Shaun Tan wins award

There was a discussion awhile back (i can't remember with who or where) regarding if what Shaun Tan does is comics - to a degree that's not really relevant anymore because he's part of the Character Sketch book coming from Gestalt.

Anyway, he won a silver award in the book category in the Spectrum Awards for his work in The Arrivals.

What's the opposite of continental?

We had a bbq last weekend which went pretty well.

Before i get all neurotic, let me preface

• I'm not a hello kisser/hugger amongst friends, i prefer a cross-gendered handshake.
• Amongst the ethnic family, the kissing hello is fine, even amongst fellows but its always the double cheeked version.

So, at social occassions, many of Em's friends will go the hug hello, which is fine - i'm an amazingly handsome man and they are only human. Of course they want hugs from me, its not them being polite at all. Even though I'm reticent, its hard to divert when open arms are flung your way, so cool I'll lean in and reciprocate.

recently, i've started weirding myself out, i'll automatically throw a kiss on the cheek and then expect to swing heads and put the second kiss on the other cheek - continental style. Only the problem is that, they've broken off the hug and left me hanging with one kiss hanging there.

Should I feel weird? To me a single kiss is affectionate, while continental kissing is more of a pleasantry. i don't want to come across as some sort of creepy husband feeling up his wife's friends (i'm more of an ogler than a fondler). Are they weirded out by the single kiss?

I think i might just try an weasle my way out of the situation and just have a shirt stained with my own vomit or possibly just go topless thereby scarying girls from wanting to hug me in the first place.

Supanova earlybird

If you are planning on getting an artist alley table for this April's Supanova in Brisbane, do it today to take advantage of the earlybird rate of $220 (instead of $330).
www.supanova.com.au for more details

The end is hear - OC finale

I like teen-dramas; Party of 5, Dawson's Creek, Gilmore Girls, Freaks and Geeks, all series which i have really enjoyed. The finale of the Oc played last weekend and having mulled it over, i think it ended perfectly. Its a shame it ended only after 4 seasons but it went out strong.
At its heart it was a tale of redemption for (lack of a better word) badboy Ryan, who through the kindness of others leaves his past and finds a place. I think most people probably enjoyed Seth's character more and were frustrated at his open ended future "Sure he marries Summer but does he become a comic artist? movie critic? real estate developer?"
I don't think it mattered, rich upper-class kid was always going to be comfortable, his arc was to be living happily ever after with Summer.
(It feels kind of silly blogging this but the reasons why i like prime time soap opera and comics are pretty close)
But many series finales have kind of sucked, leaving me frustrated "what happened to so and so!" wondering how did their character arc end. Lindsay Weir (Freaks and Geeks) just jumping into the Kombi van to follow the Grateful Dead, similar to the Roswell kids driving around in their Kombi - being a fan of chcracters and narrative i just want to know what would happen next.
(don't suggest reading fanfic - please)
So i like the whole "so and so went on to do blah, so and so became a blah..." ending Dawson's and OC used (or the burnt earth solution of Forever Knight and Pretender.)

And now i have no teen soap to fill in my tv watching quota.

ozComics Memories

Apparently in 30 something days www.ozcomics.com is coming back. On an unrelated note i was looking for an old ozcomics discussion about manga art and discovered a bunch of old threads, it reminded how funny and smart some of the threads were -

Rant a go go - probably the longest thread on ozcomics, of course it had nothing to do with comics.

Saddam gets captured - this thread had it all, wittiness, fights, me having to lay down the law, smartness and no discussion of australian comics (there's a companion piece as well)

And what everyone liked about 2003 (holgate liked Powderfinger!)

SMASH!

Katie Huang's new con is now called SMASH which is a cool title but I'm getting a bit confused and whilst its easy to criticise when things are at the early stages, its important to pick these things apart before 'disasters' occur down the line.

I don't get the point of not being an Artist-Centric convention - from what i can tell, SMASH was borne from the costly expense of having an artist alley table at Animania and to a lesser degree the expense of entry. Admirable - and whilst i doubt the organisers of Animania are basking in the warm rays of Thailand out of con season - i do think its close minded and short-term thinking to have Artist Alley subsidise con costs. So moves for cheaper AA tables is awesome.

However, i'm assuming that by not being artistic-centric its going to be a regular con with dealers, screenings and cosplay. Besides cheaper entry cost what is going to seperate this con from the already established and supported (in terms of dealers) Animania?
I was hoping this would be more Comiket than a regular Pop Culture Convention. It seems, at this early point, that SMASH is trying to go in direct competition with an established convention instead of filling in a gap in the market - an endevour fraught with danger, especially when there is no budget.
And on the note that this will be manga/anime con and not Western comic like Supanova seems a bit restrictive. Besides the fact that Supanova is pretty manga heavy - (this might confuse the organisers at times) - but at least half the exhibitors and dealers are manga related - only the majority of guests come from western pop culture, is about market.
With such a cheap entry price it will be all about volume - getting people through the door and sure cheap entry will help but closing off the con to part of the market/audience because of some notion of west/east style and genre "differences" seems to be work against profitability. Plus will someone be inspecting comics for a level of mangasence?
"Eyes are too small - denied!""Not enough panty shots - denied!"" "Too many panels per page - denied!"
To quote a wiseman "manga is japanese for comics"
Also as a pseudo-publisher/australian fanboy - regular anime/manga cons centred around dealers, screenings and to a lesser degree cosplay seem to just enforce the Japan-centric nature of manga. The idea that unless its from Japan - it just doesn't count isn't too helpful for australian creators of manga/comics. Having a heavy emphasis on local work would maybe change this concept for the betterment of everyone.

