Tango reflections

I'm feeling very sentimental. Last Thursday night saw a very special double launch here in Melbourne: the launch of Tango 9 - Love and War and of The Tango Collection.

For the uninitiated, Tango is an anthology of romance comics. And by romance, we mean the wonderful combination of love-plus-adventure. All kinds of love (zombie love, toaster love, cheese love, pigeon love - you name it) and every colour of adventure, all in magnificent techni-black-and-white. Tango is up to its ninth issue now, and for twelve years these beautiful anthologies have been lovingly tended, edited, brought into the world and distributed by the spectacular Mr Bernard Caleo. Twelve years is a really long time in comics, especially when you're publishing out of your kitchen, hawking it around to bookstores yourself, and doing it all on the smell of an inky rag.

But Bernard is no longer doing it all on his own. Enter the most marvellous and most adventurous of publishing houses, Allen & Unwin. Steered by comics visionary Erica Wagner A&U have published The Tango Collection, a rich, juicy volume of selected goodies from the first eight issues of Tango. Let me just spell this out: a big, highly respected mainstream publishing company has just published a collection of local comic artists, many of whom are totally unknown to the wider reading public. That is adventure! And that is love. (That is also great publishing karma, I would add. I hope they sell kazillions.)

The Tango Collection is fabulous. The comics are funny, moving, gripping, compelling, kooky, challenging, entertaining and mighty impressive. The editing choices are smart and beautifully balanced, thanks to Bernard and to A&U's Elise Jones, and the design by Bruno Herfst is great - inviting to the eye, with a clever nod to Tango's cut-and-paste kitchen table origins. And it's so perfectly in the spirit of Tango, that I have to wipe away a little tear just thinking about it.

Tango has always had a big, big heart - big enough to include the first shy publishings of many a local scribbler. Talk to any Melbourne comic artist, and odds are they started out publishing their work in Tango. And odds are those same scribblers are still submitting their work to Bernard every time a new issue of Tango is conceived. It's eclectic, it's open to play and experimentation, it's generous, and it's a damn fine collection of quality comics. It's very, very exciting seeing it dished up to the wider reading public in such polished and exuberant style.

Tango is also a community. My introduction to the Melbourne comics scene was through Tango back in 1998, and the friendships, inspirations and camaraderie are still going strong. It was a very warm feeling indeed to look around the enormous crowd at the launch and see so many wonderful people - wonderful people whose work I admire so much, too. My date for the evening, darling baby Poppy, wasn't quite up to the heat, noise and press of so many much bigger bodies, so I didn't get a chance to talk with everyone or really get into the swing of the party. But it was great just to see the launch, and one day when she's bigger, Pop Pop can say, "I was there when they launched The Tango Collection".

The launch has been blogged by Bernard here, with photos. Needless to say, I didn't even manage to even get my camera out of my bag!

Ooow! My face!

My face hurts!

No, I haven't ended up in another comic artist smackdown. This time it's entirely self-inflicted.

I've spent the day drawing roughs for Hamlet, specifically the harrowing "closet scene" where the Dane confronts - and harangues - his trollop of a mother. This involves drawing a lot of angry faces - for example, this:

It seems to be pretty common ("Ay madam, 'tis common!") among cartoonists that when we draw a face, we can't help assuming precisely the expression we are drawing. I've tested this out by trying to draw one kind of expression while setting my face in another, and the result is a lot of terrible facial contortions in both places: the picture comes out looking all wrong, and my face starts twitching desperately in the manner of John Howard during the recent "great" debate (ugh!).

So of course I go with what works, and wear the faces as I draw them. Problem is, after doing nine pages of roughs today, in which Hamlet runs the gamut from indignation to rage through to extreme revulsion and back again, I've had my face set in those very attitudes for literally hours. If the wind were to change at some point today (and remember, this is Melbourne), I might have ended up looking permanently like this:
Not pretty. Not comfortable either. Imagine the terrible wrinkles I'm going to have after 350 pages of this... and that's just the roughs! That thing in my hand, by the way, is my Pentel Aquash brush pen - and it's the greatest thing since the invention of ink. Just thinking about it smoothes those lines right away.

I wonder just how common this "face mirrors hand" thing is. Talking with other scribblers recently has made me realise that many of the techniques and experiences and quirks that I assume are almost universal are in fact different for each person. For example, the other day I heard about a cartoonist who says that he is never surprised by how his work comes out. This is almost inconceivable to me. I am constantly surprised by ideas and forms that emerge while immersed in a picture. So I wonder - does everyone make the faces they draw? Are there people who can conjure up a lively, meaningful expression on the page without simultaneously doing it themselves?

