Returning to the shorter interval between posts again but for a good reason on this occasion. My artist book/comic Blotting Paper: The Recollected Graphical Impressions Of Doctor Comics was launched …at Hondarake Full of Books in Sydney in February, 2012. It was accompanied by an exhibition of my handmade art postcards and the printmaking tools used in their production. Having gained a reputation for researching comics art there I was attempting to create it. I was proud of my comic, its launch and the attendance of my friends and supporters.
My anime fish prints hanging overhead. (Photo by Sal Jones)
Australian comics legends Glenn Smith and Gerard Ashworth. (Photo by Louise Graber)
JMC Director of Animation Sean Callinan and Peregrine Besset creator Lewis P. Morley. (Photo by Louise Graber)
It Lives! CEO’s Nick and Liz. (Photo by Louise Graber)
HONDARAKE Store’s fabulous owners Hisae and Tomoko. (Photo by Louise Graber)
Dr. Michael Hill (a.k.a. Doctor Comics) in foreground enjoying Dr. Gene Kannenberg, Jr. (onscreen) who launched my comic and entertained with his witty matching of comics and beverages…in a live cross from New York. (Photo by Andrew Hawkins)
The book was launched by my colleague Gene Kannenberg, Jr. via Skype from the U.S.A. Noted comics historian, Kannenberg is director of ComicsResearch.org. former Chair of the International Comic Arts Festival…and the Comic Art & Comics Area of the Popular Culture Association…and author of 500 Essential Graphic Novels. He made a humorous speech and participated in a game of pairing comics with beer. What a great game! His matching including the work of creators Will Eisner, Lynda Barry, Hergé, Jack Kirby and Joost Swarte. Gene got a big response when he suggested black coffee with Steve Ditko…and Duff beer with Matt Groening, and an even bigger response when he brought his cat, Mr. Pickles, onscreen. Thank you Gene for the live TV launch! Thanks to my agent Andrew Hawkins for organising the event and store owners Hisae and Tomoko for hosting! Were you there? Send me your feedback, either about being at the launch or from reading this blog post. I would love to hear.
The limited edition numbered and signed book comes with an original print on the front cover (see photo above)…a numbered bookmark and printed bag (see photo of package below).
Hairstyles, postcards and masks about with Richard Black and Louise Graber amused in the aisle. (Photo by Harrison Hill)
Both the art book/comic and the postcards involved printmaking as an image-making technique. I employed the Japanese technique of woodblock printmaking in my first animation film around 20 years ago. I have continued to use Japanese influenced printmaking techniques ever since. I have been involved in the scholarly and research aspects of visual communication, more so than in production. This artist’s book and the accompanying exhibition marks a more focused return to the ‘making’ of images and visual projects.
Thirteen years ago the 14th International Exhibition of Drawings opened at the Museum of Modern Art in Rijeka, Croatia. It ran from 17th December 1998-20th March 1999. It was devoted to comics. I had been invited to contribute to the curation of the show…based on the research into comics art that I was undertaking at the time… following a referral from Professor Joan Kerr of Australian National University…I selected and sent 13 works by 14 creators…I also wrote an essay The Australian Underground. It was published in the exhibition catalogue in both Croatian and English…here is a short extract:..”In its own small way the underground comics community not only contributes to the visual cultural life of Australia but also to an understanding of it. It adds to the ongoing critique of Australian culture and provides a healthy and relatively unregulated creative outlet. From its position on the margins its critical viewpoint is expressed with great humour. ‘Taking the piss out of things’ would seem an appropriate and very Australian way of describing it.” (extract) Dr. Michael Hill
Cover of the exhibition catalogue. Design by Mirko Ilić, drawing by Davor Vrankić
The Comic Messiah by Q-Ray (Clint Cure), 1998, ink on paper.
Black Light Angels by Louise Graber, 1998, ink on paper.
Blackie’s last day by Tony Single, 1994, pencil, felt pen, ink on paper.
Upward + Onward by Damien Woods, technical pen and felt pen on photocopy paper.
Lightning Strike by Mandy Ord, 1998, ink on paper.
