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!
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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.
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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!
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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!)
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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.)
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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.
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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.
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Suzy and Cecil – 1-27-2017 – by Gabriella Tito
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Joanie and Jordie – 1-27-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio
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1-27-2017 – by Juan Fernández
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