2013 in Review: Jason Chatfield

What have been your personal cartooning/comics highlights of 2013?

I was really pleased to see more amazing work from the Aussie comics industry in the 2013 ACA Year Book. Ginger Meggs finally got picked up by the Herald Sun, Courier Mail and Adelaide Advertiser in print and online which is a big boon for his daily Aussie readership. Universal finally assigned me an editor, Josh Peres, and a bunch of marketing for getting Meggsie out there to newer young audiences. I’ve been making Meggs a bit more accessible to audiences beyond his traditional 40-80 y-old demographic. The style is slowly evolving as well which I’m enjoying. 

What are some of the comics/cartoonists you've enjoyed in 2013?

Big congrats to Anton Emdin for his Comic Book Artist of the year win for his work doing movie parodies in MAD. As a MAD fanatic, it’s huge to see an Aussie kicking goals overseas in such a huge publication.

What is something non-comics that you have enjoyed in 2013?  

Technically it’s still comics, but I finished the new Ginger Meggs website at www.gingermeggs.com and my own website at jasonchatfield.com  It took a lot of fiddling, and they’re still works in progress (aren’t they all) but I’m pretty happy with them.

I’ve been doing stand-up gigs every week this year and have moved from just doing support spots to headlining and MCing comedy clubs. It’s been a great way of dragging me away from the drawing board! 

What are you looking forward to in 2014?

I’m looking forward to finishing the graphic novel I’ve been working on with writer Paul Goddard for the last 4 years.

 jasonchatfield.com