A Blumenstein Quickie

David's post just reminded me of another comic that I haven't put up. It's kind of taken out of context (I think he was expanding on a previous joke) but it cracked me up.

And therefore, I felt it was my destiny to make a comic about it. Just like Andrew burnin' that butter. (And yes, the pancakes were delicious.)

David, Who Had An Excellent Time

Comics camp, or "chugnut", or whatever filthy shit Mandy wants to call it, was very good fun the second time out. I did some crap drawings (and one or two OK ones), cleared my head a bit and relaxed with comics homies.
Andrew Fulton drew this brilliant picture of myself and Sarah. It is very accurate.

At some point I drew this picture of Andrew.

I worked a bit on a regular comic I've been doing. That lives on another site.

Here's a picture of Neale Blanden, and one of my Precinct characters, and some other dude I dashed off because why not. I hadn't worked with Copics for a while, so that was nice.

I spent some time thinking about the animated cop show I'm trying to get off the ground. Instead of worrying about scripts and grant applications, I made a little comic which (kind of) explains what I want to do next: make a small series of one minute episodes introducing the characters. John Farnham will sing the theme song.


Jo Waite (I think) challenged me to draw Garfield, so I provided "old" and "modern" versions.

My camp communix story

I had had a busy week at work which meant I still had a lot of thing to do on the Friday. I finally managed to get on the road with fellow Ballaratian Mel around 2pm. It took a little over 3 hours to get there, which was two and a half more for me than last year. Chris Downes comes all the way from Tasmania so I can't complain. Pat, John and Neale where already there when we arrived. With Pat and Neale having rode their bikes 30 km's to get there!

I was immediately impressed with the camp, nothing fancy and a bit rough around the edges but there were plenty of tables and lighting in the main dining hall. The drawing started almost immediately and I was determined this year to spend more time drawing. Which is a hard thing when all you want to do is talk to other comickers and read comics. More people arrived later that night and before to long I was getting a little too merry drinking beers. Pat cooked an awesome tortilla and beans dish with Guacamole and chipotle pepper sauce (with home made corn tortillas) I managed to head off to bed around 2:45am, later than I should have, considering the cabins didn't have any curtains, and anyway I lost the ability to sleep in a long time ago. As I lay down in bed I suddenly had a panic that the cabin was quite rustic and probably had spiders crawling all through it. I tried not to think about it and dozed off.

The next morning I awoke early to the sound of a possum crawling on the roof but I was able to go back to sleep for a little longer. Upon waking properly I examined the cabin and realised it was actually a lot more modern than my imagination had led me to believe late last night.
Unfortunately I felt really sluggish on Saturday morning, so much for getting stuck into drawing right away, I thought. I picked up the pen after breakfast and tried to let the coffee move my hand over the page. It was no good, I had to just ride out the morning and hope that I'd come good by lunch. I made myself a peanut butter sandwich, something that I hadn't had for along time at home with Elliott's allergy to the stuff. I chowed it down with some milk and then I came good and was able to start drawing again.

By evening we had the length of the table covered with sketchbooks, pens, pencils textas and empty beer bottles. For dinner Mandy had brought along over twenty sweet potatoes which we baked and served with lentil soup on top with cheese and sour cream. I went a little easier on the beer this night as I didn't want to wipe out Sunday morning as well. I made it to bed at a more decent hour too. John and Neale were turning it in at the same time as me, after turning the lights out we giggled like schoolgirls telling funny stories. We were sure any minute the teacher would come around to our cabin and tell us to quiet down.

The next morning I woke up better than the day before, it also helped that the rustic little showers surrounded by bush pumped out lovely hot water and that by the time I got to the main room, a fresh pot of coffee was on and waiting for me. Andrew also had promised to cook up some pancakes for all  and delivered on said promise; and I can tell you they were the best pancakes I have ever eaten!
I was starting to feel the creative juices flowing by this stage of the weekend, having spent the last day and a half surrounded by comicking energies, I was fully warmed up you could say. I had thought of a story late last night and spent the morning happily story boarding it. In the afternoon a few of the others got stuck into some ping pong matches, Mel performed a Gocco demonstration, and Bernard performed some Japanese paper theatre which was highly entertaining as only Bernard can be.

It was getting closer until the time we had to leave. I had a family engagement at 6pm so there was no getting around it we had to head off a little after 3pm. It was one of those times where you get crazy flashes of abandoning everything, I wondered if I could just stay out in the woods drawing comics for the days and weeks to come. I reluctantly packed up my things and Mel and I said our good byes to all. Driving away I felt genuine sadness to be leaving this place and all of these lovely comickers, my people!

As we drove back to Ballarat we discussed how entirely cool that weekend was and the possibility of setting up a comics school in Australia. I wanted the weekend to be beneficial for everyone’s comic practice, like months of schooling condensed into one weekend. Although it's hard to say what exactly you get out of these weekends, and I came to see that you can't really measure these events like that. All I know is that my life and comic practice are a lot more richer for it and that next year three days will not be enough.

Easy Jam comic

mel, ben, anthony, john

I totally thought I had posted this one already.

Fulton by Fikaris

I just realised I'm following this blog twice!

I like it that much!