Ledger Awards - Announced

On saturday at DoujiCon the winners of the Judged Category of the Ledger Awards will be announced

So if you are a nominee, I suggest you trundle down to DoujiCon (Caulfield Campus, Monash University) on Saturday 29th July and see me in one of auditoriums at 3:30

The nominees are
SMALL PRESS TITLE OF THE YEAR
• Happy Birthday Anyway, Matt Huynh
• Pirates, Tonia Walden ed.
• Dreams of Tomorrow, Liz Argall ed.

INDEPENDENT PRESS TITLE OF THE YEAR
• Eldritch Kid by Christian Read (story) & Christopher Burns (Art), Phosphorescent Comics/Creatorline
• Platinum Grit by Trudy Cooper, Doug Bayne and Danny Murphy
• The Crumpleton Experiments by Daniel Reed, Nautilus Illustrations

INTERNATIONAL TITLE OF THE YEAR
• Small Gods, Jason Rand (story). Image Comics
• Fell, Ben Templesmith (art) Image Comics
• DeeVee Flange, Eddie Campbell, Daren White & various. DeeVee Press

WEBCOMIC OR COMIC STRIP OF THE YEAR
• Big Fun Mega Happy Pet Land by Jase Harper (Mania Magazine)
• Magellan by Stephen Crowley [webcomic view]
• Raymondo Person by Patrick Alexander [webcomic view]

WRITER OF THE YEAR
• Trudy Cooper (Platinum Grit)
• Matt Huynh (Happy Birthday Anyway, various)
• Christian Read (Eldritch Kid, various)

ARTIST OF THE YEAR
• Trudy Cooper (Platinum Grit)
• Doug Holgate ('Laika', various)
• Matt Huynh (Happy Birthday Anyway, various)

SINGLE ISSUE OR STORY OF THE YEAR
• "Laika" by Doug Holgate, Flight #2
• "The Record" by Christian Read (story) & Tonia Walden (art), Something Wicked
• "The Seed" by Liz Argall (story) & Matt Huynh (art), Dreams of Tomorrow
• Star Wars Tales #27, illustrated by Nicola Scott (Dark Horse Comics)

PRODUCTION DESIGN OF THE YEAR
• Troy Kealley (cover by Simon Sherry), Something Wicked
• Glen Shearer and Darren Close, Operation Funnybone
• Tonia Walden, various


be there!

In Melbourne on Saturday

This coming weeken, 29th of July to be exact a bunch of us from Adelaide will be in Melbourne at Doujicon. We'll probably be arriving friday late afternoon and while we are staying in St Kilda would love to catch up with people for drinks.
If any Melbournites have suggestions - pipe up.

Who will be there? And what will they be selling?

Sarah's got
-Pretty Zombie #1 (which sold out in like 20 minutes at supanova) and maybe #2,
-The Bear (super cute!)
-The Princess and the gypsy (which was in the Top 5 24 hour challenge finalist)
-The Mary comic based on her webcomic (that is no longer on the web)
-And finally Adelaide comic zine Fistful of Comics.

EvilDan is supplying his Camry stationwagon and offering
-Angry Comic Shop Guy #1,2,3
-Timbsy the stereotypical Demon
-plus more

Owen Heitmann is selling
-How to Save the World - its a solid comic, the type of comic that we should be producing more of.
-5031 #1,2,3- The hijinks of shareflat renting, like "pop culture 2 minute noodles" and "he died with a falalfel in his hand" except with less carbs and sex.
-Basic Wage Kids #1 - the premiere isse of his garage band epic.

Benzine - I think Benzine will be selling a comic, it features art from some of Adelaide best artists.

Me - I'll be selling
-OzComics #4,5,6 - -I never sold these much in Melbourne but I've onlt got a few left so be quick.
-SureshotPresent Gothic Boogaloo - 32 pages of Weber's fist fighting, kitty kidnapping, smoking monkey madness
-SureShot Present ORDinary Eyeball - 52 pages of beuatiful comics by Australia's best reality comic creator Mandy Ord

I think we are located near the screenings, but definetly in the Mature section

So come say hello

in sydney now

after an panic filled ride to the airport, i'm in sydney and will be for the next 4 days. please tell me cool places to drink at night.

Coming real soon

Witchking meet Amazon

Witch King is at Amazon

me writey writey again

The second Basic Wage Kids strip done by Tonia Walden and me is up. I think its better than the first one.

