Posted in Festivals and ShowsTagged Aidan Koch, licaf 2016
Aaron CockleMarch 22, 2016NewsNew York Public Library Digital Collections; the tyranny of the cloud; comics journalism in the 1950's; new interviews to read/read aloud and/or listen to; random word informatics. ————————————————————————————————— NYPL Digital Collections Recently, the New York Public Library posted an amazing amount of content to its digital collection. Work above is from Indian coloured drawings: a collection of 177 original paintings on "talc," etc., with 17 engravings, illustrating costume, vehicles and trades in India and Fred Carlo, Works Progress Administration, respectively. ————————————————————————————————— Exercises in Scrolling Colonising the Clouds, an essay about Internet/institutional power structures, physical and virtual territories, 'memory', ETC. ————————————————————————————————— Mid-20th Century Comics Reportage Featuring work by Noel Sickles ('The immediacy of a direct drawing or sketch seldom breaks through in the more static nature of other forms of art.') and Austin Briggs. Essay by Daniel Zalkus. ————————————————————————————————— Recent Interviews of Note Aidan Koch + Tyler Landry ————————————————————————————————— Random Word/Phrase/Sentence/Paragraph Generator This is a good site if you're in a pinch for words. For illustrative purposes, the Random Paragraph Generator has been utilized above with the following keywords: 'Frank Santoro' + 'Golden Age of Comics' and 'Frank Santoro' + Comics Instruction'. Share this page: [...]
Aaron CockleMay 15, 2018NewsLucy Shelton Caswell Research Award Winners; Colleen Frakes; Katie Fricas; Clough/Porcellino; Park on Reynolds; Spatial Frequency Analysis ————————————————————————————————— Announcing the 2018 Lucy Shelton Caswell Research Award Winners The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum (BICLM) is pleased to announce the winners of the first annual Lucy Shelton Caswell Research Award. The award of up to $2500, named for the founding curator of the BICLM, Professor Emerita Lucy Shelton Caswell, supports researchers who need to travel to Columbus, Ohio to use the collections materials of the BICLM on site. Thanks to the generosity of the Will & Ann Eisner Family Foundation, we are able to give three 2018 awards in celebration of the launch of the program. Moving forward, we will give one award per year. We were delighted to receive a large and diverse range of proposals from both national and international scholars and artists. A panel of ten reviewers from a variety of disciplines at Ohio State was appointed to assess the proposals. The recipients for 2018 are: Dr. Daniel Worden, Visiting Assistant Professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology' School of Individualized Study. He holds a Ph.D. in English and American Literature from Brandeis University. His project is entitled "Oil Comics: Iconographies of Energy, Environment and Motion." Worden's research aims to chronicle the imbrication of comics with the oil industry and the normalized use of petroleum as a fuel source, from the late 19th century to the present. Xavier Dapena, Ph.D. candidate in Hispanic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. His project is called "'They do not represent us': Radical Imageries of Contemporary Spanish Graphic Narratives (1973-2011)." Dapena's project centers on the intersection of graphic narratives and political imagination and seeks to understand how the political repertoire of images, symbols, and metaphors express three processes: memorialization, precarization, and legitimation. Frank Santoro, creator of Pompeii, Storeyville and other comics. He is also an educator who runs ComicsWorkbook, a training and residency program for cartoonists. His research on "The Ohio School of Naturalist Cartooning" will look at how Billy Ireland's influence on Edwina Dumm, Noel Sickles, Milton Caniff, and C.N. Landon informed a language of 20th century cartooning that has carried on into the 21st century. Congrats, Frank! ————————————————————————————————— Colleen Frakes: A Cartoonist's Diary ————————————————————————————————— 'Stopping for Art and Conversation Along the High Line' Katie Fricas looks at the group exhibition, Agora, in NYC. ————————————————————————————————— One night group exhibition and book release with work and new publications by: Clark Keatley Leon Sadler Stuart McKenzie Tom Sewell Viktor Hachmang Yannick Val Gesto At Dinner Party Gallery, Thomas Briggs Building, 2-4 Southgate Rd, N1 3JJ. Walk past reception to the door under the stairs. ————————————————————————————————— 'How do you compare the experience of taking acid with your later practice in Zen Buddhism?' Rob Clough continues the long interview with John Porcellino, over at The Comics Journal. The long "Mr Dusty" letter from Mr Mike that you printed was epic. That was an intense amount of text to lay down, which made me wonder how you feel about lettering and how your lettering has developed