Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in NewsTagged Herbie, Layzell, process, Senecca

Harrison

Posted on June 2, 2016June 2, 2016

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06/22/2018

Sally IngrahamJune 21, 2018NewsSally Ingraham here with a look at Nicole Hollander’s “We Ate Wonder Bread”, and Abouet and Sapin’s “Akissi: Tales of Mischief” – plus other comics and news! ——————————————————————————— Sally here! I spend two days a week at Copacetic Comics, in Pittsburgh, PA, and between drawing and dreaming I read a lot of comics. There are an overwhelming amount of comics coming out all the time, so (with a few exceptions) I narrow the field for myself a bit by only reading work made by female creators. Here are a couple of things I’ve picked up recently. Nicole Hollander‘s ground-breaking strip Sylvia was in syndication for 35 years. It’s sardonic middle-aged protagonist, surrounded by her cats and her lamps, made her opinions known loudly and languidly. She is modeled after a number of women from Hollander’s childhood – friends of her mother and folks who lived in her apartment building. In Hollander’s memoir – We Ate Wonder Bread – she recollects those people and the stories they lived in the building that surrounded her. Told through a mixture of text and illustrations, as well as comics, Hollander’s memories flow somewhat haphazardly. They follow the loose chronology of how rooms in her family apartment were arranged at various times, what mischief her little sister got up to, what outrageous scheme her father was invested in, and who her mother was friends with. Her own hopes and dreams and confusions as she navigated the rough waters of the West Side of Chicago as a child are hilarious and endearing. You get the sense, when reading this book, that Hollander could be in the room with you narrating her adventures and musings. The text was engaging, but I did find myself wishing that there were more comics and drawings. You could almost skim through the book and JUST read the comics, and get the gist of the story. Hollander’s drawings are excellent, and I enjoy her storytelling through images – but with the text in addition, things were strangely repetitive in places. I find this very interesting, and have to note that it may not be easy for a visual storyteller who has written gag-based comic strips their whole life to switch gears and compose with text alone. Like I said, I wish there were a lot more comics in this memoir. However, setting that slight disappointment aside, as a memoir We Ate Wonder Bread is a charming read, and learning something about the context of both Sylvia and her creator is valuable and inspiring to me as a comics creator and a woman myself. Get a copy of this book HERE! ——————————————————————————— Another delightful recent read is Marguerite Abouet‘s Akissi: Tales of Mischief, with artwork by Mathieu Sapin. I am a fan of Abouet’s Aya books (which feature the artwork of Clament Oubrerie). Those comics feature a beautiful Ivory Coast setting and a wonderful adult(ish) heroine, with plenty of mischief and mayhem to keep you engrossed. Akissi follows a similar pattern, with it’s setting in the Yopougon neighborhood of Abidjan (Yop City) – however it’s heroine is a 6 year old girl, who causes more mischief and mayhem than I can quite comprehend. Whether she is making garbage soup for the neighbor baby, running a secret movie theater while her Dad is at work, trying to catch lice so that her head can be shaved (preferable to the tight braids her mother favors), or knocking her Grandmother out with coconuts (by accident!), Akissi is always in the thick of it. I laughed and cringed my way through the collection of 21 6-page comics, and found myself recalling moments from my own childhood (although I never got tapeworms or had a pet monkey). Abouet is a terrific storyteller, and Sapin’s drawings compliment her writing perfectly. The combination really brings to life the time and place, with well-realized characters leaping out of detailed backgrounds and the whole thing carrying you along at a voracious pace. According to an interview from April 2018, Akissi IS Marguerite Abouet. She was born in Abidjan and lived there until she was 12, so the vivid sense of place makes sense – so does the feeling of “you can’t make this stuff up…!”. Abouet said: “I think Akissi is like open-air theatre, where children can feel quickly gripped by her tales. She invites them to journey to an unknown country, that is so close and yet so far away from them, for a relaxed ramble in Africa. Children are impressed by Akissi and her group because they are like ‘urban superheroes’ trying to live in the adult world. She shows them that this is not easy, because living together and accepting each other are daily struggles, so it demands a lot of willpower and courage.“ I highly recommend this one! Get a copy HERE. ——————————————————————————— For the Record Whit Taylor writes and Shannon Wright draws a comic for The Nib about Shirley Chisholm – read it HERE. Michael Dooley chats with Esther Pearl Watson – on The Comics Journal. Episode 30 of Comic Book Decalogue features Laura Lannes as the guest – listen HERE. ——————————————————————————— Thee Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers Summer Session starts NOW! Floating start date! Apply anytime between now and July 12th 2018 to join the summer course. Email santoroschoolATgmail for more details. Ask about the Fall Course if now is too busy for you! The course is 8 weeks – 500 bux for 8 weeks plus access to Frank’s coaching for as long as you need. Payment plans are available. Put your summer to good use! ——————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 6-22-2018 – by Gabriella Tito Share this page: [...]

