Russell Clark - Early Pioneers

 
Russell Clark illustrates colonial New Zealand for a primary School Bulletin, Early Pioneers.

Russell Clark - Pitama.

Russell Clark two page comic and other illustrations. 

Russell Clark - How The White Men Came to New Zealand.

2013 in Review: Brendan Boughen

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

The highlight of the year was definitely being the live on-site cartoonist for several Microsoft NZ events, including the launch of the Surface Pro tablet and then the big TechEd 2013 conference, attended by over 2000 people. It was cool to see some of my cartoons from those events retweeted internationally. That gig has since turned into some new opportunities with Microsoft which will utilise both my day-job skills as a PR consultant, and my cartoonist alter-ego.

This year saw a number of Fairfax technology magazines in New Zealand close down, one for which I had been drawing a monthly tech-themed cartoon for over 18 months. While it was sad to no longer be in print there, it looks that strip might be finding a new home in another magazine in 2014. I’ve also continued to do monthly cartoons for Touchstone magazine, and am proud to have received some snarky offended letters to the editor about one cartoon I did about churches and zombies. (If cartoons aren’t being provocative, what’s the point?)

Personally though, I feel like I’ve done some of my best work ever on my web site in 2013. It hasn’t always been on a weekly basis, as is my usual aim, but the times I have got one up there I’ve really liked how they’ve turned out. This one’s a favourite.

 

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

Christian Henry’s Anyone for Rhubarb? web comic continues to hit new heights. I don’t know where he finds the time to produce such complex, bizarre and funny work. 

Political cartoonist John Kudelka continues to stand-out for me for his ability to make powerful points with just a few scribbles. 

I also enjoyed seeing the final collected volume of  Opus strips by Berkeley Breathed of Bloom County fame. 

It’s also been great to see Kiwi comics celebrated through a number of new publications, including the history book From Earth’s End by Adrian Kinnaird and the second volume of Faction Comics.

 

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

Some superb movies have come out this year. I very recently enjoyed The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, but also dug Sound City, Warm Bodies, Now You See Me, Pacific Rim, Gravity, Iron Man 3,  Joss Whedon’s Much Ado About Nothing and the conclusion of Simon Pegg and Nick Frost’s Cornetto Trilogy ‘The World’s End’.

Also, as one of the few who still buy CDs, I have enjoyed getting into more music this year now that all the CD stores are going out of business and having cheap CD sales. Faves have included Lamb of God, Nick Cave, The Dillinger Escape Plan, Joseph Arthur, Karnivool, Nada Surf, Placebo, Pendulum, Pearl Jam, and Lorde, to name but a few. (The talented young Kiwi whippersnapper Lorde also inspired a cartoon.)

 

What are you looking forward to in 2014?

Mostly I’m looking forward to pushing myself creatively with some new cartooning endeavours in addition to everything that’s been started this year. As well as my tech-cartoon finding a new home in print, I’m launching a new webcomic in January which is being created in collaboration with a writer friend. We’ll be aiming to publish it three times a week and maybe even produce a bit of merch around it. Keep an eye on Twitter (@BelindaBitsch) for the announcement of that one kicking off.

However, the big thing I’m going to try and achieve in 2014 is my next book, which I’m planning to be a 25 year retrospective on my “career” as a cartoonist alongside some reflections on creativity and cartoons. It’ll feature a bunch of never before seen material, and should be fun to put together!

cartoonsbyjim.com/

2013 in Review: Cory Mathis

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

Couple of big ones for me - I won the NZ Young Cartoonist competition earlier this year, which led to me getting my first working gigs as a cartoonist in the newspaper and magazines. Getting a Saurian Era story into the second volume of Faction Comics was a big goal accomplished for me, looking forward to the next one now. Chromacon! Having a table and hanging with everyone was a huge buzz. Man, next years one is going to rock :D

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

I've been on a bit of a Brandon Graham binge - King City, Prophet, eating it all up. Staying on top of Hellboy and Fables has been a treat this year as well.

