Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in NewsTagged Busdriver, Chris Visions, Comics Salon, Inechi, INK BRICK, Pittsburgh, pittsburgh comics salon, Quang Comics

Harrison

Posted on June 23, 2016June 23, 2016

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04/09/2018

Caleb OrecchioApril 9, 2018NewsCaleb Orecchio here with thoughts on Plop! and other news. ————————————————————————————————— A couple of months ago, I wrote about a 1979 article in an issue of The Comics Journal where the cover story by Steve Skeates calls for the death of the superhero and the further advocation of comics like Howard the Duck and Plop! Read all about it here if you want. I was recently flipping through my copies of Plop! with new eyes due to Skeates’ insistence that this was the title that could have saved comics. Friends, I must say, the comics industry had to have been in such a sordid state if Plop! and Howard the Duck were the ponies to bet on. I mean, I kinda like Plop! It’s silly, but rarely funny. The best part about the books are usually the covers (a la Basil Wolverton and Wally Wood). I enjoy Sergio Aragonés’ strips that ring-in each issue and then cap it off. There is also enough Bernie Wrightson comics within the series to encourage my forgiving attitude. But ultimately, Plop! is a bust. It’s not funnier than MAD or any other fellow rip-off like Cracked. It might be funnier than Crazy (Marvel’s hat in the ring of MAD rip-offs). I love Aragonés’ strips he writes and draws himself, but typically he is charming up some boring script intended to be clever. Plop! is almost 100% void of cleverness. Wrightson’s comics often are interesting to look at, but in the end are illustrating a really stupid script that doesn’t stick the landing. Each story fails, unlike its EC Comics predecessor, to end each story with a cherry on top or in a neat little bow. Oh and when the art is not drawn by Aragonés, Wrightson, Wally Wood, etc., it’s drawn by the worst cartoonists in the business. I can only assume they were in between jobs at DC and trying to make it in the newspaper one-panel strip business. Yikes, it’s just plain bad comics half the time at Plop! Not the kind of comic I’d encourage more of if I’m trying to save the industry and kill the superhero. But why do I really buy the back-issues if they suck so bad?? The covers! ————————————————————————————————— if you don’t know, now you know The National Cartoonists Society has announced their Cartoonist of the Year 2017 nominees. Sloane Leong is the most recent guest on Process Party. At TCJ.com, Tegan O’Neil on Crisis on Infinite Earths and Brian Nicholson on Dalston Monsterzz by Dilraj Mann. Todd Allen at The Beat informs us of a presentation and signing for Mark Burstein’s book, Dave Sheridan: Life with Dealer McDope, The Leather Nun, and The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, at the Cartoon Art Museum in San Fransisco, on April 24th. Dayton’s son, Mike Peeters is celebrating 50 years of strip making in Dayton, Ohio. Amelia Robinson has the scoop at Dayton Daily News. I would be remiss not to mention Isao Takahata has passed at age 82. Probably made one the most difficult and emotional movies ever in my opinion. ————————————————————————————————— Announcing the Spring Semester of thee Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers 8 weeks! $500 bux! 10 spots available! Rolling start date because of spring break – start NOW! Deadline to apply is April 12th. Read all about the course HERE and email santoroschool@gmail.com for more details or to apply. ————————————————————————————————— Share this page: [...]

08/01/2018

Juan FernándezAugust 1, 2018los Cómics / NewsNo news for today. I’m home with a sick cat on my lap. On the local front, The Pittsburgh Comics Salon meets tonight at Kaibur Coffee in Polish Hill. Audra Stang and I will be leading Pittsburghers in some comics calisthenics exercises. It’s always a good time – coffee, shop talk, solidarity. Commodity form as community form. If you’re around, come on out. More info here. On the personal front, my sweet baby boy cat Boris, who is only 6, has been sick for the past month and a half. We’ve gotten some medical attention for the little guy, but after all the time in ER, no diagnosis. He is eating a little more, is a little more active, but is still not back to his normal self. You can imagine how frustrating that can be. I’d never had a cat until Boris and this kind of thing is devastating. I’ve been thinking about KING-CAT #75, the issue that John Porcellino dedicated to the life story of his beloved cat Maisie Kukoc, who lived with him for 15 years. In a lot of ways it prepared me for this kind of love and pain. For today, just a photo of the guy. -Juan Share this page: [...]

