Tag Archives: Jung Down Under

Pages 65-68 (silent comics)

12 Mar

You are currently reading pages from Chapter two (of three),
– go here for the First chapter – Friday.
– Previous pages in Chapter two – Saturday
– or go back to the beginning of Saturday.




By and large – the most enjoyable and satisfying part of doing a wordy comic are the silent bits.
Go here for the next pages – 69-72

I s’pose technically this comic is mostly silent bits as there is narration as written by the main character, which is separate from the images BUT the nicest bits to draw were the quiet parts with no words. I figure that it also gives the reader a bit of a reprieve and some silence to digest the intense flow of ideas, and perhaps what is happening. It also helps to remind me and the reader that the place this is set in is Alice Springs …and there’s lots of places and people floating in and around the desert-town in the worn-down nubs of the Macdonnell ranges.

Silent comics are not things that I’ve ever done much of … but there is a different focus when it’s about movement, action and dynamism are fun too … I haven’t had much of them in this comic … just a few moments here and there to punctuate the stillness, which reminds me living in Alice. Long weeks of seeming stillness, but acts of violence or extreme behaviour occurring in some strange symbiosis with the quiet. Perhaps that’s why I found the place so intoxicating – it’s … quite frankly … a surreal place to live.

When I flew or drove home to Melbourne from the desert to visit my parents, mum used to listen to me talking and tell me that I should “write this all down” because I would forget it. It was only in those moments that I realised that I had a pretty bizarre job and life in the outback. The humdrum of doing a job can fool you into thinking that everyone experiences things like you.

I just finished reading the USA’s Anders Nilsen’s monolithic Big Questions … I can almost not believe the world he created in that extraordinarily beautiful masterwork of comics … go and get it – it’s bloody big, but if you’re into silence and mood it’s truly magnificent.

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Pages 61-64

2 Mar

If you’d like to read the first chapter in its entirety go here – Friday
Previous pages in this chapter (Saturday) – 58-60
Or go back to the start of Saturday

Next pages – 65-68.

So far I’ve managed to complete up to page 84: the end of Chapter Two: Saturday.
Today I begin inking the final chapter … I have to rethink the ending.

The first page here is one of the more important ones to my mind, philosophically speaking that is.
Analysing Indigenous peoples is a little beside the point in this and in many things.
Looking at all of us together, the places of our interaction is more the task at hand.

I suspect that one of the reasons that the topic of Indigenous people is such an explosive topic with so many people (i.e. we are so politically correct, so polarised, so angry on their behalf, so angry the opposite way) is because the majority of us in Australia have mixed feelings about our role in the current state that the large amount of Indigenous people live in. Our role as perpetrators is traumatic for us also. In harming others, we harm ourselves also. In denigrating others we debase ourselves. When people point out our awful deeds as Australians, we are quick to become defensive, quick to blame the victim, quick to place the responsibility elsewhere. I suspect we do this because of our collective sense of guilt.

This is a difficult thing to depict, I hope that my slightly imaginative way of doing is effective.

In many ways, drawing this comic has been my way of unpacking this sense of guilt out and finding a way to think about modern Australia.

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Pages 58-60

21 Feb

Synopsis and overview
First chapter – Friday
Previous pages in Saturday

Pages 58-60 (note page 59 is incomplete at this stage)


Next pages – 61-64
This last page is one of my favourites … the fun part about adapting something is that you can pretty much do anything you want with the words because they have no images associated with them. The image of the old man in the backyard singing the Tingari images with Craig’s words about imagination I thought was a great idea … it took me a little by surprise when I’d finished it and stood back to look at the image … as with all things comic based – it’s hard to imagine what it really will look like until you have finished the damn thing. Perhaps the more experienced people have a better sense of whether something won’t work at all … but I still suspect that even experienced people are taken by surprise when their ideas REALLY work.

