What It Is? youtube episode #3 - Comics and Australian History

And here's the youtube episode of Monday night's 'What It Is?' - again, shot and chopped by film maker Daniel Hayward in double-quick time. Thanks, Dan!

And you can hear some of the song, 'The Curious Man', the Blandowski calypso recorded by The Death Adder in Berlin, which we missed on the night because of technical hitches.

'A Comic Book History of Australia' is what we called the show on the Readings website, but okay, yes, it was a bit specificker that that.  It was more about Victorian history.  Well, Melbourne history.  Okay, Melbourne history circa the 1850s.

And, when I got home and was chatting to Susan about it, she pointed out that the evening wasn't SO much about comics, either.  A bit, but not a lot.  It's probably more accurately about various forms of  'paper theatre'. Kamishibai.  Puppetry. 2-D sets. Masks.

Okay, so what about calling it 'An Evening of Paper Theatre in 1850s Melbourne'?

Call it what you will.

It is what it is.

Please do scroll down to the next post for still images and ruminations on the night.

Yours,

Bernard

'What It Is?' #3 - What a Thing It Was!

So, last night Monday 27 June 2011, at Readings bookshop in Carlton, we delivered the third show in the category-busting series that IS, 'What It Is?'

In this case, the 'we' was me and

Alex McDermott, whose latest book

got published recently. So we launched it, there and then, with the three 'Huzzahs' normally reserved for the launch of a comic book (if you'd been there, you'd know why I consider Alex's weighty yet extremely toothsome tome to be an honorary comic book) and then we got into the show, kicking off with a kamishibai about the Australian career of the 19th century natural historian Wilhelm von Blandowski (yes, THAT Wilhelm von Blandowski - the one who I took on a Victorian roadtrip last year - read all about that here)

The kamishibai WAS to have been 'narrated' by a song called 'The Curious Man', by calypso artist 'The Death Adder', of Berlin, but various technological barriers meant that the recording could not be played, so I ended up speaking the story.  The song however is magnificent, a sprawling calypso epic of high romance and utter desolation, and I will find a way of posting it.

Wilhelm at the Port of Adelaide in 1849.

He loves it here.

But 7 years later, 200 miles up the Darling River, he has an experience of the sublime.  And from that point, his career in Australia starts to unravel.  Our argument was, he SEES something out there...

Something...

oooooooo000000000000000ooooooooo

We then went onto the story of Redmond Barry, a big statue of whom stands outside of the State Library of Victoria:

Our proposition was, you can't really understand Redmond (or Melbourne) without the vital piece of information that he was actually a

centaur.  And, as a centaur, it is unsurprising that he spends quite a bit of time on his 1839 voyage over from Ireland

amidships, as it were, with one Mrs Scott, which Mr Scott, and eventually the entirety of the rest of the passengers, finds quite off-putting (thank you to the puppetteering hands of Stephen Mushin (Barry the centaur and Mrs Scott and ocean) and Colleen Burke (boat and ocean).  When they get to Sydney?  He's really frozen out of the social scene there.

Anyway he eventually makes it to Melbourne and makes it in Melbourne and, in the end, makes Melbourne (State Library, Melbourne University, Art Gallery).  Well, you know:

he's a centaur.

ooooooo000000000000000ooooooo

Our coda to the night was an imagined 1859 meeting

between Blandowski (me) and Barry (Alex), in which Barry identifies what it is that has followed Wilhelm back from the interior, and indeed what it is which will tail him all the way back to Silesia.  All the way back to his death.

And you too can see it, here.

THE NEXT 'What It Is?' (and final in this series): songster Marin Martini and I will puzzle over, sing about, and draw about, the mysterious and ancient connection between comics and songs.  Monday 25 July. 8pm. Readings Carlton. See you there!

THANK YOU: to Jackie Kerin again for the loan of her kamishibai box, and for all the photos dotting this post.  Soon I will post the youtube episode of last night's 'What it Is?', which, as with the other two, was shot and is presently being edited by the skilful Dan Hayward.

May 'What It Is?' - comics from Bordeaux to Broome

Well what a month May was! I did one show for the Clean Energy Council about renewable energy, did another show about the humble candle as the great scientist Michael Faraday at St Paul's Cathedral, spoke about Australian graphic novels to the Graphic Narratives class at Melbourne University and then about comic book editing to the Society of Editors (Victoria). I also managed to turn 43 somewhere in there.

And at the end of the month was 'What It Is? no. 2, The Town that Comics Built'.  Above is the youtube episode, shot and edited by Dan Hayward - great work Dan!  And below is a DC10 flying the very tall Mike Shuttleworth into France.

