From the latest issue of Inkspot, Magazine of the Australian Cartoonists' Association, on the theme of "Kevin Rudd."

Labels: Cartoons

This week The Age newspaper cancelled three of its five comic strips - a sad day for comics in this country.

The three strips cancelled were the timeless Bristow, the inspired Zits and, worst of all, Alex Hallatt's brilliant comic strip The Arctic Circle. This strip often gave me "I wish I'd thought of that" feelings, with its currency, perfect execution in a clean style, appealing animal characters and always funny gags. Some other paper needs to pick this up!

Labels: Comic strips

This one has been out for a little while - the latest Fist Full of Comics consists mainly of short one and two page stories - a strong issue with great variety.

My piece is a one pager that sprang into my head as I was finishing off a long, and somewhat depressing, piece for the next Tango (coming soon). Doing pieces that occur so spontaneously is about as fun as drawing comics can get.




The art was inspired by a '50s sensibility and '70s swapcard art, and also another major theme that's popular at the moment.

I worked with black and white and a single greytone, which is an approach I haven't used before. One of the best things about submitting to small press anthologies is that it gives you a chance to experiment and see the results in print - definitely something I'd encourage anyone to do, if you're thinking about starting off in comics!

Labels: Australian comics, Comic anthologies, Fist Full of Comics

The Paper Life Boat exhibition at the Town Hall Gallery (Boroondara), curated by Bernard Caleo and Jo Waite, is well worth a wander through. I just got back from perusing its delights.

Without wanting to name all the artists, it's always fascinating to see original artwork displayed like this. Reading comics on the wall is a different kind of experience - something of a journey. Also, it was great to see the range of techniques and working methods employed - I was surprised to see the inclusion of colour tones on the original pages by Andrew Fulton and the greys on Jase Harper's piece (recently printed in Fist Full of Comics). It's really pleasing to see these organic approaches to comic art creation still at work in so many different styles.

I really enjoyed Jo Waite's piece for the upcoming "Love and War" and particularly liked the accompanying watercolour picture - beautiful work! The margin notes on where artwork was created were a bonus. Bernard Caleo's striking standalone panels were well complemented by an accompanying nightmarish picture by Joseph Ross Bamford Caleo (a nice inter-generational touch).

I liked the whole "paper boat" thing. A special treat was seeing my yeti-sloths turning up in the offcuts from the last Tango and in some of the folded boats - those guys just seem to have taken on a life of their own, particularly with yet another upcoming appearance in the near future.

This exhibition finishes in a couple of days, so be quick if you want to catch it!

Labels: Australian comics

The latest Fist Full of Comics was released a few weeks ago, and it continues to get bigger and better, with even more pages at 36 this time and a wide range of material from local comics artists.

My piece is a one pager about domestic life. I'd been wanting to look in on these characters at the beginning of the Seventh Age and see how they were doing after so much time, tucked away in some obscure corner of Hertfordshire or wherever. I figured Tom would be feeling pretty midlifey by now.

I enjoyed drawing this a lot, though I don't know how successful it is as a piece. The style, which is a fairly traditional comic look, is one I tend to avoid, as reviews have described it as "boring." Lately I'm drawn to it - I don't find it hard and it seems to be an evolution of my earlier work in stories such as "Riffin' to Oblivion." I think I'll just have to follow this way of working for a while to see where it goes.

Labels: Fist Full of Comics, Tolkien, Tom and Goldy

When you create pictures they can turn up in odd places, completely without your permission and often without your knowledge. I remember one year drawing a Santa for a Christmas card at a place I was working then, a year or two later, I found him still doing the rounds for some department or other, albeit having gone through a few generations of photocopying.

Here are some current examples of artwork being used without my knowledge.

My Angels & Devils Illustration Friday picture - being used as a graphic on a Timorese blog Angels and Devils Timoreses.

It's a popular one, having also appeared in February this year over at Noahopinion, under "Angels vs. Devils".

My old Crocodiles and Beer cartoon that I drew for Inkspot back in 2005, a year later apparently unofficially appearing over at Miss Cellania's blog.

These are good reasons why I don't tend to put full stories and all my artwork up online - it's bad enough having single images appropriated without being asked (I am quite approachable and only bite occasionally). Also, a good reason to sign your pictures, so they at least remain credited!

Labels: Wandering artwork

Sticking to its regular bi-monthly schedule Fist Full of Comics #3 has been released. It's great to have an ongoing small press Australian anthology going at the moment, as the scene is pretty quiet of late.

I've been varying my contributions to this comic zine. Moth and Tanuki were begging for an outing, so here they are, back in glorious black and white in a 4 page story, "Comfortably Numbat," that I think is one of my better efforts. There are lots of Moth & Tanuki scripts waiting in the wings, so maybe I'll do this again, I'm not sure.

This time I've gone for total computer greytones, rather than using dotty screentones as I did in their OzTAKU appearances.This particular story has been completed in colour as well, just in case I ever do an anthology of all the short colour pieces that appeared in Mania

Although it's a satirical piece I reckon these characters could almost spin off into their own series :).

Labels: Comic anthologies, Fist Full of Comics, Moth and Tanuki