Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in Festivals and ShowsTagged Aidan Koch, licaf 2016

Comics Workbook

Posted on October 27, 2016May 21, 2019

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05/15/2018

Aaron CockleMay 15, 2018NewsLucy Shelton Caswell Research Award Winners; Colleen Frakes; Katie Fricas; Clough/Porcellino; Park on Reynolds; Spatial Frequency Analysis ————————————————————————————————— Announcing the 2018 Lucy Shelton Caswell Research Award Winners The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum (BICLM) is pleased to announce the winners of the first annual Lucy Shelton Caswell Research Award. The award of up to $2500, named for the founding curator of the BICLM, Professor Emerita Lucy Shelton Caswell, supports researchers who need to travel to Columbus, Ohio to use the collections materials of the BICLM on site. Thanks to the generosity of the Will & Ann Eisner Family Foundation, we are able to give three 2018 awards in celebration of the launch of the program. Moving forward, we will give one award per year. We were delighted to receive a large and diverse range of proposals from both national and international scholars and artists. A panel of ten reviewers from a variety of disciplines at Ohio State was appointed to assess the proposals. The recipients for 2018 are: Dr. Daniel Worden, Visiting Assistant Professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology’ School of Individualized Study. He holds a Ph.D. in English and American Literature from Brandeis University. His project is entitled “Oil Comics: Iconographies of Energy, Environment and Motion.” Worden’s research aims to chronicle the imbrication of comics with the oil industry and the normalized use of petroleum as a fuel source, from the late 19th century to the present. Xavier Dapena, Ph.D. candidate in Hispanic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. His project is called “’They do not represent us’: Radical Imageries of Contemporary Spanish Graphic Narratives (1973-2011).” Dapena’s project centers on the intersection of graphic narratives and political imagination and seeks to understand how the political repertoire of images, symbols, and metaphors express three processes: memorialization, precarization, and legitimation. Frank Santoro, creator of Pompeii, Storeyville and other comics. He is also an educator who runs ComicsWorkbook, a training and residency program for cartoonists. His research on “The Ohio School of Naturalist Cartooning” will look at how Billy Ireland’s influence on Edwina Dumm, Noel Sickles, Milton Caniff, and C.N. Landon informed a language of 20th century cartooning that has carried on into the 21st century. Congrats, Frank! ————————————————————————————————— Colleen Frakes: A Cartoonist’s Diary ————————————————————————————————— ‘Stopping for Art and Conversation Along the High Line’ Katie Fricas looks at the group exhibition, Agora, in NYC. ————————————————————————————————— One night group exhibition and book release with work and new publications by: Clark Keatley Leon Sadler Stuart McKenzie Tom Sewell Viktor Hachmang Yannick Val Gesto At Dinner Party Gallery, Thomas Briggs Building, 2-4 Southgate Rd, N1 3JJ. Walk past reception to the door under the stairs. ————————————————————————————————— ‘How do you compare the experience of taking acid with your later practice in Zen Buddhism?’ Rob Clough continues the long interview with John Porcellino, over at The Comics Journal. The long “Mr Dusty” letter from Mr Mike that you printed was epic. That was an intense amount of text to lay down, which made me wonder how you feel about lettering and how your lettering has developed over the years. Did you look to others for inspiration? Did you ever use any kind of guide? Have you ever considered developing your own font? When I first started King-Cat, the lettering was as sloppy as the drawing! I didn’t care about stuff like that. I was just slinging ink. As my drawing got more evolved, the lettering did too. I started to get a kick from lettering more legibly, making those E’s, S’s. When I’m doing it it can be quite enjoyable. One thing I’ve found is I have to concentrate, kind of empty my mind, and focus on things. I can tell when I’m lettering and my mind starts to wander, things get sloppy. Then I pull it back in and keep going. Just like meditation, I guess. For guides, like a large bunch of text like a Snornose page or a letters column, I usually use the edge of a piece of paper as a ruler… line it up with the edge of the page and use it as a guide, siding it down a bit with each new line. But it’s not perfect and half the time I end up inking a page and it’s all on a slant. In my OCD days I would redraw it. Now I just kind of laugh at myself and let it go. Occasionally I’ve ruled bluelines to guide me, and at least once I used graph paper. I think that’s how Cometbus does it. That sure helps, but maybe I don’t really wanna think that much about it. When I look back at my lettering in the OCD years, it floors me, how precise it is! I was nuts! It’s beautiful, but the cost is too much maybe. I don’t know. The whole story of my post-meds career has been learning to balance that spontaneity I had before OCD with the precision I got from it. It’s taken me like ten years to start to figure it out. Font: no. ————————————————————————————————— Mauretania Comics Ed Park looks at the Chris Reynolds collection, The New World. The stories start on solid ground, then twist like dreams. Reynolds sets everything in uniformly sized panels, edged in black like funeral invitations. His impossibly thick line lends weight to these uncanny dramas of lost time. Calling the comics black and white feels insufficient; they’re more like black and white and black. This starkness, and the stabs of poetic word-image interplay, can call to mind his stateside contemporary Raymond Pettibon, while the silent, depopulated spaces that loom throughout—abandoned houses, vacant cinemas, phantom transportation—suggest any number of uneasy de Chirico vistas. ————————————————————————————————— Spatial Frequency Analysis – II The contrast sensitivity as a function of spatial frequency (called CSF) can be obtained psychophysically from the test image below . You will perceive a curve which peaks at some certain optimal frequency in the middle range of the image (depending on the viewing distance) at which the visual system is most sensitive to the contrast. The sensitivity is reduced when the frequency is either too high or too low. ————————————————————————————————— Vision Box – 5-15-2018 – by Cameron Arthur ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 4-15-18 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