but its early days

Sinbad the Sailor, not the comedian

Jeffrey Cruz did Muse
Now he's working on Sinbad
here's the hyperlink

My second short film was produced by Red 5 Films

(which was me and 3 other guys - we won awards)

Queensland creator Wayne Nichols, fresh from time working on Lady Supreme , is working with a bunch of guys with Star Wars website backgrounds on a new comic called Afterburn. The company is called Red5Comics.

New artist-centric Sydney Convention

Katie Huang, of the editor/publisher of the exceptiopnally high standard Generations book is planning on starting a new Sydney Con - ComicWorld Sydney - and i think this an awesomely exciting development.
Sydney has a nice large population and some of the best artists in the country so I think this has a great chance of success. Especially if the same level of effort and eye for detail as displayed in Generations carries through.

So if you have the means or opportunity - support it.

We CAN be heroes!

Jason Badower, a comic artist/ninja cyborg who lives in Melbourne is the artist for the latest Heroes Online Comic.

That's very cool.

Ahhh what a relief

Work has been, politely put, really fucked for the last fortnight, but one of the few things that have gotten me through is WarioWare Smooth Moves on the Wii (the other is booze and woman - but never mixed).

Kick push crash

From last years' Supanova in Sydney -

Dan Gibbs drops in



and take 2

Manga in the paper

A decent article at SMH about manga in Australia, two interesting points Madman recognise the demand for OEL manga and the need to frame the article around superheros.

The other adelaide comics blogger maintaining the rage but not Namor Style

Danny Best, who runs Adelaide Comics and books was on A Current Affair last night in a story about corporate bullying of blogs. The story is he wanted to go all schoolies in his hotel room on New Years Eve and was told he couldn't (though he was apparently told he could rock it bigtime schoolies style and invite people in to his hotel room beforehand).

The entire saga is on his blog in between posts about Newton comics.

John Law arrests Gary Chaloner

...for using a splash page.

Gary Chaloner's work on John Law gets highlighted on the new Will Eisner website (which looks like it was designed by Gary - but i'm only guessing).

Young Creator gets grant

Seems like a local comic creator has earned a scholarship to attend Canberra Uni doing illustrations

when Lulu is a booboo, when comic xpress doesn't impress

I'm not a fan of the way Print on Demand comics is done by most local comic creators. This article describes some of my concerns about POD and name drops Dean Rankine.

Old movies i watched on the telly

This last week I've been watching a bunch of older movies, it probably started with Bridge at Remagen a film i had never heard of until i saw it at the video store. I've been playing Call of Duty on the Wii and for some reason going through a WW2 movie hankerin'. Well Bridge at Remagen is a great film, surprisingly quiet negative - filmed when Vietnam was turning bad for the US, allowing many film makers to actually say 'war is bad', instead of the jingoistic rah-rah that the 'win' of WW2 perpetuated. The best thing is Robert Vaughn's portrayal of a proud member of a military family who happens to be fighting for homeland, instead of Nazism. To me Vaughn was always the hammy actor in Magnificent 7, who would reprise the role in anything from Battle beyond the Stars to Kung Fu: The next generation (or whatever it was called). But in B.A.R. he actually acts portraying a range of emotions, with great dignity its a treat to watch. Kind of like Sidney Poitier in Lilies of the Field (why does channel 7 always show great movies on public holidays when i'm always off doing stuff); sure great narrative comes from conflict but sometimes the quieter stories are so much more compelling. Me and Emma have been watching Northern Exposure and after much discussion and pondering we discovered we liked it because there are no villain characters, no great or even petty conflicts - stories unravel or melt as the case may be. But yes, we were 2 hour late for the Australian day BBQ because i wanted to watch Lilies of the Field and it was worth it - stories of redemption and hope always get me.
It was even great watching Shalako, with a Sean Connery fresh off his 3rd Bond movie playing a cowboy. Problem is that i couldn't understand a word anyone said, Bridgette Bardot, the dude that plays the Baron, Connery, all sounded garbled to my dyslexic ears but it was fun to watch all the same. And finaly Marty, a film i'd never seen was such a simple story; old dude (at 34!) meets an ugly girl (well see had 2 pimples on her chin) and they fall for each other but told with such warmth and humanity. Borgnine laments that there are no good movies, i think the problem is there is no more quiet movies.

Another Australian Graphic Novel

After last years release of the Matthew Flinders graphic novel, here's another, this one seems like its original (not reprinted like the Flinders book).

Secret Army - Operation Loki by Sophie Masson and Anthony Davies published by ABC Books.

comic tease

Why is it, when i google Doug Holgate the second search result is "Comic Sex pages" and why does lead to a blank page?