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Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in School UpdatesTagged rowhouse residency, update

Juan Fernández

Posted on July 29, 2016November 4, 2016

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Aaron CockleMay 30, 2016NewsKurt Ankeny Comics; Blank City; Saltz-on-Guston; Louise Bourgeois; Rokudenashiko; Kartalopoulos-on-Manouch; Robyn Chapman/Paper Rocket; Pigeon Anarchy; Spectacle of the Situation ————————————————————————————————— CW continues its look this week at Kurt Ankeny’s In Pieces: Someplace Which I Call Home. ————————————————————————————————— Wei Shao’s Blank City via Socks Studio Being built is no limit to the multi-dimensional world, everything is a standardized city. Space is normalized into a single cube, the cube is given the function, the function must comply with the specification. Life has been standardized in size cubes, they are given the same rhythm of life, follow the simple life, with all copied. Supreme goal, everyone in the “right space” to do “the right thing.” –(Hazardous translation by g.translate from Japanese original) ————————————————————————————————— Philip Guston Hauser & Worth Review Guston must have known the return to figuration couldn’t be denied any more. And still he refused. He was in a battle of wills with his art. It must have been nightmarish. So much so that he stopped painting altogether for three years after the last canvas in this show. He didn’t show his work again until 1970. Critics had slammed that work as “displeasingly raw”; the canvases were said to have “unpleasant texture.” His colleagues were shocked, suspicious, and thought he was trying to hop on the Pop bandwagon; one painter friend asked why he had “to go and ruin everything.” Lee Krasner was said to find the work “embarrassing.” New York Times critic Hilton Kramer lambasted Guston as “a mandarin pretending to be a stumblebum,” dismissing the work as “cartoon anecdotage … funky, clumsy and demotic,” and concluding “We are asked to take seriously his new persona as an urban primitive … and this is asking too much.” But the die was cast. While Pollock was the first to truly break through to pure non-objective painting, it was Guston who was the first to break out. And yet nobody seemed to understand. He’d risked everything and lost. – Via Dan Nadel at TCJ ————————————————————————————————— Louise Bourgeois at Hiram Butler Gallery ————————————————————————————————— Rokudenashiko And, lucky for her, the police and media continue to give Rokudenashiko a platform on which to promote her art. “I mean it when I say I am grateful to the police,” she said. Without them, she knows not nearly as many people would have seen her work. “Kind of ironically, they had to take all of these pictures of my art for their case. The prosecution had like a $90,000 camera to take these really specific pictures of my work from every imaginable angle, 16 slides per piece. I wouldn’t have ever been able to pay for any of that on my own, so now I have these amazing gelatin prints of my work. They’ve performed an act of art themselves.” – Dayna Evans at NY Mag ————————————————————————————————— Ilan Manouch: Defamiliarizing Comics with Bill Kartalopoulos But “l’affaire Katz” was not quite over. In 2011 Spiegelman had published MetaMaus, a book about the making of Maus. Manouach and his publisher burned the shredded remnants of Katz and had the ashes mixed into printer’s ink that was then used to publish MetaKatz, a 2013 book about the brief life and destruction of Katz and the issues raised by the experience, including contributions from a variety of artists and critics. MetaKatz “had a lot to say about different things such as resampling in comics, or the history of rip-offs in comics, or the problem of using animal metaphors,” said Manouach. “I think this for me is the prototype of a book form. It’s a book that creates discussion, that creates polemics, and another book that responds to these polemics. I think it’s a perfect example of how I imagine dialectics to be.” -via Bill Kartalopoulos at World Literature Today ————————————————————————————————— Robyn Chapman & Paper Rocket Comics ————————————————————————————————— Katie Fricas Comics ————————————————————————————————— Tino Sehgal at Martin-Gropius-Bau Berlin His eponymous show at Martin-Gropius-Bau is beyond a doubt entertaining and spectacular, but it is neither radical nor subversive. These situations that entertain the crowds and are sold for substantial profit would make Guy Debord turn in his grave. On the surface, the lack of objects in combination with politically infused content make his work look novel and insurgent. But Sehgal is only formally employing devices of the radical practice of the avant-garde, and he is using them with very different intentions. His brand of “immaterial art” is not about the dematerialization sought by those who coined the idea and wanted to oppose the creation of commodities in a capitalist system. With his version of immaterialism, he has managed to create a new type of commodity that is highly sought after in the art market and, by doing so, has apparently filled a void. ————————————————————————————————— Share this page: [...]

