Nicole Kane

Voice Over (00:04):
This show is sponsored by the Comics Shop. Welcome to Tuesday Chinwag with your host Lee Chalker, writer, artist, and creator of the Comic series Battle for Basel.

Leigh Chalker (00:27):
Hello and welcome to Tuesday Chinwag. My name is Lee Chalker, as the intro says, and writer, creator of the Australian Independent comic book Battle for Bustle, published through Comex. New issue right here is dropped in the comics shop. The comic shop is the sponsor of tonight’s show. I would also like to congratulate and let know Stuart Thornton, who has dropped his first comic book Issues one and two titled Outlaw That is also available as of right now in the comic shop. So congratulations, Stu, proud of you, mate, and good job on that. So if you go and buy Battle for Bustle, if you go and buy Outlaw, if you go and buy any comic in the comic shop for a limited time, you will receive free volume one, the digital copies. I will just highlight the digital copies of Battle for Bustle issues one through four.

(01:23)
So you’ll get that free so you can read and catch up with that and helps promote everyone else out there. And Comm X. So for everyone that hasn’t seen a Tuesday chinwag before, we’re who, what, where, when, Y and how. We’re very fluid. We like to have a yarn with creators in a long form sort of interview. And the best thing you can do for the show and the channel is to like and subscribe it anywhere you can find it. So that’s comex net au. Now, tonight’s guest is someone I’ve wanted to talk to for quite some time.

Nicole Kane (01:59):
I why?

Leigh Chalker (02:01):
No, it’s not because I read that an awful long time ago, and I think that’s one of the great books I’ve had the pleasure of meeting Chris Pitcan an awful number lot of times and he’s cool dude. And yeah, we just haven’t crossed paths you and I yet. So tonight’s guest is NS Kane. We will call her Nicole Kane for this evening. So not to confuse anyone, but Nicole, how are you?

Nicole Kane (02:31):
Good, good. It’s pretty cold down here in Sydney, but I’ve got my warm cup of tea, so I’m all good.

Leigh Chalker (02:37):
Oh, that’s very nice. Good. No fireplace or anything like that?

Nicole Kane (02:41):
Oh my god, I wish I had a fireplace, but all I have is a cat, so that’ll, and he’s skin and bone, so he doesn’t even keep me warm. He tails a cat.

Leigh Chalker (02:51):
Yeah, yeah, you need to feed him more, mate. You just get to the end of summer and stuff and just double up that food mate. So it gets nice and

Nicole Kane (03:00):
Around for the winter. Yeah, he’s a little skinny mini, unfortunately.

Leigh Chalker (03:04):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, right. Okay. I like cats. I’ve got a couple myself, so yeah, it’s good. It’s good. Very nice. So mate, let’s, without further ado, I’m going to get straight into the first question, which is probably the only question that we’ll talk to because everything else will just veer off. I do like fluidity and everything. Anything can happen in this show, whether it’s, as we discussed before, kids sank at night, cats attacking people, dogs jumping up and down, birds flying across the room. It all happens here, Nicole. So let’s see what happens this evening. Stay on your toes, man. Alright, knock on. And who?

Nicole Kane (03:46):
So I am Nicole Kane as NS Kane Comics. So the Ns comes from my actual real name, which is Nicole Troja. And the Kane is actually a two-parter. So Kane actually comes from an homage to Bob Kane who wrote Batman. And also the reason why I got into comics. So I was a nationally ranked co player for a very, very long time, loved doing it, but unfortunately the community was extremely toxic when I was cosplaying. So I left, but I still wanted to cosplay. So I thought, okay, well I need to find something a little bit different, something that was not in my wheelhouse. I did a lot of anime, I did a lot of Japanese inspired cosplaying. So I thought, okay, well let’s go left field. And started to just put into search engines, black and red and see what came up. And of course Batwoman came up and I looked at her, I looked at her bio and first thing that was on there was lesbian.

(04:47)
And I was like, okay, you got me. I don’t even need to read the rest, I’m just there for this. Funny enough, started reading about her character, started reading her story, absolutely loved it. Went to King’s Comics the very next day, bought everything I could find that was Batwoman involved and blasted through it. And I have loved her ever since. So that’s when I found Greg Rucker’s script in the back of one of the volumes. And I was like, okay, that’s interesting. It was cool to see how it was done. And I thought, I can do this. This is something that I can actually physically do. Especially since coming off of writing novels when I was younger and stories and stuff like that. I thought, great, this is definitely something that I’m into. Started researching scripts, started looking at other writers how things were done, and then it just snowballed from there.

(05:43)
I just started writing little 10 page ash cans and I haven’t looked back since. So yeah, that’s where the name actually comes from. And a lot of people look at me weirdly when they see the name and they’re like, but that’s not your name. And I’m like, yeah, I know. When hell court got put into King’s Comics for the first time, actually took my mom into the city and I was so proud and I didn’t tell her that it was in King’s Comics. And I walked into the store, she thought I was just browsing, going to buy something or whatever, and I said, come over here, come over here. And I pointed to the shelf and I said, that’s mine, that’s my book. And it took her a minute and she was sort of like, what do you mean? And then when we got home, she actually rang me afterwards and she said, ah, I’m so sorry. I was so dazed with what you said. I didn’t realise that that was your book up there. And I said, yeah, it was my book. It was mine. It’s mine. I’ve written it, it’s in stores, it’s an actual thing. And then in the background, I hear my dad go, why is my name not on the book?

(06:52)
I’m like, really? That’s what you’re going to say to me? It was the best moment, best moment of that. But he was proud. He was proud, but he’s like, why is my name not on the book? It should be. And I’m just like, okay. Yeah, thanks guys. So yeah, I had names to the wind, absolutely. It took my parents a while to get used to it, but now they are. I think everybody in my family has sort of jumped on the bandwagon now, which is great. It’s only taken a few years, but I think everyone’s like, okay, you’re doing this for real now. It’s not going anywhere, which is nice.

Leigh Chalker (07:34):
No, it is man. It’s beautiful. It’s lovely to, the funny part is just ducking back when you said, and I had to, good evening, Mr. Chache. Hello, absent minded. Hello, Nick May. Thank you mate. We will do our best. Thank you for everyone that’s watching and we’ll try and keep you posted. When you said that you were like a champion cosplay and you said I had to pull out, I was thinking, oh my God, did you give yourself an injury or something? I was like, really? Like, oh, how did someone get injured? But then toxicity, I mean that’s enough to drive your nuts, mate.

Nicole Kane (08:15):
I think the only thing I really did was burn myself and inhale too much resin. It was more work than it was anything else, but I loved it when I did it. And I appreciate a lot of cosplay now, the effort, I know behind the scenes what effort they go into to make costumes and it’s not easy, it’s time consuming, it’s money consuming, and I really do still appreciate them. I’ve got some friends who are really great cross players and I am always in awe of what they can do now, especially since things have changed with 3D printers and things like that. Now

Leigh Chalker (08:51):
I was going to say 3D printers would make it easy, wouldn’t it? You know what I mean? You can go and belt out an iron man like suit in half a day. You don’t have to think for six months. I mean, listen to me. I’m an old cosplay hand mate. I’ve got no idea. I just appreciate,

Nicole Kane (09:08):
Well, I had to sculpt everything out of clay and then hand mould it.

Leigh Chalker (09:12):
Yeah,

Nicole Kane (09:13):
Yeah.

Leigh Chalker (09:15):
Tell go on with that. Tell. I dunno. Anything about cosplaying?

Nicole Kane (09:20):
Oh look, it was crazy. It was crazy. Hit me. Well, it depends on what you’re making. I made different and various things and random bits and pieces, but some pieces you couldn’t find anything for them. So you had to sculpt them from hand and then you had to cast them in a silicone and then in a resin, and then that would shatter five different times before you got it right, because you mix the chemicals the wrong way. You have to be a fricking scientist. And I was, by the end of it, I was just like, what am I doing? Why am I doing this? But I think the one thing that I really loved is, is I’ve still got the photos from the photo shoots. I think that was sort of the main thing that really made me happy was getting the photos at the end of it.

(10:05)
I’ve still got some pieces left that I’ll never get rid of, which is my batwoman mask. I’ll never get rid of that. So that’s her mask. That’s cool. Yeah, some things like that. They stayed with me, but the rest of it was massive and I was just like, I can’t put this anywhere. I have no room. I have a tiny, tiny apartment now and now it’s filled with books. So it’s like going from one giant hobby to another. The room is filled with packing things in books now. That’s what happens when you run a Kickstarter.

Leigh Chalker (10:42):
Yeah, yeah. I’ve never run a Kickstarter, but I’ve been involved in them. I’ve seen the work that goes into them. I can imagine when it’s right in the crux of it, you know what I mean? There’s a lot of cardboard envelopes, boxes.

Nicole Kane (11:03):
There’s so much.

Leigh Chalker (11:05):
Hi mate, how are you bud? Yeah,

Nicole Kane (11:11):
I just came back from Metro Con, so it was stupid amounts of fun. Really had a great time at Metro Con. I haven’t been down to Melbourne since I started riding, so it was nice to actually get down there and see different people. I think the Sydney crowd are like, do you have anything new? And I’m like, no. But the Melbourne crowd, because they hadn’t seen anything. They were like, oh my god, what is this? So it

Leigh Chalker (11:36):
Was great. So you were buzzing, I see you popped up one on my feed the other day and that comic had sold out. I see. So

Nicole Kane (11:48):
Yes, yes. It’s sold out in Sydney. Be

Leigh Chalker (11:49):
A bit of a regular sellout for you mate.

Nicole Kane (11:51):
Well, it did. It sold out in Sydney and it’s sold out at Metro Con. So despite having written it four years ago now, it is still going strong. And I think that that’s

Leigh Chalker (12:02):
A test of time, mate. It’s a good book.

Nicole Kane (12:04):
That’s it. That’s it. And that’s what you want to see when you make a good book that people just keep coming back and back and back and they really liked the idea. So I think after doing Melbourne, actually a lot of people were looking for horror and dark things in Melbourne, and that’s what I love to write, but I’ve had to put it off to the side because people in Sydney don’t particularly like it. So I’m actually really excited now to find something dark in my list of books that I’ve got to write and actually pick something to do. So yeah, Paul, Chris is going to get inundated with so much stuff.

Leigh Chalker (12:40):
I don’t think he’ll mind.

Nicole Kane (12:42):
He’s going to get inundated. I feel bad for him. I just had think I have 10 books that I’ve just started and I’m about three quarters of the way through before finishing, and then I’m just going to be handing him scripts like crazy and just being like, well, you pick your favourite one, we can go with that.

Leigh Chalker (12:57):
Yeah, see, that’s cool. That’s a nice way of doing it. There’s no pressure. It’s just here you go, man, you are. The dude hit me. So I like that we’ve got Che here, so I’m feeling you. I still love LARP, but I was bullied too much to continue still miss it. And actually working on a couple of LARP comics, it’s hard to lose a hobby you love because of the culture.

Nicole Kane (13:27):
Yeah, yeah. Look, it is hard and it makes you feel like you lose something. But for some reason whenever I lose something, I gain something else immediately. So when I lost cosplaying, I gained comics and I always say when I’m at the conventions, I prefer being on that side of the table now, not being on the other side and having to do, but it’s weird though because a lot of people who were cosplaying when I was cosplaying have left the community. There’s very few of the old ones left. I think there’s only three or four of them that continue on. But yeah, sometimes when you do let go of that thing that was toxic, you find something better. And for me, that was comics and I’m really glad that I did go into it.

