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 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.

_{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.}

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.

_{(All text, photos and artwork-©2024 Dr. Michael Hill a.k.a. Doctor Comics).}