And do cucumber slices on the eyes really work?

This Is Not Art - Newcastle rocks out

Ok, before I forget, here's a link to Chewie's photos from the Sydney Kinokuniya gig.

I'm just back from Newcastle, and the carnival of delights that is the This Is Not Art festival (TINA). Once a year, Newie is overrun with crazy Young People - scribblers of all kinds, zinesters, music-merchants, performers, ranters, thinkers, bloggers, electro-gadgeteers, spectacular costume-wearers, and every other flavour of artist and fancier you can think of- and the result is... kaleidoscopic. Sadly, I took very few photos - too busy having fun.

This year TINA was organised by a very talented crew (Tom Doig, Nic Low and Kelly-Lee Hickey were the big three, I believe) who packed the program with an amazing array of fabulous stuff. Just as exciting was the social buzz of the fest - at every turn you end up bumping into old friends or making new ones. In amongst some much-needed aimless drifting in the sunshine, I caught some great panels. A real stand-out was one called "Untold Stories", featuring (among others) super-author Anna Funder (of Stasiland fame), super-sharp-penned writer/journo Anna Krien and super-dooper artist and writer, Shaun Tan.


Speaking of whom, in the photo above you can see Shaun and me, revelling in an exhibition called Taking Eye-Candy From Strangers. It was in a little shopfront-turned-gallery, packed with amazing comic art, much of it painted directly onto the walls, and I believe we are pictured having a good laugh at a piece by the highly talented Pat Grant. Shaun is speaking, which generally means that he is saying something fascinating, and opening up a previously undiscovered door in his listener's head - in this case mine.

Shaun and I did an "in conversation" panel on Friday, titled A thousand pictures tells a million words, and I found it a fantastic experience. It's quite rare that Shaun and I get to sit down for an hour together and have a proper talk, because we're often both rushing in seven different directions at once. So it was a real treat to have this chat, and share some thoughts about the interaction between words and pictures, the structure of strips and pages, language, suggestion and symbols and the process of working on a long, long graphic novel. I always learn something when I talk with Shaun, and this was no exception. We had a friendly, appreciative crowd, and the conversation felt almost as natural as if we were just yakking together over a cup of tea.

There was a very healthy cartoonist contingent at TINA, including such luminaries as David Blumenstein (whose latest Nakedfella comic is so hilarious, I made a complete fool of myself reading it in a cafe), Jo Waite, Pat Grant, Matt "Stikman" Huynh, Leigh Rigozzi, Sarah Howell, Ben Constantine and Mel Stringer. The promised event involving a comics jam with images projected live onto a wall never happened, but there were plenty of opportunities for impromptu jamming. Must admit that I didn't draw much at all. Mostly I was just chilling out after a pretty hectic few days!

On Saturday night the phenomenally energetic Tom Doig hosted the "Mega mega launch" in which 30-something (that's number, not age) participants launched their book or other baby into the world. I gave Gatsby its second launch, without any tears this time! The Mega mega launch was a great event, and it was fabulous to see how enthusiastic and generous and encouraging the TINA crowd was. Everyone got lots of applause, and there was a feeling of genuine celebrations of works of all shapes and sizes. Fuzzy warm glow all round - which pretty much sums up the mood of TINA.

Sunday was the zine fair, which is shorthand for "massive festival of cool art stuff on trestle tables". The zine fair was spread out in the park, with a stage for music, lots of picnicking on blankets (TINA was amply supplied with delicious vegie food at all times) and... zombies! Oh, joy! Those who know me, know that I looooove zombies. Those who don't, check out some of my zombie comics here. And here are a few of the stylish Undead, out for a day in the park:


And thank YOU, nurse!

Smackdown!! Campbell vs Greenberg Title Fight

I've only had the pleasure of making Eddie Campbell's acquaintance quite recently, but in the short time we've known one another, we've already managed to have one gloves-off smackdown barney.

As readers of his blog will be well aware, Australia's most famous graphic novelist is a man of eloquently expressed - and very strong - opinions. And had she done her homework, this little Bug would have known that there is one "piranha pond" of which young players are advised to steer well clear: the topic of What We Call Our Work.

Of course we've kissed-and-made-up, so I'm afraid I can't promise a WWE-style wrestling match when we appear together at the Melbourne or Brisbane writers festivals... but I can offer this little cartoon version of events, in which we all get a good walloping.

Special thanks to the lovely Jason Conlan, cartoonist extraordinaire and wrestling announcer, who kindly allowed me to borrow his "mister J" character as the guest commentator for...

The Title Fight!!

(I haven't yet learned how to make these pics bigger, so you'll need to click on each page to enlarge)