Don Ticchio

Voice Over (00:03):
This show is sponsored by the Comics Shop. We hope you enjoy the show.

Leigh Chalker (00:25):
Okay, and welcome to Tuesday Chinwag, episode 30. My name is Lee Chalker. I’m the creator of Battle for Bustle and the co-creator of Ring Around the Rosie. And tonight’s guest is the gentleman of Australian comics from my time getting to meet him. And that’s Mr. Don Teo. How are you sir?

Don Ticchio (00:50):
I’m very well, Shane. Shane Lee, sorry.

Leigh Chalker (00:53):
You are fired.

Don Ticchio (00:56):
I was talking to Shane a second ago.

Leigh Chalker (00:59):
There’s too many heads before this show going on. It’s all good, man.

Don Ticchio (01:04):
Well, very well, thank you.

Leigh Chalker (01:06):
That’s good, man. I’m glad to hear that. Hey, for anyone that’s watching the show at home, the show’s based on six questions, prompting words who, what, where, when, why, and how. Sometimes we get through them. Most of the time we don’t and we just chinwag about lots of things starting with comics and end up in varying areas of any sort of description. Okay, Don, so I’m going to get into the big existential question here for you, mate. Good day, Nick Mate. Hey, Nick. Who?

Don Ticchio (01:41):
Who? Well, I’m Don ticker. I’m a graphic designer by trade with dabbles in comics. I’ve had a love of comics for a long time, and if I wasn’t doing graphic design, I probably would have a much stronger attempt at doing comics full time. But I needed to feed a family of five, so I stuck with my Plan B and do comics on the side, which suits me fine.

Leigh Chalker (02:21):
Yeah, yeah, you got to sell a lot of comics to feed,

Don Ticchio (02:25):
Sorry. Yeah, you got to

Leigh Chalker (02:26):
Sell a lot of comics to feed five people, Don.

Don Ticchio (02:32):
Yeah, it was kind of hard. It, it’s fun. I consider it fun, enjoyable in whatever aspect I dabble in.

Leigh Chalker (02:46):
Because you cover all the broad spectrum of the production and the artwork and everything, don’t you?

Don Ticchio (02:53):
Yeah, well, back in the day, most comic guys did do the broad spectrum, whether you are indie, small team published or whatever. You did everything yourself. And I probably had a better head start because I was in the graphic design industry, so I’m dealing with printers and I knew the ins and outs, so for me to put something together I think was a lot easier. I understood the printing processes and what I could do, what I could get away with and so forth. And I think it made it easier. And I didn’t get taken for a ride by the printers because I knew how to give my quotes. And so it helped a lot. But I didn’t start out as a graphic designer. I wanted to be, well, no, I wanted to do comics back in the day. Well,

Leigh Chalker (04:07):
Take us back to the day, Don. That sparked exactly that thought, mate.

Don Ticchio (04:12):
Well, I sort of, as a kid, when I came to Australia, I couldn’t speak a word of English. Comics helped me a lot and I sort of fell in love with the Dell comics, GoldKey, that sort of thing before I even saw Marvel or DC or what have you, and a lot of Aussie reprints. And then the thing that really drew me into the Marvel DCU was a British publication called Fantastic, and then it changed to terrific. They were just reprinting American Marvel stories in two colour, one colour, two colours sort of thing. They had a lot of pinups in those. I loved them. That’s what drew my attention to them. I, I’d never had an inclination when I was reading those that my direction was going to be in art. Because when I was going through school, I was thinking more practical trades and my trade of choice, I was good at it. It was woodwork and I wanted to be a carpenter. So back in 72, they had careers advisors come to schools to talk about people leaving school and doing trades. And I say this all the time, I was going to say a bad word. Won’t this person,

Leigh Chalker (05:53):
I’ll let you mate if

Don Ticchio (05:55):
You wish, dickhead. But he came in and these are all young, impressionable kids and it was a full room and everybody in there wanted to be a carpenter. And the first thing he said was, what do you all want to be carpenters for? Everything is going plastic. This was in 72. And to a young impressionable mind that swayed me. And so I ended up staying in school for another two years. I didn’t know what else to do, but I have to say that I would’ve been year 11 and 12. There were two of the best years of my life at school because I really enjoyed those two years as a senior student. And that’s when I discovered that you could do art as an elective before it wasn’t. You just didn’t do it. So I took it on as an elective and I liked it. And I had a passion for drawing because I was doodling all the time. Once I discovered Marvel comics like everybody else, I’d be copying, especially my spidermans, I’d be copying Spider-Man drawings. And Gil Kane was my favourite as an artist, but I sort of fell into things because at school, the art teacher, he was a miserable old cadre. He’d been like

Leigh Chalker (07:29):
Your carpenter made from the sounds of things.

Don Ticchio (07:30):
Yeah, he’d been destined for better things, but he was stuck at school teaching these kids art. And half of them weren’t even interested. And it wasn’t until year 12 that we had another teacher, Mrs. Zat, and she was lovely. She encouraged everybody to do artworks and things and experiment. And I ended up doing as my major work, I ended up doing a huge painting, a three by two feet painting, and I’ve still got it, which I thoroughly enjoyed. And that’s spurred me that I’m thinking what I would like to do with, what do you call it, a comic book cover artist. Like you see the TTA books. And that’s what I wanted to do. And I think she put me in the right direction and spurred me to do it. So when I applied, once I finished high school and I applied to get into the art school, we had a school here called Alexander Mackie School of Art Fine Arts.

(08:45)
And I went to apply, and I didn’t get in because I thought I’d go in with my work and there’d be somebody there talking to you and blah, blah, blah. I walk in and there was a panel of five people that threw me off. It actually intimidated me and I don’t think I answered all the right questions, so I didn’t answer the question the way they wanted them to be answered. And so I didn’t get in and the BA has never returned my samples, all my art samples that I left with them. Oh, true. So they probably ended up in the garbage somewhere. But then I started working during the day and at nighttime I managed to get into Randwick Avoca School of Art three nights a week. So I did that for a year, and then I could reapply to Alexander Mac and I would’ve got in.

(10:02)
But for some reason I went to commercial art school, which was at Randwick, also Randwick tape. And they were doing commercial art courses. And I thought, well, commercial art’s probably the way to go since you want to do things as far as drawing goes. So I went there and because you’ve already done a year of study, you get preference and you get in fairly quickly. So I did that. But getting into that, thinking that I get into the realm of illustration, I got into the realm of graphic design. And in hindsight, it was probably a better deal because with commercial illustration, it’s hit and miss. If you can get the work, you got to chase it With the graphic design, you’re employed somewhere and you’ve got a steady income. So I went that branch, but comics was always the back of my mind. And I don’t know about Uli, but when I was growing up, you didn’t talk about comics. It wasn’t looked up upon favourably.

Leigh Chalker (11:21):
Yeah, I can definitely see that. There were early morning 5:00 AM runs down to the news agents to get the latest comics and stuff, but computer games and consoles and stuff were only just sort of kicking off when I was in moving into high school and stuff. So there was still a lot of dudes that I went to school with that did read comics and collected cards because they were easily accessible too, mate. You could go to the corner store and there’d be NRL cards or comic books on the rack and in the books and stuff. So you’d often see kids with comic books, but we would get some curry from the old sporting fraternity of the school, wondering why we were reading them. And me being cheeky would sometimes respond, well, at least we can read, which you get me into further trouble and stuff down the track, but

Don Ticchio (12:31):
It’s

Leigh Chalker (12:31):
What it’s, but yeah, no comics, man. I know what you’re talking about with the big powerful covers, because

Don Ticchio (12:38):
Cards were a different thing. Cards, everybody was into it. I was into cards, and I remember getting the Batman, the sixties Batman TV show, getting those cards and we’re at school playing for cards. We used to do a game where you’d flick the cards closest to the wall

(13:00)
And you’d win or you’d put the cards flat on the wall and let them drop. And the one that lands closest to wall wins the cards sort of thing. So we did that. But as far as comics, no, I didn’t know anybody at school that read comics. I take my fantastic and have it in the back of 10, and I show some of the people. We had the old Inkwell table where you lift the lid up and they had an inkwell on the side. And I showed some people that wanted to see, because I used to always doodle and scribble and that sort of thing. But to say that I knew somebody there that loved comics, no I didn’t. My brothers, my cousins would read my comics. That’s about it. And that’s as far as it went. And I didn’t discover anybody that I could talk to about comics until I started my first year in tafe.

(13:58)
And I met a guy there, I don’t know how, we got into a subject, Charlie Maxwell, and we started talking comics and he started talking about Neil Adams and this and that. And I thought, oh shit, there’s somebody who understands what I’m talking about. And we had a love of talking about comics because really the first person that I could converse about all this stuff, and he went on to become a fantastic creative director in the art directorship type stuff. But apart from that, and I remember in the early days, Kings had a King’s Comics, a shop in the city, this before I even went to tafe. And I’d go in there buying comics. I think it was the middle seventies, and they had a notice board. And I’d actually put notice up there looking for somebody who wants to do comics. I’ll draw they write sort of thing. And I only ever got one taker, but it was so unreliable, didn’t worry about it. And that was it. And then I just gave up. I didn’t think it would go anywhere, so I just concentrated on what I was doing, doing my studies, working, graphing, design, and just plotting on. But I still read comics, I still buy them. And they were a lot more affordable then.

Leigh Chalker (15:35):
Yeah,

Don Ticchio (15:36):
Absolutely. I don’t know what you would’ve bought back in the day, but I’m talking late sixties for me, early middle seventies, which some of my favourite artists were around in those days. And one by one, they’re all passing off. Passing away.

Leigh Chalker (15:58):
Sign of the times.

Don Ticchio (15:59):
It’s natural. It is a sign of the times. If Theca passes away, I’ll be devastated. Although I know he’s getting on too.

Leigh Chalker (16:10):
Yeah, well, who knows, man. Hopefully not anytime soon because there’s lots of the masters that have gone, but they leave a lot for people to learn because I’m a little bit younger than you Don, but I had, oh, what’s that?

Don Ticchio (16:34):
This is John Ramida who just passed away recently.

Leigh Chalker (16:38):
Yeah, yeah.

Don Ticchio (16:38):
This was a post though he did back in the seventies promoting the bullpen and his sty and all that. And I’ve always loved his stuff. I saw it on Facebook and I thought I better print out a copy of it.

