Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in Festivals and ShowsTagged Angoulême

Juan Fernández

Posted on February 6, 2017May 21, 2019

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9/26/2016

Juan FernándezSeptember 26, 2016NewsMorning! Juan here with your daily comics fix. Here’s what we’ve got for you today: Glimpses of SPX 2016; Pittsburgh’s burden of identity; Remembering Annie Pootoogook; the Cartoonists of Color Database; Connor Willumsen travel fund; other monday tidbits. ————————————————————————————————— SPX – Glimpses of Comics Workbook Workshops on Instagram Frank Santoro‘s cooked up some instagram stories while working on documentation of Comics Workbook’s many workshops during SPX 2016. If you weren’t able to make it to one of our workshops at SPX, rest assured we have some polished highlights in the pipeline. Lots of golden nuggets of cartooning wisdom in there… We can’t wait to share them with you here! ————————————————————————————————— The Burden of Identity: Pittsburgh Today Matthew Newton of the Carnegie Museum of Art has got a great piece on life in Pittsburgh and the truth and fiction that it grapples with collectively regarding its identity as an american city in Appalachia. Highly recommended. Today, Pittsburgh is very much a city trapped between two worlds: the black-skies legacy of the past, when steel-mill smokestacks turned day into night, and the brighter (albeit pretentious) present-day reality as the “Portland of the East.” The latter notion represents a dramatic shift in identity, of course, and one that is still in the early stages of germination. But as word spreads that Pittsburgh—once dubbed the “Paris of Appalachia” by writer Brian O’Neill—is stocked with affordable housing, good schools, and kind people, curious outsiders from cities like New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Portland will continue arriving to stake out their claims. Yet outside the city, remnants of the past are everywhere you look. Pittsburgh’s surrounding mill towns, places that once epitomized the blue-collar pedigree of American labor, now languish in near-obsolescence from the forty years since steel manufacturing slowed to a trickle in Western Pennsylvania. In the Monongahela River Valley, where tightly packed mill houses cling to steep hillsides, the muddy banks of The Mon are still dotted with reminders of the steel industry—rusted blast furnaces gone cold, hot metal bridges that lead to nowhere, brownfields poisoned by PCBs and sulfate. It’s not at all surprising then that Scott Cooper was attracted to the tragic beauty of Braddock as the setting for Out of the Furnace or that John Hillcoat imagined Western Pennsylvania’s postindustrial valley as the postapocalyptic wasteland of The Road. What is surprising, however, is that for the people in these towns who have struggled for so long—not only with poverty and joblessness, but also against violence and addiction—the social and economic reality has remained virtually unchanged for decades. And for the mill towns that exist at a remove from Pittsburgh’s current renaissance, the future doesn’t look much different. ————————————————————————————————— Remembering the world of Annie Pootoogook On a tragic note, the great Annie Pootoogook passed away last week. The National Post reports in full. Over at the Globe and Mail there’s a great collection of chalk-and-ink drawings depicting facets of Inuit life by Inuit artist Annie Pootoogook, winner of the Sobey Award in 2006. Take a glimpse and celebrate her life in images. For some extensive writing on the life and work of Pootoogook, hop on over to Barnard College’s “gender on ice” online gallery. ————————————————————————————————— Comics Workbook – the October Happenings: CXC + LICAF All of you in the UK, may we have your attention!! Comics Workbook is coming to The Lakes International Comic Art Festival! October 14-16th 2016! Join Frank Santoro, Aidan Koch, and Connor Willumsen for some cool workshops and visit table 67 in the Comics Clocktower to meet Oliver East and Jack Brougham among others! We will be hosting 3 special workshops, “Visual Poetry” with Aidan Koch, “The Hammer Party” with Connor Willumsen and “Composition Competition” with Frank Santoro. Tickets for the main events at this year’s Lakes International Comic Art Festival are on sale now. Check out the show or Visit our event page for more information! If you’re stateside, you should know that Comics Workbook is coming to Cartoon Crossroads Columbus! October 13-16th 2016. We will be hosting workshops and tabling – more details coming soon. Join all of us here at Comics Workbook, along with cartoonists, Alyssa Berg and Kurt Ankeny, for an immersive weekend of comics creation. 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 – come join us for an hour or four and take your comics making to a new level. More information on our CXC exploits to come soon! Check out the show! /// Visit our event page! ————————————————————————————————— Cartoonists of Color Database We’ve linked to it before, but if you haven’t yet explored it, here’s a good overview of it, as an interview of MariNaomi by Mike Steyel’s over on VICE’s Creators Project! If you want to help to nurture the continued change of comics making culture in the states and abroad, this database is an indispensible resource. Is there a general lack of access for these artists? That’s a complicated question! It depends, but I’d have to say that overall, the answer is yes. Marginalized people have a long history of being told their voices are irrelevant, of being encouraged to tell stories from a more white-washed perspective. It’s exciting to see that changing, and I hope the change isn’t temporary. I personally am curious to read as many perspectives as possible, to broaden my horizons as a reader and as a human. So you hear the question, “What people of color cartoonists?” a lot? I’ve heard this so much over the years that’s it’s just rote. “There aren’t any black people in comics.” “You have to write for men, because women don’t read comics.” The people who say that shit aren’t doing their homework. Apparently we’re doing their homework for them. ————————————————————————————————— Help send Connor Willumsen to the UK for The Lakes International Comic Arts Festival in October! He will be teaching workshops with Frank Santoro and Aidan Koch while there – if you’re in the area check it out. To help him get to the show, Comics Workbook is offering two new Connor publications. Portraits and Swinespritzen – both limited editions, both incredible. Details about both and where to order them can be found HERE. ————————————————————————————————— until next time, friends. Juan Share this page: [...]

