While I'm not a fan of the new Timeline layout of Facebook, I have found the space for cover pictures tempting, in terms of displaying some artwork. Here's a sketch I did this week of some characters from long ago - Maelstrom, The Theow, Maia and Emerald - looking towards Bramthorn.

This would have made a good picture for "Return" for Illustration Friday a few weeks ago, now I think about it. I enjoyed revisiting these characters after so much time has passed.

Labels: Maelstrom

The other day I was cleaning out stuff at my mother's house and found a copy of the first issue of Reverie. Kevin Patrick has written an excellent piece on this early Australian anthology comic - Reverie Remembered - originally written for Collectormania magazine. Thanks for the memories, Kev! I was happy to be a part of this widely distributed (but all too often overlooked) Australian comic of the early '80s. Gary Dellar did amazing things getting a disparate body of work neatly gathered in an ongoing anthology. His commitment was amazing, even to setting up his own press to print the later issues. This cover (featuring Maelstrom) is the one I did for no. 4. Kevin Patrick writes it up better than I could, so I highly recommend his review!

Labels: Australian comics, Comic anthologies, Maelstrom, Reverie

Last night, I went to the official launch of Heroes and Villains: Australian Comics and their Creators at the State Library of Victoria. It was a great launch, with a fine speech from State Librarian, Ann Marie Schwirtlich, and entertainment from comedy band Tripod, and a nice chance to catch up with various comickers and librarians alike.

The above link is to the online version of the Exhibition Catalogue, including a detailed essay by exhibition curator and Australian comics expert, Kevin Patrick, charting the history of Australian comic books, from the 1920s to the 21st century.

It was pleasing to find my 1982 comic Maelstrom in the Swords & Sorcery section, right alongside Talnon's Deerflame. The detailed sections covering each genre of Australian comics were really thought-out, well-researched and arranged. There's a mention of Maelstrom in the Exhibition catalogue Swords & Sorcery section, though I think too much is made of the Elfquest link in some respects, given that I did a Maelstrom minicomic back in 1978 (before EQ) - but more on that in another post...

For more information on seminars, workshops and multimedia events being staged for the duration of the exhibition (20 Oct 2006 - 25 Feb 2007) - please see: Program of Events.

Labels: Australian comics, Maelstrom

For this Illustration Friday topic, these old comic pages sprang to mind, so I went thumbing through my old yellowing bromides to find them. This picture goes way back to the second (unpublished) issue of Maelstrom, and was drawn around 1983. Another pic from the same page appeared in a newspaper interview I did at the time.

Once I'd decided I wanted the climax of this story to be in the rain, I really enjoyed experimenting with the approach in pure black and white. Mostly, I used a lot of black and white waterproof inks, but also cut strips of dotty screentone.

The sequence lasted about 7 pages and gets pretty nasty in places, in spite of the pretty artwork. It's also too short in some ways. So, while I think some of these pages are among my best comic artwork ever, I'm not convinced the script is good enough to publish now. There are a few hundred pages of Maelstrom, but only the first issue and serial in Reverie saw print. As the first issue ended on a cliffhanger, there were a few people annoyed that they couldn't find out what happened, but this frame gives a clue at least :).

Rain is a b&w comic artists dream to work with. I may have to do it again sometime.

Labels: Illustration Friday, Maelstrom