Egads - my real name

As I write this, at home, on my home computer, as i always do, in my own time, I must mention that i was googled today by work colleagues.

Now i should have considered, as i am doing now, at home, not at work, that since i work in a web based industry, with web saavy people, that eventually they would google me, especially since next week they are interviewing me for a job (a brilliant government system where you have to interview for your own job periodically).

It was brought to my attention that I won a Ledger.
Well I did, supporting Australian comic books, in my own time and NOT using government networks or bandwith, but my own at home. Sure some posts here and other places may be time stamped within office hours buts thats because of differing time zones, because i always post at home, on my computer, in my own time, not at work.

And when i'm on MSN, i'm chatting with designers and programmers. Learning, because professional development is really important. Yes. Really important.

So i'm logging off now, off my home computer, because i have to catch a bus, i mean, cook dinner.

(look at the time its 8pm)

Hey look at me, look at you

Ian Gould is working on a Comic with a Canadian. Local Hero.
Page 1

Norm Breyfogle gives a shout out to Darren Close.
(I was trying to find my inner Norm and make that a poem, but i failed.)

Pirotess will be on Foxtel's Disney channel in the coming month, apparently talking about manga art while drawing the hosts (hopefully topless and embracing).

Doug gets accussed of being a terrorist here.

And finally Mark Slean and the 24 hour challenge gets some love from New Zealand. if the any New Zealanders reading and will to help let me know - i need help with getting posters to Kiwi comic shops.

Cons and other stuff

Milking the whole con thing abit more
Dillon Naylor talks about his Armaggedon exploits, though con reports with spelling mistakes is my thing!

More piccies here
Including this shot which doesn't bring the darkness. (I'm changing my name to Mark Selan! - paying homage to blue hair girl)

The previous link was from Comic Lifestyle, which recently had an article about Silent Army in the classroom.

and then finishing where we started - 3D batrisha cartoon, with a rumour, that i made up, that Bud Tingwell will be supplying the voice of Batrisha (or it could be Bill Hunter) (i didn't know Bill Hunter was going to be in the Batrisha cartoon though).

Mood - Hope i find something new to blog about soon

77 hours of Supanova - Appendix D

The sketches
All the sketches have a japanese theme (not necessarily manga) mainly because it gave some sort of consistency to the sketches but still broad enough to allow the creators room to move.

(the images presented here are scaled to 50%)

Nicola Scott


Stewart McKenny


David Yardin


Tonia Walden


Ben Hutchings


Andy Finlayson

77 hours of Supanova - Appendix C

Ok, i'm going to be controversial by spilling with how much i sold.

i'd like to think i'm pretty good at the selling things and i usually sell a broad range of stuff, so use this information as raw data if you are ever consider selling at a con. Take these numbers of what you could expect to sell in a supanova weekend.

Some things sold better than others but i don't think quality had much to do with it. everything that i had on the table was good stuff, otherwise i would have been wary of carrying it.

Crab Allan x 1
its a pricey item and people don't expect to have to spend that in artist alley - i'm hoping if Bikini Cowboy gets released as something in the $5-7 price range it might get people interested (or when Gothic Boogaloo gets printed) in checking out the rest of Weber's work.

Interior
1 x 7
2 x 6
3 x 5
I was expecting a bit better than this, but i think the smaller size and cover (which is not very eye catching or dynamic) made people pass it by. Its also a hard to sell, since its difficult to express what its about in 20 words or less. Its one of those books that you need to read to "get" and once you do its very intriguing. (its available at www.phasetwocomics.com)

How to save the world x 4
This was a bit low, since its never been in Brisbane, its got a good cover, and fair price. Again I blame too much on the table, (this was at the back which stopped people picking it up and flicking through) and possibly not enough recognition.

Tales from under the bed x 10
This did pretty good for a $6.50 mini. It was up front, heaps of people picked up and flicked through it, its got an eye catching cover. Though It has been out for awhile and it is a bit pricey for artist alley but i'm pretty happy with this.

Sporadic #5 x 11
I wish i had sporadics 1-4 at the table (though i have no idea where i would stick them), this is brand new, good price point, and recieved a lot of interest. however, the whole anthology thing may have slowed sales - its hard to tell, but anthologies traditionally in the western market don't do so well. Is that the case for local stuff? - i dunno.

Brotherboy Sistergirl x 2
Even though its A4, full colour i'm not surprised that this sold 2, at 8 dollars its a hard sell for artist alley. Also its a educational comic staring aboriginal characters which unfortunately is a very niche market. Also they were at the back of the table covered by tonia's comics, which stopped people picking and flicking.

work of Brendan Boyd, x 4 x 1
I had 4 photocopy mini comics, by Brandan, which i didn't have on the table, i actually forgot i had them. i could have pushed them on some people and sold maybe 1 or 2 more sets but tricky.

Tonia Walden comics
(this is from memory since i left them up north)
Eat comics x 3-4
Once upon a time x 2-3
My office is hell x 2-4
Not bad, for a bunch of comics that were stacked at the back of the table. Again the anthology bit may have played in the slowness of Eat comics and Once upon a time. Also i'm sure these are in various local shops, plus Tonia gives them away so alot, so i think many people have'em already.

Ozcomics Magazine
Issue 6 x 28 - happy with this amount, for this being a new issue, especially since the theme of the issue (comic collectiveness) is not that interesting for most people. I'm also glad i didn't bring the 50 i had originally packed.

Issue 5 x 18 - pretty good, people are still interested in the whole Retro thing (comics from 10-20 years ago) also knowing that this was in brisbane last year and in shops this is pretty good result.

Issue 4 x 7 - not bad, again this issue didn't have much of a theme and its been in brisbane before, so its not that unexpected

Issue 3 x 19 - happy with this, this is the best selling issue of the magazine's run so far and i've had to reprint it a couple of times. this is the self publishing issue and alot of would be creators pick it up, i hope the next issue (#7) will continue on this theme. again this has been available in brisbane since its release

Issue 2 x 6 - disappointed in this, its the manga issue and thought it would do the best at a convention that has such a manga emphasis. but i ended up bringing back home a bunch of these which is disapointing. Although, this has been at brisbane cons three times now and in shops, so i'm sure this issue has hit saturation point in the brisbane market.

Issue 1 x 5 - not so disappointed by this since the issue has no theme to sell it, and if people hadn't picked any issues up before i steered them towards 3,5,6 instead

So, i think the way the Sporadic and Walden stuff went, it would pay off for brisbanites to get a table and sell a bunch of different comics, while artists sit and sketch. (people watch artists sketch and will end up buying - especially if they take requests).

Or the advice i've heard is hit zine fair where people come expressly to buy comics.

77 hours of Supanova - Appendix B

the booty

• 1 Nicola Scott Star Wars page - Luke holding lightsaber aloft, excalibur style
• All you can eat #1 (given too me by creator)
• Azerath #5
• Brandi #1 (given to me by creator)
• Corpse in the Chapel
• Cruel World #4,7
• Crumpleton #1, 5
• DeeVee #5,6,7,12
• DeeVee - Flange
• Eddie Campbell's Egomania 31
• Eldritch #2
• Fat Ankle
• Gold Plated plops
• Groovy Gravy 7, 9, 9.5, 10
• Herman Dvd
• Millenium #1 (from 1992)
• Oztaku #3
• Phatsville comix #6, 7
• Plump Oyster
• Raymondo Person #1,2
• Seven Swords #6,7 (given to me by Tonia)
• Sir Testclump (i think that's the title)
• Sporadic #5

Missed out, the odd issue of Cruel world (i think I spied 6 on saturday but it was gone on sunday), The new rebecca clements stuff (which is a shame since i think she does great work), the Adolf hitler book everyone mentions but i didn't see. And what ever the guys right at the end were selling.

from the other side of the pacific

• Action Comics 595
• Captain America 257
• Daredevil 124, 282
• Incredible hulk 330, 357, 369
• Sandman mystery Theatre #25
• Uncanny xmen 275, 349
• Wolverine 219-122

There was a real lack of anything non manga, dc, marvel at the con which is expected by sad.

77 hours of Supanova - Appendix A

The booth on saturday morning

Starting in the foreground: Nicola Scott, Travis Burch, Wendy Something, Stewart McKenny, Eddie Campbell, (you can sort of see Daren White and Jason Rand)

Christian Read in front of the Ace Comics Stall

Someone i kept calling Catwoman, when it dawned on me its Black Cat. How silly of me getting the character's name of a 30 year old adult dressed in a velour catsuit at 1pm in the afternoon wrong.

KIDS! Reading Comics! By the Toilets!

