another city with a strong comics scene, I’m always intensely envious. New York or Toronto or Chicago–the cartooning communities are so large there are multiple individual scenes within the same city! If you live in Chicago and are a cartoonist, it’s probably old hat to ride your bike over to someone’s loft and draw with Laura Park and Aaron Renier and Jeremy Tinder and Jeffrey Brown, no big whoop. But! We are making strides, in our own way. Because there is a large comics reading community in Charlotte–Heroes’ continued success, and the success of HeroesCon, is testament to that. We’ve just been slow to build a creative community to match. But it’s starting to happen. A few years ago, Eraklis Petmezas started Sketch Charlotte, a group of artists and creative people into comic books, who meet at the Showmars across the street from Heroes once a week. Weirdly, I’ve never actually been, even though I live right around the corner myself. I tried to go this past week, with this article in mind, but they were already wrapping things up when I showed up late. Heroes employees Seth Peagler and Rico Renzi, the latter of which is a professional comics colorist also, were outside chatting with Henry Eudy, who’d printed up some inking exercises Ben Towle had put up on his site. It was nice. I don’t know why I’ve never been. Possibly because they don’t serve booze at Showmars, and also… Showmars. Regardless, the list of regulars and semi-regulars at Sketch Charlotte is close to a complete list of the comics pros living in Charlotte: Jason Latour, he of the recent TCJ interview, Chris Brunner, Bridgit Scheide, Chrissie Zullo, and probably some more who I’m forgetting. It’s a start. The other thing Charlotte’s got going for it as a comics scene is Andy Mansell, who runs the semi-monthly Heroes Discussion Group, which he and I created together back in 2007 or so, but which only he has had the energy and drive and acumen to maintain. The image above is from the Ghost World discussion a few weeks ago, which was great.†Andy will read a book backwards and forwards, take another book’s worth of notes on it, come up with a million theories regarding minutiae the rest of us never noticed, and still patiently allow most of the discussion to be guided by the ideas of the group. He doesn’t get paid for it, he’s just a smart guy who likes comics and wants to talk about them. I bring up Andy and the discussion group not to make it sound like the whole Charlotte comics scene is wrapped around that one shop–I’m sure the other store owners in Charlotte might disagree. But I do think our scene, and probably most scenes in most cities, grow up around a few passionate people who just start to make things happen. Whether it’s a Shelton Drum or Andy Mansell or Bill Boichel or Jim Rugg or whoever. If you live in a town without a real comics scene, I guess you’re just going to have to start one yourself. It’s not going to just happen while you sit moldering in your house curled over your drawing board (like me). Share this page: [...]