08/17/2017

Sally IngrahamAugust 17, 2017NewsSally here with work by Indian cartoonists Sarnath Banerjee, and Appupen – plus a few other comics news notes! ———————————————————————————————— A recent Comics Workbook Rowhouse resident – Javed Haque – brought along a copy of Corridor by Sarnath Banerjee to show us. This comic has been loudly touted as India’s first graphic novel – a masterful publicity move, which, although it is untrue, helped get international eyes on the book and brought good attention and energy to the alt-comics scene in India. The River of Stories by Orijit Sen was published in 1994, and is actually the first Indian graphic novel. Corridor, created by Sarnath Banerjee in 2004, it is set in contemporary Delhi and follows the adventures of 4 characters. At the center of the group is Jehangir Rangoonwala, something of a Socrates wannabe who owns the second hand bookshop where the other characters meet and mingle. Brighu is searching for rare books and maybe an even rarer love. Digital Dutta meanders among his own dreams and ambitions, but makes little progress. Shintu is recently married, and quite caught up in keeping his domestic life spicy. Written and drawn by Sarnath Banerjee (who grew up in Calcutta and Delhi in the 70’s) the artwork is a mixture of black and white drawings, color work, and collage. Banerjee captures Delhi street life and “the psyche of middle-class India” deftly, and with compassionate humor. He has gone on to publish 3 more comics – The Barn Owl’s Wondrous Capers (2007), The Harappa Files (2011), and All Quiet in Vikaspuri (2016). In a great interview from last year on Guernica Magazine, Sarnath Banerjee talks about how he came to make Corridor. He was more of a documentary film maker, but through a string of small miracles he received a version of the McArthur Genius Award, and suddenly had to produce the graphic novel he had accidentally pitched. He actually went to Orijit Sen (who if you recall made India’s true first graphic novel) in the hope that Sen would draw the stories Banerjee had written. He got encouragement and support, but not an artist. So he drew Corridor himself. “I started at the deep end. I learned while writing the book. I started drawing all the time after that. Like a maniac. My ex-wife recently told me that when she was cleaning up our house she found trunks—I had forgotten about this—trunks and trunks full of notebooks on which every surface had been drawn. I drew everything. I drew toasters, air conditioners, chairs, people and flowers. I was a maniac. I drew, drew, drew, drew, drew. And that’s how I learned. Purely by doing. In Japan there’s a phrase for it, it’s called aware karada, which basically means learning through your body. You practice something to the point where you don’t think anymore about it. It just comes out. The brain and hand barrier is absolutely taken out. So I think now I don’t think about my drawing at all. It just comes the way it comes. Another thing that was good about working in this entirely new medium—new to India at least—and not getting published was that it makes you learn everything from scratch. Which is why I feel that every graphic novelist from India—Amruta Patil, Vishwajyoti Ghosh, Orijit Sen, Appupen—is phenomenally original.“ I highly recommend reading the rest of this interview. Banerjee is a very thoughtful and interesting person and there is a crash course on Indian comics, film, and other pop culture to be had just by perusing this conversation. Read it HERE. I’ll be tracking down Banerjee’s other comics asap – and also looking for Orijit Sen’s comic. Sen has been making a ruckus lately with politically charged artwork – a recent article about his work and life can be found HERE. While I’m at it, I may as well link you up to the other comics makers Banerjee mentioned above – here’s Amruta Patil; Vishwajyoti Ghosh – an interview on TCJ; and Appupen. ———————————————————————————————— My research sucked me in and I discovered this comic by Appupen – Dedshort #7: The Ring of the Lord, originally published on Brainded. Appupen wrote: “This classic story has stood the test of time in Halahala. You can clearly see their influence on some popular stories of our world.” More on Appupen, from his website: “Appupen is a comics creator, visual artist and musician who tells stories from a mythical world called Halahala. Armed with a skewed view of the world and a sarcastic bite, he is a unique voice in Indian comics and comics in general. God recently appeared to him and said he needs to push out his comics more and hence this effort. Please help him.” As per this stated mission, there are tons more comics on his site – check them out HERE. ———————————————————————————————— Other News of Note Unaiza Ali Barlas, a 20-year-old Lahore-based cartoonist, has been officially named in the Guinness Book of World Records for creating the world’s longest strip. Her strip is 267.38 metres (877 feet) long! More details HERE. Tara Betts is interviewed on LA Review of Books – she is the editor of the anthology The Beiging of America: Personal Narratives About Being Mixed Race in the Twenty-First Century (which includes work by Pittsburgh cartoonist Rachel Masilamani) – interview HERE. ———————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 8-17-2017 – by Sally Ingraham ———————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 8-17-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