Caleb OrecchioMay 7, 2018NewsCaleb Orecchio here with thoughts on Free Comics Book Day 2018. ———————————————————————————————————— Another year, another Free Comic Book Day. I’m mad at myself because I can’t seem to find the stack of free comics I cherry-picked at Copacetic Comics, and am beginning to have the suspicion that I left them at the shop while perusing the sweet deals Bill Boichel was offering. D’oh! There were some real good free comics this year. Jim Rugg’s Street Angel represented Image while D+Q offered an excerpt of Jason Lute’s recently finished Berlin, and I was looking forward to reading some Prince Valiant and Mickey Mouse strips. But if I’m being honest, the deals are really the reason I look forward to FCBD every year. The free comics are the icing on the cake. Of course, going to Copacetic and talking to Bill is worth the trip in and of itself. When someone mentioned Prince Valiant, Bill pulled out some Valiant Sunday pages from some 1940’s newspaper. You can ask Bill most anything about comics and he probably he has an opinion on it. I like to throw clay pigeons and watch Bill shoot them out of the air. Like I said, I seem to have forgotten my FCBD comics, but as one does at Copacetic I found plenty of gold. I did mental math to budget my indulgence since I was bringing copies of my comic Poor Little Joanie for restock (they were nearly sold out) and figured they’d help supplement my comics buying. We talked about this we talked about that. Bill gave me some feedback on my latest secret project, and made me feel good about what I’m doing. I left the store with an amplified electric charge. Then to Spirit, a really cool pizza place slash bar here in Pittsburgh where Juan Fernandez had a zine table set up as part of Spirit Walls 3 where local graffiti artists were collaborating on a mural on the restaurant’s outside wall facing the parking lot. I bought some comics from Juan’s table and he graciously offered me his chair while he sat on two stacked milk crates and we talked comics. Juan has a lot of ideas, so many ideas and so little time. I always learn something with Juan. He told me the Spanish comics magazine TBO was so popular, it became the generic word for comics in Spain, “tebeo.” Think how people in New Jersey call all soda, “coke.” Eventually it started to rain so I helped him pack up, then we got a couple of slices at the bar and talked more comics and life. There was a pro wrestling match going on upstairs which would sound like claps of thunder occasionally. Then J. Malls, the great Pittsburgh DJ, was getting warmed up for Title Town. The bartender told us that it’s a real popular show where Pittsburghers gather and form lines around the block to get down. Juan and I however, needed to get to Schenley Park to catch the end of Pittonkatonk Brass BBQ where we saw What Cheer Brigade and Keleta and Super Yamba Band. Both bands were like snake charmers and all the Pittsburghers crammed into Vietnam Veteran’s Pavilion moved together like a city possessed. I’m happy to be here in Pittsburgh. The city is gradually pulling me out of my shell and reversing some negative introverted tendencies one accumulates when you work from home. It helps that I hang out with a lot of cool cartoonists around here and they help get me out of the house in a way walking my dog can’t. ———————————————————————————————————— if you don’t know, now you know Jim Rugg talks Street Angel with Chris Aiken at BlackNerdProblems.com. Kevin Huizenga “teases” a Ganges graphic novel. Tegan O’Neill interviews Craig Thompson at TCJ.com in support of the re-release of his graphic memoir, Carnet de Voyage. Sam Theilman talks with the infamous Frank Miller at The Guardian. ———————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 05-07-18 – by Gabriella Tito Share this page: [...]

