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Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in Festivals and Shows

Juan Fernández

Posted on June 3, 2016

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Comics WorkbookApril 18, 2018NewsSam Ombiri on Joe Daly’s The Red Monkey – plus Frank Santoro at Naples Comicon in Italy! —————————————————————————————————————————— Sam Ombiri here: When reading comics, or engaging with any art form really, there’s this confrontation with internal noise that I have to dealt with – that for unknown reasons I feel desperate to make sense of. I wonder…this whole comics thing…what’s it for? Different artists at different times speak to me, to help make sense of it all, and I’m certain this is what it’s like for everyone who reads comics. For me this week, I’m not saying Joe Daly’s The Red Monkey rectified ALL of this ongoing anxiety, but reading The Red Monkey was in some ways an answer to some of my questions – in a big way, really. This isn’t the first time Joe Daly’s book has given me a real gut punch. Daly’s comics in general feel like a really sincere reaction to the energy that comics poses. When I say sincere, I mean he makes comics that don’t seem concerned with the reception that will be given to the book that he’s made. Every drawing he made was at the service of the form, and engaging with the ideas he is engaging with, as opposed to aiming to get attention and accolades. Telling a story means less and less for people. It’s too simple; too boring. People feel desperate to make comics more useful, and as a result can forsake the form altogether, and that’s not without its consequences – comics feel increasing impotent. With The Red Monkey, it doesn’t feel like Daly wonders how people will consume it. He engages with comics like it’s something to make things that are difficult to understand, understandable. As though comics are an effective way for any reader to be confronted with what’s not understandable. I remember Stan Brakhage quoting Bresson (in a conversation Bresson was having with Godard) about how it’s important to convince your audience to like you – and making a thing aesthetically pleasing so that you can take your audience certain places. The Red Monkey was so easy to read, without it’s simplicity being a big deal, and the environment was so well rendered – never did I have to ask where I was or what the the character was doing. It’s this clarity that’s important when making stories. With that in mind, I’m reminded of a moment in Daly’s Highbone Theater and how I was sucked into Palmer’s idea about 9/11 without questioning it or mocking it, because of how infectious the narrative was. It’s in the same fashion that I’m sucked into the madness going on in The Red Monkey. That’s what art can do. I keep having this recurring stupid mini revelation, or rather I had this thought a year ago, and it’s nothing impressive, but it’s really stuck with me. This revelation has to do with how potent attitude is, how it goes into making any piece of art have a certain energy that defines it. There’s a moment towards the beginning of the story when the main character gets roped into babysitting for his neighbor. He tries to find a comic for the kid, and he tells the kid that he’s babysitting (who is a fantastic character), to be careful with the comics, and that comics are like his religion. That’s the energy I’m referring to that I find over and over in Daly’s comics. – Sam Ombiri Get a copy of The Red Monkey by Joe Daly over at Copacetic Comics, where coincidentally there is a wicked deal on the book as Bill Boichel is also eager to get more folks hep to Daly – check it out HERE. —————————————————————————————————————————— Sally here – the Naples Comicon Instagram account was buzzing yesterday, as famed Italian paleontologist Alberto Angela was caught at the National Archeological Museum of Naples, in Italy, looking at original artwork from Frank Santoro’s Pompeii (above). Alberto Angela is a popular TV presenter and commentator for science-based programs. He is the author of A Day in the Life of Ancient Rome, among other texts, and has lectured on the tragedy of Pompeii. He seemed taken by Frank’s depictions, or as the Naples Comicon put it, he “could not resist the charm of the show“. There are over 30 pages from Pompeii on display at the museum, in an exhibition which is being held in conjunction with Frank’s appearance as a special guest at the Naples Comicon (April 28-May 1 2018). The show opened yesterday (April 18th) at MANN and will continue until May 31st 2018. More details on the show can be found HERE. During Comicon Frank will be participating in a panel with Blutch, whose graphic novel Peplum also takes a look at Ancient Rome. Details on the panel are HERE. If you’re in the area, be sure to attend Comicon and meet Frank, and don’t miss the exhibition at MANN! —————————————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 4-19-2018 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

