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: Jason Franks

Over December I'll be running some brief year in review interviews with Australian and New Zealand cartoonists and comic folk. Kicking things off today with a good friend of mine, Melbourne writer/cartoonist Jason Franks.

Jason Franks

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

Without question, the highlight for my own work has been McBLACK TWO SHOT. It's not the first time I've worked with Bruce Mutard but it's the first of our work together that's seen print. Putting his highly polished and traditional art style next to Luke Pickett's brilliant crayon-and-notepad sequence, then Rhys James' super-modern digital painting and J. Stew's atmospheric, underground nightmares... I am ridiculously proud of this combination of artists.

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

This year has been all about Image for me. I've been mates with Justin Jordan for many years, so Luther Strode probably doesn't count, but a lot of my favourite new mainstream books have been Image stablemates. Green Wake by Wiebe and Rossmo. Who Is Jake Ellis? by Edmondson and Zonjic. Also this is the year I finally cottoned onto Locke and Key by Hill and Rodriguez.

My other big find has been Naoki Urasawa. I tried Pluto a couple of years ago and it wasn't my cup of tea; but this year I discovered that three of the manga books I was most interested in (old and new) are by Urasawa. Monster and 20th Century Boys are every bit as good as they are reputed to be, and I'm dying to get my hands of an English version of Billy Bat.

What is something non-comics that you have enjoyed this year?

I've probably found myself reading more prose than I have for the last few years. This year it's been a lot of Richard Morgan, John Steinbeck, Greg Palast, Evan Wright, China Mieville and Richard Stark. Some of these are old favourites, some are something new. On TV the only thing I've really cared for has been Breaking Bad.

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

I'm trying to put out a bit more prose fiction than I have in the last few years. Publishing my first novel has sort of opened my eyes to the opportunities in that world and the comics business is a bit sickly right now. I mean, when using Kickstarter to avoid the entire traditional marketplace is the great white hope for original comics you know there are problems. That said, I have a LOT of comics projects in the works and hopefully a lot more of them will drop in 2013 than we've seen in the last 2 years. I'm focusing on longer work--graphic novels and miniseries, as opposed to short stories and anthologies--and it takes a lot of time to get these bigger projects up and running.

What are you looking forward to in 2013?

Putting out more comics. There should be more McBlack and more Sixsmiths, but also, if things go well, a bunch of completely new stuff in a variety of genres. Hope to sell my second novel, too. I'm also looking forward to watching the continued growth of the local scene and to reading awesome new comics from local publishers. 

http://www.jasonfranks.com/

Milk Shadow Books - James Andre Interview

I'll be posting some catch up interviews over the next weeks that were conducted via email and in person over the last several months.

The following interview was conducted via email in February 2012 in anticipation of the Big Arse 2 launch which included several titles from Milk Shadow Books. I've known James Andre for a few years from contributing to his anthology Yuck and following his progress self-publishing his own writing to becoming a significant independent comics publisher in the Melbourne scene. James's tastes in comics and writing are reflected in the output of Milk Shadow Books with an emphasis on matter of a dark nature, perversity, black humour and adult themes.

 James Andre

What was the impetus to start publishing other people's work through Milk Shadow Books?

When issue 5 and 6 of Yuck! were about to come out I thought we should take on some more titles as we were already distributing comics and zines anyway. Then I recalled Ben Hutchings saying how he almost had You Stink 10 ready, so we got into contact with him. Walking to Japan was the first creator owned work we published though. That went quite well, so we took things from there.

 No Map, But Not Lost - Bobby N (2012)

Have you experienced any start up difficulties as a publisher?

Apart from the usual time and cash flow stuff, nothing major. More just little details that turn into larger issues. And needing to keep track of several projects in various stages. Having to make sure certain pages/changes to one book are completed, whilst remembering edits on another one, that a cover is being done on another, and then making sure the printers are working on another. But all of the artists have been great, and some other local comic folks such as Brendan Halyday, Luke Pickett, and Jason Franks have provided much needed creative and technical support along the way too.

Where will your new books be available from after the Big Arse 2 launch?

They'll be on the website – www.milkshadowbooks.com. Comic shops such as All Star Comics, Minotaur, Pulp Fiction Comics, Impact Comics and The Beguiling. The trade paperbacks and graphic novels will also be available on Amazon, and through the Ingram catalogue for bookshops. If anybody wants them stocked in their local book or comic shop, they can bug them to place an order.

 You Stink and I Don't #10 - Ben Hutchings (2012)

Melbourne has seen a few publishers specialising in comics established in recent years, where do you see Milk Shadow's place in the scene?

I guess we focus mainly on surreal black comedy stuff. A lot of the work involves parodies and examinations of media, religion, sex, death and modern life. The feel of the material seems to have sprung out of the Yuck! Anthology series. We don't really have a huge interest in superhero or genre material, but would still have a look if it was submitted. Milk Shadow Books publishes art that can take the piss out of society, work that make people laugh and/or think. Or just gross them out.

It Shines and Shakes and Laughs - Tim Molloy (2012)

Bobby N, Bruce Mutard's and Tim Molloy's books are retrospective collections, will you be producing similar collections of other creators?

We'd like to, and we've got some more plans floating about at the moment. There's the possibility of a couple more small colour art books too, similar to the Sweat Soda book that featured David DeGrand's art. But yeah, we'd love to do more collections if the right artist approached us, or we spotted them first.

What do you have planned for the future?

In terms of graphic novels, we've got Bruce Mutard's Alice in Nomansland lined up. It's a very strange, yet literate, adult fantasy trip that's been in Bruce's cupboard for ten years, and it's unlike anything he's previously published. There's also a new collection from Tim Molloy, but more on that as it develops. Plus some more indie projects in the works from artists from Melbourne, Sydney, Brazil and Brisbane. Expanding out into action figures, art exhibitions and animated series would be nice one day too. That's the dream anyway.

All images copyright 2012 respective authors, James Andre photo copyright 2012 M.Emery