Travis wonders "if there was a hot cosplayer standing to my right i'd look at her like this". Also Wendy and Stewart. And Eddie Campbell's back and he changed shirt. Eddie went on to change his shirt 23 times during the con.

In Star Wars 8, Leia gives birth to a jawa, and they go shopping, while the two in the background wonder if they look good in their matching tshirts.

Cool Hand Weber being a pool champion.

Then he disappears. Daniel Lawson and Karen Howard chat, while Dylan Naylor looks lost and disshelved (but with a great tan). Kylie lounges in the background.

Ben Howard contemplates losing again. you can see kenny in the background taking photos, non stop.

The lucksmiths.

David Yardin will draw for coke

Nicola Scott explains how she used to play the oboe to Cool Hand Weber.

Patrick Alexander sells another 8 year old a copy of Raymondo Person(now with more cheese fucking)

Ben Hutchings, take a look, as he draws in my book, His sweat band's black, and mine is white, but we get along just fine, drinking chinese wine.

You waited 2 weeks for this, enjoy.

77 hours of Supanova; Day three (monday) - Part 1

We got home from Jelly Wrestling club around 12ish, i was just peaking from the booze in my system. I couldn't feel me face anymore. it was at this point a sober Cool Hand Weber decided to show me pages from Bikini Cowboy, they looked nice. Cool hand can draw the cute girls like nobody's business and his story telling is spot on. This will rock once its out.

We sat around for a bit and decompressed and then my host went beddybys. I then got a phone call from emma where she was half asleep and i was half drunk, so we had half a conversation.

then sleep. for a bit. i woke up and felt bad. vomit bad. i stumbled to the fridge and poured more water. i drank said water. better. more sleep.

Cool hand gets up at 7 and leaves for uni at 8. My flight was 12 so i was tossing up what i was going to do for 4 hours, stick around casa di cool hand and catch the train or cab or leave with cool hand.
I went with the latter and was packed and ready by 730.

We walked to the nearby train station, me dragging my suitcase behind me, waited around, talking sunglasses, carry bags and uni in general. Cool Hand baulked at the idea i may actually like wearing a tie to work every day. Well i do. And i like wearing a suit as well.

On the train we crammed up, my backpack and suitcase stealing valuable passenger space. Weber was insistent that i get off at Roma St, the station before Central, where he was getting off. He was adamant. I believe he was meeting his cool uni friends and didn't want me around to ruin his cred. I shed a little tear. my station was up, we shook hands, i offered my house whenever he was in adelaide, i thanked him sincerly, grabbed bags and detrained. It was 8:30 and my ticket was valid for 1.5 hours so I found some lockers, stowed my shit and headed towards the city.

It was a fair walk, it would have been shorter if i got out at Central, but i wasn't alone as i tagged along with the many early morning people. I picked up a dodgy map and made my way to a street that had some nice clothes shops on them. Usually at these comic related interstate juants i'll buy Emma some peice of clothing that proves i have taste in women's clothes and to make up for being away. All weekend i was hoping to hit Brunswick st and the valley for there was much coolness on sale. but alas.

Oh cool, there's Ace Comics. Turn, turn. Oh Wow Comics etc. Look Daily Planet. Within 15 minutes 3 comic shops. Comics etc and Daily Planet were both open so i popped in and had a look.

But i realised i was pooped from four colour panelled fun, i found nightwing 104 (for a customer at Pulp Fiction) and had to get out.

Then onto these clothes shops, where i tried to look cool shopping for female clothes, i made sure i asked 'do you have these in a small' denoting "i'm not buying this for me, obviously, for i am a hulk of a man who would never be able to fit into this tiny morsel of clothing". Anyway i went backwards and forwards from shop to shop until i found the best thing for a bargin price. (I have expensive taste but i was broke).
One pink morrisey jumper later i was rushing back to the railway station.
The shop dude wondered "why do you have to go to Roma station when Central is just up the road?"
Sigh

The trip to the airport was nondescript. I checked in, passed security and headed towards the boarding gate. The gate i needed was at the far end of the airport and i had over an hour to go, so fuck that, i'm going wandering. I was still feeling seedy, and when i feel seedy there is nothing better than a cheeseburger, so i hunted down a mcdonalds.

I then heard my name, and it was Mark, the bass player from the Lucksmiths having coffee with the LadyBug Transmitters. I giddily moved over and we chatted for a bit, how did the comic convention end up?, how was jelly wrestling? I asked how did the gig go? apparently both bands ended up jamming on a couple of songs and i started regretting not going. I complimented the Ladybug people and not wanting to wear out my welcome i headed off, by wishing them well.

There was no mcdonalds, and everything else was overpriced. So i starved. I hit an internet kiosk for awhile, got a call from emma and then had to go do a beer shit. So i walked into the dunnies and headed towards a stall when i crossed paths with bass playing Mark again. Then i freaked out, he'll think i'm sort of stalker, god what if i inadvertently use the same stall as him, he'll think i'm a wacko, shit shit shit. which i did, the call of the beer shit fairy was too strong.

That done, i sat around, and waited. i had a stack of con booty to read thru and did so while i waited and while i was in the air.
Flange - great
some work from one of the phatsville guys - good
fat ankles - not so great
misc deevee - good
nightwing 104 - meh

The taxi ride home was quiet while i slept. then down the driveway, through the door. and that was that.

Happy Birthday Mum

She was supposed to be named Bernadette.

April 20th, 1944, a small town on Slovenia was being bombed by the Germans, celebrating Hitler’s birthday. The little town, Crnomelj, was a stronghold of the partisans, noted resistance of invading Itals and Germans. In the ground floor of a little two-storey place, Paula Plevnik was giving birth. In quieter times, the upstairs was used as a bordello for resting fighters. That night
By the next morning, word had gotten to Leopold, he had a new daughter. He, quite naturally, started to celebrate.
It never took him much, a couple of beers or some shots of slivavica (a local plum brandy) and he was blotto.
It was in this state he arrived at the local registry
"and the name of the little girl?"
There were replies of ums and ahs, but the only name he could remember was his wife’s.
"Paula"
"and will there be a middle name?"
Again, ums and ahs
"No"
Paula Plenvik had the wrong name.

After the war, things settled back. Leopold went back to being a cobbler and Paula a seamstress. Except now, they worked for the system which Leopold didn't really like, he expressed this view regularly. Luckily for him, he was an old boy, one of the first to the cause, he had friends in high places. There was discontent for awhile but he played good soccer, got drunk quickly and he was liked by everyone.

Paula, the daughter, was the odd duck in the family. The second oldest in a family of 6 children she stood out by way of her being so average, she wasn't good at anything.
Maria - economic advisor, bank manager
Andrej - musician, graphic designer
Milan - artist
Franc - chemical engineer
Peter - motocross champion

She dropped out of school at 15 and started working at the Post Office. She trained well and became a substitute post office clerk, filling in for holidaying and pregnant staff. She travelled around the country boarding in hostels or at other people's homes. This lead to a distrust of strangers - one incident involved having to climb over the bed of some guy everytime she wanted to leave her room.
She moved around, she hid her smoking and drinking from her mother. She ended up in Kostanjevica and started smoking and drinking with Angela. She met Angela's brother, Janez, back from the Army, all piss and vinegar, all drive, something she looked for.
He moved to Austria but would visit. Eventually they married. They moved to Vienna and, lacking the language, was housebound. She didn't mind too much.

She feel pregnant, but John Jr died two weeks in, by way of brain haemorrhage.

They moved to Australia in the late 60s, economic refugees, the last wave of post war immigrants. She picked up engish ok, though sometimes something was lost in the translation; ‘foot fingers’ is nothing but funny. She worked in production lines, making tvs, making transistors. She worked on a cake line and stuffed herself for 3 days and couldn't eat cake for months.

She feel pregnant again. This one didn't make it to birth.

She kept working and persevering.

Janez was doing ok, but he felt he should have been doing better. He felt restricted and restrained. Paula persisted. She held to catholic faith; drew comfort from all life is suffering, the meek shall inherit the earth. Janez claimed he'll inherit the earth. She never complained.

She feel pregnant again, this time it was decided it would be wise if she stayed in hospital to make sure. She was there for 6 months, prone and panicked. Praying. She gave birth to a son, who remained unnamed for 2 weeks. He survived. She gave him her father's name.

She stopped working and stayed at home raising their son. The marriage lasted 17 more years. He left. It was messy but she never complained out loud.

She started working as a cleaner at a retirement village scrubbing floors and doing laundry and has been doing so for 10 years now. She's really happy. She goes to the movies every tuesday, cooks mountains of food for her boy every monday and begs said son for laundry, which the son refuses every time.