Juan FernándezMay 9, 2016NewsJuan Fernandez with: Aidan Koch’s The Elements of Painting; Rebecca Sugar and Ryan Sands; Supporting Rob Clough; Malachi Ward interviewed; Wowee Zonk at TCAF; Jason Shulman’s Photographs of Films; Virtual Graffiti. ————————————————————————————————— New Comics – The Elements of Painting I’m happy to announce that this week we are featuring Aidan Koch’s The Elements of Painting on Comics Workbook. These strips were originally created for and featured on Comics Workbook in 2013. The full collection is now a 14 page, b/w offset book on newsprint printed in an edition of 500, available on Koch’s site. The series is a collection of beautiful, observational work that extracts both the dominant and elusive narratives from the paintings Koch observes. Inspiring work that’s sure to get your mind racing. Read it all here. ————————————————————————————————— Rebecca Sugar & Ryan Sands The Society of Illustrators has posted a video of the Rebecca Sugar Q&A from April 3rd at MoCCA 2016. In this spotlight session, Sugar answered questions posed by Youth in Decline publisher Ryan Sands, focusing in particular on her own comics work. Sugar and Sands touched upon depictions of love, working on Margo in Bed, compositional differences between comics and animation, the pastiche of Steven Universe, and how to continue growing when making comics. Soak it up. ————————————————————————————————— Support Rob Clough Comics critic Rob Clough’s family is facing crushing hospital bills. He and his family could use all the help they can get. Please consider donating over on his site. My family has been crushed by medical expenses in the past month, including a couple of hospitalizations. I would greatly appreciate any donations readers might care to give in order to help defray costs. There’s a paypal button over at the right for those who would care to do so. Reader support has helped keep me and this site going, and I want everyone who’s ever donated to know just how much my family and I appreciate that support. Clough’s energy and enthusiasm for reviewing comics work is an invaluable resource for independent comics making. No one plows into forward thinking comics and reviews them with gusto and consistency quite like Rob Clough. On a positive note, he is going to be back in the saddle, releasing 3 new reviews a week for the foreseeable future, so there is much to be thankful for. Donate here. ————————————————————————————————— INKSTUDS: Sean Ford interviews Malachi Ward Malachi Ward makes beautiful, intricate science fiction and fantasy comics. The stories are set in richly illustrated, fantastic landscapes, addressing existential questions and carrying a certain dark edge that I appreciate and associate with some of the very best science fiction writing in prose or comics. I was eager to talk about his recent work: a new short story collection from Alternative Comics called FROM NOW ON, and the serialized story he’s working on with Matt Sheehan in the ISLAND anthology called ANCESTOR. We also talked about time travel, why people explore strange new worlds, religious cults, and why we love Vancouver so much. I think Malachi is doing some really interesting comics right now and I hope you’ll check them out. – Sean Ford If you like this podcast, and want to hear more, consider supporting Inkstuds on Patreon. ————————————————————————————————— the Wowee Zonk Zone The Toronto Comic Arts Festival is this coming weekend (May 13-15) and with its arrival comes an exciting flood of self-published zines and comics. The Toronto based comics collective, Wowee Zonk has partnered with TCAF to host a special showcase. Curated by Patrick Kyle, Ginette Lapalme, and Chris Kuzma, the Wowee Zonk Small Press Showcase will highlight some of the most exciting work being made in comics, zines, and independent publishing. That room is sure to be real colorful, real hot and real sweaty. Not to be missed. Lots of things are sure to go down at TCAF in the coming week. You can get the lowdown of the latest TCAF news here. They’ve got a fancy app, Guidebook, that allows you to stay abreast with all the happenings with your phone. ————————————————————————————————— Photographs of Films Jason Shulman has an upcoming exhibition entitled Photographs of Films at the Cob Gallery, London that reveals what happens when you crush time into a 2 dimensional space. It’s funny stuff. You get some really interesting translations in his process. Some really subtle directorial and cinematographic decisions are brought to light in this averaging of images. AnOther Mag has a nice selection of Shulman’s photographs and some reflections on his process. Check it out here. “The images vary so wildly, that’s the remarkable thing about it,” Shulman continues, “and they’re also quite didactic. You can learn something about the director’s style from this kind of kooky translation: you can learn that Hitchcock deals with people, for example, Kubrick deals with composition, Bergman deals with… I mean lots of Bergman films are kind of moody and psychological, much more so than other films. So it’s odd that in one exposure all of these things, although very subjective, kind of come through.” Jason Shulman: Photographs of Films runs from May 12 until June 4, 2016 at the Cob Gallery, London. ————————————————————————————————— Virtual Graffiti VR is undergoing a veritable Renaissance. Painting, sculpting, and now this insane Graffiti Simulator. Here’s a look at Kingspray Graffiti Simulator a new Virtual Reality game soon to launch on SteamVR. I want to see what David Hockney will do with this. ————————————————————————————————— I’ll leave you to start your day with the Don. Stay strong – Juan Fernandez Share this page: [...]