There was a kamishibai titled 'Sous les paves, la planche' - 'Under the paving stones, the comics'.

It starred

Jean-Paul Sartre and

Simone de Beauvoir, who

argued and

made up.

We travelled with Mike to Angouleme, the great comics festival held every January in the freezing cold south-west of France.

Then we came back to the hot north-west of Australia, and I spoke with Brenton McKenna, the author of 'Ubbys Underdogs: The Legend of the Phoenix Dragon'

a way-cool graphic novels for kids, first of a trilogy, from Magabala Books. It was great to meet Brenton, who we also interviewed on The Comic Spot, where you can listen to that interview. Brenton even drew a picture of Ubby for us!

It was another great fun 'What It Is?' - the which question remains pertinent, as I am still not quite sure what indeed 'What It Is?' is, but I'm going to press on with another couple, at least.

Next 'What It Is?' will be a historical fairy tale for adults with the remarkable Alex McDermott, poet/historian, centaur laureate, and bike rider extraordinaire.  Monday June 27 at 8pm at Readings Carlton: details (and a drawing) on the Readings website. We will also launch Alex's latest book, 'Australian History for Dummies'.  Come along!

And massive thanks to storyteller Jackie Kerin for all the photos in this post, for the lend (again!) of her beautiful kamishibai box, and for writing about the May 'What It Is?' so beautifully here.

'Drawn Out' - 3RRR - 12 May 2011

Every month I have a spot on Richard Watts' weekly arts news, views and interviews radio show on 3RRR FM, Smart Arts. My spot's called 'Drawn Out' and it covers local and international comic books and events.

This Thursday morning just gone, I talked about Jason Lutes' Jar of Fools, credited as 'A Picture Story' on its cover, (a relief to those who revile the term 'graphic novel'). 'Jar of Fools' is kinda venerable now, being first published in its complete edition in 1997. This Faber and Faber edition (yes, Faber and Faber, the big UK poetry publisher - they also publish Adrian Tomine's books, which makes sense) was published 2008, and I'm a big fan of the cover design, and particularly the typography, by Rui Tenreiro (wow, whose drawings are even better - take a look!) which bespeaks a looseness of line that belies Lutes' drawings within. This really is a lovely graphic novel (ghasp!), the story of a washed-up magician, Ernie, and the outcasts who gather around him. The tone is melancholy and sweet, and it's beautifully maintained. Lutes' current work, a long comic book series called Berlin, concerns that city in the 1930s. The first 16 issues have been collected into two big books, the last 8 will be collected some decade soon.

Other things I spoke about: the comics-and-related-arts festival at Sydney Opera House, GRAPHIC, is returning 19/20/21 August 2011. Last year Jordan Verzar got Neil Gaiman, Eddie Campbell, Shaun Tan, Gary Groth to come (wow!), and this year it sounds like another bunch of great guests are coming - the lineup gets announced on May 23, but you can line up for pre-sales here.

I am talking about editing comics at the Australian Society of Editors, Victorian branch, this Wednesday night 18 May in Melbourne town - anyone can attend, and you get a meal and the talk and the society of lovely editor-type folk for $33, with concessions available. I'll be speaking about the history of editing comics, and my own experience of that strange art. You can make a booking here.

And, finally, as mentioned last post (quick! someone play the reveille!), May's 'What It Is?' is coming up on Monday 30 May at 8pm at Readings Carlton, featuring Mike Shuttleworth, Brenton McKenna, and me - more info and a wonky picture of wonky old Jean-Paul Sartre on the Readings website.

What It Is? show #1: Eisenstein and Comics

Above, Michael Camilleri and I starting our 'What It Is?' show at Readings bookshop in Carlton on Monday 28 March 2011. It was a show about Sergei Eisenstein, the great Soviet film director, and his approach to montage (a way of editing film, a way of presenting film stories), and the ways that this might apply to comics.

Here's me presenting 'Sergei's Pram', a kamishibai which imagined Eisenstein and fellow filmmaker Lev Kuleshov discussing the filming of the famous Odessa steps sequence from 'Battleship Potemkin'.

For this, I was lucky enough to borrow this amazing kamishibai box from Jackie Kerin (for the tale of its construction by Ted, go to Jackie's blog entry here).

Michael and I also wanted to look at mise-en-scene (another, complementary, sometimes oppositional - thanks, Andre Bazin - way of considering film editing), so we enlisted friends Fleur, Mark and Bruce (in the hat) to help us present a scene from 'Citizen Kane' by Orson Welles. With hilarious results.

Finally, Michael presented his epic homage to Soviet-style montage, 'The Two Podlokovs' which may be viewed in all its glory on his website, here.