over the years. Did you look to others for inspiration? Did you ever use any kind of guide? Have you ever considered developing your own font? When I first started King-Cat, the lettering was as sloppy as the drawing! I didn't care about stuff like that. I was just slinging ink. As my drawing got more evolved, the lettering did too. I started to get a kick from lettering more legibly, making those E's, S's. When I'm doing it it can be quite enjoyable. One thing I've found is I have to concentrate, kind of empty my mind, and focus on things. I can tell when I'm lettering and my mind starts to wander, things get sloppy. Then I pull it back in and keep going. Just like meditation, I guess. For guides, like a large bunch of text like a Snornose page or a letters column, I usually use the edge of a piece of paper as a ruler… line it up with the edge of the page and use it as a guide, siding it down a bit with each new line. But it's not perfect and half the time I end up inking a page and it's all on a slant. In my OCD days I would redraw it. Now I just kind of laugh at myself and let it go. Occasionally I've ruled bluelines to guide me, and at least once I used graph paper. I think that's how Cometbus does it. That sure helps, but maybe I don't really wanna think that much about it. When I look back at my lettering in the OCD years, it floors me, how precise it is! I was nuts! It's beautiful, but the cost is too much maybe. I don't know. The whole story of my post-meds career has been learning to balance that spontaneity I had before OCD with the precision I got from it. It's taken me like ten years to start to figure it out. Font: no. ————————————————————————————————— Mauretania Comics Ed Park looks at the Chris Reynolds collection, The New World. The stories start on solid ground, then twist like dreams. Reynolds sets everything in uniformly sized panels, edged in black like funeral invitations. His impossibly thick line lends weight to these uncanny dramas of lost time. Calling the comics black and white feels insufficient; they're more like black and white and black. This starkness, and the stabs of poetic word-image interplay, can call to mind his stateside contemporary Raymond Pettibon, while the silent, depopulated spaces that loom throughout—abandoned houses, vacant cinemas, phantom transportation—suggest any number of uneasy de Chirico vistas. ————————————————————————————————— Spatial Frequency Analysis – II The contrast sensitivity as a function of spatial frequency (called CSF) can be obtained psychophysically from the test image below . You will perceive a curve which peaks at some certain optimal frequency in the middle range of the image (depending on the viewing distance) at which the visual system is most sensitive to the contrast. The sensitivity is reduced when the frequency is either too high or too low. ————————————————————————————————— Vision Box – 5-15-2018 – by Cameron Arthur ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 4-15-18 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page: [...]
Juan FernándezSeptember 28, 2016los Cómics / NewsJuan here with your daily comics fix. I'm here with a spotlight on Spanish speaking artists and happenings. Hoy les traigo lo más fresco del mundo del cómic latinoamericano y español: Una discusión sobre la rabia en la polola; Crítica Tokyo Zombie, de Yusaku Hanakuma; los Old Shorts (2008-2014) – de Puño; anuncio de la Nueva la nueva exhibición de "Chicks on Cómics"; las novedades de Las Tetas Tristes; la historieta Chilena del siglo XXI; Borlo Comix Y MÁS! ————————————————————————————————— [soundcloud url="https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/284062706″ params="color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false" width="100%" height="166″ iframe="true" /] Escucha la nueva edición de @lapololapodcast, un podcast del cómic femenino con Sol Díaz Castillo y Marcela Trujillo: En este capítulo las chicas conversan acerca de la rabia, un lugar que muchas veces no se les permite habitar a las mujeres, porque se les enseña siempre a aguantar, a ser simpáticas, amorosas, a agradar, etc. Hablamos de como la rabia nos puede servir de motor creativo o por otro lado, ser un pantano en donde quedarnos pegadas siendo víctimas de las circunstancias. Póngale play! ————————————————————————————————— Old Shorts (2008-2014) – Puño Dibujante español, Puño a publicado una colección de sus cómics por Gumroad! Son 86 paginas que recopilan 10 historietas dibujadas en inglés y digitalizadas por la primera vez. Recoloreadas tambien! This 86-paged collection comic is a digital compilation of 10 old short stories by Puño, in English & digital for the first time and recolored brand new for this edition. Si les gusta es lo que hay bien dale una ojeada al curso de dibujo en Domestika de Puño! AQUI ————————————————————————————————— Crítica Tokyo Zombie, de Yusaku Hanakuma (Gerardo Vilches) Si alguien quiere, desde luego puede ver un poso de denuncia social y