awcomix

I have been waiting with baited breath all week for the announcement of Apples new product as I blogged earlier. It was almost unfortunate that the hype grew so big because I think everyone, me included, thought that this new device would have everything, you know like steak knifes and a lawn mower. Whilst I can see some immediate drawbacks I am still holding to my conviction that this will be a fantastic platform for digital comics. The name aside (iPad? come on!!) imagine reading digital comics on this! Before it was announced I thought iSlate sounded bad and iTablet sounded like medicine. I think the name iTab would have worked well. It appears that apple will have it's own store called iBook so it will be interesting to see what sort of graphical content will  be offered there, comics books, picture books, art books kids books. There will be other companies like comixology that will continue on with the model they have with the iPhone and no doubt a host of other companies

After posting about the comic that had inspired me as a child (Star bores) I started thinking about the other titles in the Falcon comics series and wanted to find out more about the artists. I read on another website that there was a book on Australian comics called 'Panel by panel' by John Ryan and that the book had information on the Falcon comics series. Luckily a copy of the book was at the university library, although unfortunately there was very little information on the actual series other than Macmillan chose from the underground comic artists of the day.  Imagine how great it would be if a publisher were to do this same thing today, it would be so awesome to see Australian cartoonists do a series of books that went out to younger readers. I have begun to try and list in the Hayase Australian comics wiki all of the titles in the series that I can find on the web,  I would love to be able to add any information to the page and related pages as possible especially arti

I had the pleasure of being invited into the 3CR community radio studio to talk with John Retallick on the comicspot . The talk went well although I realised afterwards that I forgot to mention one of my first big introductions to comics that had a big impression on me, 'Star Bores' by Rick and Tina Amor. My own personal copy pictured above! I would love to know more about these series of Falcon comics from the late 70's, and is Rick Amor the comic guy the same as Rick Amor the painter? I doubt it but who knows. The podcast should be available to download soon.

  At the end of 2007 I started researching the use of Hemp for paper production. I found out a lot of amazing things and immediately wanted to make a comic about Hemp. I just so happened that this was a few months before we moved to Canada. Once in Canada I found myself in one of the biggest Hemp growing provinces in the country, Manitoba. I even found a Hemp store in the small town where Heather's parents lived. The store sold a range of Hemp clothing and products and I was able to buy shelled hemp seed there for an excellent price. As it turned out I got side tracked from my Hemp comic and started doing daily comics, but I never stopped researching and wanting to write the Hemp comic. I am still extremely passionate about the benefits of growing Hemp and not as some Hippy stoner rant,  just for the simple fact that growing hemp for paper is faster cheaper and produces a superior paper to that of trees, not to mention more environmentally sustainable. Fast forward almost tw