Leigh Chalker (14:16):
Yeah, well that’s sometimes I think no matter where you go into, man, there’s always an element of toxicity, isn’t it? I guess it’s up to you and the person as to whether or not you let it bring you down or whether you push on. And as you said, it sounds to me like you were already, sometimes the first door is not the right one. It’s like, but it gets you through there. And then as you said, you discovered comics and then you discovered the Greg Rucker scripts and then you were like, man, I can have a go at that. You were just mentioning before that you’d tried writing some novels and stuff like that too. So obviously you were obviously creatively trying to find your niche.

Nicole Kane (15:15):
When I was younger, I used to write novels and songs, all this emo stuff as you do when you’re a teenager. But a couple of years ago I found the old story that I wrote and I read it and I was like, this needs to go into a shredder immediately and never see the light of day because it was so bad. But I was like, oh, what have I done? And you think, you look back and you’re like, okay, okay. I was a very emotional teenage child. It’s fine, it’s fine. But just that never gets seen ever, ever.

(15:51)
But yeah, I did a fine arts course as well, so I have a bit of an art background as well. So that’s why I thought comics would be such a nice meld because you have to understand when you’re making a comic as well, and you’d know this is that there’s a balance between words and images, and that’s the best part when you’re writing a novel, you don’t have that luxury of telling a story with a picture. It’s so much easier in a comic to describe a rusted ceiling fan than to go on for a page about it in a novel. So you’ve got the image right there. It’s a rusty ceiling fan.

Leigh Chalker (16:30):
Oh man, it’s the perfect medium for that. Really. I love comics for that too. Look, don’t get me wrong. Hello, Peter. I look, don’t get me wrong, man. I wrote lots of things when I was younger as well, mate, that I can definitely tell you if I had a shredder at the time, they would’ve gone in it. But I’m a little bit of a hoarder and my mom tends to keep a lot of the stuff that I’ve created. It was in the bin. Suddenly 20 years later, I’m like, how did you get that? She’s like, I took it out. You just know that

(17:10)
Mum keeping these things. So yeah, no, I’m with you. But it’s amazing, I don’t dunno if you’ve come across it yet, but some of the, well, I guess to where you are now creatively to what you’re thinking about comparing yourself to when you were younger, there’s still strands of what you enjoyed and how you wanted to, I guess, voice yourself to the world at the time. I recently myself discovered paintings that I did when I was probably about 17, 18, and I was talking to a mate of mine, and it really struck me that I’ve already had a little bit of my voice in there at 17. And then you go on this big long, windy journey to I’ve got to find my voice. You know what I mean? To then, hang on a minute, I never lost it, but you go on that weird, crazy journey, but creating,

Nicole Kane (18:11):
I’m trying to think. When I was younger, I drew a lot of, again, anime. And I think that’s what kind of led me into the conventions, led me to cosplaying, which then led me to comics. I think everything had, its sort of stepping stone up upward, but I knew I wasn’t good at drawing God, I’m not good at drawing. So I had to sort of find something that fit. And I think it was only when I was older that I realised that writing was something that I had matured enough into. When you’re younger, you don’t understand, you don’t have the patience for sentence structure, you don’t have the patience for punctuality, you don’t have the patience for going through the flow of a story and trying to make it fit, and then finding transitions and things like that. As someone who’s older, you kind of now become very meticulous over those things and what makes a good story and what other people have done to make a good story. So it’s a little bit more research, I think it’s a little bit more patience, and it’s those things that I found when I got older that came a little bit more naturally than when I was younger and I just wanted to rush and get the story done. But dialogue was terrible. Just terrible.

Leigh Chalker (19:31):
Yeah, no, look, I’m feeling you. It’s like I’ve mentioned it on the show before, but my mum dragged out all of these little comic books that I used to make when I was, I dunno, man, maybe five to eight sort of thing. I was very productive between 1985 and 1988. I’ll put it to you that way. And one of them was the Jaguar hunts in the night, and that was a story that I’ve looked back on and I’m like, man, okay. I’m a bit surprised no one sent me talk to the counsellor, but

Nicole Kane (20:12):
You know where my mom put my

Leigh Chalker (20:13):
Painting,

Nicole Kane (20:15):
My mom put my painting in the downstairs bathroom, that’s where my artwork ended up

Leigh Chalker (20:22):
In the downstairs bathroom.

Nicole Kane (20:26):
I’m like, wow, wow. It’s toilet art. That’s just wonderful, mum. Thanks. Is it

Leigh Chalker (20:33):
Still there? There, but it matches

Nicole Kane (20:34):
Everything. Yes, it’s still there. It is still there.

Leigh Chalker (20:38):
Well, that’s man, right? I don’t know. That’s pretty cool.

Nicole Kane (20:43):
I have one painting in the garage and one painting in the downstairs toilet. That’s where I made it in the house.

Leigh Chalker (20:49):
Hey, it doesn’t matter how big the gallery is, mate, just the gallery on it’s own show.

Nicole Kane (20:56):
It makes me laugh, it makes me laugh. But my auntie actually came and bought some books at one of my conventions, which was quite nice. I don’t think she was prepared for the books when she saw them.

Leigh Chalker (21:11):
She’s like, I think it’s beautiful though, that you’ve got family support mate, an encouragement to do it. You know what I mean? It’s like even your dad wondering where your real name was as opposed to Kane and your mom sort of tripping out a bit. That’s my daughter’s,

Nicole Kane (21:37):
Exactly. And

Leigh Chalker (21:38):
Then your auntie rolling in there to pick up these, she’s

Nicole Kane (21:41):
Rolling in to pick up the books

Leigh Chalker (21:44):
And as you said, maybe being a bit like, oh, but hey look, that’s all right, man. There’s still support. And that’s the best thing. That’s the encouragement when they’re closest to you giving your best support, man.

Nicole Kane (21:57):
Well, they know when the conventions are on now because they watch, they see the ads on TV or on the radio or something like that, and they’re like, are you are going to be busy this weekend? And I’m like, yes, yes. This is a supernova weekend, or this is an Aus Comic Con weekend. I’m glad because my sister’s birthday falls on the Sydney Aus Comic Con weekend every year. So she’s learned now and she’s like, okay, I’ll have you over two weeks in advance so that we can get my birthday done. And I’m like, cool, thanks. So it’s good. It’s good that they’ve sort of scheduled it into their lives, but

Leigh Chalker (22:33):
Do you think that when your mom’s asking, do you think it’s in the case of Nicole, have you forgotten that supernovas on or a friendly reminder, you forget

Nicole Kane (22:49):
This is on. I’m like, no, I just booked my table a year in advance. It’s fine, mom. I am not prepared at all, but sure. Yeah,

Leigh Chalker (22:58):
No, I know. I love my mum, man, because she’s the same, very soft but encouraging and always doesn’t really understand the exact geometry of the thing. You know what I mean? But she’s like, come on, even dude,

Nicole Kane (23:26):
Now

Leigh Chalker (23:28):
Whatcha

Nicole Kane (23:28):
Working on? That’s

Leigh Chalker (23:30):
Drawing and it’s like hanging out of a tree. Yeah, man. Yeah, yeah. Thanks mom. Keep going. No worries. It’s

Nicole Kane (23:40):
Cute. It’s cute.

Leigh Chalker (23:41):
Oh man, it’s cool. These are the things that keep everything rolling, man, and I think it’s lovely to have family support doing those things that you’re passionate about, particularly when you do find your right path, man, and you found your voice with what you’re doing and things. Yeah.

Nicole Kane (23:59):
And my latest book, where is it? Hang on one memento. Let me pull it out of my,

Leigh Chalker (24:06):
Your portal. Portal. Portal, yeah, we call them

Nicole Kane (24:09):
Portal. Portal of Darkness.

(24:12)
So this is the latest one that I’ve got, which is Your Highness. Your Highness. This actually came from a really old book that my mom used to read to me as a kid, and it was a really old Russian folk tale, and I absolutely loved it, and it sort of always stuck with me in the back of my head that this story was, I don’t know, it was just beautifully drawn. It was weird, but it was something that always stuck with me. But I thought, okay, that’s not in my style to just retell something. So I took the main premise and I completely twisted it and made it really dark and kind of my own thing, which is great because Chris absolutely loved it and ran with it. So we’ve had an absolute ball doing this book, but we’re going to do another two more. So it’s going to end up being three massive graphic novels by the end of it, which is great. But that was something of my history that ended up inspiring me to do something in my comics, which was great because then that led to showing what comics can be. A lot of people, when you say comics, they go, oh, Batman, Superman. It’s like, no, no, I don’t write that. That’s what my auntie was expecting. I think that’s what a lot of people expect.

Leigh Chalker (25:31):
That is what a lot of people expect because I come across it as well. People are like, oh, you draw. Yeah, yeah. And the weird part is, I don’t know, for me, they never focus on like, oh, they never ask, do you write? They just always like,

Nicole Kane (25:50):
Oh, I’m the opposite. I’m the opposite. They go, so are these your drawings? I’m like, no, not even close. I can’t do this. You see this beauty? No, I’m just the one who writes the words. And they’re like, oh, okay.

Leigh Chalker (26:03):
Yeah. And then they say, oh, so comics and what’s it always, for some reason I always get Archie and Superman as well, and generally I’m like, sure, but a little bit more dystopian science fiction orientated.

(26:29)
But the best thing is I like the fact that there’s so much variety in comic books, you know what I mean? And that you can take something like you just had as a child and spin it on its head now and infuse it with love from that childhood thing and with the skills that you’ve got now, plus you’ve also got, look, I’m a fan of Chris. He knows that his artwork, and I’ve got a piece of Chris’s artwork here. So yeah, I’m a fan. And it must be really encouraging for you too as a creator to have an artist that is with you 100% on these stories and things, and from already you talk, you’ve worked together on quite a few things and you obviously communicate and you’re good mates and stuff like that, which helps as well. You know what I mean? Yeah.

Nicole Kane (27:34):
It’s really good. We do, we have these moments where I’m describing something and he has either no idea what I’m saying, or he’ll completely get it to the point where it’s pulling it out of my head, but we just really sort of understand where each other is at and then we’ll kind of nitpick on little bits and pieces, and then we sort of narrow it down to what we want. Especially when we were designing the characters for Yh very much, we started off with a couple of really easy sketches. Chris was amazing at just nailing the bad chicky immediately. I loved her to death from the moment of get go, and it just came together very quickly, which was great. He knew where I was going with the really fancy costumes and that sort of fantasy element, but he did the same thing with Hill Court, immediately. Nailed that in five seconds. Fox and Hound was funny because he was like, I don’t know how I feel about this, but I really want to do it, blah, blah, blah. And I was just like, well, you’re going to be drawing a lot of women. And then a couple of issues later, he’s like, why do you make me draw so many boobs? And I was, well, that’s what it is. I’m sorry.

(28:56)
Yeah, we absolutely love working together. We’re not stopping anytime soon. Foxen Hounds six is literally out now on Kickstarter, so we’re just working on and

Leigh Chalker (29:08):
Kicking butt too from looking.

Nicole Kane (29:11):
Yeah, it’s going pretty well. We’re hoping to open up a couple more stretch goals and give people some more extra stuff, but that’ll be the first sort of arc for the girls. And then we’re going to sort of have a small break and then get into the second one, which is going to be a totally different vein of story, but I think it’s going to grow a little bit more with the girls and then we’re not stopping them anytime soon. So they’ll probably have more and more books, maybe even spinoff ones, who knows. But yeah, Chris and I absolutely love working together, and I feel bad for him. I just keep dumping work on him.

