Gary Chaloner

Voice Over (00:00):
Sponsored by the Comics Shop. We hope you enjoy the show.

Leigh Chalker (00:20):
Good day. And my name’s Lee Chalker and I’m the co-creator of Ring Around The Rosie. And tonight is episode 26 of Tuesday Chinwag. And the special guest this evening is Mr. Gary Chama. So how are you sir? Are you Well, that’s you

Gary Chaloner (00:42):
As good as can be expected. As good as can be expected under the circumstances.

Leigh Chalker (00:47):
Yeah. Yeah, that’s the way. So just for anyone watching at home,

Gary Chaloner (00:51):
A bit of a delay on the audio here. So

Leigh Chalker (00:56):
Is, so anyone watching at home, as you can see, a little delay on the audio, we just thought we’d give it a go and come out and see what we can do to have a chinwag this evening. But something should happen. I’ve got my sidekick Lloyd here, so he’s always happy to jump in and help out as well. So yeah, usually we have who, what, where, when, why, and how. But as this is Gary’s second time on Chinwag, we’ll give a little rundown. We’ll let him do that in a second and then we’ll just move into having a talk. If anyone out there wants to join in the conversation, ask Gary any questions at all this evening, I’m sure he’ll do the best he can to answer them. And thank you for everyone that’s already sent in comments. Hello and good evening and on with the show. So Mr. C, you want to give everyone who hasn’t met you before, a little rundown on who, what, where, when, and how and why. Mate,

Gary Chaloner (02:07):
On who I am, you dropped out a little bit there. So if you’re after a bit of a rundown on who I am, that’s it. I am a long time comic. Tragic, I suppose I’ve been in the biz since

Leigh Chalker (02:27):
Now. These little dropouts may happen for a while. So hopefully we can get through ’em. Look, once he comes back on, we’ll keep talking, but just a show sponsored by the Comex Shop and there’s over a hundred titles on that, all Australian independent titles of varying artists. So I would recommend jumping on that. If you’re chasing any Australian comic books. Friday Night Drinking Draw is on again this week. And that is the subject matter is Pirates from my Understanding. So get your drawings in there, send them into wherever you send them to Shane or to Bessy, just blow up their emails. Don’t forget to like and subscribe the channel so people can continue to watch. And he’s back. There’s movement. You’re right mate. And gone. Alright, I don’t know where he is gone, he’s back. Hello mate. Can you hear me?

Gary Chaloner (03:36):
I’m not touching the computer, I’m not doing anything. I swear. It’s just every time a face gets on the internet, it breaks. So I’m breaking the internet.

Leigh Chalker (03:48):
I know that feeling, mate.

Gary Chaloner (03:53):
Let’s see if it happens again. Hold on a sec. Let’s see if it happens. You’ve frozen.

Leigh Chalker (04:04):
Oh, technology. Look, I guess.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (05:03):
Can you hear me, Gary? Oh, Lee’s trying to get back.

Leigh Chalker (05:10):
I dunno what’s going on here, man. But there’s Shane. Good stuff. All right, let’s go. We’ll cheat. We’ll see how we go. Fingers crossed. Alright, so what else can I say? Shit happens. Alright, so Gary, let’s go. Don’t touch anything Gary, just don’t touch anything. Tasmanian internet. That’s right. You should reach out to your politicians about that one, mate, what do you do? But that’s enough for you touching anything, mate. Just hands where we can see you all. Alright bud. Alright, so keep going with who you are for the people that don’t know who you are.

Gary Chaloner (05:59):
If you dunno, I’ve been doing this long enough, I should know better by now. So that’s the long and short of it.

Leigh Chalker (06:06):
Yeah, see I’ve Yeah, you go.

Gary Chaloner (06:13):
Go ahead.

Leigh Chalker (06:15):
I was just going to say when you said you’ve been,

Gary Chaloner (06:17):
I was just going to say I’ve just come out of a very long process.

