As the release date for the comic now looms ever more disconcertingly close, it's time to profile the contributors whose creative efforts constitute the thing!
As stated in some other promo material which no-one has probably bothered to read, all of the contributors have been Hamilton residents of some decent duration, either in the present or the past. Thus everyone has some direct experience of the H-Town to translate into Hamiltronic comic strips.
A few other creators - Josh Drummond, Dan Looker, and Chamanthie Sinhalage - dropped out of the project for various reasons, but thanks to them for their initial enthusiasm and support.
The 12 comics featured in the anthology are by the following creators (in no particular order):
Dawn Tuffery
Clayton Noone & Stefan Neville
Aaron Christiansen
Wairehu Grant
Raewyn Alexander
Indira Neville
Stephanie Christie & Paul Bradley
Oliver Stewart
Alex John
Matt Emery
Priscilla McIntosh
Dean Ballinger
The cover art was done by the duo of Ben Clancy & Kieran Horner.
A while back I asked contributors for a biographical blurb that could be used for publicity purposes. The replies I received are posted below, with a sample image of their artwork preceding their blurbs (yes, the same image as is used for the Facebook teasers - I'm trying to generate a bit of expectation for the finished product here!)
MATT EMERY
Matt Emery lived in Hamilton for a few years in the mid
2000's. Matt has been making comics sporadically since the 1980's and publishes
New Zealand and Australian cartoonists through Pikitia Press in Melbourne.
PAUL BRADLEY & STEPHANIE CHRISTIE
Stephanie likes to read comic books, science texts and
self-help manuals. The work in this volume reflects the influence of all three
genres. Her creative work with words can be found online at
www.stephaniechristie.xyz
Working across many artforms, Paul Bradley enjoys blurring
the boundaries between commercial art and fine art. A serial collaborator, he
has worked with musicians, poets, thespians, and other visual artists. Paul has
lived in Hamilton for the last 4 years where he occasionally imagines
everything submerged under water, but hopes that it doesn't come to that.
www.paulbradley.co.nz
AARON CHRISTIANSEN
Aaron Christiansen has a love/hate relationship with
Hamilton, he loves to hate it.
His comics /illustrations have appeared in Nexus, Mammoth,
The Waikato Times and anthologies Bristle and Funtime comics.
Collected and new strips appear annually in Beats the
Kangaroo Comics and Stories and are available from $4 an issue from
beatsthekangaroo@hotmail.com
RAEWYN ALEXANDER
Raewyn Alexander grew up over the road from her
grandparents' place, in St Andrews, where her father'd lived since he was eight
years old. He eventually took over Coombridge and Alexander in Frankton,
agricultural engineers. Some of her mother's family also settled in Hamilton.
Raewyn liked to climb trees and dream of faraway places that she read about.
Often she tried to run away like Tom Sawyer did. He had the Mississippi River,
she had Te Awa o Waikato. In time she succeeded, living overseas, then back in
Auckland. She's always hankered after adventure and comics give her much of
that, along with other writing projects, novels, poetry, stories, and
non-fiction, but poetry and comics are her true love. More here -
http://www.bookcouncil.org.nz/writers/alexanderraewyn.html
I approached the design of this comic with the mindset of
reflecting my perception of Hamilton. The way the comic jumps from cottage to
pen drawings to felt tip is meant to evoke the ‘stitched together’ feel of the
city as a whole.
The story itself starts off as structured narrative but
quickly devolves into pure trash – this as to show the artist collapsing mental
state over the course of making the comic and as a reflection of what this city
can do to any sane person that resides here for toooo long.
DAWN TUFFERY
Dawn Tuffery's first art job was at age 11, where she
got paid $5 a week to produce cartoons for a weekly newsletter. Since then
she's done a range of sketchy projects, with recent ones
including the self-published '100 Drawn Days' book
and 50 cartoons raising money for Malcolm Law's High Five-0 Mental
Health campaign. Dawn came to Hamilton in 2001 to study film-making at
Wintec, and stayed, partaking in animation, street theatre, student
media, writing and cycling en route. While love/hate is too strong a term,
she has an affection/ambivalence relationship with the city. Pining
for a coast or a mountain is generally offset by the presence of good
people, kowhai trees in the early morning river mist, and that double-sided
compliment - proximity to other places.