05/06/2016

Sally IngrahamMay 6, 2016NewsWolverine still walks the wilds of Canada via Michael Comeau’s pen – Alyssa Berg frees her mind through the mysteries of the grid – Erik Nebel reverses expectations in every direction – the laughs come from Fabio Tonetto – the tears (perhaps) come from Lisa Wilde – Free Comic Book Day is upon us – and Bruce Lee never dies. ————————————————————————————————— Philippe Leblanc converses with Michael Comeau at Barbed Comics, digging deep into the why and how of Comeau’s Hellberta (available through Colour Code Printing). Michael Comeau is a Canadian cartoonist living in Toronto. Extensive travel throughout the provinces informed the creation of Hellberta over an 8-year period, and the book is a filter through which Comeau examines Canada’s complex relationship with the oil industry, and the mysterious “Canadian Identity”. Or, as the recently released collected edition is described – “The gloom, the entitlement, the desecration of the tar sands hangs over a province, a nation. Dirty oil addiction. A popular myth set in the rocky mountains. A mutant named Logan. A poetic salve for sore eyes weeping for a metaphorical context. WWWD? What would Wolverine do?…” The interview between Comeau and Philippe Leblanc ranges far and wide, hitting upon the nature of narrative, learning how to make comics, road tripping adventures, the shifting political climate in Canada, and exactly how tangled up Wolverine is in it all. Interesting on a number of levels – read the whole thing HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Alyssa Berg delivers Part Two of her museum-visit-inspired process meditation series today, this time exploring the grid with us. “Sometimes my mind is unwell, or full of complicated messy things or unable to think of new ideas (‘creative block’, I guess?). When I am in this state, I let my wild, creative mind rest. One way to do this is by going into a gentle analytical and physical practice. I sit down at my desk and pre-draw pages of panels and grids. Similar to preparing my work space as mentioned in Part One, pre-drawing panels and grids is a simple concentration-meditation that doesn’t require much thought (common theme: freedom from the mind!).” Read all of Part Two HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Drew Miller interviewed Erik Nebel recently, and their conversation is full of important stuff – ‘Drew Miller – You use vibrating colors as indicators of form, specifically for referencing the human body. The colors are strong on the screen! The drawing relies much less on direct line-work, which is uncharacteristic for the medium of comics. It’s an interesting way to develop distinct forms and negative space. Can you talk about color at all? Erik Nebel – I think of color in a way that may be different from how other cartoonists think of color. Traditionally, in our popular narratives, dark colors are associated with sadness and badness and things that are primitive, and light colors are associated with goodness and happiness and things that are civilized. That’s completely racist. It’s part of binary thinking. It’s poison in our society. I’m trying to reverse those expectations with my comics.’ Read the rest HERE, and follow Erik Nebel’s daily comic posts on his tumblr. ————————————————————————————————— Giving a shout out to cartoonist Fabio Tonetto, whose work has been cracking me up lately. Check out the rest of the comic above on Vice. ————————————————————————————————— Lisa Wilde’s Lacunae: Elegy For My Mother just finished being serialized on Mutha Magazine. A recent press release about the series described it as – “…a webzine that pushes the boundaries between comics and art. Tracing an arc from childhood to adulthood, the piece gives form to the unconscious side of a life narrative through single-image pages and minimal text. Wilde’s visceral and powerful drawings reference children’s art, comics, Jungian archetypes, and artists as wide-ranging as Chagall, Munch, and Eva Hesse.” Start from the beginning HERE, and follow this link to a list of all 5 parts. ————————————————————————————————— Another reminder that tomorrow (Sat. May 7th!) is Free Comic Book Day. Find a participating store near you via the Store Locator, call them up to get the details, and plan to get there early! I’ll be running out myself to find a copy of this sweet looking Bruce Lee comic! ————————————————————————————————— While we’re on the topic, here are a couple of apparently “lost sketches” by Bruce Lee, and the brief story behind them. ————————————————————————————————— Thanks for hanging out in the Comics Workbook newsroom this week! Meet back here bright and early Monday. Cheers! – Sally Share this page: [...]