política en Tokyo Zombie. Cuando saltamos en el tiempo al futuro, comprobamos que los supervivientes del apocalipsis zombie han creado una sociedad donde unos pocos privilegiados con dinero han esclavizado al resto de la sociedad. Como necesitan algo en lo que pasar el tiempo, han ideado una arena en la que luchadores esclavos se enfrentan entre sí y contra los zombies, que, por si fuera poco, nacen de la contaminación y la basura que genera la humanidad. El contexto de denuncia está claro, pero, no obstante, yo no creo que haya que darle más importancia de la que podemos darle a muchas otras historias con apocalipsis ecológicos de por medio, como excusa o trasfondo para desarrollar la acción y la violencia, que es lo verdaderamente divertido. Buscarle una coartada moral a lo que es maravillosamente bruto y cazurro me parece innecesario. ————————————————————————————————— Charlando co el Colectivo Tetas Tristes Katherine Supnem, Katherina Salazar, Victoria Rubio hablaron con Radio JGM, la radio comunitaria que transmite desde la Escuela de Periodismo de la Universidad de Chile, en la comuna de Ñuñoa. La organización femenina sube historietas constantemente y además, asisten a diversas ferias o exposiciones para dar a conocer sus cómics. Pero también, generan convocatorias para que mujeres o transgéneros puedan compartir sus dibujos sobre temas como aborto, acoso y masturbación femenina. De momento, invitan a tod@s que envíen imágenes texto cómics sobre lo que les da #Vergüenza. Podéis ver todas las contribuciones que Las Tetas Tristes ya han recibido en su website: www.tetastristes.tumblr.com/ ————————————————————————————————— Chicks on comics: "Long distance relationship" / "Relación a larga distancia" Quiero compartir estas buenas noticias sobre una nueva exhibición de cómics – Por primera vez en Fundación Proa, se presenta el colectivo "Chicks on comics", integrado por 8 mujeres historietistas de Argentina, Colombia, Alemania, Holanda, Brasil e Inglaterra, quienes desde 2008 exploran los recursos narrativos del comic como medio de comunicación e intercambio. Utilizando plataformas virtuales el grupo produce diálogos dibujados, publicaciones y exhibiciones, para dar visibilidad a esta diversidad cultural, y promover al debate sobre las disciplinas afines a la historieta y sus diversos públicos. Te digo que va a ser increíble! Diciembre 2016 – Marzo 2017 Fundación PROA Av. Pedro de Mendoza 1929 La Boca, Caminito Buenos Aires Argentina ————————————————————————————————— El programa oficial de VIÑETAS DEL FIN DEL MUNDO 2016 Entre el 6 y el 8 de octubre el Centro Cultural de España en Santiago acogerá la 5º versión del Festival Viñetas del Fin del Mundo, organizado por Ergocomics y Narrativa Gráfica. El festival busca dar cuenta de la actual y abundante producción de narrativa gráfica chilena con sus hitos, problemáticas y proyecciones. Entre el 21 de septiembre y el 22 de octubre en el CCE se exhibirá la muestra Historieta Chilena del Siglo XXI (2012-2016). Si yo estuviera en Chile, no me perdería esta exhibición y la programación que van a tener en octubre! ————————————————————————————————— BORLO COMIX Durante un encuentro con el gran Alexis Ziritt en SPX, Ziritt me conto sobre el dibujante Venezolano, C. A. Etcheverry y su obra MEGA-underground, Borlo Comix. Nunca había oído hablar ni de Etcheheverry ni de los cómix underground venezolanos… Por supuesto, gracias a Alexis, me puse a investigar y joder que joya mas underground encontré!!!! Born in Caracas, Venezuela in 1979, raised between city and jungle, Etcheverry takes the mystery of both environments and places them in his art and comics. Having been influenced by artists and storytellers such as Windsor McCay, Tanino Liberatore, Phillippe Druillet, A Jodorowsky, and R. Crumb, Etcheverry has developed a unique storytelling style alongside his fantastical illustrations. He came to Los Angeles, CA at age 23, invited by the late Silverlake "jewel", Ghettogloss Gallery to show his comics blown up on canvases. With much interest from the art and comic world, Etcheverry ended up moving to the neighborhood of Silverlake, in which he has lived and off for the last 14 years. He has dabbled in fashion, film, print, animation, music, (you name it), but it is only recently that he has compiled his comix to present his original character "Borlo" to the world in a printed anthology. Visit http://www.borlocomix.com to learn more and to dive into the world of Borlo! You can buy the collected Borlo Comix here. Get hep to BORLO COMIX! ————————————————————————————————— Portraits – Connor Willumsen. Este libro de 16 páginas bellamente impreso (por WestCan – que también imprimio el Manual de la Escuela Santoro) de retratos del gran Connor Willumsen está disponible para -pedido. Una edición de 500. Dalé click AQUI para pedir tu copia! http://auction.comicsworkbook.com/2016/08/18/portraits-by-connor-willumsen-pre-order/ ————————————————————————————————— hasta la próxima! Juan Share this page: [...]
