• Iranian-French author shares culture, Karolina Ramos, GW Hatchet
• Toronto Comic Arts Festival 2012 Questionnaire: Deanna Echanique, Mark Medley, National Post.
• I love this book: ‘Hit By Pitch’, Whitney Matheson, PopCandy.

Debuts and new issues:

• Bamn: Rob’s Adventure — free digital comic by Jay Payne (artist) and Troy-Jeffrey Allen (writer)
• Cartoon Picayune #3 — anthology edited by Josh Kramer. It is currently available online and should be in Politics & Prose and SMASH! soon.
• Starseed — ongoing webcomic that updates Tuesdays and Thursdays by Sarah P. (artist) and R.M. Rhodes (writer).

Upcoming releases:

• Team Cul de Sac: Cartoonists Draw the Line at Parkinson’s, various artists, Andrews McMeel Publishing. Benefit book for cartoonist Richard Thompson. June 5.
• Xoc: The Journey of a Great White, Matt Dembicki with colors by Evan Keeling, Oni Press. July 25.
• Mr. Big: A Tale of Pond Life, Carol and Matt Dembicki, Sky Pony Press. Sept. 1.
• District Comics: An Unconventional History of Washington, DC, various artists, Fulcrum Publishing. Sept. 11.

Events:

• Ongoing until June 17: “Life Unreal: Art by Evan Keeling and Scott White,” Northside Social, Arlington, Va. Artist reception is May 26 from 7 to 9 p.m.
• May 11: Jim Ottaviani and Leland Myrick, creators of Feynman appearance, 6:30 p.m. at American Institute of Physics, College Park, Md. Free and open to the public.
• May 12-13: Curls Studio (Carolyn Belefski and Joe Carabeo) at Asbury Park Comic Con, Asbury, N.J.
• May 12-13: Rafer Roberts at Asbury Park Comic Con, Asbury, N.J.
• May 12: Full Sanction (Rusty Rowley and Joe Mochove) at Winston-Salem Toy and Comic Book Show, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m, Winston-Salem, N.C. Admission is $2 and children younger than 12 are free. Presented by Ssalefish Comics.
• May 18-June 23: Christiann MacAuley (artist profile) at Artomatic, Arlington, Va.
• May 19: Super Art Fest 2012, noon to midnight, Metro Gallery, Baltimore, Md. Benefit for Ulman Cancer Fund. More information on Facebook or at Super Art Fight.
• May 24: Henry & Glenn Forever #1 release party with Ton Neely and Ed Luce, 7 p.m. at Atomic Books, Baltimore, Md.
• Beginning June 7: “Graphic Details: Confessional Comics by Jewish Women” at the Ann Loeb Bronfman Gallery, Jewish Community Center, Washington, D.C. More details to come.

Have comic news or events related to the D.C. area to share? Email me! Submit no later than Wednesday at 9 p.m. for inclusion each Thursday, but the earlier, the better! More information is here.

Hosted by Washington, D.C., chapter of the Women’s National Book Association, In Between the Panels: DC’s Emergence on the Graphic Novel Scene featured local creators Carolyn Belefski, Molly Lawless and Matt Dembicki and was moderated by Mike Rhode of ComicsDC. While there were many comic fans and creators in the audience, this event was obviously for the WNBA members. That was actually a cool thing — we knew about comics and liked them and they wanted to learn.

After introductions, Rhode started with the questions that were submitted by WNBA members. The first presented to the panel asked what age range comics and graphic novels are for, noting that children and teens seem to like them.

Belefski said that while some of her work, like Curls is for all ages primarily, there are comics like The Walking Dead that are obviously aimed at adult readers. Lawless said that comics are for everyone, but she understands that they’re more accessible to children overall. Dembicki said he tends to create comics about things that interest him. While the anthology Trickster that he edited was aimed more toward younger readers (and it, by the way, just made Kirkus Reviews’ 2010 list of Best Graphic Novels for Teens), his upcoming Brewmaster’s Castle (with Andrew Cohen) is not.

Dembicki also pointed out that up until the late ’80s and early ’90s, comics were, overall, geared more toward children or all-ages audiences. He said he’s noticing a shift back to kids’ comics in a way.