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

My mates bought me a dinosaur porn novel for my birthday, 'Jurassic Gangbang 2 - Dominated by Dinosaurs.' I haven't actually read it yet, but I certainly enjoyed recieving it. I suppose depending on how much I enjoy it will determine whether it stays a 'non-comic...'

What are you looking forward to in 2014?

I'm taking the prize money from the cartoon comp and putting it towards getting to Florence in July. Going to do an intensive art atelier summer school - should be an adventure. Just raising money for that, staying busy and if I'm lucky, squeezing out another Saurian Era comic before I go.

 

corysaur.com/

2013 in Review: Toby Morris

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

 

Don't Puke On Your Dad coming out in September was good- first time I've had someone else putting out my work so that's been a whole new experience. 

And I didn't expect things would go down this path this year but I've ended up with a gig doing New Yorker style one panel gag cartoons for the Listener. I never thought that's where I'd go, but it's been a new thing learn and I've been enjoying it.

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

I've just been making my way through Adrian Kinniard's mega collection From Earth's End, a lot of old favourites but also bits I've never seen, that's great. I liked American Captain, Tim Danko's Once made me feel weird, and Mat Tait's Flying Dutchman book was cool. 

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

Special sauce black chilli prawns from Canton Cafe in Kingsland is my thing of 2013. And my second son Iggy being born, that was cool. I got married too, that was fun. But those prawns, man, seriously.

 
What are you looking forward to in 2014?

I don't know what the next book is right now, so that's exciting. Lots of half formed ideas, gonna be fun to see where they go. Looking forward to getting some sleep as the new baby settles in a bit.

xtotlworldwide.com/

2013 in Review: Grant Buist

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

The Wellington arts newspaper Capital Times folded after 39 years in print, but luckily my regular cartoon Jitterati was picked up a few weeks later by lifestyle magazine FishHead, so now It’s printed on glossy paper and read by upwardly mobile Millennials. Which is nice. For my own perverse amusement, I’ve been adapting Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot for the comic generation site Pixton. There’s over 130 episodes so far, and it’s confusing the hell out of everyone. It was also the twentieth anniversary of my cartoon Brunswick, but I forgot to do anything to mark it.

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

I’m 70km away from the nearest comics store or decent library graphic novel collection, so it’s all webcomics for me. Noelle Stevenson’s Nimona has been receiving a lot of deserved attention, as has Trudy Cooper and Doug Bayne’s spectacularly NSFW Oglaf. I also follow Jamie Smart’s Corporate Skull, Madeleine Flores’ Help Us! Great Warrior and Andrew Hussie’s epic Homestuck, which I started reading because it was described as "the Ulysses of the Internet”, presumably by someone who’s never actually read Ulysses. Nothing too obscure there, but it’s all good stuff. 

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

I’ve taken great pleasure this year in scratching large pigs with sticks. Few things are as rewarding as using a stick to raise a cloud of dried skin and mud from the stomach of a happily grunting piggy. 

What are you looking forward to in 2014?

I was commissioned to write a radio series based on a musical I wrote a few years ago based on Brunswick, so I’m looking forward to hearing how that turns out. I’m also looking forward to putting out the first chapters of my 14th graphic novel, which I’ve been promising for years now - life kept getting in the way, but now I live in Otaki Beach that isn’t such a problem.

grantbuist.com/

2013 in Review: Richard Fairgray

What have been your personal cartooning/comics highlights of 2013?
Finally catching up on my work so that I've now averaged a page for every day i've been alive (and currently 47 days ahead), selling thousands of copies of a picture book without anyone realising it's actually a comic, and finally having quality tee shirts for my staff to wear at shows (after ten years of shitty shirt makers letting me down).

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

The obvious ones. Saga, Lock and Key etcetera. Lots of old stuff (as usual).

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

That's a hard question.

What are you looking forward to in 2014?

Releasing more books than ever before (including a new project that starts next October that might just kill me...figuratively).

blastosaurus.com/

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/

2013 in Review: Sarah Laing

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

Having my Let Me Be Frank comics published by Pikitia Press! And getting paid to work on my Katherine Mansfield graphic novel. Also having my novel The Fall of Light published, with sequential art running between the chapters. 