Sally IngrahamMay 24, 2018NewsSally here with a Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency Report from Jason Robinson! ———————————————————————————————— Jason Robinson is a comics maker, illustrator, and graphic designer living in Asbury Park, NJ. He joined us in Pittsburgh early last summer for a weeklong Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency. When Jason arrived, he mentioned that he had brought along a few “housewarming gifts” – these turned out to be several boxes worth of kitchen gadgets, pots and pans, a tea kettle, and other goodies for the Rowhouse that future residents and the more long-term resident cartoonists have made delighted use of. This generous gift was just one among many ways that Jason showed his support for the Rowhouse Residency, and if Frank and the rest of the team was able to give him anything in return we are grateful! It’s a treat to revisit Jason’s time in Pittsburgh through his thoughtful and entertaining residency report – here’s an excerpt: “Day six was filled with daydreams and the jotting down of enough story ideas to last the next five years. In many ways, I feel like I was just getting revved up and here I am at the end, hoping I have the discipline to continue this trajectory or at least ride this wave for a long while. Because only now have the chaotic thoughts begun to settle on the floor of my brain. And I’m able to calmly wander through, picking up bits and pieces, and notice how some seem to connect—to join together like pieces of a puzzle. I joined Frank and Sally for dinner on that last night. And a bit drunk on wine, I tried to convey this feeling by paraphrasing a similar concept I’d read somewhere about a scientist explaining that “it may not look like I’m working when I’m staring off into space, but what I’m really doing is constructing a 3-dimensional puzzle in my head—piecing together bits and bytes of information, and that takes time and focus to carefully construct this puzzle in my mind’s sky so that it may stand on it’s own. So, please don’t interrupt me, or you risk the pieces of the puzzle caving in on each other, imploding into a cloud of ash.” …Fortunately, Frank has a better and much more succinct iteration in his back pocket – “When I’m working, you may not see it, but I’m welding here. I have a helmet on, and my mitt, it grips a fucking torch-of-fire. So stand back, or you’re in danger!” I’ll close with some unsolicited advise to future residents: You don’t have to chain yourself to the drawing table. Of course you may, and obviously there can be great benefits to doing so, I only argue that there are other equally constructive ways to make use of this time you’ve carved out for yourself. Paradoxically, doing “nothing” may be exactly what’s needed to do the next something.“ Read the rest of Jason Robinson’s Rowhouse Residency Report HERE! For more info on the Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency please visit this page or email santoroschool@gmail.com ———————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 5-24-18 – by Audra Stang Share this page: [...]

TCAF 2016 | Ethan Rilly

TCAF 2016 | Ethan Rilly

Frank SantoroJune 3, 2016Festivals and Shows / InterviewsShare this page: [...]