The Lakes International Comic Art Festival 2016 report

Frank SantoroOctober 19, 2016Festivals and ShowsFrank Santoro here – reporting from Kendal, England. If you are only hearing about “The Lakes Festival” or “LICAF”, please read last year’s report. This is my second year of going to “The Lakes” and I hope to make it back every year. Why? Frankly, it’s because this show has Mr. Chris “TCAF” Butcher’s stamp of approval, and anything Mr. Butcher touches is gold, so I’m sold. Meaning LICAF and TCAF (Toronto Comic Arts Festival) have some cross-cultural curation going on with the great Julie Tait, who steers the fleet of LICAF activities and who was at TCAF’s 2016 show, helping with the expansion of that festival’s venues. So, I see the big picture. A comics festival that appeals to just about everyone – not just the “mainstream” or the “alternative” crowd. LICAF, like TCAF, has something for everyone. Indeed, this year’s LICAF hosted Gilbert Shelton and Bryan Lee O’Malley and Tillie Walden and Jordi Bernet (amongst many other greats, see the full list here). That’s about four major demographics in my comics world. Plus, ahem, Aidan Koch, Connor Willumsen and l’il ole me representing some other, uh, demographic. Kendal is a small town on the northwest coast of England, above Manchester. The whole surrounding area is absolutely beautiful and up the road is where Beatrix Potter called home. What I like about it is how pleasantly unique this show is because of the way the show is embedded in the town. The festival takes place, primarily, at a few different venues spread within walking distance to each other. It is a Saturday/Sunday type of show, however, one can feel it expanding. The Comics Workbook crew arrived a day early to present at an academic conference at The Kendal Museum and The Box Theatre on Friday. Then over the weekend we hosted workshops at The Brewery Arts Centre and sold our wares at The Clock Tower. And then had a closing party at Ruskin’s Bar. The Comics Workbook crew at LICAF: Aidan Koch, Connor Willumsen, Oliver East, Jack Brougham and myself – with a special appearances by Naomi Nowak. A number of students from Kendal College and the University of Cumbria participated in Comics Workbook workshops after the presentation to “the academics” at The Box Theatre. The great comics scholar and author Paul Gravett was in the audience, so you can be sure, loyal reader, that the Comics Workbook team “slayed them”, as the saying goes. Here is a link to my “notes” for our presentation on Friday. I like to have a long rambling blog post of inspirational videos and rough notes to refer to during a presentation. I find that it allows the audience to revisit the material later or even during the talk. My basic argument that afternoon is, as Geoff Dyer says of D.H. Lawrence, an inversion of the “traditional hierarchy of genre” has occurred – in comics – and more importantly for those associated with Comics Workbook. Aidan Koch spoke of how she rejects the idea of “the great American Graphic Novel” or even telling stories. She spoke eloquently of how she is concerned mostly with “the poetics of comics”. Connor Willumsen talked about genre being merely a raincoat and umbrella under which to make comics. He even lovingly compared it to a sport where performing under pressure to “do it right the first time” was valued. I riffed on my modular notecard method. A lively and valuable discussion followed within the question and answer period. It was, for me, one of the best received presentations I’ve been a part of and I would like to thank Aileen McEvoy for helping myself and my team feel so welcomed. Oliver East and Jack Brougham – the UK CW representatives – worked the table at the Clock Tower. Generally, there are tables selling comics like a traditional comics show at the Clock Tower. And “programming” is at The Brewery Arts Centre, however, there is programming and signings at The Clock Tower. For example, the great Jordi Bernet was signing in the same room as our table on Sunday. Actually, the signing area was behind us on an elevated stage which helped ease the flow of traffic at busy times. Also, hats off to Ollie and Jack who stuck to CW’s number one rule at shows, which is, of course: “sitting is not selling”! One of the current riffs about comics festivals is that many different shows exist within the show. Meaning, you can go to SPX and not even see everything or miss your friends completely – whereas in years past you could lap the room each hour and see everything and everyone there. LICAF is different insomuch as it is not situated centrally in a hotel or a convention center. So what happens is that one has their interactions in the town of Kendal itself. The Brewery Arts Centre provides ample space to host everyone and the short walk to the Clock Tower is where I found myself most often running into friendly faces – friends and strangers alike. It was very pleasant, I thought, especially because it was so unlike what we are used to in the States and specific to the town of Kendal. During the fantastic opening night ceremony for, ahem, VIPs, I was lucky enough to meet the Mayor of Kendal, Mr. Stephen Coleman, and his wife, Sarah. Mrs. Coleman was kind enough to give me some driving directions up to see the beautiful countryside around Kendal. On Friday and Saturday after our obligations at the festival concluded, myself and the CW gang piled into our hired car and I drove us up as far as Ambleside and Windemere. Believe me when I tell you that everyone in the car was startled at how beautiful this part of the world really is – you gotta see it to believe it, folks. Book your tickets in advance for next year and head to LICAF and “The Lakes”, you won’t be disappointed. Aidan Koch, Connor Willumsen and I have just returned Stateside as I type this on the plane now. I will try and fill out this report a little bit more as the jetlag wears off. (I gotta tell you about talking shop with Gilbert Shelton.) Until then, I’d like to thank Julie Tait, Carole Tait, Aileen McEvoy, and everyone who believed in the Comics Workbook programme and helped us make it to LICAF 2016. For additional reading: Connor Willumsen on Mint Cakes, sheep photography, his LICAF workshop experiences, and Frank’s “intuitive” driving. Aidan Koch shares some of her LICAF experiences HERE. My student Niall Breen’s thoughts on LICAF – he came from Ireland to hang out with us. Jack Brougham sent his thoughts on tabling with Comics Workbook at the festival – HERE. LICAF opening night #licaf A video posted by @santoro.frank on Oct 13, 2016 at 2:17pm PDT Connor Willumsen’s workshop LICAF UK 2016 #comicsworkbook He is talking about his comic Swinespritzen – available through the link my bio #licaf A video posted by @santoro.frank on Oct 15, 2016 at 2:07pm PDT Aidan Koch discussing her collaborative workshop project from LICAF UK 2016 #comicsworkbook @aidanalexiskoch #licaf A video posted by @santoro.frank on Oct 15, 2016 at 2:11pm PDT Connor Willumsen demonstrating the differences between Western and Eastern landscape painting #comicsworkbook LICAF UK 2016 #licaf A video posted by @santoro.frank on Oct 15, 2016 at 2:16pm PDT Ahem. Hanging out and talking shop with thee one and only Gilbert Shelton at LICAF UK 2016 #comicsworkbook #gilbertshelton #licaf A photo posted by @santoro.frank on Oct 16, 2016 at 3:39am PDT Ambleside UK A video posted by @santoro.frank on Oct 14, 2016 at 12:58pm PDT Connor Willumsen talking about working with colorists #comicsworkbook #licaf LICAF UK 2016 A video posted by @santoro.frank on Oct 17, 2016 at 2:24pm PDT Aidan Koch workshop at LICAF – Connor’s was next door at same time (note @comeauslomeau appearance) #licaf @aidanalexiskoch #comicsworkbook A video posted by @santoro.frank on Oct 17, 2016 at 10:05pm PDT This is one of the LICAF locations – ye olde clock tower in Kendal England – from yesterday Sunday #licaf A photo posted by @santoro.frank on Oct 17, 2016 at 1:24pm PDT Share this page: [...]

