Owen Heitmann

Voice Over (00:02):
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 (00:24):
Good day. Welcome to another Tuesday Chinwag. My name is Lee Chalker. I’m the creator of the Australian Independent Comic book Battle for Bustle. Now that is a couple of weeks old, it’s got a little bit more hair on it than I do, so that is available in the comic shop. So the reason why I mentioned the Comex Shop and why it’s so important is because it sponsors the live streams, it sponsors the comics network, the community. It also helps out Australian independent comic book creators. Now there are over 100 creators and comic books in the shop. Now you can buy one or you can buy as many as you wish for a $9 flat rate, which is pretty good, I reckon. So you can support the comics community and their creators by purchasing some comic books from the shop. Or you can simply like subscribe and share these shows because if we can get it out to more people, that means that the algorithm has an algorithm and it just continues to grow and makes everyone happy and brings together like-minded people in a friendly community. And look, I’ve had enough about me for the moment. So my guest this evening on Tuesday at Chinwag is a gentleman that’s known to some, he’s not known to all of us, including myself at this moment. But by the end of the show, I’m hoping that he will be far more familiar to all of us. And look, I’m excited. I’m always excited. Everyone has seen the show knows I’m excitable, dude, I’m positively booming. So let’s just get into it. Mr. Owen Heitman, how are you, sir?

Owen Heitmann (02:10):
I’m good. I’m great. I’m very happy to be here.

Leigh Chalker (02:13):
Thank you for having me. That’s a pleasure, man. And welcome to the Chinwag family. It’s good to have you because as I said to you earlier in the show, I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting you before tonight, but a lot of my friends that are in the community speak very highly of you that have met you. And when I sent out the invitation to you, you were one of the people that I was like, oh, I hope he answers. You know what I mean? And I was lucky enough that you did. And with some logistical manoeuvring, we were finally here tonight for a chinwag. So man, I’m just going to get straight into it. I usually do, actually, hang on, Owen, I’m remiss. I’m on a high vibration tonight, as I said to you, and I do all of this stuff ad lib. I probably should have a list of things to say, but I just like living on the edge, man.

(03:12)
It’s one of those things, mate. So Sean, how you going mate? Whoop. Whoop. Thank you for watching. Quick, Nick Heroes, unite buddy. How are you everyone? Oh, absent minded. Hello, mate. How are you doing? Thank you for all the comments, Jeffrey beats. Gday all. Thank you for watching. Thank you for supporting the show. For everyone that’s out there that hasn’t seen Chinwag is based on who, what, where, when, how, and why. It’s a fluid show. Anything can happen, anything can be spoken about. That’s just the way I like it. Comments are welcome. If you have any questions for Owen, please feel free to write in the chats and any of the channels, Facebook or YouTube, and we’ll get to you as soon as we can. And thank you very much for watching, Owen. I’m getting into it. Nate, we’re getting into it now. Alright.

Owen Heitmann (04:12):
Yes, it’s a very big question with a big scope, but I’ll keep it simple. Who am I? I am Owen Hyman. I’m an Adelaide based human being born and raised. I’ve been making comics for all of my life that I can remember, I don’t think, not in nappies. I don’t think my artistic ability was great then. It wasn’t even great when I started doing comics and some might say it’s not great now. And as well as making comics, I publish comics, not just mine but other people’s as well. And I also am co-director of the Paper Cuts Comics Festival in Adelaide, which has run every two years since 2019. And as you mentioned in the intro, not everyone knows me. And quite frankly, anytime I meet anyone who does know my work that I haven’t personally forced upon, I am astonished, pleasantly astonished. But still it’s very hard for me to believe. So I just think they’re lying.

Leigh Chalker (05:39):
Yeah, fair enough. That’s a good answer, man. It seems like you are very busy because your festival I know has got some great recommendations and is spoken on very highly amongst people that I know and enjoyed. The beautiful thing is about it, it brings together like-minded people mate, which to celebrate everything. And last year you were lucky enough to have the ledges there and stuff like that, which I understand was a pretty cool shindig mate. So it’s congratulations for getting that organised. I’m pretty sure the logistics of things like that would be pretty tricky. We’ll get into that because I am interested because what I like to do on these shows, man, is because a lot of people don’t really know what goes into creating festivals, comics, that sort of stuff. And it’s not quite as simple as seeing the poster and turning up. There’s a lot of time, a lot of effort, a lot of phone calls, emails like to go into that sort of stuff. So I’m hoping you’ll cover that with this a little bit later on. But let’s get to Little Owen, and maybe not to the point where you were in nappies and enjoying comic books, mate, but who and when did Little Owen first discover a love of comic books or art or in that order in the opposite order anyway, tell me about that mate. And growing up in Adelaide as a little fella,

Owen Heitmann (07:25):
Look, I would happily talk about my childhood at great length. I enjoyed it a lot, but I think I’ve mentioned this to some people in the past when they’ve asked that growing up I was always a big reader. I read a lot and I always saw myself as a novel reader. And then I always had this impression of myself, of discovering comics, discovering comics about 12 years old.

(08:09)
And I had that, I would tell people this in high school and in uni I was like, yeah, I just used to read books. But then I discovered comics and then I started reading both. And then I actually looked back at the facts and I was like, oh no. The whole time I was reading books, I was still reading Tintin, I was reading Asterisk, I was reading peanuts, I was reading Calvin and Hobbes. And then once I moved out of home and was going through old childhood picture books, and I mentioned this to everyone in The Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendek was this book that once I saw it in the pile, I vividly remembered it, having it read to me, reading it over and over again. And when you look at it, it is a comic. There’s speech balloons, there’s panels, it’s a comic book, masquerading is a pitch book. So these days when I look back, that’s why I pinpoint it too. Maurice Sandeck sending me right down this path.

Leigh Chalker (09:06):
Well, there you go. Well, I’ve never actually seen that book, I have to be honest with you. I have heard of it. It’s obviously left an impression on you, especially if it came back to you like, oh, and you’re like, that’s where I started. Because one of the other things is too that one of those questions that people have is what is a comic book? What constitutes a comic book? Is it anything could be? Does it have to have a certain amount of bubbles? Does it have to have a certain amount of pictures and panels and that sort of thing? And from my own talking to people and research, I guess there’s a few fundamentals that make up a comic book. But look, you know what it boils down to Owen, as long as you enjoy making them mate, it doesn’t matter about all of that stuff to me because it’s just the sheer joy of creativity. And if you love comic books, you’re all right with me, brother. So we won’t worry too much about the intricate details of what goes in and out of the dictionary definition of a comic book. But when you, hello Adam, how are you buddy? Another fellow, south Australian there mate, Mr. Gillespie,

Owen Heitmann (10:24):
Somebody I’ve been very pleased to publish award winning graphic novel.

Leigh Chalker (10:29):
Yes, man, we’ll get to that because I know Adam’s part of your publishing crew and man, you show as many of those books as you wish because I’m all for people promoting Australian comic books, man, because just so you know, because I’ve never met you, it’s a huge love of mine and anyone that knows me knows that comics were a huge part of my life. But being part of the Australian community and meeting so many people and seeing the beautiful work that they’ve done of all different varieties, man is something that I think should be in front of as many people’s faces as possible. So along the lines, if you’ve got your portal that is sitting next to you and you’re talking and you want to book Chuck it up there, mate, you feel free. So it is all fluid. I also used to love novels. What sort of novels did you used to read when you were younger?

Owen Heitmann (11:29):
Look, I read a lot of novels, but they were not, for the most part adult novels. I was reading lots of the three investigators, Eagles books, anything that was aimed at a child about 40 years older than I was a child from 40 years before I was born. And I was like, yes, can’t get enough of this. That’s what the library was full of and stuff. Yeah, Arthur Ranon books, the Swallows and Amazon series, they were, I was a big fan of them. The hobbit lot of Enid Blyton and a lot of this, the Susan Cooper series, Joan Akins series, the Wolves of Willoughby Chase. I’ve been rereading those recently. I do as a very much an adult now, I enjoy revisiting a lot of these books from my childhood and seeing which ones hold up and which ones don’t. And this Joe Napkin series that I’m reading now, it’s not even a penguin book, it’s a puffin book.

(12:37)
It’s aimed at children and there’s so many words in there and I’m like, I don’t know what that word means. I got to go get aary and I am enjoying that thoroughly. And loads of the particular early three investigators novels really hold up. But then there’s other stuff where I’ve reread like John Aire or Belaire, I don’t know how it’s pronounced, but those books terrified me as a child. I had two or three of them that I got at a library sale and they’re on the bookcase next to my bed and I had to turn them around so the spine face the wall, because even seeing the title when I was going to sleep would just give me nightmares. But I reread one of them recently. I was like, this isn’t very good.

Leigh Chalker (13:25):
It’s funny when you, because I am like you, man. I voraciously read when I was younger and I’ve spent a little bit of time over the last couple of years going back and because a hoarder, Owen, I like to hoard things that mean something to me mate. And it seems to be comics and books and art. And I’ve gone back and read some of those comic books and books and I’ve often thought like, man, I seem to have a different recollection of this because there’s things that left me terrified and I’d only read during the day.

(14:02)
But it’s funny, the memories have come back with those books too. I once got out of a midnight mass mate because I was so voraciously reading a dragon Lance comic book that like dragon Lance novels, sorry, Autumns Dragons of Autumn Twilight that my dad decided that I didn’t have to go to midnight mass this one year, man. So I dunno whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing. It’s just the memories that come back from you when you go through these books, man, that I probably hadn’t thought about that in 30 years where I picked it up and I was like, I remember that sitting on the top bunk man just sitting there. I love him every minute of it. Dude, you mentioned asterisk and Tintin and stuff like that. We are picking them up from school or the library because my school library used to have loads of Tintin and asterisk and what you were talking about. And me and my mates used to read a lot of them. So whereabouts did you touch base with those?

Owen Heitmann (15:11):
I reckon probably the first one I read was probably from home. Dad had a copy of Asterisk in Cleopatra, like an old hardback where the spine was falling off of it. It’s been reread so many times. I reckon that was the first asterisk that I read. And there was some in the school library, there was some in the local state library, or not state, local council library.

(15:43)
Tinton. Tinton was a much bigger influence than Asterisk, but I don’t remember where I read the first one. I know that one of my best friends growing up, he had a lot of them and his parents used to give me one every birthday and Christmas. And I remember noticing that this was a pattern. I’m like, yeah, alright. It’s like all birthdays and Christmases in a row that they’ve given me one. And then I count how many books there are, how old I’ll be once they give me all and I have the entire set. But yeah, they stopped giving them to me and I was like, oh, my calculations wasted.

Leigh Chalker (16:25):
I spent all that time. I prepped myself until I was 30 man to get tin tins. I was like ready to go tin tin, all gone up in smoke, bloody, it’s amazing how many people and how readily available Tintin was. Man, I loved my Tintin too. There’s one, I think it was called Tintin and the Red Dragon from Memory, and it was an oriental adventure and it was awesome, man. And I know what you mean about the spines falling off because there’s probably, I laugh sometimes because it’s like collectors that look at some of my comic books and just be horrified where I read them with love, man. It’s like I just keep reading them, man until they fall apart and then I just stick your tape ’em back together, mate. They still to this day. So some of them are in pretty shabby shape, but it is what it is, man. What was your first American comic book that tickled your fancy

Owen Heitmann (17:35):
In a very minor way? I think you know how fads go through primary school. I remember a couple of weeks or something where we were just, me and my friends were really into Wolverine and Spider-Man, maybe I don’t remember ever buying any of them. I think I just borrowed my friends’ copies. But I was super into Wolverine for about a week and a half.

Leigh Chalker (18:08):
A week and a half. Did you just get drowned on ’em? Your mates had 50 of them and you just,

Owen Heitmann (18:13):
Oh no, we’d have three issues from five different storylines or whatever. The experience really kind of shaped my whole attitude towards superhero comics up to this day where I would, it was hard to get ’em, you find an issue and it’s like part five of a seven part story. And then every second panel’s got a little footnote going, oh, I see issue 3 5 9 from this other series. And I’m like, I’ve got no idea what’s happening here. And it was too hard for me. So I was just like, nah, I want a self-contained episode. Yeah,

Leigh Chalker (18:52):
Yeah, that’s fair.

