Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in Classes, ResourcesTagged Frank Santoro, grid theories, layout workbook, resources

Frank Santoro

Posted on March 16, 2017May 21, 2019

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08/23/2016

Aaron CockleAugust 22, 2016NewsAaron here today with Gabriella Tito comics; Julie Doucet interviewed; Marra/Bayer; Laura Knetzger; Bauhaus on the internet; Clough reviews Delporte and Oliveros; some propaganda comics; CW Benefit Auction continues ————————————————————————————————— Homesick by Gabriella Tito This week’s Featured Comic is Gabriella Tito’s re-working of her Homesick comic from earlier this year. Initially made in black and white for Zona #1, Tito incorporated color into the updated piece during her recent Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency. ————————————————————————————————— Julie Doucet Interviewed at/by 2d cloud i did start my own “label” because the book projects i’m working on are getting less and less lucrative, in the sense that you won’t sell as many poetry books as a comic book. you work 6 months on a book that will have a 250 copies printrun you get 10% of the sales…that means you’re paid at best $300. for 6 months work. it is just not worth it. also i had a few such small projects that publishers agreed to publish…someday…i got tired to wait. and since i can print and all, it really doesn’t cost me much to produce the book. ————————————————————————————————— Benjamin Marra in conversation with Josh Bayer, Tuesday, August 30, 2016 at 7pm The 157th meeting of the NY Comics & Picture-story Symposium will be held on Tuesday, August 30, 2016 at 7pm at Parsons School of Design, The New School, 2 West 13th Street, in the Bark Room (off the lobby). Free and open to the public. A conversation with Benjamin Marra and Josh Bayer. Join Ben and Josh for a lively discussion about process, influences and what it means to be cartoonists who are much indebted to comics history as they are committed to making their permanent mark on comics’ future. Via Ben Katchor, who has been organizing these events since 2012. The Fall 2016 Schedule has been posted as well, so please do try and attend if you’re in the NYC area. ————————————————————————————————— Laura Knetzger was recently podcasted over at We Should Be Friends ————————————————————————————————— Staatliches Bauhaus Via Open Culture, the Harvard Art Museums have made an astonishing amount of Bauhaus-era work available online. Harvard’s web site represents its physical collection, but it does not duplicate it. Many of the small images in its online archive do not expand to larger versions and cannot be downloaded. However, if you follow the guided tour by clicking “Continue Reading” under the site’s introduction, you’ll be able to click on the several dozen examples in each section and see them up close. You’ll also get a thorough survey of the Bauhaus school’s brief history and mission. The best way to access the collection is to click here, then scroll down to the box where it says “Search the Bauhaus special collection by keyword, title, artist, or object number, and by using the filters below.” ————————————————————————————————— Delporte and Oliveros Reviewed Over at the High Low Comics blog, critic Rob Clough takes a look at Julie Delporte’s Everywhere Antennas and The Envelope Manufacturer by Chris Oliveros. On Delporte: While the end has no real solutions in sight for her affliction, she at least is in control of her own fate and own decisions. Delporte’s use of colors is disorienting in a way that’s meant to reflect her own increasing sense of alienation in her own environment. That alienation is something she has to cope with, understanding that the very forces she tried to cling to early in the book were literally killing her and driving her insane. On Oliveros: The book works as a metaphor for any kind of personal endeavor that’s endangered by the whims of the market, and it’s not too much of a leap to transfer the sheer absurdity of a three-person envelope manufacturing concern to an equally small art-comics publishing company. Yet one can see Oliveros in D&Q’s darkest days, betting on the next book to keep the company going. That said, what marks the characters in this book are their unrelentingly obsessive personalities, an obsession that borders on narcissism and self-delusion. ————————————————————————————————— Religion & Comics, Comics & Religion From the Pink News site: The American Family Association, which is strongly opposed to LGBT rights, has partnered with Revival Fires International to give away 65,000 copies of the ‘Truth for Youth’ Bible across the US, encouraging evangelical teens to “commit to give the Bibles to their unsaved friends in school”. The excerpted comics posted in the article are pretty offensive, from a subject-matter standpoint as well as an aesthetic one. The published work is supposedly based on the teachings of the Bible, which, depending on your belief system, may either be a science fiction anthology of dubious authorship or the divine text of the Christian religion. The article is here. Anyway, 65,000 is a lot of funny books. ————————————————————————————————— Los Bros Hernandez Benefit Auction Items From Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez (but nothing from Mario???). Proceeds go towards funding the Rowhouse Residency. Share this page: [...]