Leigh Chalker (16:54):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well see when my dad, if he was alive, would probably be a similar age to you, mate. And so when I grew up, I grew up with the original Amazing Spidermans and Dr. Strange and Fantastic Fours, the uncanny X-Men just there. And what you were saying before is, I know my mom would agree with this, she’s probably watching at some point. She may yell out. Yes. I used to actually much to dad’s discuss Trace. I put a piece of paper down over the actual comic books and trace like Spider-Man’s in stuff. And he used to just lose his mind, man. It was like the young kid, like, dad, look what I’m doing, like to dad. It’s okay. Very good. I’m going to be angry in a minute. So yeah, I’ve got that and Ditko and stuff. And I was introduced at a really young age to all that sort of artwork, man. So it always,

Don Ticchio (18:05):
You would’ve seen it. Yeah. Well, and Tad will tell you Tad Raki, because I didn’t know he’s a history buff on this end. He told half the Marvel stuff didn’t come out here. I remember picking up Submariner 38. That was the first one I ever saw.

(18:27)
All the others, who knows where they went, who just didn’t see them. And it was a beautiful cover, beautiful cover. But as far as tracing, sometimes you find some books in the secondhand bookshops, you think, oh yeah, great. And you can see the cover has got a pencil impression on it. Somebody’s done the same thing as opposed. Whereas I didn’t do that. I actually had a piece of paper next to me and I copy just look and look and copy, look and copy. It wasn’t until years later that I see nobody tells you these things that if you worked out a grid system, you could copy perfectly.

Leigh Chalker (19:14):
No one’s ever told me that until now. It’s like, see what you learn on.

Don Ticchio (19:24):
That’s how you do a lot of paintings. If you’ve got something that you want to replicate to work out a grid system. And the old masters used to do that too, to get it right. Sorry, I’ve lost my train of thought. Were we?

Leigh Chalker (19:45):
No, we were talking about covers and this is the beauty of Chinwag Don. We can veer off into many different topics.

Don Ticchio (19:52):
Yeah, no, no. Covers my early days of comics. I just loved the early artwork, Lee. The colours, the style. It was just cleaner, I guess is the word I’m looking for. The colours. The colours were just comic book colours. They grabbed your attention. I’m from that generation. Yeah, they just popped and there’s pop art, but I grew up with that generation and there it is. But it’s been a fun ride.

Leigh Chalker (20:40):
Yeah. You’ve mentioned to me before, and we’ll get into I guess more modern Dabblings with Baer and Silver Fox, but the other part, because you are silver now, the other part, the Fox sent me a message just to, and now that we are talking about comics that you grew up with, thank you to Saab. Hang on two seconds. Let’s bring it up. I believe he told me that you are a mad nut on Dr. Strange in particular.

Don Ticchio (21:28):
Yeah, I’ve always had a love for that character.

Leigh Chalker (21:32):
What drew you to the Dr. Strange?

Don Ticchio (21:36):
Oh, I just think it’s the magic in essence. It’s the magic. You can cast spells and things like that, but it was also the artists more than the writers that drew me to Ditko was one. And I never saw in any of his stuff. It’s only in later issues that or in reprints that you pick it up. But I came on that when he was in Marvel premiere, number three I think, or number four, something like that. That’s when I actually picked it up and I fell in love with it. And then I followed it through and then they did gave him his own series. And Fran Bruner did the first, I don’t know, 12 issues or something. Fantastic stuff. And then Gene, see, I never saw the gene colon stuff that he did in the sixties. I only saw the stuff that he did in the seventies, which I absolutely loved. And if I had to say, the characters in Marva that I’ve loved have been Dr. Strange and the Submariner, and there’s a few others, but mainly those two and the Silver,

Leigh Chalker (22:58):
They’re

Don Ticchio (22:58):
Still,

Leigh Chalker (23:00):
Well, there’s another visual issue.

Don Ticchio (23:01):
Yeah, visually striking. That’s right. And I liked Kirby’s take on it, but I also liked John Bus’s take on it. But I never saw those, they didn’t come out here. I think I picked up Silver Surfer 16 and then 17 never saw 18 because what came out was sporadic. And TA was telling me that, as I said before, half the stuff didn’t get here. It was just you got the sporadic. Because I remember I’d pick up an issue, I’d come back, oh shit, what happened to the other three issues? And there’s so many gaps. Slowly. I’ve been trying

Leigh Chalker (23:50):
To, did you need to go back and fill in the gaps?

Don Ticchio (23:52):
No, they’re just too pricey for me. Usually I find ones that are bid around the year and they’re selling for 10 bucks or 20 bucks at the most, and I’ll get them. But otherwise, some of them are too pricey for my liking. If anything, I’m pragmatic about what I can and can’t spend. Besides that, my wife will kill me. So I just got to be careful.

Leigh Chalker (24:26):
Well Don better to beg forgiveness and ask permission. Sometimes, mate,

Don Ticchio (24:32):
I dunno, she’s, I could be in trouble

Leigh Chalker (24:39):
There.

Don Ticchio (24:45):
She does all the accounting, the place. So I go there, Lee, with what’s my allowance, but that’s how I like it. That way she controls everything and I’m happy.

Leigh Chalker (25:01):
Yeah, no, fair enough. Man, you chill.

Don Ticchio (25:04):
Yeah, with comics, really my lover wanted to do comics and not knowing how to go about it. Like I said, I really didn’t meet anybody that was like-minded. So I just gave up Lee back in 82, I decided to go to Europe and quit my job. Went to Europe, packed all my comics away and I stopped buying because I figured, well, if I can’t do anything with it, I’m not going to bother. So I just packed it all away. And plus in the eighties, middle eighties, late eighties, I didn’t like where they were going, art style and story. And then the nineties came along with all those other stuff and I just didn’t really like it. But I did, just to remember, I was working for an agency in the city and one of the guys there, Gavin, big guy who knew I liked Comic cause he liked mad and all that sort of thing. And he came up to me and said, Don, there’s an advertisement in the paper. Some comic guys are getting together at a at Central Central Station.

(26:37)
And I thought, oh, I forget what night of the week it was. And I thought, oh, I’ll rock on along. It was the best thing I ever did, Lee, because I walked in and there’s all these guys talking comics, showing comics. It opened up a world for me. And I’m talking guys like Gary Cha, Dave Dev, I’m not sure if Glen was there. What’s his name? God, the guy that did fantastic. Oh my God, I’ve got a mental blank. He’ll kill me for it. It’ll come to me if I don’t think about it. Anyway, these guys just all of a sudden I found a group that was meeting every once a week, or was it once a week, I forget. But anyway, we met and it was great. They started talking. At the time they were doing a thing called Steve Carter, that was his name.

(27:47)
They were doing a thing called fantastic, fantastic Horror magazine I hadn’t seen in the shops or anything like that. And so I rocked on along, took some of my comic things that I did and well, I was in heaven mate, and I got to know some of the guys. And then back then Cyclone was doing a lot of stuff and I wanted to be involved, even though I was working at the advertising agency, I wanted to be involved with this sort of thing. And I remember going to the Cycline office with a bundle of sketches and things and Gary Chandna was there, and I can’t remember if Dave Dre with, I think he was, and Glen might’ve been there too, Glen Luson. And I just showed him this thing and he said, oh, what’s he drawing? And Gary goes, he’s drawing everything. He just sketches but out that plus it was called the Yuga Club, so it was a Yuga club meeting.

(29:05)
So out that I tried to get work out of them. And at the time I don’t, it wasn’t pain work, I was up, I was working at the advertising. It was more the love of doing comics. And I think Gary at one point said he’s a story back in the day, had a character called Sergeant Patterson. So I did, I think it was an eight page story, dunno where it went. I think Gary doesn’t know where he went. But anyway, from that, at the time Gary and Dave were doing a thing called a one page strip for a magazine called Aussie Kids.

(30:00)
And I remember at the time though saying they had so much work on that, they just couldn’t find the time to do this. And I remember meeting with Gary because he was living a wick at the time, and I met up with him there and said, we’ve got this thing, if you like to do it, it’s yours. And it came out every two months and it was just one page. And I said, yeah, I do it in between. So I think I finished off, they were up to part six of a story and I got to finish that story. And then for the next two years I did this thing. Every two months we did one page for this magazine. John might show you, I think,

Leigh Chalker (30:56):
Have you got a portal there? Dom

Don Ticchio (30:59):
A portal?

Leigh Chalker (31:00):
Yeah. Dave DI’s got a portal. He just reaches beyond the computer screen, man. And just pull out whatever you’re talking, I dunno.

Don Ticchio (31:08):
No, I think might have done a bit of preparation.

Leigh Chalker (31:13):
Maybe that’s what Dave does. Where on doing

Don Ticchio (31:18):
It was this magazine?

Leigh Chalker (31:23):
Yeah, yeah.

Don Ticchio (31:24):
We just basically aimed at kids and I’ll see if I can find the page. Yeah, yeah.

Leigh Chalker (31:32):
Fire away man.

Don Ticchio (31:33):
Page 32. And I remember we only stopped doing it because the magazine ran into financial trouble and they ended up selling up. I dunno if you can see that clearly or not. But that was one of the pages back in the day, which mind you, even though it was one page a month every two months in between my work with the agency and all that, it took me forever to do and I’d always be rushing to get it to them. But

Leigh Chalker (32:19):
It kept you like doing,

Don Ticchio (32:21):
I keep my mind in the zone of comics. Oh yeah, no, no, I can’t thank Gary and Dave enough for throwing that piece my way because they just led me to interact with them more. And they were busy doing a lot of work all over the place and it pushed my desire to put a comic out. But at the time I had too many things going on and I didn’t bother because Gary and Dave and Tad, they were all doing these wonderful things. I was happy to go along and see what they were doing. And then issue one came along, Sam, Sam Young was part of the Yuga Club crowd and he was only a young kid in 19 doing all this stuff. And I decided that I wanted to help them and Sam was happy to have me on board. You got to understand I was 36. I was the old fart. Everybody was young.

