"VDS is cigarettes and acid and funerals."
Uber busy Melbourne based cartoonist Simon Hanselmann recently launched Victoria Drug Scene, a 76 page anthology of established and young cartooning upstarts primarily from Melbourne. Contributors include Michael Hawkins, HTML Flowers, Marc Pearson, Lashna Tuschewski, Michael Fikaris, Magic Sweater, Sam Wallman, David Mahler, Katie Parrish, international guest Josephine Mairead King Edwards.
Victoria Drug Scene will be available in the next few days from the Silent Army Storeroom. ( Proprietors of many fine Australian and New Zealand comics.)
I asked Simon a few questions about the production of Victoria Drug Scene.
You're quite a busy cartoonist at the moment, producing work for
multiple publishers around the world, what inspired you to edit an
anthology?
"It's basically like when Eminem
blew up and got kinda popular and did the whole D12 thing, getting all
his old friends together and being a group and saying, "Hey, look world,
here are my cool friends. Give them deals and money, please. I love
them and hope you will too."
Also it's a direct rebuttal to the recent documentary film "Graphic Novels! Melbourne!" (LOL). It's my opinion of what is the most vibrant,
exciting, interesting work being produced in this city."
Did you take cues from any particular anthologies when producing
Victoria Drug Scene? Did you have any themes or particular visions for the anthology?
"I staunchly specified "NO THEME"
to all of the invited artists. I'm not a fan of themed anthologies. I
wanted people to do whatever it is they do best and whatever the fuck
they wanted to do and I just had to hope that people wouldn't fuck it up
and I wouldn't hate their pieces and have to tell them they screwed up.
My vision was for a cheaply produced anthology of interesting local
work that could, "Compete on a global level", by people who know what's
happening in the world of comics, literature, fine art, film and fashion
and whose styles are fully formed (or near fully formed).
No zombies or Star Wars references. No cute, meandering, artless, poorly-paced bullshit by boring people with nothing to say.VDS is not "geek culture". VDS is cigarettes and acid and funerals.
Regarding other anthologies that may have provided inspiration:
It's it's own thing. It's Melbourne comics in early 2013. It can't
possibly be anything else."
Panel from Megg and Mogg by Simon Hanselmann
Is there a common 'scene' or 'aesthetic' contributing artists to VDS
are a part of? If I recall rightly you were abroad for a while before
coming to Melbourne in 2011 what are your general impressions of
the Melbourne 'comics community'?
I moved to Victoria from
Tasmania in early 2008 (and before that I'd always been aware of Silent Army and most of the interesting stuff coming out of the state. I kept
tabs on everything happening whilst I was away in the UK from late 2008
to early 2011 (lots of interesting young people started making comics
and self publishing in that period. HTML flowers, Lashna Tuschewski,
David C Mahler, Marc Pearson, Katie Parrish etc).
Victoria is, in my opinion, the state producing the best comics in Australia. no other state even comes close.
I
guess most of the artists in VDS are kind of coming at comics from an
arts background and are not aware of, or interested in "mainstream
comics". Most of them are in their early twenties and know their shit.
We all tabled together at the Melbourne Zine Fair and were referred
to as "The Cool Kids" and "The stoners that sneak alcohol into the
event". "The Pretty Weirdos"."
Panel from Megg's Therapy by Simon Hanselmann
Will you be producing further anthologies?
Yes.
VDS will be a quarterly publication for the foreseeable future. There
are more young, emerging Australian artists that I will be asking to
produce pieces for future issues. Evie Cahir, Tom Hunter, Hamishi etc.
I'll also continue to invite different international guests like
Josie Mairead King Edwards from the first issue. I met her on tumblr and
think she is utterly brilliant. And she's 17. I put her piece right
near the front of the book as a warning to the other artists, "LOOK.
look what Josie has done. Pick up your game." I may also start to feature small amounts of related "fine art", sculpture and fashion photography.
Can you name some cartoonists more people should be aware of?
Local:
Marc Pearson. Marc has impeccable taste in the current global comics
scene and is one of my favorite people to talk shop with. His last two
books have been wonderful and he's blossoming into one of our best
writers.I predict big things for him in the future.
Michael Hawkins is eternally unique and brilliant and one of my
oldest friends in comics, his Frosnall Graaf series is the Australian
Twin Peaks.
M P Fikaris is running the Silent Army Storeroom which holds all the best
comics to be found in Melbourne, he's also been releasing his anthology
'Dailies', a wonderful snapshot of the broader Australian scene. Pretty
much everything that "matters" is in there.
Worldwide: there's too many people to mention, here's some of the
top of my head: Aiden Koch, Lala Albert, Patrick Kyle, Jonny Negron,
Noel Freibert, Royce Icon, Ines Estrada, Alex Schubert, Heather
Benjamin, Edie Fake, Charles Foresman, Dane Martin, Zach Hazard Vaupen,
Mickey Z, Joe Kessler, Gabriel Corbera... those are most of my current
favorites...
I buy all my books online, usually direct from the artists.
Australian comic book stores are pathetically behind the times and
completely unaware of what's new and awesome. They're too busy selling
toys and trinkets. Minotaur disgusts me. It actually smells in there. Plus they put
those fucking metal price-stickers on all the "graphic novels" and they
either tear the books up or leave greasy stains.
(I'm actually
quite shocked that we have so many comic book shops in the city centre.
Minotaur. All Star. Comics R Us. Comix... I hate all of them and find
them poorly curated and totally useless. I wish at least ONE of them had
ONE employee with taste who would order in interesting NEW small press
and "art comics". Instead there are life-size plastic batman statues and
pinball machines. ugly t-shirts. *Sigh*)"