04/21/2016

HarrisonApril 21, 2016News Daily News returns for April 21, 2016. In the classifieds we’ll hear conversations about careers in comics, near the editorials we examine new formats in web comics, and near the back page ads we traverse the Aquazone. True + Real Talk Julian Lytle and Martheus Wade delve into the topics of fandom, career decisions, industry mire, Decepticons, and haters in this episode of Ignorant Bliss. The discussion about fandom and popularity is one that I hope gets explored by other artists in the future. Memories Check out this web comic from Australian artist Sutu about his grandfather. Wear some good headphones if you can, and make sure to keep scrolling downwards. Experiments with interactivity are areas that I hope other comic artists explore more in the future. Samir and Dunia al-Ahdath “Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum has recently added first year print-runs of two important Arab comics magazines: The Egyptian magazine Samir (founded in 1956) and the Lebanese magazine Dunia al-Ahdath(founded in 1954). Both collections reflect early articulations of mass print culture for children in Egypt and Lebanon and reveal intriguing intersections between popular culture, nationalism, mass education, and gender in a period of early postcolonial nation building.” – Caitlin McGurk. Here. Archives “ZINES OF THE ZONE is a traveling library dedicated to self-published photo books, photo zines, fanzines using photography (even as a document) – any DIY printed matter related to photography. Since January 2014, we traveling across Europe by van – in order to show our collection to people, organize pop-up events, collect new books and meet local publishers. More than a library, it is a traveling zine-exhibition.” Not comics (I know), but going along with the digital archives of zines from earlier in the week, these guys in Europe have an interesting collection practice going on. Look through the rest of their collection, and if your curious check out the submission guidelines. Detroit vs. Everybody Read up here, and enjoy your Thursday. Share this page: [...]

10/24/2018

Juan FernándezOctober 24, 2018NewsJuan and Andrew with an invitation to participate in 2018’s #30dayscomics Juan here! November is right around the corner which means that not only will I finally let myself turn on the heat at my apartment in Pittsburgh, but #30dayscomics will soon be upon us! As the weather chills and most of us become indoor creatures in the Northern Hemisphere, it’s good to come together by working on and sharing comics making challenges, connected by the internet. For those who don’t know, 30 Days of Comics is a month-long challenge. The parameters are pretty simple: Make 1 comic a day for the month of November. They can be anything you like, any format, any style, though most people do 1 page or 1 strip. Just do it everyday. This November, I’m excited to be able to allocate some time (likely at work) to working on my esperanza00 series and to see where these neurotrash digital collages of drawings, jpegs, clippings from articles, poems and facebook posts take me. The idea will be to create a 4 panel comic composed of 3-6 colors in this fashion daily: Needless to say, I’m excited. Here at Comics Workbook we’d like to invite you to participate in this year’s comics making journey. With me today is Andrew White to tell you more about a little this year’s #30dayscomics. Take it away Andrew. Starting on November 1st, I’m going to draw and post one comic per day for a month. I’ve done this almost every year since 2012, with varying success in terms of getting to the end of the month and in terms of the work itself. The cartoonist Derik Badman first took on this challenge, which he called 30 Days of Comics, in 2009 and invited others to join him in 2011. Derik describes the month as, “a time for experimentation, exploring short forms, and a great way to produce work.” That sounds about right to me. Often participants work with some kind of constraint, using the month to experiment with different approaches or new materials. See for example Kevin Czap’s A Lesson in Survival (2012), which appropriates text from Joni Mitchell and is visually very different from Kevin’s other work; or Simon Moreton’s set of printed zines produced near-daily; or Alyssa Berg’s Open Letter to Sleep (2016), an extended meditation on a single topic. Making one comic per day is of course a constraint itself. Personally, I’ve found the month most fruitful when I’ve gotten at a topic that I’ve been turning over in my mind for a while, which hopefully means that it will benefit from a rapid outpouring of work. The 30 Days of Comics Tumblr archive is another place to see how others have approached the month in the past. On that note, the community aspect of 30 Days has been essential for me. We encourage each other to keep going, and I’m still happy with the year when I riffed on the work of other participants. I’ve first met some dear friends thanks to 30 Days. Finally, implicit in the call to make comics daily for a month is the idea that making comics daily might not be possible through the rest of the year. We all benefit from a different balance between thinking about comics and making comics – and sometimes that balance is imposed externally by a day job or other life circumstance. We’re all affected, often negatively, by the idea that productivity is essential to our success as an artist, but we might wish we were more productive as well. For me, 30 Days helps with the difficult project of maintaining that balance. One comic per day isn’t too much work, but 30 comics in total is also significant. It’s okay if you miss a day. It’s okay if you aren’t happy with some of your work. This year I’ll be making four panel comics, inspired by people like Juan Fernandez and Madeleine Witt. My strips will be loosely based on this paper in the academic journal Science. I hope you’ll join us, and that you’ll use the hashtag #30dayscomics so that we can all find each other’s work! 10-24-2018 – Fifi Martinez 10-24-2018 – Niall Breen Share this page: [...]

