October Metro!
Hey, my comic is in the latest Metro! It’s a great issue, once the non-Auckland readers get past the ‘Best Streets’ cover story. Thanks to Violet wanting to swing at the park for thirty minutes, I got to read Steve Braunias’ excellent article on the ‘white worm’ Derek King, as well as the extensive book coverage starting on page 104. And yes, I did read the property article. I can’t help it – I live here.
Here’s a sneak peek at my comic (it’s futuristic! It’s inspired a little by Bernard Roundhill, but I wish I’d remembered his flying tram image)
Contemplating cute
I spend quite a lot of time puzzling over what I could be doing differently in my life to be more successful. And then I go back and do my own obscure thing. The Going West festival was great, by the way. I was only there on Saturday afternoon but I got to hear Tim Wilson (I bought his book), Jaqueline Fahey (she was hilarious), Nalini Singh (what have I been doing with my life?) and of course the wonderful Mirranda Burton, whose book I highly recommend. For a proper report you can go over to Beattie’s Book Blog (that’s him in the hat, on stage with Nalini Singh).
Oh, and if you’re wondering who Li Chen is, you can find her work here.
Going West
I’m excited about heading out to the Going West Books and Writers Festival this weekend. I am particularly excited about seeing Mirranda Burton talk with Dylan Horrocks. I read Mirranda’s ‘Hidden’ last year and I loved it. It’s filled with beautiful observational pieces about her time as an art instructor to adults with intellectual disabilities. The stories are about her students, and the way they see the world, and how her world view has subsequently changed. She has rendered these in lino cuts (I think), which made me immediately want to haul out my mother’s printing press. Yes, that’s right, I have an etching press in my shed, but it’s covered in bicycles, broken bits of furniture and a rusting barbecue. If only I were rich, then I could convert the shed to my artist’s studio. But then where would all the bicycles go?
(you can find more of this here)
The other thing that makes it exciting is that she is a woman! Comics are a bit of a boys’ club, but there are lots of amazing female cartoonists out there. I dream of organising a festival where I invite Alison Bechdel, Gabrielle Bell, Vanessa Davis, Lynda Barry, Marjane Satrapi, Posy Simmonds, Jessica Abel, Kate Beaton, Gillian Tamaki, Sarah Glidden, Ariel Schrag, Julia Wertz, Lisa Hanawalt etc etc to New Zealand, but will it happen? We’re so far away. And there are so few people here who buy comics. Maybe it’s better to hope that one day I’ll get to publish a graphic novel and be invited overseas to hang out with them!
Who are your favourite female graphic novelists? Who have I missed?
I am also looking forward to seeing Tim Wilson and Jacqueline Fahey, and I hope to catch the wonderful Marianne Elliot on Sunday who wrote an amazing book about her time at the UN in Afghanistan.
Clueless, part 12
This is part of serial about my complicated pregnancy and return to NZ from NYC – you can read the previous episode here, or start from the beginning in the April archives.
Sorry about the radio silence in my blog. I’ve been busy lately, drawing dancing people for my friend Ange, writing essays, revising my novel, looking for agents (I will have to do a comic about that one!) and doing my latest comic for Metro. I’m getting nearer to the end of this serial – next episode will be the beginning of the birth experience. I do think I have lots of things I could explore further in this, and I might revisit it and do a second draft. Anyway, thank you for being so patient!
Oh, and in case you were wondering, I now own a mountain buggy.
Clueless, part 11
Second drafts
I repainted one of my comics for a book. It took me ages, but it was fun. I love watercolor. I thought it was insipid when I was growing up – something that old ladies did, immortalising their nosegays or their cataract-blurred sea views – but now I appreciate it for its immediacy and its transparency. I can draw in ink, and then splash colours over it, not worrying if I go over the lines. I was never any good at colouring in as a child. I was too impatient, and my felt tip would always lap over the picture rim. Anyway, this process gave me some hope, like I could possibly pick out the best of my comics and make them into a book of sorts. Like they won’t always be stuck in uncomfortable first draft land.
New Metro!
Look, I’m in print! In the latest Metro, easily procured in Auckland, not so easily elsewhere but you could probably try here.
And talking of print, today I’m busy redrawing one of my China comics, to be included in a book about New Zealand’s China experience, to be published by VUP at the end of the year. I will show you a sneak preview when I’m done. I’m always in a quandary as to whether to stick to my scratchy pen drawings or whether to be a Real Comic Artist, using a brush pen and lots of colour.
Who do you think you are?
A brief interlude from the ‘Clueless’ story – this is where I reveal how malleable I am. The jeans and the top are okay, I think. By the time I got home the spell had broken, and I teamed them with my sneakers and my retro jacket. I no longer looked like one of the girls out on the town, tottering around after one too many cocktails. I’d resisted buying the ankh, because although I’d tried it on to be a good sport, I remembered that I found them tacky. Anyway, I will be back with my Clueless story soon!
Clueless, part 10
This is part of a serial; you can read the previous installment here, or start at the beginning, here.
The whole drinking-while-pregnant thing is so confusing. My mother tells me she drank lightly throughout her pregnancies. And a friend who is a doctor says it’s okay to drink a glass of wine in the later trimesters, but in terms of public health messaging, it’s easier to tell people not to drink at all. I really should have had a drink at that wedding. I would have had a better time.
In an unrelated topic, I just finished Brecht Evens’ latest book, ‘The Making of’, and I have a water colour crush. I love the way he constructs his narratives with greens, blues and magentas. The scenes he paints are so lush and surreal. I also highly recommend Alison Bechdel’s ‘Are you my mother?’, which is beautifully written and drawn with ink washes – a fantastic meditation on the creative process, and the perils of memoir. It gave me a hankering to go to psychoanalysis. There’s a review here, which also includes Guy Delisle’s ‘Jeruselum’, a book that I admired and enjoyed for its astute observations of life in Israel. It’s not overtly political and yet it delivers a powerful message about the injustices the Palestinians have to endure.
Postscript: since publishing this, I’ve been told that the museum is Sir John Soane’s Museum.
Clueless, part 9
This is part of a serial; you can read the last installment here.
It’s funny writing an extended memoir comic on the fly – I can see that I will have to go back and redraw/edit stuff if I want to make something of this. But in the meantime, you are getting treated to the creative process in its raw state! That’s what blogging’s all about, right?
In good news, I just heard that my novel has been accepted for publication in New Zealand. I don’t know when it will be out (I still don’t have a contract), but I will keep you posted! I am very excited – this means that I haven’t wasted three years of my writing life after all.
LET ME BE FRANK 