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Creator Talks: LB Lee on Mental Health Comics

BOSTON COMICS ROUNDTABLE PRESENTS: Creator Talks, with LB Lee on Mental Health Comics

The Boston Comics Roundtable’s Creator Talk series will continue on Sunday September 6th with mental health cartoonist LB Lee. Held at the new Boston Comics Workspace at 561 Windsor St., Studio 306, the event is free and open to the public, though a suggested donation of $5 is welcome. Lee’s talk will begin at 2:00 pm and is sponsored by Ninth Art Press.

Lee lives with Dissociative Identity Disorder, a topic explored in their comic MPD For You and Me. Their work, populated with “mentally unusual people,” incorporates rigorous research with a playful approach. They have appeared at various academic conferences and comics conventions, shining a light on the realities of trauma, homelessness, eating disorders, and other less-than-traditional but important topics.

Lee’s Creator Talk will focus on process, from research to the final product. They will discuss the challenges that come with mental health cartooning—telling difficult stories and translating psychological phenomena into readable art—as well as personal challenges that come with working around a disordered memory.

About LB Lee
LB is a multivarious entity who make mental health comics, draw pretty pictures, and write stories about a mythical medieval Europe where the Roman Empire never existed. You can find more about LB Lee and their work online at http://healthymultiplicity.com/loonybrain/Home.html.

When: Sunday September 6, 2015 at 2:00 PM
Where: 561 Windsor Street, Studio 306, in Somerville

Facebook Event.
Calendar Event.

August 25, 2015
Roundup: Mini-Comics Workshop

The Mini-Comics Workshop on August 9th was an afternoon of enlightenment. Avid learners gathered to get at the heart of the art of the mini-comic. The talk was technical in nature and began with a basic overview of what mini-comics are as well as exploring technique and design. We had several presenters to discuss the concept of the mini-comic as well as their personal styles.

Roho discussed how minis are defined, how to layout the pages for printing, and differently used formats.

Ben Doane showed a few of his minis, including Homeless Houses, which is designed and cut in the shape of a house. Ben also talked about his low-tech manner of drawing where he draws his pages in spreads already laid out for printing and 1:1 size.

Jesse Lonergan showed examples of Photoshop files and illustrated how he draws and scans his work individually, lays out his spreads digitally, and adds colors and tones. He also took apart a two-folio mini with heavier stock (Faster Miles an Hour) to show how you can sew books together when there are too many pages to reasonably fold and staple.

Finally, Heide Solbrig did a demonstration of how to make an eight-page book out of one sheet of paper and all attendees got to make their own!

It was a fun and engaging afternoon. We look forward to the next one!

August 15, 2015
Constrained Comics Night

Please join us on Thursday, 8/20, 7-9:30 PM, at the Boston Comics Workspace for a constrained comics event! This will be an interactive drawing event that will culminate in a one-page comic of your own. A small group of us have been doing constrained comics for a while and they are both challenging and fun.

You can see the results of our weekly experiments here:

More Constrained Comics here: Your Drawing Sucks.tumblr.com/

What are constrained comics?
Constrained comics are comics drawn according to set rules and limits. This may seem counterproductive for creativity, but constraints can actually push you to try new approaches in your comics. For those of you with artist’s block, constraints can help you overcome indecisiveness and just get the ink flowing. Who knows, you may walk away with the first page of your next minicomic!

What will we be doing, exactly?
We will be doing a symbol comic. We will pull a random symbol out of a bag and you will have 10 minutes to draw a panel that incorporates the symbol (literally or figuratively). We’ll do this a total of six times and then have an hour to ink and letter. See if you can reign in the randomness and create a coherent story. Or don’t! See if you can make something wild and unsettling. The remainder of the time will be spent sharing our pages with one another.

What should I bring?
Basic drawing supplies like paper, pencils, pens, and markers. I recommend working at or near standard letter size.

But I’m a writer?
Writers are absolutely welcomel. You can use this as a writing exercise or perhaps pair up with an artist and work together.