12/5/2016

Juan FernándezDecember 5, 2016NewsJuan with the Pittsburgh Zine Fair’s Winter Market; Frank Santoro on The Art of Vanesa R. Del Rey; Erotica in the NYPL; Richard McGuire and tiny drawings; Gabriella Tito does Suzy and Cecil. ————————————————————————————————— Pittsburgh, PA – The Zine Fair’s Winter Market The Pittsburgh Zine Fair (PZF) partnered up with WorkshopPGH (5122 Penn Ave., Pittsburgh, PA 15206) to host a small and cozy winter zine and print market last Friday, December 2, from 7 – 10 pm. This event was free and open to the public! I organized it with Maggie Negrete, Christina Lee and Raiona Gaydos. It was a blast. Exhibitors included: Jenn Lisa, Ceci Ebitz, Small Press Pittsburgh, Jayla Patton, Higu Rose, Copacetic Comics, Madeleine Campbell, Maggie Lynn, Danny Devine, Jerome Charles, the Pittsburgh Comics Salon, Comics Workbook, Lizzee Solomon, Christina Lee, City Slicker Press & more! Since its debut at AIR: Artists Image Resource in 2011, the PZF has attracted a diverse group of artists, writers and activists from across the region whose content may vary but the format remains the same- the zine. An icon of DIY ethos and radical info sharing, the zine decentralizes media and vaults individual expression while remaining inexpensive. Almost 700 people attended our main event last October – if you’re around Pittsburgh, keep an eye out for more events and announcements for next year! Here are some photos I took! Wish you coulda been there: ————————————————————————————————— ⚡ Pittsburgh, PA – The Art of Vanesa R. Del Rey Thee great Vanesa R. Del Rey has generously agreed to let Comics Workbook publish selections from her sketchbooks. We designed it to look like a 1980’s comic book artist’s art book. The text is a transcription of an interview she did at The Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency in 2016. Vanesa is a once in a lifetime talent who studied with George Pratt and who has worked with Grant Morrison. We are offering pre-orders now at a lower price than we will be offering the book for in the new year. Great stocking stuffer. Follow her on Instagram – @vrdelrey – and http://vrdelrey.com/ $15.99 plus shipping – We had Frank chime in on what makes Vanesa such an unstoppable, ferocious force in comics: FS: “Vanesa, I’m quite taken aback by your sheer technical ability which seems to be married to a poetic sensibility. There’s a lightness there. Sometimes illustrators with that ability get heavy-handed. Yet you manage the push-pull between these two sides of yourself–because you’re like a samurai. The humble samurai.” VRDR: “It’s about trying to remember that. I can get all this praise, I can get all these amazing responses from strangers, but at the end of the day—I’m still a student. I’m still learning. The crown doesn’t fit. The crown should never fit.” This exchange was taken from an interview Frank did with Vanesa R. Del Rey which took place here at the Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency in Pittsburgh, PA USA. In May. 2016. FS: I first encountered VRDR at a comics festival in Toronto (TCAF) in 2014. She had just started making comics professionally after a stint as an animator. Startled by her chameleon-like ability to switch styles, I asked to see more. She unearthed piles of sketchbooks from her days in Cuba studying Soviet Realism and from working with George Pratt, a master of painted comics. Vanesa’s very education as an artist smoothly balances high and low as well as east and west. It’s an astounding foundation. She is, at once, aware of art history, comics history and animation history in a NEW way that almost seemed impossible fifteen to twenty years ago. I must admit as a student and fan of comics makers who truck in blending “high and low” and in “painted comics”—I have never seen such a skill set. Ferocious. Unstoppable. A fierce competitor. Michael Jordan-esque? Is that possible in comic book making? I’ve always said that there would be a “vertical invader” in comics who could employ the “naturalism” of the Noel Sickles / Alex Toth school but who could paint like an Alice Neel or a Jenny Saville. I think that “the invader” has arrived in the form of Vanesa R. Del Rey. ————————————————————————————————— New York, NY – Erotica in The New York Public Library Here’s something for you: Erotica through the ages. Ancient Erotic Dreams and Explicit Scenes in the New York Public Library Collection. Porn in print. Claire Voon has collected a wonderful assortment of images from deep in the NYPL archives over on Hyperallergic. It’s from earlier this year, but well worth revisiting. NSFW, though you might be able to claim that it’s for a historical research project. Maybe save it for later so it can help you get to sleep 😉 The NYPL has never censored anything or kept especially arousing printed matter under lock and key, its librarians stress heavily (although the Gray Lady may have you think otherwise). It does have a “triple-star” system, and although that name may sound like it polices X-rated artifacts, that classification is really intended to protect certain items from vandalism, theft, or damage. Comic books, for instance, often receive the distinction; there was a copy of Bambi (yes, the children’s story) deemed triple-star because of its sheer fragility. “It’s not kept separately, and everybody has access to it,” curator Madeleine C. Viljoen said of the library’s steamier materials. “They receive no special treatment, and we don’t perceive them as being any different from any other artwork in the collection. That’s not our goal here. We are not censors.” ————————————————————————————————— New York, NY – Richard McGuire: Virtuoso of the Tiny If you haven’t already come across Richard McGuire’s latest book, Sequential Drawings: The New Yorker Series, the collection of his drawings for the New Yorker, Luc Sante waxes some poetic on the book over on the New York Review of books. Check it out! Super versatile cartoonist, his latest book of cartooning – Sequential Drawings: The New Yorker Series – definitely invites discussion on why it isn’t or is comics. This look at McGuire is great. Really nice at contextualizing McGuire’s latest endeavor. (Of course, there is still the discussion of Sequential drawings… constitute as comics. Is it comics? We here at CW tend to be purists so you’ll likely imagine where we stand on this (ever present) taxonomic pedantry 😉 ) Luc Sante: Consider the spot illustration, the unsung toiler of the magazine page. It is small; it does not call attention to itself; it is missed by many insistent readers as they chase the progress of a story across columns and ads. It is kin to the textual space filler at the bottom of a page, but its language is visual, so it is there to make a spark as well as to balance out column inches. It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that the protean Richard McGuire has been quietly reveling in the form. From Copacetic Comics’ Bill Boichel on this book: This chunky little book contains 250+ individual (very) clean line drawings – each appearing alone on its own, faced by a blank, numbered page, for maximum concentrated focus on each single drawing – by the masterful designer/illustrator/comics-maker who brought us the startlingly original Here, Richard McGuire. The volume leads off with an erudite introduction by fellow New Yorker contributor, Luc Sante, that serves, among other things, to help put McGuire’s drawings in a specific cultural / art historical context, after which we are treated to the simple joys of following a sequence of drawings to see where it goes; 28 discrete – and ingenious – sequences in all, each with a unique twist. More fun than you might think! You can purchase Sequential Drawings: The New Yorker Series from Copacetic Comics and it enjoy its simple pleasures at home! Buy it here. ————————————————————————————————— Orlando, FL – The latest Suzy and Cecil strips by Gabriella Tito! Suzy and Cecil is a collaborative daily comic strip project based on characters invented by Bill Boichel and Frank Santoro. It is primarily drawn by Gabriella Tito and Sally Ingraham, who are teammates in the Comics Workbook Roller Derby League. The strip is part of their continuing development as cartoonists – follow @suzy_and_cecil on Instagram to see the project unfold and keep an eye out for guest strips drawn by other Comics Workbook students and friends! New comics Daily! ————————————————————————————————— Until next time! Juan Share this page: [...]