Daniel Clowes Talk At The Bay Area Book Festival 2016

Chris Anthony DiazJuly 1, 2016The Diaz ArchiveDaniel Clowes talked with Ivory Madison at the Bay Area Book Festival, downtown Berkeley, Sunday, June 5, 2016. Dan also signed his latest Fantagraphics graphic novel PATIENCE, THE COMPLETE EIGHTBALL 1-18 SPECIAL EDITION and also advanced copies of the WILSON paperback. Photo color by Graham Willcox Share this page: [...]

07/25/2016

Juan FernándezJuly 25, 2016NewsJuan Fernandez here with: Tom Kemp’s MIDDEN FEEDER; building your goddamn website;Roxane Gay and Yona Harvey to Write Black Panther spin off World of Wakanda; Mark Newgarden’s Garbage Pail Kids interview; Zara rips off illustrators; Comic Arts Brooklyn 2016; The NIB takes Philly; 2016 Eisner Award Winners; new Street Angel; latest Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency Auction. ————————————————————————————————— midden feeder by Tom Kemp I’m happy to announce that we are featuring Tom Kemp’s midden feeder on the site this week. midden feeder was made by Tom Kemp in 2015 and was printed for Safari Festival 2015. Kemp will be surfing the new waves in contemporary comics and art at this year’s Safari Festival in London on August 27th. Don’t miss him! ————————————————————————————————— Build yerr own damn Website Max Riffner lays out how to build a comics website that works for you. It takes some effort but with Riffner’s detailed tips, you can make the most of the best tools available online today to make the site that best suits your work. and can keep you from getting stuck with antiquated web hosting services. No one else is going to do it for you, so get cracking! Your cartoonist website is your digital hub. Get that through your head right now. Your website is home base for everything that you do. It’s going to represent you and your work. It needs to be professional. It needs to work, and it needs to work for you. In fact, this is all about you and your freedom. Some of the hosting services may offer to provide domain name registration. And whichever domain registrar you use may offer hosting. The temptation to have everything in one spot is high. Don’t do it. Sometimes, either one will hold the name or the hosting hostage. You want to have these pieces all separate from each other so you can easily move services. ————————————————————————————————— Taking trash with Mark Newgarden – 2016 Interview The Garbage Pail Kids website has a wonderful, extensive intervew with Mark Newgarden on his time working for GPK. They go into lots of juicy production details and discuss Newgarden’s formative years. Exciting. What was it like working with the many artists involved in creating GPK? Correspondence and communications is so different now-a-days; I would imagine receiving Pound’s paintings with paint strokes would be a lot different than receiving a scanned electronic image these days. Can you explain the teacher/student relationship you had with Spiegelman and were you comfortable directing the GPK artists? I have to say, the original sets are untouchable when it comes to the level of quality (even printed on lesser-grade card). There was always a lot of creative back and forth, it was a big part of the job. Phone meetings, faxes, Fed-Exed tracing paper overlays with notes. Art and I were usually on the same page. John’s pencils or paintings would come in on a Monday and I’d make notes all over them. Then on Tuesday, Art would make notes on my notes and we’d usually call John in the afternoon and hash it all out. Tom Bunk and James Warhola were local, so they’d take the subway. We’d all do lunch in the fabled Topps cafeteria and then go through the same routine in person. At times (when there was time) we’d go through 2, 3, even 4 rounds of revisions on a single image to get it just right. The input usually focused on emphasizing clarity and amplifying (or extending) the gag. The goal was always to balance impact with visual clarity. May sound obvious, but it really isn’t always so simple. The initial staging or composition of a GPK gag was crucial as to whether it lived or died. Then the execution needed to be solid and plausible and never distract, or get in the way of the concept. John set a very high bar from the start. Tom brought a wacky energy to the mix. James added an air of foreboding mood and mystery. Seeing what these guys would come back with was always the highlight of my week. It was fun and collaborative, and I think our fresh eyes and