Paper Trail

Darian Zam writes about the work of cartoonist and commercial artist, Joseph Bruno Moran.

Image from Darien Zam's Long White Kid. Maori Wonderland picture album, published by Frank Duncan & Co Ltd, c. 1920. Possibly the cover, as well as the company’s logo, were designed by Moran. Courtesy of Early Canterbury Photographers blog, canterburyphotography.blogspot.com

Ghost Ghost Tumblr.

 
Joe Wylie's political fumetti at Porcupine Farm.

Bookmarks catchup: Karl DuFresne writes about New Zealand cartooning historian Ian F. Grant.

 Cartoon by NZ cartoonist Trace Hodgson

Five questions with New Zealand cartoonist Steve Bolton.

 

Toby Morris shares recent gig posters he's illustrated.

Janet McAllister writes about New Zealand Comics exhibition Nga Pakiwaituhi.

 Frank and Becky of Tiny Kitten Teeth feature on The Mutant Season at Nerdist.

Animated abstract cartoons by DRAW.

Chris Arrant interviews Moth City creator Tim Gibson.

Sarah Laing shares illustrations from her forthcoming novel The Fall of Light.

John Retallick has brought his Comic Spot podcast out of retirement with an interview with future co-host Gary Chaloner. John with Jo Waite and Bernard Caleo interviewed a wide range of cartoonists in the Comic Spot's first iteration. Listen to Comic Spot archives here.

The Public Relations Institute of New Zealand present a talk from three New Zealand cartoonists this Thursday 21st March at Dida's Wine Lounge in the Auckland CBD. Rod Emmerson, Chris Slane and Guy Body will discuss cartoons and news media with MC Brendan Boughen. More details here.

Bookmarks catchup: Dylan Horrocks talked to Arts on Sunday about New Zealand comics and recounted his experiences at the 2012 Frankfurt Bookfair and Treviso in Italy.

Tim McEwen reviews Bobby N's Digested #2

Nat Karmichael reviews Kokoda: That Bloody Track. Copies are currently available on selected Australian news stands and from Zbeach True Comics.

Cartoonist, 2013 Ruebens Host, and stand-up comedian Jason Chatfield promotes his upcoming show at the 2013 Melbourne Comedy Festival with some speed cartooning. Tickets online at http://goo.gl/Jk53c.

From the Pikitia Press WIP folder:

A conversation with Chromacon Illustration and Comic Arts Festival 2013 organiser Allan Xia.

 Illustration by Allan Xia

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!

Nga Pakiwaituhi: New Zealand Comics and Graphic Novels Exhibition

New Zealand cartoonists are represented in the Auckland Arts Festival during March 2013 with an exhibition, Nga Pakiwaituhi: New Zealand Comics and Graphic Novels. Nga Pakiwaituhi is curated by Dylan Horrocks and will be displayed in Gallery Two from 1 March - 12 March at The St Paul Street Gallery, 40 Paul St, Auckland City. 

Artist's featured: Akira Atsushi, Tim Bollinger, Greg Broadmore, Andrew Burdan, Tim Danko, Rufus Dayglo, Draw, Richard Fairgray, Chris Grosz, Dylan Horrocks, Mat Hunkin, Robyn Kenealy, Timothy Kidd, Adrian Kinnaird, Sarah Laing, Jared Lane, Roger Langridge, Barry Linton, Tim Molloy, Toby Morris, Stefan Neville & Clayton Noone, Sam Orchard, Ant Sang, Darren & Kelly Sheehan, Chris Slane, Ben Stenbeck, Mat Tait, Karl Wills, Colin Wilson. Curated by Dylan Horrocks.

 

Running concurrently with the Nga Pakiwaituhi  exhibition, St Pauls Gallery two will feature Comics, Manga & Co – Germany's New Comic Culture.

From St Paul's Gallery,

Conceived by Matthias Schneider, a Berlin based curator and comic expert and the Goethe-Institut, this travelling exhibition presents two generations of German comics artists: the 1990s post reunification avant-garde that paved the way for the emergence of an independent culture of German comics, and a generation of younger comics artists, whose work embraces a newer aesthetic and narrative aspect.

Artists include: Arne Bellstorf, Martin Tom Dieck, Anke Feuchtenberger, Flix, Jens Harder, Sascha Hommer, Line Hoven, Ulf K., Reinhard Kleist, Isabel Kreitz, Mawil, Christina Plaka, Henning Wagenbreth.

