Showing posts with label karl wills. Show all posts
Showing posts with label karl wills. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Chromacon 2013 and Assorted Auckland Ramblings


A couple months back I had the pleasure of tabling with Pikitia Press at the inaugural Chromacon Illustration and Comic Art Festival in Auckland. This was the first comics event I've made the trek from Australia back to New Zealand for and It was well worthwhile. For a first time comic art festival, organiser Allan Xia and helpers seemed to pull it off without a hitch. This is the sort of event I'd love to fill my calendar with. Amongst the highlights of the couple days I spent in Auckland for Chromacon:
  • Chromacon was a one day event which for my coming-into-middle-age is the perfect duration for a convention.
  • It was nice to attend an event down this part of the world with a focus on comics and illustrators, no commercial retailers, just local creative folk.
  • The audience which I think numbered around 1000 for the day keep a steady flow of people through the venue. Not too busy, but rarely a quiet moment.
  • Chromacon was a veritable who's who of New Zealand Comics, there were some notable absences and I don't believe there were any South Island cartoonists there but on the whole it was a great opportunity to meet and catch up with a large variety of comic folk at one event.
  •  I got to finally meet Tim Danko in person for a few minutes!
  • Getting to meet the cartoonists I publish. It's probably not so much of an odd thing in this day and age but I had never met in person, Sarah Laing or James Davidson, despite having published several of their comics by this point. Lovely hard working easy to deal with folk. They make my work easy.
  • The venue, one floor of The Aotea Centre, in the heart of Auckland, was an ideal place to have Chromacon, easily accessible and a comfortable fit for the amount of exhibitors and audience.
  • Grabbing pizza and gabbing comics with Kelly Sheehan, Ben Stenbeck and Chris Slane after the show. Heck, even the barman at the pizza joint was a cartoonist (look for a Pikitia Press comic from him sometime soon.)
  • Heading into the carpark after pizza this was waiting for us:
 
  • Grabbing coffee and gabbing comics with Timothy Kidd, Kelly Sheehan, Karl Wills and my little bro Sam at the Auckland Public Library.
  • On a quest of New Zealand comics archeology at the Auckland Public Library I found some real gems. Evidence that I suspected existed of a connection between two golden age NZ cartoonists surfaced and a NZ "Kramers Ergot" from the seventies? More to come on these developments...
 Interview with Chromacon Organiser Allan Xia.
 Fuzzy photography of some but not all of the comic folk at Chromacon.

 Theo Macdonald and Richard Fairgray

 Tim Gibson

 Tim Bollinger and Barry Linton

 Toby Morris

  Sophie Oiseau

 Czepta Gold

 Dylan Horrocks


 Chris Slane

 Chris Slane

 Ant Sang, Ben Stenbeck and Adrian Kinnaird

 Jesca Marisa

 Damon Keen

  Karl Wills

Marc Streeter


James Davidson


Michel Mulipola

Kelly and Darren Sheehan

Art in park



No visit to Auckland is complete without a visit to the St Kevin's Arcade Secondhand Bookshop. Piles of FP Phantom comics, Eric Resetar facsimile comics, the first 2000AD annual,  I've bought many a fine comic from here over the years. This time I snapped up some reading for my flight home, an Australian edition of Buck Rogers Annual No. 2. Hundreds of pages of early Buck Rogers adventures compiled in one aromatic pulpy volume.


Before heading to the airport I took a shortcut through the Auckland University Campus to pick up my luggage. My "eagle book eyes" spied a table of old books next to a reception office. A lifelong fascination with old books, (I lived in secondhand bookshop for several months) I was compelled to go in and have a look. The receptionist told me they were donated to the university, who didn't want them, and had put them out for folk to take away. All German texts from the early twentieth century, I couldn't resist the offer of free old books so gathered up as many as I could carry and made my way back through the winding alleys and paths of the University. I'd love to keep all the wonderful paper goods I gather, but I can't, so I sold a selection of these to antiquarian book dealers in Melbourne and Switzerland, which paid for my trip and my coffee bill for the next three months.


A tragic inscription from the inside page of Conrad der Leutnant.

Sunday, July 14, 2013

Mini Paper Trail


CGNZ profile Samantha Asri.




I don't direct folk to facebook too often but have a look and like Alex Hallatt's Artic Circle page over here.




Karl Wills' Princess Seppuku animation test.



Sarah Laing talks about her new novel The Fall of Light on Radio New Zealand.



Sarah shares some preliminary sketchbook work for The Fall of Light here.


I really like this comic by Gavin Aung Than.


Fiona Katauskas talks pictures with syndicated cartoonist Jason Chatfield.
 


Facebook page for Sam Wallman's Australian hisory anthology Fluid Prejudice.


"Fluid Prejudice is a collection of comics and drawings focusing on underrepresented and alternative visions of Australian history. An exhibition and a 200 page book will be launched late 2013, at Trades Hall, Melbourne."


Blood and Thunder 2 enters the Truth Zone. Part one and part two.




Clint Cure is seeking funds for a series of comic book biographies featuring movie directors.



System Earth Comic trailer,
a quarterly comic series from the Dunedin Comic Collective from the mind and fingers of Tom Garden.



I haven't been keeping up with things but Paul Rigby's Gallery and studio closed after eight years of operation a couple weeks ago. Further details here.


Michael Hawkins and Sean T Collins are still busy chronicling a behind the scenes look at Justin Beiber's life.


I like these goofy anthology covers from the fifties where Frew's lead character The Phantom would interact in bizarre ways with Australian characters created to capitalise on the Phantom's success.







I figure if I tease a bunch of articles/interviews here I'll give myself the impetus to finish them.

At the top of my to-finish-pile, writing up the few hours I spent with recently passed Frew publisher Jim Shepherd last year. Jim was very generous with his time and shared many wonderful stories and anecdotes with me that i really should get down on the record.


Profile on Australian illustrator Walter Jardine.


 Profile and interview with June Mendoza.



 A write up on collecting comics after thirty years.



Interview with Clubhouse comics editor Brendan Halyday.




Paper Trail masthead courtesy of Toby Morris.

Sunday, April 28, 2013

Paper Trail



I have a dickload of things to do this week so will try posting daily mini Paper Trails to offload my rapidly overflowing link pile.

Excerpt of  HTMLflowers’ comics from  ลก! #13 ‘Life Is Live’.



Dylan Horrocks talks Australian Comics with Bryan Crump on Radio New Zealand's Nights.




Jason Chatfield recaps and follows up on his horrific taxi experience from 2011.


New Squishfacers.
 


Roger Langridge interviewed on Where Monsters Dwell.



Tane Williams on tumblr.


Simon Hanselmann's Truth Zone is back at Comics Workbook and taking no prisoners. New installments #70, #71, #72, #73.

 
I made a new mini comic (Not for Young Folk). You can buy it from some place at some point.


Karl Wills has teased a Connie Radar short film currently in production. Shot from a script by Wills and Timothy Kidd.



Hey, here's a Connie Radar animation test from a little while back.



 Oh Gosh, it's the Connie Radar Dailies blog from a couple years back.


Have you ever thought about buying a Connie Radar t-shirt?

  
Paper Trail masthead courtesy of Toby Morris.