brain cells helped make better GPKs. ————————————————————————————————— Roxane Gay and Yona Harvey to Write Black Panther spin off World of Wakanda The New York Times has announced that Ta-Nehisi Coates has brought on Roxane Gay and Yona Harvey to work on Black Panther: World of Wakanda, an upcoming Black Panther spin off. News out of left-field from the world of the Big 2 but a relief and a ray of very necessary light. And just like the current Black Panther series, which is written by Ta-Nehisi Coates, the author and a national correspondent for The Atlantic, the new comic will be written by newcomers to the industry: the feminist writer Roxane Gay and the poet Yona Harvey. “My agent was not thrilled that I was taking on another project,” Ms. Gay said. But learning to write comics exercised different creative muscles, which she said she found exciting. “It’s the most bizarre thing I’ve ever done, and I mean that in the best possible way,” she said. ————————————————————————————————— Comic Arts Brooklyn 2016: It’s a go! The premiere NYC art comics show, CAB, has announced that the festival WILL be happening this year. It will take place on November 5th. Exhibitor applications available soon. ————————————————————————————————— Artists Take a Bold Stand After Accusing Zara of Ripping Off Over a Dozen of Their Designs Spanish clothing retailer Zara, like many corporations, has no qualms at throwing their weight around when it comes to plagiarizing the designs of illustrators for their own use. Zara was found to be ripping off illustrator Tuesday Bassen’s designs. Bassen took matters into her own hands and spoke publicly on twitter last week about the incident. The internet took notice. Marie Solis has comprehensive coverage of the whole corporate debacle over on Mic.com. In an interview with the Daily Dot Bassen said, “It absolutely hurts my business and waters down the brand I’ve slowly built based around my original artwork.” She added that the legal fees alone are enough to tear down an independent artist: She’d paid $2,000 just to send her claims to Zara. But Bassen isn’t giving up — not just for her own sake, but for the recognition of at least a dozen other artists who also believe Zara has stolen their designs. New York City illustrator Adam J. Kurtz said when Bassen’s tweet blew up, he and a handful of other artists were texting and Facebook messaging each other, realizing the brand had stolen a slew of their designs all at once. ————————————————————————————————— The NIB takes Philly The NIB is taking over an art gallery and transforming it into their headquarters, bringing in six cartoonists to cover the 2016 Democratic Convention. If you loved their coverage of the Republican Convention last week, you’re not going to want to miss them this week. They’re going full force. ————————————————————————————————— 2016 Eisner Award Winners Announced Tom Spurgeon reports this years Eisner Award winners from San Diego Comic Con. The award ceremony was held Friday July 22nd. The winners for this year’s Eisner Awards were announced last night at a fancy program at the Hilton Bayfront. It was a well-received program, with a little bit of something for everyone: John Barrowman making nerd-culture and penis jokes, emotional speeches, people being adorable, Ed Brubaker and Gary Groth and Peggy Burns kind of mixing it up acceptance-speech wise. It was great to see a night where Kate Beaton got an award and Lynda Barry got in the Hall Of Fame. Two great cartoonists. I thought the winners were all pretty good. There were two I’d change if I could — actually more, because I’m a jerk, but two stood out to me as personal “aw, man” moments. That’s actually really good for an awards show. Biggest surprise was Bill Schelly’s Kurtzman book, I think. Spurgeon’s full reporting from SDCC 2016 is now online and available HERE. It’s always a pleasure to see this world through Spurgeon’s eyes, especially if you’ve never stepped foot in SDCC before. ————————————————————————————————— —————————————————————————— New Private Rowhouse Auction – 7.24-7.30 Last but not least, we have a new private auction up at auction.comicsworkbook.com! Lots of old and new comics for you to take home. email Frank Santoro at santoroschoolATgmail for a password, if you don’t already have one. If you already have a password, it is the same from last week. All funds go to helping keep the lights on and further developing the school. until next time! Juan Share this page: [...]

