Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Juan Fernández

Posted on July 10, 2016July 10, 2016

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Rowhouse Residency Report – Patrick Bonato

Comics WorkbookAugust 14, 2017Residency Reports / School UpdatesPatrick Bonato is an Austrian illustrator, graphic designer, and comics maker. He joined us in Pittsburgh for a Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency for the month of May 2017. Here are his thoughts about visiting the city and his Rowhouse Residency experience. ———————————————————————————————— I owe one of my artistically most intense and helpful experiences to a moment of clarity, luck and just trying. I had been travelling and working abroad for half a year already, mainly to take a time-out from my client’s jobs as an illustrator and graphic designer and to focus on my personal work, which are comics. I hesitated on what to do next, but I knew what I wanted: an artist residency for comic artists especially. I tried my luck by just typing exactly that in Google. One of the two (!) results to consider was the Rowhouse Residency, which appeared more and more fitting and interesting, the more I found out about it. I mailed them – the always helpful good soul Sally Ingraham to be more precise – and from then on everything went fast. Only two weeks later I found myself in Pittsburgh for a one month comics residency! I arrived there in the middle of my Toubab story (above), and felt I needed some guidance and professional feedback on it, as in my education as a graphic designer and illustrator in Austria and Switzerland I never have experienced any training in comics. So the first two weeks I proceeded to create new pages of this story and showed them to Frank and Sally. Frank helped me a great deal to understand and analyze what I had been doing to that point mostly intuitively. He also revealed to me some influences of mine that I had not fully been aware of and partly even where the inspiration to my inspirations came from! So I basically got a crash course in comic’s history and traditions and left every conversation with Frank full of motivation and inspiration and a huge pile of comic books to read from his seemingly infinite library. I could have spent the whole month just reading comics and was thankful for the rainy days, making it easier just to dig in and lock the outside world away for a while. In these first feedback sessions with Frank and in my conversations with Sally, we often talked about Frank’s “magical method” using index cards and about the online course he’s giving. At first, I adapted a modified version of the index cards to the ongoing Toubab comic and was already enthusiastic about the freedom and ease it unleashed in the drawing process. Therefore, as I felt ready to start a new story, one that had been on my mind for a long time already, I asked Frank and Sally to do the Comics Course in the second half of my stay. And that’s when I felt my residency was really taking off and getting intense. My goal was to accomplish an 8-week-course in two weeks! I decided to simply follow instructions and completely trust my masters Frank and Sally. Which proved to be very helpful, because all I had to really think about were my drawings and the story, whereas any formal decision (format, grid, number of pages and so on) was already given. The first two assignments propelled me to a formerly unknown speed of creation, that I had not even thought to be possible. Although tough tasks, they allowed me to access a spontaneous, natural flow of my thoughts and ideas about the story. And I’ve finally realized how much more inspiring and fun that was, compared to planning everything in advance and then just executing the plan. I am not exaggerating when I say it was a revelation that really changed my ways of working. I managed to complete the 16-page comic just before the end of my residency (a teaser can be seen above!) and had accomplished something way more quickly and way better and more fluidly than anything I had worked on before. I really owe that to Frank’s method, and his and Sally’s guidance through the course. I appreciated a lot having the possibility to have real conversations during the process, being able to ask questions, discuss things further and pick the comic books that related to them. Another very influential and unique experience to me was to see Frank work. While I was there, he was very occupied with his new book (which I hope will be available by spring 2018 as Frank assumed – learn French to read it, Americans!). So while it was not always easy to get to see him and catch some feedback on my work in this situation, at the same time it taught me how important it is, in the process of creation, to sometimes just retreat from the outside world and ignore it’s needs and wishes. I personally consider this a lesson for a lifetime, and one I constantly should remind myself of (i.e. thinking of how persistent and reckless some clients sometimes can be!). I had to travel for months and to three continents to finally get some peace and tranquility from clients, friends and family (no offense to you all, I like most of you clients and love you friends and family) – but I’ll need to find a way to just focus on my work when back to a more “normal” life. A few more things I want to mention: the Rowhouse and Pittsburgh in general felt like a new home by the end of my stay. It’s a good place to work but also to take a break from it. I appreciated a lot that Sally introduced me to Bill Boichel and the Copacetic Comics store, to the monthly Pittsburgh Comics Salon and the lovely people who form that group. And that we had this fun ride around town and – of course one of the highlights – a canoe trip with her and Frank. I am deeply thankful for this great experience and the many things I’ve learned about the art of comics and life, and I thank Sally and Frank in the first place for that, and everyone I had the luck to get to know during my month in Pittsburgh. I hope to be back soon! ————————————————————————————————————— Check out work by Patrick on his website, and follow him on Tumblr and Instagram. For more information about the Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency visit this page or email santoroschoolATgmail Share this page: [...]

ZONA 01

Juan FernándezJanuary 27, 2016NewsIT’S HERE Zona 01 – January 2016 Frank Santoro Harry Moyer Gabriella Tito Jack Brougham 44 pages of comics – 60 pages total – black and white with color silkscreen covers by Frank Santoro – Edition of 100 – signed and numbered on the covers by FS ===================================== AP Versions available in the School Store ===================================== Zona 01 – twenty bux postaid in the States Zona 01 – forty three bux postpaid outside of the States (sorry – its over 20 bux no matter where it goes outside of US so 43 seems fair) inside cover is silkscreened also – Harry Moyer’s work above Gabriella Tito above Jack Brougham above Frank Santoro above Zona 01 – twenty bux postaid in the States Zona 01 – forty three bux postpaid outside of the States (sorry – its over 20 bux no matter where it goes outside of US so 43 seems fair) ////////////////////////// AP Versions available in the School Store Share this page: [...]

