This post profiles recent experiments in my creation and design of art postcards whilst working in my studio and employing drawing, painting and printmaking techniques with uncertain outcomes. I love working in the studio and particularly in the post card production process, especially as it involves printmaking. I do small runs of prints, usually less than 50, although each card may go through the run multiple times depending on the number of layers, as indicated in the photos below.
A rough sketch idea for the design of a postcard. This one remains at that stage.Type overlay for postcard that has already received base layer(s). This one will be the top layer.Two different designs with the one on the left having received its base layer whilst the one on the right has had two printed layers: base plus overcoat.Sumi ink dish being used as a paint pot with Hake brush.The black postcards have had two print layers whilst the three cards above them have had three and the stack of post cards at the top left, having dried, have had four.The pumpkin was visiting the studio around Halloween time.A selection of different postcards most of which have had two runs through the print ing process. Note also the addition of my artist stamp, at top left or bottom right, on some of the cards.
As I have stated, making art postcards is one of my favourite artistic activities and I have been doing it for more than a decade. I plan to do more posts on this topic.
(Further additions and editing to this post anticipated).
Above: cover shot of an impressive new volume COMICS 1964-2024…on comics art and comics history…cover illustration Starwatcher, 1986, by Moebius(1938-2012)…book published by Centre Pompidou and Thames & Hudson…Edited by Thierry Groensteen, Lucas Hureau, Anne Lemonnier and Emmanuele Payen…the volume is based on the exhibition held in Paris: Bande designee, 1964-2024 at the Centre Pompidou in 2024.
The recent comics art exhibition at the Centre Pompidou in Paris…BANDE DESIGNEE1964-2024…included works from comics magazines Arcade, BigAss Comics, Bijou Funnies, Garo,Motor City Comics, Yellow Dog, Zap Comix…and from creators including Shinichi Abe, Neal Adams, Fujio Akatsuka, David B., Edmond Baudoin, Alison Bechdel, Enki Bilal, Blutch, Alberto Breccia, Claire Bretecher, Charles Burns, John Buscema,…Daniel Clowes, Gene Colan, Guido Crepax, Robert Crumb, Julie Doucet,…Will Eisner, Emil Ferris, Andre Franquin, Fred, Herge, Hideshi Hino, Gil Kane, Killoffer, Jack Kirby, Aline Kominsky-Crumb, Harvey Kurtzman,…Ulli Lust, Jay Lynch, Lorenzo Mattotti, Frank Miller, Shigeru Mizuki, Moebius,…Gary Panter, Hugo Pratt, Joe Sacco, Marjane Satrapi, Charles M. Schulz, Seth, Marie Severin, Gilbert Shelton, Posy Simmonds, Art Spiegelman,…Jiro Taniguchi, Jacques Tardi, Yoshihiro Tatsumi, Osamu Tezuka, Lewis Trondheim, Yoshiharu Tsuge, Albert Uderzo, Chris Ware, Bill Watterson and S. Clay Wilson…a most impressive lineup!
The book based on the exhibition, COMICS 1964-2024…(pictured at the top of this post),…was published by Centre Pompidou and Thames & Hudson. Edited by Thierry Groensteen, Lucas Hureau, Anne Lemonnier and Emmanuele Payen. Chapters include An Evolving Artform by Benoit Peeters…The Decade That Reinvented Comics; Counterculture; and Humour; all three by Thierry Groensteen…Fear; and Science Fiction; both by Lucas Hureau…Dreams: At The Edge Of Reality by Johanna Schipper…Colour And Black And White by Anne Lemonnier…History And Memory by Joe Sacco with Paul Gravett…Personal Stories: Autobiographical Comics, their forms and themes by Laurent Gerbier…Everyday Life; and Cities by Emmanuele Payen…Literature-Literature and comics: sister arts by Tristan Garcia…and Geometry: Bringing infinity within reach by Marguerite Demoete. It begins with the Foreword: A New “Golden Age” Realized by Paul Gravett.
Above, cover shot of an earlier book on comics art…CO-MIX: A Retrospective Of Comics, Graphics, And Scraps by Art Spiegelman, published by Drawn & Quarterly, 2013, New York…the cover image by Art Spiegelman is titled Comics as a Medium for Self-Expression…Spiegelman’s work is cited in COMICS 1964-2024.
In his Foreword Gravett refers to several key figures and developments that led to the acceptance of comics, its creators and their works as an art form. He notes that it was in 1964 that the term graphic novel was first used in English. Hokusai is cited as a developmental reference for his 19th Century pre-manga sketchbooks. Gravett acknowledges that France was…“the first and to date the only country in the world to decide that…comics, in the singular, is also an art.” The French film critic Claude Beylie followed this up with the suggestion that comics be named the “9th Art”. Other notable events Gravett cites include…the Museum of Modern Art’s exhibition of Art Spiegelman’s artwork for his graphic novel Maus…staged in New York in 1990-91, titled High and Low. Prior to this he lists what he terms a “landmark” exhibition…titled Bande dessinee et figuration narrative at the Museum of Decorative Arts in Paris…which opened on 7th April 1967…and to quote Gravett “…marked the first time any major art museum had presented comics.”