10/19/2016

Juan FernándezOctober 19, 2016los Cómics / NewsJuan con un poquito sobre: las aventuras de Daniel Jiménez, La llegada de La Liga Zine Fest y Gerardo Vilches sobre «Animal Collective»! ————————————————————————————————— ⚡Daniel Jiménez escribe sobre sus experiencias como gestor y editor. En mi cabeza, después de diez años de vaivenes al frente de la revista Larva y siete dirigiendo el Festival Entreviñetas, una palabra se levanta como trampolín para abreviar la distancia entre tantos aprendizajes y errores: terquedad. Y es esa misma palabra la que me sirve para abrazar todas las expectativas e ideas (muchas de ellas inconclusas) acerca de eso que llamamos industrias culturales o, para irse más lejos y abrazar ancho, economía creativa. En Colombia, el ejercicio constante, decidido y sensible de la gestión cultural es un terreno escabroso, mutante e incómodo, que requiere una combinación kamikaze de valentía y velocidad, de osadía y tentación por el fracaso. La administración de la industria cultural, con todo y su aura de inspiración y seducción, cuenta con una financiación escasa, poca capacitación, reducidos interlocutores, una malinterpretación de la acción cultural en muchos niveles, un parco prestigio y ligerísimos apoyos privados que, en gran medida, solo funcionan dentro de la acostumbrada lógica de la “palanca”. ⚡La Liga – Zine Fest en NYC ✿FESTIVAL HIGHLIGHTING LATINX ZINE MAKERS✿ in conjuction with New Latin Wave 2016 www.newlatinwave.com Quien estará? La Liga Zine, Purple Pony, Stephanie Rodriguez Comics, La Chamba Press, No Shame Distro, Sula Collective, Kat Fajardo, Jenoris Caba , Tijuana Zine Fest, nico acosta, Cósmica La Liga es una plataforma en línea que muestra las muchas maneras por las cuales lxs latinxs/chicanxs/latinoamericanxs están diseccionando sus identidades culturales a través de diferentes medios de autoexpresión. Tratamos de resaltar como des-occidentalizan las diferentes areas de la vida. Además, reconocemos que la latinidad es una construcción social y que la comunidad latinx no es un monolito y por lo tanto tratamos de subrayar su diversidad. ⚡Gerardo Vilches visita «Animal Collective», en Madrid. El pasado 29 de septiembre se inauguró en el Centro Centro de Cibeles de Madrid una exposición titulada«Animal Collective», comisariada por César Sánchez y Alberto García Marcos de la editorial Fulgencio Pimentel. Se trata de una panorámica del cómic de vanguardia y la autoedición del continente europeo, que pude visitar el pasado martes por la mañana, aprovechando que en ese momento no suele haber muchos visitantes. En los siguientes párrafos os cuento mis impresiones. Las fotografías que aparecen son mías —y se nota; pido perdón por la pésima calidad, pero espero que al menos sirvan para que os hagáis una idea de la exposición. ————————————————————————————————— Echa un vistazo a este medallón estilo Pompeii! “Le encargué a la gran Airi Maeno que hiciera unos medallones de plata con sede fuera de mis dibujos. Este dibujo viende de mi libro Pompeii. Es algo que puedo imaginar que alguien se pondría hace dos mil años. Un simple medallón de un ser querido. Un retrato. Algo permanente para desafiar a la desaparición”. – Frank Santoro Puedes comprar uno aquí! Share this page: [...]

05/08/2017

Caleb OrecchioMay 7, 2017NewsCaleb Orecchio here with the Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers, great finds from Comic Book Day (Morphos the Shapechanger, Ms Mystic, Oriental Heroes #7), plus other comic news! ————————————————————————————————— Announcing the Summer Semester of the Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers! 8 weeks! 500 bux! Payment plans are available! Summer Course starts June 1st 2017! Applications are due by May 25th. Visit THIS page for more details and email santoroschool@gmail.com with applications and questions! Caleb here: I took the above-mentioned course back in 2014 and it literally changed my life. No, I’m not paid to say that! Once you take the Course, there will be things you can’t un-see in art, geometry, and life. It’s like “The Secret” for cartoonists. But don’t take my word for it, the great Graeme Shorten Adams recently completed his comic for the Course. Check it out on his Tumblr, then message him and say something nice, then go sign up for the Course. ————————————————————————————————— This past Saturday was Free Comic Book Day 2017. As usual, Fantagraphics offered the best deal. Where most publishers put out a preview of upcoming comics (which is fine, afterall they are printing books that will be FREE), Fanta put out all new or unused material by their cartoonists in this year’s FCBD contribution. Plenty of great stuff, most notably Matt Furie’s closure with his famous publicly-abused character, Pepe. RIP. Other contributors included Anya Davidson, Emil Ferris, Dash Shaw, Joshua Cotter, Jason, Graham Chaffee, Richard Sala, Ron Rege, Jr., Eric Haven, Ed Luce, Noah Van Sciver, Tommy Musturi, Ed Piskor, Simon Hanselmann, and Cathy Malkasian. ————————————————————————————————— BUT, as we all know, the absolute best part of FCBD are the deals! Here are three highlights from my dive into the quarter bin at my preferred (depends on what I’m hunting for) local store here in Dayton, OH, Mavericks. I had recently glanced over an article from Off The Beaten Panel about Burne Hogarthe’s last comic, Morphos the Shapechanger so I was delighted to find it for 25¢ and in great condition at Maverick’s. It leans more in the direction of, as R. Fiore said about Kirby’s work in the mid-70s, (I’m paraphrasing from memory) “interesting work” as oppose to “good comics,” but nonetheless a comic worth seeking out. Complete with an introduction by Gary Groth and a prose “epilogue” by Burne’s collaborator on Morphos, Harry Hurwitz. The epilogue serves as an end and describes what would have happened in the next three of four issues if Hogarth had lived to see it through. Pacific Comics, along with Vortex and Eclipse, remains one of my favorite defunct or bought-out comic-book publishers of the 80s. I know PC mostly for their Kirby comics: i.e. Captain Victory and Silver Star; but I was very happy to find a copy of the “Origin Issue” of the great Neal Adams’ Ms. Mystic. It’s fun—great action comic. I had heard of the Hong Kong publisher, Jademan Comics from either a Brandon Graham or Frank Santoro epsiode of Inkstuds, but I can’t remember. Oriental Heroes #7 (yes, that’s the title) looks like a fusion between Ben Marra and Jim Rugg brought together by an eastern influence. Tony Wong’s (publisher of Jademan Comics and artist of this book) layouts and colors are crazy. A more traditional, rigid grid for scenes of talking and browbeating, and unhinged grids that overlap and slash into each other for intense, devastating action and violence. Some panels are rendered in a more Corben-esque way (more “realistic”) to further intensify the action. Wholly gratifying for those of you looking for that sort of thing. I laughed out loud when I saw that Mike Baron of Nexus-fame had “script” credit. It’s funny to me for some reason. ————————————————————————————————— If you don’t know, now you know Jay Disbrow, a golden-age cartoonist and victim of the The Comic Book Code of 1954, has passed away. If you don’t know, Disbrow had a comic published by Fantagraphics in 1979 called The Flames of Gyro. This was technically Fanta’s first published comic (unless you count Don Rosa’s Tagdenah which was serialized in The Comics Journal—or other strips Groth published in his fanzines during his teens), predating Love and Rockets by three years. He made a sequal called Aroc of Zenith which he serialized weekly on the web! Joe McCulloch talks a bit about these works on Comic Books Are Burning in Hell but I can’t seem to find which epsiode it was. Michael Tisserand, author of Krazy: George Herriman, A Life in Black and White sits down with one of my favorite interviewers, Elvis Mitchell, to talk about his new Herriman biography. I personally have just started reading the book and already the first chapter blew me away. The amount of in-depth investigation Tisserand did on this legendary cartoonist is nothing short of remarkable. Of course you know TCAF is this weekend and our own CW superstar, Tyler Landry will be running a workshop on making comics. His workshop titled, Comics Workbook: Composing a Spread will take place at 12:30 pm on Sunday May 14th, in the Writer’s Room on the 3rd story of the Toronto Reference Library. Check out the rest of the programming and exhibiting cartoonists as well. Also worth noting, Koyama Press is celebrating their 10th anniversary at TCAF. Aaaaaaand new from Matthew Thurber! Need I say more? ————————————————————————————————— Blinkers – 5-8-2017 – by Jack Brougham ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 5-8-2017 – by Sally Ingraham ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 5-8-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