Sally Madden’s Personal Scene Report

Frank SantoroDecember 18, 2011Riff Raff / Scene ReportsFrank here. I asked my friend Sally Bloodbath to do a New York scene report. But she moved back to Philly and I already had a Philly report up in here like two months ago. Sally also got married to Matt Wiegle and has changed her name to Sally Madden. Go figure. Trying to clean up her image I guess. I meant the name part – not the marrying Matt Wiegle part 🙂 – Take it away, Sally! ——————- Sally Madden’s Personal Scene Report by Sally Bloodbath Madden Thank goodness the year is almost over! Isn’t it torture knowing something’s about to end but it won’t just hurry up and get here? Whether the worst documentary or the best novel, once I can see the ending in my sights, it’s exhausting waiting til when you can stick a fork in the thing and call it done. While waiting for winter, we’re fortunate to pass the gray hours with some wonderful comics of 2011. I caught up with several authors to find out what’s next and what they’ve taken away from the year: Eye of the Majestic Creature (Fantagraphics) by Leslie Anne Mackenzie Stein collects the first issues of one of my psychedelia favorites, and expected completion of EOTMC #7 in the next few months. She mentioned, “…work is the most important thing. You can spend a lot of time self-promoting utter crap and it’s still utter crap”. That reminds me of one of the people who asks me to re-tweet for them the most, Katie Skelly, whose compiled futuristic soap-opera Nurse Nurse (Sparkplug) will arrive in April 2012. Her next project is a series about a motorcycle girl gang, in which she will focus on “some kind of utopia one could achieve through method and/or geometry” from her studies of op and kinetic art. Far out! Fellow Syracuse ex-pat, Lizz Hickey has spent 2011 churning out zines like her ass was on fire, exploring her three alter-egos Jeremy, Danny and Carol, as well as some straight autobiographical comics about newlywed life in my favorite, Ladies Night. Her process changed this year, for the first time bringing work past the penciling stage, “I always rushed to finish so I can see instant results. I’ve taught myself to slow down!” CCS alum Melissa Mendes has been speeding it up lately, delivering online dailies, mostly of the subject of her debut book Freddy Stories. Usually, I find daily public comic output add up to little more than a pissing contest, but Mendes’ strips, while clearly an exercise for her, will bring enrichment to the reader as well. Truly, I have discussed some most excellent comic books, and you may be thinking in an expletive-riddled email, “Sally, what about the non-excellent comics? What about the lousy ones, like the three you released this year?”. While I like the idea of making something disposable, often a comic becomes garbage long before it reaches the trashcan. Fear not, gentle reader, for here is Sally’s Activities for Disappointing Comics: 1. Hungry? Why not spare The Times and set aflame some funnies for your weenie roast? A rolled-up floppy is less work than crunching up wads of newsprint, although a larger book like the final issue of Mome will go a long ways, as well. Warning: Glossy magazine-style printing leaves a black film on hot dogs, but not to worry! Still delicious! 2. Rip your way through unwanted comics for inexpensive and delightful linings for receptacles (quality litter is expensive!) for furry friends. Cats and hamsters alike find the experience refreshing, while you have more money to spend on your honey. 3. Remaining cash flow concerns regarding the upcoming holidays? Have more Archies than Benjamins? It’s time to make some gifts from the heart! I recommend some audio stimulus (I prefer Black Sabbath’s Master of Reality) to get through this one- cut out the juiciest panels from unwanted comics to make stories you want to read! Children and adults alike find delight with a one-of-a-kind comic! Don’t be afraid to mix and match- you’ll marvel at the natural romance of Casper and Harley Quinn unfolding in your capable hands. Happy Holiday’s y’all! 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: [...]