Caleb OrecchioOctober 29, 2017NewsCaleb Orecchio here with thoughts and ramblings on Chester Brown’s Yummy Fur brought on by reading Brian Evenson’s book, Ed vs. Yummy Fur–and other news.————————————————————————————————— A recent conversation I had with Comics Workbook’s fearless leader, Frank Santoro, about Chester Brown’s Yummy Fur has got me all hot and bothered about the title again. Every so often I go back and flip through my copies and marvel at the energy of Brown’s early strips, and the absolute beauty and power of the later stuff going into Underwater. YF is the promise of the undergrounds fulfilled as a vessel for looking inward and taboo exploitation, and there is virtually limitless aspects of the title to consider and examine as a 21st Century cartoonist. Consequently, I recently read Ed vs. Yummy Fur: Or, What Happens When a Serial Comic Becomes a Graphic Novel by Brian Evenson, published by Uncivilized Books–being their debut title in their line of prose comics criticism, Critical Cartoons. The book compares and contrasts “Ed, The Happy Clown” as a serial within Yummy Fur, and Ed, The Happy Clown the graphic novel. Now, I will admit that the book left a lot to be desired due to the titular focus of Ed which I felt limited the scope of Evenson’s point. However, I was fascinated with Evenson’s consideration of Brown’s Gospels as being inextricably linked to the reading of “Ed” within Yummy Fur. Brown’s Gospels (being The Book of Mark and the unfinished Book of Matthew) are a bit lost on my generation (millennials). This is no doubt due the fact they haven’t been reprinted into a book, but also I think it is simply difficult to understand the significance of such a work during the time of its publication. From what I can gather, no cartoonist had really done a Bible adaption in such a faithful (ha), straight-forward, and non-judgmental way (at least, certainly, for “Mark” this is particularly true). The only other widely-known comics Bible adaption I know of from up to that point is Mayer and Kubert’s, which could basically be considered easily-digestible, white-washed propaganda. In an interview with Brown from Evenson’s book, Evenson says (or writes, because I assume the interview took place over email or at least that’s what it feels like–I wouldn’t be surprised if Evenson just gave Brown a questionnaire to fill out and mail back), “Issue #4 [of Yummy Fur] is one of the few issues of comics I remember being really shocked by. I think it was less because of the sex and murder at the end of the Ed material in that issue and more because we go straight from that to an adaption of the Biblical book of Mark.” I think what Yummy Fur readers were expecting from Brown’s “Mark” was biting satire and exploitation, and obviously the lack of both and the general neutrality of the adaption shocked his fans more than any “parody” could have. However, I think if Brown had published “Ed” and the Gospels in their own separate books, the effect Evenson talks about experiencing would be less severe or memorable. After reading this, and the rest of Ed vs. Yummy Fur, I can’t help but see YF as anything less than one complete work–as oppose to a book containing many serialized stories. All comics in YF from “Ed” to “Showing Helder” to “The Little Man” to “Fuck”, (AND the letters pages) etc. have an interesting give and take with the Gospels they share a book with. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that there is an unsevered umbilical chord connecting the early pre-“Ed” material to the later autobio stuff; and going further into Underwater. I see Yummy Fur being the record of a developing cartoonist constantly tinkering with his craft, and a self-aware conscience looking at it’s old-self in the face. When you read the “Playboy” stories, the juxtaposition of the Gospels are impossible to ignore while reading about young Chester’s religious upbringing. It’s like the Gospels and the teachings of Christ are always in the back of Brown’s mind and dictate his actions and motivations for better or for worse. Anyone still here? Well if you are, here is what I’m picturing in my head: A multi-volume, “The Complete Yummy Fur.” Everything reprinted (including Vortex house-ads–like, literally just scan mint copies of Yummy Fur cover to cover and sew them together) even the letters column, aka “The Fur Bag”–of course all this would be done as a bootleg, to Chester Brown’s chagrin I assume. The last volume would be subtitled; the complete Underwater. Unedited, these volumes would contain an interesting insight into an individual’s reckoning with their “conflicting” interests, political views, personal stories, and relationships with readers and “the times”. Something to chew on for 21st Century cartoonists like myself. -CO BONUS: Lookit this! An observant, Tom K from the 90s in the letter pages of Underwater. Tom would go on to publish Evenson’s book in 2014. ————————————————————————————————— if you don’t know, now you know Jim Rugg on Paste Magazine talking Street Angel. Fantagraphics has a sale going on until tomorrow! Don’t miss out! Need to know what the program for CAB 2017 looks like?? Here it is. Karl Stevens is the latest guest on Process Party. Campbell White is the latest guest on Inkstuds. ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil– 10-30-2017 – by Sally Ingraham —————————————————————————————————Joanie and Jordie – 10-30-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio ————————————————————————————————— Cozytown– 10-30-2017 – by Juan Fernandez Share this page: [...]

