2012 in Review: Jase Harper

Jase Harper

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

I’d have to say collecting and printing my comic strips at this year’s Sticky zine fair, was a lot of fun and I got lots of positive feedback which is always nice. Another highlight was visiting the Small press Expo in the states and getting to see comic Gods, Ware, Burns and Clowes all in the same room.

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

Joseph Lambert. I picked up his book ‘I will bite you!’ at SPX this year. His stories are playful, beautiful and surreal. ‘Turtle keep it steady’ from that book is probably my fave thing this year.

What is something non-comics that you have enjoyed in 2012?

I saw a retrospective of the Quay brothers at Moma that was amazing.  After pouring over their animations at art college it was mind blowing to see their stop motion sets first hand, So beautiful and creepy.

Have you implemented any significant changes to your working methods this year?

I came to a realisation that doing super clean artwork is painful and I just don’t enjoy it anymore, for my personal work at least. Swapping to brush pens was a big step, It gave my line work a bit more of a lively feel, plus I’m able to produce a page much quicker now.

What are you looking forward to in 2013?

For those who are members of the Mini Comic of the Month club I’ll be releasing my 16 pg mini in January. I'm a few pages in and really enjoying it. I also have a chapter in Jason Franks next Sixsmiths book, which I’m pretty chuffed about. I’m also looking forward to finishing my long form comic sometime next year as well, it’s well overdue. As for other people’s work. I’m super keen to see Tim Molloy’s next book as well as more of J Stew’s Giants.

 http://www.jaseharper.com/

 http://guhcomics.com/

2012 in Review: Jason Franks

Over December I'll be running some brief year in review interviews with Australian and New Zealand cartoonists and comic folk. Kicking things off today with a good friend of mine, Melbourne writer/cartoonist Jason Franks.

Jason Franks

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

Without question, the highlight for my own work has been McBLACK TWO SHOT. It's not the first time I've worked with Bruce Mutard but it's the first of our work together that's seen print. Putting his highly polished and traditional art style next to Luke Pickett's brilliant crayon-and-notepad sequence, then Rhys James' super-modern digital painting and J. Stew's atmospheric, underground nightmares... I am ridiculously proud of this combination of artists.

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

This year has been all about Image for me. I've been mates with Justin Jordan for many years, so Luther Strode probably doesn't count, but a lot of my favourite new mainstream books have been Image stablemates. Green Wake by Wiebe and Rossmo. Who Is Jake Ellis? by Edmondson and Zonjic. Also this is the year I finally cottoned onto Locke and Key by Hill and Rodriguez.

My other big find has been Naoki Urasawa. I tried Pluto a couple of years ago and it wasn't my cup of tea; but this year I discovered that three of the manga books I was most interested in (old and new) are by Urasawa. Monster and 20th Century Boys are every bit as good as they are reputed to be, and I'm dying to get my hands of an English version of Billy Bat.

What is something non-comics that you have enjoyed this year?

I've probably found myself reading more prose than I have for the last few years. This year it's been a lot of Richard Morgan, John Steinbeck, Greg Palast, Evan Wright, China Mieville and Richard Stark. Some of these are old favourites, some are something new. On TV the only thing I've really cared for has been Breaking Bad.

Have you implemented any significant changes to your working methods this year?

I'm trying to put out a bit more prose fiction than I have in the last few years. Publishing my first novel has sort of opened my eyes to the opportunities in that world and the comics business is a bit sickly right now. I mean, when using Kickstarter to avoid the entire traditional marketplace is the great white hope for original comics you know there are problems. That said, I have a LOT of comics projects in the works and hopefully a lot more of them will drop in 2013 than we've seen in the last 2 years. I'm focusing on longer work--graphic novels and miniseries, as opposed to short stories and anthologies--and it takes a lot of time to get these bigger projects up and running.

What are you looking forward to in 2013?

Putting out more comics. There should be more McBlack and more Sixsmiths, but also, if things go well, a bunch of completely new stuff in a variety of genres. Hope to sell my second novel, too. I'm also looking forward to watching the continued growth of the local scene and to reading awesome new comics from local publishers. 

http://www.jasonfranks.com/

Oz Comic-Con Melbourne 2012

The Inaugural Melbourne Oz Comic Con was plagued with issues, mainly stemming from the overselling of tickets, creating an overcrowded Exhibition Centre with many ticket holders locked out while entry was temporarily closed on both days to ease congestion.

The OZ Comic Con facebook page was rife with negative feedback over the weekend from many disappointed punters. Negative comments were going up faster than Oz Comic Con could delete them with threads reaching at some points 400-500 comments.

The news wasn't all bad though. Many punters enjoyed the show and appreciated the rare opportunity to meet pop culture icons and made their thoughts known online. Also every guest and creator in artist alley I've heard from have reported positively about their Oz Comic Con experience with the general impression being this convention attracted more comic readers in contrast to other pop culture events. Perth publisher Gestalt Comics sold out of three of their titles, with James Brouwer and Tom Taylor's The Deep: Here Be Dragons marking three weeks of sellouts after the Sydney and Perth Supanovas. There was also a substantial turn out of comic dealers and stores hosting booths with several out of state appearances and swarms of people actively digging through long-boxes.

Hopefully the negative publicity of this convention will not effect future Oz-cons. I'm certain the organisers have taken these teething problems on-board and will be better prepared in future. In the last few years the amount of good local comics being produced has vastly increased and conventions like this are the perfect place for them to find an audience.

David Holloway writes about the Oz-comic con here.

Bobby N has a round up and photos here.

ABC footage here.

YBNews blog post here.

Sky news video here.

Herald Sun story.

Andrew Constant

Darren Koziol

Dom and Mitch

Doug Holgate

Steve Sparke and Ben Michael Byrne

Tom Taylor

Jin Chan Yum Wai, Matthew Hoddy and Caitlin Major

Paul Mason

Larry Boxshall and Joe Morris

Gary Lau and Jason Franks

Tristan Jones

Hayden Fryer and Brendan Halyday

John Stewart

Jackie Ryan

Left To Right: Jackie Ryan, Tim Molloy, Scarlette Baccini, Ben Hutchings, James Andre