New Year, New Comics

Above: A panel from 'The Impostor' by L. S. Marquez.

The new year is off to a great start with some great new online comics for your summer viewing pleasure!

Auckland cartoonist L. S. Marquez is making her online comics debut with the extremely refined mystery/psychological thriller 'The Impostor' (click HERE to view).

Set in the totalitarian state of New Haven, social worker Lucy is rescued from a robbery by a mysterious stranger know only as 'K'. Their brief meeting lingers with Lucy, who has her own secrets that continue to haunt her waking world. Does she have more in common with this vigilante than she'll willing to admit, or will her attraction to 'K' lead her closer to danger instead of answers?

It's Part One of a three part series, which will eventually be released as three 24 page comics before being collected into a graphic novel. Each page of the original comic has been cleverly (and appropriately) divided into a classic nine panel grid. From there, she has cut the grid into three, allowing each section to form one 'slate panel' to read as the web-comic scrolls across diagonally, making for a pleasantly smooth reading experience. The artwork and storytelling is masterfully handled, and I look forward to seeing the next installments! For further updates be sure to register on the website.

Above: A page from 'The American Dream' by Dylan Horrocks.

After taking a break from his online serials to complete the finishing touches on the imminent new edition of 'Hicksville', Dylan has returned with new glorious colour pages of 'The American Dream' and 'Sam Zabel and the Magic Pen'.

As a bonus, he's also posted two recent short stories: 'Cornucopia', previously published in the Australian Journal 'The Lifted Brow'; and the serene 'My World', from the UK benefit book 'Ctrl.Alt.Shift'.

So there's a ton of great new comics content here to keep you entertained without even having to leave your work station! (although you may want to visit 'Cornucopia' in a more private setting;). Happy reading!

-AK!

In the Studio with The Sheehan Bros Part 2: Darren Sheehan

Above: A double page spread showcasing the fine artwork of Darren Sheehan from 'The Inhabitants' #2. Copyright the Sheehan Bros 2010.

The studio visit returns for 2010, with a look inside the working space of Darren Sheehan.

Darren is the artist half of the dynamic writer/artist duo the Sheehan Bros (the other half being Kelly, who was featured in the previous studio visit). Together they have collaborated on many fine comics, including 'The Longman' and the recently completed 'The Inhabitants' series.

Now it's over to Darren for the studio tour:

My studio's a little blue room at the front of the house with French doors that open onto the garden. I have a large desk inherited from my lovely partner Fran (sorry about the ink stains, babe).

In one corner is an old shelf that was once used for sorting mail its stuffed with pamphlet comics ('The Ultimates' rub shoulders with 'Love and Rockets', 2 issues of 'Crickets' sit snugly with issue five of 'Half a World Away', 'Planetary' bumps against 'Batman: Year 100', '2000ad', 'Warrior', Comics Journals, loads of NZ comics, rolled up scrolls of interviews with various people: Grant Morrison, Alan Moore, Warren Ellis and all my Frank Quietly comics on the top shelf, and pocket size sketchbooks of travel drawings.

The stereo is a gift from my mate Simon Esling, a really great draughtsman, that's one of his drawing tacked to the wall above one by Finn.

Below that sits a pile of sketchbooks and if you pan left and you pass over Fran's old Record collection. God, I wish we had a record player. Husker Du, REM, Pixies. Brains, beauty and a great taste in music. I'm a lucky guy.

A selection of CDs adorn the window sill.

My Computer ( where I spend a lot of time copying Ben 10 and Pokemon for Finn) sits atop a plan chest ex-Auckland Museum(Cheers Steve), where I keep all my finished pages.

There's another book case stuffed with novels by Paul Auster, Cormac McCarthey, Moby Dick (I saw the most beautiful edition in Edinburgh, it had all the Rockwell Kent Illustrations and could have been mine for 180 Quid too!), Michael De Larrabetti's Borriable trilogy (a really great fantasy trilogy, read it if you can find it), Kerouac and other beats, crime books, Hemingway blah, blah, blah. Oh yeah, and my Uke bought for me by my loving family.

Above my desk is a really great Lamp I scored from work. On my desk various tins and boxes filled with pens, pencils, brushes more sketch books here and there.

A smaller set of shelves sits on one end of the desk with Invoice books, Reference folders, more sketchbooks.

Q1: What are you currently working on?

I'm currently working on finishing illustrations for a book project I did last year with author Mike Johnson. It's called 'Travesty': a sci fi noir. Some pages are kind of set out like comic pages, others are just straight images. Titus books are looking to publish it sometime next year. I've felt a bit burned out after finishing 'The Inhabitants', but will look to get back on the comic beast in the new year.