The graphically lively Japanese manga magazine GARO…with cover art by Terry Johnson, described on the cover as “Gorgeous Art”.
The BANDE DESIGNEE,1964-2024 comics art exhibition in Paris included a Japanese manga element…so I wanted to include some related content in this post. The Japanese magazine GARO (see cover image above), a manga collection, can be described in graphic terms as highly creative! Basically a bi-monthly magazine about manga…that is affectionately, if cheekily, labelled “King Of Comics!”…it features, to quote the magazine, “gorgeous art by Terry Johnson for Flamingo Studio Inc.” plus “popular design by Mr. Stereo and Mr. Monoral for the Stereo Studio Inc.” There is also a French element in this exhibition a.k.a. BANDE DESIGNEE,1964-2024 apart from the hosting and staging of the event. In fact, it appears to be promoted as a combined, three-way nation effort…involving France, Japan and the USA. To that effect in this post, following the cover image of the Japanese magazine GARO (above)…I have one of the French comics journal lapin produced by L-Association (below)…followed by two books of comics with covers by the American cartoonist Robert Crumb (below). There are comics and creators from other countries also involved but those three nations would appear to be dominant.
Cover of an edition of the French comics journal lapin: bandes dessinees pour la jeunesse…produced by La Association.The journal has been opened and pressed, open side down, flat on the desktop, for the photograph…due to the difficulty I had getting it to lay flat for the photo.
In the opening chapter of COMICS 1964-2024, titled An Evolving Artform…Benoit Peeters describes the trend in comics which occurred in the 1980s that led to the development of graphic novels…citing notable examples such as: MAUS by Art Spiegelman (see Spiegelman book CO-MIX above)…Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons…Akira by Katsuhiro Otomo…Blankets by Craig Thompson…Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi…and The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller. Reference is also made to established and ongoing series such as Asterix and Obelix, Tintin, and Lucky Luke. Also referred to in COMICS 1964-2024 is the Robert Crumb series: The Complete Crumb Comics (cover image below). I have also added a photo (below) of Mark James Estren’s A History of Underground Comics…that has Crumb’s art on the cover.
Above, cover shot of The Complete Crumb Comics Volume 5…Edited by Gary Groth with Robert Fiore and Robert Boyd…published by Fantagraphics Books, 1990, Seattle.
A useful tome from which to study the Underground comics movement…usually spelt ‘comix’…is this book by Mark James Estren, A History of Underground Comics, 1993(Third Edition)..(above, with Crumb cartoon on the cover), Ronin Publishing, Berkeley, California…(originally published in 1974).Crumb’s work is heavily featured in this book. Others mentioned include Mike Barrier, Joel Beck, Vaughn Bode, Paul Buhle,… Kim Deitch, Will Eisner, Clay Geerdes, Justin Green, Rick Griffin, Bill Griffith, George Herriman, Rand Holmes,…Jaxon, Jay Kinney, Denis Kitchen, Aline Kominsky, Harvey Kurtzman, Jay Lynch, Lee Marrs, Victor Moscoso,…Pete Poplaski, Gilbert Shelton, Art Spiegelman, Foolbert Sturgeon, John Thompson,…Trina Robbins, Spain Rodriguez, Larry Welz, Robert Williams, Skip Williamson, S. Clay Wilson, Basil Wolverton and Wally Wood.
Another artist referred to in COMICS 1964-2024 is David B…(cover shot, above, of his book)…the Armed Garden and other stories…published by Fantagraphics Books, 2011, Seattle. Pierre-François “David” Beauchard also known by the pen name David B., is a French comic book artist and writer, and one of the founders of L’Association. Another of his books…Epileptic…is referred to in COMICS 1964-2024 in the chapter DREAMS: At The Edge Of Reality by Johanna Schipper.
Above, cover shot of…KRAZY KAT: The Comic Art Of George Herriman, by Patrick McDonnell, Karen O”Connell and Georgia Riley de Havenon…published by Harry N. Abrams, New York.
George Herriman, creator of Krazy Kat (see image above)…is another legendary American comics creator referred to in this book…in the chapter Geometry: Bringing infinity within reach by Marguerite Demoete. My visual reference is to the front cover of the book The Comic Art Of George Herriman above…with Krazy strumming a banjo and getting a little help from Ignatz Mouse…whilst Officer Pup sits alongside them in a state of mesmerised attention. The expression in the eyes of all three characters is telling, I think.
In summary, COMICS 1964-2024 is an impressive book about various aspects of comics art. As a physical entity it comes in the large format…approximately 24 x 31 cm. in size and near 300 pages in length…it is both heavy to hold…and a little awkward to handle with its weight and soft cover…heavily illustrated in both colour and black and white with only 20% of the pages without illustrations…and priced accordingly. It contains 14 informative articles on comics art (see chapter titles and authors above). I regret having missed visiting the exhibition in Paris…but at least I have this book! If you have read it, and would like to comment, please consider adding your response here! M
(Original text-c.2025 Dr. Michael Hill a.k.a. Doctor Comics).