(33:37)
I’m not sure Gary, I think he’s only in his fifties, early fifties. So I sort of got onto it late because I didn’t have, how can I say, the drive to do things on my own. I needed other people around me. So that’s why I concentrate on graphic design and the advertising agencies and that sort of thing. They paid well, it was constant income and I got to do things on the side whether I’d go to painting classes at Taylor Square or doing drawings left, right, and centre at home. It just kept me busy. But that Yule Club meeting, for me, that was the best time. And I couldn’t thank the guy at the advertising game that put me to it, that he happened to come across this clipping that directed me to go to the pub and meet these guys. And it was great. And it’s been a great journey, I have to say. And when Cyclone, they sort of stopped. And I remember speaking to Gary and Dave about, I was thinking of bringing out a comic myself if they wanted to be involved with it and use some of their stuff because I didn’t have anything. I just wanted to get things going. And they were very, very supportive. And I had to get permission from the wife though. I had to outlay money because at the time it was back in 89, 90, well, we didn’t have any kids and

Leigh Chalker (35:50):
A bit of a recession going on back then too from

Don Ticchio (35:52):
Memory. That’s right, yeah. 18% and that sort of thing. And I remember we just paid off our house and we didn’t have any other worries. And she said to me, you want to do it, do it. And with a blessing, I went ahead and did it. It was a real kick May seeing the stuff in print, as I’m sure when you see your stuff in print, it’s a vanity thing I guess, but it’s a real kick. And it was fun. I remember it was fun. It was a lot of work. It was a lot of work getting things together in between your full-time job. But it was fun. That’s all I can say. It was fun and I wish I could get it going, but

Leigh Chalker (36:49):
Well man, to be honest with you, you got had the courage to get dropped into arguably some of Australia’s greatest comic book creators. You know what I mean? But there you go. Opportunities you’re plugging away. And then I want, obviously you are sort of veering off into Southern Aurora comics territory

Don Ticchio (37:15):
Stuff

Leigh Chalker (37:16):
Because that for me, I’ve got issues with them. I collected those off the newsstands and stuff like that. And you did bring a rather large group of people together and that’s the experience you’re talking about. So take what was, I guess we’ve discussed the germ of the seed of Southern Aurora comics, but let’s go into a bit more detail about that. Man. I would say it’s fair. Some people may disagree, but people of my age that been reading Australian comic books for a long time would definitely remember Southern Aurora comics and issue one because Zero Assassin was with Issue one and they were fairly, I would say, memorable comic books. So what was that scene like, man, once your lovely understanding wife had allowed said, Don go and make those comics, man, what did you learn from the offset of, I’m going to do it to that vanity moment of holding that first issue in your hand? What are some of the lessons?

Don Ticchio (38:33):
Perseverance, and like you said, it’s such an eclectic group getting together to try and get all the materials in. To be fair, I don’t think I didn’t have any issues with anybody. And I like to think I’m an easygoing guy, so everything just jelled just because I did everything myself. All I had to wait was for the stories to come in and everything else I did. So there wasn’t any other issues with anybody, but I learned that it was great to work with the comic guys and I’d get excited when a story had come in that I hadn’t seen of artwork.

(39:22)
And geez, the guys that I ran around with back in the day, Jays and Pauls was one of them, and he was a kid back then. Like I said, I was the oldest in that group. I was like 10, 12, 13 years older. But what I learned, one of the big lessons I learned is in comics that if you think you’re going to make money putting out comics, get real. It was a sobering thought, I have to say. But I’m glad I did it, Lee. I thoroughly enjoyed what I did. I enjoyed working with a lot of the artists and some of them that just sent me a letter and made contact. I’ve got some of the letters still, if you got number six, the issue number six, this was a guy in Tasmania just sent me a letter and a story. He said he wanted to do it. I fell in love with it and he’d actually send the artwork for a cover. I used it exactly the way he sent it because he likes hand lettering. So he did the hand lettering, everything, all on the artwork. And that’s how I used it.

(41:01)
I was I guess mesmerised by the cover and the fact that he’d gone to all that trouble to send it in, I thought, yeah, I’m going to use it. But by number six, I realised that you were putting more money in and I just couldn’t justify. By then, I had my first child and things got a bit harder, and by 94 I had the second child. So honestly, I had to get real with some things and the vanity process in comics, I just couldn’t justify. So I sort of stopped, but I stopped doing that. But I wanted to do the special issues, and this is where you had your Australian war stories,

(41:59)
Because I had that planned as a three issues set. One was war stories, one was science fiction stories and one was horror stories. Now I got the war stories out and then I had material come in for the science fiction stories and Steve Carter did a fantastic cover. It was a combination of Steve Carter, Jason Paul, Dave Dre. But it took so long to get that cover to come to me to do the things that by the time I got it, my directions had changed. The second child made a difference. And I decided that I couldn’t justify because, excuse me, we had other things to do and I just couldn’t justify spending money with no return. And that was the businessman inside me thinking, why am I putting this money here and there’s nothing coming back. The only way the books would make money is if you could sell a lot and buy. And to be fair, that book did well. It did well. But if I had to count my time, all the hours I’ve put into it, all the bromides, back in the day, we used to do bromides copies to stick down and I had a machine and I had to pay. I used to do that all myself. That was a cost I was bearing.

(43:46)
If I had to add all that up, it lost money. It just didn’t. And the only thing,

Leigh Chalker (43:58):
This is why not giving up comics for a kid, because I’m not a hundred percent familiar with Bromite. For anyone else that’s out there that isn’t aware of that technique and stuff, can you walk us through that, I guess, man for a little bit and how time intensive that is?

Don Ticchio (44:28):
Well, it’s a photographic process. You had this machine that you had to operate in a dark room and you had, I suppose you could call a photographic paper. You had to expose it, you put it on the camera, you sized your pages to the size you needed it. And what that did is it flattened all the colours, the blacks. So you know how when you fill a solid area of black with the brush and you can see the brush strokes? Well the bromide, if you do the right setting, it makes that black go flat. It’s just a solid clean line and you put it, once you expose it, you put it on a contact paper and you put it through a rolling machine with chemicals in it. It goes through and it develops it. It is just like a photographic process. Then you leave it a bit and you separate it and then you wash it in water and you get a perfect replication of the artwork. But with more solid blacks, and if there’s anything, you can just clean them up and if you treat them, if you wash them properly, no chemical residue, those things will last forever. They will not fade or whatever. If you hold on a sec, I’ll show you one. Hold on. Yeah,

Leigh Chalker (45:58):
Mate. Yep. Absolutely. Absolutely. You do have a portal there. God, you are organised. Dave Di said good idea with the page numbers too, Don. So hey everyone, don’t forget show sponsored by comic shop over a hundred Australian independent comic books. Go and check it out. The website’s down underneath my name for this evening of Shane. Apparently Friday night, drink and draw. Get your images in. Don’t forget that. I’m not sure what the topic is. I’ve been out of the loop for a couple of days, so oops. Anyway, I’m sure you’ll find out in the next couple of days. And don’t forget to like and subscribe.

Don Ticchio (46:48):
This isn’t Southern Aurora, it’s just what I could get my hands on. But this is a panel from Issu one comics, or is it? I’m not even too sure where this was from now. But anyway, it’s one of Jason Paul’s artwork. And if you look at that, these are bromite that are what, 92, black as sharp as ever. They aren’t paid. They just retain their clarity and their cleanliness. It just doesn’t fade if they’re treated properly. And that’s how a lot see a lot of reprints of some stuff from the forties and fifties and what have you, where they work off originals that they did off the artwork. Half the stuff I would say is a similar sort of thing. If you treat it well, it’ll last you forever. And that’s what I used to do every time I used to do a drawing because I had access to these machine before I bought my own, I had access to these machines at the agencies and I would do bro modes of the artwork. Nice, clean and keep them. It’s more for posterity I think. Yeah, yeah.

Leigh Chalker (48:23):
Do you still have lots of, you still got lots of the original artwork and stuff like that tucked away?

Don Ticchio (48:31):
Yeah, it’s all in my filing cabinet there.

Leigh Chalker (48:35):
Do you sometimes go through them and look and go, wow.

Don Ticchio (48:39):
Yeah, I do. I do. Sara, I’ll tell you that. I’m a bit of a hoarder. Yeah, that’s alright. I throw nothing away whether it’s good or bad, I see it as a transition. This is crap. This is where you are. It was a journey and I like to keep them. It’s not just my artwork. Other people’s bromides up. This is Jason when he was doing hair, but the hippo, I dunno why I’ve got it, it must’ve appeared in one of the books, but, but the Bromo process and when computers came along that died, I remember putting my machine out on the street. You couldn’t get people to service them.

Leigh Chalker (49:35):
Ah,

Don Ticchio (49:35):
Gotcha. They’d gone out of the trade and then the chemicals, they became ultra expensive because there was very few being used. So I put the machine out in the street, I couldn’t sell it and within a day it was gone.

Leigh Chalker (49:52):
Oh, that was one of the questions I was going to ask you. How long did it sit out the front for?

Don Ticchio (49:58):
Not even a day mate. Scrap metal trucks just came along, grabbed it and took it away. There was no value for it anymore. Back in the day, if you had one of those machines to help you do artwork with comic, it was fantastic. Then people started using photocopies, photocopiers got better and better and to the point now where they’re fantastic. But back in the day, that’s what you used. When we got print shops, they had, well,

Leigh Chalker (50:34):
Photocopiers were good because our school used to let us use the library photocopier for nothing while you were, they’ve

Don Ticchio (50:43):
Come a long way. They’ve come a long lately,

Leigh Chalker (50:46):
Man. Back before there was Google, you used to actually have to walk down aisles of books looking at these weird Indic numbers and stuff. And amongst the pages, you’re supposed to be photocopying in the fellas that we used to read comic books because I mean, look, we weren’t rolling in cash when we were like 12 and 13 men. So we used to photocopy heaps of comic books. Like I have bootleg running around the school and stuff. The librarian cottoned onto us after a month or two. You know what I mean? I think she might’ve thought we were

Don Ticchio (51:31):
Well, that didn’t hit you for a percentage.

Leigh Chalker (51:34):
Yeah, no, no, not that I’m aware of. Or I would fully denied it. Of course, it was all strictly cash. That sausage rolls back in those days at the tuck shop were pretty expensive.

Don Ticchio (51:51):
Well, back in my day, you got to understand a dollar bought you 10 comics.

Leigh Chalker (51:55):
Yeah.

Don Ticchio (51:58):
Now a dollar buys you a 10th of a comic. I mean, I understand it’s the nature of things. Everything goes up and up and what have you. But I don’t think the kids of today can fully appreciate how, I wouldn’t say, I suppose they were cheap back then. 10 cents a comic. It was one that went up to 25 cents. I thought, oh shit, they’re getting too expensive.

Leigh Chalker (52:29):
Yeah,

Don Ticchio (52:31):
But you sort of grow into it, I guess. Yeah.

Leigh Chalker (52:35):
Yeah. I probably, I don’t really remember too many price points of, I do remember 2000 ad, the first 2000 ad I ever bought was a dollar 25 and that was a little ritzy. I seem to recall at the time. I think maybe a dollar sort of thing for the Marvel stuff, but I’m glad I did buy that 2000 ad, but I remember freaking out when they went up to 3 95 and now they’re like 10 bucks.