(06:29)
I’ll keep on talking and hopefully I won’t stomp over you too much. But I’ll just come out of a long process of getting a longstanding project finished into the printers. So I’ve come out of my shell and break the internet with this show to celebrate the fact that this project has gone to press and to talk a little bit about it and try and push the fact that the other stuff that I’ve got going on, coming up soon is not just the end of the world with Adventure Illustrated. Number two, it’s finally out and done and I want to come out and spruce it a little bit and get people interested in the project again.

Leigh Chalker (07:09):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, that’s good. Alright, so now you’ve got some artwork that you want to show us this evening that’s related to the project. Would you like to do that sooner rather than later and have a walk through it?

Gary Chaloner (07:32):
If this Internet’s getting a little bit smoother, that might be a good thing. So if you’ve got the first slide there to put up and see whether that works,

Leigh Chalker (07:50):
I’ve got it.

Gary Chaloner (07:53):
And also if people have any questions that can be posted along the bottom of the screen and I can sort of talk to those questions as the show goes along as well.

Leigh Chalker (08:04):
Very good. Alright, so Mr. C, I dunno if you can see it, but you’ve got the cover of Adventure Illustrated, flash Domingo Battles Koo there,

Gary Chaloner (08:14):
Right? I can’t see that yet, but that is one of the covers that a lot of people would’ve seen from. Ah, there we are. I can see that now. That’s one of three variant covers for the issue that’s coming along. And this issue features a confrontation between Flash Domingo and Darren Close’s Character Killer Root, which everyone knows in Australian comics. Very popular character. So I’ve been promising to do this story for Darren for many, many years and it’s finally in the bag and finished. So this is cover the first cover of Adventure Illustrated number two. So that’s illustrated by me and coloured by Graham Jackson, who’s done a wonderful job. So that’s cover A and the next slide is the next variant cover. There we go there. That’s the Greener Pastures variant cover by Tim McEwen, which is pretty amazing. Again, this comic has been around for so long in production that a lot of people have thought that this book has already come out, but these covers were done before the Kickstarter went live many years ago. So just refreshing people’s minds that this is cover number two by Tim McEwen featuring Trevor Bovis. It features another chapter of the brand new greener pastures graphic novel that Tim and Michael Michel Lando are working on. So there’s 12 pages in there of greener pastures as well.

(09:49)
The next slide, this one is an ACOM exclusive that we’ve done, especially for Darren Close and his customers. So it won’t be openly available for anyone unless you get the Old Man Rufus campaign or order this cover through Darren Close Direct. So this is Aconex exclusive and that’s cover C for Adventure Illustrated. Again, it’s been coloured up by Graham Jackson who did a wonderful job, and that’s Flush Domingo and Kue having a bit of a confrontation. The next slide, more Colours by Graham Jackson, but this is the first splash page of the Cyclone Force chapter that’s in this issue as well. It’s a bit of a catch up on what happens to or what has happened to the Gordon Russell character in the book. So it gives a bit of an origin of what he was about back in the thirties. So that kicks off the issue for my side of the storytelling. Next slide is that, yes, this is a double page spread of the fight between Flash Domingo and Kroo. This spread is been inked by Darren Close. So that’s a two page spread that’s in the middle of the issue as well. So that gives a taste of what the action is like there. All this interior artwork is unlettered at the moment except for Tim’s stuff, but he letters straight onto the art page. So this has dialogue and narration across it in the printed version. So that’s that double spread. And the next slide

(12:01)
Is a pinup shop of Flash Domingo and Kroo and Kroo having a bit of a bad moment there. So that’s a bit of an art sample, again, hasn’t been lettered. There’ll be dialogue and narrative boxes added to that in the print version. Next slide. That’s a bit of a sample of Tim’s black and white art in the issue. His art game is getting very strong with this new stuff. If anyone’s had a look at Mccuen’s recent projects and the stuff that he’s been showing around some recent shows, he’s really getting pretty amazing with his art. So this is a good example of when we first meet Trevor in the new graphic novel that has been run in Adventure Illustrated. Next slide.