Leigh Chalker (29:49):
He’s a working artist mate. You’re a working writer, so when you find something that works, mate,

Nicole Kane (29:55):
And they ask, do you get paid? Well indeed,

Leigh Chalker (30:01):
What do we got? Che? Oh, cool. I’ll have to grab a copy. I have a painting and mate made inspired by that fairytale and always loved it. There you go.

Nicole Kane (30:11):
It’s a really beautiful fairytale. I actually have the original

Leigh Chalker (30:16):
When I was younger,

Nicole Kane (30:19):
So that’s the actual book from when I was a child. Oh, there we go. Beautiful. I have it. So my mom found this a couple of years ago in the garage and was going to give it away, and I said, I will be taking that home with me right now.

(30:33)
She’s just like, why? And I’m just like, don’t just give me the book. Just give me the book. And I love it. It’s like imp perfect nick. I dunno how she’s kept it so well over these years. But yeah, that was what inspired me and I absolutely loved it. And it’s funny how things like that that you heard when you were five come back when you are 35 and you can do something with them when you’re older. But it’s a good story. It was really interesting. As a kid, I also really morals anything with a moral, I don’t think a lot of stories have them nowadays. I kind of like to shove them in there wherever possible.

Leigh Chalker (31:16):
Oh, I understand. I’m someone that with particularly, I was probably guilty in my first four issues of battle for Bustle being very, this character, that character, that character, action, action, action, bouncing all around and having some time off to have a think and learn from that little period of creativity and come into a new stretch. And I guess I focus very much on, I always ask myself the question of intent. What’s my intent? Regardless of everything, it’s just a little habit that I’ve gotten into. So with that comic, it was like the new comic, it’s out. It’s like, what’s the intent on this? What’s the message? I want get through to this. How do I want to portray this character? And slowly developed, and I’m in the middle at the moment of working through pencils and et cetera for the next volume two issue too.

(32:17)
And I’m constantly asking myself as well, what am I portraying here? What’s the message? Because I think Nicole, for me, everything’s so fast paced. I’m in my mid to late forties, and so I’m coming from a background of things were a little bit slower than what they are now. It may be from the fact that I’m from far north Queensland and I ran into a dude once just to give people who’ve never been to far North Queensland before. And he said, oh, where are you from? And I said, far North Queensland. He said, oh, FNQ, fucking nothing quick. And I was like, yeah, yeah, I guess,

Nicole Kane (33:08):
Yeah, I guess it’s, yeah,

Leigh Chalker (33:09):
Everything’s just a little slower. And so you just take things a little bit slower. But news, everything, life moved a little bit slower and now with so many socials and something’s brand new and then it’s gone or there’s, this is fantastic, and then it’s gone. And I don’t know, I try and movies any sort of content that I can get. I found the ones that sit with me the most and the most succinctly are the ones that do have some sort of message or some sort of morality tale, or maybe I’m becoming an old s or something. But ones that really focus on breaking your fear and having faith and giving love and all that sort of stuff. Man, I like those things. Positive messages, you know what I mean? Message for the individual. I think it’s cool.

Nicole Kane (34:09):
I find that too.

Leigh Chalker (34:11):
Bombs and action and blowing cars up, that’s cool because the

Nicole Kane (34:16):
Look, that’s entertainment and some people like that just to get away from reality, but sometimes, I don’t know. Yeah, I like kind of a mix. I like a good action one if it, it’s got a good story behind it, kind of the John Wick sort of thing. It’s heavy on the action, but it had a really good story. But if it’s just people blowing up cars for no reason, it’s just like, well, that was boring. That was 90 minutes, somebody blowing up a car. So yeah, I guess everything has its time and place. But I guess that’s the cool thing about comics too, is that you have this format that you can do whatever you want with.

Leigh Chalker (34:59):
That’s the awesome part of it, man. And that’s like we were saying before with, we were touched on it before about how people just have such different concepts of comic books and they think it is Batman or it is Superman or something like that. Particularly so much, I mean, again, this is just me. My main primary focus of collecting comics and reading comics these days is Australian comics, obviously, because being involved in it and creating in the community, I like to keep a track on yourself and other creators and people and follow their work and things like that. And what always blows my mind is, man, there’s never two comics the same. You know what I mean? It’s like you can think you know what you are getting and then you read it and you go like, wow, man, that’s a really unique take on that. And that’s a healthy thing, man to be in. You don’t want to get, I don’t think you want to get stuck into like, well, I know what’s in that room and this room. It’s like when you’ve got, you want to go to the fruit store and try all the fruit mate, you know what I mean? You don’t want to just get a pallet of watermelon.

Nicole Kane (36:17):
True. It’s true.

Leigh Chalker (36:19):
Lots of flavours, mate. Lots of flavours.

Nicole Kane (36:22):
But the other cool part too is that you can mix. You’ve got different art styles and the different genres and the different writing styles. One of my favourites favourite is it on my shelf, I swear to God. I just keep reaching back for my shelf right now. It’s

Leigh Chalker (36:38):
Okay. We love record

Nicole Kane (36:40):
On the show. I just have so much on my shelf. There is this one particular comic that I absolutely love, can’t remember the name of it now, which is really annoying. But the story is kind of like a mafia, mob bossy sort of thing, crime. But the artwork is all done in soft watercolours. So the juxtaposition to the really hard story, to the really soft art works so well. And I think that’s another take on what you can do in this genre. You can have the hard story and the action, but it doesn’t have to be in that typical American art is what I call it, which is what the big ones do. Like DC and Marvel. I think that because there are so many different artists now, both pencil, digital watercolours, you’ve just got a zillion art forms to use.

Leigh Chalker (37:38):
Yeah, I agree.

Nicole Kane (37:41):
Lack of Daisy. Lack of Daisy is the one with the cats. That’s the one with the cats. This one, it’s going to bug me now. It’s going to bug me. Let me find it. I’ll keep talking as I bruise My shell

Leigh Chalker (37:57):
Is about, man, because I’m like,

Nicole Kane (37:58):
It’s really cute. It’s really cute. I It’s about cats. Cats who are mob people. I remember watching it on YouTube a while ago. They got funded really well. They got funded and the animation’s really cute. It’s really nice. But this one I’m determined to find because it’s one of my favourites. I’ve got a bunch of them. I absolutely love Low. That’s one of my favourite comics. Once in Future is an amazing one. If nobody’s read that, definitely read Hex. Hex is a really old one, if you can find it. The writer is Michael Allen Nielsen. And the artwork is done by Dan Mora who does stuff for DC now. Incredible. Just really incredible little sort of witchy, kind of supernatural story. Amazing. It’s one of my bibles. I’ve got four Bible comics that I constantly refer back to. Definitely one of them. Love it to death. Yes. Here it’s the assignment. So this is the comic, the assignment. It’s really hard to find. It doesn’t have very much to it. It’s quite small, but the artwork is just sensational. It’s very watercolory. I don’t know if you guys can see that, but it’s very watercolory and sort of, Hey you

Leigh Chalker (39:26):
Nicole. Let’s see if sit. There we go. Siz brought it up. There

Nicole Kane (39:30):
You go. There you go. Look at this. Look at this glory. You’re at me.

Leigh Chalker (39:35):
Oh, love

Nicole Kane (39:35):
It. I love it. I love it. I love it. Again, one of my Bible comics I refer to, it’s actually to the point where this comic is actually starting to sort of slightly fall apart. That’s how many times I think I’ve reread it. So you might have

Leigh Chalker (39:47):
To get on eBay and find yourself a new,

Nicole Kane (39:49):
I think I’ll have to actually have an actual thick book of it.

Leigh Chalker (39:57):
Yeah, you might have to. I

Nicole Kane (39:58):
Don’t destroy it anymore because I seem to destroy everything that’s in a floppy. But yeah, that’s

Leigh Chalker (40:05):
Because it’s loved.

Nicole Kane (40:07):
I love it. Literally. I absolutely love it,

Leigh Chalker (40:10):
Mate. When it comes to floppies and stuff too, people that are hardcore comic collectors, like their things graded and that peace and love and harmony to everyone that wants to do their thing. But I have often said, I particularly reading comic books and the ones that I like, I love and I have no dramas with folding them back and looking at them and analysing them and chucking them on it. I just, yeah, no man. When I see where in a comic book and the staples are all barely hanging on. Yep,

Nicole Kane (40:48):
That’s what mine is like. Yep. But I’ve got a giant omnibus here. You can’t not read it without cracking that spine. You just can’t. So you’re going to have to crack the spine. It’s kind of like a rite of passage and reading the book, if it doesn’t have the crack in it, you haven’t read it and it’s just sitting there.

Leigh Chalker (41:06):
That’s right, mate. If it doesn’t, you’ve got to be dubious on the person that says, I’ve read this.

Nicole Kane (41:11):
Oh, I love comics, but I haven’t touched them. But that’s nice. That’s for you.

Leigh Chalker (41:15):
Yeah. Yeah, that’s correct.

Nicole Kane (41:16):
Mine are a mess on my shelf.

Leigh Chalker (41:18):
No, I look, I’ve be honest with you. Oh man, I haven’t bought, I’ve really just been thoroughly Australian comics of late and yeah, I’ve got a few that copper flogging, I’ve always said in particular, I mean I’ve got like you man, there’s three or four that they’re there in case they’re never far away. The crow is one of them. Yes,

Nicole Kane (41:50):
Absolutely.

Leigh Chalker (41:51):
Yeah. Since I was a little boy, I love that. And I’m pretty big on that, but most people know that. I mean, there’s heaps, man. There’s boxes and boxes of ’em some. Is it that good? Damn.

Nicole Kane (42:05):
It is. It really is.

Leigh Chalker (42:10):
Man. A lot of my 2000 ad stuff, slain A, B, C Warriors, if anyone’s ever heard of them. I’m a huge A, B, C Warriors fan too. Things like that. So they’re always on the go. And man, they’re not in good. Nick, let me tell you, I’ve had to rest staple some of those. I’ve even taped them and wrap tape around them. You know what I mean? Keep them together. And when I was younger, this is how, I dunno, but in England, there used to be a Marvel. Marvel used to publish in uk, so it was called Marvel uk. And their creators and artists used to get licences for transformers and things like that. And their Transformers comics man were, you had the cartoon in America, which was all sort a bit dull. But then you had the English version, which was Transformers being decapitated, torn apart. It was like two separate worlds, man of what is going on here. This is

Nicole Kane (43:18):
The PG version, this is the dull

Leigh Chalker (43:20):
Version. And they were putting it all out there and it’s really amazing stuff. And those comic books, men fell apart to the point where I used to trim them and trim around the panelling and stick them in a four plastic sleeves them in folders and just so I could keep them and read them. That’s how much I loved them. And I still love them. I still wish I had them. I don’t ever actually know what happened to them. I might have to try and dig through and find some. So you got me on a track there. Goodness,

Nicole Kane (43:52):
I rant. We love

Leigh Chalker (43:54):
That. Yeah, I

Nicole Kane (43:55):
Ran a lot. I think people find that of me when I go to a convention is that when you are standing at the table, I just start talking and it’s great that nothing, nothing. It’s great fun.

Leigh Chalker (44:07):
That’s the beauty of having vocal chords and operative intellect and mouth and stuff like that. You got to express yourself, man. I think expressing yourself is good as long as

Nicole Kane (44:23):
I love it. I love it. So I love talking to people at conventions. I love having a chat, especially love talking about the comics. Most people come to me if they’re just starting, so they just want to know how to get into it, how to start it, stuff like that. And I just love it.

