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Aaron CockleAugust 28, 2017NewsAaron Cockle here today with Mitochondrial Comics (sort of); Andrea Tsurumi; Programming Schedules for Small Press Expo + Brooklyn Book Festival + NY Art Book Fair; Jack Kirby in NYC; Anders Nilsen, also in NYC ————————————————————————————————— "We can create a layer of abstraction where you don't need to know about RNA folding to design a circuit out of RNA" This may be a stretch, as far as comics news goes, but with this new method of data storage, we may one day be able to carry around comics (and a lot of other things) within our bodies: To get a movie into E. coli's DNA, Shipman and his colleagues had to disguise it. They converted the movie's pixels into DNA's four-letter code—molecules represented by the letters A,T,G and C—and synthesized that DNA. But instead of generating one long strand of code, they arranged it, along with other genetic elements, into short segments that looked like fragments of viral DNA. E. coli is naturally programmed by its own DNA to grab errant pieces of viral DNA and store them in its own genome—a way of keeping a chronological record of invaders. So when the researchers introduced the pieces of movie-turned-synthetic DNA—disguised as viral DNA—E. coli's molecular machinery grabbed them and filed them away. The movie they stored was a 36-by-26-pixel GIF of one of the first moving images ever recorded: a galloping mare named Annie G., by Eadweard Muybridge in 1887. The team was able to retrieve it, along with a separate image, with about 90 percent accuracy by sequencing the bacterium's genome. ————————————————————————————————— New Work by Andrea Tsurumi Tsurumi has been busy, providing illustrations for Reshma Saujani's book, Girls Who Code: Learn to Code and Change the World, along with work at the Nib, Trumpcare is Bad News for Freelancers, and she also has a launch party for her new book, Accident!, on Thursday, October 5 at Books of Wonder in NYC. Keep up the good work, Andrea! ————————————————————————————————— Programming Schedules for Upcoming Shows Small Press Exposition Brooklyn Book Festival New York Art Book Fair ————————————————————————————————— Life and Legacy of Jack Kirby – August 27-30, 2017 As a follow-up to Caleb's post from yesterday: On view until Wednesday, August 30 at One Art Space, 23 Warren Street, Street Level Gallery 1, NYC. ————————————————————————————————— ————————————————————————————————— A Cosmic Journey – 8-29-2017 – by Cameron Arthur ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 8-29-2017 – by Sally Ingraham ————————————————————————————————— Share this page:Read More:02/06/201807/06/201804/03/201807/27/2018...
Aaron CockleApril 3, 2017NewsAaron here today with the Agony of Ben Katchor; NET ART; The Disappointment of Katie Fricas; BLUTCH; Thurber/Wegman, Wegman/Thurber; The Careful Massacre of the Bourgeoisie. ————————————————————————————————— 'a voice emanating from a Lower East Side automat.' Ben Katchor in conversation with his Metropolis editor, Belinda Lanks: I know people like to ask about what kind of pen I use, what kind of paper, like there's a secret to this. I tell them, "You can sit at my table with the same pen and paper, and it's not going to help you, because you didn't work at figure drawing and storytelling for years." You build up these skills. Just like somebody who makes chairs is more likely to make a great chair. When you do anything in a serial production, there are just these micro seconds of creativity, then the rest of it is just the craft of making the thing. There's the workmanlike approach where you just say, "Here's this thing I want to demonstrate." I've practiced drawing for decades and know how to use language in some limited way, and I can put these together and make this plausible story or demonstration. ————————————————————————————————— NET ART Rhizome.org has posted an anthology of internet art from the past 30-odd years: This two-year online exhibition will present 100 artworks from net art history, restaging and contextualizing one project each week. Devised in concert with Rhizome's acclaimed digital preservation department, Net Art Anthology also aims to address the shortage of historical perspectives on a field in which even the most prominent artworks are often inaccessible. The series takes on the complex task of identifying, preserving, and presenting exemplary works in a field characterized by broad participation, diverse practices, promiscuous collaboration, and rapidly shifting formal and aesthetic standards, sketching a possible net art canon. ————————————————————————————————— The Casual Disappointment of Bjarne Melgaard At the Hyperallergic blog, Katie Fricas voices/draws her reaction to the Bjarne Melgaard show at Red Bull Arts New York (220 W 18th Street, Chelsea, Manhattan) through April 9. ————————————————————————————————— Blutch in NYC The 183rd meeting of the NY Comics & Picture-story Symposium will be held on Tuesday, April 4, 2017 at 7pm at Parsons School of Design, 2 West 13th Street, in the Bark Room (off the lobby). Free and open to the public. Blutch on "A European Education." I am currently working on a book called Variations (Dargaud, September 2017), where I recreate a series of famous graphic novel sequences by great masters of European comics. This work forces me to ask myself questions regarding the ambiguous nature of sequential art. Neither literary nor plastic, it is what Harold Rosenberg, referring to painting, once defined as an anxious object. How do we decode it? Where does it stand in our society? A graphic novel can receive a Pulitzer, cartoonists' work is exhibited in great museums while the art establishment is still indecisive on weather to consider it a minor or a major art. Personally, I call my work 'paradoxal literature.' The pages that compose Variations follow each other with no beginning or end. Just fragments of stories that allow me to reach what I feel is hidden somewhere beyond the boundaries of my storytelling: sequential art as a brand new form of poetry. That is, a form of literature 'to observe.' Sculpted literature. ————————————————————————————————— No Maine is an Island William Wegman & Matthew Thurber Opening April 1, 7 to 10pm William Wegman and James Thurber, together at last. What's that? A filing clerk sent the invitation to the wrong Thurber. Too late to retract the invitation now. But when Wegman met Thurber he was crestfallen. That is, he dropped a tube of toothpaste into the toilet. I don't know why they decided to meet in the bathroom. Maybe it seemed like gender-neutral territory. Foolish Thurber left some Wegmans too close to a scented candle and…whoops. It seems they've started to copy each other's drawings. To become the other's 'evil twin'…but let's not be naive here!…a 'good' drawing? an 'evil drawing'? No such thing exists…we all know that. We…did you close the chimney flue? You fool, don't you know bad drawings can crawl down the chimney like bats, like leopards, like Wegmans and Thurbers???? There is however, possibly at this moment in your unattended studio washroom a witch, laughing at you in the mirror. Come on now…enough is enough. Are you being serious? Or are you just halving Fun? "No Maine Is An Island" includes new call-and-response drawings by William Wegman (b.1943) and Matthew Thurber (b.1977), as well as a selection of Wegman drawings from the '70s and '80s. The exhibition remains on view, by appointment, through May 7. Teen Party is located at 874 Greene Avenue, Apt 2A, in Brooklyn. ————————————————————————————————— Stories-within-stories are the best kind of stories Not 'comics-related' specifically, but Mr. Robot strikes me as a particularly 'comic book-y' show; this is the movie-within-the-show from the second season, The Careful Massacre of the Bourgeoisie. A reminder to us that these massacres of the bourgeoisie should be, above all else, careful. ————————————————————————————————— Check out Portraits by Connor Willumsen. This magazine sized 16-page beautifully printed booklet (by WestCan – who also printed thee Santoro School Handbook) of portraits by the great Connor Willumsen is now available. Edition of 500. Connor will be a special guest at the Pittsburgh Indy Comix Expo this coming weekend. If you're in the region come meet him and other great cartoonists! ————————————————————————————————— A Cosmic Journey – 4-4-2017 – by Cameron Arthur ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 4-4-2017 – by Sally Ingraham ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie –4-4-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page:Read More:02/06/201805/01/201802/13/2018Digital Ways of Seeing…...
