New on the website MARSAM (founded by residents at La Maison des auteurs) is my comic The Three Apples, a tale from the Arabian Nights. It looks even better in French, with many thanks to Mosk Mimo for both the font and the translation. I drew this comic for the Graphic Canon, forthcoming in the Spring of 2017. See full 8 pages on Marsam, both in French and English. Sorry no Arabic (yet)!
Kinyras the Divine Lyre
My husband John Franklin’s book, Kinyras the Divine Lyre for which I drew about 50 illustrations, 2 maps, and designed the cover, was published in 2016 by the Center for Helenic Studies Press. This book was 10 years in the making and is as thick as a brick.
Congrats to John!
Visit to the Center for Cartoon Studies
The wonderful and patient cartoonists at CCS listened to my life story for several hours in November.
High-Low Review
Bonjour from Angouleme
Photo by Alain Francois in my studio at La Maison des Auteurs in Angouleme. I am working on a book about relationships in art school and my first trips to Greece and Israel. I love this place.
Dirty Diamonds Comics Anthology
I have a short comic in the anthology about Helen of Vermont.
Dirty Diamonds, an all-girl comic anthology, features the “semi-autobiographical” work of female comic creators from around the world, focusing on a single theme for each issue. For this, our sixth issue, we, the editors, released an open call, seeking comics related to the theme of BEAUTY.
The final product will be a perfect-bound, 8.5″ x 11″, 200 page book featuring a brilliant, gorgeous special guest cover by Carolyn Nowak.
SevenDays VT Previews ‘Graphic Lives’
Read at Seven Days Online: http://www.sevendaysvt.com/vermont/local-artists-depict-their-lives-through-comic-art/Content?oid=2641974
Local Artists Depict Their Lives Through Comic Art
- Sculpture by Alex Costantino
Somewhere at the intersection of memoir, fine art and illustration sits “Graphic Lives,” a four-artist installation that opens this week at Burlington’s New City Galerie. In using the medium of illustration to represent events and ideas from the artists’ lives, the show calls into question the standard definitions of “memoir” and “comics.”
Vermont artists Glynnis Fawkes and Alex Costantino are joined in the show by New York illustrator Summer Pierre and New Jersey cartoonist Jennifer Hayden. Even though — or perhaps because — all the artists’ styles are distinctive, the artworks in “Graphic Lives” combine to suggest possibilities not traditionally associated with comic art, or with the memoir genre.
Fawkes’ willowy illustrations draw on her experiences in art school, as well as on the classical myths she has studied and taught. Pierre specializes in single-page comics about complex subjects and people, including herself. Hayden uses pointy-nosed characters (which evoke those of Vermont Cartoonist Laureate Ed Koren) to tell the story of her battle with breast cancer. Costantino’s is the most unconventional work, combining not only comics and memoir but also ceramics. He makes jars and pots etched with scenes that unfold in frames akin to the panels of a comic.
“These are lives, expressed using these unique forms,” says Joseph Pensak, the show’s cocurator and director of New City Galerie. “They’re stories, and each life is a collection of stories. Sometimes those stories are scattered and not fully formed; some are so clear that they can be depicted in six panels.”
The combination of comics and autobiography is a more and more common — and savvy — union. Recent graphic memoirs such as Roz Chast’s Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant? and David Small’s Stitches: A Memoirhave appeared regularly on best-seller and end-of-year lists, as Alison Bechdel‘s Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic did before them. A January Publishers Weekly article on genre sales trends from 2013 to 2014 lists the second-biggest climber in nonfiction as biography/autobiography/memoir (up 12 percent); meanwhile, graphic novels made the biggest sales jump in the fiction category, with an increase of 15 percent.
For Fawkes, it was natural to use cartoons to depict events from her own life. “My memories are as visual as they are verbal,” she says. “I could just write the story — Once upon a time, I did this — but I can’t help but think of events that happened as very brightly visual, so that’s the way I want to capture them.”
