Kalamunda Zine Fair 2024

I had a table at the Kalamunda Zine Fair held in Perth's hills on Saturday, May 11. It was held in the space beside the Zig Zag Art Gallery, and was the first time the event had been put on, so it was great to be there for the first of what will hopefully be a long running zine fair. Thanks to the Zig Zag curator, Gok-Lim Finch, who organized the whole thing.

Here are some photos from the day. They were taken by Emma Daisy, so all photo credit belongs to her (@emmadaisy.photo).

                                         The zine fair space. Great weather for an overcast day.

Inside the gallery was this table for people to make their own zines.

Elton D'Souza (@elton_d_souza_art), a talented illustrator and animator.

Some of Elton's A3 illustration work.

                                                                        And some more.

This is Dan Grant (@misterdangrant), who does zines, linocuts and prints, and stickers. Look at his little printing press! Just look at it! Isn't it cool. He told me where I could get one and how much it costs, but I'm old. So, naturally, two seconds later, I forgot.

Dan's table and a levitating kid.

Free popcorn and fairy floss. I scoffed the whole tub, despite my plan to save half of it for later.

Hey, it's Ben Yaxley (@no_faff_). We did a zine swap, and his 2014 zine Democratic Peoples Republic Of Yowiee is really rather good. The zine he got from me was Your Kids Are Losers, originally written in 1994. He was surprised to receive a zine that was made in the year he was born.

Ben's zine. Not to be confused with benzene, which is a carcinogenic chemical compound (C₆H_6).

Some of my zines. Jonathan Lennon Reviews British Albums From Beyond The Grave completely sold out. I wasn't expecting that. And everyone who looked at Your Kids Are Losers had kids, I noticed.

The 'no talent' area of the zine fair.

This is Natasha Provan (@wamgoozle), who was next to me. She lent me her chair, because for some reason they didn't give me one. She knows how to do a great table setup, I tell you.

Her full colour zine Space Thots is very funny. She got it printed at Snap. Well worth considering for the colour zine maker on a budget.

Inside the Zig Zag Gallery of Art Work and Associated Art Work Things, there was artwork, and also, it was where artwork was displayed. In fact in this gallery you could see some artwork.

Another family happily making zines entitled Your Kids Are Losers. Well, maybe not. But who is to say? You weren't there. I was.

The musical entertainment for the day, Simone and Girlfunkle. I never found out which is which.

Yes indeed. 'Make zines'. Make zines, you out there on the internet!

This was in fact the last photo taken by Emma Daisy on the day. Kind of apt, isn't it? I guess I did desert my post to sidle over to the zine making table and bash something out on the typewriter. Comment below if you want to see what I typed, and I'll post a picture of it.

Thanks to all who made this day possible. And to you, gentle reader.

Make zines.

TOKYO 2020 – The Closing

And after 17 days, it's all over. Tonight the Games of the XXXII Olympiad conclude, and all things considered, it seems to have gone very well. Obviously the roar of the crowd is integral to an Olympic final, but there have been plenty of memorable moments without it. The Games hit an emotional note that has been missing from many peoples' lives.

I'm not a sporty guy – you'll never see me sweating it out in a field. But I do enjoy watching the Olympic Games, and not just to see GOLD GOLD GOLD FOR 'STRAYA either. Couldn't give a toss about that. Take yer medal tally and shove it up yer catflap, matey. No, I watch it for the drama, and the raw human emotion, not just the joy but the defeat, the adversity and the heartbreak. The upsets, the records being broken, and the medal winners appearing in breakfast cereal ads for the next three years.

The theme of the closing ceremony is 'Worlds We Share' which feels more optimistic than the opening ceremony. The theme for that was 'United By Emotions', which deals with people sharing moments they cannot be physically together for. The opening on July 23 was more about history and tradition; it acknowledged the impact of COVID, the role of essential workers, and the fact that 30 year old tunes from Sonic games still warm the cockles of my shrivelled joyless soul. So! How will the closing differ from this? Will it be more celebratory than its precursor? Come and join me, and let's find out. Ha~i, sutaato!