Radiation Sickness by Ross Tesoriero, 1997, ink on paper.
Ah-choo by Neale Blanden, 1997, combined technique on paper.
Jean and Rolly by Timothy John Danko, 1995, collage on paper.
Kurt Hurt’s Reasons to Draw Comix by Stuart Stratu, 1997, ink and whiteout on paper.
Francis Bear by Gregory Mackay, 1998, ink on paper.
Stranger Danger by Ryan Vella, 1997, ink on paper.
The False Impressionists by Bernard Caleo and Tolley, 1997, combined techniques on paper.
The Killer Foetus by Ben Hutchings, 1997, combined technique on paper.
It was most significant for my research into Australian comics art to be included in this international exhibition of drawings. In the meantime, I’m endeavouring to establish a minimum three week gap between posts. Perhaps I was a little too enthusiastic in my first year of blogging but I am working on improved scheduling. As always, I would love to hear your response to my posts. This post is the fifth in the series Archives of Australian Comics History…that document moments in the recent history of Australian comics… particularly alternative comics and the Australian Small Press. I started researching this subject in the late 1990s and it eventually led to my PhD thesis: Ph.D. Macquarie University, Division of Society, Culture, Media and Philosophy… A Study Of Contemporary Australian Alternative Comics 1992-2000 With Particular Reference To The Work Of Naylor, Smith, Danko And Ord, 2003. On completion of the research I donated the research materials and comics I had collected to the National Library of Australia, titled the Michael Hill Collection of Australian Comics
In terms of the large comics conventions in Australia prior to the current events Supanova, Animania, SMASH!, Armageddon and the earlier Comic-Fest, there was OZCON. Before that there was one event called ComicCon back in 1979. OZCON was the big, annual comics convention at the time I began researching Australian alternative comics in the late 1990s. The promotion of the more mainstream imported comics seemed to be the raison d’être for the event…although there was some minor presence by independent creators and their publications despite the cost of their participation. Some comics discussion panels also took place. I recall one between Eddie Campbell and Dave Sim about the distribution of independent comics. That was both informative and entertaining. Campbell was most amusing. This event provided a sense of community for local creators to meet…discuss their self-published comics…and compare their work to the imported product.
Spidey seen swinging from the Sydney Harbour Bridge. (Poster design by Ant Larcombe)
The poster for OZCON in 1995. Australian comics creators and fans back then had the spectre of the US super-hero genre hanging over them. It was a wonderful poster! It was designed by local comics creator and former student of mine Ant Larcombe…a graduate of Sydney College of the Arts. I had worked there as an academic staff member of the Visual Communication Design Department. The cover had an inset of the super-hero dressed avatar and character Flash Domingo by another Australian creator, Gary Chaloner.
(above) Ticket to an earlier staging of the OZcon event.
San Diego Comic Con T-shirt design. (artist unknown)
Reflecting on OZCON made me think of an American comics convention that I attended. “BIG” is a key descriptor. Above is a scan of the T-shirt I bought at what is considered the largest comics convention in the USA…San Diego Comic Con. It was from an earlier staging of that event, had been discounted as a remainder but caught my eye. The in-your-face aggression, confidence, swagger and speech balloon seemed to say what that convention was all about. The blue paint stains are a subsequent addition from my having worn it whilst doing one of my printmaking sessions. There were fewer than 50,000 attendees at the San Diego Con back in 2000. Over the past decade, however, this convention has grown in size to around three times that number. It remains considerably less than the 500,000 that go to Comiket in Tokyo, twice a year!…which makes a million of them, anually! Anyway, I was very impressed by the U.S.A. event. On the research front, in addition to presenting a paper on “Australian Gothic comics” at the conference…(shout out to my U.S.colleagues Randy Duncan and Peter Coogan)…I got to meet and chat with comics art figures: Will Eisner…Scott McCloud…Gahan Wilson…James Kochalka…Roman Dirge…Jhonen Vasquez…Los Bros Hernandez…Rumiko Takahashi and Jim Woodring. Oh joy! That was a very special and memorable experience for me.
