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Everyone's doing it so we might as well get in on the act

Oscilloscope funnies

(found via Gary Panter)

100 Scenes, a graphic novel

my abstract graphic novel is available as a pay-for-download e-book from XinXii (Germany). the actual publisher is Transgressor, of South Australia.

you can read the first 10 pages freely by clicking on Look Inside / _excerpt_ at the XinXii link.

100 pages of black & white abstract shapes suggest a story.

similar to Andrei's blotcomics, but without frames.

A visit to the museum

Abstract Comics in "Party Crashers" show at Arlington Arts Center

Two of my digital animations:



Original art for four pages from my Ruins project:



my "Two of the Missing Pages from The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym":



(You can see more of my work in the show here.)

Rosaire Appel's and Derik Badman's wall (I'm sorry I didn't take better photos of their pieces):



Warren Craghead's cubes:



Warren's Un Caligramme, from the anthology:



A case-full of Warren's drawings:



Blaise Larmee's piece wasn't up yet when I took these pictures.

For more info on the show, see here.

Derek Beaulieu on "Abstract Comics"

Poet and visual poet Derek Beaulieu has written a column on Abstract Comics: The Anthology, where he also focuses on anthology contributor and blog member Billy Mavreas.

Andrei Molotiu has compiled an incredible anthology of non-narrativity and abstraction in his Abstract Comics: The Anthology 1967-2009 (Seattle: Fantagraphics Books, 2009). The book is companion to his excellent blog Abstract Comics: The Blog. Covering 43 different artists, Abstract Comics opens with a exemplary discussion of abstraction in comics books and its overlap with contemporary art...

The book is an incredible resource of potentiality (and the blog only furthers the discussion); I can’t recommend it higher.

In Pop Culture

Shrouds, by Gary Shipley

here are one of the Contents pages & one of the interior pages from Gary Shipley's 93 page "asemic novel" Shrouds.

so far, it is in PDF form, but he is looking for a publisher for a physical book version.

if you'd like to see the PDF, which is more than 50 Mb, please email Gary: gj-shipley (AT) ntlworld.com

(images updated on 14 Dec, with better scans.)

eighty samples

digital print / 16x20" /

"Edit: Maze"

Madam Illness, a 1-hour abstract comic

So, for Thanksgiving, I made a little art.  Thanks to Mike Getsiv's inspiration, I thought I would take a whirl on a 1-hour, 24-page comic.  I did mine digitally.  Otherwise, I followed Mike's rules. The only prep I did was establishing the page size and resolution.  The only post production was making the cover and the back page.  Well, and I had to do some file conversion to save as a pdf. 

Some pages are better than others, but in the spirit of the exercise I share them all here.  And yes, they are in the order in which I made them.  Dang, but that hour flew by fast!

I can't think of a better way to spend pre-feast Thanksgiving, though.  Thanks, Mike, for the idea and the pointers.

Madam Illness

Happy Thanksgiving!

And, while I'm on the subject, let me remind y'all that piss-take posts that have nothing whatsoever to do with abstract comics will be removed at the discretion of the administrator.

(You can save them for cometscomets, where they belong.)

Just sayin'.

Twentyfourinone

This is a 24-page abstract comic I made in 1 hour (yes, one hour), back in 2008.

I printed a limited run of twenty-four copies which sold out (actually, four of them were trades) at the Portland Zine Symposium.

Abstract Comics: the group portrait

Tom Motley has been posting on his blog his doodles of panel discussions he attended--one of which was the AC panel discussion at MoCCA in September 2009. Follow the link in the image to see Tom's post and get to a larger version of the image.

Two Pages (by car)

digital print / 10" x 16"

two comic pages

"Party Crashers" exhibition opening this Friday in Arlington, VA

"Party Crashers: Comic Book Culture Invades the Art World," curated by Jeffry Cudlin and Cynthia Connoly, is opening this Friday at the Arlington Arts Center, in Arlington, VA. The exhibition is partly an Abstract Comics reunion, as four contributors to the book and one who was not in the book but who has been an active poster on this blog are included (though not all of them will be showing abstract pieces): Rosaire Appel, Derik Badman (whose art is featured on the invite), Warren Craghead, Blaise Larmee (who also designed the catalog) and yours truly (who also wrote the introductory essay for the catalog). I don't know exactly what pieces the others will show, but my contribution will include the original art for "Two of the Missing Pages from 'The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym'" and for the first seven pages of my ongoing project, "Ruins." I will also have two animated digital projection pieces.