 

August 8, 8:03pm (Japan time). And we're off. Please stand for some random salaryman Prince Akihino. The music playing in the background is from Tokyo Story. I've never seen that film. I know, I know – I have no right to call myself Japanese, right? The melancholy music reinforces the sad sight of the empty stadium seats.

8:08. Kimigayo time. Then the flag-bearers enter. As stated at the opening ceremony, the Olympic motto has been modified to "Faster, higher, stronger, together". Hopefully the Canadians won't mistake the male Australian flag-bearer for a woman this time, the wallies.

8:21. The athletes now enter. Hey, there's the flag of the Philippines, who won their first gold medal at Tokyo 2020 after competing in the Olympics since 1924. In womens' weightlifting, no less. There were three countries who won their first ever Olympic medal at these games: Burkina Faso, San Marino, and Turkmenistan. People of all nations intermingling in Tokyo, relaxed and having fun — it reminds me of my JET Programme orientation 20 years ago! Except these guys will be heading off to quarantine and not to distribute Mr. Sparkle in their home prefecture.

8:43. All is quiet in the stadium as particles of light cascade from the stadium roof to form the Olympic rings. I have no idea how they did that. Good stuff.

8:46. A band starts playing, and hey! It's the Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra! I remember them from my days living in Japan. Someone made a great call in getting these guys to play. Their upbeat, high-energy set is perfect for this atmosphere. One of the songs in their medley is Kyu Sakamoto's "Ue O Muite Arukou", and it's the band playing, but with Sakamoto's original vocals. Very cool.

Later note: I've since seen comments criticizing this choice of music, saying it "wasn't Japanese enough". What would they have preferred? Enka?

9:05. The medal presentation ceremonies for the womens' and mens' marathons, both won by Kenya. Good on yer, Eliud Kipchoge.

9:33. Wait — did I hear my former home prefecture Gifu mentioned?! Well, yes actually. There's a snippet of video showing the Gujo-odori, accompanied by a song called "Harukoma" which I still remember even now. Cutting back to the stadium, a live singer performs a song for the O-Bon festival dance. I didn't think the Sonic song could be topped, but my former home town region of Gujo being part of the ceremony is the definite highlight of the night.

9:44. The Olympic flag is handed over from Tokyo to Paris. Bonne chance, Parisiennes. Better get those rioters sorted out in the next 3 years, eh? And give those anti-vaxxers a dose of the old water cannon while you're at it.

10:18. The segments of the cauldron close up as the flame goes out, followed by a final blast of fireworks and the word 'ARIGATO' lit up on a dot matrix-style LED screen. It would be nice if the screen also included a picture of the coronavirus with the 'middle finger' emoji next to it, but I can see why that idea wouldn't be popular.

And now, it's all over. Go home. Do something else with your lives. Be great. Eat your vegetables. Brush your teeth. Arigato.

Thanks to Mai for the first two photos.

20 years since my first day in Japan

The eyes of sports fans around the world are on Tokyo right now, and on this day 20 years ago, I arrived in Japan for the first time. I was 23 years old, having had my uni graduation only three months prior. Here are my recollections of my first three days in Tokyo.

The hot and humid Sunday morning of August 5, 2001 is my first day in a country I had previously only come into contact with through Japanese classes, soaking up the culture by proxy. My involvement was typical; outings to Japanese restaurants, watching a low-res bootleg of someone’s ‘fan-subbed’ anime video, and hosting an exchange student named Gaku – the first Japanese person I ever met. Filed away in my mind during that period was the notion of Japan as the country responsible for video games, lurid cartoons, martial arts and electronic gadgets, all produced by overworked businessmen.

As the Perth group of twenty English teachers-to-be stagger off the plane into the Tokyo dawn, our suitcases are tagged and forwarded to our respective prefectures. Our first day in Japan has barely reached the breakfast hour and the humidity is enough to wilt flowers. I manage to board the coach first, where I stretch out and fall asleep on the back row of seats.