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

The comic that I most recently loved is Anders Nilsen's The End - very affecting and his grief was brilliantly rendered. I went on a memoir binge and enjoyed Lucy Kinsey's Relish, Nicole George's Calling Dr Laura, Ellen Forney's Marbles and Uli Lust's Today is the last day of the Rest of your Life. I've been reading lots of kids' comics because I'm always getting them out for my son, and I was particularly excited to discover Luke Pearson. We both just read Annie Sullivan and the Trials of Helen Keller, which was pretty awesome. Locally, I loved Toby Morris'  Don't Puke on Your Dad (so touching! So familiar!) and I'm really enjoying Dylan Horrocks' frequent updates of his Sam Zabel and the Magic Pen story.

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

Novels are my weakness. I loved Jhumpa Lahiri's The Lowlands and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Americanah. I also discovered Patrick Ness, and was thoroughly disturbed by Sally Gardner's Maggot Moon. I've also been reading all of Jennifer Egan's back catalogue because I loved A Visit from the Goon Squad so much.

What are you looking forward to in 2014?

I am looking forward to getting some stuff finished! I want to send off issue 5 of Let Me Be Frank, and also I'd love to get my Katherine Mansfield project done. But everything takes longer than I hope it will...

 sarahelaing.wordpress.com/

2013 in Review: Sam Orchard

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

Getting to be on panel discussions with some of my comic heroes like Dylan Horrocks, Sarah Laing, Ant Sang and Adrian Kinnaird. Plus I got to meet the great Robyn Kenealy this year!

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

I became obsessed with Strip Search's first series - a reality comic artist show? Addictive.

Erika Moen's new 'Oh Joy Sex Toy' is amazing. Getting to pledge and get a copy of Jem Yoshioka's Sunshine Comic was excellent also.And I haven't managed to get my hands on Adrian's "From Earth's End" yet, but I am hoping I will get copy for xmas (*wink wink* xmas present gift givers) and so I am sure I will enjoy that as 2013 draws to a close.

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

There are non-comics things? I got an awesome job this year following Philip Patston around, that is something I really enjoy.

What are you looking forward to in 2014?

Busting out some more comics, and finally kickstarting my queer comics books 'Family Portraits.

roostertailscomic.com

2013 in Review: Li Chen

What have been your personal cartooning/comics highlights of 2013? Reaching 300 comics on Extra Ordinary, and making my first long format comic to celebrate! You can see it here. It was so much fun, I really want to make more long comics.

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

I've been reading some Japanese comics, I've especially enjoyed Kiyohiko Azuma's comics: Azumanga Daioh, and Yotsuba&! They are both slice-of-life comics, my favourite genre.

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

Drinking lots of tea, going on long walks.

What are you looking forward to in 2014?

Hopefully publishing volume three of Extra Ordinary!

exocomics.com

2013 in Review: Michel Mulipola

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

I have a couple of personal comics highlights:

The first is definitely helping my good pal, Jeremy, open up the comic book store, Arkham City Comics in Auckland, NZ. It's a place we've created as an 'asylum' for freaks and geeks to be who they are and celebrate what they love.And the second would be the very successful Headlocked Kickstarter campaign. Due to the amazing support from our backers, we were able to get this motion comic made as a Stretch Goal:

Also, being a finalist in the inaugral Secret Walls X Aotearoa Live Art Battles was choice! I went out to represent comic book art taking out graffiti artists in the process.I lost out to my friend, Paul Walsh, but am proud to have drawn the first ever full comic book page in a Secret Walls battle!

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

There are so many comics and creators whose work I've enjoyed in 2013. Working at Arkham City Comics, I get spoilt for choice. I enjoy Greg Capullo's stuff on Batman. Also enjoying Thor: God of Thunder. SAGA is fantastic as well as anything by Sean Murphy. Oh, and Tom Taylor's stuff on Injustice and Earth 2. Pretty much anything he touches is gold!

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

There's not much non-comics related stuff that happens in my life. Even my pro wrestling career is rooted in comic books. But one non-comics related highlight would be my nephew successfully battling a brain tumour with minimal side effects from radiation therapy. He's a little battler and inspires me every damned day.

