Oz Comic Con Melbourne 2013

 
After last years debacle of too many people in too little space this years Oz Comic Con in Melbourne was transported to the Royal Exhibition Building in Carlton Gardens. I managed to snap a few pics from artist alley before my camera died. Are people getting sick of my holiday snaps? Seemed like a lot of mugging this year.

 Ben Hutchings and Dillon Naylor

 Alisha Jade, Steve Sparke and BMB

Justin Randall, Greg Maclean and Colin Wilson

Brendan Halyday and Frank Candiloro

Wolfgang Bylsma

 Henry Pop and Paul "The Beast" Bedford

 The Space Pyrates, Caitlin Major and Matthew Hoddy

Ryan K Lindsay

Larry, Curley and Moe

 Jin Chan Yum Wai

Queenie Chan

Dean Rankine

 Doug Holgate

Ginny and Darren Koziol

Fil Barlow and Helen Maier

Tom Taylor

Sorab Del Rio

Jon Sommariva

Ross Stewart and Matt Nicholls

Christian Read and Andrew Constant

Paul Mason

The best photo of T-Rex Jones out of the six I took.

 Public Emery Number One

Picked up a few gems from the locals and did a little bargain bin diving.

 I'm a sucker for cheap Mandrake comics

New Zealand editions of Flash Gordon from Feature Productions don't pop up too often. I'm hoping to complete a book on the reprint era of New Zealand comics by September.

This particular issue of the Wally Wood published Heroes INC featuring Cannon seems to turn up often at cons in recent years. A warehouse find of 70,000 uncirculated copies probably accounts for some of them. I know a similar story about an Australian equivalent to that find, I'll have to write it up one of these days.

English Comics Diversion: Playbox August 27th 1949

June Mendoza

June Mendoza seated with her arms around two of her children, Ashley and Lee; Elliet is standing in left foreground. A portrait of all four children is in the background.(Photo from SLV.)

I'm working on a profile and an interview with Australian artist June Mendoza tracing her career from illustrating comics and books in Australia through to working in the English comics industry. After comics Mendoza has had a prominent career as a portrait painter with her many subjects including popular entertainers, politicians and members of the English Royal family. Here's a few samples of her work in comics.

Mendoza was the first artist to illustrate Devil Doone who featured in Australian comics from the 1940's -1970's.

Samples from Belle of Ballet painted for Girl Annual #4, Hulton Press, 1956, under the pseudonym Chris Garvey.

  Diana and Debbie are Dieticians from Girl Annual #9, Longacre Press, 1961.

 Illustration from Girl Annual Annual #9, Longacre Press, 1961.

Grateful thanks to Phil Rushton and Matrix for info on June Mendoza. Thanks to James from ausreprints.com for the Devil Doone scans.

Mini Paper Trails

 

Mini paper trails this week 'cause I'm busy as all heck.


Profile of World War One cartoonist William Dobson.

The June/July issue of the Lifted Brow is out with a stunning cover by Ben C and featured comics by Simon Hanselmann, HTMLflowers, Katie Parrish, Noel Freibert, Leonie Brialey, Ben Juers, Lashna Tuschewski and David C Mahler. Buy a copy here.

Photos from Monsters exhibition at M2 (facebook gallery).

Jason Paulos at Monsters

Mat Tait's adaption of Wagner's The Flying Dutchman is completed and online in fourteen parts.

Ronnie Scott reviews Joshua Santospirito's and Craig San Roque's A long Weekend in Alice Springs.

Animated film, Shelved, featuring designs by Greg Broadmore, more info here.

 

Paul Tumey writes about the influence of the work Australian born English cartoonist H. M. Bateman. Tumey has just started a great column, Framed! at TCJ, started with a serialised look at early work of Jack Cole.

Roger Langridge interviewed at A Moment of Cerebus. (Hat-tip Jason Winter)

Bob Kerr has posted details and samples of his paintings of the Waihi gold strike of 1912 and a series of exhibitions in New Zealand.

John Dixon covers from the golden age of Australian comics.

 

Paper Trail masthead courtesy of Toby Morris.