As I mentioned in the last blog about the long weekend, the image of the map of Iraq is left unfinished at this point until I can get a copy of Craig’s actual map – even though it was only 100 years ago, it’s amazing how many place names look totally different on the modern map versus the old one. I liked the old map sooo much that I wanted to use it in the comic … so I’m waiting on Craig to take a photo and send a copy to me.

The first page here owes a lot to some of the notes in Bardon & Bardon’s amazing Papunya Tula book. It’s a truly monumental book which details so much about the PT movement in the Western Desert that it’s beyond belief – it’s a little like trying to read Strehlow’s works … it sort of saturates the mind and you kind of … implode a little trying to comprehend what it all bloody means … until you put it down to tend the veggie patch.

In other news – Craig San Roque himself is off to America, the land of the free where you shouldn’t forget to tip. He’s going to visit the CG Jung Institute of San Francisco  and he’s going to present some of this comic in a presentation that he’s doing over there … how terribly exciting. I did attempt to send him a booklet of the first 60 or so pages of this comic by Express Post … but apparently Hobart to Alice Springs would still take 5 working days to arrive at Craig’s doorstep (this is EXPRESS post we’re talking about people) and he leaves for the states on Sunday … so no dice! So – digital it is!!

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Pages 51-57

10 Feb

First Chapter – Friday
For general synopsis and whatnot go to the menu bar at the top and click on The Long Weekend (Graphic Novel)
Previous pages in second chapter – Saturday


Next pages – 58-60.

These pages were endlessly interesting for me – doing lots of ridiculous research into Iraq and Lebanon … the map of Mesopotamia is incomplete as I haven’t had the time to look at Craig’s old map as of yet … but for the sake of people reading this I have put it up anyways. It’s at this part of the essay / comic that the scope of the ideas start to branch all over the planet. Perhaps those readers more accustomed the the Western application of archetypal behaviour will be more at home with the presence of Adonis and Inanna / Ishtar / Venus (and all the other goddess analogues you can think of). The drawings of Saddam Hussein were also fun to do … I checked on the web for photos of him and was a little shocked to find millions of copies of the video of his hanging available for anyone to have a gander at … well, I assume it’s not propoganda material and it’s real, happy to be corrected of course if anyone knows of the details of that video … anyway – I chose to use it, one of the flashes of cameras as he was swinging served as a good model for the drawing. i haven’t decided whether or not I wish to spell it out to the reader what it is they’re looking at or to just leave it as an image … though I appreciate that not all will get that that’s the same bloke as the picture above it with the poor Kurdish folks in the background. any thoughts, comments people? Please leave below.

Hope you’re all well.

Incidentally – Australian comics just got better with Pat Grant’s beautiful Blue now available!!

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Pages 43-47

14 Dec

Previous pages
1-4, 5-7, 8-9, 10-13, 14-17, 18-22, 23-27, 28-32, 33-37, 38-42


Next pages

Well, well, well! I made it to the next chapter … and so did you!
I shall put all of Friday into the one post next so that anyone who wants a recap can just read it right through if they want … and then carry on with the Long Weekend PART 2 – SATURDAY. Saturday is a lot more conceptual, and it presented some interesting challenges … but I’m a bit of a believer in the ability of comics to be able to convey some pretty complex concepts in really interesting ways … let’s see how it goes.

Incidentally, feel free to comment on this blog at the bottom, I think some of the topics contained in this comic covers some hot areas … (literally, figuratively etc) … It’d be nice to get some discussion going, I’ve received some nice feedback on facebook, I have no objection to nasty feedback or constructive criticism … or anything really. But if there are no comments at the end of it … ah well.

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Pages 33-37

25 Nov

Previous pages
1-4, 5-7, 8-9, 10-13, 14-17, 18-22, 23-27, 28-32

Next pages – 38-42

Holy mother of the world!! WHat the hell did Erishkigal do to Inanna!!! No more SEX? What will the world DO??? Play computer games until the end I suppose … hm, that’s a pretty good description of what I think limbo must be like.