Anthologies

Comics WorkbookMay 1, 2017EssaysRM Rhodes – curator of the Heavy Metal Magazine tumblr – brings some thoughts on the history of anthologies. ————————————————————————————————— Anthologies and episodic publishing arrived in Western Europe at more or less the same time, which makes sense. When you have four partial stories, it’s easier to bundle them together in a common publication and tell customers that the next installments will be available in a week or a month. And it’s less risky to convince a reader that has already bought the first part of a story to buy the next part than it is to convince a reader to buy a story they’ve never seen. My point is that the anthology has been around for ages. It’s a very old, very versatile, very robust format. And that’s what makes the format interesting. First, let’s talk terms. An anthology is a collection of short works. In this context, the works are comics, sequential art, visual narrative, comics-adjacent storytelling, informatics and some other lumpy labels for stuff that tells a story with pictures. The meaning of “short” varies greatly. Half and full page stories are common. As are stories that last dozens of pages. Notice that there’s no requirement about whether the stories have to be complete. Nor is there one about whether the anthology is standalone. It is very common for anthologies to be released periodically over a pre-advertised schedule (usually weekly or monthly or some multiple thereof). And is also common for stories to be told episodically over the course of multiple sequential installments. An anthology that met that criteria would then be an episodic periodical. But that term also fits the description of most magazines and publications – many of which are, in their own way, anthologies. If nothing else, precision of terminology will keep you from getting ripped off. This highlights one of the most intriguing aspects of the anthology format – the flexibility. Everyone and his brother has put together an anthology, but there is always the comfort in knowing that anyone can put one together. It’s an easy choice for what to do with random bits and bobs that don’t fit anywhere else. It’s also a great way to spread the risk inherent in publication around a bit. The more people in an anthology, the more people have a vested interest in its success. There are a huge number of decisions available to make: page size, page count, color vs b&w, binding, theme, creators, compensation, funding, printing, advertising, distribution. There is never a good reason to make an anthology, but every comics creator should try to organize one at least once in their life – it’s a very practical lesson in logistics, organization, motivation, and frustration. The student of the anthology has a lot of examples to look to for inspiration. Through the 1920s, there was a series of art journals and publications put out by various art groups in Europe: de Stilj, Dada, Cannibale, Le Couer, Cabaret Voltaire. Due to modern advances in printing technology, it is easier to self-publish zines with better production values. But it’s also interesting to note that the impulse to run an amateur publication of random stuff is perfectly normal. There’s a certain amount of debate regarding how and when the cartooning tradition in Western Europe became the comics tradition of Western Europe. Some point to the broadsheets of the 17 century that introduced the twin concepts of anthologies and episodic storytelling as a precursor to modern sequential art. But it’s more likely that comics as we know them grew up during the 19th Century. And anthologies were an important part of that maturation. The default format for professional episodic periodicals in American comics has been monthly comics of a set page length that may or may not have additional stories. Professional Franco-Belgian comics have been dominated by the weekly anthology format, featuring strips of half or full page in length. These were later collected into albums of 48 pages in length – which is how most English speakers have encountered this material. (If you’re wondering what was probably collected like this, flip through any album and look for a horizontal white gutter cutting straight across the book at the half-page mark.) Probably the most famous anthology from this tradition in the English speaking market is Heavy Metal. It started as a monthly anthology that contained a mix of episodic and stand-alone stories. It sort of still does most of that. In the mid-80s, Heavy Metal shifted format and centered their publication around a single complete story with a variety of shorter stories as supplements. This influenced later anthologies and we can see that Island, for example, followed the same general model. It is convenient to be able to read the more well-known stories in a mass market edition. However, it is also valuable to observe the original print runs of anthologies where- and when-ever possible. Reading material in the context that it was originally presented to the market in is very valuable. First and foremost, examining primary sources acknowledges the effort that was put into the anthology in the first place. Additionally, it highlights the kinds of commercial advertisements from the period printed next to the original material. Sometimes the juxtaposition is startling. It also provides a sense of the flow of the reader through the book. Arguably, the order that the stories are presented in is important because it shapes the mood of the reader from cover to cover. Knowing that a story beat in a completely different story occurred directly before this story may have changed how this one was perceived. Reading an issue of an anthology is like eating a club sandwich. There are a lot of different distinguishable flavors, but the combination is distinct. And that’s the whole point of producing an anthology. ————————————————————————————————— RM Rhodes lives and works in Washington, D.C. His current project is a weekly online anthology called The Rumor published on the Comics Workbook tumblr – see issues of it HERE. Check out more of his comics at Louis Deux. Share this page: [...]

06/02/2016

Posted on June 2, 2016June 2, 2016 by Harrison

@h_gprince is collecting comics and arts news for Thursday, June 2, 2016. Today we’ll board the drunken boat, take a glance at process, and finish off by hunting heads.