What are you looking forward to in 2014?

2014 is shaping up to be a big year for me if 2013 is anything to go by.

I'm currently working on the Headlocked Kickstarter stuff, got a few side projects in other media going, a possible collab with a writer I admire and I'm hoping to make it to SDCC next year to do signings and maybe a panel. But yeah - who knows what 2014 holds for me, I'll just keep chugging along and before I know it, it's 2015 and Avengers 2: Age of Ultron time!

kid-liger.deviantart.com/

2013 in Review: Tim Molloy

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

Being asked to take part as a guest of the Adelaide Writers Week as part of the festival in March next year! Madman taking on distribution of Milk Shadow Books was a big one.

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

Ben Hutchos You Stink and I Don't collection. Pat Grants story about his dad Toormina Video. Properly investigated  Moebius this year.  Always good. Thomas Ott's R. I. P.  Was amazing...

What is something non-comics that you have enjoyed in 2013? 
My wife and I had a baby boy this year! This experience has easily been the best thing that has ever happened to me!

 
What are you looking forward to in 2014?

The Writers Week thing should be great...  Later in the year the sequel to Mr Unpronounceable Adventures will be published ,  if all goes well! Just drawing all the time,  or as much as I can,  and hopefully getting better in every way.

 timmolloy.tumblr.com/

2013 in Review: Theo Macdonald

 

What have been your personal cartooning/comics highlights of 2013?Publishing Theocra(D), the sequel to my comic Theocracy, co-creating the six-episode animated mini-series 'We Need to Talk about Richard and Theo,' and beginning the 'Richard and Theo's Funnybooks' project with 'The Norm,' 'Men on the Moon', and 'Irrelevamp.' 

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

Die Popular and American Captain are two of my favourite ongoing series online, and in print I'm enjoying Joe Hill's Locke and Key, which is supposed to finish next year (I think).

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

The NZIFF had a great line-up this year. Highlights for me included Only Lovers Left Alive, The Bling Ring, Oh Boy, and Frances Ha, which I actually saw outside the festival, but enjoyed it greatly nonetheless. Also, Woody Allen's Blue Jasmine is fantastic.  

What are you looking forward to in 2014?

Publishing another collection of Theocracy strips (to be titled Threeocracy), as well as continuing work on other projects in development. Also Wes Anderson's Grand Budapest Hotel looks fantastic

http://theocracy.blastosaurus.com/

2013 in Review: James Davidson

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

Releasing Moa Volume one at Chromacon was definitely a high. Not only was it good to see all the Moa comics collected in a single volume, it was great to meet lots of the local talent. Sharing a booth with Matt Emery and Sarah Laing was a blast. Living on the coast of Taranaki certainly has it's positives but the one thing it lacks is a thriving comic community, so getting the chance to talk comics all day is always appreciated. Also, being included in Adrian Kinnaird's excellent From Earths End book was a great honor. It is very humbling seeing my work in the same book with some of the most creative individuals New Zealand has to offer.

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

I haven't had much time to read many comics this year. The only one that has left a lasting impression was Seth's George Sprott, which I got from the New Plymouth Library. They just got Grant Morrison's Animal Man omnibus but as I have incurred a few fines I'm too chicken to go and get it!

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

Spotify! I have found so much new music through Spotify. I also like the subscription model which allows you to pretty much consume as much music as you want. Now when an album comes out I can give it a go and if I like it I keep it, if not you can delete it. It certainly makes you more adventurous in your tastes not having to commit $20-$30 on a CD. The album I've jammed the most in 2013 has been Kendrick Lamar's good kid m.A.A.d city.

 
What are you looking forward to in 2014?

Making more comics! Due to a growing family my output has been lower then I would have liked. I would like to get both issues 4 and 5 finished in 2014. With any luck issue 4 will be ready in time for the Wellington Armageddon. 

http://moascomic.blogspot.com.au/

Ross Gore - Levins 1841 - 1941

New Zealand artist Ross Gore's history of the first hundred years of Levin and Company LTD was published as a handsome hardcover book in 1956 by Levin and Co and printed by printer/publishers Whitcombe & Tombs in Wellington. Comprehensively researched from archival sources at the Alexander Turnbull Library, the company itself, and other Wellington institutions, Gore used his artistic talents to provide chapter illustrations from the various eras of the company.

