Tag: alternative comics

BLOTTING PAPER The Comic: Production Report No.21

Art, Blotting Paper, Cats in Comics, Comics, Germania December 2, 2014

This is the second in a series of regular reports documenting the production of the fourth issue and chapter of my artist book/comic Blotting Paper: The Recollected Graphical Impressions Of Doctor Comics. These reports are updated approximately on a monthly basis. The new chapter Beer, Chocolate and Comics deals with the cats recovering from the demise of their patron and their travels in Germany and the world of European comics.

Double page handprinted spread from Chapter 3–© 2014 Michael Hill.

Continuing the turnaround of events and forward momentum that the above image from Chapter 3 illustrates the cats begin to get on top of things, take control of their situation and consequently develop and express their characters on their travels abroad.

Beer label collage character from Blotting Paper comic-© 2014 Michael Hill

I have been playing around with a beer label collaging idea, mostly from Belgian and German bottles, and have come up with this character so far but I expect there will be others. With the European theme and setting I am also considering including some bilingual content, preferably English and German and possibly even doing a combined issue #4-5.

Fish woodcut from way back-© 2002 Michael Hill

Fish woodcut with pyschedelic sauce from way back-© 2003 Michael Hill

The subject of fish and the technique of woodblock printmaking also return. And there is cooking too, of both fish and comics!

The Busch approach to managing a comics collection-now available as a postcard-© 2014 Michael Hill

Linocut, type, roller and ink dish after a print session. (Photo-© 2014 Michael Hill).

In addition to collage there were ink and paint printed images of an abstract nature that serve as backgrounds, settings or sometimes even graphic expressions of the characters’ thoughts.

Abstract print image from Blotting Paper comic-© 2014 Michael Hill

The art work also features several words and images made with pen and ink including some quick-sketch location drawings from previous visits to Hamburg and Hanover and more recently to Berlin.

Dip pen with nibs by Gillot and Muller and ink from Lamy.

Ink and watercolour drawing of Hamburg-© 2007 Michael Hill

Quick Ink and watercolour drawing of Hannover-© 2007 Michael Hill

For location drawing I usually carry a small leather bag of art tools…

Packing my art bag for a location drawing session. (Photo-© 2014 Michael Hill).

More visual developments and an update on progress will be posted on this blog in the new year.

BLOTTING PAPER The Comic: Production Report No.17

Art, Blotting Paper, Comics March 29, 2014

This is the first in a series of regular reports documenting the production of the third issue of my artist book/comic Blotting Paper: The Recollected Graphical Impressions Of Doctor Comics. It continues on from my previous posts on the first chapter/issue The Ingurgitator and the second chapter/issue A Blot On His Escutcheon. The new chapter, The Chthonian Turn: The Cats’ Revenge, deals with the cats’ reaction to the demise of Doctor Comics and that gentleman’s adventures in another dimension to which he has travelled. I hope to self-publish it before the end of the year.

Title page for Chapter 3 The Chthonian Turn–© 2013 Michael Hill

As with the two previous issues printmaking is involved in the generation of images via woodblock, linocut, Japanese sosaku hanga technique, rubber stamps and wooden seals. In addition other visual communication techniques such as drawing, painting, collage, cartooning and photography with the intention of producing a limited edition artist’s book kind of comic.

One of the spirits in the underground sky–© 2013 Michael Hill

I also intend producing more colour pages in this issue following the use of sporadic spot colour in Issue #1 and the 8 full colour pages in Issue #2. The colour will assist in the graphic representation of both the real and imaginary worlds featured in the comic.

Another of the spirits in the underground sky–© 2013 Michael Hill

I am still sorting out the script, refining ideas, and developing others. There has been some unscripted image-making and printmaking activity with the intention of using this as a loose but parallel means of creating vaguely conceived and experimental visual content. Examples produced through this printmaking strategy are featured below.