Q2: What are your current drawing tools of preference?

I kinda go over this in question 4.

Q3: Can you describe your average working routine?

My work routine is pretty piecemeal for comics, I just have to grab time where I can around work and family. I dream of having one day in the week where I could just do an 8 hour stretch, but I don't really see that happening in the near future. So till then, I'll just do what I can when I can.

Q4: What is your working process?

I'm pretty old school in my approach, I don't really use the computer except for lettering. I killed my scanner a couple of years ago and never got round to replacing it (D'oh!). When I'm working with Kelly he feeds me chapters, so I'll read over those until I get a feel for the story then start working out thumbnails in my sketchbook. I also make Kelly give me thumbnails, 'cause it helps me get a feel for the shot setups he wants, and probably helps him work out positions of characters in the panels (and I also like his little ballpoint drawings). Once I've got the transitions and flow of the pages worked out, I'll start doing loose gestural pages on A3 photocopy paper with a HB pencil that I'll slowly tighten up over 3-4 pages. Once I'm happy with a page I'll transfer it to Ivory board (which I cut to size from AO size sheets with a steel ruler and blade) using a light box, then start inking.

When I'm inking I'll switch between a brush (Winsor and newton) and a pen (Unipin 0.3, 0.5) and ballpoint pen. I'm a bit funny with inking, I like really black blacks so I can go over a page multiple times. I kind of know when the page is finished when it pops (sorry, kind of hard to explain but it's kind of when all the elements of the page start working together.. I like to think of it like guitar overdubs). Once the inking is done, I do the lettering on a computer, cut them out with a ellipse template and stick them down with PVA and then add it to the pile. Sometimes if a panel isn't right I'll redo it or stick it over the existing one. I also play around with resizing things on the photocopier and chopping them up.

Q5: Do you listen to anything while you work?

Always. There's a quote I like from Peter Bagge, that 'most cartoonists have unhealthy relationships with there record collections', which is something I really subscribe to. I put it down to sharing a room with two brothers growing up and putting music on and escaping into a drawing to have my own space.

I like atmospheric music that can sustain a certain mood so I'll listen to a lot of soundtracks. Some favourites over the last few years are anything by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis (note to self: pick up a copy of White Lunar), Chelsea walls by Jeff Tweedy, Wilco by Jeff Tweedy, Loose Fur by Jeff Tweedy, in fact anything by Jeff Tweedy. Dead Man by Neil Young, Brian Enos ambient albums. Went through a big Hold Steady phase when doing the Inhabitants always seem to come back to Greg Dulli (Afghan whigs, Twilight singers Solo). Mezzanine by Massive attack is a really strong album to draw to. Phoenix foundation, Bruce Springsteen, War on Drugs, Radiohead, Earth, The Veils. I recently went through a Jim O'Rourke phase listening to NYCity ghosts a lot. Currently listening to The Acorn and Deerhunter, I could go on...I mean seriously, someone stop me.

Q6: Can you name some of your influences?

Influences...well Kelly is the main influence as he's the writing guy, so what ever ends up on the page is half him and half me. Plus I read all his comics and listened to his records when I was growing up, so he's on me like white on rice. In terms of style there's some early influences I can't shake: Simon Bisley, Dave Mckean, Egon Schiele. I'm pretty big on Frank Quietly, the first comics I read when i got back into them after a gap of a couple of years was Flex Mentallo, I just love his skill as a storyteller and the human details he brings to his work. The way he weights a cloak or captures the mannerism of a character. Magic.

The second would be Al Columbia. The Biologic show did something to my brain so even if he did nothing else, he'd be pretty high in my Pantheon. Sammy Harkham is another favourite (I covert a copy of 'Poor Sailor'). Locally, Tim Kidd is always amazing, again the way he captures all those beautiful details, the crinkles in a pair of jeans, kids toys scattered over a floor, all the odds and ends in a room. Books, clothes, records, cats, Farfisa. It feels like there's a lot of Tim In his work. Other people that inspire me: Martin F Emond, Matt Tait, Tim Malloy, Ben Stenbeck, Jared Lane, Dylan Horrocks, Warren Ellis, Brendan McCarthy, Grant Morrison, Steve Yoewell and Jim Jarmusch. My other brother Chris an amazing Jeweller and one of the most creative people I know, you should see his house, no really, you need to see his house.

Q7: What is your most prized comics related item?