Aaron CockleApril 23, 2018NewsAaron here today with Global Art Comics; Frank in Italia; Print Slam #8; Paradise Systems; Cy Twombly; Remote Mind Control ————————————————————————————————— Save the date! April 27th: SPRING GROUP SHOW | GLOBAL ALT COMICS! Featuring work by Trina Robbins, Mary Fleener, Lauren Weinstein, Powerpaola, Gina Wynbrandt, Conxita Herrero, Tommi Parrish, Gabrielle Bell. ————————————————————————————————— Do you have any peculiar habits or routines before starting to draw? I try to do drawing warmups. I like to copy Archie comics. It lets my brain draw without thinking, without inventing. And Archie comics have a type of cartoony realism which I think is perfect to copy. Ideally, I warm up for 30 minutes or so before beginning to work on my own comics. Although as my comic nears completion, I warm up less because I feel confident about my direction. Also, I obsessively make coffee on the stovetop with my Bialetti caffettiera. I have to drive far away to find Lavazza coffee at the Italian grocery in a different neighborhood. American coffee is crap. Frank Santoro is interviewed at Fumettologica, in support of the publication of Pompeii in Italy, and Frank’s trip this week to Naples Comicon. An excerpt from the Italian edition has been posted as well. ————————————————————————————————— ————————————————————————————————— Paradise Systems: Woshibai, Lisk Feng and Jun Cen in conversation April 27, 2018, 6-8 PM Shanghai-based cartoonist Woshibai reads from his new book Migraine, newly released by Paradise Systems. Woshibai will be joined by New York-based cartoonists Jun Cen and Lisk Feng in conversation about Chinese comics and the illustration community. Jun Cen will also have copies of his book Negative Space availanble, which was recently published in China. ————————————————————————————————— Cy Twombly: In Beauty it is finished: Drawings 1951–2008 Through April 25, 2018, 522 West 21st Street, NY Cy Twombly: Coronation of Sesostris Through April 28, 2018, 980 Madison Avenue, NYC ————————————————————————————————— ‘EM stands for electromagnetic.’ Curtis Waltman at Muckrock found some good graphics in a recent Freedom of Information Act request: As part of my ongoing project looking at fusion centers’ investigations into Antifa and various white supremacist groups, I filed a request with the WSFC. I got back many standard documents in response, including emails, intelligence briefings and bulletins, reposts from other fusion centers – and then there was one file titled “EM effects on human body.zip.” ————————————————————————————————— Vison Box – 4-24- 2018 – by Cameron Arthur ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 4-24- 2018 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

Providence, RI Scene Report

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: [...]

Summer 2016 Rowhouse Update

Posted on July 29, 2016November 4, 2016 by Juan Fernández

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Posted in School UpdatesTagged rowhouse residency, update

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Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in School UpdatesTagged rowhouse residency, update

Juan Fernández

Posted on July 29, 2016November 4, 2016

Search for:

