Sunday, December 23, 2012

2012 in Review: Jesca Marisa

 Jesca Marisa

What have been your personal cartooning/comics highlights of 2012?

I moved from Cape Town to Auckland this year to work as illustrator and animator on children's games for the iPad. That was kinda a big change of scene for me and I got to meet a whole heap of new comic book creatives in NZ.  The comic-book scene in Cape Town is passionate, but small, so I enjoyed the opportunity to expand my network and see what people are up to on this side of the world. I had the opportunity to attend my first ever Comic Convention (or I should rather say Pop Culture Convention) this year. Yup, Total Noob. First in Sydney and then later in Auckland and I had a blast selling/pimping books to the unsuspecting public at both events.

Who are some of the comics creators that you've discovered and enjoyed for the first time in 2012?


Up until the beginning of 2012 I was kind of on a break from reading books and comics. Mostly because I had just coughed up the dough to self-publish a graphic novel. And when you have 500 copies of the same book lying around your house there isn't much elbow room for any other reading material. But then 2012 rolled around - I moved into an empty, book-free house and started reading with a vengeance. Mostly books/comics that I had heard about but never got around to reading myself. I read an insane amount of manga - some very delightfully cheesy publications which won't be mentioned here. I am a big fan of D.Grayman by Katsura Hoshino and I finally managed to buy most of the her manga volumes. I also acquired Pluto by Naoki Urasawa - which is a beautiful book and well worth purchasing. (His other books 20th Century Boys and Monster are also amazing.) I love the sales bin at Real Groovy and bought Black Orchid and I kill Giants for myself recently. (I also got the collected Bone and Blacksad -alas not on sale) I finally read all of the Flight anthologies and some more of the Robot artbooks. Another fun read was the Carbon Grey comic - since it reminded me somewhat of my own work.
 
 What is something non-comics that you have enjoyed in 2012?
 
This year flew by so fast! I enjoyed the New Zealand Film Festival and more recently the Auckland Art Week (because they had some fun life-drawing sessions and a really fun gallery tour on bikes - all free!) I also enjoyed the White Clouds Worlds concept art exhibition at the Lopdell Gallery - since that is the genre of work I would like to exhibit myself.
 
Have you implemented any significant changes to your working methods this year?
 
Yes there has been some changes. I used to concentrate a lot on the art side of comics, but I moved focus to the writing aspect since I felt that there's room for improvement. So I spend what free time I have on writing, which is a nice change of pace since I draw all day for work. I am also doing life drawing and anatomy study again - to freshen up and expand my art style.

What are you looking forward to in 2013?

I look forward to finishing my first draft of a sci-fi book I am working on and I am excited because it seems that there will be a lot of opportunity for travel to comic-book related events next year.
 

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