Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

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Juan Fernández

Posted on January 8, 2019January 10, 2019

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03/01/2017

Juan FernándezMarch 1, 2017los Cómics / NewsJuan José con un poquito sobre #GRAFBCN2017; Bas Backer on Chicks on Cómics; Inés Estrada’s Booklyn 2012; Mireia Pérez; Núria Pompeia; Berliac; Salva Rubio on Jiro Taniguchi; 100 Años de TBO; CW Daily Comics. Cómics y noticias que me han llamado la atención esta semana: ESTE FIN DE SEMANA: #GRAFBCN2017. Esta a la vuelta de la esquina. GRAF is coming to Barcelona. Here’s all the info you need for #GRAFBCN2017‘s programming. March 3-5 at the wacky warehouse space, Fabra i Coats. It’s the ninth edition of the Festival so it should get pretty wild. – If you’re following from home, check out twitter and tumblr for the #GRAFBCN2017 to get some insights on. Want to know who’s going to be there? Here ya go. Need more info? Here’s Mireia Pérez with the scoop you need on #GRAFBCN2017 over on RTVE’s La Hora del Bocadillo, Spain’s weekly national comics radio hour. (Fast forward to minute 48). Descubre a Núria Pompeia en la exposición ‘Núria Pompeia, sola ante el peligro’. Fundación Gin‘s digital editorial cartooning museum, Humoristan, has got a great online exhibition of Pompeia’s work with highlights from Maternasis and Las Metamorfosis. Berliac‘s got some new comics on Vice – Asian Food Store Junkies – S01-E03 This week will horrify your taste buds. Inés Estrada’s dropped a zine she made, quick and dirty after her time at Comic Arts Brooklyn in 2012. “I was going to make a zine of my comics diary of Brooklyn 2012 (cus I never did) but fck it… who cares about 2012″ Now you can read it online. Inspiring, fast, six panel autobio. Salva Rubio offers a great reflection on the work of the late Jiro Taniguchi. Especially of interest given it’s a Spanish perspective on the manga titan. The theme here is the eternal return. This March, it will be the 100th anniversary of the first issue of “TBO”, the popular illustrated magazine that gave name to Spanish comics, tebeos. To commemorate this the newly published, Antoni Guiral‘s 100 Años de TBO, tells the history of a publication which passed the great names of twentieth century Catalan comic. Take a tour of a century “TBO”. (In Catalan!) Bas Backer ha hecho un relato hermoso de su paso por Buenos Aires, el encuentro con amigos y actividades de Chicks On Comics. A nice report, filled with photos and drawings of time passing through the amazing Chicks on Comics show and Buenos Aires. A nice long distance relationship travelogue, haha! ————————————————————————————————— Berliac offers some fresh cuts over at Fumettologica, the central axis of the conversation being his work editing and contributing to Kuš! #25’s Gaijiin Manga. Short and sweet but goes in deep with his thoughts on gekiga, the western gaze and his own evolution as an author. How do you explain the current popularity of Gekiga in the western comics scene? Now they’re getting published and before they were not, simple as that. If you want to dig deeper, I guess the publishers finally realized that since the late seventies, Western adults grew up with manga and anime, and we just needed a cultural approval from well-respected publishers, to re-unite with our childhood love without feeling embarassed about it. Put that together with the concept that publishers from liberal countries have of what a Graphic-Novel is supposed to be (basically realistic stories about the suffering of people from far away countries, to be enjoyed from the comfort of our sofas), and there you go: Gekiga provides us with both. Here lies another reason why I like to call my own work Gaijin-Gekiga: if Gekiga was the Japanese expression, in a dramatic comics form, of their own collective anxieties in times of hypercapitalism, then I can undoubtedly say that the main focus of my work is the very same one, only about my own place and time, of course. I have the impression that not many well-known cartoonists are really talking about what’s going on right here and now, on this side of the world, on a collective scale. In Graphic-Novels, all I see is either boring lectures about foreign or past war conflicts from an “objective”, Western point of view, or feel-good stories about individual self-improvement, and in the most successful cases, a combination of the two. These stories are just two different ways of patting our backs and telling ourselves how great we Westerners are. Gekiga was a beautiful, dignifying way to accept the crushing reality of post-war defeat. Western narratives of today, on the contrary, insist on that we’re on the winning side, even when our reality clearly points to the opposite (see Donald Trump). I’m not saying there’s dignity in being a loser, but in seeing reality for what it is. Drama without exaggeration. That is the essence of Gekiga. Now that a few months has passed from the release of the Kus, can you say that the anthology also served as a bond between the artists of this possible new western manga scene? Bonds among artists always exist, but maybe not explicitely. to the point not even we are aware of it. Many of the artists involved discovered each other’s work in that issue of š! As I said in another interview, it is not the artists’ task or responsablity to make that bond intelligible for the public, but the publishers’, gallerists’, and journalists’. As an author, I’m not too concerned about it. As a co-editor of š! #25, I certainly hope we provided a grain of sand to this cause. ————————————————————————————————— The Spring Semester of the Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers is starting soon! The semester has a rolling start date, but it will officially kick off on March 7th. We will continue taking applications past that date – Frank is always willing to make it work for your schedule. Just apply! The course is 8 weeks long – 500 bux – payment plans are available. More details can be found HERE. Email santoroschoolATgmail to apply ————————————————————————————————— Blinkers – 3-1-2017 – by Jack Brougham ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 3-1-2017 – by Gabriella Tito ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 3-1-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio ————————————————————————————————— Cozytown – 3-1-2017 – by Juan Fernandez Share this page: [...]