Explore

Caleb OrecchioNovember 12, 2017NewsCaleb Orecchio here with holiday dread, and other news.————————————————————————————————— As the holidays approach, I’m thinking about how I’m going to lie to my family. I don’t talk about my comics in a serious way around them anymore. I just do them for fun, I tell them. That’s great! they say back. Once I told an extended family member that I visited a comics syndicate in New York and showed them my comic strip. WOW—New York, that must’ve been exciting! Very much so. Did they except your strip? No—they said it was “too good”—like, it wasn’t simple enough—it’d be hard to sell to newspaper editors. The family member didn’t know what to say after that. That’s okay though, I tell them. I still make a comic strip every week day for a comics website. Oh cool—do they pay you? No. Again, they are speechless. Then I get defensive like I have to protect my dignity or something because I assume they think I’m an idiot who doodles all day for no money. I just do comics for fun really, I tell them—I’m actually a freelance graphic designer. That’s great—how’s business, they ask? Great. I switch the subject to how good the food is. The guy who does my taxes has a similar reaction to my comics making. He keeps telling me I should focus on my graphic design and try to expand. “Is there any money in comics?” he asks. “There is at the newspaper syndicates—I’m going to keep trying until I get in.” “Who reads newspapers?” ————————————————————————————————— if you don’t know, now you know Another CAB has come and gone. Had to ignore social media on Saturday so I wouldn’t get envious. Looks like Chris Anthony Diaz was busy taking photos which is good news for our eyes. I think this article is “interesting” just because making comics as a means of market research is basically what Marvel and DC do as publishing entities. Netflix joining the fray really doesn’t surprise me. Speaking of DC Comics. Really enjoyed this interview with How To Read Nancy authors, Paul Karasik and Mark Newgarden conducted by Dan Nadel over at TCJ.com. Speaking of The Comics Journal, they proudly present an excerpt of Chuck Forsman’s new book, I Am Not Okay With This. Originally serialized for Forsman’s Patreon supporters. Seattle Review of Books has a report of Short Run–a show that I have only heard good things about. ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 11-13-2017 – by Sally Ingraham ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 11-13-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio ————————————————————————————————— Cozytown – 11-13-2017 – by Juan Fernandez Share this page: [...]

Caleb OrecchioOctober 8, 2018NewsCaleb Orecchio here with some brief initial thoughts on Andrew White’s Yearly 2018. ————————————————————————————————— What follows are some initial thoughts on Andrew White’s comic, Yearly 2018. I will write a more in-depth review later on. Yearly 2018 glorifies minutia. Every panel smolders and melts into quiet moments that are psalms of contemplation. There is pleasure in merely flipping through the book. Beautiful, soft colors make an arrangement of bloomed flowers that you can look at for hours. White’s compositional choices give the book weight. Each spread has something to offer separate from the stories they are part of. You can look at the spreads in any order you like and you will come out on the other end experiencing the whole without undermining the books integrity. White seems very comfortable, I see no hesitation in his cartooning. Yearly 2018 is the start of a new brilliant comic I will look forward to every year. More on this comic later. 10/08/2018 – by Niall Breen Share this page: [...]

Caleb OrecchioJune 25, 2018NewsCaleb Orecchio here with thoughts on Chilling Adventures in Sorcery #3, featuring the art of Gray Morrow, and other news! ——————————————————————————— I was delighted to pull this issue out of the Comics Workbook vault. It’s an all Gray Morrow issue of Chilling Adventures in Sorcery published by Archie Comics’ imprint, Red Circle. I enjoy Morrow’s comics immensely. I just look at the pictures. Morrow’s gift (other than his virtuosic drawing ability) is his knack for making interesting pages. Comics like Orion (for Heavy Metal) and Edge of Chaos (a limited series for Pacific Comics) feel much more from Morrow’s head if you will. Imagined. They’re great. In contrast, comics like the one featured here today, feel more stitched together to me. More collage-y. In a good way. Usually I detest any whiff of photo-reference in comics, but Morrow makes it work. Occasionally the sequencing is a little wonky and the referenced images juxtaposed with the imagined images can be jarring, but overall the pages are pleasing to the eye. There is a dynamism to his work that makes up for a lot. Simply, Morrow’s comics are always interesting. He seemed to have a real desire to “wow” the reader. Every page is crammed with interesting imagery. And those colors! Morrow was one of those cartoonists who seemed to think in color as he made the comic, as opposed to most who only use color as an afterthought. Have you ever seen Orion in those old Heavy Metals? Those are hand painted. Is it just me, or is there a swagger to his work? Like, I can imagine him at the drawing board and drinking a glass of Dewar’s and laughing to himself, knowing how impressed I’d be in however many years I’d be born to see the work. ——————————————————————————— Thee Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers Summer Session starts NOW! Floating start date! Apply anytime between now and July 12th 2018 to join the summer course. Email santoroschoolATgmail for more details. Ask about the Fall Course if now is too busy for you! The course is 8 weeks – 500 bux for 8 weeks plus access to Frank’s coaching for as long as you need. Payment plans are available. Put your summer to good use! ——————————————————————————— if you don’t know, now you know There’s a new book of CF drawings and you can get one What Things Do Laura Lannes is the latest guest on TCJ’s Comic Book Decalogue Rob Clough reviews Young Frances by Hartley Lin (Ethan Rilly) Also on TCJ.com, a review by Matt Seneca and a look at Fantom Comics in Washington D.C. ——————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 6-25-2018 – by Sally Ingraham Share this page: [...]