Happy Birthday mum - thanks for the world.

77 hours of Supanova; Day three (sunday) - Part 2

Closing time was dawning, or actually dusking, it was drawing near all the same.
I was on a look out for Ian Gould, proprietor of Ace comics, my preferred Brisbane store when it came to the magazine. I had a smattering of books left but wanted the satisfaction of leaving Brisbane with none. But Ian wasn’t coming back and Paul wasn’t prepared to stand in for the boss man.

Cool Hand Weber was jonesing to go. He was packing up books, folding table clothes and generally packing crap away. I offloaded a handful of mags to Dee’s Comics in Canberra and booked. Jelly wrestling started at 6, it was just past that. But we gotta eats. Back to the old favourite New York Slice. The blister in the roof of my mouth had heeled over so to keep my mouth on edge it was time for more hot greasy pizza.
Chomp, Bang blister popped, my margarita needed a bit more of a blood taste. We walked and scoffed pizza.

I like pubs and clubs with stairs, that claustrophobic brightly lite enclosure where you have to make that exertion up a couple of flights of stairs and then everything opens up, dark, wide, loud - contrasts are kewl. On to drinks.
The band was playing, we spied a pool, with jelly in it. It was one of those blow up kiddie pools sitting in the middle of a roped off area. It was all outside, open air.
People milled, me and cool hand weber, went for drinks and grabbed some stools inside by the empty dance floor. it was 6:30 and we were the first ones there. Tonia Walden soon walked in. Then there were three. The music was quite loud. I’m slightly deaf in one ear and coupled by having speech recognition disorder, which is like verbal dyslexia, talking in clubs gets tricky for me. But I persisted. We chatted over drinks and then the wrestling started.
We moved over and got ringside. It stalled since the participants weren’t ready. Apparently it was all volunteers, not professional jelly wrestlers. The whole thing had been running weekly for months, tonight it was special because one of the organisers was leaving, going onto better things, I believe mud wrestling or the sumo suit wrestling. Good luck to her. Finally it begun, two guys vs two girls tag team.
Within minutes tonia, cool hand weber and myself were covered in jelly.
It actually was kind of dull after the first few minutes, its hard to believe yes. Dull.

6:45 I wonder where everyone is?
7:10 Where is everyone?
7:30 Where are those arseholes?
7:40 Motherfucking cunts! stand me up I’ll show them!
7:41 Hey you made it great!

Travis, Wendy, Stewart, Jason, Nicola, Timtam, bassist from the strokes, Carissa, Travis, Ben, Karen, Andy, Felicity, Ben Hutchings, Simon, Niel

In a bigger group it was more fun. Boobies were already out by this time, the 3 girls on one guy matches were way better because the poor blokes got pummelled. (the opposite of those three guys vs one girl movies that I hear about). “Jelly” flew everywhere, best bit was the people who were wearing black looked like they were piggy in the middle of a circle jerk. For some reason I had a lot of jelly spatterings on my crotch, which dried like they had been to the George Michael Dry Cleaning service. Tops got lost early by the wrestlers, but it took some time for guys to be dacked. The first dude, a guy on his buck’s night, struggled something fierce, it took the girls awhile. Dackee number 2, was stripped in 30 seconds, the dude was a button on a fur coat. One of the guys remarked (not saying who) that it made them feel better about themselves. I always bring up the point that the Greeks always portrayed their gods with small wangs, and the whole idea of gods is to try and be like them, maybe there is something in small dickery. On a comics front Dr Manhattan was hung like a gnat, but he was all powerful all knowing, maybe Alan Moore and those greeks knew that its not size that matters but how you use it. I don’t know, its all a moot point because I have a massive cock of DOOOM!

Ahem

Naked guy then just hung out nude for ages until security used brooms to push him into the showers and to get dressed.

At first I was sceptical on who would volunteer for it, but by the end I was considering ‘shit I’d have a go at that’. Amongst friends yes, but I didn’t really need to show the Australian comic community I fought like a girl. Plus who would I fight?

At about 9 it wound up. Everyone decided that it was dinner time, so we all headed towards Chinatown (right next door). We circled two tables and ordered. I was with Cool Hand Weber, Andy, Nicola, Tim Tam, Carissa, Neil, Tonia, the other table had the rest.

Since me and Cool Hand Weber had already eaten, we ordered seperate from the banquet meal everyone else was into, also lessons learnt those banquet meals always have too much food and we may be able to scrounge left overs.

We ordered satay (the fried variety which i don't dig so much) and these really nice peppered quails. i usually do quails in the bacon wrap thing or in resturants i'll have them grilled, but this was good too. Our sponge of the banquet meal got nixed when Cool Hand grabbed a chopstick of noodles (we were waiting for our steamed rice) and Carissa started exclaiming 'you'll have to put money in for that, you'll have to put money in for that'. Cool hand Weber regurged up the 3 noodles he ate and put them back on the plate.

i was not tipsy enough and i wanted wine. i can never figure out what to drink with chinese food, i would suspect it would be white but i don't drink white wine, in my book its the diet coke of the viticultural world.
but i did spy red chinese wine - i called the waitress over

"is the Chinese wine like sake?"
"no no no"
"is it made from grape or rice?"
"rice"
"like sake?"
"no no no"
"ok, what's it like?"
"its um yellow and um..."
"can i get a taste"
she scampered off. returning
"no"
"ok just bring the bottle it'll be fine"
She seemed apprehensive like i wouldn't like it. She brought back a dodgy looking screw cap bottle from the late 70s, it had side burns on it. She had a bucket of warm water.
"you drink warm"
"like sake?"
"no no no"
Apparently sake killed her family and she disavowed any knowledge of sake.

Everyone got a shot glass, with a lime wedge, a bit of sugar and the 'yellow' rice wine which looked suspiciously red.

And people turned their noses up at it. crazy. i took a sip. it was gold, like sake without the nail polish remover afterburn. I swigged the rest. it was great. the rest, who apparently had spent the night before shooting vodka, got freaked out by it. Losers. me, cool hand weber (who wasn't supposed to be drinking) Andy kept drinking. though at 18% alcohol the 3/4 of the bottle left was going to cause trouble, so 8 more glasses for the other table. they feaked out too, except for ben Hutchings who joined us and drank like men.

"kai Po"

the traditional cantonese drinking salutation as i read in Jackie Chan's autobiography

kai po

another round

kai po

another round.

Tim Tam (voice actor of some sort) had tim tams which he shared around. but this distracted from

kai po

another round

We were the only ones left in the resturant, the bill got dumped, we paid and

kai po

that was it.

We were heading back to Birdie birdie birdie num num num, when there was mutiny, "we don't want to go back there" Sniff. "Its ok, the jelly wrestling's done for the night" "we wanna go somewhere else" Sniff. Sigh. there's always one or two.
resident party man andy led us to another club, we walked in and people walked out again.
"we're going back to the hotel" Sniff

Sigh

So we bid adiew to them all, it had been a great weekend. it was nosing 10;30. rissa as she left told us the cult fiction guys (kevin and cole) were meeting us (the group being most of whom were bailing) at birdie birdie num nums. i kept suggesting the Lucksmiths, which was met with eyerolls and shoulder shrugs. then i suggested we see a band, there's a three piece from melbourne playing.

but we did the right thing, getting stood up is bad, especially if you are an out of towner so me cool hand Weber and Andy went back to birdie birdie birdie num num num nums. They weren't hard to spot. We sat in the relative quiet of the outdoor patio and talked superhero comics, interior redecorating, criticism and the 'scene'. the chinese red wine was hitting me at this point and the bouncer was shooing people inside, for the outdoor patio was being closed for the night. It was way too loud to talk and having a dance with kev, cole, andy and cool hand weber was too weird, even for me. So we skulled beers and split
kev and cole stayed behind.

on the footpath we said later to andy and made our way to cool hand Weber's illegally parked starlet of swoosh.

77 hours of Supanova; Day three (sunday) - Part 1

Sleep was a lot better on night #2. Weber, my pool champion playing partner who will now be rechristened Cool hand Weber, had gotten me a pillow from his brother. I suspect said pillow was passed from fratello to fratello through the crack at the bottom of the door for it was an awfully thin pillow. The thiness did not bother me since i like folding my pillows in half, there by doubling its pillowy goodness making it a more efficient sleeping implement. Fear my pillow power puny hu-mans.

in the morning we woke, seperatly, showered, seperately, and then watched herman, labrador at law, toghether, which Cool hand weber bought on DVD, in its photocopied cover, hand written label glory. And it was great. though i must profess that it did need more bum sniffing, there was a total lack of bum sniffing and it showed. We then moved and made our way to the convention centre.

