Tag Archives: Tasmanian

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!!

Live videos for DWT (2010-2011)

9 Feb

Drive West Today has been sprinting around the continent Australia a fair bit for performances, here’s highlight reel of the last two years.

A performance in Sydney December 2 2011

Performance in Hobart September 30 2011

Performance in Sydney June 25 2011


2011 Acousmatic Ecology Tour promo video 1

2011 Acousmatic Ecology Tour promo video 2

Performance in Alice Springs, Northern Territory – Electric Ecology May 3 2010

Michaela Davies

27 Jan

I did this sketch at Princes Wharf 1, MONA FOMA 2012. Watching my friend Michaela from Sydney and her quartet of electricity puppets being played by the seismic readings from the planet since day DOT!! It was quite a performance.

 

Drawings from The Barbarians – MOFO 2012

26 Jan

SO – I just finished being a part of the premiere season of the Barbarians as part of IHOS theatre – here’s lots of stuff that I drew whilst I was sitting around the set in the Hobart City Hall as part of MOFO 2012. I was in the Greek Chorus which didn’t involve much talking, but a lot of costume changes, the last of which  involved us ten blokes being draped in a necklace of offal and being squirted with genuine blood. I assure you that it was a very funny sight to see 10 grown men charging through the backstage area drenched in blood and only wearing their knickerbockers to get to one of the four the showers first. Bravo Constantine Koukias and bravo IHOS – it was tops! And well done to MONA for commissioning this very very very amazing production!

I made a zine of these drawings and others which I gave out to the cast, most people appeared to like it – so that was a success. As an aside, someone gave a copy to Amanda Palmer … hopefully she gives it to Neil Gaiman … who knows. Crazy!! We had sheep in the production … until they ran riot all over the set and placed their faeces and urine everywhere under our bare feet … This was the set they ruined … in city hall in Hobart. This is Ayrton and the donkey (who was far more professional than his sheepish counterparts). The soprano Grace Ovens who was great! The rappers in the show. 

The Barbarians

14 Jan

I just saw Ryoji Ikeda’s Datamatics last night as part of the MONA FOMA festival … I felt a bit like I’ve looked inside the universe and understood it.

Also, the following night Nadine and I saw Pierre Henry play. He was in France in his house mixing his music which was filmed and beamed live to the other side of the planet to the big screen. Nadine made a beautiful picture based on it that she put part of here!!

I’m in the supporting cast for IHOS Opera’s The Barbarians at the MONA FOMA (MOFO 2012) … I’ve been making lots of sketches backstage during the rehearsals which I’ll stick up next week when I get a chance to scan them. Constantine Koukias is the director and here’s an article in the Australia Newspaper.

The opera of the Barbarians is based on a poem by the Alexandrian Greek bloke Constantine Cavafy called Waiting for the Barbarians. Here’s a quick comic based on the poster for the opera – I call it: Barbarian (f)art    

A mysterious Tasmanian dog

12 Jan

Here’s a link to the Fox Eradication Program in Tasmania. They have some interesting bits and bobs. Its a controversial topic … given that most people in Tassie don’t believe that there are foxes here at all … and its all a waste of money … here’s the stats from that website

Physical Evidence of Fox Activity Collected in Tasmania (since 1998)
Carcasses – 4
Skull – 1
Blood – 1
Footprints – 2
Fox Positive Scats – 59

 

Cute Marsupials #1 – the Pademelon

2 Jan

Cradle Mountain Xmas

1 Jan

Here’s a comic from our trip with the German in-laws to Cradle Mountain in the North of Tasmanien last week. I have been to Cradle a few times but this was the first time I actually saw the mountain (i.e. it wasn’t covered in a blanket of cloud and fog and rain) … in fact, it was stunning … I think I can see now why it was made World Heritage Listed.

 

Lots of wombats, pademelons, Bennett’s wallabies, possums, we saw a potaroo (never seen one in the wild before) … and tonnes of skinks. 

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.

The Myth of Inanna’s descent into the Underworld

10 Dec

Inanna was the Sumerian goddess of sex and war, this is an adaption of her myth that I made as an insert into The Long Weekend in Alice Springs, just to flesh out the connection between modern day events and mythology from the ancient world. You can read more about Inanna / Ishtar on a wonderfully informative website named Wikipedia, she’s fairly interesting.

I also intended to include this as a way of playing around with different layouts and seeing what works and what doesn’t for future reference, there are a couple of pages that are failures, but on the whole I enjoy looking at these pages, not least of all because there’s LOTS OF NUDITY!! Just joking.