May 2003 Archives

Never seen the creator of the Simpsons before ? Here is a photo with his Reuben award.

Thought that came to mind. When I was studying under a Grandmaster in Tai Chi, taoist quotes were quite common. I felt like grasshopper when I was give a sentence like, "The heart of a lion will not go far on the legs of a chicken."

If only I had a cool parent that would have told me that when I was growing up. I'd have legs like Arnold Schwarzenegger. I love those great ancient quotes that can give you so much and yet be so simplistic. The one that got me through the hard time of blank paper syndrome was thusly:

The moment you are concerned with the outcome, you lose the winning edge.

Groening has been awarded the gong for Cartoonist of the Year. I have a sneaking suspicion this is a desperate attempt by the society to try and bring attention to an industry that is feeling the hard times. Groening has done quite well over the years but do you think he really needs something like this to tell him he's great ?

I didn't get a chance to make the Writer's Festival on the weekend. I have a tumor in my leg that made my lower leg swell to a point that it hurt to walk on. So I spent a rainy weekend mostly off my feet. Did happen to find a new place to live and managed to write a number of new comic strips. I really didn't hear that much about the Festival though. I think it is catering to a different audience each year since I have gone that strays more to the adult content rather than doing more to gain interest from the public that are interested in Children's media.

Mary GrandPre for those who haven't read the books as yet is the illustrator behind Harry Potter. With so much hype about the new book I hope it doesn't fizzle like the reviews I hear of the Matrix Reloaded.

Rumours come true and by August you'll see the first self destructing DVD's for sale. These DVD's are sold at a low price point much like rental instead. The disc itself is red in colour and 48 hours after exposure to oxygen the disc will turn black and be unreadable. I don't know how much research Disney has done on these discs but I bet you that there is a way of reversing the process of exposure to reveal the original burned information.

As of this weekend, 2 strips will be dropped from the inside back page of Brisbane's Courier-Mail in a redesign that focusses on a larger weather information page. Here is a quote from a representative of the newspaper ;

"Given the parameters of time, a change in allocated space, and in the absence of comprehensive readership figures on cartoon popularity, a decision was made to conduct a straw poll around the office. The alternative was to do nothing and just select 2 for the chop. The ACA was assured the poll was broad and done as fair and as wide as possible. An age old problem exists here where cartoonists should probably create their characters and gags aimed at editors, rather than demographic readers."

So of the 12 strips (Hagar, Garfield, Phantom, Blondie, Wizard, BC, Better or Worse, Hobbs, Black Stump, Swamp, Trevor and Meggs) Hagar was by far the most popular. The 4 least popular were all Australian. The 2 least popular of those 4 were Trevor and Meggs. Hence, the change commences this weekend.

I wonder if they do straw polls for their employees when the wigs inform them of debt reduction in the workplace?

What's new ? Well there are two days to the start of the Rueben Awards. These are the National Cartoon Awards in the USA named after Rube Goldberg. Never heard of it ? It's worth checking out. I love the fact that Matt Groening is in for Cartoonist of the year. Does he even draw anymore ?

The local version of the National Cartoonists' Awards are called the Stanleys after Stan Cross. It's a shame that the market here doesn't allow for us to be as recognised as well as those abroad. This year the Stanleys are being held in Gosford, NSW. This is to coincide with our participation in the Spike Milligan Comedy Festival, mainly because Pat (Spike's younger brother) was involuntarily placed on the council organising committee for having the same surname to the festival. Will also coincide with the Irish Rugby Union team also playing that same day in Gosford as part of the World Cup. So we'll be gate crashed by drunk Irish type folk thinking they can be funnier than us. Let's see them draw then.

