RISO Artist of the Month A. T. Pratt

What is your name and the name of your organization/location?

A. T. Pratt, NYC

How long have you been in the art industry?

I have been self publishing my comics since my freshman year of art school in 2010.

How long have you been using RISO duplicators and the method of RISOGRAPHY?

Originally I was printing my comics at the self service machine at local copy shops, and not only did that become cost prohibitive, but I also started learning about RISO from its rising popularity in the comics/zine scene in New York after graduating. I met Andrew Alexander of CRAM Books, Max Huffman, and Jack Reese (who put out Weakly Comics as a collective at the time) at Brooklyn Zine Fest when they were still students at SVA. RISD got a RISO machine the year AFTER I graduated in 2013, so I kind of missed the boat there, but here were cartoonists at SVA who were already putting out brilliant color work with these machines. Andrew started working at the SVA RISOlab soon after, and for a long time he was my access point to the machine, and I would design for print and he would print for me. So I had been designing my comics for print in RISO for 10 years but still never been in front of the machine printing for myself, which is really where I wanted to be but didn’t have direct access. I applied for RISOlab artist in residence in the summer of 2022, was rejected, but then that same summer I got hired to teach at SVA. Once I taught there for 3 semesters, I could fill out a tuition waiver for the continuing education classes, which are the prerequisite for printing at the lab. I’ve now taken 4 classes at the lab since spring 2024, and printed a ton of stuff on my own.

What are some of your favorite colors to use with a duplicator?

I love light lime, I love mint. This might be boring since there are a lot of interesting secondary and unusual colors in RISO but I love bright red, I love to punch in a bold fully saturated red in my artwork.

Why RISOGRAPHY?

Once I cleared the hump of getting into the classes and paying the lab fee, there’s really no better deal out there for printing. Beyond cost effectiveness, I love being able to do every job involved with making my comics, including the writing, pencilling, inking, coloring / digital post production, printing my own work, and the lengthy post printing production which involves unusual bindings, and a lot of hand-cut hand-folded pop-up and foldout mechanisms in most of my comics. Printing my own work does add another time consuming process, but it is so empowering to be able to do it all myself. There are many mysteries that come up during printing that the great team at the RISOlab know how to solve that are way beyond me, but it is still a really user friendly machine that feels manageable to troubleshoot (to an extent) when things get tricky. While it’s more work than getting something digitally printed by somebody else, it’s still much much faster and more efficient than forms of traditional printmaking where you could get similar effects with layers of color. It got me thinking about colors in a new way, getting a lot of bang for your buck with a limited color scheme, combining layers of color, etc. I still feel like a beginner with all that because what you can do with it is infinite.

What would you tell people who are just finding out about RISO Duplicators and the artform of RISOGRAPHY?

Of course embracing the imperfections is a big thing which can be challenging for cartoonists with detailed linework who want perfect color registration. Considering the palette and the interplay of the colors in the beginning of the process is still something I continue to attempt to wrap my brain around since I make my comics in a traditional process beginning with pencilling and inking and figuring out the colors after.

Upcoming Events

I’m closing up my summer with Tacoma Zine Fest, followed by Comix Thing in Portland, and LOOKOUT Illustration Fair in Norwich in the UK. Then I’ve got SPX, Cartoon Crossroads in Columbus, Philly Comics Expo, Ann Arbor Comic Arts Festival (A2CAF), Short Run Comix Festival in Seattle in November and ending the year with Tokyo Art Book Fair. Might be a few more that sneak in there.

Website Links:

atpratt.net
@atpratt