BACK STORY. After completing my Secondary Schooling I became involved in amateur theatre. I began at the Therry Dramatic Society…and then at the Sheridan Theatre in North Adelaide, in my home State of South Australia. Reviews of my production and writing skills, along with an interview, contributed to my selection to the Production Course at NIDA…National Institute of Dramatic Art, located in Sydney. This led to jobs at the Music Hall Theatre, the Australian Theatre for Young People, the Old Tote Theatre…and finally the Nimrod Theatre which specialised in the production of new Australian plays. I stage managed at most of these theatres. Then I left for London on a working holiday for two and a half years. I was unable to get a job in English theatre. This was due to the high unemployment figure for production staff there. It was around 12,000! On returning to Sydney I got a job at a new art school, the Sydney College of the Arts(SCA)…having impressed the Design Director who happened to be English. One innovative development at the college was the introduction of the new video technology. I was sent to the Australian Film and Television School to learn this technology and introduce it at the Arts school. Over the next few years I studied and graduated with a Graduate Diploma in Media at AFTRS…followed by a Master of Arts. I was subsequently promoted from my technical position to an academic role at SCA…this led to the beginnings of my research and PhD.
First page of my Filofax…a postcard of Donald Duck reading his own comic…a self-reflective reminder of my love of comics, comics art research, and my visit to the Disney Studios in California.
A marked moment in my research studies into comics art, being awarded my doctorate.
A year after completing my Ph.D. I was being interviewed on a late night talk-back radio show about my research into comics. One listener who rang the station said “I want to talk to that Doctor Comics guy.” The title came from the fact that I had been awarded my doctorate for comics research. I had been introduced on the program as a “Doctor of Philosophy in comics.” That first broadcast of the title was further refined to “Doctor of Comics” and finally to “Doctor Comics”. Hearing that term from a caller seemed a little awkward and amusing…but it stuck! With my Ph.D. for research into comics…and the astute guidance of my manager, Andrew Hawkins…I became known and referred to as Doctor Comics. That was almost 20 years ago. On Instagram my account was opened and named doctorcomics and my website doctorcomics.com both thanks to the innovative, immediate and astute management and marketing skills of my brilliant agent Andrew Hawkins. Following my research into comics I decided to create my own comic. Having had some joyful creative experience of printmaking at the art school I decided to call my comic BLOTTING PAPER…a reference to the joyful experience of making images with inked blocks on paper.
My American colleague Gene Kannenberg, Jr. (on screen), launched my comic BLOTTING PAPER in Sydney via a video link from New York.
Issues of my comic BLOTTING PAPER on sale from the New York outlet PRINTED MATTER, Inc.(see street view below). This impressive store stocked issues of my comic BLOTTING PAPER: The Recollected Graphical Impressions of Doctor Comics for sale.
Street view of PRINTED MATTER store, New York.The legendary “BRICK”…International Journal Of Comic Art, created, grown into a healthy size and nurtured by Professor John A. Lent. Now numbering 50+ issues and entering its 26th year of publication.
Let me conclude with a tip of my hat to the good old BRICK! A metaphor for that journal, the INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF COMIC ART…or IJOCA as it is fondly referred to by its happy subscribers. I first found the journal, at an academic comics art conference in Maryland, in September 1999. It was the first conference on comics that I attended. I met several American academics involved in comics based research including the founding editor of the journal…namely Professor John A. Lent who subsequently put me on the journal’s editorial board representing Australia…still there today! Attending that conference, meeting those colleagues and obtaining the journal….a huge assistance to me, my studies and research over its 25 years of publication!…and it continues with it having just published Vol.26 No.1! The following year, 2000, I organised the first academic conference on comics studies in Australia. It was held in association with Comic-Con in Sydney.
LIST OF MY RESEARCH PAPERS PRESENTED AT CONFERENCES IN THE U.S.A.
“Overseas Influence/Local Colour: The Australian Small Press” professional presentation, ICAF (International Comic Art Festival) 99/ Festival International de la bande dessinée, Bethesda, Maryland, USA, September 1999
“Australian Gothic” conference paper, 8th Annual Comic Arts Conference, Comic Con, San Diego, USA, July 2000
“Down Under Ground: Emotional and Oppositional Outpourings from Sydney’s Subculture in the Comics of Glenn Smith” conference paper, Underground(s) Conference, University of Florida, Gainesville, USA, February 2003
Paper/profile presented at APE (Alternative Press Expo) San Francisco, USA, 2003 (NOTE: searching through back files for details to be added).
