In the latest issue of Print Quarterly, I review Glenn Fleishman’s instructive, detail-oriented How Comics Are Made — A Visual History from the Drawing Board to the Printed Page. The book is a very helpful examination of the complicated, sometimes arcane, production and printing processes behind newspaper strips in particular, from the late nineteenth century till today. Here’s an excerpt:

Chromolithography, Electrotype, chalk plates, flongs, Zip-a-Tone, X-Acto knives, Ben Day dots, stat cameras, Rubylith, rubber cement, Wacom. The terms emanating from mass media printing in the modern era, notably in the realm of comic strips, are recondite yet evocative. They might baffle even print connoisseurs, and while comics afficionados are generally vaguely familiar with them, the arcane, highly specialized processes of which they are part, and which have brought comics to life on the page for upward of two centuries, remain exotic abstracts to most.

 

In steps Fleishman with this comprehensive study of the printing techniques of North American newspaper comics from the dawn of mass media to the digital present. Not an academic study, the book brings the enthusiastic zeal and keen attention to detail which, in the still institutionally unconsolidated domain of comics and cartoon studies, largely remains the preserve of fans.

In other words, this book is a balm for anyone curious about this and as such highly recommended.

Catch the review in Print Quaterly, available in better research libraries the world over!

Aretino was involved in printmaking throughout his career, employing it as a way of self-promotion but also encouraging creative engagement in the medium on the part of his friends, not least Titian. In the review, I reattribute the design of an engraved portrait of Aretino of around 1534 by Jacopo Caraglio, and a woodcut frontispiece based on the same model, to Titian. Consult the issue at your local art library!

Publications reviewed: Anne Bisceglia, Matteo Ceriana and Paolo Procaccioli, eds., Pietro Aretino a l’arte nel Rinascimento, exh. cat. Florence, Uffizi, Florence 2019; Anne Bisceglia, Matteo Ceriana and Paolo Procaccioli, eds., “Pietro Pictore Aretino”: Una parola complice per l’arte del Rinascimento, Venice 2019; and Anne Bisceglia, Matteo Ceriana and Paolo Procaccioli, eds., Inchiostro per colore: arte e artisti in Pietro Aretino, Rome 2019.

Giulio and Domenico Campagnola, Musicians in a Landscape, c. 1517, engraving, Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett

The exhibition was based entirely on the Kupferstichkabinett’s incredibly rich holdings and provides a stimulating overview of Arcadian imagery in Italian graphic art from c. 1440-1640.The catalogue is written by Dagmar Korbacher, Christophe Brouard and Marco Riccòmini. It contains innovative takes on especially the Venetian drawings and engravings of Giulio and Domenico Campagnola and related artists, like the above masterpiece by the two of them.