Quick Guide to Frank Santoro’s Grid Theories

Posted on March 16, 2017May 21, 2019 by Frank Santoro

On The Comics Journal, the Layout Workbook Series (from 2011):

Layout Workbook 1

Layout Workbook 2

Layout Workbook 3

Layout Workbook 4 This is the one where I first laid a grid on Tintin pages and people lost their minds.

Layout Workbook 5

Layout Workbook 6 I get into Poussin in this one.

Layout Workbook 7

Layout Workbook 8

Layout Workbook 9 Prince Valiant here.

Layout Workbook 10 Asterios Polyp

Layout Workbook 11

Layout Workbook 12 Beto vs. CF

The lecture notes that I usually riff on – they condense the ideas in the layout workbooks: Notes for Comics Symposium

Even better, video excerpts from some of my recent lectures:

Comics As Music (PIX 2016)

Frank at SPX 2016

My old website coldheatcomics.blogspot.com is full of good riffs. Check out the Format Fever notes and thoughts on my Pompeii process. A lot of the stuff on this website is used as reference for my 8 week online correspondence course.

Here is the Santoro School Handbook, written with the help of Kurt Ankeny: Santoro School Handbook

Notes for my lecture with Aidan Koch and Connor Willumsen at LICAF 2016: LICAF Master Class

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Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in Classes, ResourcesTagged Frank Santoro, grid theories, layout workbook, resources

