We thought you might get a kick out of these nostalgic photos, which we just dug up —that's Julie with Bruce Love (our previous BMP Classic business partner and co-writer of WaveDancers and Dart), and Jozef with the long cascading hair. Jozef had just bought a fashion mannequin, which we dressed up as a mermaid. If we had had a big budget we would have made her a beautiful black sequinned costume but we really liked the colours of her tail and head-dress. She was a HUGE hit and lots of people came and posed next to her and took lots of pretty pics, which proves the point that mermaids are universally loved, especially hot ones like this one. Her fin is quite spectacular!
We're going on record to say that we're great fans of the annual GRAPHIC event—a weekend of graphic storytelling, animation and music that is held at the Sydney Opera House. We've attended multiple sessions over the last two years and had a fabulous time, so we were pretty pleased to receive an invitation to attend the launch last night where we got an insider's view of what's coming up in November.
GRAPHIC celebrates and often fuses the three different art forms. One example in this year's lineup is "Dr Seuss Meets Elefant Traks" (Sun 11 Nov)—a collective of 25 performers that will musically support the whimsical imagery from Dr Seuss's surreal universe. Another is "Radio with Pictures" (Sun 11 Nov) which is part radio, part comic strip and a whole lot of live performance. Oz illustrators Matt Taylor, Biddy Maroney, Matt Huynh, Leigh Rigozzi and more are featured in this session. Several of these artists appeared in last year's Oz comics panel and did sensational presentations so this is one session that's on our radar.
The major animation headliner is Pixar Animation Studios. which will feature in a "Behind the Screens" session (Sat 10 Nov) that will be held in the concert hall. Another favourite of ours and a must see on our schedule is "Animal Logic's History of Computer Animation" (Sun 11 Nov).
In the comics department, we've got "Peter Bagge's Hate! & Other Neat Stuff" (Sun 11 Nov). This year, GRAPHIC will give gaming its place in the sun. This will come in the form of "The Good Game: Roffle Cup Live" (Sun 11 Nov), which is a quiz show similar to ABC's "Spicks and Specks" except that it focuses on computer games. In addition, the comics making workshop held during the previous two years will be replaced by a "Gaming Workshop: Gaming Level Design" (Sat 10 Nov).
We also have it on good authority that there will be some additional panel sessions, which have not been scheduled yet.
Once again, curators Jordan Verzar and Ben Marshall have done a great job planning this years lineup, which is not only original but bound to be inspirational.
CLICK HEREif you want to check out the program. Tickets go on sale on Monday 17 September 2012. Make sure you get in early because they sell out fast.
Maybe it should be called "Shark Riders" rather than "Elf~Fin" or maybe not... Jayshu is up to silly shenanigans at Spax's promptings. Oh, and in Elf~Threaal, they're called "sharps" not "sharks". From left to right, that's Jayshu, Razbi and Spax. More pretty pics coming soon. More importantly, Jozef is counting down the pages he has left to paint so Issue #1 is getting close to being finished.
Last month was my birthday and I received a delightful surprise from Perth in Western Australia in the form of a lovely hand-coloured birthday card from my friend Maddy who is all of five years old. I'm told that Dad pencilled the lines of the characters but Maddy did all the colouring in. What I clearly adored was Maddy's take on Razbi and Jayshu from the first issue of Elf~Fin. Jozef loves it as well. I am very touched that Maddy has been inspired by the original artwork, came up with the idea of putting it on a personal one-of-a-kind birthday card for me and I think the execution of her vision is truly amazing. I think she is an up-and-coming artist we need to keep an eye out, and who knows, maybe in a few years she'll be working in mermaid comics as well.
Trouble Magazine recently asked me to write a short article about Wonder Woman creator William Moulton Marston who wrote comic books under the pen name of Charles Moulton until his death from cancer in 1947 at the age of 54. Turns out that the exceptionally gifted Moulton (he was a psychologist, lawyer and educational consultant amongst other occupations!) channeled some of his secret sexual predilections into his Wonder Woman stories—the main one being S&M and B&D. For those of you who don't know what these acronyms stand for, read the upcoming quote from a letter to his publisher for a clue...