Australian Comics article at the Pulse

Thanks to the 3 people (doug, andy and darren) who buzzed in a pointed my browser to Jason Franks article about the local comic scene. It makes a good mention of all the internationally working local creators.

Red j pin up

I noticed that local creator Jon Sommariva has a very cool Mask pin up in the 20 year anniversary Dark Horse pin up book.

though he's credited as John Sommariva

On a related Jon's involved with a Canberra drink up. I've noticed since pulp Fiction comics started having drink ups (and subsidising beers) here in Adelaide, the comic output has increased tremendously and that's a good thing. Hope the same happens in Canberra.

DEX Show and poster

A number of brisbane comic creators are exhibiting painted decks; Jase Harper, L. Frank Weber and most of the Phatsville crew.

Its a lovely poster; it shows painted skatedecks, the date and details are huge and it provides the same tag line ("an exhibition of 'lowbrow' art on skateboard decks") twice.
Its clear what this poster is marketing.

Then we have this

British Comic month

Ganked from Lying in the Gutters July is British Comic Month. That means that the comic shop franchise Forbidden Planet will be celebrating british self publishers by offerring their comics for sale and other stuff (on the blog it doesn't really say much).

In the Forbidden Planet online store they offer 19 self published books. 19! That's fuck all, but FP are going to some effort to highlight them.

There was an attempt at having an Australian Comic month which was creator-based and that never really got off the ground. The problem which the local market isn't the product but visibility and distribution. So if only a local shop or shops did something similar.

me in sydney

I'll be in Sydney from saturday 15 to wednesday 19 for a course.
Whilst there i wouldn't mind catching up with people that won't beat me and rob me blind (without buying me a drink first).

So send me an email (mark_selan@hotmail.com) and we can catch up on of those nights.

me writey writey

Myself and Tonia Walden did a guest strip for Owen Heitmann's Basic Wage Kids

Ms Walden did a fantastic job, me thinks

Industry vs Scene: Phosphorescent Comics

One of the things i miss about the Ozcomics messageboard was that there was a high level of discourse concerning Australian comics and the various cultural, financial and creative constraints/benefits of the local product.
Sure, the same topics went around and around (I swear everytime someone mentions Nescafe Big Break my heart breaks big time because basing any business model around "winning" money is plain dumb) and at times people got - you know - overly passionate.
But there was talk that was always interesting and informative.

There is a great discussion at Phosphorescent comics Messageboard about scene vs industry. About business building and marketing; reality and dreams. If i get some time over the weekend i might chime in.

Otherwise pick up Azerath because I like it and you might too.

Video of Leigh Rigozzi and comics are on the phone

This little profile of Leigh makes me like his stuff even more.

From the same show; two Adelaide guys making comics for phones, here's a sample of their work.

Sydeney Supanova - Moves

Thanks to Andy for the tip but it appears that Supanova moves from its central harbour location (Wharf 8) back to Homebush. I never went to the first Supanova event but went to the ComicFest event in 2001 which was out of the sticks and it was a pain to get to.

I think there's the issue of cosplayers and safety; I don't know how safe the area is but as i understand it is pretty industrial so i wonder is it exactly safe for teenagers dressed weirdly to be travelling through there?
If it is a larger premises, i think it would be nice to offer some sort of changeroom so people can travel in safety and get changed at the site.
From a more selfish point of view, being an out of towner I'm concerned at having to carry 40kg of books across town without using a car. So i'd like Tim McEwen to pick me and all there artist alley from central sydeny and deliver us to the convention. It would also be nice if he wore a bus drivers hat.

or i'm possibly overreacting

OzComic 24 Hour Challenge - Winners

And the winners are


Best 24 Page General Comic
Caanan Grall - 'The Gypsy and The Astronaut'
Wins a fully paid table in Artist Alley for the next Supanova

Best 16 page General Comic
Micheal Li - 'Starcatcher'
Wins the 'Sureshot Presents' prize package, being incusion in the Sureshot Presents magazine plus 20 copies of that issue, AND a selection of graphic novels from Pulp Fiction comics.

Best 8 Page General Comic, Judges Choice
Jessica McLeod - 'Tea with a Space Rabbit'
Wins original artwork by Queenie Chan

Best 24 Page Mature Comic, Judges Choice
Tom Bonin - 'Who Knows'
Wins original artwork by Ben Templesmith

Best 16 Page Mature Comic, Judges Choice
Ricci - 'The Psych of Gemima Copper'
Wins a selection of graphic novels from Pulp Fiction Comics.