When I awake we are no longer in Chiba prefecture where Narita Airport is. We are now surrounded by towering skyscrapers on all sides in the Tokyo district of Shinjuku. The name means ‘New Lodgings’. New indeed. There are probably enough buildings to house the entire population of Australia. The gleam from the windows do a good job of temporarily blinding us as the coach pulls silently up to the Tokyo Hilton Hotel, and it is there that our group splits up. Several people are deposited there, and at the next stop, the Century Hyatt Hotel, me, my new friend Chris, then 31, and a third guy get off the bus. The three of us are escorted up to the eleventh floor.  

Chris and I look at the big brass keys in our hands and see they both bear the number 1120. We open the door to find two beds and a third bed folded out from the couch. Dropping our luggage on the beds, we stare out of the large window into Shinjuku Chuuou Kouen (Central Park) across the road. Our remaining roommate arrives after twenty minutes; Deane, from Christchurch, New Zealand. He is 28, making me the youngest of the three, but we have a lot in common. We are all bound for Gifu prefecture, and none of us have been to Japan before. In the centre of the huge expanse of trees beyond our window is a small paved area where a second-hand market buzzes with activity. To the rear is a small waterfall. You can see this below in the first photo I took in Japan, from the hotel room window.

Deane then falls asleep, so Chris and I decide to go outside and have a look around. Outside, we cross a footbridge over the road, and then over a smaller one named the Rainbow Bridge, and find ourselves in the park. The air rings with the buzzing of cicadas coming deafeningly from every tree. On the ground, people doze on mats with mosquito coils burning beside them. Chris and I do a quick lap of the market, and look at the waterfall which is named ‘Shinjuku Niagara’. We then head past the massive Keio Plaza Hotel and back to our own.

Deane is still asleep. About 11:30 the phone rings. Chris answers it, saying “Moshi moshi”. He is excited to be using the Japanese phone greeting for the first time. It is my family calling from back in Perth. I drink some water and lie down. The phone rings again; Chris’ friend Tetsu from Nagoya is in town. While Chris gets ready to meet him, I fall asleep.

I wake up to find Chris gone and Deane awake. It is already 5:30 p.m. I suggest to Deane we have a wander round, and he says he wants to go for a run in the park. In the lobby Deane runs into some of his Kiwi friends, and we stand and chinwag for several minutes before heading out towards the humid metropolis. As we pass the park, we see the sellers have now all gone. Only a few kids doing stunts on BMXs and a couple playing badminton with no net, remain. We head through the underground tunnels of Shinjuku Station and emerge into the nightlife on the other side. The sky is dark, the neon signs are pulsating, and cars choke the roads. The vivid colours and cartoon caricatures tease the eye; the flashing lights never stop. Shop stereos blast J-Pop, the perky and upbeat genre of mainstream pop music, as giant video screens on the side of buildings blare and glare with slick animated commercials.

Once again we stop to take it all in. Deane also remains silent, and he must be thinking what I am. I have seen this city depicted in a dozen anime films and TV series: as a mutated post-nuclear mega-tropolis in Akira; as a crime ridden psycho-zone in Burn Up W and as a carefree nighttime playground for ne’er-do-wells in Taihou Shichauzo (“You’re Under Arrest”). Now that I have ended up here I can see it for what it is: all of the above and more.

It may seem unbelievable in the era of smartphone cameras (and in the era of digital cameras before it), but I only took two photos on my first day in Japan – taken with my somewhat naff Olympus film camera. And the second photo wasn't even taken by me. It showed Deane and I in the hotel room and was taken by Chris.

Deane says he will head back to the park for a run, so I continue on up a stairway, through a shopping precinct and down a crowded inner-city street. Crowded is not the word, although obviously I just used it. There are 325 people per square kilometre in Japan. For ten minutes I stare around me glaze-eyed at such sights as a punk in chain-mail; a girl with him in ‘Goth Lolita’ get-up; people sending text messages as they wait to cross the street; piles of discarded magazines on meter boxes; calling cards of prostitutes in phone boxes, each one featuring a manga character; trash bags piled up on the kerb and a noticeable lack of rubbish bins; and the ever-present hordes of gaijin (foreigners).