Aaron CockleJanuary 30, 2017NewsAaron here today with Quimby's NYC Grand Opening Extravaganza; Philip Guston and the Nixon Years; a review of some Obama Family Comics; Russian Futurist Sound Poems; Kartalopoulos at Angoulême; Festival of the Photocopier; Laura Park; Box Brown Wrestling Comics. ————————————————————————————————— GRAND OPENING QUIMBY'S BOOKSTORE NYC SATURDAY FEBRUARY 4, 2017, 7–10pm At 7:00 PM, Steven Svymbersky will give a short slide show talk on the history of zines followed by champagne and hors d'oeuvres. This event is also the opening for the first major survey of works by sculptor and collage artist, Eric Kirsammer. Quimby's Bookstore NYC 536 Metropolitan Ave Brooklyn, NY 11211 ————————————————————————————————— Guston on Nixon Hauser & Wirth recently concluded it's exhibit of Philip Guston's work from the 1970's focusing on Richard Milhous Nixon, former president of the United States. The New York Times wrote a piece about the show, and Guston's relationship with Philip Roth: Mr. Roth owns several of the Nixon drawings. "I always wanted Philip to publish them in a book," he said. "But he was loath to do that then. He wasn't sure about whether to go public with them. I think he didn't want to be sullied as a cartoonist. But actually the people who didn't like those wonderful last paintings sullied him as a cartoonist anyway." Through the '50s and most of the '60s, Guston was a leading Abstract Expressionist, greatly admired for the shimmering elegance of his painting. But in the mid-60s, in one of the most famous about-faces in art history, he began to repudiate his own work. "American Abstract art is a lie, a sham, a cover-up for a poverty of spirit," he wrote. Abandoning abstraction, he started to make paintings that weren't just figurative but amounted to a catalog of comic-strip crumminess: light bulbs; rusted nails; old shoe soles; hairy legs; hooded, slit-eyed Klansmen smoking fat cigars. The world of Guston eventually came to look, as a number of critics pointed out, a lot like the world of R. Crumb. ————————————————————————————————— 'He doesn't have a name but his first name is Allergy Doctor' J. Caleb Mozzocco takes a look at Steven Weissman's second book chronicling the Obama administration (and family), Looking For America's Dog, still the most accurate depiction of those times that we are ever likely to see. The Obama that emerged was maybe the ultimate comics character; after all, there are few figures that are at once as iconic and as protean as our presidents, upon whom we project, well, everything. The President of the United States, any president of the United States, is the Comics Character of a Thousand Faces. (And do note that most newspaper comics characters are confined to a single strip by a single artist or studio, whereas whoever the president is appears in scores of different editorial cartoons by scores of different artists every single day.) Looking For America's Dog is similar in format to Barack Hussein Obama, filled with discrete, four-panel gag strips that wind in and out of an overarching quest narrative. And it's similar in construction; a black-and-white sketchbook comic constructed with judiciously chosen uses of bright color and dialogue balloons with their long, thin tails apparently glued atop the pages. The aesthetic is a peculiar mix of dashed-off and labored-over. It is also, owing to the fact that it is of course a more recent work, a much more confident and accomplished book, with a much stronger through line: Bumbling Biden left the White House gate open, and America's dog Bo ran away. ("God Damn You, Joe Biden," a frustrated president says as he trudges through the snow, calling "Bo-oh!!") ————————————————————————————————— Zaum, which translates into "beyond the mind" At Hyperallergic, Claire Voon looks at Russian sound poetry, made available online by the Getty Research Institute, that serves as an interactive companion to Explodity: Sound, Image, and Word in Russian Futurist Book Art, curated by Nancy Perloff. "Recurring verbal, visual, and vocal references to the folklike and the primitive, reversibility and mirror forms, the fourth dimension, and apocalypse dominate the artistic expression of these books," as Perloff writes in her introduction. "Moreover, futurist poets and painters intended their books to be heard as well as read." ————————————————————————————————— Dispatch from France Bill Kartalopoulos was on the ground at this year's Angoulême Festival, and posted some great images. ————————————————————————————————— ————————————————————————————————— Info about the upcoming Laura Park workshop at the Sequential Artist's Workshop, February 27 – March 3, 2017. ————————————————————————————————— The Great Sasuke: Japan's Masked Wrestler Turned Masked Politician If there was ever a time for some Box Brown Japanese wrestling/politics comics, that time is now. ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 1-31-2017 – by Sally Ingraham ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 1-31-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page:Read More:09/25/201804/30/201803/20/201805/11/2018...
Sally IngrahamMarch 29, 2018NewsSally Ingraham here with work and wisdom from Kriota Willberg, Nicole Hollander, Deb Lucke, and many more! ————————————————————————————————— Kriota Willberg calls Draw Stronger (coming out in April 2018) the comic she was "born to make". She addresses a chronic problem she has witnessed among cartoonists and artists and creatives of all sorts – living with pain. Publishers Weekly had a great chat with her recently, and she began by saying: "In the US we have a number of familiar clichés: "No pain, no gain." "You must suffer for your art." "If it doesn't hurt, it's not working." There's a stereotype: artists suffer in literature and film—it's sexy! Who wants to watch a movie about a genius artist who gets enough rest, meets their deadlines, never yells at their spouse or kids, makes incredible pain free art, and dies after a fulfilling happy career? Wrist braces, calluses, poisoning from media (ink/paint), and lack of sleep are interpreted by many to mean that we are suffering in order to make great comics. That's how it's done! This is true for acting, dancing, sports, banking, science, everything. Our culture tells us that you love your discipline more (regardless of talent) if you prove through suffering that you are working harder than anyone else. Obviously, deadlines, day jobs, and life get in the way of healthy work/rest schedules. However, the comics community is beginning to be supportive of injured artists and more aware of healthy drawing practices. Protecting a lifetime of drawing is becoming more important than the next deadline." Kriota Willberg is the champion we need right now, determined to get this point across to legions of struggling (and not in the glamorous way) artists. Read the rest of the interview at Publishers Weekly HERE. Over on The Comics Beat Kriota was a guest columnist recently, and shared a lengthy interview with Nate Piekos. The topic is Nate's life-changing injury to hand/shoulder/neck which was caused by his work as a professional letterer for numerous comics publishers. Kriota calls his experience "nightmarish but hopeful". Read about it HERE. Be smart! Pick up Kriota's book when it comes out, or catch one of her excellent workshops at a comics expo near you. (Pittsburgh cartoonists, Kriota will be here in June offering her workshop – keep an eye out for more details soon!) ————————————————————————————————— Nicole Hollander talks about her new book in the video above – it is called We Ate Wonder Bread, and is a memoir of her childhood in Chicago. Nicole Hollander is the creator of the comic strip Sylvia, which has been in syndication since 1981 (you can read archival strips and an occasional new one HERE). Using Sylvia to speak her mind over the years, Nicole Hollander is an important voice and an interesting cartoonist. There's a short but powerful interview with her on Publishers Weekly where she talks about the difference between creating a political daily comic strip, and a memoir. She also talks about what it meant to be a feminist cartoonist in the 1970's. "I didn't even know my career was impossible. We had features editors who were women but it meant nothing. The approval came from men sitting in an office saying thumbs up or thumbs down. There were what, three or four slots? Early women cartoonists like Brenda Starr were very feminine. Lynda Barry had a strong following, but only in alternative papers. With Sylvia, readers were always writing in complaining, saying they were "disgusted their daughter would have to read about disgusting things like having your period." But I got away with a lot. There was so much independence in what I did." Read the rest of the interview HERE. ————————————————————————————————— The chance to check out Edward Gorey's Art Collection, as depicted by cartoonist Deb Lucke, was pretty much everything I could have asked for today. See the whole thing at The New Yorker – HERE. Deb Lucke is known for her series for kids, The Lunch Witch – but I really like the more incidental comics that she makes. Here's another one about a museum visit, this time to the MOMA, from February of 2018 – check it out on The Rumpus. ————————————————————————————————— Weekend Snacks Just in time for Passover, Liana Finck shares her take on the story of Moses and The Burning Bush, in The Tough Customer – on Tablet. The New York Times Book Review has added two comics and graphic novel columnists – the excellent Hillary Chute and Ed Park. The Book Review will start running their column in April. Read more about it HERE. Kelly Kincaid draws a hilarious webcomic called Jetlagged Comic, which is about her life as a flight attendant. Huffpost shares 25 of her best comics, and the story behind how she started making them. Whit Taylor presents Leslie Stein's Present this week on Illustrated PEN – check it out HERE. SyFy Wire chats with Wendy Pini and her husband Richard on the past and future of Elfquest, which recently came to a close after 40 years. Read the article HERE. Hillary Brown tackles Eleanor Davis' Why Art? over on Paste Magazine, and offers a new interview with her – HERE. Lauren Purje met Neil Gaiman recently and made a comic about it – on Hyperallergic. Tessa Strain reviews Sloane Leong's new Image series, Prism Stalker – on The Comics Journal. ————————————————————————————————— Announcing the Spring Semester of thee Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers 8 weeks! $500 bux! 10 spots available! Rolling start date because of spring break – start as early as March 30th 2018. Deadline to apply is April 12th. Read all about the course HERE and email santoroschool@gmail.com for more details or to apply. ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 3-30-2018 – by Sally Ingraham ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 3-30-2018 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page:Read More:04/06/201803/02/201802/06/201809/11/2018...