(13:03)
This is the next page in the Adventures of Red Kelso, where our hapless assistance of our hero still being attacked by a whole bunch of natives. So there’s a short continuing chapter of Are These Fellows in Trouble in this issue as well? So the Red Kelso stuff is an older series that I had lettered in Photoshop, so that’s why the dialogue is in place here as opposed to the Cyclone four stuff, which was computer lettered. So that gives you a taste of some of the dialogue without giving too much away Poor old Congo. There is having a bit of a moment.

Leigh Chalker (13:43):
That’s beautiful, man.

Gary Chaloner (13:49):
Okay, so from here, this is what’s coming up. Yeah, feel free to put that next one up there. Now that this issue is out of the way, I have a whole swag of unfinished projects that I would like to get through and catch up on. This is an unfinished colour job that I’ve started on the next project that Cyclone is releasing. It’s autopsy number one starring the Undertaker Morton Stone. As you can see, this is a cover by the amazing Ryan Villa. This title will feature short stories by myself and a whole swag of other Australian talent. So that’s the next cap off the rank for me as far as getting some stories finished. I’ve got a story there featuring Patricia, the Vampire Girl that Dylan Nailer has pencilled that I have sit to sit down and ink up, and that’ll be in this issue as well. There’s a story by Jason Paulos that I’ve, and another one by Ryan Feller and Matthew Dunn has done some artwork for a story as well. So this is going to be like an anthology title for Undertaker Morton Stone. We’ll see how we go. And that’s going to be the cover for the first issue. So that’s what I’ll be working on next and certainly won’t be doing any crowdfunding campaigns until everything’s finished and done so in case I get hit by a bus. So that’s the Undertaker Morton Stone. He’s coming. Next slide.

(15:24)
This is a little preview of something that I’ll be working towards the end of this year and into. Next is a similar thing to the autopsy title is Tales of the Jackaroo, which will be me and other creators in the country doing short stories and putting the Jackaroo back front and centre as a headliner title. It’ll be an anthology. And that cover that I did there was a bit of an homage to the old Bruce Springsteen born in the USA album cover, which has just recently had an anniversary of some 30 years at 1984 so longer. And so I thought it was kind of appropriate to do a bit of a homage for Springsteen because I’m a bit of a Springsteen fan and he’s on tour at the moment. So that’s probably going to be the first cover of The Tales of the Jackaroo and various and sundry people will be coming on board to do stories featuring Jack and the crazy cast from Duga Dugger and from the Australiana Cafe. And we’ll get the Jackaroo back front and centre as someone with new stories under the belt. So that’s a bit of a preview of the first issue of Tales of the Jackaroo.

(16:52)
The next one here is some artwork by Glen Luton for a project that we’ve been working on that I don’t think Glen has ever illustrated Jack Keegan or the Jackaroo before in his style. So this is a cover that I’ve got Glen to do that he was quite happy to jump in and have some fun with. It’s for a project that hopefully will be out by the end of this year. So something a little bit different for both of us and a bit of a surprise when it comes later on. So I’m not going to say too much about this one, it’ll wait until hopefully it’ll be out before Christmas. But that’s Glenn Lumpkin’s take on Jack Keegan and the Duga Dugger Hotel there. So more news on that in the coming months. But where are we in June? Yeah, in the coming months. So hopefully before Christmas that’ll be out and about as well.

(17:41)
So again, this is my attempt to my big push to try and put the Jackaroo front and centre. That’s okay, you can keep on rolling throughs. That’s one more to go this as well in the next 18 months or so. I’m just working through colouring up the old Jackaroo stories and I’m going to re-release them and as well as continue on the series. So this is just an example of Graham Jackson’s colouring that was also done for the 2017 reprints of the Flash Domingo stories, but now I’m repurposing it and repackaging it as a new series of an ongoing series of jackaroo material featuring the classic stuff coloured and then moving into new material as well. So that’s a bit of a tease for the reconstructed first issue of the Jackaroo. The American series actually had this cover as well when Jackaroo was released back in the early nineties.