07/17/2017

Caleb OrecchioJuly 17, 2017News / Residency Reports / School UpdatesCaleb Orecchio here with my week in Pittsburgh at the Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency ————————————————————————————————————— I come into Pittsburgh At six-thirty flat. I found myself a vacant seat An’ I put down my hat. -Bob Dylan Lo and Behold! or Where The Wild Cartoonists Are: A Pittsburgh Story And thus it came to pass that I returned to Pittsburgh, PA, the land of the wild cartoonists. I say wild because they certainly are not domesticated like most cartoonists who live Brooklyn or LA. The Comics Workbook crew being the most savage and barbaric of the Pittsburghers—I should know, I am one of them. Though I am not a native, I have been taken in and raised as their own. I’ve been taught the ways of the wolf and to speak in tongues. I come out of desert and back to Pittsburgh when I am called. This story largely documents my meeting and interacting with the young Texas cartoonist, Cameron Arthur. The Cast: Cameron Arthur Frank Santoro Sally Ingraham Audra Stang Juan Fernandez with a special cameo by Nate McDonough and narrated by me, Caleb Orecchio Our Story begins… I left Dayton, OH for Pittsburgh, PA on Sunday to pick up Cameron Arthur who was flying in from Houston, TX. My dog, Zoe, looked at me with the look she gives when she knows I’m leaving her for an extended period of time. Thankfully a couple friends, including comic-book blood brother Jason Hart who agreed to babysit her at his house, took care of her. I am eternally grateful for these pals. After a four hour drive, I arrived in Pittsburgh where the Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency resides. As always, Frank and Sally greeted me with the warmth and welcome that makes me feel like family. We hung out for a bit before I had to go pick up Cameron. Sally left to hold down the fort at thee Copacetic Comics Company. The proprietor of Copacetic, Bill Boichel, was “at the beach” so he unfortunately does not come into this story. I got settled in and claimed my room at the Rowhouse and went back to hangout with Frank who showed me secret works of art that left me shattered and speechless. My tongue was cut out so I couldn’t speak to him about them, but it grew back in time to talk to Cameron at the airport. Cameron came out of the terminal glowing with excitement. He never gets to talk to cartoonists in real life so he was purging all the comics-related thoughts, and we’d had a million different conversations before we even left the airport; plus a million more on the way to Copacetic—the first stop on Cameron’s Pittsburgh journey. Cameron Arthur is a really bright kid from Texas, the land of his heroes: Gary Panter and Matt Brinkman (what 17-year-old has the taste to know Gary Panter is the greatest? Cameron does). I’ve “known” Cameron from corresponding online for years now. He was 14 then. This is the first time we’ve met in real life. This is the summer before his senior year in high school and already he is a powerful cartoonist. The force is strong with this one. Maybe you don’t like his drawing or storytelling or whatever, but you fail to see the boundless potential that is below the surface. This week, he would start to unlock it. Cameron and I arrive at Copacetic to find Sally working and Audra Stang shopping (I think I saw Blaise Larmee exiting the coffee shop that resides in the same building). Audra is dear friend, a terrific cartoonist, and recent Pittsburgh resident. At some point in the week she did over 40 portraits of students from the school she works at. Juan later told me, “I know those kids–she killed it.” We chatted and hung out with the dynamic duo before closing time. As Sally was locking up and we were leaving, we saw Nate McDonough (a Pittsburgh resident with some connections to my Dayton). I love Nate. I told him we should get together this weekend and have a beer. I always say that when I’m around, but I never have time. Please forgive me Nate! Audra went home and Sally, Frank, Cameron and I talked comics back at HQ. Frank told stories of Gary Panter and Fort Thunder and PitcureBox and Paper Rad and Francesco Clemente and Jack Kirby and Stan Lee and PeeWee Herman and Bob Dylan and Alan Moore and Cold Heat and Basquiat and Andy Warhol among many other things. Cameron and I went back to the Rowhouse full of knowledge and weary from our travels. Our Story continues… What follows is most of the week as I remember it. Specific days and activities are blending together so I will do without keeping track of exact times and dates. This is my impression of the week that already seems so long ago now that I’m back in the wilderness of Dayton, OH. Cameron and I drew a lot over the week of course, but we talked just as much as we drew. I feel that we really got to know each other, like I have another brother in comics. I felt that we clicked immediately being two easy-going dudes who just want to talk about comics all day. He really schooled me in the ways of Gary Panter and Fort Thunder and the surrounding entities. I could school him in some aspects, but his breadth of knowledge at his age is staggering. He just knows whats up. He also schooled me about his homeland, Texas. The land of western fever-dreams finally had a human face that I could talk to. He knew a lot about his homeland. Had some interesting personal stories of friends and family. In the beginning of the week, he drew very slow. Drawing his comics almost exclusively first-take, he developed a painstaking pace. Frank, and by extension, I, would work to unlock the maniac in him. At night, when we would go to Frank’s to talk and listen, Frank would give Cameron exercises to quicken and loosen Cameron’s drawing up. He talked about the difference between Matt Brinkman and other more traditional cartoonists. Most cartoonists try really hard to get their point across. “Multiforce just is,” I remember Frank saying. He showed him how Brinkman can draw very large and very small. He talked about how Gary Panter is an artist. “Gary Panter wouldn’t have to do eight months of research to learn cubism to do a comic about cubism, Gary Panter IS cubism!” Frank showed us a photo of one of Panter’s latest paintings—our brains blew out the back of our heads and we went back to the Rowhouse and tried to be cartoonists again. Frank, Sally, Cameron and I went to New Dimension Comics. It was amazing. More $1 back issue boxes than I’ve ever seen in one place! And we didn’t even get to see the basement that they open up to the public once or twice a year. I hardly got through a small section of the place before we there for a while and had to go. Throughout the back-issue digging, Cameron and I would show each other the cool shit we’d pull out. So many Kirby comics, Ditko’s Shade