What have been your personal cartooning/comics highlights of 2014?
Without a doubt, it was exhibiting at the Small Press Expo in Bethesda, Maryland along with a bunch of great Aussie creators. It was something that I always wanted to do, and I was kind of nervous about it; I was used to making comics for a Melbourne audience, and so I wasn't really sure if anyone in the States would really care about my measly little books. It turned out great though, my books were received really well, made a shit-ton of sales, got to meet some of my favourite comic creators and trade books with them and of course spent quality time with my Aussie friends (including that Emery guy, whatever his deal is). It made me realise that my comics aren't defined by how the Melbourne comic scene receives them and instead are able to be defined by their own merits. It was the best convention I've ever done, and I wouldn't trade that in for anything.
The other highlight was finally making a 100 page book, Onna-bugeisha, which, despite taking all of my time and energy to make, turned out really great, and was my best selling comic! And I managed to make 3 other books too, I guess that counts for something.
What are some of the comics you've enjoyed in 2014?
I've been enjoying a lot of the books that I've bought from SPX as well as from other independent creators, a few that come to mind are Fight Frogs by Jimmy Giegerich, Wuvable Oaf by Ed Luce, Multiple Warheads by Brandon Graham, Through The Woods by Emily Carroll, Seconds by Bryan Lee O Malley and Very Casual by Michael DeForge. Also been enjoying the recent comics Marvel has been putting out such as Ms Marvel, She-Hulk, Ghost Rider and Young Avengers, as well as Teen Dog and Lumberjanes by Boom.
What is something non-comics that you have enjoyed in 2014?
Deep Dish Pizza. Or at least I would have liked to enjoy it, but I never got a chance to have it because I didn't add Chicago to the list of cities on my USA trip! Ah well, maybe next year.
What are you looking forward to in 2015?
Things are going to be changing for 2015, I'm hitting the big 3-0 in that year and making a few changes to my career and lifestyle. I'll still be doing comics but I'm going to experiment a bit. I'm probably going to do much smaller comics (around 8 to 10 pages) after being inspired with the mini comics Alisha Jade has been doing as well as myself making one this year (Mary) as they're probably going to be a bit easier to manage than doing 40-50 page comics. I'm also probably going to do less "homages" (as I've kind of exhausted every film/comic genre in the 4 years I've been doing this!). What I'm going to do instead of homages is kind of up in the air at the moment, but I'll figure it out as I keep making comics.
