Doctor Comics

POSTCARD-Third Series

Art, Comics September 21, 2016

This post continues the profile of my production of hand-made art postcards in limited editions, featuring more examples from the Abstract series. As previously stated each card is an original, a monotype, similar in design but not an exact duplicate of any other card.

Cards in an edition are all original prints, similar in design but with no exact duplicates as can be seen in the following four examples from the Abstract No-14 series. These cards were all made in the same batch during the same printmaking session, however, variations in colour, texture and positioning of compositional elements can be detected.

Posts of my graphic based material include: THE GRAFIK GUITAR BOOKBINDING THE GRAFIK GUITAR CARTOON MORE CARTOONS RESEARCH CARTOONS UNIVERSITY CARTOONS POSTCARD POSTCARD-Second Series POSTCARD-Third Series POSTCARD-Fourth Series POSTCARD-Fifth Series PRINT Fish Tai PRINT Fish Two SCRAPBOOK SCRAPBOOK-More Pages SCRAPBOOK-A Few Pages More and the posts on production of my artist book/comic BLOTTING PAPER: Issue #1: No.1 No.2 No.3 No.4 No.5 No.6 No.7 No.8 No.9 No.10 No.11 No.12 No.13 Issue #2: No.14 No.15 No.16 No.17 No.18 No.19 No.20 No.21 No.22 No.23 No.24 No.25 No.26 No.27 No.28 No.29 Issue #3: No.30 No.31 No.32 No.33 No.34 No.35 No.36 Issue #4: No.37 No.38 No.39 No.40 No.41 No.42 No.43 No.44 Issue #5: No.45 No.46 No.47 No.48

SCRAPBOOK: A Few Pages More

Art, Comics, Film, Japanning August 22, 2016

In this post I’m adding even more sample pages from my scrapbook, the previous postings of which can be found here and there. There is only one copy of the scrapbook so I like to think of it as another constructed artist book of mine. It contains images of other people’s work that I admire along with some assorted memorabilia of my own. These are images that I have collected and arranged, and in some cases, altered.

Japanese anime magazine with emphasis on profiling new work.

A Japanese anime magazine with an emphasis on the profiling of new work. One of the first Japanese words I learned from hearing it so often on TV was atarashi, meaning new.

Lex Luthor discovers his artistic side and has fun with paint.

Mixed Bag, from Nara and Mizuki to Van Gogh. I like the idea of using notebooks as well as some of the forgotten images you can find in them.

Baseball cover for Peanuts collection with Schulz’s wonderful criss-cross ink-line representation of grass.

Sports page-Formula One and Football.

Some Kamishibai cards.

San Francisco, sand and sea-the postcard is Californian but the beach is Australian.

Manga Bat Wing and monster on painted sea page. The comics panel is from a Japanese version of Batman.

Eisenstein with cats and dog and mouse-Krazy, Mickey and Norakuro.

Closure.

Posts of my graphic based material include: THE GRAFIK GUITAR BOOKBINDING THE GRAFIK GUITAR CARTOON MORE CARTOONS RESEARCH CARTOONS UNIVERSITY CARTOONS POSTCARD POSTCARD-Second Series POSTCARD-Third Series POSTCARD-Fourth Series PRINT Fish Tai PRINT Fish Two SCRAPBOOK SCRAPBOOK-More Pages SCRAPBOOK-A Few Pages More and the posts on production of my artist book/comic BLOTTING PAPER: Issue #1: No.1 No.2 No.3 No.4 No.5 No.6 No.7 No.8 No.9 No.10 No.11 No.12 No.13 Issue #2: No.14 No.15 No.16 No.17 No.18 No.19 No.20 No.21 No.22 No.23 No.24 No.25 No.26 No.27 No.28 No.29 Issue #3: No.30 No.31 No.32 No.33 No.34 No.35 No.36 Issue #4: No.37 No.38 No.39 No.40 No.41 No.42 No.43 No.44 Issue #5: No.45 No.46 No.47 No.48