Best 8 Page Mature Comic, Judges Choice
Leon and Clare - 'Open all Night'
Wins $100 from Oztaku


Favourite Overall Mature Comic
Steve Martinez - Mojo & Fuzz: Tall Tails
Wins a Selection of graphic novels from Pulp Fiction, plus a selection of Australian comics from radioTAK, Ozcomics Magazine, Oztaku and Siberian Productions.

Favourite Overall General Comic
Wredrat and Amei - 'Treasure Map'
Wins a selection of comics from Phosphorescent Comics

Favourite Manga Comic
Micheal Li - 'Starcatcher'
- Wins the prize pack from Manga Arts including pens, brushes, ink, nibs, manga paper and screentones, plus the entry will be featured on their website.

Congratulations to all

Thanks to our sponsors, for their awesome support of the challenge and Australian comics in general:
Pulp Fiction Comics
Supanova
Ben Templesmith
Manga Arts
Phosphorescent comics
Queenie Chan
Oztaku
PulpFaction
radioTAK
Sureshot presents
Siberian Productions

For more details see the Pulp Faction thread

TokyoPop wants you

Jason Badower, is looking for a preferably Melbourne-based comic artist to pay money for art. What art? Art for a TokyoPop Graphic Novel which he's working on.

What he's looking for

My 24 Hour Comic - part 4

And rounding out this week of high culture and intelligent humour the last 6 pages of "Its been awhile" which closed out my 24 hour comic.
That's right i did 31 pages in 24 hours and that included 6 hours sleep.
Be in awe of me hu-mans, i put the sex into sequentialist!

Never mind the shitty drawing, everyone knows comics is about the writing!

I have had an offer by an artist to draw the "Its been awhile" panels all artistically sound and wotnot which is pretty cool.

I think the latter ones are better than the ones i posted a couple of days ago. Otherwise I'm going to try and do about 3 a week.

Anyway It's Been awhile part 2.

Note that in Asian vs African the first panel should have been goateeguy talking not fubuhat.

And "vs" suggestions are always welcome

My 24 Hour Comic - part 3

Last year I did a bunch of parodies of Australian Comics, called Kipper Comics. About 3 people found them funny which is good enough for me so i did some more. Well I planned to, I was going to do a yaoi based comics involving twin brothers. That didn't work out.
So I only did a parody of Witch King. Released earlier this year, its a graphic novel, a beautifully illustrated and coloured story (Pencilled by Paul Abstruse, inked by PJ Magalhaes and Darren Close, and coloured by Laing Rahner and Annette Kwok) released by Phosphorescent Comics its a good read written by Christian Read. Fantasy is not my thing (magic shits me) and i, for the most part enjoyed it.

There were some questions if I was mocking the creators behind it. No, absolutely not. Whilst I made fun of the personalities of the people in the Top Cow story, I didn't do so here. I did a plain parody of the story. The Witch King is basically the story of the ugly duckling who after being tormented by others runs away only to become a beautiful swan who returns to face the other forest animals. In the Witch King's case, its a bookish prince who runs away to becomea powerful wizard and then comes back to take over his father's kingdom.

I turned it into a story of a nerd who goes backpacking and returns home to torment his older brother.

My thanks to Em who took the photos, though she said that she would only take photos if she didn't have to get off the couch and if it was inbetween commercial breaks. Thanks Babe, your commitment to art is uplifting.

So if you are a nerd who

• was bullied
• likes role playing
• likes science fiction
• likes reading
• was sent backpacking by parents
• got an allowance while overseas
• stayed with family while overseas
• had sex with a "Canadian" who we wouldn't know
• has a live journal
• whines about people on their LJ
• has a MySpace page
• writes poetry
• listens to Deathcab for Cutie
• likes Battlestar Galatica
• dropped acid
• lives at his parent's house
  
• and likes Dr Who

then it is about you.
Me? I match up with 7 of them.

In terms of the suit, I wear suits 9 hours a day 5 days a week and I look great in them. i thought you needed to see this. Also i was dressed in the suit for the yaoi thing and needed to be easily indentifiable opposite the brother. I only had a 15 minute window of Em's attention so i had to be snappy.

anyway the Witch Kipper






After I posted this comic during the Challenge i had a dialogue with a creator about the parody comics which lead to me posting

I've been having a discussion with a local comic creator who has raised a really valid point. The 24 hour Challenge is usually a lot of people's first attempt at putting together a comic and its their first exposure to the larger local comic scene.

