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Comics Workbook Magazine #4 is available now from Copacetic Comics.
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This issue features an interview with A. Degen by Graham Sigurdson, an essay on the Rothko Chapel (and minimalism in comics) by L. Nichols, a review of Andy Douglas Day’s Miss Hennipin by Sara Lautman, a translation of Barthélémy Schwartz’s 73 Notes on Comics from the French by Andrew White (with help from Schwartz), and new comic strips by Andrea Bjurst, Krystal DiFronzo, Inés Estrada, and Emma Louthan.
The cover was drawn by A. Degen.
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Limited quantities of #1, #2, and #3 are still available.
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Comics Workbook Magazine is put together by Andrew White (Editor / Wrangler), Zach Mason (Editorial Assistance + Design), and Frank Santoro (Editorial Supervision).
I’m very pleased with how this issue came out. Very strong work across the board. L Nichols is as good of a writer as she is a cartoonist. A.D. knocked his interview out of the park. Sara Lautman put up with my nitpicky edits and turned in an excellent, idiosyncratic review of a challenging work. Zach Mason did a great job curating this issue’s comics and all of the cartoonists involved turned in good work.
I’m especially excited for the Schwartz piece, but I promise not just because I translated it (translation isn’t too tough when the original author speaks good English and can double check your work!).
It’s kind of a big deal, at least to me, that we’re printed Schwartz in English for the first time (I think?). In the 1980s, he co-founded a magazine of comics criticism called Dorénavant, which became well known for its uncompromisingly avant-garde viewpoint. This is where the initial sections of 73 Notes were first published. Jean-Christophe Menu, one of the co-founders of l’Association, is such a big fan of Schwartz that he covered Dorénavant and interviewed Schwartz in l’Eprouvette, l’Association’s short-lived magazine of criticism.
You can read an excerpt from 73 Notes here. I found the ideas that Schwartz discusses very inspirational, and I hope you will too.