Victory University Press have announced Incomplete Works, a forthcoming collection of Dylan Horrocks shorter comics.
"Daydreams, fantasy, true love and procrastination feature strongly in this marvellous selection of Dylan Horrocks’s shorter comics. Running from 1986 to 2012, Incomplete Works is both the chronicle of an age and a portrait of one man’s heroic struggle to get some work done."
"Maralinga spins an alternative history from the 1956 British
nuclear tests in the Woomera. Three hundred years later a ruined,
irradiated, post-apocalyptic Australia is a place where monsters are
real and one girl, the last of an isolated and dying community in
Melbourne's south, launches a desperate journey to find sanctuary and a
mythical inland sea."
What have been your personal cartooning/comics highlights of 2012?
It's been another pretty busy year, but I think having a book I worked on for Harper Collins, Planet Tad, featured briefly on the Daily Show, winning gold in a category of the Illustrators Australia awards and the Oz Comic-Con events in Perth and Melbourne were all standouts.
Who are some of the comics creators that you've discovered and enjoyed for the first time in 2012?
I seem to find new cartoonists and illustrators every couple of weeks, it's kind of part of my process I guess, to keep inspired and connected to what is going on in the world, so it's hard to list them all. But the people I've come back to numerous times this year (as well as in some cases formed some new friendships with) would be Jez Tuya (Brilliant, inspiring up and coming cartoonist and character designer from NZ), Rebecca Dart (Everything she touches is amazing, incredible character, energy and fun).
Tristan Jones (Probably one of the biggest inspirations for me this year in pushing myself to get a little looser and quicker with my own work) and Tony Cliff (Artist on one of my favourite comics/webcomics from the last decade I think, Delilah Dirk). I haven't really read much in the way of comics, but of what I have read Craig Thompson's Habibi stayed with me for weeks after reading. The new Prophet series (Brandon Graham and Simon Roy) from Image comics is a great big ridiculous space opera and Infinite Kung Fu by Kagan Macleod was a fantastic love letter to the history of kung fu in pop culture. What is something non-comics that you have enjoyed in 2012?
Lots of great movies, Looper, Cabin In the Woods, Dredd, Argo. My one major love outside of cartooning is history and politics, in particular the United States, so i was pretty consumed by the 2012 US election the last 12 months. I've been reading a lot of crime fiction this year especially a number of George Pelacanos' novels plus a lot of visits to the Zoo and the Melbourne Museum this year with the 3 year old.
Have you implemented any significant changes to your working methods this year?
Most of my freelance work is very clean and tight and as i said earlier, inspired by work the likes of Tristan Jones, Simon Roy, Toby Cypress, I've tried to play around with being a little looser with my personal work. So playing around with more blacks, textures and freeing my line-work up a little bit. Hopefully i can take a few more steps in that direction next year.
What are you looking forward to in 2013?
Getting my all ages graphic novel, Clementine Hetherington and the Ironwood Race, co created with and written by Jen Breach further along and to hopefully find her a home (Clementine, not Jen). Completing the Rombies: Ex Legio Mortis graphic novel, written by Christian Read for Gestalt Comics and some other comics and book illustration projects I can't really talk about just yet. The release of the first and second books in the Case File 13 series from Random House and hopefully another Planet Tad will be out next year. I also missed out on a number of planned OS trips this year due to timing and finances so hopefully carving out some time to get to TCAF, SPX or NYC con as well as some more local shows would be great!
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.