The St PAUL St Gallery in conjunction with the School of Art and Design, and the Goethe-Institut New Zealand will also host two free workshops with visiting artists Line Hoven and Mawil during the Auckland Arts festival.
 
Thursday 7 March 9:30 am - 4 pm Line Hoven will be running a scraperboard workshop where she will share her techniques.

Friday 8 March 9:30 am - 4 pm Mawil will introduce the basics of storytelling through comic strips. Both workshops are aimed at participants who have skill and experience in drawing.

Further information here.

Nga Pakiwaituhi and Comics, Manga & Co – Germany's New Comic Culture are presented in association with the Auckland Arts Festival 2013 and the Goethe-Institut New Zealand.

http://www.stpaulst.aut.ac.nz/

http://www.aucklandfestival.co.nz/events/nga-pakiwaituhi-new-zealand-comics.aspx

Paper Trail

Emily Dickinson at Gavin Aung Than's Zen Pencils

Luke Pickett and Gerard Dwyer close out chapter one of ACV with an epilogue. Read from part one here.

Nick Gazin reviews Karl Wills' Princess Seppuku in the Lower Depths for VICE. Wills' Jessica of the Schoolyard features in the forthcoming Michael Dowers curated, Treasury of Minicomics volume one, from Fantagraphics.

The Legend of Money Pig at Cakeburger.

Dylan Horrocks has started a new blog exploring spiritual belief, the year of belief. Horrocks' also featured in a creative commons case study for creativecommons.org.

Artic Circle cartoonist Alex Hallat talks to Soda magazine.

Tasmanian cartoonists Josh Santospirito and Chris Downes performed their live comic ghost story, The Shipwright & the Banshees to a sold out audience as part of MONA FONA 2013 in Hobart last night. Chris Downes' stunning poster is available here.

 J Caleb Mozzocco at School Library Journal interviews Roger Langridge.

Roger Langridge contribution to SATAN IS ALIVE anthology

The recently launched New Zealand comics anthology Faction Comics is now available in free digital form.

Fil Barlow is offering 5 day design tutorial sessions here. Series writer Brandon Graham shared Barlow's upcoming cover for Prophet #37. You may see it or you may not, Barlow shares via facebook an interview he did with Brandon Graham from Prophet #28.

Now sold out but keep an eye out for future opportunities to buy Simon Hanselmann's Artist Trash!

Hanselmann shared pages from his forthcoming “Australian” comics/art anthology Victoria Drugs Scene at Girl Mountain.

Our handsome Paper Trail masthead is courtesy of Toby Morris, here's his rendition of Joseph Dredd having a cuppa.

In the neverending quest of cartooning archeology I picked up a pile of old Auckland newspapers, The Weekly News, which my brother has been scanning and making notes on for me. Here's a couple samples,

The Ornate masthead of The Weekly News

Sir Gordon Minhinnick cartoon from Feb 9th, 1944.

Upcoming on Pikitia Press from the work in progress folder:

 Feature on Maori cartoonist Harry Dansey.

Wartime cartooning by Australian soldiers in Stand Easy after the defeat of Japan.

The early comics work of Tom Scott.

2012 in review: Cory Mathis

Cory Mathis

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!

www.corysaur.wordpress.com

2012 in Review: Kelly Sheehan

Kelly Sheehan

What have been your personal cartooning/comics highlights of 2012?

Seeing Darren start a new Inhabitants episode. Titled A Day at the Races it features new characters, the foregrounding of previous background characters and the backgrounding of previous foreground characters. It was meant to appear in the first issue of Fraction but fell victim to real life and will now, hopefully, appear in the second issue. Also finishing the latest of our little 'netsuke' comics. All going to plan I should be picking it up from the copy shop next week. Keep eyes peeled for Some were meant for sea. 

Enjoyed contributing to Bob's Tearoom of despair and subsequently being linked to by Tom Spurgeon. Writing for Bob's blog suggested some possibilities for writing comics which I'm slowly trying to sort out in my head. Nice to be included in Dylan's catalogue of New Zealand comics creators.

Who are some of the comics creators that you've discovered and enjoyed for the first time in 2012?

Am enjoying Brian K Vaughn's Saga. I've waited for years to like something by that guy. Y the last man left me cold and I wanted to enjoy Ex-machina but something didn't quite click. Saga grabbed me right away. Jonathan Hickman's Manhattan Projects is fun. It's good to have a monthly(ish) comic that I look forward to. Been a while since I felt that sort of regular anticipation. There's a seat of pants feel to the book that makes you feel Hickman is having the time of his life making it all up as he goes along. Great stuff.

