What have been your personal cartooning/comics highlights of 2012?
Helping to get New Zealand's first crowd funded comic, Faction, out into the world!
Who are some of the comics creators that you've discovered and enjoyed for the
first time in 2012?
I made some great discoveries this
year, so that's a tricky one. Finally got around to reading Charles
Burns - and in particular Black Hole. It's always great when the
storytelling and art come together so seamlessly, and Black Hole is
beautiful and disturbing. I love stories that manage to include the
surreal and dreamlike, but without becoming self indulgent and
nonsensical, and Black Hole pulls it off brilliantly. Loving his new
stuff too - the Hive is great.
Also finally
read Dharma Punks by Ant Sang! Embarrassingly late I know - but well
worth the wait. I think that it may just have catapulted straight to the
top of my all-time favourite NZ comics.
What is something non-comics that you have enjoyed in 2012?
Freaking
LOVED the Mars landing by the Curiosity rover in August. We watched it
live on NASA TV. It's what I imagine sport fans must feel like when
their team wins something. What a bloody awesome achievement, One of
those rare moments it felt good to be a human being. The Higgs Boson
discovery was also mind-numbingly awesome.
Have you implemented any significant changes to your working methods this year?
It's
my first year of being freelance - so I've had to do lots of boring
changes - like figuring out how to do my taxes and invoicing. Blergh.
More interestingly, my drawing and comic creation has gone nearly
entirely digital, from sketches through to the final work - a fun
experiment, but I think the results have been promising so far. I still
thumbnail the story outline first in a notebook though, so not quite
there yet!
What are you looking forward to in 2013?
Rocket boots. Better instant meals. Otherwise, continuing to grow Faction, I think. It's an exciting challenge. Nationally,
it'd be nice to see the disgusting government we've got crash and burn,
and globally, it'd be good to see some action on climate change.
Anything. Anything at all. But I'm not holding my breath.