Don Ticchio (53:06):
It does, it resets your attitude as what you can afford, what you can’t afford. Oh yeah. And sadly, you’ve

Leigh Chalker (53:15):
Got to make life changing decisions at that point too. Don, do you want to continue on with Fantastic Four Story or do you stick with the X-Men? This is where the bootlegging came in handy, Don.

Don Ticchio (53:32):
There’s probably a wander poster of you somewhere. Yeah,

Leigh Chalker (53:36):
Possibly. Yeah. Yeah. Oh my God. Here. See, I thought time was going to make me innocent now mate. I have tomorrow morning. It’s like you got those blag coffee. No, it’s like, dunno what you’re talking about. Yeah,

Don Ticchio (53:51):
I suppose I, I should be glad that I’ve been involved in the comics in industry in Australia in some shape or form and I’m glad for that. I consider it a wonderful hobby for me because there’s the running of the business that I used to do and that was first and foremost and the comics on the side. But I had given it away, Lee back in 2001, my third child was born and I thought that’s it. I got to knuckle down and I concentrated on the business because my wife wasn’t working at, she stayed home to look after the kids and one income, so I had to knuckle down. But this is where Rab comes in. I met Rab in 95.

(54:59)
He was a kid at uni and I think he came to the Yule club too, but I don’t recall him well. But I remember him ringing me and saying, look, I’m putting out a comic, I need some help. I said, yeah, glad to help. Because by 95 issue one and all the others, it stopped and I stopped. And so Sam Rab came along and said he wanted help. He was doing a comic called Sung at the time. So I helped him with colouring covers one and two I think. And that kept my interest in comics going until, I don’t know when my third child was born. Then Sirap got busy doing other things. After he finished with sk, you didn’t do anything. He got stuck into his work anyway, so I’ve given it away. But Sara and I always kept in contact through one form or another and then fast forward to in between, Sara was working for other companies and I’d get work out of it, but in between, Sara was doing a comic called Rudy Cool and tinkering around it.

(56:25)
And I think it was in 2002, I got one of my staff to colour it and she loved it. It was something different away from graphic design. This is fun stuff. And at that point she got me to do a one page comic of a boyfriend and I thought, okay, we’ll do that. And she coloured it. So it was fun. But while I was doing that, I sort of stepped away, but SAP sort of dragged me back into it, just doing these incidental things. And then fast forward to 2010 around about like that, he said, look, I’m thinking of starting up Silver Fox comics and I want to do this. I want to do that. Do you want to be involved? I said, yeah, I couldn’t do it financially, but I definitely could help in all other aspects.

(57:22)
And I use the analogy from The Godfather where coo, Mike wants to get out of it, but the more he tries to get out, the more they pull him in. And that’s how it sort of went with me. And I’m thankful to soap dragging me back in because it’s been a fun journey. It really has. And we started out, not many people know this, but Sara was the first Australian writer to get a licence to write stories for Zorro. And we did two issues. The first issue was a double size issue. We had a story for number three, which I loved. It was coming out nicely, but pulp, pulp characters from the day just weren’t selling. And that’s when we decided to change tact. And we did Rudy. Cool.

(58:27)
And then from there we were doing Rudy Cool. We decided to do zombie stories. So we did zombie cities and that went really well, Lee, if I’d have known how well it was going to do, I’d have printed the bloody thing in China for half, almost a third of the cost. And out of that, there was a story in there called Daddy Take Me Home, I think, or something like that. That’s where Baer was born. And we got more response on that story that SAP thought he wanted to try and do something with this guy. And we took him out and gave him, we decided we weren’t going to do single issue books.

(59:27)
You have to sell a lot of them to make any money or to cover your costs. If you can cover your costs, you’re doing well. And we did. We decided to do a graphic novel like we did with Zombie Cities, big thick book. And the rest is history. That character just took off, or mind you, the first iteration of the covers that we did weren’t doing that well, but we tinkered, we tinker with the cover with the name, how it was placed, how much emphasis was given on Baer and all that until we got it basically Baer. And that made all the difference. And that I think is due to SAP’s marketing skills, he managed to turn around and like I said, five graphic novels down the track. VAA is doing well. So we’re thinking of looking at number six, so we’ll see how that goes.

Leigh Chalker (01:00:42):
Do

Don Ticchio (01:00:42):
Something

Leigh Chalker (01:00:43):
You just recently launched Baer issue five and the Fox part of Silver Fox also, let me in on a little tidbit here mate, that I’ve got to say made me laugh. We were talking about it before the show, Don, apparently Nelly missed the Sydney supernova

Don Ticchio (01:01:12):
Because

Leigh Chalker (01:01:14):
On the same weekend he had a family salami making, it’s an annual thing, not quite. And we discussed

Don Ticchio (01:01:23):
It. It’s a tradition. It

Leigh Chalker (01:01:26):
Really

Don Ticchio (01:01:26):
Important. It’s a tradition, but the whole family gets together. My brothers, my brother is the ramrod. He controls everything and many hands make light work. So everybody gets in there and does it. It’s a day of it,

Leigh Chalker (01:01:46):
Just salami going everywhere, man.

Don Ticchio (01:01:49):
The garage is half full of hanging salami. You got to dry it and cure it. So yeah, it was touch and go there, Lee. I would’ve missed it, been over, but it ended up being postponed until two weeks later I think. And all is well and good.

Leigh Chalker (01:02:13):
Yeah, yeah. Well

Don Ticchio (01:02:15):
The problem is it happens. It happens every year.

Leigh Chalker (01:02:19):
Well, you don’t want to stop tradition, man. And if it’s making salami that brings the family together, then so be it mate. You know what

Don Ticchio (01:02:27):
I mean? Oh yeah, no, it definitely does. I wish dad was alive to be part of it, but it’s

Leigh Chalker (01:02:34):
How many brothers and sisters you got? Is it a big get together?

Don Ticchio (01:02:39):
Just two brothers, but nieces and nephews come along and their partners every freaking year. Supernova will have to change his date, I think.

Leigh Chalker (01:02:58):
Yeah. Is that the one you’re making weekend? Don can’t go, right?

Don Ticchio (01:03:04):
Yeah. Might have to have a chat to Daniel. I think

Leigh Chalker (01:03:13):
At least an email mate. Just a suggestion. Check for this date. Yeah, no, that’s cool man.

Don Ticchio (01:03:21):
Not many people know this, but when Tim was involved with Supernova, he was doing all the graphics, the artwork for it, and then Tim decided to take a sabbatical. He wondered and he went to work for Kennedy Miller doing storyboards and what have you. So they approached me to take it on board, mate. I couldn’t been any more happy. Not so much the pain work. I was involved with Supernova. I did it for five years. I was involved with Supernova. I’d get all these things of the artist, the artwork and putting it all together. It was great. It, it’s sad that it came to an end, but while I was doing it, it was fabulous. A lot of work. Mind you, it involved a lot of bloody weekend work because a lot of things were left to the last minute. But it was enjoyable work. And one of my staff that he had loved working on it, he was a Greenland nut for him to be able to, his name was Alex, for him to be able to work on the Supernova stuff and he’d come to Supernova dress as the green LA and what have you. It was great. It was just like a little artistic community putting things together. It was fun. But eventually it went back to Tim and I had my fun of it. It was great.

(01:05:05)
But now that’s when Supernova used to do a lot of things like show bags, books and things. Now they do bugger all literally nothing. But I guess it’s, I don’t know, cost saving, I guess. Increase your profit margin, I dunno. Something like that. Anyway, we’re getting off topic here. Let’s talk comics. Yeah,

Leigh Chalker (01:05:33):
No, there’s always an angle somewhere, Don. Don’t worry about that. It’s like everyone likes money. Even young bootleggers like me. Nothing wrong with that. Also, you were just describing then with Silver Fox had s writer marketing sort of thing. It’s like you obviously brought your years of experience with what you’ve learned through your time in printing and stuff like that. To that make a, I’d say a very successful combination mate, because you’ve had five very lovely big pieces of work. You should be proud of those. Yeah.

Don Ticchio (01:06:27):
Oh we are. We are. And we’re always experimenting, Lee. We’ve decided to steer away from the regular size comic and we opted for the larger version because the artwork, everything displays better, reads better, feels better. And because as Rab mentioned, I really liked the European comic format, how they spend no expense with hard covers and things like and the size. And so we decided to do that. And it is been great, but people are loving it. Especially when you’ve got perfect bound books. Like the smaller ones, you can’t force the crease because it loosens the glue in the spine. Whereas with the bigger ones, it just opens up easier and you can still enjoy reading the story and you don’t lose anything in the gutter from the bunching up. And I think we’ll probably continue with that, that form, with that style. We’d only, I’d say just if we do regular sized comics, saddle stitched, then I probably would say let’s do regular sized comics. Cause people collect those for their regular comics, whereas perfect bound books can be all shapes and sizes really, and that suits its purpose. But I think we’re going to be sticking with that format for a while to come.

Leigh Chalker (01:08:18):
Yeah, no, that’s good. Well, it works for you, mate.

Don Ticchio (01:08:23):
Even with your stuff, Lee, you get to a stage where you’re up to number four. I think that off a busle, when you put it all together as a trade and you should consider going a little bit bigger. You’ve already got your artwork set up, just tell the printer to print it at a certain percentage when they print. Without you, you don’t have to do anything else. Well actually, if you’re going to compile into a graphic novel, you’ll have to do something else. You’ll have to bring it all together and definitely it, I think would look a bit better on a larger format.

Leigh Chalker (01:09:07):
Yeah, yeah. Sometimes I’ve looked at my own artwork in the comic books as you have those vanity moments where you come across, oh, I’ll have a look at issue two. I haven’t seen that for a while because I obviously draw everything on a three and anyone and big lots of detail. Some of that detail does get a little, I would like it in a bigger format. But I think the bigger format love for Me Too comes from my great appreciation of 2000 ad that was always a bigger size book. I enjoyed just the large nature of it. I felt like you got to see more. It was more encompassing. It made for a better snooze too, Don.

