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.

David C. Mahler Interview

 

One of my highlights of last year was publishing Deep Park by David C Mahler. The process of putting together Deep Park with David was a great learning experience and I was really happy with the finished work. David is a crazy hard working cartoonist and though I've mentioned he'll get snapped up by some other industry that will pay him handsomely for his talent, I admire his steadfast dedication to making comics.
 

David Mahler's 2013 published output of comics and contributions to magazines and anthologies.

Buy David C Mahler's comics from his online store.

For new comics follow David's tumblr.

The following is excerpted from a series of cartoonist interview zines, with the first one focused on David's work launching at the annual Sticky Institute zine fair, Melbourne Town Hall, Feb 9th.


What got you interested in making comics?
Growing up in Canada I'd get a new Archie comic every time I went shopping with mum. These were the first comics I ever read, and they left a huge impact on. When I moved to Belgium at age seven I delved into the immense Franco-Belgian catalogue, another huge impression. I'd draw comics with a friend of mine, just weird crap like various ways the teletubbies could die, and a superhero made out of bubblegum, and a dramedy about a community of ants (no joke, soz DeForge). When I finally came to Australia at age ten I went from Marvel/DC to manga to alternative and underground comics, all of which presented their own influences. The combination of words with images is surely what drew me to the medium - the meeting and symbiosis of two crafts is just such a powerful form of expression and storytelling, I really think it's the pinnacle.

I occasionally wonder as to why I draw comics…I've come to the conclusion that I simply want to tell stories, stories that affect people in the way the comics of my childhood and youth affected and shaped me. Maybe a comic of mine makes you happy, maybe it makes you sad or contemplative or confused or excited. If I make you feel something then I have achieved my purpose and that is just the most blissful concept for me as a creator.

I think it's incredible how fictional characters can truly affect our lives and how we grow up, who we become. As a boy I learned from Archie, I learned from Tintin. It sounds silly, but if we think back to our childhoods and the books, movies etc that left an impression on us I think everyone would realise that their personalities are the direct results of factors such as fictional characters. So maybe I also draw comics to shape people, to foster them through the guise of entertainment. Shit, this got kind of deep, sorry. Ha, it got 'deep park'.

How long was Deep Park in gestation and what inspired the theme park setting?

I had a seriously intense creative period at the start of this year. All of a sudden I was writing about twenty stories at once, it was really exciting. When you proposed that I draw something for Pikitia Press I decided to sit down and choose the story I would work on to completion. I changed my mind about five times, but eventually realised that a few stories could be merged together to create a manageable, fun, and, in my naive mind, respectable narrative.

Deep Park was originally going to take place in a large Central Park style park in the burbs. I wanted to create a story that weaved together a bunch of seemingly independent narratives to create a larger story, a concept I carried out to the final draft. The shift of setting to a theme park was really serendipitous, a bunch of things came together almost simultaneously - first of all, I came to terms with the fact that the park idea just didn't present enough opportunities for interesting scenarios…at the same time I came across these bizarre Disney theme park 'documentaries' on the Lifestyle Channel, ha ha. They were basically just long advertisements that explored the history and lesser known sides of the various parks, but they were imbued with this sort of magic that made everything seem so awe-inspiring and beautiful. I found them all on youtube and would just get blazed and freaking dream of going to Disney Land!

I started youtubing ride throughs, these videos where people just film a roller coaster ride from the front seat. So you're just riding a roller coaster but you're not, it's kind of depressing in a lot of ways. I started 'researching' and found this whole culture surrounding ride throughs, people who travel countries purely to ride roller coasters, they're obsessed. To them, these rides are Nirvana. What a concept. Weirded out but fascinated, I kept looking - I found some ride throughs from a theme park/water park that my friends and I would go to in Belgium. I almost cried when I watched the videos as all these memories came flooding back…but then I started to look on the edges of the screen, the parts you're not meant to focus on. Chipping paint, scaffolding, plywood. How fucking depressing! I finally, FINALLY woke up to the truth that these theme parks are just cultivated, false happiness. Disney isn't a world of wonder. It's a fucking complex of spit and polished facades with people dressed up to make you feel happy and forget about reality. It's bonkers, man. It's so, so weird. How did humanity get to this? How can we smile with glee and child-like wonder as we're rolled along the It's a Small World Ride? Take away the paint and bright colours and you're sitting in a dark warehouse, in a cold metal box looking at rotating statues and gears. That's freaky.

Originally Deep Park was going to be a standard US size comic, what inspired the change of format?

Artistic integrity, purely. Originally each page was a twelve panel grid. I wanted to fit so, so much into this book but couldn't be bother drawing more than 28 pages. Thus, I just condensed everything and told myself it'd be fine. I showed my dad a few finished pages and he just said this is a mess and I can't read it. He was right, but I couldn't accept it, I just called him old…finally about three days from the deadline I realised that this comic I'd been working so hard on was a mess and I couldn't read it. Breaking the pages in half (with some panel re-arranging) was the smartest move I could've made, I really dodged a bullet and learned some massive lessons about page composition, pacing, word placement etc. So thanks dad.

Conrad Freiboe

Conrad Freiboe was active as an illustrator in New Zealand during the 1940's and 1950's. I've found little biographical information about Freiboe with an article in British magazine Flying Saucer Review dated July-August 1957 indicating Freiboe was living on Oriental Parade in Wellington during the late fifties. Freiboe's fine hatching and sturdy draughtsmenship featured in early issues of the New Zealand School Journal and many A.H. and A.W. Reed Publications including article illustrations for Conquest magazine during it's two years of publication over 1945-1947. Conrad also contributed illustrations to the NZEF bulletin Cue and I suspect he was a staff artist for the New Zealand army bulletin Korero during World War Two although Korero contributions were typically uncredited.

