Monday, December 9, 2013

2013 in Review: Anthony Woodward




What have been your personal cartooning/comics highlights of 2013?
I undertook a project to complete a 12 page mini comic. I wrote, scripted and inked the whole thing and will be ready to print up some copies hopefully soon. I have also been getting back into my sketchbook practice a lot this year, playing around with new techniques, tools and materials. I hate most of the results until I look back in a few weeks and look at the drawings a bit objectively and my thoughts aren't so harsh.  

What are some of the comics/cartoonists you've enjoyed in 2013?
I've been getting into Tumblr a bit more this year and discovering a whole bunch of new artists, it drives me crazy sometimes, it's hard not to be overwhelmed with the variety and quality of comics being produced. Ben juers is putting together a psychiatry comics anthology and I've been enjoying seeing some of the sketches and panel previews. 

What is something non-comics that you have enjoyed in 2013?  
I've always been a fan of audiobooks and this year I've been getting into some great fiction adaptions like, 'do androids dream of electric sheep', 'world war z', the 'Harry Potter' series read by Stephen Fry and more recently 'I am Legend'

What are you looking forward to in 2014?
Hoping to keep up my level of drawing I've been able to do this year and then some more. I would like to start some new comic projects but I had probably better finish off the ones I started  this year, especially my 12 page mini comic. 

Sunday, December 8, 2013

2013 in Review: Simon Hanselmann


What have been your personal cartooning/comics highlights of 2013?
"My Floating World broadsheet "ST OWL'S BAY" got nominated for an Ignatz, That was pretty nice. Had an art show in Madrid with HTML Flowers that went pretty well. Fantagraphics officially announced the book of mine they're releasing next year ("MEGAHEX") and i was able to brag about it on tumblr. Comic Arts Brooklyn was amazing, I launched my new book from Space Face Books ("LIFE ZONE") there. I had a very good time...

And a bunch of other stuff... It's been a very good year for Megg, Mogg & Owl.

Closing out the year with some work for Pitchfork, the Believer and Mould Map.

#youngprofessionals #2013"

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

"Oh, God... This would be the longest list of names.... 
Some of my current favourite things are Lala Albert's new stuff for Mould Map 3.
John Pham's Epoxy 4. anything by JMKE.
Spiders Pee Paw. Michiel Budel. Weird 4. White Cube.
Breakdown Press. Corbera. ZHV. Leon Sadler. HB. Negron. Estrada.
Pompeii was really good. 
Susceptible was really good.
I really liked Strawberries by Mia Schwartz.
PK. MDF.
Michael Hawkins.... a million other people and things."

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

"Blaise Larmee's Nudes. Top of the Lake was a good TV series. Traveling again was cool. The new Drake album. Karaoke." 

What are you looking forward to in 2014?
"Releasing MEGAHEX with Fanta' in July or so and doing a book tour. Fulgencio Pimentel's also releasing a gigantic Spanish Megg & Mogg collection. There's a few new little books I want to make with some cool small press publishers. Doing another art show with HTML Flowers. Working on some secret stuff...
There's a ton of stuff I want to see completed next year.
Hopefully TRUTH ZONE will return early in the year...

I can't wait to see what all of my friends do next year too.
2014 should be a good year for comics."

Saturday, December 7, 2013

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.

Friday, December 6, 2013

2013 in Review: Li Chen


What have been your personal cartooning/comics highlights of 2013? Reaching 300 comics on Extra Ordinary, and making my first long format comic to celebrate! You can see it here. It was so much fun, I really want to make more long comics.

What are some of the comics/cartoonists you've enjoyed in 2013?
I've been reading some Japanese comics, I've especially enjoyed Kiyohiko Azuma's comics: Azumanga Daioh, and Yotsuba&! They are both slice-of-life comics, my favourite genre.

What is something non-comics that you have enjoyed in 2013?  
Drinking lots of tea, going on long walks.

What are you looking forward to in 2014?
Hopefully publishing volume three of Extra Ordinary!

2013 in Review: Michel Mulipola


What have been your personal cartooning/comics highlights of 2013?
I have a couple of personal comics highlights:
The first is definitely helping my good pal, Jeremy, open up the comic book store, Arkham City Comics in Auckland, NZ. It's a place we've created as an 'asylum' for freaks and geeks to be who they are and celebrate what they love.And the second would be the very successful Headlocked Kickstarter campaign. Due to the amazing support from our backers, we were able to get this motion comic made as a Stretch Goal:



Also, being a finalist in the inaugral Secret Walls X Aotearoa Live Art Battles was choice! I went out to represent comic book art taking out graffiti artists in the process.I lost out to my friend, Paul Walsh, but am proud to have drawn the first ever full comic book page in a Secret Walls battle!

What are some of the comics you've enjoyed in 2013?
There are so many comics and creators whose work I've enjoyed in 2013. Working at Arkham City Comics, I get spoilt for choice. I enjoy Greg Capullo's stuff on Batman. Also enjoying Thor: God of Thunder. SAGA is fantastic as well as anything by Sean Murphy. Oh, and Tom Taylor's stuff on Injustice and Earth 2. Pretty much anything he touches is gold!

What is something non-comics that you have enjoyed in 2013?
There's not much non-comics related stuff that happens in my life. Even my pro wrestling career is rooted in comic books. But one non-comics related highlight would be my nephew successfully battling a brain tumour with minimal side effects from radiation therapy. He's a little battler and inspires me every damned day.