Owen Heitmann (18:54):
And then unsurprisingly, my actual gateway into American comics was some carbox as Disney Comics Weeks, the Uncle Scrooge Donald Duck stuff. Gladstone comics was republishing them in the late eighties, early nineties, and particularly the long Uncle Scrooge stories, they really scratch that. Same it as the Tentin Indiana Jones, that kind of adventurous comedy stories, differing levels of adventure and comedy in some, but that’s a thing that really got me, and I’m still a big Carbox fan. I’m not, I’m less of a Disney fan per se, but he was, I say one of the best comic book artists and writers of all time. And I am not alone in saying that. And yeah, he just happened to be working in the Disney field, but he created Uncle Scrooge, he created the Bigger Boys, he created Gladstone Gander, he created Regius. So yeah, it’s the Carl Barks world as far as I’m concerned.

Leigh Chalker (20:09):
Yeah, yeah. Well there’s some help. Well-known creations there mate. You know what I mean? It’s Scrooge McDuck and stuff like that. They’re unbelievable. Oh, there’s me old mate Spie, get a mate, a good dude. Spie, when did you, I’m going to just have a shot in the dark here and probably think that that sort of stuff. Was the gateway also for you picking up a pencil and pen or were you drawing before that?

Owen Heitmann (20:49):
I reckon I was drawing before that. Yeah. Some of my earliest memories of being out at dinner with my parents and their friends and they’re just drinking wine and chatting and I’m so bored and just asking mom for a little, any scrap of paper and any stubby little pencil and then just drawing silly little things. They weren’t, they were more cartoons than comics. I’d say probably a good majority of them were just making fun of my brother,

Leigh Chalker (21:31):
But

Owen Heitmann (21:31):
Also just little schematics for the ideal bike or go-kart that I’m going to build one day or whatever. And then that progressed. And like I mentioned Peanuts and Calvin and Hobbs as well. That was what I was trying to replicate initially. I did a lot of comic strips before I ever tried to draw a comic book or even, well, even a comic page. The comic book came well after that.

(22:05)
But yeah, so when I was in last few years of primary school, some friends and I got together and we did a kind of newspaper comics page for the local community newsletter. So we are doing, there’s probably, I’m going to say five or six of us and we’d do a page where we each did a little comic and they’re all drawn in black bio and just real beginner approach to it. But it’s like that trial and error thing of you go, oh, this inking with a ballpoint pen doesn’t actually look that good. Maybe I should try a felt tip. And then you try a felt tip and you’re like, oh, maybe I should try a nib dipped in ink, or maybe I should try a brush or whatever. Yeah.

Leigh Chalker (22:55):
Well these are all steps, man. I’ve got one for you. Did you prefer a Bic or did you like the K Metrica?

Owen Heitmann (23:05):
I don’t recall the killer.

Leigh Chalker (23:08):
Have you heard of a killer or you’re not familiar with a Ki Metrica? I

Owen Heitmann (23:14):
Don’t know. I made it to Adelaide.

Leigh Chalker (23:17):
Oh man, they had, look, this is the fluidity of the show. The Killer Metrica was one of those things. I’ve probably got some floating around, but I don’t want to leave the screen. It’s like they had this little Diddy man, you know what I mean? They had an ad in Queensland. And look mate, I’m not much of a singer, but I’ll try and remember back here. See, you’re bringing me back here, man. It’s like Christmas getting out of midnight mass all over again. But the song was Metrica. What a funny name. Why is it so? Because thousands of words come out of it. It’s a very strange pen. News, power, and there you go. News power was the name of news agents, so it may have only been a news power pen. And I don’t know if anyone else yet knows the answer to that. Feel free to send in comments. If people just want to completely remiss anything I’ve said, just then feel free as well. Naughtiest. Hello mate. Naughtiest. Excellent comic book the other day, mate, I read that. So keep going, dude, keep going and good stuff. Yeah, so Owen, I’m sorry I veered off track there, but I have a little bit of a habit of strange tangents, mate. It’s just,

Owen Heitmann (24:31):
I can say with reasonable certainty that I’ve never heard that jingle. Well, maybe I’ve just forgotten that it doesn’t sound like anything you’d forget though.

Leigh Chalker (24:42):
Yeah, no, I know. The worst part is I’ve walked around randomly singing that song in my head for as long as I can remember. Yeah, so I have to be honest with you here, man, it’s not the first time I’ve ever busted that out in someone’s presence. You know what I mean? Talking about the killer metric before, because that was my dad’s, I look, there’s nothing wrong with Bick, whatever your preferences are, I’m all about free preferences and stuff, but I found the Bic was a little bit too sticky and I don’t really like those hex agonal type shapes. I was younger, I liked the round like pen, and the Ki Metrica came in this really nice medium tip and it ran really good. And look, that’s just my happy recollections of the Kio. So it brought me,

Owen Heitmann (25:36):
Just so you know, you’re not alone. There was a pine furniture company in Adelaide in the nineties or eighties, and they haven’t been in business for a very long time. And I’m still singing their jingle probably at least twice a day.

Leigh Chalker (25:57):
It must have been a hell of a jingle, Owen, come on ma’am. Jingle for a jingle brother.

Owen Heitmann (26:04):
No white wood centres bursting at the seams with pine, pine furniture. That’s all I remember. But that’s all you need,

Leigh Chalker (26:14):
Mate. That’s perfect. That is all you need. Look at that must, was the jingle better than the furniture? I’m assuming if they’re no longer in business,

Owen Heitmann (26:26):
I think they just changed their name, which why would you when it’s I’m advertising them still,

Leigh Chalker (26:34):
Man. I know the funny things that stick in your head when you’re younger. Hey, it’s like who would’ve thought that was in the first 26 minutes of tonight’s chinwag on, we would’ve shared a killer metric code jingle and a furniture shop in Adelaide’s like Jingle man. It’s like, it’s the beautiful thing about fluidity, man. You never know what comes up. What age did you get to when you really started sticking it to drawing and writing and stuff and really thinking to yourself, you know what? I love this. I’ve got a passion for it, man. What was the boom primer?

Owen Heitmann (27:20):
Yeah, another good question. I guess when I am in primary school doing comics in my free time, in my lunch hour and stuff, obviously I had a passion for it, but I don’t think until this day I’ve really sort of sat down and gone, oh yeah, I really, no, I have thought that I really like comics, obviously. It basically is my whole life. So I’d be stupid if I hadn’t thought of it, but I definitely don’t remember a point at which I was like, oh yeah, this is my thing. It is just like I like doing it. I kept doing it and never stopped doing it. Yeah, I don’t know, I’m, I don’t know if I’m a light bulb kind of guy who’s like, oh yeah, this, I’ve found my calling. I would never have said that. I’ve found my calling because all the information I had available to me growing up were like, you are not going to make a living making comics. So I kind of tried, but I didn’t really try. I was like, I’ll go get a job.

Leigh Chalker (28:47):
Yeah, you were just cruising, but it was there. It was one of those weird sort of compulsive things that you wanted to do and it never went away. I understand exactly what you mean, man. It’s like much you, I was always drawing doodle, having ideas, painting always. I’m an only child, so I had no choice between attaining myself really, because I had older and older uncles and aunts and things, and I always used to, I don’t know, man, have huge scapes underneath my grandma’s house where there was an old dog called Sam and he used to sit there with me and we’d have army men and stuff. So I mean, I guess ideas and drawing and creating and stuff. It’s just one of those things that’s sort of in you. Would that probably be a similar feeling to

Owen Heitmann (29:49):
Particularly storytelling? I think I have done for art’s sake, for want of a better term, but it’s not my main passion. If someone says, you can never do a painting ever again in your life, I’d be like, oh, okay. It’s not ideal, but I guess that’s fine. But if someone said, you can never make comics again in your life, I’d be like, what’s the point of being alive?

Leigh Chalker (30:26):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I get that. Yeah, I get that too. There is something about storytelling, man. One of the things that at the start of the year when I realised after doing chin wags and stuff and going through some stuff of my own and you sort of self-analyze yourself and look at things a bit more intrinsically, I realised that storytelling is an amazing release and way to communicate with the outside world and talk to people. And even though you might not be saying what you’d really like to say, you’re still representing it in a fashion that it’s getting it out of you. So I guess it’s cleansing certain things off you men. So I see art and in all forms like that for me, but the drawing has always been there for me. I found it. I still find it cathartic and try and draw every day.

(31:39)
However, that is a little bit of a fib. I’ve had the last six weeks off because I drew every day for about 18 months and I had to stop and have a break, and I just started drawing on the weekend and it felt like I was drawing with a brick on my hand, man. It was the weirdest feeling like coming back to it. It was like the pen, those big pens you used to get from the show, you know what I mean? Those oversized pencil, I felt like I was drawing with one of them, mate. Oh, you’ve got one look at

Owen Heitmann (32:17):
Maybe two. That’s

Leigh Chalker (32:18):
What I felt like I was drawing with mate, something like that. It was like, oh, it was so bloody cumbersome. And it’s only a little thing, this one I’m drawing with, but it’s what it’s You get back in the flow, mate. Yeah, it is. But when you were working and stuff, you still would’ve found time to be drawing and things. You always had that itch in the back of your mind. Obviously I want to keep drawing comics in any capacity what I can, so it’s in you. And I’ve seen your profile photo that you sent to me the other day for us to do the banner and things had an immense amount of comic books in the background. And so I’m assuming that you are still a voracious reader of comic books as well. So

Owen Heitmann (33:11):
I’m definitely a voracious buyer, best to be a voracious reader. But yeah, I’ve got several entire bookcases of graphic novels and just prose novels that I have and sitting on my to read pile and well my to read shelves, bookcases

Leigh Chalker (33:39):
Shelves.

Owen Heitmann (33:44):
Yeah. You mentioned that you are a hoarder and I hard relate almost. Yeah, almost every wall in our house is covered in books and I still need to build bigger bookcase to hold all the books that we have.

Leigh Chalker (34:04):
There’s just not enough bookcase, man. There’s never is. And it’s like, man, I can’t even walk past the comic shop or a bookshop anymore. Hey, it’s like I try and avoid the aisle that it’s in now. I know, and I know, it’s like I tell myself I tried fooling myself for a while there. I can walk past it, man, and I’m not going to go in. I’m not going to go in, but it’s some weird magnetic pull. I really need that. I’m going to get that for myself. You know what I mean? And half of ’em are still sitting there, man. That’s the hoarding thing, isn’t it? It’s like

Owen Heitmann (34:44):
Books are just great. They’re just wonderful. I mean, they look great and then they contain all these amazing worlds and then once you’ve read them, fingers crossed, hopefully I will one day read all the books I bought, just have it there as a tangible way to reconnect with that world.

Leigh Chalker (35:06):
I

Owen Heitmann (35:06):
Know I could never read on a Kindle or whatever. It makes sense maybe for travelling if you’ve gone away for a long time. But I got a little pocket here that holds a little novel perfectly, and that’s what I have one in there whenever I go travelling. And as long as it’s,

Leigh Chalker (35:26):
That’s sly. That’s sly. How many now, obviously, if you’re aware of that, you’ve had a few novels in there, so have you ever gotten a particular novel that’s been like, what’s the maximum capacity of pages that can fit into that sneaky pocket there?

Owen Heitmann (35:45):
It’s a particular size. It’s your classic penguin, which is the same size as a lot of other books and probably around to maybe 250 pages. Oh yeah, I think I had a

Leigh Chalker (36:03):
Not too light, just right mate, as they say, it’s like just good enough for a quick little read pocket, stick it in that pocket. That’s cool, man. I’ve never you, you’re the first person I’ve ever met from memory that has a sneaky little penguin book in their top pocket. I think that’s quite fashionable actually, Owen, I think that’s a movement that should be, because I like too, I, and I am wearing a shirt tonight that doesn’t have pockets and it’s strange that I should be talking to you about pockets, but this is how it’s no pockets on a shirt. I find it a little frustrating. I dunno. It just, I really should have thought about it more. But I think this was a present like this shirt and what do you say? You look at the chest and there’s no pocket, but you don’t want to be rude and go, I’m sorry I can’t take this. Look. There’s no pocket. You’ve got to reluctantly accept it with grace. Thank you. But pockets so very important. And one last one for you regarding the pocket. What was the last Penguin book that was in that pocket?