LIST OF MY PUBLISHED RESEARCH PAPERS ON AMERICAN COMICS AND CREATORS
“Overseas Influence/Local Colour”, journal article, International Journal of Comic Art, Vol.2 No.1 May 2000
Interview with Brad Bird for journal article in Digital Media World, December 2004
“A Home For Heroes: The Incredibles ‘ Domestic Design”, Proceedings of the Imaginary Worlds International Symposium, SupaNova Pop Culture Expo and UTS, Sydney (2005) ISBN: 0-646-45239-8
The Age Of Cartooning exhibition curated by Allison Holland, State Library of Victoria, Melbourne, July 2-September 19 2004, review for International Journal of Comic Art, Vol.7 No.1 Spring/Summer 2005
Jim Woodring Live at the Sydney Opera House, 25-26 May 2007, review for International Journal of Comic Art, Vol.9 No.2 Fall 2007
Superheroes & Schlemiels: Jews and Comic Art exhibition curated by Helene Hoog and Hetty Berg (Europe) with Helen Light and Jessica Rynderman (Australia), Jewish Museum of Australia, Melbourne, May 3-August 30 2009, review for International Journal of Comic Art, Vol.11 No.2 Fall 2009
Thor’s Comic Opera: Götterdämmerung Revisited, The Comics Grid Journal of Comics Scholarship, May 2011
Do or Die, Baby! The Neal Adams X-Men Run, The Comics Grid Journal of Comics Scholarship, March 2012
Comic Book Heroics: Mensan Leads Efforts To Preserve Aged Comics, The Mensa Bulletin, February 2016, No. 592.
As the topic of this post is lengthier than normal I shall be spreading the content over two posts. The second part is scheduled for November this year. The content refers to my research and conference attendance on comics art, cartoon and animation related trips to America. I first visited the Walt Disney Studio in Los Angeles when researching animation. Later I began my research and study of comics art. I had been an avid reader of comics from childhood. I also loved watching cartoons. I found a crossover current linking these two forms of comics and cartoons which deepened my interest. The Disney Studio straddled these fields producing both comics and animation. My fascination grew and led to my resolution to become involved professionally. That took some time but I eventually succeeded, first through my studies and later my research. I became an academic with practical and theoretical expertise in both media. I designed and developed new tertiary level subjects and courses in both fields. I began researching, presenting papers at conferences and publishing scholarly articles based on that research in scholarly journals.
Approaching the Disney Studio in Burbank, California. (Photo by Louise Graber).
When I visited the Disney Studio in Burbank on a study trip it was a joyful experience. I went to America as an academic at the new Sydney College of the Arts. I had applied to visit the Disney Studios for a research project examining historic storyboards for their Silly Symphonies cartoons. I also planned to visit the film and animation program at U.C.L.A. that was located nearby. I was researching animated music videos at the time. Those Disney cartoons offered an artistic base for animation set to musical soundtracks. Happily, I got to visit both places. The Disney staff were most welcoming and helpful. Just sitting in the commissary at lunch time with Disney animators, actors and directors was a joyful experience. I also spotted the odd actor at the studio to do voice-overs for cartoons. U.C.L.A. academics were excellent and used to original research. This study tour led to my development of new subjects back in Sydney.
The animated music video medium was breaking out at the time in the popular music industry. It was the age of MTV with many musicians in need of video promotion of their image and music. I wrote and designed a Music Video subject for the General Studies curriculum of the Design School. I was warned that it would not run unless it received a minimum of 20 enrolments. No worries! It had to be staged in the main lecture room as it attracted over 100 students! They came from right across the Faculty. In addition to enrolments from the Visual Communication course it attracted to students from across the Faculty. Students of Fashion, Interior Design, Industrial Design, even the Art School enrolled. It was the age of music videos. Some of these students eventually became professional music video directors for class-mates who were musicians in local bands. And the noise! Complaints from teaching staff affected by the loud music led to my subject being rescheduled to the evening timetable. That turned out to be better. We could run longer than the required 90 minutes and pump up the volume. What was that Alice Cooper song?..No More Mr Nice Guy…that was the feeling I had at the time and I tried to play it every week. Despite the huge amount of assessment due to the high enrollment numbers it remains for me a joyous educational memory.
First issue of the International Journal Of Comic Art, 1999.
On a subsequent U.S.A. trip, I excitedly entered the elevator on the ground floor to attend my first conference on comics. Located in Bethesda, Maryland it was ICAF 99 (Fifth Annual International Comic Arts Festival: “Culture, Industry, Discourse”). It was nearly filled with businessmen coming up from the basement car park. I was surprised when we all started to alight on the same floor…the one where the comics conference was being held! Was there another conference on? No, just the one venue…? The penny soon dropped! These guys were not business men. These were American academics. They followed a more formal dress code! Suit, shirt, tie and brief case compared to what I was used to back home. These academics seemed serious about their research into comics. Their conference attendance, dress code and presentation of their scholarly papers reflected this. By comparison I felt a little casual in a T-shirt and jeans. I had come up from the “…Land Down Under” with a shoulder bag containing a note book, sketch pad and pencils. I presented my research paper titled “Overseas Influence/Local Colour: The Australian Small Press”. And I met my first American academics researching comics art! They included Gene Kannenberg, Jr., Charles Hatfield, Jeff Miller, Ana Merino, Mark Nevins, Michael Rhode, Marc Singer, Guy Spielmann, Jeff Williams, and Joseph “Rusty” Witek, plus Pascal Lefevre from Belgium. These became my new comics art colleagues at that research gathering in Maryland. Meeting other comics academics was both wonderful and reassuring. Then Professor John A. Lent arrived with copies of his brand new 1999 publication, the International Journal of Comic Art. This was an academic journal about research of comics art. “Fan-bloody-tastic!” This was getting both serious and satisfying. It was also a reassuring kick-start of my resolve to research comics art formally as an academic.