What are you looking forward to in 2014?
2014 is shaping up to be a big year for me if 2013 is anything to go by.
I'm currently working on the Headlocked Kickstarter stuff, got a few side projects in other media going, a possible collab with a writer I admire and I'm hoping to make it to SDCC next year to do signings and maybe a panel. But yeah - who knows what 2014 holds for me, I'll just keep chugging along and before I know it, it's 2015 and Avengers 2: Age of Ultron time!

Thursday, December 5, 2013

2013 in Review: Christopher Downes



What have been your personal cartooning/comics highlights of 2013?
Going to the Stanley Awards weekend in Coffs was great. For me it's kind of like going to a Comic Con where many of your idols are there and they regard you as one of their peers. (Still wrapping my head around that concept.)

I've also been incredibly lucky to have picked up a LOT more work through the Mercury. I'm now drawing 4 cartoons a week and loving it!
 
What are some of the comics you've enjoyed in 2013?
I've discovered the work of two very amazing artists this year. 

I know I'm coming late to the party on this one, but I saw the work of Jim Mahfood this year when my 2 year old daughter pulled a collection of his Tank Girl comics off the shelf at the library. I love his loose-yet-confident inking style and I've adopted his splatters into my own work.

I also discovered the work of John Darkow, a cartoonist for the Colombia Daily Tribune in Missouri. His work is outstanding! He's one of the few cartoonists working today who doesn't use colour. Honestly, his cartoons don't need it. The linework is frenzied and impeccable! Plus, the guy incorporates this bloody FANTASTIC hand drawn typography with his cartoons. Seriously, it has as much life as his characters. You really have to look him up to know what I'm talking about. I don't follow American politics, but I still look at Darkow's work daily.
 
What is something non-comics that you have enjoyed in 2013? 
I recently saw some of George Lambert's paintings in the Queensland Art Gallery and fell deeply in love. My wife got me a nice big book on him which I plan to read very soon.
 
What are you looking forward to in 2014?
At the moment, I don't know what I'm looking forward to, but I'm sure there are some wonderful surprises in store!

2013 in Review: Ryan K. Lindsay


What have been your personal cartooning/comics highlights of 2013?
Having issues on 3 different projects all start coming out was probably the comic making highlight (I released FATHERHOOD, my one-shot through Challenger Comics; GHOST TOWN through Action Lab's Danger Zone imprint; and the MY LITTLE PONY RAINBOW DASH one-shot through IDW). Seeing a lot of hard work drop in the one year was a highlight and I hope to keep it all moving along nicely. I would also list traveling to Seattle for the Emerald City Comic Con in March a highlight as I got to finally meet a lot of really awesome people, have a few drinks, and chat for real.

What are some of the comics/cartoonists you've enjoyed in 2013?
We're in a golden age of great comics right now and I'm stoked to be a reader amongst such quality. I've really dug on HAWKEYE, THE MASSIVE, SEX CRIMINALS, THE PRIVATE EYE, FIVE GHOSTS, EAST OF WEST, DAREDEVIL, THE WAKE, TRILLIUM, BATMAN '66, FATALE, STRANGE NATION, RAT QUEENS, SHELTERED, HIGH CRIMES, as well as smaller things like Ryan Ferrier and Chris Peterson's ULTRANOVA, and Louie Joyce's very recent A LIFE IN THE CITY.

What is something non-comics that you have enjoyed in 2013? 
Having my second child in February certainly ranks as a highlight. I super dug Stephen King's Hard Case Crime pulp JOYLAND, and I'm a ways into DOCTOR SLEEP which is shaping up to be pretty good. BREAKING BAD ended the only way it could. I discovered Spotify and through it a whole mess of rad new tunes (the OST to ENTER THE DRAGON being on the highest rotation). And PACFIC RIM was the place to send my heart to have fun this year.

What are you looking forward to in 2014?
I have two miniseries greenlit for 2014 - neither of which I can talk about but they are with insanely talented artists who are making the work look far better than it had any right to coming out of my head. I'm also putting together some DIY one-shot type stuff that I'm super excited about. The trade for GHOST TOWN should drop around March. I'll be attending a few conventions and am looking forward to getting around Australia to put some stories into hands, chat copious amounts of Daredevil with people, and just enjoy the rad atmosphere that comics people bring with them. 2014 is going to be another superb year of reading great comics, writing some new material, and having loads of fun with my family.

2013 in Review: Tim Molloy


What have been your personal cartooning/comics highlights of 2013?
Being asked to take part as a guest of the Adelaide Writers Week as part of the festival in March next year! Madman taking on distribution of Milk Shadow Books was a big one.

What are some of the comics/cartoonists you've enjoyed in 2013?
Ben Hutchos You Stink and I Don't collection. Pat Grants story about his dad Toormina Video. Properly investigated  Moebius this year.  Always good. Thomas Ott's R. I. P.  Was amazing...

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

My wife and I had a baby boy this year! This experience has easily been the best thing that has ever happened to me!
 
What are you looking forward to in 2014?
The Writers Week thing should be great...  Later in the year the sequel to Mr Unpronounceable Adventures will be published ,  if all goes well! Just drawing all the time,  or as much as I can,  and hopefully getting better in every way.