Tag: Michelle Park

ART AND TERROR WALKING TOUR-BERLIN

Art, Film, Germania September 19, 2014

On a recent walking tour of Mitte in Berlin with friend, former student, now animator, illustrator and printmaker Michelle Park, other walking tours crossed our path. It was a busy morning for walking tours in Berlin. Starting out in Bezirk Kreuzburg we passed the Deutsches Currywurst Museum in Schützenstraße, Checkpoint Charlie Museum in Friedrichstraße, then walked along Niederkirchnerstraße to the old Gestapo and SS Headquarters site.

Michael Hill and Michelle Park walking in Berlin. (Photo-© 2014 Louise Graber)

The Headquarters building had taken a direct hit from English bombing during World War II and was demolished after the war. It is now an open-air museum Topography Des Terrors (Topography of Terror) with some remaining rubble, a section of the Berlin Wall(without the barbed wire) plus information placards and a new building with displayed information. The exhibition on show was called Errfast, Verfolgt, Vernichtet (Registered, Persecuted, Annihilated). It was both grim and candid about the horror that had taken place there.

Site of Gestapo Headquarters. (Photo-© 2014 Michael Hill)

Section of Wall still standing. (Photo-© 2014 Michael Hill)

Next door at Martin Gropius Bau museum was the Hans Richter exhibition Begegnungen, Von Dada Bis Heute (Encounters: From Dada to the Present Day) that was part of the Berlin Festival, the David Bowie exhibition from London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, and Chinese artist Ai Weiwei’s Evidence. This building had also suffered from the bombing, not as much as the Gestapo site, and had been restored except from some scarification from shrapnel and bullets.

Decorative fascia on column at entrance to Martin Gropius Bau museum. (Photo-© 2014 Michael Hill)

With both of us interested in animation and printmaking I wanted to show Michelle this wonderful exhibition of the artistic career of Hans Richter who had been born in Berlin in 1888 and was a key figure in 20th Century art and animation. Three sides of Martin Gropius Bau had been allocated so a lot of walking was required to cover the space filled with his woodcuts and paintings, his contributions to Dada including Dada magazine and his own zine G -Material zur elementarun Gestaltung (Material for elementary design), his experiments with painted scrolls that led him to the discovery of displaying images in motion through animation, his abstract animations and live-action films including Dreams That Money Can Buy, and some home movies, plus documentation of his film teaching work in New York. Added to this were works by colleagues Max Ernst, Man Ray, Marcel Duchamp, Hans Arp, Raoul Hausmann, George Grosz, Francis Picabia, Viking Eggeling, Alexander Calder and Kurt Schwitters. Richter was a well connected man.

Hans Richter exhibition pamphlet at Martin Gropius Bau.

DADA: art and anti-art by Hans Richter.

With a life’s work on display there was so much inter-connected visual material in the exhibition that we found ourselves walking back and forth. We could have spent 4 or 5 hours watching the films, videos and documentaries alone. It was an exhibition that called for fresh legs and more than one visit. Good art, big show!

Blauer Mann, 1917, by Hans Richter

Visionary self-portrait by Hans Richter.

Stalingrad (Sieg im Osten) scroll painting by Hans Richter.

Stalingrad (Sieg im Osten) (Victory in the East), scroll painting by Hans Richter.

Dada-Kopf painting by Hans Richter.

COFFEE TABLE another fix

Art, Coffee Table, Comics, Film, Japanning January 19, 2013

There are football comics on the coffee table this month. Last year I saw a really good FIFA World Cup qualifying match in Brisbane between Australia (Socceroos) and Japan (Blue Samurai) and recently I attended a Sydney FC match and witnessed the Italian master Alessandro Del Piero (a.k.a. the little painter) play. Del Piero says he was inspired to play football by the Japanese anime and manga character Captain Tsubasa (see image below). Growing up in Australia with the SBS television broadcaster, the Special Broadcasting Service, I was aware of football’s cultural origins. Due to its coverage of ethnic programs SBS became an amusing acronym in the schoolyard for ‘Soccer Bloody Soccer’ especially for followers of the other football codes such as rugby league, rugby union and Australian rules, and later with it’s screening of adult art films prior to the early morning broadcast of live football matches from Europe, ‘Sex Before Soccer’.