(18:37)
So I’m going to emulate the content of the American issues so that it’s seen as imagine if the Jack Ru title back in the early nineties started similarly to the American Edition and the numbering went forward from there. So that’ll hopefully be coming out next year as well. But again, I’m not putting any pressure on myself as far as getting stuff done by certain deadlines. It’ll happen when it happens, but the Jackaroo is coming back front and centre to be one of the few things on my drawing board and try and get Jack front and centre for, because I think in this country, or not necessarily in this country, but as far as the internet is concerned and internet shows and chat shows and things like that, there isn’t much discussion had about actual characters, Australian characters and stories. There’s a lot done about creators and how they go about things and what they’re working on, but there hasn’t been much of a discussion about some really high profile Australian characters and who they are and what they are about and the stories that they’re in.

(19:50)
So what I’m trying to do is oddly enough, recede into the background more as a creator and push my characters further to the foreground and try and establish ’em as less a Gary Chana project and more of them standing on their own two feet, which was the reason why I was quite interested in doing a title called The Tales of the Jackaroo, to invite other creators to come in. And because the Jackaroo hasn’t really been handled by too many other people besides myself, I’ve done some short stories with some friends back in the nineties, Dylan and Jason Paulo and Greg Gates. But I’m opening up even more now to be able to work with people that get in touch with me and come to the table with some good ideas for the character. So that’s me in a nutshell as far as Adventure illustrated the past Adventure Illustrated number two is at the printers and hopefully the digital edition will be released for that.

(20:52)
For all those long suffering and patient Kickstarters backers and patrons in the next week or so. There are plans for Adventure Illustrated three, which could hurt a lot, but the point being that now that this one’s out the way, a huge psychological hurdle has been jumped and I’m feeling free as a bird and all excited again, just wanted to give a bit of a shout out to everyone to thanks for their patience. And the Jackaroo is coming back and Morton Stone is coming back and yeah, I’m going to just need a little help from my friends I suppose, to get the stuff done, but it’ll get done and out. So that’s my story and hopefully in the next year or two, because Cyclone Comics is coming up for a 40th anniversary in 2025, so I’m giving myself 18 months to get a whole swag of stuff done so that I can have a bit of fun in 2025.

Leigh Chalker (21:56):
Mate, you are busy. You’re not just idling away down there in Tasmania, are you? My God, you’ve got some stuff coming out.

Gary Chaloner (22:07):
Well, and the other thing that’s on the agenda is my duties on the Comic Arts Awards of Australia as well that is on the agenda and starting to ramp up again. We’ve got the judges, the new judging panel for this year that’s looking at work that was released in 2022. They’re all reading all the material that’s been sent to us at the moment. So the judging panel and process has started, I’ll be honest, waiting for some bios and for some judges picks to come through for me to make the announcement on who’s on the judging panel this year. But they’re already very busy working away on reading Australian comics left, right and centre. So that’s happening in the background as well. So yes, I’ve been pretty busy for someone who should be in the dotage and rocking in a rocking chair on the front veranda with a shotgun on.

Leigh Chalker (23:06):
Yeah, you are mate, you are. I do have to say all your characters are coming to the foreground. There were a couple of comments there too, mate, I don’t know if you saw them. There was one from Graham Jackson, he said thank you to you for the kind words. Cheers, Gary. That is there. There was one from Dave Guy. Yeah, yeah, well there was one from Dave Dyer too that said that Jack’s favourite Chalon character. So there you go.

Gary Chaloner (23:44):
I’ll be in touch Dave and we’ll see what we can do for a Jackaroo story. Yeah,

Leigh Chalker (23:50):
There you go. I think he might’ve heard you mate. So

Gary Chaloner (23:58):
If Dave was to do something that it’d be something with thousands of horses stamp heating and galloping through Duga Dugger or something that I would never want to draw that he’d be good at.

