Saturday 29th of October sounds like it will be a good day to be a comics fan in sunny Melbourne – local store All Star Comics (1/410 Lonsdale Street) is teaming up with Australian Indy comics publisher Gestalt for an extra special launch featuring no less than four graphic novels. Gestalt creators Tom Taylor, Colin Wilson, Christian Read, Bobby.N, Andrew Constant and Emily K. Smith will all be in All Star from 3pm that day to celebrate the launch of Digested #5, Torn, The Deep: Here be Dragons and The Eldritch Kid: Whisky & Hate. Aussie creators, Aussie publisher, Aussie comic store – like I said, sounds like a nice day to be a comics reader in Melbourne, so if you’re in town then do go down and offer them up some support.

(cover artwork to the first issue of Peacemakerby and (c) Marianne de Pierres and Brigitte Sutherland)

Except this wilderness isn’t quite what it seems – Park Western is the only piece of natural wilderness left in the entire country, enclosed by an enormous Australian mega-city. Park Ranger Virgin Jackson, a tough woman (who has an eagle as an imaginary friend) is determined to preserve Park Western at any cost and with events including dead bodies turning up, missing spiritualists and a psychotic businessman called Joachim Spears forces her to work in an uneasy alliance with a cowboy of a US Marshall, Nate Sixkiller. I’ve got to admit I am intrigued – partly because, as I said, I’m a big fan of Marianne’s novels (in fact Peacemaker has sprung from a work-in-progress prose novel, but the comic version developed more quickly) and I’ve particularly admired her ability to create some very strong, independent and often pretty tough and resourceful female lead characters (who still keep their femininity and a measure of sensitivity with that strength and drive and toughness) and her Parish Plessis novels (published by Orbit) also showcased a nice SF take on future Australian land and cityscapes.

(a page from the first issue of Peacemakerby and (c) Marianne de Pierres and Brigitte Sutherland)

It is also interesting to me, and I suspect will interest a number of others in the comics biz, because unlike many comics posted up by their creators online, this is actually a pay-to-read comic. The first issue, which I’ve had a wee look at, is being offered at 99 cents (Australian) and the next issue (due August/September) will be at $2.99 Australian. Which is pretty cheap in UK or US terms, but given that many online expect to get their reading or music or any other media free it will be interesting to see how this goes. As it says on Marianne’s site, they are charging for it because A) she is a professional author and doesn’t want to devalue her skills and B) so they can do something important and pay Brigitte for her artwork duties. Which sounds quite sensible and reasonable to me, the question being, will web comics readers pay for it? Well Marianne has a very good established fanbase who follow her work and a good web presence where she updates her readers regularly on the latest work, so she has a good potential pool of people who may well be interested and would pay a (pretty small after all) amount of money. Since a lot of creators – comics folk and otherwise – are still working out ways to put their work out there digitally but also make a wee bit back on it, I imagine a lot of folks will follow this with interest to see how it goes (there are also plans for a limited physical print edition later on); I certainly wish them best of luck with it.

(all pics by and (c) Louise Graber)

On a sunny winter Saturday in August the 2010 edition of SMASH, the annual Sydney Manga And Anime Show at the Sydney Town Hall began with long and winding queues of fans waiting to get in. It wasn’t long before the SOLD OUT sign went up, well before midday actually, to the disappointment of further fans who arrived dressed for cosplay but without pre-paid tickets and couldn’t gain admittance. In 2007 the inaugural student run event was held at the University of New South Wales Roundhouse along with subsequent stagings, each one larger than the previous one.

This year the convention moved to a more professional level and to the larger more central venue of the Sydney Town Hall and, at its first attempt, outgrew this venue. Consequently, next year it will move to the even larger Sydney Convention and Exhibition Centre. This growth over three years points to the developing popularity of anime and manga in Sydney.

The recently refurbished Sydney Town Hall venue suited many of the cosplayers (as you can see from the photos). It is a grand heritage-listed, sandstone building in Second Empire architectural style complete with domed ceiling and decorative embellishments. There were the usual attractions: a cosplay competition, karaoke, screenings, discussion panels, art workshops (both digital and traditional), an artist circle and a maid cafe.

Guests included J-pop singer and voice actress for Neon Genesis Evangelion Yuko Miyamura from Japan and English voice actress for Neon Genesis Evangelion Tiffany Grant from America and for a few minutes there was the spectacle of these two playing the same Evangelion character, one in Japanese, the other in English.

Vendors included manga and anime distributors and bookshops, university anime clubs plus the Japan Foundation. More details can be found on the SMASH! website.  There was a strong, celebratory feeling of all things manga and anime at the event. The big, happy crowd and the organizers together created a joyous atmosphere and sense of community that spread around the various rooms and halls. Everyone seemed to be having a good time and it felt really good to be part of.

FPI would like to thank Michael for sharing his time and thoughts here with us and Louise for kindly allowing us to share some of her photos from SMASH; you can follow more from Michael via his website and his Twitter, where he writes regularly on comics, animation and visual culture.