the Changing Man, Archie, Charlton comics, romance comics, sports comics, dusty comics, fresh comics, comics with covers, comics without covers, comics with artists mimicking Kirby, comics with artists mimicking Neal Adams, comics by Neal Adams, comics about Boris Karloff, propaganda comics, how to comics, how to not comics, good comics, bad comics, ugly comics, comics by men, comics by women, comics by boys, comics by Kentuckians, comics by West Virginians, comics comics comics. Frank would periodically bring over a stack, “Here a made you a stack. You don’t have to buy them…” He gave me look a of disappointment when I put back an oversized Dick Tracy collection for two Barry Smith Conan Treasury Edition books. Frank bought the Dick Tracy book. We went back to Frank’s to look at our booty and a wondrous time was had by all. Juan Fernandez, a valiant cowboy of comics. He’s the man behind the curtain—along with rest of the CW crew—educating the young minds of Pittsburgh about comics. He stopped by to meet Cameron and chat. It was good to catch up with Juan who is a genuinely sweet guy and a great thinker of comics. His enthusiasm for comics is only outmatched by the hours in the day. Still Juan tirelessly carries on against the wind. He is a key figure in comics, though he probably won’t be truly recognized for it until later—he is one of the Wild Ones. Let no one stand in his way. One night, Frank was showing Cameron and I how to better our respective drawing styles. When Frank teaches you something, it almost changes your entire life because you level up just by one interaction with him. He stressed to me the importance of being able to draw with one line and equated it with Dylan. He showed Cameron how to draw as his heroes draw. He showed Cameron how to draw in color. A loud “YES!” rang through the house once Cameron figured it out. Cameron went back to work on his comics, determined to fulfill his destiny. Frank also drew for me, upside down, his best Kirby impression. Frank is the best because he can draw in any way shape or form. Another night, Frank brought out a bunch of comics and books to look at. I zeroed in on a Kirby collection that had a bunch of Xeroxed pencils of Thor, while we watched Masters of American Comic Book Art. Kirby is the greatest. We’d been talking about the great Gary Panter all week. Gary Panter an artistic and cultural phenomenon regardless if you know it or not. Really he can do it all. Panter, Mazzuchelli, Westvind, Herriman, you name ’em; true masters of the form. But anyone can learn all they want and practice and practice – there is only one Kirby. I almost had an emotional breakdown looking at his pencils, quite literally read and wept. For most of the days, I was Cameron’s primary teacher. I quickly realized that Sally and Frank had tricked me into it. I can not thank them enough, because I had the extreme pleasure of seeing Cameron LEVEL UP: Cameron was starting to feel the burn. Comics Workbook expects you to draw until your hands hurt. A lot of the drawing is redrawing the same thing over and over. This was starting to tax Cameron and he wondered if there had to be somewhere out of here. I sensed his pain. His drawing was starting to slow down again. “Faster!” I screamed. “NO! Don’t slow down!” I made him draw four 8-panel one-page gag strips. “You have thirty minutes to do each one! Start in color and then go to black like Frank showed you! Pretend your Gary Panter!” We are about to make the jump to lightspeed! The ground shook and the winds were a gail! I looked over and Cameron’s hands were on fire! Sweat poured from him and he breathed heavily. He was doing it. He was Luke doing a handstand with Yoda on his foot and moving rocks with the force. He was Goku gathering the energy of the people in the tri-state area. In the middle of the frenzy, I get a call that a friend’s relative had died. Cameron’s power was reaching the far corners of the universe. He was unstoppable. The hairs on my neck stood on end. I tried to capture the event but no man or woman could render the awesome might of Cameron’s breakthrough. When he was done I noticed one of his hairs had turned gray in the process. He was a man now. We looked at the four comics he had done. Remember, one comic page per 30 minutes. He did each one in less than that and the last comic was his personal best at 21 minutes. These four comics were the best he’d ever done. He had willed them into existence. They floated, crackling lightning, fresh from the fire. They just were. Our story ends… After Cameron’s great breakthrough, we had tacos. We met up with Sally, Audra, and Frank and had a good ol’ time. I bragged about Cameron who was still recovering from it all. It was great to hang out because tomorrow we would be gone—the last hurrah. Got to talk more with Audra and Sally, while Frank had Cameron do more and more drawing. Sally and Audra and I talked endlessly about our current and future comics. Who we liked, who we hated. Sally and I discussed the woes, pros, and cons of the daily strip. I cursed Audra for being such savage cartoonist. Sally too. We talked about our old embarrassing poetry and past adolescent romances and mix tapes and hopes and dreams. Some real solid quality time with my comics family. As I looked around at Sally, Frank, Cameron, and Audra I felt a real sense of family. I’ve never lacked a loving family, fortunately, but this family seemed more like a wolf pack kind of family. We learn as a pack. We go to shows as a pack. We draw as a pack. We kill as a pack. We eat as a pack. The dreaded morning came when Cameron and I had to go. I grow weary as I type this overlong account so I’ll keep it short: I love all the cartoonists I mentioned and I feel really fortunate to have finally met Cameron in person. This stupid blog post does not do the trip justice. It was life changing–as always when I meet up with the CW crew. And now I’m back in the wilderness until it’s time to go back home again. THE END Goin’ back to Pittsburgh Count up to thirty, Round that horn and ride that herd, Gonna thread up! -Bob Dylan special thanks to everyone mentioned above, particularly Sally Ingraham who did a lot of the leg work to get me and Cameron here at the same time and kept the machine working; and of course Frank Santoro who is undoubtedly the master and without whom this past week (among other things) would not exist. ————————————————————————————————————— anyone still here? Well if you are, here are a few links Pepe has a lawyer. The ToonSeum of Pittsburgh is having a fundraiser. An interesting Five for Friday —————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 7-17-2017 – by Gabriella Tito —————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 7-17-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

