April Events in Comicoz HQ...

Good progress has been made by Neville Bain on scanning the comic work of Moira Bertram, and -- with the wonderful help of other collectors -- sourcing some of the original comics. With Graeme Cliffe and Jeremy Macpherson, we all got together late last month to discuss the project. Do we make compromises to publisher Hachette Australia, who have expressed an initial interest in the project? Do we reprint every Moira Bertram story? How do we reproduce the smaller pages of her romance comics? How do we all agree on the format? Publishing with other creatives always involves some degree of compromise, and I do believe we have all managed to do this without too much skin off anyone's nose! We have not heard from Hachette yet (although a formal proposal was sent to their representative), so we are proceeding along: collecting all the available artwork, discussing how we feel the end product will look. Here's a taste for you too, dear reader. (NOTE: This may not be how the finish product looks; it's only the early design stages of the project.)

These are proposed ideas only. Why produce one book featuring the best of Moira Bertram's work when there may be an opportunity to publish all her comics works? Obviously, this is an ambitious project: but when has that ever stopped me before?! We have to acknowledge the support and permission give to us to work on this project by Moira's family.... 

I've been so busy with this, and other activities, that I have not had time to attend to what was once my regular daily posts on Facebook! Still, you are reading things here first! Another book project that I have just recently begun working on is going to be called Comic Strip Gallery: Comic Strips from Members of the Australian Cartoonists Association. That's all I am going to be saying at this point in time. Perhaps more news next month!

Everyone who knows me, knows that Comicstreet is my favourite Australian comics festival! This year it's going to be celebrating its TENTH year. This time, it's going to be spread over two days in August (on the 22nd and the 23rd) at The Edge, near the State Library of Queensland. I hope you make it!

Sadly, this year I won't be able to be there. My granddaughter Lollie is turning 18 on the 24th, so we will be celebrating that milestone in Bendigo, Victoria. Long-term readers of this blog may remember the appearances of Lollie, and will be as amazed as I am how quickly the time has passed. Eighteen! Wowsers! How long have I been writing this blog?!!

I have spent the past two days trying to find a UK printer for my most recent publication, The Collected Cloak by Mike Higgs. The files are ready to print, even though we have had other difficulties in the process over the past few months. It's been a dog's breakfast trying to get someone from Rebellion -- who say they own the copyright to the property -- to contact me about the works. So much so, I am giving up on them! (Until they get back in touch with me at least..!) Mike has drawn a brand-new pin-up page for the volume, and we are overjoyed with Alan Moore's Introduction. Initially we said we would be happy with a 25-word introduction: but we were give many wonderful pages! (And that is all I am going to say for now!) We're presently looking to lock in a printer (which we hope to do in the next few days) and -- all being well -- we are also hoping to have Diamond UK distribute the book. There's a few ducks to line up first, but (as always) I am ever hopeful that it won't be long before all is ready...! Ryan McDonald-Smith has done an absolutely outstanding job with the design of the book and it would be remiss of me not to mention his contribution here because he just as much a part of this team!

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Finally, expected from the printer at the beginning of May will be the final printed copies of our Air Hawk volume by John Dixon (with some work by Keith Chatto within the pages). I am looking forward to this more that anything. We used a new printer for the book, so my anxiety about this is (perhaps naturally) a little higher than usual. The book has taken a lot longer than any of us involved in the production expected, but it will really be worth the wait.

That's about all I have time for today. I'm being summoned to dinner. Tomorrow is another "comic-free day" that Mrs K sometimes demands of me, and something that I feel I owe her, given the sacrifices she makes in allowing me to follow my passion in publishing the best Australian comics for all you good people in comic-land!