The publication of the International Journal Of Comic Art provided the perfect platform to record and promote comics art research. Above is a photo of the first issue of the journal from 1999. It has since reached the milestone of 50 published issues, chalking up 25 years of continuous publication. I purchased the first issue of IJOCA, (pictured above) at that conference and took out a subscription. And along the way I became the Australian representative of the journal’s International Editorial Board. Later, Professor John A. Lent was one of the examiners of my PhD thesis on Australian alternative small-press comics. The journal seemed to progressively grow in size into a solid block of pages that I affectionately nick-named the “BRICK”. I even created a couple of cartoons about its postal delivery problems due to its bulky size. It had started out as a rather slim volume before blossoming into its bulging “brick” shape and weight. A thousand cheers to you, John!
Original cartoons by Jis and Trino, in my copy of their comic book.
At that comics art conference I also met Mexican cartoonists Yis and Trino who were guest artists. We had an hilarious and somewhat chaotic conversation. In the end I bought a copy of their comic and asked them to sign it…not expecting their amusing graphic response. They drew a cartoon of me with them playfully trying to embarrass me…but now I have their original sketches which I treasure. What a hoot!
FIREBALL minicomic, Issue Seven, 1999 by Brain Ralph. I purchased it from the creator at the SMALL PRESS EXPO that followed the comics conference in Maryland, WASHINGTON DC.
Next morning Neil Gaiman entered the elevator, and commenced chatting to a contact in his dulcet English tones! He was making a presentation at the conference…which turned out to be most impressive. When the conference concluded we all went down to the ground floor to THE EXPO(Small Press Expo). It followed on from the conference and ran over the weekend. It was Small Press heaven!…stalls manned by comics creators selling their comics. This conference and expo set the bar high for me on my return to Sydney. It had given me more confidence about researching comics. To have participated in such events that brought me new academic and artistic colleagues with whom to communicate, was joyous! Now I was determined. I would do my PhD research in the field of comics! Five years later, in 2004, I completed my doctoral thesis and was awarded my PhD.
A year later I went to the “big one!” I was a professional attendee at the San Diego Comic Con. That’s the Gahan Wilson designed pass(above). The convention was H-U-G-E!!! …in both size and events and number of attendees. Even just to walk around all the aisles with its exhausting range of comics art exhibits was an awesome experience. It also incorporated an academic comic arts themed conference at which I presented a paper on Australian comics…“Australian Gothic” conference paper, 8th Annual Comic Arts Conference, Comic Con, San Diego, USA, July 2000
Getting up close to photograph and chat to Gahan Wilson and MAD magazine’s Sergio Aragones (on the left).(Photo by Dr. Michael Hill a.k.a. Doctor Comics).Meeting James Kochalka there and buying his comic.James Kochalka did this drawing of one of his characters for me in my copy of the catalogue.I also met Will Eisner there and had a brief chat with him. I got him to sign my copy of his book GRAPHIC STORYTELLING. It is about making comics which he did with a flourish! See above. What an honour it was to meet this comics art legend and to shake his hand! I used his textbooks in my visual communication design subjects at the art school and university.
Part 2 of this post on my comics related travels will follow in approximately three months time.
This previously published post has been re-edited and transferred to this newly added RESEARCHING COMICS ART series. It documents articles and items from my comics art library research collection. This particular post focuses on Hergéand his creation Tintin. I have collected and read a complete edition of the albums, including the unfinished final one. I also have a copy of the Tintin magazine Le Journal Des Jeunes De 7 A 77 Ans. I have viewed the complete Adventures of TINTIN DVD set. My bande dessinée franco-belgeexhibition review has been included in this post (see below). I have also acquired a few items of clothing related to the character. In my experience as a researcher, it is always useful to approach one’s subject with an open, playful attitude.
The Adventures of Tintin albums…24 in all including the unfinished final one, were executed in the ligne clair (clear line) drawing style. This was developed by Hergé and his colleague and collaborator Edgar Pierre Jacobs. I missed the opportunity to read these as a child. Two kind aunties occasionaly bought me American comics by Carl Barks and Hank Ketcham and “boys papers” from England. These included The Eagle with a Dan Dare feature story on the cover that inspired my interest in Space travel…plus a The Adventures Of Tintin episode in the centre-spread. Another weekly they bought me, TIGER and Hurricane, with a Roy of the Rovers episode, started my love of football. My father read the occasional war and western comics and the comics lift-out section of the Sunday Mail newspaper. That was when my interest in comics really began to develop. I found it a fascinating form of storytelling, combining writing and drawing.
My English lessons at Primary School and later in Secondary college prioritised words in reading rather than accompanying illustrations…although maps always seemed to be given at least a cursory glance. Consequently, when I started reading comics I automatically read and prioritised the captions and word balloons…before proceeding to look at the drawings. Sometimes I even skipped from panel to panel following the text and only cursorily scanning the images. It took me a years to unlearn this ‘upside down’ approach…and alter the balance of attention between words and images! Ultimately I learned to look at a comics page and individual panels holistically…one that included both image and text, sometimes even obtaining a degree of simultaneity. As a result my English language skills dropped a little, however, my art skills blossomed. Neither the Dominican nuns nor the Christian Brothers who taught me offered Art as a subject in their curriculums…so I was largely left to learn it by myself.