Tim Kidd gave me an original page of his 'Daniel Rabbit' strip when my son Finn was born so that's pretty special, and I got Frank Quietly to do me a sketch of 'King Mob' when he came over for Armageddon a couple of years back. Mint.

Q8: What was your best and worst comics convention experience?

The year Warren Ellis and Grant Morrison came for Armageddon, a friend and I took Morrison out to Piha.

Adi interviewed him for BFM but mysteriously the tape failed, so no record of said interview was ever broadcast. What's weird is Grant said often time recordings of him get lost or don't come out, but I got to spend half a day chatting to the Scottish writer so that was fun. I've got some sketches I did of him on the beach I'll try and dig up, and a Polaroid shot where the definition of his head has faded over time so he looks like an alien and there's a jelly fish on the sand that looks like that silver stuff out of 'The Invisibles'. He was deep in his 'King Mob' phase, so when I first met him it was kinda like a character coming off the page.

On a local note, it was nice meeting Matt Tait at comics on K, as I've always liked his work and we did a swap of artwork so I've got a nice piece of Matt Taits artwork in my collection. I haven't really had a bad experience at a con except for loudness and a soar throat trying to talk to people.

Q9: Do you have a favorite comics adaptation?

I really enjoyed Hellboy 2 and the first Blade movie. Oh yeah, and I quite enjoyed X-men 2 and Batman begins, but It was the first film I'd seen in two years after Finn was born, so it might have just been the spectacle of the thing. Also the comic adaptation of Paul Austers "City of glass" by David Mazzucchelli and Paul Karasik I really like, but that's a book to comic adaptation so I don't know if it counts.

Q10: If I could have dinner with five other people from history they would be..?

I'll just crash Kelly's lunchtime drinks as he didn't invite me.

Q11: If I could make one edit/change to the history of comics it would be...?

I read an interview where Rueban Neilson from 'The Mint Chicks' talked about once wanting to be a comic book artist. As I really dig his artwork for the mint chicks album covers I've wondered what kind of comics he might have made: an antipodean Brendan McCarthy high on Taiyo Matsumoto's 600+ page manga masterpiece 'Tekkonkinkreet: Black & White' I like to think...

Above: Darren and Kelly Sheehan at the 'Comics on K' Exhibition.

Thanks to Darren for sharing his creative space and process, and to Kelly for helping out with the photos!

-AK!

Auckland Comic Book Club/From Earth's End Xmas Drinks! UPDATED

Above: Cartoonists at the Xmas gathering (from left to right): Matthew Kelly, Simon Adams, Dylan Horrocks, Karl Wills, Darren Sheehan, unknown guest (sorry, I didn't catch his name) and Ant Sang. Not pictured: Richard Fairgray and Chris Slane.

To celebrate the end of a very successful year of the ALL-NEW ALL-DIFFERENT Auckland Comic Book Club (and my modest blogging efforts), a group of Auckland's finest cartoonists and enthusiasts gathered at Brooklyn Bar on Thursday night to toast the year that was.

It was great to see some new faces as well as regular attendees and catch-up with some of our busier members, who's work only allows them to drop by once in a blue moon. This gathering was also a welcome chance to get an update on everyones projects, and there's some great NZ comics coming your way in the near future.

Above: The cover of the new edition of 'Hicksville' by Dylan Horrocks from Drawn & Quarterly.

It's been out of print for many years, but the new-improved edition of Dylan Horrock's local masterpiece 'Hicksville' is finally available early next year from Drawn & Quarterly. Dylan has personally re-scanned and remastered the artwork for this edition which features a brand new 13-page introduction in comics form and a illustrated glossary. It's available to pre-order now from your local comic shop, so rush out and order this with your extra Xmas cash and reward yourself in the New Year!

Making a rare appearance away from his drawing board, Ant Sang stopped by for a few drinks and to give us an update on his in-progress graphic novel epic: 'Shaolin Burning'. Due to it's truly epic scale (each page is drawn on an A2 sheet, and for a recent double-page spread he jumped up to A0(!)), an extra year is being added to the production schedule to accommodate this mammoth undertaking. The good news is it will now be longer than previously reported, clocking in closer to two hundred pages. So keep an eye out for this in early 2011.

Above: A page of 'Connie Radar' by Karl Wills from 'Hotwire Comics' Vol.3, published by Fantagraphics.