04/25/2017

Posted on April 24, 2017April 24, 2017 by Aaron Cockle

Aaron here today with Annie Mok/Gabrielle Bell; Mohammad Sabaaneh; Sophie Calle; Anthony Cudahy; Paul Laffoley.

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Gabrielle Bell, from *Everything is Flammable*

“Can I put that in a comic?”
Sally linked to this last Friday, but here’s another look at the Annie Mok/Gabrielle Bell talk, in support of Bell’s new book, Everything is Flammable.

MOK: At least one of your minis for Uncivilized consists of roughly drawn diary comics. What’s the difference between the diaries and the finished product for you?

BELL: Mostly I keep a diary every day. Then I’ll take one of those entries and turn it into a more refined story. I’ll stop keeping a diary while working on a story. And I would sort of lose the connection to the source of the story. I always have to break it down and go back to the roughest version, which is the diary. I go through cycles. Sometimes I don’t keep diaries at all because I get so absorbed in the one part of it. Or I’ll get this standard in my head where I think the diary has to be a refined story, to look like a the finished product. I always get to some point where it doesn’t have any spontaneity anymore, [laughs] so I have to let myself be bad at it again. Let it be boring and awkward and have no point again, to get back to the raw data of it.

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A special meeting of the NY Comics & Picture-story Symposium will be held on Wednesday, April 26, 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. Please note: This is a Wednesday night event.

The Art of Political Cartooning in Palestine
Mohammad will discuss his craft, including his production methods and artistic choices, and his artistic influences and how he navigates the challenges of editorial cartooning in Palestine. He will discuss, accompanied by slides of his work, his own development as an artist and cartoonist – from how he started out, to how his techniques and style evolved over time.

Mohammad Sabaaneh is a Palestinian graphic artist based in Ramallah in the West Bank. He is the principal political cartoonist for Al-Hayat al-Jadida, the Palestinian Authority’s daily newspaper, and has published his work in many other newspapers around the Arab World. He is a member of the International Cartoon Movement, as well as the VJ Movement connecting visual journalists across the globe. Sabaaneh’s work has been displayed in numerous collections and fairs in Europe, the United States, and the Middle East. He won third place in the Arab Caricature Contest in 2013.

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Sophie Calle gets the full-on, super-slick, NY Times Magazine treatment over at the NY Times Magazine:

Though Calle works in a variety of media, she favors photographs with text, written or edited in her precise, detached style, with its poker-faced humor. Some projects live only in books, small works of art unto themselves. Her writing has long been acclaimed, her pictures not as much. That began to change in 2010, when she won the Hasselblad Award for her photography. And she is currently shortlisted for the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize (the winner will be announced on May 18) for 2016’s “My All,” a petite portfolio of postcards covering her entire oeuvre. Several of her most recent projects, with arguably her best pictures — including “Take Care of Yourself” and 2011’s “Voir la mer” — will be part of “Sophie Calle: Missing,” a major show in June, when Calle takes over four buildings at San Francisco’s Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture, with parallel programs throughout the Bay Area curated by Ar s Citizen.

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‘But the things I make paintings about, I don’t want to make zines about. And the things I make zines about, I don’t want to make films about. ‘
Justin Alvarez paid a studio visit to Anthony Cudahy a couple of years back:

You should be able to see a conflict in every painting. A lot of times, I’ll think I’m done with a work, but when I stand back, it looks so rendered and tight. If I realize that I didn’t learn anything from it, I’ll wipe the whole thing.

I don’t keep a sketchbook. I always thought there was something wrong, that I wasn’t a real artist because I didn’t like sketching. But the idea behind sketching is to experiment, and I like to experiment on the canvas itself. I also try to limit the color palette. I hate yellow as a color, but that’s not a good reason not to use it. Limiting color expands what you can do with the colors you’re using.

Anthony Cudahy, Patti, 2013, oil on canvas, 16″ x 20″.

