Paper Theatre on the road!

I've really enjoyed making the 'What It Is?' performances using a mixture of kamishibai, masks and 2D puppets, and I'm starting to think of it (to steal a term from last year's comics exhibition in Melbourne Fringe Festival, curated by Jo Waite and produced by me, with art by Jo, Ben Hutchings and Chris Downes) as 'paper theatre'.

Recently I have developed a show about energy saving for Origin, the energy company, and I have tried a paper theatre approach - in the shot above, taken by Iris Baker from Origin (thanks Iris, for all the photos in this post!) you can see a beautiful tree painted by Michael Camilleri, mounted on a couple of large boxes, and behind me, paper whitegoods on the four vertical faces of a couple of stacks of boxes.  I turn the 'whitegoods' boxes to change the location of the show (hallway, lounge, kitchen, bathroom).

Here I am at West Manly Public School in Sydney on the 5th of August 2011, performing the show to primary school kids,

and here's me being chased by Energy Bob, the alien robot who has turned up on Earth doing some research about energy production and use on our planet.  Kids get to ask him questions, too.

Kid: 'What language do you speak, Bob?'

Then I listen carefully to Bob, who whispers his (its?) answer to me, and I relay it back to the audience.

Answer: 'Indonesian.'

The above photos are from our arvo show in West Manly, and our morning show that day was at Tregear Public School, which was also great fun.

At Tregear we did the show (the world premiere!) for the whole school, on what you can see was a beautiful day...

There's me looking at the contents of a paper fridge with my assistants, Brains and the Vampire Slayer (if you see the show you'll understand).  Of course Energy Bob also turned up at Tregear, and was asked to nominate his favourite song.

He thought for a while.

Then whispered his answer, which I relayed to a bemused younger and an amused older audience:

'Eagle Rock.'

Funny thing is, whenever Energy Bob was around, I could never find James Taylor, my other buddy from Origin.  Ah, well.  Iris and I would always tell him about Bob's antics after the show...

I'm looking forward to doing more of these performances in New South Wales over the next few months, yessiree!

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...

Comics Masterclass, Monday: Writing

WAITaminnit, that's Sam Zabel, a Dylan Horrocks character, drawn BY Dylan Horrocks on a whiteboard in Melbourne's Wheeler Centre (books, writing, ideas), under the word 'writing'. Just how do these sorts of things come to be? Well, THIS thing started with Liz Argall, an Australian comic book writer currently living in Portland, Oregon in the U.S, (an area apparently swarming with cartoonists) nudging me and saying "Hey, we should get some really great comic book person to come to Australia and give a masterclass. Let's apply for some funding from the Copyright Agency Limited Cultural Fund." And I asked Dylan, and he was keen, so apply we did, and award it they did (thanks CAL!) and on the 19th of April 2010 at 9.30am in the Board Room of the Wheeler Centre, the week-long masterclass began.

Our roll-call: Tim McEwen, Michael Camilleri, Jo Waite, Andrew Fulton, Anthony Woodward, Chris Downes, Mel Rowsell, Bernard Caleo, Mirranda Burton, Pat Grant.

I know.

Above, Michael Camilleri (always focussed), Jo Waite on the move, the back of the well-groomed Tim McEwen's head, and Dylan Horrocks.

On that first morning we all gave a sort of a run-down, you know, 'my life in comics' sort of thing. Dylan went first, told us about his comic 'Pickle' that came out in the 90s, his graphic novel 'Hicksville' that came out of that series, and how the subsequent experience working as a comic book writer for DC Comics almost totally squished any love for comics out of him.

Luckily though, he stopped writing for DC and, as he said

to making his own comics.

Phew. We all shared stories, then got onto talking about the ways that comics stories and comics worlds get built, imagined, drawn, and actually probably LAST of all get written. Pretty interesting stuff.

Above, Anthony Woodward talks about comics writing with Jen Breach, a comics writer who joined us just for that Monday morning.

Below, Michael Camilleri shares some advice once given to him by a Russian actress.

Very sage.

NEXT: Tuesday - drawing!

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.