The katakana word geemu (game) on a sign catches my eye and I follow the arrow down into a seedy video game arcade. A large fan is on full speed, barely ruffling the addled gamers’ mohawks. A few of the cabinets are just excuses for full-frontal cartoon nudity. Back in the street, I spot the pink HMV logo on the side of a building some distance away. I head towards it in the scrum of flawlessly-attired Tokyo-ites. I reach the Takashimaya Department Store, and get the lift up to the twelfth floor. Entering the massive store, I am surrounded by millions of CDs on shelves, and take a stunned moment to scan the signs above them to seek out the correct genre, which are written in English.

Even after eight years of learning Japanese I’d never bothered to learn the order of the hiragana so locating my favourite Japanese band Shonen Knife is a tad difficult. I eventually find two of their albums and scurry off to the checkout where a youth awaits me. The two CDs come to over 6000 yen – about a hundred dollars in Australian money – but my dedication to Shonen Knife refuses to let this fact sink in. Tax is not included in the stated price, which means you can never have the exact change ready. I hand over a 10,000 yen note, and he returns the change and receipt on a small metal tray. Then, producing a small card and a leaflet, he begins to explain something. I stand there and pretend to be in the know, but I do manage to surmise that he is giving me a loyalty card, with five points for every CD purchased. Luckily, part of the leaflet is in English. He swipes my card and I collect five points. I thank him and leave, my first real-life informal interaction with a Japanese person in Japan completed satisfactorily.

I have no problem getting from Takashimaya to the shopping precinct I first entered but from there I am lost. I decide to trudge down some back alleys in the hope that they somehow lead back to my hotel, but of course they don’t. I go around the block and end up on the main road. Finding one’s way is different to back home; directions in Japan are usually given by block numbers and landmarks. Most streets don’t have names; only main thoroughfares have them. Trying the opposite direction this time, I catch sight of a McDonald’s (where else), go in and order a meal. Ah, a familiar gaijin ritual. It takes them a while to make the burger, so I am given a free small Coke while I wait. I pay with a 500 yen coin. It feels strange to pay for a whole meal with one coin. As I eat, I watch a live music show on a large video screen.

Back out into the warm night I go, sticking to the main roads and find my hotel using the maps on the roadside. Chris has just returned from a place called Asakusa, and Deane has brewed some coffee which he bought from a convenience store called ampm. “Did you find the CD you were looking for?” Deane asks. I say yes, showing him my copy of Strawberry Sound. “Sweet!” he says, in that easy-going Kiwi way. How appropriate (and also inevitable) that my first purchase in Japan were two Shonen Knife CDs.

I was completely dead beat at this point, so I fell asleep without dwelling on the fact that this was my first night in Japan, with a year of living there ahead of me. But I've never forgotten that day. I was grateful to use it by going out and exploring. Perhaps the JET Programme organizers gave us that day to get used to our new surroundings.

 

A 'selfie' (even though the term hadn't been invented yet) in the Tokyo district of Akihabara,
August 7th 2001. I really felt like I had stepped into the future. 

 

Back on August 5, 2011, I chatted with Chris on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of our Japan arrival. "Wow, doesn't time fly," he said, and I hope he won't mind me reproducing his comments here. "I want to go back in time. Back to 2001."

I asked him what he remembered about that first day. "It was like a sauna!" he said. "I remember walking around Shinjuku overwhelmed. The hotel was very nice. Luckily we had good room mates, me, you and Deane. I think everyone slept that evening. I didn't, I met a Japanese friend and we went to Asakusa. I somehow felt OK the next day. We had to be careful, being hillbillies from Perth, haha."

I just reminded Chris this evening about it being 20 years. "Happy 20th JET-iversary!" he said. "Don't throw away those photos and journals. We can talk about it when we are 80! I think I didn't take a photo that day. Most were so tired and slept. Was it just three of us in the [hotel] room? We were lucky, us three. We all got along so well. Never easy staying in a room with people you don't know. I knew you so it was easy."

TOKYO 2020 Opening Ceremony

The Tokyo Olympics. Remember it? It was going to get cancelled. But it wasn't. It's going ahead after all. And for some reason they are still being called the 2020 Olympics, not the 2021 Olympics. Don't ask me why.