The next question was about the process — basically, “How are comics made?”

All three creators seemed to share a similar process — an idea or script, then thumbnail sketches and then the creation of the final pages. Everyone had a little bit different take on collaborating, although each said they were flexible. Dembicki said he general starts out with a straight script when collaborating. Belefski’s process was more involved — she often collaborates with Joe Carabeo on several projects and they’re happy to listen to each other’s ideas when it comes to story or art.

None of these creators said they primarily use the computer to create comics. Belefski uses a tablet to draw a nightly sketch, but that’s it. They said they may use the computer to clean up art a bit, but all of them prefer drawing on paper.

Question three asked “Are some graphic novels more literary than others?” And while the answer is obviously “yes,” it did provoke a good discussion. Dembicki said there’s an entire range of comics — there have been some adaptations of Shakespeare, there are journalistic comics like Joe Sacco’s work, and then everyone talked about Chris Ware for a while. (Ware is undoubtedly important, but I’m not a fan, so admittedly, I kind of stopped paying attention for a bit.)

The next two questions were related — how each got into comics and the challenges of pursuing it as a vocation. Lawless said she always wanted to be an illustrator, but she found illustration work wasn’t fun. Comics gave her something to draw. Belefski said she liked cartoons and animation, citing Bugs Bunny specifically, and creating characters and world-building was exciting for her. Dembicki’s story was a little different — his immigrant parents bought him comics to help him learn to read and he was hooked through childhood. As an adult, he got back into comics after picking up The Sandman from his wife but didn’t feel interested in the superhero stuff any longer.

Belefski said that of course she’d love to do comics full-time — who wouldn’t? — but it’s nearly impossible. Lawless said “it’s very exposing” and it’s a challenge to make comics even when you love it. Dembicki joked that comics were a way of “avoiding contact with my family” but said he never wanted to do it full-time and is happy to do it part-time.

Belefski discussed how hard it can be to promote your work — it’s not enough to just make a comic, you have to go sell it to people. If you’re lucky, she said you may have a “staff of five volunteers” who help out, but no one is really getting paid.

After a discussion of inspiration (it mostly came down to that everyone wrote about what interested them and were making comics mostly to entertain themselves), there was a question about technology’s role in comics. Belefski said that while she still likes to make printed books, webcomics are easy — you just upload an image — and getting feedback is quick. Lawless said the Internet gives people a way to find you quickly and print-on-demand means you don’t have to pay to get your books printed upfront.

Dembicki said he uses his blog and Facebook to promote his work or to provide previews but he doesn’t really do webcomics and thinks it’s something that’s still emerging. However, he also brought up his District Comics project,which will be exclusive to the web at first.

There were another couple of questions that were basically already covered previously before Rhode turned it over to the audience. The first question asked if any of the creators had any formal art training. Both Lawless and Dembicki said they’d taken art classes growing up and in high school, but not in college. Belefski went to college for art but did communication/graphic design (which she said is the best way for artists to make money). She did also take a sequential art class and an animation class.

The most interesting audience question to me asked if there was any benefit to making comics in the DC area. Dembicki said it doesn’t matter with technology now — we can all be connected — and also pointed out that it’s a very transient area. However, he said there are a lot of different creators with a lot of different styles and it’s still an interesting place to be.

Belefski said it’s taking steps toward becoming a comics town. In the area, we have Small Press Expo and Baltimore Comic-Con a little farther to the north. Groups like DC Conspiracy provide resources and networking opportunities.

That’s something I’ve thought a lot about and I tend to agree with Belefski’s stance that it is growing but may not quite be there yet. The DC area isn’t necessarily cheaper than New York, but at the same time, there are cheaper areas around here (depending on how far away from DC proper you want to be) and people around here are actually hiring. I doubt we’re going to supplant any of the major comic-creating hubs any time soon, but I think we’re worth watching.

I enjoyed it, even though I already know quite a bit about comics (I do love any discussion of the creative process, though) and I hope those who didn’t know about comics learned something.