Aaron CockleJuly 11, 2016NewsAaron Cockle today with Alyssa Berg comics; Kurosawa storyboards; illuminated manuscripts; Fitch/Trecartin in Montreal; Sara (. , : ; — () – [] "" ? ! '' … {}) Lautman; The Graphics of War; Burkholder/Walden/Ellsworth; Rowhouse Auction Continues ————————————————————————————————— ALPENGLOW CW's Featured Comics continues this week with Alyssa Berg's ALPENGLOW, from 2015. This won the Comics Workbook Composition Competition last year; info about the 2016 competition can be found here. ————————————————————————————————— Akira Kurosawa: Filmmaker, Painter, Story-board Artist Kurosawa, from his book Something Like an Autobiography, translated from the Japanese by Margaret Benton: I intended to be a painter before I became involved in film. A curious turn of events, however, brought me to cinema, where I began my present career. When I changed careers, I burnt all the pictures that I had painted up until then. I intended to forget painting once and for all. As a well-known Japanese proverb says, "If you chase two rabbits, you may not catch even one." I did no art work at all once I began to work in cinema. But since becoming a film director, I have found that drawing rough sketches was often a useful means of explaining ideas to my staff. ————————————————————————————————— Text, Image, Image-as-Text, Text-as-Image Via Medievalpoc's essential People of Color in European Art History project, Marcus Tullius Cicero, Aratea (Harley MS 647, ff 2v-17v), 22 constellation figures containing extracts from Hyginus, Astronomica. England (c. 820-11th century). ————————————————————————————————— Lizzie Fitch/Ryan Trecartin: Priority Innfield For anyone living in/traveling to Montreal before September 5, an installation of Fitch/Trecartin work at the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal. Priority Innfield is a "sculptural theater" containing four movies and an ambient sound track presented in five pavilions. The movies, Junior War, Comma Boat, CENTER JENNY and Item Falls (all from 2013), unfold at a furious pace without interruption. Shot in a direct, quasi-amateur style, they explore the potential impacts of information technologies on communication, language and identity, and offer a barrage of frenetic images, absurd retorts and exaggerated poses and movements, drawn from a culture based on constant performativity. ————————————————————————————————— Sara Lautman on the New Punctuation On the Hairpin site it says this is a 2 minute read, but you should give yourself at least 4 minutes, maybe more. Maybe give yourself 5 minutes, if you can. Good work from Lautman, as usual. ————————————————————————————————— The Graphics of War: Comics, Animation, and Simulation If you're like me, any down-time at your dayjob is spent scouring the internet for random university-level course syllabi from 2011. Culture, Art, and Technology (CAT) I The Graphics of War: Comics, Animation, and Simulation Professor Emily Roxworthy As alternatives to photography and live action film, this course examines three graphic media that are not usually considered serious candidates for representing global crises such as war: comics, animated film, and videogames. We will ask whether these alternative graphic arts depart from photorealism and the passivity of media spectacles to convey unspoken truths and instill deeply felt understandings about world changing events. ————————————————————————————————— ITDN, A City Inside, Other Selves Some capsule reviews from Daniel Elkin at Comics Bulletin of some recent work by Andrew Burkholder, Tillie Walden, and Theo Ellsworth. RE Burkholder: There's little to no narrative in any of the 10 comics that comprise ITDN. Burkholder uses the medium of his comics to explore ideas, raising question after question in the expedition while providing no answers. Understanding is not the point; pursuit is the only goal. Each comic is presented using its own style, form following function as a psychotropic experiment. From the tight conventions of tradition in "The Fury" to the insouciant scribbling of "FUCK THIS" to the thin-line panel transition study of "Street", Burkholder shows a depth of understanding for the tone of ideas. Each enterprise is an agreement between thought and expression. Each takes its time to shake the reader from the stupor of preconception. RE Walden: Other than the incredible craftsmanship in both her art and its execution, the dream-like quality of Walden's work is what separates it from so many others working today. This is a story about transitioning and passages, what we gather and what we leave behind, as well as an exploration of expectation and uncertainty and the need to define the self. RE Ellsworth: Ellsworth calls this book a "psychic chiropractic adjustment" (to