06/10/2016

Sally IngrahamJune 10, 2016NewsFrom Sally to you – interviews, reviews, and Rowhouse mischief. Dig in! ————————————————————————————————— The Rowhouse had a special guest this week – samurai ninja badass cartoonist Lale Westvind stopped by on her way to CAKE in Chicago. She spent an evening digging into Frank’s library, and somehow simultaneously drew four pages of a new comic, all the while sharing stories about her cross-country motorcycle adventures. You can catch up with her yourself at CAKE this weekend (table 42b), or if you’re not in Chicago, check out a nicely coincidental interview with Lale here on the Comics Workbook site – follow the link below. http://comicsworkbook.com/lale-westvind-sometimes-an-overgrown-golf-course-will-do/ ————————————————————————————————— Speaking of CAKE, there are lots of brilliant books debuting at the show. I’m particularly excited about Hip Hop Family Tree Vol. 4 by Ed Piskor. Here’s the whole list! ————————————————————————————————— Over on The Comics Journal RJ Casey reviewed Ben Sears‘ new book Night Air (Koyama Press, 2016). “I’m nostalgic for things not beholden to nostalgia. I want to read adventure comics without the guilt of knowing that the original creators died flat broke and drowning in menacing legalese. I want to laugh at jokes that aren’t slathered in sanctimonious pandering. Frankly, I’m on the lookout for fun comics with no icky strings attached. So thank goodness for Night Air.” – RJ Casey Read the whole review HERE. ————————————————————————————————— The Comics Beat has a review of Melissa Mendes‘ Lou (Oily Comics). John Seven writes: “Mendes presents a full picture of this family’s life, working with multiple perspectives in reaction to the possibility of getting a puppy, as well as Lou’s hang-outs in an abandoned theater with her buddies, the shady dealings that Eddie encounters at the pizza place, and the mother’s reminiscence of the simpler, more intimate life with her husband before her children came along. Mendes brings all these pieces together to present a family as a form of super organism that can be jolted or made buoyant be the way separate parts of its life fester or expand. The mundanity of a new puppy can bounce up against the desperate actions of a criminal to create the family dynamic.“ Read the rest of the review HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Around the Comics Workbook HQ, we’re still processing the successful first official residency that took place last week. Mahmoud Hashemi, one of the two fellows who joined us, sent us a detailed report of his experience which we will share more of soon. For the moment, here’s the light touch, in Mahmoud’s words: “From May 28th to June 2nd, 2016, I visited Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I went to work with Frank Santoro on Matt Conway’s game Homemake. Overall it was a great vacation because it wasn’t your typical beachside retreat. Rather, it was mounting an effort to renew creativity and productivity on Matt Conway’s longstanding project, Homemake. … Frank’s own creative methods have a focus on systems, especially jazz-inspired rhythmic systems, making them an exceptional fit with Homemake‘s motivations and goals. I was skeptical at first, but it worked wonders. This effectiveness may have been magnified because half of Homemake‘s vision was disparate moments, a grab bag of mental notes about certain aesthetics. This method allowed Matt to express all his thoughts and editors, like me and Frank, to come through, see the patterns a reader would want to see, and develop the most coherent narrative. Everyone wins.” Look for more from Mahmoud and Matt and Frank on the exceptional days they spent together here on Comics Workbook soon! ————————————————————————————————— Have a great weekend folks! – Sally Share this page: [...]