Karl Wills is keeping busy, with a new 'Connie Radar' story in the latest 'Hotwire Comics' anthology from Fantagraphics, which is available to order now and should be in comic stores early next year. He's also recently animated a version of US cartoonist Kaz's 'Underworld' into an online cartoon (check it out here!). Comics aside, Karl also convinced me that maybe 'cows in cubicles' isn't so bad after all. "Damn cows won't do a 9 to 5 working stretch for us in a cubicle, but they're happy to contribute to global warming? F%$ cows".*

* Disclaimer: May not be an actual quote, or a highly sanitized version of an actual quote. I'll let you decide, but I'm pretty sure Karl has a beef with cows (and most living things).

Above: 'Blokes, Jokes and Sheds' by Chris Slane, published by Random House NZ.

I heard Random House was out of stock of Chris Slane's resent 'Blokes, Jokes and Sheds' comics collection. So if you're looking for a copy of this for a stocking stuffer this Christmas, you may have to shop around.

You can expect to hear an update sooner rather than later regarding Richard Fairgray's 'Blastosaurus' US reprint from Jeff Katz's American Original comics imprint. There's been some changes in the rollout of this company's books, but expect Richard's to be one of the first, as he's already got a full year's worth of material ready to go. It's already been announced that current 'Astonishing X-Men' artist Phil Jimenez will be contributing covers to the US editions of 'Blastosaurus', and now I understand 'The Boys' artist Darick Robertson is also interested in being involved in some capacity. It's not widely known, but Robertson also got his start self-publishing his own animalmorphic adventure comic, 'Space Beaver'. Richard also tells me he's been exchanging friendly emails with recent Armageddon '09 guest, Bill Sienkiewicz...hmmm...let the speculation begin!

I've got a few projects of my own on the boil, one involving an upgrade of this blog into a more physical form, but we'll have to wait and see what the New Year brings. Speaking of which, it was a great year to be part of the Auckland comics community, and I can only hope that the NZ comics community continues to grow in size and awareness in the New Year.

A BIG thanks to Matthew Kelly for tirelessly organising this year's meetings, and to Tim Kidd and the Auckland City Public Library for providing us with a great space and facility for us to conduct our meetings in every month. If this sounds like something you'd be interested in being involved in, be sure to make it your New Year's resolution to attend!

-AK!

Auckland Comic Book Club/From Earth's End Xmas Drinks!

To celebrate the end of a very successful year of the ALL-NEW ALL-DIFFERENT Auckland Comic Book Club (and my modest blogging efforts), we'll be having Xmas drinks at Brooklyn Bar (just opposite the Central Library) this Thursday the 10th of December from 6pm!

This will be a great chance to talk about some of the fine New Zealand Comics that have been released this year and generally catch-up with other cartoonists to 'talk shop' and discuss the year that was. Everyone is welcome, so if comics and alcohol sound like a winning combination, this is the Xmas event for you!

See you there.

AK!

PS: If you can't make it, don't worry, I'll be capturing all the shenanigans on camera!

International Comics: Pran's comics of India

Above: Pran Kumar Sharma.

Pran Kumar Sharma, a beloved cartoonist from India (or as his curious Stan Lee inspired byline from his comics states: 'the heart throb of millions of comic strip lovers!') and creator of the popular 'Chacha Chaudhary' character, was in Auckland recently, making a public appearance at the Auckland City Library to talk about his unique perspective and experiences in the comics industry in India.

Above: A page from a 'Chacha Chaudhary' comics digest #20, featuring Pran's biography. Copyright Pran's Features 2009.

Pran began by discussing the start of his comics career, creating his own local comic-strip as a response to the imported American comic-strips that were popular at the time. As Pran explains, 'when I started my career in 1960, India was importing all it's comics from America, like the Phantom, Batman, Blondie, Dennis the Menace, Superman etc. I thought why not create our own indigenous comics? So with that in mind I created a short, little old man named Chacha Chaudhary. Chacha means 'uncle' and Chaudhary is a community name. He solves problems with his sharp brain and common sense'.

Once he had created his own local comic-strip, marketing and distributing it was Pran's next challenge. 'Creating a comic is quite easy, but how do you sell them? At that time there was no syndication in my country, so I had to distribute my own comics myself. Initially, three newspapers agreed to subscribe to the comic, but I had to keep the price of my comics very low to compete with the American syndicated comics that were available. As the time passed, from three to five, five to eight, eight to fifteen, the number of newspapers who subscribed to my comics feature increased. Now after 45 years we have 35 newspapers who regularly subscribe to my features'.

Pran firmly believes that the popularity of his characters is due to the fact their lives and interests reflect those of his core audience of readers: the middle class. 'In my comics I do not believe in showing unnatural things, strange things; like a man flying in the sky or walking up the walls. My subject matter is taken from the common life of the middle class. And as you know, the middle class is the backbone of society. You can sell anything which belongs to the middle class'.