In the present chapter the cat characters deliberate over what to do following the sudden departure of Doctor Comics. Meanwhile the latter character continues his travels in the chthonian world confronting various vaporous forms and ghostly figures including a trio of red shades that roam there (see the three red shade illustrations). The raw state of these printmaking made images will most likely be subject to further graphic manipulation.

After a couple of weeks I started to get a move on once the design and creation of the planned pages began to fall into place.

The intended dates for completion of the five 8-page signatures have been approximated and with a good run could be ready for binding as early as June.

Ink more so than paint appears to be the dominant graphic ingredient in the production with dip pens, drawing pens and brush calligraphy involved although some of the inking will be made onto previously painted paper.

There are some pencils in there too, as well as the pens, with drawing and handwriting components plus my regular use of printmaking as a means of image generation.

The messy ink tests and mark making has begun.

Having gotten deeper into production mode I am now approaching completion of the artwork having advanced from scripting to page layout, however, I am keeping things just a bit open in terms of the resolution of the story.

A spread of artwork on the studio floor.

I find the creation of the images, the entire image-making process, and the resultant generation of the artwork the most pleasurable part of the production process. Culling, selecting and editing the artwork is a tougher task.

A more detailed glimpse of the spread of artwork.

Printmaking has been employed to make more of the image-making this time around, more than photography but about the same proportion as drawing and, in terms of style, abstraction is making an impression.

Another more detailed glimpse of the spread of artwork.

Archive of Australian Alternative Comics: DOWN UNDER GROUND

Archive of Australian Alternative Comics, Art, Comics February 13, 2013

Underground comics are the subject of this post, Australian underground or alternative comics as they are better known: firstly, through an exhibition that Glenn Smith curated called The Ink Runs Deep Down, Down Underground at the Orange Regional Gallery in New South Wales, Australia in 2005, and then at a conference organised by Donald Ault called Underground(s) at the University of Florida in 2003. I was involved with both, writing an essay “Art From The Inkubator”, for the exhibition catalogue in Orange and opening that exhibition, and in the USA at the Florida conference, presenting a research paper titled “Down Under Ground: Emotional and Oppositional Outpourings from Sydney’s Subculture in the Comics of Glenn Smith”.

The Ink Runs Deep...exhibition catalogue. (Design by Glenn Smith)

The successive waves of Australian alternative comics produced since the 1980s feature a raw and spontaneous graphic style, an irreverent attitude and D.I.Y. Punk influenced approach to production, different from mainstream approaches to comics production in that they could be pluralistic, wide-ranging, antagonistic and mocking, containing taboo themes. The exhibition in Orange celebrated the creative expression behind these comics, that much maligned art form usually consigned to the pop culture trash bin, but there elevated up onto the gallery wall.

Back cover of the exhibition catalogue. (Design by Glenn Smith)

Creators featured in the exhibition are listed on the back cover of the exhibition catalogue, above. They exhibited applications of comic art in animation, painting, posters, book covers, and skate boards and a range of mediums from pen and ink to digital imaging.

Display of Anton Emdin comics in the exhibition.

Display of Cruel World minicomics by Anton Emdin.

Display of Black Light Angels minicomics by Louise Graber.

Commenting on the emergence of the underground comix in Australia in his book Panel By Panel, John Ryan pointed to the social context of the 1970’s as a period in which a sense of national pride developed and led to a consequent interest in locally made comics. That first wave of Australian alternative comics was seemingly motivated by the North American Underground Comix movement. Like the Abstract Expressionist art movement of the 1950s, which Australia seemed to have mysteriously imported, rather than organically grown, these comics initially appeared derivative but later developed an Australian style.

Louise Graber with a painting of a panel from her comic Black Light Angels in the exhibition.

These comics can be seen as an echo of the Underground comix of the late 1960s that began in San Francisco, different in style and content to the mainstream North American super-hero themed comics, they opened up the way for autobiographical and artform genres. At the Florida conference it was exciting to hear from some of the creative figures from the original Underground as well as to describe Glenno’s work, and argue that it had some resonance with what they had done.

