That's RRRight folks, we're back!

Lovely to be back on air with Richard Watts last Thursday morning on his weekly Melbourne cultural roundup 'SmartArts' on 3RRR, 102.7 FM. I join him for the monthly 'Drawn Out' segment, on which we discuss local and international comic book news and releases.

Granny Square Flower Garden keeps growing

Hippity Hoppity Hare admires the arrangement of all 150 squares carefully arranged by Dr Caroline.

this key

I tagged this one with boxes smile

Prolungamento sfida + Riapertura iscrizioni

Buongiorno gentil donzelle (e amici nostri)!
Mi scuso per non aver aggiornato il blog per un po' ma almeno ho due buone notizie da darvi.

Innanzitutto abbiamo spostato la scadenza della sfida puscia: mandateci i vostri loghi per Yatta e/o banner entro il 20 febbraio.

L'altra buona notizia è che finalmente riapriamo le iscrizioni al nostro gruppo! :)
Abbiamo già qualche candidata, ma ne aspettiamo numerose! Chi vuole unirsi a noi deve essere (ovviamente) donna, creativa e aver compiuto 14 anni. Basta mandare una mail a
pusciastova-professional@googlegroups.com
presentandosi e mandandoci anche qualche lavoro da visionare e pubblicare qui sul blog quando vi presenteremo alle sorellovske :)

Ultimo appunto personale: NON mandateci per favore richieste di iscrizione tramite l'indirizzo della Mailing List: verranno cestinate senza colpo ferire. L'unico modo è mandare una email all'indirizzo qui sopra!

Grazie a tutte, e a presto!
Kat

#9: Mr Campbell

6th form Physics Teacher, 1997

Rob Campbell was a likeable Scotsman who taught physics in a science classroom where the desks weren't bolted down. Every time he turned his back to us to write on the board we'd all push our desks forward, a few centimetres at a time. By the end of the lesson we'd be grouped right in tight around him at the front of the room and the look on his face would waver between bemusement and fear that he was finally losing his mind.

Contact Update

A few people have mentioned they'd be interested if I also kept this blog up to date from time to time with any news of people I've drawn in it finding it and getting in touch.

Artie Karras saw his picture - he said it was hilarious. For the last two years he has been working as an account manager at a Melbourne firm that does printing for the Victorian Government. He sounds really good, it was great to catch up with him.

Brendan Moran also sounds really good. He is living in Auckland, doing a Fine Arts degree. He has given up drinking, smoking and playing music. He said about my post "pretty fuckin flattered actually ... you have captured my bitter and twisted cynical side for sure." I asked him about quitting music and he said "for me the voice of music has been lost (hence why i am not an active musician) because it is akin to one finger typing. it's an inarticulate form of expression. when i talk, i like to use both of my fists, not just one finger". Awesome to hear from you Brendan.

That's all I've heard from so far though. My friend Dan reported in the comments as you may have seen than Joe McGregor-McDonald is a workmate of his, but I don't actually know where Dan works right now so that one is still a mystery.

God God…God of Gods!

#8: Kirsty Stegwazi

Lead singer, guitarist, The Bites 2003-2005, Hand Hell 2005-2007

The Bites and Hand Hell were two of Melbourne's most underrated bands. They played a kind of raw, urgent 90ish indie rock and I was a huge fan. They wrote great catchy riffs and clever lyrics and had a DIY aesthetic I loved - lots of beautiful screenprinted and hand-sewn album covers and gig flyers. Singer and co-songwriter Kirsty Stegwazi worked as a machinist by day and the band name Hand Hell referred to the constantly cut up state of her hands from metal shavings and fixing machines all day.

In 2007 Kirsty had some kind of operation on her throat. Rather than take a break while her voice healed Hand Hell played a series of karaoke gigs with different guests on vocals. I was lucky enough to be asked to do a couple of songs. It was a fan's dream come true but it was pretty damn nerve wracking doing it with Kirsty standing right there watching me. We did 'Fired' as the finale to the set and it ended with a wrestling match - the whole band and all the equipment in a huge pile in the middle of stage, me on the bottom, screaming my guts out. Kirsty had started it all and she was laughing away with a huge grin on her face - so I figured it had gone ok.

#7: Ben Shanahan

Campbell Primary School classmate, Best Friend 1990-1991

I lived in Canberra, Australia from the age of 9 until the time I turned 11. Ben Shanahan was my best friend.

He was the coolest guy in all of Campbell. We met through sports I guess - doing Mal Meniga kicks in the park behind both of our houses. He was the funniest guy around and knew everything about everything. He got me my first job selling newspapers and magazines outside office buildings in the mornings before school.

He was also a passionate and skillful sportsman - league, cricket, AFL, athletics. Basketball was the ultimate at our school though, and Ben and I were the most feared one-two combo around. Ben at point guard, me in the paint throwing elbows, shouting "Stockton to Malone" every time our deadly teamwork cut our opponents to shreds.

It was really hard to say goodbye to him. I remember being in the car, him outside the window saying he didn't want to say good bye and he wanted to leave me with a joke. He walks off, gathers himself, starts strolling over. "A man walks into a bar", he says, being all cool. "Dong."

This Town

My new 48 page comic to be put out by Sure Shot Comics. This book will be launched at the Zine fair in Melbourne on the 13th of February. The comic precedes the subscription comic, 'Good to Go', and documents our move to Canada late 2007, which means this comics has been in the making for around two years!

Das Stadtschaftschaubild

Expanding the comic book form into installation, Das Stadtschaftschaubild, an invented compound word, literally translates to ‘the cityscape diagram’. By unfolding multiple narratives through the gallery space this work continues the themes from Psychogeographies (2009), The Wave Collapses (2006) and Singularity (2002) to investigate and reveal the probabilistic nature of the urban environment.

The viewer is invited to become the absent protagonist through a subjective experience of space, visualising the imprint of our conditioning through architecture and asserting the gaze of the (historically absent) female flâneur.

The installation is then documented and transformed into a comic (of sorts).

So on the news front: I finished up at VCA last year and have been working at expanding the comic book form into installation. What this means is instead of being limited to the page I am using the comics form in the gallery space – and then making a publication from that.

After this I’m off to Berlin for a while, I got accepted into the Culturia artist-in-residency program and going to spend some time in the “fatherland”.

See you soon

Alice Mrongovius


Brunswick Bound
361 Sydney Road
Brunswick

www.banditfox.com

Tags: comics