Sally IngrahamMarch 29, 2017NewsSam Ombiri reviews Dash Shaw's "Cosplayers", and Sally brings updates from Darryl Ayo, Ron Wimberly, Chris Kindred, and more! ————————————————————————————————— Sam Ombiri here: I'm going to talk about Cosplayers by Dash Shaw (Fantagraphics, 2016). First of all the art in this comic is, of course, fantastic. I am not sure if that is really a given. Sometimes it feels like the reason I may like Dash's work is that I am excited, and with that excitement comes a sort of willful blindness. When that blindness is taken away, there is work that holds up and work that does not. This is one of the cases where it does hold up. Dash has denied having a consistent style, and by lacking it claims that he has maybe shot himself in the foot. That has alienated, supposedly – from his vantage point – his audience. I wonder about this, because when I hear fans talk about Dash's work, his stylistic inconsistency seems to be the main appeal of his work. I myself rather feel that he has a very consistent style. I am not sure when he started being really excited about David Mazzucchelli's idea of drawing an ambiguous dumb line, a line which does not tell the audience what to think of a character. Maybe it was around the time of New School (Fantagraphics, 2013), but ever since then – and maybe this is just me as the reader projecting this idea into the book – it all feels very much in the same vein. With whatever experimentation Dash does, he latches onto certain successes of his previous experimentation. (I know, crazy right? Who's heard of such a thing?) Dash said: "The quality of the drawing is based on how close – how tight – the opinion and what it is can be, just fused together so…basically the better the drawing is the more connected it is, and what I think the dumbline did is say 'Fuck all that, I'm just gonna tell you what it is and you can fucking think for yourself about it. And it had this evenness that- I'm gonna draw this apple, the same way I draw Catwoman and I'm gonna draw Catwoman the same way I draw the guy in the desert. And it had a strange, almost…moral ambiguity. Like, I'll draw Catwoman, but I don't know how sexy she is, you know, I'll give it to you.' " – from a 2013 lecture at California College of the Arts This brings a whole new dimension of reality to the work. Normally artists have to satisfy a certain trope that they do not want to interact with – but they have to, in order to get a contrived point across. Like "These are nerds – but wait a minute…these aren't your average nerds!" With Cosplayers it goes beyond the dumb line – the dialogue is very, very real. Part of Dash's goal was that he thought it would be cool if Cosplayers were in a comic book shop, and then it was next to, maybe, Superman, and someone would see a comic that is all about them. Maybe as a result of the dumb line it doesn't entirely feel that way. I'm really glad that he didn't draw it in the typical anime trend though – instead it references aspects of anime manga in a subtle manner, like in the way the panels are laid out at times. When anime is referenced, it's with sincerity – not from Dash per say, but from the characters themselves. Even the manga scholar in the comic (who got really frustratingly melodramatic.) There was a part where he was saying, "Be merciful lord of manga please…" That really bummed me out in the worst way, because it felt like Dash wanted me to laugh at the manga scholar. For some reason it felt even worse than anything that came before this that conveyed his misery, including him eating from the trash. Actually, it's really cool the way he's looking at the sky, pleading to Tezuka – it feels like "the god of wasted youth" from Sam Alden's Patron Saint will show up. Instead, we got Professor Panther from BodyWorld, which puts such a big perspective on the manga scholar's hilarious misery. – Sam Ombiri Get a copy of Dash Shaw's Cosplayers HERE. 3-30-2017 – by Sam Ombiri ————————————————————————————————— Sally here: Back in February Darryl Ayo was holding out hope for the flowers of spring, and they are finally here! At least in Pittsburgh…(sorry, my dear parents in Maine, who are expecting another foot of snow this weekend…) Darryl writes: "Welcome back to the Valley of the River of Unforgiven Sin where your host and protagonist Angela is undertaking a sacred ritual called "planting a bulb" ~Ayo" Check out more of his comics HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Ignorant Bliss, a podcast produced by Julian Lytle, has shared Episode 57 which includes the entire "Black History in it's Own Words" panel featuring Ronald Wimberly, Chris Visions, Chris Kindred, and Shannon Wright which took place at Fantom Comics in Washington DC on February 15th 2017. Listen to it HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Meg Lemke featured an excerpt from Ronald Wimberly's Black History in it's Own Words on Illustrated PEN recently. "Ronald Wimberly created these bold, illustrated quotes of historical black figures—activists, artists, musicians, writers—and launched them as a book collection in February, Black History Month. It is now March, Women's History Month, and so we feature Wimberly's illustrations of four inspiring women from the series; because, as the artist put it, "women's history is black history too." " Check it out HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Chris Kindred and Bryan Washington's A Brief History of Driving While Black is up on Buzzfeed – HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Check out the Santoro School Handbook for Making Better Comics! This 16 page handbook is a quick guide to the tenets of our school. A smash hit on the Comics Workbook tumblr. 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. Get yours today! ————————————————————————————————— Dungeon Lollers – 3-30-2017 – by Tyler Landry ————————————————————————————————— Blinkers – 3-30-2017 – by Jack Brougham ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 3-30-2017 – by Sally Ingraham ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 3-30-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page:Read More:09/21/201809/11/2018Rowhouse Residency…09/12/2018...
Art Trip: Little Black Dress
MardouJune 2, 2016Art Trip / EssaysI just wandered into 'The Little Black Dress: from Mourning to Night' at the Missouri History Museum, not particularly interested in the subject at the get-go. Once I whipped out my pencil, I found myself getting kind of into it. It was popular, lots of people, mainly ladies, many of them dressed up on a Sunday afternoon. There was a nostalgic enjoyment in the air, like people window shopping, remembering old dresses of their own. People felt comfortable here. And it was fun listening into the conversations around me. I got asked some unusual questions whilst I was drawing (including "are you a pattern maker?") (I also kept thinking of that line from Dan Clowes, whenever he's stuck watching a boring film, he watches the clothes move and studies the folds. Good advice. Watch the folds.) My favorite part was the glass case containing the sewing machine and dressmaking tools. Suddenly I was thinking about my step-grandma, Ethel, who died a few years ago and of all the years she spent behind her own sewing machine. That special sort of concentration of cutting a pattern out of fabric, transforming the flat material to the body's shape. When I was in college she reversed-engineered my favorite dress so I suddenly had three of them in different colors. People would ask me about those dresses whenever I'd wear one of them. ————————————————————————————————— Art Trip is a series that features reflections on art and comics, and the adventures that transform those who seek it out. ————————————————————————————————— Sacha Mardou is a Brit making comics in St Louis, Missouri. Sky in Stereo is her most recent comic. Share this page:Read More:09/21/201802/02/201802/08/201803/08/2018...
Sally IngrahamApril 8, 2016NewsSally here with the good news from Retrofit, the Bad Boyfriends collection, and comics from Amanda Hamilton, Disa Wallander, and Jonathan Yee to send you into the weekend with light feet – plus Gabriella Tito on Audra Stang's new piece! ————————————————————————————————— Kicking things off with a couple of forays into comics that'll give your Friday a colorful start! From Amanda Hamilton comes this piece in marker – a new medium for her, and one that seems to suit! The comic came about "…during one very anxious night where it was too noisy to sleep. I was inspired…to do something with markers instead of colored pencils and I had a set of Rose Art neon markers I thought would be good to convey that jarring, discordant feeling and combine the colors in interesting ways." ————————————————————————————————— Next up, something from Jonathan Yee – Jonathan made this comic last weekend at PIX, during a Comics Workbook workshop with Juan Fernandez and Frank Santoro. ————————————————————————————————— Gabriella Tito taking a turn here! Attention: Audra Stang is branching out into new territory (following her recent wrap up of "Love Me Like An Autograph") with her new comic "April 2008" (see panel above). Most noticeably, in her recent series taking place in the fictional town "Star Valley", is her change in technique! Instead of using bold line art for her characters and traditional color, she's now transitioning into using sleek pencil shading without too many lines – and I think it's absolutely fabulous. Audra keeps the style current with light digital color overtones, not breaking the mood and flow even the slightest. Once again, check out my good friend Audra's new comic HERE! ————————————————————————————————— Back to Sally, with the stellar news that Retrofit did it! All those lovely books will be coming out soon – including the title above by Sophie Franz – with the first ones hitting the world in May. Congratulations! ————————————————————————————————— Bad Boyfriends is out now. It has comics by Cathy G. Johnson, Celine Loup, Hannah Kaplan, Laura Lannes, Julia Gfrörer, Laerte Coutinho, Mariana Paraizo, Paula Puiupo and Hazel Newlevent (above). This collection is important and gut wrenching – available as a free download HERE, and for sale as a physical copy HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Disa Wallander posted a cute spring comic, which offers a glimpse of sunlight unlike anything I personally have seen recently…! Spring is around here, somewhere. ————————————————————————————————— Something to take with you into the weekend – Practice your craft, whatever it may be, stay nimble and sharp and badass! Catch you later – Sally and Gabriella Share this page:Read More:11/01/2018The Alabaster Pizzo…04/09/201811/08/2018...
Juan FernándezAugust 1, 2018los Cómics / NewsNo news for today. I'm home with a sick cat on my lap. On the local front, The Pittsburgh Comics Salon meets tonight at Kaibur Coffee in Polish Hill. Audra Stang and I will be leading Pittsburghers in some comics calisthenics exercises. It's always a good time – coffee, shop talk, solidarity. Commodity form as community form. If you're around, come on out. More info here. On the personal front, my sweet baby boy cat Boris, who is only 6, has been sick for the past month and a half. We've gotten some medical attention for the little guy, but after all the time in ER, no diagnosis. He is eating a little more, is a little more active, but is still not back to his normal self. You can imagine how frustrating that can be. I'd never had a cat until Boris and this kind of thing is devastating. I've been thinking about KING-CAT #75, the issue that John Porcellino dedicated to the life story of his beloved cat Maisie Kukoc, who lived with him for 15 years. In a lot of ways it prepared me for this kind of love and pain. For today, just a photo of the guy. -Juan Share this page:Read More:Comic Arts Brooklyn 201802/13/201802/27/2018MoCCA Arts Festival 2018...
Aaron CockleOctober 16, 2017NewsAaron here today with E.A. Bethea; Aidan Koch; Kara Walker; Thierry Groensteen; Connor Willumsen ————————————————————————————————— Book of Daze Domino Books is publishing a collection of E.A. Bethea work: Bethea, a simple interpretation might offer, chronicles the web of living in the world (and with her work, we are zeroed in on life in New York City, as this collection reveals itself as a truly local work of art about a city that paradoxically rarely receives its due—for every 1,000 works that gloss over the truth of the city, we have a book like this that has its eye on the reality of daily life in the five boroughs) with a heart and a mind sometimes at odds and sometimes simpatico. But Bethea gives us something more complex: at times, the work feels dead-pan as it shifts from exhilaration to resignation without a change in visual presentation, but it's here where we have a guide to the heart of Bethea's project. The often uniform nature of the pages and the highly non-uniform nature of what is contained within become a catalog of days or weeks or years. One page offers a subdued period in life, while the next (seemingly) similar page offers a day full of regret. Bethea talks about her work relating to cinema, specifically calling attention to what happens between one of her panels and the next. The shifts in emotion and carefully chosen images alongside highly precise language feel like walking into a film where the entire crew–from director to actor to gaffer—united in one mind to make something highly exquisite. ————————————————————————————————— Transmitter presents: In Search Of OCTOBER 20 – NOVEMBER 19, 2017 OPENING RECEPTION FRIDAY, OCTOBER 20, 6–9 PM AIDAN KOCH • DAWIT L. PETROS Transmitter is pleased to present In Search Of, an exhibition pairing the work of Aidan Koch and Dawit L. Petros, two artists who, despite their disparate media, take related approaches to pictorial space in order to create open-ended narratives, notable as much for the space within them as for the connections between different moments. Taking its title from Bas Jan Ader's In Search of the Miraculous, this exhibition considers these artists' work in terms of questions and histories of migration, and the search, whether for the sublime or for survival, which underlies human movement. In addressing these issues, Koch and Petros both make significant use of abstraction, and range in their interests from a mythological past to the factual present, and beyond, to the possible future. ————————————————————————————————— 'A prominent critic posted on Instagram that they felt "uncomfortable" being in the room, perhaps a desired effect of the artist.' Jessica Bell Brown at Hyperallergic takes another look at the Kara Walker show that recently closed: Ironically, most of the works in Walker's show will go to museums that will proudly collect them, while for the sake of political neutrality many will likely remain timid when the time comes to roll up their sleeves and speak truth to power. As difficult and divisive as her images are, they point to a reckoning that we can no longer afford to ignore. Racism will remain inseparable from America's history, its present, and its future. It penetrates every crevice and corner of our institutions, and pervades every fiber of our collective being. Walker's work does not signal an impending culture war; it is a reminder that the previous ones never ended. ————————————————————————————————— 'Overall, I'm glad this book exists.' Nick Mullins on Ann Miller's translation of Thierry Groensteen's COMICS AND NARRATION: The other major theme in this book, which I briefly mentioned above, is rhythm. Groensteen mostly discusses panel layout, but also considers how words affect rhythm. While I liked this, I wished that he had gone further. Layout creates rhythm of course, but so does the relative visual density of the panels. So does the amount of time in the intervened. As I showed above, Groensteen hints at this possibility. Again, the fact the Jason chooses to end his page with a panel that implies a longer space of intervened time creates a change in rhythm to the end of the page. If Groensteen didn't say this explicitly, he pointed the way. In other words, he has invited us to continue where he left off, which is one of the great gifts of well-written theory. ————————————————————————————————— Anti-Gone En Plein Air Connor Willumsen provides some insights ('Cartooning is a lot like magic', 'Sometimes I ask myself, why would I want to be a cartoonist?') in this new video, published by Koyama Press 2017, directed by Fatine-Violette Sabiri. Get a copy of Anti-Gone, along with two zines – a 20 page bootleg, and a special collage zine – as well as a unique Anti-Gone drawing, as part of the exclusive Connor Willumsen bundle from Comics Workbook – available HERE. Brian Nicholson reviews Anti-Gone, calling it the "book of the year". ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 10-17-2017 – by Gabriella Tito ————————————————————————————————— Cozytown – 10/17/2017 – by Juan Fernandez ————————————————————————————————— Share this page:Read More:08/10/201803/23/201801/23/201805/01/2018...
