Pauper Trail

From 1982: Clip of New Zealand Prime Minister Robert Muldoon ejecting cartoonist Tom Scott from his weekly press conference.
 

Sarah Laing concludes her residency in Devonport.

Read out of print 2012 Simon Hanselmann 16page mini comic on the Space Face Books site.

Young Cartoonist Exhibition - National Library of New Zealand

No Soap Comics.

Andrez Bergen writes about his comics year.

Write up on my old local Mark One Comics in Hamilton adding digital comics to their offerings.

 (Pic nabbed from Fairfax NZ)

Jason Paulos Biro Art

Caitlin Major makes comics for work!

Toby Morris' screenprints.

Jase Harper Showreel

Short clip of Ron Tandberg in his studio.

Scriven interviews Richard Fairgray.

Scroll slightly down on the Silent Army site for pics from the launch of Michael Hawkins' Boyfriend: Magic, Sentiment and Bondage.

Bob Temuka and Kelly Sheehan posted a five part discussion on the film collaborations of Mitch Jenkins and Alan Moore at the Tearoom of Despair.

After several years absence The Ledger Awards are scheduled to return in 2014 in conjunction with Supanova Pop Culture Conventions. View the current  long list of nominees here.

Paper Trail masthead courtesy of Toby Morris.

Pikitia Press: 2014 Publishing Season

Taking a break from our 2013 in review surveys, here is a sampling of forthcoming comics from Pikitia Press for our publishing season during the first half of 2014.

Barry Linton's Lucky Aki - The first in a series of volumes featuring the stone age adventures of Lucky Aki.

 
Die Popular - Collection of new material and classic material from MVH's wonderful Die Popular.

The Art of Harry Bennett - Collecting the art and story of H. W. Bennett, a professional cartoonist in his teens who went on to create a one man publishing industry in New Zealand. Written and compiled by Tim Bollinger, Geoff Harrison, and Matt Emery.

 

James Davidson's Moa #4

 Tim Bollinger's Wellington Stories

 

Sarah Laing's Let Me Be Frank #5

Bob McMahon's Claire Melody - Bob's second Claire Melody book in the vein of DC Thomson and IPC adventure comics. Read about Bob's background in New Zealand comics here.

 

New Zealand Reprint Comics - A comprehensive survey and catalogue of comics published in New Zealand reprinting foreign material from the 1940's - 1970's. Written and Compiled by Geoff Harrison.

2013 in Review: Sarah Laing

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

Having my Let Me Be Frank comics published by Pikitia Press! And getting paid to work on my Katherine Mansfield graphic novel. Also having my novel The Fall of Light published, with sequential art running between the chapters. 

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

The comic that I most recently loved is Anders Nilsen's The End - very affecting and his grief was brilliantly rendered. I went on a memoir binge and enjoyed Lucy Kinsey's Relish, Nicole George's Calling Dr Laura, Ellen Forney's Marbles and Uli Lust's Today is the last day of the Rest of your Life. I've been reading lots of kids' comics because I'm always getting them out for my son, and I was particularly excited to discover Luke Pearson. We both just read Annie Sullivan and the Trials of Helen Keller, which was pretty awesome. Locally, I loved Toby Morris'  Don't Puke on Your Dad (so touching! So familiar!) and I'm really enjoying Dylan Horrocks' frequent updates of his Sam Zabel and the Magic Pen story.

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

Novels are my weakness. I loved Jhumpa Lahiri's The Lowlands and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Americanah. I also discovered Patrick Ness, and was thoroughly disturbed by Sally Gardner's Maggot Moon. I've also been reading all of Jennifer Egan's back catalogue because I loved A Visit from the Goon Squad so much.

What are you looking forward to in 2014?

I am looking forward to getting some stuff finished! I want to send off issue 5 of Let Me Be Frank, and also I'd love to get my Katherine Mansfield project done. But everything takes longer than I hope it will...

 sarahelaing.wordpress.com/

Peeper Trail

Victory University Press have announced Incomplete Works, a forthcoming collection of Dylan Horrocks shorter comics.

"Daydreams, fantasy, true love and procrastination feature strongly in this marvellous selection of Dylan Horrocks’s shorter comics. Running from 1986 to 2012, Incomplete Works is both the chronicle of an age and a portrait of one man’s heroic struggle to get some work done."

Maralinga by Jen Breach and Doug Holgate.

"Maralinga spins an alternative history from the 1956 British nuclear tests in the Woomera. Three hundred years later a ruined, irradiated, post-apocalyptic Australia is a place where monsters are real and one girl, the last of an isolated and dying community in Melbourne's south, launches a desperate journey to find sanctuary and a mythical inland sea."
 

Pat Grant talks to Dan Berry on Make It and Tell Somebody.

Happy Together Forever by Katie Parrish

Sarah Laing's Helmet Lady.

Canberra Times Obituary for Australian science fiction, librarian and bibliographer Graham Stone.

Comics workshops in January 2014 at the State Library of Queensland with Paul Mason. Details here.

Hannah Lee Writes about the New Zealand Cartoon Archive.

I like the cut of Jason Chatfield's jib on television.

Beardy and the Geek talk to Gary Chaloner.

Meet the Makers: Katie Parrish

 Three Thousand profile Simon Hanselmann.

Paper Trail masthead courtesy of Toby Morris.

Paper Trail

Boy's Own adventure by Tony Thorne in Demons.

WIP: Jase Harper's Awk Wood.

Preview of Roger Langridge's L'il Ernie.

Preview for new comic from Katie Parrish.

A lengthy post on T.C. Denne’s soft drink and ice cream business by Darian Zam.

Recreation of a mid-1960s hand screen-printed poster for the Peter Pan Dazzle, by Bob Godfrey.

Philip Bentley has released a his comics memoirs A Life in Comics available from Second Shore.  Phil has been involved for much of the past 50 years with the Australian comics scene through fandom, retailing, writing and publishing. More info on A Life in Comics – a personal history of comics in Australia 1960-1990 here.

  
Phil also recently announced the end of his Australian comics publication Word Balloons.

"With the release of A Life in Comics it seems an appropriate time to draw a line under the publication of Word Balloons. It was not my intention from the outset to conclude its run here, but anyone who has been following the magazine’s trajectory will have seen that its frequency has slowed over the years. This is just the natural consequence of producing an work as labour of love. Eventually enthusiasm will run out. I had thought that perhaps at the end of producing the book I would feel energised and be enthusiastic about getting back into WB, but the opposite has been true, so I very much feel it is time to move on"

Back issues of Word Balloons can be purchased from Second Shore.

Emmet O'Cuana reviews Home Brew Vampire Bullets #0.

Eleri Mai Harris made a beautiful comic for the 2013 Caravan of Comics TCAF excursion.

Gallery of New Zealand reprint comics at The Library of American Comics Blog.

The Dominion Post profiles Murray Webb.

Simon Hanselmann's 2013 CAB report.

Daniel Best announces a Keith Chatto ebook biography.

Neale Blanden diagrams the Melbourne Comics Community.

Jem Yoshioka writes about the recent Women's Cartoon colloquium in Wellington.

Sarah Laing's commentary on the Women's Cartoon colloquium.

  
David Mahler writes about Marc Pearson.

Have you ordered your SAVAGE BITCH?

 Stephen A. Russell profiles Art Spiegelman for The Age prior to his recent Australian visit.

Paper Trail masthead courtesy of Toby Morris.