Aaron CockleSeptember 25, 2018NewsJulie Doucet; L. Nichols; Best American Comics; Richard McGuire; Everything is Connected at the Met Breuer; Art in Brussels ————————————————————————————————— Dirty Plotte—The Complete Julie Doucet by Austin English By the end of Dirty Plotte, the panels become increasingly dense and claustrophobic—beautifully so, but a trap all the same. The imposition of the rules of comics come to a head: clear, pure storytelling, the same character over and over, refine-refine-refine your style—a far remove from the infinitely open plane Doucet grafted onto the medium when Plotte began. An author of endless skill, she observed these principles and easily mastered them. Could the wide canvas of the early issues have been similarly exhausted? ————————————————————————————————— L Nichols: Day One ————————————————————————————————— The Best American Comics 2018 Panel discussion at Strand Book Store, NYC, Wednesday, October 3, 7pm “I love comics. Comics is (Comics ARE?) a perfect language, robustly evolving and expanding like any other living language,” writes Phoebe Gloeckner in her Introduction to The Best American Comics 2018. This year’s collection includes work selected from the pages of graphic novels, comic books, periodicals, zines, online, and more, highlighting the kaleidoscopic diversity of the comics language today. Join us as panelist Bill Kartalopoulos, Julia Gfrörer, Julian Glander, Kevin Hooyman, and Julia Jacquette talk about this year in comics. ————————————————————————————————— Richard McGuire: Art for the Street – 1978-1982 September 27 – November 4, 2018; Opening: Thursday, Sept. 27, 6-8 pm Alden Projects, 34 Orchard Street, NYC “A shadow is a strong and simple graphic,” McGuire explains. “The titles evolved from a Burroughs-esque cut-up method — just grabbing selected phrases that caught my ear. I would make lists. Later, I made a stencil. I would see what worked best with that image as a ‘sound picture’.” Incorporating cryptic phrases such as “Moved Then Set on Fire” (1979); “Holes and Corners” (1980); “Doubles are Inevitable” (1980); and “Different Nervous Rhythms (1981); McGuire’s Ixnae Nix drawings transmogrify the layout and content of quotidian newspapers into personalized tabloids in which the central silhouette appears with “a crypto-mystical graphic style, a great touch,” to borrow Glenn O’Brien’s 1981 praise in Interview magazine. The stream-of-consciousness poetics of McGuire’s Ixnae Nix drawings share explicit aesthetic dialogue with Basquiat and his early poetics, but later, these conversations arguably go both ways. McGuire’s Incident Instantly Becomes Memory , to name one, shared a pivotal stage with Basquiat, Haring, and others at the New York / New Wave show, curated by Diego Cortez at P.S. 1, Queens in 1981, and clearly anticipates some of Basquiat’s later pictorial developments. The Ixnae Nix drawings also confabulate with Keith Haring’s early street-based work, particularly with the latter’s Xeroxed collages of cut-up newspaper headlines, which he began in 1980. McGuire stopped his wheatpasting activities in early 1981—around the same time that Haring first began making chalk drawings in the subway. ————————————————————————————————— Everything Is Connected: Art and Conspiracy The first half of the exhibition comprises works by artists who hew strictly to the public record, uncovering hidden webs of deceit—from the shell corporations used by New York’s largest private landlord, interconnected networks encompassing politicians, businessmen, and arms dealers. In the second part, other artists dive headlong into the fever dreams of the disaffected, creating fantastical works that nevertheless uncover uncomfortable truths in an age of information overload and weakened trust in institutions. ————————————————————————————————— 09-25-2018 – by Niall Breen Share this page: [...]

