Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in The Diaz ArchiveTagged 2016, Butter And Blood, Chris Anthony Diaz, Fantagraphics, Looking For America’s Dog, Retrofit, Steven Weissman

Chris Anthony Diaz

Posted on June 6, 2016June 15, 2016

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01/29/2018

Caleb OrecchioJanuary 29, 2018NewsCaleb Orecchio here with thoughts on amazing, dumb back-issues that won’t leave my brain, and other news. ————————————————————————————————— One of my favorite parts of comics culture is the scrounging for back-issues, which often feels like trying to find a lost wedding band in yesterday’s garbage—in a good way. I get a sincere rush from finding wacky crap from comic’s past. As I was scavenging the longboxes and finding some excellent garbage this past week, I was reminded of some things Chris Ware said in his recent RiYL interview: “Most great works of art don’t work in the present, they work in the memory.” ” will draw things in a certain way, especially in his more recent work, that is very uncomfortable or strange. I know he’s looked at comics by cartoonists who might be considered awkward or almost naive just as a way of making an image that has–as I think of it, personally–hooks that hang in your brain and stay with you.” In a recent back-issue find, Kull the Destroyer #19 (1976), there’s this sequence of “SHEMENON–THE GOD OF FIRE AND ICE–!” a wraith, a skeleton encapsulated in diamond whose “SOLE PURPOSE WAS TO FILL HIS CRYSTALLOID FLESH WITH LIFE!!” Very campy, classic mid-seventies Marvel stuff that the staff at The Comics Journal would have used as toilet paper. To read this comic in any way as to understand the narrative is a fool’s errand, and not worth the time of intelligent, discerning people. Yet! the images will not leave my mind! I find myself returning and going back over the fight between our hero and this jewel-encrusted executioner from hell! Old dumb boy adventure comics featuring superheroes, barbarians and flights of action-packed fever-dreams tend to fall into the “Minor Prophets” category of the comics “Bible.” When all the history of comics is laid before us, it’s comics like Kull the Destroyer #19 that tend to get ignored for various reasons; but it’s these very kinds of comics that tend to infest our subconscious and become active images in our memory when least expected—like an annoying radio jingle or something. Have you ever met a real Kirby-hater? Maybe you are one. You hate his comics for reasons others love him. People hate/love his weird knees, or they hate/love his square hands, or they hate/love the way he draws action or machines or whatever. Both parties remember the same things. Whether you like the art or not, the image is permanently branded onto the folds of your brain. ————————————————————————————————— if you don’t know, now you know Ty Burr writes about How to Read Nancy, at the The Boston Globe, plus, the authors of said book, Paul Karasik and Mark Newgarden, sit down for a radio interview. On the latest episode of Comic Books Are Burning in Hell, the boys talk about their favorite comics of 2017. Paul Tumey on Mark Campos, the Seattle mini comics maker at TCJ.com. The latest Process Party episode features Jason T. Miles, and on the same site, Study Group Comics, Will Tempest begins a web comic. Ryan C. has a guest spot on Your Chicken Enemy, he writes about Forsman’s Slasher. ————————————————————————————————— Collected from the thousands of pages of material that Frank has left scattered all over the digital landscape, these 4 PDF collections contain Frank’s best writing on comics and comics making from the past decade. Theory and process, reviews and discoveries, journeys both physical and spiritual. Check out the “Best of Frank Santoro” PDF collections, available HERE! ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 1-29-2018 – by Sally Ingraham ————————————————————————————————— Share this page: [...]

