Confusingly – printers send you this thing to look at which has all of the pages all over the place …
Excitingly, the print it on glossy stuff which looks looks nice and shiny! The real thing won’t be printed on shiny paper … so this is a nice novelty before the final piece comes in a couple weeks.
Book-launch to be held March 16th as part of the inaugural Shock of the Now festival.
Here’s a sneaky-peek!!
Here’s how you make a cover for a book …
Step 1 – spend weeks drawing lots of different ideas
Step 2 – have many arguments with graphic designer wife
Step 3 – don’t give in
Step 4 – realise that wife probably has better sense for this stuff than you do … and compromise
Step 5 – Draw the title, draw the outlines of two dogs about to have a scruff using the only lightbox you have available (the sun)
Step 6 – Colour in the texture of that big shaggy dog on the back cover!
Step 7 – Finish the writing on the back (some endorsements from Jennifer Mills, Rod Moss and Tom Singer!! )
Step 8 And add the spine.
Here’s the spine up close!
Step 9 – scan and relinquish to graphic designer.
Those lovely people at Framed Magazine did an interview with me regarding The Long Weekend in Alice Springs- Read it here.
In other news – Nadine and I are slaving away laboriously at turning the comic into a book as you read this!
Below is a page I did as an early trial when I was still working out what kind of structure I wanted the pages to have (i.e. panel structure), I was also trying out a few fonts at the time, I reckon I must’ve worked on the script after I did this because I have scrapped all of the words that were here … I just unearthed it in my computer today … I think this must have been from late 2009 or early 2010.
This is a big call-out to all those interested in the project of the Long Weekend in Alice Springs.
I’ve heard enough people say that they’d love to see this comic in the flesh so they can truly digest it all in one long sitting rather than in the bits that I’ve doled it out on this website – now’s your chance!! I’m asking for your help over the months of October to December, hopefully we can raise $1500 to help get a print-run of about 300-500 copies of the book.
To support the project GO HERE TO THE POZIBLE SITE and from Monday pledge some cash to help me get a print-run. If you pledge over $30 – then consider it to be a pre-order of the comic (if you live outside of Australia – add about $10 for postage).
To read previous pages of the comic go here
This week’s pages –
The last pages are coming tune in in a few weeks!
Next pages in a few weeks – check back here.
So the first page here took me ages … as in, it didn’t take me long to do – I just procrastinated for ages on it … because I was sort of dreading the work that it would require in terms of research. It turned out quite nice I reckon. The themes are starting to get a little Chatwin-ish here with the Songlines criss-crossing the planet.
From September to December I’ll be starting a campaign to see if I can get this project funded for printing. I have asked the wonderful Nadine Kessler to assist by doing the book design. Pay attention to this FACEBOOK page for update … or if you’re not a facebooker then come back to this website during that time and you can find links to the campaign here – you’ll be able to make a pre-order on the book then!
Previous pages – 89-91
This is the last chapter of the Long Weekend, a graphic rendering of an essay of a friend of mine.
The third page here is from a great film that my wife did whilst she was working for the Centre for Appropriate Technology (CAT) in Alice Springs. She was on a trip with Sonia, who also worked there and three ladies who were from out East of the Plenty Highway (google-map it) towards the Queensland border … I think they went somewhere out past Bonya or something, not sure. But in the video they went lizard hunting. From the car Nadine filmed the ladies when they told them to stop the car, one of them had an iconically large bottom and watching the video I immediately thought of how great it might look as a comic when she bent down to pick up a stick and whacked the side of a tree, and magically this large Perentie lizard just flops off the tree … and fahnee!!!
The Tingari lines I used in this last page here flow onto the next few pages, Craig suggested that I look into them early on. The Geoffrey Bardon book from Papunya Tula is full of Tingari paintings from the Western Desert that I delved into, and have grown very fond of, despite feeling completely lost in their meanings. Back in the second chapter – Saturday – I have a page where I explain what each of the symbols represents and how they are functional elements in storytelling.
Rachel Napaltjarri Jurra is a real Walpiri woman, though I have drawn her differently to real life … but then I’ve done that for all the characters … including Craig (I forgot what he looked like for a while).
Joshua Santospirito Art 