04/02/2018

Caleb OrecchioApril 1, 2018NewsCaleb Orecchio here with a nice little Ditko story, and other news. ————————————————————————————————— Aw man, lookit that splash page. I was digging through my back issues looking through my Kull the Destroyers I haven’t really looked at yet. Specifically, Kull the Destroyer #15 from 1974. It’s not a particularly interesting story. Those comics usually aren’t unless they feature some strange, spirited creature. So I flip through the entire issue, kind of disappointed, when I come across an interesting Ditko/Lee short story at the end. It’s a five-pager (six if you count the title page). I had a suspicion that this was a reprint of some back-up story to an old Kirby monster comic. After some digging, I found I was more or less right. “Help,” originally debuted in Strange Tales #94 in 1962. The story is real simple. A guy answers his phone and the person on the other line seems to desperately need help. The mysterious caller is supposedly trapped in some dark place and fears his death. Our hero doesn’t believe him, and thinks it’s a gag. Yet, stays on the phone in case it’s real. The tension is actually relatively convincing. It’s classic Ditko. He had knack for making clever little surreal stories that ended with a neat little twist in the last panel. No I’m not going to spoil it for you, you have to look for it yourself. Go. Go to your local place where back issues lay dorment, waiting to be mined. Drink from the fountain of newsprint and ink and mylar packaging and dusty cardboard boxes. Go True Believer, go. ————————————————————————————————— if you don’t know, now you know According to Don Harriosn at Richmond Magazine, Paul Karasik and Mark Newgarden will be at Virginia Commonwealth University to give a lecture today! Looks like you’ll have to register if you want to go. Details here. I somehow missed Charles Hatfield’s review of the latest King-Cat collection, From Lone Mountain by John Porcellino, over at TCJ.com. I always enjoy reading Matt Seneca articles on comics. Rob Clough visited the Center for Cartoon Studies. Hey look, a popular comic strip. ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 4-2-18 – by Gabriella Tito ————————————————————————————————— Share this page: [...]

07/07/2017

Sally IngrahamJuly 7, 2017NewsSally here with news and comics from Emily Flake, Eleanor Davis, Becky Cloonan, Karen Green, Ulli Lust, and more! ———————————————————————————————— The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum has officially announced their acquisition of “113 pieces of original artwork by fifteen influential underground and alternative female cartoonists, donated by friend and longtime donor Scott Jonas.” “Included in this collection is work by Mary Fleener, Phoebe Gloeckner, Roberta Gregory, Dame Darcy, Nina Paley, Lynda Barry, Dori Seda, Shary Flenniken, Carol Lay, Leslie Sternbergh Alexander, Caryn Leschen, Nicole Hollander, Dot Bucher, Lee Binswanger, and Donna Barr. The collection consists of original drawings, cover art, multi-page stories, and comic strips, all created between 1975 and 2007. “We are very thankful to Scott Jonas, a comic collector with a great eye,” said curator Jenny Robb. “There is so much variety in this collection, but also a common theme. Each piece is an important contribution to the documentation of contemporary women creators in our collections, and in the context of alternative and underground comics.”“ Read more about the collection HERE! ———————————————————————————————— Jon Day reviews Eleanor Davis‘ You & a Bike & the Road (Koyama Press, 2017) for The New York Review of Books. The book is about Eleanor’s cross-country bike trip and is built from the diary comics she made along the way, “On a bike the road ceases to be an abstraction on the map but becomes a physical reality. There’s something inherently cinematic about the way you take in your surroundings on a bike, too, with sweeping pans, lingering close-ups, jump cuts as the lights change and you roll into gear. Perhaps one reason there are so few truly great films about cycling (Jørgen Leth’s documentary about the Paris-Roubaix one-day classic, A Sunday in Hell, and Sylvain Chomet’s animated The Triplets of Belleville being notable exceptions) is because the act of cycling—just sitting in the saddle and watching the world roll by—is itself more dynamic than any film can convey. … Comics lend themselves to representing how a cyclist sees: the flatness of the bird’s-eye-view map set in contrast to the scene-by-scene illustrations of Davis’s daily experience. We are pulled into Davis’s perspective, seeing from her position on the road as well as from a close third-person view as if slightly above.“ Read the rest of the review and see some excerpts from the comic HERE. For those readers who may not know, Becky Cloonan was the first woman to draw Batman in the main series, when she was a guest artist on an issue in 2012. Check out some of her pages and her thoughts on the project HERE. ———————————————————————————————— On The Comics Beat David Nieves reviews Becky Cloonan‘s upcoming collection By Chance or Providence (Image Comics, July 26th 2017). Containing three stories previously self-published by Becky, and with colors provided by Lee Loughridge, the collection startled and impressed the reviewer with it’s emotional intensity. “Getting back to what makes these tales unique. First, they aren’t for everyone. While they could certainly appeal to the crowd reading Gotham Academy, it’s not likely they’ll land with the audience reading Cloonan’s Punisher run. It speak’s to her ability as a well-rounded storyteller to be able to branch out and have created Shakespearean tales like these then move on to more traditional comics. The weight these characters carry is conveyed, not only through Cloonan’s sparse and effective use of dialogue but through the raw emotions the eyes everyone in these tales possesses. By Chance or Providence is your chance to read what goes on in the mind of a true metal loving storyteller like Becky Cloonan. Love stories that combine poignant comic style with rich dark Castlevaniaesque lore in a way that could only happen in these pages.“ Read the rest of the review HERE and look for this in stores later this month. ———————————————————————————————— Emily Flake has a comic strip in The New Yorker titled Things I’m Afraid My Daughter Will Be Doing in 2026. See one example above – for the rest, go HERE. ———————————————————————————————— Karen Green was on NPR’s “Meet the Expert” recently, talking about her two passions – ancient and medieval history, and comics. Karen Green is the Curator for Comics and Cartoons at Columbia University, and the Librarian for Ancient and Medieval History, so she certainly is an expert – check out the conversation HERE. You can read more about Karen’s “life in comics” by perusing Nick Sousanis’ 6 page story on her – HERE. ———————————————————————————————— Glynnis Fawkes details her daughter’s struggle with picking an outfit from a pile of clothes that may have once, maybe even last week, contained clothes we liked… – something we can all relate to – on Mutha Magazine HERE. ———————————————————————————————— Ulli Lust‘s most recent The Simple Stroll is pictured above. These strips appear in the English language German magazine EXBERLINER. Ulli collected the strip into a small riso booklet and brought copies to TCAF this year, so perhaps you will bump into a copy somewhere! Otherwise, keep up with the strip HERE. ———————————————————————————————— M. S. Harkness was visiting Pittsburgh this past week, here for a Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency. She checked out the Pittsburgh Comics Salon on Wednesday and got to meet some of the local zine and comics makers, and hung out with Audra Stang (a new member of the Pittsburgh scene!) and myself throughout her time in town. It’s great to have this kind of energy moving through the city, and the conversations that come out of meetings of minds like these are what keeps the form vibrant and evolving. Check out work by M. S. Harkness HERE and keep an eye out for her upcoming comic Tinderella. See what Audra Stang is up to HERE and follow her adventures in teach comics this summer via Instagram! ———————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 7-7-2017 – by Gabriella Tito ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 7-7-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