02/13/2017

Juan FernándezFebruary 13, 2017NewsJuan and Sally tag teaming it today: Drew Alderfer’s THE ROOK; Pixels, tones and the aesthetics of granularity; Berliac on Vice; Fantom Comics Signing and Roundtable; Juan Fernandez at the ToonSeum; Frank Santoro’s Comics Corner #2; and much more! Take note! We are featuring the work of Drew Alderfer – or Meaty Comics – on the site this week. His comic The Rook was made for the Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers in 2014. Check it out HERE! ————————————————————————————————— Pixels, Tones and the Aesthetics of Granularity Juan here! I wanted to share with you a digital painting method I’ve come across, created by Dan Fessler, where he’s developed for his environment work on Chasm a way of turning Photoshop into the most powerful pixel art tool. What he calls “HD index painting”. What’s interesting about this? It works on the granular level of the pixel and plays with abstraction for story telling and evocation in the way that comics and cartooning does. It also does it in an incredibly robust and non-destructive way. It got me thinking about a lot of things. But first, have a look at what makes this technique tick. Why “HD?”: The backbone of this method that makes all the magic happen is the concept of manipulating higher resolution data than the end result. Instead of painting directly with an indexed color palette, you’re always painting in HD which then procedurally gets mapped to the indexed palette. For every color ramp you define your source data is 8bit allowing for a possible 256 colors, with no limit on the number of ramps you define. Typically when dealing with pixel art you’d map that to 32 colors or less. What’s most important though is the indexing is non-destructive. All of the high resolution detail is retained allowing you to do things that no other index painting tool allows, essentially making this the most powerful “pure” pixel art tool in existence. I’m not, necessarily a pixel artist, but I’ve been working extensively in exploring color and compression across digital file formats. Especially through collaging animations. I don’t know why, but I’m really interested in it. It’s the same way that I’m interested in how Jordan Crane and other master screen printers separate their colors in their prints. All of this has me think about halftone and more generally the voice of a story in a visual tradition. For some examples, I’d like you to think about how certain contemporary comics makers, like Laura Knetzeger, Kevin Huizenga, Dan Zettwoch, Sophie Yanow, Ron Wimberly, Mickey Z, or Berliac all use halftones. While many artists use halftone traditions in ways that are used to evoke an aesthetic of nostalgia (most effectively used by Ed Piskor in The Hip Hop Family Tree) these previous artists use them in ways that break from the print based traditions and the limitations of halftones. Instead, they use the half-tone as a framework that provides an aesthetic tool to help create their sequences. They all do this in different ways that create hums, and musical tones in the work. Different line qualities with different size tone dots that result in different feelings. Different voices for the soundless music of their comics. In a way that harkens back to previous technologies and grounds the work within a larger tradition, but that also side steps certain associations and assumptions related to genre. It’s great to think of these tools in a way that allows for more technologically mediated impressionist painting than commercial illustration. If you’d like a bit of a look into different coloring ideologies at the nuts and bolts level, take a look at this post by Dan Fessler on Pixel Purism. And of course, in the weekly “Please think about contemporary AI” department I have an article for you to read – HERE. ————————————————————————————————— There is a new weekly comic by “the mysterious Berliac” on Vice – titled Asian Store Junkies it is about “MSG-addicted youngsters who crave ramen“. Read it HERE. Follow Berliac on Instagram – @yung_qin_berliac. ————————————————————————————————— Reminder to go check out this signing and roundtable if you are in the Washington, D.C., area this week – catch up with Ronald Wimberly, Chris Visions, Shannon Wright, and Chris Kindred at Fantom Comics on Wednesday, Feb. 15th, 7-9 PM! ————————————————————————————————— PCS’s Artist Lecture Series 007: Juan Fernandez Join Juan and the rest of the @pittsburghcomicssalon this Thursday! Come on down to The ToonSeum to catch Juan talk about strip cartooning, expanding & teaching visual literacy, and comics making systems. He’ll cover principles in youth and adult comics education. He’ll show a little of what he’s making & how he does what he does. We’ll play some keygen tunes, dive into Photoshop, and talk about oblique strategies in comics making. The presentation will be followed by Q+A. You can join the Comics Salon at The ToonSeum (945 Liberty Ave., Pittsburgh, PA 15222) – art, conversation, and an atmosphere of solidarity. ————————————————————————————————— Frank’s Comics Corner #2 is here! Gather round one and all. ————————————————————————————————— The Ebb and Flow Enter the lottery for a table at the Small Press Expo this year – the registration form and more details are HERE. You have until February 24th 2017! Get to it. There will be a second issue of RESIST!, due to be released around July 4th. It’s message will be “Picturing the America We Want to Live In.” Submit work. Julia Wertz spoke to Sarah Glidden about her book Rolling Blackouts – via The Comics Journal. Pepe the Frog is making a new appearance in MAD Magazine – the story is HERE on Vulture. And in greater, more personal detail, HERE on the Huffington Post. Françoise Mouly and Genevieve Bormes offer a preview of Emil Ferris’ My Favorite Thing is Monsters for The New Yorker – check it out. There is a review of Charles Burns’ Vortex on Just Indie Comics – for those of you who read Italian! ————————————————————————————————— Announcing the Spring Semester of thee Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers! The course starts March 7th 2017. Apply by February 26th to get 100 bux off! The course is 8 weeks long – payment plans are available. Application guidelines: – 3 figure drawings done on blank 3 x 5 index cards – 3 landscape drawings done on blank 3 x 5 index cards – 3 still life drawings done on blank 3 x 5 cards – draw in a contour line style –think Matisse – no under-drawing – draw directly in ink – just send me small jpgs of images – dont post to your blog pls – send specific url links to any comics work you have done. If you haven’t done comics before that is not a problem. Email santoroschoolATgmail to apply! More details HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Blinkers – 2-13-2017 – by Jack Brougham ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 2-13-2017 – by Gabriella Tito ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 2-13-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio ————————————————————————————————— Cozytown – 2-13-2017 – by Juan Fernandez 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: [...]

