2014 in Review: Indira Neville

What have been your personal cartooning/comics highlights of 2014?
For me 2014 has been a year for learning about NZ women's comics and making connections with other NZ women comic-makers, and this has been amazing! The catalyst for this has been the book me, Rae Joyce and Sarah Laing are putting together - Three Words. In the process of making this book I have made new friends, seen comics I haven't seen before, developed new appreciations for comics I have seen before, and I think we have managed to really disrupt the NZ comics discourse.

At a more personal level I managed to do a not half-bad comic portrait of Will Smith.

 What are some of the comics you've enjoyed in 2014?
Comic artists I have learnt about in 2014 and love include The Rabbid, Giselle Clarkson, Jessica Dew and Margaret Silver. A comic NOT made by a NZ woman that I enjoyed this year is  The Gigantic Beard That Was Evil by Stephen Collins.

 What is something non-comics that you have enjoyed in 2014?
Oh heaps of things! My son learning to write and read; my daughter winning the Waitakere Public Library ultimate Minecraft competition; the swarms of drunk moshing teenagers who seem to enjoy my band; managing my first piece of legislation through the Cabinet process; and watching the Knick on telly.
     
What are you looking forward to in 2015?
The publication of our book mid-year!!!

Indira Neville Blog

2014 in Review: Ben Juers

What have been your personal cartooning/comics highlights of 2014?
Finally self-publishing Psychotherapy, the anthology I co-edited with Bailey Sharp.

What are some of the comics you've enjoyed in 2014?
QHCQ by Jordan Speer, Irene #4, Fluid Prejudice edited by Sam Wallman, Pleasure by Nicky Minus, Boyfriend: Magic, Sentiment and Bondage by Michael Hawkins, the George Carlson collection from Fantagraphics, Megahex by you-know-who.

What is something non-comics that you have enjoyed in 2014?
Memories of things I enjoyed prior to 2014.

What are you looking forward to in 2015?
The new anthology from Sam Wallman. How to Read Nancy by Mark Newgarden & Paul Karasik. Doing my Minicomic of the Month. Deciding every three days to become a vegetarian for about a day.

Banana Eel

2014 in Review: Michael Fikaris

Highlights for me have been international exchanges as an illustrator/cartoonist - finishing a new graphic novel 'Art As Life' about the question of a working class artist putting comics into the streets again as murals and posters.
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Writing from Indonesia where I am in the progress of doing a large colaborative comic strip
here in Yogyakarta where the culture is MASSIVE and where I just finished a project in Duri Sumatra consisting of 100+ cartoon portraits I put onto kites and installed across a village.

Looking forward to a few exciting projects like one with old mate Sam Wallman 'Where Do I Belong?' which will involve getting stories from people in detention centres and turning them into comics.

Fikaris Art

Silent Army

2014 in Review: Andrez Bergen

What have been your personal cartooning/comics highlights of 2014?
Yikes... good question. I guess, like last year, working with Matt Kyme at IF? Commix. The guy seriously inspires and motivates me, plus he's my foil. Otherwise? Publishing my first graphic novel ('Tobacco-Stained Mountain Goat') and creating monthly series 'Bullet Gal', along with pushing through two issues of the collaborative series I do with Matt, 'Tales to Admonish'.

What are some of the comics you've enjoyed in 2014?
Highlights have been Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips' 'The Fade Out', Brubaker (again) with Steve Epting on 'Velvet', Matt Fraction and Christian Ward's 'ODY-C', and Fraction's work with David Aja on the sadly inconsistent 'Hawkeye'. Also Gail Simone’s output with artist Walter Geovani on ‘Red Sonya’, and I loved Mike Deodato's art in 'Original Sin'. From Australia? Craig Bruyn's series 'From Above', Matt's 'That Bulletproof Kid', and the ongoing 'Kranburn' yarn by Ben Michael Byrne. And old skool? Getting to properly read the 'Miss Fury' series by the great Tarpé Mills.

What is something non-comics that you have enjoyed in 2014?  
Re-reading the literary back catalogue of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett, getting to catch a very good cinematic take of a comic book ('Captain America: Winter Soldier'), whizzing back to Melbourne in August to properly launch IF? Commix, meeting some like-minded sods, eating sushi as often as I can, working on novels, and seeing my daughter Cocoa — she's nine now — grow and shine while we watch.

What are you looking forward to in 2015?
 We're publishing the full 12 issues of 'Bullet Gal' as a trade paperback through Under Belly Comics in North America, which is a real buzz. But otherwise I'm seriously excited about working with Matt again in an adaptation of my novel 'Who is Killing the Great Capes of Heropa?', plus plans for 'Tales to Admonish' that include stories by fellow Aussie artists Dan Watts, Asela De Silva, Gareth Colliton and Adam Rose.

Andrez Bergen.

If? Commix