Prophet from Brandon Graham and friends is my hands down favourite for this year. Like Hickman's comic there is a feeling of a free wheelin' good time. Reading interviews with Graham and co you get the idea that the creators are always trying to top each other. All of those titles have the fun, smart feel I associate with reading 2000ad when I was young. 

Finally, she's not new but I really liked Alison Bechdel's Are You My Mother? There seems to have been an almost indifferent response to it's release. I find this puzzling considering the accolades heaped on Fun Home. Anyway it's an astonishing piece of work and is less an autobiography than an interrogation of Bechdel's relationship with her mother in the form of a comics essay.

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

Breaking Bad season 5. David Thomson's The Big Screen, a history of film, the screens we watch it on and an exploration of the dangerous effect it has on us as individuals and as a culture. Thomson's vision is pessimistic, but so beautifully expressed that you can't help but be swept along. Some of the dead are still breathing:living in the future by Charles Bowden. Even more jaded than Thomson, Bowden has been covering the Mexican Drug War for way too long. This book is a collection of intermittent writings knitted together into a dream meditation on the coming world and the ecological and moral apocalypse we are staring down the barrel of. Excellent.

Mitch Jenkin's and Alan Moore's Jimmy's End was great. It is interesting to see Moore trying to come to grips with a new form. Not all of it worked but when it did Jimmy's End was fantastic. My favourite part was the end, it was like Moore had driven one of his spoken word pieces at high speed into the back end of Jenkins' film (though the gold face paint was a bit silly). Oh, and reading all of A song of ice and fire in a binge that lasted six week. When's the next one out?  
    

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

No. I still don't work regularly enough. I still have things that are half finished. That still makes me feel guilty  Would like to say this will change in 2013 but I doubt it.

What are you looking forward to in 2013? 

Making more comics with Darren. Seeing some of our work being part of the exhibition at St Pauls Street Gallery. Finally getting hold of Tim Molloy's It shines, it shakes and laughs (and his new Mr Unpronouncable book).  The combined thrill power of LofEG:Heart of ice and Jerusalem. Hanging with fellow cartoonists at various events. Seeing more work from Mr Timothy Kidd. Family stuff.

http://theinhabitants.blogspot.com.au/

2012 in Review: Tim Danko

Tim Danko
 

What have been your personal cartooning/comics highlights of 2012?
 
Continuing confidence in my work and processes, it is the gift that keeps on giving.

Dylan Horrocks giving me a by-line I will use for all eternity “one of Australasia’s leading experimental cartoonists”. Possibly a by product of my piss poor scant on detail self-penned bio for the N.Z. comics and graphic novels guide, Dylan had to fill in to give it some stature. But it’s out there and I will take it gladly.

It is a marathon, so steady sub 6 minute miles this year which is quite good for the second half of my race (I started slow). Nothing fancy just good honest progress. I  liked having comic work to do all year.

Feels like we are running with the internationals as a group and as part of the comic conversation, which is a long cherished dream becoming a reality.

Who are some of the comics creators that you've discovered and enjoyed for the first time in 2012?
 
Tatang Suhenra was an Indonesian cartoonist a little shrouded in mystery who drew for the Indonesian rental comic market and after initial success with martial arts comics (and subsequent disgrace? decline? Not sure) he had a comeback with a run of mythological Punakawan figures/titles (Gareng, Petruk, Semar, Bagong). He died in 2003, “According to a number of rumors circulating, he died because of diabetes. The disease is suffered because Tatang, who often work at night, drinking carbonated beverages addiction.” (Thank you, Google translate.)

His later comics have an easy surreal mix of the everyday and monstrous surprise occurings. Where the character chases carnal desires (food, women, acclaim) only to have the object of his desire turn into some unspeakable monster. With the odd kung fu fight. And appearance of popular American cartoon figure rip-offs (teenage mutant ninja turtles, batman). Kind of like a randy Jim Woodring in his realist/dream comics. Of course it helps that the comics I possess have passed through many rental hands and strange reproduction processes. Awesome.  