04/18/2017

Aaron CockleApril 18, 2017NewsAaron here today with the Submission Deadline Reminder for RESIST! 2!; Video Steganography; Doig/Walcott; Met Slides at MFTA; Some X-men Stuff ————————————————————————————————— RESIST! Volume 2 “Women’s Voices Will be Heard!” is and remains our central slogan. So many of our values are being challenged, every recent news headline can be a starting point for resistance. Here are topics to spark your creativity: My Body, My Choice / If you think I’m a nasty woman, wait till I raise my daughter / Gay and Trans Rights / Build the Wall / Black Lives Matter / Russia / It’s the Economy, Stupid / Lock him up! / The War on Science / Education and Democracy / Climate Change / Everyone is Welcome Here RESIST! Volume 2 will still be short-run web on newsprint, but that issue will be digest/comic book size, 7.25″ x 10.5″. Anyone can submit comics or illustrated graphics to RESIST! though women and minorities are especially encouraged. Images should be uploaded through the form to the left. They must be under 10mb, JPEG preferred (please no PDFs). We will contact you if we need a high-res. We cannot accept images sent via email. If you have any questions, you can reach us at resistsubmission@gmail.com. We will not be able to respond individually to submissions. We thank you for your patience as we put Vol. 2 together. ————————————————————————————————— Keywords: Video steganography, Information hiding, Spatial domain, Transform domain, Adaptive steganography Mennatallah M. Sadek, Amal S. Khalifa, and Mostafa G. M. Mostafa posted this PDF about communication concealment. Here is the abstract: Steganography is the art and science of secret communication, concealing the very existence of a communication. Modern cover types can take many forms such as text documents, audio tracks, digital images, and video streams. Extensive research has been done on image steganography in the previous decade due to their popularity on the internet. Nowadays, video files are drawing much more attention. They are transmitted more and more frequent on internet websites such as Facebook and YouTube imposing a larger practical significance on video steganography. Information hiding in video has a variety of techniques, each of which has its strengths and weaknesses. This paper intends to provide an up-to-date comprehensive review on the various video steganographic methods found in the literature in the last 5 years. Furthermore, since security and robustness are very important issues in designing a good steganographic algorithm, some relevant attacks and steganalysis techniques are also surveyed. The paper concludes with recommendations and good practices drawn from the reviewed techniques. ————————————————————————————————— Two crafts converge in Morning, Paramin At the New York Review of Books blog, Julian Lucas looks at the recent collaboration between painter Peter Doig and the poet Derek Walcott: The stunning result is less a dialogue than a shared dream, Doig’s paintings a pilgrimage along which Walcott lights votive candles for all that he has loved. The unreal atmosphere resembles Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities, Marco Polo narrating the oneiric empire of Kublai Khan. Walcott drifts between ekphrasis and personal reflection, often working in near sonnets that, like those of Midsummer (1984), demarcate a season in his life. It is old age, palpable in a disencumbered style (“My disenchantment with all adjectives/is deepening, a certain sign of age”), and discovering its footprints across a landscape where two lives, and two Caribbeans, blend. The poems are suffused with twilight, but the dominant register is celebration, delight in the fresh eyes of a painter whom Walcott addresses much as Shakespeare does the young man of the sonnets: with an injunction to preserve beauty in the world, to produce and reproduce, perhaps even to inherit. ————————————————————————————————— Reduce, Reuse, Recycle James Barron at the NY Times covers the recent donation by the Metropolitan Museum of Art of its slide library to Materials for the Arts, and what MFTA was able to do with the slides: Materials also commissioned five artists for an exhibition, and, unexpectedly, the two curators assigned to the project bridged the digital divide. One was Omar Olivera, 37, who remembers submitting a Kodak Carousel tray filled with slides of his work to get into Brooklyn College. The other, Hallie Bahn, 25, said she never had to use slides. By the time she arrived at Kenyon College in Ohio in 2009, slides were obsolete. “These to me are archaic remnants of predigital life,” she said, sounding almost as if she were talking about remnants of prehistoric life. The Paleolithic types in France had their caves. Mid-20th-century photographers had their slides — and their Kodak Carousel projectors, to show them. (The exhibition will be on display at Materials for the Arts, on the third floor of 33-00 Northern Boulevard in Long Island City, Queens, until June 2.) ————————————————————————————————— Why Marvel Fired an Artist for Inserting Religious and Political Messages into an X-Men Comic Over at the Hyperallergic blog, R. Orion Martin gives a rundown of the recent controversy involving the Indonesian artist Ardian Syaf and some coded religious references he put in an X-men super-hero comic: The references themselves are so subtle that editors and audiences in the US failed to notice them. For instance, in a scene where the X-Men are playing baseball (perhaps the most wholesome category of standby X-Men scenes), the character Colossus is wearing a T-shirt that reads “QS 5:51.” Later in the comic, Kitty Pryde partially obscures a street sign that says “Jewelry” (in the comics, Pryde is Jewish), while a nearby sign reads “212.” QS 5:51 refers to Surah 5, verse 51, a controversial passage of the Quran that, like certain Bible passages such as Leviticus 18:22, has special weight in a contemporary political context. The passage is interpreted in some contemporary translations to mean: “Take not the Jews and the Christians as leaders/advisors.” The verse’s meaning is a particularly sensitive issue in Indonesia, which has the largest Muslim population in the world. ————————————————————————————————— Dash Shaw wrote a piece for the Metrograph theater program book about watching Speed Racer on magic mushrooms. See what he has to say abut Speed Racer HERE! The Metropraph theaters are playing Dash’s new movie My Entire High School Sinking Into the Sea across the country this week and for the next few weeks – go here for a complete list of showings and go see the movie! ————————————————————————————————— A Cosmic Journey – 4-18-2017 – by Cameron Arthur ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 4-18-2017 – by Gabriella Tito ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 4-18-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