03/30/2018

Sally IngrahamMarch 29, 2018NewsSally Ingraham here with work and wisdom from Kriota Willberg, Nicole Hollander, Deb Lucke, and many more! ————————————————————————————————— Kriota Willberg calls Draw Stronger (coming out in April 2018) the comic she was “born to make”. She addresses a chronic problem she has witnessed among cartoonists and artists and creatives of all sorts – living with pain. Publishers Weekly had a great chat with her recently, and she began by saying: “In the US we have a number of familiar clichés: “No pain, no gain.” “You must suffer for your art.” “If it doesn’t hurt, it’s not working.” There’s a stereotype: artists suffer in literature and film—it’s sexy! Who wants to watch a movie about a genius artist who gets enough rest, meets their deadlines, never yells at their spouse or kids, makes incredible pain free art, and dies after a fulfilling happy career? Wrist braces, calluses, poisoning from media (ink/paint), and lack of sleep are interpreted by many to mean that we are suffering in order to make great comics. That’s how it’s done! This is true for acting, dancing, sports, banking, science, everything. Our culture tells us that you love your discipline more (regardless of talent) if you prove through suffering that you are working harder than anyone else. Obviously, deadlines, day jobs, and life get in the way of healthy work/rest schedules. However, the comics community is beginning to be supportive of injured artists and more aware of healthy drawing practices. Protecting a lifetime of drawing is becoming more important than the next deadline.“ Kriota Willberg is the champion we need right now, determined to get this point across to legions of struggling (and not in the glamorous way) artists. Read the rest of the interview at Publishers Weekly HERE. Over on The Comics Beat Kriota was a guest columnist recently, and shared a lengthy interview with Nate Piekos. The topic is Nate’s life-changing injury to hand/shoulder/neck which was caused by his work as a professional letterer for numerous comics publishers. Kriota calls his experience “nightmarish but hopeful”. Read about it HERE. Be smart! Pick up Kriota’s book when it comes out, or catch one of her excellent workshops at a comics expo near you. (Pittsburgh cartoonists, Kriota will be here in June offering her workshop – keep an eye out for more details soon!) ————————————————————————————————— Nicole Hollander talks about her new book in the video above – it is called We Ate Wonder Bread, and is a memoir of her childhood in Chicago. Nicole Hollander is the creator of the comic strip Sylvia, which has been in syndication since 1981 (you can read archival strips and an occasional new one HERE). Using Sylvia to speak her mind over the years, Nicole Hollander is an important voice and an interesting cartoonist. There’s a short but powerful interview with her on Publishers Weekly where she talks about the difference between creating a political daily comic strip, and a memoir. She also talks about what it meant to be a feminist cartoonist in the 1970’s. “I didn’t even know my career was impossible. We had features editors who were women but it meant nothing. The approval came from men sitting in an office saying thumbs up or thumbs down. There were what, three or four slots? Early women cartoonists like Brenda Starr were very feminine. Lynda Barry had a strong following, but only in alternative papers. With Sylvia, readers were always writing in complaining, saying they were “disgusted their daughter would have to read about disgusting things like having your period.” But I got away with a lot. There was so much independence in what I did.“ Read the rest of the interview HERE. ————————————————————————————————— The chance to check out Edward Gorey’s Art Collection, as depicted by cartoonist Deb Lucke, was pretty much everything I could have asked for today. See the whole thing at The New Yorker – HERE. Deb Lucke is known for her series for kids, The Lunch Witch – but I really like the more incidental comics that she makes. Here’s another one about a museum visit, this time to the MOMA, from February of 2018 – check it out on The Rumpus. ————————————————————————————————— Weekend Snacks Just in time for Passover, Liana Finck shares her take on the story of Moses and The Burning Bush, in The Tough Customer – on Tablet. The New York Times Book Review has added two comics and graphic novel columnists – the excellent Hillary Chute and Ed Park. The Book Review will start running their column in April. Read more about it HERE. Kelly Kincaid draws a hilarious webcomic called Jetlagged Comic, which is about her life as a flight attendant. Huffpost shares 25 of her best comics, and the story behind how she started making them. Whit Taylor presents Leslie Stein’s Present this week on Illustrated PEN – check it out HERE. SyFy Wire chats with Wendy Pini and her husband Richard on the past and future of Elfquest, which recently came to a close after 40 years. Read the article HERE. Hillary Brown tackles Eleanor Davis‘ Why Art? over on Paste Magazine, and offers a new interview with her – HERE. Lauren Purje met Neil Gaiman recently and made a comic about it – on Hyperallergic. Tessa Strain reviews Sloane Leong‘s new Image series, Prism Stalker – on The Comics Journal. ————————————————————————————————— 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 as early as March 30th 2018. Deadline to apply is April 12th. Read all about the course HERE and email santoroschool@gmail.com for more details or to apply. ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 3-30-2018 – by Sally Ingraham ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 3-30-2018 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

09/06/2016

Aaron CockleSeptember 6, 2016NewsAaron here today with the Composition Competition Awards; Sophie Yanow in the Dakotas; Shaw/Nadel on U-tube; some pioneers of the comic strip; Kirby injustices revisited ————————————————————————————————— Congratulations to ALL who created and submitted work for this year’s Composition Competition contest! First Place – $500 cash prize: Cameron Nicholson – For a Lack of Better Words Second Place – $250 credit at Copacetic Comics: Shee Phon – I Know It’s Not About Me, But I Don’t Want To Die Third Place – $100 credit at Copacetic Comics: Cameron Arthur – Oasis Honorable Mention – $50 credit at Big Planet Comics: Lisa Wilkinson – The Last Time I Saw Tate; Janne Marie Dauer – Blame It On the Night Moves; Luke Howard – Extragalactic; Niall Breen – Śūnyatā Special Prize – $25 credit at Copacetic Comics: Lina Madöry – Reflection No Prize Shout Out!: Jillian Fleck – I Got A Job; Phillip Dokes – Falling Congratulations to the winners and all of those who participated. ————————————————————————————————— Sophie Yanow is covering the Dakota Access Pipeline protest at the Nib: ————————————————————————————————— The Strand bookstore filmed last week’s conversation with Dash Shaw and Dan Nadel In support of Shaw’s recently released Cosplayers book, for your viewing/listening enjoyment. ————————————————————————————————— Some updated exhibition info for the Pioneers of the Comic Strip show on view at Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, through September 18: With an extensive exhibition, SCHIRN presents the pioneers of the comic strip, who set the artistic and substantive standards of early comic strips in an experimental and progressive way. This also highlights the relationship of comic strips and colorful newspaper supplements with the developments in visual arts at the time. The SCHIRN presents the cultural history of the comic strip in an outstanding series of selected works, primarily by American illustrators: Winsor McCay, Lyonel Feininger, Charles Forbell, George Herriman, Cliff Sterrett and Frank King. ————————————————————————————————— Asher Elbein writes about Jack Kirby’s history with Marvel Comics at the Atlantic: In the mid-1970s, Congress revised the laws around copyright, offering longer periods of ownership for copyright holders—if the proper paperwork could be provided. Marvel realized that many of its previous contracts were legally questionable, remnants of the comics industry’s fly-by-night origins with regards to creative work. In 1978, the company began handing out freelancer contracts that guaranteed the company “forever all rights of any kind and nature in and to the work.” As Michael Dean wrote in a 2002 issue of The Comics Journal, these “work for hire” contracts were partly a result of the superhero boom Kirby himself had a hand in creating. “It wasn’t just monthly comic books that were at stake any more,” Dean wrote. “It was the vast ancillary potential of licensing and merchandising the content of those comics.” The contracts legally formalized what had previously been loosely assumed to be corporate policy, but having it in writing gave many comics freelancers pause for thought. When Kirby got the contract, he refused to sign it and left Marvel for good. Share this page: [...]