02/22/2016

Juan FernándezFebruary 22, 2016NewsLet’s start off right with a look at Ron Wimberley’s latest offerings! He’s published his 12 powerful illustrations of black luminaries. He did 12 last year in February. He did 12 this year. You can see the full set in detail over here. For snippets of the inking process, hop on over to Ron’s Instagram. He’s also got the whole behind the scenes action over at his Patreon. Very much worth checking out if you’ve been looking to step up your inking game. I dropped three a week. Here are most of them. Original inks and zip are for sale, $350 a piece. DM me with inquiries (All but Zadie Smith are available as of this posting) – Ron Ever been to Prague? Yeah, me neither! But with Sophia Foster-Dimino‘s most recent travel diary I now know a good deal of what I should check out should I ever have the good fortune to go. Art, history and day drinking with KJ Martinet. She’s shared her pages via twitter as she completed them and it seems some were made while abroad and others upon returning. I love Sophia’s way of plugging in completed comics sequences, illustrations and doodles and filling the text around them. Really refreshing and inspiring assemblage process. One for the utility belt, kids. For now, take a peek on her travels! I’m in Prague for a week with @kjmartinet, gonna try to document it as much as possible, travel tips appreciated ✨ pic.twitter.com/MRXJR5AvFn — Sophia Foster-Dimino (@hellophia) February 10, 2016 Thursday part one! pic.twitter.com/icN0wYZdxl — Sophia Foster-Dimino (@hellophia) February 12, 2016 Thursday part two ✌ pic.twitter.com/0iXycZ00TW — Sophia Foster-Dimino (@hellophia) February 13, 2016 Saturday part two and Sunday part one ? pic.twitter.com/wDjSSbqcri — Sophia Foster-Dimino (@hellophia) February 16, 2016 aaand Tuesday part two and then we went home and now I’m home. ? pic.twitter.com/Ue5eD63lFh — Sophia Foster-Dimino (@hellophia) February 21, 2016 Isabel Ryan‘s got some floaty, dreamy, goofy cartooning going on over at Rookie Mag in her comic Magic 8 Ball. Should you go over and read Isabel’s latest *shake shake shake* Definitely . Zainab Akhtar‘s been thinking about Jane Mai‘s See You Next Tuesday. It’s time you did too. She’s got a really interesting review of this whirlwind of comics by Mai. Really puts Mai’s work in context for greater appreciation. Big ups to Koyama Press for making this showcase of Mai’s skills possible. While the relative ‘democracy’ of the internet has allowed people to bypass instituionalised gatekeeping to some degree, the transition of culture from ‘in real life’ to online remains the same (if not worse in that it facilitates rampant, unchecked abuse). Mai is one of many contemporary artists who have built followings after publishing work online, a feat that often requires a specific level of engagement and giving of oneself in order for it to be successful. The nature of that interaction can feel more direct and personal to the audience, fostering (with regard to female creatives, especially) entitlement and attempted ownership. There’s a sense of people playing a part in your persona, a ‘we made you’ mentality; a collective Frankenstein-ing. – Zainab Blaise Larmee joined Robin over at Inkstuds to talk about some of the new work he has been involved with from 2d Cloud. Most recently, Blaise edited the Mirror Mirror anthology which is part of 2d Cloud’s current Kickstarter efforts. Most awkward inkstuds ever. Highly recommended. [soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/248252491″ params=”color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false” width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /] Print wizards Justine and Jordan Hurder over at Chance Press have announced a gorgeous new Kim Deitch print for ya. Really cool story behing this one: There’s another unique thing about this print: it’s not based on original artwork. Usually with fine art printing, the goal is to reproduce an original piece of work as faithfully as possible. Here, the original black and white artwork was sold long ago, the color was done in Photoshop, and the only scan was on a disc that didn’t work anymore. In fact, the only surviving record of the artwork was a yellowing page from an early-90s issue of the LA Weekly. After an extensive color correction process, I was able to restore it and include it in the 2014 publication of ‘A Deitch Miscellany.’ For this print, I tweaked some more color, made the blacks a little deeper and more consistent, pulled out some of the oversaturation, and came up with something I’m really happy with. It definitely doesn’t look like a normal print made from a modern high-res scan, but that’s part of the charm. Preorder a copy now over at Chance Press. Last but not least, Paper Jam 5 took place this past weekend. Seemed like it was a buzzing hive of color and camraderie in NYC. A party for sharing that deep, deep zine love. Photos are trickling in from attendees and exhibitors. You’re going to want to follow the paperjam tumblr to stay abreast with photos, interviews and the like that happened during the happening. More news to come! Juan Fernandez, over and out. Share this page: [...]

