Tales from inner and outer suburbia...

It's been quiet on the blog front once again, because we've had some drama here at the Bughouse. Our darling pup Horace has a broken front leg, so there's been a lot of nursing going on. It breaks my heart to see the little thing all splinted and bandaged and wagging his tail so hopefully, because all he wants to do is frolic and play - but of course he can't.

Right, better change subject before I cry all over the desk and short-circuit something. That tiny pup is braver than us big humans. He's wonderful. Get well soon, little Horace.

On Friday night Shaun Tan's new book, Tales from Outer Suburbia was launched at Readings bookshop in Carlton. It really goes without saying that it's another piece of brilliance from the phenomenal Mr Tan. It's gorgeous. It's wonderful. It's published by Allen & Unwin (yay!). Go out right now and get yourself a copy. The beautiful cover, designed by Inari Kiuru (Shaun's partner and super-designer) is shown here.

Traveling further back in time... Sydney Writers' Festival came and went - great fun, and very busy. We got to stay at a wonderful spot right under the Harbour Bridge, with water all around - a bit of a thrill for a Melburnian. I did a couple of talks for high school students and two workshops for kids, followed by one longer workshop for adults. I especially enjoyed the adult workshop, because the participants were all so keen and motivated and engaged and talented ! There was a terrific buzz as everyone exchanged ideas (and email addresses) and sketched out some fabulous stuff.

This Thursday I'll be doing another talk about Gatsby at Northcote library. Details of the event are here, or:

Thursday 5 June
6.30pm
Northcote Library
32-38 Separation St, Northcote
Melways Map 30 F8

Righto. Back to pupster and Hamlet now.

An absolute rose

"An absolute rose" is something Daisy calls Nick in The Great Gatsby. It's also what this accidental sculpture made me think of. Pity about my blurry, camera-jiggling flashless photography, but I rather like the idea. It's sitting on my desk, saved from the bin by its rosy appeal.

The ink has been in play this week and I've finished another of the Hamlet backgrounds, but I'm very weary thanks to a bunch of interstate trips crammed into a short time. Hopefully this next couple of days will be a good reviver before I head off once again on Wednesday to go to the Somerset Celebration of Literature - a writers festival focusing on childrens and young adult literature. Should be fun!

Being green... and heading out West

Here's the fourth of my Hamlet backgrounds. While this is in some ways the simplest one so far, it was actually quite tricky to do - not least because after a few hours all those circles cease to look like cute little wasabi peas and start to pull weird optical illusion-type tricks on the eyes.

Painting all those dots gave me plenty of time to think about the connotations of particular shades of green. Green is traditionally thought to represent poison - perhaps because arsenic was used to make green pigments. And of course green is the colour of envy. It's the colour of many, many lovely things as well - not least being my first love, Kermit - but for this picture (the King's private rooms) I wanted to choose shades of green that suggested bitterness, poison, scheming, envy and unwholesomeness. So if you feel a bit queasy just looking at this image, then all is as it should be.

Here's a detail, which is quite pretty (but please excuse my blurry flashless photography):

Once again, those opaque acrylic inks amaze me. I originally painted a few other props into this picture, which took me ages because they involved lots of fidldy colour and detail. But I then decided that I didn't like them at all. These inks have such good opacity, and therefore covering power, that I just painted over the top of the unwanted items with my background green, painted some more wasabi peas over the top, and - magic!- you can't even see the joins.

However, after all that, my eyes were doing something very like this:

In other news, on Wednesday this week I'm off to the Perth Writers Festival, which is part of the Perth International Arts Festival. It looks like a fabulous program, and I've never been to Western Australia, so I'm looking forward to it very much. I'll be talking about Gatsby in a couple of sessions for older students in the schools program, and will be on two panels in the general program.

So hand me my party frock - I'm going West!

Whoops! Forgot to mention...

...that I'm giving a talk about Gatsby tonight in Melbourne at the North Fitzroy Library:

North Fitzroy Library,
240 St Georges Road, North Fitzroy
6.30 pm
Bookings essential, please call 1300 695 427

...and also participating in a panel on adaptation as part of the Latrobe University / Eltham Bookshop "World Matters" program this Saturday 27th at 10.30 am. Here's the program for the World Matters festival.

And this time I'm going to tie my data stick around my neck.

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!

A bunch of events - Melbourne, Sydney and Newcastle

A bunch of Gatsby-related events coming up in the next couple of weeks - all open to whoever would like to come:

Sunday 23 September, 4pm - Melbourne
Speaking at Robarta, at 109 Fitzroy St St Kilda, courtesy of Chronicles Bookshop

Tuesday 25 September, 6.30pm - Sydney
Speaking at Gleebooks, 49 Glebe Point Road, Glebe. Details here.

Thursday 27 September, 6 pm - Sydney
Speaking at Kinokuniya bookstore, Level 2, 500 George Street, Sydney (The Galeries Victoria Building). Details here.

Friday 28 to Sunday 30 September - Newcastle
Various events at This Is Not Art / National Young Writers Festival. See program for details.

...and I promise I'll do the "Myrtle" as pictured on the last blog entry.

Whew! Busy times!

"I counted the tits, and there's fourteen"

Back in Melbourne, having just repaid my first instalment of the gigantic sleep debt incurred at the Brisbane Writers Festival. And what a festival it was! Beautifully organised (by possibly the friendliest staff and volunteers in the world), packed with enthusiastic festival-goers, drenched in sunshine and perfectly located at the new, super-cool State Library complex at Southbank by day, and at the Powerhouse by night. I had a ball.