First issue of Conquest The Magazine for Youth published in 1945

Article excerpted from Flying Saucer Review July-August 1957:

"Mr. Adrian A. C. Mills, of London, writes that his correspondent, Mr. Conrad Freiboe, of Quental [sic] Parade, Wellington, reports : "I was in Christchurch (South Island) over Easter and enjoying the continuous sun-shine. I first noticed the phenomenon when looking up at the sky near the sun and, of course, could not make out what was floating earthwards." The Christchurch Star-Sun of April 29 stated : "What is the nature of the mysterious, gossamer-like substance which appeared to fall from the skies in many suburbs yesterday after-noon. To the uninitiated it appeared to be spiders' web. But its texture was very different. When handled it immediately dissolved into nothing; though apparently very light, it was not light enough to defy gravity except with the help of a very high wind. A Woolston resident who happened to be looking towards the hills with an astronomical telescope about midday noticed the substance falling in large quantities. He immediately set his telescope to observe various distances, increasing them until he was observing at a height of 15,000 ft. At this altitude the material was really thick, and plummeting down steadily in sheets which appeared about the size of a dinner table. The Meteorological Department reported a westerly air stream extending to Australia at the time, so that it is almost certain it came from overseas. Similar substance has been reported in New Zealand before at Onehunga two or three years ago said the Woolston man. It has also been reported from France, the United States and South America. An American scientist has associated its appearance with that of 'un-identified flying objects,' the suggestion being that it is caused by the exhaust of some unknown type of engine."

During it's first year of publication each issue of Conquest featured companion articles by Everard Anson, The World of Today and The World of Tomorrow, with illustrations by Freiboe.

Paper Trail

Peter Dornauf writes about Comic Artists in Hamilton.

Thinking is hard.

The Adventures of Tintin Contact.

Bright Threadz #7.

Die Popular: Summer Advice Series.

Rob Clough reviews Faction Volume One.

Pop Culture 1945 to present at the Australian Cartoon Museum.

Karl Wills teases a new collaboration with Timothy Kidd.

Sam Cooney collaboration with Katie Parrish.

Slow News Day: Book shelved in wrong section.

Just Indie Comics reviews Life Zone.

It ain't comics but what what: Andrew Nette writes about the closing of second bookshops in Melbourne. 

Nat Karmichael writes about recent and future Comicoz publications.

Throwing up a few illustration and comics galleries this week:

  Russell Clark

Des Condon

 Conrad Freiboe

 Phil Belbin Cavalcade Illustrations

Paper Trail masthead courtesy of Toby Morris.

E noho rā 2013

Big thanks to all the New Zealand & Australian cartoonists and comic makers who contributed to the 2013 in Reviews. I'm signing off for a few days and will back with some galleries and interview posts on Jan 1st 2014.

I'll be trying to get my head around a few more places next year, please consider liking/following Pikitia Press in these places:

facebook: facebook.com/PikitiaPress
twitter @pikitiapress
tumblr: pikitiapress.tumblr.com/

2013 in Review survey index:

Gregory Mackay bit.ly/190OERO
Brendan Boughen bit.ly/JTJaic
Cory Mathis bit.ly/18T5bnx
Matthew Hoddy bit.ly/IUnEK2
Andrew Fullton bit.ly/1jgoC3G
David Blumenstein bit.ly/ITI7i9
Justin Randall bit.ly/J1s6Gm
David C Mahler bit.ly/1cNhdDC 
Grant Buist http://bit.ly/1gAZEtX 
Jen Breach bit.ly/Jx2xhz
Ben Michael Byrne http://bit.ly/INu0uO 
Brendan Halyday  bit.ly/18PvQVv 
Toby Morris bit.ly/1hmGBRw
Bruce Mutard bit.ly/1dvAYhu 
Stuart McMillen bit.ly/1c034Ek 
Joshua Santospirito bit.ly/18Gnek2
Frank Candiloro bit.ly/IQTJSh
Richard Fairgray bit.ly/19DaLdX  
Colin Wilson bit.ly/IPOyCn  
Jason Franks bit.ly/IEKkhl 
Matt Kyme bit.ly/18vb8qB  
Anthony Woodward bit.ly/1kqIz36  
Caitlin Major bit.ly/1d4l5xN  
Sarah Laing bit.ly/1fh9ptS  
Sam Orchard bit.ly/1f3kvC3 
Gavin Aung Than bit.ly/J95ipc
Scarlette Baccini bit.ly/18BiyMe  
David Follett bit.ly/1gYFZRT
Simon Hanselmann bit.ly/1dbhuyu  
Michel Mulipola bit.ly/1aDPPD9
Li Chen bit.ly/18cmLb6  
Ryan K Lindsay bit.ly/19itb3v   
Christopher Downes bit.ly/1hzFxMU  
Dean Rankine bit.ly/18k8YKi 
Alisha Jade bit.ly/1bFijT3    
Theo Macdonald bit.ly/1dOK4u7
Paul Mason bit.ly/ILOFzC  
James Davidson bit.ly/1bFmVZp  
Tim Molloy bit.ly/1cYKoBi  
Jason Chatfield bit.ly/1bIyCP1

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/