From Earth's End Spotlight: Barry Linton's comics report of ICONZ '94

Auckland cartoonist Barry Linton produced this illustrated report of New Zealand's first comic convention - ICONZ, published in the NZ Listener, 7th of October 1994. The convention took place at the Avondale Racecourse in Auckland, August 1994. Organised by promoter Dwayne Lucas, the event was a success and spawned three more events in successive years before giving way to a rival event Armageddon Expo - initiated by William ‘Bill’ Geradts, which continues to this day.

You can check out more of Linton's work on this Tumblr HERE.

And as a bonus: here's a rare TV report on ICONZ 2, from July 1995. Featuring brief interviews with Cornelius Stone (Knuckles the Malevolent Nun) and Craig Petersen (Southern Tribe).

-AK!

Road To Armageddon 2011 Part 2: New Zealand Comic Creators

Above: The NZ Comics booth from Armageddon 2010.

It's been a landmark year for New Zealand Comics in 2011, with three original graphic novels seeing print: Shaolin Burning by Ant Sang, Nice Day For a War by Chris Slane, and Kimble Bent: Malcontent by Chris Grosz. This weekend all three authors, along with NZ Comics mainstay Dylan Horrocks, will be attending the Armageddon Expo, appearing exclusively at the New Zealand Comics booth #90.

Ant Sang has long been a pillar of the Auckland comics community, producing one the best selling NZ comics series of all time, The Dharma Punks, which was published between 2001-03. It was this series that brought him to the attention of the producers of the animated TV series Bro'Town, who hired Ant as art director and production designer for the show, winning him several awards. Earlier this year saw the release of his first original graphic novel Shaolin Burning from HarperCollins, a kung-fu infused meditation on revenge and destiny in ancient China. It was an instant hit upon release, making the top ten NZ Bestsellers fiction list four weeks running and the #1 book for it's publisher that month.

Chris Slane is an award-winning cartoonist whose work has appeared in countless magazines and newspapers including: The Listener, The New Zealand Herald, Metro and many more. His editorial cartoons have won him the prestigious Qantas Cartoonist Of The Year award three times and the Qantas Editorial Graphics Artist Award twice. This year saw the release of his second graphic novel Nice Day For a War: Adventures of a Soldier in World War 1, co-authored with Matt Elliott from HarperCollins.

Chris Grosz has worked in a variety of creative mediums over the years, as an illustrator, political cartoonist, art director, teacher and animator in Australia, New Zealand and Hong Kong. A collection of his political cartoons with writer Shane Maloney called Australian Encounters, for Australian magazine The Monthly, was published in December 2010. His first graphic novel, Kimble Bent: Malcontent was released this year from Random House.

Dylan Horrocks is the author of the seminal graphic novel Hicksville. Universally praised by the international comics community upon it's release in 1998, it has only recently been published locally for the first time last year by Victoria University Press. He also spent several years of the last decade writing for DC Comics, putting the speech bubbles in the mouths of such well recognised characters as Batman, Batgirl, Supergirl, John Constantine, Tim Hunter and more. After his corporate comics experience he was happy to return to creating his own comics, which he currently publishes weekly through his website hicksvillecomics.com. These include the two serials Sam Zabel and the Magic Pen and The American Dream.

All four authors will be signing and selling their graphic novels and comics Saturday and Sunday at the New Zealand Comics booth #90, so make sure you stop by for the best of homegrown comics! There will also be a special panel on New Zealand Graphic Novels, held Sunday October 31st at noon on Stage Two. This panel will give you an exclusive look inside the creative process of creating a graphic novel, from concept to script and finished artwork. If you're an aspiring cartoonist or have an interest in finding out more about New Zealand Comics in general, you won't want to miss this! It was one of the most popular panels at this year's Writers & Readers Festival and is available this weekend at Armageddon FREE of charge! So make sure you get in early for a good seat.

Above: The Inhabitants comic series by the Sheehan Bros. Copyright Sheehan Bros 2011.

The NZ Comics booth will also be showcasing a wide variety of NZ Comics from across the country, from DIY zines through to indie favourites, like The Inhabitants comic series by the Sheehan Bros.