On a Boat

PLEASE SHARE: Drunken Boat, the venerable online literary journal for experimental writing (15+ years running), is introducing a dedicated comics section beginning with our fall 2016 issue. We are seeking both form-melting and traditionally formal comics from a diverse range of artists, so whatever comics or comics-like things you’re making, send us your best.

Submitted work should be previously unpublished (though feel free to contact us if this distinction is hazy), between one and twenty-five pages, and comprising either one or multiple pieces. Works will be displayed online, which offers some leeway with regards to size specifications. We simply ask that you familiarize yourself with the journal and use common sense when submitting. We’re open to figuring out a way to present your comics in the best possible fashion.

The submissions deadline for our fall issue is 6/30/2016, so get to work! You’ll find our submissions page here.

If you have any questions, feel free to email at nick@drunkenboat.com.

-Nick Francis Potter, Drunken Boat comics editor

Processing

“Reading about other cartoonists’ process always interests me, but I’ve never really written about my own way of creating comics art because it’s usually as simple as can be – pencils, letters, inks, and colors all on the same sheet of paper in that order, no computer intercession to speak of. But for my latest comic, the bootleg Punisher/Dazzler blowout TRAP: FRANKIE TEARDROP, I employed a pretty different way of working that I thought one or two of you might be interested in looking behind the scenes of.” – Matt Seneca.

This is how I do most my drawings. First attempt at using a time lapse thing, what do you think? #illustration #sketchbook #timelapse #animegirl #process

A video posted by Matt Layzell (@m_layzell) on Jun 1, 2016 at 8:36am PDT

Processing(g)

“This is how I do most my drawings. First attempt at using a time lapse thing, what do you think?” – @m_layzell

http://layzellbros.com/

Hunters

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Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in NewsTagged Herbie, Layzell, process, Senecca

Harrison

Posted on June 2, 2016June 2, 2016

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11/14/2016

Juan FernándezNovember 14, 2016NewsJuan here with the good stuff: Juan Fernandez on CAB 2016; Heidi Macdonald’s CAB recap; Ben Jones interviewed; Angela Stempel at the NY Comics and Picture-Story Symposium; Four takes on Noah Van Sciver’s Blammo #9; Eleri Mai Harris on the American election; CBLDF on Rayma Suprani. ————————————————————————————————— ⚡️I went to CAB with Jenn Lisa last Saturday. I had a ball and I wrote about my time here on the site. Seeing everyone come together in a gymnasium like that lit a flame that very few things are going to be able to stamp out in the coming months. I’m ready to face the coming winter. Gabe Fowler’s got the market place down to a science. So, naturally, I’m interested to see the ways in which CAB continues to evolve. Will it stabilize into being an amped up zine fest and wild style art book fair that focuses exclusively on the marketplace? Will someone step in to lend a hand to the team to develop some track of programming during the weekend or the week before? To return to it’s BCGF format. Does that matter? Who’s ready to step up to the plate? On the floor I heard some people discuss this being the last CAB. And damn, that’s a little pessimistic. For what it’s worth, CAB can’t be beat for a lot of reasons. Easy access via transportation. Trains, plains, buses, cars all make their way easily to NYC. For the most part either you know someone in the City or there’s an affordable place to stay for a night or two. The crowds are great. People are squeezing CAB into their busy Saturday. It’s just one of many things they’re doing so they bring an incredible energy into the space. Most people likely just heard that there was something cool with comics going on in that one church in Brooklyn. That’s a good place to be. Gabe’s curation can’t be beat. You wan’t to find the coolest books published in a year? You can’t do any better in the US than coming to CAB. Oh and people come ready to spend money. Real money. ————————————————————————————————— ⚡️Heid MacDonald shared her CAB Coverage over on Publisher’s Weekly. Her big take away was similar to mine: Though scaled down in Size, robust sales. Because the show was planned a bit later than usual, there were fewer debut books. Indie mainstays Fantagraphics and Drawn & Quarterly were represented by artists like Drew Friedman and Adrian Tomine, but did not have booths. Nevertheless the books that did make it sold out quickly, including several very limited editions from even smaller publishers, such as the third volume of Connor Willumsen’s Treasure Island, an experimental comic from Breakdown Press; and Charles Burns’ Free Shit from French art publisher Le Dernier Cri. Although the event served to spotlight the number of talented cartoonists who still call New York home, many of the same artists cited the difficulty of maintaining a small press comics scene amid the rising costs and rents of New York City. “It’s harder to have a scene when everyone is broke and stressed out about money,” Skelly observed. ————————————————————————————————— ⚡️ Ben Jones did a killer interview over on HyperAllergic with Nicole Rudick focusing on his recent exhibition at The Hole NYC. Very inspiring, very enlightening. It cuts across all artistic disciplines and argues for drawing as a fundamental practice in the 21st century. My words, not his 😉 Nicole Rudick: Are these paintings of new comics? Ben Jones: I want to give you the two narratives. There’s the concept of the show, which is hopefully how the audience perceives it and how I approached it creatively — to make a zine first and then to have a meta-art show where I’ve hung the “originals” from the zine. Typically, you’d show the originals in this way at a comic-con or a coffee shop or something like that. I intentionally wanted to present the show in that conceptual context, as a novelty. I took that to the furthest extent by adding the fake red dot you’d see at a coffee-shop art show, to indicate that the work had been bought. As a painter, I’m constantly chasing that magical, ethereal line or stroke or gesture that is half muscle memory or trance action. You get a lot of that with handwriting and with quick sketching. I’ve fabricated ladders and furniture and video installations that take months of concepting the installation and executing the animation. This is something entirely different — it’s a one-to-one connection with an idea or a drawing or a mark. There’s a narrative to a lot of these pieces and a linear way to think about them, but then we also get to think about comics and about the formal aspects of comics, because comics aren’t just linear storytelling and gags. There is a nuanced, visual-language fuckery that I think is important. Think of Saul Steinberg changing the way people draw in the 1950s or Robert Crumb in the sixties — there are one or two people who have really changed the way we think and draw and understand line drawing. So this is also me firing a shot across the bow. ————————————————————————————————— ⚡️ Have you seen Bill Kartalopoulos’s Instagram? He’s posting a lot of protest art from the last 50 yrs or so. Find something that moves you and research it. There’s extremely fertile ground in these images. ————————————————————————————————— ⚡️Eleri Mai Harris is coming back to America. Thank god. In this political climate, comics stateside need her more than ever. She’s got a new comic on identity, politics and patriotism over on the NIB. Don’t sleep on this Australian-American journalist and cartoonist. ————————————————————————————————— ⚡️ CBLDF on Rayma Suprani, Venezuelan Cartoonist’s Political Exile Rayma Suprani has long been one of the best-known and most fearless political cartoonists in Venezuela, but for almost a year she and her work have only been “in” the country virtually, through social media. After El Universal, the newspaper where she had worked for more than 20 years, was bought by anonymous supporters of President Nicolas Maduro in 2014, Suprani was fired in short order and eventually forced to flee to Miami where “I can be more useful because my creativity can flow without worrying.” Suprani had often skewered Maduro’s now-deceased predecessor Hugo Chavez and stood up to the oppression of his populist movement known as Chavismo, but journalist Cesar Miguel Rondon tells PRI’s The World that Maduro’s government is even worse: They behaved like punks on a street corner. You don’t have the rule of law here. Every single day it’s more openly the exercise of a dictatorship instead of a democracy. So, ‘we don’t like Rayma. Rayma, you should go.’ It’s as simple as that. ————————————————————————————————— ⚡️Angela Stempel on Picturing Worlds: abstraction, rhythm and “reality” in animated spaces. This Tuesday at the NY Comics and Picture-Story Symposium! In this presentation, Angela Stempel will present her works of experimental animation that explore abstract shapes, the dissolution of the physical form and of photographic certainty in narrative and non-narrative pieces. She will discuss her influences, contemporary work and how she deals with the representation of time and energy. ————————————————————————————————— ⚡️ Four Shots get fired at BLAMMO #9: Alex Mansfield, Daniel Elkin, Justin Giampaoli, Keith Silva blast through Noah Van Sciver’s latest release. Enter the dude zone, haha. It’s good to see a single issue of comics get unpacked to this degree. More of this, please! For the past decade, cartoonist Noah Van Sciver has been publishing his one-man anthology series, BLAMMO. Kilgore Books has recently released the latest in the series and we here at Comics Bulletin were so impressed with it that we knew we had to devote some time and energy into unpacking our reactions. Each of the following writers were tasked with choosing a single page or panel from Blammo #9 and use it as a platform for talking about the book as a whole. None of the writers read what the other was working on during this process (Ed. Note: Except for Elkin — he sees everything). As testament to the thematic unity of Blammo #9, the writers all ended up talking about the same ideas of spirituality, artistic integrity, and the human desire to connect. ————————————————————————————————— In case you missed it, our indefatigable Sally Ingraham started an eBay store to help out the Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency and also her own comics-making projects. Check it out HERE! ————————————————————————————————— until next time! Juan Share this page: [...]

