The last Comic Spot radio show! The first Homecooked Comics Festival!

No no no, say it ain't so!

But it is so - The Comic Spot, the fortnightly Australian comics hour on radio station 3CR, is coming to an end!  John Retallick: the mover, the shaker, the anchor, the rock, the organiser and motive force behind the show, is moving to Hobart (lucky Hobart!). As John says on the blog, The Comic Spot may well take on another form in the future, but this is the end of Volume One.

BUT in an amazing coincidence, the last show will be the first one we record in front of an audience! Yes, this Saturday, 28 January 2012 is The Homecooked Comics Festival to be held at (of course) Batman Park in Northcote, at the corner of Separations Street and Saint Georges Road.

The festival, presented by the City of Darebin, features a great line-up of events from 3 - 7pm, and the final Comic Spot 3CR show with your hosts John, Jo and Bernard will be recorded there and go to air next Thursday 2 February at 5pm on 3CR, 855 on your AM dial. The shows get podcast as well, so go to the blog to find an interview with the Australian comics creator of your dreams.

And come along to the Homecooked Comics Festival this Saturday and help us celebrate the great years of the Comic Spot radio show, to meet comics makers, hear comics music, see kamishibai, and make your own comics: it's going to be a grand day!

Homecooked Comic Festival Program
Main Stage

3pm: Welcome by Darebin City Council’s Mayor, Cr Steven Tsitas.

3.10–4pm: The ComicSpot Podcast.

4.10–4.50pm: Comic/Musical Mashup.

5-5.30pm: Live music by Squid Squad.

5.30–6pm: The Allen & Unwin Quiz Show.

6.30-7pm: Live music by Animaux.

Roving

4,5,6.30pm: Fight Choreography Workshops.

3-5pm: Kamishibai (Japanese paper drama).

4.30pm: Express Media Workshop.

5.30pm: Sticky Institute Talk.

6pm: The greatest comic book parade!

All day entertainment- Newspaper in a day, tattooing, face painting, giant panel painting.

Wanna join the club?

There's a whole bunch of brilliant comic book activity swirling around Melbourne in one form or another at present, and one of my faves is this one: The Second Wednesday Comic Book Club, or more to the point Comic Book Club, or even more to the point, Comic Club.

The idea of a club has always got me going - a space where you get together with a bunch of other people and in that space you can focus on and discuss some topic which is important to the assembled group.  You agree to take whatever-it-is seriously for that period of time and delve into it, to the exclusion of the outside world.  I love that. Probably university was at its best for me when it was like that - tutorial discussions in a teacher's room.  It's probably why Donna Tartt's 'The Secret History' is such an important book for me, too.

C'mon, Bernard: what about Comic Club?

Well, it's held at City Library every fortnight and every second Wednesday we get together and discuss a particular book comic (as John Retallick describes 'graphic novels').  Week 1 was the Tintin adventure, 'The Secret of the Unicorn' by Herge, Week 2 'Scott Pilgrim' by Bryan Lee O'Malley, Week 3 'Maus' by Art Spiegelman and this week's book (Wednesday 14 September) is 'The Arrival' by Shaun Tan.  The pictures in this post were taken of the Scott Pilgrim week by Gregarious Gary Lee (thanks, Gary!) from the City of Melbourne, who, with Laffin' Luke Scully from City Library wrangled me into running the club.  (Not that I needed a lot of wrangling, you understand...)

(thanks for lending me your Scott Pilgrim box set, Pat Grant - I'm taking care of them, I promise!)

If you'd like to be part of the club (a club? for comics? are you kidding? where do I sign?) and you're over 15 and a student, then tootle on down to the Comic Club page here and sign up.  Then read the comic book in question and come along ready to talk and listen and laugh quite a bit.  It's free, it goes from 6 - 7.30pm, and did I say it's every second Wednesday?

We'll be talking 'Akira' Book 1 by Katsuhiro Otomo on Wednesday September 28, and 'Fun Home' by Alison Bechdel on Wednesday October 12.