Leigh Chalker (44:41):
Alright, well let’s take you back to that then. I’m Little Lee. Little Lee. Yeah, little Lee, believe it or not, you can even imagine me being, let’s say four foot tall looking like I am now with the beard and shit. If you really want to, we’re on a creative vein, so it’s like, let’s roll with that. And I’m like Nicole and Nicole, how do I get started? So take us back to where you got started, man, and where you decided, how did you get it happen? A Kickstarter, you jump in, how’d you find your first artist? What was your dance?

Nicole Kane (45:19):
I think what I say to a lot of people is start with Ashcans, which are the small 10 page stories. I find that they’re the easiest to write and it’s easy to find somebody who wants to do a 10 page story with you. It’s harder to find somebody to get 24 pages consistently in issues or even pump out a graphic novel or something like that. It’s really difficult. So it’s a lot easier to start smaller from there. Then you can see if you like the artists or not too. You get that choice if they were difficult to work with, you can just go, okay, well,

(46:01)
But if they’re not and if they’re really good, then you can go, Hey, I would like to do more. Are you up for more? And then they can go, oh yeah, I loved it. Or nah, I’d rather just do pinups or something like that. And that’s where I started. I think I started with three or four of them and then I put those up online and then I just started talking to people on Facebook and they were like, oh, you want to write? Do you want to do this with me? Do you want to work with this with me? And that’s how it all kind of just fell together, thankfully.

Leigh Chalker (46:36):
And you injected yourself into the Australian comic book community via the socials because look,

Nicole Kane (46:41):
I did. Yeah, Facebook was the big one. If you can get on Facebook and join all the groups and everything like that, that’s where you’re going to find a lot of support. That’s where you’re going to find a lot of people. That’s where you’re going to meet a lot of artists who are also just starting out. Wait, is Canin a comic? What is that? I wish. I wish, dear God, I wish. No, I suck at drawing. I absolutely fail miserably. But that’s where I found a lot of my artists was through Facebook. And it is a trial and error. I’m not going to lie. I found a lot of people who I love working with and a lot of people that I just had to stop working with because it didn’t work. And that’s part and parcel of the whole thing as well. Don’t give up just because somebody can’t finish the work or that the project failed on the first attempt.

(47:35)
Okay, one of my first comics. Loved it to death, put a lot of effort into doing the first issue. It is terrible. I will rewrite it. It was garbage, but I loved doing it. I loved the idea. I’m still got the idea, so I won’t let go of that idea. But the first attempt was really bad and I can see that now looking back. So I think I had to make that fall to get back up and go, okay, I made that mistake. I now know what I’m doing. And that’s what I find at the conventions too. I’m always learning. Every time I go to a convention, I’m always learning something new. How to better merchandise or format or just even just to get people’s attention. Just say hi, how’s it going? So I think that that’s another really good starting point for people is just to immerse yourself in the community.

(48:33)
And it doesn’t matter which community you’re in, whether you’re an American or an Australian or a New Zealander or whatever, go find your community and just start talking to people. Everyone in the Australian community scene is so friendly and so lovely. And honestly, I don’t think I’ve met a bad person in our community, which is just astonishing. So that’s where I go to, especially when I just need a little pick me up or a little reminder of why I’m doing this. Just chat to somebody and go, Hey, how are you going? What are you working on? And they tell you. And then you start talking and then it’s like you’ve been talking for four hours. But that’s where I started. I started with little stories. I’ve put them all into a big anthology now, which is great. I have a big book with it now, and I think that’s where most people should go with that idea.

(49:35)
When I was starting, I did enter a lot of anthologies online, put my, it was like, what was it? Two to five pages I think was the starting, asking for everybody. And then they would sometimes pair you up with an artist or you could find your own. So I did one for Kullu was hard to spell. That was one of my first big ones that I got into. And I was so excited to get into it because it was a big book, big production. I love working on it. I want to go onto the next one. I think they’re taking bids for the next one now. But that was sort of a good learning experience because I got an artist to do the work with me. Absolutely loved working with her. And then that kind of opened the door to more artists who are like, oh, I know you from that book.

(50:31)
So even though it’s small and it’s only two or four pages, it’s still worth it because then you get to connect with everyone else who’s working on that project. And when that all clicks in, people, you read their work, they’ll read yours and somebody might go, Hey, I really loved your story. Can I work with you? Or do you want to work together? And you can go, absolutely, I’d love to. So it’s things like that, even though they may seem tiny, they’re actually quite big. And I still enter anthologies now, even though I’m working on my own stuff and I’ve got my own books and everything. I still go looking for anthologies I can enter because I just love doing them. It’s just another little thing, especially when I’m stuck. I’ll just do a two or four pager and it’ll almost reset everything. And you feel like you can start again and you’re like, oh, okay, okay, okay. Now I’m okay. I can go back to my own work.

Leigh Chalker (51:30):
Yeah, yeah. No, I mean I understand that completely too. I’m a bit like that with my artwork. Sometimes you can get really bogged down in a story and you finish it and you just feel like you just need a creative bath, I guess to a certain extent, refresh, get some new ideas flowing and then come back to what you’re doing later on or whatever. But one thing I like what you said there, mate, is, and I think it’s important, it something that I’ve learned is you never do stop learning. And I don’t think, and if you think you know it all, man, you are way down the bottom.

Nicole Kane (52:18):
I just learned how to use TikTok for the first time a couple of months ago. And I feel old. I feel old. How important

Leigh Chalker (52:25):
Is the editorial

Nicole Kane (52:26):
Process with you? So I do all my own editing. Full disclosure, I am terrible at spelling, absolutely terrible. So I will make sure that I’m a hundred percent focused on that. But editing is a hard one. If you can get other people to look over the works before it goes to print, really good idea. Chris and I have made mistakes on previous comics and only realised it after it’s been printed. And we’ve both looked at it.

Leigh Chalker (53:04):
The person to do that mate, we’re

Nicole Kane (53:06):
Like, oh, crap. But yeah, I usually get a couple of people to try and read it sort of in the script stage. And then in the roughs artwork stage, I’ll put the bubbles of where I want the writing to go and sort of do a little check there. And then before obviously it goes to print, you’ll read it again for the 50th time, and then you can recite your own book of verbatim. And I think that that’s the biggest help part of it. I think the other thing too is that if you’re not confident in linking your story, definitely get somebody who understands where the story is going. I find that that’s a thing, especially when people who are writing graphic novels because they’re so chunky and heavy and big, they get halfway through the novel and they’ve put it down and picked up and done something else or stepped away or whatever, and they’ve come back and that connection is lost and then the story diverts into a whole different direction. And that can be something that the editor will pick up and go, oh, okay, well what happened here? What does the story diverge?

Leigh Chalker (54:13):
It’s like they’ve had an old movie where they have the intermission and they come and they’ve flooded all, oh, I had all these other ideas. And they put it on.

Nicole Kane (54:23):
Yeah. And all of a sudden your main character is in a parking lot with 50 cars. And so where did that come from? So yeah, definitely. I think an editor is really important. I would love to hire one in the future, but at the moment I am. Just me. And I was saying this at the convention, actually, I was saying this at metro com that I should write on the back of my shirt. Everything that I do, not just the writer, I’m like the writer, the letterer, the formatting, the printing, everything goes under my name. How much stage direction do your artists? Okay, so with this question, it depends on the artist. Chris. I barely give him anything. He gets maybe three lines per pay per panel, unless I’m describing something really heavy to him or it’s something that he doesn’t understand, then I’ll go into a lot of detail. But generally with Chris, it’s quite short. I kind of leave it to his imagination.

Leigh Chalker (55:26):
Is that because you are so familiar working together?

Nicole Kane (55:30):
Yeah, absolutely. Because I trust him a hundred percent and I know that

Leigh Chalker (55:34):
He

Nicole Kane (55:34):
Knows where I’m going.

(55:37)
There’s been a couple of panels where I’m like, that is not what I was saying at all in that panel. But again, that’s what you get with the roughs. You can see where the story is going and you can change it before you start doing anything solid with some other artists. I’ve had artists who I’ve worked with who have asked specifically for heavy detail, and they’ve asked me to pretty much line out the entire panel. So just either they weren’t confident or they just wanted a lot of information because English isn’t their first language as well, so they want as much detail as they possibly can. And then I’ve had sort of in between where it just depends on the story. Sometimes the story lends itself to quite a heavy dialogue or a panel or sometimes it’s the opposite and you just have to use one or two words.

(56:30)
I think there was one I was recently writing where it was like Cat walks on Parchment, what else can I say? Cat walks on Parchment. That was about it. So it’s quite simple. So it just really depends. It really depends. I’m quite light, personally. I’m quite light on my panels. I like to give my artists room to breathe. I like to have their own interpretation and see what they come up with just because that’s, I guess, the way I am. But I know some people who literally write paragraphs for each panel and to the point where they’re giving you almost a stage direction. And I’m like, whoa, that’s a little too much. That doesn’t give you any room to breathe. That doesn’t give the artist any creativity when they’re creating this. It’s just you must do this.

Leigh Chalker (57:25):
Yeah. I guess for me personally, what you’ve said there is for me, if I was coming from lead the artist and looking from for somebody else to draw their work, I would lean towards someone giving me space to just have a little bit of creative flare and see how it goes. But along the time that I’ve met lots of people in the community and stuff and had yarns and seen and talked to how they have their own creative processes, man, there’s a lot of different styles and a lot of different comfort levels. Some people are, that’s

Nicole Kane (58:11):
A good one, comfort level.

Leigh Chalker (58:14):
They want, boom, this is what you want. I’ll give you what you want. That’s cool. You know what I mean? And that’s what they want to do. Some people want to be like, oh, and I’m going to do this and I’m going to do that, and that’s cool too. But then it comes to the rider and how much they want to give of their creation or how much the rider is looking forward to seeing what that person can give back to them and they may feed the energy off. There’s so many different, I don’t think there’s one thing that I always I see regularly on Chinwag is people and people that I just talk to always talk about what’s the process of everything? And man, everyone’s got a different process.

Nicole Kane (59:02):
Everyone has a different process.

Leigh Chalker (59:04):
No, there’s

Nicole Kane (59:05):
So many writers that I talk to and they’re like, this is my thing. This is the way I do it. This is the way I write it. And they’re like, can you just read over it and edit it for me? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I’m looking at their script and I’m like, why is there so much on this page? Sometimes the bulk of dialogue, it’s like there’s no room to breathe, there’s no panel to breathe here, it’s just blob. You might as well just put a box of text at this point. But yeah, like you said, it’s everyone’s comfort levels really.