Owen Heitmann (37:18):
Well, it was that Joan Aiken novel I mentioned earlier, which as I said was not a penguin, it was a puffin, but same size,

Leigh Chalker (37:26):
Black

Owen Heitmann (37:27):
Arts batey. That one took that up. Was it just last weekend to gammon in Wollongong, so had my reading material with me. But before then I had four or five. Dorothy says books in a row, the Lord Peter whimsy mysteries. So just reading yet more stuff from the 1920s that I can’t seem to get enough of.

Leigh Chalker (37:54):
Yeah, yeah. No, that’s cool. They had an eloquent form of writing back then too, man. So it’s a lot different. It’s very vivid and very imaginative, which is really cool. I am going to move on, but one thing I will say is that I noticed when I mentioned that before your hand went straight for the pocket and it just took me back to a little memory of my granddad used to be a cigarette smoker and he got glaucoma when he was about 60 or so, man, and they told him to give up cigarettes and even when he was in his seventies and stuff like that, he’d just be sitting there and looking out, lost in his train of thought and stuff like that. You’d always see him go at his pocket that used to have the little packet there. So there you go. Memories. Thank you for bringing that memory back because I hadn’t thought about that in a long time either, mate, with your first comic book. So for people that don’t know, we’re going to move through your career, you are, man, you’re a busy dude. I mean, again, you’re not just supporting your own festival, but you do move around because to others and stuff and you spread the word of comic books and things because you are a publisher as well. When did you realise, was it your first comic book that you decided to do that you decided to publish yourself independently or what were your steps there then? What brought you to your publishing point of where you are now?

Owen Heitmann (39:36):
Well, so I mentioned the strips that I was doing for the community newsletter, so that was a few years. I think there were consecutive years, there might’ve been some years off in between. And like I said, initially I was doing that with a group of friends. Then I think it was maybe just two of us doing it. And then I did something that was, it was more comic book format, so it was like a page, it was just one page in each newsletter and they told a story that was a whopping eight pages long or something. So that was probably, I guess that was the transition from strips to comic books for the first time, even though it wasn’t a book, but it was more that format. It wasn’t the four panel gag. And then probably around that time it would’ve been late primary school, early high school. Dylan Nailer Darn di comic was in the show bag. So still at the age where I was going to the show, which in Australia, in South Australia, it’s the Royal Adelaide Show. I think it’s, is it the Melbourne Agricultural Show or something? And then up in Brisbane it’s the cca. Is it

Leigh Chalker (41:17):
Brisbane’s the cca? Yep.

Owen Heitmann (41:19):
They’ve got a little different names everywhere around, but they’re the same deal. You got to marry a Ferris wheel and some Dodger cars and show Bagg stuff with more sugar than a small child can reasonably

Leigh Chalker (41:34):
And

Owen Heitmann (41:34):
Survive

Leigh Chalker (41:36):
And the Gravitron

Owen Heitmann (41:40):
Bring it up. Bad memory. But yeah, so my friends and I, you get this show bag guide in the newspaper and we’re pouring over this for weeks before the show comes to town, trying to work out exactly how far we can stretch our budget and what we want to get, how many plastic toy machine guns we really need and that kind of stuff.

Leigh Chalker (42:09):
Yeah. Oh man. Yeah.

Owen Heitmann (42:14):
But yeah, for me, I love the treats, I love the toys, but I was always on the lookout for the comics and then so they had a lot of phantoms in there and stuff and occasional X-Men or whatever. And then, I mean, your viewers probably know all about Dylan and his Dan Dill comics and the others, and then they’re

Leigh Chalker (42:37):
Still lovely to hear that they played a huge part with you, mate. You know what mean’s still an influence. He’s a good dude, Dylan, and he works hard, man. He’s still at it.

Owen Heitmann (42:47):
Yeah. Yeah. I think I’m seeing him this weekend in Bendigo at the Bender Con.

Leigh Chalker (42:56):
Yep.

Owen Heitmann (42:58):
But yeah, it must’ve been darn deal three had little competition in there to draw a comic for the back cover, and I entered that and then, so this is darn until four, that came out the next year, and then that’s my entry on the back there.

Leigh Chalker (43:15):
Oh, look at that.

Owen Heitmann (43:16):
So that’s probably still the most widely read comic that I’ve ever done because there were thousands of those in all over Australia.

Leigh Chalker (43:25):
Oh yeah.

Owen Heitmann (43:26):
But yeah, I didn’t realise that Dylan was a one man machine doing this whole thing. So I read the competition, I drew up my comic, I sent it off, and then I promptly forgot about it. And then I don’t know how long, maybe a month, maybe less, maybe more. My childhood sense of time was terrible, but I get a letter saying, congratulations, you’ve won. It’ll be printed in the next issue, which will be out later that year, next year, whenever it was. I know they came out each year, but I don’t remember at what point in the cycle I got the letter and I just kind of went, oh yeah, okay. And filed that knowledge away in my brain. And then a couple of weeks later got another letter going, you won, did you know that you won? And I was like, oh, I was meant to reply. Yeah, okay.

Leigh Chalker (44:20):
Just a little personal celebration and then move on.

Owen Heitmann (44:26):
But yeah, I didn’t know it was a one man company. If you win the lottery or whatever, you don’t go and write them a thank you letter or maybe you do. I’ve never won the lotto. So I wrote back and I was like, thank you, thank you very much. And that started a correspondence with Dylan, which is still, I mean, back in the day we were writing paper letters and stuff. Now it’s emails and more recently Facebook messages, but we’re still in touch. And he published a few more of my, I think I did a back cover for another issue and then at least two more stories. So one, I just wrote a darn deal story and drew it and then sent it in and he was like, Hey, how about this? I’m just taking your own characters and done them without your permission. And he was very nice about it.

(45:20)
And he just asked me to change two panels. So it was more in keeping with his concept of the characters because I had, he’s always written all the other scripts, I believe, but even when other artists have done it and and then must have been a couple of years after that, he sent me a script that he’d written for me to draw. And I did that, and I also did a story for his pop culture and Two Minute Noodles comic that he wrote the script and then again, just had no idea the arrogance of youth. I was like, yeah, this is too wordy. And I cut out a heap of the words, so not something I should have done or would do now, but

Leigh Chalker (46:16):
Hey, while you were young, you’re editing mate. I’m sure this is something that’s come into you good use over the last few years.

Owen Heitmann (46:25):
Yeah,

Leigh Chalker (46:28):
Yeah.

Owen Heitmann (46:28):
I dunno

Leigh Chalker (46:31):
Stuff.

Owen Heitmann (46:34):
I don’t think I was good at it then though, but live and learn.

(46:43)
Yeah, so there was that. And then I forgot about this until just now as well. I had a stint doing single panel cartoons like the far side as the one single panel that everybody knows, and it was not at that level at all, but I did that for the Australian, the Weekend Australian had this youth lift out for a while because they were at around the turn of the century, they thought that maybe young people would read newspapers. So I did, I can’t remember how long that was for maybe six months of single panel cartoons once a week, which was the most money I’d ever received for anything at that point in my life, let alone comics. I was still at uni, I hadn’t had a job. I was like, wow, people just give you money for drawing. Amazing. That’s probably still I’ve ever been, but for comics that is, yeah. Yeah, man, they’re all coming back to me. I did another series, a comic series for the university student newspaper, but the last issue for the year never came out because it was notoriously behind schedule. And so nobody ever saw the end to that story, even though I drew it, but never got published.

Leigh Chalker (48:19):
Everyone too busy at the uni club.

Owen Heitmann (48:21):
Yeah, I would cast known, but

Leigh Chalker (48:30):
No, no, neither would I mate.

Owen Heitmann (48:36):
Yeah. So kind of around that period, I was looking into printing and I got the Seus Guide to Self-Publishing and read through Dave Sims wve of text. Yeah. So by the time I was in uni, I would’ve been reading more Australian comics. There was the late nineties, there was a good amount of Australian content on the newsstand. So there was issue one with the zero assassin and cyber swine. There was platinum grit bug and Stomp Dan deal had a couple of newsstand issues. There was hair about the hippo platinum as well as platinum grit and more. I’m probably offending someone by not mentioning them, but I’m sure it will come to me in the early hours of the morning. Yeah, remember. So yeah, I was reading of those, maybe I wrote to a couple of them, but Dylan Nala was the only one I was in regular correspondence with and he gave me some down to earth advice about much it costs to print a comic and that it’s really not a moneymaking thing, which is, I definitely don’t approach comics as a moneymaking thing now, but when you have no money, you kind of don’t want to lose money at least on it. So I think it must have been through, sorry, I’m rabbiting on now, but this is

Leigh Chalker (50:24):
The mate, this is the fluidity of chinwag. So you proceed. That’s great.

Owen Heitmann (50:34):
Yeah, I think it was with back issues of platinum grit maybe somehow. I got a mini comic, which was called Rabbit from Memory. I think a guy called David James did it, I must still have it somewhere. And I also picked up a hair, but the Hippo mini comic, not the newsstand ones, but these little A four booklets and somebody else in Adelaide was publishing one at the time, and I was looking at it, I was like, oh, well these are clearly just done on a photocopier and then stapled and folded. And it sort of started to feel a lot more achievable in terms of not having to commit to a print run of 10,000 copies to get it into a news agent, but maybe do 50 copies.

(51:24)
And a lot of the time in uni was trying to find people to collaborate with because yeah, I kept just going like, oh, I love comics. My friends will want to make a comic with me. And it’s only with the benefit of hindsight, I realised that none of them were interested in comics whatsoever. So these projects where I was like, yeah, let’s make a comic and I’m really excited, and they’re like, sure, Owen, whatever. And then none of them ever happened, unsurprisingly. So that’s my pro tip. If you’re going to collaborate with someone, make sure actually they want to, you are not forcing them to do it because that’s not going to work.

(52:15)
So various plans came and went over that time. That never came to much. Yeah, I had another crack at doing a newspaper style comic, like the Sunday half page, but an ongoing story, but comedy, and I pitched that to one of the street press in Adelaide late and they were like, we love this. This is great. We don’t have a budget for this. We’ll think about it while we’re thinking about it. Do you want to write CD reviews for us because you clearly like music a lot. And I was like, yeah, okay. So I started writing CD reviews and then six months later I was like, so how about that comic strip? And they’re like, oh yeah, here’s some more CDs. Go review those. So I reviewed CDs for them for 15 years or something and they never published my comic.

Leigh Chalker (53:11):
Still waiting for that comic mate, but you’ve got plenty. You’re the number one review guy of CDs down that way.

Owen Heitmann (53:19):
Yeah, it was a good time while it lasted. Yeah, I miss street press. That’s something we don’t really have anymore, at least in, well I guess there are a few that crop up now and again, but they don’t seem to work very long.

(53:47)
Then what graduated from uni, got it. Stumbled into a job somehow. And then that company went into receivership after about 12 months. And so then I was unemployed again, except this time I didn’t have uni to do and I was like, alright, going to make a comic. And I think I was unemployed for about three months and I drew precisely three quarters of one page of a comic and then I got another job and discovered that once my free time was more limited, I used it a lot more efficiently. And so I drew a page every day for the next year and then sort of three quarters of the way through the project I was like, well, I’m going to have this comic. I dunno what I’m going to do with it. And I know it takes a lot of money. I was drawing it US size and I was going to be 48 pages. And so I was like, it’s not really going to work with that kind of the photocopy model.

(55:09)
Anyway, I applied for a grant and got a big, well, reasonably big grant to have it printed offset. It was still black and white, but I printed it offset for some reason. So a really nice looking book that probably needed a lot more revisions than I gave it. And so that was this book, how to Save the World, A Beginner’s Guide. And that is, yeah, so I printed what, 1200? Well I asked for a thousand and the printer came back with the boxes. He’s like, oh, I did 1200 for the same price. It doesn’t mean anything to me is once I pressed the on the printer, it’s easier not to turn it off again. And I had no plan of how to distribute those and had vastly overestimated the interest in it. So yeah, that was my introduction to the world of Self-publishing

Leigh Chalker (56:18):
As that copy that you’re holding there. Oh, there you go. Shane said, I love that book, my first Owen. So there you go. I do

Owen Heitmann (56:26):
Not love it. I really, really do not love it. You still have boxes of it, many multiple boxes.