And hey, Sumisha Naidu interviewed me about the club in meld magazine.

And here we are, comic clubbing. In a world of our own.  Brilliant.

Vale, Ralph McLean 1957 - 2010

Today in the hot sun at La Mama theatre in Carlton we farewelled a true member of Fitzroyalty, Ralph McLean. I have got to know Ralph over the past couple of years doing comics reviews on 'Yartz', the weekly arts programme that he began in 2000 for the community television station Channel 31. On Saturday afternoons a group of folks would arrive at his bedsit in Little Gore Street in Fitzroy and through a haze of cigarette smoke and snappy dialogue, Ralph would pull together a review and interview show about the arts in Melbourne.

There were some euphonious eulogists today - the service was delivered by Liz Jones, the grand wazoo of La Mama, and above, Francis Italiano, these days of Perth but once upon a time, and for eight years, Ralph's partner, spoke warmly of his time with Ralph. When some people would refer to Francis as Ralph's 'handbag' (ie when Ralph brought him along to shows), Ralph would correct them:

"He's not a handbag. He's a mink stole."

Above, on the left, Misha Adair, who spoke on behalf of the Yartzers, with Ralph's principles of 'making stuff' mysteriously appearing on his pin-striped suit. On the right, Scott Gooding, who had organised an extravaganza of 'Yartz' footage that screened on a monitor inside La Mama, which you could go and see before and after the service. Nice work, Scott.

Hermione Gilchrist also spoke beautifully about Ralph, and has blogged about him, with 'Yartz' footage embedded, here.

After the service and a beer with Mary Anne, who is my mum and one of the 'Yartz' theatre reporters, I cycled off through Fitzroy to community radio station 3CR on Smith Street in Collingwood, where I met John Retallick and Jo Waite and together we went to air with the last 2010 show of The Comic Spot. It was the round-up of the year, which has been a pretty remarkable one for Australian comic books.

After the show, we repaired to the Union Club Hotel, Ralph's local and the site of his wake, which was still going, where we drank traditional post-show G&Ts and laughed traditional post-show laffs.

Huzzah for community broadcasting, and huzzah for you, Ralph McLean, and all that you gave to the arts in Melbourne.

It was an honour to know you and work with you.

Caleo comics media empire expands!

Tonight on TheComicSpot we had a special mystery guest, Joseph Ross Bamford Caleo, in his comics review radio debut - he talked about the Captain Congo series (he's a fan) and even suggested a Kid's Tango -hey lad, not a bad idea at all...

John, Jo and I then talked to Anna Brown about her very interesting 'photographing Australian comics artists' project.

And we spoke with 'El Presidente' of the Australian Cartoonist's Association Jules Faber, who announced the new 'comics' category of their annual Stanley Awards - very exciting! You need to be a member to be eligible, so join up. I am! I think this is a pretty exciting moment - 'single-panel and strip' (ie newspaper) cartoonists are extending a warm hand to 'comic book' cartoonists - let's take it and shake enthusiastically! Also, the next Stanley Awards ceremony is in Melbourne in early November, and those parties are the stuff of legend.

So join the ACA and let's get some great comics mixing it up with some great cartoons.

The Double Tango launch at Dante's!

Yes, it finally happened, my friends.

Two Tangos were launched last Thursday night at Dante's Emporium in Fitzroy. The photos in this entry are by my son Joseph (and darn fine ones they are too). For another look at the launch, including a very impressive panorama, go to Bobby. N's blog, here.

Above: the editor of both books, and publisher of one of them, at the beginning of the night, in a festive mood.

ONE TANGO

The selfsame editor brandishing 'Tango9: Love and War' during the speech/hoo hah. 'Tango9: Love and War' is published by Cardigan Comics. That is, me.

