Just a very quick update. Exciting news! Monty Wedd's NED KELLY (after a frustrating delay) is now at the printer! (The delay was caused with some last minute cover art adjustments that were required by the printer. The dust jacket has now been finalised, and a reduced copy can be seen below,) The Second Volume of John Dixon's AIR HAWK and the FLYING DOCTOR is also at the printer! ROB FELDMAN's Cartoons, Comics, and Cows in Cars is (almost) ready for the printer! Rob and I are off to the Australian Cartoonists' Association's annual get-together (this Friday, Saturday and Sunday, in beautiful Coffs Harbour) where we will make some final tweaks to Rob's book. Rob has asked that you look out for his soon-to-be-launched website (see above), where you can take a sneak peek at some of the interior pages to his book! 
For all Melbourne-based Australian comic Fans, please ensure you join the public launch of a couple of books from some great Aussie talents. If only I had more time... (With my work on Air Hawk and preparing for Mrs Karmichael's imminent return from her southern sojourn, time is a rare quality these days!) Not being able to attend the Launch myself, I was hoping to do an interview here with both Ben Constantine and Dillon Naylor, but the information about the event is all I may have opportunity to muster. Ordinarily I do not like to "plug" books without first reading them, mostly so I can offer some constructive criticism and give you, dear Reader, my honest opinion about the product concerned. Being familiar with both Dillon and Ben's work (not to mention the quality of publication that fellow-publisher Milk Shadow Books put out), I have no doubt that these will be worth your time and money. (I shall be purchasing both books myself, so if you would like to hear the final verdict, I shall review them...in due course, as I say, when I have more time! Ben Constantine is a Brisbane-boy, and it seems just a lovely co-incidence that just a little while ago I was taking about his fellow-RAVE contributor Glenn Mander's book on this site! I have no doubt Ben's work will be worth picking up. Ben's book (with a copy of the cover above to the right) is called Squirt-Stone, the Collected Plump Oyster Volume 1. I have been able to read an art preview of the book, and Recommend it! If you are interested in seeing what other products Milk Shadow Books carry, please click here for more details.  Copyright. Art by Dillon Naylor 1990. Ownership? A whole new story. I must be honest here and inform you that Dillon Naylor and I have known each other since about early 1990 -- before Da 'n' Dill! We (with then cartoonist Ian Eddy of Melbourne) were keen on working on a FELIX THE CAT project together that I shall one day document, because it is bigger story than a simple Blog entry. Here (to the right) is an early pencil sketch Dillon sent me...
Dillon has had his artwork with a rock and roll theme (A Brush with Darkness) previously published by Milk Shadow Books. If Da n Dill: The Showbag Years is produced to the same standard (and there would be no reason to suggest that it won't!), then this will be another Aussie Comic book I can only Highly Recommend. So, if you can get down to All Star Comics (Level 1, 410 Lonsdale Street, Melbourne) at 2 p.m. on October 12th, please do so! Both Dillon and Ben (and publisher James Andre) will be there to sign, sell and talk about their books. Please ensure James keeps at least one copy of each aside for me! More details of the Launch are available at the Facebook page, and if you click here, you will be directed there. Here's a quandary that I don't come across too often. I am reprinting classic Australian comic strips (as most of the Readership will know). In the last few days I have been working on a Second Volume of John Dixon's Air Hawk. What do I do when there is a spelling mistake in the original artwork's text? See the illustration to the left below. John has clearly written "WAGGON" in the text prior to the strip heading to the newspapers, and just as clearly a line has been placed through it. (I am not sure what was actually reprinted in the newspapers, as I am working from proofs from the artwork as the newspaper editors would have received them.) Do I correct the spelling of the word (and thus in effect censor the original)? Or should I clean up the copy (as you can see on the right) and leave it as John intended, irrespective that there is still a spelling error contained therein? Or should I clean it up and spell it correctly? I am already presently editing out the dates and office records on the margins of the strips, which is I suppose in essence a form of censorship. Or is it? It is material that wasn't seen on the original reproduction in the newspapers. I clearly know I have an opinion (which I shall follow in the publication), but I am still interested in your thoughts....  Copyright John Dixon, who got me into this dilemma in the first place by not spelling right! Used with permission. |
Comicoz is Nat Karmichael's publishing imprint. Nat is committed to preserving a permanent collection of Australian comic and comic strips. He feels that there is a need to recognise comics' contribution to and depiction of Australian culture.
Nat Karmichael.
Since 2011, Nat has self-published over twelve comic-related books and was Publisher-Editor of Oi Oi Oi! -- the last series of nationally-distributed comic books of original stories to appear on Australian newsstands. He is a member of the Australian Cartoonists Association and edited the Association's journal Inkspot for 14 issues from late 2015. For numerous years he was the Lead Judge in the Ledger of Honour Awards for the Comic Arts Awards of Australia (formerly the Ledgers). These days Nat dreams of retiring from his occupation as a Clinical Nurse in the Psychiatric Emergency Centre in Queensland's largest public hospital, so that he can spend more time with his long-suffering wife and their six children and fourteen grandchildren. And perhaps publish some more comic-related books. 
Nat by Charlotte
Comicoz acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of Country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay respects to elders, past, present, and emerging, and extend that respect to all First Nations peoples.
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Australian Publications since 1976:
1 x Poster 19 x comics (one a co-production with Cyclone Comics in 1988/9, one a co-production with Cowtown Comics in 2022) 2 x Paperback books 10 x Hardcover books All Australian!
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