Frank Santoro

Posted on March 16, 2017May 21, 2019

Explore

11/01/2017

Juan FernándezNovember 1, 2017NewsEmpezamos el día con Marcela Trujillo; Isabel Mendez; Berliac, Museo ABC, Daniel Jiménez Quiroz; y los tebeos de Cómics Workbook! ————————————————————————————————— Marcela Trujillo: Siempre Hay una palabra para destruir a la mujer libre que escoge cómo vivir. Denisse Leighton entrevista Marcela Trujillo en Belelu: Marcela “Maliki” Trujillo (48) es una de las más famosas ilustradoras chilenas, una de las pocas mujeres en el Olimpo del dibujo a lápiz y/o tinta china en este país. Sin embargo, para llegar a este lugar de reconocimiento ha debido pasar por muchas situaciones que han forjado su carácter y carrera artística. Porque ser mujer en todas las áreas significa un cuestionamiento, más si tus primeros proyectos hablan de cuánto te gusta el sexo. “Enamorada de mi Clítoris”, publicado en The Clinic, fue el comic que la llevó a convertirse en una de las ilustradoras más irreverentes de Chile a inicios del 2000 cuando aún vivía en New York. Inspirada en las obras de Phoebe Gloeckner, Julie Doucet y Aline Kominsky-Crumb y también los capítulos de Sex And The City serie que veía en VHS mientras vivía en la Gran Manzana. El inicio de su carrera se enfocó en la pintura tras sus estudios de arte en la Universidad de Chile, sin embargo, las experiencias en New York la acercaron al cómic donde hoy es todo un referente en un momento álgido para esta técnica. Asegura que una obra de Phoebe Gloeckner hablando de abuso la impactó al punto de comenzar a indagar en el cómic hecho por mujeres creando así su personaje “Maliki 4 ojos” que relataba al inicio bromas sobre sí misma pero que mutó hacia la sexualidad, a hablar de la masturbación y el deseo femenino en general. Léanlo todo AQUI. ————————————————————————————————— Las ideas ¿Nacen o se hacen? Isabel Méndez nos ofrece un vistazo a nuestras erramientas creativas en Firmado Por: Hoy vengo con un post sobre CREATIVIDAD. No, no te has equivocado de página. Esto es FirmadoPor y ya te adelanto que estamos preparando nueva web. ¡Oh Yeah! Esta semana el post es distinto, aunque no nos alejamos mucho de la propiedad intelectual ya que la creatividad tiene mucho que ver con los derechos de autor ¿No es requisito indispensable para que una obra esté protegida por derechos de autor que la misma sea ORIGINAL? ¿No tiene que ver la originalidad con la CREACIÓN? ¿No es acaso la creatividad la HERRAMIENTA más valiosa de los autores? Voy a dejarme llevar en estos post, investigar y curiosear sobre el proceso creativo. Ver cómo creaban o qué opinaban del arte y la creatividad otros artistas y, por qué no, ponerlo en relación con nuestra Ley de Propiedad Intelectual. Léanlo todo AQUI. ————————————————————————————————— Los cómics y las noticias que me han llamado la atención esta semana: Seis libreros colombianos hablan sobre las ventas del cómic, el nacimiento de autores locales y el Festival Entreviñetas en El Espectador. ¡Queremos tebeos! No os perdáis la exposición HISTORIETAS DEL TEBEO, 1917—1977 en el Museo ABC. Berliac talks Identity Politics in Exberliner magazine Issue 165 on Full article on page 20. En StartUp, Daniel Jiménez Quiroz habló de la importancia de establecer redes de comunicación entre abogados y creadores de cómic. ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 11-1-2017 – by Sally Ingraham ————————————————————————————————— Cozytown – 11-1-2017 – by Juan Fernandez ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 11-1-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

06/26/2017

Caleb OrecchioJune 26, 2017NewsCaleb Orecchio here with thoughts on the art of Kull the Conqueror #3 by John Buscema and Klaus Janson. Plus, you guessed it, links! ————————————————————————————————— Here are some thoughts on one of my favorite look-but-don’t-read comics. Below are some highlights from the book I always refer to: Often when I am tired or depressed about comics, I will dig out Kull the Conqueror #3 (vol. 3). Penciled by John Buscema with inks and colors by Klaus Janson in 1983. I don’t “read” it because the writing sucks, but I love looking at the artwork. This is during a time when Buscema was no longer the next best thing to Kirby. He’s basically been dethroned by the likes of John Byrne and Frank Miller. He’s more or less the barbarian guy at this point. On the other hand, Janson is really hitting his stride. Post Miller-Daredevil and Pre-Dark Knight Returns, Janson is becoming one of the most sought-after inkers of the 80s. So it’s a bit of a transitional yin-yang comic and it harmonizes perfectly; the solid, “generic” drawing of Buscema laying the foundation down for Janson’s scratchy, energetic lines and rich colors—it just sings for me. The seasoned veteran fuses with the ambitious dynamo. The above spread is one of my favorite “passages” in the book. Notice the first panel on the left page. The clouds are green and yellow without any dividing lines in the inking to indicate any division of color. Usually an inker would have a line to “hold” the colors, basically guiding the colorist where the colors change. But since Janson is doing both, he can think in color. Color and lines combine to a point that feels much more cohesive than most mainstream comics of the time. And look at that torch. Instead of inking the outline of the fire, Janson cuts out the zipatone (dots) to make the fire seem more alive and bright. I also really like how he used brown to yellow to white to show the range of the torch. Again, no holding lines—and notice the sparse inking where he knew he wanted to use brown. I could go on and on about the little ways Janson makes this book interesting, but again, keep in mind that Buscema was a really solid penciler. He literally wrote the book on drawing Marvel comics. The concrete drawing of Buscema I think really let Janson stretch his legs; and I assume Buscema had a generally quick turnaround so I imagine working with Buscema lent itself to an inker or colorist taking their time to push themselves if they so desired. I will cap this off with an excerpt from Amazing Heroes No. 155 where Andy Mengels’ interview with Janson is the cover story for the issue. This is 1988—post-Dark Knight Returns, and Janson is gaining more penciling and writing credits. ————————————————————————————————— if you don’t know, now you know Matthew Thurber writes an excellent article for Artsy–“10 Cartoonists Every Art Lover Needs to Know” Françoise Mouly and Genevieve Bormes talk to Gary Panter at The New Yorker about his new book, Songy of Paradise. Sally covered this last week but I just really like this Mardou comic about her pregnancy and firing her doctor 38 weeks in. If you missed Friday’s post, give this comic a look. It’s so achingly personal, I cannot recommend it enough. I heard about this via Desert Island‘s Instagram—art from Dan Clowes’ tenure at Cracked over on Last of the Spinner Rack Junkies. Last but not least, there’s a new comics publisher in my hometown. This is indicative of Dayton, OH’s cultural taste: horror/fantasy—general genre. ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 6-26-2017 – by Sally Ingraham ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 6-26-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

