MAY '21 NEWSLETTER masoncomics.com.au |
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#03. Touching on comic-related stuff and other things going on.
(ok, so it's just past May- technically June 1 for 10 more minutes as I write this; sorry folks!
We're in the middle of moving house, (truck comes tomorrow!), end of Uni trimester 1 assignment marking, presentations, prepping students for final animated pre-production, life drawing and art direction reviews, and finding time to get freelance work and sleep in there somewhere...Hope whatever you folks are juggling is going ok for you too, and may this little bit of comic info and stuff not take up much of your time. Onwards! |
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Public Seminar: Writing For Comic Books & Graphic Novels - July 2021 You’ve probably read one, but could you write one? In this introductory seminar, award-winning cartoonist and animation concept designer, Paul Mason, will explore the language of comics and the comic book page. You will learn the fundamentals visual storytelling and considerations involved in comics and visual narratives. Paul will also share methods for writing comics as either a solo cartoonist or as part of a collaboration, as well as tips for catering your writing for the length of the story being told...
A very big thank you to the Queensland Writers Centre for reaching out recently to invite me to the State Library to teach this; It will be a 3 hour seminar designed to introduce writers and interested folks to Comics, visual storytelling and the craft of writing for the comic book medium. Early Bird prices available for In-Person and Live Streaming for Saturday 31 July 2021. Looking forward to seeing the response to this. Fingers crossed, yeah? | | |
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TX! Magazine: Challenging little Comic gigs with a purpose. So for a few issues now, I've been doing some medical-based comics for TX! Magazine; thanks to Wolfgang Bylsma of Gestalt Comics (gentleman and my editor and letterer on a few Gestalt books now, such as ELDRITCH KID: BONE WAR) who approached me last year about drawing these occasional short stories for the Hepatitis NSW- produced magazine. I've been fortunate while waiting for releases or approvals of other jobs to have the opportunity to do these stories, which though aren't the bombastic action-based things I'm normally excited to draw, allow for deadline-based practice in the meantime. The challenge for me to see how I can make a story of "talking heads" interesting, with easy to follow layouts but avoid repetitive - looking drawings, still "telling the story" visually, and allowing for the script to do its job; light drama-like entertainment, while being education and informative about situations related to the illness. In a way it reminds me of the potential of the comics medium that Eisner once saw and made a career out of, when he spent decades between drawing "The Spirit" in the 1940s, thru to Vietnam -era, by producing P.S magazine for the US army. Different audience and purpose (and tone of the comics), but same concept; inform via comics.
Have done a few 4 or 8 pagers which allow me to play a little with approaches, am now currently on a 15 page story. If curious about these style of comics, previous issues and credits can be found online for FREE via the links in my "about" page: | | |
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A fun idea for you or your kids.I recently touched on a creator-owned project I wrote in lockdown last year, and am currently drawing in spare time, based on some creature/characters developed as part of an annual exercise I give my 3rd year Art Direction students at Griffith Uni. The idea of the exercise is to "Sketch bash" studies done in life drawing and observational drawing sessions, and bring them into the digital software in the labs and draw/create characters and creatures, and in a nutshell, showing the value of referencing using under-utilised resources like the Museum, Art Gallery and life drawing sessions in the digital real.
This could be something that you or your kids might like to try. The easiest way to challenge the kids is to make a couple of lists that they contribute to: list animals, maybe occupations, places, objects, even trickier things for the older kids like eras, countries, genres etc. THEN, pick one from each list, write them down, and combine these elements into creating a creature or character. They could even use themselves, you or friends to strike a pose they have to use in the drawing, or have a look at the newspaper, a magazine, or search safe google image like a pro :P
On the right is my example in-class demo I recently mocked up, combining a kangaroo and kookaburra sketches from the QLD Museum, an RAAF uniform there also, a motorbike sketch from GOMA, a leaning forward pose from a life model, mashed together and sketched, with base colour slapped on ready to clean-up/render/paint (click the pic to see the FB post).