This, my dear friend, is the one truly great
contribution of my Wonder Woman strip to moral education of the young.
The only hope for peace is to teach people who are full of pep and unbound
force to enjoy being bound… Only when the control of self by others is more
pleasant than the unbound assertion of self in human relationships can we hope
for a stable, peaceful human society… Giving to others, being controlled by the
submitting to other people cannot possibly be enjoyable without a strong erotic
element.
... and then trot over to the online version of Trouble Magazine (September 2012 edition) and read the entire article for yourself.
UPDATE: Great news! This article has been covered on the US-basedComics Beat Blog, as well as onWebComicsGuide. Thank you kindly for the coverage.
[PLEASE NOTE that from October this link will change and you'll have to find it in the articles listing. We'll update the link on this blog post at that time.] PHOTO CREDIT: Harry Rekas (creative director), Gerard O'Connor (photographer) and Mark Wasiak (stylist). See the Trouble Magazine article for more pics.
I had the pleasure and the privilege of meeting and having lunch last week with Kim Kingston, Director of Books in Homes, and her warm, energetic and dedicated team—Laura, Julie and Hester.
To put you in the picture...
Books in Homes is an Australian charitable foundation that aims to "re-awaken a sense of wonder in children and excitement in parents, by creating an Australian where every child and family has access to books of choice at home."
The heart of the organisation lies in its mission:
Books-in-Homes provides books-of-choice to families and children living in remote and low socio-economic circumstances, ensuring crucial early literacy engagement and the development of reading skills needed for lifelong success. 25% of titles on offer are written by Indigenous Authors. This Programme aims to break the education inequality found in remote and disadvantaged communities where resources are often scarce and generational poverty endemic.
I've just volunteered to be a Role Model and will be attending a book-giving assembly at a local public school at the end of the year to talk about why I LOVE books and why they were so important to me when I was growing up, as well as to hand out some books to the students.
I must add that Books in Homes also believe in graphic novels... and guess what? Mermaids as well!
So we encourage you to read all about the Books in Homes program here, or better still, make a donation or help in some other way to, as they say, "Empower Kids, Literally".
UPDATE 12/09/12: The event organiser has just informed us that due to unforeseen circumstances this event has been cancelled, and she will look at running it again next year.
Black Mermaid Productions (BMP) Director Julie Ditrich will be presenting a session called "Comics and Graphic Novels for Beginners" at the Sydney Fringe Writers' Festival on 23 September 2012. Julie will be discussing the following at the session:
Australia is entering a new dawn of comics and graphic novel publishing. The quality of storytelling and production values of late has been superb. However, the “comics” medium is still misunderstood in the literary world where it is relegated to the fringes rather than the mainstream and recognised more as pop culture than high culture. This seminar will initiate you into the world of comics, and will examine definitions, formats, building blocks and conventions, as well as current Oz comics trends and opportunities. If you want to be part of the new wave of comics talent, then there is no better place to begin than here!
Julie will also be announcing a new comics initiative aimed at emerging and developing Australian comics creators.
The incomparable Irina Dunn, champion of all things literary in Australia, is the organiser of the event. Irina was the foundation director of the NSW Writers' Centre, and now heads up Australian Writers' Network. The event line-up as a whole looks fabulous with talks topics such as traditional media vs print media, journalism in the modern age, novels vs scripts, and publishing and promoting your books. You can check out the Sydney Fringe Writers' Festival schedule here.
We thought you might get a kick out of these nostalgic photos, which we just dug up —that's Julie with Bruce Love (our previous BMP Classic business partner and co-writer of WaveDancers and Dart), and Jozef with the long cascading hair. Jozef had just bought a fashion mannequin, which we dressed up as a mermaid. If we had had a big budget we would have made her a beautiful black sequinned costume but we really liked the colours of her tail and head-dress. She was a HUGE hit and lots of people came and posed next to her and took lots of pretty pics, which proves the point that mermaids are universally loved, especially hot ones like this one. Her fin is quite spectacular!