Leigh Chalker (56:37):
You’re still like them around. It’s one of those double-edged swords. I suppose you love it because it was the first thing you did, but then as you said, you look at it, oh, I should have revised that. I should have thought about that. And now you’ve got boxes of ’em, no doubt. You’ve probably been moving around and for ages and ages. It’s like, man, that’s so cool though. Do you take any of those books with you to the shows and conventions and things that you do or you keep them hidden? Yeah,

Owen Heitmann (57:09):
No, I still take them. Sometimes I feel like I shouldn’t, but they’re my upselling thing now. So if you’ve picked up one comic and you’re going to buy, I tell you buy a second comic, you get this for free. And sometimes people go, all right, so I get three comics for the price of two and then they buy it and sometimes they’re like, no sir, I’m happy with one comic. Thank you very much. And every so often somebody comes up and they’re like, I don’t want it for free, I want to give you $5 for it. And I let them do that.

Leigh Chalker (57:48):
Well, mate, you know what? I think you should because it’s quick, Nick. There you go, little mate quick. Yeah, it’s a ripper. So no good on you, man.

Owen Heitmann (57:58):
Hard disagree, hard disagree, but

Leigh Chalker (58:03):
No. Well you got to promote yourself mate. You know what I mean? You can’t be shy of that in this comic book world. It’s like, my God, if you don’t do it, no one else will do it for you. So it’s like part of the deal I guess, isn’t it? And you do, I mean that’s another piece of advice for anyone that watches the show in the future or presently that wants to do their own work is you do have to think about things like, oh, and just said if you’ve got old stock, how do you use it? You could use it as a sell on point, like two for ones, that sort of thing. I mean these are all, they’re good pieces of advice that you sort of don’t, yeah, you don’t really think about ’em unless people tell you, you know what I mean? Or suggested in conversations like this, mate. So

Owen Heitmann (58:52):
I have never stopped telling people don’t print a thousand copies of your first comic. This is my people come up to me and they’re like, Hey, how are you going? I’m just like, don’t print a thousand copies of your first comic. And they’re like, I wasn’t going through. But yeah, that’s my good advice. Number one, learn from my mistake.

Leigh Chalker (59:15):
Yes. Well that’s the beauty of experience and mentorship is too, mate. Adam Gillespie, I have two copies. Oh, we got a competition going here Owen, for your comic book mate. Has anyone out there until three? Come on up Owen. You got more than three. You are not allowed in this one, mate. This is a competition for outside the Heitman house. This is for the general popula to show their popularity. But no, no, it’s all good info because the one thing I’ve passing on from yourself as a publisher and someone that’s gone through, obviously you’ve just expressed too, learning, seeing mini comics and that primed you into realising that you could do things yourself on a low budget. Because I myself have never done a mini comic, but my friends, particularly Ryan Valer is the master of the mini comic. That’s all he used to do when he started because he didn’t have much money.

(01:00:24)
But he just desperately wanted to do comic books, man. And he’d put comic books out in little plastic folders you used to get with those weird circular clips from the news agents and photocopy things. And he started like that man, and he just racked up 30 years of making comic books the other day. And there’s all so many different means of doing it. But with you being in publishing too, you’d have the ability to not only have you learned from what you’ve been through and seeing, because I would assume no matter what project you’re doing a different problem, even if you think you’ve got everything covered from the last one, I know what I’m expecting, I know what I’m ready for. Some new little thing will pop up along on the next one I’m assuming, mate. So everything would be different.

Owen Heitmann (01:01:21):
Yeah, I mean look, things pop up. I’ve caught most of them I reckon. Yeah, there are a few things. I’ve only recently started getting laminate on the covers, which I’ve avoided because it costs more when then that puts the price of the books up and I always try to keep everything as cheap and accessible as possible. And it is fine for most books, but anything that’s got a really black cover, if you don’t laminate it, it gets scratched up pretty easily. So if you’re moving them into state or anything like that, well you could be moving house, but I’m just going to interstate events and they tend not to arrive in pristine condition, which can be fine at a zine fair, but a different kind of event where people are more obsessed about stuff being mint, then it’s a bit of a hassle.

(01:02:31)
But yeah, look, I mean I, trial and error is a good way of learning and doing test prints is very good. And yeah, I’m always trying to learn how things work. The most recent books been publishing, they’ve been done at a printer around the corner from my house. So I can just go in there and go, hey, well that is how I got involved. We were just walking around the neighbourhood and I saw this sign saying printer. So I grabbed a comic and I walked in there and I was like, Hey, can you print something like this? And they looked at it and I flick through it like, oh yeah, we can do that.

Leigh Chalker (01:03:20):
Hey, you like that attitude? Hey yeah, we can do that mate, we’ll go. It’s like that’s the way to do it.

Owen Heitmann (01:03:27):
But yeah, they’ll happily chat to you about this. Stock’s no good or yeah, we need to sharpen the blades and those trimmers or whatever. Do I have it here? Oh yeah, this one not going to be any good. You can’t feel this through the screen but me if you could feel this, the texture of this paper is very nice. I just went in there, I was like, I got something in mind. Show me all your stock. And they’re pulling stuff off a shelf going, is it this? I’m like, no, that’s not quite what I want. What else do you got? And yeah, I’m super happy with it. It’s real nice. I don’t want people to like it because it’s fancy paper. I’d like ’em to read the story and connect with the story, but if they like both then that’s a nice thing. Oh

Leigh Chalker (01:04:26):
Man, there’s something, there is something nice though about getting, when you get a comic book and there’s a fancy little extra, whether that’s the delicacies of the paper or a little bit extra gloss or something because money’s not cheap to come, it’s not easy to come by. You know what I mean? So when you do want to shout yourself something or splurge on something or you see something you want to support, you know what I mean? It’s always nice to get what you feel is a little bit extra magic there, man. Do you know what I mean? But I love, because I’m in Townsville, far north Queensland and our printers man basically because majority, if they do anything, they’re just doing flyer runs. But you know what it’s like now it’s cheaper for people to do digital versions of things, send them off like interstate, the capital cities, they do things on mass for cheaper and mail ’em back up.

(01:05:26)
So a lot of our printers here and stuff like that are very selective and I guess not as cheap as what they were back in the day. But there’s a certain beauty that you just said there that I had not actually appreciated until or thought of until you just said that. But being able, instead of looking over a computer and seeing going through, it’s going to be this much paperweight this and if you use paper and you draw on different papers and you’re aware of it, what the weights are and how close it is to cardboard and you get sort of used to those nuances. But if you are new to it and talking about paper man being able to go to a printer and I like that paper and I like this and I, and that would work well. There’s a beautiful quality to being lucky enough man to being hands-on like that. So yeah. Yeah it is. Because I think these things count. I like them. I always like nice paper, whether it’s to draw on or hold a comic book with, oh we are Shawnee. Hello champion. I could actually hear the texture it picked up on the mic because you brushed the cover. There you go. Okay, look at that.

Owen Heitmann (01:06:53):
I’ll include that testimony and sales pitch. I don’t know. Yeah, you can hear the texture.

Leigh Chalker (01:07:01):
Yeah, just like rubbing it man voraciously so that the textures noise mate, you could even spprt it up mate, put a loudspeaker in front of it and people be wondering what that lovely scratchy noise is. And you can give the credit to the paper. Can I ask you a favour? If you could hold that comic book up for us again man, and but hang on, can you bring that up to full screen so Owen can show that off mate if that’s okay if you’re there. We’ll see if the magic’s happening, mate. There we go. Alright, so sun, sand and self doubt. Very nice. When did you do that one mate?

Owen Heitmann (01:07:46):
This one came out last year.

Leigh Chalker (01:07:48):
So that’s your brand spanking new one.

Owen Heitmann (01:07:50):
That is the newest one. Yeah, the oldest to newest self-published things that I’ve done. That’s a span of 20 years. So thank you s that really puts context.

Leigh Chalker (01:08:16):
What we were talking about before is, man, some of these things take time, man. Creative projects are just, I don’t know. I’m not really one with deadlines, man. I just do my own thing and just the creative process is finished when it’s finished, mate. So it’s like for me it’s like I tried rushing. Yeah, wow. 20 years is impressive and that’s a long time doing comics and being a

Owen Heitmann (01:08:43):
Between those two, it wasn’t like, that’s not my first and second comic. Yeah,

Leigh Chalker (01:08:48):
But dude, you’ve done a heap before that. I mean, I don’t know man. I’ve met a few people on this show and I’ve never met anyone, been on the back of a Dar and Dill comic, so I’ve got to tell you that’s quite something. Do you know what I mean? Because I met Dylan on the show before and I remember it was years later that I realised who it was name wise and stuff. But at the time, I remember the D and Dill comic book in the show, you know what I mean? And getting it and enjoying it immensely. And then down the track it was like, Hey, that’s that dude just becoming aware and that. So no, that’s a great achievement in itself. But when you started, let’s get into your publishing now. Did you publish it under so people know out there? What is the name of your publishing company house, however you would like to describe it.

Owen Heitmann (01:09:53):
Well, it’s called Amplified Press, and I think that’s showing in reverse, right? Everyone’s going to see that?

Leigh Chalker (01:10:00):
No, I can read that.

Owen Heitmann (01:10:01):
Oh, it’s just me. Okay. I must have set it up like that. That’s great. Anyway, amplified Press is the name under which I publish stuff now since 2017. Before that I was publishing under the name 24 Hour Cynic, which I mentioned before that I like music a lot. I just stole that from the name of the song by even, and yeah, I had the domain name for a long time, but I registered it through this Australian place in Melbourne and I had to call them up for some tech issue and had to tell ’em the URL and the person was like, that’s a good name for a song. And I was like, yeah, I stole it from a song. And she was like, yeah, I know. The guy wrote, it’s a friend of mine. I was like, ah, cool.

Leigh Chalker (01:11:07):
Small world.

Owen Heitmann (01:11:12):
Don’t look at that URL now I think it’s been taken over by a porn site.

Leigh Chalker (01:11:20):
Hey, you just put the URL down for a minute and some porn site just jumped straight on it, mate, you can’t put those things down for a second.

Owen Heitmann (01:11:28):
Yeah. But yeah, so I was self-publishing under the name 24 Hour Cynic Press. I sort of dabbled with publishing other people’s stuff. I did an anthology series, which had mainly South Australian artists, some interstate that even had some international contributors. And then that ran for six issues. And then I was like, yeah, that’s enough of that. And then I went back to just self-publishing my own stuff for quite a few more years. But I kept thinking, I was like, I liked publishing other people’s stuff and the inspiration to change from 24 Hour Cynic one, I sort of outgrew the name. I was like, I don’t really think that I am a cynic anymore. I’m all about that PMA, the positive mental attitude.

(01:12:34)
And then I was looking at a lot of people I knew in Adelaide who I thought were doing really good comics, but everyone was kind of working individually. And I thought if we could kind of release them under an umbrella banner, then it would cross promote each other and draw attention from one creator to the other. And then because a huge control freak, I was just like, well, I’ll do it. It’ll be me. I’ll decide who’s under the banner. And then I called Amplified Press because of the idea of amplifying local voices. So yeah, that was 2017. I changed over to doing that. And so since then I’ve published comics by Adam Gillespie, not just his award-winning graphic novel, but also a couple of his other mini comics stuff by Georgina Chatterton, who is admittedly my partner, but I don’t publish all of that stuff. Well, for starters, penguin Random House is publishing our next book, but I published some of her work under the name George Rex, my friend Robin Lau Lord. I mean, they’re all my friends, all people I know, Rebecca Shey Sullivan, Sarah Mil. I’m sure that I’m going to have forgotten someone even though it’s a very short list. But I love their comics and I like preparing stuff for print. And personally there’s nothing I hate more than seeing a really nicely printed local comic that’s full of typos. And my day job is being a proofreader. So I go through them with a fine tooth comb and I’m like, can we take out the apostrophe there? That is a plural and so forth.