06/23/2016

Posted on June 23, 2016June 23, 2016 by Harrison

Harrison’s Daily News for June 23, 2016 starts off in the Salon, drops off midway with Inkbrick 5, and lands with some Busdriver.

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Salon Etiquette

Your favorite correspondent’s favorite correspondent Juan Fernandez reflects on the latest meeting of the Pittsburgh Comics Salon. Ingest your daily vitamins of theory, modular grids, holding the center, and more below.

http://comicsworkbook.com/notes-from-the-salon-june-18th-2016/

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Visions

Chris Visions was at Heroes Con last weekend, where Izzy Renzi took this photo. As soon as he got back…

“’…all of a sudden, for no pahticulah reason… I decided to go for a little run…’ And draw.”

Always moving. Check out The Chris Visions Summer Collection, 2016

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Ink Squad

Alexander Rothman: We’re proud to announce that INK BRICK no. 5 is now available for preorder from our online store!

Yet again our submission pool brought us more excellent work than we could hope to print, and as a result this will be our largest to date. Part of the book is a special section excerpting Jenny Zervakis’s upcoming book Strange Growths, which will be published jointly by John Porcellino of Spit And A Half and Tom Hart of the Sequential Artists Workshop.

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GATOSAURIO

Gatosaurio Grab Bags! Each includes one surprise tee, sticker pack, tote bag and enamel pin plus more surprises like zines, 90s tattoo chokers, a pocket notebook or a coin purse!

inechi.com

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Color is Light

I heart kokooma_, you should too.

instagram.com/kokooma_

Quang Comics

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Thumbs

“Po-pos don’t wan’t to follow me, when they see me in sneakers and cotton tees.”

Busdriver Thumbs out now.

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Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in NewsTagged Busdriver, Chris Visions, Comics Salon, Inechi, INK BRICK, Pittsburgh, pittsburgh comics salon, Quang Comics

Harrison

Posted on June 23, 2016June 23, 2016

Explore

San Diego Comic-Con International 2019

Chris Anthony DiazJuly 23, 2019Festivals and Shows / The Diaz ArchiveSan Diego Comic-Con International 2019, San Diego Convention Center, Exhibit Hall, Thursday, July 18, 2019 Share this page: [...]

