Showing posts with label karl wills. Show all posts
Showing posts with label karl wills. Show all posts

Sunday, June 22, 2014

Tim Molloy Interview Part One



My first encounter with Tim Molloy was at an Auckland Armageddon convention in the early 00's. In those days artist's alley was bundled into the foyer of the Aotea Centre and tables were free (!).  I was tabling next to Tim and friends and I recall them throwing things around the room and generally terrorising other cartoonists in the vicinity. The second day I saw one of the guests from Babylon 5 come over and hang with Tim and his pals. He'd been out with them the night before. Wow! I thought, these crazy comics guys hang out with tv stars!

On the last day I traded Tim my minicomic for an early Mr Unpronounceable comic which had the same disturbing surrealism of his recent work in a still developing roughly hewn art style. There's a period of New Zealand cartoonists from the
self-publishing boom of the '90's and early '00's that have kept their hand in the comics game,  of which I'd regard Tim and I'm glad to see his work reaching a wider audience in the last couple years through Melbourne publisher Milk Shadow Books.


What were the first comics you read? What were the comics that inspired you to make your own?
It would have been Tintin,  Asterix that kinda thing. Disney comics.. . Got into superhero stuff later,  then 2000ad Etc... Calvin and Hobbes... I was making comics very young. These probably had a hand in that...  I got into Milk and Cheese later . I started doing a mash up/ rip off of them and Calvin and Hobbes called Nasty Neville and Mr Weasel. When I discovered local stuff,  local creators I've Andy Conlan,  Wade Shotter,  Corn Stone,  knuckles,  you know,  James James... I dived right in with Poot,  Ninja Sheep,  Drunken Otter...

What are some of the influences from outside of the world of comics?
I draw inspiration from all quarters. I've actually spent a lot more time imbibing novels, audiobooks, cinema and fine art than I have spent reading comics... Earliest memory of art would be pulling a Dali book down off the shelf and having my 5 year old mind blown. I have a very active dream life also. I've always had a sense of 'the other' and explores that realm as best I can through experiments in lucid dreaming, readings into the Occult and in the past, psychedelics. Life itself is an inspiration... a turn of phrase, the way light might be streaming in through a strange window, a half glimpsed person down an evening alley... It's all good!

 
How do you find balance between working in various art mediums? to the best of my knowledge you create comics, paintings, sculpture and music, does any one art form take precedent?
I kind of tend to gravitate towards one thing or another at any given time. I'm just coming out of a heavy comics period (1 or 2 pages a day) and going into some traditional art territory. Whatever is most important at any given time is what I tend to concentrate on. Working out whats important can be the hard thing sometimes... In the end though, comics will probably win out. Here's hoping I never have to make a choice to stick to any one thing! Music is serious fun, and the only team sport I have ever taken part in. My band Plague Doctor explores a lot of the same themes I do in my work, but you can dance to it.

What led to you moving from New Zealand to Australia?
I am an economic refugee. I came by plane though, so thankfully I was not locked up indefinitely in a detention center.


Can you talk a bit about the comics/art community in New Zealand when you lived there.
My journey started with me going to those early 'Iconz' conventions (Is that what they were called?) I ran into the likes of Willi Saunders, Wade Shotter, Andy Conlan, Karl Wills. Loved the irreverent, DIY aesthetic. When I came across the work of James James, and then met him in person, I started getting my work out there. That was 1997? My last year of High School. Those were fun days. Comics and music and art and poetry were all in the same place in those days. I imagine they still are. K Rd was where it was at.

James and I were the youngest, and (sometimes) the most badly behaved participants at 'Poetry Live' at Alleluyah in St Kevins Arcade. Hanging around at Corn Stones house, playing Sooth, reading comics, smoking Beedies and drinking the cheapest booze available. Met a whole cast of weirdos and geniuses through that scene. Everybody knew everybody else and the yearly con at the Aotea Centre (sometimes a trip down to Wellington!) was a good chance to get drunk, hassle B-Grade Science Fiction celebrities and unload some photocopied comics on an unsuspecting public. 


It was a very welcoming, vibrant space to develop and grow as an artist, but not without it's share of drama and beef! We played a lot of music, UMX (The Uncle Marty Experience) was our first band (after 'The Tools of Waste' we made a tape called 'The Resin Sessions') and we terrorized audiences with the help of Uncle Marty, our aged patriarch - may he rest in peace.


I became good friends with Ben Stenbeck, The Sheehan Brothers and some of the other people on the 'weird' end of the spectrum. Drew a lot of inspiration and encouragement there. I hung around at Auckland Uni, got a lot of comics into Craccum, drank at Shadows, smoked in Albert park, studied animation on Queen St. Cheap rent, magic mushrooms, cask wine, The Kiss And Make Up Club, St Kevin's Arcade, inky fingers, good people, late nights and lots of fun parties...