Leigh Chalker (24:08):
Oh man, the man’s a marvel. Hey, I’ve got to say the last time we were on not bringing it to the foreground, but you, you’re suffering from Parkinson’s and you’ve made that public knowledge. So now your drawing some of those pages, you, the last time we were talking, you were showing us a little instrument that you had that you found help keep your hand steady while you were drawing ’em. And some of those pages you showed just before, they obviously have been done fairly recently or as recently as possible, mate. I would just like to say they are a one man. They are beautiful. Well,

Gary Chaloner (25:01):
This part of the concern that I had was maintaining quality and my speed has just gone out the back door. So all I have left to really do to bring to the table is storytelling chops and quality. So luckily in an upside down way, luckily Australian comics have never been hinged on regular releases like a monthly release or a bimonthly release if that’s great if it can happen. But generally the Australian comic reader is quite patient as far as gaps between issues. I mean years is just stupid. But I feel that the gap between what I can do and when it’s released now I’ve kind of got it sussed. So now one Dave, thank you. I’ll be in touch.

(26:01)
And yeah, a lot of that artwork, particularly for the ending of the story of Flash Domingo Koo has been done over the last year and it was a major concern of mine, whether the art quality was being maintained, I don’t want anything that’s going to be second rate out there. So quality was the main consideration more so than speed, because speed was a question that had just was already answered that I wasn’t fast and it was just really up to the patients of people to allow me the time and space to get the job done. And it’s certainly a lesson learned, you young people out there, it’s a lesson learned, not the press, the go button on your Kickstarter campaign before you have everything done and dusted. So yeah, that’s a lesson learned there. So moving forward, if ever I was to do a Kickstarter campaign again, it’ll be only when everything’s at the printer’s job done, which I think most of the Kickstarter campaigns these days follow that golden rule.

(27:13)
So they’ve taken, they’ve learned a valuable lesson to have the work done first before expecting people to waste. It’s okay, I suppose if the campaign is predicated on raising funds to pay an artist to go away and do the job, that’s a different campaign that you are aware of going in, that the campaigner is raising funds for the creators to go away and do the work. But it’s different when you think you can get stuff done and to the printers after the campaign. And if you get hit by a bus or if you have an affliction or a diagnosis that throws a stick in the spokes, you’re stuck because there were times, months after my diagnosis and after the campaign had closed where I was thinking, oh, I should just put a stop on this and give everyone a refund. And that wasn’t option and I was talked out of it both by my wife and a few other people.

(28:21)
There was other things in tow that it was important for me to finish the book. So it became a personal challenge and a learning process, but a personal challenge to see whether it had to get done to see whether I could still draw and at a certain level as well, or else it would’ve beaten me, it would’ve meant me walking away from the whole thing completely. And there’s still a love and a need to tell stories and I still want to, as I’ve shown with my artwork, I still want the jackaroo to come out into the Limelight and Morton Stone as well. Those two characters I have a deep abiding love for as most creators do with their creations, but I’ve never thought that they’d had the attention and time put into them that they deserve. So despite the fact that I’m slow and despite the fact that I’ve got Parkinson’s, I’m still going to move ahead with plans that I’ve always had to refocus things less about me, more about the characters.

Leigh Chalker (29:36):
Yeah, yeah. Oh mate. Just from looking at that artwork, like man, highest tier. So all respect to you man. So it’s like, just keep going. I have, now there’s Daniel. So Daniel Best, what’s happening with the now infamous Cyclone book working on,

Gary Chaloner (29:59):
But is it infamous? Really? Yes, it’s been a long time.

Leigh Chalker (30:04):
I dunno, I keep hearing rumblings around the schoolyard that there’s a lot of people that want to read that. I may definitely be one of those. Like I said, oh, I like that question, Daniel.

