John Santry Illustrations #4

Another selection of Australian cartoonist and illustrator John Santry (1910 - 1990) Illustrations from the Australian Woman's Weekly.
John Santry Illustrations #1  John Santry Illustrations #2
John Santry Illustrations #3 John Santry newspaper strip The Conways with Betty Roland.

 

 Source: http://trove.nla.gov.au/

Cameron Laird Interview

 

In the last leg of it's funding campaign on Kickstarter the Crayfish is an adventure comic set in Australia created by writer Cameron R. D. Laird and artist Adam Rose.

From The Crayfish synopsis,

"The year is 1950. The place, King Island, Australia. Norman Williams -- a hearing-impaired, WWII veteran -- lives with his technologically and mechanically savvy younger brother Gerald on the failing family farm. Over the years King Island has become increasingly targeted for its abundance of natural resources, array of possibly bountiful shipwrecks and other such riches. Norman will do anything to stop those that wish to destroy the island, and its inhabitants' way of life. An aim which can only be achieved, by becoming The Crayfish."

The Crayfish on Kickstarter.

Via email I asked Cameron R. D. Laird a few questions about The Crayfish.

What inspired you to use a period setting for The Crayfish?

I’ve always loved the 30s, 40s and 50s eras, the fashion the music and the grittiness of technology amongst other things. The great thing about writing is that you can create anything you want and set your story at any time or place that you want. So I did. Also The Crayfish was always going to be set in a post-war era, so the 50s were a perfect fit.

Exploitation of natural resources is very relevant to modern Australia, what brought this element to your story?

I always wanted there to conflict on the Island, stories need conflict, but I didn’t want to necessarily have a “supervillian” or anything like that. Essentially, King Island is a place that has a lot of varied natural resources and I wanted to use that as a key reason for bad things to happen. It wasn’t until I had written the first issue and thought up a few more stories that I noticed how someone might think they were a commentary for current world events. I don’t mind that at all though.

Can you talk a bit about how your collaborating with artist Adam Rose?

I have actually never met Adam in person. Every contact we have had has been thanks to the internet. I’m talking hundreds of emails and thousands of Facebook messages. Our collaboration started when Adam sent me a couple of drawings of The Crayfish. I had posted a few times online desperately seeking an artist and he answered the call. We quickly got into our relationship of back and forth. He would send me sketches of characters and locations and ask what I thought, I would tell him what I thought and he’d go away and refine and refine. Before long we had a style and character designs that we were both happy with. He’s a really easy artist to work with. And his art is freakin’ good too!

Was kickstarter always a factor in getting the Crayfish made?

We decided quite early on that the plan was to crowd-fund the comic. We saw that a lot of other comics were having success with it and I thought, “Why not The Crayfish?” We eventually settled on Kickstarter and we couldn’t be happier with the support we’ve received.

How are will The Crayfish be distributed?

A good portion of the first print run will go straight to pledgers and then we hope to distribute through comic book stores throughout Australia and New Zealand. We already have a few stores that are keen to stock the book. We will also set-up an online store which people will be able to order the book through, so no matter where you are, you’re going to be able to grab a copy.

You've hinted at a second issue of The Crayfish on your Kickstarter, can you talk a bit about future plans for the comic? is there an end point or complete arc planned?

At the moment I’m working on Issue 2 and we’re looking to start production on that as soon as possible. Short answer: there is no clear end in sight for The Crayfish. Each issue will have a self-contained story but with an overall arc woven through. I want people to be able to enjoy every issue whether they’ve read the previous ones or not and I think the self-contained nature of the books will allow that. That’s the plan anyway!

The Crayfish

John Dixon Gallery

Gallery of John Dixon Comics in celebration of his 85th birthday today.

 (Keith Chatto cover for Air Hawk.)

(Keith Chatto cover for Air Hawk.)

 

 Images © 2014 John Dixon

Happy 85th Birthday John Dixon

Australian Woman's Weekly Covers - Virgil Reilly

Selection of wartime Australian Woman's Weekly covers by Virgil Reilly.

Illustration and cover gallery.

Film Illustrations from the Evening Standard 1920.

Wartime illustrations.

 Source: http://trove.nla.gov.au 

Nothing Ventured - Natalia Zajaz Interview

Late last year Non-profit Australian publisher Finlay Lloyd launched a new series of books with their Finlay Lloyd Smalls line. Amongst the first five books in the series were NY a graphic story by Mandy Ord and Nothing Ventured, a blackly comic graphic story by Natalia Zajaz. Nothing Ventured was my first exposure to Natalia's work and I really liked her loose expressive style of drawing and darkly humourous stories. I asked Natalia a few questions about her background and working on Nothing Ventured.

How did you get first get interested in comics?
When I was a kid I used to read  stuff  like Andy Capp and Snake, Hagar the horrible and Garfield. Whatever was lying around. I remember loving The Penguin Leunig, the one with the cover of a little man running along with a butterfly net trying to catch his head. When I was about 13 I got a Calvin and Hobbes anthology. It had an essay by Bill Watterson in the front about making comics which I found really interesting. He talked about being inspired by George Herriman’s backgrounds in Krazy Kat. I was super keen to get some Krazy Kat comics but never did. It’s still on my things to do list.

You studied art in Sydney, were you making comics then?
Yeah. I was really into the idea of wordless comics for a while. I was blown away by Shaun Tan’s work and so I copied his style for a bit. Then I met Leigh Rigozzi who lent me heaps of great books and taught me a lot about comics. I read a heap of North American anthologies and made some horrible, horrible autobiographical zines. Then I got into Norwegian comics and copied Jason’s style for a while. Towards the end of uni I moved into a house and met a guy called Adam France and we made some zines together. They were the most fun and the most funny. I found a bunch of them the other day when I was cleaning up and re-read them. Adam draws super fast and loose and doesn’t worry about stuff like spelling mistakes. Where his drawings are honest and spontaneously funny, mine often tend to be contrived and awkward. I’ve learned a lot from Adam.

How did you get involved with publisher Finlay Lloyd? had you started Nothing Ventured before they were onboard to publish it?
I met Julian through my boyfriend, George. Julian mentioned that he and Phil were planning to publish a series of small books by relatively unknown writers and artists and asked if I would like to be involved. I sent some old work down to Phil in Melbourne and they offered me 60-something pages to do whatever I wanted, which seemed like a pretty amazing deal! I struggled with the freedom and took way too long to get started. I was kind of paralysed for a long time because I didn’t want to fuck up such a great opportunity.

Was there much editing or revision involved in the creating Nothing Ventured?
Yeah, heaps. Originally I drew a single 62 page story. I sent Phil and Julian the storyboard and then spent weeks working on it. Once it was finished, inked and scanned I e-mailed it to them. They were enthusiastic but both said they liked the storyboard better. They liked the spontaneity and unfussiness of the sketches, so after that I decided to just draw as much as possible and stop worrying about it. After a few weeks I gathered up a big pile of papers and posted them to Phil for him to sort through and pick what he thought worked.  There were a few bits that didn’t make it in, and a few bits that did, that I was kind of sad about, but I think Phil did a really great job. He took a giant pile of scribbles and made a book out of them! It’s been a really interesting process and I’m grateful to both Phil and Julian for pushing me in a different direction. I think the book turned out to be much more than it would have without their help.

Here’s some panels from the original story:

   

Finlay Lloyd

Images © 2014 Natalia Zajaz