But in my rush to pack and get on the plane up to Brissie at some hideously early hour of Thursday morning, I managed to forget my camera. So I can't post any photos of the raucous evening with the other words-and-pictures merchants at the Powerhouse, nor of my various panels - including those with Eddie Campbell, Leigh Rigozzi and Baba Brinkman.

Presenting with Baba was a brand new experience for me. In stark contrast to us practitioners of the silent art of little pictures (how's that, Eddie?), Baba's work is BIG, and it's LOUD. He's a rap artist and performer, and he's written an extraordinary rap adaptation of the Canterbury Tales. Our session was titled "What a Classic", and we'd been asked to talk to an audience of high school students, about adapting classic works of literature into new forms.

Baba performed an absolutely mesmerising - and hilarious - rap of the tale of the Wife of Bath, and the kids were clearly captivated. The story was well-spiced with clever innuendo and naughty asides, and you could see the ripples of smirks and giggles and nudges-in-the-ribs going through the audience when he gave them lines like "[her] eyes kept climbing his thighs in a slimy way" or described the hero as "stiff as a wooden lance".

So you can imagine that Baba was a pretty hard act to follow - especially since this was the only session where I didn't have access to a data projector, so couldn't show any cool pictures to accompany my talk. But it actually worked out fabulously. I talked about Gatsby and passed around a copy, and the audience seemed really interested and engaged, with plenty of questions. The description of Myrtle Wilson got a particularly good response - nothing like the words "she's got these huge boobs, with twelve nipples" to get a marquee full of kids laughing. Not having any visuals available, I had to demonsrate like so:

But the funniest response happened during my solo talk about Gatsby in another session earlier that day. The auditorium was quite full, and included several school groups of much younger kids (grades five and six by my reckoning) who were not actually meant to be attending this session about a decidedly grown-up book. Realising that the audience contained some very tender young minds, I adjusted the tone of my talk so that (a) they'd understand it, and (b) there wouldn't be too much talk about sex and death. Myrtle's twelve nipples, however, got their usual airing.

Anyway, after the talk was finished, one cute little boy about eleven years old put his hand up with a question. He pointed to the montage of characters projected on the screen and informed me of my crucial mistake. "I counted the tits," he said, "and there's fourteen"!


Go Brisbane!

Glamorous windows!

Well, this had me absolutely goggle-eyed with amazement. It's the window display at Readings bookstore in Carlton. It wasn't there at the time of the launch but has magically appeared since, when I wasn't looking. When I saw it this afternoon, I sat down on the bench outside with my mouth open like a goldfish and just gaped. Amazing.

And below is a little picture of my drawing room with a whole bunch of large, expensive TV equipment crammed into it. The ABC are doing a short segment about graphic novels for their Sunday Arts program (date TBA), and have interviewed Eddie Campbell, Shaun Tan and me. The interview was a lot of fun - can't wait to see how it all comes out.

The black box on a long stalk is a very impressive light which imitates daylight. Ordinarily the light in my studio is quite poor, so things looked altogether different when it was filled with pretend sunshine. I am now coveting this device. Actually, it looks a bit like a pair of alien creatures are cautiously inspecting my desk for signs of earthling life.


Just a few more days until the Brisbane Writers Festival, where I'll be presenting quite a few times, on panels and solo, as part of their graphic novel program. Looking forward to it very much indeed.

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)

Upcoming events for Gatsby, writers festivals and new projects...

Now that the launch of The Great Gatsby graphic novel is just a few weeks away, it seems like a good time to start the blog ball rolling. For more info on this enormous project, check out this page.

Upcoming events include:

• Melbourne Writers Festival (Schools Program) - 27 and 29 August 2007 - presenting with Shaun Tan and with Eddie Campbell
• Launch of The Great Gatsby - 6 September 2007
  
• Brisbane Writers Festival 12 to 16 September 2007 - various presentations
• This Is Not Art - Young Writers Festival (Newcastle) 27 to 1 October 2007 - program
  

On a more personal note, something that made me do somersaults of joy (figuratively speaking): last week I received a beautiful card from a member of F. Scott Fitzgerald's family, saying lovely things about the book in general, and in particular about my interpretation of Daisy. Hard to describe how thrilling this is for me. Daisy is my favourite character, of course. And I'm just so glad that my adaptation was seen to be a fitting tribute to the original novel.

Meanwhile, work continues on the equally enormous Hamlet adaptation. Not quite ready to be posting images online, but I'm 90 pages into the roughs, and enjoying it a great deal.

Recently, friends have been pointing me in the direction of other comic art adaptations of Shakespeare, which is fascinating. Each one that I've seen so far has taken a completely different approach, and I'm happy to say that mine will be very different again. The one that excites me most is King Lear, adapted and illustrated by Ian Pollock - I'm eagerly awaiting my copy purchased on e-Bay. It looks spectacular - surreal and grotesque and beautifully coloured. So, thank you to Eddie Campbell (check out his excellent blog) who put me onto this book, and to Publicist Extraordinaire Renee Senogles who just sent me an Australian adaptation of MacBeth.

And up the top of this post is a little image to go on with - something I painted with Hamlet in mind. The idea here is to suggest Tiffany glass, Gaudi's trencadis (broken) tilework and big, imposing Norman pillars and arches. A weird mixture, I think.