Showing posts with label stuart mcmillen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label stuart mcmillen. Show all posts

Saturday, December 28, 2013

E noho rā 2013


Big thanks to all the New Zealand & Australian cartoonists and comic makers who contributed to the 2013 in Reviews. I'm signing off for a few days and will back with some galleries and interview posts on Jan 1st 2014.

I'll be trying to get my head around a few more places next year, please consider liking/following Pikitia Press in these places:

facebook: facebook.com/PikitiaPress
twitter @pikitiapress
tumblr: pikitiapress.tumblr.com/

2013 in Review survey index:

Gregory Mackay
Brendan Boughen bit.ly/JTJaic
Cory Mathis
Matthew Hoddy
Andrew Fullton
David Blumenstein
Justin Randall
David C Mahler


Ben Michael Byrne  
Brendan Halyday   
Toby Morris
Bruce Mutard  
Stuart McMillen  
Joshua Santospirito bit.ly/18Gnek2
Frank Candiloro
Richard Fairgray  
Colin Wilson  
Jason Franks  
Matt Kyme  
Anthony Woodward  
Caitlin Major  
Sarah Laing  
Sam Orchard  
Gavin Aung Than
Scarlette Baccini  
David Follett
Simon Hanselmann  
Michel Mulipola
Li Chen  
Ryan K Lindsay    
Christopher Downes  
Dean Rankine
Alisha Jade    
Theo Macdonald
Paul Mason  
James Davidson  
Tim Molloy  
Jason Chatfield

Friday, December 13, 2013

2013 in Review: Stuart McMillen



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

My personal highlight was definitely publishing Rat Park. Wrapping up that science experiment into a 40 pages comic, and then sharing it with the world was a great feeling.

Bruce Alexander, the psychologist featured in Rat Park has told me that my comic led to a renewed interest into his 1970s drug addiction experiments. He was pleased to learn that he was the star of a comic book!

The audience response to Rat Park was almost 100% positive. Gratifyingly, many ex-addicts contacted me and mentioned that they had an emotional reaction to the final page of my comic. They thanked me for creating a sympathetic story which explained to others the emotional dead-end which led them to addiction. 

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

New stuff:
Pat Grant - Toormina Video
Hyperbole and a Half - Depression Part 2
Chris Hedges and Joe Sacco - Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt (which is half comics and half prose)
Symbolia magazine (a new quarterly electronic comics-journalism publication)

Old stuff:
Chris Guest - Floating Horizon
Marjane Satrapi - The Complete Persepolis

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

I'm a huge music fan, so here are some of my favourite albums of 2013:

The Drones - I See Seaweed
Kurt Vile - Wakin on a Pretty Daze
Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds - Push the Sky Away
TV Colours - Purple Skies, Toxic River
Julia Holter - Loud City Song
My Bloody Valentine - mbv

The best book I read during 2013 was Feral: Searching for Enchantment on the Frontiers of Rewilding by George Monbiot. It's about the concept of 'rewilding' nature: what this means for the ecosystems themselves, as well as what it means for us as humans living near the ecosystems.

What are you looking forward to in 2014?

Rat Park was my 40-page highlight of 2013. In 2014 I will be drawing a 400 page comic story. That's an extra zero on the end.

In 2014 I will be moving away from the 'drugs' topic I covered with War on Drugs and Rat Park, and drawing non-fiction comics about ecological and environmental topics. Things like Peak Oil, energy dependence and post-growth economics.

Trust me, it will be more interesting than it sounds! Join my email list for updates.