We have commissioned the renowned artist Eddie Campbell to illustrate the story, while FourPlay String Quartet have been commissioned to create an entirely new underscore to the story. ”

Kenny pointed me to this upcoming event on the site of the famous Sydney Opera House – storytelling, Neil Gaiman, Eddie Campbell, art and music. There isn’t anything not to like about that, is there? It’s part of a whole programme called Graphic which is taking in music, animation, graphic storytelling and artwork, which sounds brilliant – confirmed already – in addition to Neil and Eddie – are Gary Groth doing a Fantagraphics special, Shaun Tan, Kevin Smith, comics making classes and a a special screening of Akira with a live score; more events are due to be added to the programme which is running over the 7th, 8th and 9th of August in Sydney. Oh Australians, I am jealous of you right now!

The Secret of Kells

(an illuminated text version of Aisling and Brendan)

Regular readers will probably remember me mentioning this rather beautiful Irish animation a few times before on the blog -- artist Cliodhna Lyons (Irish 24 hour comics day) first put me on to it last year as she had been involved with the Cartoon Salon in Kilkenny and the descriptions and artwork I saw had me hooked. It is an Irish-French-Belgian production and this and the graphic novel based on the film meant Kells also had a presence at this year’s prestigious Angouleme Festival, which Wim covered back in January. Drawing (no pun intended) inspiration from the fabled Book of Kells, one of the incomparably beautiful books in the history of world literature, The Secret of Kells offers up the tale of a young monk, Brendan, a novice at the monastery of Kells where his uncle is the stern, towering, grim-face abbot.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=lw2_HZTuQBE

It is an evil time for many -- Rome is but a distant memory and the Dark Ages have fallen across much of Europe. One of the lights in the long, dark night comes from the early church and most especially in the monastery’s preservation and dissemination of learning and the dim, early days before nations like Ireland and Scotland were actually nations, but were slowly being forged in a cauldron of oral myth, the unique Celtic brand of Christianity, small kingdoms becoming larger kingdoms and the testing by fire of brutal events like the seemingly endless invasions of the Norsemen -- the Vikings. Off the Western coast of Scotland, among the many islands which scatter there though the seas lies the spiritual home of early Scottish Christianity and it is from here that Brother Aidan must flee as the Viking raiders sack this sacred site and slaughter or enslave the holy men who live there, destroying or ransacking everything within. Aidan flees with a remarkable book, the Book of Iona, still to be completed after many long decades of patient illumination by many gifted, scholarly monks. Bringing it to Kells he hopes to complete it with the help of brothers in the scriptorium there, but the abbot has lost patience with such things, being totally obsessed with building walls and defences against the inevitable Norse assault he knows will come on Kells and the monks and many villagers who have fled there for protection. He actively discourages his young nephew from helping Aidan, who, now finding his old hands to unsteady for the job, seeks a gifted replacement to finish the book.

Disobeying his uncle Brendan steals into the forest, a dark place, home to strange creatures from Irish folklore, dark wolves, standing stones, strange caves, home to mythical beings. And a forest sprite in the form of a young girl (Aisling), who is suspicious at first but soon warms to Brendan until the two become close friends.

The film is beautifully animated -- the artwork is often simply gorgeous, as befits a work inspired by one of the most beautiful cultural treasures in the world. Sometimes the characters appear to be walking in an odd way compared to the background and it felt to me that this was a deliberate style adopted by the animators; its as if the characters are flat and walking across a flat background, which seems appropriate to the art style of the period, long before the more normal (to us) adoption of perspective in Renaissance art much later. Some scenes are also broken into split screens, little triptychs which recall the lovely, large header illustrations common in many illuminated books of the period, while other scenes again draw directly for their design on the unique form of illuminated texts which the Celtic school of Christianity created, people, animals, beautiful plants, flowing script and twisting, interwoven lines and knots combining into something so beautiful it almost makes you cry (so beautiful its mere sight is supposed to blind sinners as Brendan says), while other touches are small and subtle, such as the way the dappled light sparkles in the forest as the sun comes through the leaves.

Contrasted against this the Norsemen are depicted mostly in shadows, dark black and blood red outlines of hulking figures, swords and horns, recalling the demon from Fantasia (for which the great Bela Lugosi posed for the Disney animators, long before motion capture). Their acts, while never shown in detail, are brutal, dark, terrifying -- for a film aimed primarily at younger viewers possibly a bit scary, but then they should be and I think its good that the animators don’t hide the horrible brutality of the period, especially as it makes the book stand out all the more. Too late the abbot will realise that his endless obsession with defences will still not halt the tide of Viking onslaught and that while they are all transient beings the book is more important then any of them or the abbey itself; the book is a symbol of the light, a beacon to shine a path out of the Dark Ages and to touch the souls of men and women for eternity (as it still does to this day). But only if Brendan and Aidan, with help from Aisling and a rather smart cat can save this remarkable work of art.