Oh Daniel Reed,
Had so Agreed,
To buy some sweets,
Before we meets,
On sunday morning

the line didn't seem so long as we strolled on in. Stewart and co were already behind their table as we walked by. Travis (one of the co) asked what happened to us the night before since we didn't turn up at the fringe bar.
Well, we got kicked out of the fringe (truth stretch for dramatic effect) and we moved on to birdie birdie num num (i had added another birdie for more dramatic effect). I also mentioned that there was going to be jelly wrestling at birdie birdie num nums tonight. travis got so excited he almost erased photos of underaged cosplayers making room on his camera. (and travis send me a copy of those photos man)

ahem

The guests the previous night had all gone to a cocktail party where fans buy tickets for $65 so they hang around their favourite stars and ask questions like "is anyone sitting here?" "can i finish your soup?" and "can you look after my bag while i do a poo?"
I kind of imagine it like year 8 social dance, where all the stars stand at one end looking bored and hoarding drinks and the fans stand at the other end gawking and hoarding mints.

After the cocktail party Rissa, some volunteers and some of the stars went up to her room to drink copious amounts of vodka and play sex games like; sexual kerplunk and sexual cluedo. Many cries of "you sank my sexual battleship!" were heard from her room. Poor nicola hid under her bedsheets, that night, while Hollwoody Scotty tried on her clothes. (not true, well maybe, i claim satire!!)

I went and visited the PC crew downstairs. i now refuse to even attempt to say Phosphorescent in their presence because it only comes out as phosphorent. every year i ask karen if she lost a bet when she wears her glow in the dark phosphorescent tshirt. and we laugh. hahahaha. sigh.
i picked up some copies of issue 6, that i had them try and sell the day before. i picked up Azerath 5 and Eldritch kid 2 too.

then i went and perused the back issue bins while the crowds waited for opening time.
looking to finish my John byrne superman run, my peter david hulk run, some adam warren gen 13s and starman 2 at a reasonable price.
ended up with nada at that point.

Doors opened - crowd streamed in.
Sales weere steady. but my interest was waning, i had stood behind the table all day yesterday and i wanted to play a bit too. So a flitted back and forth. Daniel kept and eye on my stuff and i seconded tonia when she wasn't looking. it was pretty quiet so i forced Stewart and nicola to finish my sketches. I stood over them and watched them like a dork.
david yardin turned up, which was a buzz. i met him in sydney and i think the exchange was "hey david, i've gotta get a sketch from you later". Anyway later turned out to be a year. So i grabbed a chair and he sat down behind a table and started drawing. Started out a little pencil sketch, then got more detail and grew and grew to become a whole page illustration. he drew for about an hour - "wha? aren't you going to ink it?"
We chatted through out - he's still working on a graphic novel for Stan Winston (hollywood special effects guru) Tales of the Realm or Claw of the Realm or Realm of the Claw. And apparently his website should be up soon. There will probably be some DC and marvel work afterward too.

i then chatted to jason rand, who looked nothing like Shannon Noll in person. While i chatted some guy asked me to autograph the ozcomic magazine, my normal response is 'i'm not an artists man' to which they usually agree that, yes, it would be pointless for me to sign it. This guy was persistent
"man, i've been looking for ozcomics man, i've seen 'em on ebay a couple of times'"
"yeah?" i was a bit confused "well i've got the whole run"
"I'll call my mate for what numbers he's missing"
Alarm bells rang.
He came back later, we finally sorted out he wanted the ozcomic magazine from the 70s, he kind of seemed pissed off that he spent $4 on a magazine and have me sign it as well.

i passed on the sketch book to ben hutchings who diligently drew in it for some of the afternoon.

i sold some more sporadics. i sold some more magazines. i checked out some portfolios, some of which knocked me off my feet. So much so, i gave a copy of issue 3 away for free. for free!
When i find the links to their sites i'll post them up.

the day before people in artist alley ate free pizza. on sunday we had to pay. Cool hand weber wept. there was an uproar. there was a cry of anguish. but then the dude in the phantom suit went away. apathy returned. whew.

there's 2 things i try and buy a year; a comic published in august 1975 and a piece of original comic art. i had sorted the latter out yesterday - nic was selling Star Wars pages for$50, so i got in early and hid my 3 favourite pages on the bottom of the pile, because no one would look there. Well to much freaking out, some rogue, some rascal had all three of my pages lined up and they were going through there wallet. i tried to keep the hyperventalation to a minimum. luckily they bought only 2 pages, i quickly bagsed sloppy thirds. SAFE!

i did forget to bring my aug 1975 list with me so i had to be a bastard and ask back issue retailer 'do you have any comics published in blah blah blah"
"blah blah blah? hmmm"
he grabbed overstreet and started counting backwards. he would rifle through a short box, sigh and start again. 20minutes later he apologised and i moved on. it took awhile but i finally got daredevil 124, co staring copperhead, with colan pencils and janson inks (i love janson's work).

I also got Scott lobdell to sign uncanny Xmen 349 , his last xmen comic, its a thing i do, try and get visiting creators to sign the last issue of a good run. he checked out the stuff i was buying and got really intrigued by killeroo. i din't have any but pointed out i had seen a copy in stall x. i pinpointed the exact box. he stumbled back empty handed. so i took him by his lod obnoxious Hawaiian shirt and lead him to the box. he was mighty pleased when i fished out a copy, the stall owner apologised profusely, i think he told scott he had none. mark Selan - selling australian comics ONE. ISSUE. AT. A. TIME.
I almost sold a copy of crab allan to him as well, but 30% discount and hand ful of lollies and a can of coke was still not good enough for him. oh well, sorry cool hand weber. (it also meant i could laugh an evil laugh when i saw those notes)

on the goodside, i was back at the table when a cute girl started to chat.
"hey, were you standing infront of me at the lucksmiths concert last night?"
"yeah, i don't know, were you the guy that kept elbowing me in the back?"
"um, ah, no! that must have been that other guy. i stood next to him!"
we chatted lucksmiths and comics. thank god she wasn't a redhead or i would have exploded. I said that i would try to make the concert that night but explained about jelly wrestling, i even invited her along. I now see in hindsight that inviting some girls to jellywrestling is not the smartest thing, thank god i'm pseudo-married.

on the badside, while i prowled artist alley, i received a strong shoulder bump, i turned and apologised when i realised it was baby boba strutting around unrepentant. in nightclub i would have either punched him in the back of the head and ran, or dropped a rolled up booger in his drink when he wasn't looking. my revenge was unapeased.

Sunday was also my best mate's birthday. i originally planned to ask temamur morrison to make a happy birthday phone call as jake the muss (from once were warriors) but in the end that seemed too dorky. So i've been practising at home and can now do a decent impersonation
"aye brit man, eard its ya burfday aye, you gettn' old you kent, fuckin' bulle!!"
i'm also doing jake vs obi one
"ya lightsaba is ok, but you need help on ya speedwork, fucking bulle!!"

they say thatsunday is buyers day, that its quiet but people spend. i think when they say people, they mean me. i bought a bunch of back issues, icluding Warren Ellis' wolverine run, which wasa good find. the herman dvd, and the essentaily everything available in artist alley, except for Sev trek and stuff that had already sold out like Adolf hitler vampire hunter and yum yum.

Ben had finished his sketch and tonia had done a great little Angel figure. one of the comics i picked up was millenium comics that featured art by brisbane's own Andy Finlayson, idol of goth's on e, himself. Andy was tablesiting for Eddie Deevee so i threw the sketchbook at him, after making fun of the millenium comic 'i was young man, but micheal evans has no excuse!"

i had pretty much told everyone about jelly wrestling at birdie birdie birdie num nums.

77 hours of Supanova; Day two (saturday) - Part 3

Back at Weber's house, i got changed. I wasn't expecting that it would be so humid, so the couple of jackets i packed were useless. i leant Weber the destroy robot tshirt he coverted so much and we were out. Weber wanted mexican, which is a cuisine i don't dig that much, but i was going to go along with it until i discovered i let my wallet at home. Cash was not a problem since i use a money clip but i don't like the idea of being without ID (just case they need to identify my body) or credit card (just in case i want to get some coke and hookers). Mexican was a bit pricey, so off to a cheap pizza place (after the selan weber cha cha) where i burnt the roof of my mouth on greasy but good pizza . That done we headed down to the fringe bar.