07/12/2018

Comics WorkbookJuly 12, 2018NewsSam Ombiri here: I found myself reading and re-reading Ganges 4 by Kevin Huizenga. Of course I have to re-read it as it is a very intricate comic. There’s a lot of information conveyed, but especially for this comic it seems that for Huizenga it’s important for the nature of the encounter to be felt. I very much felt the nature of the concepts, thoughts, and anxieties that Glenn Ganges encounters. At one point, for example, Huizenga’s stand-in (whom we know as Glenn) attempts to bore himself to sleep with information. This bland and life-less information that we, the readers, are given, is through the comics form brought to life. This information, being juxtaposed cohesively with a bunch of goofy nonsense, is delivered in the same fashion as actual facts. As a result, the comic stirs a deep emotional reaction from me as a reader, in a manner that isn’t contrived in any way shape or form. It’s often off-putting when a comic is contrived. It’s often off-putting when a maker demands that the reader be compelled, as opposed to allowing the reader to just feel what they feel. I realize that measuring how contrived something comes off as is difficult, and it’s even more difficult to design a system that avoids it, but following a construct can back an artist’s honesty and sincerity – as it does in this installment of Ganges. This issue showed me that serving a construct can really vouch for an artist’s sincerity. Part of the what makes reading this comic an amazing experience comes from me knowing the intent of Huizenga’s experimentation. I mean knowing this from reading his work as opposed to reading his interviews. I know that the comic is first and foremost concerned (but not too concerned) with me as the reader comprehending these moments that transpire all throughout the comic, and more importantly, it’s at the service of a construct. This in turn vouches for the sincerity of the work. The comic, while dealing with these various concepts, is at its core inviting the reader to think of those moments where sleep refuses to come. Which is something all humans have experienced. Huizenga is working in this setting; this space in order to reveal certain patterns in “being”. Like the spontaneous way our thoughts manifest and then vanish even quicker than they came. In the comic it’s all brilliantly displayed at the service of the comics form, and by the nature of the story itself. There are some moments we only catch brief glimpses of as in the majority of the panel cuts off at the bottom of the book. That these events stretch beyond the book. As we only see some speech bubbles without seeing the part of the panel that shows the characters, or sometimes we catch brief glances of moments we can’t fully perceive as readers. There’s an aspect of this method of sequencing that resonates with the idea of seeking the truth or the essence of the moment by cutting crucial aspects. By implying that there’s a comic to read, that the reader has been reading. Then this comic that’s at the service of a construct, that has intricate rhythm, suddenly deprives the reader of moments the reader has been made so keen to read. The comic plays with the reader’s patience. All that’s happening in the comic feels to me as if it’s at the service of delivering these delightful punchlines which are at times hilarious, at times melancholic. Even the melancholic punchlines in Ganges 4 are delightful. For example Glenn’s conversation with Death which was discouraging because it displays a way we ourselves may approach life. What was portrayed was discouraging. Death is attempting to comfort Glenn in the most earnest way it can, and the whole encounter with Death is thankfully not turned into a punchline. Rhythm didn’t dictate that Death in itself to be the punchline. Rather, it’s treated as something to pass over – that Death’s presence in the following panels aren’t supposed to be registered as a spectacle. Likewise in those panels that Death spoke in, Death didn’t speak in a fashion that would be perceived as a spectacle. It was still an incredibly emotional moment. Death’s ultimate morbid punchline was being delivered by the running gag in which instead of seeing an actual book title and author on a book’s cover, we’re given Glenn’s idiosyncratic goofy projection of what a book contains according to him. Even this running gag doesn’t present itself as a spectacle. The moments leading up to Death’s timely arrival is of equal weight and distinction. It’s up to the reader to engage with what’s given, and Huizenga is incredibly generous with what he has given to engage with. I’m still re-reading it! – Sam Ombiri Share this page: [...]

Daily News – On Snooze!

Posted on January 8, 2019January 10, 2019 by Juan Fernández

Hello!

Just wanted to send you all a little update. As you may have noticed, our news has gone fairly quiet as of late. Not to worry, our news team is simply hibernating.

We’ll be back in action with some MAJOR site changes in the spring. We hope to see your bright and shining, comics-loving faces here on Comics Workbook 2.0 April 1st, 2019!

xoxo
Juan Fernandez
Managing Editor

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Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in News