02/15/2018

Comics WorkbookFebruary 14, 2018NewsSam Ombiri on Noel Freibert’s Old Ground! ————————————————————————————————— Sam Ombiri here: What’s so special about comics? If someone asked me that, I’d point directly to Old Ground by Noel Freibert. Among my vague, imaginary mental list of favorite comics right now, Old Ground is up there; seriously. Everything seems to be in place in the book, and for me it couldn’t be more perfect. This is a comic that can’t be described in a way that would do it justice, as lazy as I might sound in saying that. Some scenes cause me to laugh a certain kind of laughter. It’s kind of a nervous laughter, but not necessarily out of being too frightened or weirded out to respond “properly”. It feels like Noel draws the way he does so he can simultaneously restrict himself, and through that free himself to go to certain places with his comics that wouldn’t be accessible to him (or anyone else for that matter) otherwise. This might be what accounts of my nervous laughter – some of the gags presented perhaps lack of a point of reference. The comic is a real shock to the system because the drawings and the story are virtuosic. The comic is simultaneously cute, frightening, menacing, intensely dramatic, intensely goofy, and so on and so on. Somehow Noel made all these shifts register really well, and every moment resonates with the moment before, surprisingly harmoniously for such a chaotic book. He lingers in moments so that the events can properly register. He isn’t in any rush to show us his cooler-looking drawings. I say this because a lot of times comics fall flat for me in their refusal to be comics. The drawings might be labored over, but the sequence of events or images have no pulse whatsoever, so to speak. Not so with Old Ground, not by a long shot. When the comic is focused on the two people buried in the grave, it goes on and on because it needs to, and then as the comic progresses Noel uses this established rhythm of the two people in the grave, and plays with it. He doesn’t just play with it – he confronts it. This comic doesn’t feel like Noel did it at a distance, with vague suggestions that aren’t a part of him. At least that was the feeling I was getting from reading the book. Noel is committed to displaying this vague feeling he has and pursuing it to the end (or no end). That’s what makes it such a compelling read – and the results are evident there in the book. In the story, one of the corpses in the grave claims to be 5, and the other claims to be 8 (but I suppose if they’ve been able to talk for as many years as they’ve been buried, maybe they’re even older). As one of the corpses – called Silver Spoon – put it, the worms maybe have eaten Cliffie’s (the other corpse) memory. The way Silver Spoon says it seems to be alluding to this only happening to Cliffie. The age seems to be more connected with the age when they died than the length of time they’ve been thinking. Although at the end of the story even this is questionable. What would they be thinking about? How frogs were believed to be able to consume evil spirits, and how this means they can eat anything? They talk about how they’re dead and what that means to them. Silver Spoon suggests that Cliffie’s parents deserved to die in the fire in which they perished (for no reason whatsoever!) Meanwhile, we’re also entertained by two wacky people whose goal is to demolish the graveyard. One is called Renaldo and is a very likeable character. I felt bad with how he was kind of forced into this situation by his boss, who is such a hilarious character. The story at a certain point turns into Silver Spoon trying to convince Cliffie that Renaldo and his boss aren’t his parents. The interaction between the corpses reminded me of Jim Bored’s adventures in Powr Mastrs 3. The way the characters’ imaginations take shape, which is symbolically realized through each of the books’ creators’ efforts (Noel for Old Ground and CF for Powr Mastrs), are of the same nature. The pacing of it is based off of boredom, so it’s a good excuse for imagination to suddenly take vivid shapes. I mean, there’s also a good amount of differences, like how it’s a dialogue in Old Ground, as opposed to a monologue in Powr Mastrs, or how instead of someone who is still alive but forgetting, it’s two dead people remembering (albeit not with much luck). I guess Jim Bored is also about remembering, but I think what Noel was saying with the comic partly is: dead people are not only forgotten by others – they’re also forgotten by themselves. So their goal of remembering is quite different from what Jim Bored’s goal was (which seemed to be self preservation and survival). If you haven’t read Old Ground it’s probably in your best interest to do so. The ending of the story is an especially good one, with so many great moments leading up to it. The characters are excellent, and the sequences have done more than just simply blow me away; they’ve really astounded me. The lines Noel draws really bend to his mysterious whims. The drawings suggest they’re based off of simplicity, but it’s a trick. When I begin reading the comic I’m lured in and at the same time Noel is bent on driving me through this story, which has these sudden bursts of hyperkinetic movements. When motion is conveyed it’s a real marvel to read. – Sam Ombiri Read more about Old Ground (Koyama Press, 2017) HERE, and get a copy of the comic HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Collected from the thousands of pages of material that Frank has left scattered all over the digital landscape, these 4 PDF collections contain Frank’s best writing on comics and comics making from the past decade. Theory and process, reviews and discoveries, journeys both physical and spiritual. Check out the “Best of Frank Santoro” PDF collections, available HERE! ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 2-14-2018 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

Lale Westvind: Sometimes an overgrown golf course will do

Sally IngrahamJune 9, 2016InterviewsLale Westvind parked her bike outside the Comics Workbook rowhouse in Pittsburgh, PA, on a cool early summer night – and was immediately pulled into conversation with the neighbors. They wanted to know everything about this motorcycle riding, pencil wielding samurai of a cartoonist. Their interest was well founded – her work includes the recent Breakdown Press publication HAX, which has been rocking boats and knocking socks off ever since it’s release at CAB last year, as well as many self-published comics (Hyperspeed to Nowhere, Hot Dog Beach, and Express Less). Her spectacular forays into animation include pieces like Flesh Gun (2010) and the official music video for Lightning Bolt‘s The Metal East (2015). When she’s not making comics or riding her motorcycle or playing the guitar, Lale teaches animation at Parsons. When I met Lale at PIX this year, I knew I wanted to interview her for Comics Workbook. With her busy schedule in mind, I was content to conduct a conversation via email. However, as luck would have it, Lale decided to stop by the CW headquarters on her way to CAKE in Chicago this week. She knocked out 4 pages of a new comic in the course of an evening, explored the amazing library at the rowhouse, and matched Frank story for story until late in the night. A few hours later she got back on her motorcycle and zoomed off to the next adventure. I’m pleased to share our email exchange below, some photos from Lale’s visit, and a peak into the new comic that she is debuting at CAKE this weekend. ————————————————————————————————— Sally Ingraham – Thanks for taking the time to chat with me! I’ve got a few questions that I’ve really wanted to ask ever since finding your work. To start off though, what are you really hyped about right now – planned adventures, current projects, the Philly scene? What’s going on? Lale Westvind – I’m hyped about getting a break, gettin’ away somewhere on my motorcycle for a little bit and the end of a large project I’ve been working on for months. I’m hyped about getting into some comics projects that were started and left unfinished due to more urgent deadlines, about making weird paintings. I’ve been fending off a lot of anxiety and stress for a while and I’ll be very relieved when the pressure’s off a bit. I don’t know the Philly scene much yet, I kind of came down here to hide out and I’ve been cooped up in my house mostly trying to churn out an animation thing, but! Will Laren is down here at Space 1026, as is Mark Beyer who I keep trying to meet up with. I consider him legendary. There’s also Ian Harker and Pat Aulisio. I’ve met Jenna Brager, who lives in my neighborhood, an academic badass who makes excellent personal comics. There is an awesome group called Metropolarity down here that writes and sometimes reads excellent speculative fiction. There is a comic/coffee shop up north I have yet to visit called Amalgam Comics & Coffeehouse that seems really cool. I have to go out more now that it’s warm. I’m looking forward to CAKE in Chicago, when I’ll have a mandatory break from working and can see some of my most cherished friends and peers. Sally – Okay, now for my pressing questions. When you were a teenager, what were you into? What was the dream life? Lale – I wanted to be an environmentalist working in the Siberian tundra or living in a pristine wilderness working to keep it that way. My dream lives involved travel to isolated places and writing. It’s increasingly difficult to get to a space where there are no people – sometimes an overgrown golf course will do though. Canadian environmentalist/writer Farley Mowat, was/is my hero. He had a lot of wild solitary adventures and wrote beautiful compassionate books. Counter to that I fantasized about making my own films and cartoons too, ha. I would love to make work that inspired the kind of compassion and awareness that Mowat inspires. Sally – Your colors are super intense and key to the overall telling of the story. Tell me how you approach making comics directly in color as opposed to making black and white line art first and then coloring it all. Lale – I use colors as an energy conduit, like the line, to direct energy outward from the work. They are the same primary color combinations of advertising, used for the same reasons. I like to create visually exciting imagery. I get the most joy from drawing that. I don’t think I’ve ever made comics directly in color, though I do make notes as I am penciling. If the comic is to remain black and white I’ve usually made that decision before starting the drawings. I’ve done some experiments with cartooning directly in colored pencils that I have not published anywhere. Sally – Are comics and music connected in your head? Is making music with your metal band anything like making comics for you? Lale – No, they’re not. Not at the moment any how. And unfortunately since moving I haven’t been able to play with Gun Tit for a while. If anything the connection is that it’s a total break from comics where I can still be creative. My approach to music is idiotic and unproductive but that’s ok with me, I just love to play guitar. It gives me a lot of joy to pick it up and try to make something up on the spot even if I usually forget it afterward. I keep a guitar by my desk so if I get stuck I play. Perhaps the connection is that I try to create both out of joy, or total desire to create, the difference being that with comics I follow up with the grunt work of parsing it together to be read, (mostly) and with guitar I don’t usually. I think I just do it for myself. Gun Tit is definitely metal influenced, but I think calling it a metal band is a stretch. I’m a little embarrassed to describe it actually – improvisational sludge incantation maybe? Freaky art band? Sally – You went to a LOT of shows last year – just generally speaking how would you like to see shows change for you as an exhibitor? Lale – I have no ideas about changing them. But…I think smaller shows put on by the people who are excited about making comics is a great thing. I like the idea of it being a community building/educational model rather than a capitalist event although it’s definitely both. I get very worn out after awhile being a salesman. I have more fun if I talk to my peers and attend panels, so sometimes a slower show sales-wise is better, long as you’re not counting on it. I think that alternative comics roots in self-publishing is very important as a political act, increasingly so. Even if the work is not political, the way one depicts characters in a story is inherently an expression of personal morals and/or desires. My favorite comics shows are the one which are open and encouraging to all types of people. It should be a place where we exercise our freedom of speech, in an intelligent way conducive to love, change, appreciation, mutual respect, new construction. Having people tabling at different levels in their career, from different backgrounds. Comics, specifically alternative comics, have the potential to be a space for idealistic expression, which is important for generating and encouraging hope and faith in a better future; in solutions to issues facing our society. For that reason I think we should stress accessibility, stress exchange, stress discourse and stress vigilance. In it’s best form I think a convention would stimulate everyone, in different age groups, experience, race, class, to make work that is more aware and more challenging while still encouraging experimentation. I think the more voices in comics, the better. Sally – Thanks so much Lale! Good luck at CAKE and wherever else the road takes you. ————————————————————————————————— Keep up with Lale Westvind HERE – buy her comics HERE Share this page: [...]

