E noho rā 2013

Big thanks to all the New Zealand & Australian cartoonists and comic makers who contributed to the 2013 in Reviews. I'm signing off for a few days and will back with some galleries and interview posts on Jan 1st 2014.

I'll be trying to get my head around a few more places next year, please consider liking/following Pikitia Press in these places:

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twitter @pikitiapress
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2013 in Review survey index:

Gregory Mackay bit.ly/190OERO
Brendan Boughen bit.ly/JTJaic
Cory Mathis bit.ly/18T5bnx
Matthew Hoddy bit.ly/IUnEK2
Andrew Fullton bit.ly/1jgoC3G
David Blumenstein bit.ly/ITI7i9
Justin Randall bit.ly/J1s6Gm
David C Mahler bit.ly/1cNhdDC 
Grant Buist http://bit.ly/1gAZEtX 
Jen Breach bit.ly/Jx2xhz
Ben Michael Byrne http://bit.ly/INu0uO 
Brendan Halyday  bit.ly/18PvQVv 
Toby Morris bit.ly/1hmGBRw
Bruce Mutard bit.ly/1dvAYhu 
Stuart McMillen bit.ly/1c034Ek 
Joshua Santospirito bit.ly/18Gnek2
Frank Candiloro bit.ly/IQTJSh
Richard Fairgray bit.ly/19DaLdX  
Colin Wilson bit.ly/IPOyCn  
Jason Franks bit.ly/IEKkhl 
Matt Kyme bit.ly/18vb8qB  
Anthony Woodward bit.ly/1kqIz36  
Caitlin Major bit.ly/1d4l5xN  
Sarah Laing bit.ly/1fh9ptS  
Sam Orchard bit.ly/1f3kvC3 
Gavin Aung Than bit.ly/J95ipc
Scarlette Baccini bit.ly/18BiyMe  
David Follett bit.ly/1gYFZRT
Simon Hanselmann bit.ly/1dbhuyu  
Michel Mulipola bit.ly/1aDPPD9
Li Chen bit.ly/18cmLb6  
Ryan K Lindsay bit.ly/19itb3v   
Christopher Downes bit.ly/1hzFxMU  
Dean Rankine bit.ly/18k8YKi 
Alisha Jade bit.ly/1bFijT3    
Theo Macdonald bit.ly/1dOK4u7
Paul Mason bit.ly/ILOFzC  
James Davidson bit.ly/1bFmVZp  
Tim Molloy bit.ly/1cYKoBi  
Jason Chatfield bit.ly/1bIyCP1

2013 in Review: Colin Wilson

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

In a year where I've had no original work published - a first for me in probably 15 years - I guess my personal highlight was seeing my name in the opening credits for the film Bullet to the Head, based on Matz and my series Du Plomb Dans La Tete first published in France ten years ago. The fact that the film never made it to the big screens in Australia, and in reality bore no relationship whatsoever to our original source material might seem like a little churlish to mention at this late stage. But what the hell...... one of my books made it to the big screen! Thanks Sly......

A second highlight for me this year has been watching the career path of my good friend and occasional co-auther Tom Taylor, who has progressed from our comic adaption of his short theatre piece The Example back in 2007 to working as one of DC Comics top writers on series such as Injustice and Earth 2, not to forget the wonderful work he is doing on The Deep (published here in Australia by Gestalt) with James Brouwer. Good stuff....

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

Spending so much of my time working on producing my own stories, I actually read very few comics these days. But one of the series that really caught my eye is Stuart Immonen and Wade Von Grawbadger's (hey, great name!) current run on All-New X-Men. Not ever being a superhero fan I find the story completely impenetrable, but the art those guys are turning in (along with Marte Gracia and Rain Beredo's impressive colour) continues to amaze me month after month.
 

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

For a variety of non-comic related reasons 2013 has been a very difficult year around here, and so these days I prefer to put this year into the bottom drawer and work towards improving the prospects for the next one....

What are you looking forward to in 2014?

