What have been your personal cartooning/comics highlights of 2013? I did a bunch of stupid political comics in the lead-up to the federal election because I was angry at all the participants and the yucky little games they play in the media.
The best one was called The Bolt Report. I entered it in the Lord Mayor's Creative Writing awards and it won one! Then Andrew Bolt found out about it, threw it to the attack dogs on his blog, and they got quite nasty -- especially the ones who thought it was real, who got quite mad at the "teacher" for her leftist subversion!
I asked Tristian if he'd like to respond to all this, and he has.
This has all been a lot of fun, but I'm not sure anyone learned anything. Anyway, the piece (and some of the comments from Bolt's blog) will be on display at the City Library early next year.
Also, I got a chance to collaborate with a Guardian journalist, Paul Owen, on a piece recapping the federal election. That was great and I want to do more comics journalism stuff. I'm researching something about lobbyists at the moment.
I had a few cracks at live cartooning, at a show called "Picture This" at Comedy Festival and at the Melbourne Writers Festival in "Draw! Draw Faster!". That's fun.
Am also enjoying the occasional ACA meetups, and the Stanleys conference is always nice because I get to chat a bit with "proper (paid) cartoonists".
What are some of the comics you've enjoyed in 2013?
I've been enjoying the political cartoons of David Pope and David Rowe. And Chris Downes always does good stuff.
Michael Hawkins does comics but the thing I liked most of his this year was his work in an exhibition called Fleshtonez.
Pat Grant's "Toormina Video" is an excellent, moving short comic and was just as excellent as a staged reading at the Opera House.
Good seeing collections of Dillon Naylor and Tim Molloy stuff come out thru Milk Shadow Books/Madman. Hutcho too, but we all know I love him.
Andrew Fulton does excellent comics despite having childrens to raise; that's always impressive. And he runs the Minicomic of the Month Club. Those minis are often real good.
Daniel Reed's Grubby Little Smudges of Filth looks really good, but Comixology's "web viewer" is broken so I haven't read it yet.
Myles Loughran's "Laugh Until You Spew". I'm not that into diary comics but I like his, and there's a heartwarming ending after all the spew.
Every so often I go to All Star Comics and I pick up an American comic that looks interesting. They're all about zombies fighting crime or scientists fighting mutant zombies or zombie scientists going back in time to meet Abraham Lincoln, and they all want to be written like League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and look like Hellboy.
But they're not.
What is something non-comics that you have enjoyed in 2013? I just watched the last two series of "Eastbound and Down". "Breaking Bad" finished well, too. "Justified" continues to be good.
Anna Krien's "Night Games" and Tom Doig's "Moron 2 Moron" are excellent booky-books.
Liking Katharine Murphy's writing on Guardian Australia. David Marr is pretty brilliant too. Maybe they'd like to collaborate on a comic?
Been listening to Harry Shearer's "Le Show". Angry coverage of important things, and sketches which make you sad. It's comedy, but not really.
I go to Tassie a lot. It's nice.
What are you looking forward to in 2014? Finishing my animated cop show, BE A MAN.
Jase Harper's upcoming graphic novel looks good, only seen peeks of that in Squishface and on his blog.
We just renewed the lease on Squishface for one more year?