Front cover of Underground(s) conference program. (Design by William S. Kartalopoulos)

Back cover of Underground(s) conference program. (Design by William S. Kartalopoulos)

Underground(s) poster (detail).

This is the twelth in a series of posts called 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 materials and comics I had collected to the National Library of Australia: Michael Hill Collection of Australian Comics.

Archive of Australian Alternative Comics: COMICS IN RECORD SHOPS

Archive of Australian Alternative Comics, Art, Comics August 8, 2012

In the 1990s it was not unusual to find alternative comics in record shops in Sydney such as Phantom Records, Red Eye Records and Waterfront Records. You could find an assortment of locally made comics in a corner on the floor or on a shelf or display rack (some of the odd sizes of the comics produced did not fit standard racks and perhaps that is why they found their way onto the floor), along with the standard stock of vinyl and cassettes, CDs, music books, VHS tapes and DVDs. A similar situation could be found in Brisbane at Rocking Horse Records, in Canberra at Impact Records and in Adelaide at Big Star Records and Dominator Records. It was in these record shops that I first found some of the Australian alternative comics that became the subject of my research into comics. There were also specialist bookshops that stocked these comics as well as fantasy and sci-fi and movie material. In Sydney such shops were Land Beyond Beyond, Comic Kingdom, Kings Comics and in my suburb of Glebe, Half A Cow, a really wonderful shop to browse in with its carefully selected subcultural stock. It also had that strange logo of a cow cut in half, across not along like the Damien Hirst version and in cartoon rather than realistic style. There were also mail order distros such as Chewing Gravel that sold Australian comics.

The shop in Glebe. (Photo by Louise Graber)

Half A Cow business card with it’s eye catching sliced cow illustration.

The reason why independent record shops were selling alternative comics was perhaps due to the perceived affinity of both medium’s independent approach to production and distribution. This positioning of the small press in the independent landscape created parallels with the independent music industry that had flowed on from the Punk Rock movement. The term ‘Xerox music’ referred to the independent production of Punk records where the distribution system also employed a D.I.Y. approach with product being delivered to interested shops by hand. Alternatively it could be distributed by mail order. There were similarities in the way alternative comics were produced and distributed. These comics of the 1980s and 1990s, because of their small print runs (usually less than 500), were commonly printed on photocopy machines by their creators rather than by the more costly offset process or digital printing used by professional print technicians for commercial clients. After printing their comics the creators, like their musical colleagues, would normally distribute their work themselves, to comics, books and record shops, doing the rounds on foot, bus, train or bicycle and carrying small amounts of stock in their bags, then returning a week or do later to check on sales. Eventually most of the more mainstream comics shops carried some alternative comics. There were even some musicians who also made comics. Ray Ahn, Ryan Vella and Glenn Smith are examples. Half A Cow’s affinities with independent music ended up changing them from a bookshop into an independent record label.

Louise Graber’s Black Light Angels comic-first sold at Half A Cow in Glebe.

This is the ninth in a series of posts called 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 materials and comics I had collected to the National Library of Australia: Michael Hill Collection of Australian Comics.

Archive of Australian Alternative Comics: MCA ZINE FAIR

Archive of Australian Alternative Comics, Art, Comics May 22, 2011

On Sunday 22nd May 2011, in the shadow of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and opposite the Sydney Opera House, the very hip Museum of Contemporary Art hosted a zine fair as part of the Sydney Writers’ Festival. Comics and zines, comic zines, zine comics, zinesy comics etc….50 tables traded to an admittedly small but really interested crowd. It was good to see zines and comics hosted in an art gallery. It was a fusion of the literary and the artistic with comics increasingly appearing in art galleries due to their recently increased cultural status, the growing popularity of graphic novels and the developing popular culture trend of adapting superhero comics into feature films.