12/30/2016

Sally IngrahamDecember 29, 2016NewsSally here, scribbling this as I’m making my way back to Pittsburgh, PA, from the wilds of Maine – through a nor’easter of course (2016 continues to deliver). I spent a week with family in Maine, chugging YA fantasy novels and drawing “Suzy and Cecil” strips and looking for Arctic Loons and of course reading (and gifting!) comics. Here are some things I found in the week the CW News team was taking a break. ————————————————————————————————— First of all, Disa Wallander updated her Slowly Dying comic (above!) Yay. ————————————————————————————————— Gloria Rivera posted her lovely comic Domestic Scene (named for the David Hockney painting of the same name) which she made last January but is sharing for the first time outside of the anthology it was published in. Start it below – finish it HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Tom Spurgeon has been publishing his annual “Holiday Interviews” on The Comics Reporter this week, and I was thrilled to see that Sarah Glidden and Tom had a lengthy exchange. Sarah got really introspective, probing her own motivations for telling the stories that she has this year. It’s good stuff. As Tom would say, “Go, read!“ ————————————————————————————————— From Summer Pierre via Mutha Magazine, an exciting birth story (above)…! ————————————————————————————————— From quite awhile ago, but finally read by myself – another type of birth story: Julia Wertz‘s A Friend’s Pregnancy on The New Yorker. The rest of the comic is HERE. ————————————————————————————————— The staff of The Village Voice put together a brief list of “The Ladies of Comics Who Made 2016 a Little More Bearable” – HERE. On the list is Giant Days (above), which certainly made my 2016 more bearable, and was one of the comics that I gave as a gift to a sister this year. ————————————————————————————————— Another comic I gave to a (different) sister this year was Anya Davidson‘s Lovers in the Garden. There is a nice review of the book by Sarah Miller over on Sequentialist – check it out HERE. While you’re at it, read some of the other comics reviews that Sarah Miller has written – it seems like Sequentialist is a site worth bookmarking. ————————————————————————————————— Nuria Pompeia died recently – she was a Spanish cartoonist, journalist, and feminist whose work often commented on social class, sexism, and censorship. As she was not well known here in the states, most articles I can find about her will need to be translated by Google…but here is a good one from earlier this year. (via The Comics Reporter) ————————————————————————————————— Here’s a great article that I found while poking around on Paste the other day, and since I got a good deal of joy out of the new Star Wars movie (Rogue One) I feel compelled to share it here. There is an obvious parallelism between Star Wars and some of Jack Kirby’s stories – but was Lucas inspired by Kirby or were they just riding the same creative waves? Get into it HERE (Pittsburgh’s Tom Scioli weighs in at one point!) ————————————————————————————————— I always like a good excuse to give a shout-out to Vanesa R. Del Rey – and the new Comics Workbook publication The Art of Vanesa R. Del Rey has given me plenty of opportunity. Check out the book HERE and get yourself a post-holiday treat! ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 12-30-2016 – by Gabriella Tito ————————————————————————————————— Amazingly, this is my last news post for 2016 – what a whirlwind it has been! See you next week and next year – Sally Share this page: [...]

Sunday is a Good Day to Visit a Museum: Part One

Alyssa BergApril 28, 2016Art Trip / EssaysOn Sunday I visited The Rubin Museum of Art in NYC. The Rubin shows ancient to contemporary painting, sculpture, and ritual objects from the Himalayas and surrounding region with their permanent collection focusing on Tibetan art. My objective was to see the exhibit Please Altar Everything, work by avant-garde performance artist and musician (Throbbing Gristle, Psychic TV) Genesis Breyer P-Orridge. The exhibit includes installation, sculpture, sigils, altars and gold-leafed paintings. As I walked through the exhibit, I felt especially connected to the sculptural, tactile altarpieces (some with tags that said: please touch!) and sigils (used in spells and for manifesting). Both altars and sigils are creative acts steeped in ritual and devotion. After the Genesis show, I spent some solitary time in the Tibetan Buddhist Shrine Room, the highlight of another exhibit at The Rubin called Sacred Spaces. It is a contemplative space – dark, with drone-y Buddhist chanting and an altar filled with ornate objects of worship. I also had the chance to explore some of the permanent collection of the Rubin – statues of deities and paintings made with the most vibrant and saturated pigments. The visit to the Rubin brought my attention to ritual, meditation and devotion in artistic practice – in other people’s practice and my own. ————————————————————————————————— Part 1: Ritual in Preparing the Space/It’s the Simple Things The daily act of going to my desk and preparing the space is an important ritual. It is the practice before the practice, the thing I do before I do the thing I do. Is calling my studio area a sacred space too heavy-handed? Well, my hands are heavy holding all this Palo Santo and sage that l am burning to clear any bad vibrations from the aforementioned sacred space. Most of the time when I sit down at my drawing table, it’s a mess. Like, a ridiculous mess from the previous night. I’m often impressed by the chaos I can create in a short amount of time. I start drawing/painting with an organized and peaceful space but as I make what I’m making, I’m not thinking about my love of an organized and peaceful space. I’m grabbing, mixing color, crumpling pages, digging for scraps, sharpening my pencils letting the shavings lie where they fall, cutting/trimming with abandon, etc. By the end of the night when I’m finished working, I don’t have the will or desire to clean, but I usually have a finished page. The next day the act of cleaning and organizing is my pre-drawing ritual, a simple meditation. It is an act that requires care and attention but not a lot of thought. It’s gives me a moment to see, appreciate and take stock of my supplies, clean my brushes, file my scraps away and put pens & pencils back in their homes. By clearing the physical space I clear the mental/emotional/psychic space in preparation for a new blank page that lies ahead. Chaos/Calm ————————————————————————————————— Look for Part 2 of this ongoing series next week! ————————————————————————————————— Alyssa Berg makes comics in Brooklyn, NY. You can find her work HERE. Share this page: [...]