Comic Book Guy red carded for invading the pitch. (Photo and staging by Michael Hill a.k.a. Doctor Comics)

So some of my set of Simpsons soccer figures and Comic Book Guy comics are in play this time with the cast kitted out to fill a couple of soccer teams and Mr. Burns as the referee. Comic Book Guy seems to be miscast here, invading the playing field and shown the red card for not being a member of either team. There is no sign of the ball, lost perhaps in the long grass. Springfield is not known for its smooth playing surfaces. Perhaps Homer was supposed to mow it?

Comic Book Guy in his own series plus his enormous cosplay effort on Free Comic Book Day.

The Jack Kirby cover for the first issue of The Fantastic Four.

In the recent comic book series Death of Comic Book Guy, the first issue cover is a pastiche of the Jack Kirby design for The Fantastic Four #1 back in November 1961 with Comic Book Guy trading places with The Thing, Bart with Human Torch, and Homer with Invisible Girl(see above). Oh, did I forget to mention Billy the Fish?

Captain Tsubasa manga: Road To 2002 Vol.10 (2002 FIFA World Cup campaign)

All of the figurines in the set.

Springfield's finest-Homer with ball-Simpsons soccer trading card.

Springfield’s finest-Homer’s ball control. The Simpsons soccer trading card.

Grampa stops the ball in The Simpsons Springfield soccer team trading cards.

UPDATE #1(February 2014): The Simpsons show is currently cartoonising some of the members of English Premier League club, and my adopted team as I lived near the team’s ground in London back in the 1970s, Chelsea FC. (L to R in the photo below) are Eden Hazard, Fernando Torres, John Terry, Frank Lampard and Petr Cech.

Chelsea FC players standing behind their Simpsonised characters.

GIGANTOR AND GOJIRA IN THE HOUSE

Art, Comics, Film, Japanning April 1, 2012

I’m happy to now have two three dimensional flat sculptures of Gigantor and Gojira on the kitchen walls of our house: Gigantor the giant, remote controlled, peace-keeping robot, based on the manga Tetsujin 28-go (Iron man No.28) by Mitsuteru Yokoyama and adapted for animation, plus Gojira (Godzilla) star of the famous Japanese movie directed by Ishirō Honda. These plaques are the work of model maker, artist and comics creator Lewis P. Morley and were exhibited just last month at a gallery in Redfern, Sydney. Once installed, Lewis agreed to attend to their christening.

Gigantor installed… (Photograph by Louise Graber)

…above the stove in the kitchen. (Photograph and ceramic tile design by Louise Graber)

I have always thought that Gigantor’s body resembled a pot-bellied stove so I decided that it was appropriate he be positioned above the stove. His clunky design with rivets and pistons, prior to those more elegant mobile suit robots, such as Gundam that succeeded him, have some resonance with the metal stove and the various pots and pans on the shelves.

Gojira installed on the Japanese graduated toned wall. (Photograph by Louise Graber)

The whale eating Gojira, on the other hand, coming from the depths of the ocean and memorably seen in the 1954 Godzilla movie wading through Tokyo Bay, had to go over the kitchen sink.

Lewis and his magic silver signing pen signing Gojira. (Photograph by Louise Graber)

Christening Gigantor in steampunk style with steam from a boiling kettle. (Photograph and ceramic tile design by Louise Graber)

Christening Gojira with water from a metal jug. (Photograph by Louise Graber)

Job done: the artist poses in front of the installation. (Photograph and ceramic tile design by Louise Graber)

It was very kind of Lewis to come over, wearing his Gundam T-shirt and perform this ritual. He now has visiting rights. This post was first published on the Doctor Comictopus blog.

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

UPDATE: GODZILLA GETS RESIDENCY CERTIFICATE IN TOKYO, June 2015

News photo: Godzilla officially welcomed to Shinjuku by the Mayor.

UPDATE: POSTER DESIGNS FOR THE NEW SHIN GODZILLA FILM, April 2017

Archive of Australian Alternative Comics: GETTING SMASH(ed)!