01/26/2017

Sally IngrahamJanuary 25, 2017NewsSam and Sally bring us a whole crew of Pittsburgh cartoonists, thoughts on Problem Solverz, and our Thursday crop of comic strips! ————————————————————————————————— Sam Ombiri here: I’ve been reaaaallly sloooooooowly reading Tao Lin’s Taipei and so far so good – it’s been great. Maybe it’s because Juan Fernandez referred me to this (“the peace tape” – a Paper Rad film) but I’ve been thinking about Problem Solverz a lot, and how great it was to see it when I did. It seems to have the exact same effect now as when I first saw it, so it summons an emotion that’s already in people, I think, or I could just be making it up. I was thinking of how I sometimes sense a sentiment in it that is similar to what excited me about watching some webtoons, and of course reading certain comics I have read, which I see as processing somethin’. I see it as proof that Problem Solverz summoned, or showcased, or manifested in the best way something that is a little inexpressible. In dreams when you try to render this thing fully it disappears, but Problem Solverz is very well expressed, and remains exceedingly potent even as time passes. There is a lot of space and then the conflict of what to utilize it for – so then are you surrendering to one purpose with which to define yourself? Maybe? Maybe not. Ben Jones did refer to Problem Solverz as a coming of age story. Anyway, I was in middle school when it was airing – me and my one buddy were excited about it. My friend told me how he got excited at the episode with the Awesome Banditz from Pittsburgh. It was my favorite show as it was airing, so as a fanboy I also remember being frustrated with these people on YouTube who were in their late twenties or early twenties (at least that’s how I perceived them at the time). I was really annoyed. I was like, “Why are these people trying to get rid of this show that was certainly made more so for people my age?” (was it? I don’t have a clue) and then I would get lambasted by 90’s kids who couldn’t stop talking about how much better their childhood was. I’m sure it was great and the shows they loved were great, but c’mon. (I wonder if that’s what Brian Chippendale meant in that Puke Force strip when he was thanking the YouTube commenters on Problem Solverz for being “great dialogue fuel”. No, probably not. How could it be? It just meant what it meant.) – Sam Ombiri Check out Dan Nadel’s thoughts on Problem Solverz – publishing on The Comics Journal the day the first episode aired – HERE. 1-26-2017 – Sam Ombiri ————————————————————————————————— Sally Ingraham here: The Glassblock sat down with Marcel Walker recently for a lengthy conversation about his work and Pittsburgh-based comics projects. While sifting through sketches and concept drawings they talked about his process and discussed “the long gestation of Hero Corp., how our favorite superheroes work for corporate America, and the importance of education and history in the Chutz-Pow! series“. Marcel is a well-known figure in the Pittsburgh comics scene. He’s an educator and activist whose work often directly gives back to the community – like the Chutz-Pow! series, which was made in partnership between the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh and The ToonSeum. As Marcel says: “… comics can also teach you broader things. They can teach you about other segments of our society and culture. There’s a story that ran in EC Comics back in the ’50s. The story was called “Judgment Day.” It’s a science fiction story with a wonderful twist at the end. It’s a story with a social moral, , that’s obvious—so obvious that the Comics Code Authority almost didn’t allow that story to be published. Fortunately, the publishers resisted that, they make a stink, and eventually the story was published. That’s an example of just doing your thing; tell that story because you know the moral is right.“ Read the whole interview HERE! ————————————————————————————————— Nathaniel Broadus is another member of the Pittsburgh comics community – and he too is an activist and youth advocate. He has been writing a story called Police State (or, the comic he never wanted to write): “To be honest, when I initially sat down to write, my story wasn’t at all about social justice in any real sense. I wanted to write about hip hop, and I wanted to write about super heroes. I crafted a story in my head about a young rapper with gobs of desire, but not much ability, who is unwillingly corralled into an intergalactic battle of the bands. As I sat down to craft the universe of my fun loving, aloof hero, Ferguson burned.“ After returning home from enlistment Nathaniel was having trouble transitioning back into civilian life. He found inspiration and new purpose within his community in Pittsburgh, and wound up on a new front-line – that of “the war to improve this world for every single person“. Writing Police State is part of that mission. Check out the first 5 pages of Police State HERE – with artwork by JC Grande and John Becaro. You can get copies of Police State #0-#2 HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Yona Harvey (another Pittsburgher) is going to keep writing comics! Last year she wrote a story for the series World Of Wakanda,and now she will be applying her poet’s pen to a new series. She and Ta-Nehisi Coates announced a new Black Panther spin-off titled Black Panther & The Crew – coming soon. The series will revive the world of Christopher Priest’s mini-series The Crew and introduce the Black Panther to Harlem. From the interview/announcement on Time, Ta-Nehisi Coates speaking: “There’s this concept in comic books of street characters—characters who mostly deal with street-level stories—those are your Daredevils, your Luke Cages, things that are considered lower-tier. And then you have your more cosmic level heroes, like The X-Men, the Fantastic Four, Avengers, that sort of thing. What we have in this book is a group of characters that operate on both levels. What does it mean to protect the street and protect the world? How are those things connected? What happens when T’Challa is walking down the street without his uniform and people don’t recognize him, he’s just a black person? Same with Storm.“ Yona Harvey was asked how her poetry has played into writing for comics. Her reply: “For the first project (World of Wakanda) I kept resisting. I thought being a poet was a negative somehow. But then I had to embrace what poets do, examine tiny details and draw out a larger story. And it helps with the language and the voice of the characters. I have this little trick where I imagine the poetic voice of the character, whether it’s very terse or romantic or sensitive.“ Read the rest of the interview HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Shannon Wright and Sarah Mirk had a comic on The Nib recently – Eight Ways to Resisit Donald Trump – check out the whole thing HERE. (Shannon Wright is an alum of the Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers – the comic she made for the course can be seen HERE!) ————————————————————————————————— Since Pittsburgh is so heavily on my mind today, check out Frank’s Blast Furnace Funnies over on the school store. Originally made for the Biennial at the Carnegie Museum in 2011, this is the 16-page tabloid newspaper comic that was stacked in the corner of the gallery space. The original pages hung on the wall. As Bill Boichel puts it in his review for Copacetic Comics: “In a signature Santoro move, Blast Furnace Funnies is a work of “High” (i.e., museum quality) art executed in the lowest of the “Low” art forms (a disposable newspaper); employing ephemerality to evoke eternity, he has here worked (in a form that often ends up) in the gutter to reach for the stars.“ Get a copy HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 1-26-2017 – by Sally Ingraham ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 1-26-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio ————————————————————————————————— 1-26-2017 – by Juan Fernández Share this page: [...]