August 11, 2015
Creator Talks: L.J.-Baptiste
SOMERVILLE, Mass. – Please join the Boston Comics Roundtable (BCR) for our next Creator Talk with cartoonist L.J.-Baptiste on his webcomic series COMIXSCAPE, a story about the absurd adventures of a young boy and his pet raccoon in his new town. The event will take place at the Boston Comics Workspace at 561 Windsor Street in Somerville, Studio 306, and begin at 2:00 pm on Sunday August 23. Admission is free and open to the public, though a suggested donation of $5 is welcome.

L.J. will discuss the development of the web series and go over the process of creating each chapter as well as streamlining the upcoming fourth chapter. Additionally, he will go into his technique for creating motion comics, detailing each step from holding auditions, to directing, producing, animating, and all manner of logistics. L.J. will also talk about his forthcoming ventures such as a character song mixtape and how these kinds of outside the panel projects affect his writing.

It promises to be an engaging afternoon of comics, animation, and fun.

About L.J.-Baptiste
L.J.-Baptiste is a 22-year-old artist from Dorchester, MA. His current work is COMIXSCAPE, which he began for DigBoston‘s Sunday Comics Project back in 2013. L.J. continues to work on the series in the hopes of reaching the climactic schoolgirl-zombie apocalypse that will be its final scene.

Read his comics at http://www.comixscape.net/

Where: Boston Comics Workspace, 561 Windsor Street in Somerville, Studio 306

When: Sunday August 23 at 2:00 PM
- Facebook Event.
- Calendar Link.
August 11, 2015
Roundup: Boston Comic Con 2015

Boston Comic Con! What an adventure! Thank you so much to everyone who came out to the con. It was such a pleasure meeting you all!

We’d also like to give a huge thanks to our Featured Artists Eric Boeker, Greg Moutafis, Bob Flynn, Joey Peters, Catalina Rufin, Cory Levine, Heide Solbrig, Jerel Dye, John Carvajal, and Joel Christian Gill. It was wonderful having you all at our table.

See below for some photo highlights from the event:

©Dan Mazur

©Dan Mazur

©Katy Rogers

©Ben Doane

©Patrick Flaherty

©Jordan Stillman

©Dan Mazur

©Dan Mazur

Did you miss us at Boston Comic Con? Not to worry! We have a few more conventions in the pipeline. We will be exhibiting at TopatoCon September 26-27th in Northampton, MA, and at the Massachusetts Independent Comics Expo October 17-18th right in Cambridge, MA! We are looking forward to seeing you all this fall.

August 8, 2015
Dwelltime Comic Show #2

The Jernegan Solution
a Dan Mazur comic book gallery show.

(Cambridge, MA – July 22, 2015) dwelltime’s third event in the dwelltime art fridays series will open an exhibition featuring local artist Dan Mazur on August 7, on view until October 2. The Jernegan Solution will feature a number of pages by Mazur, including sketches, studies and character designs. You will be also able to purchase a copy of the complete story featured on the walls.

About The Jernegan Solution:

A historical nonfiction comic “The Jernegan Solution” is the tale of a strange little gold rush that occurred in 1890s Maine. What Kevin Bramer at Optical Sloth calls “a thoroughly engaging comic that details a bit of American history that I was completely unaware of.”

Join the Facebook Event:

https://www.facebook.com/events/415555228654143/

About Dan Mazur:

Mazur wears many hats in the Boston comics community. He’s the creative force behind Ninth Art Press, the “unofficial publishing arm” of the BCR, co-director of M.I.C.E. (Massachusetts Independent Comics Expo), and an acclaimed author, cartoonist, and comics scholar. Most recently he is known for the compendium “Comics: A Global History.”

To learn more about Dan’s work on The Jenergan Solution please check out his Creator Talk at the Boston Comics Workspace here:

http://bostoncomics.com/creator-talks-dan-mazur/

For Dan Mazur talking about this work please join this Creator Talk at the Boston Comics Workspace:

http://bostoncomics.com/creator-talks-dan-mazur/

More about Dan’s Comics at http://danmazurcomics.com

Soft Opening:

Friday, August 7, 2015 5:00 to 6pm
dwelltime
364 Broadway St, Cambridge, MA
Free and open to the public.

August 6, 2015