Aidan Koch at LICAF

Posted on October 27, 2016May 21, 2019 by Frank Santoro

Aidan Koch discusses a collaborative project during a workshop she led at The Lakes International Comic Art Festival 2016.

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Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in Festivals and ShowsTagged Aidan Koch, licaf 2016

Comics Workbook

Posted on October 27, 2016May 21, 2019

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KRAMERS ERGOT 9 release party at FAMILY

Chris Anthony DiazApril 29, 2016The Diaz ArchiveKRAMERS ERGOT 9 release party at FAMILY bookstore, Los Angeles Thursday, April 14, 2016 Candids by Chris Anthony Diaz and color by Graham Willcox Share this page: [...]

11/20/2017

Caleb OrecchioNovember 19, 2017NewsCaleb Orecchio here with some Marvel comics colored by thee great Françoise Mouly, and other news. ————————————————————————————————— “Years and years and years ago I colored comics for Marvel, and I didn’t feel comfortable in that world at all as a woman. But things have changed; I’m now running into women in their twenties and early thirties who discovered comics as adults.” –Françoise Mouly, from this New Yorker interview Hey there True Believer! Have I got a treat for you. Maybe you knew this already, I think I did but obviously forgot, but thee great Françoise Mouly–perhaps you’ve heard of her–had a stint at Marvel Comics where she colored various titles from 1978 to 1979 (as far as I can tell). I was just minding my own business and perusing through the few issues of Tomb of Dracula I own (gotta love that Gene Colan/TomPalmer combo) when lo and behold, I see the credits for the colorist: Of course we all know Mouly’s work, famously the co-founder of RAW, art editor at The New Yorker, and recently the Resist! anthology with her daughter Nadja Speigelman—plus much more. A true champion of the medium of comics. What a pleasant surprise to find her in the pages of some of my favorite, dumb back-issues. This is half the reason I love old newsprint comics, you never know what combination of creators you will find, and what the results will be. Françoise Mouly colors?! What a treat. I like how she considered tone and value. Something that wasn’t necessarily regarded often within the machine of newsprint boy’s-adventure comics. I assume this was merely a “job” to her on a freelance basis; and the years that she worked being ’78 and ’79, I can’t help but muse that the capital for publishing RAW (first published in 1980) was acquired through Marvel paychecks. Though this may not (probably not) be strictly true, I emit an evil laugh when I consider this. Water into wine. Mwahahaha! After seeing her credited as a colorist in Tomb of Dracula #67, I figured that couldn’t be her only job she did for Marvel. I did some searching and found that I owned several other issues she colored. Most of these were my dad’s and among my favorite comics when he gave me his collection when I was seven. So, for all you Mouly and back-issue fans alike here is a list of her work at Marvel. Comics has such a wacky history–I love it. ————————————————————————————————— if you don’t know, now you know In case you missed it this week, Chris Ware was guest on both Inkstuds AND Charlie Rose in support of his Monograph. Frank Santoro returns to his Riff Raff column over at TCJ to talk CAB 2017. Big news concerning the legendary French show—to me and other cartoonists—Tac Au Tac (basically translates to “Tit for Tat”) will be returning in 2018! Pipeline Comics has some details. See Juan Fernandez’s index of the old show he made for this very site. New Comic Books Are Burning in Hell is up. Sarah Horrocks is the latest guest on Process Party. ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 11-20-2017 – by Gabriella Tito ————————————————————————————————— Share this page: [...]