A Studio Visit with Steven Weissman

Posted on June 6, 2016June 15, 2016 by Chris Anthony Diaz

Be on the lookout for Steven’s upcoming book LOOKING FOR AMERICA’S DOG from FANTAGRAPHICS this September, and the awesome BUTTER AND BLOOD from RETROFIT is out now. And you can purchase original art and merch directly from Steven. Photos taken in Little Armenia, Los Angeles, Thursday, May 19 2016 and color by Graham Willcox. Thanks Steven!

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Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in The Diaz ArchiveTagged 2016, Butter And Blood, Chris Anthony Diaz, Fantagraphics, Looking For America’s Dog, Retrofit, Steven Weissman

Chris Anthony Diaz

Posted on June 6, 2016June 15, 2016

Explore

06/24/2016

Sally IngrahamJune 24, 2016NewsSally here with a stack of news that’s taller than me… We’ve got a report on HeroesCon, an announcement from Jillian Fleck, NPR’s take on Lisa Hanawalt, Heidi MacDonald’s Fall 2016 release picks, insights on Patrick Kyle and Andrea Tsurumi, an exciting development from D+Q/ALA, and a celebration of Mutha Magazine. Let’s dig in before we lose the light! ————————————————————————————————— HeroesCon was last weekend, and we heard it was a great time from all who attended. Comics Workbook special correspondent Audra Stang went on Sunday and reported back some of her adventures and encounters. Check out her report below! http://comicsworkbook.com/heroescon-2016/ ————————————————————————————————— Jillian Fleck – Comics Workbook alumni and maker of the ongoing Bad Thoughtz comic – is releasing Lake Jehovah via Conundrum Press this autumn! Jillian writes – “Lake Jehovah has been my insane passion project for the past few years and it’s incredible to think it’s going to be a real thing.“ About the story – “Lake Jehovah is a small town in northern Alberta known for its allegedly bottomless lake. It is there that Jay, a genderqueer individual, experiences a crisis of meaning regarding love in the face of a series of apocalypses.” – via Conundrum Press For some teaser pages and more details, check out the complete announcement HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Lisa Hanawalt‘s Hot Dog Taste Test got a shoutout at NPR this week. “If you’re a fan of the Hot Dog Princess, you’re going to love Hot Dog Taste Test. Lisa Hanawalt’s lushly illustrated, stream-of-consciousness diary reveals a soul cut from the same vibrant cloth as that of the 6-year-old who wore a hot dog costume to a princess-themed dance recital. Both the 6-year-old and the grownup diarist understand that there’s only one option for a free spirit confronted by the forces of conformity: You’ve got to go completely orthogonal. For a non-princess in a tulle-clad world, that means making an instinctively Dadaist gesture (and making national news with it). For a cartoonist who covers gourmet food — and even won the James Beard award — but is determined not to succumb to gourmet pretensions, it means filling a food book with Dalí-esque surrealism.” – via ETELKA LEHOCZKY Read the whole review HERE – get a copy of the book HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Heidi MacDonald (who runs The Comics Beat) recently put together the Publishers Weekly list of comics and graphic novels coming out in Fall 2016. (Pictured above is Jessica Campbell‘s Hot or Not, coming from Koyama Press.) “Fall’s graphic novels are teeming with emerging cartoonists exploring life and meaning, while established creators return to favorite themes. Riad Sattouf’s memoir continues, Jason Shiga presents a mind-bending puzzle, Sarah Glidden examines refugee life in Iraq, and Margaret Atwood turns to a fantasy about a cat-bird-man.” – via HEIDI MACDONALD Check out the list HERE. Starting with Heidi’s Top 10, and following with the complete autumn offerings, it is sure to make you start squirreling away some spending money in anticipation…! ————————————————————————————————— Speaking of The Comics Beat, John Seven reviewed Patrick Kyle’s new book over there this week. “Sometimes it’s better to just give yourself to something rather than to seek out its meaning. Not everything has to have one clear meaning, and in some cases, to bring concrete meaning to a work might mean imposing clarity on something that was not meant to have any. That imposition might actually come off as an insult, and the better approach might be to accept it on its own presentation, to let it be what it is. I understand the above might be confusing, but it won’t be if you’ve read Patrick Kyle’s