(59:42)
I try and write to what my artist likes as well. I love to ask my artists what they would like to draw. That’s how I started working with my American artist, Lauren. She’s my new one for Richard Potions that I just released. Her art style leans towards more gothic fantasy. So I asked her, here’s a bunch of bios for the stuff that I’ve got hanging around. What do you want to work on? And yeah, she picked Richard Potions. She absolutely loved the story, so I think it lent very well to her artwork as well. That’s why. Well,

Leigh Chalker (01:00:18):
That would indicate that you’ve been conscientious of a particular style and taste that you wanted, and the artists that you’ve found has suited that as well. And through communication and each other’s styles for that particular story, it’s worked. So you’ve done your

Nicole Kane (01:00:37):
Homework. That’s right. That’s right. I don’t like to give artists, if they lean towards darker works, I’m not going to give them a romance. That’s cruel. I might as well just give them,

Leigh Chalker (01:00:49):
It’d be interesting, cruel, have a

Nicole Kane (01:00:53):
Dark romance. But yeah, I try and find something that is in my repertoire but would suit their tastes. And that’s what I did for Chris. That’s how I found Chris. He was drawing fairies at the time on Instagram. That’s why I wrote him a fairy story to test him out, because I knew that’s what he was into and that’s what he was drawing at the time. And then as we started to talk and get to know each other and anything like that, I started to scroll more through his artwork. And that’s when we found the sort of Japanese style. And I said, well, I have this Bazo story. Do you want to take a crack at it? And it was like, yep, yep, let’s do it. And obviously

Leigh Chalker (01:01:34):
The other thing, oh, she on Shay. That’s why I love to hear processes. It’s fascinating to see all the different ways people work and kind of permission of my weird processes. So everyone

Nicole Kane (01:01:47):
Weird. It’s true. It’s all weird. And it’s all different. And I think again, that’s the beauty of comics is that it can be so varied. You don’t have to stick to that format. I think books are very linear and limited because they’re in those particular formats, but comics, you get such an array of randomness that it’s like this melting pot of weird designs that sort of work. I take the comic book low, for example, that that book has very little panel actual borders to each panel and most of the artwork spills out and sort of tells the story as it moves through the page, which is very clever and I particularly enjoy that. I don’t like it when people put blocks and very segmented panels. I like it when the art can flow, but again, that’s just my preference and Chris has picked up on that. He’s very much picked up on that, especially with your Highness. Your Highness. There are some pages that just don’t have panels at all and that are just images that interlock with each other to make this page, which is beautiful. I absolutely love it. And I think that’s another thing that’s

Leigh Chalker (01:03:05):
The interpretation of it too, man. Because see, one thing, I grew up panel panel, panel panel, panel panel, and then I always look, this is just me. I always thought, look, why don’t they use a love Low?

Nicole Kane (01:03:24):
I want it so badly. I actually saw it in Melbourne and I was this close to buying it, but I knew that my weight limit was going to be terrible, so I was like, you know what? I’m just going to order it and get all comics to ship it up to me. I’m done.

Leigh Chalker (01:03:38):
Yeah, it’s good.

Nicole Kane (01:03:39):
Yeah, it’s beautiful. If you guys haven’t read it, absolutely go and read it. I’m dying to know the rest of it, but I wanted to find that one page here. Is this one Possibly.

Leigh Chalker (01:03:52):
Are you going to show low now because

Nicole Kane (01:03:54):
No, no, no. This is yh. So as you can see these pages, they’re not strict panels. They’re more sort of little images that sort of click together. And I really like that about, especially when I’m working on comics. I think it’s just something interesting that breaks it up. It’s not the same thing, but

Leigh Chalker (01:04:22):
Man, I’m a big, I like using the whole page. I don’t see why panels and bleeds and that should stop you. You know what I mean?

Nicole Kane (01:04:33):
No, no. Use the entire area you have a hot page play with.

Leigh Chalker (01:04:36):
Yeah, no, I’m a hundred percent with you, man. That’s where I sort of lean to as well in terms of where I’m heading. And that just, I think it just adds a little bit more fluidity. It adds a little bit more. I just sometimes think, I don’t get involved in Facebook conversations, but there are people with opinions and stuff and that’s okay. It’s fine. Love, peace, harmony, all that sort of stuff, do you think? But I find sometimes that someone said to me a long time ago is too much think not enough. Do you know what I mean? And sometimes you got to just go, man, just try and do it. I always used to run into trouble and I’d be like, oh, I’ve got to do this. I got to do that. I got to do sometimes just the fun you are discovering, even though you’ve got your lane and you know what you like and you’ve got it together, man, you’ve got your thing happening. No, you’re pretty solid. An NS can product, man. So you’ve got

Nicole Kane (01:05:59):
Well, yeah, that’s actually true. That’s actually true. You probably could pick mine from a lineup, but just from where I started, I actually wanted to do DC first. That was where I was pointed. I was pointed towards DC and then about a year or two in, I said, no, I don’t want to do well, to work for DC would be an absolute dream come true. But I think the other companies like Image and Valiant and Vault and who’s the other one? There’s Uni Press, all of the littler ones that sit underneath that are producing some ridiculously good work and the stories are so rich and just full of not only emotions but characters that you just want to keep reading. That’s why Saga’s gone on for so long. The character development is just insane. So that’s where I wanted to sort of steer towards now. And I’m like, it’s not just linear anymore. It’s not just the big two. It’s so many comic book companies that are coming out of the woodwork that are producing incredible stories. And anything can be made into a TV show nowadays too. That’s a whole new world of comics. Look at the boys for God’s sake. That’s just skyrocketed.

Leigh Chalker (01:07:27):
Do you find that when you are creating something or an idea, this just interesting topic, while we’re talking about the TV show side of things, it’s something that just popped into my head over time. When you’re creating something, do you think to yourself, I think this would make a great comic book, or do you think this will make a great comic book? I could see this becoming a TV show or a cartoon. You did mention. What’s the motivation between things?

Nicole Kane (01:07:58):
Look, if yh became a TV show, I’m not going to say no to that at all. Actually. There’s one actress who would be amazing to play. So this is the bad character there a hundred percent. I’ve got an actress that would be fantastic to play her her, but again, that’s just the cherry on top. That is not the whole reason I do comics because I like books. I like books with pictures. I guess I’m a giant child. I like the books. Look at Me go that, Nicole, that makes

Leigh Chalker (01:08:33):
Cool. No stress. You’re not alone there.

Nicole Kane (01:08:38):
So I couldn’t even begin to imagine having my stuff as a TV show. I wouldn’t even know how they would make it. It would just baffle me to that point where I’d be like, oh God, how are you doing this? How are you telling my story and it’s moving. How does this work? So for me, it’s not the be all and end all. It’s a cool idea. I think it does also help the comic book community, having books turned into TV shows because then people go, it’s seeking out the original books and then they go and find more comic books. So I know that that’s what’s happened with the boys especially. That’s probably the best example at the moment where a lot of people have gone and found the book and then found other books by that particular artist or writer, and then that’s led them to more things in that genre that they particularly like. So it is opening up the world of comics to mainstream very quickly, and I think that’s the best part about it. But stuff like 300, I didn’t know that that was a comic book. I thought that was just a movie. And then it was only later after the movie came out that I found out that it was a book and I was like, oh my God, this is even better in the book. How is that possible? The movie was great and I loved it, but the book was just stunning. So

Leigh Chalker (01:10:07):
I discovered 300, believe it or not, in the library, and I didn’t even know at that time that comic books were in the library. There wasn’t a specific section for graphic novels and stuff. I just happened to be looking through the shelves because I’m just back at certain times in my life. I can be a very voracious reader, as in I would quite easily sit down for several months and just read and

Nicole Kane (01:10:41):
Consume. I was the same. I would just consume book after book after book.

Leigh Chalker (01:10:46):
It was the same on it and eat it. I’m talking mass consumption, and I saw this hardback book and it had 300, and my dad loved history and I’d known about the Battle of Famo when I was a little boy because dad, it’s just something was a topic that dad admired. The Spartans and things, I won’t go too much detail, but dad liked history and I got brought up on history. I was, and I went 300, you’re all

Nicole Kane (01:11:22):
Keep going, keep going. I’m just sneezing or trying to hold a sneeze.

Leigh Chalker (01:11:28):
Yeah, I pondered. Is that the battle? So I pulled it out, looked at it, and I was like, Frank Miller, hang on a minute. I didn’t know he did this. And I’d just finished reading some Sin City stuff and I would’ve been like, where? Come from? Took it home and thought like Wows now that’d make a good movie. And then about a year later, that’s movie. Hang on, isn’t that,

Nicole Kane (01:11:56):
It was like Old guard. I read Old Guard and then Greg was like, yeah, we’re making a movie of it for Netflix. And I’m just like, why did I see that happening? Why did I foresee this? But

Leigh Chalker (01:12:08):
I think something, that’s why I wonder. Some things just, I don’t know, maybe they just appeal more to the sensibilities of a film than they do a comic book or both work.

Nicole Kane (01:12:22):
At some point somebody’s got to pick it up and really love it and go, right, this is going to make, they can see the movie in their head almost like we can see the comic book coming to life. They can see the same with the movie. They can see the action scenes, they can see the sadness or the drama moments and stuff like that. I think that’s where they do pick it up and go, right, this needs to get made into a TV or a movie just because I love it and somebody else is going to love it.

Leigh Chalker (01:12:53):
Yeah, well that’s the wonderful thing about both mediums, man, and I mean in the world today I guess, of comic books and novels being translated to film and television shows and stuff. I mean imagine, I dunno whether it was luck or divine intervention or the quality of the product at the time, but I’ll go back to The Crow being this small independent comic book in America that bounced around a couple of different publishers and took the men in seven, eight years to get it together after going through life’s up and downs and turmoil and stuff. And then for someone, I think it was a producer that just randomly walked into a comic bookshop one day

Nicole Kane (01:13:49):
Randomly found it and then made the movie, which became a cult classic

Leigh Chalker (01:13:53):
And read. It just went, that’d be a good movie. And then you book off. So I mean luck, whether

Nicole Kane (01:14:01):
In saying that they have picked up some amazing comics and made terrible movies.

Leigh Chalker (01:14:06):
Oh yeah,

Nicole Kane (01:14:07):
Bloodshot. I read the comic, loved the comic, they made the movie. I was just like, what did they do? What did they do? But

Leigh Chalker (01:14:18):
I think that’s

Nicole Kane (01:14:19):
The gamble.

Leigh Chalker (01:14:24):
I try to, I don’t know, I guess I don’t really watch a lot of superhero stuff. I haven’t seen the new season of the Boys and that I find that I have to have my brain in the

Nicole Kane (01:14:42):
You have to be in the right head space for the boys. Yeah.

Leigh Chalker (01:14:44):
Yeah, I do. And I’ve, I’ve been creating for the last couple of months. So when I tend to create and I’m in my little zone of drawing and writing and painting and stuff, I don’t have a lot of content going. I find it just, I don’t know, it sparks things that aren’t like what I’m doing at the time.

Nicole Kane (01:15:06):
I’m the same. I’m the same. I usually lock myself into music and don’t have anything on the tv. I just need to create my own world. Then you start copying lines and

Leigh Chalker (01:15:16):
You don’t realise you’re doing it. It’s just a subliminal thing. And it’s not until you go back and you go, hang on a minute.

Nicole Kane (01:15:22):
I’ve read that before.