Gary Chaloner (30:19):
Well, it’s on my list. I’m doing a brand new cover for it and because it involves obviously artwork and it is on the list of things to do, I’ve had a single commission to do for a poor BLO over in the States who’s been waiting on the list as well. And then there’s getting the Cyclone book finished. This is above and beyond the other stuff, so it’s on the top of the list. And poor old Danny Bets has been as patient as anyone as far as getting his book done and dusted and out into the world.

(30:54)
So without putting a curse on it, my plan is to have the Cyclone book and Danny happy with it out by paper cuts in Adelaide when the Comic Arts Awards is being held on the Friday night before paper cuts in September. And I’m going to still be in Adelaide for the Paper Cuts market day on a Sunday. And Daniel Best will be there as well because he’s a local boy and I would like very much to have the cyclone booked there. And Dave Dere is a South Australian as well, so he might very well pop along. I haven’t talked to Dave yet about that, but I’m aiming within myself, within myself. I’m aiming for the book to be out and available at Paper Cuts, if not sooner, but certainly by then because I won’t be travelling interstate as often anymore. And going to Paper Cuts will be a good opportunity for people to see Daniel, to see me probably see Dave Devrees as well and get the book signed or at least pick up a copy and see where we go from there.

Leigh Chalker (32:05):
Mate, I think that sounds fantastic and we just have a bit of interruption at the end, but I think that’s a beautiful thing because it’d be very awesome for anyone out there that hasn’t met Gary, as he said, he is trying to get there and Daniel Best is his great mate too and a great character. So I think that’d be a very funny and interesting pairing to get to have a yarn to. But Siz in the background, someone Artworks has been putting up some comments. Gary’s characters and artwork are my go-to for Comfort Reading says Artworks official comic book artist.

Gary Chaloner (32:55):
That’s very nice, thank you very much. And to be more comfort reading for more people. So I want to tell more Jackaroo stories and more Mor than Stone stories, so nobody wants to see me, they just want to see guys. Nah. Well I think you,

Leigh Chalker (33:15):
Daniel can be your drink run mate.

Gary Chaloner (33:20):
I’ll be spilling the drinks, I’ll need them my

Leigh Chalker (33:23):
Hand.

Gary Chaloner (33:26):
I won’t be doing any live sketching or drawing or anything like that. That’ll be a little bit too embarrassing. But I’ll get a stamp of my signature and that motion is fine. But doing live drawing or commissions or sketches on the spot, I think those days are gone for me. But yeah, I’m looking forward to it and getting to Adelaide for the first time as well. I haven’t been to South Australia, so hopefully the comic arts awards function on the Friday night is a big success. That rolls into the Paper Cuts Festival across the weekend in mid-September. So yeah, I’m really looking forward to that. But there’s lots of stuff still to do between now and then and Danny’s books one of them and getting the awards together itself is going to be a lot of work as well. But we’ve got some good help around and as I said, the judges are out reading now, so hopefully the short list will be a strong one this year. I’ve had a bit, I’m not judging panel myself this year, so I’ve had a good look at cross section of work that’s been done for 2022. And as usual, there’s some amazing Australian comics. Been done, 2023 is already shaping up to be a hot year as well, but last year was absolutely amazing. So I’m looking forward to nailing the shortlist and getting that released fairly quickly as well so that we can celebrate some of the really fine stuff that this country can do.

Leigh Chalker (35:04):
Yeah, hey, we’ve got you there. But I’ve got to tell you, this is tricky with screens going black and all over the place, it’s like, but hey, we are still here and we’re still doing our thing. Hey Gary, we caught that question for you, Australian Australian comics at the moment. Do you find them because you are someone that reads and sees a lot more of this stuff than I do further reach and things and harder to find because it’s not just superhero comic comebacks, science fiction comics and things like that. There’s a whole heap of people that do a very, very wide range of stuff. Do you think that the Australian comics has got a very healthy, varied creative pool

Gary Chaloner (36:04):
And it’s growing all the time? There is a representation right across the board for all different kinds of material. And I’ve always maintained, and it’s only becoming stronger that the diversity of Australian comics is one of its strengths. It may be a small country as far as its comic industry is concerned, and I can use the word industry, I think people are being industrious within it. It may not be as big as the American industry or any of the European countries, but it’s still quite vital in its way. And one of the strengths of the Australian scene is the diversity of product that’s being released. And when I first started the ledgers back in the day, that was one of the things that I was saying back then is that it isn’t just superhero comics, there’s quite a large sweeping variety of subject matter and ways that the comics have been released as well, from web comics to small press to large press, graphic novels to mini comics.