TCAF 2016 | Ethan Rilly
Frank SantoroJune 3, 2016Festivals and Shows / InterviewsShare this page:Read More:The Alabaster Pizzo…MoCCA Arts Festival 201805/29/2018The Hannah K. Lee Interview...
Posted on February 15, 2016 February 15, 2016 by Juan Fernández
The comics world suddenly lost Alvin Buenaventura last Thursday. This time is a time of reflection. He left an incredible, indelible mark as a publisher and advocate of the comics medium in the early 21st century. His absence will be sorely felt.
You can help keep his legacy alive today by reading any one of the great works he helped usher into the world from the Buenaventura Press + Pigeon Press catalogue.
Buenaventura Press
Boy's Club 2 and 3 by Matt Furie
Comic Book Holocaust and Klassic Komix Klub by Johnny Ryan
Elvis Road by Elvis Studio by Helge Reumann & Xavier Robel
Hunter and Painter by Tom Gauld
Destined for Dizziness and The Neighborhood by Souther Salazar
Yeast Hoist #12: Stop Thinking Start Sleeping Stop Sleeping Start Living by Ron Rege Jr.
Spaniel Rage by Vanessa Davis
Injury #1, #2 and #3 by Ted May, Jason Robards, and Jeff Wilson
Boy's Club #1 was published by Tim Goodyear's Teenage Dinosaur.
Comic Art Magazine issues 8 and 9 edited by Todd Hignite (2006, 2007)
Kramers Ergot 6 edited by Sammy Harkham (2006)
New York Sketches; a portfolio of drawings by Adrian Tomine (2004)
Private Stash: A Pinup-Girl Portfolio by 20 Cartoonists by Robert Crumb, Adrian Tomine, Jaime Hernandez et al. (2006)
Dawn by Phil Elverum (2008)
The Complete Jack Survives by Jerry Moriarty (2009)
Pigeon Press
Incubation by Charles Burns (2015)
In the Garden of Evil by Charles Burns and Killofer (2015)
Worst Behavior by Simon Hanselmann (2015)
The Libertarian by Nick Mandaag (2014)
Facility Integrity by Nick Mandaag (2014)
ECHO ECHO by Charles Burns (2014)
Rest in peace, Alvin.
Leslie Stein has a new comic up on VICE that recounts the second half of her recent, positive trip to Montreal. Good vibes in her diary. Open, airy reflection with juicy colors. Refreshing stuff that'll warm right up.
David Brothers has interviewed Zainab Akhtar over at Inkstuds.
They talk about Mads Mikkelsen, Akhtar's childhood experience with comics, what led to her critiquing comics, being focused on narrative, the community she has found herself in, serializing comics for others, friendship, a brief aside into Masamune Shirow, and much more. A particular highlight here is the questions they pose about the current landscape (or lack thereof) of active comics criticism across social media.
No one is chiming in on the conversations that people are working hard to encourage and it drives them mad…
If you want some good studio talk and a solid dose of traditional comics craft, go spend some time with the video of Pittsburgh's own Ed Piskor that Heather and Rob Beschizza put together over at Boingboing. While drawing a Happy Mutant, he takes you through the tools of comics past, his "war chest": zip-a-tone sheets, letraset, a Leroy lettering gadget, and the immortal spirit of great cartooning. He also muses on what it's like to teach students who have spent all their comics making lives drawing solely digitally on tablets and the issues that can pose for their process later on. Speed is king 'round these parts.
Bill Boichel riffs on camera on his Remedial Comics segment about the latest issue of the one and only Kevin Huizenga's GANGES:
Ganges #5 is a unique reading experience (well, unique outside of the Huizengian oeuvre, at least). Huizenga boldly commits exponential shifts in the temporal scale, weaving a narrative that stretches from a traditional panel-by-panel rendering of second-by-second shifts in mood during a domestic argument to experimental fractal depictions of the natural soil erosion cycles repeating over eons that build up and breakdown the earth in the course of millions upon millions of years; from the immediate to the eternal. The result is a work that succeeds (where others have failed*) in presenting both in a manner that effectively situates each within the other in an equivalence that brings to mind the title of Samuel Delaney's classic science fiction novel, Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand (if not so much the novel itself). – Bill Boichel
This latest effort is available for you to purchase over at Copacetic Comics.
Frank's 1st Workshop Tour
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:Read More:07-18-201809/11/201802/13/201805/15/2018...
Sally IngrahamAugust 26, 2016NewsThe last Friday in August! We made it! It's been a weird month – but this week was full of interesting things, like "one-page graphic novels" with Françoise Mouly and Art Spiegelman, Shannon Wright comics on The Nib, Nicole Claveloux being published in English, an ocean-spanning exchange between Ulli Lust and Priya Kuriyan, sketchbook pages from Sacha Mardou, a look at Afua Richardson, and Jillian Tamaki in The New York Times. ————————————————————————————————— Shannon Wright has a comic on The Nib – Trump, Black Americans Don't Need Your Help (above) – read the rest HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Françoise Mouly presented a piece in The New Yorker about the "one-page graphic novels" that have stuck in her husband's head over the years. Art Spiegelman has often been called the "father of graphic novels" but has only recently started softening to the idea. "Spiegelman decided it was time to embrace the term that has come to characterize "an ambitious comic book," whether the narrative is drawn on one page or three hundred. "Since comics is the art of compression, I started looking back on the one-pagers which either in terms of their subject matter or in terms of their resonance had stayed in my brain," he said." Check out the list HERE. ————————————————————————————————— The New York Review of Books announced that it will be publishing The Green Hand and Other Stories by Nicole Claveloux in 2017. This collection is the first of Claveloux's work that will appear in English, and it includes an introduction by Daniel Clowes. Clowes writes: "The artwork…is some of the most beautiful ever created for our lowly form—vivid, dreamlike, with intensely vivid hand-separated colors unlike anything I've ever seen." These short stories were originally published in the 1970's. Read more about the book HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Here on Comics Workbook we are happy to present new sketchbook pages from Sacha Mardou. Her recent visit to St. Louis' Magic House (a children's museum) left her somewhat underwhelmed, but at least she had time to draw…! More pages and the whole story HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Ulli Lust (author of Today Is the Last Day of the Rest of Your Life) met Priya Kuriyan in Delhi, India, this spring, and they began an interesting project together. As Ulli Lust writes on Electrocomics: "Priya Kuriyan draws portraits of people in Delhi since years and so does Ulli Lust in Berlin. They met this spring in India and decided to begin a visual dialog: One sees an interesting person and sends the drawing to the other one to find an opponent on the other side of the planet." Here are the first results of this unique pen-pal exchange – Their second exchange can be viewed here – and it includes more of the stories behind each drawing. We'll have to keep an eye on the site for more as the year progresses. Keep up with what Ulli Lust is into these days HERE. And you can find more comics and artwork by Priya Kuriyan HERE! ————————————————————————————————— Check out work by Afua Richardson, one of the artists working on Marvel's Black Panther spin-off World of Wakanda. Vamp Jazz hands. . 08132k16 A photo posted by Afua Richardson (@doctafoo) on Aug 13, 2016 at 11:26pm PDT Afua Richardson has been working in the comics industry since 2004, when Brandon Graham got her a gig at NBM publishing. There is a lot of buzz about the series she is currently working on, stemming from the early July upheaval about Marvel's attempts at diversity. Back in May, Richardson already had a lot to say about that to Ian Freeman at The Urban Daily: "Diversity is not just planting a black person or a gay person or a woman in a character normally held by caucasian men. It's getting into the minutia of the human experience. Stories ages ago had common tropes and icons that were not even realistic to what would be considered the "White experience" – one-dimensional, straight-path good guys and unreasonably evil bad guys who explain their plans just for them to be foiled. That's not reality. Even terms like white and black when describing people almost do a disservice because there is so much baggage with these terms. White = automatically racist, easier life and decedents of slave owners. And that's just not factually correct in every case. Black in no way defines the cultural variety, philosophy or culture of the individual in question. But comics were a very niche industry that were created by a small group of people who had to answer to an even smaller group of editors and executives who wanted to make sure they spoke to their client base. Now that that base has expanded, people can speak with their dollars and back the books they want to see made. Falcon as Captain America says to comic readers that an African-American man can hold the mantle of Captain and American. Its not politically correct to show the variables in philosophy illustrated in fiction. It's realistic." – Afua Richardson Read the rest of this interview HERE. Read more about World of Wakanda HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Over on The New York Times there is a good interview with Jacqueline Woodson – which you should definitely check out – but I mention it because Jillian Tamaki did the accompanying illustration. Rad. ————————————————————————————————— See you next week! – Sally Share this page:Read More:The Hannah K. Lee Interview02/02/2018Simon Hanselmann Bad…The Alabaster Pizzo…...