If you have a crack yourself, maybe if you do get a rainy day or the kids are drawing, feel free to post online their or your character and I'll share the results on here. |
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Final words for this month: As always, thank you for your support for signing up to news and stuff here. I know not everyone is a creator, an aspiring creator or maybe that interested to see how the sausage is made, but sometimes a peek behind the curtain can't hurt. BUT, if you *are* interested, or you know anyone who might want to know more about this stuff, see if they'd like to sign up to the free newsletter, or even check out the seminar, for the Writers centre I mentioned: please feel free to pass the link along. I pitched it as an introductory to test the waters, wondering if anyone is interested to hear some of the elements in a nutshell from what I teach at my day job at the University/Film School. Cheers :D https://queenslandwriters.org.au/events/stream-comics-mason Had an email from an overseas reader asking about the next Phantom: Vietnam, if there's more and when will they be released? There's one more full length story; in fact, it was my first intended follow up to the 2019 annual, that I completed and handed in around August 2019. I wrote all the stories with the idea that they may be released out of order, and months apart, so the idea is that you could read in any order; but at the very least, a loose, overarching story with the intent to wrap up when applicable. In regards to any more, well, from March last year until just yesterday, I wouldn't have had an answer for you. I pretty much thought I was done; thanks for the ride, understand the rocky waves, loved the opportunity, keep fighting the good fight etc....But now there may be a chance that last year's pencils down could now mean "pick it up, soldier", provided I finish freshening up my original synopses and send them off, and they hopefully meet approval to continue. I never hear much, except for today with "they're well received". Good enough for us. This includes something non-'Nam that Amanda and I had plotted and pitched, that had to be paused, feared dead, now excited it might have a window of hope. Apologies for not spelling things out more clearly; in this sort of volatile medium, it pays to not get hopes up until the thing is on the table, and the check clears. This could all die again and I'm left looking silly for even mentioning it here in the first place. Between here, and printed in your hands, projects have hoops abound to clear, or sometimes it could be as lucky as just getting to do it, hand it in, but then just silence, until suddenly months or more later, out and available. Sure one can play the hype game, play on the "cult of personality" that is "comics", be a big shot, splash news around bragging etc. etc. but no one likes a dickhead, right? It's so weird to me; like any industry, job or medium, people get so caught up in the machinations of it all, they forget outside of it, it really doesn't matter; no one outside it knows who or what you or others do, and regardless of the job, the field, the people involved, there's always an equivalent, and everyone is the same, right? We are all somewhat insecure humans trying to not look or act dumb in front of one another, and unless a sociopath, get through the day as stress-free as manageable in the situations we find ourselves in. Plus also survive, doing whatever we have to, or in a rare case, choose to do. So in this case here, I'm just hoping that people don't think me a dickhead for bringing up my navigation in living in Australia and the attempts to create drawings of little pictures for people to squizz at like it's anything dire or earth-shatteringly important, or *more* important than something else, but it's more so hoping that in the quiet moments you want to tune out your own junk/fights/life battles and stresses, or just kill some time, you like reading things. Perhaps a couple of those things I happen to make, so I mention that there might be more of it on the way for your benefit as well as, clearly, *mine*, while all along I try to satisfy myself with making this stuff, and keep a roof over our heads in the process. ...Did I mention if you're reading this, I appreciate your support by just being here? Cheers to you.
Anyways, enough on to keep busy with for quite a bit, including most importantly, the moving van coming in a days time.
So, thanks once again for a few minutes of your day skimming my notes, and when Amanda and I are settled, I'll definitely be wrangling her in to edit these things, but until next month, you're dealing with this guy and his poor turn of phrase, typos, and now apparently third-person writing style. Perhaps Paul's a dickhead after all. I hope you are all safe and well, best wishes to those currently in lockdown here or abroad, cheers for doing the right thing, hope you get the opportunity to be vaccinated soon, and hope we all get through it OK. Chat soon,
Paul.
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