Damn! I'm getting all nostalgic now! I could sit here, peering through the mist of time all day, but these are the first impressions that leap out of the gloom at me.



Monday, February 17, 2014

Paper Trail

 



Trailer for Connie Radar short film

Jem Yoshioka on tumblr.


Robert Virtue writes about the 2014 Parkes Comics Fest, that happened a couple days ago at the Parkes Library and I'm posting late because the links pile up in no discernible order and it's hard to keep on top of things.


Dr Matt Finch and Tracie Mauro from the Parkes Shire Library. (Pic yoinked from abc.net.au).





INTERVIEW: Mary Tamblyn


 - Vibrations (after Fiona Wright)

 

Graphic! Novels! Melbourne! available on DVD.

Lauren Maier reviews Rooster Tails



Bruce Mutard - Microaviary (after A. Frances Johnson)

 

Garrick Tremain on cartoon censorship.

Paper Trail masthead courtesy of Toby Morris.

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

Paper Trail


Peter Dornauf writes about Comic Artists in Hamilton.



Thinking is hard.


The Adventures of Tintin Contact.


Bright Threadz #7.



Die Popular: Summer Advice Series.


Rob Clough reviews Faction Volume One.


Pop Culture 1945 to present at the Australian Cartoon Museum.



Karl Wills teases a new collaboration with Timothy Kidd.


Sam Cooney collaboration with Katie Parrish.





Slow News Day: Book shelved in wrong section.


Just Indie Comics reviews Life Zone.


It ain't comics but what what: Andrew Nette writes about the closing of second bookshops in Melbourne. 



Nat Karmichael writes about recent and future Comicoz publications.


Throwing up a few illustration and comics galleries this week:

  Russell Clark

Des Condon

 Conrad Freiboe

 Phil Belbin Cavalcade Illustrations

Paper Trail masthead courtesy of Toby Morris.

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Paper Trail


My last two months have been ultra mega busy and thus my paper trail links have piled up to oblivion. To get back on the horse I'll post a few mini Paper Trails this week. Maybe I'll even post that SPX report that I should have done last month...

Latest additions to the Pikitia Press Store,  Mat Tait's Love Stories and David C Mahler's Deep Park are still searingly hot from their SPX debut's and make great Christmas presents!



Extra Ordinary recently their posted 300th strip.


Panels from Simon Hanselmann's forthcoming Life Zone from Spaceface Books. Preorder now.






Early place holder cover preview for Simon's Fantagraphics book  MEGAHEX.


Bernard Caleo documents Art Spiegelman and Francoise Mouly's visit to Melbourne's Squishface Studios.


Teaser trailer for Karl Wills' Connie Radar short film adaption Over The Moon.



David Mahler writes about Evie Cahir.


Andrew Nette's Pinterest of Australian pulp novels. Love all the beautiful painted Horwitz covers.

 
Gerald Carr offers an in depth look at the case for Australian cartoonist/animator Pat Sullivan as the creator of Felix the Cat.


Jason Chatfield writes about South Australian State Labor Minister Chloe Fox's  legal threat against The Adelaide Advertiser for publishing a cartoon and a story that she claims caused “distress, stress and damage to her personal reputation”.


Support your local comic shop so they can keep running their underground bare knuckle fight clubs.


Bobby N shares a page from the second volume of The Sixsmiths, a forthcoming collaboration with Jason Franks.

Campbell Whyte wrote an impassioned plea to whoever stole his families luggage in San Francisco.


I love Blakes 7.


After nine years PulpFaction administrator Maggie McFee will be retiring the Australian comics Pulpfaction message boards in the next few days. PulpFaction was notable for many things including hosting yearly 24 hour comic competitions and I believe introducing Tom Taylor to his frequent collaborator Colin Wilson.

"It's with a heavy heart, but a heart full of good memories, that I announce the closing of Pulp Faction and the forums. The forums will be put into read-only mode in the next couple of days, so please log in and say any goodbyes while you can. The forums will remain online in a read-only state for at least the next 12 months. †"


Roger Langridge suggests 10 rules for drawing comics.


Dylan Horrocks has been posting pages every few days lately from his serial Sam Zabel and the Magic Pen.


The Norman Lindsay Gallery and Museum is one of the archival institutions currently threatened by bush fires in Australian. Australian has sadly been stricken by many natural disasters in the last several years with lives and property and likely many works of art being lost. I recall an ebay auction for an original R. Wilson McCoy Phantom daily strip being sold to raise funds for flood relief.

 Norman Lindsay

A new television series of popular New Zealand comic character Terry Teo has been funded by NZ on Air.