Having been some major dilemmas recently I can get back to writing. For the past 6 months I have been assisting police in an investigation. Someone had stolen my identity and were very keen to get some cash and some credit to themselves. Initially this person had stolen mail from my letterbox and were able to obtain through some letters my date of birth and banking details (thank you very much to those corporates who so proudly print such info in correspondence). This person went on to apply for a $8,000 Apple computer, had redirected my mail and reissued credit cards and any other type of cards like health fund etc. to a different postal address for collection. They even convinced the bank that they had forgotten the phone banking password and requested it to be sent to the new address. They had even changed my electoral roll details. The list of things this person did was too long to list here. I stayed on top of it all though like a pro detective. I stopped them every step of the way. I had to because the police were taking too long to work out who was going to handle the case. Hence I was a little busy and found it hard to post anything here as regularly as I would like to. So anyhoo, the other day I gets me a phone call from another police station, as opposed to the one I reported the crime to, and a constable informs me that they have arrested someone with my cards in their possession. "Great!" I say to them. The following update from them tells me that they arrested him 4 months ago. So far I am yet to hear from the original station as to how the crime will be handled, they are totally unaware that the criminal is currently behind bars. The drama still goes on. I'll keep you posted. My suggestion to you all is that you get yourselves a post office box and redirect all your mail there. And report any missing mail to the police immediately.

I haven't been to see X-Men 2 yet but here is a great article on the guys who werescriptwriters on the set though.

I was just reading this article recently and thought it was interesting to see that even in Marvel comics there were those told to fix other artists work or touch up. Anyway if you're interested in seeing a good article this is worth reading for those who know what a Spiderman is. The interview with John Romita.

Foam Latex is used in many industries. I recall going to work with my dad when I was young and discovering latex was used for adhering hessian and rubber to flooring. I used to bring home small jars of latex and make moulds of little characters. The other thing you learn very quickly is that you can lose hair from your skin very quickly using latex. It was a great trick getting a friend to dip their finger in the latex and watch them peel it off in agony from losing any hair on their hand. The stuff stinks to high hell. Anyway these guys from Scream Team are worth checking out if you like getting dressed up.

Sequential Tart have an interview with Frank Cho. I love Frank's work and he should be read more often out here thatn he is. Check out his interview.

I haven't made many entries to the blog recently. Mainly because I haven't been feeling up to it. After coming home from holidays in New Zealand we were give a notice of intent to sell. The owners of property we rent have split up and need the cash. On top of that I got a few emails from editors cancelling my comic strip due to "a new design" or 'layout amended' format that was clearly destined not to include anything that wasn't advertising obviously. I've also been heavily concentrating on the development of my new comic strip and it is coming up so well that it leads to redeveloping some characters or situations to allow for a continual storyline. I'm quite confident that this strip will do extremely well, but at the same time I don't want to rush it out and find I'm under pressure to do more with it and be overwhelmed with the marketing and drawing of it. Many have found it hard to continue their comic strip as they find little time to creatively diversify with their characters and develop something that will ensure the concept doesn't stagnate. And I want to make sure I do something right the first time around and not get caught out drawing something that is too hard to write. I've been so busy writing the new strip I haven't even the chance to draw any more strips up as yet. And it is kind of hard when you're having to pack boxes, clean up for open house inspections, locate a new house to rent, do housework etc...

All I can see is a positive future for this new comic strip and I hope everyone will like it as much as I've been enjoying writing it. Other things I have considered is simply churning it out as a comic book quarterly and also inviting someone else to draw it. I have a particular style and know a few people I would like to approach but would never take on a task like this with someone I don't know. Still as time goes by it is also time running out, I need to get this thing out and about before someone else fills the gap. Looks like some long nights ahead yet.

I used to run a webcam, but Logitech aren't too friendly for us heathen Mac users. But I will be now adding a web cam photo section to the blog somehow so all the precious out there can see me hard at work while they are devouring time staring at the screen waiting for images to download like this one....

This is the first of a few hundred photos I am having to sift through from the wedding day. THe reception we boarded a catamaran in Darling Harbour where we embarked on a 4 hour mission to cruise Sydney Harbour in an effort to not see any of its sparkling night lights but instead waste brain cells on alcohol. Within the first hour people were seriously wasted which made it difficult as I had planned on miming my speech. I gave up and gave a very brief account of who I had been told to thank.

Not looking our best here with windswept hair, L-R is Pat Campbell (Canberra Times Cartoonist), Me (all round international star cartoonist), Jon Kudelka (Closey eyed funny arse Cartoonist from The Australian).

Trust me, the night got worse as people got more drunk. And the womens toilets stopped working half way through the cruise.