(01:14:40)
Yeah. And then I take ’em around to events and seldom, and then I give all the money back to the artists because business model.

Leigh Chalker (01:14:51):
Yeah, man, look, to be honest with you, you just answered one of the things that I was most interested in because I love just getting, because everyone’s process, whether it’s art or I’m talking to publishers and people that do things is different and it’s what is comfortable and learn from mistakes and trial and error and things like that. From what I’m learning and seeing the success of not just my friends, but people I’m meeting like yourself now, you know what I mean? Even SC and seeing what’s happening with Comex and everyone in Australia, really, everyone has their slightly different reasons for doing it, and everyone has their slightly different processes like they have with creating a comic book. But the one thing that I have to say that everyone shares is just the enthusiasm of just seeing, I guess it’s what you said, having the positive mental attitude and that happiness to look, man, I guess it’s a weird thing to say I suppose, but just from going through recovery myself for three years, the word service comes up a lot in studies and what I do and service is helping people find a voice, bringing joy and doing what you can to help people.

(01:16:27)
And yeah, I’d just like to give you a thumbs up on that man because just with what you said there and how happy you were to Hal asked you and how happy you are there to, you didn’t even talk about yourself mate. You were talking about it makes me happy. I just love getting this stuff out. I love going to these conventions and things. That’s really cool. I think that’s a great attitude, man. And in terms of that, I applaud you for that, man. I just no place. It’s a community love thing, man. And you make what you can of it. And I just like that attitude, man. I’m an advocate of people that helping people I guess in a roundabout way. Good on you. I had the That’s okay, mate. My pleasure. I had the pleasure of, oh, about 12 months ago I had the pleasure of meeting Adam Gillespie and he came up to Townsville on a holiday and it was quite random.

(01:17:36)
I was flicked over on, as you do on lunch, kill a bit of time and having a cigarette. And I’ll have a look at Facebook for the first time today, and there’s Adam Gillespie had bought a couple issues of my comic and he bought ’em from the local comic shop. And I’m like, what? And I sent him a message. I said, Hey man, thanks very much. And he’s like, oh yeah. I’m like, how’d you get them? And he’s like, oh, I’m up here on holiday. And so lo and behold, it was really quite weird, man. Oh, okay. I’m like, whereabouts are you now? He’s like, oh, I’m close to the city. I’m like, man, I’m sitting in the city. He’s like, oh, I’ll be there. And bang. He came in and we ended up catching up and touching base and I met him and he’s another voracious fan of Australian comic books and a very nice dude too, mate.

(01:18:29)
And I like the fact that from what I’ve seen of amplified press’s books, they are, how shall I say, they’re not a standard comic book. You seem to take in consideration like a certain uniqueness that creators want in their books too. Like Coi, I assume. I haven’t spoken to Adam about this, I’m just going from what I’ve seen of it and my feeling for it is it could have very easily had been a black and white book at the end of the day, even though the COI being gold, the colour is obviously very important, but a lot of people may have diverted from that for saving costs and things like that. But I think it’s really lovely that you took, and Adam took the time to get those slight, I guess differences to a normal thing that you would see out there to give it its own shine and give it its own personality in that man.

(01:19:42)
So it’s something you look for when you are finding things that you want to publish. I know just as being a fan too, and you want to like, yeah, I’ll publish your work, but from just getting inside your publisher’s head now while we’re having a yarn, are there things that you look at and even though you’re the fan, you still, there’s that analytical side of you as well as how could I make that work? Is this got what I’m looking for? Do you put the publishing hat on or do you keep ’em separate? How do you work with that?

Owen Heitmann (01:20:20):
Well, I mean first off, that colour decision, that was a hundred percent Adams. I didn’t suggest it and I don’t think I tried to talk him out of it. That’s

Leigh Chalker (01:20:34):
Lovely. It’s lovely.

Owen Heitmann (01:20:37):
I think it is great. From a comic print production point of view, it is annoying because you’ve got to print the whole thing in colour for the, even though a lot of the pages are a hundred percent black and white, and at least with the printer that I used, he did say, oh, maybe we can run these pages separately through the black machine. But then it was a different black, so it would’ve been a little jarring to go from that less rich black over to the rich black. So I can’t actually remember, I may have run it past Adam that he could do it cheaper in just pure black and white, but I don’t think so because I think it is pretty important to the story.

(01:21:33)
It is good, it’s good. That kind of decision to me is less an editorial decision than just a financial decision. It’ll cost more to print, but you just increase the sales point or whatever. You’ve got to balance things out. I value art, I value artists. I think everyone should. I’m always trying to do that fine balance between keeping the price point accessible so it can reach the most number of people versus you’ve spent a long time drawing this, you should get some money out of it. And Adam, I know you’re watching, so I’m going to be sending you some money soon.

(01:22:32)
Sorry, the other part of your question in what am I looking for? I have had not a huge number of people, but a number of people have approached me about publishing their comics. And for the most part I just got to say no. And sometimes it’s regretfully and sometimes it’s less regretfully, but it’s a one man business. A bestselling book doesn’t make me any money. All I keep once I have paid the artist is the amount that it costs to print. So it doesn’t matter if it’s going to sell a million copies, it’s not what I’m necessarily looking for. So on the one hand, I have to apply some parameters to make it more manageable. And for me at this stage, the main parameter is only working with South Australian creators.

(01:23:43)
Most of the sales I do are going to be an sa. People are more likely I think to buy local, and it means I have a better chance of building a relationship face-to-face with someone than if it’s just like somebody in Queensland emailing me stuff. As you may know, I don’t like the video calls and stuff, so it would be more email based and then there’s more scope for misinterpretation or people to get the wrong end of the stick. I’d like to just be able to have a chat, make sure everyone’s on the same page about everything and everybody’s happy.

Leigh Chalker (01:24:21):
Absolutely.

Owen Heitmann (01:24:23):
Yeah. So essay based people, and realistically, everyone that I’ve published so far has been people that I know, either very close friends or people that I know less closely. I mean, I’ve known Robin Lord for longer than I’d known my partner, but then I live with my partner, so they’re very, very close friends. Adam’s great and I consider him a good friend. I haven’t known him anywhere near as long as those two. And there is scope on the horizon for publishing people that I haven’t got an established relationship with, but there’s got to be a lot going on in the work for me to take that leap of faith and go like, this is so good that I really want to take a risk on it. But yeah, I published the comics that I like and I’ve got pretty broad tastes. Is the essay different?

Leigh Chalker (01:25:40):
Is the South Australian market different to the rest of Australia? Before you answer that, Owen, I’ll get you to finish what you were saying because Jeffrey, we will come straight back to that because we will veer off into that for sure. That was exactly where my train of thought was going, so thank you for the prompt, Jeffrey. Good on you.

Owen Heitmann (01:26:05):
Yeah, as I said, I’ve got pretty broad tastes. I couldn’t see myself ever publishing a serious straightforward superhero comic. That’s not where my interests tend to lie, but I would never say never. There might be one that is just like, actually this is really appealing to me personally. So when I am doing events, sometimes I feel like one, the number of things that I have for sale, and two, the scope can be a bit of a hindrance in some way because one, no one has ever in my experience, come up and bought everything that’s on the table. Whereas if I was just selling one comic, then they come up and if they’re going to buy anything, they’re going to buy everything that’s on the table. That’s it. And then if you had, say, I published eight people, if each of those eight people had their own table and they’re just selling their comic, maybe you’d end up with more sales overall than me representing those people.

(01:27:18)
But then you got the, what do you call it, the logistical difficulty of getting eight people to have a table and are there table costs? Is there travel costs involved? I think I’m very happy to be out there representing people, but I can say that there are shortcomings to it as well. And then, yeah, in terms of the style, maybe I try and keep the kid friendly stuff down the front and then the more teen and adult stuff in the second and third row on the table. But if somebody’s just walked past quickly and if they’re only interested in horror, I got a couple of horror comics. But if they’re just looking at the kiddie books down the front, not, I don’t mean that in a disparaging way. I love all of these comics. It’s a big part of my readership and it’s why I publish them. But if somebody looks at that and is go, I’m not into this, then they’re off before, maybe they’ve seen the entire scope of what’s on offer. Whereas me, I’m like, yeah, I love all of these products. If I was coming up to the table, I like to think that I would be buying everything there. But yeah, that’s kind of how I’ve always approach.

Leigh Chalker (01:28:35):
I would think that probably, I’m not a publisher, but from what you are just talking about there, I completely get it because it’s like one of the first things that you’d have to do is I guess changing when you do your own comic book just as a singular for you, you do it for yourself first. So it has to be reach a certain level of appeal and happiness within you to put it out there. So I would assume if I was a publisher, I would follow the same path as you man, have an open mind and what struck me and resonated with me would be something that I’d go to. I also like the fact that your locally minded and you want to work in a closer knit with other artists in South Australia. I totally get that. And my train of thought was going exactly the way Jeffrey beats his question that popped up again, says, can you swing that back up please mate? So I can ask Owen that accurately from Jeffrey Beats Owen, as we touched on previous to the show, and this is something I did want to get into because I’ve had other South Australian creators on here before and I am friends with them and friends with people that are collectors and stuff down your way, man, it’s a hummon market. So for Jeffrey Beat’s question, is the South Australian market different to the rest of Australia? What are your thoughts on that question?

Owen Heitmann (01:30:13):
I have a lot of experience in South Australia, lived here my whole life, so it’s a difficult, I’m generally pretty wary of making comparisons where I’m not super, I have been to a lot of the, in the past three months, I’ve been to what, Melbourne, Sydney, Perth, twice, Brisbane and Wollongong. And then this weekend I’m going to Bendigo, but I’m only in those places for a couple of days. So comparing the market on a broad scheme, take everything I say with a pinch of self in some ways. Yes. Just on a purely statistical basis. I was in Brisbane recently and I believe that there’s now only one comic bookshop operating in the CBD. Yeah,

Leigh Chalker (01:31:20):
That’s my understanding.

Owen Heitmann (01:31:23):
Yeah, the guy there said that at the peak that been seven I think. But they all over the recent years, or I’m not sure over what period of time they’d all shut down. At the moment in Adelaide we have three comic bookshops in the CBD, and I think Perth’s got one in the CBD Melbourne, is it two Sydney? I think there’s one in the CBD. Again, this is just my understanding, I’m not alert of those places. So just on that basis that says about, I dunno what it says about the market, but it implies that it’s good to

Leigh Chalker (01:32:21):
Me. It does. It’s got bigger numbers than the rest. So if you want to do it in a basic layman’s term, if three as opposed to twos and ones is better,

(01:32:33)
Man, what do you think of, because to me, from an outsider looking in, and I’m no expert on the South Australian market, so I’m going to take up a similar position to you, I guess, and talk to you about the South Australian market because as I touched on earlier, man, it’s humming. You’ve got some people coming out of there. You’ve got you pumping out unique good books by really, really creative people. Alright, you’ve got lots of comic cons go through there. We’re coming to you in a minute about this because this is another thing I want touch on with yours. And I’ve had the great pleasure of having several people on Chinwag, having known several people and call ’em good friends that I’ve met through comics and stuff. So I mean just with this community I’ve been able to meet people, but I don’t know everyone that’s out there, but there seems to be no shortage of, there’s comic book meetings, there’s comic book groups that get together, you know what I mean?

(01:33:45)
And talk comic books. The comic book shops that I understand are fully vibrant, fit new. If you’re a local creator, there doesn’t seem to be any, we got burnt two years ago by this or that. They seem to be very lucky. Yeah, man, there’s shelf space for you, you know what I mean? We’ll support you, that sort of a thing. There seems to be a very, very positive creative outlook in comic books in general. Is that just comic books, man, or is that art across the board? Is it just something in the water down there that people seem to appreciate? Just creativity in general?