be filed under: "Hand Drawn Inner-Space Documentary Comics"). Here he is an artist viewing himself as the one who is in control of creating the Other Selves of his imagination. As he probes deeper and deeper into his self-creations, though, things get weirder and weirder, layering levels of the fantastic and the imaginative, each self in control of itself. Finally his inner workings are so far out that a part of him unleashes the "Reality Control Officers" into his "Personal Imaging Zone" admonishing him to "Go back to reality! Now!" What remains is a battle between inspiration and sense, art versus logic. ————————————————————————————————— Rowhouse Auction Continues New for this week of July 11 at auction.comicsworkbook.com. Email Frank Santoro at santoroschoolATgmail for a password, if you don't already have one. All funds go to helping keep the lights on and further developing the school. 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Juan FernándezMarch 7, 2017los Cómics / NewsEmpezamos el dia con Sol Diaz; Miguel A. Giner y Cristina Durán; Vanesa R. Del Rey; Chicks on Comics;#GRAFBCN2017; Alvaro Ortiz; Fran Meneses and the ugly side; Billar de letras new comics club y los tebeos del dia! ————————————————————————————————— Cómics y noticias que me han llamado la atención esta semana: Sol Diaz – spotlighted over on Es Mi Fiesta y lanza un nuevo libro: La historia ilustrada de un embarazo. Miguel A. Giner and Cristina Durán tell the story of the adoption of their daughter in their latest comic, Una Posibilidad Entre Mil. They talk shop over on RTVE3's La Hora Del Bocadillo + there's a fresh interview with Miguel A. Giner and Cristina Durán on their new book over at Bilbao24Horas. Constantine #3-4 original art by the great Vanesa R. Del Rey available NOW over on Cadence Comics Art Gallery. Don't miss your chance to own some of the action. CHICAS DE COMICS/CHICKS ON COMICS Siete mujeres historietistas de distintas partes del mundo expusieron sus trabajos en la Fundación Proa de la ciudad de Buenos Aires. Nice interviews and video documentation of the exhibition over on Argentina's TV Publica. (Start at 34:00) #GRAFBCN2017 took place this weekend and it was a whirlwind in Barcelona. From the ground + el #GRAFBCN2017 en pocas palabras según Pepo Pérez + the fine folks at @underbrain just published a juicy video recap of the fest! You can watch it HERE. @Kikeinfame picks back up with his tradition of interview comics makers – this time around, take a tour of Alvaro Ortiz' tebeoteca y mas! ————————————————————————————————— Billar de Letras esta poniendo en marcha un club de novela gráfica y cómic donde, de la mano de Gerardo Vilches, codirector de CuCo y una de las personas que mejor conoce el mundo del cómic en España, una vez al mes se analizará de manera exhaustiva una obra para descubrir sus mecanismos narrativos y desentrañar los recursos gráficos empleados por su autor. Nuestra intención es mostrar la gran riqueza del lenguaje del cómic y sus posibilidades narrativas, a través de la lectura crítica de obras que ya forman parte del canon de la novela gráfica. En las últimas décadas, el cómic ha experimentado un gran crecimiento como medio artístico, de forma que sus posbilidades narrativas y estéticas se están desarrollando en obras de extraordinaria calidad. En la web de Billar de letras tenéis toda la información para inscribiros. ————————————————————————————————— Fran Meneses, Chilean comics maker and illustrator in England, gets real with the ugly side of freelance life. Really nice, honest lens that invites us to dispel the glorification of work-a-holism in the freelance life. It gets unhealthy fast, if unchecked and the glamour that gets associated with it winds up being destructive and causes a lot of silence and erasure of the honest struggle. ————————————————————————————————— The Spring Semester of the Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers started March 7th! There is a rolling start date for this semester of the course, so we will continue taking applications beyond that date. The course is 8 weeks long – 500 bux – payment plans are available. More details can be found HERE – or email santoroschoolATgmail to apply. ————————————————————————————————— Blinkers – 3-8-2017 – by Jack Brougham ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 3-8-2017 – by Sally Ingraham ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 3-8-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio ————————————————————————————————— Cozytown – 3-8-2017 – by Juan Fernandez Share this page: [...]
Aidan Koch at LICAF
Posted on October 27, 2016 May 21, 2019 by Frank Santoro
Aidan Koch discusses a collaborative project during a workshop she led at The Lakes International Comic Art Festival 2016.
