Thursday, 19 November 2015

Post-party pictures post

Coming up to 2 months since the release party for the comic (Sat 29 September) so will use this space to archive documents and publicity pertaining to the launch.

This first posting is dedicated to photographs I took of the release party. These are atrocious for the following reasons:
- one of my kids broke the family camera shortly before the release show (no have mobile or smart phone)
- I borrowed another clunky old digital camera from my folks to take photos of the release party
- never having used it before, I couldn't get the lighting/scene settings figured out in time, so looks like I'm documenting a B&D dungeon rather than the sprightly environs of the Meteor.

A - photos of the wall decorations. Spent aeons (well, an afternoon) decorating the walls of the Meteor foyer with A3 photocopies of all the comic artwork. This was after almost losing all of these photocopies by leaving them in a box on the roof of my car when picking up some music gear for the event...they fell off but were saved by the good residents of Peachgrove, especially the inestimable 'Zombie' from whose safekeeping they were retrieved. Did look good ambience-wise after they all put up, not that you can really tell from these wretched snaps. Oh well, it's all the documentation I've got.

Wall comics with 'busted lens shield' app

'desperate attempt to figure out lighting and overcome busted lens shield' portrait

same photo as the first, but with lighting adjusted enough that shit can be actually seen

looks like a close-up of someone's buttocks after they had inadvertently sat, in a naked state, on a stamp collection

lighting OK for this one, but focus shite

'stamp arse' composition from before with 'warmer' lighting



 B - photos of the bands that played. There were 4 of them, all featuring contributors to the comic. Let's see if any of their visages are legible in the following piccy-wics:

Pumice (Stefan Neville) just visible in the middle distance, before the encroaching darkness

The Goth and the Pixie: contributor Wairehu Grant being the Goth (i.e. the one with Nick Cave hair, not wearing a tutu)

The Biscuits from AK: contributor Indira Neville on guitar

Glass Shards, aka contributor Oliver Stewart


Glass Shards again


a couple more of Glass Shards...the last act of the night, by which time I was able to relax and actually watch most of the set (and take more than 1 snap) instead of wandering around stressing about 'event management' matters 


 C - organiser peoples

when in need, rope in the missus...my lovely wife Kelly (on the right) manning the door with her friend Dee. Being of Irish descent, her patented 'IRA face' was enough to sort out any 'difficult' patrons

yer editor/blogger getting snapped by the wife...wearing my best suit for the occasion (3 piece sky blue flared combo of 1970s vintage)





Sunday, 20 September 2015

Articulations from the artistes...!

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


OLIVER STEWART
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.

Friday, 11 September 2015

Wha' be happn?

Poor old blog has been neglected recently whilst comic-related activities proceed apace elsewhere, so time for an update...


The release date for the comic has been fixed for Saturday the 26th of September, with a release party to be held that evening at the Meteor Theatre in Hamilton. Punters can purchase a crisp new copy of the anthology and be entertained by musical performances from acts featuring contributors to the comic: Pumice and The Biscuits (from AK), The Goth And The Pixie and Glass Shards (from the Tron). Entry fee will be $20 which includes a copy of the comic. Much fervid felt tip pen activity recently involved in making the above poster for the event.


The deadline for contributors to submit strips was set for mid-August: made it deliberately early as most of these creative types don't get started on anything until the night before it's due (myself included). Actually received the last strip, from ex-Hamiltonian currently residing in Oz, just last week, after I had given up expecting it and the contributor had given up thinking it would be included given lateness of submission! A couple of contributors from the original shortlist of 14 didn't end up submitting, but have ended up with 12 strips at 44 pages, so will end up a decently sized slab of Hamiltron goodness. Needless to say all the submissions are 50 shades of shit-hot and more gushing editorial praise will inevitably be forthcoming.


Also had last-minute cover art dramas when original cover artist fell through (personal circumstances rather than personal politics), so had to rustle up substitute cover at short notice...couple of young local artists stepped up to the mark with an excellent design (I will post contributor bios here soon). Content now all done bar an inside front cover contents page and inside back cover ads page which am working on right now. Art currently being mastered and will be sent off to printer in the next week or so.


Otherwise much publicity-related activity, notably teaser posts on Fartbickie containing snippets of art from the strips (3 snippets from the last one featured above); drawing and printing of posters as stated; some newspaper publicity in form of a piece in the Hamilton News; and myself talking about the project to Hamilton literati at the 4th Browsers Bookstore Literary Salon held at the Meteor on the 10th September. Doing press releases for other local media outlets priority for this week. Riveting stuff eh?



Tuesday, 18 August 2015

Totally In Amongst It





Currently collating the comic strips from contributors, and all great stuff! A wide range of content thus far, from the biographical to the satirical to the avant-garde. I've started doing teaser runs on FartBickie with some snippets of art from the first few contributions in - featured above (as opposed to the Facebook group, I have little idea if anyone is actually reading this blog, but I like this format for providing the opportunity for more substantial publicity-related discourse...).

Otherwise packing my pants preparing for the processes of publication and performing publicity.
I have booked Sat Sept 26 for a release event at the Meteor Theatre in central Hamilton, which will feature musical performances by acts associated with several of the contributors (most of these arty types being musos as well eh?) More details as organisation gets more detailed.

Thursday, 6 August 2015

Submission, Bondage, Domination





This post is just an update about submissions to the anthology, but I thought it might be worth extending the title of the post to appeal to the BDSM market (lots of lawyers and businesspeople apparently - rolling in it)

Date for submissions is mid August and have received the first 4 as of this posting - great stuff!  Diverse range of art styles and interpretations of the 'Hamiltron - City of the Future' theme on display: I think the proper term to use for publicity purposes is 'eclectic'.

For example: a typical write-up in local papers on a RockQuest band usually goes something like:
"(band name of your invention - 'Ronnie James Diocesan School For Girls' or similar) play an eclectic mix of funk, jazz and rock, with elements of electronica".

So I'll pre-describe the anthology as an eclectic mix of whatever the comic equivalents of 'funk, jazz, rock, with elements of electronica' are.

Will do some teasers of artwork soon. In the meantime, enjoy the above images of a couple of famous Hamilton disasters - the 1948 Frankton tornado and the 2008 V8 Supercar champs.




Sunday, 5 July 2015

Hamiltron Sells Out!




Legendary Hamilton independent comic shoppe Mark One Comics and Games have very generously come on board as sponsors for the anthology. Marvel were briefly interested, but only if the concept could be rejigged so that 'Hamiltron' became a sub-dimension of the Marvel universe so they could tie it in with the next film in the Avengers franchise. Being Americans, they also wanted a plot-line in which Thor battles Maui in Garden Place, not realising that Maui and his magic jawbone will always waste Thor's lameass hammer. Mark One's stipulations, that every page must feature characters talking about the shop at least once,  along with the store logo being prominently featured in the composition of every 3rd panel throughout, seemed much more reasonable.

I will hereby plug Mark One by posting the following links to their online sites:
Store website: http://www.mk1.co.nz/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Mark1Comics
Twitter: https://twitter.com/mk1comics
Google Plus: https://plus.google.com/+MarkOneComicsGamesHamilton/posts
(lotta online platforms to maintain running a business, eh?)

Hmmm, need to make those addresses hyperlinkable somehow...in the meantime, live links in the sidebar to the right =====>

Monday, 8 June 2015

Linkz & Plugz

 

Time to contribute some contributions on behalf of the contributors...

Links to the websites of those creators participating in the project should now be visible -

over that way =>

will add more over coming week or so.

Onya!