Leigh Chalker (01:15:24):
Yes. So yeah, I found what I generally do, man, is I go through a voracious period at the moment, seeing I’ve got that issue done and my next little thing’s happening. I’ve got my comic books that I’ve stacked up and I’ve got my novel and those sorts of things. And over the next month, six weeks, it’s a case of, yeah, it’s just hanging out with me dogs and working and reading. And then it’ll be time to like, okay, next thing. So I don’t know, man, I guess that is a weird creative process of mine is

(01:16:06)
Stick my head into it and go, my mate said to me, he goes, because a sporty dude, and I hadn’t thought about this analogy before, but he said, it’s like you’re preparing for a marathon to start your comics, man. It’s like you stop and you go into rest mode for a month or two and you get everything together. You’re sort of training a little bit. And then as you get things together, you pick up the train and you pick up the train and then when you’re ready to go, it’s race day and then it’s like bang, you’re in

Nicole Kane (01:16:39):
In that zone. If anyone disturbs you when you’re in that zone, get the hell out of my house and then no

Leigh Chalker (01:16:46):
For period. And it’s like,

Nicole Kane (01:16:47):
No. And then they’re just like, where did you go? Why don’t you ever leave the house working? I actually have a joke at work. My work have a normal day job as well, and I work friends know about this and everything and they’re like, oh, what are you going to do when you go home? They’ve stopped asking me that because they know the answer is going to be work. I go home and I sit down and then I go back to work because that’s what it is. It’s a second full-time job for me. So I’m always doing something, whether it’s doing something on a Kickstarter or tinkering around with that or making a title page or changing a font or lettering or talking to a printer. There’s something, there’s always something going on.

Leigh Chalker (01:17:28):
And see that’s the other thing, getting into that because man, you sound like me. None of my mates invite me anywhere anymore. Just like they always, it’s,

Nicole Kane (01:17:39):
They all know

Leigh Chalker (01:17:40):
And they love me, but it’s like, man, I’m drawing. What do you mean, man? You’re always drawing. It’s what you

Nicole Kane (01:17:46):
Want to come and do this. Do you want to come out on Saturday? Do you want to go play magic or something? No, I’m working. I’m sorry.

Leigh Chalker (01:17:53):
And like I think they think I’m nuts, but hey, it’s cool. I’m doing my thing and I’m happy. But what I was with the process too is when we were talking earlier about learning, it’s not just the process that you find comfortable once you’ve sort of worked. I’ll give you an example of my processes, Nicole. This is how much I can’t have. I don’t necessarily have a process. The last comic of Battle for Bustle, which I just finished, I did all the artwork first and then I went back and did it the Marvel way with the script because as I was doing the artwork, I had a synopsis, I did the artwork, and then I knew what I wanted to do as I was drawing the book and then went back and did the script, the next issue, I’ve already done the script and I’ve done the thumbnails to the script. So it’s like, man, I don’t even know what I’m doing. I dunno, man.

Nicole Kane (01:18:48):
I do the same thing. I do the same thing randomly. I’ll have the whole script worked out and then I’ll see the thumbnails and I’d be like, I absolutely hate that chunk of five pages. I’m going to get rid of that and completely redo it.

Leigh Chalker (01:19:04):
But that’s the randomness of it, isn’t it? And then when you think you’ve got that sorted, then you go to talk to a printer, and then when you get your proofs and everything, then you got to start. That’s cool. But then you’ve got to start thinking about paper, and then you’ve got to start thinking about costs of paper. And then you’ve got to start, do

Nicole Kane (01:19:26):
You want a gloss cover or not?

Leigh Chalker (01:19:29):
And then you’re like, what too many questions. I just want this on paper. Then you see,

Nicole Kane (01:19:34):
And then you see the price and you’re like, wait, I must have clicked the wrong paper. I’m going to go click the cheaper one. It’s a lot behind the scenes. A lot of people ask me that as well. Do you avoid burnout working full-time job? Ah, absolutely not. I have massive burnout points. I do keep a monthly sort of, I call it a breakdown and it breaks up every single day. And I do try

Leigh Chalker (01:20:07):
Not emotionally, I hope, just comment,

Nicole Kane (01:20:10):
Just comment wise, just comment. I do try and put days off in there. I actually wasn’t scheduling days off for a while, and my partner said, look, you need breaks, you need a day off, or you can just sit and watch tv. And especially since my job is shift work as well. So I start at different times on different weeks and some weeks I’ll start really, really early and finish early, which will be my weeks where I can do a lot of work because I have free time. And then the weeks where I’m starting later in the morning and I get home later, those are more break weeks because I don’t have a lot of time in the night. So I’m just doing tiny things like whether I’m fixing something up or just responding to a couple of emails or futzing around with a Kickstarter or something like that. I’ll just do something small and not really sit down and smash out half a script.

(01:21:09)
I find that it is really easy to burn out when you have two jobs isn’t a thing. I’d say to most people it take on It is something that I sort of eased into, especially over the years. I’ve been doing this for seven years, so I’ve kind of gotten used to the heavy periods of the year. A monthly breakdown is definitely my schedules. Yeah, yeah. Yes, definitely mine too. But my year kind of spaces itself out. It gets really busy from April to, I’m going to say September, end of September. That’s my go time. That’s when the conventions are on. That’s when I’m printing, publishing. Kickstarters are running. It’s just very heavy for me. But outside of that usually is quite dead. Between October to March, March comes before April, I had to do the things in my head just mentally just there. That’s my downtime. So in those months I’ll do quite a bit of writing. That’ll be my heavy lock-in moments. So yeah, I kind of just learned how to space it out over the years. And that’s again, depending on where you live, where the conventions are, if you attend the conventions, how much work you want to produce during the year and how many titles you’re working on. I think at the moment I’m on 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5 titles at the moment that I’m working on

(01:22:54)
And I’m juggling all five of them at the same time.

Leigh Chalker (01:22:57):
The way you just exhale for five, it sounds like five, what you mean exhausting to you? Just thinking about,

Nicole Kane (01:23:05):
And I’ve got the Kickstarter as well, so Oh man, I’m on a level lunacy. That’s where I am.

Leigh Chalker (01:23:15):
Yeah, well you’re in the right field for that mate, because everyone I’ve met that does comic books has an element of lunacy to it.

Nicole Kane (01:23:25):
Yeah, because my partner’s like, she’s like, thank God you don’t drink or smoke or anything like that. Just be drinking the house down,

Leigh Chalker (01:23:33):
Then you’re mad. Yeah, well that’s something that I guess interesting because I don’t drink anymore these days either. I’ve got my own story behind that. But I found that when I gave up drinking, obviously due to alcoholism and being in recovery, I found that my obsessive nature veered into creativity in a big hectic way, man. So I guess that’s got a lot to do with me. Instead of putting myself in a position and going out with my mates, I would prefer to stay in here and focus that energy and focus on

Nicole Kane (01:24:14):
The work

Leigh Chalker (01:24:16):
And on my work and stuff. So again, but you would sit down and you would write those emails as a wind down. That would be your wind down and your little pleasant moment, I guess to

Nicole Kane (01:24:29):
Track on Sometimes, especially when I’m at work, I don’t have my folders and all the information sitting at work on my phone. My phone’s got a lot in it, but it doesn’t have everything. So sometimes I can only do those things when I’m at home, especially when I’m running a contract or anything to do with sending material to a client. So it’s nice to go, okay, well if I’ve answered these four emails today, that’s enough. That’s okay, I just

Leigh Chalker (01:25:02):
Off do that. Yeah, you don’t have it put in on your mind and stuff.

Nicole Kane (01:25:05):
Yeah, that’s it. That’s it. And so you can go, okay, well I’ve ticked that off my list, what’s next? And then I like to shuffle things around, find the quicker tasks versus the bigger ones, and then put the bigger ones on a weekend when I can sit down and do them. I find that that helps too. But I guess it’s just everyone’s learning and coping with that. I have an incredibly supportive partner who helps me out with everything that I do. She’s wonderful. So I am very, very thankful that I have somebody who does help me with this and who supports me sitting there chained to a desk and just brings me coffee after coffee after coffee so that I can finish the work. Literally,

Leigh Chalker (01:25:55):
That comes back to what we were saying before about support from family, loved ones. That’s what makes the journey a lot easier too.

Nicole Kane (01:26:06):
And I had a deadline with the printer for Your Highness. Your Highness, and we printed it with a velvet mat finish and gold ink on the front cover. So it’s actually quite beautiful. And to do that was extremely difficult because I had to pretty much filter the whole thing out to separate into layers and everything like that on Illustrator, and I’d never done that before. So I’m sitting there at 11 o’clock at night YouTubing how to do this and she’s just like, do you need another coffee? Do you need a refill? Will you be up till 2:00 AM? And I’m like, yes, yes, I will be. Give it that tired, I’m exhausted. Look, but you have to get it done because they’ve got to go to print and they’ve only got so many days before they can deliver it to you. So

Leigh Chalker (01:26:52):
That’s the trick too, isn’t it? If you go to a convention and you need stock and everything, and this is new at a convention, you’ve got to almost get it meticulously to the app. It’s got to be done at this time. Oh man. I could imagine. For me, I can imagine that I don’t run to any deadlines, man. I do my thing creatively for my own peace of mind and my own way, but that’s what we do is we have our lanes and our styles and how we create. But one thing I do like about what you were saying about your schedule, and I’m finding this very interesting because boom, boom, boom, I like it. I’m different, but I like what you’re doing. And so that slow period of the no conventions, when you’re sitting down and you spend and your time writing, I’m thinking if I’m, tell me if I’m incorrect, what I’m picking up is that’s the time where you nut out your ideas and you go, Chris, here, here, here, here. And you let them be doing their work, and then you are out work and selling the stuff when it comes into the later and

Nicole Kane (01:28:13):
Yeah,

Leigh Chalker (01:28:15):
Rotation, you’re trying,

Nicole Kane (01:28:16):
When I’m doing a graphic novel as well, I know that that’s minimum six months. So if I balance that out for let’s say start work in November, it will be done before Supernova in June in Sydney.

Leigh Chalker (01:28:35):
And that’s six months for writing or is that six months for writing?

Nicole Kane (01:28:38):
Oh no, that’s six months for production

Leigh Chalker (01:28:40):
Colouring. Yep. That’s amazing. You’re a whip cracker, I’ll tell you. Hey. Yeah, right.

Nicole Kane (01:28:45):
So I have pretty strict deadlines. I adhere those to the conventions and when they come along, so Chris is very much aware of it, poor man. But I was just talking to my American artist and we’ve made a deadline of every three months with a month in between break that she delivers the next issue and it is like clockwork at the moment. So that’s been fantastic because people are not waiting a year and a year and a half, which is what we were doing with Fox and Hound. We were sort of a little up and down with that because of Covid and everything else. So I want to get that consistency back that people will go, oh my God, yes, I know in three months the next issue will be out. So they don’t forget either, which is good. Then the story keeps going. So yes, Welland

Leigh Chalker (01:29:40):
Too because

Nicole Kane (01:29:41):
Yeah, I’m a bit of a whip cracker. A

Leigh Chalker (01:29:43):
Lot of Australian comic books in past have fallen into the trap of, and I’m not the only person that would say this. It’s pretty common. Consistency is what you want from anything. And I mean, man, I applaud you on the keeping it together mate, because

Nicole Kane (01:30:05):
I don’t know how I do it, but it seems to just happen and I’m like, thank God. Yeah, I’ve found a really good printer now. So I understand their formatting, I understand their deadlines and how long it takes to ship to me and what they need from me as well. So I think things after a lot of trial and error have just finally clicked into place and really started to get that more consistent timeline going, which is great because it keeps me on track as well. I have to deliver my scripts on time and not sit there and dole and play games instead. I fell down a lot of game holes this year at the beginning of this year. So

Leigh Chalker (01:30:54):
That happens to a lot of people, but that’s what it is. Look, man, I’m really impressed by that, to be honest with you. Thank you. Just keeping it together and things and being driven, because drive is, look in comic books, man, it’s hard getting one out. It’s hard getting two out, but to pick yourself up and have for five,

Nicole Kane (01:31:29):
Five, what am I doing?