Sally IngrahamJune 21, 2018NewsSally Ingraham here with a look at Nicole Hollander's "We Ate Wonder Bread", and Abouet and Sapin's "Akissi: Tales of Mischief" – plus other comics and news! ——————————————————————————— Sally here! I spend two days a week at Copacetic Comics, in Pittsburgh, PA, and between drawing and dreaming I read a lot of comics. There are an overwhelming amount of comics coming out all the time, so (with a few exceptions) I narrow the field for myself a bit by only reading work made by female creators. Here are a couple of things I've picked up recently. Nicole Hollander's ground-breaking strip Sylvia was in syndication for 35 years. It's sardonic middle-aged protagonist, surrounded by her cats and her lamps, made her opinions known loudly and languidly. She is modeled after a number of women from Hollander's childhood – friends of her mother and folks who lived in her apartment building. In Hollander's memoir – We Ate Wonder Bread – she recollects those people and the stories they lived in the building that surrounded her. Told through a mixture of text and illustrations, as well as comics, Hollander's memories flow somewhat haphazardly. They follow the loose chronology of how rooms in her family apartment were arranged at various times, what mischief her little sister got up to, what outrageous scheme her father was invested in, and who her mother was friends with. Her own hopes and dreams and confusions as she navigated the rough waters of the West Side of Chicago as a child are hilarious and endearing. You get the sense, when reading this book, that Hollander could be in the room with you narrating her adventures and musings. The text was engaging, but I did find myself wishing that there were more comics and drawings. You could almost skim through the book and JUST read the comics, and get the gist of the story. Hollander's drawings are excellent, and I enjoy her storytelling through images – but with the text in addition, things were strangely repetitive in places. I find this very interesting, and have to note that it may not be easy for a visual storyteller who has written gag-based comic strips their whole life to switch gears and compose with text alone. Like I said, I wish there were a lot more comics in this memoir. However, setting that slight disappointment aside, as a memoir We Ate Wonder Bread is a charming read, and learning something about the context of both Sylvia and her creator is valuable and inspiring to me as a comics creator and a woman myself. Get a copy of this book HERE! ——————————————————————————— Another delightful recent read is Marguerite Abouet's Akissi: Tales of Mischief, with artwork by Mathieu Sapin. I am a fan of Abouet's Aya books (which feature the artwork of Clament Oubrerie). Those comics feature a beautiful Ivory Coast setting and a wonderful adult(ish) heroine, with plenty of mischief and mayhem to keep you engrossed. Akissi follows a similar pattern, with it's setting in the Yopougon neighborhood of Abidjan (Yop City) – however it's heroine is a 6 year old girl, who causes more mischief and mayhem than I can quite comprehend. Whether she is making garbage soup for the neighbor baby, running a secret movie theater while her Dad is at work, trying to catch lice so that her head can be shaved (preferable to the tight braids her mother favors), or knocking her Grandmother out with coconuts (by accident!), Akissi is always in the thick of it. I laughed and cringed my way through the collection of 21 6-page comics, and found myself recalling moments from my own childhood (although I never got tapeworms or had a pet monkey). Abouet is a terrific storyteller, and Sapin's drawings compliment her writing perfectly. The combination really brings to life the time and place, with well-realized characters leaping out of detailed backgrounds and the whole thing carrying you along at a voracious pace. According to an interview from April 2018, Akissi IS Marguerite Abouet. She was born in Abidjan and lived there until she was 12, so the vivid sense of place makes sense – so does the feeling of "you can't make this stuff up…!". Abouet said: "I think Akissi is like open-air theatre, where children can feel quickly gripped by her tales. She invites them to journey to an unknown country, that is so close and yet so far away from them, for a relaxed ramble in Africa. Children are impressed by Akissi and her group because they are like 'urban superheroes' trying to live in the adult world. She shows them that this is not easy, because living together and accepting each other are daily struggles, so it demands a lot of willpower and courage." I highly recommend this one! Get a copy HERE. ——————————————————————————— For the Record Whit Taylor writes and Shannon Wright draws a comic for The Nib about Shirley Chisholm – read it HERE. Michael Dooley chats with Esther Pearl Watson – on The Comics Journal. Episode 30 of Comic Book Decalogue features Laura Lannes as the guest – listen HERE. ——————————————————————————— 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! ——————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 6-22-2018 – by Gabriella Tito Share this page: [...]
Caleb OrecchioSeptember 3, 2018NewsGone fishing ———————————————————————————— We will be back tomorrow at our normal programming schedule. Have a good one! ———————————————————————————— Share this page: [...]