10/11/2018

Caleb OrecchioOctober 11, 2018NewsCaleb Orecchio here with some comics I bought from The Billy Ireland’s overflow collection. ————————————————————————————————— This year at CXC, The Billy Ireland Museum was selling comics, magazines, fanzines and books from their collection. These were items that they had multiples of and needed to purge to make space. It was a treasure trove. I passed up a lot of good stuff, but am incredibly happy with the few things I did pick up. I basically picked up trash. I love comics trash. Comics trash is beautiful. Shopping for comics with Frank Santoro and Jim Rugg really made me appreciate this facet of comics. “You’ll never see this again,” they always say when they come across some forgotten comic that was self-published in West Virginia in 1986. One of my favorite aspects of comics is finding this wonderful garbage and then showing it to everyone who is willing to look. I passed around these books like a crazy person with a shopping cart passing out occult books and warning people to not join the boy scouts because they will use you (some people react to these comics in the same way one would react to a crazy person). Others are fellow admirers. When I showed showed some of these comics to Nate McDonough, he picked up this gospel and spread it around to more people. I flipped one of the comics, a William Black comic, I got and sold it to Chris Pitzer, a fellow admirer. “Are you sure you want to sell it?” he asked. Yes! Finding and subsequently showing this stuff around is the best part of the process! Below are the comics I bought, minus Tara of the Lost Continent which I flipped to Chris. Obviously not everything is “trash.” I found a Chinese comic and a Jewish comic about the power of prayer. I use the term “trash” to refer to comics that people don’t want or care about for whatever reason. There is also an issue of The Comics Journal herein which is obviously far from trash. Maybe a better word to use is weird? You decide! ————————————————————————————————— The Lair of Madness No. 1 by various artists (Ellen Balliet, S. Geary, L. Ogan, Dale and Jim Pinkoski, 1972 (D.B. Features) ————————————————————————————————— *someone will have to help me out with the info on this one. I can’t read Chinese ————————————————————————————————— Mendy and the Golem vol. 2 no. 1 written by Leibel Estrin and drawn by Dovid Sears. Colored by Barry Grossman. 1982 (Mendy Enterprises) ————————————————————————————————— The Comics Journal no. 120 edited by Gary Groth, 1988 (Fantagraphics) ————————————————————————————————— Photo by Chris Pitzer featuring Kurt Ankeny and a dumpster diver. See you on Monday folks! I promise I will have the review of Andrew White’s Yearly 2018 I have been hinting at then. ————————————————————————————————— Share this page: [...]

COMICS WORKBOOK COMPOSITION COMPETITION 2016

Posted on July 10, 2016July 10, 2016 by Juan Fernández

thee SANTORO CORRESPONDENCE COURSE and

thee Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency presents

the COMICS WORKBOOK COMPOSITION COMPETITION 2016

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1st place – $500 cash prize to the winner

2nd place – $250 credit at Copacetic Comics

3rd place – $100 credit at Copacetic Comics

plus four $50 honorable mention prizes from Big Planet Comics

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Create a 16 page signature comic book narrative to the specifications below

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DEADLINE: August 30 2016 midnight new york city time

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PAY ATTENTION!! THIS YEAR IS DIFFERENT! Hereand Here and Here are last three years if you haven’t heard of the contest. This isn’t a scam, silly.

