Radio (part 1)
(to be continued)
Drawing this comic made me feel really old, or else very aware of how quickly technology has evolved over my lifetime. When I first started listening in the 80s, we didn’t even have FM. And I remember when walkmans first arrived. I also just finished a book by Claire Messud, called The Woman Upstairs, in which a 37-year-old is described as middle-aged. That made me feel old too.
Anyway, this comic is partly an excuse to tell you about my radio appearances. Here I am talking to Morrin Rout on Plains FM. And tomorrow night Dylan Horrocks is going to be talking about The Fall of Light and my comics on Radio NZ. I will post the podcast link when it appears. On the topic of other people discussing my comics, Mike Peterson had a thoughtful response to my last Katherine Mansfield one here.
Oh, and if you’re around Auckland University tomorrow night, I’m going to be reading with a bunch of other fine people in Old Government House at 5:30.
Ouija board, ouija board
Here’s a little bit of writer’s angst to keep the quota up. I was going to write a comic on being reviewed, but that will have to wait. In the mean time, you can listen to Carole Beu reviewing The Fall of Light on Radio NZ – she was very enthusiastic – thank you, Carole! I got a vile review in Craccum which I’m trying to blot out of my consciousness but of course all of those damning things are seared on my heart. No, I’m not going to link to it. You will have to google it if you want a schadenfreude moment.
Oh, and I am going to be appearing at a few events in the coming weeks. Next Wednesday (5.30 14 August) I’ll be at a Lounge reading at the University of Auckland, and the following Wednesday (5pm 21 August) I’ll take part in a Salon event with Stephanie Johnson at Charlotte Grimshaw. The next day I’ll be in Wellington at the Alexander Turnbull Library talking about my blog! Woohoo! Of course I’ll try and slip in some novel and comics product placement too. And hopefully I’ll get a chance to look at some of Katherine Mansfield’s original letters and journals.
And the title of this blog entry? It’s a Morrissey song, of course.
More messy comics about clothes
Last Thursday I went to the Michael King Writers Centre in Devonport and I discovered that I’d left my pencil case at home. But I still had my new fountain pen in my bag so I scratched out a few Katherine Mansfield comics with that. I went for a walk at lunchtime and stumbled across a vintage store. Normally I don’t go into them because I know they are three times the price of regular op shops. But perhaps because I was by the seaside, and felt like I was on holiday, I strayed inside and salivated over all the 1950s, 60s and 70s frocks, so beautifully curated, and came out with a 1950s-style number in navy blue with white piping.
Back to the fountain pen – my friend Andrew sent it to me – it’s beautiful and I feel like I’m summoning the spirit of Katherine Mansfield by writing in my journal with it. Because Devonport is a chi-chi sort of place, there’s a fountain pen store at the bottom of the hill, and I bought a bottle of ink. I often have to refill my pen with it, leaving inky blotches all over the place. It makes me think of Mansfield’s story The Fly.
If you too want to have a fountain pen to write with you should check out Andrew’s listings on Trademe – I recommend the experience! It’s so great to be able to refill the ink and watch the variations in line and flow, rather than throwing spent pens away.
Katherine, meet Jayne
Today I was interviewed by a woman who kept on asking me about my Jayne Mansfield project. It was a slip of the tongue, but she kept making it. So when we finished up I dashed off this comic. Excuse the very bad handwriting – I intended it for my consumption only but then I thought I may as well share it!
Jayne Mansfield had an insanely turbulent short life – kind of like Mansfield, really, only she divorced and remarried far more easily, and had about 4 children, even though you couldn’t tell judging by the pictures. She sang songs with Jimi Hendrix and she posed nude for Playboy. She was a has-been by the age of 26 due to over-exposure, which is hard to imagine now, when all stars are overexposed. I wonder if anyone is writing a graphic novel about Jayne…
Comics for sale!
Last Saturday I went to the zine fest to launch issue 3 and 4 of my ‘Let Me Be Frank’ comics. I sold or swapped all the comics I brought, but I left a bunch at home just in case any of you, my lovely blog followers, wanted to buy some. They are all thematically compiled, so issue 3 is all about writing, and issue 4 is all about my celebrity obsession. But don’t expect to find the Kardashians in there – by ‘celebrities’ I mean writers and indie pop icons.
Please email me or leave a comment if you do want a copy – they cost $6 NZ each and postage is $2.10, or $4.60 if you want multiple copies. My email address is sarahelizabethlaing@gmail.com.
Also, I was horrified to discover that in this brave new era of e-readers and social media, I have only sold 18 copies of The Fall of Light eBook. Of course the print book is more beautiful, but the eBook is cheaper and you can buy it from anywhere over the world!
I got another lovely review of the novel by Nicky Pellegrino, although she also had reservations about the illustrations – I’m telling myself that it’s because I’m on the vanguard, not because I’ve made a dreadful error of judgement. Oh well, the next book – that’ll show em!
Big Time
This is a comic that I did for the winter edition of AA directions – click on it to see a bigger version. This is my biggest exposure yet – this magazine gets delivered to over 500,000 New Zealand subscribers. Not only is there a comic by me, there’s a poem by Ashleigh Young, a feature on Joe Sheehan, artist, a Q & A with Ant Timpson – pretty classy for a car mag!
Anyway, I have an ulterior motive for posting this – I want to remind you that it’s Zine fest tomorrow and I’ll be launching issues 3 and 4 of Let Me Be Frank – the writing and celebrity issues. Come to St Kevin’s Arcade on K Road between 12 and 5 and say hi! Buy some comics!