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Paul Laffoley, The City Can Change Your Life, 1962

I think what happened to me on the night before I headed for New York City was a precognitive dream brought on by extreme anxiety of being “grand juried” out of the “Harvard Graduate School of Design” for “conceptual deviance.”

Kent Fine Art has a PDF available with work by Paul Laffoley from the 2015 exhibition, THE FORCE STRUCTURE OF THE MYSTICAL EXPERIENCE.

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A Cosmic Journey – 4-25-2017 – Cameron Arthur

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Suzy and Cecil – 4-25-2017 – by Sally Ingraham

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Joanie and Jordie – 4-25-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio

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One thought on “04/25/2017”

Caleb Orecchio says:

April 25, 2017 at 9:45 am

There’s a theme with the comic strips today

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Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in NewsTagged Annie Mok, anthony cudahy, caleb orecchio, Cameron Arthur, Gabrielle Bell, Mohammad Sabaaneh, Paul Laffoley, sally ingraham, Sophie Calle

Aaron Cockle

Posted on April 24, 2017April 24, 2017

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Cleveland, OH Scene Report

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

Charlotte, NC Scene Report

07/03/2018

Aaron CockleJuly 3, 2018NewsChitra Ganesh & Ruby Onyinyechi Amanze; English on ‘Simplification’; Some Outsider Art; Military Internet(s) ————————————————————————————————— Open Sessions at The Drawing Center Chitra Ganesh in conversation with Ruby Onyinyechi Amanze: CG: “I am so glad that the Drawing Center has offered alternative axes, alignments, and contexts to situate your own work, thinking and growth––I would say that its mere presence, focus and decades long commitment to that focus, has sustained me in similar ways.” . ROA: “Drawing transcends all dividing factors, it is the most human form of expression. The DC has given me the freedom of simply being a human artist. It has been priceless to be in dialogue with other artists, who have their own relationship with the medium.” ————————————————————————————————— Simplify, Stupid Austin English continues with his wide-ranging look at comics from the past 70 years or so. There may be something to that. Simply, (1) drawing competently is an out of the ordinary achievement people instantly recognize. The ability to (2) tell a story with drawing? Even rarer. The most elusive seems to be (3) having something unique to say with a picture story. Most of comics seems to be content with varying combinations of (1) and (2). Artists like Feuchtenberger give us (3) every time they draw something. Why work like hers is considered an aquired taste still seems odd to me, and involves a condescending attitude to readers in general. Who doesn’t (if we limit ourselves to those who care about narrative in even the most limited way) want to be engaged by a picture story that is genuinely felt and mindfully arranged? When we consider a masterpiece like Dominique Goblet’s Pretending is Lying, which is firmly in the (1) + (2) + (3) camp, we know this is a work that readers will refer to in their lives over and over again. Goblet might simplify faces in service of telling her story within the medium of comics, but to simplify her ideas would be anathema to the artist. The richness of what she has to say is, itself, the point. Her statement, a composition of relationships that fade in an out if view, isn’t grafted on to her storytelling ability, it isn’t in service of a need to finish pages to fufill a pre-existing belief that her style requires an important statement to validate it. When Goblet’s father character sways and monlogues to promote himself, his personality impresses itself upon the reader with a shrieking force, because Goblet has something specific to say (3) about a man like this. Also, take a scroll through the comments: ————————————————————————————————— In Their Own Worlds Sanford Schwarz looks at some recent exhibitions of ‘outsider art’. Cartoons and comic strips—or a sense of these forms—underlie, finally, the work of the most impressive figures in the exhibition, Darger and Adolf Wölfli. For viewers concerned with outsider art they are among the territory’s old masters. Both have been the subjects of books and have been seen, like Martín Ramírez, who is their equal, in defining and revelatory retrospectives over the last fifteen years at the Folk Art Museum. This doesn’t mean that Wölfli, who died in 1930 at sixty-six, is exactly an embraceable figure. There is a degree of flowing inventiveness and industry in his pictures, which can resemble fantasy versions of carpets, game boards, or aerial views of places, suggesting that the man was on a different wavelength from the rest of us. ————————————————————————————————— ARPANETS Zachary Loeb reviews Yasha Levine’s Surveillance Valley: The Secret Military History of the Internet Levine highlights NBC reporting from 1975 on the CIA and NSA spying on Americans by utilizing ARPANET, and on the efforts of Senators to rein in these projects. Though Levine is not presenting, nor is he claiming to present, a comprehensive history of pushback and resistance, his account makes it clear that liberatory claims regarding technology were often met with skepticism. And much of that skepticism proved to be highly prescient. ————————————————————————————————— Vision Box – 7-3-2018 – by Cameron Arthur ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 7-3-18 – by Caleb Orecchio 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: [...]