PRINT Fish Tai

Art, Film, Japanning July 23, 2016

This series of posts will profile a collection of prints I have made over the years, beginning with some of my early efforts, a series of fish. Using the woodblock printmaking method with variations in inking to make monoprints, the prints made could be used in animation. Seven species of fish were featured, the first of which, featured here, was the Japanese Tai or sea bream. I was very attracted to the idea of working in either animation or printmaking at the time but found it difficult to choose between the two. I found the answer in combining both mediums. Animation’s enormous greed for artwork could be more speedily satiated by using the print medium. I was doubly happy but have since settled on making comics which falls in the space somewhere in-between the other two.

Shooting the 1990 animation Toxic Fish on the Oxberry animation rostrum camera with artwork produced from woodblock printmaking.

Posts of my graphic based material include: THE GRAFIK GUITAR BOOKBINDING THE GRAFIK GUITAR CARTOON MORE CARTOONS RESEARCH CARTOONS UNIVERSITY CARTOONS POSTCARD POSTCARD-Second Series POSTCARD-Fourth Series PRINT Fish Tai PRINT Fish Two PRINT Fish Three SCRAPBOOK SCRAPBOOK-More Pages SCRAPBOOK-A Few Pages More and the posts on my artist book/comic BLOTTING PAPER: Issue #1: No.1 No.2 No.3 No.4 No.5 No.6 No.7 No.8 No.9 No.10 No.11 No.12 No.13 Issue #2: No.14 No.15 No.16 No.17 No.18 No.19 No.20 No.21 No.22 No.23 No.24 No.25 No.26 No.27 No.28 No.29 Issue #3: No.30 No.31 No.32 No.33 No.34 No.35 No.36 Issue #4: No.37 No.38 No.39 No.40 No.41 No.42 No.43 No.44 Issue #5: No.45 No.46 No.47 No.48

CATS IN COMICS: Cohl

Art, Cats in Comics, Comics June 24, 2016

It’s been a long time between bowls of milk and plates of fish in this series of mini-profiles of cat characters I have created or enjoyed in comics! And as a departure in this post I focus on a feline character of my own creation, Cohl, from the comic Blotting Paper: The Recollected Graphical Impressions Of Doctor Comics. Cohl is a cat of French origin who loves to read comics and to draw, especially with pen and ink on quality art paper. Although he favours bande dessinée, the Euro-Comics, and more Marcinelle than Bruxelle School, he has been prepared to read some manga and is beginning to find it quite appealing. Mon Dieu!

Read all the CATS IN COMICS posts: Busch Cohl Doraemon Krazy Kat The Rabbi’s Cat plus Cohl’s adventures in the Blotting Paper Production Reports: Issue #1: No.1 No.2 No.3 No.4 No.5 No.6 No.7 No.8 No.9 No.10 No.11 No.12 No.13 Issue #2: No.14 No.15 No.16 No.17 No.18 No.19 No.20 No.21 No.22 No.23 No.24 No.25 No.26 No.27 No.28 No.29 Issue #3: No.30 No.31 No.32 No.33 No.34 No.35 No.36 Issue #4: No.37 No.38 No.39 No.40 No.41 No.42 No.43 No.44 Issue #5: No.45 No.46 No.47 No.48

MORE CARTOONS

Art, Comics May 25, 2016

This post features the second instalment of cartoons I created during my academic tenure at the University of Technology, Sydney. These examples focus on the University’s Tower Building on Broadway near Railway Square. Labelled an example of “brutal modernism” despite its designer’s denial of it being that style, it is a monolithic stack of 27 storeys in concrete and glass now somewhat softened by the arrival of the newly constructed vertical garden clad Central Park building opposite. It was fun playing around with it as a satirical subject in these cartoons that were published in the University’s magazine U:.

This fake story was reported as fact by one Sydney news agency!

A good example of rocket science-launching the Tower Building into orbit over Ultimo!

It proved a bit of a problem getting it down though.

Fictitious merchandise in a non-existent shop in the foyer yet the Information Desk reported some enquiries as to the shop’s location after publication of this cartoon.