It was quiet but we slipped by the bouncer and the faux fur wearing door bitch. it seemed we were the first ones there so we grabbed beers and chairs. it was a cool place, open, nice furniture. it was at this point jase and kylie rocked up. We chatted, and wondered were everyone else was. On the friday night, we started talking about social gatherings, different people had said different things about closing times; pubs close at 11pm, at midnight, only seedy pubs close at 12. then we got the straight, once you leave after 3am you can't get let back in. Seemed reasonable.
through a window i spotted Ben Howard, and then a smattering of others, i mimed a leyton level 'come on' but they looked kind of blank. i left my fresh beer and popped my head out of said window.

'they're not letting in the azerath guys because they're wearing shorts"
'well have they got pants?"
"no"
"sigh"

fuck i hate dress codes when they apply to me.

I gave it a go, some mates are bouncers, i can go the bribe, sweet talk or beg.

"hey man, can you let my buddies in?"
"not in shorts, mate"
shit he called me mate, not good.
"we're all from out of town, cashed up.. "
"can't do it"
"there's a another 20 coming and we have an early morning tomorrow"
I shot an eye at the door bitch, the club was empty, i thought i could play the we'll fill up the place but leave before all your cool, regulars come in at 12. Nothing.
"even if my own brother came in shorts i wouldn't let him in"
try humour.
"yeah but your brother is no way as cool as us"
"no. don't ask me again"

well that was that. Back to the table, i spilled beans, we skulled drinks and moved on.
We gathered out front, Andy suggested Birdie Num Nums.
I shot out a "Andiamo ragazzi", ityle style.

Birdie nums nums was another cool spot. Actually it was cooler. nice open air deck out back. We grabbed beers and camped out table space.
Roll call;
Ben, karen, weber, andy, avi, kenny, jase, kylie, ryan, daniel, and some misc hanger ons, who i don't think i met.

Karen was all sexy man in comics again, which i had to put a stop to, "karen you are married you can't be talking about comic bachelor again, that's just weird", she replied asking why i had brought it up, again, 'that's not the point, hey look the pool table is open'

As always i cleaned up, well except for some weird rule if you pot the white on the black you lose, a rule i have never heard of, ever, in 20 years of playing. So i call bullshit and remain undefeated. We did a tequila shot, too which i felt guilt for after promising emma not to do shots (without her) after the last time i drank spirits sans emma. (don't ask but its folklore among friends and friends of friends locally - "oh you're that dude!")
the oztaku guys left early, they wanted to schmooze early (i believe that means perve on cosplayers waiting in line). We played a bit more. At 1030 it was time to go see the luckies, something i had kind of been hanging out all weekend to do.

We made our way to the trobadour, up the stairs, i was kind of worried that people had to pay $15 entry for a band they had never heard of, so i wan't surprised that the 8 remaining people and turned to 4; goodnight PC crew. It was only me, weber, jase and andy. ladybug transmitters were playing already, i spied Tali White, the lead singer from the lucksmiths two people down from me, "Has fred Astero, already played?" "yep" damn.
We got drinks and found a spot. Emma rang and with a finger in my ear i tried telling her the events of the day. because she was still feeling sick, she had gone to visit her parents, her parents hung out with her for an hour and then gone out. Mash. Saturday night, she's at her parents house - alone. Again, mash.

i made it back to the group and found some lovely lass was chatting to weber. Woohoo. We enjoyed the set and the 30 minute set break. We talked about the whole animators as comic professional things which was very interesting. The shit thing about Birdie num nums was they only had shit beer on tap; VB, fosters (i don't think they sell fosters in adelaide), Stella are all shit. Corano or heinieK, are fine for the odd drink but not for competitive chugging. Thankfully, the troub had Cooper's Pale Ale, best aussie beer ever (well second to sparkling ale but close enough).

And then the luckies performed. Thankfully, tali the singer was ok, so i didn't have to fill in for him. i shuffled towards the front and enjoyed the show. having seen them in Adelaide the week before (their second show of the tour) they had gotten really tight and the set was completely different. Well i bopped and swayed and had a great time, looking at cute girls. Afterwards, i went back to the guys to find Jase had disappeared - we all then made whipping sounds, weber asked if we are going to a S&M club because he knows a good one. on my way to take a slash, i ran into Mark, bass player, who recognised me, which was a massive buzz. we talked comics and the tour, he offerred to put my name on the door (i almost squealed) but played it cool, saying not to worry as we had plans to see jelly wrestling. I think i was tipsy by this point because i said 'I have three great loves, my girlfriend, comics and you guys but i'm prepared to let something new in, and that might be jelly wrestling". I think/hoped he laugh, we shook hands and then after collecting the others we were out.

After cha chaing, we decided we would acll it a night, it was ticking towards 1am, early, but good enough. Weber, was not drinking and growing tired. We did wait while Andy got a kebab. A goth on e started chatting to weber. she found out that weber and andy were animators and went all gaga. The conversation dwindled down and she flitted away, thankfully.
and we went. home.

77 hours of Supanova; Day two (saturday) - Part 2

Tonia is always sending me comics, for free. I'm a bastard, i very rarely give free issues out, not even to contributors. i'll buy drinks until you are on the floor but i can't bring myself to give the magazine away. tonia is the tooth fairy of comics, she's always buying stuff for other people. She rocks the way i don't. She sets comics free.
Again i had met her very briefly in 2003.
This time she brought me Sandman Mystery theatre #25, a comic i had been hunting for 4 years now, a comic that was stopping me from reading 50 odd comics in my Sandman Mystery Theatre box. Again, she set those comics free, free to be read. We chatted, i profusely thanked her, a lot, then i charged her full price for stuff. i'm going to comic hell, where the only comics are by mark millar and rob liefeld and storylines are never finished. She handed me some "Eat comics", some "office is hell" (i can never remember the latin name) and "Once upon a times". As well as her 24 hour comic from last year, which had a beautiful gold cover showing off a great illustration.
i introduced Tonia to Nicola. I forgot to mention that the night before we had discussed those wonder woman photos. Those mythical snapshots that everyone has seen but can't remember where or by whom. And don't try googling - i got up to page 30 for naught.

I was selling bits and peices. Everyone picked up Tales from under the bed by Doug Holgate and flicked through it. I think the problem was that my side of the table was way over stacked, and my filthy black and white magazine was being spurned by the bright coloured stuff. Loren morris' Interior was picked up but its one of those stories that you need to read to get hooked, while some of the art rocks some its a bit minimal and won't get people's attention on the flick test. but i still sold the odd one.

It was after lunch when Jase Harper turned up, he thought Daniel Reed was me. when that was righted, i handed over Jase's prize of $100 for his winning 24 hour challenge poster. In excahnge he handed over a set of Sporadics for the 24 hour challenge prize pool. Finally he passed over Sporadic #5 - which by the end of the weekend went gangbusters.

By this time i had gone and said hello to Daren White and bought a bunch of his stuff - Flange is great, the comic is good too. And also pleaded if he could bring DEEvEE 6,7 and 12 so i could complete my set. We talked about the annuals; apparently it will go thru Diamond which is pretty exciting, even though this ought to be everyone's goal, its still a buzz when it said out loud.

Back at the table, everything was calm, everytime i looked over Travis Burch, of rex helwig fame was taking photos of underaged cosplayers. Daniel gobbs had come on by as well as Andy Finlayson. Andy expressed an interest in doing a killeroo script of mine and seeing his work, that's a buzz.A man of great talent and taste. I also had clumsily done a couple portfolio reviews; i've been reading comics awhile, hanging around artists for a bit and while i was at film school tutored first years in story boarding and editting, so i kind of feel like i know what i'm talking about, kind of, maybe.
i had given up on Nic finishing my sketch so i passed the book over to Stewart McKenny. The calm dissapated when Weber, returned to the table. He started showing Alien Circus pages and pages from another project (don't tell scott lobdell!!) and recounted his experience of working for a Platinum Studios. To cut a long story short, it ends with Weber screaming "i was fucked! i was fucked!" and Nic coddling him, with 'there there, sweetie' and Weber falling asleep underneath the table.

During the day, i had taken the perogative and told everyone that we would be meeting at the Fringe Bar for drinks after the show, it was the only bar i could name, except for macgooleys. I made a beeline to Chewie, because i had told him we'd be at the Fringe bar the previous night and then not turned up. luckily he stayed in his room. For those keeping score at home Chewie is working on the storyboards for the new Superman film.

I was selling consistently, never fast enough (of course) but i was running low on the latest issue of the magazine. I had arranged with PC comics to sell the latest issue at their booths, since they have the cover and a feature story. I also made the same arrangement with the oztaku table since they appear in issue 2 and 6. On the PC side it worked out well and copies got sold, on the oztaku side, not so much. i think it was because a lot of people were hanging out at their booth and not buying - but as Avi said Supanova is a promotional thing not a sales thing.