I had an uncle who read Western comics. He could also draw horses, hats and guns…and he taught me basic sketching, done quickly with a pencil. Once I started I practiced a lot. I made nuns cry in Primary School with my art…a sketch of Saint Therese rising up to Heaven as “the little flower.” It was for an essay and not expected to have any accompanying illustrations. My submission was 95% art with an accompanying paragraph. This response gave me some odd feeling of encouragement about my art…to think that I could make nuns cry! It also occurred to me that art was valued as the nuns took my drawing and never returned it! Somewhat surprisingly, I was awarded the Religious Studies prize that year…much to the dismay of the dux of the class who topped every other subject!
I didn’t actually discover Tintin until adolescence. That was when the English translations had been published. I also began to find the odd volume in libraries. They were actually the first comics that I found in libraries. That sounds surprising but in the 1960s librarians seemed reluctant to have comics in library collections…although they seemed to made an exception in the case of Tintin. They didn’t admit that they were actually comics. Instead these were referred to as European narrative, pictorial albums. They were foreign and published in hardcover editions rather than the soft, pamphlet form of North American comics…so they seemed more like books than comics…and so were suitable for library collections.
And they were really popular! Students read and borrowed them to the extent that it was often difficult to find them on the library shelves. Following tertiary study and research and I collected and read all of the Tintin comics…admiring their beautifully printed colour drawings…their adventures in unfamiliar geography…the amusing babble from Captain Haddock…and the entertainment provided by the surprising amount of slapstick. These elements combined to further my appreciation of bande dessinée and the Ninth Art. That was consolidated and extended in subsequent years as I admired Hergé’s comics art skill…and finally found myself looking at the illustrations before reading the word balloons. The adoption of my Doctor Comics persona followed. It was later that I became aware of unresolved, racist allegations against Hergé that possibly impacted on his creative work. Some of my Tintin related acquisitions are displayed in this post…along with a copy of the published review that I wrote of a Tintin themed art exhibition in Sydney.
Doctor Comics finds cartoon character friends in the Paris Metro. (Photo by Louise Graber).
EXHIBITION REVIEW: Comic Strip, Passion’s Trip, Sydney, Alliance Francais de Sydney, November 18-December 20, 2002, review by Dr. Michael Hill (a.k.a. Doctor Comics), first published in International Journal of Comic Art, Vol.5 No.1 Spring/Summer 2003
The “Tintin” Qantas Flight 714 finally touched down in Sydney in November 2002. Originally carrying Tintin and associates to a scientific symposium in in 1968 his party left the plane in Jakarta. They then went off on a private jet and another adventure. Now, 34 years later, the Tintin entourage has arrived in Sydney in the shape of a cargo of beer, chocolates and comics, three of Belgium’s significant export commodities, accompanied by members of the Royal family and an exhibition of French language Belgian comics titled Comic Strip, Passion’s Trip,
Belgium exports considerable quantities of comics (approximately 65% of publication exports). It refers to comics as the Ninth Art. It also has a museum devoted to them. So it was no surprise that the exhibition was opened by members of the Belgian monarchy. Prince Philippe and Princess Mathilde attended, giving the exercise the Royal seal of approval. (see invitations to both the exhibition opening and the following Royal reception event, below). The exhibition formed part of an economic mission organised by the Wallonia-Brussels Sydney Trade Office. 300 different comics titles in French plus a further 70 in English were shipped to Sydney. These were put on sale in Dymocks, one of Sydney’s larger bookstores. This created a mini-venue for Euro comics in the local retail market…and competition for Japanese manga and Hong Kong comics.
A page from my graphic novel BLOTTING PAPER: The Recollected Graphical Impressions of Doctor Comics. It shows the invitations to the events referred to in the above text.
The exhibition was staged at Alliance Francais de Sydney, a combination gallery, café and French language teaching centre. It was a noisy location next to a city bus stop. Passengers could admire the window display of old comics whilst waiting for the bus. There were also staged acrobatics of a large model by the Belgian cartoonist André Franquin of his character Marsupilami. The exhibition had undergone a serious design process by the curator Jean-Marie Derscheid. It had a multi-strand focus that included comic books, comics art and rough process comics art. There was a display revealing the workings of the comics artist’s studio. There was a child’s bedroom decorated with comics art merchandise. There were also videos, and an oversized mock-up comics album, 82cm(heigth) x 56 cm(width). These were beautifully bound and designed. They contextualised Belgium comics and featured brief biographies and examples of the work of 20 significant artists. These included Didier Comes, André Franquin, Greg, Hergé, Hermann Huppen,…Edgar Pierre Jacobs, Jijie, Lambil, Raymond Macherot, Morris,…Peyo, Francois Schuiten, Jean-Claude Servais, Tibet, Maurice Tillieux, Tome and Janry, Will, and Yslaire. References were made to Spirou magazine and to two emergent schools of comics: the Brussels School and the Marcinelle School.