08/02/2017

Juan FernándezAugust 2, 2017los Cómics / NewsEmpezamos el día con Power Paola y autobiografía ficticia; Sarah Glidden y el Arte de la Guerra; La Polola; Juan Mediavilla; Caminos da HQ; Enrique’s Shadow; y los tebeos de Cómics Workbook! ————————————————————————————————— POWERPAOLA- Dibujos nómadas y autobiografía ficticia Abril Castillo Cabrera les ofrece sus reflecciones sobre la relación entre la ficción y la no-ficción que bailan juntas en el mundo de autobiografía: Powerpaola escribe autobiografías (“no-ficción”) y confiesa su dificultad para escribir historias que no sean las suyas (“ficción”). Con todo, ha tomado la decisión de hablar de su vida y ponerla en orden para narrarla en forma de novela gráfica. Ese ejercicio provee de un distanciamiento que parecería volverla ajena a ella misma. Pasa lo mismo cuando uno se acuesta en un diván por primera vez y ante el silencio del psicoanalista comienza a tejer un relato; se trata de poner en orden situaciones, personajes y sentimientos que vuelan como luciérnagas desamparadas que metemos en un frasco. Algunas brillan y otras no. Algunas mueren y otras sobreviven. Así son los recuerdos que tenemos, esa materia de la que nos hacemos y recreamos. Algunas partes de nuestra infancia llegan a nuestra vida adulta y otras son liberadas para siempre. Unas de pronto regresan y bien nos reconfortan o nos destruyen. Pero todas nos conforman: las personas con las que estuvimos y con las que estamos, las pérdidas y los nuevos encuentros, los lugares tangibles y los imaginarios, lo que leemos y lo que escribimos. Su trabajo inicialmente plantado desde la no-ficción pronto se vio zurcido con las imágenes de su madre antes de que ella naciera o al dibujar un escenario que Paola nunca habitó; todo eso es imaginación que construye una descripción objetiva de un recuerdo que no tiene. En su primer libro, Virus tropical, recreó la génesis de su propia vida y seleccionó a los personajes y los lugares. Quizá en el camino contestó varios porqués sobre sí misma, pero esta podría ser sólo una de las mil razones por las que en general un artista se vuelca a hacer algo. El resultado no es ninguna verdad, sino una atmósfera a la que podemos acceder, un relato con un principio y un cierre, una reelaboración de su vida y un puente que tiende con la vida de los demás que la leemos. Léanlo AQUI – Read it all HERE. ————————————————————————————————— El Arte de la Guerra Sarah Glidden tiene un nuevo comic este fin de semana en El País Semanal sobre arte y violencia. Nos ofrece reflexiónes sobre Goya, Picasso y el papel del arte en nuestra cultura. (ed. Brush up on your spanish if you need to because this is a GREAT read.) ————————————————————————————————— Los cómics y las noticias que me han llamado la atención esta semana: Sol Díaz Castillo y Marcela Trujillo tienen una nueva edicion de La Polola Podcast! Las chicas conversan acerca de la sanacion, de ayudarse a si mismas, de poner atención a sus problemas y a solucionar sus dolencias de maneras diversas. También les presentan a su practicante Sol Bravo (@sunmorales)! Una joyita de El Víbora de Juan Mediavilla, que sólo se publicó en un número de El Víbora, sacado de en línea. Instituto Itaú Cultural de São Paulo published two videos recorded at its Caminos da HQ in 2016. One on female protagonism in comics, with statements by cartoonists Ana Recalde, Cris Eiko, Carol Rossetti and Germana Viana. Another on independent comics production in the Brazilian comic book market. Enrique’s Shadow is now online – comic about one of the 90,000+ people who have disappeared during the conflict in Colombia this is Enrique’s story told by his sister Jacinta. Commissioned by the International Committee of the Red Cross to Positive Negatives and drawn by Lindsay Pollock. ———————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 8-2-17 – by Gabriella Tito ———————————————————————————————— 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: [...]

05/26/2016

HarrisonMay 26, 2016News Daily News for Thursday with books, phones, panels, and Mos. Euro Books Find some rare books. https://sobooks.jp/ http://so-books.tumblr.com/ Panel Exercise Check out your favorite comics news correspondent’s new work right here. Understanding Any words of wisdom for our readers? Words of wisdom, I’d just say: – Understand who you are. – Understand what you want to express. – Understand how you want to express it and be understood. – Express the truest form of yourself as a person however you want – without disrupting anyone from doing so themselves. Read The Hundreds interview with @ggariba. City Chronicles :: Inside the Mind of Visual Artist Gyimah Gariba Ummmm……. Memories http://pre-convergence-morgue.tumblr.com/ Mos Definite “They all talk fast but they all think slow” Share this page: [...]

