David C Mahler is currently on an international comics traipse through North America with a hobo's bindle full of a new anthology Flying Fox. Marc Pearson, Katie Parrish, Ben Sea, Leonie Brialey, Ruskidd, J.R Blue, Michael Hawkins, Merv Heers, Sam Wallman and David feature in this spunky little package. Read about Flying Fox on David's tumblr.
I'm proud to announce the Pikitia Press Blog has been invited by the National Library of New Zealand to be added to the National Digital Heritage Archive which
collects copies of New Zealand websites, plus sites relating to
New Zealand, for the preservation of their historical and research
value.
This Sunday 12 May Pikitia Press will be attending the Illustration and Comic Art Festival Chromacon from9am – 5pm at the Air NZ Foyer, Aotea Centre, Auckland, New Zealand. Sunday will see the offical launch of some new releases from the publishing arm of Pikitia Press:
Toby Morris' Dreamboat Dreamboat.
Toby Morris is an illustrator, designer, art director and comic
artist recently returned to New Zealand after 9 years of living and
working in Melbourne and Amsterdam. He made his start by drawing and
self publishing comics from the age of 13 and currently works as an
advertising art director by day and an illustrator at night.Toby's style has roots in the clear line
school of comics, but in more recent years has evolved into a looser and
simpler but still very graphic look. Sarah Laing's Let Me Be Frank #1 and #2
SarahLaing is a novelist and graphic designer who lives in Auckland, New Zealand. She has had two books published, and a third, The Fall of Light, is due out in July. She began drawing comics seriously in 2003, when she read Persepolis
and was reminded how much she loved the medium. She kept comics diaries
of her life as a new mother. These graduated to the internet in 2010,
when she was the Frank Sargeson writer in residence in Albert Park. Her
blog, Let me be Frank, quickly gained a following and she began contributing to magazines such as Metro, Little Treasures and Booknotes. Sarah is now working on a graphic novel about Katherine Mansfield.
James Davidson's Moa Volume One.(Collecting the first three issues of Moa and extras.)
James Davidson, creator of Moa, a comic series set in a distant New Zealand where
history and myth collide. An Art teacher by day, James has a passion for sequential art and plans to convert the children of New Zealand to
the comic form. With his plucky heroes Possum von Tempsky and Kiwi
Pukupuku, James hopes young people will be brought into the world of
comics he so enjoyed as a child.
Another mini comic joint from the gutter by M.Emery.
We'll also have a limited selection of Steve Ditko's contemporary work from Robin Snyder and titles from Milk Shadow Books including Tim Molloy's It Shines It Shakes And Laughs and Mr Unpronounceable Adventures.
Click to enlarge the Chromacon floorplan below. Pikitia Press will be located at H2 and H3. James Davidson and Sarah Laing will be attending the Press tables most of the day, catch them and Toby Morris at Adrian Kinnaird's Best Of New Zealand Comics panel on Level 4 at 9:30am.
Moa #1, a new edition of the first adventure of James Davidson's uniquely New Zealand comic, is now available for pre-order shipping on 29 March. Moa #1 was originally independently published as a black and white ashcan. Pikitia Press are proud to present a full size, full colour edition of the debut adventures of Possum Von Tempsky and Kiwi Pukupuku.
The third volume of Ballantyne: the Flaw in the Jewel by Peter Foster and James H Kemsley and recent mini-comic Adversaries by M.Emery are also now available from the Pikitia Press store.
What have been your personal cartooning/comics highlights of 2012?
Finishing another mini-comic and getting up to the
Armageddon Expo in Auckland to sell it. Earlier this year I did a week
long comics class with Dylan Horrocks. I got heaps from it and was great
to meet him.
Who are some of the comics creators that you've discovered and enjoyed for the first time in 2012?
Some local talent - Karl Wills' Princess Seppuku
and James Davidson's, Moa. I get totally amped when I discover great
stuff being made locally. From overseas, James Stokoe's Orc Stain
graphic novel was a wonderful gift from a friend in the States and I'm
getting awful excited about Mike Mignola getting back into drawing the
next Hellboy arc. Also found the original Nausicaa paperbacks which have
completely blown me away.
What is something non-comics that you have enjoyed in 2012?
I play a few video-games and I am finding it
exciting the amount of original quirky games coming out by
smaller independent studios. The PS3 game, Journey was a particular
highlight for me.
Have you implemented any significant changes to your working methods this year?
I've been getting into a fair bit of dip-pen inking and
watercolours, just to balance out all the digital work. That and
pushing myself to use more colour and keeping at the figure studies -
yip, student life. I think the most important thing I've done is really
slow down and take my time with things, both reading and creating. I
have a habit of power-reading and churning out pictures then regretting
it later.