07/01/2016

Aaron CockleJune 30, 2016NewsSally here – I’m in Honduras looking for Blue-crowned Motmots, Montezuma Oropendolas, and Lovely Cotingas (birds!)…as well as Honduran comics, so I’m handing the mic over to Aaron this week. Back with you next Friday! Take it away, Aaron. ————————————————————————————————— Thanks, Sally, looks like you’re having a nice trip! Today in the news we have Robert Kirby in conversation with MariNaomi; Smile Revisited; WE ALL WISH FOR DEADLY FORCE; Howard Cruse; mini-architecture; Austin English on the Risograph; PERSPECTIVE!; Secretimes; Drawing as Language Interviews; Mining the Moon ————————————————————————————————— “I Want Everything to Mean Something”: A Conversation with MariNaomi I’m always categorizing cartoonists: there’s this pure storytelling school that I would put you in, alongside John Porcellino, Kelly Froh, people like that. It’s this type of storytelling where the fat is boiled down to a lean, spare-looking narrative. What’s called “deceptively simple.” I feel like that describes my process, both with writing and drawing: I’m basically editing the whole time. But I don’t want to be spare just to be spare (or busy just to be busy). I want everything to mean something. To meet the emotion of the scene or the moment? Exactly. Once I was mentoring a student, who had this wonderful, personal story she wanted to tell about her family. It was a quiet piece, and that’s how she was approaching it. But some of her peers, her fellow students, were trying to convince her to draw all these very dramatic panels for it, which was causing her a lot of anxiety, because she didn’t think she could pull that off. And the thing is, what they were suggesting was completely wrong for this particular story! I think when you’re just starting out you might feel like “I need X, Y, & Z to tell a story,” but that’s not how it works! There’s no template. Every story has its specific needs. That’s what I learned from doing all those comics for The Rumpus, which became my book Dragon’s Breath. I learned as I went how to make each individual piece be what it wanted to be. —via Robert Kirby at TCJ ————————————————————————————————— Raina Telgemeier’s Smile signaled a sea change in comics still felt today At a glance, this feels like a pretty big deal for Telgemeier but not necessarily all that important to anyone else—just a personal success worth celebrating. But Smile has inarguably changed the way many people look at comics, and the way the industry itself approaches audiences. It’s not that there was no one else writing graphic novels for young women when Smile came onto the scene in 2010, but Telgemeier’s incredible success legitimizes comics as suitable for YA literature and YA literature as suitable for comics, at least to people who were paying attention to the number of copies sold. ————————————————————————————————— See trauma become art with hints of dark humor in ‘We All Wish for Deadly Force’ To say that Leela Corman puts much of herself into her art is an understatement. Most of her collected work here covers her own history, traumas, perspectives, feelings, and even humor. As she herself admits, her sense of humor is quite dark and she proudly wears her Jewish and Brooklyn heritage on her sleeve as inspiration for her work. Through her short stories, readers not only learn a lot about their creator, but also learn a lot about how trauma is experienced as well as genuine issues involving women in Egypt as well as those suffering from loss. Her style is simple yet effective, with plenty of detail in clothing, furniture, and backgrounds with plenty of realistic illustrations of people (especially herself). Her sense of color to establish mood is exceptional and evident in much of her work here. The entire graphic novel gives the reader many things to reflect upon afterward and sticks with one long after it has been put down. ————————————————————————————————— International Comic Arts Forum 2016 Artists Talk: Howard Cruse Artist Howard Cruse‘s presentation at the International Comic Arts Forum at University of South Carolina on April 15, 2016. Cruse is the Eisner and Harvey award-winning creator of Stuck Rubber Baby, a founding editor of Gay Comix, and creator of Barefootz and the Wendel comics series. ————————————————————————————————— Japan opens its first museum for miniature architecture models ————————————————————————————————— New risograph zine by Austin English ————————————————————————————————— 10 typical perspective errors —via electricalice ————————————————————————————————— Keith Jones’ Secretimes is a Pleasant, Joycean Class War Somehow, it’s not depressing, even with the rich murdering the poor for sport, probably because of the fun Jones seems to have drawing the thing. Nothing seems to mean much, but that keeps the stakes low, and the artist’s habit of filling every bit of space with some doodad or other is pleasant without becoming overcrowded. The result is like James Joyce’s riffs slowed down to a more manageable pace—a gifted brain unwinding for pleasure by extemporizing. ————————————————————————————————— Drawing as Language Video-Interviews with Cartoonists To commemorate the 25th anniversary of the international Comix-Festival, Fumetto, we will be showing interviews with cartoonists who coined our contemporary drawing culture. They speak of their drawing experiences and on topics such as «drawing as a language» and «visual narration». ————————————————————————————————— Matthew Thurber’s Mining the Moon Essential 4th of July reading/viewing/listening. The Comic The Musical ————————————————————————————————— Share this page: [...]