Owen Heitmann (01:34:35):
Look, I mean, I’m a big fan of Adelaide and South Australia. As I said, born here, lived here my whole life, never been tempted to move away, but I think really it would depend who you asked. I feel like there’s a pretty good comic scene here at the moment. I was talking to somebody a few months ago who thought it was on a downward swing. I think it’s all about perception and stuff. I can sing Adelaide’s praises at great length. We’ve got a good arts scene here more broadly, not just in comics, but we’ve got the Fringe Festival, the Adelaide Festival, the Woad Festival. It is, as they say, the festival state. And you will certainly find locals who are like, yep, there’s one month a year where stuff happens in Adelaide and the rest it’s dead. But I don’t think that’s true. Look, admittedly is not that lively year round. So anyone who visits for the Fringe is going to get, if they think it’s like that all the year round, they’ll be wrong. But if they think nothing else is happening, they’re also wrong. It’s a middle ground.

(01:36:12)
I was going to say cost of living are low, but I did see a headline recently that house prices might be overtaking Melbourne, so that sucks. But yeah, it’s generally, it’s a small city. It’s easy to get around, it’s easy to attend arts things, it’s easy to participate in arts things. Yeah, I think it’s a good time. I go to a lot of of art show openings. I go to Adelaide Writers Week is a great event that every year I go to the writer’s essay meetings now and again, try and keep in touch with all these different arts fields. I mean, I don’t leave the house as much as I used to, but when I was somewhat more social, there was always something happening.

Leigh Chalker (01:37:18):
Well, you’ve got too many books to read. You’re a publisher, you, you’re making your own comic books, mate. It’s like, my God mate, you’re proofreading. It’s like for your day job, it’s like I don’t think you’d get much time to get out of your house either, man.

Owen Heitmann (01:37:36):
I do not.

Leigh Chalker (01:37:37):
Yeah, I’m hearing, because I could talk praises about Townsville too, but to some people it won’t make any effect. But just again, from an outsider looking in, even just the things you’ve said there, there’s writing groups and you’ve got your writers festival and all that because I’m quite sure you’d know Daniel Best. Daniel Best is a mate of mine and watches the show and stuff and been a guest on here. And I know one of his favourite things, he talks about it all every year is when he gets to go to the Rider’s Fest and stuff like that. And there just seems to be an awful lot of creativity bubbling down there mate. You know what I mean? That to me, again, from the outside and outside looking in certainly doesn’t see around other places. So it’s obviously got a fairly good sense of community and support and things, man, that age old suggestion that if there’s creativity, flood flooding into a city or an area, a prosperous area, man, do you know what I mean?

(01:38:52)
Of thought and things like that because creativity is expression and liveliness and getting out there and doing your thing and healthy. So with I, because we are just talking about how busy you are now every two years, for people that don’t know out there watching the show and don’t know about it, I’m going to be watching this at some point in the future, or who even knows Owen, and maybe they’re even watching it in the past. I dunno, through all the Ds and the Times, who knows what’s happening out there in the world, mate, and with the time space and interface and all that jive, this is going well. I love this question. Yeah, yeah, I’m glad. I’m glad you love it because I’m trying to articulate it as best I can and technically I sort of have no idea where I’m going with it, but that’s the fluidity of the chinwag. So you and one of the co-directors of a festival that happens in Adelaide and South Australia every two years, and as I said at the start of the show last year, you hosted the ledgers and had a whole heap of people down there and people that I know enjoyed it. I watched the videos and stuff that were broadcast on YouTube of the award ceremony, I guess is one way of describing it, mate, where did the idea gestate to begin your own festival?

(01:40:43)
How did this happen? Because this is not something that, I’ve never had a guest on this show that has created a festival. So I guess what was the thought process? What are the logistics involved in it? Is there a reason why you only do it every second year? You need a year off to get over the headache? I mean, what’s it all about, man? How do we get started?

Owen Heitmann (01:41:14):
Well, I think Sarah Cell is involved in the Perth Comic Arts Festival didn’t originate it, so just to make sure credit where credit’s due, that kind. So yes, I am one of the co-founders and co-directors of Paper Cuts Comics Festival, which has happened every two years since 2019. And the other co-director is my partner, Gina Chatterton, and we also have other people involved. Janna Hoffman helped a lot last year with the graphic design. Jess Jessica Zang helps a lot with the marketing and I shouldn’t have started naming other people. I will forget people. We’ve had a lot of people involved at varying capacities and some volunteers as well.

(01:42:19)
So yeah, I’m speaking only for myself here. I just want to, don’t want to make it appear that I’m taking all the glory or anything like that. Yeah, so to answer your question of where the idea came from for once, I have a very clear answer to that, or at least it’s factually clear. I may not deliver it clearly, but you and I were on, we had an extended holiday in the UK and Europe in 2018. And so yeah, we were travelling for about two months, I think, and basically it was practically the only holiday that we’ve had, and I don’t think we’ve had a holiday since then. So we went hand, we were like, yeah, let’s do it. We’re going to make this, we’re

Leigh Chalker (01:43:17):
Going to sick.

Owen Heitmann (01:43:18):
Yeah, every bookstore.

(01:43:25)
And so it just happened that once we’d sort of organised when we could travel in amongst our other schedule and stuff and where we could go to, then we started looking at what comics events are happening. And it turned out we were going to be near leads when Thought Bubble Festival was happening. And so we bought our tickets and counted down the days, and then we got there and it was like, well, that’s like six years ago now. But from memory, it was a three day festival and it was amazing. It was the kind of festival that we as comic bookmakers and readers and fans wanted to see.

(01:44:23)
It wasn’t a pop culture festival masquerading as a comics festival, no shade on that, that those events have their place and everyone should feel free to indulge in their fandoms and their interests and whatever. But their Venn diagram of what they offer and what I want is generally over quite a small overlap if my hands are circles, whereas then my thought bubble and my interest was it was a complete, complete single circle. I was like 300 store holders, big spaces, at least two marquees in another building, or was it three marquees and comics makers, not just from the uk, there were people from the US there. We found somebody from Australia who I’d never heard of, and not in an offensive way, it was just like somebody heard us talking. It’s like, wait, are you from Australia? So am I. And I was sick. Very good.

(01:45:38)
Anyway, yeah, so everyone’s comics makers, they’re not just selling prints, not just selling, I don’t know, knitted caps or whatever. It’s not mer, it’s comics. And so yeah, we spent so much money and because we were after the uk, we were going to Europe and we had to send a suitcase full of books home of comic books home anyway. But yeah, so then we had a great time. Gina has, there’s a leads based comics maker and artist generally called Christina Beski, who Gina’s been a big fan of for a long time and had kind of struck up a little bit of an internet correspondence. And so when we knew we’re going to, Gina reached out to her and was like, Hey, can we maybe get a coffee or something? And then we hung out with her and she showed us leads, and I forget what the name of it is, but a subscription based library where it’s not like you have to pay a membership to be a part of this library, but it’s in this really old building and it’s just beautiful. She took us there.

(01:46:59)
It was a very good time all round and any, anyway, a very, very good event. And as I said, we then had another month or five weeks left of the trip travelling through Europe. So every time we caught a tram or a train or a plane or something where we didn’t have anything in particular to do for an extended period of time, we’d kind of look at each other and be like, wouldn’t it be great if there was an event like that in Adelaide? And not on that scale, because we are well aware that of the population differences at the very least, and our capabilities, we weren’t completely aware of our capabilities though. I mean, as in we didn’t know how much work was involved in running a festival, otherwise we probably wouldn’t have done it. The beauty of the, what is it? The joy of ignorance?

Leigh Chalker (01:48:14):
No, I know what you’re saying. It’s just riding off the wave and like, oh, could do or could do it. And I suppose the deeper you got, mate, you were just like, I’m stuck now, even Pete.

Owen Heitmann (01:48:28):
But yeah, so we just spent the rest of the trip brainstorming effectively what we wanted to see in a comics festival, what we felt wasn’t being offered in Adelaide, how we could approach it, who we could invite, what kind of events we could offer, all that kind of thing. And then we came back and we just kind made it happen, pulled in, called in a lot of favours. We got a grant from the Adelaide City Council to help us run it because one of the things that we were very adamant about is that we wanted a free entry festival because this is basically stemming from Adelaide Writers Week, which is an institution big draw card for us and for connecting readers to authors. And it’s all free entry. You just, well, they do have some special ticketed evening shows, but there’s six full days of events, which you just rock up, you sit there, you listen to an author from another country talk about their book or from Australia or from wherever and yeah, it’s so good. And the one time they had a comics focused event, they had a damn it who’s, they had Alison Becktel there as an international guest and she was speaking at the writer’s festival, and then they kind of pulled in a bunch of Australian comics makers as well. So Tim Malloy was there, pat Grant, Simon Hanselman, Mandy Ord, and did I say Tim Malloy already?

(01:50:41)
Again, this is more than six years ago, so my memory’s a little rusty, but yeah,

Leigh Chalker (01:50:45):
I reckon it’s going all right, mate. For anyone that’s not on the list, we apologise.

Owen Heitmann (01:50:54):
It’s not intentional. But then they like, so this is the Writer’s Week comics focused edition, and instead of putting it out in the park free for all the rest of rider’s week, they moved it across the road to a different venue and then they ticketed every session. And it was cheap. It was like, I don’t know, $5 a session or whatever, but it never made any sense to us. Or comics are a niche anyway. You don’t want to keep them separate from people anymore than you have to. And so we looked at that and we’re like, that is what we don’t want to do. We want free festival, we want to connect people with comics. We love people who already love comics. We are those people. But ever more than anything else, we wanted to convince people who didn’t yet know that they love comics, that they love comics, reach those new readers. So that was the, it’s still the foundation of Paper Cuts is wanting to spread the good word of comics. Yeah, so 2019 went really well. The good thing about planning an event with your partner is that you can talk about it all the time and also the bad part,

(01:52:33)
It’s time to go to bed last night. But I think it really helped us particularly that it wasn’t just one person, it was the two of us. And even though we agree on a lot of things, we have different perspectives. And so we’re able to brainstorm and troubleshoot and work out the approach we wanted to take. And so we went into it very consciously with what we wanted to achieve. So we had an art exhibition, we had just one writer’s discussion panel. We had a live reading event where people were reading comics that we’d commissioned them to make. We had a market day and we had a drawing evening where we encouraged people to come along and draw comics in a group. And we’d been running the drawing evening for at least five years by that point, once a month just going, Hey, you’re in Adelaide, you like drawing comics, you maybe think you want to try drawing comics, come and draw comics with us.

(01:53:51)
And so we kind of leveraged that into the festival. So we had kind of a little core group of people who were regulars, and then we had a bit of awareness around it, and then we leveraged it off of that. And then, yeah, we just thought about everything. So Gina was working at Demic at the time, so we were able to get that as a venue for the author readings. And then because it was in a bookshop, we wanted to specifically pick comics makers whose work was available in the bookshop. So that was our kind of criteria for choosing those people at the time. So we had Mandy Ord, Greg Feld, and Dean. I just realised the other day, I dunno if it’s Dean Rankin or Dean Rankin, and I should

Leigh Chalker (01:54:48):
Guy Dean Rankin. Dean Rankin, because is

Owen Heitmann (01:54:53):
And then I was likes been Rankin anyway,

Leigh Chalker (01:54:56):
Yeah, ranking. I called him that too, man. And then after I did that on the chinwag, I was like, and then he mentioned that it is actually ranking, not Rankin. And I some reason remember that. So I

Owen Heitmann (01:55:10):
Have been saying that for so long just,

Leigh Chalker (01:55:12):
And then somebody out there is probably going, you’re both strong. It’s ranking and it’s like they will create this huge fur. But look, Dean, we love you, man. That’s all that matters. Great night for Chinwag. KJB. Good evening fellas. LAK, JB. Sorry, bud.

Owen Heitmann (01:55:32):
No, that’s all right. Cut you

Leigh Chalker (01:55:35):
Off with my randomness.

Owen Heitmann (01:55:38):
Sorry, I didn’t catch that.

Leigh Chalker (01:55:40):
I cut you off with my randomness.

Owen Heitmann (01:55:42):
Oh, that’s okay. I cut myself off. I am surprised I have managed to maintain, well, maybe it’s a little bit too arrogant to say I’ve maintained a coherent train of thought.

Leigh Chalker (01:55:53):
I think you’ve maintained a wonderful train of thought mate. So we’ve got to finish this story here about the festival we veered off on the pronunciation of Rankin. Yes.