(37:12)
And every year it just tips on getting more the point that diversity in this country is amazing. And what I’m finding is that the awards things like the awards actually provide a bit of a bridge and opportunity for different pockets of creators to find out about each other and to talk and converse with each other on the awards nights. And if people pick up the annuals each year and read about other projects that they might necessarily be interested in as a reader, but as a creator, it’s fantastic to see that the Australian scene is quite vibrant and seems to be slowly growing and growing each year, which is very heartening for me who started this thing with Tim so long ago that there’s still growth there and it’s a positive growth and it’s right across the board in all different kinds of genres and formats. You’ve frozen by myself on the internet. There you go.

Leigh Chalker (38:37):
We’re just lost it man. It’s like it is what it pop up again shortly. There we are again. See, it’s uncontrollable, but there’s Gary. But hey, this is the pros and cons of this live stuff man. And it’s a learning curve as well. Someone said that dead air is, it is no good in the live stream and stuff. So I guess that’s where as you’re joking, I guess that’s where the shit talk and part of the conversion comes inmates, so you just got to keep this thing rolling as best we can, but that’s just how it is. So live and learn. But mate, I like the fact that what you were just saying, Australia does seem extremely, very varied to me with its creator output and yes, it probably is burning the fibre optics. Daniel, I’ll wear a hat next time, man, to take off some of the steam and stuff, man.

(40:00)
There’s also a lot of people I guess creatively really taking some chances from what I’ve seen. There’s some comics that personal and stuff to me as well that are out and about of all different degrees as well, which I give a thumbs up to those people doing that sort of stuff. It certainly is difficult to not sell, but tell personal stories of traumatic experiences and autobiographical stuff that takes an awful lot of ticker. So anyone out there that’s doing that good on you? Inspiring me at the moment. All those people out there and I have been closely looking at stuff for motivation and inspiration and stuff with a topic that I’ll be exploring later in the year. But mate, first time in South Australia. Oh there’s both, yeah.

Gary Chaloner (41:08):
Looking forward to it. Yeah, looking forward to it.

Leigh Chalker (41:12):
Yeah. Yeah, that’s cool. How long has it been since you’ve been to a comic do mate or a ComicCon or,

Gary Chaloner (41:23):
Well at least five years, but yeah, because the whole Adventure Illustrated thing, there was a signing at King’s Comics for the first issue, so three years ago at least. But yeah, I get pretty tired pretty quickly these days. So the whole idea of travelling and putting in the energy for things like conventions has to be really planned well. And I have to dig deep to have the energy resources to have a big weekend. So the prospect of going to conventions is probably a bit beyond me moving forward, but the awards is a whole different kettle of fish and going to paper cuts I’m really looking forward to. But I have warned them that chances are I’ll be there on the Sunday for the market day, but the Saturday I’ll probably be collapsed somewhere recovering and just do it in small increments. So you just do what you do, I suppose. And as long as people are open-minded and understanding and most people are, we will get by.

Leigh Chalker (42:46):
I would think it’s pretty exciting, man, your audio just dropped out a little bit, but I would think it’s pretty exciting mate, the people in South Australia for the first time to be.

Gary Chaloner (43:01):
Yeah, well looking forward to it. I dunno how much of a draw card

Leigh Chalker (43:06):
You are

Gary Chaloner (43:06):
Having the awards there will be exciting. So hopefully there’ll be a good turnout on the Friday night.