Of course, tonight's opening will not be typical, but is still eagerly anticipated. So, just what has Japan done? Let's go see. I'm going to watch the opening ceremony of the Games of the XXXII Olympiad – so you don't have to! Ikuze!

 

July 23, 8:00pm [Japan time]. The stadium looks very strange with no crowds, and no noise either.

8:03. An opening video montage shows the athletes' training and development, going back to 2013 when Tokyo was announced as the host for 2020. I was surprised the chronology didn't really reference the COVID-19 pandemic at all, aside from two brief shots of a deserted Tokyo intersection. But they're going to have to address this issue at some point during the next 4 hours, I'd say.

8:04. The countdown ends with an aerial shot of the stadium lit up, looking like a zero. Neat.

8:08. A dance routine involving red ropes, representing the human body's circulatory system. I'm sure all of this was drastically scaled back; we can only wonder what was originally planned for this performance.

8:14. Introduction of the Emperor. But instead of showing him, they just cut to some random dude in a suit, with a mask on.
Wait – that IS the Emperor. My mistake. Gomennasai. Please do not have me exiled to Kyushu for my insolence.

8:20. Tempting though it is to make a joke about how Morning Musume or Godiego should have sung the Japanese national anthem, I'll...completely fail to resist the temptation, apparently. The singer MISIA does the honours here, and I vaguely remember her name from my days living in Japan 20 years ago (it's actually 20 years exactly on August 5, if you care to know).

8:25. The moment of silence shows that there are people in the audience (most likely officials), but they have remained largely silent. Apparently TV1 in New Zealand saw fit to run an ad during the brief silence. C'mon Kiwis, just because you did so well during this pandemic doesn't mean you can disrespect the dead. You used to be cool, 'bro'!

8:26. The next routine consists of Edo-jidai carpenters and some rhythmic drumming. This is another bit that has had its effect dulled by the lack of audience, but the performers gave it their all.

8:29. A male tap-dancer does a solo dance, eliciting the first polite applause so far. I guess that's what the youth™ are into these days.

8:33. The five Olympic rings, made of wood, are moved into position on a large mechanical frame. The wood was from trees planted by athletes at the Tokyo games in 1964. The rings have been rendered in different ways over the years, so this bare-wood Muji-esque iteration seems to demonstrate the concept of wabi-sabi, which is highly treasured and sought for in the Japanese Arts.

8:41. The orchestra starts up, and now the athletes enter in the Parade of Nations. Dare I sit through the whole thing? Greece enters first as per usual, and then the Refugee Olympic Team, and then the rest of them in katakana order.

8:43. Nice to see the Irish team bow in unison to the line of Japanese dancers as they entered – and the greeting was returned.

8:46. The signs bearing the countries' names in romaji and katakana look like manga speech balloons.

8:53. Italy look pretty hyped – well, they did win Euro 2020 twelve days ago and Eurovision two months ago...

9:08. The orchestra is playing the Star Light Zone theme from the very first Sonic the Hedgehog game (which came out 30 years ago!), a.k.a. the Dreams Come True song "Kusuriyubi no Kesshin". Ace! This snippet of music, probably my favourite Sonic level theme, almost did the job of an actual Sonic appearance here. Well, he is one of Japan's most famous modern cultural exports, after all.

9:30. Because Russia was banned for doping, the Russian Olympic Committee enter with the Olympic flag. If any of them win a gold medal, Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 will play instead of the Russian national anthem. It now occurs to me that there is a list somewhere of songs played in lieu of the anthem of banned nations, and I must see this list. Australia's replacement song just has to be this.

9:44. I still can't figure out why the Japanese names for Switzerland and Thailand are Suisu and Tai, respectively. They included the '-land' in the katakana renderings of Iceland, Ireland and Finland, so what gives? Can you figure it out, multiple question marks???

9:48. Star Light Zone music again! Ah, the nostalgia. If they could now crank out "Zankoku na Tenshi no Teize", they will have made my night. (Later note: As it turns out, all the music being played in this medley is from video games! Apart from Sonic, there's also music from such games as Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts and Chrono Trigger. So there you go.)