Opposite the Sydney Opera House... (Photo by Michael Hill a.k.a Doctor Comics)

...at the MCA (Museum of Contemporary Art)... (Photo by Michael Hill a.k.a Doctor Comics)

The make-up of the stall-holders on the trading floor was a bit of a mystery with a notable presence of craft makers selling jewellery and accessories! This led to complaints by some comics creators who were unable to acquire a table to trade their comics, about the application and selection process not being all that consistent or transparent. Despite this crossover of artistic fields it was a busy site for trading activities in the Zine area which also provided the opportunity for creators to meet and mingle (see photos below).

...2011 Sydney Writers' Festival-MCA Zine Fair. (Photo by Louise Graber)

Comics creators at work on the trading floor. (Photo by Louise Graber)

L to R: Tim McEwen, Doctor Comics(wearing Sick Puppy Comix T-shirt), Cefn Ridout. (Photo by Louise Graber)

L to R: Tim McEwen, Dr. Michael Hill a.k.a. Doctor Comics, wearing a Sick Puppy Comix T-shirt designed by Neale Blanden, and Cefn Ridout…all three being very happy about attending a comics event! (Photo by Louise Graber)

Busy trading on the floor of Foundation Hall. (Photo by Louise Graber)

Some very busy zines and comics trading took place in the Foundation Hall along with much meeting and mingling. (Photo by Louise Graber)

I bumped into Stuart Stratu, the creator of Sick Puppy Comix, at the MCA Zine Fair. I happened to be wearing a T-shirt featuring his comic. It’s about fifteen years old and still wearable and I was impressed with Neale Blanden’s wonderful cartoon character design(see photo below) named after his anthology of short pieces by Australian and overseas creators that he edited and self-published. Stratu himself was motivated to commence small press publishing after visiting a comics convention. Stuart Stratu: “It was going to OZCON, one of the comics conventions and 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 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 have been published in a plurality of graphic styles from a range of alternative comics contributors whose content is often both provocative and oppositional.

Sick Puppy Comix T-shirt with graphic logo designed by Neale Blanden

One common feature of the alternative comics scene was the practice of creators contributing to each other’s publications. Sick Puppy Comix utilised this practice and it gave that comic a variety of graphic styles. By contrast there was some commonality of content with much of the material dealing with aspects of sex and/or violence, the “X” in the title denoting adult oriented content. Whilst emphasising humour, it adopted a somewhat avant-garde attitude which encouraged 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 and this seemed to inspire contributing creators to produce better quality work e.g. 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(Steve Carter and Antoinette Rydyr), Glenn Smith, Ross Tesoriero and Ryan Vella as well as Stratu himself.

Sick Puppy Comic creator Stuart Stratu. (Photo by Louise Graber)

Stuart Stratu, creator of Sick Puppy Comix at the Zine Fair. (Photo by Louise Graber)

Doctor Comics with Antoinette Rydyr of SCAR. (Photo by Louise Graber)

Dr. Michael Hill a.k.a Doctor Comics with comics creator Antoinette Rydyr at her table. (Photo by Louise Graber)

This post is from the developing series Archive of Australian Alternative Comics created as a result of research conducted for my doctorate studies at Macquarie University, Division of Society, Culture, Media and Philosophy, and 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 that I had used in my research, along with a copy of my doctoral thesis, to the National Library of Australia.

I LOVE COMICS!