03/28/2016

Juan FernándezMarch 28, 2016NewsJuan Fernandez here today to start your week off with the latest: Comics readings, workshops and expos in Pittsburgh; Bill Griffith and Art Spiegelman reflect with Karen Green; HTMLFlowers’ sincere and open interview on Inkstuds; Jessica Campbell with the hyucks; OpenToonz in the hands of millions . ————————————————————————————————— BLITZBURGH No beating around the bush here, there’s a load of comics happenings this week in Pittsburgh, big and small. Comics readings, free workshops and PIX. Lots of different ways to soak up the comics! More information on PIX. This Friday, the Lili Café in Polish Hill will celebrate PIX by hosting a night of comics readings and performaces by Carl Antonowicz, Juan Fernandez (me), Sophie Goldstein, Cynthia Lee, Jennifer Lisa, Rachel Masilamani and Noah Van Sciver. Copacetic Comics, on the third floor, will be open late for a post-reading hang out. Find out more here. To celebrate PIX 2016 on Saturday, Comics Workbook is offering a full day of hands on comics instruction and training in partnership with the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh – South Side. Come bring work for critique, practice your comics composition, or simply try your hand at comics making for the first time. We have activities to embolden the hearts and enliven the spirits of professional and amateur comics makers alike. 3:30-4:30 PM Legendary Underground comics artist Bill Griffith will be conducting a FREE hour-long drawing workshop (with handouts) as part of this year’s PIX activities. That’s right, learn how to draw from the creator of Zippy the Pinhead. There will be Comics Workbook workshops all day long at the Carnegie Library on the South Side. Please RSVP. – More workshop schedule updates to come. – ————————————————————————————————— Green, Griffith and Spiegelman Here on the site, John Kelly has brought us some snippets from Bill Griffith and Art Spiegelman’s latest public talk. Former Arcade magazine editors and Underground Cartooning legends Bill Griffith and Art Spiegelman discuss their early days as artists at a talk given March 16, 2016 at Columbia University commemorating Griffith’s announcement that he will be bequeathing a large portion of his personal art archives to the University. The talk was moderated by Karen Green, Columbia’s Librarian for Ancient & Medieval History and Graphic Novels. Check ’em out here! ————————————————————————————————— Inkstuds: HTMLFLOWERS HTML Flowers aka Grant Gronewold joined Robin over on Inkstuds to talk about his art, comics and music. We also coverchronic health conditions in modern medical bureaucracy, mortality, and the urge to make comics. His series of mini comics, No Visitors, is availabe for order right now,. Grant’s also got a book out from Space Face Books called Virtual Candle as well as his collaborations with Simon Hanselmann in Werefolf Jones and Sons. This interview right here, It’s a good one, folks. Listen to it over on Inkstuds. ————————————————————————————————— Best Jokes? Jessica Campbell is back with the hyucks. Dig into them all over on her site, bestjokes.tumblr.com. ————————————————————————————————— OpenToonz Last but not least, the robust 2D animation software suite, OpenToonz was made open source through a partnership between Italian developer Digital Video and Japanese company Dwango. Big ups to them. If you hadn’t caught wind of this yet, it is a game changer for 2D animation production, the kind that is going to lead to an increase in drawn animation production. For the comics maker and animator in a pinch, this powerful, free alternative to Adobe and Toonboom is a godsend. Go forth and make! Download it here – https://opentoonz.github.io/e/index.html A How to get started tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMskd30Y9Js For more info in case your install doesn’t work properly on that check this forum out. https://groups.google.com/forum/… Share this page: [...]