Aaron CockleJanuary 9, 2017NewsAaron here today with A Vernacular of File Formats; The False Grandmother; Joe Sacco: SJW; Still and Moving Images; Kirby/Slash; Sara Lautman Comics; EX-VOTO ————————————————————————————————— RAW, BMP, GIF, PNG, TARGA, TIFF, PSD, JPEG, MOV, DV, WMV, AVI, ETC Glitch artist Rosa Menkman’s discourse on what is lost, distorted, and potentially gained by these technologies we find surrounding ourselves, circa 2010. Type to enter text Tango between a corrupt format and its user. ! ! ! ! Contents ! the ! There is not sufﬁcient data. Please enter data art is a practice that studies and researches Glitch ! Static! vernacular of ﬁle formats in exploitative manners to ! ! You have too Noise Art > Filter art > when Cool becomes Hot >>>>>>> ! ! Uncompressed!! deconstruct and create new, brutalist (audio)visual works. m u c h However, glitch artists often the ! ! Lossless! ! ! c h a r a c t e r ! Glitches are hot; proof can be found on MTV, Flickr, in go beyond this formal approach; coffee table that the glitch Lossy! not exists A p p l y club and in the bookstore. While thethey realize book Glitch: ! ! does ! ! ! Moving image! ! g a u s s i a n Designing Imperfection without human perception and therefore have a more (2009) has introduced the glitch inclusive approach to digital material. ! ! MOV ! ! ! blur. design aesthetic to the world of latte drinking designers, and ! ! DV ! ! ! The materiality of glitch art is constantly mutating; it exists Kanye West used glitches to sing about his imperfect love ! ! WMV! hand the ! life, the awkward, shy and physically ugly celebrate underrelies on the one as an unstable assemblage that the ! ! AVI! ! You still have header “Glitched: Nerdcore for life”. operation and content of the apparatus (the construction, ! ! ! the writer/artist, ! ! quirks! Clone Glitch has transformed from cool and on Its no more then a work, medium) to hot. the other hand the s t a m p f o r brightly colored bubblegum wrapper that doesn’t by the any and the interpretation ask for reader and/or user (the meaning). s m o o t h involvement, or offers any stimulus. Inside I ﬁnd gum that I surface keep chewing, hoping for some new explosion of good taste. But the more I chew, the less tasty / rubbery it gets. Glitch design fulﬁlls an average, imperfect stereotype, a ﬁlter or Your ﬁle has commodity that echoes a “medium is the message” standard. i n v a l i d m a r k e r s . ————————————————————————————————— Turturro Reads Calvino Online (with accompanying images by Kevin Ruelle) As our present reality grows every more unreal, there may be no writer more fitting to read that Italo Calvino. Calvino was most famous for his fabulist fiction, works of literary fiction inspired by fairy tales — a form he studied and collected in the 1956 book Italian Folktales. ————————————————————————————————— Galvanizing Social Justice Through Comics As part of the University of Michigan’s Penny Stamps Lecture Series: Leading graphic historical novelist Joe Sacco will chronicle how and why he uses the graphic novel format to catalyze social justice and human rights struggles in the US and around the world. Thursday, January 19, 5:10-6:30pm at the Michigan Theater, 603 E Liberty St, Ann Arbor, MI 48104. Hopefully he’ll talk about BUMF as well. ————————————————————————————————— Film and Comics: Mutually Exclusive, or Exclusively Mutual? Allan Haverholm talks about The Hulk and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, split screens, paneling, juxtaposition, and good stuff like that. The juxtaposed split screens in Hulk only serve as disturbances in that they try to emulate complicated comics (page) layouts that are not easily conveyed in moving images. Instead, we shall move on to a more surprising, more challenging, and eventually more successful implementation of comics formalities in film: Long story short: the element of split screens emulating comics page elements disturb rather than add to the storytelling, taking the viewer out of the natural immersion of believing in the (rather surreal) narrative of an irradiated, superpowered green giant. ————————————————————————————————— KIRBY/SLASH Andrei Molotiu has some pretty sweet Jack Kirby pages put into context with other artists and their art. Very artistic! Image below: Jack Kirby + Hannah Hoch ————————————————————————————————— Sara Lautman is the featured Diarist this week at The Comics Journal. ————————————————————————————————— The Vivid Violence and Divine Healing of Ex-Voto Paintings Allison Meier looks at religious artwork at the Hyperallergic blog: In 19th-century Mexico, the content of ex-votos stayed the same — a depiction of the accident, illness, or misfortune in question, along with the intervening saint or other heavenly presence — but the materials changed. There were fewer canvases and more works on tin. Rather than meticulous, idealized scenes, ex-votos became theatrical and free-form, often created by self-taught artists. By the 20th century, contemporary artists were drawn to this dramatic folk art. Alexxa Gotthardt at Artsy recently described how Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo collected Mexican votive paintings, many of which are now on view in the Museo Frida Kahlo in Mexico City. Kahlo owned over 400 ex-voto paintings, and one of a woman who survived being stabbed in bed is said to have inspired her bloody 1935 “A Few Small Nips.” Take a look to see your favorite sky-god smiling down at the calamities they have caused for you. ————————————————————————————————— Here’s Connor Willumsen talking about his book Portraits while teaching a workshop in England in autumn of 2016. Get a copy of the book HERE! ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 1-10-2017 – by Sally Ingraham ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 1-10-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio ————————————————————————————————— 1-10-2017 – by Juan Fernández Share this page: [...]

