I graduated last month, so my PhD is over and done! I'm also going to Thailand in May for a holiday. I've also submitted 2 short stories to the publisher Viz, and while both were accepted, the editor thought one had better potential, so that's what I'm working on doing the storyboards for right now--a fantasy action-romance. The problem is the other story, which was actually a simplified version of "The Dreaming" v4-5. Doing this simplification process was a huge challenge for more than one reason, because after I submitted it and was accepted (if not approved, since I'm doing the other story), I went back and re-read all the layouts I did for "The Dreaming" v4-5 and realised... they weren't good. One thing about turning a 500pg story into a 50pg one is that you're forced to cut off all the boring bits and focus on the most exciting and emotional parts, and after I did that in the short story (and am happy with the results), I found that the long form version is... full of talking and exposition. The thing is, it's not a problem with the PLOT--the plot remains as intriguing as ever. It's a problem with EXECUTION. I realise that the plot for "The Dreaming" v4-5 is still good, but the WAY it was being told was NOT. The story as it is now sets up a mystery, but the revelations come at the end of the story when it should come at the midpoint. I've already storyboarded 250 pages of it, but having done the short story version, I now realise it needs to be completely junked and started over. So I'm back to square one on this--on writing paragraph summaries for a plot outline. However, I'm concentrating on the approved short story first. In other news, the Viz one-shot stories are now all available on Bookwalker, a Japanese ebookstore, and you can read mine here.
My short mystery manga "The Mystery Cases of Sister Holmes" is now up on Viz for you to read online. I worked with former Shonen Jump head editor-in-chief Hisashi Sasaki to produce (now at Viz's One-shots program), and you can read it here or on BookWalker.
All 3 volumes of "The Dreaming" is now available in print/ebook, via Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
It's also available to read onine from Global Comix, a wonderful creator-friendly e-comic site! Covers and revisions are listed here!
Free Reading: A short mystery story "The Mystery Cases of Sister Holmes" (67p) on Viz
Thanks to Illustrate Your Life and Jakub Mazerant for organising this exhibition I was part of in Thailand, with special thanks to the Australian Embassy! Over 30 Aussie comic artists were exhibited at the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre, and got a mention at the Bangkok Post and Coconuts Bangkok too. I was also part of the previous exhibitions in Poland and Germany too!
Here’s someone checking out my entry, with a stack of postcards featuring my crayon art of our lovely native birds.
The Jan2022 issue of School Magazine contains so of my favourite artwork that I’ve done for the magazine so far. It’s the story of the “Three Brujas”.
Here’s some artwork from the “Frog Viking”, a story that 10 year-old me would have absolutely loved. As an adult, I still like it a lot, and it was fun to illustrate too.
Happy New Year, everyone!
I want to let you know about a short comics-prose essay I wrote, called “Manga Fandom in Australia”. Click on the link to read it!
My essay, which was specifically written in comics-prose format (rather than comics format), is meant to be about the rather the under-documented Australian manga fandom. Why is it under-documented? The essay will explain why–at the end of the day, this country still maintains a fair amount of xenophobia towards Japanese-style pop culture.
This essay is part of a new government-funded Australian Comics academic project called FOLIO, which is spearheaded a group of Comics Studies academics at University of Melbourne, RMIT & UTS. This multi-year project aims to chart the contemporary Australian comics scene, and I hope to incorporate Australian game-comics like “Framed” and “Florence” into it as well in the next few years, which I am currently researching for my PhD.
Finally got around to posting my string of illustrations for The School Magazine! This is from the October 2021 and November 2021 issues, and these are not the only illustrations for them. It was great doing illustrations for some of these totally awesome stories.