Here are the specs:

Original art page size: 5.5 x 8.5 inch originals with a 5 x 7.5 inch live area. Three equal “landscape” oriented panels. No exceptions. Each panel will be 5 inches wide and 2.5 inches tall. The “Tezuka Grid”. MEANING: YOU CANNOT CHANGE THE PANEL SIZES. 14 pages with 3 panels per page means you only have 42 panels to tell your story. And two covers.

Work may be in color OR black and white – OR – a combination of both.

You may also cut paper to the standard panel size of 5 x 2.5 inches and arrange them on your 5.5 x 8.5 paper quarter inch margins east, north and west with a three quarter inch margin south.

These “specs” were derived from Osamu Tezuka’s proportions for his first manga, The Mysterious Underground Men. It is a classic 2:3 proportion which is the same as traditional North American comic books. See above photos–I determined the live area and then scale’d up to a standard North American size which is affordable to print. See my ideas about the two most used comic book proportions HERE.

International students must use the same specs. No complaining.

It is recommended that you use one 8.5 x 11 piece of paper to compose the “spread”. The point is to draw small. And to draw by hand. And to learn how to draw in a “1 to 1″ fashion, as this proportion is perfect for North American “mini-comics” and for makers worldwide to produce comics from office supplies. And can be reduced to make a traditional 100x150mm live area for manga. See thoughts on this subject HERE.

Thats 14 pages of story plus two covers. Meaning seven spreads and a front and back cover. A 16 page signature. Follow this example here.

THE STORY MUST BE COMPLETE. SERIAL INSTALLMENTS of a longer narrative ARE NOT ELIGIBLE. THE STORY MUST BE NEW. IF YOU REPURPOSE AN OLD STORY THAT HAS ALREADY BEEN PUBLISHED YOU WILL BE DISQUALIFIED. Consider this an exercise in short story writing. I think the 16 page signature is ideal to contain a short story. Adaptations of existing works are not eligible. Like, you can’t copy a sequence from a movie.

Photograph or scan your pages and post them on your tumblr AS SPREADS. If you don’t have a tumblr – make one just for this contest. No exceptions! No complaining! Also post the front cover as the lead image and the back cover as the final image.

Email me – santoroschoolATgmailDOTcom – that you have posted your entry to your tumblr – complete with your name and title of the work in the text field and that it is for the composition competition 2016 – and I will reblog it on to the comicsworkbook site. I will be posting them – reblogging them – on comicsworkbook as they come in. The good, the bad, and the ugly. I will, however, only be posting stories that stick to the RULES. If you don’t follow the rules, I will not reblog the story and you won’t be eligible for the cash prize. Any questions about the competition – please email me.

The competition is open to all. You do not have to be a former student of mine. Former students of mine ARE eligible to compete.

Again, If you have any questions about the rules please ask. Better to ask and be safe than to be mad when I disqualify you over some missed detail. Seriously. Remember the page size: 5.5 x 8.5 inch originals with a 5 x 7.5 inch live area. Three equal “landscape” oriented panels. No exceptions. Each panel will be 5 inches wide and 2.5 inches tall. Work may be in color OR black and white – OR – a combination of both.

Remember! Email me – santoroschoolATgmailDOTcom – that you have posted your entry to your tumblr – I will reblog it.

You may enter as a writer/artist duo.

DEADLINE is August 30 2016 at 11:59 pm EST

Winners will be announced the following week.

please reblog this announcement

GOOD LUCK! signed Frank Santoro

COMMONLY ASKED QUESTIONS:

1. Can I have gutters in between the panels and can I work digitally.

ANSWER: You can have gutters – and you can work digitally. However I still want you to draw it at 5.5 x 8.5 inch original page size with a 5 x 7.5 inch live area – don’t draw large and shrink it down – ideally you are drawing panels that are 5 x 2.5 inches.

2. I understand that we are to post the comics as a two-page spread. But does the comic necessarily need to actually/physically be a spread? What I mean is, do I need to actually divide an 8.5 x 11″ page down the center to make two 5.5 x 8.5″ pages, or can I have two *separate* 5.5 x 8.5″ pages, completely independent of each other, which I then place side by side in order to post a picture on Tumblr? I would hate to draw a sloppy page and have to trash two pages because of it.

YES you may use two pieces of paper

3. I assume there is to be no sub-dividing of the three horizontal panels into separate, smaller panels, correct? For example, sub-dividing the top panel into three small vertical panels so that the comic page reads 3 -> 1 -> 1 is reason for disqualification, yes?

Correct. 3 panels per page – all 2.5 inches tall x 5 inches wide. No subdividing.

4. Is it alright to work on a page larger than 5.5 x 8.5″ provided that we DO NOT reduce the art in any way, and we DO adhere to the correct panel sizes and space orientation? This would merely be a technical convenience to me as I find it easier to draw on larger pages due to hand positioning/orientation etc.