10:36. The Japanese athletes enter. Kudos to the organizers, they have achieved a lot in a time of immense adversity. And that's all 205 nations. No sign of North Korea at all.

10:50. 1,824 drones form the chequered Tokyo 2020 emblem in lights in the night sky, and they then form a globe of the world, as John Lennon's "Imagine" is sung for the 5th time at an Olympic opening ceremony. (I'd suggest they give this song a go.) Amazing use of drones there – the globe in the sky was beautifully done.

(As an aside: I had hoped that the zeroes and O's in the logo would appear as red circles like on the Japanese flag, as they were shown at the end of the 2016 Rio games. But it seems they changed their mind about that.)

11:19. I'm getting tired...it's now after midnight in Melbourne. The Olympic flag is now being brought in...but who will light the flame? Naomi Osaka? Osamu Tezuka? Doraemon?? I told my old uni mate Ben that I'll be disappointed if Pikachu doesn't appear in this ceremony, and he said "And if the Olympic flame isn't lit by a Charizard, I'm out."

11:30. The way the graphic symbols of the 50 events were acted out with actors, props and camera angles was really cool!

11:38. Pianist Hiromi plays super fast while a kabuki actor strides the stage, at the base of a stepped pyramid-thingy. It finished with the kabuki guy giving a demented stare right at the camera. What's going on here? I have no idea, but it's great.

11:42. The Olympic flame enters into the stadium (hey, that's a pleonasm), soundtracked by Maurice Ravel's "Boléro".

11:47. A doctor and a nurse do one leg of the final torch run. Hooray for frontline medical workers everywhere!

11:53. Tennis player Naomi Osaka lights the cauldron, which sits at the top of the aforementioned pyramid (later note: I think it's meant to represent Mt. Fuji). The cauldron resembles a chrysanthemum (or is it an orchid?).

Midnight. And that's it! The flame is lit, the flags are flying, the fireworks have gone off. The majority of athletes have been bussed back to the Olympic Village, where the tatami have been swept clean, the plates of fresh takoyaki and cups of hot amazake have been laid out on the dining tables, and the relentless parapara J-Pop is being pumped out over the speakers in tentative anticipation of 16 days of the pursuit of Olympic glory.

I've already been hearing the inevitable whinging about how the ceremony was too sombre, too minimal, and not a single mention of Doctor Slump or Catbus. But really, what more could they have done? Ever since that archer shot a flaming arrow to light the cauldron at Barcelona 1992, opening ceremonies have been getting more and more extravagant to the point where they have become, in the main, a tourism promotion for the host nation. As well as promoting sporting ideals they also take the chance to showcase the iconography and emblems of their country.

Of course, the Tokyo organizers were severely limited in the scope of what they could do. I'm sure from the moment they won the hosting rights 8 years ago, they would've had all sorts of extravagant and wacky ideas. Such as sushi rolls being shot out of the exhaust pipe of a Nissan Fairlady Z being driven by Mario, a kappa, and the cast of Monkey to the strains of Shonen Knife's "Watchin' Girl". Well, it would have been like that if I had been on the planning committee, anyway.

Homecooked Comics Mini-Market

Today was the Homecooked Comics Mini-Market for 2017. Whereas last year's event was held at the Town Hall in Northcote, due to issues with that venue, this year's event was scaled down and held instead at the Squishface comics studio (and adjoining studio space) in Victoria Street, Brunswick.

Despite the space constraints, we still had room enough for my books on sale, and those of SCAR, who couldn't attend due to other commitments.

Even though not as many people attended as customers, I still managed to make one sale and one for SCAR as well, which was satisfying.

Thanks to Sarah Howell and Ben Hutchings for hosting us on the day, and Cristian Roux for having a chat. It was great seeing the artwork of all these creators. See you next year! I'll post tomorrow about some sights we saw in Brunswick after the event finished.

Sticky Institute Zine Fair II

Oh, happy, happy, joy, joy! Today was Sticky Institute's Zine Fair and for the second year in a row I had a table there (exact same table, too). Last year was not a very enjoyable one, in that I sold bugger-all. Zilch. Nuffink, guv'.