Don’t Come In Here. The first indication that attaching meaning to Kyle’s work is not the point of Kyle’s work is the title itself, a direct instruction to not go any further, to not enter within its insular space. No investigation, no interpretation required.” – via JOHN SEVEN Read the rest of the review HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Harvard Magazine featured Andrea Tsurumi in their July-August issue, calling her work “comics to chew on”. “In Tsurumi’s work, details explode from the page. Her cheeky maximalism packs a visual punch, whether she’s using hard lines or a hazier, impressionist approach. Encountering it can be as overwhelming, trippy, and thrilling as visiting a new place—allowing the reader to see things in a more fun and zany light. Her sensibility, delighting in what might seem mundane, can resonate with people of all ages. It’s almost as if Tsurumi is sharing secrets of the world’s possibilities, and it’s exciting to behold—even if how she discovers these secrets and develops them on paper can be difficult to pin down.” – via SAMANTHA MALDONADO Read the whole article HERE. Keep up with Andrea HERE (although according to Tsurumi’s literary agent, Stephen Barr, “There’s no way to get ahead of Andrea’s brain“…!) ————————————————————————————————— Drawn & Quarterly is tabling at the American Library Association Annual Conference and Exhibition for the first time this weekend in Orlando, FL. This is a pretty big deal! Comics Workbook correspondent extraordinaire Juan Fernández laid it out for me the other night: “D+Q at ALA hits home the idea of libraries being directly in the loop of comics publishing. They are by no means the cutting edge, but the fact that the middle of the cultural road is being paved directly into conversations at ALA’s annual conference is a big deal. Comics to schools – comics to libraries – comics in museums – those are the new pathways that comics as a publishing form can garner new audiences and grow (publishers have been at this for decades now, but this is just nice to see).” – via JUAN FERNANDEZ Find Drawn & Quarterly at table #2263, where they will be hosting giveaways all weekend, and check out the programming that they will be involved in: “D+Q’s two panels are both at the Graphic Novel and Gaming Stage, which can be found mid-aisle 400, near booths 424 and 426: “The Best Graphic Novels You Haven’t Heard of (Yet)” – Sunday June 26th from 2:30 to 3:20 pm Drawn & Quarterly, Groundwood Books, and Nobrow Press are three international publishing houses producing landmark graphic novels with impressive production values. D+Q publisher Peggy Burns, Groundwood publisher Sheila Barry, and Nobrow US Sales & Marketing Director Tucker Stone will discuss their approach to graphic novels, preview their forthcoming titles, and share what’s in the pipeline for 2017. “The State of Graphic Novels Today” – Monday June 27th from 9:30 am to 10:20 am Drawn & Quarterly has been publishing luminaries of the graphic novel medium for over 25 years. Comics and graphic novels make great entry points for low literacy users as well as readers of all stripes, and the fastpaced world of graphic novels is booming. Join D+Q publisher Peggy Burns and executive editor Tom Devlin for a rousing discussion on the state of graphic novels today.” – via D+Q ————————————————————————————————— I want to give a shoutout today to Mutha Magazine and all the fantastic work that Meg Lemke does as Editor there (while also programming the comics and graphic novels side of the Brooklyn Book Festival…!) The magazine explores “real-life motherhood, from every angle, at every stage” and one of the ways they do that is through comics. I’m still working my way through all the comics on the site – there’s a hefty list! A recent offering was A. K. Summers‘ Those OTHER Nurses: A Nursing While Butch Comic which you can check out HERE. Other work that caught my eye includes Sacha Mardou’s The State I’m In, Rachel Masilamani’s We Conceive, and Lauren Weinstein’s Reflections on the First Week of Kindergarten. There are also several comics each from Tyler Cohen, Glynnis Fawkes, and Keiler Roberts, among others. Check out the complete Mutha Magazine Comics Archive HERE! ————————————————————————————————— Well, we got through the stack and there’s still some daylight left – so enjoy your weekend, play outside, go to the pool, or curl up on the couch with a comic – then meet us back here on Monday for our next foray into the comics community! Cheers – Sally Share this page: [...]