Fawkes and Colchester artist Elise Whittemore came up with the idea for the show; both are, with Pensak, its cocurators. Fawkes knows Hayden and Pierre from comics expos; Whittemore, a friend of Fawkes and an admirer of her work, brought Costantino’s work into the show. “Seeing how comic artists create stories with text, visuals and design really intrigues me,” says Whittemore. “I admire this form that pulls all these things together.”
Pensak’s approach to the show’s subject matter is to treat it as a kind of folk art that is both accessible and profound. “Graphic Lives,” he says, offers “points of entry for anyone to discover the artists, and to dive in deeper.”
The artworks in the exhibit have no shortage of either of these qualities, which may be their appeal. Hayden’s panels, for instance, bring to mind familiar newspaper comics of previous decades but address the subject of life-threatening illness. Fawkes’ work is lissome and instantly engaging, yet its pictorial grace is countered and enriched by its multifaceted story about an artist finding her creative identity.
Pensak returns to the idea embodied by the show’s title. Though no artist can depict every single event or thought in his or her life, he says, “through a very specific story, [they] capture a life. It’s not a whole life, but it’s nothing less than a life.”
The original print version of this article was headlined “What’s So Funny? Artists Depict Their Lives Through Comic Art”
related events
‘Graphic Lives’ @ New City Galerie
Sketches, paintings, books and sculptures that examine the act of writing and drawing a life by comic memoirists Glynnis Fawkes, Alex Costantino, Summer Pierre and…
Through July 28
Soon to be in residence in Angoulême
This July and August I will be in residence at La Maison des Auteurs at
in Angoulême, France. Here is what it is all about:
La maison des auteurs opened its doors in July 2002 in order to provide positive support to cartoonists and animators working in Angoulême or who wish to spend time here as creators in residence.
La maison des auteurs has been established with the following purposes in mind:
> we offer a working environment that encourages creativity, host authors with a view to completing a professional project,
> we act as a showcase for creative achievements in the fields of comics, animated films and multimedia, through exhibitions and events,
> we provide a center for technical and documentary resources,
> we host professional development workshops and exchanges,
> we help to protect the author’s status and to defend intellectual property rights in the field of artistic creation.
Since its inauguration, la maison des auteurs has hosted more than 200 creators, whether new talent or seasoned authors, coming from France and abroad: Nicolas de Crécy, Aude Samama, Jimmy Beaulieu from Quebec, the Americans Jessica Abel, Matt Madden, Richard McGuire, Ted Stearn and the Russian Nikolaï Maslov.
Show at New City Gallerie in Burlington
New City Galerie presents
GRAPHIC LIVES: Glynnis Fawkes, Alex Costantino, Summer Pierre and Jennifer Hayden
Opening reception on Friday, June 5th, 2015, 5-9pm. Showing until July 28th.
Group statement:
When we look at a comic memoir, who are we looking at? At the intersection of drawing, writing, and memory, what about that life is being revealed? These four artists represent past and present lives and the objects and passions that feed those lives. Through sketches, paintings, books and sculptures, they create narratives that examine the act of writing and drawing a life.
Original hand drawn posters by Summer Pierre (4 versions featuring each artist’s self portrait).
MoCCAfest 2015
...took place in Chelsea, NY in April and was mighty fun. I shared a table with brilliant comix artists Summer Pierre, Jennifer Hayden, Ellen Lindner, Lexi Hart, and with a Saturday cameo by Henni author Miss Lasko-Gross. We all had books for sale, including these new ones of mine, now all available on storenvy.
The Sultan’s Daughter
...tells of the adventures of the beautiful daughter of the Sultan of Babylon, a story from Boccaccio’s Decameron. I am currently serializing the story on Activatecomix (updated every Friday). Now the 120-page book is available in print with many new images onStorenvy. This book began with Locating Boccaccio in 1013, an artists book exhibition celebrating Boccaccio’s Septcentenary in Manchester, UK with a series of paintings in gouache. Then, with the generous support of the Sequential Artists Workshop, I drew the whole story in pages using a brush pen and colored pencil.