What are you looking forward to in 2013?
Bringing it all together! That, and an
illustration show early next year. I am working on a series of pieces
that has nothing to do with dinosaurs!
With a few weeks left of 2012 I'm deep into work on comics and books for the Pikitia Press publishing slate in 2013.
The third collection of Peter Foster and James H. Kemsley's Ballantyne adventure strips from the Sydney Sun Herald is coming together. This collection will include a back up feature of an unpublished Foster and Kemsley newspaper strip, Sports INC. 72, Initially prepared during the nineties for a newspaper proposal that did not eventuate.
James Davidson's Moa #1, initially released as a black and white ashcan in 2010, has been revamped as a full-size colour comic and a collection of the first three issues of Moa with additional material will be available in 2013. James has posted a seven page preview of Moa #1 here. I'll have release dates for these soon as well as news of several other comics due in 2013.
Had to take a break from the Paper Trail over the last few weeks for travelling, editing work, bereavements, and REAL LIFE...
Here is a summary of the entire Internet: The big Pikitia Press news is the release of our new comic Peter Foster's adaptation of For The Term of His Natural Life this Sunday at the Melbourne Writers Festival: Facebook it here.
This Saturday is host to another comics event in Melbourne, capital comics city of Australia. Exhibitchin’! is the title of Squishface Studios latest effort to get comics into everybodies lives. As well as works from David
Blumenstein, Marta Tesoro, Ben Hutchings, Sacha Bryning, Sarah Howell,
Ive Sorocuk, Arran McKenna and Jo Waite, they'll be bitchin' tunes,
crazy costumes, chocolate-infested food, tarot readings, body art, a
comics jam, badge-making, personality testing, portrait drawing... and
an entire leg of ham.
Pat Alexander conducts a tour of Squishface studios in prep for Exhibitchin’!
A flux of comic printing plates have turned up on the Australian ebay in recent months, some from Australian reprints of foreign material and some from honest-to-goodness Australian drawn material. Most of these were destroyed after they had served their purpose. At the time of posting, this auction for a plate of the cover to Fiction House's Indians #21 had a few days to run.
Auckland based biennial literary zine POTROAST are looking for contributors for a special comics issue, details here.
Vice comics man Nick Gazin reviews Karl Wills's recent comic Princess Seppuku here.
Special Nippon edition of Karl Wills's Princess Seppuku
Inverted Dawn: Exhibition and comics launch at Tinning Street, Melbourne. Opening night September 6th - September 16th featuring Html Flowers (Cougar Flashy) and Girl Mountain (Simon Hanselmann)
featuring...
brothers hand mirror and
girl mountain live
Simon Hanselmann
Tom Spurgeon writes here about the recently passing of art critic and historian Robert Hughes and his connections with comics as a cartoonist early in his career for the Observer in Sydney and in his appraisal of the work of Robert Crumb.
F.E.C Comics are launching three new comics at All Star Comics in Melbourne, 22 September, 6.30pm. Have a look on Facebook here. I can't find anything on the normal Internet but F.E.C Comics are located here. From the press release: KRANBURN #4 Ben Michael Byrne returns
with the beginning of his second chapter. Brand begins his war against
Lord. Blood spillage is a promise. FIRESIDE TALES A horror
anthology collecting three brilliant stories from some very talented
Australian creators; Alex Smith, Andrew Shaw, Billy Tournas, Mike
Wszelaki and Will Pleydon. SEVEN Fairy tales were once not so child-friendly. Alisha Jade delves into these origins and presents her interpretations.
Congratulations to Trevor Wood and Jen Breach for their recently concluded webcomic, Sawbones. After five years and 289 pages Trev recently posted the concluding page and a blog hinting at upcoming projects. Five years is a long time in webcomics, many don't last five months, so it's commendable to see the work Trevor and Jen have created and their decision to bring their story to a close.
Panel from Sawbones
Melbourne cartoonist Doug Holgate is amongst the speakers at the second Spotlight on Specialists seminars at NMIT, Fairfield, Melbourne on Saturday September 8th.
There was a kerfuffle on the net a few weeks back with some folk critical of a forthcoming GARO tribute anthology. This provoked an interesting discussion of Kickstarter and publishing in general here and here and here and many other places. Of note the SP7 Alt. Comics tribute to Garo Manga edited by Ian Harker and Box Brown features amongst it's contributors Benjamin Constantine, a fine cartoonist from Brisbane. Check Benjamin out here and here and here.
Pikitia Press will be publishing new editions of James Davidson's Moa #1 and #2 later this year and all being well issue #3 will be available for the Melbourne and Auckland Armageddon cons in October.
scBrg~~60_58.JPG)
.jpg)