The exhibition, I should add, also contains work by non-abstract cartoonists such as Jim Rugg, Gabrielle Bell, Jeffrey Brown, Dash Shaw, and many others. Of particular interest to the readers of this blog will be the work of Joshua Cotter, whose amazing recent book, "Driven by Lemons," is at least half-abstract.

The opening reception is 7-9 on Friday (members' preview at 6). I'll be attending and, if you're in the DC area, I hope to see you there! (Address, directions, etc., are in the link above.)

remix

this is my remix from 2007, using parts of a few visual poems by Edgardo Antonio Vigo (1928 - 1997). Vigo was an Argentinian visual poet & mail artist. my remix was for a project titled Homenaje a Edgardo Antonio Vigo, organised by César Reglero & Clemente Padín.

Court / Session

The ball's in your court -

and the court is in session.

A new fold-out book by Rosaire Appel, with black foam-core covers, 8.5x5.75", 19 pages.

available at:

CENTRAL BOOKING
111 Front St., Gallery 210
Brooklyn, NY 11201
347-731-6559
www.centralbookingnyc.com

Guyton \ Walker

Piece by Kazuaki Tanahashi

I don't know if this was intended as an artwork in its own right, or as sequential (it appears as the background for Mr. Tanahashi's contact info page), but it works beautifully on both counts:



Kazuaki Tanahashi is a Zen-inspired ink painter and a translator of the works of the great 13th century Soto master, Dogen.

By the way, if you know my art, you can see why I would like this piece, can't you?

Luc Tuyman's semi-abstract comic

This is the best darn Tuyman's I have seen. Apparently made to be the basis of a collaborative video with Kerry James Marshall.

My girlfriend is a photographer and had some old 18x18 inch gallery prints of her work she was throwing away because they'd been dented, scratched, gotten dusty or whatever. I've been taking the castaways and drawing on them with sharpies, sectioning them off and converting them to abstract comics. It's a fun exercise to look at an existing photo and figure out how to construct an abstract narrative out of it.

"It Bleeds..." A 24-Hour Comic

I hesitate to share this contribution to the "24 Pages in 24 Hours" create a comic project.  I realize it is not, technically, an abstract comic,but I hope you can see the influence ACs have had on me.  I stuck to the protocol and produced 24 pages in 24 hours, so they are rough in places and I don't think it quite "pulled together" as much as I would like.  Still, since I first heard about this project through this blog, I thought it was worth sharing the results here.

Enjoy.

It Bleeds, It Won't Be Contained

Where In/ a series of events

"Where In/ a series of events" is a 68 page book of abstract/ comic drawings of unspecified events. In black and white on cream paper. 8x10".
(Available for $15 at https://www.createspace.com/3479299)

Who's honoring us now?

Three pieces from Abstract Comics: The Anthology are listed in the "notable comics" section of The Best American Comics 2010--specifically Derik Badman's, Warren Craghead's, and Alexey Sokolin. Also included on the list is "[otherwise untitled]" from my book, Nautilus. I don't think I mentioned this anywhere, but in the 2009 edition my piece "Expedition to the Interior," as published in Blurred Vision 4, was included on the same list. Thanks, Matt and Jessica!

Julie Mehretu has discovered abstract comics

by which I don't mean Abstract Comics, though that's always a possibility.



According to the article, she added to her large etching "a grid that divides the finished composition into 12 equal parts, a gesture that the artist said was intended as a kind of pacing not unlike a musical composition."

Bright Lights diptych part 2

Abstract 23 Series 2
Drawingsilence.com

Bright Lights diptych part 1

Abstract 22 Series 2 More from my found image comics. Part 2 tomorrow.
Drawingsilence.com

Mystérieuse matin, midi et soir - El Eternauta

You are invited...

More specifically, this is at Franklin College, in Franklin, IN, just outside of Indianapolis.

Oliver East's Trains Are Mint...

Oliver East's Trains Are Mint... is not an abstract comic, but his drawing often veers into abstraction. This is the first page (which I am quite enamored with) of his latest issue #7. For a complete story of his available online, check out his fourth issue. (Edit: sorry, the fourth issue seems to offline.)

"SAY WHEN" an abstract comic

A digitally printed, limited edition,  foldout book of  sixteen folds (eight spreads) - with red covers.

Two (out of eight) spreads:

Ground