YES

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3 thoughts on “COMICS WORKBOOK COMPOSITION COMPETITION 2016”

Nick Centanni says:

July 29, 2016 at 6:47 pm

Two questions:
1. Can an image pass between panels and/or spreads?

2. Does a *montage of images and/or text count as dividing the page in a way that would break the contest rules? *not sure I’m using the right word here

PS. Gutters are NOT required, right?

Reply
Nick says:

July 29, 2016 at 7:07 pm

For Question 2, I mean a montage within a single panel.
Thanks

Reply
guarazu says:

July 29, 2016 at 9:13 pm

What about sexually explicit content? Is allowed?

Reply

Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in Santoro School

Juan Fernández

Posted on July 10, 2016July 10, 2016

Explore

11/17/2017

Sally IngrahamNovember 16, 2017NewsSally here with Jillian Fleck’s Lake Jehovah, comics from Glynnis Fawkes, Gabrielle Bell, and Leslie Stein, plus the latest word from Kelly Sue DeConnick – and plenty more! ————————————————————————————————— I had a chance to read Jillian Fleck‘s first book – Lake Jehovah – yesterday, while hanging out at Copacetic Comics. I’ve been a fan of her work for awhile, keeping up with her web comic Bad Thoughtz, and other comics as they appeared on Tumblr. Jillian began Lake Jehovah back in 2012, as a series of scenes, focusing on the visual elements that she was interested in drawing. When I opened the book what jumped out at me immediately was her use – most often – of the nine panel grid, which is a visual element that I am particularly drawn to. She is a student of the Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers, so it’s not surprising that she would channel her story through a grid. The second thing that struck me was that this was a story that could only be told through the medium of comics. It seem like a lot of comics may just as well be novels. The images and panels are incidental – they accompany the text as a happy bonus, but take them away and the words would still tell the story. With Lake Jehovah, Jillian has composed a comic where the images and panels tell the story, and words are used as a final detail that ties the rest together – but only where necessary. There are many pages where emotions and mental states are portrayed through image, color, and the careful yet playful use and breakdown of the grid. The way that Jillian uses the comics medium to describe mental anguish and illness is quite brilliant. Lake Jehovah is a good example too of how a comic is an active relationship between the maker and the reader. There is a lot to figure out here, but between the images and panel structure Jillian leaves a trail of breadcrumbs. It’s a strange, post-post-post-apocalyptic world that we’ve stumbled into, but it’s not always clear what disasters are real and which ones take place in the mind of Jay, the genderqueer, thoroughly depressed main protagonist. There are demons in the woods and a bottomless lake that speaks, a fiancee who flees, a friend who wishes he was a spirit fox, and an actual wolf. It’s almost a funny comic, when it’s not horribly serious. And then there’s the whole poetry riff. It’s apparent that Jillian has spent a lot of time thinking about the mechanics of comics, and she is startlingly capable of using the form to explore heavy ideas. The drawing is relatively lively, with some of her influences coming through but not distracting from the tale. The bright color palette is an effective/unsettling juxtaposition against the backdrop of a cold, dark, Northern Canadian setting. Check this one out for sure (available from Conundrum Press if it’s not in your local shop), and you can also see Jillian’s most recent comic – Push Thru, made for the Comics Workbook Composition Competition 2017, HERE. ————————————————————————————————— There’s an excellent interview with Kelly Sue DeConnick in the fall issue of the Matador Review. She is the badass creator/writer behind Bitch Planet, and Pretty Deadly, among numerous other works. She’s been consistently outspoken, especially in the last few years, about better female representation in the comics industry, and the interview dives right into that: “Q: You’ve stated that, as a female creator pushing for female representation in comics, you’re willing to make people uncomfortable so that your daughter doesn’t have to. What can other artists do to make the world better for later generations? KSD: My intention is to make work that expresses some kind of truth. I do so in the hopes that the work will connect me to myself, and to my humanity, my community, and have the same effect on the consumer. But sometimes, finding truths or speaking truths means making yourself and other people uncomfortable. No one likes to be uncomfortable, but I think it’s gotten easier for me with practice. Everybody wants to be liked. Of course we want to be liked. I’m not aiming to be on anybody’s shitlist—but I’m willing to go there. A lot of people will thank you for it later. There’s a difference between art and entertainment. If we hope to continue experiencing growth, we have to let ourselves stretch and get out of the familiar places. We must try to understand how our truths are different from other people’s truths—especially as a woman. On some level, our culture still wants women to be seen and not heard. When you’re not quiet, it makes people uncomfortable. They may not be able to articulate it directly, but they sort of wish you would just be quiet, decorative, agreeable—just smile. I think our culture tends to treat women as not fully human. That’s tragic. It limits human beings as a whole.“ Read the rest of the interview HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Keep an eye on the Daily Shouts feature on The New Yorker – there have been lots of familiar names popping up there recently – just this week Glynnis Fawkes, Liana Finck, and Vanessa Davis have all had comics or illustrations featured. Above is work by Glynnis – see the rest of that comic HERE. Earlier this month Gabrielle Bell had a comic on Daily Shout – see it HERE – along with Miss Lasko-Gross, and Hallie Bateman (a new-to-me cartoonist – check out The United States Post (Apocalyptic) Office). Kudos to Emma Allen, The New Yorker‘s new cartoon editor, who stepped into the shoes of the iconic Robert Mankoff in May of this year – or rather, she brought her own shoes and is walking around in them quite well so far! I should note that she’s been the editor of Daily Shouts for three years, and only added being the cartoon editor to her already full plate. Here’s an article from The New York Times from earlier this year about Emma and her vision for comics in The New Yorker moving forward. ————————————————————————————————— John Seven reviews Leslie Stein‘s new comic Present over on The Comics Beat. “Stein’s narratives are short and qualify as slices of life, though they could just as easily qualify as single thoughts brought to conclusion. They cover small incidents like feeling guilty about not going home for Christmas, or trips to the museum to get away from her own art, or just an encounter with a particularly profound fortune cookie that ties everything together for her. Stein is mostly a lone figure in her comics, which isn’t to say that other people don’t appear, but is to say that they come from the point of view of her, as a stylized figure, navigating the world. Other people might be next to Stein, but they never interfere with her or crowd her out. She is our the reader’s avatar, after all. And yet that doesn’t mean that she hogs the narrative. Not true at all. Stein listens, so we listen. But Stein helps us tie it all together, and in doing so, sometimes she comes off as alone in a crowded comic book.“ Read the whole review HERE. ————————————————————————————————— On the Grape Vine Hyperallergic has a review of GG‘s I’m Not Here (Koyama Press, 2017) – check it out. Nerds of Prey talks to Paloma Hernando and Sunmi, of Dandelion Wine Collective, about publishing marginalized voices and their new anthology project – read about it HERE. The New York Review of Books has a writeup on the Tove Jansson show that is hanging in the Dulwich Picture Gallery in London, through Jan. 28th 2018 – HERE. American Libraries interviews Emil Ferris – she talks monsters and memories. Jessica Plummer lists numerous cases of harassment in comics, over on BookRiot (in response to the recent story about veteran DC editor Eddie Berganza and his history of sexual harassment…) Eve Ewing MIGHT get asked to pick up writing Marvel’s Invincible Iron Man where Brian Michael Bendis left it off (as he switches over to DC, in a shocker/shakeup move!) – full (theoretical) story HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 11-17-2017 – by Sally Ingraham ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 11-17-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio ————————————————————————————————— Share this page: [...]