The Black Callus Interviews: Tyler Landry

Kurt AnkenyMarch 25, 2016Interviews / Resources / Tool TalkTyler Landry has been working at a furious pace lately. I feel like every time I look up from my own drafting table, Tyler is dropping some new comic on the scene, usually oozing mood and style, and generally being just great exercises in atmosphere and design. He’s had work published online by Study Group, as well as many projects on the Comics Workbook Tumblr. In print, he’s published several well-received works under the shared label Clavicle Cocoris, and his latest work, Vile #1: The Coward’s Hole is coming to stores in May, also from Study Group. Kurt Ankeny: I know you work sometimes digitally and sometimes in analog media. What are your preferred tools for each technique, and how do you lay out your workspace? Tyler Landry: I was asked something similar recently, and I’ve been thinking about it a bit, and I really don’t have any set in stone prescribed standards when it comes to tools and workspace. I’m sure this will make a lot of people angry, especially those who wanna know which pencils to buy, or which brush-set to use, or shit like that. I know that if you’re looking for certain specific, consistent final results your choice of tools can be critical—but the more comics I draw, the less I care about those kinds of things. Let’s see now… Stories come out of thin air for me, so where I begin can change—but generally I’m drawing, thumbnailing, or mocking-up sequences on whatever is close by. I’ve got heaps of sketchbooks, index cards, sticky notes, paper scraps. I wanna record these ideas as quickly as they come, so it’s literally whatever’s available. I suppose I prefer pens and fat markers for this work, because it’s gotta be fast, man. No silly lingering. Whether I plan on working digitally, or on paper, I’ll always start out this way. If I can’t touch the work, especially at this raw idea stage, it has no permanence for me, and it will slip away. This work happens anywhere—at lunch, at the coffee shop, at my desk at work, or while I’m watching TV in bed at night. Kurt: I get that, completely. There’s often a sense as an artist that you don’t want to miss that initial spark that makes an idea exciting. For me, however, I often find that ideas that I churn out immediately fade in importance to me, where ideas that keep bubbling back up in my mind tend to create…more lasting? satisfying? work. Have you ever run into that, or do you just find your mind works oppositely? Tyler: There’s always a few duds in the initial deluge, but even the less complete drawings and snippets of words tend to be seeds destined for big growth. I find too, that if I linger on an idea and work it over too much that it turns into garbage, and I’ll either scrap it or return it to its first version. I think most of the best stuff comes at the beginning for me because I’m not inhibited by what I’ve begun turning the story into, subconsciously censoring myself. Kurt: Interesting. So you find your stories best in a Jungian sense, by tapping into that primal dream-world that we all have floating within us, is that fair? Tyler: That’s not a bad way to put it, yeah. Every comic story I’ve ever done has come out of nothingness. I’m slowly learning how to interpret and condense all of the chaos and more efficiently transform it into useful material (pictures/words/narratives). Kurt: Ok, so you have all these condensed ideas on various scraps of paper/notebooks, and then? Tyler: I spread these scraps and cards all over my drawing table, or on the living room floor, and just start arranging. At this stage the only real workspace requirement is…well…space. I just need lots of room to arrange things. Whatever sat in sketchbooks gets translated to cards or sticky notes or whatever so it can be sequenced too. Always on papers, always drawing by hand. This hands-on arrangement is the best way to make sense of my ideas, by far. I find I have to revisit this process a number of times before I get what I want—always adding a new bit here, cutting an old bit there—till it feels totally complete. Kurt: How much space are we talking? Because I often like to do this as well, but I run into the problem of “if I lay out the whole thing at once, I have to step so far away from it that I can’t read it”, and can only process it on a macro level. Are you processing at a macro level at this point? Just trying to see large shapes and spread layouts for whatever it is your after? And what is it that you try to capture on a macro level, design-wise? Tyler: I always consider it per spread. The biggest picture anyone will ever get of the work, visually, is per page (in a web/phone scroll) or per spread (in print), so that’s how I arrange at this stage. I end up arranging by moments, or by scenes—essentially by spreads or groups of spreads, depending on the length of a discreet scene. I’ll work one out, set it aside, and spread out another. I’m looking for the pacing and completeness of ideas first, then I adjust the visuals—flipping cards for position/direction of forms, replacing a drawing with a different image representing the same moment/idea, or adding new drawings to lengthen a moment. I only consider things between spreads/scenes once I begin to feel like I’m covering everything story-wise and I really know exactly what I’m dealing with chronologically. Then it becomes about things like intensity in one spread, versus breathing space in the next, or whatever sorts of dynamics or glue the story feels like it calls for. Kurt: So, not the whole story at once, gotcha. Just spread-by-spread… Tyler: If I plan on working digitally, I’ll photograph these arrangements, and use them as rough guides under my digital drawing. They don’t need to be precise. Analog setup might involve a light table and redrawing overtop of the cards, or just translating them by eye, in spirit, to paper. I have an old animator’s cartooning wheel, and I just stick a lamp behind it. For a while I would do some underdrawing in coloured pencil, mostly just to make sure I was nailing the layout and proportions, but I’ve all but given it up—it’s just too slow and fussy for me, and it can really contribute to flattening my results, so I just straight draw over the sequences in ink. Here’s where people are gonna get pissed off at me… Pretty much every comic I’ve drawn naturally in the last few years has been on regular old shitty copy paper, often with a photocopied grid on it, inked with dying sharpies of all sizes and whatever smooth, black pens I can find. There are a handful of reasons for this, but the biggest one is speed. I just want to get the work together so I can scan it, and have it set up for reproduction. I also tend to draw a page, or a portion of one, and get that “I fucked this up” feeling, so I trash it and restart. Much easier when your materials are dirt cheap. My space for doing this is a standard drafting table. I’ve got a rubber cut-mat, heaps of paper, things that make marks, tape, my story cards, and I just draw. Page after page. Kurt: So what are the other reasons other than speed in your choice of these materials to make the final work? And are all of these dying and fucked up markers just naturally occurring, or do you do stuff to them to fuck them up to the point where they’re making the marks you’re after? If you don’t fuck them up on purpose, what’s the point at which you know they’ll work for what you want them to do? Tyler: I can’t remember a time when I didn’t have destroyed markers, rotten brushes, or crusty old ink bottles lying around. I don’t wreck ‘em on purpose for any specific effect, I just never throw them out until they’re actually not making marks anymore. With that said, I suppose I just pick up something when I think it’ll work for me. For instance, dying markers are great for tonal gradient in otherwise flat black work, and one of my favourite parts of them is that they’re a little unpredictable, so I use them sparingly and in places where I can let a little chaos occur. They also translate well to high-res bitmap art. Crusty gross magic happens when the software has to decide between only black pixels and white ones. Another thing I like, and am just learning how to use to my advantage, is the uncomfortable balance between tools that really aren’t meant to compliment each other. Fat bent marker tips, leaving bled out blobs on the ends of their lines mixed with a mutilated dried out brush, mixed with ballpoint pen, slightly bled out in more deliberate strokes, and hair-thin where i’ve drawn more quickly. Yup. There are a few exceptions to this cheap and dirty rule. When I did Likeness I used a Pentel brush pen. Primarily because of the ease of getting mixed thick and thin lines with a single stroke. It’s a little more organic than mechanically building up those thicks and thins, and it served me well for that project. I also used it a bit for portions of Clav City—again, a case of ease with thicks and thins, and separating organic content from more rigid stuff. Otherwise it’s been sharpies, miscellaneous brands of thin ballpoint/gel style pens, and a few occasional heavy-handed dumps of crispy, ill-treated, cheap brushes and dried up rehydrated india ink. My original pages are probably disintegrating as I type this. Kurt: All the best artists rarely care about what their originals are going to look like, years down the road. I’m often paranoid that my insistence on using stuff that’s going to last is keeping me from doing my best work…but anyway. Let’s talk about line quality. What do you look for in your linework? I see a copy of Domu on your desk, and you often work in what Toth would’ve called a “dead line” which is just a line with little to no variation in it. Like from a ballpoint or felt-tip pen. And then you flavor it with spotted blacks that are rougher and contrast with those clean “dead” lines. So are you after different things when you choose to use the brush pen, and what drives your decision about which tools to use on a particular story? Tyler: I borrowed Domu from a friend, and only just started into it, so I couldn’t say much just yet. Otomo has always had a very deliberate, precise, line-quality-aware rendering style, though. I think I used to try to work that way, but I’ve really been trying not to climb anyone else’s tree these past few years. I’ve been trying, bit by bit, to strip all of the style and decoration and residual aping from my work, and reduce it to its barest necessities. When it comes to mark-making tools, I choose based on what kind of visual language I think will benefit the feel of the story. There’s a certain smooth elegance to the brush (or brush pen), something I used heavily in Likeness because it dealt with things in the natural world, human bodies, flab, muscle, jungle creatures, and the moods varied from sad, to furious, to tender. There’s a more rugged quality to writing pens, which is I what I used when I did Lonesome, about a crusty old prospector, scrubby, unforgiving nature, and fear. I try not to think about flavour in every stroke. I choose some tools overall, and apply them in the moment as best I can to compliment each other and the thing I’m trying to convey in any one panel