02/21/2018

Juan FernándezFebruary 21, 2018los Cómics / NewsJuan empieza el dia con Las chicas del lápiz, y más! ————————————————————————————————— Ilustradoras Colombianas: las chicas del lápiz Semana gives us a grand survey of many of the women shining in Colombia’s comics and illustration world. Obviously, this is only a sampling, but it serves to show he fertility of contemporary comics making and illustration in Colombia. Las ilustradoras, historietistas y dibujantes colombianas están conquistando públicos a manos llenas. Powerpaola presentará la película “Virus tropical”, basada en su primera novela gráfica, en la Berlinale. Los libros de Amalia Andrade se han convertido en fenómenos de masas. Y detrás de ellas vienen muchas más. SEMANA habló con algunas de ellas. Hop on over to and get hep to likes of La Watson, Lady Bíonica Mariana Gil Rios and company: ————————————————————————————————— El Colectivo de Autoras de Cómic trabaja por la justa valoración de autoras e ilustradoras en la esfera pública: Por todo lo anteriormente apuntado, así como por lo especificado en la Ley de Igualdad*, que apoyamos la iniciativa del Grupo parlamentario Unidos Podemos-En Comú Podem-En Marea para presentar una proposición no de ley (PNL) sobre ilustradoras y autoras de cómic, tebeo y novela gráfica para su debate en la Comisión de Igualdad. El objetivo es instar al Gobierno, en colaboración con las Comunidades Autónomas, a la creación de un plan de visibilización y un plan de lucha contra la precariedad de las mujeres profesionales del sector del tebeo, el cómic y la ilustración, en particular; y abrir el debate sobre la situación del citado sector, en general. ————————————————————————————————— Los cómics y las noticias que me han llamado la atención esta semana: ~ en Español ~ El último #FanzineMagazine está dedicado enteramente a Arséne Schrauwen, obra del belga Olivier Schrauwen editada por Fulgencio Pimentel. Escúchalo aquí:. Elizabeth Casillas escribe “Sobre contextos, libertad de expresión y el noviazgo entre artista y espectador” en Revista Cactus. El historietista argentino que triunfa en Europa y fue prohibido en Canadá – Berliac charla con La Nacion y da una gran entrevista con Fantastic Mag. ————————————————————————————————— 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 – 02-21-2018 – by Gabriella Tito ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 02-21-2018 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