10/27/2017

Sally IngrahamOctober 27, 2017NewsSally here with new work from Chris Anthony Diaz, insights from Lauren Weinstein, and inspiration from Tove Jansson – plus much more! ————————————————————————————————— Today on the site Chris Anthony Diaz shares his latest photo archive, featuring Noah Van Sciver and Joseph Remnant’s recent signing at Secret Headquarters. There are lots of terrific photographs of the guys from comics’ best documentarian, but I especially like this photo of Vanessa Davis (above). Check out the rest of the pictures HERE. We are looking forward to catching up with Chris at CAB in a few weeks, where he is looking forward to photographing cartoonists in the new location at Pratt. See you there! ————————————————————————————————— Lauren Weinstein on the Village Voice with the latest Normal Person… ————————————————————————————————— There is an article on the Evening Standard about Tove Jansson‘s Moomin comic strip, and how it came about. As her novels gained international popularity, Charles Sutton (syndication director of Associated Newspapers) flew to Finland and talked her into doing a strip for the London Evening News. This was in 1952, but two years of discussion and planning followed before the first Moomin comic came out in September of 1954. (Food for thought, for those of us who may present a strip for syndication and find the first idea turned down – and we are no Tove Janssons…!) According to comics historian Paul Gravett, she was actually taught how to layout and design her strips, using “contemporary” word balloons as part of the art, instead of relying on accompanying text blocks. She agreed to do the strip because it offered her a steady paycheck which would in turn give her more time to devote to painting, in theory. Of course the strip was immensely time consuming in the end, and we can only imagine what paintings she might have made had she NOT been drawing it… Lots more interesting details in the article, supplied by Paul Gravett, so read it HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Assorted Awesome Athena Naylor has taken over the Our Comics, Ourselves blog for a bit and is writing artist spotlights on a number of rad female cartoonists – check out her thoughts on Carolyn Nowak, Meredith Gran, Kate Beaton, and Sarah Glidden. Kelly Sue DeConnick claps back at folks who find her comics either triggering, or too political. Syfy Wire has the goods. Now please excuse me while I go read Bitch Planet: Triple Feature #5. The Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco is kicking off their reopening with a retrospective of Raina Telgemeier‘s work. The Nib is running it’s first comics serial – Reported Missing by Eleri Harris. It’s a “true crime” story, and I will admit to being sucked in so far. I believe it’s up to 4 parts so far – catch up! The Comics Beat has a lengthy preview of Hazel Newlevant‘s new comic, No Ivy League, coming out in 2018 from Lion Forge (where Hazel was recently hired as an editor, by the way). Leslie Stein lets her mother interview her over on The Comics Journal! Jessica Campbell shares part of Georgia O’Keefe and Alfred Stieglitz’s story on Hyperallergic – HERE. Sophie Foster-Dimino made a zine about making Sex Fantasy – which you can check out on her Tumblr. Rookie Mag has an excerpt from Lynda Barry‘s The Good Times are Killing Me – HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 10-27-2017 – by Gabriella Tito ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 10-27-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio —————————————————————————————————Cozytown -10-27-2017- by Juan Fernandez Share this page: [...]