Have you ever been to comics conventions? Which one? If you would like to post a comment about your experience, I would be happy to respond, Michael.
My ComicCon pass designed by Gahan Wilson whom I got to meet at this event.
MIND ROT AND OTHER COMICS ART SEMINARS AND WORKSHOPS AT UTS.
Besides the big comics conventions in Australia and overseas there were smaller Sydney based seminars and workshops. I organised for students of the Visual Communication Design Program at the University of Technology, Sydney. These included MIND ROT, a seminar and accompanying workshop in 1998, poster design by Neil Heymann…plus BIO-HAZARD, and BASICK-INKSTINCT both held in 1996(see posters and post following below).
Whist researching my collection of comics art research materials for my PhD thesis I came across this poster (below). It was for an event that I had conceived and organised at the University of Technology, Sydney, back in 1998. As a lecturer in the Visual Communication Department I was endeavoring to incorporate comics based projects into the course curriculum. It seemed to be an ideal medium in which to apply techniques of visual communication design. I found that students undertaking Word & Image projects were generally enthusiastic about comics. They enjoyed the combination of writing and drawing. To increase the students’ understanding of the professional practice of making comics I decided to involve some practitioners. The event poster(below) was designed by one of my students, Neil Heymann. His modestly carved signature can be discerned on the neck of the shouting head in the poster (below).
The MIND ROT comics seminar and workshop, Sydney, 1998. Poster design by Neil Heymann.
With funding from the student group Stop Motion Sickness I enlisted a trio of professional Australian comics creators. These were Mandy Ord from Canberra, Dillon Naylor from Melbourne and Glenn Smith from Sydney. They visited and displayed their comics art work to my Visual Communication Design students. They also described how they went about researching and designing their comics. Mindful of possible regional differences I selected these creators from three different Australian cities. Each comics creator made a 45-60 minute presentation of their work…showing visual examples to the whole class of students. This was followed by a Q&A session. Naylor profiled his comic about Melbourne share-household shenanigans Pop Culture & 2 Minute Noodles. Ord spoke about her intensely inky, autobiographical tales of life in Canberra, Wilnot. Smith described making his painstakingly, linear drawn, slice-of-life The Sydney Morning Hell. Each guest also led a practical, comics art workshop with a small group of students. Experienced comics creator Gerard Ashworth, also from Sydney, attended the seminar and kindly assisted with the workshop proceedings. The event was a small but significant moment in terms of the formal study of the medium.
The seminar’s title? Attempted irony with little bit of cheek, perhaps? I think I was put in a defensive position by the dim view of the medium in the community. There were one or two doubts from some of my colleagues. This was in relation to the presumption that comics be considered a valid form of design. Most of the academic staff supported the study of comics, especially the staff of the Visual Communication Design Department. Back in those days, thirteen years ago, photography was the most popular subject. This was followed by graphic design and illustration. Comics, animation and video were perceived as lesser, although emerging, forms…especially video with the then growing interest in music video. I was taking the study of comics seriously by undertaking academic research into comics art for my PhD degree. I saw this event as a stepping stone to the staging of a conference on comics for researchers and students. The poster was designed by one of students, Neil Heymann, who is now a New York based advertising designer. The notion of comics being a suitable medium of scholarly study and research had already been accepted. The teaching of comics as professional practice, however, remained a hurdle.
An earlier event: the Bio-Hazard comics workshop, Sydney, 1996. Poster design by Xander Black
An even earlier event: the Basick Inkstinct comics workshop, also held at UTS in Sydney, 1996. Flyer design by Neil Heymann
These posts form part of the series of posts titled Archives of Australian Comics that document events in the recent history of Australian comics, particularly alternative comics and the Australian Small Press. I started researching this subject in the late 1990s and it eventually led to my PhD thesis: Ph.D. Macquarie University, Division of Society, Culture, Media and Philosophy, A Study Of Contemporary Australian Alternative Comics 1992-2000 With Particular Reference To The Work Of Naylor, Smith, Danko And Ord, 2003. On completion of the research I donated the materials and comics I had collected to the National Library of Australia: Michael Hill Collection of Australian Comics.