The Sultan’s daughter is on her way to marry the King of Algarve when she is shipwrecked on Majorca. A duke rescues and seduces her. The duke’s younger brother falls for her, murders his brother, and starts a cycle of murder and rape that carries the Sultan’s daughter across the Mediterranean in the hands of various noblemen. Her odyssey ends when a family friend helps her return to her father in Alexandria and tricks the Sultan into believing she is still a virgin. She finally marries the king, which, in the medieval logic of the story, makes this a romantic comedy–the girl both enjoys free love AND the security of marriage–and a happy ending.
NO WORRIES on MUTHA Magazine
It Must be the Kids, Wherever They Are: New Post on Mutha Magazine
Read this and a few other true stories on Mutha Magazine.
Strumpet: The Friendship Issue
Yay! The Strumpet has arrived.
“This latest installment is all about lady friends — from best friends forever to friend with a question mark. Our fourth issue explores the highs, the lows, the joys, the sorrows, the awesomeness and the awkwardness of female friendship. Come for the sexual tensions, sibling rivalries, and other miscellaneous dramatics! Stay for the heartwarming resolutions, and for the sharing of fried foodstuffs.”
Here is the fist of my 6-page comic:
Comics Jam Residency at Champlain College
Graphic Novel/Comic-Jam Residency | Glynnis Fawkes | Feb. 16 – Feb. 20
February 16 – 20, 2015
Artist Reception February 20 in the IDX Student Life Center
As part of Comic Theorist Scott McCloud’s visit on February 23rd, Champlain College will host Burlington Graphic Novelist Glynnis Fawkes. During this five-day residency, Fawkes will lead students in hands-on sequential art workshops to create their own comic art narratives culminating in a collaborative exhibition of student stories.
Featured on the Center For Hellenic Studies blog
“An eye-catching feature of the CHS booth at the SCS book fair was a display of artist Glynnis Fawkes’ Classics-themed comic books. Throughout her career, Glynnis has woven together traditional art school training, an academic background in the Classics, and a love of cartooning that was as much inspired by Greek vase painting as by the New Yorker.”
New Books – my illustrations
These two exciting books, published by Cambridge University Press in 2015 and 2014, include my illustrations.
The Comics Bulletin reviews Bad Dad
The Comics Bulletin‘s review of Bad Dad Agamemnon:
“Glynnis Fawkes’s Bad Dad Agamemnon is a straightforward adaptation of Euripides’s classic tragedy Iphigenia in Aulis. This fascinating play, of deep artistic and historical importance, tells one of the side stories of the Trojan War, the tale of a tragic sacrifice that is demanded –and possibly granted — in order to win favor in that devastating conflict.” Read the rest here…
Bleeding.com's Review of MoccaFest Includes My Work!
Hannah Means Shannon from bleedingcool.com reviewed her favorite discoveries from last week's MoccaFest, the Society of Illustrator's annual convention held in New York last week. Here's is an excerpt from her write-up, which is worth checking out. She gives a nod to several stand-out illustrators and cartoonists.
Glynnis Fawkes is a contributor of comics to parenting websites and takes a walk on the wild side of mythology on a regular basis. She’s a world traveler steeped in ancient history and as a young parent of two kids, their antics become natural subject matter for the flip side of her comics production. Here we have a “kids stories” anthology “The Story of the Cheese” and her large-format mini excerpt of “The Decameron” by Boccaccio. Fawkes line work is so graceful that even the most earthy conversation with her kids becomes poetic while remaining strongly grounded in modern life. Unsurprisingly, this new kids stories collection features WINTER WINTER WINTER in her native Vermont since this past winter has been so brutal and I could really relate. When she dives into the Decameron she captures my mind with her flowing colors and innovative composition formats. Her distinctive and honest narrative voice will woo anyone who comes in contact with it.
Illustration featured on NPR FB page
I collaborated with Emily Harris on this illustration to go with her pair of stories on Israeli interrogation techniques featured on the NPR Facebook page.