(the demonic Norsemen attack)

Its an utterly beautiful film -- there’s a lovely adventure and a tale of friendship, of learned responsibilities, of what is most important, of coming of age, of saving what you can against the ages, served with a helping of folklore and fantasy, some humour and some wonderful moments of wonder that will have the eyes of child audiences open wide and the eyes of the adults too, all served up with some beautiful, traditional animation, which moves from the reasonably simple to the gorgeously elaborate scenes directly inspired by the Book of Kells. And as a bonus hopefully it will inspire kids to learn more about our history and our shared culture. Sadly there is still no news on a general UK release as yet, so at the moment you will need to watch out for it at film festivals. Which is a huge hint to any film distributors out there -- this is beautiful, enchanting adventure with soul and culture and it needs to be seen by more people (and parents its a perfect one to take your kids to). And its not just animation lovers like me -- Secret of Kells took the much vaunted Standard Life Audience Choice Award at the Edinburgh Film Festival -- that’s an award cast by actual audience members as they leave the cinema, not an award given by critics, so obviously the audiences here loved it too; you can find out more on the official movie site here and director Tomm Moore’s blog.

(director Tomm Moore -- pictured centre -- at the UK premiere during the Edinburgh Film Festival, from my Flickr stream)

Mary and Max

Also at the Film Festival I was lucky enough to catch another animated film I have been eager to see for months, Mary and Max. The first Australian film every picked to open the prestigious Sundance Festival and also the first animated film to do so (which is a strong indicator of how good it is, as is its award at Annecy), its one of those movies which has been gathering impressive word of mouth on the international festival circuit, although like all indy films that is only half the struggle -- getting general releases in various countries is another matter and good showings at film festivals is part of that hard slog of getting the film seen by a wider audience (a task made harder by the fact its an animated movie made for adults -- most film companies won‘t know how to market such a thing). And does Mary and Max deserve to be seen by that wider audience? Oh yes, without a doubt yes.

(Max Jerry Horowitz from Mary and Max)

This lovely, stop-motion tale is essentially a story of two damaged, lonely souls who find a remarkable connection across the world. Young Mary is a little girl in suburban Australia, with no friends at school, a funny looking face that gets made fun of, a father who spends most of his time on his hobby of taxidermy (using roadkill for subject matter) and a mother in hair rollers, hideous glasses and constant alcoholic and smoking fugue. It’s a lonely upbringing and Mary escapes into imagination and her love of chocolate and the animated show Nibblets. One day while her mother shoplifts items from the local post office Mary leafs through an international phone book, wondering at the ‘strange’ names in an American directory. On an impulse she decides to take down the details of one random name and write him a letter to ask about life in America.

Max is a middle-aged, obese Jewish man living in 70s New York, also a lonely, damaged soul (as we find out later, he has Asperger’s, which is one reason he has difficulty in relating to people until Mary writes to him), flitting between a succession of jobs, a number of fish (which keep dying and being replaced) and trips to Overeater’s Anonymous which are rather defeated by his love of chocolate. He is quite surprised to receive Mary’s letter, complete with some samples of chocolates from Australia and very soon they are swapping letters, chocolates and little bits of their isolated lives to something neither had before -- a friend. It’s at this point that the situation could be seen as straying into potential landmine territory -- lonely young girl corresponding with isolated, lonely older man? You can almost imagine a red-top tabloid screaming headline now. But it isn’t like that. Somehow these two damaged souls have found what they needed, a friend, and an unlikely relationship blossoms before, inevitably, hitting some more stormy seas, not least when a more grown up Mary, now at college, studies psychology and uses Max as her main subject.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8pmDkRn1vs

The film doesn’t try to hide the shortcomings of the characters any more than it tries to wallow in sentiment -- it simply presents them and the many little facets of growing up and life that everyone can identify with, from finding out the illicit pleasures as a child of sneaking a tin of sweetened condensed milk to the shattering implications of a dear friendship being damaged (and also presents Aspergers with some sensitive understanding). It’s often funny, sometimes quite sad, but even when sad it is that beautiful kind of sadness that draws you in. The animation is all done in stop-motion and looks wonderful. I have no problem with CG animation but there is something I always find fascinating about stop-motion, the fact that, as the producer (who did a Q&A after the screening) remarked, everything you see on the screen was there, it was all designed, built and then painstakingly moved by hand, frame by frame; its all real, every item you see on screen was touched by a person putting life into it.

(Mary Daisy Dinkle wrapping up another package for her pen friend)

The voice talent boasts Toni Collette and Philip Seymour Hoffman, both agreeing to work for a fraction of their normal movie fees simply for the love of it (another indicator of how good this film is) and the narration comes from none other than the great Barry Humphries, who apparently they were huge fans of and terrified to meet, but he was charming and agreed to do it, even if he noticed Mary’s mother had a slight touch of the Dame Edna about her. It’s rare to see independent animation features and even rarer to see one aimed at an adult audience (although I think it’s also quite suitable for a YA audience too). There’s more than a touch of the Edward Gorey (or his modern heir, Tim Burton) to some of the style and humour, not so much Gothic but in the dark humour that life often throws up. What can I say except I absolutely loved it and, like the Secret of Kells, I hope that some film distributors pick it up and give it a proper general release here. Meantime, if you see it on the programme of a film festival near you, take my tip and go and see it.