Leigh Chalker (01:31:31):
I think I lost my five titles. I dunno how you do it, but you’ve got five titles that you got underway. And keeping an eye on multiple artists, making sure your script’s fine mean. And not only that, but the thing is that people don’t give a lot of thought to is, but I’m glad you did, is partners in relationships and that, I mean, being a creative person sometimes isn’t the easiest person to live with, I guess, or be around, you know what I mean? Because you’re off, sometimes you’re not.

Nicole Kane (01:32:11):
You get an idea and then you are gone for four hours and they’re like, what? You

Leigh Chalker (01:32:15):
Go, sometimes you are not present. You are somewhere else when you should be there, and it’s just one of the things of it. And to have a partner that appreciates you for that side of your personality, you’re very lucky and it’s a great supportive thing. So a lot of partners don’t get the, I guess the kudos that they should for a lot of creators. Yeah, look,

Nicole Kane (01:32:46):
She’s been great and she’s been sort of helping with a lot of the design stuff, stuff that I sort of browse over and think, oh yeah, it’ll look fine. She’s like, no, that looks like crap. Fix it now. And I’m like, oh, okay. So people don’t understand when you’re running, especially, I’m just going to call it a small business, me face it, that’s what it’s, that’s

Leigh Chalker (01:33:07):
What it’s,

Nicole Kane (01:33:09):
There’s so much more. There’s social media, there’s branding, there’s posters. I think I’ve got five different posters now alone just for advertising, and we just created flyers to test it, the convention, see how flyers are going, and that went really, really well. And she was involved in that and she’s like, I really like that. It’s really eye catching. If I was going to come up to the booth, this is something that I would take. So it’s good because she likes comics, but she’s not heavily into that world. So it’s nice to get that different opinion as well. Sometimes you get a bit blinded being on this side.

Leigh Chalker (01:33:50):
And the other thing is too, it is good to have a fresh set of eyes that aren’t as deeply because when you can create two men, you can get very, I guess, echo chamber into that zone. And I know I can overlook certain things. I’m so focused on what the artwork’s going to look like, this, that you know what I’m doing. I do forget about things like little simple things that somebody else, for example, are a couple of things that I overlooked with my new comic book that I was working with Peter Wilson to bring it to life. And if it hadn’t been to Peter, think about this, fix that. Thanks dude. You know what I mean? Whether I’ll come back to it or I didn’t, that sort of thing, but lesson. But the one thing I would like to say to you is from what we were talking about earlier to bring it to now is lessons, as you said, seven years in when you were starting, you learned all these lessons and now you found your printer that you’re comfortable with and how they work and their deadlines and timelines and how to communicate. And that’s the process of ever learning, isn’t it?

Nicole Kane (01:35:18):
Oh yeah, you have to break eggs in this industry. You can’t think that you’ll just be able to, the souffle will rise first go. It does not. It absolutely does not. And I’ve made some hefty mistakes like chowing through money because I thought that the artist was going to do the job and it’s just gone flying out the window and the project never even got off the end of the bat. So I think that every mistake has learned something to get to this point, which is good. And I’m still learning. Like I said, I literally just got on TikTok a couple of months ago and it took me a very long time to figure out that stupid platform, but I think I’m okay with it now. I think we’ve made our piece and we’re okay

Leigh Chalker (01:36:11):
Piece,

Nicole Kane (01:36:12):
I think we’re okay. But yeah, learning how to market and merchandise was a huge problem. I don’t have any economics training whatsoever. And then having to balance

Leigh Chalker (01:36:26):
Your

Nicole Kane (01:36:26):
Finances,

Leigh Chalker (01:36:28):
This is another process for people that you’ve got to learn in it too. When you come into yourself publishing and getting yourself around and things like that too. It is, regardless of how many comic books you sell, I mean, it’s probably smart to look at things as a small business, you know what I mean? You’d rather be making a profit even if it’s only a little one, then a loss. I mean, that’s

Nicole Kane (01:36:51):
As long as you can break even that’s a win. I think I made 50 bucks profit on my Melbourne trip, but that doesn’t mean anything to me. Over the connections and talking to people and just getting out there and getting the name of the books out there, that was worth more than that 50 bucks profit ever could be.

Leigh Chalker (01:37:19):
Yeah, it’s experience too, mate.

Nicole Kane (01:37:22):
Absolutely. Absolutely. And I’d never been to Melbourne, so it was like, okay, cool. I need to sort of figure out what Melbourne people like now I know that research is invaluable.

Leigh Chalker (01:37:32):
Yeah. Well that was a cool thing because you’re so excited. When we were talking at the start of, I love

Nicole Kane (01:37:37):
Horror, I love horror, love fighting, horror love.

Leigh Chalker (01:37:40):
What’s weird is getting back to that point too Point is obviously doing a few chin mags now and meeting people myself. Look, it is amazing how many different, let’s break cities, metropolitan areas that house these conventions. Certain comics will sell better in different cities than others. Something may be a really big seller in Sydney, but you come to Brisbane and no one wants a bar of it.

Nicole Kane (01:38:12):
That is my prime example. Sydney. What’s that? Fox and Hound does so well in Sydney, they love it. You go to Brisbane, it is the devil’s tool. Do not touch that comic book. I had a poster when I first started of the two girls, and it wasn’t too spicy, but it was just them sitting in the bathtub, but from the side angle. So all you saw was their heads basically they had a rubber ducky. It was kind of cute. That poster got me so much hate for the weekend. I had so many people sneering at me making comments going, how dare you put that up, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. At the end of the convention, I had one guy come back and go, do you have posters of that? And I said, no, I’ve only got the banner. And he goes, how much do you want for that banner?

(01:39:00)
I said, I don’t know. And he’s just like, I’m going to buy it off you. I’m going to put that in Mancave. And I was like, okay, so you think something will work and then it doesn’t, but then it kind of does. So yeah, I’ve definitely tailored my stuff. I take less Foxen hound when I go to Brisbane, more of the fantasy now. If I go to Melbourne again next year, I’ll be taking a lot of my dark horror stuff. I’ll probably again take less of the comedy and then I’ll probably have comedy for more Sydney and then just kind of switch it up, just kind of move things around and see what works. But even displays, even displays at my stall have changed. I put up an Instagram post was about three months ago now I think, and it was showing the displays through the years, and you can see just how the display has completely revamped itself almost every time I’ve done a convention, which is great, it’s like almost seeing a time lapse. It kind of looked really, really cool. So

Leigh Chalker (01:40:09):
That’s part of the enjoyment of it, man. And the process, I tend to find, obviously people with far greater marketing skills and myself have noticed these things as well, but done the numbers based on other sales and things. You found your way there through just observation and seeing your numbers and things and making organic movements to tailoring your strategies of sales and things. I wonder why people feel the need sometimes to sneer, and again, I’m just a believer that art and creativity is subjective, man. You know what I mean?

Nicole Kane (01:41:04):
I don, I’ve ever gone to a convention and looked at something and gone, even if it’s not particularly to my taste, I don’t know, it’s just not within my nature to just go, oh, what the hell is that? It’s more just like what? Almost confused more than anything. But yeah, definitely. Yeah, Brisbane was a bit of a mixed bag when I went up there, but again, learning experience wouldn’t have known if I didn’t go.

Leigh Chalker (01:41:42):
I get you. Look, I’m just very much a person that believes that Brisbane is a mixed,

Nicole Kane (01:41:52):
It was like, yes, we are crazy up here.

Leigh Chalker (01:41:55):
Yeah, I’ve spent plenty of time in Brisbane myself. But yeah, I just find art and creativity subjective and it’s just, to me, it’s a case of I just appreciate anyone putting the effort into it because with all the chin wags and seeing and talking to yourself and other people and the effort and the time and the love and the dedication that goes into this stuff, man. You know what I mean? It’s not just a case of when’s the next comic book out, that sort of sometimes people are going through shit, mate. You know what I mean too? And you hear their stories and you learn and stuff and yeah, man, it’s a battle. That’s why it’s at the start of the show. I wanted to give a huge shout out, even over Battle for Bustle to Stu Thornton congratulating getting outlaw issue one because had not meaning to put him in front of you, Nicole, but just in my mind, just for the

Nicole Kane (01:43:06):
Sake. No, it’s more like just congratulating somebody for doing what they need to do. Hundred

Leigh Chalker (01:43:13):
Percent.

Nicole Kane (01:43:14):
Yeah. It’s hard enough just to even get the book done, let alone get it out there. There are some new horror cons in Sydney. Yes, yes, yes. I’m going to have to go to those

Leigh Chalker (01:43:26):
S. We should definitely need to bring that back up. Si. Let’s finish the end of Che’s. Definitely need to bring more horror comics into them because it struggles at the comic cons. It does,

Nicole Kane (01:43:38):
It does. It does struggle. But I’m going to end up writing quite a bit of horror, actually. I’ve got a few horrors sitting there written just, yeah, they’re quite brutal. So I think that that’ll be fun. I just popped on your website and thought, oh, thank you.

Leigh Chalker (01:43:58):
There you go.

Nicole Kane (01:44:01):
My babies are good. I love my girls. I love riding my girls. I love working on the girls. I’m not going to stop anytime soon. So it’s hard in some of the other countries where you don’t get the convention. Well, it’s even hard in our country. We actually don’t have as many my friends over in America. I talk to them quite regularly and they’re like, well, I have a convention twice a month. I’m like, what? You have a what now? No, thanks. I got my little time in my year, and that’s about it for me. Thank you. Yeah,

Leigh Chalker (01:44:44):
But that twice a month, two is probably all within a couple of hundred kilometres, man, life of them, you know what I mean? Yeah.

Nicole Kane (01:44:54):
They’re very, very close.

Leigh Chalker (01:44:56):
The logistical nature of getting to every convention, and sometimes, and you’d know too, like ACON in Adelaide and Perth will be on one weekend from another, but then the Melbourne and Sydney one will be on a month later, one weekend after the other. So you’ve got to get back and make sure you’ve got stock. And then there’s another book, there’s another convention on in Adelaide, and you’ve got to make, I get there. It’s really, and logistics and the weight as we found out.

Nicole Kane (01:45:28):
Oh, the weights. The

Leigh Chalker (01:45:29):
Weights of comic books take

Nicole Kane (01:45:31):
Scared the crap out of me.

Leigh Chalker (01:45:33):
Yeah, it’s not like you can jump in your four wheel drive or your waggon, and I’m going out for the weekend, it’s like

Nicole Kane (01:45:39):
From April to September, it is every three weeks. I have a convention every three weeks, so it’s a massive block. And that’s not including the smaller ones in between. I didn’t do those this year and I’ve got to put them on the list for next year. So it’ll be about six conventions by the time I’m done next year, which is going to be quite hefty. But I’m excited. I like doing the convention. Yeah,

Leigh Chalker (01:46:06):
Yeah. Well, you’re chatty. That’s a good

Nicole Kane (01:46:08):
Thing. I am. I’m very chatty,

Leigh Chalker (01:46:11):
But there’s nothing wrong with that. That’s part of the thing too, man. Again, that’s part of the, I guess the double-edged sword of doing comic books and stuff too, is there’s not just the creating, there’s not just the marketing and the logistics. We’re going for many swords here now that we’re breaking it down.

Nicole Kane (01:46:33):
Like I said, I should put the list of things that I do on the back of my shirt now and where people go, oh, what do you do? I can just turn around and be like, read the back

Leigh Chalker (01:46:42):
Many this fill.

Nicole Kane (01:46:44):
Yeah, this is everything that I do. And my friend actually, who was tabling next to me at Metro Con actually told me that idea. So I’m pretty sure I will do it before the next convention as a gag, but yeah.

