Advertisement for Real Life Adventure from back cover of Conquest Magazine
Real Life Adventure was published in New Zealand by A.H and A.W. Reed. There are no dates or credits included in the comic but the advert above from Reed's Magazine For Youth, Conquest, indicate Real Life Adventure was published in early 1947. A prolific publisher of the twentieth century, Reed published over a hundred publications annually including some with comics content although Real Life Adventure is the only example of a monthly comic I have found. Featuring adaptions of stories from the Bible, Real Life Adventure is a rare example of a New Zealand comic with colour pages from this era.
The art style is very similar to the Russ Denver strip featured in Conquest magazine. It is possible Real Life Adventures was the product of an artist or artists from the Haythorn Thwaite Studios in Auckland.
Comicbook Factory Chief Karl Wills has recently released a new comic Princess Seppuku Book One. 32 pages, black and white with a colour center spread and in the style of his Jessica of the Schoolyard Tijuana bibles. For those unfamiliar with Wills work visit The Comicbook Factory.
Wills is one of New Zealand's finest cartoonists I heartily recommend you buy a copy from here.
I have been researching a piece on Anti-Maori propaganda in cartoons. Cartoon below by Garland William Woon is from the Taranaki Punch produced during the 1860's.
New Zealand born cartoonist Colin Wilson talks about his career on the latest episode of Melbourne comics podcast NonCanonical.
Cover of Prophet #29 by Australian cartoonist Fil Barlow (Image Comics).
Issue #22 of Prophet featured a four page back up by Barlow and series writer Brandon Graham has been very effusive in his appreciation of Barlow stating in an interview with Gavin Lees, "There’s this artist named Fil Barlow who, when I was 10, I got a hold of
this six-issue series he did called Zooniverse. It changed my comicbook
life, you know? It was so exciting, and he put so much work into these
six issues that I’ve memorized the things pretty much."
Barlow has been blogging in recent times over here.
Prolific Melbourne cartoonist Frank Candiloro has released a new 40 page horror comic available from his Etsy store as well as his past works over here.
Recent interviews with New Zealand cartoonists. Roger Langridge at the Washington Post here and with the Orbiting Pod here. Dylan Horrocks answers 15 questions with Sequential Highway here.
Congratulations to Becky Dreistadt
and Frank Gibson for more than doubling their Kickstarter goal to raise funds for a 110 page deluxe hardcover collecting the first three years of their Tiny Kitten Teeth webcomic.
Gorgeous Stanley Pitt cover for a pulp western from Australian publisher Horwitz Publications 1958.
New Zealand born Maurice Bramley single page of a western comic digest undated from Australian publishers Page Publications. Apart from this page the entirety of the comic is made up of reprinted american material.
One of New Zealand's nationally recognised icons, the Four Square man was created by the Foodstuffs advertising department in the 1950s. The Four Square chain of stores were established by Foodstuffs founder J. Heaton Barker to combat grocery chain stores of the day who were threatening the livelihood of independent grocers in Auckland. Four Square stores currently have over 280 stores across New Zealand.
The Four Square man initially appeared in newspapers and newsletters before graduating to other forms of advertising and becoming synonymous with the Four Square brand.
The following colouring book was part of a 1967 promotional competition and depicts astronauts enjoying popular Four Square products in a futuristic environment.
Published in 1959 the eighth Girl annual featured one story by Australian writer Betty Roland, Vicky in The Painted Emperor, illustrated by Dudley Pout.
Read more adventure comics written by Betty Roland here and here.
Hautipua Rererangi - Huia Publishers Copyright 2009 Te Tahuhu o te Matauranga
Published by Huia Publishers in 2009, Hautipua Rererangi recounts the wartime exploits of Porokoru Patapu (John) Pohe the first Māori
pilot in the RNZAF. Nicknamed 'Lucky Johnny', Pohe was a WWII hero who
flew an amazing 22 missions, and was involved in the legendary 'Great
Escape' from Stalag Luft III. The Great Escape was fictionalised as a 1963 film by John Sturges starring Steve McQueen, James Garner, and Richard Attenborough. Hautipua Rererangi is completely in Te Reo Maori, with Maori, Pakeha and even Nazi characters conversing in Maori.
Hautipua Rererangi was released in English as Born To Fly in April 2012. The English version has been revised with illustrator Andrew Burdan commenting, "Lot's of little details have been altered and the
panel flow has been smoothed a bit. I think it's an improved reading
experience now."
Julian Arahanga
Hautipua Rererangi writer, Julian Arahanga, is probably best known as an actor in the films Once Were Warriors and The Matrix. Turangaarere - the John Pohe Story released in 2008 marked Arahanga's debut as a director recounting John Pohe's story with interviews and dramatic re-enactments.