07/28/2017

Sally IngrahamJuly 28, 2017NewsSally here with Lale Westvind’s work at Printed Matter, Ellen Forney’s Virtual Memories, Fabulous “Flo” Steinburg, and more. ———————————————————————————————— You have just a few days left to catch the “Something Unusual Is Happening” show at Printer Matter – it is up until July 31st 2017. Featuring work by 15 international comics artists, it delves into experimental comics and the art of visual narrative. More details about the show HERE. Over on the LA Review of Books Megan N. Liberty writes about the show and features the work of some of the specific makers. “Lale Westvind’sJoan the Drone Pilot & Mary the Drone (2017), printed with blue ink on pink pages (except the cover which is red ink on cream), is the story of a world that exists in several dimensions, with those in charge controlling those trapped in the lesser plane for profit, until Mary arrives and attempts to escape. A heavy-handed metaphor for our use of technology, or technology’s use of us when in the hands of advertisers, it has a more traditional structure, with spreads divided into panels and text in word bubbles and boxes. But its dense imagery, heavy lines, and block shading, reminiscent of ‘70s and ‘80s pulp comics, make it at times visually dizzying and challenging.” Read the rest of the report HERE. ———————————————————————————————— Gil Roth of Virtual Memories sat down with another female cartoonist of note recently, inviting Ellen Forney onto the show for Episode 228. “The great Seattle cartoonist Ellen Forney joins the show to talk about comics, civic art, being bipolar, and the challenges of maintaining! We get into her 2012 graphic memoir,Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo, and Me, finding a graphic representation of her depressive states, the evolution in her drawing style, the letter she stole from Michael Dougan, the process of going from comics panels to enormous murals for a light-rail station in Seattle, the influence of the Moosewood Cookbook, the importance of a psychology stats class she took in college, how she learned to teach comics, the moment when she felt she was using all her artistic tools, and why she needed Kaz to design her back-tattoo!“ Listen HERE. I went back through some of the past episodes and bookmarked shows with Posy Simmonds, Leslie Stein, Jennifer Hayden and Summer Pierre, Phoebe Gloeckner, Glynnis Fawkes, and Karen Green. I’m sure there are more good ones to dig up as well! Check out The Virtual Memories Show every Tuesday for a new interview about books and life. ———————————————————————————————— Flo Steinburg, longtime secretary to Marvel’s Stan Lee, died this week. She was 78, and still fabulous. At the San Diego Comic Con 2017 there was a panel on “Women of Marvel” which understandably kicked off with a remembrance of Flo. Rachel Maurer reported for The Comics Beat: “Many of the panelists have worked directly with Flo at some point in their Marvel careers, noting that she was more than Stan Lee’s assistant – she was the original Woman of Marvel, someone who forged a path for female comics creators and whose legacy will continue to do so. One major indicator of this is the panel itself, a useful benchmark for progress in gender equality. Nine years ago Marvel had zero female-led titles, while this year’s panel had nearly 20 on the roster.“ Read more about how these women are walking in Flo’s footprints – HERE. ———————————————————————————————— New page from Iona Fox‘s Almanac – check out more of her work HERE and keep an eye out for her strips in Burlington, VT’s alt paper Seven Days. ———————————————————————————————— Supplemental “A Brief Appreciation” of Leslie Stein – by Ken Perille on The Comics Journal. Also on tcj.com – An Interview with Katie Skelly. Carta Monir on Process Party Episode 42 – HERE. Gabrielle Bell‘s July Diary is close to concluding – here’s Thursday’s offering. —————————————————————————————————— Here it is – get ready to comic your socks off – thee Comics Workbook Composition Competition 2017 has been announced! This year it’s a riff on the 6-panel grid, in the traditional North American comic book size – but with a twist! Full details HERE. ———————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 7-28-2017 – by Sally Ingraham ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 7-28-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