Juan Fernández

Posted on January 8, 2019January 10, 2019

Explore

01/31/2017

Aaron CockleJanuary 30, 2017NewsAaron here today with Quimby’s NYC Grand Opening Extravaganza; Philip Guston and the Nixon Years; a review of some Obama Family Comics; Russian Futurist Sound Poems; Kartalopoulos at Angoulême; Festival of the Photocopier; Laura Park; Box Brown Wrestling Comics. ————————————————————————————————— GRAND OPENING QUIMBY’S BOOKSTORE NYC SATURDAY FEBRUARY 4, 2017, 7–10pm At 7:00 PM, Steven Svymbersky will give a short slide show talk on the history of zines followed by champagne and hors d’oeuvres. This event is also the opening for the first major survey of works by sculptor and collage artist, Eric Kirsammer. Quimby’s Bookstore NYC 536 Metropolitan Ave Brooklyn, NY 11211 ————————————————————————————————— Guston on Nixon Hauser & Wirth recently concluded it’s exhibit of Philip Guston‘s work from the 1970’s focusing on Richard Milhous Nixon, former president of the United States. The New York Times wrote a piece about the show, and Guston’s relationship with Philip Roth: Mr. Roth owns several of the Nixon drawings. “I always wanted Philip to publish them in a book,” he said. “But he was loath to do that then. He wasn’t sure about whether to go public with them. I think he didn’t want to be sullied as a cartoonist. But actually the people who didn’t like those wonderful last paintings sullied him as a cartoonist anyway.” Through the ’50s and most of the ’60s, Guston was a leading Abstract Expressionist, greatly admired for the shimmering elegance of his painting. But in the mid-60s, in one of the most famous about-faces in art history, he began to repudiate his own work. “American Abstract art is a lie, a sham, a cover-up for a poverty of spirit,” he wrote. Abandoning abstraction, he started to make paintings that weren’t just figurative but amounted to a catalog of comic-strip crumminess: light bulbs; rusted nails; old shoe soles; hairy legs; hooded, slit-eyed Klansmen smoking fat cigars. The world of Guston eventually came to look, as a number of critics pointed out, a lot like the world of R. Crumb. ————————————————————————————————— ‘He doesn’t have a name but his first name is Allergy Doctor’ J. Caleb Mozzocco takes a look at Steven Weissman’s second book chronicling the Obama administration (and family), Looking For America’s Dog, still the most accurate depiction of those times that we are ever likely to see. The Obama that emerged was maybe the ultimate comics character; after all, there are few figures that are at once as iconic and as protean as our presidents, upon whom we project, well, everything. The President of the United States, any president of the United States, is the Comics Character of a Thousand Faces. (And do note that most newspaper comics characters are confined to a single strip by a single artist or studio, whereas whoever the president is appears in scores of different editorial cartoons by scores of different artists every single day.) Looking For America’s Dog is similar in format to Barack Hussein Obama, filled with discrete, four-panel gag strips that wind in and out of an overarching quest narrative. And it’s similar in construction; a black-and-white sketchbook comic constructed with judiciously chosen uses of bright color and dialogue balloons with their long, thin tails apparently glued atop the pages. The aesthetic is a peculiar mix of dashed-off and labored-over. It is also, owing to the fact that it is of course a more recent work, a much more confident and accomplished book, with a much stronger through line: Bumbling Biden left the White House gate open, and America’s dog Bo ran away. (“God Damn You, Joe Biden,” a frustrated president says as he trudges through the snow, calling “Bo-oh!!”) ————————————————————————————————— Zaum, which translates into “beyond the mind” At Hyperallergic, Claire Voon looks at Russian sound poetry, made available online by the Getty Research Institute, that serves as an interactive companion to Explodity: Sound, Image, and Word in Russian Futurist Book Art, curated by Nancy Perloff. “Recurring verbal, visual, and vocal references to the folklike and the primitive, reversibility and mirror forms, the fourth dimension, and apocalypse dominate the artistic expression of these books,” as Perloff writes in her introduction. “Moreover, futurist poets and painters intended their books to be heard as well as read.” ————————————————————————————————— Dispatch from France Bill Kartalopoulos was on the ground at this year’s Angoulême Festival, and posted some great images. ————————————————————————————————— ————————————————————————————————— Info about the upcoming Laura Park workshop at the Sequential Artist’s Workshop, February 27 – March 3, 2017. ————————————————————————————————— The Great Sasuke: Japan’s Masked Wrestler Turned Masked Politician If there was ever a time for some Box Brown Japanese wrestling/politics comics, that time is now. ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 1-31-2017 – by Sally Ingraham ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 1-31-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

