Showing posts with label Leigh Rigozzi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Leigh Rigozzi. Show all posts

Thursday, February 13, 2014

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:



   

Images © 2014 Natalia Zajaz

Sunday, July 14, 2013

Mini Paper Trail


CGNZ profile Samantha Asri.




I don't direct folk to facebook too often but have a look and like Alex Hallatt's Artic Circle page over here.




Karl Wills' Princess Seppuku animation test.



Sarah Laing talks about her new novel The Fall of Light on Radio New Zealand.



Sarah shares some preliminary sketchbook work for The Fall of Light here.


I really like this comic by Gavin Aung Than.


Fiona Katauskas talks pictures with syndicated cartoonist Jason Chatfield.
 


Facebook page for Sam Wallman's Australian hisory anthology Fluid Prejudice.


"Fluid Prejudice is a collection of comics and drawings focusing on underrepresented and alternative visions of Australian history. An exhibition and a 200 page book will be launched late 2013, at Trades Hall, Melbourne."


Blood and Thunder 2 enters the Truth Zone. Part one and part two.




Clint Cure is seeking funds for a series of comic book biographies featuring movie directors.



System Earth Comic trailer,
a quarterly comic series from the Dunedin Comic Collective from the mind and fingers of Tom Garden.



I haven't been keeping up with things but Paul Rigby's Gallery and studio closed after eight years of operation a couple weeks ago. Further details here.


Michael Hawkins and Sean T Collins are still busy chronicling a behind the scenes look at Justin Beiber's life.


I like these goofy anthology covers from the fifties where Frew's lead character The Phantom would interact in bizarre ways with Australian characters created to capitalise on the Phantom's success.







I figure if I tease a bunch of articles/interviews here I'll give myself the impetus to finish them.

At the top of my to-finish-pile, writing up the few hours I spent with recently passed Frew publisher Jim Shepherd last year. Jim was very generous with his time and shared many wonderful stories and anecdotes with me that i really should get down on the record.


Profile on Australian illustrator Walter Jardine.


 Profile and interview with June Mendoza.



 A write up on collecting comics after thirty years.



Interview with Clubhouse comics editor Brendan Halyday.




Paper Trail masthead courtesy of Toby Morris.

Monday, March 11, 2013

Places To put Your Money


Dylan Horrocks has commenced producing daily water colours working with a weekly theme, this week being portraits of cartoonists. Dylan will be offering them for sale through his site. Get in quick folks, pages of Hicksville offered last week were snapped up in minutes.


The second volume of  Australian anthology Blood and Thunder produced by Leigh Rigozzi and Kernow Craig features a fine line up of Australian and New Zealand cartoonists including Michael Fikaris, Tim Danko, Kieran Mangan, Gregory Mackay, Mandy Ord, Jo Waite, Neale Blanden, Trevor Dickinson, James Flaxman, Andrew Fulton, Michael Hawkins, Sam Wallman, and others.

A Pozible campaign functioning as a pre-order is available here.

Sign up for the Blood and Thunder newsletter here.
 
Blood & Thunder on Facebook.


Roger Langridge has a Big Cartel store here. Original art from recent projects and sketches from Langridge's daily blog are available at BARGAIN prices. Buy up while you can!

Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Paper Trail


 Sarah Laing shares commissioned portraits of New Zealand artists and writers.

 
Roger Langridge has digitally released a previously unpublished 70 page comic created in the 90's, The Thirteenth Floor. Read about it here, available as a PDF and CBZ.

 
Langridge is also featuring in upcoming volumes of UK digital anthology Aces Weekly with The Fez Eldritch Detective.


Neil Sanders animation and illustration tumblr.


Jase Harper's Guh!


151 Capture Creatures by Becky Dreistadt and Frank Gibson.

Frank and Becky hourly comics. 


15 Comic Books are launching in Melbourne on March 2nd at this years BA3. Previews are going up daily on facebook and tumblr.



Endless Karma by Dan Cross and M. P. Fikaris.


Josh Santospirito writes about his recent performance with Christopher Downes of the Shipwright & the Banshee.


The Shipwright and The Banshee: MONA FOMA Performance from Chris Downes on Vimeo.

Just Be Honest For Now tumblr.




"Aftermath", objects & drawings by Leigh Rigozzi & Lachlan Conn.  Opening Friday February 8th, 6-8pm. Open Thursday - Saturday 12-5pm until Feb 24. Facebook it here.

  
Paul Mason writes about his cover design process for The Soldier Legacy's Strange Tales one-shot from Blackhouse Comics.

Hannah Nolan at Sensory Ghost


Tom Scott 2013 editorial cartoons.


Recently passed New Zealand broadcaster Paul Holmes portrayed by various cartoonists in The New Zealand Herald.

 Paul Holmes transition to Prime TV by Trace Hodgson

Rachel Fenton's Escape Behaviours.


Steve Saville on comics in the classroom and creativity part one and part two.



Aggressive Comics interview with Milk Shadow Publisher James Andre.

  Photo by Bobby N.

From the Pikitia Press WIP folder:

Keeping busy cleaning up scans for a book on New Zealand comics by Geoff Harrison. Here's some scans of New Zealand editions of Simon and Kirby's horror anthology series Black Magic, originally published by Prize Comics in the 1950's.