Kurt Ankeny on MICE Boston 2016
Kurt AnkenyOctober 31, 2016Festivals and ShowsWell, last night we wrapped up yet another lovely MICE Boston! MICE is my local indie comics expo, and it is the equal of any American event, as far as I am concerned. The staff, led by Shelli Paroline, Dan Mazur, Rebecca Viola (I couldn't find a website!), Zach Clemente, and volunteers by the dozens, is the nicest and most attentive of any in the country, hands down. As cartoonists, we aren't used to being spoiled by people coming around, asking us if we need snacks, food, or someone to watch our table while we take a short break. While other indie expos are starting to follow suit (CXC had a set of volunteers that were just as lovely as the MICE staff providing most of the same perqs, and Autoptic and CAKE provide lots of free snacks) I believe MICE was the first to provide this level of courtesy to the exhibitors, and it is the favorite show for lots of cartoonists for that reason. MICE consistently packs in a widely varied crowd, full of people from every age group and background. Part of this is the fact that it is held in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which has one of the most highly educated and diverse citizenries in the nation (it's home to both Harvard and MIT.) But MICE just has some magic about it. The show has been steadily growing over the past few years. Last year, they broke the 3,000 attendee mark for the first time, and preliminary figures for this past Saturday's attendance were over 1600, so they seem on par to keep that streak going. People are there to immerse themselves in the comics culture, and to buy, which is always helpful. There was a great representation of different cartoonists at the show. Featured guests included Faith Erin Hicks, the ubiquitous-in-2016 golden-boy-of-the-year Nate Powell, the French husband-wife team known as Kerascoët, local art-and-comics phenom Raúl the Third, Wren McDonald, Sara Varon, Jeremy Sorese, and Drew Weing. Kevin Czap was in attendance, fresh off their amazing weekend at CXC where they took home the Most Promising Talent grant award. Tony Davis of Million Year Picnic was there with his wife and son, selling comics and generally being the hub of the local scene. Nobrow had a table, Neil of Radiator Comics was there, the Boston Comics Roundtable was out in force, alums and current students from the Center for Cartoon Studies were down from Vermont, and several Comics Workbook folks were either tabling or wandering around the show. Comics on parade at the end of a long con season! Saturday was a blast. My new book In Pieces, debuting at the show, was a big hit, and I sold copies to lots of people coming up and telling me how much they had enjoyed the book on Comics Workbook's Tumblr, and how they had been waiting to buy it! That was a great feeling. I had a great time tabling next to David Marshall, a local comics guy and someone I know from the monthly comics hangouts in Salem. David makes retro-homage superhero comics that are full of nerdy puns, references to UNIX coding, and Doctor Who in-jokes. He knows tons of people from the immediate neighborhood, and spent his time talking them up and accosting the attendees he didn't know in the most jovial and pleasant way possible. David's one of those guys who's the life of the con. Someone truly at home among the comickers. To my other side was the lovely and talented Molly Dean, who makes webcomics and had several printed issues to sell. I waited too late to ask her if she'd like to trade, and she'd already sold out of all of her books! I will see her around though, and I'm looking forward to reading her webcomics at meedean.com. Saturday night, MICE puts on a free dinner for all attendees at Lesley University's neighboring art gallery, the Lunder Arts Center. (They also provide bagels, cream cheese, donut holes and coffee each morning… I'll stop talking about the free food.) While I would have LOVED to hang out with everyone, I'd been fighting a sore throat for the last week, and after talking all day, I knew my voice couldn't handle small talk in a loud and echoing cement room, so I met my wife for dinner in Harvard Square and we had a quiet night. Meanwhile, the party there continued until 9pm, and then the various groups decamped for other venues and watering holes. Much to my chagrin, I missed what Mimi Chrzanowski described as a "magical" night of karaoke at Limelight, near Boston's Chinatown. I know for sure that Kevin Czap and Cathy G. Johnson were there singing their hearts out. I assume that Dustin Harbin also made it. Sunday at MICE is Kid's Day, and so the little ones made up a slightly larger percentage of the attendees than on Saturday. Kerascoët frequently had a line as they tag-teamed signing books with full-color sketches as the European cartoonists are accustomed to. I finally got to meet K.L. Ricks, whose illustration work and comics I deeply admire. I got to chat over breakfast with Maria Hoey, who is half of the brother-sister team behind Coin-Op books, and who I'd met for the first time at Autoptic in 2015. Maria's looking forward to Comic Arts Brooklyn next weekend, and made me regret not taking up Whit Taylor's offer of sharing her table there this year. At noon, I was a guest at MICE's new feature, the Cartoonarium, which is a little table set up to project your drawing to a screen, where people can watch cartoonists work and ask questions about their process. Zach Clemente came around to record a brief Twitter interview. First Cartoonarium of the day! We chat with @kurtankeny about his writing process! pic.twitter.com/bOaDRFRYg5 — MICExpo (@MassMICE) October 30, 2016 Sundays crowds had more ebb and flow to them that Saturday, but the sales were steady and people were engaged and fun to talk to, which is always the best part of a con. Since MICE was on the weekend before Halloween, costumes were in effect more than usual. I counted four girls and women dressed as Kiki from Kiki's Delivery Service, there was a very well done Daphne and Velma from Scooby Doo, Saga seemed to be popular as I saw at least three separate groups dressed as various characters from that comic, and there were several low-key Steven Universes and even a person dressed as Neil Gaiman's version of Death, complete with parade of people with rainclouds and a concertina. Thanks again to all involved in making MICE such a smooth and friendly and successful show for everyone! Until next year! Kurt Share this page:Read More:The Niall Breen Interview10/10/201803/27/201801/29/2018...
Aaron CockleSeptember 11, 2018NewsJason Lutes; Sharad Sharma; Dash Shaw; Comics Carousel; Brooklyn Book Festival ————————————————————————————————— 'Otherwise it's all just a bloodbath, right?' Josh Kramer talks with Jason Lutes about the new Berlin collection: What were your main narrative inspirations for Berlin? From a straightforward, mechanical, storytelling perspective, the comics of Herge, right? All of my basic "Comics 101" self-education that I got was from studying Tintin both growing up and then as an adult. And then once I sort of figured out the conventions that Herge was applying, then tinkering them and changing them and making them my own in a lot of cases. In terms of like tone, for Berlin specifically, tone and technique, I think I was I was thinking a lot about Wings of Desire by Wim Wenders, which I had seen in my early 20s, which was very affecting. And the novel Berlin Alexanderplatz by Alfred Döblin which takes a very kind of impressionistic view of the city at the time. And both of those works do a lot of drifting in and out of the consciousness of various people on the street. So those had a big effect on how I ended up telling the story. And then beyond that I would have to say it's probably a combination of any number of indie films that I absorbed when I was in art school or after. I remember I watched a lot of Jim Jarmusch. Then I remember there was this one year at the Seattle Film Festival where I had press passes. I would just go walk into a movie theater and sit down and watch movies for four hours, not knowing what they were going to be. I think there was a period there where I kind of just immersed myself in cinematic visual storytelling. I think Herge, Alfred Döblin and Wim Wenders would be the three big ones that were the obvious influences. ————————————————————————————————— The 222nd meeting of the NY Comics & Picture-story Symposium will be held on Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2018 at 7pm at Parsons School of Design, University Center, 63 Fifth Avenue, room UL 105 (lower level). Free and open to the public. Skype presentation. Sharad Sharma on Grassroots Comics: By the people, for the people. Via Skype, Sharad Sharma, will share hundred of stories of common people using Grassroots Comics that tell a local story. They are a communication tool for all citizens that can transcend the barriers of language, literacy, media access, social classes and even resources. For these reasons, grassroots comics have been extremely successful in both rural and urban, remote and low literacy areas widely in Indian subcontinent. The simple format and participatory methodology made the grassroots comics popular worldwide. In last 20 years his organization World Comics has conducted more than 1200 comics workshop in most remote and disturbed areas of the globe and trained over 1,00,000 common people. He will also share the impact of his work. www.worldcomicsindia.com ————————————————————————————————— "My Entire High School Sinking Into the Sea" Screening and Q&A As