TCAF 2016 | Joe Kessler

Posted on June 3, 2016 by Juan Fernández

Check out Joe’s work here copaceticcomics.com/creators/joe-kessler

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Comics Workbook

An online magazine for comics makers

Posted in Festivals and Shows

Juan Fernández

Posted on June 3, 2016

Search for:

Explore

HarrisonJune 9, 2016News Harrison is aggregating news for Thursday June 9, 2016. Today we have math jokes, ways of representing the internet, explore anime, and end with words of wisdom from the champ. ————————————————————————————————— Computer Love “I can think of a couple reasons for why I’m only seeing these types of representations of the internet in comics. First, the lower barrier to entry in publishing comics means that younger cartoonists (i.e. heavier online users) are able to publish stories – and they are stories that reflect their lived realities. But more fundamentally, the norm of using multiple panels in comics presents an advantage over other mediums when it comes to representing the internet. Multiple panels easily mimic the multiple windows and tabs of our online browsing. Split screen representations don’t feel as jarring as it might in other mediums.” –Representing the internet at Cute Juice. ————————————————————————————————— ✏️ ? ? An illustrated guide to math. ————————————————————————————————— 1’s 2’s 3’s “Exacerbating this is a lack of competent gatekeeping. American anime fansites and magazines have until recently shown complete indifference to the art of animation. Anime became popular overseas not for its contributions to craft but for its novel take on certain sci-fi conventions, its explicit sexual content, and its longform storytelling. The few genuine anime researchers like Fred Patten and Jonathan Clements are more often interested in the macro- aspects of the industry, its economics and social impact, than the labors of individual artists. It’s not uncommon to see a supposed expert display cavalier ignorance to the basics of animated technique.” Engaging conversation about the real aesthetic and conceptual differences between Japanese and North American animation. Read the article AND the comments here. ————————————————————————————————— Scissors and Precipitation Watch the film above really LOUD. ————————————————————————————————— ? ? Rest in power. Share this page: [...]