03/02/2018

Sally IngrahamMarch 1, 2018NewsSally here with comics and wisdom from Shee Phon Lui, Alison Bechdel, Katherine Arnoldi, Julia Wertz, and many more! ————————————————————————————————— Philippe Leblanc’s excellent small press and indie comics roundup for The Comics Beat brought a new comic by Shee Phon Lui to my attention (above). You can see several more pages of the piece HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Alison Bechdel is Vermont’s 3rd cartoonist laureate – congratulations! HERE is an interview with Bechdel and a look at her show at UVM’s Fleming Museum called “Self-Confessed! The Inappropriately Intimate Comics of Alison Bechdel”. The show is up through May 20th 2018. ————————————————————————————————— There’s a great interview with Katherine Arnoldi on Mutha Magazine, about her adventures as a teen mom and her activism and advocacy for teen moms everywhere. Her graphic novel/instruction manual came out in 1998, and was republished in 2015. It continues to find an audience who can identify with the content and draw inspiration from her determination and drive to make a good life for herself and her daughter. Read the interview and see more scans of the comic HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Hilary Brown reviews Swedish cartoonist Anneli Furmark‘s Red Winter on Paste Magazine, calling it “just about the most Swedish book ever“. The comic “focuses on the affair between a married woman with three children (Siv) and a younger man (Ulrik).” Although the story isn’t spicy enough for Brown, she likes the artwork and the chapters told from the perspective of the children. “These are the chapters that breathe, as Marita takes advantage of her time alone in the house to snoop through cupboards and her brother’s comic books and Peter rides around with his friends drinking beer. These chapters have the feeling of real adolescence, when you’re pushing a little to see how much you can rebel, and they contrast with the slow bits of the actual revolutionaries, who worry that Ulrik’s relationship with Siv could be turned against them. There are, as you might expect, plenty of nice sweaters, and it’s always snowing. Furmark’s colors lie loosely on top of her pen lines, which have a good bit of wiggle to them, suggesting a lack of sunlight. When hints of red flood the sky, it feels like life and renewal are on the way, in contrast to the darkness of most scenes. Maybe that’s a political metaphor? Or maybe it’s just beautiful.” Read the whole review HERE. Rachel Davies also reviews Red Winter, over on The Comics Journal. ————————————————————————————————— Recently on The New Yorker‘s Daily Shouts feature: Julia Wertz‘s Conversations with Ma: Cheez Wiz and Tree-Climbing (pictured above); Leslie Stein‘s Yelp for Babies; and Barbara Smaller‘s Course of Empire: Part 2. Although the “New Yorker cartoon” holds an iconic place, I really appreciate that The New Yorker now makes space for full comic strips with this feature. And that it is full of comics by women! ————————————————————————————————— Chocolate and Crackers Aline Lemos makes a lot of comics, which you can find on her Tumblr (HERE). One of her ongoing projects is about female Brazilian artists, and she recently posted the newest in this series (#35) which is about Lídia Baís. See it HERE. Rob Clough reviews Hannah K. Lee‘s Language Barrier (Koyama Press, 2017) – read about it HERE. Katie Skelly wraps up a week of A Cartoonist’s Diary on The Comics Journal – HERE. Here’s your reminder to read all of Nnedi Okorafor‘s books – and more specifically, the issues of Black Panther: Long Live the King that she wrote recently (#1, #2, #5, and #6 which features Ngozi, a character from Okorafor’s novel Venomverse: War Stories!) Cory Doctorow highlights Jen Wang‘s The Prince and the Dressmaker for BoingBoing – read the review HERE. ————————————————————————————————— It’s the last day to get in on the blind auction for a copy of Fantastic Four #52 (pictured above) that Frank is running. Proceeds from the auction will go towards purchasing a season-long farm box for the full time Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residents – so it’s a good cause, and a terrific comic (first appearance of Black Panther!) Plus the story behind the comic, and why Frank has it is pretty cool – full details on the auction are HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 3-02-2018 – by Caleb Orecchio ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 3-2-2018 – by Sally Ingraham Share this page: [...]