01/22/2018

Caleb OrecchioJanuary 22, 2018NewsCaleb Orecchio here with thoughts on Brandon Graham’s daily diary comics and other news. ————————————————————————————————— Lately, I’ve been intrigued by Brandon Graham’s daily comics he posts to social media. He posted them on his blog too. The simplicity is really nice structurally and tonally. Often the strips include whatever he’s thinking about that day, or what music he’s listening to. Sometimes these reflect very personal and revealing aspects of his life, while other times he just seems to let his mind wander and his lines and words fill the page. These are nice to read, and the benefit of improvisation lends itself to a simple, downward reading style—your eye starts on the top left-hand of the page and follows the strip down to the lower right-hand side. All the incredibly detailed gimmicks and intricacies of his professional work (i.e. King City and Multiple Warheads) are basically non-existent here, in a good way. Now don’t get me wrong, I generally love Graham’s work. His ability to make interesting images is not to be taken lightly and every new Brandon Graham release is an event unto itself in my house. However, in imperfect light, I simply can’t read Multiple Warheads. Often all the very pretty colors jump out at me at once and my eyes have to really focus to absorb the work as intended by the author. Plus, take into account the consistently inconsistent structural integrity of a Graham comic and I’ve got me a headache. His black and white work is often easier on the eyes, but still lacks a cohesive composition to allow for effortless reading that flows steadily. Maybe some would consider me a lazy reader, color blind and biased towards more Comics Workbook-y grid type comics, and I am biased for sure. That being said, I’m trying to make a point. Compared to King City and Warheads, Graham’s recent daily comics are very rough but to me they are actually much more inviting and enjoyable to read aesthetically at the moment. Whether it’s the content or the actual drawing (drawing: which I should point out, is different from inking), these daily comics feel particularly essential. Maybe it’s just my mood, but meandering thoughts by way of improved lines on paper feel pertinent right now. ————————————————————————————————— if you don’t know, now you know Michael Cavna on the work and career of legendary Pittsburgh cartoonist, Jackie Ormes, over at the Washington Post in lieu of Ormes’ induction into The Will Esiner Hall of Fame. Cailla Baasch Anderson gives some details into how lawyers are using comics to make legal contracts easier to understand. Phillippe LeBlanc writes about the Uncivilized Books series, Structures over at Your Chicken Enemy. Rob Kirby is the latest guest on Comic Book Decalogue. ————————————————————————————————— Collected from the thousands of pages of material that Frank has left scattered all over the digital landscape, these 4 PDF collections contain Frank’s best writing on comics and comics making from the past decade. Theory and process, reviews and discoveries, journeys both physical and spiritual. Check out the “Best of Frank Santoro” PDF collections, available HERE! ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 1-22-2018 – by Gabriella Tito ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 1-22-2018 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

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