 In Lora and Adam's home, showing off the size of the NED KELLY book. I've been mindful of the fact that I have been neglecting my Comicoz Web-Blog of late. To be honest, I have not had much time this month to get down and spend the thirty minutes it takes me to write this entry. Better late than never, here I am.... Soon after the birth of grandson Dustin, Carlene and I headed off to spend three weeks in his home town of Bendigo, Victoria. While we were there, my other baby, the uncorrected proof of Ned Kelly, Written and Illustrated by Monty Wedd arrived. Purely by co-incidence (or was it?!), the package arrived on the 113th "anniversary" of Ned Kelly's hanging, on November 11th 2013.... And when I say "uncorrected proof", that was exactly as it was. As chuffed as I was when it arrived (as these photos show), it was the cold reality of day that I discovered that there were a couple of errors in the text of both the cover and the internal pages. They were not minor mistakes either. For example? How could I have let slip by the incorrect year of Monty's death: I had 1992 written in one place instead of 2012. And a couple of others...
Still, it was best discovering these glitches before the book was printed! Since the arrival of the proof, I have worked tirelessly with Cover designer Michal Dutkiewicz and Interior Designer Ryan McDonald-Smith, and the book is now as good as we can possibly make it. There was also an issue with the colour of the printing, but just last week I have managed to resolve that with the printer to my satisfaction. In summary, all corrections have been made and the book is now at the printer being printed! My only concern is that I don't think it will be ready by Christmas as I had planned. Still, I would rather see a book completed to the best of the creative personnel's ability rather than present a book to Readers with glaring inaccuracies...
First of all, for those with little time, I announce all the Winners in all of the Cartooning Awards, all held in the beautiful city of Coffs Harbour in the last week in October.... At the 25th Rotary Cartoon Awards, held next door to the Bunker Cartoon Gallery (the Bridge Club) on the Friday night on October 25th, the winners were: Australian Section: Best Cartoon, Political: David Pope Best Cartoon, Open: Mark Lynch Best Cartoon, Sports: David Rowe Best Comic Strip: Jules Faber Best Caricature of a well-known person: Eric Lobbecke Special Topic ('Joy of Aging'): Phil Judd International Section: Winner (with the theme of 'Cycling'): Buzhkov Miroslav Cartoon of the Year: David Rowe At the Australian Cartoonists' Association Awards (announced on the Saturday night on October 26th at the Novotel Coff Harbour), the winners were: Illustrator: Anton Emdin Comic Strip Artist: Gary Clark Gary also won a Special Award commemorating his reaching 10,000 daily 'Swamp' strips: an astonishing achievement, and a well-deserved Award! Single Gag Cartoonist: Glen Le Lievre Caricaturist: Greg Rowe Editorial/Political Cartoonist: Mark Knight Comic Book Artist: Anton Emdin Best Cartoon on the Night (with "Where's Roger?" as the theme): Grant Brown Cartoonist of the Year: Anton Emdin  Dustin meets his proud sister Lollie. Now for those who have a little more time, let me tell you some of the background excitement behind the scenes. It was a difficult decision to go this year. For those of you who have been reading this Blog for a while will recall, I missed the Stanley Awards last year because our daughter Lora married. And this year the Rotary Awards were held on another daughter (PJ)'s 29th birthday. But with some encouragement from Carlene, I was packed and sent off to enjoy the Australian Cartooning Events of the Year. Mind you, I had hoped to have had a book or two to Launch or sell, but alas it was not meant to be.... Rather than living it up at the Hotel Novotel with most of the other cartoonists, I booked a share bed at the local Youth Hostel -- it was closer to the city centre and allowed for a bit of independence from the other gang. Before I had chance to book in, however, Carlene gave me a phone call with the wonderful news that Lora had given birth to her second child. DUSTIN TOBY was born at 1601hrs in Bendigo (Victoria) on the same day as his auntie PJ! He was 35.5cm long and 3.3kgs in weight*.... *My thanks to Peter Hill for converting my imperial measurements!
A couple of funny things happened during the course of the stay that I shall share with you... FIrstly, the bookings to stay at the YHA venue was done (by myself) on the internet. Imagine my surprise to discover, on arrival, that I had been booked into a room of girls! Obviously, they had assumed that "Nat" was female in gender! There was a bit of "creative manovering" by the reception staff (who were good about it), but as the Hostel was all booked out... I actually did have to bunk down with three girls!!
The girls were all due to leave the following morning, and I returned home from the Rotary Awards quite late (all were asleep at the time). The following morning, I took my shower (early at 0630 a.m.), only to discover I had left my room key in the room. The Office was not open until 9 a.m., the time the Australian Cartoonists' Association workshops were to get underway. I don't think I impressed my room-mates with my repeated knocking to seek to gain access to the room: a most disgrunted face opened the door! |
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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