Where's K?

Back when I was a mere newbie at university, I saw a hand-drawn message on the notice board by a guy named "K" who wanted to start a Comics Club. I met up with him, and he was this Asian guy about 5 years older than me who drew all these cool gory comics. He wouldn't tell me his name though – he only wanted me to call him "K". I showed him some of the comics I was doing at the time, and he said "This stuff is pretty wacky."

A while later – I can't recall how much later – he put another hand-drawn message on the notice board for me, asking me where my finished comic was:

It looked pretty cool, as you can see.

I did phone him up (his brother was blasting Nirvana's In Utero album that evening so I knew he had good taste in music), but for some reason I never got to meet with K again, and there went my dream of being in an actual comics club.

Now, trying to track down a guy whose name is impossible to do an online search for, after a gazillion years have gone by, is pretty much impossible, you would think. And you'd be right. But I'm going to try it anyway.

To the Perth cartoonist known as "K" who attended Edith Cowan University in 1996 – if you read this, get in touch! Pronto!

Screen Worlds (Part Deux)

More images from my visit to Screen Worlds. Be awed. Awed, I tell you!

A Commodore 64 computer (1982), with joystick, game on cassette, and tape loader. It could also run software on ROM carts. I'll see anyone outside who doesn't think this is awesome!

A blurry screenshot of Tempest (1981), with simple circular-scroll and fire controls. I hadn't played it originally, but there was some ownage here. The concept is very simplistic but a bunch of dumb kids with skateboards who had a go couldn't figure it out.

The IBM PC version of Tetris (1984). Regularly mentioned as one of the best video games of all time and voted in some online poll as the greatest thing to come out of Russia.

Lego Star Wars: The Video Game (2005). Haven't they milked enough money out of this franchise? Amazing graphics and brilliant concept, though.

This is what you see when you complete Sonic The Hedgehog (1991) – goes without saying I've seen it hundreds of times. On my birthday in 2005, I drew a small crowd of kids playing it on the big screen at the ACMI. In 2008 I had the pleasure of owning some dork at it at ACMI's Game On. Back at ACMI in 2010 and the shine hasn't gone off this classic one bit.

Screen Worlds

Before I begin, I'd like to point out that it's now ten years since the events in the 'drug house scene' in Constantinople (see May 1 post) took place! Anyway, the renovations at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image are finally done and my friend Yoji and I went to see the permanent exhibition Screen Worlds, which charts the rise of moving images through history. Here are a few still images of said moving images.

A beautifully-rendered world of possibility.

Pong vs. Tennis – a floorscreen.

The light at the end of the tunnel.

Visitors are asked to predict the future of our digital world, which is difficult, but I managed it (see below). My prediction may seem fatuous and flippant to you, but then the fact that I have a blog earns me the right to be as fatuous and flippant as I like, wouldn't you say?

Nonesuch Archives: "Deep Night" (2001)

The above image is from my cancelled 2001 graphic novel project, Deep Night. It was originally intended to be a picture book with no words – no dialogue, no words in the illustrations, no title or author mentioned anywhere on it, nothing. I completed several pages of it and had plenty of grand ideas, such as themed visuals, but I never got round to finishing it and it was eventually discontinued.

Ah well. Maybe someone out there likes seemingly drug-induced drawings featuring heads on springs with arms coming out of them. And weird-looking clowns.

Constantinople

People say to me, "Hey Pete (or Jim, or Bill or whatever they tend to call me), you've led a pretty interesting life. Why don't you tell some of your real-life adventures in comic form?" And I reply, "Ah, go peddle your dumb ideas some place else."

But finally, it is time for an autobiographical graphic novel. I've begun working on it and it's looking promising. The title of it is:

Who's John Katz? Well, I've had to use a pseudonym in case any of the people in this comic (who have also had their names changed), recognize themselves and fly over from Perth to beat me up. The little pencil guy in the above image is me. In every scene I'm about half as tall as the other characters; I get to milk some great comedy out of that one idea.

How true will it be? I was bored enough to keep a journal during my years at uni, which is where most of the material comes from. I was pretty good at remembering people's quotes word for word, so the dialogue is legit. The characters and locations look as I remember them.

Here are the first two pages of the 'drug house' scene. You'll notice that all the backgrounds are grey. That's intentional, only the characters are coloured. Enjoy.