Angoulême International Comics Festival Report 2017 (Part 1)

Posted on February 6, 2017May 21, 2019 by Juan Jose Fernandez

This is the first of a 3 part series on the Comics Workbook Experience at the 44th Angoulême International Comics Festival.

Before we get into all dissecting and reflecting on this latest edition of the heavy weight championship of comics expos, Angoulême, let’s go for a stroll, take it easy and soak it all in. What do you say?

Intentionally presented free of commentary, this series of photos invites you to take a look and see what tickles your eye. In depth reflections on this edition of the annual festival appears in the next next installment of this Comics Workbook Festival News series.

See something you like? Write down some book names and follow that curiousity! You’re sure to find more with an online search. In the next installment I’ll unpack some of these photos and with some links to outposts and hubs online to explore the perspectives that were present at this spectacular Festival.
-JF

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One thought on “Angoulême International Comics Festival Report 2017 (Part 1)”

Brad Brooks says:

February 7, 2017 at 7:29 am

Thank you so much for posting these photos. It’s been a while since I was in Angoulême, but this has brought back so many fabulous memories, as well as a fascinating glimpse into how the festival and the CIBDI are faring now. Next year for sure!

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Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in Festivals and ShowsTagged Angoulême

Juan Fernández

Posted on February 6, 2017May 21, 2019

Explore

Rowhouse Residency Report – Ian Densford

Comics WorkbookJuly 1, 2018Residency Reports / School UpdatesIan Densford is a cartoonist based in New York state. He joined us in Pittsburgh for a weeklong Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency in July of 2017. Here are his thoughts about visiting the city and his Rowhouse Residency experience. ———————————————————————————————— Ian Densford here: The Rowhouse Residency is great opportunity to get away from the all your distractions and focus on your work. You will be exposed to excellent comics, find interesting reading material on subjects like sacred geometry and interviews with cartoonists, and you will hold interesting conversations with both Frank & Sally, as they are both passionate, intelligent, and creative. You will learn new skills, discover new influences, and talk about comics history in contrast to today’s sphere. In the summer of 2017, from August 23-26, I briefly held a room at the Rowhouse Residency in Pittsburgh, PA. I drove seven hours from the NYC area, and it was a hot week! I shared the house with fellow Comics Workbook Correspondence alum Andrew White, and we spent our time drawing, talking with Frank & Sally, and diving into books from Frank’s unique collection. I came to the residency with a halfway-finished project called Trench Dogs, a collection of first hand accounts from soldiers in World War One. It was something that had originally been created for the Comics Workbook tumblr around 2015, a simple 16 page mini that was now becoming a 180 page book, so it felt like completing the circle to me. During my time there, I inked about 16 pages of naval warfare, big steel hulks exploding and sinking, full of sailors. It was some pretty dark stuff. I can still vividly recall being hunched over a lamplit desk, on one of those hot nights with the fan on, inking the creepy submarine interiors from a reference image. I loved it. Pittsburgh is a strange land, the steep tree covered hills and countless stairs amongst the winding rivers and old buildings. The Residency is a two story rowhouse on a small street by the train tracks. Since I had a large project to focus on, I mostly chose to lock myself in, though the Residency is essentially tailored to your wishes, including exercises and lessons if you want. But the city has alot of great exploring to offer. Sally and Frank also provided occasional outings in the city, such as a visit to Copacetic Comics, or the pool if its hot; and while I was there the library held a special talk with Jim Rugg and Ed Piskor that we attended. During these excursions, the conversations we had were in depth and revealing, everyone had so much experience and knowledge, and those were some of my favorite moments. Frank is indeed a wealth of knowledge, and understands a great deal about the craft and its history up until now. Ask him about numerology, its great. I really connected with Sally too, we had a lot of similar interests and inspiration, and I really appreciated having her voice and insight alongside Frank during my final critique. During that final critique, as we discussed all kinds of things, Frank suggested I share certain details about my creative process. Here is my attempt to do so: I was going for a handmade look, so I inked with a single 1 size brush, and the pages are close to 1:1 ratio with the final print size. I prefer to work on pages together as a two page spread on a single sheet. Trench Dogs was drawn on 11 x 17 watercolor paper, using Frank’s layout template to make sure every page had good balance and movement throughout the spread. I copy each panel from my sketches, but I do not trace. I find tracing makes things very stiff and lifeless, I prefer artists that have some movement and excitement in their line work, so I aspire towards that. I like to keep the pencil drawing very loose, with few details, blocking in the space and characters with simple boxes and circles mostly, very basic “puppet-like” figures, making sure everything has enough room to breathe. Frank thought this aspect was important to mention: I save the actual “drawing” for the inking part of the process, I enjoy the spontaneity and mark making. Its ok to be messy, its fun, plus I like being able to see the artists hand in the work. I used watercolors to paint everything, I love how quick and messy they are, the soft colors and texture. With everything colored in the appropriate solid, I would go back and do two layers of shadows. One layer was dark blue and applied everywhere, the second was dark purple and only applied to the foreground. This helped pull my foreground elements towards the front, because they were darker with a second shadow color, plus the warmer tones of the purple come forward while the cooler ones get pushed back. I was also conscious of my overall color key, and tried to make each section have different tones, so there is a progression of color through the story. After scanning a page, I would add a layer of white highlights in photoshop here and there, which helped the foreground stand out even more, and would focus the eye on certain important details. I also did my sound effects on the same overlaying white layer, which was a nice pop, as it was the only true white on the page. Drawing from reference was great, and almost every panel had at least one ref picture to go along with it. Deciding how to turn everything “toonsy” was a fun challenge, to simplify and reduce to lumpy shapes. I like how drawings by John Pham or Ben Sears look like simple little clay sculptures, with nice curves, and characters like Andrea Falkas, and the carefree linework of Gipi. I chose animal people as a nod to Art Spiegelman, but reaching back to Richard Scarry’s Busy Town and PD Eastman’s Go Dog Go, with strong influences from Herge’s TinTin and Miyazaki’s Dream Diary Hobby Magazine war comics. Animal type was a fun way to distinguish the different armies, but you also feel a different kind of pity for these animal people, I think. That is all I have for this report. I had a blast, got a lot of drawing accomplished, expanded my knowledge and influences, and learned more than I expected. This has been Ian Densford, signing off. ———————————————————————————————— Trench Dogs by Ian Densford will debut at NY Comic Con 2018 – find it at the Dead Reckoning table and in stores after Sept. 15th 2018. 184 pages, color, $18.95 – you can preorder it from Dead Reckoning HERE (use Discount Code FALL18 to get 25% off!) ———————————————————————————————— Ian Densford is a cartoonist living in New York state with his wife, Tae, and their son, Anderson. When not animating on the computer, or drawing in his sketchbook, you can find him frolicking in the nearby forest and rocky hillsides. ———————————————————————————————— For more information about the Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency visit this page or email santoroschoolATgmail Share this page: [...]

