DIY ARTS Fundraiser. ART-A-THON Come join the fun!

TheComicSpot is part of the DIY Arts program on 3cr and we are having a fundraiser!! And you can be a part of it!!!

You can sponsor me - I'm aiming to produce 4 four comics pages in the week from 1st-7th Dec. Make your pledge (per page or for the effort), its easy, just send me an email or leave a comment and i'll follow it up.

Or read the following and have a go yourself. All works can be shown at Forepaw Gallery on 14th Dec. YAY!!!!


How much art can you make in one week to raise money for Community Radio?

December 1st - 7th

Make art for one week and get your peeps to sponsor you to raise money for community radio.
Be part of the DIY Art Show’s Art–a–thon 2008Dare your friends to make as much art as they can during the week of December 1st - 7th.Register! Sponsor! Create! Celebrate!

Download the ART-A-THON info and get started!!!

Register!
Email your name, address and phone number to The Diy Arts Show and let us know what kind of art you might make.This is just so we have an idea how many people are involved, what kind of stuff to expect and so we can contact you to contribute something to the final night celebration at Forepaw.

Recruit!
Get your peeps to sponsor you: by the hour, day, minute or artwork etc…or they can also choose to sponsor you with a single payment, just fill in the sponsor form.

Create!
During the week of December 1 - 7th make as much art as you can, keep track of the hours, days, artworks etc (whatever it is you are being sponsored for!)

Collect!
Contact your peeps and collect your cash.-You can pay online to 3CR using the Art-a-thon PayPal link at www.3cr.org.au/diyarts.

You can bring your money and completed sponsor form in person to 3CR at 21 Smith Street Collingwood Monday to Friday from 10 – 6 or to the final party at Forepaw on December 14.

Or you can mail your form along with a cheque or money order made out to 3CR Community Radio to :DIY Art-a-thon, c/o 3CR Community Radio,PO Box 1277, Collingwood VIC 3066.

Celebrate!
On Sunday December 14 we will have a great big party in the afternoon at Forepaw to celebrate. Bring along some of your artworks as we will be showcasing the amazing stuff that everyone has made for the Art-a-Thon.

Forepaw is 275 High St Northcote.

There will facilities to exhibit audio and digital video pieces as well as 3 dimensional works.

Feel free to contact us if you have any questions about the Art-a-thon or the after party.

TheComicSpot for Nov 08 - Tassie special

Tune into TheComicSpot this Thursday 27 Nov at 5pm for a special on Tasmanian comickers.

I will be speaking to illustrator, web diarist and graphic novelist in the making Christopher Downes about his work. I will also be speaking to Matt Coyle about his disturbingly beautiful book Worry Doll.

There will also be another special mystery guest TBC.

If you have any what’s on or news you want me to share email me thecomicspot@hotmail.com and I’ll try to fit as much in as I can.

Cheers

John


ps- DIY Arts and TheComicSpot are haveing an Art-a-thon to raise funds for the program. We have a fundrasing target each year to help keep the station on air. Where 2/3 of the way there and want to make it with the Art-a-thon. More details to follow.

Tales of Hobartian Comics

I was recently in Hobart for a few days to chillax for a bit after a pretty warped time in my life recently. It worked, I can now consider myself chilled and relaxed. A good part of the reason it worked was some great comic related people I met, spoke to, interviewed and whose works I purchased. I also wandered around town checking out galleries, second-hand book and clothes stores, going to the movies and sitting in a very nice Jazz bar on Saturday night. And with a G&T too many, a lovely evening/early morning stroll back to the B&B I had an extremely relaxing and peaceful sleep Saturday night.

A nice town, with some interesting purchases to be had.

I managed to get in contact with and speak to a few comic related people. My thanks to Sarah Howell for some contacts and to Anthony of Pocket Space in Criterion St for being available to chat as well. I recorded interviews with Chris Downes and Matt Coyle which you will be hearing in the next episode of TheComicSpot airing in Melbourne on 855am 3CR and streaming at 3CR.org.au on Thursday 27th at 5pm.