I am more interested in the drinking thing. The last cosplayer was booted from the con, i magically made the stock disappear by folding over the tablecloth and woke up Weber. we were off.

77 hours of Supanova; Day two (saturday) - Part 1

I think i slept friday night, i must of because i remember waking up.

I slinked into the shower and got rid of the film of sweat that had enveloped me since i touched down in brisbane town.

I was slightly nervous, but i usually am. Weber emerged from his room ready. we rolled after i chugged berroca and panadols.
We stopped off at woolworths, i needed to buy breakfast and snacks for the day. Weber continually chastised me for my poor breakfast performance. Usually i have nothing, sometimes i'll grab these really huge donuts from the vietnamese bakery. Usually i hunger it out till lunch time. thing is, i don't like milk (or any drinks without bubbles; though i am partial to grape juice or blackcurrent). So cereal is a rather dry event. And quite simply eggs freak me out. So i do toast sometimes and pancakes, but only on special occassions when other people make it for me - looking at you emma p.
So at woolies i checked out with 2 bottles of water, coke, chokito bars (they have rice bubbles in them and chocolate, chocolate is upgraded milk), bag of lollies and a bowl. Stolen from an idea of what Patrick Alexander does with cookies, everyone loves lollies. Weber feared going inside woolies, i believe there was an 'incident', i'm not sure what this incident was but i think there must be some sort of ban on weber entering supermarkets because all he had in his fridge was flasks of water and something yellow. He waited outside, i think hiding in the backseat.

Anyway, we got to the con before 10, driving past cosplays getting of buses and walking the street. Alas rumours of out of control street violence is vastly overstated for these people made it to the convention centre in one piece.

I had a booth pass, weber had a 2 day pass, he was supposed to line up. But he's a nice chap and does not deserve that fate worse than death. So we just walked in, its all about attitude. No one bothers people who like they belong there and they definetly won't question you. it also helps when there is more than one person, so the dude who walked in before us got busted we walked in smooth.

I caught up with Daniel Reed, and spied the latest Crumpleton Experiment. It looked sexy, it looked Hot, smaller than comic size, it was now A5 mini or small press. it did have "ledger award winner" on the cover. On my left, was empty chair where Nicola was meant to be. Next to her was me, bit on the other side Stewart Mckenny and wendy. On the otherside was someone selling Groovy Gravy who's name i forget. Sharing his table was the guy that does Sev Trek. the guy who does Sev Trek also has a DVD. i think Sev Trek dude sold out of a couple of things. i wish it was 2004 so i could unleash the RAGE.

people were hurrying around, across from us was Ian Gould and Paul, who seems to revel in his Comic Shop Guy appearance.
Finally the doors of hell were opened and people streamed in. Within 5 minutes some dickweed wanted free lollies. 'not without buying something chief"
and he walked away, said dickweed would spend $200 on a photo of him hand jobbing Temura morrison but then give me dirty looks for asking him to spend $4.
Daniel made the first sale of the day, about 45 minutes in. i stood with my dick in my hand for 90 minutes, then i thought hey maybe that's what's scaring people away, so i zipped up and yay made a sale.
Nicola Scott had walked in by then and had gathered a fair amount of attention for her sketches.
It was actually buzzing.
I hit Nic up for a sketch in my Japanese themed (not manga) sketch book. She did a Battle of the Planets sketch which is outside of the boundaries but i'm a push over. Anyway, apparently when it comes to importance i'm down the bottom. Apparently little kids get preference. Apparently people who buy stuff get sketches done before me. Reminded me of the Marcelo Baez sketching incident of 2004, where he kept putting sketchbooks on top of mine so even though i was best dressed i was last served.
But then Australian comics fairy godmother Tonia Walden walked in. And she gave me stuff.

break in the transmission - huh and thanks

Last night when i left blogger, it was fine - part 3 was up and all good.
Then this morning it was blank, titled blank.
Which caused great panic.

Thank god for Maggie McFee, who built some sort of transportation machine that works on the internet, taking my Blogger goodness and making it Livejournal compliant, thereby saving saveded.
I did a quick copy and paste and its all back.

Thanks Maggie for saving my 3.5 jokes. Moi!

Day 2, part 1 coming soon.

77 hours of Supanova; Day one (friday) - Part 3

Yes, apparently Carissa screamed an obsenity at me for driving past - she cursed me, she cursed me hard.
"Mark you mother fucking arsehole!"

But i wasn't driving. Weber was driving. I am innocent of all charges. But such is life.
Carissa apologised as she and Nicola clambered inside the Starlet of Swoosh. (for more information about the Starlet of swooh please read my interview with Weber in Ozcomics 3 or 4 - buy them both and them look).
I introduced myself to Nic and then did the name passing between Weber and the girls, sorry the ladies. We drove towards the city and the girls, sorry ladies, tempted us with offers of free booze. Me and weber had contemplated going to the fringe bar that night for drinks (of corse this decison was proceeded by the Selan and Weber Cha Cha.) Now free booze was quite tempting so me and weber cha cha'd ever so briefly and then succumbed. The Starlet of Swoosh got stowed in a park just down from the hotel and we ambled in.

I stayed at the Carlton Crest in 2003 and it was nice, the hightlight of that trip was Sauna club -which is not talked about (it was a bunch of half naked tubby pasty blokes in a sauna WITH BOOZE!!! - secrets revealed here at saveded!!).

It only dawned on me recently but Carissa talks like a female version of Christopher Walken working a phone sex job. Only difference is phone sex operators don't interrupt you as much - well so i've heard.

Anyway we sat down on comfy lounge chairs and drank beer and chatted. I met Neil, the organiser of the New Zealand's Armaggedon, i think some voice actor (they all look the same, these voice actors, that i can never remember their names - so i'm going to call one "Tim Tam" and the other "Strokes bass player "(sbp)) , Karen who runs hub productions with Carissa (they are so lucky they make a living being geeks) and some other people.

We saw baby boba get in a lift, baby boba was buff, baby bob built muscle. But stories told baby boba was a brat, baby boba was a bit big for his britches but he had balls for bailing up ladies looking for three way bang bang action. But we all laughed at baby boba, nic jiggled boosies at baby boba as the lift doors shut. We laughed some more.

By this time ben and karen turned up, which was good because i was supposed to ring them to tell them what was happening tonight, but baby boba, boosies and booze made me forget. It was hitting dinner time, so we had a big old cha cha session, dancehall style. Weber became the man when he deemed we were all going to MacGooleys, an irish pub down the way. We all followed his awe. people couldn't wait to get to macgooley's, everyone would feel so good when they got to macgooleys, hanging out around macgooleys is so comforting and relaxing.

There were 9 of us, which is quite a few but macgooley people now when too make an effort. They knew they had some guy who did the voice in some cartoon, they knew they were in the presence of two ledger award winners, they knew they were in the presence of people who had meet other people who were in movies and stuff. Well maybe they didn't - maybe they had a half empty resturant, maybe i wanted to make cheap shots at myself and others. Maybe i don't know what i'm doing.

Here's a poem.
My steak was a bit overcooked
As you grilled it, didn't you look?
But i did very much like the risotto
and with a full belly i got blotto

There's nothing better than pints of Kilkenny with hearty meals. We chatted stuff, me and karen talked about ledger awards, she mentioned there was supposed to be a downloadable certificate. Which is all fine, but i would prefer a bronzed rib (it doesn't have to peter's). I talked with Neil about how Armeggedon is run (free artist alley tables!!!!) and of course about facial hair.
Neil had a decent beard, quiet manly.
i have trouble growing sideburns, when i don't shave for a couple of weeks i look like a 14 year old kid (or a 40 year old woman). So i'm quite jealous of the facial hair wearers. Tim Tam talked US politics and apologised for bush, profusely.

We ate up, drank up and paid up and warbled back to the hotel. i actually don't remember much more. Nic chatted to Weber, i chatted to Karen and Ben. We bought rounds of over priced booze. We should have stayed at macgooleys, macgooleys were cheap, everyone could have drunk freely from the spoils of macgooleys.

i think we bailed just after pumpkin hour and headed back to casa de weber.
We pushed the sofas together, i spread out the sleeping bag, said goodnights, turned out lights, dropped trou and tried to get to sleep.

nope
-flip-
nope
-flop-
nope
-flip-
nope
fuck

The sofii were too short to lie out stretched without dangling uncomfortably, going diagonal over the two caused problem due to the raised lumbar support in the middle of my "bed", causing my back to bend wrong. Added to this Brisbane is humid, bloody humid. So much so, that the synthetic casing of my sleeping bag, mixed with the "leather" of the sofa was causing a lot of condensation of sweat to appear around my ears and neck. this was not working out and i needed sleep.
i tried listening to MP3 player, to calm me down - i get quite anxious when i can't sleep "On my god i'm only going to get 4 hours sleep oh shit i'm going to be fucked up, shit shit shit fuck shit, oh no, now its 3 hours and 50 minutes before i have to get up, damn, shit......"
Music didn't help.
i ditched the sofa and went to ground.
Better,.
i still had no pillow, but i rolled up my smoke smelling jeans and made do. Music calmed the goofy beast. I, of course, listened to the lucksmiths, their new album specifically. I like knowing the words, just in case there is some sort of accident, i can jump in and fill in.