Aaron CockleJune 6, 2016NewsAaron Cockle with Oliver East Comics; C.A.K.E. 2016; Moholy-Nagy; Exercises in Style; 5,000 km per second; Peter Kuper; Vintage Vintage Contemporaries; AI DMCA ————————————————————————————————— CW’s Featured Comics continues this week with Oliver East’s Cottonopolis, from 2014-2015. ————————————————————————————————— Chicago Alternative Comics Expo (CAKE) Saturday-Sunday, June 11-12, 2016, 11am–6pm Center on Halsted, 3656 N Halsted, Chicago IL USA FREE and open to the public! Panels & Workshops ————————————————————————————————— László Moholy-Nagy at the Guggenheim ————————————————————————————————— Matt Madden on Exercises in Style ————————————————————————————————— Lauren Weinstein and Mike Dawson on Manuele Fior’s 5,000 km per second ————————————————————————————————— Peter Kuper Deconstructing Comics ————————————————————————————————— Vintage Vintage Contemporaries For book art nerds, a look at the line of Vintage Contemporaries softcovers from the 1980’s-1990’s, cover designer Lorraine Louie, lots of books, author quotes, lots of process, over at the Talking Covers blog. ————————————————————————————————— Do Androids Dream of Androids Dreaming of Electric Sheep? Last week, Warner Bros. issued a DMCA takedown notice to the video streaming website Vimeo. The notice concerned a pretty standard list of illegally uploaded files from media properties Warner owns the copyright to — including episodes of Friends and Pretty Little Liars, as well as two uploads featuring footage from the Ridley Scott movie Blade Runner. Just a routine example of copyright infringement, right? Not exactly. Warner Bros. had just made a fascinating mistake. Some of the Blade Runner footage — which Warner has since reinstated — wasn’t actually Blade Runner footage. Or, rather, it was, but not in any form the world had ever seen. Instead, it was part of a unique machine-learned encoding project, one that had attempted to reconstruct the classic Philip K. Dick android fable from a pile of disassembled data. -via Aja Romano at Vox ————————————————————————————————— Share this page: [...]