Originally I proposed using Nokia and Nokia University of Technology naming rights but the sign on the tower would read NUTS! So, no go, but Virgin was O.K.

I did an alternate version of the building relaxing on a banana lounge on Bondi Beach reading a novel but the Vice Chancellor preferred this one.

Posts of my graphic based material include: THE GRAFIK GUITAR BOOKBINDING THE GRAFIK GUITAR CARTOON MORE CARTOONS RESEARCH CARTOONS UNIVERSITY CARTOONS POSTCARD POSTCARD-Second Series POSTCARD-Third Series POSTCARD-Fourth Series PRINT Fish Tai PRINT Fish Two SCRAPBOOK SCRAPBOOK-More Pages SCRAPBOOK-A Few Pages More and the posts on my artist book/comic BLOTTING PAPER: Issue #1: No.1 No.2 No.3 No.4 No.5 No.6 No.7 No.8 No.9 No.10 No.11 No.12 No.13 Issue #2: No.14 No.15 No.16 No.17 No.18 No.19 No.20 No.21 No.22 No.23 No.24 No.25 No.26 No.27 No.28 No.29 Issue #3: No.30 No.31 No.32 No.33 No.34 No.35 No.36 Issue #4: No.37 No.38 No.39 No.40 No.41 No.42 No.43 No.44 Issue #5: No.45 No.46 No.47 No.48

POSTCARD-Second Series

Art April 26, 2016

This post continues the profile of my artistic activity of producing handmade art postcards. As previously stated, these works were created from a combination of drawing and printmaking in small editions of 10 to 50. Each of the cards is an original print, or monoprint, similar in design but with no exact duplicate, for example the three prints from the Landscape No. 2 edition, below, whilst carrying the same title, number and technique, all bear minor visual differences. Whereas my first postcard post was from the Abstract series in this post the postcards are from the subsequent Landscape series, some of which may abstract elements. With few exceptions these cards fall within the postcard size dimensions of 10cm x 15cm.

In both the above set and the postcard that follows I used a restricted palette in comparison to the Landscape No.3 and No.4 cards that follow in this post. There is a combination of textures present from watery and weedy to grassy and sandy surfaces.

UPDATE 6 MAR 2017: Here are a couple of photos of my assorted art postcards bundled up in a box for carting and then spread out on a table in an art gallery for sale.

Art postcards sorted and stacked for cartage to gallery.

Those cards spread across a table in the gallery for sale.

THE GRAFIK GUITAR

Art, Japanning March 27, 2016

My artist book The Grafik Guitar consists of 38 monoprints on the theme of the deconstruction of elements of the acoustic guitar, namely the machine head, tuning pegs, fretboard, strings and sound hole. The separate elements were carved in lino or wood then overlaid in various combinations and intensities to form composite monoprints. The Japanese creative print method (sosaku hanga) was adopted as part of the approach to this project using Japanese knives and chisels. The blocks were printed on Chinese paper with water colour ink, sumi and additional hand colouring.

A design application of the work was made in the form of a poster, program cover and published conference proceedings cover for an international popular music studies conference in Sydney, IASPM 1999.

For further development of this work see: BOOKBINDING THE GRAFIK GUITAR

Other posts of my graphic based material include: CARTOON MORE CARTOONS RESEARCH CARTOONS UNIVERSITY CARTOONS POSTCARD POSTCARD-Second Series POSTCARD-Third Series POSTCARD-Fourth Series PRINT Fish Tai PRINT Fish Two SCRAPBOOK SCRAPBOOK-More Pages SCRAPBOOK-A Few Pages More and the posts on production of my artist book/comic BLOTTING PAPER: Issue #1: No.1 No.2 No.3 No.4 No.5 No.6 No.7 No.8 No.9 No.10 No.11 No.12 No.13 Issue #2: No.14 No.15 No.16 No.17 No.18 No.19 No.20 No.21 No.22 No.23 No.24 No.25 No.26 No.27 No.28 No.29 Issue #3: No.30 No.31 No.32 No.33 No.34 No.35 No.36 Issue #4: No.37 No.38 No.39 No.40 No.41 No.42 No.43 No.44 Issue #5: No.45 No.46 No.47 No.48