"Oh my god, Chuck D got crushed by a falling piano, quick Mark can you fill in?"
"Sure.
Bass how low can you go?
Deathrow? what a brother now?"

be prepared.

thank god, i feel asleep.

77 hours of Supanova; Day one (friday) - Part 2

I had met Weber, once, the last time i was in brisbane. he took, me, darren, gary lau out for dinner.
His online antics do make him seem like a strange duck (in human skin) but in person he's incredibly funny, while he does rant they are not really mean spirited and quiet surprisingly (for an artist) he actually has very little ego.
On the drive from the airport we chatted, finding the patter of actual conversations instead of the crap we exchange via msn. I love the interent, its great for communication, exchanging of ideas, ripping off of copyright, and pornography. It also has the great responsibility of putting food on my table, but content wise its mostly crap.

We struck a problem early on, we are both kind of gracious and polite, so whenever there was a decision to be made the following conversation was held;

"what do wanna do?"
"i dunno, what do you wanna do?"
"not sure, i don't care, whatever you want"
"i'm not fussed, what ever you want"
"I'm easy either way"
"me too"

-pause-


"So......what do you wanna do?"
"i dunno, what do you wanna do?"
(from now on this will be reffered to as the Selan Weber Cha Cha)

What was clear is that i couldn't call him Frank.

At Weber's place, i stowed my stuff and got shown where i'd sleep. It involved pushing two leather sofas together and sort of laying across them. I usually sleep really well on sofas and i had packed my sleeping bag. So it wasn't too bad.

That sorted, we chatted about scripting, girls, animation, girls, bad share housing experiences, girls. Then we went to get a kebab (after the Selan Weber Cha cha), in adelaide we call kebabs, yiros. Its a whole Greek/Lebanese thing. In adeliade the greeks won the lebanese greek food naming rights in 1972, it was a bloody affair and everyone ended up smelling like garlic sauce and covered in lettuce.

Then off to the bank to get change. It seems friday afternoon it's 'take all your coins to the bank day', for there were about 4 people in front of me, who had big bags of coins that they would hoist up to the counter and push past the glass. At least this meant they had change. That done it was off to the Royal Show Grounds to set up.

Look its Ben and Karen Howard, Publishers and Editors of Phosphorescent Comics.
Look its me saying phosporent, 3 times in the first 5 minutes.
The PC booth was down staris, next to where they play card games. Apparently there was a mix up with booths. The Howards took it with grace. the howards also quoted one of my previous posts. i took it that and massaged my ego.

Upstairs, (me and weber) look its Tim McEwen, Supanova organiser. Look its Danny Z, dancer and Supanova organiser. Look our table hasn't been set up yet. Look its Chewie from Kinokuniya. Look i'm name dropping.

We finally got the table, but i had forgotten a table cloth and those cool little velcro things that you use to attach posters to those fur covered dividers. i had been hoping to run into Daniel Reed, who had said he was going to bring a table cloth. Without the table cloth i could not neatly stack and place the books i had brought onto the table. The whole trip would be for naught. Naught I tell you! In the past i had always just borrowed those cool little velcro things that you use to attach posters to those fur covered dividers but i didn't want to seem like a sponge and be known as the guy who is always borrowing those cool little velcro things that you use to attach posters to those fur covered dividers. So me and weber jumped in the Starlet of Swoosh and drove off to find those cool little velcro things that you use to attach posters to those fur covered dividers. We went to the Griffith University art store and bought a box of cool little velcro things that you use to attach posters to those fur covered dividers for $17. $17 for a box of those cool little velcro things that you use to attach posters to those fur covered dividers is a bit much but i really needed those cool little velcro things that you use to attach posters to those fur covered dividers and it was almost closing time. I had no choice but buy those cool little velcro things that you use to attach posters to those fur covered dividers.

back at the Supanova grounds, me and weber attached posters to dividers using those cool little velcro things that you use to attach posters to those fur covered dividers and in came Daniel Reed, his partner Sarah and his little child, whose name i forget (he was way to young to do anything for me or the magazine so what's the point of remembering?). Daniel Reed, creator of the ledger award winning book, Crumpleton Experiments, had bought a table cloth. It was not for naught. Hooray.

We set up posters, we set up books. And then daintly folded the table cloth over the books to make them magically disappear. And we left. In the Starlet of Swoosh. Driving along - look its carissa and nicola scott standing by the road!

We did the Selan Weber cha cha ("Do you wanna pick them up...") and after travelling down the road for 300 meters did a uturn, then drove past them and did another uturn.

"hello ladies, its me! Mark Selan"

77 hours of Supanova; Day one (friday) - Part 1

The annoying part was that Emma had a cold or flu of some sort, so friday morning had no sloppy pashes goodbye. I barely survive cons in the best of times, i didn't need to be struck down by anything that increased my normal levels of nose running and flem hocking. It was a peck on the cheek and a shake of the hands and into the taxi.
It was the driver's first pick up and he was chirpy, he laughed at his own jokes more than anything else and (like emma) it was quite infectious.

"Which way would you like me to go? South road or Marion?"
"Maybe Marion, but what would you suggest?"
"hehehehe how lucky do you feel? hehehehehe I always ask. Lucky lucky lucky"

We chatted traffic and proposed road changes, he used to live down the road for me so we talked property and the changes around the neighbourhood.
And i was at the airport. We seemed to slice through peak hour traffic.
"You very lucky! Hehehehehehe"
"Nah you the lucky one chief"

Line up for boarding pass. Line up for security. Line up to board. And sit.

Sit next to the rather large head shaved biker guy and his skinny sun dried wife.
he read some sort of "Men are from Mars, Women are from venus" books and stole my half of the arm rest. I read Jeffery Brown's "mini sulk" and got smacked on the back of the head everytime the drinks cart went past.

It was a smooth flight.

I got to admit I love walking on the tarmac. Sure it nice at the larger airports that the plane directly connects with the terminal. But walking down those stairs, under the wing, in the fresh petrol soaked air - it makes me feel like a rock star. That all crashed when a i heard a mutter "oh no one told me about stairs", looking over an oldish woman was struggling with a heavy bag. If i was a rock star i would have walked on by or asked if she has access to twin daughters or prescription medicine. Instead I ended up carrying her bag. Even though she carried nothing, she was still stumbling everywhere and slurring; "what's your name sweetie?" "aren't you a nice boy". I would have to stop every ten paces so she would catch up. When we finally made it to the terminal, the woman, a very world wearried 50 year old burst into tears and flew into the arms of a much younger fellow, also in tears. And i just stood there, holding her bag, afraid to ruin the moment.

At this point, a tap on the shoulder heralds younger Weber. after a bunch of 'hey mans' and other manly greetings, Weber started moving off, whilst i stood there holding the bag. They were still both bawling their eyes out, so i had no recourse but to tip toe over and gently drop the bag at her feet and slink away.

"who was that?"
"I have no idea"

(tommorrow - introducing weber, what i ate and setting up)
(and whilst i'm sticking here at blogger, i'll make this as close to a live journal experience as possible; so expect poetry)

Supanova and me

i'll be getting in at brisbane around lunchtime. i'll most likely be at the hall friday arvo to set up.

i'm not sure what's going on but i'm happy to catch up with whoever and whenever, but i think it'll be cool to have a big dinner on the sunday. Saturday night i'm hoping to get down to the troubador to catch the lucksmiths' (tickets $15 - which isn't too bad for three pretty good bands).

In terms of the show; I've got ozComics magazine #6 hot of the presses and its a pearl. i'll have issues 1-5 as well. Also Crab Allans by my tempory roomie - Frank Weber, Sporadics, Interiors by Loren Morris, How to Save the World by Owen Heitmann, pepe's Quest by Zeldz and some stuff by Brendan Boyd. (so essentially a lot of good Adelaide stuff).

i'm sharing with Daniel Reed, so if you see us i'm the one not drawing.

please say hello

Supanova - who's a star?