Charlotte, NC Scene Report

Frank SantoroOctober 30, 2011Riff Raff / Scene ReportsThis week’s scene report is brought to you by Dustin Harbin. I first met Dustin at Heroes Con back in 2008. Check out this picture of me, Dan and Tim at the ComicsComics panel they had for us. Boy, that was a fun show. Dustin was working for the show’s organizer and was in charge of “Indy Island”- and he got to create this awesome show within a show. There was literally a big spot in the center of the hall that was for us indy guys. Jaime was there. Evan Dorkin was there. The Pittsburgh crew of Jim Rugg, Ed Piskor, and Tom Scioli. Sammy Harkham. Kevin H. Brian Ralph. Me, Dan and Tim. In Charlotte, North Carolina? This was the kind of show that Michael Golden went to. Chris Pitzer introduced me to Matt Wagner – that should tell you what kind of show it was. Lots of great back issues – a classy old school convention. It wasn’t really an “indy” show – but Dustin made it into one. (Or tried to. Long story) That was where I first met Tom Spurgeon. And his hi-larious brother, Whit. Saw Marc Arsenault – whom I hadn’t seen over a decade. There was a Dub music and Hot Rod show slash dance party in the same convention center that year. So in the hotel bar there were a lot of 6 feet tall Amazon women every night. One morning Brian Ralph had this amazing story about getting into the dance party. It was a really fun time and I always think if it wasn’t for Dustin most of us “indy” guys wouldn’t have gone to that show. So, thanks, Dustin. Mr. Harbin has become quite a cartoonist since we first met. I asked him to fill us in on the goings on in his hometown of Charlotte. Check it out after the new DeForge cartoon! Over and out. ———————— INTERMISSION FUNNIES by MICHAEL DEFORGE ———————– Charlotte, NC scene report by Dustin Harbin Charlotte is a weird city, in that it has a fairly large comics readership, but lacks a truly vibrant comics scene; though the seeds are there. Most of the existing comics community is related in some way to Heroes Aren’t Hard To Find, one of the larger comics shops in the country, the organizer of the yearly Heroes Convention, and my employer for most of 14 years. Shelton Drum started out in Charlotte selling comics at flea markets and by mail order back in the 70’s, and then in 1980 he established Heroes in a teeny tiny little space just around the corner from where it is now. In the boom years of the late 80’s and 90’s, Heroes Aren’t Hard To Find had as many as six different stores going at one time, from Florida up through Chapel Hill, North Carolina. I showed up in 1996 just in time to usher in The Great Comic Book Miasma Of The Late Nineties–within a couple years, Shelton had shrunk his mini-empire down to one shop, and since then has focused on just making that shop the best shop. I say that Heroes is the center of the Charlotte comics scene not out of loyalty to my former employer–although I am loyal–but more because I really think there would be no real scene at all without him. Shelton built comics up around here, has consistently–even despite my arguments to the contrary when I was doing the ordering–insisted on carrying the most complete stock possible, and through Heroes Convention has brought thousands of comic book pros to town over the last thirty years. There are other shops in Charlotte, but for my money without the bulwark of Heroes Aren’t Hard To Find through the lean years, Charlotte would just be one of those cities with a couple of crappy strip mall shops that smell like pee and cigarettes. We’re not a particularly culturally rich city; just a few affluent suburbs sprinkled around some banks, with a college about 10 miles away, completely disconnected from the city.†Without a truly vibrant cultural community, Charlotte is mainly a city of consumers, not makers. Apply this in spades to comic books–I can think of maybe half a dozen full time cartoonists working around here. If you look at the really great comics cities, they seem to coalesce around great shops, and are then perpetuated by a community of artists. Think of Pittsburgh, where you have a Jim Rugg, Tom Scioli, and Ed Piskor active in their community, talking to new cartoonists, encouraging and offering advice. That kind of thing is invaluable. You can get it from other communities, online for instance, but it’s not the same as feeling like a part of a real, visceral community–meeting the other artists on equal terms, talking about what you’re doing, learning as you go. Whenever I travel to another city with a strong comics scene, I’m always intensely envious. New York or Toronto or Chicago–the cartooning communities are so large there are multiple individual scenes within the same city! If you live in Chicago and are a cartoonist, it’s probably old hat to ride your bike over to someone’s loft and draw with Laura Park and Aaron Renier and Jeremy Tinder and Jeffrey Brown, no big whoop. But! We are making strides, in our own way. Because there is a large comics reading community in Charlotte–Heroes’ continued success, and the success of HeroesCon, is testament to that. We’ve just been slow to build a creative community to match. But it’s starting to happen. A few years ago, Eraklis Petmezas started Sketch Charlotte, a group of artists and creative people into comic books, who meet at the Showmars across the street from Heroes once a week. Weirdly, I’ve never actually been, even though I live right around the corner myself. I tried to go this past week, with this article in mind, but they were already wrapping things up when I showed up late. Heroes employees Seth Peagler and Rico Renzi, the latter of which is a professional comics colorist also, were outside chatting with Henry Eudy, who’d printed up some inking exercises Ben Towle had put up on his site. It was nice. I don’t know why I’ve never been. Possibly because they don’t serve booze at Showmars, and also… Showmars. Regardless, the list of regulars and semi-regulars at Sketch Charlotte is close to a complete list of the comics pros living in Charlotte: Jason Latour, he of the recent TCJ interview, Chris Brunner, Bridgit Scheide, Chrissie Zullo, and probably some more who I’m forgetting. It’s a start. The other thing Charlotte’s got going for it as a comics scene is Andy Mansell, who runs the semi-monthly Heroes Discussion Group, which he and I created together back in 2007 or so, but which only he has had the energy and drive and acumen to maintain. The image above is from the Ghost World discussion a few weeks ago, which was great.†Andy will read a book backwards and forwards, take another book’s worth of notes on it, come up with a million theories regarding minutiae the rest of us never noticed, and still patiently allow most of the discussion to be guided by the ideas of the group. He doesn’t get paid for it, he’s just a smart guy who likes comics and wants to talk about them. I bring up Andy and the discussion group not to make it sound like the whole Charlotte comics scene is wrapped around that one shop–I’m sure the other store owners in Charlotte might disagree. But I do think our scene, and probably most scenes in most cities, grow up around a few passionate people who just start to make things happen. Whether it’s a Shelton Drum or Andy Mansell or Bill Boichel or Jim Rugg or whoever. If you live in a town without a real comics scene, I guess you’re just going to have to start one yourself. It’s not going to just happen while you sit moldering in your house curled over your drawing board (like me). Share this page: [...]