part of After School Special: The 2018 School of Visual Arts Alumni Film & Animation Festival, we are pleased to present graphic novelist, animator, writer, director, and SVA alumnus Dash Shaw's first feature-length animated film, My Entire High School Sinking Into the Sea (2016). Shaw will be on hand following the film for a Q&A. The feature will be preceded by the short film series Makin' Things and the world premiere of the short film Noise by another multi-hypenate artist/director and SVA alumnus, Jim McKenzie. The Q&A will be moderated by current student Stephanie Kim (BFA 2019 Illustration). Tuesday, September 11, 2018, 7:30-10PM SVA Theatre 333 West 23rd Street New York, NY 10011 ————————————————————————————————— Comics Carousel at Society of Illustrators A special Carousel at the Society of Illustrators for the Brooklyn Book Festival. Presentations of graphic novels and comics as read by the artists: Jordan Crane (We Are All Me) Maria Hoey (COIN-OP Comics Anthology) Paul Levitz & Tim Hamilton (Brooklyn Blood) Connie Sun (@cartoonconnie) Ngozi Ukazu (Check, Please!) Kriota Willberg (Draw Stronger) and more! The event will be followed by a book signing. Hosted by: R. Sikoryak (Terms and Conditions, The Unquotable Trump) THIS IS AN OFFICIAL 2018 BROOKLYN BOOK FESTIVAL EVENT Society of Illustrators 128 East 63rd Street NY, NY 10065 Monday, September 17, 2018, 7-9pm Tickets: $10 General Admission ————————————————————————————————— Brooklyn Book Festival Comics-related Panels: September 16, 2018, 12pm Find Your Family Brooklyn Historical Society Library, 128 Pierrepont St Refugees, outcasts, inheritors of hard history — whoever we are, we all struggle to find the human connections that make us safe. Caldecott Award-winning illustrator/author David Small (Home After Dark), New Yorker cartoonist Liana Finck (Passing for Human), and anthropologist Bessora (Alpha) explore the universal yearning for defining and keeping what we think of as family. Moderated by agent and editor Anjali Singh, Ayesha Pande Literary. September 16, 2018, 1pm TV vs. Reality Brooklyn Historical Society Library 128 Pierrepont St When on-air celebrity and imagery shape your earliest memories, how do you reconcile it all with the hard realities of adulthood? Catch the wide-ranging experiences, from quiz kids to musicals to stand-up comedy, of comics creators Michael Kupperman (All The Answers), Box Brown (Is This Guy for Real?), and Rina Ayuyang (Blame This on the Boogie). Moderated by Joan Hilty, Comics Editor at Nickelodeon. September 16, 2018, 2pm Two-Ways — Weird Romance Brooklyn Historical Auditorium, 128 Pierrepont St Two astoundingly accomplished team-ups of authors explore their many attractions to weird romance and speculative fiction, and all the things that happen when you create genre-bending graphic novels in collaboration! Audrey Niffenegger and Eddie Campbell (Bizarre Romance) and Alex de Campi and Katie Skelly (Twisted Romance) . Moderated by Tor Books editor Diana Pho. September 16, 2018, 4pm The Graphic City Brooklyn Historical Auditorium, 128 Pierrepont St In alternately gripping, funny, and tragic graphic novels about urban history, Julia Wertz (Tenements, Towers & Trash), Peter J. Tomasi (The Bridge), and Jason Lutes (Berlin) take us high up to skyscraper views of two great cities flanking the Atlantic — and beyond. Moderated by Publishers Weekly senior news editor Calvin Reid. ————————————————————————————————— Cement Mixer – 9-11-18 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page:Read More:Rowhouse Residency…San Diego Comic-Con…03/13/201805/24/2018...
Aaron CockleAugust 14, 2017NewsAaron Cockle here today with Maqsood-I-Kainaat; Tom of Finland; Wolk on Borges; FRAME Festival Open Call; Fake Photos! ————————————————————————————————— Maqsood-I-Kainaat, by Shreyas R Krishnan The 12th issue of the Ley Lines series is coming soon! Ley Lines is a quarterly publication dedicated to exploring the intersection of comics and the various fields of art & culture that inspire us. Co-published by Grindstone Comics and Czap Books. ————————————————————————————————— Tom of Finland, the Movie Touko Laaksonen gets the biopic treatment, and a fancy review at the Guardian. Considering the film's subject matter, it actually contains very little sex – the main bedroom scene cuts from a kiss to the morning after. "The core fans were always saying: 'I've seen the drawings, those are my sex, now I want to see the story of the man I idolise,'" says Karukoski. "So the amount of gay sex will come very much from the dramatic need. Where is the line where it becomes provocation? it overrides the emotional balance of the story." Instead, much of the film focuses on the struggles Laaksonen endured as a gay man in conservative Finland, from facing jail as a young man after a pick-up went awry, to facing constant pressure from his younger sister never to express his true identity, since she believed it would bring shame on the family. "Even when I told her about him being accepted into the permanent collection at MoMA, her response was: 'Well, what were they thinking?'" says Dehner, still hurt by the memory. The film, he says, is "touching – how terrible society has been to us and how conditional the love is from family members". ————————————————————————————————— Webmaster Borges This is from way back in 1999, and probably the first piece I read by Douglas Wolk. Jorge Luis Borges and the Internet: Canny Borges never names the Web, of course: As "The Garden of Forking Paths" points out, in a riddle whose answer is chess, the only word that cannot be used is "chess." But the meaning of his parables is specific and undeniable. The Aleph in the fiction of the same title, the portal through which one can see every point in the universe, is Netscape Navigator in all but name. The Zahir, an object that changes its form over time but monopolizes its owner's attention forever, is none other than Microsoft Internet Explorer, as anyone who's tried to unstick it from a computer's operating system only to click fatally on an innocuous icon will tell you. (Consider, in fact, the alphabetical remove of Borges' names for the browsers, his subtle jest on the Alpha and Omega of his new world.) ————————————————————————————————— Prague Comic Arts Festival Open Call Sign up for the FRAME festival and become a part of an emerging festival, full of comics, zines and illustrations! We welcome all small publishers, authors and illustrators. OPEN CALL is until 31.8. 2017. Each exhibitor can choose from two options for his presentation – a small table 110 x 55 cm or a large table 220 x 55 cm. The jury of Centrala and No Ordinary Heroes will then select approximately 50 exhibitors who will be contacted with detailed information on arrival and installation no later than September 10, 2017. ————————————————————————————————— 'Research suggests that regardless of what you might think about your own abilities to spot a hoax, most of us are pretty bad at it.' The BBC has a handy guide to spotting fake photos: Another giveaway is the colour of people's ears. "If the Sun is behind me, my ears will look red from the front because you'll see the blood," he says. "If the light is coming from the front, you won't see the red in the ear." ————————————————————————————————— A Cosmic Journey – 8-15-2017 – by Cameron Arthur ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 8-15-2017 – by Sally Ingraham ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 8-15-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page:Read More:05/25/2018Tom Gauld at Booksmith…02/13/2018Comic Arts Brooklyn 2018...
Juan FernándezJune 21, 2018NewsHartley Lin Interviewed at Comix Experience; Zak Sally's latest zine; the Summer Santoro School Correspondence Course – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Hartley Lin (Pope Hats, Young Frances) is interviewed by Brian Hibbs, live at Comix Experience in San Francisco. This is a great interview that in addition to giving great insight on where Lin is coming from as a comics maker, also notably discusses the world before and after the Xeric Grant. A little on Hartley Lin before you dig in: Lin is a cartoonist and illustrator from Toronto. His comic book series Pope Hats has received a 2013 Ignatz Award, 2012 Doug Wright Award and 2010 Joe Shuster Award. He has illustrated for Slate, HarperCollins, Chronicle Books, COMPLEX, Wired, The Walrus and The Believer. He now lives in Montreal. Hartley debuted Young Frances, his first major graphic novel with AdHouse Books at TCAF this year. Watch it over on Youtube. – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – FOLRATH PART 2 – Zak Sally $9.00 at La Mano At long last, here it is. Starting mere moments after where Part 1 left off, it's 159 pages of stories about landing in punk rock Oakland, CA circa 1993. It was a hot fucking mess. Still printed on shitty newsprint (blue ink !!!) then folded/ assembled by me. Unbelievably, this ain't the end: part 3 wraps it all up (it's way shorter than the other 2), but it's not quite done yet. I'll let you know but in the meantime, come wrestle with me down the verdant horse-trough of memory lane why don't you. – Zak Sally – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – 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! – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Cozytown – 06-21-2018 – by Juan Fernandez – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Joanie and Jordie – 6-21-18 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page:Read More:Comic Arts Brooklyn 201810/18/201807/11/201802/01/2018...