When it comes to comics, no, D.C. is not New York (we’re not even Brooklyn). Or Portland. Or the Bay Area. But the D.C. area actually has a pretty impressive wealth of comic-book talent lurking around. (And if you want to be a little liberal with your definition of what the D.C. area is, there are plenty of great creators to the north in Baltimore, to the south, we have the Richmond-based AdHouse Books.)

Also, it’s important to note that we have Small Press Expo, which is older than Stumptown, MoCCA Festival and the same age as Alternative Press Expo. Obviously, there is plenty of interest and excitement when it comes to comics in the D.C. area.

Moderated by Mike Rhode (left in the photo above) and featuring Andrew Cohen, Evan Keeling of DC Conspiracy, Ben Claassen (who lives in Baltimore now, but we like to pretend he’s ours), Shannon Gallant and Matt Wuerker, Graphic Content helped showcase the creators living in the D.C. area. It was organized through Northwest One Neighborhood Library in D.C., just a few blocks from where the annual American Library Association conference is currently occurring.

Rhode started the panel off with the question about how each began creating comics. Cohen said he liked the formality of it, but also that it was cheap. Keeling said that comics attracted him because he likes the linear and storytelling nature of them. Claassen mostly said he liked making people laugh and Gallant came into comics through cartoons (which is appropriate, since he’s now doing G.I. Joe for IDW). Wuerker, as a political cartoonist, was kind of the outlier of the group, but said he likes reacting to news events.

The rest of the questions mostly came back to the issue of what it’s like to be a comic creator right now. Even though Wuerker has a desk at Politico, he likened making comics to being a poet — lots of people want to do it and most of them are happy to do it for free. There’s no money in it. While Gallant is doing comics full-time, he said his wife is the breadwinner. Claassen has a few jobs and at this point, is giving his comic Dirt Farm to the Washington City Paper for free (I had kind of guessed that because I knew WCP had cut their entire comics budget). Cohen said he sees doing comics as an avocation — and he actually prefers it that way because he can just do the projects he’s interested in and doesn’t have to worry if they’re going to make money.

Gallant brought up that he feels like to really make a living doing comics, you basically have to be at DC or Marvel. He said he still gets royalty checks for some work he did and while it’s not a ton of money, it’s money. Everyone also talked about selling original art, whether pages or in Claassen’s case, paintings, to supplement their incomes.

There was a sense in order to succeed, comic creators kind of need to stick together. Cohen said one of the points of the DC Conspiracy is to not only provide collaborators or feedback but to give people a way to pool resources — it’s much easier for a group to buy tables at a con than it is for an individual, and while someone may not remember a specific creator, they’ll probably remember a group. And while Gallant said he was never an official member of Gaijin Studios, he did learn a lot from the members while he was in college in Atlanta.

The last question dealt with where everyone though the future of comics was going to be. There was much discussion of the iPad and the digital age. Wuerker was optimistic and thinks someone’s going to figure out how to get money into the pockets of creators, but Gallant wonders if he’ll still be working 10 years from now. Claassen says he does hope there will be a new “golden age” of comics, but isn’t entirely sure. He does like the immediacy that the Internet can provide, though — he can make a comic, post it and get almost instant feedback. Cohen thinks that as much potential as the Internet has in terms of comics, people still want a print product.

There were a few questions from the audience, but probably the most relevant one to me was from a woman pointing out that you know, everyone on the panel was white and male and how diverse they felt comics were. And yes, I did notice the whiteness and maleness of the panelists (but I do want to not that while there wasn’t a large turnout, it was mostly women. I think that probably had something to with the ALA conference, but it was still a cool thing to see). Wuerker said there’s not a lot of female political cartoonists, but both Cohen and Keeling said that DC Conspiracy does have a few women and is fairly ethnically diverse. Most talked about how when they were first starting out, it was much less diverse than it is now (Gallant, I believe, brought up The Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons).

It’s a change I’ve, of course, noticed — not only do we have many more female comic creators getting attention, we have more women and girls showing up to cons and shows. I do think comics are becoming more and more open and that’s always a good thing.

It was definitely a great panel and showed off some of the talent we have in this area. I think it goes a long way to proving that we’re a pretty cool place when it comes to people making comics.

But then, I’m obviously biased.

(Thanks to Rhode & D.C. Public Libraries for putting this on.)