Owen Heitmann (01:56:09):
Was targeting a more literary audience. We’re like, we’re in a bookshop, we are targeting the bookshop audience. These people have work available in this bookstore. There’s a million people we could have invited. But particularly in 2019, I think the reach into bookstores has increased since then. But at that time, there wasn’t really that much. And then with the art exhibition, we wanted to target more of the art exhibition going crowd, people who come to an opening night and have a little glass of wine and look at some art on the walls. And so with that one, we were looking for purely original art. So we contacted a few people who were like, oh, I only work digitally. And we’re like, oh, that, that’s great, but we need original art for this exhibition. And then talking pictures. So that idea, we had, Gina and I had done a live comics reading years previously as part of Emerging Writers Festival, but the model we were looking at was more the one that Finn McCabe and Gabe Clark do for read to me in Sydney, except we then, yeah, everything we took, we kind of took and then put our own spin on it.

(01:57:33)
So read to me is very open in what people want to read, whereas we commissioned people to create work on a specific theme. So there was a bit more of a structure for it. We managed to get a lecture theatre at Adelaide Uni for that through Dr. Aaron Humphrey, who’s a good friend and also a lecturer. I don’t know what his job title is, but he works at the Unior. I dunno, this story’s falling apart.

Leigh Chalker (01:58:12):
You’ll get a thoroughly written email tomorrow, mate, the identity of your secret benefactor.

Owen Heitmann (01:58:24):
And then the market day we had at the North Adelaide Community Centre, it was a community event. It’s a community centre. It’s free hire. Yeah, I don’t think we paid for it because of what we were offering. If we were charging people to come or charging people to have tables, then we would’ve had to pay a higher fee. But by keeping it more accessible, we made it easier for ourselves. But yeah, the venue only had a few tables, but Gina’s parents had some folding tables and then uncles had folding tables, we’re going around, arriving there with cars, stacked with folding tables and wheeling them out and unfolding them, just doing everything ourselves. And what Gina’s parents helped a great deal, as did a lot of other people as well. But yeah, it was great. It went really well. It was very exciting. And we’d told ourselves that if it went well, or maybe even we thought if it didn’t go well initially, we were like, we’ll do this for three years and then we’ll see how it’s going and assess.

(01:59:48)
So we were going to do it every year. And then, so we applied for more funding for the next one, and we got more funding. But then, I don’t know if you remember 2020, but there were incidents. There were restrictions. Yes. Yes, I remember those incidents. Yes, yes. So as it turned out, we could not do the festival again in 2020, but we were able to keep the grant funding that we’d received. So we did it again in 2021, and then we were like, yeah, actually doing it every two years is a lot better than doing it every year. What were we thinking? That’s stupid.

(02:00:36)
And 2021 was, it was fine. It was technically bigger than 2019, but it was a real nightmare, just a, in 2019, everything just went so smoothly. It was just a dream. And then in 2021, everything that could go wrong went wrong. Not just Covid stuff. We couldn’t use the same venue for the market hall because the covid capacity was like 40 people, and we had 40 store holders, so we’re like, we need to get pumpers in here somehow. But yeah, well, only one of the guests could travel across the border. So we had Brenton mechanic come over from WA who was great, and it was lovely to meet him in person, and he is a great guy, great presenter. But all the market day store holders from interstate who’d even applied, weren’t able to come. A lot of people just applied. They didn’t think they’d be able to, well, they didn’t want to risk it, which was totally fair.

(02:01:54)
But yeah, it wasn’t just that it was bookings getting lost for venues or getting threatened to get cancelled at the last minute and just 1,000,001 little problems that occupied my every waking and should have been sleeping moment for. So after that, we sat down and had a little chat and we’re like, what are the pros and cons? Are we going to do it again? And we decided we weren’t going to do it again. And then I think the very next day we got an email saying, we won the ledger award that the platinum ledger for paper cuts. And you’re like, just when we thought we were out, they pulled us back in and we’re, I guess people want it to happen again. And so yeah, that’s all it took. We decided to do it again in 2023, and I’m glad we did. I think it was no question about it, it was the best one by far.

(02:03:02)
It was great to be able to get interstate events again at interstate visitors. Again, no restrictions on capacity and stuff. We got away, we had the market day at the Adelaide Town Hall, which is a beautiful venue and really suitable for what we wanted to do, and we’re able to offer so much more because of the town hall being a venue, we could have a quiet room specifically for neurodivergent people, but also for just anyone who was feeling overwhelmed by it. We had a hundred store holders, so more than nearly three times as many as the first year it was big.

(02:03:49)
And then for the author panels, so in 2021, we had a similar format to 2019. We didn’t have it at DIMS again, but we had four guests instead of three. But it was still just the one panel. And both those years, it was held in the evening, and those panels were really great. They were so interesting and informative, and everyone who was there had such great feedback on it, but it was like we didn’t feel like they’d attracted the number of people that they deserved. And so in 2023, we are like, oh look, our original inspiration was Adelaide Riders Week, and they’re always during the day, so maybe we should have it during the day. So we had the panels at the city library, and instead of having just one panel, we had four. So we could cover, instead of just being like, oh, you all make comics, let’s talk about that.

(02:04:48)
We could make them more themed panels. So it was focusing on the specifics of less broad ranging questions, more nuts and bolts stuff, which I think the more specific something is, the more interesting it is in general. I don’t know, there’s probably a number of exceptions to that. But yeah, them being in the Adelaide Library meant we got a lot of, there was foot traffic as well as people who knew it was on and were already going to be there. And yeah, we had minimum 80 people at each panel and the most popular one, we had a hundred people in the audience. And yeah, that was great. We had our first international guest with Kay O’Neill who did Thet Dragon Society series and the Moth Keeper, they’re from New Zealand, so it’s like, but it still counts as indeed. Yeah, I mean the flights are certainly expensive.

(02:05:55)
So yeah, we couldn’t do the exhibition again in 2023 because basically I think we had maybe 60 artists in the 2021 exhibition, and it was too much administration for not enough benefit. As much as I love looking at original art, but dealing with that many artists, framing that many works, let’s take that off the table this time and try and make it a bit easier on ourselves. And we also condensed it. So in the first two years, we’d run it over five days. And we were, our thinking originally I think was like, we’ll make it a five day festival. It’ll be like a destination thing that will encourage more people to come into state for it. And what we realised, what we should have known the whole time is that people can’t take five days off work to go to a comics festival, or most people can’t, a lot of people, so they’ve just come for the weekend anyway, so we condensed it onto the weekend.

(02:07:01)
So we had talking pictures, the read to me equivalent, we’ve done that every year. I didn’t mention it for the 20 23 1, no, 2021. Oh God, I’m losing track. But yeah, that’s always one of my favourite parts, particularly it means we can invite comics makers to do it, but we also invite comics adjacent, people maybe who haven’t done much comics, but we think have a lot of potential like people from the animation world or even printmaking and stuff. And again, to try and help comics reach people that don’t know what comics can do, who think that every comic is a Marvel comic or whatever.

(02:07:58)
And then as you mentioned, we sort of partnered with the Comic Arts Awards of Australia to have the awards ceremony done Adelaide for the first time, which again, the credit’s due, we did none of the organisation for that. We are not involved in the adjudication of the awards or the presentations or anything. Our role was essentially inviting, well, I reached out to Bruce Mutar initially. He was running it when we were doing the planning, and then by the time we actually delivered that festival, Bruce had handed it back to Gary Chana. But yeah, all we did was hide the venue. We’re like, here is a venue, please use it as you see fit. But it was really good to bring that kind of spotlight onto Adelaide and also paper cuts. And so again, kind of falling back on a, maybe people who interstate will make it a destination, but it’s only the Friday evening as well as the weekend. So it’s more likely than the whole five day festival.

Leigh Chalker (02:09:08):
I would think that having, that just sounded to me the perfect combination of two things. When I first heard about it last year, it just seemed the obvious fit to me, if you know what I mean. I didn’t necessarily, that’s why I was looking forward to talking to you tonight and learning about how this festival came about and grew and everything. And then knowing that the ledgers or the, I’m just going to speak. I know people out there will like me, they’re not the ledgers anymore, but look, there’s acas, AKAs, there’s every name under this. I can never remember the names of these award ceremony, so forgive me, you can write me a complaint email at any email provided.

(02:10:11)
I dunno where that is and I’ll file it, but read it at some point later. But no, man, it seemed like perfect combo, you know what I mean? This world full of comics and beauty and bringing together essentially, I mean obviously your brain was thinking along these lines is like animation’s not that dissimilar to what’s happening in comic books and their screenplay and storyboarding and all that. And it’s all in motion and sync to a certain extent. There’s only a few degrees of separation between the ideas and stuff. And then you’re involving the public. You’ve got this thing happening, you know what I mean? Where you’re getting people to come in and draw and inviting people in that may have an interest in it and stuff like that. And then you got, because I know quite a few people, man, that I recognised in the photos that I saw last year that definitely travelled interstate to be there and attend the awards and stuff like that.

(02:11:18)
So I dunno, man. I mean obviously I’m not on the committee, you know what I mean? I’m again looking at it from an outsider looking in, but from all accounts and purposes, from what I saw and the feedback I’ve read and the feedback from the people that have attended that I talk to and stuff like that, it seems to be super successful like shindig. Look, the other thing is too, Owen, there’s been other guests that have been on the show before too, and there’s two things that again, I want to say to you that I applaud, ma’am, is for you and your partner, the people that helped and the guests and the volunteers. So the overall scheme of things is the concept becoming like a reality and being manifested. But the other thing is to overall service to the community man and the comic book community of Australia.

(02:12:20)
Because one of the things, and this isn’t just my, it’s not my opinion, it’s just that after talking to so many people meant doing Chin Wags, I mean if anyone out there that is involved in these other conventions and stuff from the Pop pul of convention, they can go back and see if other people have an opinion on this. But a lot of people that are in Artist Alley and trying to sell their wares and that sort of thing, you know what I mean? And nailed like $400 for a small table for a day, you know what I mean? To go to these venues and stuff and as an independent comic book creator, et cetera, that’s quite a lot of money and really does dishearten a lot of people that some people aren’t lucky enough to make a huge amount of money out of it. Some people do it for love, some people do it for pure passion compulsion like we’ve spoken about, and they can’t shake it. And some people do it for mental health, some people do it for a whole range of things. It seems an incredible amount of money for someone to go there and potentially walk away with nothing. You know what I mean?

(02:13:39)
And if you know what I’m suggesting, but the opportunity to provide a venue for people to get together, not only to sell their wares but keep costs down for those creators and stuff like that, man. You know what I mean? It’s super encouraging, you know what I mean? It’s also amazing by the Adelaide City Council and the South Australian government, you know what I mean? And wherever else you got your funding from and all the other sponsor and stuff. So from what you’ve told me today, man, every success with that pal, you know what I mean? You keep going as long as you got the motivation and the go forward, man. Yeah, it’s the way you’re talking is the way you are talking, man, is someone that’s a comic book, not even a creator, someone that’s a comic book fan since he was a little boy. If I was going to have the year, there’s all the festivals, the comic places that I could go to, that sort of thing. That’s where I’d be going, mate. You know what I mean? There’s everything you can do. Sit down, listen to authors, sit down, listen to writers, you draw with people, meet other people, you can talk, all that sort of stuff. Sounds like you’re adapting to things too, mate. So that’s really cool, man.

(02:14:59)
Yeah, I think that’s fantastic.

Owen Heitmann (02:15:01):
Thank you mate.

Leigh Chalker (02:15:04):
Do you want to add anything else? What time do you want to add to, when’s your next one you’re thinking about? You’re definitely going to have a punt at it in a give yourself some time off or come back again strong and see if you can improve on where you left the last time. What’s your thoughts with it moving forward?

Owen Heitmann (02:15:27):
Yeah, well, Gina and I sat down a couple of months ago now and we did our annual check-in of let’s go out to a cafe and talk all the pros and cons. And so we have decided we are trying to do it again. Fantastic. But yeah, I mean just to, I guess put it in the context of what you’re talking about with those bigger events, with the bigger table fees, like they’re businesses they have and those venues are not cheap and they’ve got to cover their costs. We are not a business and we are very fortunate to have received the grant funding that we did 2023 and 2021. We received funding, not just from the City of Adelaide council, but also Arts South Australia and the Australia Council, which is now Creative Australia. So yeah, that’s what we’re doing now basically is the funding process for next year. So fingers crossed, all goes well. The stars align. It will be happening again September, 2025.

