The CORNISH
CCS RESIDENCY
SPRING 2018 REPORT
Drawing by Harry Bliss.
The Cornish CCS Residency Fellowship Update
Greetings from The Cornish CCS Residency in Cornish, New Hampshire. We’re off and running with many thanks to you. Applications doubled with our second residency and we moved the dates from February to October (watching Nick Drnaso shoveling all that snow in my driveway was too much to bare). Ali Fitzgerald had, and all future fellows will have, the beauty of fall foliage, Halloween, and way too many chipmunks as inspiration. Sometime in early May we’ll post a short documentary about the program featuring interviews with our first two fellows, the cofounders of The Center for Cartoon Studies, and yours truly. I had my son, Alex, film the project in exchange for his SVA tuition - I think I got short changed. I’ll be sure to send you a link to The Center for Cartoon Studies web site in late spring to have a look. We are off to an amazing start and we could not have done this without your support, so consider yourself part of the vision and by all means, come visit! —Harry Bliss
INAUGURAL RESIDENT, NICK DRANSO The Cornish CCS Residency’s inaugural fellow, here this last February 2017, Nick Dranso, was awarded the New Talent prize at this year’s Angoulême International Comics Festival for the French edition of his debut Beverly, published by Presque Lune Editions. From his publisher: “A notable favourite among our 2016 releases and the winner of the LA Times Book Prize, it comes as no surprise the work has literally translated its brilliance across the pond, at Europe’s most prestigious comics festival.” Sabrina, the graphic novel Nick worked on during his time at Cornish, is being published this May and is already receiving critical acclaim. “Nick Drnaso’s Sabrina is the best book—in any medium—I have read about our current moment. It is a masterpiece, beautifully written and drawn, possessing all the political power of polemic and yet simultaneously all the delicacy of truly great art. It scared me. I loved it.” —Zadie Smith Nick Drnaso is one of the most ambitious, singular cartoonists to emerge in recent years, and his dedication to novelistic fiction is an inspiration. Incisive, chilling, and completely unpredictable, Sabrina demonstrates the inexplicable power of comics at their best. —Adrian Tomine, Killing and Dying Sabrina is startling. Drnaso’s formal ingenuity and confidence is matched by the acuity and depth of the story’s awareness of who and where we are right now. —Jonathan Lethem Drnaso depicts an indictment of our modern state – a world devoid of personal interaction, responsibility and intimacy – and contemplates the dangers of a fake news climate. —Globe & Mail’s Most Anticipated Books of the First Half of 2018
RESIDENT, ALI FITZGERALD
In 2015, Berlin resident Ali Fitzgerald began a series of comic workshops with refugees that were then supported by Comic Invasion and Amnesty International. Her first graphic novel, based on these workshops—as well as Berlin’s historical/contemporary relationship to immigration and bohemia—will be published this fall by Fantagraphics Books. At The Cornish CCS Residency Fellowship, Ali work on a series of comics investigating the aesthetics of nationalism and propaganda. Ali currently contributes comics and visual essays to New York Magazine’s The Cut and The New Yorker. She has also contributed art-world comics to Art Magazin and Modern Painters and created the popular comic Hungover Bear and Friends for McSweeney’s, which ran from 2013 to 2016. “The Cornish CCS Residency Fellowship was a formative and singular artistic experience for which I am incredibly grateful. Focus on comics in the relative solitude of a New England Autumn is a real gift and during my month-long stay I was able to refine my work while also enjoying a restorative quiet. In the mornings I would sit outside, overlooking a coppery valley and read comics borrowed from Harry Bliss or CCS’s amazing Schulz Library. It was during these mornings that I fell in love with the medium again. It’s easy to lose that initial artistic spark in the rush of constant deadlines, but my time in Cornish thankfully reasserted a love of visual narratives and their role in our shifting cultural spheres. The students and faculty at CCS were also inspiring in their community-driven engagement with image and story-making—the dialogue they fostered felt fresh and exciting. What was especially moving was the mentorship I received from Harry Bliss and James Sturm. Their input and generosity helped me formalize decisions about my first graphic novel and envision future artistic paths for myself. All of my interactions (even with the chipmunks) at The Cornish CCS Residency Fellowship were
incredibly nourishing and I hope that the initiative continues to grow and give other artists an opportunity to create and reflect in a really special place.​�
Frakturpg, page 34, by Ali Fitzgerald.
Frakturpg, page 8, by Ali Fitzgerald.
Frakturpg, page 76, by Ali Fitzgerald.
The Center for Cartoon Studies (CCS) is dedicated to exploring the past, present, and potential of cartooning by providing the highest quality of education to students interested in creating visual stories. The school’s students work alongside dozens of visiting artists, superb faculty, and of course, its fellows. The Center for Cartoon Studies is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt institution. cartoonstudies.org