All Unicorns to
Battle Stations by David Tulloch is a slice of life webcomic that updates every
three days at www.virtuallycomics.com
Thursday, 31 July 2014
Wednesday, 30 July 2014
Tuesday, 29 July 2014
Debra Boyask: Are There Any Real Geeks In Palmerston North?
Scanned from 'The Ancient Geeks' by Debra Boyask. You can read the whole zine at the Auckland Libraries Zine collection at the Central City Library.
Sunday, 27 July 2014
Friday, 25 July 2014
Marina Williams: Sevillana
Marina Williams is a kiwi comic artist and illustrator, currently based in the
UK. See more of her work at Sevillana Comics.
Thursday, 24 July 2014
Wednesday, 23 July 2014
Michael Sanders: The Tattoo
A Colonel Kernel comic strip.
Corn have been battling the Green Vegetables for centuries. There is an ongoing battle waged in your vegetable garden. Colonel Kernel is a senior commander in the Corn Army. He’s domineering, aggressive and could use a good dose of anger management. The Green Vegetables are an alliance of Broccoli, Peas, Lettuce and Asparagus (BPLA) and are ruled by a Broccoli commander. Each side has its allies, and its secrets, and does it’s best to gain an advantage, any advantage it can. The battle continues …
More Colonel Kernel comic strips and stories by Michael Sanders are available at http://otherramblings.yolasite.com/colonel-kernel.php
Tuesday, 22 July 2014
Monday, 21 July 2014
[review] Liam Bowen: People
“PEOPLE”
By Liam Bowen
Self Published Zine, 2014
For copies contact: liamarbowen@gmail.com
Reviewed by Maryann Savage
This zine collects Liam Bowen's sketches of people between
2010 – 2014. Most of the sketches were
done on public transport. Liam's simple
sketches use the minimum number of lines required to express the character and
likeness of each person he draws.
Although there's not much written description in the zine, his
personality creeps in. Noting that some
drawings were done on a trip to China, Liam says
looking back
at this time, I just acted like a big kid, and was totally irresponsible.
And
in 2010, I
found myself without any of my regular hobbies, with no-one talk to ...
Thus these mostly wordless pictures are informed by the
melancholy fact that in his loneliness he's drawing people, over and over and over again.
Looking at the images is like encountering Liam briefly on
the bus yourself: you get a tiny insight
into the surface of his life, and are left wanting to know more. This mirrors the way that his drawings of
people express his own curiosity about them. These aren't dead
representations: they feature what Liam
finds amusing or interesting – someone's big dark glasses, their stubble, their
jowly chin.
Liam reflects a few times in the zine on why he chose to
draw people:
to get a
feeling of 'this is what regular folks are like'
…
it was
probably a matter of, 'that girl's pretty, I'd like to stare at the back of her
head for a while.'
This zine may be mostly images, but Liam's thoughts between
2010 – 2014 are here, in the drawings:
his humorous and gentle and affectionate and yearning need for
people. I think there's a reason we draw
people over and over again – because we like them, even just regular people,
people on public transport. Just being
on public transport gives you something that the cold images you see on TV and
in magazines glosses over – you're there
with the immigrant communities, the poor older people and the poor younger
people, and there's a real warmth in that, a genuine homeliness. Once you're used to travelling on the bus or
train, when you switch to riding in a car, you can really miss that sense of
being in touch with these living, smelling, mussed up human beings. That sense of human connection without the
need for words is well articulated in Liam's simple but beautiful
drawings.
Saturday, 19 July 2014
Eddie Monotone: Kai Iwi Lakes
Excerpt from an ongoing autobiographical comic strip by Eddie Monotone. You can read the whole thing here: http://edmocentral.com/slothsandtrolleys/
Thursday, 17 July 2014
Matthew Kelly: Kiwiman in "The Building that Barfed"
Kiwiman in "The Building that
Barfed", by Matthew Kelly
A 5 page short story.
Kiwiman stories meld superhero action,
mystery and comedy. Here the slightly comical New Zealand
'Super Agent', Kiwiman, investigates dangerous toxic waste dumping in Hauraki
harbour, uncovering a sinister trap with him in mind!
Wednesday, 16 July 2014
Tuesday, 15 July 2014
Sunday, 13 July 2014
David Tulloch: Lego
All Unicorns to Battle Stations by David Tulloch is a slice of life webcomic that updates every three days at www.virtuallycomics.com
Friday, 11 July 2014
[review] Ducklingmonster: MY PEDALS KISS ME DEADLY (WHAT I'M THINKING WHILE PLAYING)
“MY PEDALS KISS ME DEADLY (WHAT I'M THINKING WHILE PLAYING)”
By Ducklingmonster
Self Published Zine, 2014
For copies contact: ducklingmonster@gmail.com
Reviewed by Maryann Savage
Ducklingmonster's solo musical performances are
authoritative. She stands tall on stage,
her head often thrown back, with a calm and focussed expression. Her voice is loud and clear, and swells over
the audience in long, sustained notes, punctuated by shrieks and growls. She dances precisely and fearlessly, punching
the air, and often walks into the audience, dancing directly in front of them,
even when no-one else is moving – as is usually the case. People in Auckland at small rock shows don't
dance much.
So it's interesting to read, in this zine, what's really
going through her mind when she performs.
She frequently experiences doubt and anxiety. This isn't a simple
account of what she feels – it's an art zine, and fragments of her thoughts are
juxtaposed with images from the movies Repo Man and Kiss Me Deadly, slightly
transformed through her drawings to suggest a merging between the events of the
movies and the events of her performances.
I've only performed myself to an audience a few times, but I've noticed
how strange it is when you're playing music and the audience simply stands
there, the laser-like focus of their attention entirely on you. Ducklingmonster quotes lyrics from the band
Husker Du, the context changing them into a comment on her performance anxiety:
see the blank expres[sions]
waiting for progression
They're standing still
in time, place and time
+ no-one's moving they're
only standing still
in Ice cold Ice cold
Ice
Ducklingmonster covered this song live, and I can confirm
that everyone there did, indeed, stand still and watch.
One image that particularly appeals to me in this zine is
the drawing of the private eye and his femme fatale, Velda, from Kiss Me
Deadly. The pair stand framed in the
white light of what looks like a shop front, but which also stands in for the
blinding light of the stage, with Ducklingmonster in front of her audience,
framed by the darkness of the night outside.
Written across the white centre of the drawing is the self doubt of the
performer:
“Nobody Is At This Show”
and, of course, the local performer's secret misery:
“I'm not paying to play”
– which is the way that it works out for most small bands.
This is a zine that straddles the boundary between the
'personal' and 'art' zine genres. It
doesn't have the treacly self-indulgence of some personal zines, but nor does
it hide the artist's feelings behind a wall of opaque images. Instead, it satisfyingly balances feeling
with the mystery of art.
Wednesday, 9 July 2014
Marina Williams: Sevillana