10/01/2018

Caleb OrecchioOctober 1, 2018NewsCaleb Orecchio here with an overview of my 2018 CXC experience. ————————————————————————————————— Apologies in advance for blurry photos herein. Another Cartoon Crossroads Columbus is in the books. This year was as fun as ever. On Thursday, I made it to The Billy Ireland Museum in Columbus in time to see Michael DeForge talk to Tom Spurgeon about his career. Tom asked a lot of good questions and brought up many good points that I haven’t heard many people ask DeForge. At the Q+A portion I, being a Comics Workbook person, asked about his use of the grid and how he determined what kind of grid he would use for what kind of story. He basically said that he thought that grids with two columns are funnier than grids with three or more columns which I thought was a good answer Friday I went back to The Billy Ireland and hung out with Kurt Ankeny and Chris Pitzer for a bit and went up to see the two great new exhibits, Koyama and Friends and Artistically MAD. Yes of course the MAD exhibit was awesome, but seeing the collection of Annie Koyama was a real treat. Seeing contemporary cartoonists’ work hung in one of the sacred temples of comics was energizing for me as a comics maker. The Museum was selling some of the overflow from their collection in the lobby which included some amazing old fanzines, obscure comic magazines and of course plenty of dumb comics. Everything I just mentioned is my favorite kinds of comic shopping. I paraded the gems I found like a person pushing spiritual literature in Las Vegas. Chris Pitzer geeked out when he saw my copy of “Tara” by William Black and we eventually bargained for a trade. Kurt and I missed the Koyama panel but made it to the Jim Woodring event moderated by Tom Spurgeon. I have not really heard or read many interviews with Woodring so I was going in fresh in a way. It was a great talk, and Woodring was a great interviewee. At the end of the talk, Tom surprised Woodring and the rest of the audience by awarding him with the this year’s Master Cartoonist award. It was a very touching moment and I am always happy to see people being awarded at CXC. Back to the “The Billy” where a reception was held with food and drinks followed by the official thank yous by Jenni Robb and Jeff Smith and then, a bewildered John Porcellino received the Transformative Work award for his legendary King-Cat comics. The whole place was glassy-eyed. While everyone went to see Lynn Johnston, I bailed to spend time with friends in town. I wish I would have stayed to see Johnston’s panel. All my sources tell me it was a great time. Saturday, the first day of the expo, Juan Fernandez and I were the dynamic duo representing Comics Workbook. We had two, count ’em, two tables. One we sold comics by Comics Workbook gang members, and the other was a drawing table. Juan had pads of paper, loose sheets and note cards ready for anyone and everyone willing to participate. Juan is a very gracious and patient teacher. He would jam with kids who would come by the table, too shy to draw without a nudge. We met a lot of parents who were very happy we were there, letting kids (young and old) have a hands-on experience at comic-making. The best part for us were the workshops. This year we held workshops on the same floor as the expo and really felt like we were part of the show. Juan had two workshops, and I had one. All three filled the room to the brim. Thank you CXC for providing that space for us. The workshops were a complete success. The famous Emerging Artist award went to Keren Katz. I love being able to see this award being announced because the recipient has no real way of knowing they will win. There are no nominations announced or anything like that so the winners always express gratitude in a raw honest way with no rehearsal. Congrats Keren. At the end of the first expo day, I, being a Central Ohio native, took off for a friends house to watch Ohio State beat Penn State. It was a stressful one, but the win made the holes in the drywall worth it. Sunday, was business as usual. Juan has his last workshop. We sold some comics. We talked to other cartoonists and guests and attendees and all that. The last surprise of the show was that Tom Spurgeon announced that Jeff Smith was stepping down as president of CXC, but would continue to serve as art director. Then, unbeknownst to Jeff, he was being awarded a special edition of the Master Cartoonist award; as well as a very special letter from the city of Columbus thanking him for his contribution to his community. Smith was slightly embarrassed to recieve an award at his own show, but the gesture was not lost on him. The show winded down quietly then Juan and I headed to the after party early to catch a drink with Ron Wimberly. Juan and Ron had an engaging discussion while I watched as if at a tennis court. My brain was fried from the show and my arms were almost too weak to lift my beer. Frank had sent me with a delivery for Ron, but I totally spaced and forgot to even mention it. Whoops. The Great Weekend wound down and everyone went back to their homes and hotels. As always, CXC was a blast. This is my “home show” and am proud latch my identity onto it for better or for worse. The staff and volunteers at the show were amazing as always. Once during the expo I thought, I’m thirsty. Then, lo and behold, a volunteer came by with water bottles. Mind-reading volunteers is a rare and blessed thing and they are only at CXC as far as I know. Thank you as always to Tom Spurgeon for directing yet another great show. Thank you to the Board and everyone involved at all the different venues. And of course thank you to Lucy Caswell, without whom none of this would exit. You make cartoonists feel appreciated which is hard to do. Thanks 10-01-2018 – by Niall Breen Share this page: [...]