THE OTHER TANGO

Andrew and Sean (unpictured, but to the left of the piles of books), from Readings bookshop in Carlton, were there vending 'The Tango Collection', a lovely thing because it was at that very shop that Erica Wagner, the publisher at Allen and Unwin, first suggested the idea of the collection, 18 months ago. Thank you, Erica. And thanks to Jenny Nestor for lettering the signs for the selling of the books, there and then at the start of the launch. And thanks to Adrienne Leith for her reprising her award-winnning role as the 'Tango carnie', selling 'Tango9: Love and War' to punters and handing out authors' copies to the contributors.

ONE JOHN

John Murphy, a contributor to both books and a great friend, the curtains to the back room, and the neck of a bottle of Corona.

THE OTHER JOHN

John Retallick, a great friend, comic book correpondent, and anchorman of TheComicSpot, organiser of Comic Camp, and cynosure of many other Melbourne comic book events, who came along early to help set up, then left to interview out-of-towners Chris Downes and J.Marc Schmidt (both in town for the launch), then came back in time to help me through a crisis later in the night. Thank you, John.

Also: John came over to our place the other night and recorded a web-only ComicSpot special, a 'full and frank' interview with Susan and I about the joys and challenges of getting two Tangos out this year. If you can handle the truth, it's here.

Above, the hoo hah in full flight. By this point, I had informed the gathering that 'The Tango Collection' is not a comic book but is, in fact, a walk through a beautiful and time-drenched city. And I'd let them in on the secret that 'Tango9: Love and War' is not a comic book, but is, instead, a postcard from a POW camp to a far-flung and beloved reader.

Both books, in short, are vessels of romance.

Above, a section of the gathering. Most obviously Bruno Herfst, the designer of 'The Tango Collection'. To his left, Jodie Webster (editor of the graphic novels 'The Great Gatsby' by Nicki Greenberg (yes, she was there, with 4-month-old Poppy) and 'The Sacrifice' by Bruce Mutard (there too), all from from Allen and Unwin), and to his right, Elise Jones, my fellow editor of 'The Cardigan Collection'. Thanks Bruno and Elise, it was a real pleasure making the book with you.

The simply staggering image by Michael Camilleri announcing my next project, called (at this point) 'Cardigan Comics'. It will be a magazine. It will feature comics and words-only text. That's what we know. Keep an eye out for it.

Finally, thank you to all of the contributors to Tangos thus far, and particularly 'The Tango Collection' and 'Tango9: Love and War'. You have made the work that makes the making of Tango worthwhile. Important, even. Yeah, important. We're building a comics culture, here. And it's a pretty fine one. Congratulations.

And finally finally, thanks: to all of the very many people for coming along to the launch; to Scott Matthews and Luke Caleo for wrangling files for Tango9; to Justin Caleo for his huge effort on designing the book; to Peter Ra for taking up the 'cover designer' reins from Anita Bacic (she was there! from Istanbul!); to Mary Anne for the hat, and a massive, MASSIVE debt of gratitude is due to Zebedee and Joseph and most of all Susan, for the time and the space and the love and support that I needed to make these books. I love you, my family.

The return of 'The Comic Spot'

Look! Up in the sky! It's the smog! No, it's... The Comic Spot!

Yes, Melbourne's favourite comic book radio show is back on air...

John Retallick, the main mover and shaker, has returned to the studio with Jo Waite and Bernard Caleo, his faithful chorus, and a new timeslot for 'The Comic Spot':

last Thursday of every month, 5 -6pm, on 3CR, 855 on your AM dial.

http://www.thecomicspot.blogspot.com/

On Thursday 24 April we talked to the splendiferous, black-ink-stain-handed Mandy Ord (a funny story that was, too) about her book comic/graphic novel 'Rooftops' in the context of the rest of her comic book career, and her plans for the future. Very exciting stuff.

Next 'Comic Spot', Thursday 29 May, will be with Philip Bentley of 'Word Balloons' and 'Passionate Nomads' fame, and Bruce Mutard, whose book comic 'The Sacrifice' was launched the night before last (see post below).

Ah, Melbourne! You're such a happening comic book town!

Photo of Jo, Bernard and John is kourtesy of Mandy Ord and her kamera.