Archive of Australian Alternative Comics, Art, Comics, Film, Japanning July 18, 2011

Saturday July 16, 2011 was a day of anime amusement at SMASH! (the Sydney Manga and Anime Show). Over the past few years the local interest in manga and anime has been growing. 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. The new conventions provided opportunities for fans to meet and enjoy these two media. Some local female creators began making their own versions of shōjo manga as a form of alternative comics using with local content. Interest continued to grow, as did the events. In Sydney there was Animania, in Melbourne, Manifest. And then there was SMASH!

The SMASH! 2011 program.

Located for the first time in its short 5 year history at the Sydney Convention Centre due to it outgrowing its previous smaller venues at the Rounhouse, University of New South Wales and the Sydney Town Hall.

The view of Darling Harbour from inside the Convention Centre. (Photo by Michael Hill)

Welcome from Box Man. (Photo by Louise Graber)

A suitable occasion for dressing up, there were costumes that required weeks of sewing, beading, feathering and functioning, paraded throughout the venue and on the cosplay stage.

A tutu moment… (Photo by Michael Hill)

A happy trio. (Photo by Louise Graber)

Many children attended in addition to university and high school students, and even a few primary school students, some with their parents.

Three young cosplay fans. (Photo by Michael Hill)

There were Hobby Rooms for the construction and display of dolls and robots.

Some Dolfie dolls. (Photo by Michael Hill)

There were Art and Doodle Rooms for art and doodling… …and an epic two hours plus Cosplay Competition…

A really big and really, really long Cosplay Competition. (Photo by Michael Hill)

…not to mention a Gundam workshop, Karaoke, videogames, a screening of the excellent anime Summer Wars, sewing, pattern and armour making workshops, and a huge trading floor full of vendors, artists and clubs. And it all flourished in the presence of the patronage of the Japan Foundation. Japanese popular culture thrived on a wonderful day! My report on last year’s event can be found on Forbidden Planet International.

This is the third in a series of posts around the theme of 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. Posts in Archives of Australian Comics History: Comic-Fest Comics in Record Shops Comics Workshops Down Under Ground Getting SMASH(ed)! Imaginary Worlds Symposium International Exhibition of Drawings OZCON Mind Rot Savage Pencils Sick Puppy Comix TiNA Arena MCA Zine Fair 2002 Sequential Art Studies Conference 2nd Sequential Art Studies Conference

FOOTNOTE: I SAW A BIG SAW AT BIG SIGHT! As an addendum to this convention report I must mention another I visited in Tokyo. 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. Shouldn’t it be called Big Site? However, as it turned out, it was named Big Sight but there were definitely some big sights to behold and it was a very large exhibition site. No sign of Godzilla but I thought of Thor as the monorail travelled over the Rainbow Bridge past some rather high tech looking buildings such as this one in the photo below of Fuji TV headquarters.

The headquarters of Fuji TV(building designed by Japanese architect Kenzo Tange) and the Joyopolis Arcade. (Photo by Michael Hill)

The headquarters of Fuji TV-detail. (Photo by Michael Hill)

Then on arrival at the Big Sight location things started to look a bit unusual. There was an open space beneath a series of inverted pyramids sitting on glass covered, cantilevered legs. This giant entrance had the effect of reducing the scale of the people passing beneath it and thus enhancing the ‘big’ aspect implied in the name of the site.

Tokyo Big Sight-entrance. (Photo by Michael Hill)

The walk from the monorail station to the entrance of the Big Sight exhibition centre has something of an epic feel to it. It’s over there but it’s a long way to go over there and as one approaches, and that takes some time, the pyramids appear to grow in size and tower above one, providing something of a shrinking feeling as one nears. It was during this long walk that I happened to look over a railing, because I had drifted to one side of the open walkway, that I caught a glimpse of another large object embedded in the grass on the level below. A sculpture…an art installation…a large saw…unmistakably something by the Pop artist Claes Oldenburg. It was a big sight to see at this big site.

Saw, Sawing by Claes Oldenburg. (Photo by Michael Hill)

This BIG SIGHT post was first published on the Doctor Comictopus blog that has now been merged with this Doctor Comics blog.