Here’s a brief overview of the purchases and later i'll post a few pics of some steet art I encountered in the lovely Hobart.

First of all i met up with and spoke to Chris Downes, a Tenneseean now living in Hobart for many years.

I found his work through the monsterfeed blog you can all subscribe to from comicslifestyle.com. Chris is an illustrator and is working on a graphic novel. To warm himself up he began a webcomic diary titled – Diary of a work in progress.

He showed me these two works in progress - you can hear him talk about them more on the show.

We met in a cafe where he had been commisioned to do the first of hopefully many murals for. Check out his webdiary and let him know you want to see it published. I know i do.

One place everyone told me about was Pocket Space. It was lovely to meet the proprietor Anthony and have chat.

I stole this photo from from another blog as i forgot to take one whilst there. Forgive me internet gods.

Whilst at Pocket Space i picked up some more Hobartian goodness.

A three comic pack in the Dog Man series - Tricky Walsh I don't have a lot of info on this one except that i quite like the art and the packaging. The story involves the death of a character and then her drole afterlife as a beauricrat in one of the outer circles of hell. A couple of points where the dialogue layout didn't flow the best but i'd definately pick up more issues if i came across them. It's pretty assured.

Worry Doll – Matt Coyle. A beautifully rendered work. Very dark and wonderful. Some of Matt's work can be seen at his website and the detail and photorealism has to seen to be believed. You can hear Matt talking about his stuff on this month's show.

Girl Mountain Micah Maolomuire - Simon James. I've got a couple of minis by Simon that i picked up at Sticky or Polysester and a couple of those stories feature in this compilation of his longer form work entitled Girl Mountain. This is collection of issues 1 +2 of GM as well as some extras. The story where a guy accidently shits in the shower is quietly horrific. A nice little package and i hope to find more of his work down the line.

Space Between Your Eyes - two zines i picked up at a music store. No idea who did them. Pretty juvenile but i liked their sense of indignent fun.

The other place to get literary comics in Hobart is the Ellison Hawker Bookshop. I picked up...

Kafka - Robert Crumb and David Zane Mairowitz. A brilliant beginners guide to Kafka and his works by a great cartoonist adapting slabs of his life and some of Kafka's short stories. Though there were a couple of typos in the text sections that were a little jarring. You'd think a proof reader might have picked them up.

I Killed Adolf Hitler - the brilliant JASON. I just love everything this Norwegian does. Apparently he's the main interview in the new Comics Journal. Looking forward to reading that.

And then upstairs from Ellison Hawker there is a place called Area 52. This is Hobart's tights and flights central. It was here that i picked up...

Hollow Fields Vol 2 - Madeleine Rosca. I just missed out on a gallery show that Madeleine was in. (see last entry for a review of Vol1 and a link to Madeleine speaking about her art) I'm hoping to talk to her for the next show so we can have an all Tassie edition of TheComicSpot.

Then i hit the secondhand bookstores. I managed to do quite well. I left a few gems on a few shelves that i already had or decided to leave for others including some Love and Rockets, Eddie Campbell, Adrian Tomine, Dan Clowes and Chris Ware. But i think i did well picking up these.

Soundtrack - Jessica Abel . I read La Perdida a while back and loved it. Looking forward to reading this collection of her earlier works.

Like a River - Pierre Wazem. I have no idea about this book or the artist but i liked that art and production enough to give it a go.

When The Wind Blows - Raymond Briggs. I knew Raymond Briggs by reputation and this tale of Britishness in the face of armageddon is a great if somewhat bleak in turns tale whilst at the same time being darkly humourous stuff. Get yourself some Briggs.

The Press - Papas. My favourite find of the whole trip and the first book i picked up. More of an illustrated book than a comic, The Press (1964) is a gem. A strikingly illustrated view of the way the newspaper world used to be. Papas' caricatures of the staff of the newspaper and the world of the presses is sublime. I shake my head in awe of the lovely lines i found inside the covers. A snapshot of a lost world that has instantly become a treasured book and opened me up to new world of illustrated books and cartoonists from that era.

