Jen Says: I recently wrote a review of the new Allen and Unwin “illuminated” novel Five Wounds for The Big Issue and it should be out around now (with a young and devilishly handsome Al Pacino on the cover).  When the fine vendors are no longer selling the issue, I’ll post the review here, but in the meantime, go buy a copy and support a good cause.

2011 was a big year for me, in March I was married, I became an uncle to a handsome boy AND a set of gorgeous twin girls and work had a restructure which saw me doing a lot less fun projects as we found our feet, and the comic was featured a cast of thousands… Throughout this hectic period I overworked myself.

In fact I’ve been taking half my annual holidays for the last few years not even aware I was doing it. There always seemed to be something going on which meant I couldn’t get away.

So towards the end of the year I began to really feel all this and in December began to have a couple of panic attacks (my first ever yay!) and feel a bit depressed, perhaps even with a capital D. I began taking Fridays off and felt thankful it coincided with Arran doing guest strips so i could even rest from the comic for a few weeks.

It’s apparently pretty common with the art community that we can have black spells, I guess going back to Van Gogh’s ear cutting incident, but I’d never really experienced something like this, I’ve always been pretty light hearted.

Then I had a couple of chats. One with Ben Michael Byrne from Kranburn fame and we discussed our art processes and what drove us and he mentioned that on his next project he was putting as much effort into each panel as he does currently for each page and how it was all about pushing himself to be better and how good it felt. The other chat was with Katie Houghton-Ward. I managed to buy an incredible piece of her art as a gift for my wife and while picking it up I watched her work, her fingers never stopping. She spoke of how quickly she got bored and how she loved being creative. You could see she needed art like a drug.

And I picked up the tablet again and began to draw, and write and discovered that even though Arran’s fantastic guest trip meant I didn’t have to draw as much as I do usually, I needed to. Drawing helped clear my mind. I wasn’t stressed about work when I was drawing, in fact I barely thought when drawing, it was all about the next line, the right composition, the right colours. My wife talks to me and is lucky to get a response. The world slips away and my emotions are all about whether THIS panel is right or this page is a success.

Towards the end of 2011 I was considering ending Sawbones. It’s almost six years of drawing and it doesn’t pay my bills and taxes my time and the business/publishing side of it bores the crap out of me but I’ve discovered Sawbones keeps me sane so 2012 is going to see me push myself even harder. It’s already started with me writing this arc but I’ll be trying even further to mess with the formula. It that means occassionally the look of the comic changes for an arc into something you don’t like I sincerely apologise but I hope that the results are a better comic. On the business side this time has also refocused me but more of that later.

Thanks to Ben and Katie for the inspiration. I’m still getting some black days but comics makes EVERYTHING better.

Also, enjoy:

Trev Says: It’s been a while since I talked about my influences and I thought I’d update them a little. It’s occured to me there are some pretty glaring omissions in my original influence map. The new map in part reflects more of my life story.

Like most kids my introduction to comics wasn’t in the form of a comic book available at a comic store. In fact I don’t think I knew where any comic stores were until I was a teenager. Instead I started with newspaper strips.

Peanuts was my gateway drug. When, in primary school, we had to write to our favourite authors I chose Charles M. “Sparky” Shultz. I wrote him what I’m sure was a very poorly written letter and amazingly he wrote back, it was a two line response with some photocopied pictures but to actually get any reply blew my mind and I was set on course for life.

As I got older I began looking for longer comics. It was in the school library I discovered Tintin and Asterix. Both books featured travelling across the globe, adventure as well as a liberal dose of humour. I think Tintin affected me more though. The richly drawn backgrounds with cartoony main characters Is something I’ve always loved. McCloud talks about it in his Understanding Comics, the background is to see, the simplistic characters allow you to BE. Looking at other influences such as Jeff Smith’s Bone it’s easy to see the influence arc.

As i hungered for more material I finally discovered comic shops. Spider-man 2099 was the book i picked up. Rick Leonardi’s art was graceful and full of energy. It’s a style that is similar to phenomenal local artist Colin Wilson. From there I got turned onto some seminal artists like Bruce Timm, Frank Miller (before he took a running jump off the deep end), Mike Mignola and Darwyn Cooke. Looking at those guys you might not see much similar but all  are interested in less is more. Iconist images. Timm and Cooke because that’s what animation demands but Miller and Mignola use bold shapes to define characters in the way Tintin and Asterix uses line.

Lastly Danielle Corsetto is the most recent of my influences. As well as being a successful webcartoonist (who wouldn’t want to make a living doing this stuff) her line work is simple and yet fluid in the same way Shultz’s lines captivated me as a child. Additionally Danielle’s voice as a female in comics is something that i’m really enjoying. It’s something that I take for granted working with Jen but female creators bring really rich and interesting views to storytelling.

Anyway that’s an update. I’m sure the minute I hit publish on this I’ll be cursing i’ve left off people. I should do a honorable mentions at some point for the almost-made-it people but in the meantime Id love to read what you think.

Here’s something kind of cool I’ve only just discovered. The ASA (Australian Society of Authors) has a portfolio of comic creators. Which means they can support you and your individual needs as a sequential story teller as opposed to just a regular artist who thinks in word counts not page counts etc. Anyway they’re doing a monthly focus on creators. This week being the Charming Paul Mason. Check it out here.