or drawing. I’d say just as much as the tools, the way in which I compose and control the drawing has a lot to do with the final flavour of it. Where Likeness and Clav City have more structured, controlled, clean setup, even a bit of underdrawing, Lonesome was all off the cuff, ink on the page, no preparation type drawings—full of energy and mistakes all the way through. Kurt: Ok, so what should I make of the fact that one of your most visceral works, Shit and Piss, is done in the dead-line/crusty spotted blacks style? Is it because this is less warm than the Pentel brush style….less…human? Or should I just not make anything of it at all? (laughs) Tyler: You more or less hit that nail on the head, yeah. When I set out to do Shit and Piss, I had intended for it to be much more sloppy and mean in its execution—but I lost a certain level of visual clarity there. That’s my super anal, “all things must be perfect” nagging voice guiding me a bit too much. I didn’t have the confidence to proceed with the madness, so I decided to go for something so plain that it was almost dull—pretty far down to the other end of the spectrum. It was partly its lack of humanity, and partly a bit of a challenge in simplification (in some aspects). Kurt: Ok, I have this pet theory, and it pertains to this thing I think you’re describing. And that is: it’s very difficult to make an “arty” SF piece, because if you want to explain/guide the reader through a weird/foreign/alien world, you need to be clear so that they know something is weird, or alien, and so that they don’t just throw their hands up and say “what the fuck is going on???” And that need for clarity imposes certain limitations on the way you present the story. Do you find yourself running up against this in your work? I feel like you tried to get past this with The Jaundiced Eye… Tyler: This is a REALLY GOOD question. In retrospect I think I’ve played in the same sandbox as your pet theory, but never interacted with it directly. In Shit and Piss, the desire for clarity I’m speaking of was purely (initially) a visual one. The ability to describe a creature, a room, a pile of bones, etc. as clearly as possible felt essential to me. It’s also lent the story a particular layer to its identity, overall. But that’s all surface. Those things don’t require the absolute to-the-detail clarity I had originally aimed for, and their purpose as devices, lending/bending meaning to certain aspects of the stories really only requires their mere suggestion—something I really felt I succeeded in achieving to a much larger degree in The Jaundiced Eye—thanks for noticing. The limitation I see in overindulgence in “clearing everything up” like that seems to be one of potential. When reducing everything to its technical, clinical definition (which is what it feels more and more like to me), you lose the potential to let it speak for itself and add its own depth to the story. You also run the risk of beating people over the head with identifying things, or shifting the balance of focus onto less important aspects of a given thing. Comics has so much room for subtlety, a veritable mille feuille, and I feel like i’m just lifting the topmost layer. Kurt: I liked The Jaundiced Eye because it really felt like a weird style, like cut out stencils that were sprayed with a fucked-up airbrush. It was jarring and disorienting, which I felt added to the story’s mood tremendously. I also am interested in what you said about “Crusty gross magic happens when the software has to decide between only black pixels and white ones.” So you’re using the computer’s choices in the final art too? Do you play with the Threshold settings (in Photoshop) a couple of times to find the best version of the bitmapping to your eye? Tyler: Thanks! The Jaundiced Eye was a tough nut to crack. I had these little ideas about pointy hats and an oppressive fear cloud hanging over a village for a while, and I actually boarded out the whole story a bunch of months ago and it’s just been sitting, waiting for the right treatment to justify its existence. I drew the first spread 3 or 4 times in a different hand/tool/style to try and figure out how it wanted to be shown, but no luck. Stuff was too fussy, too contrived, didn’t serve the feel I was hoping for. One evening I was doing some wicked loose drawing with really dull pencils and had a proper eureka moment. The idea of swaths of crumbling noise with just minimal detail for recognition’s sake punched out—that was it. I found a couple of PS brush tool combos that worked and the thing took me no time at all to draw—just painting in huge fields of mess and cutting back silhouettes from them. This story didn’t see any of that black and white magic transformation because it was done 100% digitally, and I kept the greyscale very smooth and soft and anti-aliased, so everything was kinda set up ahead of time to do its job. The magic tends to happen for me when I’ve scanned art with gradients, or when I decide to paint tone or gradient digitally, in a soft, greyscale sort of way—and then convert to bitmap. It’s just how hard I hit the threshold. Usually just a matter of adjusting levels a bit for the results I want. Kurt: Since we’re on the topic anyway, let’s get into how you work digitally… Tyler: When I’m working digitally I work in a more reductive way. What I mean by that is that I generally apply much more black than I will need anywhere, and shave it back with an eraser—something that differs a lot from my analog drawing process. Workspace in this sense is pretty sparse—I use a Cintiq and work in Photoshop. I draw primarily in