The bed in the child’s room had a printed Tintin doona cover and bed sheets. There was also a Gaston Lagaffe reading lamp by the Belgian cartoonist André Franquin and a Marsupilami alarm clock. Various posters and a cupboard containing Lucky Luke figurines were present. Interestingly there was not a Smurf in sight! The room also had a small television and video player with a collection of Belgian animated cartoon series. Amusingly, by the end of the opening night, the child’s room was littered with empty beer bottles. These had been deposited by the noisy and appreciative guests viewing the exhibition. This gave the installation a bizarre visual association between beer and comics in the nursery. If only I had taken a photograph of that! In any case, my character Doctor Comics would have approved of the pairing of beer and comics. He may even have shouted his occasional cry of “beer, chocolate and comics!” He holds this to be an excellent combination in which to indulge…the reading of comics whilst eating chocolate and drinking beer.
Another section of the exhibition consisted of individual displays of the work of particular artists.These included Hermann, Geerts, Midam, Yslaire, Morris, Jacobs,…Herge, Francois and Luc Schuiten, Francqu and Van Hamme, Dufaux and Marini,…Lambil, Marc Bnoyninx, Tome and Janry, Constant and Vandamme. There were even examples of original artwork and a copies of comics albums that were accessible for visitors to read. Some of thee appeared quite soiled near the end of the exhibition, let alone the opening night.
Upstairs in a small seminar room there was a mock-up setting called ‘the artist’s studio.’ Large blow-up photographs on the walls showed the interiors of various comic book creators’ work spaces. A working drawing table had been set up with pencils and other equipment. There was a video corner screening a documentary on one of the featured artists, Frank. It showed him at work on illustrations for his comic book The Source about Australia. This had been specially commissioned for the exhibition and scheduled for release with it. His watercolour sketches of Australian animals were impressive. Despite never having been to Australia prior to the exhibition…Frank did come to Sydney for the opening…his story showed the desert. Although his use of colour was accurate some of his conceptual content was neither sensitive nor politically correct. What he refers to as Ayers Rock, a giant natural rock formation, is now known as Uluru. having had its ownership and management reverted to the control of the indigenous owners. Consequently it is regarded as a sacred place. In his comic Frank freely plays with Aboriginal art and icons. This practice is respected by local artists as the cultural domain and ownership of the indigenous people. Conscious of the lack of local knowledge and in tongue-in-cheek fashion, perhaps?…the exhibition points to “our delightfully cliched images of Australia: kangaroos, boomerangs, mythical Aborigines and smouldering red deserts.” This exhibition was about culture in any case…the culture of a country whose comics have been elevated to the level of art…and treasured and collected by libraries and museums. I praise the high profiling of comics art in Belgium!
The Sydney exhibition brochure with an illustration by Frank showing part of Sydney Harbour juxtaposed with outback terrain.
Welcome to another visit to my modest library collection of comics art…with selected books, journals and associated paraphernalia related to my research, study and enjoyment of the comics art medium. This previously published post…from my now deleted ON THE COFFEE TABLE series…has been re-edited and transferred to the new FROM MY LIBRARY series as the Sixth Reading. It documents items from my comics art library and research collection that pertain to manga and mangaka.
It was looking likely that I would have a yōkai themed Xmas…with master mangaka Shigeru Mizuki (1922-2015) material on my reading list. Due to a backlog, these manga readings did not get underway until after the New Year period. It proved well worth the wait as it was a wonderful read! This industrious creator of both autobiographical and fantasy manga…with his gekiga approach to graphic storytelling…placing cartoon style characters over realistically drawn backgrounds…has reached legendary status in Japan but needs to be better known in the rest of the comics world. Here’s my modest contribution.
Mizuki’s cover illustration for GARO magazine of his character Kitaro carrying a basket crammed full of yokai characters.
After serving in New Guinea for the Japanese army in World War II Mizuki got his start in graphic storytelling…first as an apprentice artist in kamishibai, or paper theatre. Here successively shown painted cards…accompanied with vocal and musical narration by a street performer…told a story to audiences gathered on street corners in Japan. Mizuki moved on to the print media making manga for the rental market…and participating in the emerging gekiga form of alternative comics developed by Yoshihiro Tatsumi. From his interest in the ghosts and spirits of Japanese folk tales…he developed his Kitaro character in a series of stories…based on a popular kamishibai play by Masami Ito called Hakaba Kitaro from 1930s…inventing the yōkai genre in the process.
Early shape and form of Mizuki ‘s character Kitaro with his father Medama Oyaji, the small figure with eyeball head.
Mizuki found an outlet for his stories in GARO magazine, an eye-catchingly creative, comics art anthology publication of alternative manga. There he gained an assistant, Yoshiharu Tsuge, the developer of nejishiki, or Screw Style manga. In these stories Kitaro’s deceased father, Medama Oyaji, reanimates himself as an eyeball…and, with the eyeball as a head, grows a new body…hangs out in Kitaro’s hair and his hollow eye socket(Kitaro had lost one eye)…and tries to help his son with his adventures.
Kitaro with father, Medama Oyaji (eyeball shaped head on small body figure) and Nezumi Otoko.
One of Shigeru Mizuki ‘s manga featuring his popular one-eyed character, Kitaro…with with his father Medama Oyaji, the small figure with eyeball head, on his head.