That can be quiet scary.

Subsequently, the 24hr challenge forum needs to be a supportive and welcoming place.

In that light I don't think the Kipper comics (my parodies) are really suitable for the Challenge for 2 reasons; the injokiness of them gives this boy's club feeling which can be quite intimidating but more importantly there is a thin line between parody and mockery.

When I did the Top Cow story and Witch King parodies there was no intentional vindictiveness behind them. it was meant to be light hearted poking at issues in the local scene and some of their stories. It wasn't meant to be personal mockery - the Top Cow gets personal but i don't think i was mean.
But it does set up a precedent in the future. I'd hate if next year someone started doing vindictive and hurtful comics directed at Australian Comic Creators, it would pretty much be a step backwards to all the work me and others have put into the Challenge.

In the light of this I won't be doing any more Kipper Comics in the 24 hr forum. Whilst its only a small issue, i'm deadly afraid of slippery slopes. I do plan to do some more later on but in more appropriate places.

more peepee and hoohoo jokes tommorrow

My 24 Hour Comic - part 2

At Brisbane's Supanova i was talking to Andy Finlayson about the 24 hour challenge and i mentioned i was considering rescripting some old Australian comics. He suggested i could use a comic he drew 12 years ago for the Millenium Anthology on the proviso i also use another story in that book by Michael Evans.

Well I didn't do that.

I was careful not to read or even flick thru the comic before the day and it took me a while to figure out a hook. The actual story is about a team of superheroes owned by a company who kill some terrorists. I made it into a story the essentially non-existent schism between minicomic/zine/self publishers and those who want to work for overseas companies as Work For Hire creators. Again, its not really an issue that is talked about or is really an issue. Especially these days, as i understand it, though it was a topic of discussion in the early 90s.

Anyway, a quick guide to the story
Andy Finlayson - is a Brisbane animator who has gotten his first gig with Top Cow doing a 4 issue mini series called Sulphur. He's also an awesome guy who seems to stalk the Australian comic scene more than me and has a massive collection of photos involving him and cosplaying teen girls.
Jason Badower - is a melbourne based fitness instructor (ergo making him a girl) and Australia's only comic artist/ninja (ergo making him a really hot ass kicking girl). He did some work in Anthology about twelve years back and did some other self publishing efforts. He's now an art director and illustrator for Top Cow.
Paul Abstruse - a sydney-sider who did the fantastic art in Witch King as well as being one of australia's sexiest comic book artist (he lost the title to jase by way of arm wrestling match). Whilst he isn't doing any work for an overseas publishers - he should. He self published something called Sloth or Creep or Slime (i think) He was included in this because i couldn't think of anyone else at the time. I should have used David Yardin.
Darren Close - he started Ozcomics a hub of australian ctreators between 1999 and 2003 and is doing the inking for Sulphur. He also created Killeroo. He also inked some of Witch King. Much maligned for having flame wars with various people he's kept quiet of late. Except for popping up on my msn with bizzare requests such as "All i want is hasslehoff to record a song with Mc Hammer" which i received on the friday before the challenge. I think he owns an xbox.
Gerald Ashworth - a zine creator who wrote a scathing review admonsihing David De Vries and Glen Lumsden's Southern Squadron for being to American (that's what i've heard, never read it myself)
Bruce Mutard - has been self publishing for ages with Street Smell but he also released The Bunker through Image comics. He's doing a new graphic novel based on Sydney during WW2.
Matt Huynh - is a awesome and creative self publisher who wears bad suits to conventions (like purple double breasted suits)
Christian Read - is a writer who has worked for Dark Horse but is mainly known for his Phosphorescent Work including Witch King and the Watch. He also wears suits to conventions.
Supanova - is a Pop Culture convention where self publishers try and sell their work (in Artist Alley), people dress up in costume (Cosplayers) and artists show their stuff at Portfolio Reviews.
Top Cow - is a publisher based in California known for its media deals and comics about big breasted women stabbing people.
Rob Liefeld - is a very successful artist who can't draw feet or perspective or facial expressions or very much at all. He's also sold millions of comics with these skills.
And lastly Roger is some sort of talent scout/editor with Top Cow. I met him once at Sydney Supanova and the only thing i remember is he arm wrestled a girl.