Wellington based Illustrator Andrew Burdan has worked on children's books, educational material, storyboards and in recent years comics with Hautipua Rererangi being his first stand alone comic work.
Andrew Burdan
The following interview with Andrew Burdan was conducted via email April 2012
When and what were the first comics you took an interest in?
I think my first comics were either Richie Rich or reprints of Carl
Barks Donald Duck, there were a lot of comics around when I was a kid,
this was probably around the late 1970's.
Have you undertaken any illustration training?
I didn't actually do any formal illustration training. I started as a
kid and then it was pretty much learning from books and the Internet. I
especially found there were heaps of useful tutorials online when I was
learning Photoshop. I would definitely recommend doing a design course
though I think I would have made much faster process.
Hautipua Rererangi - Huia Publishers Copyright 2009 Te Tahuhu o te Matauranga
What are some of the specific influences in your comic work?
There's ton's of influences in and out of comics over the years but in
working on Hautipua Rererangi (Born to Fly) I was definitely influenced
by the comic artists Sean Phillips and Charlie Adlard. They both had a
particular approach that I thought would enable me to produce work at
something like a page or so a day while having a look that would hopefully
appeal to boys. (Which was the primary audience, particularly those who
were struggling to engage with reading.)
Hautipua Rererangi Huia PublishersCopyright 2009 Te Tahuhu o te Matauranga
How did you get involved with Huia Publishers?
I was approached by Huia to submit a sample page for the project, I had
done a fair bit of work for them before and they thought I might be able
to do something in the style of "Charley's War", a great British WW1
strip. The script was already written by Julian Arahanga at this stage
and they were looking for artists to draw it.
Did you have Julian Arahanga's documentary Turangaarere: The John Pohe
Story as a reference before commencing work on Hautipua Rererangi?
I had a look at the documentary before I started and took notes and
sketches of it etc. As the graphic novel covered the same territory as
the documentary it was an invaluable resource. I spent a long time doing
my own research after that and I was impressed with how amazingly
thorough they were. I specifically remember using it to refer to items
of clothing. The Doco had current members of the Pohe family in some
scenes dressed in the actual clothing the family had worn in the 40's.
They'd been kept as heirlooms for all that time.
How did you go about researching references?
My own research involved a lot of reading (A book called Bomber Boys in particular
Was excellent) a great many hours of goggle image searches, library
visits, watching war documentaries and feature films as well as
revisiting my own collection of war comics. In addition to that I bought
a bunch of 3d models of planes and vehicles as well as plastic toys and
figures. I tried to cross reference everything, the more sources I drew
from the more accurate I thought the end result would be. I was hoping
that if I put a lot of work into it then it might help to encourage
further reading as well from the students.
Hautipua Rererangi Huia PublishersCopyright 2009 Te Tahuhu o te Matauranga
Was there much consultation with writer Arahanga during the creation of Hautipua Rererangi?
There was a fair bit I recall. Julian was definitely open to any
questions that I had. I'd worked with him on a few projects as a
storyboard artist previously so we had a good working relationship
already. In retrospect I could have bothered him more but he was really
happy with the end result so the hard work was worth it.
Do you have a preference between story-boarding, illustration and sequential narrative work?
I tend to enjoy the variety overall, I'm pretty happy working in any
area. Story-boarding does free you up to draw quickly and concentrate on
the essentials and also gives opportunity to collaborate on a larger
project with other creative types, which is really inspiring.
I haven't done a lot of comic book work but it's definitely engaging and I feel I've probably got something to offer this form.
Illustration work often gives me the chance to experiment (within
guidelines) as these are often shorter term projects and I can stretch
myself a bit, trying different approaches and techniques which helps
keep it fresh for me.
Hautipua Rererangi - Huia Publishers Copyright 2009 Te Tahuhu o te Matauranga
Purely a geek question on my part having thoroughly enjoyed
District 9, Was there anything in the film that was distinctly derived
from your story-boarding contributions?
Geek questions are good questions. I loved working on District 9 but I
really didn't contribute anything beyond drawing up more polished
versions of Neal's boards that he drew up. The design work was pretty
much all done by the time I got onboard and Neal had Avery clear idea of
what he was going for visually. Most of the storyboards were done while
Neal was shooting in Johannesburg so there wasn't The opportunity for
much back and forth. I knew it was going to be a great film even for
those short four weeks or so of boarding it.
Can you talk a bit about your studio set up?
I use photoshop CS4 with an Intuous 3 Wacom tablet for inking/colouring. At the moment I've placed my (
kitset) drawing table against my computer desk (also kitset) just
because I often use a lot of reference material with the project I'm
working on and find I use the space. I can also switch to drawing on my
table easily when I need to. On the left I have a Brother A3 scanner/ printer ( very handy) on the
right a laptop where I put up reference or earlier roughs etc which I
find helpful.
