Aussie Readers discussion

If you're a lover of manga and graphic novels don't miss:

JENNIFER BYRNE PRESENTS: GRAPHIC NOVELS - Tuesday 16th November 10pm ABC1

Jennifer Byrne presents this special on graphic novels, or if you prefer: comics, picture books, illustrated fiction or sequential art narrative. "To discuss the wonderful combination of words and images, we are joined by special guests Eddie Campbell, Sophie Cunningham, Bruce Mutard and Nicki Greenberg."

If you miss it I'll put a link in this thread after the show has aired and you'll be able to watch the videos or read the transcripts.

I think we have a few fans of Manga and Graphic novels in the group. If you have any news about upcoming festivals, great websites or blogs, or if you know of some great local authors in the genre, please post your thoughts and info here!:)

My kids love manga and superhero comics, which is great especially for my 12 year old son who has difficulty reading, he spends hours looking at these comics and I always hope that by absorption method alone his reading skills will improve.

Their favourites are all the marvel superheros and dragonballZ, yugioh and one piece. The interesting thing about these comics, which are paperback size, is that they are read backwards. Not sure why, but my boys love them.

I on the other hand am old school, in that the only comics I ever really got into was 'Richie Rich' (much to my kids embarassment), 'Donald Duck', 'Archie', 'Calvin and Hobbs', Asterix (my boys actually like these last two), 'Garfield' and 'The Far Side'.

The latter one I developed a love for after attending Washington State University for a year where Larson had spent a year then proceeded to go off and do better things, but the University gave him an honorary doctorate anyhow.

I have a bookshelf a half of manga. Most of it is shoujo, but I have a couple "shounen" & "josei".

My favorites include: Yotsuba, Itazura na Kiss, Bunny Drop, Kimi ni Todoke, Sunshine Sketch and Kare Kano.

For comics, my sister keeps all of them. We have a hell of a lot of Simpsons, as well as some Futurama. I have a couple of Garfield, too.

I'm a big fan of Manga & Comics.

Manga: Train_man, Rebirth, Pichi Pichi Pitch, Legends of the Dark Crystal, Return to the Labyrinth, Princess Ai, The Tarot Cafe, Bizenghast, Time Stranger Kyoko, Kamikaze Kaito Jeanne, The Mark of the Succubus, Doors of Chaos, Twinkle Stars, Kitchen Princess, Sugar Princess, L'um & Evyione. Seriously, don't get me started on the Anime...

Comics: XMen - Uncanny (She Lies with Angels), Joseph Michael Linsner's Dawn, Tracey Butler's Lackadaisy, Terry Moore's Strangers in Paradise, Neil Gaiman's - The Sandman (Endless Nights), Footrot Flats & W.I.T.C.H.

Anyone know where I can get a copy of CB Cebulski’s Compass? I missed out on a signed copy at a past Supanova but I'd still like to actually get a normal copy somewhere... just haven't had any luck tracking it down.

I'm a big fan of Michael Turner's creations Soulfire & Fathom and was pretty sad when I heard of his death in 2008... He was a really talented artist.

Do you guys know of any awards for graphic novels/manga etc in Australia? I'd love to post some award winning graphics in this thread to give people a look at why this genre is so popular!:)

for Comics; People like
Bernard Caleo, Queenie Chan, W. Chew Chan, Oslo Davis, George Dunford, Nicki Greenberg, Bruce Mutard, Shaun Tan, Andrew Weldon, Eddie Campbell, Sophie Cunningham and Nikki Greenberg

some of those above are featured on the ASA (Australian society of authors) check out the Comics Creator of the month archives there
http://www.asauthors.org/scripts/cgii...

Mandy wrote: "Do you guys know of any awards for graphic novels/manga etc in Australia? I'd love to post some award winning graphics in this thread to give people a look at why this genre is so popular!:)"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internat...

We have an Aussie winner:

"Shorei" Award: Hollow Fields by Madeleine Rosca (Australia)

Thanks MystGrrl!

Here is the cover of award winning manga book, Hollow Fields, Vol. 1.

Just thought I would put some of Shaun Tan's work in here too because he is SO amazing!

I love Shaun Tan's work. Thanks Mandy.

Shaun Tan is without doubt my favourite. So amazing!

I haven;t read a lot of other manga/graphic novels, but others I have enjoyed include the Persepolis books by Marjane Satrapi which are about the life of a young Iranian girl, and I am currently reading the Emma series by Kaoru Mori, which is about a 19th century maid in Victorian England.

There does seem to be a growing trend to have graphic novels done of existing series with people like Diana Gabaldon, Janet Evanovich, Sherrilyn Kenyon, Stephenie Meyer and lots more having gone down this route over the last couple of years

Here's a really good video of a discussion between graphic novellists Nicki Greenberg and Shaun Tan.