Ross Gore's background and connections with the 'Baby Face Artist' behind comics Patsy Kane, Victory Comics and Meteor Comics feature on this previous post. I'm now convinced Gore was an associate of the unidentified 'Baby Face Artist' and confident some further research will reveal their connection.

Dick Hudson's Adventures, a back up story in Victory comics circa late 1944, appears to be the uncredited work of Gore.

 Victory Comics featured a cover story by the 'Baby face artist'.

Samples of Ross Gore's newspaper strip It happened in New Zealand here.

Photos from Ross Gore's wedding to Barbara Standish appeared in the Evening Post, 10 February 1939.(Gore second from left).

Gallery of Ross Gore Illustrations from Levins 1841 - 1941

Victory Comic scan provided by Allan Kemp, Ross Gore wedding photo from paperspast.natlib.govt.nz

Illustrations copyright 2013 estate of Ross Gore.

Maurice Bramley

One of Bramley's prolific output of covers for the Horwitz publishing company.

New Zealand born cartoonist Maurice Bramley's childhood residence in Devonport has been listed with the New Zealand Historic Places Trust with report on the property filed by Joan Mckenzie last year. The New Zealand Historic Places Trust is a crown entity and national agency entrusted with identifying heritage places and ensuring they survive for appreciation by current and future generations as well as fostering this appreciation through the recording and sharing their stories.

I previously wrote about Maurice Bramley's work here and here.

Daniel Best recently wrote about Bramley's work for Horwitz comics here.

The following excerpt is from Joan Mckenzie's report on 14 Glen Road for The New Zealand Historic Places Trust. Read the report in full here.

Harriet Pegler sold the property to Margaret Eliza Bramley (1876-1914) in 1903. The absence of a recorded mortgage suggests that Margaret may have had financial resources of her own.

Margaret, her husband William Harry Bramley (1875-1948) and their two young sons became the new occupiers. By this time, the number of households in Glen Road had doubled to eight, the breadwinners predominantly in blue-collar occupations - mariner, shipwright, coach fitter, line-engineer. Although the Bramley family occupied the property for two decades, little is known of their life in Auckland. Harry, who gave his occupation as ‘gentleman’ or ‘settler’, became a member of the Auckland Kennel Club, and was elected to the executive of the Stanley Bay Ratepayers’ Association in 1921.

From New Plymouth, the family were part of Taranaki’s Pakeha-settler social network. The couple had married in 1897 at Margaret’s parents’ farm at Tikorangi, an outlying rural settlement founded in 1865 by militia families led by Margaret’s father Captain John Henry Armstrong (c.1834-1915). Armstrong was the son of a Church of Ireland minister and from a family with a long military tradition. A number of Margaret’s uncles were captains in the Taranaki Militia.
 
Harry Bramley had moved to Taranaki in the 1880s after the 1876 death of his father, a Rangiora farmer. Harry’s two sisters had married into prosperous families. Annie (1867?-1956) was a daughter-in-law of a late Superintendent of the Taranaki Province, Henry Robert Richmond (1829-90) of the influential Richmond-Atkinson family. Amy (1869-1947) was a daughter-in-law of a late Australian Premier and Colonial Secretary, Sir Charles Cowper (1807-75).

Retaining the Glen Road home on one-and-a-half lots, Margaret Bramley sold Lot 132 fronting Russell Street in 1906. Margaret died prematurely, in 1914 three years after the birth of the couple’s third child.

Staying on at Glen Road, Harry married Grace Eveline Sallabank (1874-1976) in 1917. Margaret and Harry’s three sons, including the eldest - Maurice (1898-1975), still lived at the house in 1918. Moving to Australia in the mid-1920s.

Gallery of Maurice Bramley Horwitz war comic covers courtesy the Adelaide Comics Centre.