(02:17:00)
Yeah, we’ve been talking to inviting people to be guests, talking about who we’d like to have at talking pictures, this kind of thing, what tweaks we want to make. I think, as I said, last year was definitely the best yet, but I think we can still refine that and just, yeah, at this stage it’s not making big changes, it’s just little tweaks to going and keep it, making it run as smoothly as possible and offer as much as possible. But we are committed to paying, I guess we pay standard industry rates for guests for the chairpersons at the panels, for the Talking Pictures artists. We also, we’ve hired Auslan Interpreters at the panel discussions and it talking pictures. All the venues need to be wheelchair accessible for us to use them, and there’s a whole lot of things there that cost a lot of money, and especially given that we’re committed to having it be a free entry festival. Yeah, we need the funding for it to go ahead. So we’re putting those things together. At the moment, I very much hope we’ll be successful, but once the applications are lodged, it’s out of our hands. It’s like it, either we get the money or it doesn’t happen. So that’s where we’re sitting at the moment. Hopefully in a few months I’ll have more certainty, but all I can say at the moment is that we want to do it again.

Leigh Chalker (02:18:52):
Man. That’s the best thing. If you want to do it, then you can try and make it happen. It’s the want as opposed to the, I might do it again. But seeing that, you know what I mean? It’s like when you attack a project, because from what you said, I mean, man, it’s pretty amazing because it seems, from what I’ve learned from you tonight, Owen Mate, is qualities that I do admire in people, man, is you like getting your hands dirty, mate. You’ve done it from being a little fella, learning how to draw, knowing regardless of whether you could make money out of it or not, man, you knew that you had the fire bone, so you were making mini comics, one page comics, you’ve got, mate, I’ve never met anyone that’s got on the back of Dar and Dill before. So that’s a big tick in itself for you, man.

(02:19:50)
Amazing. And then you’ve been publishing comic books, you’ve been doing things your way. You’re not only just doing later years, you’re not only just doing the festival paper cuts, but you’re also travelling around and supporting the other festivals. And as you said before, they are in big venues, they are businesses and they need to make money in order to do what they do and what they do is good for everyone. So by no means take any of my suggestions or suggestions or statements as in the negative, it’s I’m purely talking and that’s what it is.

Owen Heitmann (02:20:32):
It’s a fact that those table costs can be prohibitive for smaller, independent artists. But my attitude is that I’ll do something the way I want to do it, and if you are doing something, you do it the way you want to do it. I’m not going to waltz over and go, well, you’re doing all this work, but let me tell you the way you should be doing it.

Leigh Chalker (02:21:07):
Yep, mate. See, I learned a long time ago, man, I got told by a man much wiser than me, two men actually said that at a similar time. Very similar to paraphrase, learn your lane and stick to it. So just sort of, this is where I’m going. That’s my path. And I certainly don’t ever want to accrue on anyone else’s path because it’s not my place to just simply stating, again, talk to so many people. These are just some subjects that come up like they’re on Facebook or the concerns. It’s an everyday thing, but it’s valid. But I see the beauty of all of it, and as long as it all flows together and provides a space for people to promote their creativity and entertain themselves, world of pop culture and comic books, which we all love, then man, all the love to everyone. But man, you’re not only that, but you’re community minded in South Australia.

(02:22:04)
You’re a big part in putting together these local boy never wanted to move you. You’re seeing local talent, man. You decided you want to put 24 hours cynic together. Then you realised you wanted to amplify the South Australian comic book community and artistic community, you got amplified press come up. You’ve taken on some great local unique comic book creators in South Australia, which seems to be developing its own flavour and its own centric of people. You’ve got yourself with Adam Gillespie like in an award last year for his lovely work in Coy, which people should check out. You are doing the Paper Cuts Festival purely because you and your partner just absolutely loved comic books and work can provide it the medium itself across all fields. The most beautiful thing about that dude is that comic books are, to me, the most perfect creative medium.

(02:23:11)
The beauty of art and words and any format that you wish the stretch. It’s only the limit of your imagination, what you can put on paper and how you articulate, put yourself across, create, envision the world as you see it in the person’s own unique way. And comics are a beautiful thing. And man, wow. And you’re humble, dude, and I like that. That’s an awesome quality to have. And from meeting you tonight, dude, I would have to say that all the people that have spoken to me about you very much on point, and man Owen, as we wind down our show, I’m going to ask you one thing, dude, and it’s like before we allow everything to come to a halt tonight after this very lovely talk, what would Big Owen say to Little Owen if he met little Owen at Paper Cuts?

Owen Heitmann (02:24:28):
Ah, geez. Now the kids don’t talk to me. They talk to Gina like she’s good with kids.

Leigh Chalker (02:24:36):
What would little Owen say to Gina?

Owen Heitmann (02:24:44):
Nah, little Owen was a jerk. Man. I hope that I’m a better person now than I was then. I would’ve probably, oh no, actually I would’ve been terrified. I would’ve probably freaked out and I would’ve set my face to like, this is a comic. Yeah, I met Terry Pratchett when I was a youth, and this is how I know how I would’ve behave. I froze up and had recurring nightmares about how badly it went for the next 10 years

Leigh Chalker (02:25:35):
Post-trauma, mate,

Owen Heitmann (02:25:39):
I’m all good with it now. But yeah, no, I don’t know, man. I was not prepared for that question. I don’t have a good answer, I’m afraid. What a terrible way to wrap up.

Leigh Chalker (02:25:54):
Well, may I have the privilege of, if you don’t mind, mate, I’ve met you for about two and a half hours now, and I see a dude that again, has done it all through hard yards, sees something, gets an idea in his head, wonders how it’s going to be, doesn’t just do it on his own, but also realises there’s a community of people that helps him and helps those people get ahead. Community is a beautiful thing, man. And sometimes you’re fearful, sometimes you’re not. Sometimes you’ve got to conquer those fears to try and get things done. And Owen Hyman, I would suggest, mate, that you get things done and I think that’s an awesome quality. So I certainly hope that nothing stops you mate, from getting your comic books out, amplified press going, and I certainly hope nothing gets in the way of paper cuts next year and it continues to grow and grow. Owen mate, where can people find your stuff, mate? What websites you got in case they want to check out your books and see. Oh, there we go. Scissors on it. Amplified press com, amplifi

Owen Heitmann (02:27:07):
Press com. And there’s also an amplified press page on Instagram. This is how good I am at social media. I dunno what the terms are. It’s at Amplified Press that’s on Instagram. I post there occasionally usually to say, Hey, I’m going to an event, come and see me. Yeah, I don’t care for social media much. I know that’s not an original thought or statement, but I’m also pretty bad at it. Yeah, but I’ll be around amplified press comics there. You can find ’em in Sydney in King’s Comics as of this month. And they’re in Star Comics. They’ve been supporting me for a long time. They’re in green. All-star comics in Melbourne. They’re in Greenlight Comics in Adelaide and on the website has a shop as well. There we are. Yeah, I’m not good at sales pitches.

Leigh Chalker (02:28:29):
That’s okay, mate. You did it. They can all find you. Now, the other thing you’ve got to remember is too, where are you this weekend, Owen? Where are you this weekend? Darlan?

Owen Heitmann (02:28:37):
This weekend I will be in Bendigo at Beon, and I’ve never stayed in Bendigo before. I think I’ve been through it, but that’s on Sunday. It’s happening on Sunday. I think it’s a red arena, some kind of arena that maybe has red in the name. I really kind of arrive at the town and then look at the map and be like, oh yeah, that’s what it’s called, and that’s how I’m going to get there.

Leigh Chalker (02:29:15):
Yeah, well you got to take one thing at a time, don’t you? As long as you get to the town first, then you can worry about the location next, mate. It’s just one step at a time. Okay.

Owen Heitmann (02:29:26):
Later in the year, October 12th, I’ll be in Hobart for the small press scene. Fair. And I want to say November 23rd at Emerald Hill Comics Festival in Melbourne and hopefully in Sydney again at Scam, whenever that is. There’s Sydney Comic Arts marketplace.

Leigh Chalker (02:29:52):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. See that’s about, yeah,

Owen Heitmann (02:29:56):
Maybe some other places. Who knows? It’s been a busy year.

Leigh Chalker (02:30:01):
Yeah, yeah, man, it’s good. It’s good. You’re a busy man, so as long as the busy is keeping up, then that keeps you out of mischief, mate. And it keeps you on the comic trail, man. Keeps you busy. But it won’t give you much time to read too many of your books you’ve got piling up. You might just have to stick to those little puffing and penguin books. Maybe stick in that pocket there. That might be all you get a chance to read.

Owen Heitmann (02:30:25):
Those are my trouble books.

Leigh Chalker (02:30:27):
Yeah,

Owen Heitmann (02:30:29):
For sure. But yeah, fingers crossed at some point soon I got to put aside a year to catch up on my rating. I’ll be like,

Leigh Chalker (02:30:40):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don’t think you’ll be able to stop for a year. So it’s quite

Owen Heitmann (02:30:46):
Frankly, neither do I.

Leigh Chalker (02:30:48):
Yeah, yeah, no, I know you’re full of the wonder stuff, mate. You just got to keep going. You’re stuck in the world now. So you just got to power on Brother Owen. Mate, stick around just after the credits roll because we’ll have a debrief and touch base with you and just have a quick chat. And mate, thank you so much for coming on Chinwag, it is lovely to have met you tonight, man, I have heard a lot about you and thank you for joining the Chinwag family. I am very humbled and most gracious of you that you could come on the show, man means a lot and I’m glad to have met you. So I wish you every success in all of your endeavours and continue the good work man for the Australian comic book scene. Marty, WLS. Thanks Owen. Thanks Lee. Thank you Marty for watching.

(02:31:46)
Thank you all of viewers for always watching Chinwag. Thank you for Siz and Comic and all the community. Now, on a slightly more serious note, now everyone knows that one of the things that Chinwag promotes at the end of the show is mental health. Now, myself, I’ve suffered some mental health battles over the years and I know my great friend Shane has, and basically we always try and suggest that creativity is a way of limiting the effects of mental health that can allow you to just find a little bit of yourself, get into some stream of consciousness, give you a little bit of healing to talk about yourself. So I being the host of Chinwag, have tried to champion that for the last 12 months since the beginning of the year. Anyway, when I began to, I guess repair myself from quite a time of being damaged and during the last couple of weeks, I feel that I would be remiss not to mention this.

(02:33:04)
Look, you get people in communities and all over Australia and stuff, wherever you are in a giant community, people have opinions, people never change. People disagree, people agree. And you know what? That’s the beautiful thing about humanity because it’s like everyone’s entitled to their opinion, and I firmly believe that everyone should be themselves. There are some things that have come to my ears of late in this community that I think I just need to make mention. Really, everyone can have an opinion. Everyone is entitled to be a critic. Everyone is entitled to be an encourager. The one thing I don’t think is necessary is attacking people’s mental health as a use to allow your actions to have some sort of justification. I think it’s a pretty low blow for the people that are doing it and have done it. Stop. Show some grace for your fellow brothers and sisters who are struggling with things like that because they don’t need that. No place for it in the community. Grow up.

(02:34:28)
If anyone has any issues with what I’ve just said there you do, feel free to contact me. I’m not cool with that. I don’t like bullying and I really don’t really like saying stuff like this at the end of Chinwag because after such a wonderful conversation, tonight should be about joyous, uplifting topics, not having to talk about what I’ve just had to talk about. So please take care with words because words don’t heal, bruises do, and words stick around in people and can affect them for a very long time. So be careful what you say. Look after your brothers and your sisters. Thank you very much for the people who always watch Chinwag. Don’t forget to like and subscribe and share everywhere you can. Come X on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Owen Hyman. Sir, thank you very much for the time tonight. Much success everyone. Community is unity and Chinwag is and always will be made with love. See you next week. Goodnight.

Voice Over (02:35:36):
This show is sponsored by the Comex 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.