Stewart Mckenny
Last time I was in Brisbane, Stweart was sick with the flew, he did make an appearance on saturday night but only to drive us from the city to the valley.
But i know his work, i picked up Rex Hlwig and liked it a lot, its a shame it only lasted an issue of what seems to be a bigger story, maybe Travis and Stewart will make it a web comic or publish black and white, or even try with phosphorescents comics' creatorline.

Speaking of Phosphoresent, Mckenny worked on the third series of the watch and showed off some of the best art the title has featured (helped by Kwok's colouring). At times the storytelling was a bit too compressed and though there was a bit too much text and dialogue in places the art did shine. i actually prefered the loose cartoony art in issue three to the more generic superhero art in one and two.
Stewart, apparently did some Zero Assasin work, which is something i've been meaning to reread for awhile. But in terms of overseas work, there was the Watch, as well as Star Wars 18 for Dark Horse and as well inks over Eddie campbell's pencil in Captain America 28, 29. i think inking over Eddie's scratchy pencils would strick fear in most people but Stewart did a good job.

i'm not sure what's in store for McKenny but i'll make the effort to find out.

Who is at? I got 1 supanova and a microphone

I haven't met Nicola, but at my first Comicfest in 2002 I saw her, she was the tall red head, hanging with the Red Star guys.
She'd pop up on ozcomics from time to time, showing little bits of her portfolio. The cool thing was that she was one of the few artists that concentrated on sequential art, not just the odd pin up or sketch but properly thought out sequential art, you know, like comics have.
One that I can still remember was an Elektra 4 pager.
She doesn't have much of a site (none of this years' guests do) but it used to have these gorgeous pencil pieces; mainly Wonder Woman and Battle of the Planets, but they were nice and lush (I prefer her pencil work a bit more than her inking). Her first professional work was with Phosphorescent comics, doing covers on the second volume of the Watch series. Then she moved OS, that's overseas, to the US, that's United States. It seemed like it didn't take long for her to pick up work, i remember her posting about a Top Cow series, that i don't think my local ever got in, and then some indie work, but her main claim to fame , so far, was Star Wars 26,27 (or 27,28 - they are buried in my collection anyway)
The Star Wars stuff looked very nice, so full and rounded. Just beautiful. if she ever gets on Wonder Woman I may even buy it. On a WW related noted, I think in the last days of ozcomics, she posted up a reworking of some published Wonder Woman pages, which i've heard is a good way of practicing your storytelling skills and something that gets an editor's attentions. (During film school we used to reedit films all the time and look where i am today - no wait move on)

Personally, Nicola, was interviewed for ozcomics issue 4 and provided the cover of the same issue (which also featured Doug Holgate). Nicola will be appearing at Artist Alley, and according to the Supanova website will be doing portfolio reviews.

Otherwise - for some art and halfway down for an interview

Who are you at Supanova? Ew ew - Ew ew

Eddie Campbell and Daren White
Eddie, is like Tom Cruise, a foreigner who married a local and because he's talented he becomes one of us.
I met Eddie at my first Brisbane Supanova and he seemed really cool. I didn't get him to sketch in my Japanese themed sketchbook which i was shoving under the nose of every artist i met. But we talked about the use of second person future-past tense in How to become an artist - ("You will eat a mango with your fingers, they will become sticky and sweet. You will write a story about it.") Talked about how he must have been a patient chap when doing promo stuff for "from hell" because it either was questions about Alan Moore or the journalist had no idea who Alan Moore was.
I also got a look at the painted pages for Batman: order of the Beast which looked beautiful. BOOTB was a great little book which i think due to its price and subject matter (coupled with people's fatigue with the whole Elseworlds franchise) didn't get much of a look in by fandom (here or abroad). A personal favourite, i thought it would get a bit more attention at the Ledgers, (for Daren White's writing and Campbell's art) so if you can grab a copy.
The Alec Macgarry stuff runs hot and dry for me; how to be an artist is fantastic, but after the snooter didn't click - though I'll probably grab '3 piece suit' - a collection of short pstories because i'm a short story nut. i think the Bacchus stuff is really cool.
In terms of mainstream work (ie men in tights), last year Eddie did Captain America 28,29 (or 29,30), the thought still does my head in (Its like Carl Barks doing Sin City) but it was kind of cool. otherwise, X-Men 400 and some hellblazer comics were also done by a freelancing Eddie.
Coming up, i think I read somewhere he's doing more Batman, a noir detective comic for a book publisher and another Alec book in colour (I may be making this up, i'm not sure)

Daren White, wrote Batman:order of the batman and wrote it well. In my book though his claim to fame is putting together the excellent DeeVee anthology. I never read the Inspots/Fox comics stuff but if it was anyway as good as DeeVee i may have to track it down. Filled with local and New Zealand talent, there was rarely a dud - sometimes the art was a bit iffy but the writing always intelligent.
I was flicking through some of the issues over the weekend and I couldn't help but stop and read. They'll be a new issue out in Brisbane and I'll be first in line to grab a copy. Daren's Playwright is a fascinating study of a creator, kind of like Alec but more depressing, the scope is a bit larger and its a bit more satisfying (this is why i don't do reviews). I hope there will be a graphic novel of the Playwright soon but for some reason not holding my breath. DeeVee provided a lot of local talent world exposure; Ord, Mutard, Tang, Carvan, etc so its a shame its not published more often.
I haven't met Daren, but he was nice enough to provide a prize for last years 24 Hour challenge, so he's either easily persuaded or a nice guy.

The two, and I'm sure others, will be in Artists' Alley for Supanova weekend.

Who's at Supanova? Jason Rand

A four day spotlight on the Australian creators that will be appearing at Supanova

Jason Rand
Jason, is a guy from Sydney, who is now writing Small Gods, published by Image. He doesn't frequent the boards now, but towards the end of Ozcomics run he popped in and seemed quite cool. (Though his supanova pic is kind of dopey - with a mild resemblance to Shannon Noll if he starred in the Matrix - if on saturday night i start singing 'what about me' can someone muffle me)

I can imagine its quite hard for writers to break into the Big 4, most writers in the 90s were editorial staff or mates of those staff; casey, lobdell, priest. Today many of the writers come from indie roots; bendis, brubaker or from different fields (theatre, tv, movies).
but in any case, I'd imagine you would need to know the editors to get your foot in the door. So being in Australia, not able to pitch your comic in 30 seconds at a con or being able to make a submission by mail (Marvel and DC long closed their doors on blind submissions), must make it tricky to get a project up and running.

But Jason did, which is commendable.

Also Small Gods is pretty tight. The first story arc is surprisingly good. I'm not a fan of the art but i can live with it. The characters and the situations felt real, even though it involves mind reading (usually something i shy away from). The pacing was right on and there's great use of cliff hangers. The first arc is a dirty cop procedual; kind of like "the Shield". Now, with cop shows/comics it doesn't take much for them to be a bit cliched, in this case - Rand uses mental powers to distract from the inherent cliches that always pop up in cop shows. All the cop shows are doing it now, doing something a bit left field to make them seem different; Medium (she can read minds and solve crimes), Blind Justice (he's blind and solves crimes), Jag (they're in the navy and solves crimes), Inspector Rex (he's a dog and solve's crimes).
The second arc started off really well but the lastest issue kind of lost it for me. There's an element in hollywood bgrade movies where when a male and female are in danger they get the urge to get naked and hump like bunnies. (Best example is Fair Game; where Cindy Crawford while getting some Baldwin action picks up a gun and shots an assassin. Mid-shag!) Now, when i get pulled over by a breatho the last thing i want to do is slip in the backseat with the missus, so its pretty silly when the protagonist and his exgirl friend, who are being chased by murderous dirty cops wanna take a minute or two and go the root. It feels like cheap titalation and cheap thrills. It feels like its only in there because its supposed to be a mature comic and that means sex and guns.

Of course - i'm commenting on stuff mid story and it could all make sense in the conclusion. But this is the internet.

Small Gods is one of my few monthly buys and i do like it. I think Jason did work on "dead at 17' and he has a new title called Helios.

Adolescent Song Of Mindless Devotion

(Because I've already used the title t-shirt weather)

Yesterday i was incredibly impressed when i received a package from threadles.com - less that 2 weeks after making an order.

Within, tshirts with the following designs


Heart Destroy


Emotional Trip


Blame It On YourTV

Tonight, i'm looking forward to seeing the lucksmiths play. I've noted many times that I go teen girly about the lucksmiths, it disturbs my friends to no end but i don't care. I'm still cool. Just look at my new tshirts! Also, next weekend they are playing 2 nights in brisbane, while i'm there. I'm giddy at the thought.

Tommorrow, i bit of work in the morning and then off to the Adelaide comic meet, held in the awfully groovy Grace Emily.