Saturday July 16, 2011 was a day of comics and anime amusement at SMASH!(Sydney Manga And Anime Show). Over the past few years the local interest in manga and anime has been increasing. Initially ignored by existing comics conventions the manga fans went out and created their own event. Some even began learning Japanese so that they could translate the manga that they loved! The new conventions provided opportunities for fans to meet and enjoy these two media. Some local female creators even began making their own versions of shōjo manga. Interest continued to grow, as did the events. Within Australia, Sydney had Animania, Melbourne had Manifest...then along came SMASH! also in Sydney.
The SMASH! 2011 program.
In 2011 it was located, for the first time in its short 5 year history, at the Sydney Convention Centre. It had outgrown its previous smaller venues at the Roundhouse, University of New South Wales and the Sydney Town Hall.
Welcome from Box Man. (Photo by Louise Graber)
A suitable event for Cosplay, there were some costumes featuring sewing, beading, feathering and functioning. These were paraded both inside and outside the venue and on the cosplay stage.
Other events included a Gundam workshop, Karaoke session, videogames and a screening of the anime Summer Wars. There were also sewing, pattern and armour making workshops…plus the huge trading floor full of vendors, artists and fan clubs. It all flourished in the presence of the patronage of the Japan Foundation. Japanese popular culture thrived at this event and made it a wonderful day!
FOOTNOTE: I SAW A BIG SAW AT BIG SIGHT! As an addendum to this convention report I wish to mention an event I attended in Tokyo last year. I travelled by monorail to Odaiba Island, an artificial island built in Tokyo Bay…to attend the Tokyo Anime Fair at a venue called Tokyo Big Sight (pronounced Biggu Saito in Japanese). Big Sight? I thought that must be a misspelling along Japlish lines for the name of a large exhibition space. There were definitely some big architectural sights to behold as it was a very large exhibition space. No sign of Godzilla though! I thought of Thor as the monorail travelled over the Rainbow Bridge…but instead saw the high tech buildings of Fuji TV headquarters.
On arrival at the Big Sight location things started to look a little unusual. There was an open space beneath a series of inverted pyramids sitting on glass covered, cantilevered legs(see photo below). This giant entrance had the effect of considerably reducing the scale of the people passing beneath it. Then I understood the ‘big’ aspect implied in the name of the site.
The walk from the monorail station to the Big Sight exhibition also had an epic feel to it. It looked a lot closer than the long walk it took to get there. It was during this walk that I experienced a visual surprise…the sight of a large object embedded in the grass on the level below. It was a sculpture, an art installation of a large saw…unmistakably something by the Swedish/American Pop artist Claes Oldenburg. It also was a “big sight” to see at this big site.
This is the third in my series of posts on the theme of comics art…that document moments in the recent history of Australian comics, particularly alternative comics and the Australian Small Press..and related overseas comics events that I attended as part of my research. I had started researching this subject in the late 1990s and it eventually led to my PhD thesis. Details: Ph.D. Macquarie University, Division of Society, Culture, Media and Philosophy…A Study Of Contemporary Australian Alternative Comics 1992-2000…With Particular Reference To The Work Of Naylor, Smith, Danko And Ord, 2003. On completion of this research I donated my large collection of comics to the National Library of Australia…for listing as the Michael Hill Collection of Australian Comics.
NOTE: I wish to acknowledge the shorter gap between my posts in this instance…this was influenced by the attendance and timing of the anime and manga event in Sydney. BTW please let me know what you think about the content and frequency of my blog posts. With this post there’s an opportunity to compare the two events…Sydney and Tokyo…comics and anime…small scale and grand. I welcome any comparative comments, Michael.
Wow!…that was quick! I’m already publishing the second post on my blog only ten days after the debut post…a bit soon, perhaps? As a new blogger I am wondering how often I should post? Suggestions welcome! Anyway, having just attended this event I wanted to go straight home and blog about it! And that’s what have done!