HarrisonJuly 14, 2016News Harrison returns with conversations with an American master, a new canon of film, another canon of art, and ends with healing. ————————————————————————————————— New Rules Aisha Harris, Dan Kois, and other critics and filmmakers created a new list of the greatest black films from black directors a few months ago. I’m making it my mission to see all of these films by the end of the year and write something about them. Kois and Harris wrote: “We must recognize that even with the financial and systemic odds stacked against them, black filmmakers have long been creating great and riveting stories on screen. The academy’s failure may have inspired a memorable hashtag, but that failure is deeply linked to the way nearly all movie fans remember cinematic history. In our never-ending conversation—or argument—about which films deserve to be remembered, which films are cultural touchstones, which films defined and advanced the art form, we habitually overlook stories by and about black people. Consider the many widely regarded lists of the “best films”: the prestigious Sight & Sound once-a-decade critics’ poll, the American Film Institute’s eight different 100 Years … lists, or Richard Corliss’ top 100 for Time. Total number of black-directed films among the 1,000 movies on those lists? Two. As Buggin’ Out (Do the Right Thing, No. 96 on AFI’s 2007 list) would ask, “How come there ain’t no brothers up on the wall?” – via Slate.com The same can be said of comics. The whole film list is HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Mapping Ronald Wimberly made The Black Comics/Animation artist MEGAPOST You’ve Been Waiting For earlier this year and keeps on adding to it. Like he says: “So, awhile ago I hit you guys up for some examples of comic art excellence. THANKS FOR YOUR AMAZING RESPONSE! I think that post reached 400 people! I’ve compiled the answers that jumped out to me as well as some of my own in the list below. Give these guys your eyes, moneys and work!” Keep up with the list HERE. Remember comics history right. ————————————————————————————————— Wright Comics Shannon Wright offers a comic about web weirdness. ————————————————————————————————— Rick Mays Pages by Rick Mays are part of the Comics Workbook auction this week – artwork from Spider-man Loves Mary. Email Frank Santoro at santoroschoolATgmail for a password, if you don’t already have one. ————————————————————————————————— Richie Pope Richie Pope hits again with an illustration for a VICE article titled The Alt-Right’s Fear of a Black Planet (above). From the article: “We are changing demographically, we are changing racially—we’re becoming a truly multiracial society. In the context of this change, we always need to guard against appeals to our worst selves. The risk with the alt-right movement and Donald Trump is that in the midst of this social transformation, which of course generates anxiety, we are turning toward a movement that encourages us to find some sort of perverse joy in putting other people down and dehumanizing them.” – Ian Haney-Lopez via VICE ————————————————————————————————— The Greatest Unknown “Also I was doing work with this political group of filmmakers who were making films about the working class and exploitation and stuff like that you know. And it was sort of formulaic kind of a situation where the plot was always the same, the characters always ended up forming a union and everything was happy after that you know. And even though they were progressive and had good intentions it was the same story if you just apply this formula then your ok. But I came from a situation where it didn’t work for a lot of people. People were happy to get a job, but all these other issues were impacting them you know. So if you were going to make a film about social change, you have to show you know the dynamics of where these people come from.” – Charles Burnett ————————————————————————————————— Dance + Resist Share this page: [...]