"With F Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby under her belt, graphic novellist Nicki Greenberg turned her hand to Shakespeare. In conversation with celebrated illustrator Shaun Tan, Nicki discusses how she brought Hamlet to life – this time, cast as an inkblot.

Greenberg and Tan cover artistic and technical ground, exploring the use of black framing as a storytelling space, explaining how they arrive at their characterisations and considering the ways in which filmic flow exists on the pages of a graphic novel."

http://wheelercentre.com/videos/video...

I'm very much into reading comics...I've been into comics since I was little...I also really enjoy cartoons so comics kind of went hand in hand :) I enjoy reading manga from time to time but not as much as comics.

I'm a collector of old DELL and Whitman comics for Disney, mostly Donald Duck or Uncle Scrooge stories. Sadly, DELL can get really expensive when you've got a certain 'condition' you like you comics to be in..haha.

I also enjoy reading modern comics such as Sonic The Hedgehog, Sonic Universe, Futurama, Simpsons, Green Arrow, The Guild, Hairbutt the Hippo, Runaways, Blacksad, Mouse Guard, Bone..etc.

I like collecting certain comics in comic form then I'll wait for others to get released into trades so they don't take up as much room.

I've also worked in the cartoon industry which was a huge thrill because I got to talk about comics for work..aahahaha

I stumbled across a great resource for Graphic Novel/Manga/Comics fans in OZ.

For links to websites, review sites, suppliers and journals you can check this webpage.

For a great starting list of Aussie graphic novels, manga and comics try this link.

Great article from the Courier Mail on the rise of Graphic Novels in Australia:

THEY can be called visual books, long-format comics, comic-strip novels and picture novellas, but are most commonly known as graphic novels.
And while the graphic novel genre started out appealing mainly to teenagers, publishers are hoping the entry of blockbuster authors such as James Patterson, Dean Kootz and Audrey Niffenegger will change this.

Publisher Erica Wagner says the trend of heavyweight authors joining the ranks should boost sales. "It's a good thing," she says.

Brisbane Borders store manager Wayne Ewin, whose shop offers Queensland's largest number of titles - about 2000 - agrees. "It definitely makes it (the genre) more acceptable when larger authors get involved," he says.

Niffenegger's tale about a book lover, The Night Bookmobile, could be a genre icebreaker for adults. "There are so many unbelievably fantastic people doing it right now so it seems hilarious that my name will lend it any muster at all. I'm flattered," Niffenegger says.

"We are living in a golden age of graphic novels (in the United States). If it hasn't happened yet in Australia, expect a major tidal wave coming to your shores."

Niffenegger, known for her 2003 best-selling novel The Time Traveler's Wife, says The Night Bookmobile is her third graphic novel. The art teacher at Chicago's Columbia College considers herself only a small player in the genre which has a long and rich history in the US.

"People were surprised but most people don't realise that I'm an artist, that I've been teaching art for decades. That's what I do. The writing thing is a hobby.

"I like the idea that people might pick it (The Night Bookmobile) up by mistake . . . and like what they see."

Niffenegger says that unfortunately most graphic novels do carry an "intellectual stigma" and she believes many people who say they do not like graphic novels have never read one.

Borders' Ewin does not think graphic novels will ever reach the mainstream status in Australia that they have in several European countries, the US and Japan, where they account for 45 per cent of sales. He says the store's biggest demand (80 per cent of graphic novel sales) is for the Japanese-style Manga comics. He says that although the genre's popularity is growing, there is not yet a strong Australian culture for novels with pictures.

"At the moment people see them as a comic or kids' book even though a lot of the books contain adult content," he says. "People don't feel like they are reading a real book for adults."

Wagner says that if any book can convert graphic novel greenhorns it is Melbourne author-illustrator Nicki Greenberg's new release, a 423-page presentation of Shakespeare's Hamlet. "If we can't win them over with Hamlet, which is such an extraordinary book, and should appeal to people who love and collect books, then I don't know what will," she says. "It's a brilliant introduction to both graphic novels and Shakespeare."

Greenberg spent three years bringing Hamlet to life. She found the graphic novel form the perfect style to depict Shakespeare's complex story because she did not have the constraints of a normal text-based format when illustrating key scenes such as the dream sequences and the ghostly appearance of Hamlet's father.

"I wanted people drawn into the amazing story and gripped by the drama of it," she says. "There's so much to interpret with every character and scene.

"When people think of graphic novels they have in their mind the Manga (Japanese-style graphic novels) or superhero comics but they are two styles that don't appeal to me . . . there are a lot more graphic novels out there," she says.