Comics WorkbookJanuary 10, 2018NewsSam Ombiri here with thoughts on DNA Failure: British Weapon Comics by Leon Sadler, Jonathan Chandler, and Stefan Sadler ————————————————————————————————— Sam Ombiri here: DNA Failure: British Weapon Comics is Leon Sadler making comics with Jonathan Chandler and Stefan Sadler. The deal is Leon's comics are really good, Jon's comics are really good, and Stefan's comics are really good, and together they compliment each other's energy, better than ever. They all have this playful reverence for storytelling in comics that exist for existence's sake. Or a "sake" not spoken of yet. This sensibility that's really attractive doesn't deviate from their enthusiasm for the story. Far from it – it only serves to take their stories to higher heights. As I'm reading this, I'm wondering what corner of a human's mind can possibly have the capacity to make this stuff up? I'm not thinking of just the especially surreal events in the comic. I'm also thinking, for example, of how quickly these guys can ascribe a character's role purely from their facial features. This is a wonder. As I read I'm really savoring each moment. This book is so much fun. What's astounding is the complete lack of cynicism, which I know stems from sincerity, and it's just what they do, but I can't help but commend their lack of cynicism. It's hard to talk about this comic, about this stuff, partly because I'm guilty of this too in my own comics. What is it I'm guilty of? There's this one corner of webcomics – you see it in a lot of deviant art pages…probably the easiest place to find stuff like this is if you go to the Bad Webcomics wiki – and it feels like this is the stuff these guys are into. I'll try to explain more clearly. (I'm not sure about Jon and Stefan, but I've read Leon has an intensely visceral reaction to things because there's too much emotion in them.) This comic and what I'm trying to get at partly reminds me of what Jessica Ciocci of Paperrad said about amateur work: "When you see amateur work, you see the mistakes a professional would try and cover up – like when a person's homemade Web site has a JPEG scaled up incorrectly. That's the kind of stuff we like. It's acknowledging that there are these unspoken rules about how you are supposed to do something – and when you break that rule you are acknowledging that the rule exists." I think the inclination for most people is to pat themselves on the back instead of pushing further when they realize this rule exists. They try to outsmart the inherent perceived stupidity, instead of just engaging with this stuff as it is (if they don't just flat out turn it into a punchline). It's what puts Paperrad above Everything Is terrible (as cool as they are). It's that same thing that is so great about people like Leon, Jon, and Stefan. I can't help but think about how Dash Shaw was once talking about how for the most part, in the west at least, whenever people approach limited animation, it's rarely without cynicism. Take those Adult Swim cartoons like Perfect Hair Forever or 12 OzMouse, in contrast to this community on YouTube which used to use programs like Pencil or the Corel software that would come with their Wacom tablets, to make wolf animations. Animations without cynicism. People like Tribble of Doom or Fluffylovey. What I'm saying is that with DNA Failure the success is three tier. Tier 1 is the lack of cynicism towards this zone of comics, Tier 2 is pushing enthusiasm – as in, they don't feel compelled to contextualize this stuff just to prove that they're smart. People (myself included) don't always believe in the potency of this stuff. They don't think it is independent of our recognition of it. I mean, sometimes it can be good to give it contextualization, but I don't think it helps in cases where the potency of the work that one might be re-appropriating (at least for this bad webcomic stuff) is purely based on your recognition of it. It reveals this masked cynicism and masked vanity, or maybe arrogance is a better word. So then it's not Tier 2 – it's more like you're in tier -2. DNA Failure reaches Tier 3, which is a complete mystery to me. I just don't know – it's not even three tier success now, it's like a 2,000,000 tier success. There are many places comics can go if you open your eyes – DNA Failure opened mine. The comics in here are really fantastic. That's another thing; when people (like me) re-appropriate this stuff, if it's comics, they (by they, I mean we) tend to completely both forget and dismiss the comics aspect of it. We forget that it's a comic with a story of some sort, and they (again, me included) maybe even forget that it's a lot of fun to draw. Although when I say "fun" I don't mean to say that you always have to draw with a bunch of wild strokes. (CF's impression of Jack Kirby crosshatching) It doesn't have to be fun but it certainly can be, especially when we're talking about this zone of comics. The impulse to draw these types of comics commonly comes, after all, from having fun. (I'm using "fun" for lack of a better word, though not at the complete lack of it. I'm also thinking about how CF said that the spirit of cartooning is "just go ahead and draw.") However, all the fun is taken out of it when it becomes a contest to see whose work is superior because of how "smart" it is. When I see this type of re-appropriation done (again, myself included), so much of it is this masked cynicism propelled by pretension. DNA Failure is amazing for so many reasons, number one because it doesn't have any of that. There are really terrific moments in these comics and really great sequences, and instead of these guys patting themselves on the back, they just reach higher and higher and it's really cool to see. I was very sad when I ran out of pages to read. – Sam Ombiri Read more about the comic HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Frank Santoro and Simon Hanselmann, CAB 2013 – photo by Chris Anthony Diaz, colored by Graham Willcox International Students: The Winter Semester of thee Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers starts January 16th 2018! 8 weeks – 500 bux – coaching for as long as you need. The course is hard, but Frank will push your comics making practice to a new level, getting you to think about timing and color in new ways. His experience and ideas have influenced the likes of Connor Willumsen, Michael DeForge, and Simon Hanselmann (quote "I consider Frank Santoro to be my L. Ron Hubbard") among many others. Dig into something new in the new year! Full details and how to apply can be found HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Joanie and Jordie – 1-11-2018 – by Caleb Orecchio Share this page:Read More:MoCCA Arts Festival 201801/25/2018San Diego Comic-Con…02/15/2018...
Juan FernándezJune 6, 2016NewsJuan Fernandez here! We start Monday at Comics Workbook with: a newly stocked SCHOOL STORE; Oliver East's COTTONOPOLIS; Genevieve Castree's time of need; Roman Muradov in conversation with Tim Hensley on INKSTUDS; Puiupo and Adonis interviewed by Kevin Czap; Eleri Mai Harris on the origins of the Islamic State; Kramers Ergot/ Ganges Mini Tour 2016 Dates. ————————————————————————————————— On the site: School Store STOCKED We have some new items up on the school store – ZONA #03 was just released, plus there are some cool comics sets and other collectibles/delectables – check it out! ————————————————————————————————— Cottonopolis by Oliver East I'm happy to announce that this week we are featuring Oliver East's Cottonopolis series on Comics Workbook. Made from November 2014 through January 2015 by Oliver East for Comics Workbook, Cottonopolis is a series of 6 panel comics that, among other things, blurs the lines between the historical documentation of a place and the documentation of identity. In their own mysterious way, these comics unpack moments in a life that swirl in the history of Manchester, England. ————————————————————————————————— Off the site: HELP GENEVIÈVE ELVERUM AND HER FAMILY FACE CANCER In May of 2015, Geneviève Elverum (Cartoonist: Geneviève Castrée/ Musician: Woelv/Ô Paon) was out of the blue diagnosed with inoperable stage 4 pancreatic cancer. In the last year that she has undergone necessary treatment, Geneviève and her husband, Phil, have had to deplete all their savings to face the medical costs associated with this illness. At the moment, Phil is reaching out for financial help. Phil Elverum: We are asking the world to please donate money to us. Treatment is ongoing. Nobody in our household has been able to work for over a year. Geneviève has not made any new work. Phil has not made any music or been able to perform or do anything. Life is 100% occupied by this humongous medical battle (plus the already overwhelming reality of raising a baby with less than 2 fully available parents). We don't know what the future holds and how long this uncertainty will last. In any case, the amount we've spent over the last year alone has left us in a precarious financial position as a family. Genevieve and Phil are asking for help through a GoFundMe campaign. Any amount helps. ————————————————————————————————— [soundcloud url="https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/267747519″ params="color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false" width="100%" height="166″ iframe="true" /] Roman Muradov interviews Tim Hensley on Inkstuds Muradov:Dan Clowes described Wally Gropius as "a work of unassuming genius that rewards on ever-deepening levels on each re-reading" and this quote applies just as well to Tim's two other books, Ticket Stub and, most recently, Sir Alfred Number 3, a comic-strip biography of Alfred Hitchcock that is unlike anything you may expect from the phrase "comic-strip biography." ————————————————————————————————— Puiupo and Adonis Kevin Czapieski interviews Puiupo & Adonis Pantazopoulos, the author's of Czap Book's latest release, the Brazilian sci-fi comic Úlcera. K – Adonis, what is your background? You paint as well as make comics, did you go to art school? A – "I did, here in São Paulo there's an art school called Quanta that I attended between 2010~2012 and I've recently dropped out of an animation college (I did only one period, )." K – Puiupo, you're currently studying animation, right? What kind of animation influenced that decision – is there anything out there that you're really excited about? P – "Well, I'm really into modern Japanese animation and it's been my main influence since I started drawing. Masaaki Yuasa has to be my life goal without a doubt (laughs). I am also very exited about the pace that the Brazilian animation scene has been growing at recently, and I want to be a part of it's growth, if I manage to stay motivated (laughs). Generally, an animation major was the thing that made more sense for me at the time, coming from comics and all, you know. But I don't want to restrain myself to it, personally or professionally. I have a deep interest in comics and animation just as much as I have for fashion, painting, and performance. I hope to get the time to work on these other creative areas at some point." Read it all here. ————————————————————————————————— Islamic State Illustrated Eleri Mai Harris has written and illustrated a well researched piece of comics journalism on the origins of the Islamic State over on the ABC. For those interested, Harris and her team have compiled lots of references for you to dig into after reading this piece of comics journalism to further educate yourself. ————————————————————————————————— Kramers Ergot / Ganges MINI TOUR 2016 June 10-12th – Chicago – QUIMBY'S June 14th – Toronto – THE BEGUILING June 15th – Pittsburgh – COPACETIC COMICS June 16th – New York City – DESERT ISLAND ————————————————————————————————— see you Wednesday! Until then, keep your volume knobs turned all the way up. -Juan Share this page:Read More:On Reselling Comics09/12/201803/05/201809/17/2018...
