Tag: artist book

BLOTTING PAPER The Comic: Production Report No. 50

Comics, Blotting Paper, Art, printmaking August 10, 2019

CONFIRMING THE CONCLUSION. As prefaced in the previous blog post on this subject BLOTTING PAPER The Comic: Production Report No.49, I have now completed the final stage of the writing and editing of my comic so that all six chapters can be compiled into the graphic novel format. This includes the previous three separate comics that made up The Cat Cooking Comics In Kappabashi No.1 No.2 and No.3 that were not initially going to form part of the BLOTTING PAPER comic. The title remains Blotting Paper: The Recollected Graphical Impressions Of Doctor Comics and all six chapters will be made available on my Blog. Below is a photo from the original launch of this title back in 2012 at Hondarake Full Of Books bookshop in Sydney (see my blog report of that event No.11 ) and so now, eight years later the work is essentially finished, apart from any further tinkering with the content that I feel shall improve the overall completed work. Now here is a photo flashback to the original launch.

Product and packaging of the debut issue at the original launch at Hondarake Books.

The moment of the launch on a Saturday afternoon in Sydney.

That’s comics scholar Gene Kannenberg, Jr. onscreen in a live cross from the USA launching the comic.

The package deal, my comic with an original print and bookmark in a specially printed bag.

A display of my postcard art was installed as a decorative corner in the bookshop.

Some of my woodblock prints of fish from my animation TOXIC FISH were used as a decorative canopy over the launch.

Read the previous posts on The Cat Cooking Comics In Kappabashi No.1 No.2 and No.3, plus details of the production of all five issues of the Blotting Paper: The Recollected Graphical Impressions Of Doctor Comics artist book/comic, now combined in graphic novel form, and a continuing visual history record and time-line overview of the project read all of the 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 Issue #6: No.49 No.50

THE KAPPABASHI CAT: Production Report No.1

Archive of Australian Alternative Comics, Art, Blotting Paper, Cats in Comics, Comics, Japanning October 28, 2017

This is the first in what I intend will be a regular series of reports documenting the production progress of the sequel to my comic/artist book Blotting Paper: The Recollected Graphical Impressions Of Doctor Comics that was completed in 2016. The current draft title of the new book is The Cat Cooking Comics In Kappabashi. It is in a similar vein to Blotting Paper in its graphic approach but different in that this comic will be less autobiographical and less of a graphic memoir and much more fictive, however, several strong links remain between the two titles. It will contain fewer anecdotes of Doctor Comics and much more about his cat Cohl’s adventures. Nevertheless, strong links between Doc and the cats may persist to the extent that, initially, I thought it could fit as an extension to Blotting Paper, even as a further chapter within that title. We’ll see. A first draft of the comic has been written but the design and the artwork have yet to be commenced. As in the earlier comic printmaking will be employed along with other forms of image-making including drawing, typography, handwriting and photography. As with the earlier publication the intention is to make a comic in an artist’s book type of format.

The story begins in Berlin where Cohl, having heard no word from his friend Busch for almost two years, decides to follow him to Tokyo and try to find him. Cohl has been very comfortable in the German city and consequently reluctant to move but his curiosity has awakened him from his cultural slumber.

For details of the production of all five issues of the Blotting Paper: The Recollected Graphical Impressions Of Doctor Comics artist book/comic and a continuing visual history record and time-line overview of the project read all of the 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

PRINT Fish Two

Art, Comics, Film, Japanning January 28, 2017

This is the second post in my series of fish prints made using the woodblock printmaking method for my experimental animated film titled Toxic Fish. As the ocean fish are poisoned their bodies swell up then disintegrate. The static shape of the fish from the woodblock holds firm at first before being flooded by toxins. The method employed was to gradually over-ink the block so that details were dampened into puddles and definition reduced.

A woodblock print with overlaid hand-colouring for the animated film Toxic Fish-© 1990 Michael Hill.

Here is a photo of me carving one of the blocks using a Japanese chisel. Warning! This is not the safe way to do it. It should be done on a fixed bench and one should carve away from, not towards, oneself. The photo is condensed pose of the process for promotional purposes.

Hand carving one of the woodblocks for the animated film Toxic Fish-Photograph © 1990 Demetra Christopher.

If you liked this post you might like to look at others on my Blog. PRINT Fish One PRINT Fish Two PRINT Fish Three

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 One 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 One

Art, Film, Japanning July 23, 2016

This series of posts will profile a collection of creative prints that I have made over the years, beginning with 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 my 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 One 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

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 One 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 One 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.47

Art, Blotting Paper, Cats in Comics, Comics, Germania, Japanning November 2, 2015

This is the third report documenting production of the fifth and concluding chapter of my artist book/comic Blotting Paper: The Recollected Graphical Impressions Of Doctor Comics. Production of the new issue 2 Tickets to Tokyo Bay is continuing with images currently being created along with some previously made works recorded during my travels in Japan and Germany. The script has first been developed in word form and accompanied by some conceptual colour coding. This was followed by a second draft consisting of roughly sketched visuals of the script with coloured pencils and associated descriptive comments or dialogue. There are examples of both of these development stages, below.

Developing a first draft script design-© 2015 Michael Hill

Visual roughing out of the script-© 2015 Michael Hill

One scene in the script is a graphical recollection of my Doctor Comics alias. It reveals the design of one of his logo stamps/seals or chops that was roughed out on a paper napkin in a Sydney restaurant with guidance from a member of the Japanese Consulate. Here is a scan of that design development along with attachments including a photo and a Japanese photo booth print sticker.

Developing a seal design, collage-© 2008 Michael Hill

Another sequence involves Japanese sea monsters.

Seeing strange things at sea, ink and pencil sketch-© 2008 Michael Hill

Possible print for the cover-© 2009 Michael Hill.

BLOTTING PAPER The Comic: Production Report No.46

Art, Blotting Paper, Cats in Comics, Comics, Germania, Japanning October 3, 2015

This is the second report documenting production of the fifth and concluding chapter of my artist book/comic Blotting Paper: The Recollected Graphical Impressions Of Doctor Comics. Creation and production of the new issue 2 Tickets to Tokyo Bay has begun and deals with the continued adventures of the cats Busch and Cohl and their canine acquaintance Barks. Set mostly in Japan but with some scenes in Germany it follows these characters in funny animal style and includes further recollections from the archives of my alias, Doctor Comics, including his visits to Japan and research into manga.

Dirty laundry hung out to dry, ink painting-© 2015 Michael Hill

A seasick cat at sea, ink sketch-© 2015 Michael Hill

The characters Barks and Busch travel from Germany to Japan by sea, arriving in Tokyo Bay. Whilst their passage on a container ship is cheaper than flight it is not without some difficulty and discomfort.

Choreographing a cosplay routine, pencil sketch-© 2014 Michael Hill

Cosplay costume design, ink and pencil sketch-© 2013 Michael Hill

Being back on land in Tokyo is more conducive to fun and frolicking and access to a bigger range of food. They visit a manga fair and then Kitchen Town where they eat cake.

A Munchianesque Halloween cake design in Kappabashi, Tokyo, photo-© 2009 Michael Hill