Comics WorkbookMay 1, 2017EssaysRM Rhodes – curator of the Heavy Metal Magazine tumblr – brings some thoughts on the history of anthologies. ————————————————————————————————— Anthologies and episodic publishing arrived in Western Europe at more or less the same time, which makes sense. When you have four partial stories, it's easier to bundle them together in a common publication and tell customers that the next installments will be available in a week or a month. And it's less risky to convince a reader that has already bought the first part of a story to buy the next part than it is to convince a reader to buy a story they've never seen. My point is that the anthology has been around for ages. It's a very old, very versatile, very robust format. And that's what makes the format interesting. First, let's talk terms. An anthology is a collection of short works. In this context, the works are comics, sequential art, visual narrative, comics-adjacent storytelling, informatics and some other lumpy labels for stuff that tells a story with pictures. The meaning of "short" varies greatly. Half and full page stories are common. As are stories that last dozens of pages. Notice that there's no requirement about whether the stories have to be complete. Nor is there one about whether the anthology is standalone. It is very common for anthologies to be released periodically over a pre-advertised schedule (usually weekly or monthly or some multiple thereof). And is also common for stories to be told episodically over the course of multiple sequential installments. An anthology that met that criteria would then be an episodic periodical. But that term also fits the description of most magazines and publications – many of which are, in their own way, anthologies. If nothing else, precision of terminology will keep you from getting ripped off. This highlights one of the most intriguing aspects of the anthology format – the flexibility. Everyone and his brother has put together an anthology, but there is always the comfort in knowing that anyone can put one together. It's an easy choice for what to do with random bits and bobs that don't fit anywhere else. It's also a great way to spread the risk inherent in publication around a bit. The more people in an anthology, the more people have a vested interest in its success. There are a huge number of decisions available to make: page size, page count, color vs b&w, binding, theme, creators, compensation, funding, printing, advertising, distribution. There is never a good reason to make an anthology, but every comics creator should try to organize one at least once in their life – it's a very practical lesson in logistics, organization, motivation, and frustration. The student of the anthology has a lot of examples to look to for inspiration. Through the 1920s, there was a series of art journals and publications put out by various art groups in Europe: de Stilj, Dada, Cannibale, Le Couer, Cabaret Voltaire. Due to modern advances in printing technology, it is easier to self-publish zines with better production values. But it's also interesting to note that the impulse to run an amateur publication of random stuff is perfectly normal. There's a certain amount of debate regarding how and when the cartooning tradition in Western Europe became the comics tradition of Western Europe. Some point to the broadsheets of the 17 century that introduced the twin concepts of anthologies and episodic storytelling as a precursor to modern sequential art. But it's more likely that comics as we know them grew up during the 19th Century. And anthologies were an important part of that maturation. The default format for professional episodic periodicals in American comics has been monthly comics of a set page length that may or may not have additional stories. Professional Franco-Belgian comics have been dominated by the weekly anthology format, featuring strips of half or full page in length. These were later collected into albums of 48 pages in length – which is how most English speakers have encountered this material. (If you're wondering what was probably collected like this, flip through any album and look for a horizontal white gutter cutting straight across the book at the half-page mark.) Probably the most famous anthology from this tradition in the English speaking market is Heavy Metal. It started as a monthly anthology that contained a mix of episodic and stand-alone stories. It sort of still does most of that. In the mid-80s, Heavy Metal shifted format and centered their publication around a single complete story with a variety of shorter stories as supplements. This influenced later anthologies and we can see that Island, for example, followed the same general model. It is convenient to be able to read the more well-known stories in a mass market edition. However, it is also valuable to observe the original print runs of anthologies where- and when-ever possible. Reading material in the context that it was originally presented to the market in is very valuable. First and foremost, examining primary sources acknowledges the effort that was put into the anthology in the first place. Additionally, it highlights the kinds of commercial advertisements from the period printed next to the original material. Sometimes the juxtaposition is startling. It also provides a sense of the flow of the reader through the book. Arguably, the order that the stories are presented in is important because it shapes the mood of the reader from cover to cover. Knowing that a story beat in a completely different story occurred directly before this story may have changed how this one was perceived. Reading an issue of an anthology is like eating a club sandwich. There are a lot of different distinguishable flavors, but the combination is distinct. And that's the whole point of producing an anthology. ————————————————————————————————— RM Rhodes lives and works in Washington, D.C. His current project is a weekly online anthology called The Rumor published on the Comics Workbook tumblr – see issues of it HERE. Check out more of his comics at Louis Deux. Share this page: [...]