A remarkable night - thanks to Christine Gordon of Readings for asking for a series of nights looking at the art of comic books. Oh yes folks, there's going to be more What It Is...

Also thanks to Dan Hayward of The Video Factory for the photos in this post, and for shooting and editing together a great video of the night, to be found on youtube here. And thanks to Oliver Montagnat for additional camerawork.

NEXT 'What It Is' show: Monday 30 May, 8pm at Readings Carlton - Mike Shuttleworth and I will build Angouleme, city of comics, out of paper, live on stage (with music too!), and then we'll speak to Brenton McKenna, of Broome, about his new graphic novel for kids, Ubby's Underdogs.

What a night it promises to be...

Kamishibai, out and indoors

So I've talked a bit about kamishibai, the Japanese art of paper theatre, elsewhere on this blog. Above, the inestimable and highly esteemed Bruce Woolley and I rehearse the story, 'A Very Kamishibai Christmas', which we co-created and first performed in December 2010, and here are getting ready to perform it at Chugnut in March 2011. Chugnut (a weekend away for cartoonists of many stripes) this year, as last, was held at Camp Eureka near Yarra Junction.

One of the distinctive things about 'A Very Kamishibai Christmas' is that there is no narration or dialogue (well, okay, there's two words - yelled), and so the attention of the performers - and hopefully audience - is even more directed at the rhythm of the reveals of the cards. The music of comics, kids.

Of course such playing with the kamishibai form wouldn't even occur to me without the fine guitarship, and even finer friendship, of Bruce Woolley.

(Chugnut photos by Anna Brown, whose astonishing gallery of Australian comics volk, paired with their drawn self-portraits, is called Light vs Line.)

After 'A Very Kamishibai Christmas', I performed the kamishibai produced by Jo Waite ('The White Crow'), Ben Hutchings ('Jupiterian Brain Theatre') and Chris Downes (MR James' 'The Mezzotint') for the 2010 Melbourne Fringe Festival Paper Theatre exhibition. Bernard's t-shirt also by Jo Waite.

A month or so later, on April 11, just before Bruce returned to Berlin by way of Sri Lanka, he and I performed the new epilogue to our 'Miracleman: the two man show' at Fleur's place (thanks Fleur!). This epilogue of course incorporated kamishibai, and attempted to bring the incredibly complex questions of ownership and copyright of 'Miracleman' into our show. Later, from Dohar, Bruce sent me this doctored picture, which I think is an excellent title and image:

In case you're wondering: yes, Bruce IS playing the iPad piano and piano accordion simultaneously. And for a closer look at what's on the teevee, go here.

Next post: more kamishibai.

Footnote: for Free Comic Book Day 2011, the Chugnutteers, under the expert guidance of Mister Anthony Woodward, have produced an online book chock full of fine work, findable here. For FREE.

Big Arse Comics Launch- February 2011

Hello there! I'm going to play catchup for a few posts, as there are notable Melbourne comic book events over the last couple of months that need blooging, and I have some work deadlines breathing down my neck and need to distract myself from them.

Above, from the left, are: Bruce Mutard, Brendan Halyday, Bobby N., Jason Franks, Matt Emery and James Andre. No, not members of the 'Shaved Head and Glasses' League from a long-lost Sherlock Holmes tale, but the 6 comic book author/artists who launched the nine (yes 9, that's right NINE) comics, graphic novels and illustrated books on Saturday 19 February 2011.

To see Bobby N.'s eye-widening poster, and the covers of the books, go to Gary Chaloner's Comics Journal post about the 'Big Arse Comic Book Launch', as it was named.

Above: a happy punter (and there were MANY - a big arse night it was) leafing through 'The Loneliness Manifesto', written by James Andre and illustrated by Brendan Halyday.

The other place to read about the launch, and to hear a pre-launch chat between the creators, is the always-reliable Bobby N's blog, here.

There's me, who had the very happy job of launching this fine clutch (should I really use that word, given the title of the launch? perhaps not) of graphic fiction. As you can imagine, I made much of the 'big arse' metaphor. And I cannot now imagine why not tucking my purple (in Japanese, 'murasaki') shirt seemed such a good idea at the time. But unlike Han Solo, who can 'imagine quite a bit', there's quite a bit I can't imagine.

The crowd at Eydies (the bar that my lovely and only sister Anna manages) enjoying my 'Star Wars' references. Nah, not really - that speech, it was all about the comics.

Hey: there in the middle of the shot in the white t-shirt is comic book writer Jen Breach, now an resident of NYC - sob! - we miss you, Jen. Have a good time in that large cider town, but come back, y'hear?