BLOTTING PAPER The Comic: Production Report No.48

Art, Blotting Paper, Cats in Comics, Comics, Germania, Japanning February 28, 2016

I am happy to announce completion of production and commencement of publishing stage of the fifth and final issue of my artist book/comic Blotting Paper: The Recollected Graphical Impressions Of Doctor Comics. The pages are being printed, collated, trimmed, bound and covered and copies will soon be mailed to my personal readers. Each copy will have an original postcard size print on the cover.

Original print on cover of new issue-© 2013 Michael Hill

Four years since the appearance of the first issue that I launched at Hondarake-Full of Books in Sydney in February 2012 a total of five issues have been produced and published in serial form and I am now considering collecting these in graphic novel form. This will provide me with the opportunity to make some revisions to the story and artwork. The five issues have generated 200 pages of material and I imagine there would be an additional 20 to 30 new pages to develop aspects of the existing material. And then again, there remains the possibility of yet a further new chapter. We’ll see.

Woodblock ink print and painting-© 2014 Michael Hill

Location photograph, Germany-© 2014 Michael Hill

Rough scan of artwork, Germany-© 2016 Michael Hill

Rough scan of artwork, woodblock prints, handwriting, cartooning Tokyo-© 2016 Michael Hill

Rough scan of artwork, illustration, sketching, cartooning, Tokyo-© 2016 Michael Hill

Rough scan of artwork, Photography, character design, Tokyo-© 2016 Michael Hill

Rough scan of artwork of a cat scanning artwork, Germany-© 2015 Michael Hill

For details of the production of all five issues of this artist book/comic and a continuing visual history record and time-line overview of the project read all of the BLOTTING PAPER production reports on the following posts: Issue #1: No.1 No.2 No.3 No.4 No.5 No.6 No.7 No.8 No.9 No.10 No.11 No.12 No.13 Issue #2: No.14 No.15 No.16 No.17 No.18 No.19 No.20 No.21 No.22 No.23 No.24 No.25 No.26 No.27 No.28 No.29 Issue #3: No.30 No.31 No.32 No.33 No.34 No.35 No.36 Issue #4: No.37 No.38 No.39 No.40 No.41 No.42 No.43 No.44 Issue #5: No.45 No.46 No.47 No.48

SCRAPBOOK: More Pages

Art, Comics, Film, Japanning January 11, 2016

In this post I am adding more sample pages from my scrapbook, the initial posting of which can be found here. There is only one copy and it contains collages of images of other people’s work that I admire along with assorted memorabilia of my own.

Scrapbook page 1

Above-collage of scenes from Walt Disney studio production, clockwise from top left: me visiting their studio in Burbank where I was able to study studied storyboards from their morgue; mixing colour; making synchronised soundtracks; character paint set merchandise.

Scrapbook page 2

Above-Osamu Tezuka at work at Mushi Productions making anime; early Mazzucchelli superhero drawing; spool of recording tape; Tetsujin 28-go manga cover; Klaus Voormann cover design for The Beatles album Revolver.

Scrapbook page 3

Above-mixed bag of Tatsunoko Production studio interior; Dave Brubeck Quartet’s Time Out cover designed by Sadamitsu Fujita; Shigeru Mizuki manga; Gene Vincent and his Blue Caps without their blue caps plus one of my signature stamps.

Scrapbook page 4

Above-Kamishibai frame and carry case; plus Yoshihiro Tatsumi gekiga manga panel from GARO magazine.

Scrapbook page 6

Above-Kyoto street and shop scenes; cartoon characterised Kansai airport tax card in Osaka; Mamoru Oshii; Fujii TV outside broadcast van; Tokyo record store receipt; assorted cartoon stickers and stamps including Doraemon and What’s Michael?