Also, I got a lovely review of The Fall of Light in The Nelson Mail – yay!
Zine fest
This is a comic I did for Metro last year about the zine fest, which was part of the First Thursdays event on K Road. The zine fest is running again this year, this time on Saturday 27 July at St Kevin’s Arcade, K Road, between 12 and 5. I’m sharing a table with my sister, who is selling her art book ‘Commonly Occurring‘. I was meant to also be sharing it with my son Otto but he hasn’t made any zines lately and I don’t want to push it for fear of becoming Mommy Dearest. Anyway, I don’t want him to steal my thunder – I’m going to be selling issues #1-#4 of ‘Let Me Be Frank’, with a few copies of my novel under the table as they don’t strictly qualify as zines. Just ask – it’ll be all subterfuge-y and black market-ish. I’ll even sign them.
The Fall of Tights
(This is one for the ladeez, or the gentlemen who would like the secrets of womanhood revealed.)
When I was in high school, we had to wear a uniform that consisted of a tartan kilt, a red bow tie on a plastic noose, a radiant blue jersey, a white polyester shirt and beige wool tights. My kilt would lose its crisp pleats days out of the dry cleaner’s and become festooned with patches of dried food, and my tights would work their way down, leaving me to walk around school hoisting them up as I went. All the girls did the same – we had a special cowboy reach-for-the-shotguns walk. I never wore my tie at my collar – when I remembered it, I wore it pinned behind the V of my jersey, flipping it out whenever a uniform-crazed teacher came by. My German teacher used to joke that we looked like breastfeeding mothers, pulling out our boobs for our babies. I was so relieved when my uniform days ended, but I continued to wear tights. The problem with tights is that you never remember that they are the ones to fall down until you’re halfway down the street and you find yourself waddling.
This reminded me of a comic I wrote about Katherine Mansfield’s tights (not that hers were falling down but she dyed them herself):
I start my residency next week, and that’s when I start my Katherine Mansfield graphic novel in earnest! I will be spending most of my time in Devonport, and a bit of my time at Auckland University.
Other news – next week I will be at Zine fest, launching issue 3 and 4 of my Let Me Be Frank comics. I will blog about it soon! And again, if you can’t make it to the zine fest and you want some copies, please email me: sarahelizabethlaing at gmail.com
And, in The Fall of Light news, here’s a review on bFM and here’s a tantalising first paragraph of the Listener review.
I <3 bookshops
Lately I’ve been going to bookshops because I have a back-catalogue of books to buy, and also because I want to make sure they’re stocking my book. In the past couple of weeks I’ve bought Ted Dawe’s ‘Into The River’ (just for the scandal), Johanna Knox’s ‘A Forager’s Treasury‘, Elizabeth Knox’s ‘Mortal Fire‘, Jared Gulian’s ‘Moon Over Martinborough‘, and Curtis Sittenfeld’s ‘Sisterland‘. I’ve also ordered Lisa Hanawalt‘s ‘Dirty Dumb Eyes’ because it sounds really great and it’s hard to find a bookshop that stocks the kind of graphic novel I like.
Each time I’ve been in, I’ve seen a hundred other books I’d like to buy, but I’ve tried to stay focused, buying books either by people I know or ones that I’m particularly interested in. Books are expensive in New Zealand, and there’s always that temptation to order them online where they cost half as much and you don’t have to leave your house and fight the evil Auckland traffic. But then you miss out on all those wonderful bookshop encounters, either with the booksellers themselves, or with the people who inhabit bookshops. It’s sad to think that these hubs are endangered thanks to internet shopping. My brother tells me that 3,000 ASOS packages arrive in NZ every day. The government is trying to figure out a way to tax them but it’s such a difficult thing to grapple with. Internet shopping is so convenient and yet it’s such a solitary pursuit. When I was a child we used to go late night shopping on Friday nights, and we’d always go to Bennett’s Bookshop first, where my parents had an account. My parents would always bump into people they knew, and there was a super-knowledgeable children’s book buyer. That’s where I got my copy of Lace. (not from the children’s section, mind you!)
I went and signed a bunch of books at a few lovely indie bookshops – The Women’s Bookshop, Unity and Time Out. They’re probably still there if you hurry! Oh, and if any of you have bought my book and want it signed please email me – sarahelizabethlaing@gmail.com – I’m happy to send you a book plate!
The Making Of
When I was creating the images for The Fall of Light, I had a sketch book. It was small, stitched, with a Kraft paper cover and creamy pages. It wasn’t expensive – it cost $6 at the local dollar shop. I drew lots of cityscapes in preparation for my real images – I wanted to understand how they worked. I only ever took life drawing classes so perspective was not my strong point. I drew with brush and ink, directly on the paper, trying to get the jist of things, to find the vanishing points.
I drew lots of Gaudí buildings, because they seemed to me like the most dream-like of architecture. I thought that if I drew enough of them I might catch something of what Gaudí had.
I drew entrance ways to buildings:
I also drew people, trying to capture their movement.
And I had trial-runs at some of the scenes that might actually appear in the book:
I really love the looseness that comes from drawing in a sketch book. As soon as you put something down on good paper, the lines become rigid with expectation. But I tried to trick myself, by buying not-so-good paper that was the same texture as my dollar shop sketch book paper.
If you want to see what some of the final illustrations turned out like, the NZ Book Council are running an excerpt here.
Also, if you’re inclined to listening to podcasts, I talked with Kathryn Ryan on Nine To Noon here.
LET ME BE FRANK 