Comic related, I have two books scheduled for publication in Europe next year, via two major French publishers. The first is a one-off single volume for an already well-established and very hi-profile series published by Dargaud, the second is the first book in a new original series for Delcourt. I am working with the same co-authors who wrote the two Jour J books we published with Delcourt over the last couple of years - Fred Duval and Jean-PierrePécau, and everyone has high hopes for this new series - my first for Europe in many years. Currently I am completing the final pages of this first book, and the current plan for 2014 is to get as much work done on the second volume of the series before heading over to Europe mid-year for an extended book signing tour. These things never go completely to plan, but at the moment everything is shaping up for a very interesting year.......

colinwilsonart.com/

Armageddon Melbourne 2013

Some of comic folk at Armageddon Melbourne 2013.

All Star Comics

Colin Wilson and Tom Taylor

Colin Wilson sketches Star Wars

Fil Barlow and Helen Maier

Richard Fairgray

Craig Bruyn

Dean Rankine

Matt Kyme, Matthew Nicholls and Ross Stewart

Brent Anderson

Sorab Del Rio

Steve Sparke

Neville Howard and BMB

Art Spiegelman & Françoise Mouly Melbourne Visit

In Melbourne for a couple of speaking engagements during early October, Art Spiegelman & Françoise Mouly met up with a handful of local cartoonists at Squishface Studios to talk comics, art and publishing.

Sarah Gooding wrote about Françoise Mouly's career overview with Penny Hueston at the Wheelers Centre on Oct 9th.

Bernard Caleo wrote about Art Spiegelman & Françoise Mouly's Squishface visit at An Island Art.

pic by Bernard Caleo

 Art Spiegelman and Shaun Tan

Colin Wilson and Ben Hutchings

Jo Waite lunch sketch

Pic by Bernard Caleo

All pics by M.Emery unless credited otherwise

Oz Comic Con Melbourne 2013

 
After last years debacle of too many people in too little space this years Oz Comic Con in Melbourne was transported to the Royal Exhibition Building in Carlton Gardens. I managed to snap a few pics from artist alley before my camera died. Are people getting sick of my holiday snaps? Seemed like a lot of mugging this year.

 Ben Hutchings and Dillon Naylor

 Alisha Jade, Steve Sparke and BMB

Justin Randall, Greg Maclean and Colin Wilson

Brendan Halyday and Frank Candiloro

Wolfgang Bylsma

 Henry Pop and Paul "The Beast" Bedford

 The Space Pyrates, Caitlin Major and Matthew Hoddy

Ryan K Lindsay

Larry, Curley and Moe

 Jin Chan Yum Wai

Queenie Chan

Dean Rankine

 Doug Holgate

Ginny and Darren Koziol

Fil Barlow and Helen Maier

Tom Taylor

Sorab Del Rio

Jon Sommariva

Ross Stewart and Matt Nicholls

Christian Read and Andrew Constant

Paul Mason

The best photo of T-Rex Jones out of the six I took.

 Public Emery Number One

Picked up a few gems from the locals and did a little bargain bin diving.

 I'm a sucker for cheap Mandrake comics

New Zealand editions of Flash Gordon from Feature Productions don't pop up too often. I'm hoping to complete a book on the reprint era of New Zealand comics by September.

This particular issue of the Wally Wood published Heroes INC featuring Cannon seems to turn up often at cons in recent years. A warehouse find of 70,000 uncirculated copies probably accounts for some of them. I know a similar story about an Australian equivalent to that find, I'll have to write it up one of these days.

Nga Pakiwaituhi: New Zealand Comics and Graphic Novels Panel

 

 Tim Bollinger

St Paul St gallery have posted a recording of the New Zealand comics panel conducted during the recent Nga Pakiwaituhi exhibition in Auckland. Speakers are curator - Dylan Horrocks, Sam Orchard, Adrian Kinnaird, and Sarah Laing.

Listen to the panel and view a gallery of the exhibition here.

Download an mp3 of the panel here.

Read an interview with Dylan about Nga Pakiwaituhi here.

 Barry Linton

Barry Linton

Chris Grosz

Colin Wilson

 

 Tim Bollinger

Photos by Sam Emery