Above: The cover of The Official Authorised Blastosaurus Super Happy Awesome Time Rainy Day Activity and Indoor Excitement Booklet ((whew!)). Copyright Richard Fairgray 2011.

Blastosaurus creator Richard Fairgray will once again be attending with a wide range of new titles, including: The Blastosaurus Hallowe'en Special,  The Official Authorised Blastosaurus Super Happy Awesome...etc (see above!), the Blastosaurus: A Wee Bit Special: A collected edition of the first four convention specials from 2009-2011, I Fight Crime Volumes 12-14, and finally, Richard and Terry's Animation Compilation: Special Burglary Edition DVD (!).

Yes, you read that right. Here's Richard to explain: 'Recently the Blastosaurus offices were robbed. The thieves took all our computers and all our back up drives and now the insurance company won't cover all the replacement costs. The only files we were left with (on a thumb drive in Richard's pocket) were our animations (though some had to be downloaded from Youtube to complete the set). As a fundraiser we are selling a DVD that contains all 62 episodes of Chewing Zombies, Stavros The Contractor and Jake's Never The One To Go Crazy for $10. Also on the set are a bunch of special features such as Audio Commentaries from Terry and I on all the shows, a second rap by Rapscallion, a Behind The Scenes look at Chewing Zombies, an animated Documentary about Richard and Terry, the trailer for Blastosaurus and a hidden Easter Egg.'

Blastosaurus is booth #38, so stop by and show your support by buying some comics and DVDs (I'm sure the DVD is worth it for the Rapscallion rap alone: you've been warned! And who knows what's on the hidden Easter Egg...).

Richard Fairgray will also be appearing next door at the Beyond Reality Media booth #39 to promote his webcomic The Inspiration Duncans with co-creator and BRM/Armageddon head-honcho William Geradts. The BRM booth will showcase their current range of webcomics on viewing tablets. Their current titles include: The Inspiration Duncans, Attica, Warden, The Red Star and Robert Rankin's Empires. You can read these titles for free right now over at the BRM website HERE. And as a bonus, here's a look at their first motion-comic for Warden:

As you can see, there's a ton of great locally produced comics available at the Expo this Friday to Monday, so make sure you come down and check it out! Armageddon Expo: October 28th-31st at the ASB Showgrounds. Friday Preview only $10 a ticket, Saturday to Monday- Adults $20, Student $17 (with ID), Child (5-12) $10 or FREE with full paying adult. For more details visit the Armageddon Expo website HERE.

-AK!

Beyond Reality Media: The House That Bill Built

For the last 15 years, William Geradts (or 'Bill' as he's more commonly known) has been the mastermind behind New Zealand's biggest popular culture convention, the Armageddon Expo.

From a humble beginning as a comics swap meet in a suburban meeting hall, the Armageddon Expo has grown to accommodate a wide variety of popular culture interests over the years, from comics and manga, gaming and sci-fi film and television guests. As it's grown in popularity, it's also increased in size to match; from a floor of Auckland's Aotea Centre to the entire building, it's now so large the ASB Showgrounds is the only venue in Auckland with enough room to contain it. The Expo now hosts up to six events a year, held across New Zealand and Australia in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Dunedin, Hamilton, Melbourne and Adelaide.

Above: William 'Bill' Geradts.

You would think organising this rotating line-up of events would be enough to keep Geradts busy, but over the last year or so he's being dropping curious hints on his Twitter account about plans to broaden his media empire in a more creative direction...and he's now ready to share the results.

From this Friday he'll be making the move from promoter to publisher, with his new online comics company, Beyond Reality Media. Launching with four new comics (and one reprinted), they will be available to read online for FREE with daily updates of two new pages from each title every week. To produce these titles, Geradts has recruited local and international talent to bring these concepts to life.

He's a breakdown of the titles on offer:

Attica: Launching July 1st

Written by William Geradts & Christian Gossett

Art by Darick Robertson & Richard Clark

Synopsis: What if the ancient world’s bloodiest conqueror walked the modern world as its greatest prophet?

Warden: Launching July 4th

Written by William Geradts & Christian Gossett

Art by Alan Robinson, colours by Cristian Gonzalez

Synopsis: What if the world’s greatest superhero is actually something else entirely?