08/03/2018

Sally IngrahamAugust 3, 2018NewsSally Ingraham here with a look at Aisha Franz’s Shit is Real – plus other news and comics! ————————————————————————————————— Aisha Franz‘s new comic – Shit is Real (Drawn & Quarterly 2018) – begins in a wilderness at the edge of a city. The main protagonist, Selma, is crawling toward a city, and you realize that this may be a sort of dream or fantasy – one that she abruptly snaps out of, just in time to be dumped by her boyfriend. Selma drifts in and out of this fantasy world as the comic continues, which accurately portrays the ways that such fantasies both help us through difficult times, while probably causing more harm than good. Selma struggles, for the majority of the story, to relate to her best friend, to connect with other people she encounters, to do laundry or cook for herself. She is lonely and just as lost in the urban monotony of the city as she is in the bizarre sci-fi world of her dreams. The only creatures whom she seems to connect to are a giant fish (who occupies the fantasy) and a cat who belongs to the woman in the next apartment. When Selma discovers that she can access this apartment, some of the fantasy becomes reality, and the line between the two blurs. Aisha Franz uses the comics medium quite effectively to tangle and untangle the threads of the story. There are many quiet moments, where the sequencing of simple movements or no movement at all conveys immense emotion. The comic is about the inner life of Selma – whether that is inside her head, or inside the lonely space she occupies in her life – and Franz is able to show this very well. The fantasy sequences mesh with the slightly futuristic urban environment of the “real” world, and there is a vibrancy to the drawing despite the softness of the pencil lines. Thoughtful and actually funny in a few spots, this is an excellent followup to Earthling (which also dealt with female loneliness). You can read an excerpt from Shit is Real HERE. For other reviews of the comic check out these ones at Publishers Weekly and Broken Frontier. LA Review of Books also has an interview with Aisha Franz HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Comics News of Note The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum has a spotlight on their Nicole Hollander collection – read about it HERE. Lauren Weinstein is the guest on Episode 31 of Comic Book Decalogue – HERE. Philippe Leblanc has his Small Press & Indie Comics Galore roundup on The Comics Beat – he always finds the good stuff! Margaret Stohl talks Captain Marvel and why now is the best time to be a female hero – on The Guardian. Columbus Alive has a feature about Annie Koyama and her donation to The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum – read it HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 8-3-2018 – by Gabriella Tito Share this page: [...]