02/10/2017

Sally IngrahamFebruary 9, 2017NewsSally here to finish the week with you – I’ve got work by Emil Ferris, Theora Kvitka, Valentine Gallardo, Iris Yan, and Lou Rogers to share, plus comics scholarship with Rebecca Wanzo and the debut of The Ladybroad Ledger – and much more! ————————————————————————————————— Emil Ferris‘s long-anticipated debut graphic novel is finally here. My Favorite Thing Is Monsters was a decade in the making, and then it quite literally got lost at sea last fall when “the entire 10,000-copy print run of the book was stuck on a cargo ship seized at the Panama Canal after the freight company, Hanjin, filed bankruptcy.” The A.V. Club reports: “The scope of Ferris’ story is huge as it juggles a murder mystery, family drama, psychological thriller, and love letter to classic pulp monsters while taking readers from Chicago to Nazi Germany, and the narrative is constantly surprising and hugely fulfilling.“ They have a 11-page preview of the book – check it out HERE. It will be officially released on February 15th (although Copacetic Comics already has copies!) I look forward to seeing this in person – the “intensely hatched linework” is not always my cup of tea, but the story sounds compelling and Emil Ferris is a very interesting person. In an exclusive for Chicago Magazine, Emil has shared more of her story. “Growing up in Uptown in the 1960s, Ferris was part of a diverse community of people who she says “operated outside the system.” Her neighbors included black migrants who traveled north during the Great Migration, white Appalachian miners living in abject poverty, and thousands of Native Americans who left their reservations in the wake of relocation programs. “There was an incredible beauty,” says Ferris. “These were people who suffered, but were strong. They were survivors.” “ Emil was a survivor as well – born with scoliosis she was immobile for much of her childhood. This led to a vision of herself as a wolf-girl and a fascination with monsters – both of which influenced the creation of her new book. The piece on Chicago Magazine includes a comic by Emil that details the “stranger-than-fiction saga” which led to My Favorite Thing Is Monsters. The first part is below – read the rest HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Meet Rebecca Wanzo, a comics scholar, associate professor of women, gender and sexuality studies in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, and associate director of the Center for the Humanities. She is also a founding board member of the Comics Studies Society (CSS), “the first professional organization for comics researchers in the United States.” Wow. Total badass. The Source, a publication of the Washington University in St. Louis recently sat down with Rebecca to talk about comics and education and scholarship. Her current book project – The Content of Our Caricature – brings up an interesting discussion about how African-Americans fit into a medium that has a deep history of caricature and excess. “Think about Charlie Brown, the way he’s drawn. The body is a sign. Comics depend on this language of exaggeration and excess. But it’s really easy for representations of black people to slip into racist caricature. How do you get away from caricature in a medium built upon it? But what’s more interesting to me is when black comic artists intentionally use caricature, and to what ends. Sam Milai, the great Pittsburgh Courier editorial cartoonist, whose archives are in the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum (where Wanzo is a board member) had a gorgeous, realist phenotype for black people he thought were doing good things, but sometimes used racist caricature for people he was criticizing. You see this consistently in black cartooning.“ They also get into the impetus behind forming the Comics Studies Society and what works Rebecca especially likes to teach. “I enjoy teaching excerpts from “Winmen’s Comix,” especially the early issues, which are really transgressive. Students assume representation gets more progressive over time, but that’s not necessarily true. For feminists, the 1970s were pretty radical!