This year I decided to attend the Stanleys for the first time - not the actual Awards, but the two day Conference on Friday and Saturday. The Conference and Awards events are run by the Australian Cartoonists's Association.

The two days were busy and informative, with featured guests including the legendary Stan Goldberg, best known for his Archie Comics work, and amazing caricaturist/portraitist Jason Seiler. Their two talks on the first day were a revelation! Most inspiring were Goldberg's ruminations on storytelling and viewing his original artwork, and seeing firsthand Seiler's intricate working methods as he created his portrait of Julia Gillard from scratch, drawing directly in Photoshop.

I took the opportunity to explore the Wacom Intuos tablets for the first time and was astounded at how natural drawing directly onto the screen felt (having never used a tablet before). If I had the money I'd buy the drawing-board sized version tomorrow!

The second day featured an informative panel on animation, focused particularly on pitching and showcasing various cartoons in production - loads of fun! This was followed by two fantastic talks by Leigh Hobbs and Ron Tandberg - who shared lots of background regarding creative processes and working for publication - I think both of these artists could have another career doing standup comedy! I was also pleased to be able to talk to some of my favourite local artists in person - most of all George Haddon and Stephen Axelsen.

Another treat was the massive display of European comics in English being distributed in Australia by Book and Volume. I bought a lot of books from them, which will be nice additions to my collection. "Bande dessinée" is my favourite comics form and it's wonderful to finally be able to buy these books locally, and in English.

This year is the first that the Stanley Awards have included a new category for "Comic Book Art." I did try to spread the word about this in the Australian comics community and hope that more of our artists will join in future. The time seems right and I think this Convention offered more for Australian comickers than many recent actual comics events.

On a sidenote, something I did learn... I carry a (fairly informal) folio of my own work with me, which is organised mostly as a style book showing the different kinds of work I can do. I showed this to a fellow creator at one point, and then realised that I was kind of embarrassed by how personal many of the pieces are - a bit of an issue for comic creators, I guess. Also, I've realised that organising them grouped by style is a mistake, when you want to reflect the diversity of what you can do.

Labels: Australian cartoonists, Australian comics, Stanley Awards

This year's entry in the Stanley Awards, another chance to prove my complete immunity from being nominated for awards of any sort :). These are selected panels from some of my professionally published work over the past year.

Labels: Moth and Tanuki, Stanley Awards

Once again, voting for The Australian Cartoonists' Association Stanley Awards is on, closing at the end of this week. Here's my entry for the "Comic Strip" category (I'm also entered for "Digital Illustration"). This pic is a composite of various frames from both Moth & Tanuki series, from their double life in Mania and OzTAKU magazines this year.



I think the Moth & Tanuki tales are my best work ever and they've been my sole art project of the past year. The competition in the "Comic Strip" category is fearsome both in quantity and quality - some truly awesome work in a wide variety of styles - so I don't expect to win (I have a complete immunity to winning Awards of any sort anyway :)).

Labels: Moth and Tanuki, Stanley Awards

Yesterday I received my copy of the Stanleys Yearbook. The cover this year is gorgeous (sorry, no scan) and there's not long for members of the Australian Cartoonists' Association to vote before the presentations in Ballarat in early November.

Here's my entry in the Yearbook, which covers a bit of what I've been up to during the past year (yes, some pieces have older dates, but all saw publication in print during the July 2005-June 2006 period). Sorry it's not that legible: it is in the book and I wanted to make maximum use of the allocated space. Most of these should be familiar anyway :).

Last year's entry is still viewable on my member's page at the ACA - Ian Thomas - but not for much longer!

Labels: Stanley Awards

My copy of The Stanleys Yearbook arrived last week, and my entry in there includes the following samples of published comics work from the past year (July 2004 - June 2005). There's a sample page from Riffin' to Oblivion and part of a page from One Tiger Day. These are up for nomination (by Australian Cartoonists' Association members) for the 2005 Stanley Awards. Representing them this way (limited samples) is problematical, as it does tend to work against the humour of the pieces, particularly the extended satirical writing style I mostly use. I think they represent my art pretty well though.



As seen on the ACA Member Page - Ian Thomas

Labels: Stanley Awards