The Inspiration Duncans: Launching July 5th

Written by William Geradts & Richard Fairgray

Art by Michel Mulipola & Gonzalo Mertinez

Synopsis: Patrick discovered the missing link…then killed it. He’s REALLY sorry.

The Red Star: Launching July 6th (previously published by Image Comics)

Created, written & drawn by Christian Gossett, produced with Team Red Star

Synopsis: One of the most celebrated graphic novel series of the decade is an epic mythology inspired by the art and history of the Soviet Union.

Robert Rankin's Empires: Launching July 7th

Written & drawn by Robert Rankin

Colours by Coleen Littleford-Allen

Synopsis: A girl adventurer, a monkey butler, alien invaders and the darkest magic on Earth. The year is 1895 and the world is coming to an end.

It's certainly an interesting and varied line-up of titles, and he's what we know about the creators:

Christian Gossett (co-writer of Attica & Warden, creator of The Red Star): This artist & writer came up through the film industry as a concept artist for Lucas Film, his main claim to fame was his design for Darth Maul's double-sided lightsabre. His comic series The Red Star was originally published through Image Comics in 2001. After several appearances at Armageddon Expo in the early 2000s, I believe he caught the eye of Weta Workshop's Richard Taylor, and was soon providing concept art for King Kong and other film projects for the effects company. The most recent project he contributed to was Alice In Wonderland for Disney.

Robert Rankin (creator of Empires): Is a cult British fantasy/humour author of 33 novels, including Necrophenia (2008) and Retromancer (2009). He originally trained as an illustrator before becoming a full-time writer, so this will be the first project he's fully illustrated himself in over thirty years. The results should prove interesting...

Richard Fairgray (co-writer of The Inspiration Duncans): Richard is best know as the local creator of Blastosaurus, which was published monthly in New Zealand before catching the attention of film producer Jeff Katz, who enlisted Richard and his comic for his American Original publishing company. While Katz has proved to be 'all talk, no walk', Richard has continued to produce his own comics and animation projects, including this new collaboration.

Michel Mulipola (artist of The Inspiration Duncans): Joining Richard on The Inspiration Duncans is Michel Mulipola, a local up and coming Samoan comic book artist. By day he is a comic store clerk at Gotham Comics in Onehunga, and by night he is living the dream as a wrestler AND comic artist (a deadly combination of creativity!).

Alan Robinson (artist of Warden): Alan Robinson is a Chilean artist, responsible for the Weekly World News comic series for IDW. His work can also be found on the Terminator: Salvation Prequel, some Star Wars books, and as co-creator of Lost Squad.

Darick Robertson (artist of Attica issue 1): An A-List talent, Darick is best known for his artwork on such best-selling comics titles as The Boys, Transmetropolitan and Punisher. Taking time out from his busy schedule to provide the artwork for issue one of Attica is a real win for Bill and his team, a move that's guaranteed to turn industry heads.

Richard Clark (artist of Attica issue 3 onwards): Richard Clark has worked for a wide variety of entertainment clients, including: HBO, Playboy, The Wall Street Journal and Marvel & DC Comics. He recently providing finishes over Darick Robertson's breakdowns for The Guild:Vork for Dark Horse.

I think Bill's making a very savvy, smart move here by providing the comics free online before collecting them together as print collections. I've talked about this before, but New Zealand has never had the population to support a print network for comic books they way the US has, despite some noble efforts in the past. As it stands today, it can barely support local magazines and newspapers as the real move towards digital media has truly begun in earnest.

I was curious to see if Bill would attempt a print run, as he does in fact have a very strong and potentially profitable network of distribution set-up through his convention circuit. It would have been an interesting experiment, but the smart money is really online, where his books will be able to reach a much larger audience than our limited print population. Plus his network will still be in place to distribute the online material in collected editions, with the first paperback of Attica due in time for the Auckland Armageddon Expo in October.

So for the first look at these books, visit the Beyond Reality Media website HERE on Friday for the launch of Attica, and witness one of the biggest moves in New Zealand comics for some time. It will be interesting to see how this develops, check back here for creator interviews in the coming months ahead.

-AK!

All images and logos in this story are copyright Beyond Reality Media 2011, except for The Red Star copyright Christian Gossett 2011.