I was rather skeptical about setting myself up for a second session of this annual tedium. But then I began to think about the reasons why I never sold anything last year. It was a zine fair, and primarily I make comics. I hadn't understood the audience of this event. So I actually produced a number of zines by hand, meaning that they were not printed, they were all lettered by hand onto pre-stapled A6-size booklets. I had ten of them. And I sold all except one!

Another customer was kind enough to purchase Airbury Vol. I, so in making ten sales, my sales numbers were up 1000% from last year. And that, dear reader, ain't bad.

To be honest I was beginning to lose the enthusiasm I originally had for producing humour-based illustrative works, since no one seemed to give a damn, and who reads this comic crap, it's all insignificant pablum anyway. But this was a step in the right direction and it increased my confidence once more. It was a pleasure talking with the various people who stopped by my table to talk to me and buy my zines, especially my friend Chris, who was at the table with me for over an hour, and also Steve and Antoinette from SCAR who were once again at the table next to me and keeping a beady eye on how I was doing sales-wise.

So unlike that dismal day in February 2016 I am actually looking forward to doing it all again next year.

One final thing, on the train home I noticed Metro trains have replaced the fabric on the train seats. The old familiar pattern that has been there since before I moved to Melbourne is now gone, and has been replaced with this. But my question is –

How come 'Brunswick' gets to be so big?

Happy New Year 2017

Happy new year! 2017 will be the eighth year of this blog, and I promise more interesting content. For know, you'll have to make do with Facebook's little 'badges' graphic to mark the 4th anniversary of my (re-)joining up. Thanks for being here!

Homecooked Comics Festival

I had a table at the 2016 Homecooked Comics Festival today. It was held in the Town Hall in the suburb of Northcote. Want to see some photos from the day? No? Tough.

Here's my table with the four volumes of Airbury Academy, Rob's zines, and a hand-painted Airbury bag.

Comics artist Bruce Mutard was there, and did a series of drawings for the kids.

Meanwhile, a drawing demo was in progress. Here's Steve from SCAR with his motorbike monster...

...and Matt from Pikitia Press working on a similar effort. The drawings were timed.

Finally, here's Michelle and Antoinette from SCAR looking at my zine, Xtra Cheez!

Now, push off!

Sticky Institute Zine Fair

The Sticky Institute is a small shop in Melbourne, located in an underpass beneath Flinders Street Station, which sells zines of all kinds. Robert Scholten and I got a table at their zine fair today, and experienced the "zine scene" for the first time.

Zine production is unabashedly low-tech. A long-arm stapler goes a long way, as does a spare printer. Here's Rob doing some stapling. On the table is the "Never Trust A Songwriter" title card he did in Thailand for the China 5 music video (which I also filmed in Thailand).

The finished zines.

My zine, Xtra Cheez, was available in several flavours.

The Melbourne Town Hall was rather packed. Who's that at the bottom right?

Rob at our table.

Steve Carter of SCAR, with way more titles available than we had.

Antoinette Rydyr of SCAR setting up their extensive catalogue of zines and comics. She also came up with the name of my zine. I picked it from a list and changed the spelling.

Now, naff orf!

Happy New Year 2016

Happy new year 2016, and welcome to what will be the seventh year of this blog. Facebook has reliably informed me that I joined three years ago today:

Back in April 2010 I quit Facebook, but I rejoined on January 1, 2013 and I don't have to tell you why I did it. So there y'go, punters. Three years of other people's cats, generic inspirational quotes over images of sunsets, and political humour that isn't funny.

Sketch Party

Today I went on a day of sketching in a group at the Melbourne Museum, an excellent place to sketch things, I might add. Especially animals. Because – well, they're dead, aren't they.

Thanks to Luis, Josh and Romi for allowing me to photograph their sketches, and Youbi for organizing the whole thing.

Here are the sketches – first, a couple of dinosaurs...

A smiling deer.

Some biological fancy from Romi.

Luis did this rat-like critter.

This one's mine – an 1880s mail coach.

Portraits.

Yes it is, Josh. And there's a rabbit with a Nazi armband, too.