“ The rest of the interview is also interesting – check it out HERE. I’m very excited to see the debut issue of Inks, the CSS Journal coming out later this year, and will definitely be tracking down more of Rebecca Wanzo’s writing. ————————————————————————————————— In the tradition of Wimmen’s Comix and Strumpet and other collections of comics featuring women only comes The Ladybroad Ledger. It is a newsprint compilation that features 10 female-identifying artists and plenty of diverse subject matter. It is making it’s way into stores and libraries all across the state of Vermont. It was created by Stephanie Zuppo, a cartoonist based in Winooski, VT. There is a nice write-up about the first issue of The Ladybroad Ledger over on Seven Days. “These days, gender disparity in comics is declining, according to Zuppo… “It’s becoming more balanced, especially in alternative and indie comics,” she says. “Now, a lot of the major publishers are taking notice and hiring more women.” That doesn’t mean female cartoonists should kick back and declare victory any time soon, adds Zuppo. “I still think featuring women in comics is an important thing, and it should be done more often,” she asserts.“ Read the rest of the article HERE. Stephanie plans to release her publication twice a year. Check out more of her personal work HERE – and keep up with The Ladybroad Ledger HERE! ————————————————————————————————— Theora Kvitka is a Pittsburgh-based cartoonist who publishes the webcomic Urbanity Planet (above). It updates every Monday. Her work was featured in a roundup on The Guardian of comics throughout history that have looked at gentrification, from 1921 to 2016 – HERE. ————————————————————————————————— The Comics Beat featured the work of Valentine Gallardo as part of their A Year of Free Comics feature. You can read about Valentine’s Spellwich HERE – and you can read the whole comic on Vice – HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Check out the work of Iris Yan (above). She is a Brazilian-born Chinese cartoonist who has been publishing the webcomic Pigs in Maputo since 2010 – read more of it HERE. These comics appear almost daily – she also has longer form work which you can see HERE. ————————————————————————————————— I – Sally Ingraham – started a Patreon to help support my comics-related endeavors! I am focusing on developing a comics curriculum for girls, building a library of women’s comics, and researching and documenting women in the comics industry. The teaching part is especially rewarding and where I really am looking for help when it comes to the Patreon. I am working on putting more classes together and establishing a “comics tutoring” clientele, but as that grows I need some help making ends meet. Consider sending me $1 or $5 or $10 a month while I build this network and create a curriculum that has the potential to really change these young girls’ lives. I’m just trying to get more ladies to make and read comics – and once they’re on board for that, to makes spaces for their work to be seen and for them to be heard! It’s fun. It’s radical. It’s necessary. Join me on this journey – check out my Patreon HERE. Many thanks in advance! ————————————————————————————————— Pictured above are cartoons by suffragist cartoonist Lou Rogers in Judge Magazine in 1912 (left) and the original Wonder Woman artist H.G. Peters in 1943 (right). I’m in the middle of reading Jill Lepore’s terrific book The Secret History of Wonder Women, which I may write about later – but for now I just wanted to give a shoutout to Lou Rogers, who was a prolific editorial cartoonist in the early 20th century. She was very involved in the suffragist movement – and in a funny “role reversal” she eventually married her colorist, Howard Smith. The artist who designed Wonder Woman – H. G. Peters – worked at the same paper as Lou did for awhile. (Although I recommend reading The Secret History of Wonder Woman, if you can’t spare the time for 400+ pages you can get the “Cliff Notes” version via this Buzzfeed article: 8 Things You Won’t Believe About Wonder Woman’s Origins.) ————————————————————————————————— Biscuits and Gravy Sara Lautman has a comic on The Awl called The Smell – HERE. Liana Finck had a comic on The Awl a few weeks ago – For Love of the Unknown. Sacha Mardou looks at money in a new way with Murry Mint, for The Common Reader. ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 2-10-2017 – by Sally Ingraham ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 2-10-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio ————————————————————————————————— Cozytown – 2-10-2017 – by Juan Fernandez Share this page: [...]

