Showing posts with label tim molloy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tim molloy. 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.

Thursday, December 5, 2013

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.

Sunday, August 4, 2013

NZ Comics, Cartoons + Art Sunday Gallery

In an effort to keep up while I'm traveling and in deadline hell over the next couple months expect some image heavy posts.

A couple Dylan Horrocks book covers for Victoria University Press. (Via Dylan's FB)



Roy Hunt depicts a NZ Christmas from The New Zealand Freelance Christmas Annual 1919. (Via Papers Past)


Roger Langridge draws Usagi & Fred for the Baltimore Comic Con fundraiser auction. (via Hotel Fred)



Colin Wilson Dredd/Rogue Trooper commission.




Picturesque Fairlie illustrations from Korero magazine May 8th, 1944 artist unknown.







Series of three John Kent illustrations of Margaret Thatcher and John Bull for BBC Newsnight. (Via The Political Cartoon Society)








Ben Stenbeck pencil drawing from 2003 (Via Monsters and Stuff)



Preview of Tim Molloy's limited edition mini The Origins Of The Sect Of The Bleeding Eye available at Tim's Strange Pageant exhibition.

Crime serial Stephen Clark from by Harry Bennett from The new Supreme Feature Comics #2 circa late '40s.



James Davidson previews pages from Moa #4 (via Moa Blog)




Friday, July 26, 2013

Mini Paper Trail


Tonight: Silent Army Storeroom 6pm -8pm Once - A New Comic Book by Tim Danko.

Silent Army:


Storeroom open today 12 - late with hardcover book launch of 'once' by Tim Danko tonight and the last pages of the giant wooden comic book being completed live and for your enjoyment.
 
Katie Parrish's We can go anywhere but we'll always be we where we are.
 

Jonathan Goodman writes about Gavin Aung Than's Zen Pencils.

 
Erica Goldson: Graduation Speech on Zen Pencils.

Race Relations Commissioner receives complaint for cartoon depiction of the goddess Kali in the New Zealand Herald. (Hat Tip - Alan Liefting)

Jason Paulos Heavy Metal Submission.



Milk Shadow Books publisher James Andre is Scenestr of the day!


Lucy Frew profiles Toby Morris.



Simon Hanselmann excerpt from The Lifted Brow.


Keith Chatto must win the award for drawing the most Australian comics covers ever.




James James and Tim Molloy share WIP Deerstalker.


Clip from a couple years back of Michel Mulipola on Pacific Beat St.



Pepi Ronald's interviews Sam Wallman.


Q and A with Ben Hutchings on Noncanonical.





Penny Lewis writes about pioneer New Zealand cartoonist Trevor Lloyd's home, Whare Tane.


Eddie Monotone's Sloths and Trolleys.


Paper Trail masthead courtesy of Toby Morris.