2013 in Review: Bruce Mutard

What have been your personal cartooning/comics highlights of 2013?

Going on the Caravan of Comics to TCAF, CAKE and Fantagraphics. Making comics at Ragdale in Lake Forest at the same desk Audrey Niffenegger wrote The Time Traveller’s Wife. Same comic appearing as a catalogue essay at Linden Centre for Contemporary Arts exhibition Space Oddity. Adapting Microaviary by Amanda Johnson for Cordite: Pumpkin. Le Silence being published by Ca et la in August. Meeting a few comics heroes: Art Spiegelman, Chester Brown, Chris Ware and so many other great comics artists on the road both overseas and here. 

What are some of the comics you've enjoyed in 2013?

I’ve hardly had time. Some of the things I picked up on the road: Bernie Mireault’ To Get Her (swapped with him in Montreal). Elaine Will’ Look Straight Ahead (staggering talent); Judith Vanistendael’ When David Lost His Voice; mini comics by Luke Howard, Alec Longstreth, The Whole Hole by Anya Davidson… I brought back a bloody bookcase full of stuff and still haven’t got around to reading even 1/3rd of it. Oh, yes, may as well mention it: Building Stories by Chris Ware is remarkable in concept and execution. 

What is something non-comics that you have enjoyed in 2013?  

Travelling to the USA and Canada for and about comics. But on the road I go to every big art gallery I can get to. Loved the Art Institute of Chicago - stunning modern art collection. Traipsing around Oak Park where all the Frank Lloyd Wright and then reading ‘Building Stories’ by Chris Ware, which was largely set there afterwards; bit of a trip to recognise it. Then being chased into Chicago on the El by a tornado (well, it was system than bred them). LA living up to all expectations: trashy, glitzy, tawdry, flat, bleached, but so very like TV and the movies. But all of the US is like that. Watching TV and movies about the USA is like learning about someone by going through their rubbish.

What are you looking forward to in 2014?

Ideally it should be mostly head down and bum up on making comics. I need to finish my Masters project by July and get a solid chunk of The Fight done. It probably won’t be out until 2016. I think I’ll be less peripatetic, but I always say that. Publishing Art Is A Lie by Carol Wood and Susan Butcher - you ain’t seen nothin’ like this. 

 

www.brucemutard.com.au/