Matt Nicholls
What have been your personal cartooning/comics highlights of 2012?
First I started this year with Debuting my webcomic Collateral, illustrated by my new UK friend Lee Taylor, which was pretty exciting. Then I self published Collateral Dear John Issue one and two later this year, while also debuting another webcomic with a local friend of mine Ross Stewart called Vesper and since I didn't have much else on this year I self published a one shot 12 page comic with local illustrator Simon Wright called Our Love Will Never Die, But We Will.
Not to mention I tabled at my first and second con this year with Armageddon being the first and the little Oz Horror Con the second.
Who are some of the comics creators that you've discovered and enjoyed for the first time in 2012?
Wow, where to start. I suppose I'll only comment on the ones from this year, even though I'd like to shout out to others. So I wont be mentioning Steve Sparke, Frank Candiloro and Brendan Halyday as we met last year. So I wont be mentioning how awesome they are and how good their work is.
SO to start with this year, I'll have to go with Matt Kyme. His work is awesome and thatbulletproofkid.com is a great new Superhero webcomic and he's not doing much so he's got The Ace happening as well on the same site. So lazy. He's the webcomic version of Frank Candiloro.
FEC has produced so much work this year it would be hard to mention it all, but you can check it out at FEC Comics but special mention would have to go out to Kranburn and Great Works.
Zombolette is an ace comic and I love how it isn't a zombie story.
MSG by Andrew Li. I met him once at the Melbourne Comic meet up. He was so quiet and reserve and his comic really deserves a read.
I really want to mention all the local comic scene, not just Melbourne but Australia, but there really is a lot out there.
What is something non-comics that you have enjoyed in 2012?
I loved seeing one of my favourite local bands The Dirty Three again this year. I highly recommend this band. They would have to be in my top two bands I've ever seen live, and seeing them for the second time they did not disappoint.
I also went to Scienceworks this year. I hadn't been since I was at school many moons ago. That place is AWESOME!Go check it out, even if you don't have kids with you it's still ace.
Since I wasn't releasing much this year in the way of comics I renovated my kitchen. It's crazy how much you love your oven when you've gone without one for 12 months.
Have you implemented any significant changes to your working methods this year?
It's amazing how much you learn when working with different artists. I have had to change how I write my scripts to suite different artist. But my working methods tend not to change when I write in my half hour on the train.
What are you looking forward to in 2013?
Releasing more Collateral Issues and having more Vesper pages out as well as debuting at Supanova and Oz Comic Con. They are the main things. I also wrote a short comic for Brendan Halyday this year as part of the 24 hour challenge, so I'm hoping for that to get finished next year (No pressure Brendan :P)