01/10/2017

Aaron CockleJanuary 9, 2017NewsAaron here today with A Vernacular of File Formats; The False Grandmother; Joe Sacco: SJW; Still and Moving Images; Kirby/Slash; Sara Lautman Comics; EX-VOTO ————————————————————————————————— RAW, BMP, GIF, PNG, TARGA, TIFF, PSD, JPEG, MOV, DV, WMV, AVI, ETC Glitch artist Rosa Menkman’s discourse on what is lost, distorted, and potentially gained by these technologies we find surrounding ourselves, circa 2010. Type to enter text Tango between a corrupt format and its user. ! ! ! ! Contents ! the ! There is not sufﬁcient data. Please enter data art is a practice that studies and researches Glitch ! Static! vernacular of ﬁle formats in exploitative manners to ! ! You have too Noise Art > Filter art > when Cool becomes Hot >>>>>>> ! ! Uncompressed!! deconstruct and create new, brutalist (audio)visual works. m u c h However, glitch artists often the ! ! Lossless! ! ! c h a r a c t e r ! Glitches are hot; proof can be found on MTV, Flickr, in go beyond this formal approach; coffee table that the glitch Lossy! not exists A p p l y club and in the bookstore. While thethey realize book Glitch: ! ! does ! ! ! Moving image! ! g a u s s i a n Designing Imperfection without human perception and therefore have a more (2009) has introduced the glitch inclusive approach to digital material. ! ! MOV ! ! ! blur. design aesthetic to the world of latte drinking designers, and ! ! DV ! ! ! The materiality of glitch art is constantly mutating; it exists Kanye West used glitches to sing about his imperfect love ! ! WMV! hand the ! life, the awkward, shy and physically ugly celebrate underrelies on the one as an unstable assemblage that the ! ! AVI! ! You still have header “Glitched: Nerdcore for life”. operation and content of the apparatus (the construction, ! ! ! the writer/artist, ! ! quirks! Clone Glitch has transformed from cool and on Its no more then a work, medium) to hot. the other hand the s t a m p f o r brightly colored bubblegum wrapper that doesn’t by the any and the interpretation ask for reader and/or user (the meaning). s m o o t h involvement, or offers any stimulus. Inside I ﬁnd gum that I surface keep chewing, hoping for some new explosion of good taste. But the more I chew, the less tasty / rubbery it gets. Glitch design fulﬁlls an average, imperfect stereotype, a ﬁlter or Your ﬁle has commodity that echoes a “medium is the message” standard. i n v a l i d m a r k e r s . ————————————————————————————————— Turturro Reads Calvino Online (with accompanying images by Kevin Ruelle) As our present reality grows every more unreal, there may be no writer more fitting to read that Italo Calvino. Calvino was most famous for his fabulist fiction, works of literary fiction inspired by fairy tales — a form he studied and collected in the 1956 book Italian Folktales. ————————————————————————————————— Galvanizing Social Justice Through Comics As part of the University of Michigan’s Penny Stamps Lecture Series: Leading graphic historical novelist Joe Sacco will chronicle how and why he uses the graphic novel format to catalyze social justice and human rights struggles in the US and around the world. Thursday, January 19, 5:10-6:30pm at the Michigan Theater, 603 E Liberty St, Ann Arbor, MI 48104. Hopefully he’ll talk about BUMF as well. ————————————————————————————————— Film and Comics: Mutually Exclusive, or Exclusively Mutual? Allan Haverholm talks about The Hulk and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, split screens, paneling, juxtaposition, and good stuff like that. The juxtaposed split screens in Hulk only serve as disturbances in that they try to emulate complicated comics (page) layouts that are not easily conveyed in moving images. Instead, we shall move on to a more surprising, more challenging, and eventually more successful implementation of comics formalities in film: Long story short: the element of split screens emulating comics page elements disturb rather than add to the storytelling, taking the viewer out of the natural immersion of believing in the (rather surreal) narrative of an irradiated, superpowered green giant. ————————————————————————————————— KIRBY/SLASH Andrei Molotiu has some pretty sweet Jack Kirby pages put into context with other artists and their art. Very artistic! Image below: Jack Kirby + Hannah Hoch ————————————————————————————————— Sara Lautman is the featured Diarist this week at The Comics Journal. ————————————————————————————————— The Vivid Violence and Divine Healing of Ex-Voto Paintings Allison Meier looks at religious artwork at the Hyperallergic blog: In 19th-century Mexico, the content of ex-votos stayed the same — a depiction of the accident, illness, or misfortune in question, along with the intervening saint or other heavenly presence — but the materials changed. There were fewer canvases and more works on tin. Rather than meticulous, idealized scenes, ex-votos became theatrical and free-form, often created by self-taught artists. By the 20th century, contemporary artists were drawn to this dramatic folk art. Alexxa Gotthardt at Artsy recently described how Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo collected Mexican votive paintings, many of which are now on view in the Museo Frida Kahlo in Mexico City. Kahlo owned over 400 ex-voto paintings, and one of a woman who survived being stabbed in bed is said to have inspired her bloody 1935 “A Few Small Nips.” Take a look to see your favorite sky-god smiling down at the calamities they have caused for you. ————————————————————————————————— Here’s Connor Willumsen talking about his book Portraits while teaching a workshop in England in autumn of 2016. Get a copy of the book HERE! ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 1-10-2017 – by Sally Ingraham ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 1-10-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio ————————————————————————————————— 1-10-2017 – by Juan Fernández Share this page: [...]

Comics As Music – Frank Santoro

Sally IngrahamNovember 12, 2016ClassesPIX April 2nd 2016 Filmed by Michael Pisano – Edited by Michael Pisano and Sally Ingraham Share this page: [...]

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