Don Ticchio (01:09:52):
Yeah, it didn’t

Leigh Chalker (01:09:53):
Laying there and the old 2000 ad drops across your eyelids. You don’t get that light flicker in India here. It’s like, yeah,

Don Ticchio (01:10:00):
I must have missed, I missed out on 2000 ad I never saw it. And it was only until later years. And in some secondhand bookshelf, I picked up some copies, but I never picked it up, never used to see it. And hence I’ve missed out on a lot of stuff that was in those books, which is a damn shame,

Leigh Chalker (01:10:26):
Mate. Honestly, I was coming from my dad collecting heaps of comic books. He was an amazing Spiderman, spectacular Spiderman, Weber, Spider-Man, anything Spider-Man and Marvel team up, Marvel Tales, everything was Spiderman, so Spider-Man everywhere. So I grew up with that. I was devouring and then everything was out at the news agents and there was 2000 ad and I chanced my arm on it that day. And it was like the first time, I guess cognitively I’d registered black and white artwork because up until that point everything had been colour. And I just, man, I don’t know, I just get lucky with stuff like this. Hey, 2000 ad didn’t have a gloss cover. It used to just be the same sort of cover paper as they used on the interior back in the days. And man, I got dropped into, I do remember a, B, C Warriors with Simon, and then he was doing black and white stuff and you love and that. Then there was Mike McMahon, there’s just all these amazing dudes. And then they were painting and you know what I mean? You’re looking at the, didn’t he just do black and white? And then a year later he is bringing out something else and it’s all acry painted stuff. Oh man, I just went KO at the open.

Don Ticchio (01:11:49):
Well see, I only came across those guys when they were doing work for the American publications. So I missed all that. I suppose it’s also the period that I decided I wasn’t going to have anything else to do with comics. So I stopped buying. So I missed a lot of people. That’s not to say that I wasn’t drawing or anything like that. I was doing commercial work, not so much comic side. By that I mean I don’t know.

Leigh Chalker (01:12:30):
Oh, awesome. You got more stuff.

Don Ticchio (01:12:33):
Yeah, I’ll show you.

Leigh Chalker (01:12:34):
Yeah, yeah.

Don Ticchio (01:12:36):
I mean I did a children’s book back in the day and I actually got one of my staff who, back in the day, I had a Polish girl working for me who was a trained fine artist by trade to restore old masters, but in Sydney there was no call for that. We don’t have that many old masters. So she retrained as a graphic designer. But I got her to colour the book and she did a fantastic job. Then I do, here’s my dinosaur thing. The dinosaur, it’s a colouring book

Leigh Chalker (01:13:31):
For anyone watching it at home that doesn’t know. Don’s very keen on dinosaurs.

Don Ticchio (01:13:37):
Yeah, I love me dinosaurs. I dunno which way I’m going. So anyway, then I did, I didn’t actually do this whole book, an artist that started it and then he decided he didn’t want to do anything. So I did the last 10 pages and the cover and I finished it off with this guy and they were working on a second book, which sort of come to a halt at the moment. And then I did these characters, a calendar company where we did a lot of posters and they didn’t want to do anything else. And I said, well, I created the characters, I’m going to use them in a colouring book. And they’re, they’re very simple, simple illustrations. They’re nothing.

Leigh Chalker (01:14:32):
They’re beautiful illustrations, man. Yeah,

Don Ticchio (01:14:35):
I did ’em with a broad, thick line to make it easy for kids to colour because you see a lot of colouring books for kids and the lines are so bloody thin. Imagine getting a 5-year-old to colour between the lines. It’s very basic stuff.

Leigh Chalker (01:14:54):
Yeah. Oh mate, they’re lovely.

Don Ticchio (01:14:56):
So I’ve been busy doing other things, not comic related, but still drawing. And that gets my passion for drawing, keep going and love my dinosaurs.

Leigh Chalker (01:15:16):
When did young Don decide to, you had your art classes and stuff and you weren’t really sure about, but to build to that you must have been, as you said, doodling and dabbling away when you were younger and stuff. Were you starting off your comic book and your dinosaur love at that page stage? Were you finding

Don Ticchio (01:15:39):
No, I wasn’t. It’s only when I saw copies of Tur Rock, sun of Stone that I fell in love with that sort of genre. And then the love of Dinosaurs developed. They used to have those old dinosaur movies on TV with Claymation.

Leigh Chalker (01:16:04):
Yeah, the Harry Halfen house and stuff like King Kong. And

Don Ticchio (01:16:09):
There was one movie that I absolutely loved. It was done in the 1940s called 10,000 BC or something like that with Victor Mature. Nobody would know who he is, but back in the day, he was a big star.

(01:16:27)
And I recently saw it, it was ahead of his time in some of the stuff they were doing, I think. And then I saw the 1933 King Kong and I fell in love with that. And I saw that back in the 67, 68, something like that. We didn’t have a television, so I had to go to my uncle’s place. He had it and we were watching things there. My love of dinosaurs is come on gradually, and then I see it in comics. And then I read a story by Ray Bradbury, a Distant Thunder or something like that about time travel and disrupting things in the past, which affects the future. And then you get all these books. But then years ago they brought out a dinosaur series by a guy called Delgado. I dunno if you’ve ever seen it, but it is fantastic. Beautifully done. And then you had William Stout, who’s a dinosaur man. He illustrated beautiful artwork and that sort of jelled the love again, no way I’d remember their names of the Latin names, but triceratops and sticker saws and all that. But yeah, no, mind you, I don’t want him here today.

Leigh Chalker (01:18:12):
You have to imagine asking them to move from the back of your car mate. Oh look mate, I’ve got to go to work.

Don Ticchio (01:18:20):
Where

Leigh Chalker (01:18:21):
Are all the dogs in the neighbourhood going, getting taken away

Don Ticchio (01:18:26):
And that love at Dinosaur, really? I think it was 91. In 91, I had left the agency and I got together with a group of guys and we started our own studio under one umbrella and I was the graphic design department of that. And at the time there was a company called Federal Publishing. They did a lot of the reprints, it used to be

Leigh Chalker (01:18:51):
Black and white rerun and stuff.

Don Ticchio (01:18:54):
And I thought, I’ve got an idea for a dinosaur colouring book and I want to see if they’ll go for it. So I approached them and I said, look, I want to do a comment for dinosaurs. Would you be interested? And I said, yeah, do it and bring it to us and we’ll have a look. So I did it and they took it back in the day they paid me a thousand dollars for it and they printed 25,000 books. And because they were the publisher distributor, they would send the book out on the recall, it would come back, they would clean them up, send them back out again because they were the distributor, it cost them bugger all because I was speaking to my accounts person that was dealing with me said, oh, we virtually sold all of them because they’d get ’em back, take ’em out again, get ’em back, take ’em out again. And they popped very little. Wouldn’t it be lovely if they could do that with comics? With our comics, but it would cost us and it’s not viable. Whereas for them, because it was their industry and their production team, it was nothing for them to put books on the back of other books and send them out. And then Federal publishing closed their doors. But I had made sure I got back the rights to the drawings,

(01:20:36)
So I’ve got the rights back and I’ve published that book four times already. I sort of waited four or five years and put it out getting a new generation of kids coming along. Yeah,

Leigh Chalker (01:20:52):
For sure.

Don Ticchio (01:20:52):
So I put it out to the point where the last one I tried to do it again and distribution companies pretty much shrunk. There’s only three, Gordon and Gooch Fairfax has finished. There’s another mob and network and now it’s got to the point where the distributors are dictating to you where the book or seller note I said, but you’ve got a history of it. It sells. I’ve made money on it every time and says, we don’t think it’ll sell. Or they come back with a ridiculous price and saying, we want a dollar nitially distributor, you’re in the red before you start with the printing and all that. Not that I stuff it. And they were saying that you have to offer the news agents a better deal. And I said, what do you mean you have to give them 50 to 75% a cover price? Are you kidding me? I’m selling a book for five bucks and you want me to give them $4 out of that? And I just gave up. It just wasn’t viable anymore. So it is a changing market. The news agents are pretty much dead or half empty or diversifying selling socks and flowers.

Leigh Chalker (01:22:27):
You go in there man, and there’s a shelf of magazines and then over the other side the card sections become three times as big and there’s knickknacks and stuff. Everyone needs those thong like fly swatters mate. You know what I mean?

Don Ticchio (01:22:44):
It’s a damn shame that it went that way, but I suppose you can sell online, but that takes work and I haven’t got the patience, the patience nor the nos for it. That kind of technology. As I was saying to Rab, I’m pretty much retiring so I really don’t want to know about all this internet stuff and what have you. I’ll just do things and let others do the other bits.

Leigh Chalker (01:23:25):
Yeah, it’s all about balance, isn’t it? I mean, boy talking to me today is like you’ve done pretty well. I mean you’ve always, it’s synchronicity, I guess man is one of those things with Rab coming along and just those little opportunities coming up for you

Don Ticchio (01:23:44):
When

Leigh Chalker (01:23:44):
You needed them and things like that.

Don Ticchio (01:23:46):
It’s definitely kept my head in comics, which I would’ve let go of a long time ago. And in keeping me in the comics scene, I’ve sort of reconnected with a lot of people that I hadn’t seen for a while and I talked to some and now there’s this Yule Club thing online that we do once a week and now you’ve got all these forums and platforms like your Chinwag, your Friday night drink and draw, which I love all these things that warmed my heartley because I look at the kid back in the seventies, none of these shit was available off and you’re sort of on your own and there was a joke going around back in the day when we had the yoga club. We used to call it the Lonely Boys Club because everybody was in their room away doing their own work secluded and what have you. But it’s been a great journey though at the moment I’m working on and if I show it to you, I have to finish it.

Leigh Chalker (01:25:12):
Okay. All right. I’m holding you to that, Don.

Don Ticchio (01:25:17):
It is just that I’ve been promising Darren for a long time and I got to get it done. Hold on. This one is stuck to the live box. I don’t want to pull it off. Lemme get the other one.

Leigh Chalker (01:25:28):
Alright. Too easy. All right, I’m keen for this because Don, I’m holding you to it man, and we’ve got a timeframe that you’ve got to get this done by tomorrow. 10:00 AM All right, so well Dawn’s off. Don’t forget to and subscribe the channel because it all helps the algorithms and keeps everything going and moving and tell your friends about the shows like Friday Night Drinking Drawer. Do it.

Don Ticchio (01:25:58):
Sorry mate. Alright

Leigh Chalker (01:25:59):
Back.

Don Ticchio (01:26:02):
Dunno if you can see it.

Leigh Chalker (01:26:05):
Little bit closer mate. Yeah, there we go.

Don Ticchio (01:26:12):
Oh, okay. Yeah, so just a couple of panels of a story that I’m hoping to have finished in the next month or so for Retro Sci-Fi. Beautiful. I don’t do much Lee apart from Bza and the Silver Fox keeping me busy. I do little projects on the side and as long as they’re not long stories, which I’ll never get done, then I’ll do it. And I do some stuff for Gary Della. Actually, I dunno if you’ve seen this one.

Leigh Chalker (01:27:01):
Well we’re about to come on Don. Oh, Rick, yeah. Yeah.