White River Junction Scene Report

Frank SantoroOctober 16, 2011Riff Raff / Scene ReportsUp with local comics scene. Down with Marvel. Down with DC. Boycott Disney. Boycott Time Warner. Kill Super Heroes. Do I sound like a broken record? I don’t fuckin’ care! I’m so tired of sifting through “coverage” of the Big Two on comics blogs. You guys are just workin’ for The Man. Knock it off! I should have a “greater concern”? Bullshit. Stop promoting corporate culture in comics. This week’s local comics scene report brought to you by the great Jen Vaughn. Jen lives in White River Junction, Vermont – home of The Center for Cartoon Studies. She is awesome, does awesome stuff and also writes awesomely for the Schulz Library Blog. Don’t forget! My CARTOONING CORRESPONDENCE COURSE starts at the end the end of October! Hurry up and apply – you can do it! I will make you a comics expert in eight weeks! —— Also! Michael DeForge ups the ante again with his story in Thickness number two. I call it a knife fight. He will cut you! The rest of the issue is equally astonishing – lots of different looks – a well edited anthology if there ever was one. It’s also beautifully printed – Ryan Sands crushed this one out of the park, folks. Don’t delay – buy your copy today. INTERMISSION FUNNIES with MICHAEL DEFORGE ———- White River Junction scene report by Jen Vaughn Here in the thicket of White River Junction, a town of small proportions (~2500 people), a lot of cartoonist students dream big. Montreal, Boston and New York are at most five hours away but in this sleepy place often referred to as WRJ or my favorite, the Junc, everything closes around 5pm and good luck on Sundays. My house is behind that green tree on the right The local coffee shop, the Tuckerbox, hangs cartoonist work on the walls year round and is the morning or late afternoon studio space for some. LtoR: Cartoonists Pat Barrett, Josh Kramer, Max de Radigues, Kevin Uehlein and Ben Horak However, there is no shortage of fun and events. Like anywhere, a toonie amidst all all these other toonies and townies must concentrate to keep their butt firmly in their drawing table seat. Thanks to the Center for Cartoon Studies, we have visiting artists every week that come to speak to the school and a lot that just visit! HOLY SHIT, IT’S LYNDA BARRY Cartoonists: Katherine Roy, me and Jon Fine) Dartmouth College is near by with great plays, events and often employs cartoonists. Laura Terry, Katherine Roy and I have made one large mural and have a current exhibit of collegiate fun paintings on display in their student union cafe. —– This is the first place I’ve lived where I draw anywhere I go and people ask ‘Are you a cartoonist?’ instead of ‘artist.’ The villagers know what’s shakin’. Although, if you asked me to describe our activities in three words I’d say “costumes, games and animals.” I’ve pet more goats, pigs and more pigs in my time here than my combined 13 years in Texas. Moving a pig coral at a co-op —– A lot of us like, scratch that, LOVE board games. Night of playing resource management games like Agricola, Carcassone, or Dominion are planned out usually with wine and dinner to boot. Although, it is constantly an odd bag being one of the few female cartoonists in the area with a boyfriend at events with couples. Luckily, we’re all friends so I don’t care about whether I should talk craft with ‘the guys’ or any other subject with ‘the ladies.’ Sometimes its nice to step away from the work. CCS professor Jason Lutes is kind enough let us beta-test his own creation, “Thrilling Tales of Adventure” and hosts a weekly board game night (meanwhile Steve Bissette hosts an often horrifying weekly movie night) LtoR: Cartoonists David Yoder, Joe Lambert, Bill Bedard and Rio Aubrey Taylor play Merchants and Marauders —— In my free time not spent at my day jobs at the Schulz Graphic Novel Library and at the Main Street Museum OR drawing, I spent wrapped up in a butterfly/caterpillar costume as part of the local puppeteer’s gang at Fantasy Technicians. Becoming something else for a bit, whether a butterfly or a pair of shoes, is amazing and I’m totally working on my own articulating costume. And preparing for my week long job in New Orleans next Mardi Gras. Jennerfly. —– Parties usually have a theme, a costumed theme. Like the going away party, Lady Gaga Gone. Featuring toonies Penina Gal, Carol Thompson, Betsey Swardlick, Beth Hetland and me. —– And in any other city you might buy comics at a comic book store but our Border’s closed down AND the local comic shop is more of a game shop (although not a problem for those of us hoping to score the Cthulhu Gloom expansion). The Schulz Graphic Novel Library gets a lot of comic books sent to it by publishers, writers, artists and people who just want to send their favorite to such a grand library. The school also buys a lot of new graphic novels and is open to the public on First Fridays Unfortunately, due to the flood waters of Hurricane Irene, we had to move our library to a temporary storage space but hope to move soon. We save a lot of our buying bucks for conventions, where comics are like currency! —– Here’s my boyfriend, Ryan Anderson and cartoonist, Molly Howard, enjoying comics in our old space —– And here’s a photo of my comics class! —– In the town of White River Junction, friends are around every corner and they like to have a good time. Which is great because I love to pose under silly signs. My town may be small but its heart is huge. at Tunbridge World’s Fair with Linda Walker and cartoonist Rachel Foss Share this page: [...]