Doing this section was a breath of fresh air for me after doing all the other pages of the Long Weekend which involve a lot of hatching and much more strict formatting and structure. These 13 or so pages I got to be a lot more stretchy and flexible and experiment with layout a lot more, they were also a lot quicker to draw (being a lot more cartoony) which was a lot of fun. Any ol’ comicer can tell you that it’s a slog to do long-form comics, so I’ll take all the variety I can get! The myth of Inanna is only alluded to in Craig San Roque’s original text for the Long Weekend, I just jumped at the opportunity to mix it up a little … there is a point to it, you might have to wait a little before it becomes more obvious.

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A more pizzazzy title

25 Nov

Someone recently said to me that she thought I should change the name of the Long Weekend in Alice Springs to something a little more pizzazzy.

We could work-shop some suggestions such as

  • The Jungian Psychologist and the Infinite Sadness
  • The Complex Case (Get it??!!!)
  • How to write an academic article that’s not bloody boring
  • The Dark Night Returns
  • Watch Men and Women
  • Craig San Roque vs the World

She also recommended that I stick some scantily clad woman with large breasts on the front cover … which would sell in the hundreds of thousands … by the time the teenage boys got home and took the plastic off and opened it they would be incredibly disappointed , but with the law of retail returns in action – most of them couldn’t be bothered returning to the shop to get their money back and I WOULD HAVE MADE A KILLING.

There is a bit of nudity at one part … the Inanna part … perhaps i should just maximise that section … there is also a bit of male nudity at a similar part … I could market it both to those attracted to busty women and to those who’re attracted to fit lean young men (Adonis) … I think that might have covered a large proportion of the market … What do you think?

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Old people

16 Nov

Here’s a couple of sketches I did whilst researching what I wanted to do with the Long Weekend. The old bloke was from a photo in an old anthropology book … I actually didn’t record which one, so I’ve forgotten, possibly a photo of Spencer’s … or Herbert’s … not sure now. The second one was a contemporary photo that was in the Age newspaper after the intervention occurred, again I didn’t record the photo’s information. I really liked trying to draw the shadows on the faces of dark skinned peoples in the starkly contrasting light of the desert, quite a challenge that I’d never tried before. I was concerned at the time that the challenge would be to still retain the humanity of the characters despite there eyes not being visible … I didn’t want them to seem like cartoony zombies just because there eyes were obscured, I still find that a challenge even though I’ve had a lot more practice now.

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Pages 28-32 – Dog & Inanna

15 Nov

Previous pages
1-4, 5-7, 8-9, 10-13, 14-17, 18-22, 23-27

Next pages – 33-37

SO MANY QUESTIONS!!
Who the f*&% was that crazy maze-face guy???
Why’d the Long Weekend suddenly slip back a few millenium?
Where the HELL is this going?????

What the hell is Inanna doing in a place like HELL?
The answers to all that and more – in the NEXT PAGES (just wait a couple of weeks while I put some ink on them … be patient PLEASE!!)

Can someone tell Nick from Alice that that’s his car I’ve drawn in there – Emily! (changed the roof rack a little), my little homage to all the adventures that Emily and I had together … before Nick bought her off me.

If people are interested in Inanna (she’s the god of war and sex … so I think that just about covers everyone) and want to check her history out a bit more I suggest you look up Diane Wolkstein. Inanna is also referred to as Ishtar, and is somewhat of an analogue of other gods from different cultures such as Diana/Artemis, Demeter, Venus/ Aphrodite, perhaps Shiva from Hindu mythology etc.

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Some pics of Alice … for inspiration’s sake

12 Nov

Well, here’s a couple of photos that I took of Alice in one of my many trips back there … the other one, the first one, is a photo of me in front of that impressive painting in Melbourne – at the NGV … it’s one of my favourite paintings of all time – it’s called Anewrlarr anganenty (big yam dreaming) and it’s by Emily Kam Kngwarray whose language group is Anmatyerr. I like standing in front of that huge canvas when I get the opportunity.

At the bottom is a sketch I did in Alice, based on a photo I took whilst walking around town collecting images for The Long Weekend.

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