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

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

ROCK ART: Magical Cave Drawings Found and Filmed in France

Art, Film, Germania June 23, 2011

A week ago I saw a wonderful film at the Sydney Film Festival called Cave Of Forgotten Dreams, a documentary filmed in 3-D and made by the German director Werner Herzog, who previously made a favourite film of mine titled Aguirre, the Wrath of God with music by Popol Vuh. This new film of his was shot in a cave in the south of France at a place called Chauvet. On the walls of the cave were hundreds of drawings of animals in charcoal and ochre that are between 30,000 and 33,000 years old. These were first found in 1994 by Jean-Marie Chauvet whose name has been given to the cave. The drawings are both beautiful and skillfully executed which suggests that there were some accomplished artists around 30,000 years ago.

A panoramic view of part of a cave wall.

A small crew of four with only the amount of equipment they could carry, including Herzog who operated the lights, was granted permission to film inside the cave by the French Ministry of Culture. Most timely as the cave is now closed to the public. Despite being restricted to narrow metal pathways laid on the cave floor and for short periods of access inside the cave the filming is fabulous. The cave walls aren’t always flat so the 3-D technology takes care of that, displaying the depth of the substrate on which the drawings sit. In some places there are drawings that appear to have been made on top of earlier drawings possibly made many years apart. Due to the uneven surface and curvature of the cave walls these are not two-dimensional drawings.

A closer view of some of the drawings.

Herzog captures the eerie magic of the moment when the cave must have been lit by burning torches, the flickering of which has the effect of making the drawings appear to move as in a primitive animation. This is aided by the fact that some of the drawings have been made on top of each other but not necessarily in registration with the result that a 4 legged animal seems at times to be 6 or 8 legged. Notions of animation, theatre and the birth of cinema come to mind, as Herzog humbly suggests. He interviews several experts and manages to inject a cheeky humour into the subject. And I haven’t even mentioned the albino crocodiles!

This post was first published on the Doctor Comictopus blog.

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

I LOVE COMICS!

Art, Blotting Paper, Comics May 12, 2011

After a period in which I have been guest blogging and micro blogging I am finally concentrating on the development of my own blog! I started out my approach with the idea of having two blogs: Doctor Comics (more serious) and Doctor Comictopus (more fun) but these have since merged into the one Doctor Comics blog (both fun and serious) and this is the first post on the new, one and only Doctor Comics blog. I love comics and I have read them since childhood. Every Sunday most I would sit and read the comics section of the Sunday paper. My mother would buy me a comic when I was unwell and home from school in bed…a Donald Duck or a Dennis The Menace. 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. My father regularly read both English war action and American western adventure comics as well as the comics section of the Sunday newspaper and left them lying around the house so I can say that both of my parents contributed to my developing love of comics. I also had a couple of kind aunties who would buy me the odd imported weekly comic such as the English Eagle boys paper. Even nowadays I still read comics in bed but no longer wait till I’m ill.

The T-shirt design by Max

Louise Graber and Doctor Comics at a Halloween Party. (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. I also developed a serious interest in studying and researching the medium. I have been involved in comics studies for several years and have been awarded a Ph.D. for my research. 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…the caller said he wanted to talk to “that Doctor Comics guy”. (Cue amusement as the radio announcer informed the audience that I actually had a Ph.D. in comics!) That “Doctor Comics” label sounded odd at the time but it caught on and I got used to it. Aided by the diverse range of publications available and the growing amount of resources online it has become a rich time to study comics. Pluralism reigns. There are numerous creators from diverse cultures making good comics in a multitude of styles and formats along with the usual standard material. I am increasingly drawn to the notion of making comics and I’m finally working on my first solo project Blotting Paper: The Recollected Graphical Impressions Of Doctor Comics.

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

The 99 Expo card with Brian Ralph illo

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 ICAF (the International Comic Arts Festival) at Bethesda, Maryland, 1999 that I attended. The event comprised an academic conference chaired by Gene Kannenberg, Jr., at which I made a presentation on Australian alternative comics, and a convention, the Small Press Expo that honoured alternative comics. 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. The event celebrated both the study and creation of comics and so now has particular resonance for me and my blog. Enjoy!

The Small Press Expo Comic

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

UPDATE: The Doctor Comictopus blog, with an alias designed by Michelle Park has now been discontinued, however, some elements have been merged with this new Doctor Comics blog. Transferred posts include: GIGANTOR AND GOJIRA IN THE HOUSE ROCK ART: Magical Cave Drawings Found and Filmed in France CATS IN COMICS: The Rabbi’s Cat COFFEE TABLE first fix COFFEE TABLE fourth fix