08/18/2017

Sally IngrahamAugust 18, 2017NewsSally here with new work by Ulli Lust, Redlands #1 by Jordie Bellaire and Vanesa Del Rey, a look at Simon Hanselmann’s character Booger, and more! ———————————————————————————————— I have really enjoyed all of the New York Review Comics as they have come out, so I was THRILLED to discover that new work from Ulli Lust will be in my hands soon via NYRC! Look for Voices in the Dark (an adaptation of the novel The Karnau Tapes by Marcel Beyer) in October 2017. The site has a good write-up of the book and some excerpts from it – view them HERE. From Publishers Weekly: “The narrative switches between two small cogs in the relentless machinery of the Reich: Hermann Karnau, a sound engineer who progresses from arranging the speakers at Nazi rallies to conducting bizarre aural experiments on concentration camp prisoners, and Helga, the eldest daughter of Joseph Goebbels, who, along with her siblings, is destined to be murdered by her parents in Hitler’s bunker. Lust’s loose, deceptively simple art, tinted in washes of faded color, creates a mood of deepening claustrophobia as the complicit Karnau and the innocent Helga descend toward the same fate. It’s a rare adaptation that, rather than simply transcribing the source material, transcends it.“ This is the English version of the comic Flughunde (Airports) which came out in Berlin in 2013. It was well received there – here’s some of the press that Ulli has collected on her website. An excerpt from the original version: The comic that Ulli Lust has been working on for the past 3 or 4 years will be released in Germany and France this autumn…which means we probably won’t see it in the States until 2018 if not later. Sad face. That makes the NYRC edition of Voices in the Dark that much more exciting of course! ———————————————————————————————— Vanesa Del Rey and Jordie Bellaire bring fury and flame in the opening chapter of Redlands. I like the rich red and gold and black coloring of the comic, and the way it crashes straight into a violent moment of pain and power, as a coven of witches wrenches a Floridian town out of the hands of the patriarchy. The intentions of the creators are definitely on display in the first issue, and I can get behind the “righteous anger” that Jordie Bellaire has spoken of a couple of times. I am curious to see where the story goes, how the wrath of the first issue transitions into something more nuanced – what the “calm center” of the storm will be. I believe I linked to this interview on Multiversity Comics with Jordie Bellaire and Vanesa Del Rey before, but reading through it again today after having seen Redlands #1 myself is interesting. This bit rings true for sure: “Without giving too much away, this issue read completely unlike anything I was expecting. What’s it like trying to create a sense of horror in the reader when what most of the characters in the issue are afraid of are your main characters? JB: I wanted the characters to appear very morally ambiguous and again, tie into the trope that men fear educated, strong, liberated women. If the readers are afraid of the main characters (the witches), that’s great! But they should also be afraid or at the very least disgusted by the rest of the cast. It’s a pretty upsetting place, as is the world. Everyone is an enemy of someone, anyone could be a villain.“ Read the rest of the interview HERE. And hustle to your comics shop to pick up Redlands #1 if you haven’t already! ———————————————————————————————— I found this article by Sam Riedel on Medium to be a thoughtful read – Let’s Talk Comics: Booger, Gender, and Simon Hanselmann’s “One More Year”. Booger doesn’t get a lot of press time, generally, but she is one of the more complex characters in Simon Hanselmann’s wild world. Unlike many transfem characters, she is not “virtuous”. Riedel addresses that point: “On the still-uncommon occasions that transfem characters show up in fiction (and aren’t two-dimensional stereotypes), they’re often forced to be virtuous because they represent all trans people everywhere. Who wants to be represented by a douchebag? Other marginalized communities also suffer from this tendency, an unintended consequence of “diversity casting” that maintains structural whiteness, cisnormativity, and so on. … Since our stories are so often misunderstood, there’s an implicit demand that we be shown in the most palatable light, but that robs our stories of the all-important shades of grey.“ Booger has the shades of grey covered. She is never quite as actively “bad” as the other characters, but her particular ways of being messed up are, in a way, more brutal. Read the rest of Sam Riedel’s thoughts on Booger HERE. Get a copy of One More Year HERE. ———————————————————————————————— Other News in Brief The Ignatz Award nominees have been announced, and there are lots and lots of comics by women on the list! Michael Cavna shares the list on The Washington Post. Katie Skelly is on Episode 22 of Comic Book Decalogue – here on The Comics Journal. Also on the Journal, Rob Kirby reviews Glynnis Fawkes‘ Greek Diary, and Katie Skelly covers Kabi Nagata’s My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness. Jason Rhode tries to navigate the maze of gender diversity in the comics industry, doing a decent job of summarizing a lot of the conversations and controversies that have been going on in the last year, in particular, and across the decades more expansively – read the article on Paste Magazine HERE. Here’s a nice review of Maggie Umber‘s Sound of Snow Falling. Part 2 of Gabrielle Bell‘s comic Little Red and Big Bad is up on The Paris Review – read it HERE. Boundless by Jillian Tamaki is reviewed on Paste Magazine by Zainab Akhtar – she calls Jillian “undeniably one of the finest cartoonists of this generation.“ ———————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 8-18-2017 – by Gabriella Tito ———————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 8-18-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

8 1/2 by Roman Muradov

Chris Anthony DiazAugust 4, 2016The Diaz ArchiveRoman Muradov’s portrayal of Barbara Steele as Gloria Morin from Federico Fellini’s 8 1/2 (Italy, 1963) for my ILLUSTRATED MOMENTS IN CINEMA/TELEVISION. Roman dressed up like TOBY DAMMIT and his candid along with Alison Dubois was taken at Mission: Comics & Art, San Francisco, Friday, October 12, 2012. And Graham Willcox did the color on Roman’s candid Share this page: [...]

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