Andrew White

Here’s a page. Moving towards the end of Black Pillars #1....

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 08:47:32 -0400

Here’s a page. Moving towards the end of Black Pillars #1. Comics are fun to make.

Black Pillars Mysterious black pillars appear throughout the...

Mon, 03 Jun 2013 10:00:00 -0400

Black Pillars

Mysterious black pillars appear throughout the world. No one knows what they are or where they came from. These stories explore what happens next.

Black Pillars is the project I am working on right now. It’s a series of short stories in two comics of approximately 48 pages each. It will be printed in black and white with hand-colored covers. Issue one to be released in September, with issue two following around December.

I’m close to completing the first issue. I hope to start taking preorders around the beginning of July.

comicsworkbook: Andrew White “Rain” Made for Comics...

Thu, 30 May 2013 11:59:54 -0400

comicsworkbook:

Andrew White

“Rain”

Made for Comics Workbook

So I’ve decided that I’m going to start giving away the originals for my Comics Workbook strips to anyone who orders comics from me.

comicsworkbook: Simon Hanselmann “Truth Zone 76” Made for...

Fri, 17 May 2013 18:31:00 -0400

comicsworkbook:

Simon Hanselmann

“Truth Zone 76”

Made for Comics Workbook

Order Simon Hansellmann’s comics here and here and here and probably some other places too. You can buy the numerous anthologies he is in if you’d like, but he probably doesn’t get paid for those.

(I really wrote that note. It seemed very funny at the time and seems kind of funny now.)

Near complete page, though unlettered.

Sun, 12 May 2013 13:45:50 -0400

Near complete page, though unlettered.

comicsworkbook: Andrew White “Spring” Made for Comics...

Fri, 10 May 2013 11:55:38 -0400

comicsworkbook:

Andrew White

“Spring”

Made for Comics Workbook

For new followers who might not know, I am a regular contributor to Frank Santoro’s online magazine Comics Workbook. I’ve drawn almost 150 of these one page comics, and you can read them all here. This is today’s strip, which I thought came out well.

retrofitcomics: Go check out Andrew’s reading!!!whitecomics: I...

Sat, 04 May 2013 09:44:14 -0400

retrofitcomics:

Go check out Andrew’s reading!!!

whitecomics:

I will be doing a signing/reading for my new comic We Will Remain at Ada Books in Providence, RI. I’ve never done anything like this before, and I would love for you to come out if you are in the area.

Today! Come out and we will talk about comic books.

comicsworkbook: I’m going to be doing a summer correspondence...

Fri, 03 May 2013 18:46:06 -0400

comicsworkbook:

I’m going to be doing a summer correspondence course. The focus will be on advancing your understanding of layouts, color, contour line drawing, and printmaking for producing comic books. The 8-week class is $500. This class is limited: only ten students will be accepted.

Who the hell am I? I’ve been drawing comics since 1988 – and writing about comics since 1995. I’ve taught drawing at Parsons. My work has been exhibited at the American Academy of Arts and Letters in New York and the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh. I have worked as an assistant to fine arts painters such as Francesco Clemente, Dorothea Rockburne and Gary Panter. Many of my paintings are in the collection of Bruno Bischofberger. My comic Storeyville is, allegedly, one of Chris Ware’s favorites. I’ve collaborated with Ben Jones. I was in a drawing contest against the French master Blutch – and it was deemed a tie! I have appeared in two volumes of Kramers Ergot. I am working with Dash Shaw on an animation project. I worked for the silkscreen wizard Frank Kozik. I am friends with Yuichi Yokoyama. I got into a yelling match with Brian Chippendale because I’m against photo-referencing. Jaime Hernandez taught me where all the freeways meet in Los Angeles. Gilbert Hernandez said my comic Pompeii was “pretty good”.

Application guidelines:

-3 figure drawings done on 3 x 5 index cards

-3 landscape drawings done on 3 x 5 index cards

-3 still life drawings done on 3 x 5 cards

-specific url links to any comics work you have done.

Applications due by June 1st. Email me - capneasyATgmailDOTcom - and I will send you an invite to the course blog so you see what it’s like. Check out my “Layout Workbook” series over at The Comics Journal. Overseas students welcome. Payment plans available - I will work with you to make it affordable. Thanks! -Frank Santoro

So I took this course last spring and I learned a lot. If you have enjoyed any of the comics I’ve posted online lately, or my book from Retrofit, it is in no small part because that works reflects the things that I learned when studying comics with Frank.