Scrapbook page 9

Above- postage stamps; B & W photo of Yayoi Kusama; illustration by Aya Takano; and centrepiece photo of my postcard printmaking production set-up (the black shape on the corner of the table is our studio cat, Tabi, quality controller of production).

Scrapbook page 5

Above- me sketching in the Botanical Garden at U.C.L.A.; and studying the Aztec Sun Stone in Forest Lawn Memorial Park cemetery in Hollywood Hills; bookshop postcard, Tokyo.

This book is still under construction but more pages may be posted in the future. Posts of my graphic based material include: THE GRAFIK GUITAR BOOKBINDING THE GRAFIK GUITAR CARTOON MORE CARTOONS RESEARCH CARTOONS UNIVERSITY CARTOONS POSTCARD POSTCARD-Second Series POSTCARD-Third Series POSTCARD-Fourth Series PRINT Fish Tai PRINT Fish Two SCRAPBOOK SCRAPBOOK-More Pages SCRAPBOOK-A Few Pages More and the posts on production of my artist book/comic BLOTTING PAPER: Issue #1: No.1 No.2 No.3 No.4 No.5 No.6 No.7 No.8 No.9 No.10 No.11 No.12 No.13 Issue #2: No.14 No.15 No.16 No.17 No.18 No.19 No.20 No.21 No.22 No.23 No.24 No.25 No.26 No.27 No.28 No.29 Issue #3: No.30 No.31 No.32 No.33 No.34 No.35 No.36 Issue #4: No.37 No.38 No.39 No.40 No.41 No.42 No.43 No.44 Issue #5: No.45 No.46 No.47 No.48

CARTOON

Art, Comics December 1, 2015

This post will feature a collection of my published cartoons of which there are around 30. Beginning with one of those I contributed to U: magazine whilst working at the University of Technology, Sydney. Subsequent cartoon posts will help me to grow online gallery of my single panel satirical work.

Satirical illustration to accompany article on changes in Sedition Law.

Satirical illustration to accompany article on changes to Sedition Law.

The cartoon on the article page.

Cover illustration for Form/Work journal-© 2003 Michael Hill.

This one was put together hurriedly in an afternoon whilst an academic journal on design theory (a special issue on architectural design) was being held up at the printers awaiting a cover illustration. I just grabbed some images from old comics I had in my office, invented some names for theories and collaged the various elements together.

How the cartoon looked on the cover of the journal.

The next one was based on what I saw at an end-of-semester design exhibition student party held on the roof of the Design Faculty building which housed a semi-abstract modernist sculpture that resembled a large scale bottle opener. I watched as this girl wandered up to it with a bottle of beer and proceeded, after a struggle of sorts, to open it, as if it was a functional bottle opener. It worked as she found a chink on the side that fitted her bottle. Then I heard this comment from one of the two onlooking students. No, really!

Form follows function at Design Opening afterparty-© 2003 Michael Hill.

How the cartoon was presented in the magazine.

Posts of my graphic based material include: THE GRAFIK GUITAR BOOKBINDING THE GRAFIK GUITAR CARTOON MORE CARTOONS RESEARCH CARTOONS UNIVERSITY CARTOONS POSTCARD POSTCARD-Second Series POSTCARD-Third Series POSTCARD-Fourth Series PRINT Fish Tai PRINT Fish Two SCRAPBOOK SCRAPBOOK-More Pages SCRAPBOOK-A Few Pages More and the posts on production of my artist book/comic BLOTTING PAPER: Issue #1: No.1 No.2 No.3 No.4 No.5 No.6 No.7 No.8 No.9 No.10 No.11 No.12 No.13 Issue #2: No.14 No.15 No.16 No.17 No.18 No.19 No.20 No.21 No.22 No.23 No.24 No.25 No.26 No.27 No.28 No.29 Issue #3: No.30 No.31 No.32 No.33 No.34 No.35 No.36 Issue #4: No.37 No.38 No.39 No.40 No.41 No.42 No.43 No.44 Issue #5: No.45 No.46 No.47 No.48