Niffenegger says that Art Spiegelman's Pulitzer Prize-winning Maus (1986), detailing his father's experiences in the Auschwitz death camp helped bring graphic novels into the mainstream in the US and spark a renaissance.

Brisbane is the home of internationally-renowned Eddie Campbell, whose From Hell, was turned into a Johnny Depp movie. Other famous graphic novel titles transferred to the big screen are Bryan Lee O'Malley's Scott Pilgrim and Neil Gaiman's Coraline, with both authors gaining cult followings for their work.

Wagner takes heart from the fact that Maus and other classics such as Joe Sacco's Palestine (1993), which handle "serious subjects in an artistic manner", still sell strongly years after their original publication because publishing graphic novels is expensive and risky.

"The beauty of the form is you can do something personal with a handmade intimate quality or you can construct a cinema-scale story," Wagner says. "They are a rich way of reading a book."

Niffenegger agrees: "There are a lot of things graphic novels can do that words alone can't do such as show the exact facial expression of a character."

She originally published The Night Bookmobile, the first of a trilogy, in 2004 as a short story but after it appeared two years ago as a weekly comic strip for The Guardian in Britain it became a natural progression for the story to be transformed into a graphic novel.

Niffenegger hopes "the bookishness of my story about a woman who sacrifices a normal life to delve into the world of books" will appeal to people who do not normally read visual books.

As one online critic from Bleedingcool blog site writes about The Night Bookmobile: "Take away the words and you have only a series of illustrations of Chicago and various interiors. Take away the pictures and the story could be dismissed as just a fancy. But with the words and pictures together, she (Niffe- negger) creates a story that is both imaginative and believable; a daydream that compels you to believe in it."

Source: http://www.couriermail.com.au/enterta...

Cheers Mandy for the articles! I love reading differnt Graphic novels so I'm always interested in seeing new things out there old and new.

This is an interesting article by Mike Shuttleworth who was the Centre for Youth Literature
program manager at the State Library of Victoria for 9 years. He is the curator of the exhibition Look! The art of Australian picture books today, currently showing at the State Library of Victoria.

"Mike Shuttleworth has just visited Angoulême, France, for the 38th International Festival de la bande dessinée, the world’s biggest international comics festival. In a cross-post from his blog, he tells us what he found there.

Imagine the crowd at the MCG, the AFL grand final. Double it and then add a few thousand more. More than 200,000 people turned up for the 38th Angoulême International Festival de la bande dessinée. And like an AFL grand final, people come from all levels of society. Angoulême, two hours by TGV south-west of Paris, is indisputably the home of bande dessinée, or BD, in France. Don’t be put off by the term bande dessinée: literally it means ‘drawn stories’ and encompasses comics, graphic novels and sometimes picture books.

Diversity is at the heart of this extraordinary festival. Across four days and nights, the festival caters to all tastes. Exhibitors, artists and publishers also come from all over the world. I met French, Romanian, Belgian, Finnish, French, Spain, and Hong Kong publishers, writers and producers.

Australia however, is largely invisible. In 2008 Shaun Tan won the festival’s Best Album prize for Là où vont nos pères, or The Arrival. The young independent publisher I spoke to this weekend thought Shaun is an American. We are the great unknown, and Australians could learn a great deal by coming to this festival. Why more, or indeed any, Australians don’t go there is a mystery to me.

This year’s festival president, Baru, is renowned for autobiographical depictions of the French (and migrant) working class, beginning in 1982 with Quéquettes Blues. The exhibition that honoured Baru’s work was generous, imaginative and sympathetic – a delight to explore and experience. Baru’s exhilarating exhibition Debout les damned de la terre (translating roughly as Showing the Damned of the Earth) is a journey through working class lives over fifty years. Baru’s massive body of work was smartly curated, displayed with real panache, and a great introduction to this artist.

Kaleidoscope, a history of bande dessinée in Hong Kong and produced by the Hong Kong Arts Centre succinctly, elegantly and engagingly explored a turbulent past and present. The show – designed for touring – touched on the political, economic and technological changes that have driven Hong Kong’s diverse visual comics culture. It looked so good that it could easily stand as a permanent exhibition. I would love to see this show in Australia.

The varied, diverse and distinct thematic marquees ranged from the big (really packed) commercial houses to the edgy and innovative up-and-comers in Pavillon Jeunes Talents. If you want to see what is happening in comics internationally, this is a great way to see it. Angoulême is not just French and Belgian comics: it welcomes the world.