02/29/2016

Juan FernándezFebruary 29, 2016NewsAvast, a new Kramer’s Ergot is right around the corner! Editor, Sammy Harkham has shown off a peak at the glorious comics interiors of this anthology. It’s going to be bursting at the seams with color, clocking in at 298 pages, 12 spot colors with CMYK. Fantagraphics is doing the heavy financial lifting on this one. They’ll be selling and distributing it a little later in May. More details on that to come. Have a look for yourself at the preview Sammy has put together. Don’t want to spoil it for you over here. This thing’s going to be a beast. Laura Knetzger has been making comics every month about games she plays. A week ago ZEAL published her 4th game reflection, Laura K plays 4: Threads of Fate/Anger and today she’s written a little more about Threads of Fate over on her blog. I encourage you to check out the comic and then read more of Laura’s thoughts. Laura reflects on video games in a really satisfying way… Replaying the story really knocked me on my ass too. I remembered the basics of what happened, but I was really moved by how quietly emotional it is. A lot of characters are living dolls created by sorcerers, and since the sorcerers have long since died, they’re struggling to find meaning in their lives. The emotional aspect of the story comes out when you play as the boy, and the humor comes out when you play as the girl. I guess I like that instead of being a demure healing-magic type of RPG girl, she’s a super snotty spoiled princess who solves a lot of her problems by kicking people in the face. This past weekend the Society of Illustrators hosted the second of the Stories Matters talks. This time around, Richie Pope hosted a roundtable with illustrators and comics makers Odera Igbokwe, Cathy G Johnson, John Lee, Ronald Wimberly, Shannon Wright, Yao Xiao, Alexandra Zsigmond. They discussed mentoring through interactions, the creation of safe spaces in schools, Angouleme, and the many played out diversity narratives, among other things. The audio is not online yet, but it will be posted soon. For the moment, you can look at the Mixlr chat history to look at the questions, comments and shout outs that were being sent in live during the panel. If you haven’t yet listened to the panel SoI hosted in the fall on the cultural significance of the popular image, you can do so over at SoI’s soundcloud. Let Bill Kartolopolous show you around the ground-breaking catalogues of 5 contemporary comics publishers from around the world: nos:books, la Editorial Común, Éditions Matière, kuš! komiksi, Boomkniga Press. If you’re looking to get your nose into some new books with totally new perspectives on the world on the comics form. Look no further. Kartolopolous gives you the perfect jumping off point over on World Literature Today to do further research. Money, money, money: Everybody needs it!! I want to point you in the way of some fine folks who have work for you, should you choose to be a patron of the arts. Today is the LAST DAY to get Cathy Johnson‘s February print from her 2016 print subscription. This year Johnson has been pushing her screen printing work by making 12 prints in 12 months. Patreon subscribers will get a brand new screen print every month in the mail. This subscription is on a rolling basis! Subscribe early to get the complete 2016 collection!! You’ll also get first look at my behind-the-scenes diary while I draw my upcoming graphic novel, No Dogs Allowed. I’ve cut a monthly deal with the amazing Dirt Palace, a 15+ year old feminist art space here in Providence: http://www.dirtpalace.org. I’ll be screen printing at this amazing place all year! A big goal for this Patreon is to help afford renting print space at the Dirt Palace. Let’s talk Vanesa Del Rey. She is taking commissions for the days leading up to C2E2 on March 18-20. Del Rey’s got what you need if you’re looking for lush, sensual original art that drips with drama. Don’t sleep on her commissions. OG Ron Rege Jr. is taking custom commisions and offering you the possibility being a recurring patron through paypal. Should you choose this noble path, you can be on the inside curve of the machinations of this modern master. What else could you want? Check it out. I’m going to be making a bunch of small minicomics in the coming months. For a $10 monthly donation, I’ll make sure that you get all of them, and some other fan-club style goodies as well. I’ll also make you an original drawing in time for the holidays this year. My true dream & idea for all of this is to get 100 people to sign up for $10 a month. That way, I could do an unadvertised subscription. Members would get sent secret comics that I never mention online. That would be cool, right? hm…. Help me continue to make as much new work as I can. I’ve been at it for 25 years, and am really starting to feel my stride. The drawings seem to just make themselves. I have endless ideas. That part is all really easy. It feels almost dumb for me to be doing anything else at this point. I try to draw all day every day & not worry about it, but I need to eat like anyone. I quit my day job in ’03. There’s always ups & downs, but I live pretty strictly hand to mouth. No assets / No savings / No credit. $$$, spread it if you got it. ’til next time jf Share this page: [...]

10/30/2018

Aaron CockleOctober 29, 2018NewsKatie Fricas, Kim Jooha/Conor Stechschulte, ‘Endless Enigma’, AI Halloween ————————————————————————————————— Via Whit Taylor at Pen America: I selected cartoonist Katie Fricas to create an original comic for Illustrated PEN because of her unique approach to the medium. Fricas’s autobiographical work regularly addresses the complexities of gender, sexuality, culture, and agency with a smart, quirky, and often humorous storytelling style. ————————————————————————————————— Comics Reading as Voyeurism and the Illusion of Continuity and Narrative: Kim Jooha on CHRISTMAS IN PRISON by Conor Stechschulte Comics consist of discrete units (panels), and we assume that these separate units (panels) are related to each other. We suppose that the similar image that appears in the later or previous panel refers to the same object. This is the principle of comics reading as the dialectic of repetition and difference as Thierry Groensteen argued in The System of Comics (1999). The reader creates a continuous story out of the discrete units. Christmas in Prison, with its aforementioned self-reflexive instruments, questions this principal assumption of comics. Our habit of finding sameness among different images as a comics reader deludes us to look for the sameness that does not exist, just as the book at the end of Christmas in Prison is not Christmas in Prison. It is an illusion. ————————————————————————————————— Endless Enigma: Eight Centuries of Fantastic Art This show closed this past weekend, but there’s a good deal of info about it online. It’s based on this MoMA show from 1936. The exhibition will provide a unique opportunity to examine affinities in intention and imagery between works executed across a broad span of time. Organized into six themes—Monsters & Demons, Dreams & Temptation, Fragmented Body, Unconscious Gesture, Super Nature, and Sense of Place—Endless Enigma will explore the ways in which artists have sought to explain their world in terms of an alternate reality, drawn from imagination, the subconscious, poetry, nature, myth, and religion. Works on view range from gothic gargoyles; masterworks from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries by a contemporary follower of Hieronymus Bosch, Piero di Cosimo, and Titian; seventeenth- century paintings by Jan Brueghel the Younger and Salvator Rosa; eighteenth-century works on paper by Francisco de Goya and Giovanni Battista Piranesi; nineteenth-century works by William Blake, James Ensor, Gustave Moreau, and Odilon Redon; and works from the twentieth century to the present day by Eileen Agar, Francis Alÿs, Michaël Borremans, Louise Bourgeois, Giorgio de Chirico, Joseph Cornell, Salvador Dalí, Marcel Dzama, Max Ernst, Leonor Fini, Alberto Giacometti, Robert Gober, Alfred Kubin, Sherrie Levine, René Magritte, Kerry James Marshall, Roberto Matta, Francis Picabia, Pablo Picasso, Sigmar Polke, Man Ray, Kay Sage, Yves Tanguy, and Lisa Yuskavage, among other artists. ————————————————————————————————— ‘Happy Halloween’ To create them, he used what’s called a generative adversarial network (GAN) to recognize patterns in data such as Halloween masks – Reed fed his computer thousands. The AI then tried to create its own that would fit the pattern, supposedly getting better over time. “What’s so scary or unsettling about it is that it’s not so detailed that it shows you everything,” Reed told New Scientist. “It leaves just enough open for your imagination to connect the dots.” ————————————————————————————————— Share this page: [...]

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