I wrote a little more about what I got from the course here: http://whitecomics.tumblr.com/post/22454590580/franksantoro-frank-santoro-correspondence. I’m happy to answer questions from anyone who is considering taking it.

So I happened upon a very unusual comic recently. It’s...

Thu, 02 May 2013 16:54:00 -0400

So I happened upon a very unusual comic recently. It’s called In the Crack of the Dawn. A passing reference in Bart Beaty’s Comics Versus Art and a few other references I found online reveal little beyond what the final page of the comic itself says plainly: this was a collaboration between artists Matt Mullican and Lawrence Weiner, edited by Yves Gevaert and published by May 36 Gallery in Luzern in 1991. The back cover indicates that 100 signed hardcover books were printed, but it’s not clear how many copies exist of the softcover edition that I have. Neither Mullican nor Weiner seem to have produced any other comics work.

The comic itself is a very interesting abstract piece. One of the most compelling spreads is pictured here. I have the whole comic scanned; maybe I’ll post it online soon. If anyone can provide more details about this curious object please get in touch.

retrofitcomics: A one page comic from We Will Remain by Andrew...

Thu, 02 May 2013 08:28:04 -0400

retrofitcomics:

A one page comic from We Will Remain by Andrew White about how some famous authors react to the world around them. Now shipping!

There are a few one page strips like this in the book. Order from Retrofit or order direct from me to get a drawing with your comic. I’ve figured out a fun way to rework the final page of the book with colored pencils.

Reminder: if you’re in the Providence area, come to my signing this Saturday!

On Lose #2-4

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 13:40:00 -0400

So I read issues 2 through 4 of Michael DeForge’s series Lose recently. For the first time! Anyways, I liked the comics and I thought I would jot down a few thoughts about them here.

These comics work great as objects. The little ephemera pieces, the different cover stocks for each issue, the ‘about the author’ gags, etc. all really clicked for me. Although to be fair I am someone who has been irrationally obsessed with pamphlet comics of late.

I read all three issues in one sitting, and the improvement from one to the next is very noticeable. Even though these comics represent only part of DeForge’s output (Maybe even a minority? It would be interesting if that were true), I think it’s very impressive that he is improving so substantially year to year. On the other hand, perhaps because I read all three issues at once, I was underwhelmed by issues 2 and 3. They were good, but not compelling in the way that I imagined they might be from reading reviews, or in the way that I thought issue 4 was.

I liked issue 4 a lot, in other words. It has the best drawing as well. DeForge is a really good drawer — that’s an obvious point, but an important one. “Somebody I Know” was my favorite story in issue 4, but “Canadian Royalty” had the best drawings.

DeForge does have a few weaknesses that stood out to me in these comics. First, I think he sometimes is over-reliant on narration. Almost all of the stories in Lose have some kind of narration, and I think there are a few cases where it becomes a crutch. He also suffers slightly from a classical alt-comics problem: some of his stories ‘end’ more than they conclude. Now, this isn’t a weakness in and of itself. I love some of the Adrian Tomine stories that were often criticized for this supposed fault. However, it’s a difficult thing to pull off, and at least for me DeForge doesn’t always nail the landing. “The Sixties” in issue 4 is one example of this. Maybe I’ll reread the story so that I can articulate a little more clearly what didn’t work for me, but I just didn’t find the ending satisfying in a basic narrative sense. It seemed like it was building towards something, but then jumped very abruptly and without real explanation to those final two images.

The shared world of DeForge’s comics that is beginning to emerge is really interesting. I liked what the Comic Books Are Burning in Hell boyz said about this. This, as well as the way DeForge is putting out stand alone stories about his Leather Space Man character in a million different formats but with a loose chronology and overarching plot in mind, points towards an idea that also came through for me quite clearly in issue 4…

I would argue that DeForge is interested in the way that separate, distinct parts combine to make a whole. Not as a thematic concern, necessarily, but in terms of how he constructs and presents his comics. There are no superficial connections between the different stories in Lose 4, for instance, but thematic and even narrative connections are quite clear. This is, after all, “The Fashion Issue.” Both “Somebody I Know” and “Canadian Royalty” clearly fit under that umbrella, and I would argue that “The Sixties,” with its obvious commentary on appearance, individuality, etc. is also discussing “fashion.” Even the trick where the one page break up scene (which, by the way, is perhaps the same couple from the very first page) before the title page of “Somebody I Know” works as a single page, but then folds back into the main story, is an example of this phenomenon. This seems to me like a logical evolution of the original one person anthologies which seem to be a big inspiration for DeForge and many other younger cartoonists (including me!) I don’t think there were any real thematic connections between the stories in an issue of, say, Eightball, beyond the way that they were indicative of Clowes’ interests as an artist in general. The work certainly didn’t seem to be self-curated/edited in the way that Lose 4 evidently is. This might be a bit of a stretch, but I think you can even call the emerging ‘DeForge Universe’ an example of that curational instinct writ large. Interesting stuff. I look forward to reading Lose 5 soon.