11/23/2017

Sally IngrahamNovember 22, 2017NewsSally here with Egyptian comics, cartoonists on immigration, and a Happy Thanksgiving. ————————————————————————————————— The Atlantic has a great article about Egypt’s cartoonists – sort of a scene report of the Cairo Comix Festival, which took place in September, and an on-the-ground report of the comics scene as a whole in Egypt, where telling the truth is difficult and increasingly dangerous. “Despite a small readership—or perhaps thanks in part to their relative invisibility—comics in Egypt are blossoming in the shadows. “There is no distribution in Egypt. There are no graphic novel publishers. There is no real way to make a living publishing comics here,” says Sara El Masry, co-owner of an organization called MAZG that runs cartooning workshops throughout the country. But as other means of expression have been shut down, the cartoonist festival has grown, according to its organizer. With few eyes on them, these graphic storytellers are depicting the truth as they see it.“ The article profiles a number of comics makers from the country, including Mai Koraiem whose work is pictured above. “Other cartoonists at the festival approached their subjects with bare fists, particularly when it comes to gender politics in Egypt. In Traveler’s Diary, Mai Koraiem uses a rough, expressive inkwash technique to detail the history of women’s rights in Egypt and the Middle East. Through a journalistic narrative, Koraiem tells the story of the ascendance of a violent misogynist culture, and the unraveling of liberal feminist values she argues first found purchase in Cairo in the 1960s. In a small ongoing thread at the bottom of the page, Koraiem links the personal and political by including a comic strip narrating her own experiences with street harassment and sexual assault.“ Read the rest of the article HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Columbus Alive features the new exhibit at the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum, which looks back at how the topic of immigration has been covered by cartoonists over the last 150 years. “The resulting exhibit, “Looking Backward, Looking Forward: U.S. Immigration in Cartoons and Comics,” reveals that while the particulars of immigration may not have remained constant, the push-and-pull of public opinion as reflected in comics — and shaped by cartoonists — is something that hasn’t changed as the United States has considered the philosophical, political and practical implications of immigration. “There is a very rich history of cartoonists commenting on what’s going on in the world in terms of immigration to the United States, reflecting what people are thinking and saying, but also, we think, impacting how people are thinking about it,” Curator and Assistant Professor Jenny Robb said. “So we wanted to take a look back at the past 150 years and see how cartoonists dealt with it in their work. And not just editorial cartoonists, but in comic strips and comic books and, more recently, graphic novels.”“ The image above is the exhibition’s featured comic. “Robb and Gardner chose Joseph Keppler’s 1893 artwork “Looking Backward” as the exhibition’s featured image because of its timeless message, Robb said. The cartoon depicts “people who have immigrant pasts and have benefited from the opportunities in the U.S. in 1893, are now trying to stop new immigrants from coming over, forgetting their own past,” Robb said. “You could run that today; it would just be a different group of people.” “ Read the whole article HERE. The exhibit is up through April 15th 2018. ————————————————————————————————— On The Nib Rawand Issa details why Being Illegal is Unbearable – for Syrian refugees in Lebanon. ————————————————————————————————— Here in the USA we are celebrating Thanksgiving today – an often controversial holiday, as many cartoonists take note of. Lauren Weinstein‘s weekly Normal Person for Village Voice details the types of politically tense turkeys that grace many tables – HERE. Lauren’s also got a Thanksgiving comic in Seattle’s The Stranger: Here’s Roz Chast for The New Yorker of course: ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 11-23-2017 – by Sally Ingraham ————————————————————————————————— Share this page: [...]

05/17/2018

Comics WorkbookMay 16, 2018NewsSam Ombiri on Gabrielle Bell’s “Cody”! ———————————————————————————— Sam Ombiri here: Sometimes I think about “Cody”– a story by Gabrielle Bell that appears in Kramers Ergot 8 – and about how much it does with so little. I guess I could question what does it matter that it does? After all, “doing so much with so little” can seem to be the mission of comics, if comics were to have a mission. Maybe I’m complimenting Gabrielle Bell’s success on that mission. The fact that Bell did so much with so little is not more important than what was actually done. I’m just really struck with this amazing story, and I’m trying to find ways to express how much I sensed the success of “Cody” in utilizing the comics form (not to rob the genuine intentions of comic and what it’s aiming to do). Well, that’s a lie. Truth be told, the very first time I read the comic, because it didn’t tell me how to feel and the drama wasn’t calling so much attention to itself, I kind of just skipped over all that was happening. I read through elements in the story, not really engaging with said elements. Like, for example, a friendship dissolving between Audrey’s dad and Cody, because nobody is paying any mind to it. Not even Cody, who is being so mistreated. While Audrey’s dad can be blamed for leaving Cody behind to be arrested, it isn’t for reasons that aren’t hard to guess, displayed by how Cody treats Audrey. At the same time, the way everything ended unfairly on his end, it’s easy to see why he doesn’t feel like he owes anyone anything. The way Gabrielle drew Cody being arrested conveys to me his realization that nobody truly cares about him. I wonder if Gabrielle gave him a dog to be less lonely? Anyway, Audrey’s dad is confronted with having to take responsibility for the man he used to be, not to mention the torment he has clearly been subjecting his wife to, and possibly at one point considers escaping it all, maybe with Cody?Would all this drama then be more effective if I was told what to feel? The way the comic is drawn feels so surreal, because it’s presented like nothing’s changed from the work that I’ve typically read from Gabrielle Bell. It’s hard to describe the feeling; it’s like if someone had told me that Ali: Fear Eats the Soul was directed by Douglas Sirk. It’s even crazier, because it’s Gabrielle Bell doing a comic that is so unlike her typical work – which is mostly autobiographical – but there’s no loud announcement that there’s a major shift. It’s so quietly done that it’s almost suspicious. I mean, for sure Gabrielle Bell’s regular work is not so unlike “Cody”, but the other purely fictional work I’ve read from her has been Cecil and Jordan in New York. This feels wholly unexpected for me. I mean in her autobio work she’s so good at portraying events or lack thereof in her life – it makes sense that her fiction would be this ridiculously good. The beginning is just as terrifying as the ending of the strip that comes before it in Kramers 8. I’m not talking about Leon Sadler’s thankfully comforting page, in between this unsettling horror, but the one before it in the story Kevin Huizenga had covered. There is something horrifying about Gabrielle Bell starting her story with a car crash, one whose only purpose is to remind our narrator of Cody, someone she once knew. It’s like, people have died and for no reason other than the minuscule purpose of making the main character briefly think about a guy named Cody. This isn’t a thing that I have to think long and hard about – I immediately feel it when I read the image and the words, but when I think about it some more it’s even more frightening. This is because the first panel is on the field in the past (most likely – nothing in the rest of the strip suggests otherwise) where the story takes place, so the setting is introduced already. Then a car crash “introduces” Cody, and one that’s not by any means loud – the way it’s drawn is especially ambivalent. The main character, Audrey, is looking at it, but her face is away from us. This oddly reminds me of Carlos Gonzalez’s comics. The way he draws his stories – while his stories and the way they’re drawn are incredibly grounded, whatever it may be that you’re being presented with, you’re not being told, at least by the drawings, what to be horrified with or what to find strange and what not. It’s like something Anders Nielsen said in an Inkstuds interview, that “sometimes in comics it’s best not to show things. So even a character’s expression – if a character is having an emotional response or little revelation or something, it’s almost always better to have their heads turned away from the camera. And I think of violence happening off-screen is sort of like the same thing. It’s more visceral, and it happens in the readers head instead.” It’s not a totally similar feeling that I get when I read “Cody”, but I just don’t know, I’m really troubled when I read the beginning. Just something about how the words that lead us to this incident are so casual – “Mostly I don’t think about it, but sometimes something will remind me of Cody.” It’s so casually and ambivalently spoken. I mean, on the list of horrifying images in comics this isn’t at the top of the list, and yet this is incredibly tragic and horrifying. I think it’s that such little care is given…it vaguely reminds me of the rhythm that Terrence Malick’s Badlands had – it speaks to the abrupt nature of life. Another comparison that came to mind was Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles. I refer to how the drama is muted and every detail is there for a reason. The drama is there if you engage with it, and there are these points in the story where it viceraly hits. “Cody”, like all the comics in Kramers 8, really knew how to hit in this specific way that’s so flabbergasting and disorienting, and at times, as shown by Bell’s “Cody”, incredibly compelling. – Sam Ombiri Get a copy of Kramers Ergot 8 HERE and check out Gabrielle Bell’s “Cody”. ———————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 5-17-2018 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