Don Ticchio (01:27:16):
That was a varying cover for Rick McLean.

Leigh Chalker (01:27:19):
Yep. It’s beautiful man.

Don Ticchio (01:27:22):
Which Gary D sort of approached me and I said, yeah, I’d love to do one odd bods I guess you could call ’em.

Leigh Chalker (01:27:39):
Oh well as long as you still like to dabble mate. You know what I mean? That’s the thing.

Don Ticchio (01:27:46):
That’s the word Lee dabble. I like to dabble. I can’t commit to long things but I like to dabble.

Leigh Chalker (01:27:54):
That’s

Don Ticchio (01:27:54):
Fair enough. And that’s where the fun is for me.

Leigh Chalker (01:27:57):
Well mate, that’s with fun comes happiness mate. As long as you’re happy doing your creativity, that’s the best thing. On another creative note man, I know you like a little bit of painting. Yeah, we’ve spoken about that too. What came first, the drawing or the painting mate? How often do you paint these days?

Don Ticchio (01:28:26):
Another the drawing came first painting, I did a bit at Ed in high school and I used to go to live drawing classes on and off and then I went painting classes at the old jail at Taylor Square. I think it’s up in Oxford Street but it was just by the bay side of thing. Painting only ever really came into play. When I did a job for a client, she was a painter

(01:29:09)
And a chef and a Franco file and she did this beautiful book of recipes and paintings all on French themes and old masters renaissance, that sort of thing. And at the time she was paying it out of her own pocket. I got to a point where I said, look, if we keep going at least another X amount of dollars in here and I could see that she was struggling a bit and I said, look, I don’t want any more money but what I want in exchange is painting lessons. She was very happy with it and I was very happy with it because we went and did, it’s been now seven years for the last eight, nine months I haven’t gone because family issues and it takes up my time. But the times every Sunday for two hours go and paint. You can paint whatever you want. She’s just there to help you visualise and show you the techniques and to what you want to do. And I’ve thoroughly enjoyed, it’s my two hours of heaven really like-minded people. It’s a good crowd. If I couldn’t do Sundays, I’d do Friday mornings and just fun. Did you want me to show you a couple of the paintings

Leigh Chalker (01:30:58):
Mate? If you want to show us a couple of paintings,

Don Ticchio (01:31:00):
Yeah, why not? Hold on, I got to go and get them. Hold on.

Leigh Chalker (01:31:04):
That’s alright. I’ll run through the addresses. Sizzle, get ready to hit up that like and subscribe button mate because that’s what we want you to do. All right, so everyone can enjoy these channels more. There you go. And as Dave died, say hit that little thumbs up button now Friday night, drink and draw on every Friday. I believe it’s episode 96 on the way to a hundred. I’m not sure what the topic is for that, I apologise. But you’ll find out eventually and you can send it through to the email all your artwork that you want to show off and let eyeballs see it and get yourself out there. Siz, we’ll chuck that up for you in a minute. Show is sponsored by the comic shop with over 100 Australian independent titles. So it also has a $9 flat shipping rate, which means you can get one comic for $9, you can get 500, maybe not 500. That might be a bit expensive. I Shane’s going to kill me. Don’t buy 500. Let’s set 20 is a good number. They fit nicely in a box back to Don. Hit us up with these paintings mate.

Don Ticchio (01:32:10):
Yeah, I’m just picking up two totally different. One is a landscape.

Leigh Chalker (01:32:20):
Oh yeah.

Don Ticchio (01:32:21):
It’s like so and one is, might have to step back to this one.

Leigh Chalker (01:32:32):
Oh, it’s a biggie. Oh, look at that.

Don Ticchio (01:32:39):
So there’s a lot of things wrong with it, but it was fun painting it. It’s beautiful

Leigh Chalker (01:32:45):
Man. So have you used that for anything like a cover or,

Don Ticchio (01:32:49):
Well, it was meant to be a cover for a book and then in the end, actually I’ll show you, it was meant to be a cover for a book and then in the end they went with this. It was a digitally done thing, which I thought was a piece of crap and they were talked because this was the third book in the series that I’ve been involved with and it was the distributor that swayed them to use something a bit more digitally done, which, but anyway, I figured it’s their money they can do with that. Don’t get me wrong, they pay me for the painting, they just didn’t use it. We damn shame really

Leigh Chalker (01:33:57):
Sort of a win, not a win-win.

Don Ticchio (01:34:03):
I would’ve loved to have seen it published on the cover and I would’ve fulfilled my dream of being a cover artist for a novel.

Leigh Chalker (01:34:14):
Yeah. Well mate, you may still might get there, man, with your dabbling and your artwork. I’ve got a question for you. I like painting like myself. I do a bit of that as often as I can. And was that with your landscape? Were you out in place or were you doing that?

Don Ticchio (01:34:34):
All that’s from a photograph

(01:34:37)
Because when you go to these classes you got to take something to work off whether you take a photograph yourself or whatever. It’s, it’s more the process of showing you how to build the colours, how to build your layers. And that landscape is one two, technically it’s four paintings if you look at it that way. It’s the background, the foreground, the middle plane and the house. So you’re painting them all at different times and that’s something I’ve learned because I’ve never had any training in painting apart from that little bit of school. But Miss didn’t really do much, much school. A lot of the times we muck. Well

Leigh Chalker (01:35:31):
That jaded man, he was jaded. That first teacher. I liked your second art teacher better that you were talking

Don Ticchio (01:35:36):
About. Honestly, his name was Mr. Crower and he was a sour old coot. He had one of those, when you’re working in woodwork and metalwork, you wear like a dust coat sort of thing. He had one of those in the classroom and he wasn’t teaching anybody anything. It was just a bit of a waste of time really. I know I didn’t learn anything but that second teacher, Mrs. Zat, she instilled the love in the arts and she actually, how can I say, converse with the students. She even took us out a night on the town just with the class. That’s how involved she was

Leigh Chalker (01:36:33):
Going to say, is that allowed dog?

Don Ticchio (01:36:37):
Well, we were year 12, we were considered adults. Her husband came along so it was fine. Okay. No, but no, no. I think because of her, I think I ended up being in the direction that I went because mind Gina, but back in the day, Lee, because I didn’t know what to do mate, I went and applied for a job as a bank teller. I went and did an electrician’s aptitude test and I had no interest in being an electrician, just trying to think of something to do and in the end I just decided to do another two years of school. For me it was the best decision I’ve made. Mind you, being a carpenter would’ve been great too because they’re worth their weight in gold these days.

Leigh Chalker (01:37:40):
But your body might not be as good mate because

Don Ticchio (01:37:44):
Probably not

Leigh Chalker (01:37:46):
My mates to the carpenters and that and labourers and stuff are little bit worse than I’m these days. They’re all standing crooked men.

Don Ticchio (01:37:52):
Yeah, I know, I know. Yeah. No, no, honestly, it’s a blessing that if you have an appreciation for art and things like that and you can work in the field in some way, shape or form, I think it’s a blessing. And I know a lot of guys, I never had the commitment when it comes to comics. If you wanted to make something yourself, you really had to go overseas and punch on doors like the cyclone guys did. But I never had that inclination or that commitment to be able to do that sort of thing. I suppose I was instilled in me from my parents that I should be earning a living and a good living just to go forward and raise a family and all that. And pretty much stuck to that. And I’m happy, I’m happy where I am. So has made me happier by dragging me along with the comics.

Leigh Chalker (01:39:15):
Yeah. Oh mate.

Don Ticchio (01:39:18):
And now I’m conversing with you. I’m doing stuff for other people. Page year, page there. For me that’s a happy medium. It really is at my age because I’m pushing 70 mate, so I’m happy that I can still be involved in some aspect of things and I get a great buzz when I go to the conventions and meet up with the other creators, the writers and the artists and what have you. It’s like what’s that place that you go like my shangrila and when I see Dr. Strange walk by, hey it’s even better.

Leigh Chalker (01:40:09):
That’s my man. Yeah, yeah. No mate. I love the fact that you smile and you’ve got such happy tales and it’s good to see that you are happy. As I said to you, man, your comic books have been around for as long as I’ve been collecting them and stuff and I’m very grateful for you coming on the show mate because oh here we go.

Don Ticchio (01:40:37):
Yeah, right. I’m the one that stays away from the photos,

Leigh Chalker (01:40:45):
More stories

Don Ticchio (01:40:48):
He reputation.

(01:40:54)
I have to say Lee, I do get a bit of pleasure I guess is the word, because I don’t think I’ve made, I’ve had an effect on anything. That’s my personal feeling. I know there’s people out there from the time that I got into the looking at comics that have done a lot more and they’ve had a huge influence and I’m talking Lums and the Gary, all those guys, and I applaud them for all the stuff that they’ve done because I’ve done nowhere near what they’ve done. But I got to say, I do get a kick when you’re at the convention and somebody comes up and goes, oh don’t tick you. I’ve got one of your things I need you to sign. I think cracks alright, yeah, sure. But it warms my heart. And at Supernova there’s a guy whose work I really like. He does the phantom stuff and I ran up to the Phantom booth because Shane Foley was there and I know him and we said hello. And he goes, oh Don Don, I want you to meet this guy here. Jeremy Pheon says, oh you are Jeremy the Phantom stuff. I love what you’re doing with the Phantom. And then he pulls out a war stories book says, oh could you sign this for me? And I thought, oh God, it was a nice, I don’t know, nice moment. I guess that here I am loving what he’s doing and he’s pulling out this, can you sign this for me? So maybe I’ve done something, I don’t know, however little,

Leigh Chalker (01:42:52):
Oh mate, you’ve done it, you’re still doing it. That’s the

Don Ticchio (01:43:00):
Well I’ll keep doing as long as the rep keeps doing it. So I’m enjoying that aspect of it. I seem to be the voice of Sarabi. Are you sure we can do this? Maybe as it keeps saying, I overthink everything and I tend to, but at the end of the day they all seem to work out.

Leigh Chalker (01:43:28):
Yeah, well you’ve both got your chemistry happening there man. So it must work. And I just love hearing the stories of, because since I’ve come along, you just send your files off. They get printed a couple of days later, but you’ve got your and stuff. But the thought of what you were talking about preserving the artwork and seeing the effort that goes into these people that used to hand letter like images and there are things that would’ve provided much difficulty, man, like back in the day that made it a little bit easier I assume now. For

Don Ticchio (01:44:15):
Sure, for sure. I mean back in the day you used to get Blue die lines to check the book before they actually printed them. Now you don’t bother, it’s all digitally done. But back in the day you had to get them to make sure that the pages were in the right order and you get what they call a chemical proof for the cover and these things never fade. The chemical proofs if you treat them well and store them and the chemical proof were just magically because they were nice and glossy on thick paper you’d frame the bloody thing. That’s how good they were. But these days, I mean you see it on the screen, it goes to the digital printer, what you see is what you get. So you, I think you still need to see a proof of what you’re printing just to make sure that you’re happy with the way it looks on the stock and that the page sequence is correct and what have you.