Marina Williams is a kiwi comic artist and illustrator, currently based in the UK. See more of her work at Sevillana Comics.
Monday, 7 July 2014
Pritika and Coco: Pop Culture
Scanned from 'This Is Not A Comic' by Pritika and Coco. You can read the whole zine at the Auckland Libraries Zine collection at the Central City Library.
Saturday, 5 July 2014
Guest Comic Ash Spittal – Page3
The final page of this battle epic by Ash Spittal! We will be returning to our regular programming next week
from Rooster Tails http://ift.tt/1mgxbLB
Debra Boyask: Punky Brings Home The Cake

Scanned from 'The Ancient Geeks' by Debra Boyask. You can read the whole zine at the Auckland Libraries Zine collection at the Central City Library.
Thursday, 3 July 2014
Guest Strip Ash Spittal – Page2
Page two of the epic three page comic that Ash Spittal did for me – stay tuned for the conclusion!
from Rooster Tails http://ift.tt/1lVkDtp
Michael Sanders: Know Your Terrain

A Colonel Kernel comic strip.
Corn have been battling the Green Vegetables for centuries. There is an ongoing battle waged in your vegetable garden. Colonel Kernel is a senior commander in the Corn Army. He’s domineering, aggressive and could use a good dose of anger management. The Green Vegetables are an alliance of Broccoli, Peas, Lettuce and Asparagus (BPLA) and are ruled by a Broccoli commander. Each side has its allies, and its secrets, and does it’s best to gain an advantage, any advantage it can. The battle continues …
More Colonel Kernel comic strips and stories by Michael Sanders are available at http://otherramblings.yolasite.com/colonel-kernel.php
Wednesday, 2 July 2014
Tuesday, 1 July 2014
Happy New Year: Sarah Laing
Sarah Laing is a fiction writer and graphic designer. Find more of her work at http://sarahelaing.wordpress.com/
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