01/27/2017

Sally IngrahamJanuary 26, 2017NewsSally here with work and wisdom to share from Hellen Jo, Zoë Taylor, Kate Lacour, Audra Stang, Trina Robbins, Glynnis Fawkes, Lale Westvind, and so many more! ————————————————————————————————— Sequential State wrote about Zoë Taylor‘s Joyride (Breakdown Press, 2016): “Taylor’s line is quick and vibrant. It seems like each image in Joyride was constructed as quickly as possible, like a one- or five-minute sketch at a live drawing class. These images look like something quickly scrawled onto a whiteboard with an erasable marker, and it wouldn’t surprise me to find out that Taylor’s tool of choice for this book was a Sharpie marker. There is also sometimes a distortion of the line, as though there was a bleed or a bad scan from the original art. Because images look so thrown together, the reader’s focus drifts towards the places where Taylor has spent the most time. This is often the main character’s eyes, with thick eyelashes rendered while the character’s hands are a quick set of lines. That said, these are the one- or five-minute sketches of an artist who was studied their craft. Each mark, despite its looseness, feels essential. There’s no wasted space, no unneeded effort. The effect of these formal choices changes the way you perceive each page, and encourages you as the reader to move as quickly as you can. Zoom through each page, soak up the emotion, and let the work take you where it wants you to go.” Read the rest HERE. Zoë Taylor is an alum of the Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers. See more of her work HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Rookie sat down with Hellen Jo recently. She is a cartoonist based in Los Angeles who is known for her storyboarding work on Steven Universe and Regular Show. Dream jobs, to many. However: “I don’t believe in the myth of the dream job; any job worth having is hard, requires so much work, and will make you question your love of whatever it is you’re doing. Anyone who believes that working in animation is whimsical, magical, full of light and wonder and joy…wake the fuck up! Animation, especially storyboarding, drains all of your mental and emotional energy, requires incredibly long hours, deprives you of sleep, downtime, health, and your life. Once you finish and turn in an episode, you get to do it all over again! For another 20 or 200 episodes! Much respect and love to the ubermensch talents who do well in this field!“ Her pursuits are more personal these days, a balance of editorial illustrations and commissions – and a new comic is in the works! She cites Tara Booth, Heather Benjamin, and Maren Karlson as huge inspirations to her lately, “as well as Latina activist art and old school flash tattoo imagery.“ Read more HERE. Previously on Rookie: an interview with Aidan Koch, and one with Alison Bechdel – plus lots of other cool stuff. In fact, Rookie is an online magazine founded in 2011 that publishes writing, photography, and artwork by and for teens – including many comics. Be sure to take some time to poke around the website! ————————————————————————————————— Australia’s Minicomic.club is back for a 2017 season of mini comics love! Sign up to get 12 comics in 12 months from the most interesting cartoonists on that continent – including work by Elari Harris, Georgia Kriss, Meg O’Shea (all pictured above), Leonie Brialey, and Lizzie Nagy. Sign up before the end of January and be sure to explore the website, which is a nice who’s who of Australian cartoonists working today – HERE. Minicomic.club has conducted interviews with many of the creators whose comics they’ve sent out over the years – here are recent ones with Elari Harris, and Leonie Brialey, and Meg O’Shea. Lots more HERE. (Shoutout to Gabriele Di Fazio of Just Indie Comics for writing about Australia’s mini comic subscription service and for all the amazing work he does for the Italian comics community – including running his own subscription service for Italian comics makers! Check out Just Indie Comics for reviews and comics news – mostly in Italian, but Gabriele offers some posts in English as well. Killer!) ————————————————————————————————— Kate Lacour has a new comic on Study Group called The Disciple – you can read it HERE. Updates on Mondays. Her comic Vivisectionary is also running on Study Group, updating monthly. Kate is a New Orleans cartoonist who happens to be another alum of the Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers. The comic she completed for the course – Zero Is – can be seen HERE and is excerpted from below: Kate joined Robin McConnell on Inkstuds earlier this month for a fascinating discussion of her “unflinching” work, which often deals with the human body in startling yet beautiful ways – listen to the podcast HERE. (Kate seems to share an interest in the body with Phoebe Gloeckner, who supported herself for a number of years by doing medical and anatomy illustration.) ————————————————————————————————— Audra Stang spent a total of 2 weeks here with us in Pittsburgh, PA, working on a new comic during her Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency. Although she left the Rowhouse for a few brief excursions during that time, her focus was entirely on her work and by the night before she left there was a draft of a 30 page comic taped to the wall in the kitchen! We can’t wait to see where this goes – both the comic and the Audra Stang story. Follow Audra on Instagram for all her latest adventures and drawings – @audra.stang Keep up with the Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency HERE. For more details and information on how to apply for a Residency, visit this page. ————————————————————————————————— ————————————————————————————————— From Hither and Yon Liana Finck composed a cartoon diary for Slate of the Jan. 21st 2017 Women’s March on Washington – check it out HERE. Lauren Weinstein also drew the Women’s March – for The Village Voice. The “Eternally Optimistic Paste Comics Crew” has a wishlist for the comics industry in 2017. Although it swings more toward mainstream comics, most of the items on the list should be industry wide norms. Things like “better professional conduct on social media”, and stopping “pigeonholing diverse creators”, (“socially relevant Mutants”!), plus one I’ll get up and shout about too: “Fewer Female-led Books With All-Male Creative Teams”. Sorry guys. Here’s the whole list. Check out M. S. Harkness‘ comic about a troll of a cat – HERE. Over on Study Group there is a new Process Party podcast with Leela Corman. Sarah Glidden‘s sketchbook is full of comics reporting these days – most recently she weighed in on an executive order that halts the refugee resettlement program… From Grace Helmer, a comic about smear tests and bikini waxes and other so-called “girl stuff” – HERE. Glynnis Fawkes spoke to a local Vermont newspaper about her comic for RESIST! “No artist who’s engaged with the outside world can keep working as if nothing has happened,” Fawkes said. Read the rest. The best gig posters ever designed by cartoonists, according to the Comics Alliance – including work by Lale Westvind and a whole pile of posters by Tara McPherson. ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 1-27-2017 – by Gabriella Tito ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 1-27-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio ————————————————————————————————— 1-27-2017 – by Juan Fernández Share this page: [...]