Juan FernándezNovember 16, 2016los Cómics / NewsJuan con un poquito sobre: las Comiqueras en diciembre; Octavio Beares sobre GrafMadrid + video; Venta de arte: Alexis Ziritt; Revista La Traca; La Polola Podcast #20: Realidad; Inés Estrada WINTER MEGASALE. ————————————————————————————————— ⚡ Madrid, España – GrafMadrid Octavio Beares ha escrito un poco sobre el milagro que es el festival, Graf. Octavio Beares es un veterano de los cómics, osea que su perspectiva es muy pero muy valorosa. Si no han ido a Graf, hay que ir, este festival es el “Comic Arts Brooklyn” del cómic hispanohablante! Entonces voy a Graf, y Mireia Pérez, cuando se cosca de que este tipo al que recuerda de otros grafs “soy yo”, Octavio, y me suelta una risa así de grande y sincera y un abrazorte del doce, se disipa cansancio y dudas. Porque es la primera. Vienen más de seguido, de más encuentros, y cuando me reencuentro con Gerardo y con tantos autores y colegas críticos, con gente que veo muy de vez en vez y con gente que solo conocía por Redes Sociales, y cuando estalla ese ambiente ígneo que es estar en Graf… “cansados mis bemoles”. El cómic es un manantial de cosas buenas, de gente BELLA, de talento, de ganas. Reventados todos por tres días duros, sobre todo organizadores y expositores. pero felices, o eso creo yo. En serio, id a Graf si os gustan los cómics y no conocéis este festival. El manantial brota de allí, es la gente, el pozo en que nace el arco iris. Hay una sinergia brutal, es centrifugante y vertiginoso. Es amoroso, afectivo, admirativo, alegre y POSITIVO. Es una sinfonía luminosa de ganas de hacer cosas, conocer gentes, autores, amigos virtuales. Es tan intenso que te balda y sabe a poco a la vez. Y si no conoces a nadie, te encontrarás en un espacio que acoge y que alimenta, con charlas bárbaras y talleres para todas las edades y todos los pelajes. Léelo todo AQUI! Aquí podéis ver una pequeña muestra de los expositores de GrafMadrid: ————————————————————————————————— ⚡ Santiago, Chile: Comiqueras – Diciembre 10, 2016 Con la intención de fomentar la autopublicación de cómics y la producción de Autoras en la historieta local, se ha creado este evento. Para que se pueda exponer y conversar sobre la historieta hecha por mujeres cis, hetero o lgbtiq y compartir experiencias sobre la historia de las comiqueras en Chile y compartir conocimientos sobre autopublicación con aquellas que estén interesadas en comenzar a autopublicarse. Pueden participar todes aquelles mujeres y/o trans heterosexuales o lgbtiq que se dediquen a la creación de cómics de forma independiente y autogestinada en formato libro artesanal, fanzine u otro tipo de autopublicación. ¿Eres chica y haces cómics? Inscríbete para participar de este evento! ————————————————————————————————— ⚡ Miami, Florida: Space Riders pages by Alexis Ziritt are on sale via Out of Step Arts. Buy a couple and bring ’em home! If you’re wondering what Ziritt’s tools of choice are, he’s got the answer for you right here. He gets this question, pretty often! Practicality above all. Road-friendly, simple & reliable. Pentel Pocket Brush. Kuretake No. 8 brush pen. Pentel Brush Pilot Petit3 Koh-I-Noor Rapidograph Ultradraw Waterproof Ink ————————————————————————————————— ⚡ Valencia, España: La exposición Revista La Traca. La transgresión como norma acaba de habrir sus puertas. Se puede ver hasta el próximo 15 de enero en La Universitat de València en la Sala Estudi General del Centre Cultural La Nau. Comisariada por los profesores Antonio Laguna y Francesc-Andreu Martínez, la muestra es la primera dedicada a la revista, en la que se puede ver material inédito sobre la que fue la publicación de mayor tirada de España, con en torno a medio millón de ejemplares despachados en su época dorada. La revista La Traca. Semanari pa la chent de tro reflejó una cultura alternativa a la corriente mayoritaria de los medios de comunicación, siendo inmisericordes con la corrupción. No en vano, la revista fue una de las poquísimas publicaciones en caricaturizar la figura de Franco. La propaganda antifascista se convirtió en el eje central del semanario una vez estalló la Guerra Civil cuando, derivado de su éxito en Valencia, ya se editaba en castellano y distribuía por todo el país. Hitler y Mussolini eran representados como enemigos de la cultura y el progreso, siendo el 17 de marzo de 1937 cuando, por primera vez y de manos del colaborador José María Carnicero, aparece la figura de Franco, dibujado como homosexual –“el general invertido”-. Vestido de mujer, suspirando por los bellos marroquíes o mirando de forma golosa a unos platanos (la fruta), las viñetas no dejaban de producirse. Hasta el final. ————————————————————————————————— ⚡ Texas, USA: Inés Estrada esta ofreciendo un MEGAbundle, su “Winter reading mega pack“! Prepárate para el invierno y ahora $41 cuando compras este mega pack. Get over $90 of comics for just $49! Solamente disponible en http://gatosaurio.com. Prepárate! ————————————————————————————————— [soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/292329543″ params=”color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false” width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /] ⚡Santiago, Chile –Escucha @lapololapodcast, un podcast del cómic femenino con Sol Díaz Castillo y Marcela Trujillo! It’s always a fun, relaxing and enlightening listen. If you haven’t tuned in to La Polola just yet, Póngale Play 😉 En este capítulo las chicas conversanacerca de los límites entre la realidad y la ficción, entre lo concreto y la fantasía, entre lo comprobable y lo imaginario, lo privado y lo público. Conversan acerca de estas posturas en la narrativa a través de diferentes libros que vamos poniendo como ejemplo. ————————————————————————————————— ⚡Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: thee Santoro School Handbook by Kurt Ankeny Comics Workbook has had a great show season, with visits to SPX, CXC, LICAF, & CAB. The workshops we have hosted at these events have been a highlight and folks all over are digging into comics making with new ideas swirling in their heads. If you didn’t making it to a workshop this year, be sure to keep an eye out for us next year – and meanwhile, check out thee Santoro School Handbook for Making Better Comics by Frank Santoro and Kurt Ankeny. Printed offset on cardstock by the professionals at The Prolific Group, Winnipeg, Canada, this is not some cheap color xerox or risograph. Looks great, feels great, and even smells great. Always available at our store HERE – free shipping worldwide! ————————————————————————————————— hasta la proxima! Juan Share this page: [...]

