Metro comics
Continuing my theme of retrospective, here are a few of my comics from past issues of Metro magazine. First up is my Fleet Foxes comic in its entirety, including guest appearances by Kurt Cobain and Holly from Tiny Ruins (click on it to make it bigger):
And here is a comic I made when I sat in on rehearsals for T.S. Elliot’s ‘The Wasteland’, produced by the Auckland Theatre Company. It’s kind of comic-reportage (click again to make bigger.)
Just because I’m showing you these doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t buy the lastest copy of Metro! You guys should, because then I’ll keep my paid comics gig (a rare and wonderful thing these days.) There’s a whole lot of debate about whether giving stuff away for free helps or hinders sales. I was listening to a really interesting interview of Kelly Link on Kim Hill’s show, and she said that when she gave away copies of ‘Stranger Things Happen’, more people bought the book. That sounds counter-intuitive, but her argument was that because people liked it, they wanted to give her money to support her. Perhaps they talked about her to their friends, who preferred to buy books in bookshops. Which sounds all very nice and I hope that’s the way it all works out – it’s a weird new world, this digital publishing one. We’re still getting our heads around it.
Little Treasures
Did you know that my latest Metro comic is out? You should buy it! In the meantime I thought I’d show you what I’d been doing for Little Treasures, since if you don’t have a child under five, you probably don’t look at it. Click on the comics to make them bigger if you are having trouble reading them. Next month I have a double-page-spread!
Gardening
Accident
Blueberries
Guns
My brilliant career
Cling-on
Milk
Hang on
Stain
Tissues
Porridge stories
I was trying to tell the Parisian literary story because I’m reading ‘The Paris Wife’ at the moment, about Ernest Hemingway and his first wife Hadley. It’s really enjoyable, particularly since all the characters are so familiar, but it also slightly depresses me. It is filled with the myth of the writer – someone tortured, arrogant, convinced of his own talent, creating something entirely new. Ernest and Hadley move between USA, France, Spain and Austria. I feel so far removed from this myth. Sure, I’m a little tortured, but I am not convinced of my talent or that I can add anything new. Nor am I in Paris or Spain – I am in New Zealand, looking after children, snatching a day’s worth of writing a week if I am lucky. Jonathan and I went to see St Vincent on Sunday, and she was fantastic, but she commented how we lived at the end of the world. Yeah, I know. I wish she didn’t rub it in.
Green tomato relish
By popular (well, popular-ish) demand, here is the recipe for the relish I mentioned yesterday. Please click on the image to make it bigger and print it out if you like!
Did any of you own Molly Katzen’s early books? I used to love how her recipes were all hand-written. In fact, I have ambitions to write my own hand-drawn recipe book. In the mean time, have you seen this?
The tomato problem
I’m holding global warming responsible for my tomato problems. It’s been the dampest summer ever! That and my haphazard gardening skills. But I do want to add that I have eaten a lot of my tomatoes too. I’ve been having tomato and basil salad for lunch every day for weeks. There are still a few cherry tomatoes remaining; it’s not over yet.
Carriage return
This is a coda to the typewriter story. I got lots of lovely comments on that story and I want to say thank you! I love getting your comments, and hearing how your lives intersect with mine! One thing about this typewriter – it doesn’t have an exclamation mark. Perhaps I should start writing exclusively on it because I am far too profligate with my exclamation mark use!!!!
Oh, and in case you’re wondering what the ‘Murder she wrote’ credits were, here they are. When I was looking through I realised there was a revised version, in which Angela Lansbury used a computer – it was not the same!
One thing I’ve always wanted to do is go along to the Alphabet City Letter Writing Club. It’s on tomorrow in Auckland. The thought of a bunch of people typing up a symphony of letters is very appealing. But I find it so difficult to extract myself from my family on a week night… maybe tomorrow…
True stories told live
Look! This is what I’m going to be doing in 17 days time. You can see me in full 3-dimensional, technicoloured glory, sans speech bubbles. Talking. Over-disclosing. In front of an audience. I might even write a comic to go with my story that I can hock off for a gold coin donation at the end of the show. Go on, support New Zealand book month!
Over sea, under wood
Talking of fetishising old objects, it’s a bit of a theme this week. I’ve just sent off next month’s comic for Metro and here’s a sneak peek:
I hope I don’t get fined for not wearing a bicycle helmet in the picture. Oh, and the title of the blog is a reference to a series of books I loved as a child by Susan Cooper. I’ll have to read it again, or try to read it to Otto, even though he just broke my heart by telling me that Michael Ende’s ‘Momo’ was boring and he didn’t want me to finish it.
Family angst
I’m hoping it’s not my bad parenting that’s made my children anxious – I’m trying to blame it on genetics. Or catholicism, or the Irish potato famine, or aluminium pots, or gluten. My children may be manifesting versions of my anxiety, but I swear, my whole family is like that, and it goes back generations.
I also wanted to add that I have a comic in the latest Metro magazine – upfront, a column, on page 26 no less. In full, glorious technicolor. That makes me anxious too. Anxious when I draw it, anxious after it’s published and I’m worrying about whether it’s any good or not. You should buy a copy – here’s a sneak preview:
The unbearable lightness of blogging
This is just so you know that I have a complex about blogging. After I’ve posted a blog I get caught in a technology loop, as described by Portlandia. Actually, it doesn’t take much to get me stuck in one, since I work from home, so I rely quite heavily on the internet for water cooler chats. But today I’m going to make a concerted effort to not check my email/facebook/twitter/wordpress stats until I’ve drawn another comic!
In some ways blogging is heaps less ephemeral than published books. If you know the key words to search for blog posts, they are always accessible. Books, on the other hand, easily disappear off shelves and go out of print. But the internet makes you hungry for new stuff, and you need to gobble up more articles, more posts, more funny pictures. It gives you a bit of a junk food headache afterwards.
LET ME BE FRANK 