12/19/2017

Aaron CockleDecember 19, 2017NewsAaron Cockle today with Black Dada; Why, Comics?; Laura Park; Ai Wei Wei (in NYC); What is Bias in Machine Learning? ————————————————————————————————— Adam Pendleton and Black Dada Here are a couple pieces about Adam Pendleton’s excellent Black Dada Reader: Interviewed in his studio, Pendleton is quick to point out that the book, like much of his work, has always been an experiment. The Reader began its life as a spiral-bound book that lived in the artist’s studio, an attempt to create “a collage in book format” of texts that inspired him. “Originally it was an in-studio publication, in the sense that it wasn’t really meant necessarily for a wide distribution,” he explained. “It was really meant for me to refer to in the space of the studio while I was working on different projects. But I did hand out maybe a dozen copies, maybe more, to the people who would come to the studio, or people who were interested in the work and or the concept of Black Dada.” ————————————————————————————————— Panter/Groening DIY Here is an excerpt from Hillary Chute’s book, Why Comics?: From Underground to Everywhere, at the Lit Hub blog: The punk scene that launched cartoonists Panter and Groening was part of a larger punk movement that hit America, and the UK, in the mid-to-late 1970s. Both political and aesthetic, the punk movement, which often registered as a visceral or even violent response to mainstream pop culture, encouraged people to create their own culture across many different forms of production. This includes, most famously, the music that came to be known as punk rock. Punk culture often consolidated around bands, particularly their live performances, and the independent labels that developed to put out their music, along with the art and graphic design that went into their promotion—as well as the fanzines that articulated their ideas and goals. The “do-it-yourself” ethic is the defining feature of punk culture and production. As Jaime Hernandez, the creator, along with his brother Gilbert, of the famed long-running series Love and Rockets explained, he never realized he could be a cartoonist until he got involved with punk. “Then I thought, ‘Oh, this is kind of the same thing,’” Hernandez told the novelist and comics writer Neil Gaiman. “They were all the same to me, so if you could do that with punk, you could do that with comics.” ————————————————————————————————— A Cartoonist’s Darkly Magical and Autobiographical Work At Hyperallergic, Sarah Rose Sharp looks at the Laura Park exhibition and residency at the Columbus Museum of Art: “When you’re doing autobiography, you realize our lives are very repetitive, so a sense of magical realism starts to seep in there,” said Park, who cited British-American cartoonist Gabrielle Bell as an admired peer working in a similar vein. For example, in the story “Office32F,” Park’s comic stand-in discovers a miniature and mysterious office in the walls and baseboards of her apartment, apparently devoted to the task of close-monitoring her daily existence. The tale is equal parts cute and unsettling, with the protagonist taking cues from miniature written reports, which criticize her unkempt birdcage, but also lead her to finding a tiny pair of red mittens caught in a spider web and bizarrely soaking them in bleach and flushing them down the toilet. The specificity of Park’s visual and literary descriptions adds a sense of the uncanny to even the most quotidian urban activities, like Strangers on a Train, which captures moments while riding public transportation. ————————————————————————————————— Good Fences Make Good Neighbors Public Art Fund has a great interactive site detailing the current Ai Wei Wei installation in NYC. Ai Weiwei conceived this multi-site, multi-media exhibition for public spaces, monuments, buildings, transportation sites, and advertising platforms throughout New York City. Collectively, these elements comprise a passionate response to the global migration crisis and a reflection on the profound social and political impulse to divide people from each other. For Ai, these themes have deep roots. He experienced exile with his family as a child, life as an immigrant and art student in New York, and more recently, brutal repression as an artist and activist in China. The exhibition draws on many aspects of Ai’s career as a visual artist and architect, and is informed by both his own life experience and the plight of displaced people. In 2016, Ai and his team traveled to 23 countries and more than 40 refugee camps while filming his documentary, Human Flow. ————————————————————————————————— The Trouble With Bias (in Machine Learning) Via Boing Boing: “The Trouble with Bias,” Kate Crawford’s keynote at the 2017 Neural Information Processing Systems is a brilliant tour through different ways of thinking about what bias is, and when we should worry about it, specifically in the context of machine learning systems and algorithmic decision making — the best part is at the end, where she describes what we should do about this stuff, and where to get started. ————————————————————————————————— Vision Box – 12-19-2017 – by Cameron Arthur —————————————————————————————————Joanie and Jordie – 12-19-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

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