Leigh Chalker (01:46:58):
Oh man, because what else you got, Anne? We’ll get into it in a little while, but chatting to people, you’re talking, you’re trying, you’re maintaining your enthusiasm because your enthusiasm vibes what you’re doing, you know what I mean? So if you come away from a good gig, let’s call it like you feeling good, you want to get back into work, but you’ve got another job as well. So you’ve got to try and balance your energies there. As you were saying, you can keep things going. Balance for that. Doing inventory and packing for an easy bump in next week building, wanting you out is its own challenge.

Nicole Kane (01:47:46):
I am all about the setup and pack up. I can pack up my table in under 10 minutes, I’m gone. People are like, how did you do that? And I’m just like, it is on the suitcase. Don’t look at the suitcase. Look at me and I’m out of here.

Leigh Chalker (01:48:03):
Look at me, look at me.

Nicole Kane (01:48:05):
I’m gone. Goodbye. I’ll see you tomorrow. Leave me alone. I actually did Sydney Supernova without coffee on the Saturday, and I regretted it immediately. I was so dead. And then I had one on the Sunday and everyone’s like, oh God, you’re a totally different person. And I’m like, I’m aware of this. I’m absolutely aware of this. So yeah, like I said, I’m a master at getting my stuff there, putting it up in under 20 minutes, having everything set up and then just being like, okay, I’m done. Let me out of here. I’m good.

Leigh Chalker (01:48:41):
Yeah. Well, I suppose you spend a lot of time there when it’s on, so you just want to get out and have a little bit of time to yourself to charge up.

Nicole Kane (01:48:48):
Yeah, well, I feel like bumping in on the day before is a lot easier. There’s less people around, there’s less sort of interference. You can just go and set up and you don’t have that push for time to be ready by when the convention opens. And then some conventions open at nine, some of them open at 10. So it just depends. And then depending on how far you live away from that convention, you don’t want to be going at 7:00 AM in the morning to set up. You want to have your sleep in and then get up, get ready and go. So it’s just easier to do it the day before, which is what I did at Metro Con, actually had a great time doing that. And then you go around and you chat with a bunch of people who are also setting up. You catch up with the people you haven’t seen in half a year, and then you can go home and relax and then next day actually go and do what you need to do. And you’re also not lugging everything on the day either. You actually, you want to look presentable, especially with me. I got to do my hair and makeup and everything, and I don’t want to be lugging 30 kilos of books.

Leigh Chalker (01:49:53):
You go in a cosplay extravagant type fashion because you said you’re a cosplayer before, do you still keep some of that flare?

Nicole Kane (01:50:00):
God, no. No, no, no. I just go in what? I know I can stand in for eight hours because you’re standing there for eight hours and you’ve got to be comfortable for sure. I feel bad for those people who do cosplay at their stalls because they look so uncomfortable, and I’m just like, that doesn’t look like fun. But for them it is. But yeah, no, I go in, I’ve got my own branded shirt, so I’m always in that shirt and then I just change up the pants and shoes and just something that I know I can stand in for eight hours because it’s going to be a long, long time. So I learned that the first few times when I was tabling to wear something comfy, because the first time I think I did wear costumes the first few times that I tabled and I was so uncomfortable. It’s just so uncomfortable. And I was like, I don’t want to do that ever again. So that

Leigh Chalker (01:50:57):
Would come down to the environment of the venue too.

Nicole Kane (01:51:01):
And then sometimes it’s like it’s hot in there, sometimes it’s cold, so you’ve got to sort of adjust to that environment and see what’s going to happen with that. But yeah, and it depends on what time of the year it is and everything like that too. So I just wear comfy now. I’ve learned my hard way, but I’ve always had the purple hair, so most people recognise me via the hair. So that’s always a constant that I sort of have now. So

Leigh Chalker (01:51:30):
That’s the staple purple hair.

Nicole Kane (01:51:33):
It’s the staple. It has been every colour under the sun over the years, except for yellow. I never dye at yellow because it ends up just washing out and looking like pee. So it’s not a good look. It’s not a good look.

Leigh Chalker (01:51:49):
Yeah, I’ve had that problem as well, mate.

Nicole Kane (01:51:52):
Yeah, it’s not great. But I’ve had it literally every other colour. I was red and black for a very long time, but I just default to the purple now. I just love it and most people recognise it, so I’m like, it’s kind of a staple now. I don’t think I’ll ever get rid of it much to my mother’s upset. I had normal hair colour while my sister was getting married for that specific reason. And then literally the week after she got married, I went and dyed at purple again and my mother was just like, but why you look so pretty? And I’m just like, no, no, didn’t feel like me. I feel better now. I’m fine now. So yeah, they got the rare occurrence, I think it was six months with me with normal hair, and they were taking a million photos. They’re like, we have to document this. It’ll never happen again.

Leigh Chalker (01:52:45):
Evidence

Nicole Kane (01:52:46):
It’ll never happen again.

Leigh Chalker (01:52:48):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. All the evidence is there, mom.

Nicole Kane (01:52:52):
Yes. It was normal for a while, mom. I swear to God.

Leigh Chalker (01:52:56):
No, that’s cool, man. I like the fact that, yeah, you’re so organised, man. I like the fact that you’re super productive. And the other thing that we’ll get into is not only are you have two jobs, have a partner, have family, have your cat that you had to lock out of the room today.

Nicole Kane (01:53:24):
I did. Usually he’s in here jumping all over everything, but he was very naughty and he actually jumped up on the thing behind me and he has knocked over those figurines one too many times. So he got chased out.

Leigh Chalker (01:53:37):
There’s going to be an arm or a leg missing, not off the cat, but off those figurines.

Nicole Kane (01:53:42):
Oh, I said, don’t worry, there has been many a time. I have found those figurines lying on the floor. When did he do that? When did he get in here? But yes,

Leigh Chalker (01:53:55):
My cat’s weird because it’s speaking of cats, I’ve got fish obviously as well. I like animals. So I have fish tanks and I was cleaning my three foot fish tank, which was inside the other day. And I had the glass off obviously, and it’s open and doing my thing, changing waters and all that. And then I was just drifting away and listening to tunes and I heard splashing water and I was like, what is that? And I turned around and Charlie is standing balancing on the glass like this with one arm down to, and she’s pulling out the Fishman trying to get to man flicking water everywhere, man. And I thought, haven’t seen her all day. She’s snoozing. You know what I mean? But then for that one minute, there’s just chaos and fish and I’m rescuing fish and taps are going and there’s the danger of buckets, animals, man. So let’s get back to enough of animals for a sec. Let’s get back to see. I can diverge in any different direction

Nicole Kane (01:55:13):
Then. That’s very true. We’ll probably have to make this the last one of the night. It’s nine 30 already.

Leigh Chalker (01:55:20):
Yeah, that’s cool. Now we’re getting to this. You’re also live streaming there, not just tonight, but you also on the Comex network I see has Friday night. So how are you feeling about that mate? Stepping into live streaming, presenting?

Nicole Kane (01:55:43):
Well look, I’m pretty happy about it. And we’re talking about Batwoman, which I convinced Sizzle to do, my favourite. So yeah, Chris and I will be hosting that, which we’re extremely ecstatic to do because once you get the two of us chatting, we just search that up. So I think it’ll be actually really, really funny. If anybody has seen us in real life together, it is, I’m just going to call it just chaotic, hilarious mess because when we start, it just doesn’t stop. We’ve done panels together and stuff like that and talking and we’re talking about stuff and then all of a sudden we stop and we are looking at each other and we’re like, what was the name of that thing? I don’t remember. Do you remember? No, I don’t remember. Okay, we’ll come back to that. So yeah, it’s going to be pretty cute. And he’s done the best little logo for it. I absolutely love it. So I think we’re going to have a lot of fun and I’m excited to see everybody draw my favourite character. So

Leigh Chalker (01:56:44):
Yeah, that’s cool. Yeah, no mate, I reckon it’s going to be really good. And yeah, this evening I’ve enjoyed meeting you tonight Nicole. Oh, thank

Nicole Kane (01:56:56):
You. I have enjoyed my time immensely.

Leigh Chalker (01:57:00):
No, thank you mate. Thank you for being part of the Chinwag family and now, and I know you’re a busy lady, so I won’t keep you too much later because you’re shift working your comic book.

Nicole Kane (01:57:14):
I’m literally probably

Leigh Chalker (01:57:17):
Guru.

Nicole Kane (01:57:17):
I’m going to go make my lunch for work and then go to sleep. That’s what I’m going to do. I’m so boring right now.

Leigh Chalker (01:57:23):
Alright, that’s alright. Well I won’t keep you too much longer, so I’ll bring the show to a bit of a close for us. And Nicole, before I let you sit back and let me end the show, where can we find stuff mate? Where’s your websites? Your Instagrams, Facebook.

Nicole Kane (01:57:44):
Yep, everything. So everything is under Ns Kane Comics. You can find us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter. We’ve got our website as well. Just type it NS Kane comics into Google and it’ll bring it up straight away. That’s where you can find all my work. You can find all my books if you want to purchase anything. We do have digital books on global comics as well. That’s our new site. So you can just type in again, NSK and it’ll bring up all of our titles.

Leigh Chalker (01:58:10):
There you go. It’s like, I think that’s very cool. Chiche, last comment for the night. Ha, when

Nicole Kane (01:58:17):
I didn’t realise you were running it. Yes, I’ll be on there. So I’ll talk to you then.

Leigh Chalker (01:58:23):
There you go. Yeah. So Nicole up and running this Friday night at eight 30, I believe is the first one. So buy mac and cheese. Thank you red. And don’t forget that across all of comics, there’s plenty of shows for you to watch. Monday, recent reads Tuesday, chin Wags Wednesday, aus com x show, which tomorrow evening myself and Peter Wilson will be guests on promoting the new battle for Bustle comic book, which is out now at the Comex shop. And don’t forget that if you buy that or any of the comic books outlaw anything on the Comex shop, you’ll receive digitally issues one through four battle for Bustle. So get onto that. Thank you for everyone that watches the show. Thank you for everyone that supports Chinwag. Thank you for everyone that supports Comex the network. Now, don’t forget to like and subscribe Comex across YouTube, Facebook, anywhere you can find it because it helps the algorithm, it stretches out, it reaches more people and it makes everything healthy for the community and more and more people get involved.

(01:59:41)
And that’s a beautiful thing because that’s what we love. On another note, look after your brothers and your sisters. Mental health is a huge of imports to creatives. And at the end of the show, it’s just something that Shane and I like to have. If you know someone that’s in trouble, if you know someone that needs assistance, big or small, there’s numbers that you can reach. Lifeline, varying other numbers. I have had to ring them in the past, so don’t feel embarrassed. They’re very helpful to me in dark times and I promote everything that they do and so does Shane and Comex. Other than that, again, thank you tonight. Thank you for Nicole Kane. I wish you every success mate with everything in the future. Thank I certainly hope I get to see you again and have another chin lag and Totally, yeah, it’d be great. And thank you for joining the family and I look forward to that. So, alright. Remember, chinwag is and always will be made with love. Thank you for watching and community is unity. Good evening, see you next Tuesday. Bye.

Voice Over (02:00:56):
This show is sponsored by the Comex Shop Shop. Check out CONVER to comics shop to pick up a variety of Australian comics from multiple creators and publishers. All for one flat postage rate. We hope you enjoyed the show.

Voice Over (02:01:13):
I.