Aaron CockleJanuary 1, 2018NewsAaron here today with the New York Comics & Picture-Story Symposium Schedule; Käthe Kollwitz and Sue Coe; Whit Taylor; Imagined Communities, Nationalism & Violence ————————————————————————————————— The 2018 schedule of the Ben Katchor-organized New York Comics & Picture-Story Symposium has been posted. This line-up looks great, including presentations by Joe McCullough (on Steve Ditko), Julia Gfrörer, Eleanor Davis, Keren Katz, and Matthew Thurber. ————————————————————————————————— ALL GOOD ART IS POLITICAL: Käthe Kollwitz and Sue Coe At Galerie St. Etienne until February until February 10, 2018. ALL GOOD ART IS POLITICAL: Käthe Kollwitz and Sue Coe will present more than 30 drawings and prints by Kollwitz (1867-1945) and more than 30 paintings, drawings, and prints by Coe (b. 1951). The exhibition borrows its title from writer Toni Morrison, who once noted, "All good art is political! The ones that try hard not to be political are political by saying, 'We love the status quo.'" The exhibition coincides with the publication of a book of woodcuts by Sue Coe entitled The Animals' Vegan Manifesto (OR Books, New York and London). Despite their differences in background – Kollwitz was born in East Prussia in the 19th century and lived in Berlin, Germany; Coe is an American born in the U.K. and living in upstate New York – both artists share a career-defining attraction to social issues, undergirded by the belief that art can inspire constructive change. Each is considered among the most important political artists of her time, unmatched in her fearless approach to profoundly difficult subject matter, unerring humanity and eloquence, and an uncanny ability to disturb the viewer's complacency. ————————————————————————————————— Alternative to Avocado Toast for 2017 Whit Taylor at the NY-er. ————————————————————————————————— Imagined Communities, Nationalism & Violence At Rubber Factory until January 31, 2018. Benedict Anderson's seminal text "Imagined Communities" investigates the origins of Nationalism as a modern condition and serves as the starting point for our group exhibition. From the influence of rationalist secularism to the conception of homogenous, empty time, Anderson outlines the convergence of factors which led to nationhood as a vehicle for the creation of meaning and ultimately self-sacrifice. As Nationalism is revitalized through increasingly extreme rhetoric whether it is nativism or protectionism, the exhibition explores this new wave of anxiety around nation-hood and ways nation-ness is constructed. Whether it is through the oblique nature of our informational channels which function as echo chambers reminiscent of the earliest ways Nationalism spread through print media or the conflation of meaning with sacrifice, it is clear that there are precedents for how Nationalism as a construct has led to and sustained cycles of violence. ————————————————————————————————— The Winter Semester of thee Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers starts January 16th 2018! 8 weeks – 500 bux – coaching for as long as you need. The course is hard, but Frank will push your comics making practice to a new level, getting you to think about timing and color in new ways. His experience and ideas have influenced the likes of Connor Willumsen, Michael DeForge, and Simon Hanselmann (quote "I consider Frank Santoro to be my L. Ron Hubbard") among many others. Dig into something new in the new year! Full details and how to apply can be found HERE. ————————————————————————————————— Vision Box – 1-2-2017 – by Cameron Arthur Share this page:Read More:10/18/201806/19/201803/20/201802/27/2018...
Caleb OrecchioFebruary 19, 2018NewsCaleb Orecchio here with Barry (Windsor-)Smith, and other news. ————————————————————————————————— "Red Nails" was the last Conan the Barbarian story Robert E. Howard ever wrote before he killed himself. It is almost undoubtedly, to my mind, his greatest story–which is also, appropriately, the best and most faithful Conan comic book adaption, drawn by Barry Smith in 1973. Obviously, Barry Smith was and is thee great Conan adapter despite the fact that John Buscema would eventually become synonymous with the character; but "Big" John never could match the intensity of Barry Smith–an intensity that eventually caused him to see ghosts and psychedelic phenomenon in his NYC apartment. Smith's adaption (according to the book's credits, Roy Thomas "wrote" the adaption, but the comic is so faithful to the source that I regard Thomas' role as merely editorial given what we know about the "Marvel Method") is so electrifying to the eyes, that the original black and white version (first appearing in the magazine, Savage Tales #2 and #3 in two parts) nearly makes me cross-eyed. The amount of detail crammed into each panel is staggering and almost intimidating, yet the beauty of each image and prowess of the hands that made them is simply undeniable. Thus, the release of Marvel Treasury Edition: Conan the Barbarian #4 gave "Red Nails" the release it deserved, finding it newly colored by Smith and in an oversized deluxe format. I don't want to show my hand just yet, but I felt it important today to point out the sheer blood, sweat and tears Barry Smith (later Barry Windsor-Smith) put into this work. Of course, this kind of ambitious, detail-oriented work is not realistically feasible on a monthly deadline and would cause Smith to miss said deadlines, cause fatal distribution problems and as I mentioned before, see things. Still, the results speak for themselves. I want to share more of my thoughts on this work, but I have to wait until next week. See you then. ————————————————————————————————— if you don't know, now you know Tucker Stone and David Brothers talk Black Panther comics, with small a shoutout to under-appreciated artist, Billy Graham. Jaeah J. Lee on "The Forgotten Zine of 1960's Asian-American Radicals" at Topic.com. Kawai Shen reviews "Mother" by Celine Loup over at Your Chicken Enemy. Michel Fiffe is the latest guest on Process Party. ————————————————————————————————— Suzy and Cecil – 2-19-2018 – by Sally Ingraham ————————————————————————————————— Share this page:Read More:02/26/201804/06/201809/21/201810/18/2018...


We are proud to say that many of our machines built over thirty years ago are still in operation today. This is a testament to the quality of our work, heavy-duty build and reliable engineering that sets FMT Industrial Cleaning Systems apart from our competitors.
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(Text automatically translated) Two blue flag beach. Ideally located. At 200 meters from the quiet and clean beach of Spain. Very quiet. Tastefully decorated. Recent construction. Next to the Natural Park of Cabanes. Close to theme parks such as Port Aventura and Aquarama. Near Valencia (Formula 1, City of Sciences and Arts, Bioparc ...).
Sitio muy confortable , con todo lo que te imagines en le apartamento , Ernesto el propietario un 10.
4 étés réussis dans cet appartement! Ernesto est un super hôte toujours à l'écoute! A l'année prochaine!
Repetimos estancia en este estupendo apartamento y si el año que viene podemos, seguro que volveremos.
Apartamento limpio y con todo lo necesario. Comodo ya que tiene todo s mano.
Tan cerca de la piscina que justo bajar y estas en ella. Y la playa que se ve desde la terraza.
Por último la simpatia y amabilidad de su dueño, pendiente de todo cuanto necesites para resolverlo en un minuto.
(Text automatically translated) Use the AP-7 and take exit 44 Torreblanca-Alcossebre. From there turn right towards the town of Torreblanca, and later take the road to the beach Torrenostra that is the name of the beach of Torreblanca. Turn left nothing else you get to the beach and from here we take you to the apartment.


text:
Don't Be a COVID Cop
The powerful are the only ones who benefit when we go all Big Brother on each other.
12:48 PM EDT on May 11, 2020
It seems like everyone these days has become a COVID cop. The social media posts from ordinary people around the world bristling with outrage as their fellow citizens crowd into parks in apparent defiance of social distancing measures have almost become a cliché during the coronavirus pandemic.
I get where the freakouts are coming from. I really do. I have become intimately familiar with the dread that now seeps into my pores when I go out for a walk in the park and am met by crowds. I've lost track of the number of times I've seethed at someone who won't get out of the way. It's intensely frustrating when you encounter someone who isn't even trying to do the right thing, and people have every right to be pissed off about it.
But, setting aside the fact that those infamous pictures often distort the amount of social distancing violations actually taking place, the solution to these problems is not for everyone to start turning each other in. When people become COVID cops, they do several very damaging things.
In the immediate term, they ensure that maintaining social distancing becomes an issue of official government enforcement and policing. We know where that leads — to an exacerbation of the state's racist and classist handling of everyday life. Black people across the country are being disproportionately arrested, fined, and harassed for social distancing violations. Here in New York, the disparities are clear to anyone with eyes. The public housing projects in my neighborhood are under constant watch from NYPD cops sitting in cars and shouting at people in the street; move away from the projects and the cop cars magically disappear.
The NYPD has done its usual thing and gone absolutely nuts across the city, brutally beating enough people of color in the name of social distancing that even de Blasio had to pretend to care. His solution, though, was to increase the number of "social distancing ambassadors" in the city, and also to cut off access and ramp up surveillance of some parks downtown where a lot of white people gather — that is, to gesture at a more holistic solution while also escalating law enforcement and depriving people of vital green space in the name of equality. (He also said that the NYPD was "saving lives" by arresting people, which, swing and a miss.)
It should go without saying that people shouldn't be encouraging this kind of behavior from the state. But there are deeper perils to everyone going full COVID vigilante.
One is that the more time we all spend getting angry at each other is time we should be spending getting angry at more important targets, like our elected officials. There is of course a level of personal responsibility that we all must take right now, but personal responsibility is not a substitution for concerted government action.
I live in Manhattan, the most densely populated place in the United States. My local park is Central Park, the most-visited green space in the country. There are simply too many people here, and too little space, for everyone to be six feet apart from each other at all times. It doesn't work.
The New York City government could be helping me and everyone around me by dramatically expanding the available space in the city by closing streets to cars. Places like Seattle looked at the benefits this brings and decided to permanently close some streets to cars. Rather than seize this opportunity, though, de Blasio had to be forced into rolling out a street closure plan that he is carrying out in glacial dribs and drabs, and is telling his own constituents that he doesn't trust them to handle the new situation. It would be very useful if people took some of the ire they are reserving for each other and pressured de Blasio to go further instead. (Some of this focus should also be trained on Andrew Cuomo, who has sky-high approval ratings despite an objectively catastrophic failure to rein in the COVID crisis, and who gets more and more odious by the day.)
But it goes beyond even that. Coronavirus is not only a crisis of unprecedented magnitude; it's also a dress rehearsal for the future. Our relationship to each other — our borders, our welfare state, our level of comfort with ever-more-intrusive surveillance, our tolerance of mass suffering and inequality — will be irrevocably altered by this crisis. The devastation that will be wrought by climate change is barreling towards us, and it will trigger the exact same issues currently being triggered by the coronavirus — only on a far greater scale. The choices that we make now will bear directly on how we handle that crisis. What we do right now really, really matters. If people veer towards a hyper-individualistic response, and decide that it's more important to go all Gestapo on each other than to build networks of solidarity and work to force the kind of major change that will eventually be needed to ensure our survival on this planet, we are doomed. If, on the other hand, people look out for each other, and train their anger and their determination where it really should be trained, who knows? Maybe we'll make it out of this hellscape someday.
Screenshot: @shermanyee/Instagram

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


It's easy to forget, I find, and not (in my case) have time for gratitude and appreciation for life and freedom. I complain and complain about all the work I have to do, yet there is so much to be thankful for. Thank you for that.