Joshua Santospirito
What have been your personal cartooning/comics highlights of 2012?
Finishing drawing the Long Weekend ... which took me many years! And in November I had an exhibition of crazy comics that spread across an entire small room in a gallery - I worked on them for about a year so that was tops too.
Who are some of the comics creators that you've discovered and enjoyed for the first time in 2012?
Anders Nilsen's "Big Questions" com...plete...ly turned my world upside down. I can't really put it into words though why. I KNOW why ... I just don't know quite how to put it into words ... other than to say it was quite breath-taking ... and perhaps I shouldn't even try any further to put it into words as it might cheapen the experience for me ... just read it.
What is something non-comics that you have enjoyed in 2012?
Ryoji Ikeda's multimedia (possibly the weakest noun for what I witnessed) performance at the MONA FOMA in Hobart in January was mind-blowing. It was like he opened up your skull and placed the entire universe inside it and then shut it with a loud *clunk*.
Have you implemented any significant changes to your working methods this year?
Yes - the exhibition that I did involved me designing comics that were designed to be spread across the wall and read on the wall, as opposed to on the page in a book or even one single sheet. So that was quite radical for me! The Sleuth exhibit at Inflight Art gallery was all about surrounding the reader with the world so it was really fun and liberating - John Retallick pointed out that it was sort of related to McCloud's infinite canvas.
What are you looking forward to in 2013?
Doing Chris Downes and my performance of The Shipwright and the Banshee at the 2013 MONA FOMA in Hobart - it's a comics-related performance. AND Printing and promoting The Long Weekend in Alice Springs.