09/06/2017

Juan FernándezSeptember 6, 2017los Cómics / NewsEmpezamos el día con Autoras de Tebeo de ayer y hoy; Bef, Decur y Paloma Valdivia en La Polola; Convocatoria El Publicadero 2017; Mónica Ceberia y Mireia Pérez; Muriel Bellini y los tebeos de Cómics Workbook! ————————————————————————————————— Los cómics y las noticias que me han llamado la atención esta semana: Sol Díaz Castillo y Marcela Trujillo tienen una nueva edicion de La Polola Podcast! Las chicas conversan con 3 invitados: Bef, dibujante y escritor mexicano, Decur, dibujante argentino y Paloma Valdivia ilustradora chilena, los tres invitados del V Encuentro de Ilustración y Cómic de La Reina este 2017. Hablaron acerca de sus vidas y el dibujo, sus referentes, y contaron acerca de sus publicaciones y al final respondieron algunas preguntas de los asistentes. ‘Presentes: Autoras de tebeo de ayer y hoy’ documental del colectivo @AutorasComic esta en linea en Vimeo. Genial. Edúcate. Fanzineros y proyectos editoriales de Colombia, El Publicadero quiere que los acompañen a celebrar la diversidad editorial en Manizales el 29/30 Septiembre! Convocatoria El Publicadero 2017. Álvaro Ortiz viene de subir en pdf el cuaderno de bocetos que se editó hace unos años para celebrar que hace 5 años salió Cenizas! Reportaje en cómics de Mónica Ceberio y Mireia Pérez sobre la vida en la cárcel de Soto del Real. TIK TOK Comics os presenta una nueva entrega de DOMINGO, la serie conversacional de Muriel Bellini ¡Disfrutadla! ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 8-30-2017 – by Sally Ingraham ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 9-6-2017 – Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

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