All in all i thought i got a pretty good haul.

Thanks Hobart.

Rambling Review – Hollow Fields Vol. 1

Story and Art by Madeleine Rosca.

I haven’t read a lot of manga. I’ve not been very enamoured at the aesthetic in general and have found it difficult to connect with the characters and stories of the ones that I have come across. But, all this being said, I have and am making a concerted effort to develop a greater appreciation and understanding of eastern influenced comics.

I began in earnest after a brilliant and mind expanding Osama Tezuka exhibition came to the NGV in Melbourne about two years ago. To see the depth and breadth of just a fraction of his work was very special. There is nothing quite like seeing the original art of a great cartoonist to gain a greater appreciation of their skill and talent. Tezuka’s art had just this effect on me. In particular I found pages from his unfinished Beethoven biography profoundly beautiful and exciting. The way he depicted music on the page made it a visceral experience. As far as I know this has never been in print in English. If you know different then please let me know so I can get hold of it.

But I digress.

The exhibition motivated me to go out and buy some of Tezukas more mature works. I began with reading the 8 volume Buddha. A lovely work depicting the entire life of the Buddha. Monumental stuff, but also full of mangaesque quirks, humour, asides, in jokes and a story that went from rollicking to somber at the drop of a hat. It helped me develop my way of reading eastern comics. It’s through this prism that I find myself starting my manga journey.

From there I read some OzTaku anthologies of seriealised and short manga by Australian creators before reading my first series in the shape of Queenie Chan’s ‘The Dreaming’. The Dreaming is set in a boarding house in the Australian bush where a set of twins find themselves in a situation populated by ghosts, demons, suppressed secrets and horrific dreams. Queenie was a guest on the June 08 ComicSpot (which I’m hoping to post in a week or two)and she gave us a window into the manga world from a creators point of view. Another step toward my understanding of this hitherto undiscovered country.

Don’t worry – I’m getting to Hollow Fields.

So now – October 2008 - I pick up a copy of Hollow Fields after hearing that it has won a Japanese Manga Award and is created by a Tasmanian! Is there a better way to combine an interest in manga and a passion for Australian Manga? I think not.

Hollow Fields is the story of a young spunky girl called Lucy Snow. She accidently finds herself a student at boarding school for the offspring of mad scientists and evil doers. The major plot point hammered home in the volume is that ‘detention’ (where the worst student of the week is sent) is a place of no return. Once sent – no one ever returns. This leads to Lucy scheming all manner of escape plans and ways to complete near impossible homework assignments. The school is run by a cabal of suitably menacing robot lecturers, a seemingly evil headmistress, a patchwork monster enforcer by the name of Mr Stinch and within this first chapter Lucy’s class is populated by friends and foes that I’m sure are further developed subsequent volumes.

I had fun reading this tale. It’s fast moving and a good adventure story. The art is dymanic and full of energy. The world Rosca has created is well populated and diverse. She seems to have created many avenues to explore. Whether that be through Lucy, her classmates, the schools staff or the building of the school itself. The school, the ‘Hollow Fields’ of the title is solidly realised and worthy of exploration in it’s own right. A sort of steam punk influenced environment of permanently turning clockwork cogs and complicated architecture that demands a map and good secret passage or two to be the core of at least a few of Lucy’s adventures.

There is a second volume and according to Madeleine’s blog a third just completed. I’m more than happy to say that I’m along for the ride. This is quality stortelling – and whilst I’m sure I’m not the core audience for this book – I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Check out Madeleine’s blog and I also found this great video featuring Madeleine talking about her art, her process and the book’s development. It looks like it was taken at a gallery showing of her art. Sweet!

I’m off to Tassie for a few days myself this week so I’m hoping the next episode of TheComicSpot (November 27) will feature some interviews with Tassie creators and comickers. You’ll know more as it comes to hand. Hopefully Madeleine will be amongst them.

Cheers for now.

John