Art, Blotting Paper, Comics May 12, 2011

After a period in which I have been doing the odd bit of guest blogging and micro blogging I am now concentrating on the establishment and development of my very own blog! In fact I started out with the idea of having two blogs: Doctor Comics (more serious) and Doctor Comictopus (more fun) but after awhile decided to merge these two into a single blog (one that is both fun and serious). So this is the first post on the new, now one and only Doctor Comics blog. I really love comics and have read them since I was a child, second eldest in a family of seven children. Every Sunday morning after attendance at church, and after breakfast, I would sit and read the comics section of the Adelaide Sunday Mail newspaper. Of course I had to wait till my father finished reading it first as he had dibs on the sports section and the funny pages. He even read the comics section before the Sporting Pages! Go Dad! It felt good to hear him laugh. My father also regularly read both English war comics (he fought in World War II) and American Wild West adventure comics(War and Westerns were his favourite genres). He enjoyed these and would make the sounds of bombing raids and gunfights whilst reading battle scenes and gunfights. That was amusing. Once read he left the newspaper lying on the carpet of the lounge room floor for the rest of the family to read, and I was usually the first in line. I remember reading and enjoying Uncle Joe’s Horse Radish by Joe Jonnson (an odd bit of English spelling I thought at the time not knowing the cartoonist was Swedish), and also The Potts by Jim Russell whom I would later meet in my adult years at a comics convention in Sydney whilst studying and researching comics and cartoons at university. Also back in childhood, my mother would buy me a comic whenever I was home ill, in bed and unable to attend school…a Donald Duck or a Dennis The Menace, and even a bonzer edition when I had my tonsils out. I knew them by their titles then and only later learned that they were the work of comics artists Carl Barks and Hank Ketcham respectively. So I can say that my parents contributed to my developing love of comics. I also had a couple of kind aunties who would buy me an occasional imported weekly comic such as the British BEANO, EAGLE and TIGER childrens comics that were shipped to Australia and arrived approximately three months after their English publication date. I later learned that my interest in outer space, English football and comedy capers was kindled by my childhood reading of comics. On reaching adulthood I still read comics in bed but no longer waited till I was ill.

The T-shirt design by Max

Louise Graber and Dr. Michael Hill a.k.a. Doctor Comics at a Halloween Party in Sydney. (Photo by Kat Smolynec, Painting by Anton Emdin, Feed On Comics T-shirt by Max)

My interest in and enthusiasm for comics continued throughout childhood and adolescence and into adulthood, as an art school and then design school academic. I enthusiastically developed a serious interest in studying and researching the medium. Along the way I was interested in other media, too: theatre, film, radio and television. I have always loved to draw and often received colour pencil or paint sets for Birthday and Xmas presents. My birthday is just a few days prior to Xmas day and so presents for the former were usually postponed and merged with the latter. In any case I put those art presents to use, drawing, sketching and painting at home. I had no art tuition at school. I was awarded the Religious Prize one year in Primary School for a single painting I did of The Little Flower (Saint Teresa) floating up to Heaven, instead of an essay. It made the nuns cry. I wish I still had that painting but they ran off with it. I had submitted it as a school project and received excellent marks for it as well as the annual end-of-scolastic-year Religious prize. The really smart kids in the class cried “Unfair!..he didn’t do the essay but won the prize for art!” Some of their parents complained about this to the nuns on Speech Night. Somehow I managed to keep the prize but I never got the painting back. My mother reassured me with a “well at least you made the nuns happy!” comment. Also my parents were very proud of me getting the prize and counselled me to never to query or talk back to a nun. This proved to be sound advice as following Primary School with the Dominican nuns I came up against the much tougher Christian Brothers in Seconday School, rigid disciplinarians with no interest in art.

Since my adolescence I have been involved in comics studies, first reading and collecting then progressing to the drawing of them. Later, working at an art school in the Visual Communication Department I considered comics an appropriate field of study and research. I followed up on that. Ultimately I was awarded a Ph.D. for my research into Australian ‘small press’ comics. That is where the alias comes in. I’m known as Michael Hill, Ph.D. (a.k.a Doctor Comics). I completed the doctorate in 2003 and acquired the alias in 2006 on a radio talkback show that my agent Andrew Hawkins arranged for me to appear on…one caller said he wanted to talk to “that Doctor Comics guy”…(cue first embarrassment then amusement as the radio announcer informed the audience that it was appropriate as I actually had a Ph.D. in comics!) Although that “Doctor Comics” label sounded odd and a little awkward at the time, following adept efforts by my agent it caught on and I became accustomed to it. It gave me a head start in the media, too, thanks again to my agent who set me up with the doctorcomics.com website address and the doctorcomics@gmail.com email account. Aided by the diverse range of publications available and the growing amount of resources online it has since become a rich time to study comics. Pluralism reigns. There are numerous creators from diverse cultures making good comics in a multitude of styles, formats and media, along with the usual standard material. I became increasingly drawn to the notion of making my own comics and now I’m finally working on my first attempt, a solo project, tentatively titled Blotting Paper: The Recollected Graphical Impressions Of Doctor Comics.