Juan FernándezMay 23, 2016NewsJuan Fernandez with: Berliac's Gwai-Lo of the Heart; Jessica Abel on becoming a professional; Sara Lautman and Sophia Foster-Dimino; Matt Furie; Abhay Khosla on Dan DiDio; New comics from Matt Seneca + Cameron Weston Nicholson; Comics in the Globe and Mail. ————————————————————————————————— Gwai-Lo of the Heart We're happy to feature Gwai-Lo of the Heart by Berliac on the site this week. Made in 2015 for Comics Workbook, Gwai-Lo of the Heart is a clever and mysteriously striking series of 4 panel comics that plays with the associations usually made with the West's gaze towards manga.These little comics pack a poetic. punch. Can you dig it? Read it all here. ————————————————————————————————— Art and Commerce – Raising the Bastard Jessica Abel has put together an honest look over on her site at why you shouldn't be disregarding the finances of your comics making practices if you want to be a professional. Jessica Abel: I hear so many aspiring cartoonists, writers, artists, audio producers, and other creatives saying something along the lines of: "I'm hoping to really master this art form so that I can achieve my dream of becoming a professional _____." But mastering the art form, finishing work that is at a professional level, this counts for maybe 40% of what it means to become a professional…whatever. Mastering your art form is how you become a great artist. It is not how you become a professional. ————————————————————————————————— Sara Lautman and Sophia Foster-Dimino in Conversation Foster-Dimino: Making art, even commercial illustration, is a tricky premise, because you want to distinguish yourself from the crowd, but not so much that you become an aberration, so you look within yourself to try to mine what makes you unique, but you also look out to confirm that your uniqueness is still relatable—it's a very delicate balance, a struggle between wanting to experiment and make progress versus wanting to play it safe and stay predictable. People want to see growth from themselves and the world, but not too much too quickly. I think many folks have an innate sense for this. But a mood disorder by nature warps your metrics. ————————————————————————————————— Myspace -> Meme -> Mainstream Creator of Boy's Club, Matt "Big Dog" Furie getting the credit he's due. It's about time! Here's a great look at Furie's invisibly effective comics technique by George Elkind. L.A. TACO interview (2016). VICE interview (2015) TMSIDK Podcast interview (2012) Boy's Club is now available from Fantagraphics! ————————————————————————————————— ISSUE, RULE, APPLICATION – Abhay Khosla on Dan DiDio For many years, I know I've complained about Dan DiDio, and this has seemed like an especially worthy topic to discuss given recent events. So below is some of my own reasoning that I've had in believing that Mr. DiDio should have been removed many years ago from his position at DC, a belief I only feel more urgently given recent events. In an ideal world, he would be promoted higher in a corporate hierarchy to a position of irrelevancy, to a position that actually utilized whatever strengths Mr. Davis and others might see in him, while removing him far from the day-to-day nuts & bolts of the mainstream comics industry, where I will argue below he is unsuited. Read it all in depth over at Savage Critic. ————————————————————————————————— Burgundy Cameron Weston Nicholson's got a new comic for sale post-TCAF. Visual Poetry, mixing the hue with who. Illustrated Poetry with visual definition, feeling. An 18 Page Poem comic. Will come signed with a doodle by yours truly. Get 'em while you can! Only 22 left 😉 ————————————————————————————————— Frankie Teardrop and 200 Deaf Boys Matt Seneca's latest comics are now available in his webstore. Frankie Teardrop, a brutal, action packed superhero parody and the 4th and final part of 200 Deaf Boys, a Christian mysticism horror show. ————————————————————————————————— 2016 Igntatz Submissions Deadline – June 7th Since 1997, the Ignatz Awards have been intended to recognize outstanding achievements in comics and cartooning by small press creators or creator-owned projects published by larger publishers. If you would like your recent work to be considered for the Ignatzes, now's the time to send in your comics. Submission details are available here! ————————————————————————————————— The Globe & Comics Sean Rogers over at The Globe and Mail has reviewed After Nothing Comes by Aidan Koch,, Bird in a Cage by Rebecca Roher and, Kramers Ergot 9. It's exciting to see quality, independently produced work reviewed online and in print by a publication with such wide range. ————————————————————————————————— Until next time! Juan Share this page: [...]
Vanesa R. Del Rey – Process
Sally IngrahamDecember 9, 2016Tool TalkFeaturing Vanesa R. Del Rey // vrdelrey.com Video by Michael Pisano, Di-ay Battad and Juan Fernandez // michaelpisano.com // cargocollective.com/di-ay // juanjosefernandez.com Soundtrack // Victoria's Other Secret // Galapagoose Check out The Art of Vanesa R. Del Rey HERE. Share this page: [...]