http://whitecomics.bigcartel.com

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 09:16:04 -0400

http://whitecomics.bigcartel.com:

I set up an online store where you can buy my comics from me directly. Currently available are We Will Remain, my book with Retrofit Comics, as well as Territory, the comic I made for Frank Santoro’s Comics Correspondence Course. I’ll do a nice drawing in all the comics I send out. Thanks.

Process post! I’m drawing with brush pens on tracing...

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 13:26:57 -0400

Process post! I’m drawing with brush pens on tracing paper, refining with each new layer. Tracing paper is nice to draw on, and it doesn’t really have problems with ink as long as you’re not doing huge areas of black.

1) I have a good general idea of the story, but I’m trying to write/compose pages directly on the first layer and only in ink instead of doing thumbnails or anything. I cheat a little — pictured at the far left are some dialogue ideas, and I’m doing a tiny bit of underdrawing in blue pencil.

2) Ideally the second pass is the final one. I’m trying to draw a little more quickly than I might prefer.

3) A smaller round of final corrections, plus in this case a drawing (the dots) that will be layered over the main image in gray.

Ok, let’s see if I can articulate this. 1) Comics benefit from and lend themselves to...

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 20:31:00 -0400

Ok, let’s see if I can articulate this.

1) Comics benefit from and lend themselves to rereading in really interesting ways, I think. TS Moreau talked about this a little in a recent episode of his podcast. Listen up! Image repetition, layering, visual or tonal cues that aren’t apparent on the first read….comics does things like this really well.

2) Comic books — pamphlets! — are much more rereadable than graphic novels. This isn’t just about the time it takes to read them, I don’t think, although that certainly helps. Pamphlets also facilitate a construction that benefits rereadability. In other words, a really dense 300 page book can be a bit of a slog, but a dense 40 page comic is perfect — at least for my taste. At that length, you have to make every page count, and every page is worth examining in detail. A longer work gives you more room to breathe, go on tangents, etc. but individual pages become less essential. I don’t know…I personally have reread my favorite pamphlets dozens of times (Crickets 3! Pope Hats 2!), but I’m lucky if I get through a graphic novel more than once, even if I really like it. That’s despite the fact that I cumulatively spend far more time with the pamphlets.

Just a thought. I could be totally off base. Nothing wrong with graphic novels, but I’ve found myself much more interested in both reading and producing pamphlet comics lately. I’ve been wondering why that might be.

I will be doing a signing/reading for my new comic We Will...

Fri, 19 Apr 2013 10:48:18 -0400

I will be doing a signing/reading for my new comic We Will Remain at Ada Books in Providence, RI. I’ve never done anything like this before, and I would love for you to come out if you are in the area.

I thought this panel came out well.

Fri, 19 Apr 2013 10:13:36 -0400

I thought this panel came out well.

retrofitcomics: Last night I turned a box of comics into these...

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 09:40:48 -0400

retrofitcomics:

Last night I turned a box of comics into these pile of copies of Andrew White’s We Will Remain!! Now shippping!!

Finally available. I worked hard on this book and I would love for you to order it and read it and let me know what you think. You can see some pages from it here and here.

After the pages go up on the wall, they come down again at least...

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 09:47:04 -0400

After the pages go up on the wall, they come down again at least once when I notice something that needs to be corrected. These are from the project now titled Black Pillars.

We Will Remain back cover art. Printed copies of the book exist...

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 12:56:07 -0400

We Will Remain back cover art. Printed copies of the book exist and this makes me very happy.

Mfive for Monday: Parallel Universes

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 09:57:00 -0400

(All apologies to Mr. Spurgeon)

1) Seth Fisher doesn’t go on that roof and does a Mazzucchelli into alternative comics.

2) Frank Santoro stays on as Fracesco Clemente’s assistant and becomes an acclaimed painter with a side interest in comics.

3) Shirow never gets into computers and instead figures out plot. His new serial is the biggest seller of the 2000s US manga boom.

4) ‘Denise’ allows Chester Brown to draw the more interesting version of Paying for It focused on their relationship.

5) Moebius draws a fairly straightforward autobio comic in the early 2000s that does gangbusters in the wake of Persepolis. Pantheon can afford to put most of his work into print in English.