Conventioneer card for the 99 Expo in Maryland with Brian Ralph illo.

My 99 Expo entry card with Brian Ralph illo.

My intention is that this blog will reflect my interest in reading, researching, critiquing and creating comics art as expressed by the Feed On Comics! call from the Max (photo above) official T-shirt of the ICAF ( International Comic Arts Festival) at Bethesda, Maryland, 1999 that I attended. The event comprised both a conference and a convention. The academic conference was chaired by Gene Kannenberg, Jr., the “big guy” who enthusiastically and inspiringly led proceedings, attended by a bunch of like-minded souls, i.e. academics researching comics. Gene made me feel very welcome. Amongst those who attended was John A. Lent who was selling the first issue of IJOCA, the International Journal of Comic Art Vol. 1, No. 1 Spring/Summer 1999, that he had produced and published as Editor-in-Chief, Randy Duncan, Charles Hatfield, Mike Kidson whose paper “William Hogarth: Printing Techniques and Comics” inspired my later graphic research into Hogarth, printmaking and comics, Pete Coogan, Pascal Lefèvre, Jeff Miller, Ana Merino, Jeff Williams, Mark Nevins, Michael Rhode, Guy Spielmann, and Joseph “Rusty” Witek. They were pleased to have someone from Australia attend and let me choose the restaurant on the first day…I said “Is there a Mexican Restaurant?”..at the time we didn’t have any Mexican restaurants in Sydney…they all laughed and took me to one of the several around.

This conference gave me a wonderful sense of validation for the academic study of comics that was to eventually lead me to the research and completion of my Ph.D. thesis in comics studies. I also became a member of the International Editorial Board of John Lent’s journal, IJOCA, representing Australia. At that Bethesda conference in 1999, I made a presentation on Australian alternative comics based on the research I had been doing in Sydney. As the conference wound down the comics expo kicked off downstairs on another floor of the same Holiday Inn hotel in Bethesda, Maryland. This convention, known as the Small Press Expo, honoured alternative comics (see my 99 EXPO card above). I bought several comics and sold some I had brought with me from Australian small press creators. I also met Gary Groth, “wow!” the guy who runs The Comics Journal…he seemed to be on the look out for “comics stuff”…and Neil Gaiman, “yes, him!”, in the lift, talking to someone in his dulcet English tone that was lovely to listen to!..they, and many others that I had only read about…were in attendance, wandering around at the event. Comics was their business…it was what they produced and were famous for! In the evening there was an award ceremony at which comics artist James Kochalka performed, totally naked…and each category winner received a brick!… just like the one Ignatz threw at Krazy. I was impressed! The event celebrated both the study and creation of comics and now has particular resonance for me as I begin this blog and continue to carry on reading, researching, teaching and writing about comics.

So there we are! I’m off and running with this blogging thing and I plan on continuing. I hope you enjoy it!

The Small Press Expo Comic at ICAF where I also bought the Max T-shirt

SPX99, my copy of the Small Press Expo program in Bethesda, Maryland.

The Doctor Comictopus alias for Michael Hill Ph.D.(a.k.a. Doctor Comics) designed by Michelle Park.

UPDATE: The Doctor Comictopus blog, my original comics blog with an alias designed by Michelle Park that referred to my active acquisition of comics (see above), has been discontinued, however, some elements have been merged with this Doctor Comics blog.