trunky

Sad news this week, with VicForests (the State Government's logging arm), smashing up pristine forest at Sylvia Creek, despite opposition from locals and greenies alike. Boo! What a bunch of meanies! I was in the mood for drawing trees this week, but this stinky news made it all the more pertinent.
The forest forms part of the ever-dwindling habitat of Australia's cutest marsupial and also Victoria's faunal emblem: the leadbeaters possum. VicForests bozos claim they have left a habitat "island" within the forest (in light of conservationists concerns, not their own black hearts), which they say will ensure any possums in the area survive (they also say there are no possums in the area, which may give you some insight into their skills of reason and analysis).
Anyway, I'd like to see how well folks here in Melbourne would survive if VicForests, say, smashed up a few hundred hectares of freeways. Starvation anyone? Rant ends here!

salty

Its been a while, so this afternoon I set aside for drawing and drinking steaming cups o' coffee. I think I forgot how nice it is to just draw, cut, ink for no reason and no purpose. With winter setting in I hope there will be more of it!

Beach babes

This is the gorgeous view from my desk at the Queenscliff Neighbourhood House, where I have been hanging out the last little while, drawing pictures and drinking copious amounts of peppermint tea (I have a cold).
The 'Cliff is my hometown, and I've been invited back as a part of the local council's Sea of Words. Being invited back home, and also, Queenscliff being a nautical town (as you might have guessed from its appropriately themed writers fest), I brought my copy of Dylan Horrocks' awesome Hicksville along for a read today... and simply couldn't help myself! There is a lighthouse outside my window!! If it wasn't located within the grounds of the local naval base I would be scrounging about there right now in search of some hidden treasures.

(apologies to Dylan Horrocks and people who like nicely photoshopped pictures)

mini zinesters

This is the amazing stash of zines I picked up today at Queenscliff Primary School. I've been at the school the last couple of days, introducing the kids to the concept of zines and running a mega-workshop on how to make them. Today we worked the photocopier and after lunch held a super zine swap! I have to say I was blown away by the talent - with titles like Angry Eggplant (grade prep), Splice Mice (grade six) and My Dad Smells (grade four) making it a very competitive swapping field!


(Angry Eggplant)

(Splice Mice)

(My Dad Smells)

montañas

Lately, I've been dreaming of the land of the long-white-cloud - reading too much Janet Frame and listening to way too many of N's old records. So cause we cancelled our trip there I'm all blue skys, and cumulus clouds and mountains doing suitable high altitude things (wearing scarves, feeling lonely).

Nano-test!

Can you make a better comic than me? I bet you can! Friends of the Earth will be releasing a super new report on the hygiene-gone-mad "silver nano" technology, and are looking for someone to do a bit of light comic relief. If you're keen the deadline is Monday at the latest- email me and I will send on a fact sheet on the serious issues you can convert into comedy gold... I mean silver!

**Update** Deadline is now Tuesday!

he's behind you

It's the last day of summer and how happy I am that it is a little chilly and I can already feel autumn coming on! The last week of summer (as in last week) was a busy one for me and my new HP Laserjet 1600. Together we achieved the creation of a total of almost 90 zines, most of which have found their way to Sticky with a small portion being posted off to Format in Adelaide, my first foray into that westerly state. Alongside a re-print of Flora there was a batch of Happy Crap, Sooky Cloud and Evil Mushroom as well as a new comic Dreamwalker, which has wasted most of my black toner. Props to Friends of the Earth for letting me use their super guillotine too!

try again!

Though I have been known to willingly (perhaps over-willingly) participate in Valentine's Day festivities in the past, this year I wish to commemorate the date with That Hurt!, a new zine of tattoo ideas for the broken hearted. Prototypes of TH sold out at Saturday's mega-zine fest, and this week I will be printing up a fresh new bunch which will promptly be available at Sticky for those in need of some needy-needled nymphs to cheer them up post-V's D.

In other exciting news, last week Hairy Bloke got its first review, it was so nice it made me blush.

shitty day

No I didn't stand in a poo, but today has been a really shitty day! Sticky Zine Fair is in less than one week and the (supposedly super) HP LaserJet 1600 my uncle gifted me has given me nothing but troubles. Halfway through printing a ream of Happy Crap and Sooky Cloud zines it has, ironically, decided to give up on life. Shitty printer = sooky girl.

feliz navidad!

Who are the coolest zine distributors in the whole of the Toowoomba region? Why Smells Like Zines of course! This very super distro stock copies of my zines Hairy Bloke and Defend Your Tweedom as well as an awesome array of QLD only zines that are otherwise unavailable down south. The Smells are offering free postage for all zine orders placed before Christmas, which again = coolest! feliz navidad y una oferta muy cool!

Regardez Moi!

Anna Brown has been running round Australia, taking snaps of 'Strayan comics people for almost a year! (Well, not the whole time, but she has been doing her project over the year, so props to her for sticking to it for so long!) She is going to be collating them into some kind of an exhibition-form-thingie at some point in the future, juxtaposing each artist's image with a drawn self-portrait. What a cool idea. The above is the result of my attempt at drawing myself, and below, one of the photographs Anna took. Unfortunately she took the pictures after my ill-fate fringe adventures, about which I had almost forgotten (as you will see by my drawing, I am now sporting an awesome side-fringe most emo-kidz would be jealous of).

dreamwalker

I painted this for my friend Isabelle (aged 2 and a "halp") for her new "big girl room" (she's been turfed out due to a newly arrived little brother). I thought it was a little bit too scary, but when presented with it she wasn't scared at all. In fact she laughed at it. Kids. Huh.

have you ever spent some quality time with a duck?

Today I got a leaflet in the mail from the wonderful folk at the Coalition Against Duck Shooting. They're asking all Melbournians (the real ones, who live in the actual city) to vote Green this election in as a protest against the Brumby Government's inaction on the issue of duck hunting. Go duck people!!
Anyway, the flyer reminded me of a comic idea I had been playing around with a while back entitled Duck Season. It's basically a story about spending quality time with a duck. Duck's are really cool animals. Have you spent some time with one lately? Do it. You'll be rewarded in feathers.