Thursday, December 09, 2004

The Korean job

In the middle of this year I was approached by a representative (Joelle) of the Bucheon Comic book Fair in Korea to source some Australian books for the show. The Bucheon Insititute is essentially the Korean Comic University and every year they have a bookfair where publishers from all over Asia check out books and artists. Sounded interesting,I posted something up on the Ozcomics board and was met with tumbleweed and chirping crickets.

Fast forward to July, i start corresponding with Sunny Kwon, a Korean student in Sydney to do her Masters in Art Management, specifically in Australia to study Australian Comic books. Unwisely, she was using me for an insight into Australian comics.

Then the penny dropped and while i looked under the couch looking for said penny, i thought "hey, i don't need a penny". Later, when i was taking a dump, I thought "Hey, maybe i can get Sunny to help me with the whole Korean bookfair thingy".

Emails back and forward between Sunny and Moi, between Moi and Joelle (Bucheon representative) and Moi and cool comic people, i had organised a bunch of books to be sent over to korea, had dodgely created some posters and flyers and had them translated.

Some of these will have large file sizes so beware and most of these are not final versions so cut me some slack. The posters were a3 sized, flyers a4.
Killeroo Poster - a bit shit, this was the first one i did and the whole Korean font thing was not working for me
Killeroo Flyer - way better

Knee Pockets Poster - I flipped David's cover around, the was a reason at the time - trust me, and because my timelines were so short ( i left everything to the last minute) when he asked to have it flipped back i couldn't comply, no offense was intended, Sorry David.
Knee Pockets Flyer - Without doubt, 'Far away star' is my favourite short comic ever, i tried to buy the original for my collection but silly technology-savvy Tang does it all photoshop style. In the story, theres a reference to Eddie Murphy in the Golden Child, i had asked Su nny to replace the media reference to something more Koreanccentric and her reply was "Koreans should know who eddie murphy is, get da fuck outta here, hergh hergh hergh". The actual text on the flyers, in all cases, is a description of the book and a bio of the creator.

Batrisha Poster - The biggest hurdle with redoing the covers to include the korean text was that the korean font I had was pretty boring so I had to push my Illustrator skills to the limit; which in reality means using more than 3 colours and changing the stroke width. Batrisha was one of the last ones i did and subsequently is not as great as it should be, thankfully Dillon is a good sport and will not be unleashing his horde of fans on me.
Batrisha Flyer - The weird, (but highly innovative!!) shape of the book pushed my shit design skills, but i don't mind the final result. I think in the final version the dialogue on the page was translated (it was 3 months ago - i can't remember what happened yesterday). Trying to remember but i think the translation of the title is something like; "Vampire girl Batrisha" - instead of "Batrisha, the vampire girl". Language is a beautiful, multilayered thing.

So I don't blow my load early and look like a wanker, part 2 tomorrow; Crab Allen, How to save the World, Hairbutt the Hippo and the feedback.

2 comments:

Mark Selan said...

No, i ask you, where, where, can i find such a thing as pizza for a penny?

hmmm?

I did have pizza with a Penny once, she picked off all the capsicum and gave them to me.

Mark Selan said...

Frank - I totally like dig capsicum, my slapping hand was sheathed.

Tonia - Hey thanks for finding me. I'm a member of Pulp Faction and though i actually feel ranted out i'll be posting there for sure. Though I'm already scracthing my head about what i'll be writing here but any excess banality i'll take to pulp faction.