Showing posts with label brent willis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label brent willis. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

2012 in Review: Brent Willis

Brent Willis

 What have been your personal cartooning/comics highlights of 2012?
 
Starting my zine (Wark) and getting three issues out within my self-imposed deadlines would be my main achievement this year. Also being at two very successful zinefests in Auckland and Wellington, both very well organised and profitable.

Who are some of the comics creators that you've discovered and enjoyed for the first time in 2012?
 
In March this year there was an exhibition showcasing the works of some very young Wellington comic makers producing some very original and imaginative comics. Watch out for the names of Esther Galloway, Zora Patrick, Theo MacDonald, Sadie Galloway, Joel Spencer, and Michael Sanders. They are already highly prolific and are going to be making significant comics in the future.

What is something non-comics that you have enjoyed in 2012?

Have been enjoying watching Breaking Bad, Embarrassing bodies and anything involving Guy Williams (officially the funniest guy on television at he moment). Haven't seen any memorable new movies this year but at last I have got to see Tokyo Gore Police and For Your Height Only. Favorite music at the moment is the box set of the almost entire collected works of the legendary post-punk-prog-rock group This Heat, (Google them you must.) which I bought for just one dollar from the library when they were doing their annual collection cull. One dollar!? What were they thinking?  And I also had a really nice holiday in Brisbane too.

Have you implemented any significant changes to your working methods this year?

I still pretty much work the same way as I've always done, although due to my limited spare time, I have stopped doing long comics and I'm just doing shorter stories so can make the two-monthly deadline for Wark. And I bought a small foldable table to draw on, so now I don't have to draw on a piece of paper on a thick book balanced on my lap like I have done for the last twenty years or so.

What are you looking forward to in 2013?

Doing more comics, More issues of Wark, and doing something for Pikitia Press. Each new year is like a blank piece paper.

Friday, August 31, 2012

Russell Clark

 Russell Clarke self portrait from the posthumously released The drawings of Russell Clark.
 
Last Year Wellington cartoonist Brent Willis discovered a comic featured in the Nov 12, 1954 edition of the N.Z. Listener, by New Zealand Illustrator Russell Clark in the archives of the Parliament Library (featured here). While I've found no evidence of other sequential work by Clark his prolific output featured in many New Zealand publications of the early to mid twentieth century with his illustrations adorning magazines, school journals, broadsheets and many books. The illustrations featured below are from an edition of Reed's Junior Library written by John L. Ewing and published in 1938 by A. H. & A. W. Reed.

Listen to a three minute clip from 1955 of Russell Clarke talking about his education and early inspiration in art here.