Providence, RI Scene Report

Frank SantoroNovember 26, 2011Riff Raff / Scene ReportsThis article originally appeared on The Comics Journal 11/26/2011 This week’s scene report is brought to you by Jacob Berendes. A couple of years ago at SPX someone left a copy of Mothers News at my table – at the time it was a one sheet newspaper with comics and weird local flavor bits of gossip, funny drawings and funny puzzles. I thought it was great – figured out it was from Providence – but didn’t know who made it. I subscribed to it – yes an honest to goddess monthly publication – and it quickly became one of my favorite rags ever. Somewhere along the way I found out it was Jacob who was stoking the fire – so I asked him to write about the comic book goings on of Providence, Rhode Island. Please enjoy! —————– PROVIDENCE COMICS SCENE REPORT by Jacob Berendes (by Frank’s request) Providence RI was big for comics in the 1990s and the first decade of the 2000s, especially for works in the “art comics” genre, which doesn’t exist. People ask all the time what the fabled comics scene is like now, and I should say, with some caveats, that it’s pretty sweet. There’s a few crazy fuckers going hard as hell, and that’s almost all you need. Some institutions first: Ada Books is a good independent bookstore that sells zines and comics and hosts comic-related events (Anders Nilsson came last month, Porcellino Dec 5th). The RISD library has a great comics section that is a wonderful place to spend a rainy day (although they are maybe cracking down on non-alumni, boo dat). AS220 is a nebulous non-profit show venue / bar / developer / print shop that has a nice offset press that you can take classes on, then use whenever to print 1000 of your shitty thing. Time Capsule Comics in nearby Cranston has a nice selection of back issues, this past summer they had a wild $1 everything sale, it was like get get get, everyone was stacking up. Armageddon Shop is a metal / hardcore / punk record store co-run by Ben from DROPDEAD, but they also stock local zines, comics, and noise tapes, and recently started stocking a ton of old LAST GASP comics, which is weird. Amigos is a small publisher that this year opened a retail location in Providence’s historic erotic dance district. There used to be other comics stores around but they dried up / got priced out. Since the Borders closed down there isn’t even a place to shoplift manga from! C’est la vie… C’est la guerre… People: well, most of the Paper Rodeo / Fort Thunder alumni are gone to other (not necessarily greener) pastures. List of ex-pats: Jim Drain “went real” in art terms, which in this context means “moved to Miami”. Mat Brinkman is in Colorado, and just released a board game called Cave Evil that is appropriately mega-sick. Leif Goldberg and Erin Rosenthal moved to Vermont and have a totally cute child. Leif also has a new collaborative poster project called Exploded View. Melissa Mendes has a new book out of her Freddy stories, but I haven’t seen it yet, since her and Chuck Forsman moved out of Providence for some reason (I think it had to do with how Providence can be a complete nightmare hellzone). Chuck has a new comic out called “The End Of The Fucking World”. Still here / new: Paul Lyons still lives in town and last year published the excellent anthology MONSTERSand drew AND screenprinted great goopy covers for it. Brian Chippendale still haunts the streets, goes to shows, puts out CDRs,sleeps in papier mache huts, and twitters turd jokes into the void. He has a newish record out on Load, under the name “Black Pus”, which is technically a one-person band but at the same time is like a multi-character band, if that makes any sense. CF has really been burning the night lately, he’s got a few new tapes coming out (as Mark Lord), the first one is out already on Mickey Z’s bizarre PRICE TAPES label. What’s really wild about the new tapes is that they are all recorded in the off moments when he’s not grinding away on the next POWR MASTRS book, which is going to be a face melter. I think he’s at like three 9 kill right now (that’s 99.9% kill), he’s on fire, let the motherfucker BURN. James McShane is allegedly working on a new book for BCGF, though it might just be a nice folio edition of his “City Sketchbook” column from Mothers News, which is still going to be super nice, as he is a master of nuance. He’ll be kicking at BCGF with me and Mickey Zacchilli, who is definitely NOT a master of nuance, but will have a new issue (#5) of her insane and mighty comic book RAV, and maybe some posters (ps- buy these shirts before they’re gone forever). Katrina (last name not necessary, like Jason, or Freddy) is not new on the scene but is maybe someone you haven’t heard of- they have an excellent zine called ROT that really is a zine, not an idiotic whiny SPXy autobio comic or a loosely bound pile of psychedelic farts. Also Katrina has a comic coming out in the next issue of MRR, a cool band called GROKE (Moomin ref), AND they’re allegedly related to Walt Kelly! I tell you an apple doesn’t fall far from a tree unless thrown, and even then, it remains an apple… I would say that the number one most hotly anticipated book of the year (and last year) is the Providence Comics Consortium collection. PCC is a comics class for kids, that takes place in a variety of public libraries. One thing they do is put together a sort of Guide To The Marvel Universe book of characters the kids create, then the characters are given out to local cartoonists to script up and draw. Chippendale, CF, Mickey Zacchilli, Jackie H Curtiss, and plenty of other heavy hitters all drew up stories that they are just WAITING to see in printed form. I keep calling them like “where is the book? why aren’t you printing it right now?”. They stopped picking up the phone… Are you reading this, PCC instructors? Is there anything I can do to hasten the printing of this book? It’s driving me crazy!!!!!!!! As for me, I publish a newspaper called Mothers News that is free and good. It is 12 pages long and has 2 pages of new comics from CF, Brian Chippendale, Mickey Zacchilli, Katrina, Mike Taylor, Chuck Forsman, Melissa Mendes, Charlotte DeSedouy, Kate Schapira, Jackie H Curtiss, Mike Deforge, James McShane, and kids from the Providence Comics Consortium. It is not a goofy newspaper in the Paper Rodeo model, it is a real newspaper with columns, writing, and information. Please see mothersnews.net for more about it, to order a subscription, to place an ad, or for any reason you might visit a website. Alsooooo in the “full disclosure” department, I run a distro for Providence and New England underground art, it’s called Chipsylvania. Uh, and for the record it’s not named after Chippendale, he doesn’t run the town. It’s named after Chip King, guitarist for the excellent doom band The Body. He runs the town. In conclusion, I would like to say that Providence is a lot like the wikipedia entry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Providence_(comics): Providence, located in the South Pacific Ocean, southwest of Hawaii at 20°N 165°W, is an artificial island made of parts from Cable’s old space station Graymalkin. It first appeared in Cable & Deadpool #6. Providence was intended to be a place where the best minds on Earth could gather, live, and find new ways of doing everything in hopes of giving the world a peaceful future. Providence is open to all who wish to immigrate there, though all residents must undergo various psychological and skills tests. —————— Except for location and first appearance, I’d say that’s about right! We are supportive of each other, we party and jam together, but the psychological tests part is very accurate- those tests are called “winter”, “bringing something to the table”, “unemployment”, and “probably no one paying attention to you for at least one year”. Subscribe to the paper. SEE U IN THE PIT! Live Aid 1985 Queen-Radio Ga Ga Share this page: [...]

05/03/2016

Aaron CockleMay 2, 2016NewsSara Lautman; RIPE 2016; MVR4; Matthew Thurber; Hellbound Lifestyle Book Release; Katie Skelly; Last days of Sparkplug Books ————————————————————————————————— Sara Lautman is doing A Cartoonist’s Diary over at TCJ this week. ————————————————————————————————— Rhode Island Independent Publishing Expo: Application Deadline Extended! ————————————————————————————————— MVR4 School of for Poetic Computation Wednesday, May 4 at 7:00 PM 11–15° Cloudy https://www.facebook.com/events/774574382675480/ 155 Bank St, New York, New York 10014 ‘MVR is an event series focused on new forms of exchange between body and technology. With the decreasing size and cost of computer vision, digital components and advances in virtual reality, we are faced with a new awareness of the impact of current digital practices on the physical body. MVR provides a platform for learning and discussion concerning the new interaction between body and information, device, and action. Confirmed presenters: Kate Sicchio on live coding, performance and wearables; Pablo Garcia on drawing machines; Pamela Liou on technology, textiles, bodies and craft; Claire Kearney-Volpe on screen-readers and coding.’ ————————————————————————————————— Curtainphonehorn, a show of Matthew Thurber drawings, will open May 12 at Weird Things in Toronto. ————————————————————————————————— ————————————————————————————————— Katie Skelly Comics ————————————————————————————————— Sparkplug Books May 17th – Last day to place any online orders, including wholesale orders. May 22nd – Sparkplug will be tabling at Linework NW with Suzette Smith (Ce/Ze). June 11th & 12th – Sparkplug will be tabling at CAKE in Chicago, with Suzette Smith. This will be Sparkplug’s last show. ————————————————————————————————— Share this page: [...]

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