And finally, Les Concerts des Dessins. I saw three, each very different in flavour though using the same ingredients: live music matched live drawing. Malian singer Fatoumata Diawara was coolly complemented by illustrator Clement Oubrerie. On the other hand, Jon Spencer’s new outfit Heavy Trash rocked the house down (around 800 screaming French women and men going absolutely bonkers) while Baru and friends drew up scenes of rockabilly mayhem, culminating in the artists setting fire to their pictures. Why don’t all concerts come with live illustration? It was a hell of a way to go out.

Angoulême is not a convention, or a fan-meet. And it’s not, obviously, only about Tintin, Asterix and Spirou. There is an exhaustive schedule of in-conversations, panels and debates. ‘Is Temeraire a little Nazi?’; ‘Teaching BD in art school’; ‘Lesbians and bande dessinée’ ‘Violence and manga’; ‘Mainstream or indie – must we choose?’ There is also a rights market, meetings with artists, film screenings and projections, book signings, sales (oh, my suitcase) and an incredible buzz throughout the town.

The festival is both a celebration and a masterful promotion of the bande dessinee. Prizes are awarded on the final night. This year’s Angoulême Festival Grand Prize winner, and therefore next year’s festival president, is Art Speigleman. The shortlist of 51 titles in a range of categories are heavily promoted in bookshops and beyond. FNAC (think JB HiFi meets Borders meets Ticketmaster), is a festival sponsor. National newspapers and magazines across the political and cultural spectrum get their hands dirty. The industry, its artists and readers, are taken seriously. Yes, the French comics industry was built on the likes of Tintin and Asterix, but there is so much more.

Source: http://wheelercentre.com

If anyone wants some cheap manga, Kinokuniya is having a 3 day 20% off sale (5th-7th May). They are also running a "Free Comic Book" day today.

I got my free comic book today; The Misadventures of Adam West

I got Mouse Guard and my friend got Captain America. There wasn't much left by the time we got there after lunch. The Artists' Alley looked pretty crowded and fun, but I was in a hurry and didn't have time to linger.

Mouse Guard is an amazing series! There are now 3 graphic novels out :) I've got all 1st printing hard back books of it..Plus a few comics from the 2nd series.

Laura, I quite liked what I have read so far of Mouse Guard. Will have to look for it to the next time I am in a bookshop!

K wrote: "Laura, I quite liked what I have read so far of Mouse Guard. Will have to look for it to the next time I am in a bookshop!"
Cool :D!! Glad you're enjoying it so far. I think i love it more because it's just so different from the norm. Plus i can look at the art style for ages. There is going to be a forth book sometime as well :)

I love comics and graphic novels. They're an amazing way to tell a story. I read B.P.R.D. 1946 yesterday and just loved it. If you like dark fantasy and horror and vintage pulp fiction and you haven't read Mike Mignola's Hellboy and B.P.R.D. series then you are missing out. Go and beg, borrow or buy them! My fave Aussie comic is Platinum Grit by Trudy E Cooper and Danny Murphy. You can read them online at www.platinumgrit.com/ or keep your eyes peeled for the collected volume 1 They are a little bit fabulous, rather surreal and definitely for grown ups, despite boasting the cutest little pig since Babe. They're well-plotted, with amusing characters and.... I want to know what happens next! I neeeeeed to know what happens next!

Wow Loupie, sounds like you and Laura are good mates! This is what she loves too :)

Anybody has read any cyberpunk mangas or animes? Animes on the lines of The Ghost in the Shell, Akira or Metropolis? I need them to research academically on the topic of my Ph.D. - feminist cyberpunk. I need those that further my understanding of cyberpunk or those that I can cite in my research to make it richer.

Thanks :)

How many of these would you heavily recommend to me - http://myanimelist.net/forum/?topicid...?

I have heard good things about Texhnolyze. Akira's manga is drastically different from the film, if you've only seen the film I highly recommend picking the manga up.

Other cyberpunk anime; Ergo Proxy, pretty good if a bit confused and all over the place; Dennou Coil, never watched more than the first couple of episodes but seemed neat; Serial Experiments Lain, very interesting one.

On the topic, I like me some manga and have quite a few graphic novels also. In particular I like Jhonen Vasquez' Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, the Walking Dead books and several other random series I've picked up around the place.

Wow!! Thanks for the recos - suppose I want to see Ghost in the Shell - which would you prefer? The manga or the anime?

I haven't read the Ghost in the Shell manga, the film is very good though.

The three anime I mentioned - Ergo Proxy, Dennou Coil and Serial Experiments Lain - all have female main characters, too, going by your topic :P

Currently reading The Sandman, Vol. 4: Season of Mists and loving it.

The only other graphic novels I have read are The Walking Dead (Up to date) The Walking Dead, Vol. 1: Days Gone Bye-The Walking Dead, Vol. 18: What Comes After and The Tragical Comedy or Comical Tragedy of Mr. Punch