07/25/2017

Aaron CockleJuly 25, 2017NewsAaron Cockle today with Liana Finck; Warren Craghead; Glynnis Fawkes; The New York Review of Comic Books, and the Comics Workbook Composition Competition 2017. ————————————————————————————————— Sara Berman’s Closet Liana Finck has a piece at The New York Review of Books blog about an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and her personal relationship to it. Finck also has an exhibition currently at Equity Gallery in NYC through August 5: Finck presents 80 drawings from a series of work posted on Instagram over the last year. The complexities of life are distilled into seemingly simple ink cartoons. With precision, honesty and biting wit, she explores the highs and lows of living in New York City and how relationships — and we ourselves — evolve. Her work has been described as “gently savage,” “bleakly hilarious” and “transportative” and Finck’s smart authentic voice reminds us of the beauty of experiencing the broad range of emotions that make us human. ————————————————————————————————— Warren Craghead, Political Cartoonist Warren Craghead recently posted about the one-year anniversary of his TRUMPTRUMP comics. Congrats, Warren! I started this TRUMPTRUMP project a year ago, on the night Trump accepted the Republican nomination for president. Every day since then I have drawn and shared a grotesque portrait of him and his minions, trying to document who he is and what he is doing to us. Here’s the first post. Here’s a bird’s-eye view of the drawings. This project started like my other drawing projects LADYH8RS and USAH8RS: I drew quick portraits of Trump paired with the seemingly inexhaustible supply of horrible quotes form him. I thought I’d be done on November 8, but when he won I vowed to keep drawing until, as I wrote when starting this project, “—this nightmare ends.” The drawings have turned more detailed and angry and full. At times I can’t keep up! I’ve drawn from and stolen from Goya, Picasso, Steinberg, Grosz, Kollwitz and, most of all, Philip Guston and his 1970s drawings of the Nixon Administration. In a few weeks Retrofit Comics/Big Planet Comics will be publishing a collection of the first six months of the drawings, from the nomination until the inauguration. I’m so grateful to them and to everyone who has seen and encouraged this stupid endeavor. I’m still drawing, every EVERY day, and posting them. People have ask me if I’m ok, if this is taking a toll and I always answer No. I love it – I get to DO something about all this insanity. ————————————————————————————————— An In-Depth Analysis by Glynnis Fawkes Fawkes on mother/daughter relationships, at the New Yorker. ————————————————————————————————— ‘But since he acts in all purity, without any guile, society is prompt to reject him through its representative, Lucy, treacherous, self-confident, an entrepreneur with assured profits, ready to peddle a security that is completely bogus but of unquestioned effect.’ – Umberto Eco on Peanuts In a recent e-newsletter, The New York Review of Books recently included a bunch of links to reviews of different comics works it’s done over the years, including: A Triumph of the Comic-Book Novel (Chris Ware), Gabriel Winslow-Yost, December 20, 2012 Issue Lost New York (Ben Katchor), Anthony Grafton, November 15, 2001 Issue Lyrics in the Swamp (Pogo/Walt Kelly), Brad Leithauser, April 25, 2002 Issue On ‘Krazy Kat’ and ‘Peanuts’, Umberto Eco, June 13, 1985 Issue Girls and Indians (White Boy/Garrett Price), Thomas Powers, January 2016 ————————————————————————————————— Here it is, thee Comics Workbook Composition Competition 2017 – 6-panel grid, traditional North American comic book proportions – but with a twist! Deadline Sept. 5th 2017. FULL DETAILS HERE. ————————————————————————————————— A Cosmic Journey – 7-25-2017 – by Cameron Arthur ———————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 7-25-2017 – by Gabriella Tito Share this page: [...]

Residency Report: Pokémon GO Edition

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

The CXC Comics Workbook Sessions

Sally IngrahamOctober 3, 2016School UpdatesJoin instructors from Pittsburgh’s Comics Workbook school, and cartoonists Alyssa Berg and Kurt Ankeny, for an immersive weekend of comics creation at Cartoon Crossroads Columbus 2016! We will examine art and the grid, bringing the strong artistic practices of Berg and Ankeny together with the discipline and rhythm of the grid, as laid out by Comics Workbook founder Frank Santoro. Four hours across two days will be filled with the exploration of a variety of techniques and methods which will inspire the beginner, and challenge the established cartoonist. Comics as jazz; comics as architecture; how a simple index card can transform your sequencing and storytelling process. Each session will feature the expertise of Alyssa Berg or Kurt Ankeny, with the support of Juan Fernandez and Sally Ingraham. Check out all four sessions for the full experience, or attend just one for a comics jump-start. Whether you join us for an hour or four, you will be sure to take your comics making to a new level. These workshops are free to all, however we are doing advanced sign ups for the individual sessions from Tuesday, October 4th – Friday, October 7th. We will accept walkins for each session as space allows – sign up in advance to guarantee a seat! Session times are listed below – sign up for one or all – email santoroschool@gmail.com to reserve your seat or leave a comment on this page! Share this page: [...]

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