Above: A page of stickers featuring a selection of Pran's characters. Copyright Pran's Features 2009.

It's no accident that his cast of characters and comics are built around the atomic family structure. As mentioned earlier, his most popular character Chacha Chaudhary directly translates to 'Uncle from Chaudhary' in Hindi. Here are some other examples of Pran's comics based around other members of the family dynamic:

'Raman': Follows the misadventures of an office worker who hates his boss and daydreams of taking over his company.

Shrimatiji'- which translates to 'House Wife' : About a middle-class house wife who's stories revolve around balancing the finances and the daily challenges of her limited income family.

'Billoo': About a teenager, who doesn't like going to school and is obsessed with cricket.

'Pinki': Following the great comics tradition of annoying kids, Pinki is a 5yr old girl who gets up to mischief in her neighbourhood, often bothering her elderly neighbour (possibly made to put a local spin on one of those American imports, perhaps?).

After twenty years of success with his comic-strips, In 1980 he was approached by a local comics publisher, 'Diamond Comics' to compile the comic strips into a digest comic format, similar to Archie comics from the US (interestingly, Diamond Comics also publishes 'Comics World', a monthly comics digest featuring Chacha Chaudhary sharing the title with other international licenced characters including Archie, Masters of the Universe and Disney characters).

As well as providing entertainment, Pran believes that the humourous nature of comic-strips can play a vital part in relieving tensions in the daily lives of readers from countries caught up in civil unrest and terrorism.

As Pran explains, 'The kinds of stories the newspapers now publish are of war in Afghanistan, bomb blasts by terrorist groups in different parts of the world killing innocent people or tsunami's killing and displacing hundreds of people. They also cover stories of the ups and downs of life on the streets. These types of stories raise tensions in the brain of the reader. Light and humourous comics provide relief, thus acting as a safety release to relieve the tensions (on the reader's mind) and make them relax.'

Curiously, Pran believes that cartoonists should ideally reflect a strong sense of social responsibility in their work, 'the cartoonist should provide society with honest work. By commenting on an incident, they should be unbiased or impartial. They should not ridicule a person or a community. Because if they do, it may boomerang on themselves'. He went on to illustrate this with a story of an Arab and a Jew insulting each other in escalating terms (that they end up recycling on each other).

This would seem to be a soft-handed approach in our society of free speech, but in other parts of the world satirical cartoons (especially aimed at politics and religion) can be a very serious business indeed. One of the best example of this being the 'Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons' controversy of 2005: the publication of 12 editorial cartoons created to contribute to the debate regarding criticism of Islam and self-censorship, which lead to mass protests and rioting across the Muslim world resulting in over 100 deaths.

With an eye to the future, Pran has embraced the changing nature of the comics business over time, and like many cartoonists he's profited by franchising his characters for development deals in multi-media outlets. Chacha Chaudhary was made into a long-running TV show (over 600 episodes have aired), with a movie on the way. His comics are also being adapted for cell-phone reading platforms.

Once again he suggested that the popularity of his comics characters across these different multi-media platforms was all made possible by their acceptance as part of the popular culture of the middle class. While there's no denying this makes good business sense, this telling comment did leave me with a sour aftertaste for the rest of the evening.

I couldn't decide if this was a classic example of appealing to the common interests of his audience in the great tradition of comics entertainment, or just pandering to them to make a health profit.

For Pran to be a successful cartoonist for over 45 years does speak to his genuine skill, dedication and accomplishments. I guess a similar argument could be made for any cartoonist who is equal parts creator and businessman, like Will Eisner for example. As cartoonists we can hope to be remembered for our comics and not the TV show or film it inspired that at one point in history that reached a larger audience.

As Pran himself commented at one point, the most successful cartoonists often have a tendency to live in the shadow of their own success. 'One of the (major) drawbacks in our profession is: while a character becomes popular, it's creator always remains in the dark. If you ask a person walking down the street: 'do you know who is Superman, who is Batman, who is Blondie, who is Dennis the Menace?'. They will immediately say 'yes, these are comics characters. But if you ask the same person: 'do you know who created Batman?'...Nobody knows'.

This may be true, but Bob Kane certainly lived a comfortable life of anonymity, while the sound effects POW! WHAM! BIFF! continue to echo in eternity.

-AK!

For information on Pran's comics you can visit Pran's website and the website of his publisher, Diamond Comics.

Above: Another page from 'Chacha Chaudhary'. Copyright Pran's Features 2009.