Monday 16 April 2007

"At his age, his prostate needed all the statistical support it could muster"

M y pal Chalky White asked me to remind you that: "The new issue of the long running Australian anthology DeeVee is listed in the current Diamond Previews catalogue. This stand-alone special features 'tales of spiteful romance' including a brand new Playwright story illustrated by Eddie Campbell plus The Fat Sheila Hit Me, the crime story he illustrated to crime author Peter Doyle's script. Also features work by Jeffrey Brown, Mandy Ord, Jason Paulos, mr j and the pick of current Aussie cartoonists. We're listed under the Top Shelf section and the order code is Diamond APR074012."

The original Deevee was a comic book anthology out of Brisbane that ran for fourteen quarterly issues 1996-2000, during the same period as my Bacchus monthly. Appearing in all of those issues was my serial that became How to be an Artist. Since then the guys, White, Evans and Best, have put out three specials in 2001, 2003 and 2005. In each of these White and I have been developing a new serial titled The Playwright. Thus this new issue offers the fourth part, six pages long, of this intriguing serial. It's all about a chap who writes for stage and tv and has some very tortured sexual frustrations. I established a style for the strip which was supposed to save me time but turned into a special feature of the job, upon which I lavish far too much attention. I blow up details on the photocopier until the pen lines look fat and monstrous and raggedy, then I draw in details on the copy using the finest possible rapidograph. here's an example from the second story in the series, from the hilarious jogging page. There will be more along the same lines in the new story. And I hasten to add that the parts of this serial are not really sequential and can be read in just about any order as they tend to circle around the theme and the character rather than advance in a conventional linear manner..
Also in the new Deevee will be the complete The Fat Sheila Hit Me, a true crime story which I illustrated for an exhibition at the Justice Museum in Sydney. the whole story of that is in the link. This is the moment when she actually hits him:



As you can see, the art turns very savage here. the original was blown up large on a wall. I expect it made an impression.

Finally, here's the cover:


********

Interesting connecting links:
My pal John Coulthart posts about Talin’s proposed monument for St Petersburg (which would have been 100 m higher than the Eiffel tower). Follow the ‘dead monuments’ link at the foot to his earlier post mentioning ‘the degraded sculptures made by Igor Mitoraj’ and my pal Nathalie’s link in the comments to a beautiful photo of that artist’s Head of John the Baptist on her own blog.

Labels: ,

8 Comments:

Blogger Christopher Moonlight said...

I'm looking forward to all of that. I think I still have most of my issues of DeeVee. I say, much better then having VD.

16 April 2007 at 01:28:00 GMT-5  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

more importantly DUS is rumoured to be tracing a one page story, worth the cover charge alone.

16 April 2007 at 05:07:00 GMT-5  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I meant duds not dus, must be the time difference.

16 April 2007 at 05:08:00 GMT-5  
Blogger Greg G said...

I've seen Mandy's piece for this. It's Ace.

16 April 2007 at 07:50:00 GMT-5  
Blogger spacedlaw said...

Glad you liked the picture.
I have just preordered the DeeVee, I don't want to miss out on the Fat Sheila story...

16 April 2007 at 12:33:00 GMT-5  
Blogger James Robert Smith said...

Thanks for the heads-up. Must get a copy. But I don't go in comic book shops. I'll have to find an online source.

16 April 2007 at 19:21:00 GMT-5  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

You can order it directly from Top Shelf by clicking on my name.

If not, any online comic shop should be able to help.

17 April 2007 at 03:31:00 GMT-5  
Blogger James Robert Smith said...

T'anks, Daren, you're a pal!

17 April 2007 at 16:09:00 GMT-5  

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home