So there was this Zine Fair in Sydney in 2011…at the Museum of Contemporary Art at Circular Quay on Sydney Harbour, just across from the Sydney Opera House. Were comics and zines moving up in the art and culture world? I could hear the comics art bell ringing even if it was primarily a zine affair. Some of the comics crew that I knew were attending…some even trading amongst the 50 tables to a busy crowd of attendees on the gallery floor. An odd presence of craft makers selling jewellery and accessories seemed curious…after all it was a zine fair! This led to queries about the selection process…as some comics creators had apparently been unable to acquire a table due to the limited trading space available? Despite the presence of the jewellery artists there was hectic selling of comics and zines. It seemed to be a “happening” event that had a “certain buzz” about it! It also provided a networking opportunity for the creators.
Comics and zine creators at work on the trading floor. (Photo by Louise Graber)
L to R: Tim McEwen, Doctor Comics a.k.a. Dr. Michael Hill (wearing a Sick Puppy Comix T-shirt designed by Australian cartoonist and comics creator Neale Blanden) and Cefn Ridout. We were delighted to see comics displayed and sold in an art gallery! What a hoot! (Photo by Louise Graber)
Some very busy zines and comics trading took place in the Foundation Hall…along with the meeting and mingling and jewellery jingling. (Photo by Louise Graber)
Stuart Stratu, the creator of Sick Puppy Comix approved my wearing of a T-shirt featuring his comic. It had a Neale Blanden cartoon design(see photos above and below). Sick Puppy is a radical anthology of short pieces by Australian and overseas creators. Stratu has edited and self-published this comic having been motivated to commence small press publishing after visiting a comics convention. He said: “It was going to OZCON, one of the comics conventions…seeing the small press booth- that’s when I got the idea to make my own mini-comics. I had never done any comics or cartoons myself, just little drawings and things. So what I did was run an ad for contributors in the personals column of Drum Media. So all the people in the first issue…none of them had published their own comics at all. So that was basically how Sick Puppy No.1 came to be. That was April 96. Number two came out four months later. It was very primitive.” A total of 13 issues off his comic have now been published! It features a range of graphic styles from alternative comics contributors and the content is both provocative and entertaining!
A common feature of the alternative comics scene is the practice of creators contributing to each other’s publications. Sick Puppy Comix is a prime example of this providing that comic with a variety of graphic styles. By contrast there was some commonality of content. Much of the material dealt with aspects of sex and/or violence. Whilst emphasising humour, it adopted a somewhat avant-garde attitude… encouraging its contributors to test both their own and their readers’ personal boundaries of taste and creativity. The print and presentation quality of the publication improved with each issue. This seemed to inspire contributing creators to produce better quality work. Contributors included Gerard Ashworth…Neale Blanden…Tim Danko…Anton Emdin…Michael Fikaris…Louise Graber…Maccad…Kieran Mangan…Chris Mikul…Mandy Ord…Pox Girls(Susan Butcher and Carol Wood)…David Puckeridge…Q-Ray…SCAR(named from the initials of its collaborators Steve Carter and Antoinette Rydyr)…Glenn Smith…Ross Tesoriero and Ryan Vella as well as Stratu himself.
Stuart Stratu, creator of Sick Puppy Comix at the Zine Fair. (Photo by Louise Graber)
Dr. Michael Hill a.k.a Doctor Comics with comics creator Antoinette Rydyr at her table with a selection of alternative comics for sale. (Photo by Louise Graber)
This post is from my new, developing series Archive of Australian Alternative Comics. It was created as a result of my research into comics art conducted for my doctoral degree. Details: Macquarie University, Division of Society, Culture, Media and Philosophy, PhD awarded by virtue of the thesis…A Study Of Contemporary Australian Alternative Comics 1992-2000…With Particular Reference To The Work Of Naylor, Smith, Danko And Ord, 2003. On completion of my doctorate I donated most of my Australian small press comics collection(approximately 500 items)…that I had used in my comics art research…along with a copy of my thesis, to the National Library of Australia.
So there is the second post on my new blog. I think I’m beginning to get the hang of it…but that makes two posts in ten days! Should I have a longer gap between posts? Should I use fewer images and more text? I welcome any suggestions from readers on these matters, Michael.
Doctor Comics 