one black layer, often with one additional black layer set to 40% opacity so I can get that secondary tone in there. I usually use just a couple of brushes I made myself from scans of old drawings—a couple for ragged lines/blobs, and a couple of others for spatter and gradient tones. Recently I made use of some of the famous Kyle Webster’s brushes to do The Jaundiced Eye, but that’s about the only deviation I’ve made to date. Kurt: And let’s talk real technical: how do you set up your pages for print: dpi, scan rates, any special tricks you use that give you the print job you’re after with these projects? Does it vary significantly between black & white or color? Tyler: Whether scanned or straight digital, I usually work at 600dpi. I’ve been told to work higher, but with a bunch of layers and large(ish) pages, I tend to get drawing lag which makes it pretty unworkable. I work pretty much exclusively in Photoshop, because I know it, and I can achieve pretty much anything I care about in it. I also tend to save my pages as individual PSD files. I know some people do some major huge spread files, or entire story files, or use smart objects or whatever, but I keep it pretty simple. I don’t like all that shit getting in my way. As for the work itself, anything that’s straight black, or flat coloured, I work in plain bitmap—that is no anti-aliased edges. Every pixel is black, or white. Gives much more crisp end result when going to print—I’ve found. I’m not a pressman, though, so my tricks don’t go too deep there. I don’t do much “color” work, other than flats like I’ve done with Likeness and Hermit Crab Real Estate, which are essentially straight black layers printed in a color other than black. In that respect, it really doesn’t vary much at all between straight b/w and color work for me—except that I trap my colors properly (combination of applying a stroke and hand painting in some of the non-uniform stuff) since they’ll be printed in separate passes. Shit and Piss has been totally black and white, right down to the textures I crafted and paste into the “tone” layer. When I do the covers, it’s a free-for-all, methods-wise, anything goes, eventually creating a duplicate, baked flat, converted to CMYK and tweaked for balance as best I can. Clav City, and Lonesome use a couple of transparent colors/tones that overlap to give an additional color/tone—but being made for the screen as they were, they’re just plain old PS layers with multiplication/transparency applied to them. Translated to the page, I’d be reworking them similarly to the previous examples, flat layers, trapped, relying on transparent inks, or a full 4-color process to keep the balance and legibility. All of the setup/process I just described is becoming a bit stale for me, as most of my recent work has been done with slight variations on the same methods—so I may be exploring a new approach soon. Something to refresh me, and the work. Kurt: So, what’s coming up for you as far as work, and what are your personal struggles in your art as you see it? What are you trying to attain that you feel you haven’t yet? I’m curious as to where artists are aiming, how they envision their “perfect” masterwork and what it contains. What kind of influences or ideas are you trying to put into your art that you feel you haven’t figured out yet? Tyler: Upcoming work includes quarterly (I hope) installments of Vile, via Study Group. Each of these will be a unique story, under the common banner of Vile. I also plan on doing two more Shit and Piss tales, then to collect all five in a single volume. Those are the hard commitments I’ve made. In addition, I’ve got a pile of stories in various states of early note-taking, card-drawing, narrative building. They’ll all find their way into finished-ness sooner or later. I’ve got a story about future life on Mars, a sort of “interview” with a vampire, a folly of youth story with heavily relevant societal undertones, a book of landscapes, more chapters of Clav City, and so on… My personal struggles stem from and guide my aspirations. I grew up copying style. Always. I was a fan of so many painters, illustrators, cartoonists, and spent years just learning how to execute like they did. The fundamentals came later when I realized I hadn’t any voice for sharing my own ideas, and needed to build up from the ground again. I’m forever trying to shed the trappings of stylistic shackles—either by purposefully altering my visual approach every time I draw a new story, or by drawing at such a base level that style doesn’t even come into play. I’d love to someday be able to execute my drawings on a completely raw and primitive level, using only the bare necessities. With those ideas constantly nagging at me, my deeper more longterm aspiration is really just to continue to expand on and really develop my ability to tell relevant (I hope) stories within the medium of comics. It really is capable of so many wonderful, dynamic, and infinitely subtle things, and I want to explore, invent, and master them all—built up around stories that actually matter. To someone. Somewhere. Many thanks to Tyler for taking the time to discuss all of this over email! Kurt Ankeny is a cartoonist working in Ipswich, Massachusetts. He’s the co-author of the Santoro School Handbook for Making Better Comics, and the author of Saltwater Snow, A Bomb, and the upcoming In Pieces: Someplace Which I Call Home, which is currently being serialized on the Comics Workbook Tumblr. You can find him on Tumblr as well as at www.kurtankeny.com. Share this page: [...]

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