(01:45:27)
And with digital printing, depending on the printer, they might have the colour balance set differently. So you need to check your colours because the old printers or traditional printing, offset printing, the operators have a tendency to always print a bit darker and back. Well even today you still do it. We used to do press checks, you actually had to go to the site, they run the press while you’re there, pull a few sheets and you got to check and make sure that you’re happy with the colour. If you’re not, they’ll cut back on the red, cut back on the blue, up this up that until you get a spot on and because it’s all digitised and whatever these days, once you sign off on that proof, those coordinates that they’ve got in there, they’re locked in so that if they do a reprint, you don’t need to do a press check because it should be exactly the same unless they’re using a different stock and the inks react differently to it once it’s locked in. That’s it. I get things printed in China for a client and all I get at the end of the day is advanced copies. The job’s already printed, I have looked the advanced copy if I’m happy with them and that’s it. But because they’re just reprinting all the time, I don’t have to do anything. They’ve got all their colour gamut and everything all set and they’ve just got to follow it.

(01:47:07)
But with digital stuff, mate, you guys got it easy today. Really. I wish it was easier nowadays, but different times, different technology

Leigh Chalker (01:47:21):
Mate still learning. I tell you, the learning never stops. It’s problems arise from things you never ever thought of mate. You know what I mean? It doesn’t matter if you’ve done five or six of the bloody things, little things will still pop up and you’ll go, why? Just don’t see ’em man. But now Don, as we start winding down the show mate, I’m going to, now there’s two questions that I always like to ask people

Don Ticchio (01:47:52):
Tell me.

Leigh Chalker (01:47:53):
The first one is why do you do it? Why do you just sit there and keep being involved? Mate?

Don Ticchio (01:48:06):
I just love the medium. He had Gary on the show a little while ago and he was talking about the language of comics.

(01:48:18)
I love the language of comics. I definitely believe that for kids that have trouble reading, get them to read comics. I like the structure of the comics, I like the style, the colours, so many things about it. I don’t know what it is, Lee, that attracted me all those years ago to look at these sequential pages of panels and that told a story. If I had to define it, I couldn’t. I just know that when I first saw it, I loved it and I would’ve been what, 10 up to that time. When I was in Italy, I never saw any of this thing living out in the country mate. There was no bookshops or AP shops or anything like that. So even though they had comics in Italy back then, I never saw any of that stuff in the little towns. You just wouldn’t see it. But I don’t know, I think I like the fact the way the panels tell a story

(01:49:41)
And sometimes there’s comics where there’s no dialogue but the panels, the sequence of the panels tell the story and you can follow it and you can understand it. And that’s what I loved about it part. And also I love the style of artwork that somebody could draw like that. Once you open your eyes to it and then you discover all these other things like from the thirties and forties and fifties, all those other artists and artworks and titles, that just opens your mind up. And maybe it’s back in the early days in marketing terms, it was the explosion of colour that really caught your eyes and said, oh geez, that looks nice. I want to have a look at that and blah blah blah. Because the cup is what grapes you really to draw you in.

(01:50:54)
But why do I keep doing because I love it simply I get enjoyment and pleasure out of it. I might not draw as much as a lot of others do, but the little bit that I do, I thoroughly enjoy the process that we have with Rab with the books. I mean my involvement apart from the production side is we talk over panels. If something doesn’t work or the artist is not getting it the way we talk about ’em, then I’ll quickly rough it up and send it off and then we get what we want. For the most part, what they do is great, but every now and then there’s a panel or two that just doesn’t gel.

(01:51:47)
And that process I love, it keeps my hand in even though I’m not actually drawing the whole page. But at least I can say with SAB that yeah, okay, we had a hand in this panel, we got it in this way and that way. And it’s just a nice feeling to be involved in the production in that process I guess. But why do I do it simple. I love it. I love the medium. I always have, always will. There’s some good stuff out there Lee and there’s some crap stuff. But sometimes I’ve found that if the story is that good, you don’t see the crap, you read the story if you know what I mean. And vice versa. It does a crap story. But the art captures your eye. You’ll read it because you are enjoying the visual aspect of the artwork and it carries you through. But yeah, I just love it.

Leigh Chalker (01:53:03):
I think that sounds to me the perfect answer mate. Love for the medium. I think that’s why we’re all here mate. What it was provided friendships and stuff too. I came across a lovely photo of you and Glen Lumsden and Gary Cha sitting down somewhere

Don Ticchio (01:53:24):
Inman

Leigh Chalker (01:53:25):
A couple of weeks ago

Don Ticchio (01:53:26):
In the coal, the Tasmania where bees are mandatory.

Leigh Chalker (01:53:30):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well that just goes to show you mate, that friendships formed like still carry on now mate. So

Don Ticchio (01:53:39):
I think

Leigh Chalker (01:53:40):
That’s a beautiful story in itself as well. Now Don, one last thing mate. What would you say to Little Lee if little Lee came up to you at the Sydney Super Nova and got you on the right day, your family salami making thing wasn’t on. So I’ve got you on the Sunday and I gave, what would you say if I said, Mr. Tiao, I want to draw comic books and stuff. What would you say to that young individual?

Don Ticchio (01:54:11):
I would say draw comics but do it for the right reasons. And I guess know your limitations. I know my limitations Lee, that’s why I’ve stuck to where I am. But if you have a love for it, go for it. But the practical side of me always says to me, have a plan B because you can do comics and love it and keep going but you still need to eat. And that’s what I’ve said to some people that’ve come to the table when they were talking comedy group. If you consider Lee, what percentage of comic book artists actually make a living? It’s very small,

(01:55:19)
Is very small. Some of ’em are living on the poverty line and I couldn’t do that. But if you have a love for it and you have commitment and fortitude and you’re tenacious about it, developed your craft a bit. I dunno, like Jason, I guess he’s been doing his stuff for as long as I can remember and he loves what he does and he is making a living out of it somewhat I guess. But if you do it, Lee, you got to love what you’re doing. If you don’t love it, don’t bother. You got to love what you’re doing. My dad always used to say it doesn’t matter what it is, if you don’t love what you’re doing, find something else.

(01:56:28)
And thankfully I’ve landed in an industry that I love. I love doing design, I love graphic design and my bone is this, I love comics and that’s my outlet, my passion as a hobby and that’s how I’ve treated it. I wish I could have made a career out of it, but like I said, I know my limitations and I knew that I couldn’t put up with those deadlines and monthly things because having done my own book, I could see it. It was a hell of a lot of work. As you know you’re putting your book out, it consumes your life. Love it Lee. That’s what I say, love what you’re doing and if you can make a career out of it, go for it. Yep. You got to give it a try as like my wife said to me, go for it. Have a go. I think she did it so I can get out of my system. To be honest,

Leigh Chalker (01:57:53):
She probably been pestering it for years, Don. And she finally got to that point where it was like, yes, God, you can go, go and do it

Don Ticchio (01:57:59):
Mate. No, but it’s been a wonderful journey Lee. And I wish the same to a lot of people out there that do this. Whether you step away, come back, but you always got your tinkering on the side and keeping your finger in, which is basically what I’ve been doing. And apart from the last 10 years being involved with rab, it’s just been an absolute pleasure for me and I hope that people that do that get the same feeling that it is an exciting medium, it’s a fantastic medium and I wish there was galleries out there that would showcase all this work. As you know, there really isn’t, well there’s nothing in Sydney apart. You might have a pop-up exhibition here and there, but that’s about it. I would love to have a fixed place where you could have sequential art, excuse me, on a rotation, different artists every few months and that sort of thing. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have something like that?

Leigh Chalker (01:59:27):
Man, I reckon that would be one of the coolest things ever,

Don Ticchio (01:59:33):
To be honest with you. And you’d have to work it, you’d have to work it so that you could go around to the schools, promote it, get schools to have a day out into these things. I mean obviously the material that you’re displaying has to be kids sensitive and that sort of thing, but you can promote to your audience whatever you’re showing. I think it’ll happen somewhere down the track. If it did, I’d love to be involved with it. But it wouldn’t have been wonderful though if something like that happened. I know a few other people have been talking about it, but it’s just hard to organise and to find a space and to find the finance and no institution wants to give you money to run it.

Leigh Chalker (02:00:39):
Well who knows, times might change because it would be a damn amazing thing to see. I’d probably need days if that was the case because occasionally like mates of mine send me artwork to ink their pencils and see their artwork. And I’ll be honest with you, I do spend quite a lot of time going over their work and learning and studying what they’re thinking and stuff, man. And it’s a lovely art form. I think it perfect storytelling medium myself.

Don Ticchio (02:01:15):
Yeah, wouldn’t it be great? I mean you’d, I don’t know. You could have master classes in these galleries, have somebody there like yourself, whatever, doing drawing inking and I

Leigh Chalker (02:01:30):
Don’t know if anyone wants me teaching them anything, Don. I might teach him bad. How

Don Ticchio (02:01:34):
You don’t really teach anything. They just look at your process. They’re just stand around and watch your work a bit like a characterist where if it’s down and does a portraiture or whatever and people are around looking the same sort of process, it’s a dream. But whether it’ll happen in my time, who knows? I really would like to see the art galleries get behind it as an annex of an art gallery where they provide the space and they appoint a curator. And a curator has to be somebody that loves comics. Not any opportunity canary that that’s corporate. But you never know. You never know what might happen.

Leigh Chalker (02:02:24):
I’m hoping that that does happen one day, Dom. And I’m hoping that that conversation does come up again and again because opportunities providing and who knows what state governments and federal governments and stuff provide with funding. Maybe things will change in the future. Who knows? I think it’d be a beautiful thing and that might be another place for young Dons to go and meet other people.