Jessica “Phlegmbot” Dews a local artist (cartoonist? Up to her!). Thanks to Mr Horrocks I had found Jessica’s ‘phlegmbot’ tumblr bristling with her shivery psyche energy images. Much imagery, much media, much fun. Who is to say that a tumblr site is not the futures next digital ‘meta’ meta-comic? I think it is, already. Can’t wait to see what comes next.

Yoshiharu Tsuge. Every year is a Tsuge discovery year. I’m up to 12 years of Tsuge discovery. Keep on discovering. Thank you, Tsuge.

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

I have enjoyed finding out about Masao Adachi, a Japanese film maker (and seeing his film ‘A.K.A serial killer- 1969’, a film about a serial killer - without any trace of the serial killer in it).  I have been enjoying my longing to see the Philippe Grandrieux documentary/conversation with Masao  “It May Be That Beauty Has Strengthened Our Resolve - Masao Adachi” , sometimes the waiting and finding out is the pleasure. Both film makers have methods that reaffirm my approach to cartooning.

Finding ‘Love Patrol’ a Vanuatu made 4 series TV show that is a cross between first series Shortland Street production values / the wire in its cross society scope / and  public service announcement social messaging. But you know… set on an unnamed Polynesian/Melanesian island. Visiting the company who made it, Wan Smolbag Group, who also put out public service educational comics.

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

Trust and faith, lost a fair amount of fear of falling and failing whilst drawing. Drawing and marking to get something new out, rather than for a pre-determined result.  Results come later, with hindsight. It is an ongoing struggle, to forget to look at what you are putting on the page and stop thinking about what it will be.

What are you looking forward to in 2013?
 
Seeing the Philippe Grandrieux documentary “It May Be That Beauty Has Strengthened Our Resolve - Masao Adachi”

learning French at high school.

Grabbing the Neomad.

Crowd funding my 4 year 48 page full colour completed comic. (low resolution sneak peak tumblr here).

Catching up. Going to something I am in, either an exhibition or a book launch. It’s been six years since I’ve been to something I am in.

“Revolution is also an image. The question is how one turns that image into reality.” (Masao Adachi)

http://www.deadxeroxpress.com/

2012 in Review: Colin Wilson

Colin Wilson

What have been your personal cartooning/comics highlights of 2012?

Undoubtedly, for me the highlight of my year was attending the Frankfurt Book Fair in Germany during October, along with Dylan Horrocks, Ben Stenbeck, Greg Broadmore, and Roger Langridge. Who would have thought that such a gang of comic reprobates would be included in the Official New Zealand Delegation to the biggest Book Fair in the world? NZ comics were invisible 35 years ago when I published the first issue of Strips, and look where we've got to now! If things carries on like this, in another 30 years we'll probably be considered part of mainstream publishing.........

Who are some of the comics creators that you've discovered and enjoyed for the first time in 2012?

For a variety of reasons, I don't actually read a lot of comics these days, but thanks to the internet I recently discovered a couple of European artists that have both really impressed me a lot. At a recent Supernova Con here in Australia Greg Gates introduced me to the work of Italian artist Corrado Mastantuono, who's work on Tex and other Italian comic stories I was completely unaware of, and, while i guess he is not strictly speaking a comic artists, everything I find by Marcos Mateu-Mestre just blows me away. He's an Spanish artist who has worked for, amongst other, Dreamworks and Sony Pictures Animation in the States.... check out his website at http://marcosmateu.net/.

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

There's life outside of comics?
 

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

The biggest change to my working method this year is that I've finally had the chance to slow down a little. Most of my comic work from the last few years has been for mainstream US Comic Publishers, and while it has been a lot of fun, I've found the constant deadlines really started to wear me down. About 12 months ago I decided that I needed to step off that runaway train, at least for a while, and started to accept more offers for European work. It is where my comic heart lies anyway, and my recent book signing tour of France, Germany and Belgium convinced me that I've made the right decision. The quality of comic work being produced over there these days is really impressive, and it was refreshing to discover that their biggest problem appears to be the sheer volume of books being published each year.

What are you looking forward to in 2013?

World peace? Well, clearly that ain't gonna to happen, so I guess the highlight for me in 2013 will be starting work on my new series for Delcourt in France. Over the last couple of years I've worked on a couple of Jour J books for Delcourt, and I've recently signed on for a completely new project that is currently being written for me by the two writers of that series, Fred Duval and Jean-Pierre Pécau. I haven't had the chance to work on something entirely original for France for about 20 years, and so this is going to be a real challenge for me. I can't wait to get started.....

http://wilco4400.blogspot.com.au/