Aaron CockleJuly 10, 2018NewsPanels to/for the People; Médecins Sans Frontières; Maiden Form; LAAB; Art of/for War ————————————————————————————————— Panels to the People x Vinyl Fantasy Panels to the People is a comics reading showcasing a variety of creators. Come to Bushwick’s best comic book store Vinyl Fantasy for a night of brilliant comics. Admission is FREE! Readings by: Neil Dvorak (Easy Pieces) Michael Giurato April Malig (Goths on Ice, My Dumb Feelings) & more TBA! Thursday, July 12, 7-9pm at Vinyl Fantasy, 194 Knickerbocker Ave, Brooklyn, U.S.A. ————————————————————————————————— Paintings of people I met in Mosul Australian psychologist Diane Hanna turned to art to tell the story of the people she met while providing mental healthcare to people displaced from Mosul, Iraq, during her first field assignment with us. Via Doctors Without Borders. ————————————————————————————————— An Interview With Heather Benjamin, Curator and Participating Artist Of “MAIDEN FORM” Do you have a statement about the exhibition you’d like to share, some over-arching theme or discussion you’d like to be at the forefront? MAIDEN FORM is a show presenting meditations on contemporary notions of femininity. As a starting point, I’m inviting artists to interpret that and explore their own personal experiences through the lenses of any of the following perceived/desired/imposed attributes of conventional femininity, including but of course not limited to – concepts of sensitivity, purity, tenderness, deference, empathy, nurturance, beauty, sexual objectification, fragility, passivity. This is just a cross-section of some of the concepts which contribute simultaneously to the subjugation of all kinds of women, as well as provide structures which we both lean on and transgress against in order to define each of our personal womanhood. Betty Friedan wrote in 1963 that the key to women’s subjugation lay in the social construction of femininity as “childlike, passive, and dependent”, and called for a “drastic reshaping of the cultural image of femininity”. Over 50 years later, in many ways, we have progressed past some of the “classic” stereotypes about womanhood, but in just as many ways, we still struggle to throw off the same chains – and carry new ones as well. And that struggle has never been cut and dry – we can feel pulled in so many directions as we fight to hold onto pieces of our identities and shed others, to embrace one culturally imposed facet of femininity while transgressing against another, and all this happening under the shadow of what is societally or traditionally deemed appropriate or desirable. This show is a collection of artists making work about the multifaceted nature of that struggle, which can be so different for every individual and type of woman. My hope with the show is to create an exhibition of vibrant, poignant, and emotional work about individual experiences of femininity, different takes on personal experiences of womanhood by different kinds of women, with the goal of creating an environment where any kind of woman who walks into the gallery can find something moving and relatable within the body of work as a whole. ————————————————————————————————— LAAB, Ronald Wimberly This was probably posted to CW already, but here’s a youtube flip through of Wimberly’s excellent LAAB magazine. ————————————————————————————————— A conversation with C.C. Tsai, a Chinese artist and illustrator of Sunzi’s classic “The Art of War” (Princeton University Press, 2018), translated into English by Brian Bruya What do you think people most often get wrong about “The Art of War”? I think there is a basic misunderstanding that it’s not really about war — it’s about preventing war. From very early times, the Chinese attitude toward warfare was that you need to end it as quickly as possible. The way to do that was to use irregular fighting: special strategies and tactics so that you could minimize the loss of life and the damage to crops and villages and so on. This started very early in Chinese history. Sunzi says the point of warfare is not the fighting but the winning. He says that anger can turn to happiness later, but a dead person can’t be brought back to life. A country that is lost can’t be brought back either. So the main goal of war from a Chinese perspective is to avoid it at all costs, or to figure out how to win while suffering the least amount of damage. ————————————————————————————————— Vision Box – 7-10-2018 – by Cameron Arthur ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 7-10-18 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]

Charlotte, NC Scene Report

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: [...]