Don Ticchio (02:02:52):
Yeah, wouldn’t have been just

Leigh Chalker (02:02:55):
Far off something new

Don Ticchio (02:02:58):
For me. It would be the Yule Club all over again. Back in the day, it was 1986, that’s when I went to this pub at Central and met up with these guys. I forget how many there was there. There was at least 10 people, maybe a bit more, I’m not sure. But my memories a bit sketchy and a lot of things that when went along the way. But the art form today, I think it’s more accepted and respected than it was when I was growing up here in Sydney because there was very little happening in Sydney in the early seventies, apart from some strips that were in newspapers and magazines. One that I used to love was, have you heard of Monty? Wed

Leigh Chalker (02:04:19):
No,

Don Ticchio (02:04:19):
No, no. He used to do big old Ben Hall and Ned Kelly and the Birth of a Nation in the tabloid, the Sydney Morning Herald

(02:04:33)
Humongous paper. And I remember meeting him once at one of the conventions when King’s Comics was running it, I think it was called OSCON back then. And apart from, and he had a show on the A, B, C because he loved Australiana, old convict type stuff and he had a lot of relics from that period and he explain what they were and whenever he drew them, they were accurate depictions of what everything was. I grew up with that in the Australian comics and Tocan in the seventies. One thing I do imagine, and this is where, and I wish I’d have known, but I let that opportunity slip by. It wasn’t up until later that I found out one of my teachers at TAFE was Lloyd Piper. Lloyd Piper was the artist for Ginger Eggs at the time. I didn’t know because when I read in Jamaica, I never read who drew it and he never advertised it. And it’s only when one night he took us, a few of us to dinner, I dunno, that liked to draw. A lot of others were actually designers. We liked to draw and it took a group of to dinner. And it was then that I found out that he was the artist for Ginger Mix. It was towards the end of the year, so my time was over, but I wish I’d have known at the beginning

Leigh Chalker (02:06:32):
Because

Don Ticchio (02:06:33):
I would’ve stuck to him like Glue, let me come in, let me look over your shoulder. It was a missed opportunity that it was a bugger. Really. Yeah,

Leigh Chalker (02:06:48):
Yeah. But it’s still a good touchstone in history mate, for you to be able to say that. How do you feel when you are sitting there and you guys are doodling around dinner and stuff like that? What did you just look over at this bloke and go, man, that looks familiar. You know what I

Don Ticchio (02:07:06):
Mean? What doing you do this? He wasn’t even doodling. The problem was he didn’t talk about it. He would show us artwork of badges that he designed and what have you, but the fact that he was the artist of Ginger Mix, he didn’t talk about it because I think back then, and somebody will correct me if I’m wrong, they didn’t put their name to the strip because the original, now they do like Kenley and the other guy they did. But when he was doing it and the person before him, I don’t think they were allowed to put their name to the strip. I could be wrong, I’m not sure. But he never talked about it. Which for me, if I was doing a strip and I was teaching the tafe, man, I’d be bragging the shit out of it

Leigh Chalker (02:08:07):
A hundred percent.

Don Ticchio (02:08:10):
And if ever you go, I dunno if it’s still there, but if ever you got a K and you go to the Bunker Cartoon Gallery, I think they had a section there in the history area where they actually had Lloyd Piper, his picture and the fact that he was one of the artists for Ginger Megs back in the seventies, late seventies. Sadly he died in a car accident much too young. But yeah, so like I said, it was a missed opportunity to, not so much for me to say I wanted George Ginger eggs because I didn’t have the aptitude to do that sort of stuff, but it would open up worlds I think to meet other like-minded people really. And it is what it is. Time has gone by.

Leigh Chalker (02:09:12):
Yeah, mate, it’s still great stories man. And that’s the main thing. They’re great stories mate. History.

Don Ticchio (02:09:22):
Yeah, history. I dunno, what was the first convention you went to Lee?

Leigh Chalker (02:09:33):
Man, I went to, just as a guest, I haven’t done one in a major town. I just went to, when was that? Mid two thousands, I guess 2015, something like that, man. And that to me was just a, I don’t know, maybe I’ve never been to a comics market. I would probably myself be more inclined to go to or feel more comfortable in, I think it’s called the paper and pen or pen and ink one that’s in South Australia and stuff like that. I like that idea. I’m not really into the, I guess Funko pops and all that sort of stuff. Movie star type things.

Don Ticchio (02:10:25):
Yeah, I’d rather have the smaller ones. There’s a zine fair here in a place called Merrickville and that’s very interesting. It’s all just, it’s like artist alley really. And it’s amazing how much you’ve done in zine format. Some great stuff. Maybe one day I’ll get into the zine fair thing.

Leigh Chalker (02:10:58):
Oh man, there’s some amazing zines out there. I can think of Neil Bland’s one like Nick Major and one of my great mates who made a comment earlier, Ryan Val is the master of the zine mate. And he said in a comment earlier, Don, that he loves your work mate. So it’s

Don Ticchio (02:11:20):
Oh, Ryan. Yeah, no, I hadn’t seen his stuff. I’ve only heard of Brian in the last couple of years, but I’ve recently seen something and I heard about this and I’ve never seen the book, but I knew of it. He died with a falafel in his hand and I didn’t know that was Ryan Bella’s work.

Leigh Chalker (02:11:52):
Right?

Don Ticchio (02:11:53):
But I know of it, but I’ve never seen the work and I’m going to see if I can track that down. Have a look at it

Leigh Chalker (02:12:02):
Mate. Send a message to Ryan. You never know what he’s got lurking around his back

Don Ticchio (02:12:09):
Mate, Ryan. Lemme know.

Leigh Chalker (02:12:11):
Well there you go Ryan. Alright mate, well I, one last question for you, Dawn, before I move into the credits mate, is where can we find all your stuff? It’s

Don Ticchio (02:12:33):
In

Leigh Chalker (02:12:33):
Particular currently or anything else you’ve got lurking, you’re in?

Don Ticchio (02:12:39):
Well at the moment I’ve committed myself to doing a one page jam to Ryan Bella’s battery hen. I’m hoping that they can see some of my stuff in Retro Sci-Fi when I get it finished. And hopefully Darren polishes it apart from that. I can only point you to Silver Fox Comics, what I’m working at the moment with Rab. And if you go to silver fox comics.com au, everything should be up there. And if you go to the Silver Fox Facebook, you’ll see our happy mugs at the conventions mingling with people. I’m the one in the background.

Leigh Chalker (02:13:33):
Yeah. Oh, but mate, you might’ve been in the background, but you’ve got the biggest smile. I’ve seen some of that. You’re smiling like a Cheshire cat in the background.

Don Ticchio (02:13:41):
Oh God, yeah, no, it’s great. Well, you can’t be sad all the time. My wife said I got to smile because if I don’t smile I look like a terrorist. Maybe that’s why I get stopped at the airports.

Leigh Chalker (02:13:59):
Yeah,

Don Ticchio (02:14:01):
That’s true mate, because I’ve gone to Europe on my own a few times and without a doubt, without a fault, I would get stopped at Rome airport by young soldiers with freaking oozy machine guns. They want to check your passport and that sort of thing. Hell, it’s not a nice feeling, let me tell you.

Leigh Chalker (02:14:28):
No, no, no. Well I would say out of that lesson from Don just there about international travel with the beard is keep smiling and you won’t get a probing. So there you go. Alright,

Don Ticchio (02:14:43):
There you go. Not sure where you can find a copy. Yeah,

Leigh Chalker (02:14:47):
The growth. Alright, well we’ll have to keep a look at, if anyone out there look on eBay, Ryan reckons if anyone out there’s got a spare copy of that floating around, let us know.

Don Ticchio (02:15:00):
I’ll, I’ll track it down. So one way or another.

Leigh Chalker (02:15:04):
Yeah, yeah, ripper. All right Don, I’m going to wind it down there mate, before I head into the credits, I would like to say how grateful I am that you’ve been on the show tonight. Well

Don Ticchio (02:15:20):
Thanks for having me on. I was reluctant to come on. I

Leigh Chalker (02:15:25):
Know, I know, I know. I dunno what twisted you made, but you’ve been awesome man. You’ve been a wonderful,

Don Ticchio (02:15:34):
It’s been a pleasure. It’s been a pleasure Lee. And I think you, you’re conversation so makes it a lot easier to talk I think. Anyway.

Leigh Chalker (02:15:45):
Well thank you mate.

Don Ticchio (02:15:46):
It’s been a pleasure.

Leigh Chalker (02:15:47):
Yeah, cool. I thank you very much for that. I do enjoy talking the Tuesday chin wags to meet everyone and get their stories out there because every story’s important and everyone’s got one. But Dawn, thank you very much mate. You guys certainly are a gentleman, so thank you very, very much. Alright, so for everyone at home, thank you for watching. I’m sorry I couldn’t get to all of the comments, but I was enthralled by Don Don’s, he’s got the gift.

Don Ticchio (02:16:18):
Good.

Leigh Chalker (02:16:19):
You watch out for him. I tell you what, if you walk in for one Baer, you’ll come out with five. So

Don Ticchio (02:16:26):
Unbelievable.

Leigh Chalker (02:16:27):
Alright, say everyone at home, don’t forget to like, oh, here comes Lloyd, me little mate. So don’t forget to like and subscribe to the channels because that helps the algorithms and stuff, gets it out to more people and makes comic in the community bigger and gets all these stories and all the things that we like to do out and about into the world. Now I have been alerted, I thought Shane was calling me a Muppet down here in the bottom left hand corner, but I’m going to assume that Muppets is the Friday night drink and draw topic. He’s probably not wrong on either part. Nothing you can send. If you want to start early, you can and you can send them through to Art at com, X Studio. So jump in, join, do whatever. That’s the topic of Muppets like animals. A pretty cool dude.

(02:17:22)
I wonder how many people are going to do animal. I like him, but that’ll get shown on Friday night, drink and draw and SP Sizzle and Quick Nick and the usual gang will be there with several guests dabbling away. Now the Comex shop is what sponsors the show website is www.com x shop. Now there are over 100 Australian independent comic books there for a $9 flat rate of postage. So as we discussed before, you can buy one, you can buy a hundred, you can buy 20, you do whatever you want. But for every purchase of everyone that’s in the shop, it helps them buy pencils and ink and paper that continue on their journey and bringing you their creations, as Don said earlier, which everyone shares the same love of the medium and is passionate about what they do. So look on Final Note. Next week is episode 31.

(02:18:21)
I have Tad, I’m not even going to try and pronounce his last name because I’ll just hurt myself and I’ll probably hurt him. So we’ll find that out next week. But Tad P from The Dark Nebula will be joining us here next week in the same time, same channel at seven 30. Now look, always look out for your mates. If you haven’t heard from someone in a while, give them a hoist, send them a message, flick ’em a picture just to show your care. There’s a lot of people that struggling around at the moment due to whatever reasons and a little bit of kindness never killed anyone. And thank you for watching the show. And always remember, community is Unity.

Voice Over (02:19:10):
This show is sponsored by The Comex Shop. Check out comex.cx for all things comics and find out what comics is all about. We hope you enjoyed the show.