An increasing number of Mizuki’s works have been translated into English and published by Drawn & Quarterly. This publisher publishes comics, graphic novels and textual studies of the comics art medium.
This is the Mizuki manga about the old woman who taught him all about yokai.
Autobiographically based war manga on Mizuki’s time served in the Japanese army in the Pacific in World War II.
In Onwards Towards Our Noble Deaths (originally published as Soin gyokusai seyo! in 1973) based on his own experiences in the Japanese army in New Guinea during World War II,…Mizuki portrays the sadistic officers who, driven by their ideological beliefs, were cruel to their own troops. This English translation from Drawn & Quarterly has an introduction by manga analyst and critic Frederik L. Schodt.
Japanese history gets the Mizuki treatment in SHOWA1926-1989…a four volume history of Mizuki and his family…presented in his juxtapositional mix of cartoons and photographic realism in manga form. It’s an impressive work.
Title page of Chapter 5 of my graphic novel BLOTTING PAPER showing manga influenced illustration.
Inspired by Mizuki and other mangakas is the title page, above, of a chapter of my graphic novel. It points to my visits to Japan…and the particular resonance that country has had on my comics art research and creation.This manga influence and my appreciation of it led me to reference it in my graphic novel…here attempted in the graphic style of the illustration for the chapter’s title page.
Welcome to another visit to my little library collection of comics, books, journals and associated comics art paraphernalia. These are related to my research, study and enjoyment of comics art. In this series of posts I intend to focus on a particular creator, series, book, art or event.
A painting by Louise Graber of a page from her comic Black Light Angels…a comic by Jis & Trino…a Halloween pumpkin card by Yayoi Kusama…skeleton doll and sculpture The Cloud by Richard Black are grouped for Halloween and Day of the Dead!
This photo of an interpretation of Edvard Munch’s “Scream” painting…as a decorated, demolished cake in a shop window in Tokyo somehow comes to mind at this time. Perhaps it is picking up on the cheeky attitude apparent in the work of those two Mexican artists.
I reiterate the importance of my attendance at ICAF (Fifth Annual International Comic Arts Festival: “Culture, Industry, Discourse,”). It assisted the development of my research into comics art. I was fortunate in being introduced to, and seeing the presentations of, a group of international researchers into comics art. I also obtained the first ever issue of the International Journal Of Comic Art from 1999. I eventually became the Australian representative on the International Editorial Board of the journal. The journal enabled me to read a plethora of research articles on comics art by international scholars. I also had my own articles on research into Australian comics published. Along with my acquisition of it at the conference, it has proved an inspiring and motivating experience.
My LIBRARY posts form part of my graphic based material. This includes painting, printmaking and cartooning…including artwork for my comic and graphic novel BLOTTING PAPER: The Recollected Graphical Impressions of Doctor Comics.
Welcome to another visit to my modest library collection of comics and books about comics. These are related to my research, study and enjoyment of the comics medium. In this series I focus on a small selection of books from my shelves and take a closer look. This time I shall be pushing that total to ten as every book in the photo will get a mention! The books are not shelved following normal library rules i.e. detailed categorisation…they are stacked by size…what a surprise!…however, they all have something to do with the rubrics of comics…being comics, collections of comics or histories, studies and critiques of comics.
This is the final of six posts on the creation of experimental fish prints using woodblock printmaking techniques. These were exhibited as art prints. They were also used as animation frames in my experimental animated film Toxic Fish (see the photos below).The fish in this post is the kohada. It has a static shape on the woodblock and in the film frame. This contrasts with the surrounding coloured toxins from commercial pollution. These eventually poison the fish. Variations in the volume of ink applied to the block produced a range of similar but different outcomes. Once edited in sequence, these contributed to the creation of the illusion of movement. The associated movement of both fish and toxins frantically appear to twitch and jump all over the frame. The action looks frenetic. That effect is reinforced by the percussive soundtrack. The film was selected and screened at CINANIMA, the Animation Festival in Esphino, Portugal. It was also screened at the Art Gallery of NSW. Later it was shown at the Big Day Out rock festival in Sydney. There is a certificate and photo on a previous post: PRINTMAKING: Fish Four).
Sitting at the Oxberry animation film rostrum stand back in 1990. I was shooting my film, frame by frame, from the individual woodblock prints I had made. It took a really long time. I appear both happy and calm and pleased with the process despite the frantic impact that the film makes. I do listen to music while I work. I don’t recall what I was that day but it looks like I was enjoying it.
A later grouping of one species of the fish for art gallery exhibition. This composition had torn and collaged prints assembled in a school formation. It completed the process from design to printmaking to animation to film.
Continuing my POSTCARD ART blogs with another post profiling the design and production of my art postcards. I have been creating and printing these for more than a decade. This post looks back to cards I back when I started in 2006 and 2007. There are also cards from subsequent years. My art postcard project was inspired by a study trip to Japan. I looked at Modernist printmaking approaches that had taken place there. My cards were produced by hand in limited edition batches. Each card produced was unique…similar but not identical, part of a batch with an approximate match.
This is one of the earliest examples, from the series of Abstract Art Postcards made in 2007.
Doctor Comics 