Leigh Chalker (43:16):
I mean, God, you’ve got a lot of stuff to show off too. I get the opportunity to talk to you, but I love now all your comic books are your babies and stuff like that, but the Jackaroo is the one that from my conversations with is definitely seems to be the closest to your heart. So what’s and not meaning to take away any emphasis from any of your other awesome characters men, but just from personal chats with you and stuff just for everyone. What is it with the Jackaroo that gets you? That’s my baby. What are you most?

Gary Chaloner (44:09):
Well, he was the first one. He was the first character that I developed that I thought actually had legs. And of course you write a little bit of yourself into the character as well. So we cover this a little bit in the Cyclone book, the origins of the Jackaroo character. He had a couple of false starts along the way in the early days of Cyclone, and that was me finding my way with the character as well was very, very much developed and written in real time and there were some false starts and changing of directions and I think that’s a fairly natural thing to do in the creative process. But if you’re doing a graphic novel for a aboveground publisher, you get to workshop all this stuff with your editor and before it gets released. But with comic, particularly back in the day, they’re done in eight and 12 page chunks. So it’s a whole different process of planning and growing a character properly while you’re balancing that between the decision to get a comic out quickly. So sometimes the quickness of the, or relative quickness of getting an issue together flies in the face of solid character development.

(45:35)
So the Jackaroo for me has always been a character that was waiting proper time and dedication to develop properly. All the markers are there for me anyway. All the markers are there and there’s a following there for the character. And now I want to be able to put what experience I’ve had and skills I’ve had in the industry want to apply to him, to flesh him out and to tell stories I’ve been that have been in notepads and own files on the internet for decades, and I want to be able to apply them and get people to read what I have in mind for the character as well. You’ve frozen there, so I’ll just stand by and wait for you to catch up.

Leigh Chalker (46:25):
I’ll just pop back in, man. So yeah, I’m here now. I just had to step out, man. It’s like, hey, what do you do, man? You just got to roll with this stuff. It’s not worth stressing about. It’s good stuff. It’s just, it’s all good times, man. But the main thing is we’re getting you across man as best as we can, but hey look, you know that you’re always welcome back on here, man. So it’s like if the message doesn’t get across to people now we’ll get that bloody message across to even if we’ve got to drill it into ’em, I reckon. Yeah, I like the Jackaroo. Another question regarding all of your characters. I know you’re a huge Robert E. Howard fan now, do you put some of yourself in all of the characters that you’ve created, Matt? Like he used to?

Gary Chaloner (47:27):
Yeah, I think that, yes, to answer your question, yes, I think so. My two main ips that Jackaroo is probably more of me than anything else. The Morton Stone character is a dark side or what’s something that people would never expect Gary Chana to write about and to have to find funny. It’s the black humour side of me. So they are to a certain extent, elements of my personality. Although Morton Stone is more daring myself to go to places that I wouldn’t normally go as far as humour and plots and things like that. So that’s less me and more my attempt at just doing a weird character that I think has a lot of merchandising potential. I’ve always liked the idea of maybe one day having an action figure of Morton Stone and of a little crypto dog on wheels, dead dog stitches that you could with working wheels that you could sort of wheel along your tabletop and all that kind of stuff. So maybe that’ll happen one day, but I get a lot of joy writing the Morton Stone stuff. It is diametrically opposed to the jackaroo material. And oddly enough, my plans have both of those characters merging and becoming more and more closely entwined in their worlds.

(49:06)
And again, in an effort to have more mileage, tell more stories, get more pages done with both of them with the Parkinson’s and the ability to produce content, that doing a single project would be more advantageous than trying to split my time between two separate ips. So again, that’s something for working on in the next 12 months to 18 months or so to see how it all goes. But yeah, to answer your question, I think there is, I mean there’s no way that I’m like Jack Keegan, but it just is easy to write. In fact, funnily enough in the Adventure Illustrated second issue when I was writing the Opal character through features quite heavily, she’s a supporting character in Flash Domingo in the Jackaroo. And I think out of all of my cast of characters, I write her, I would write myself, she’s closest to vocalising how I think about things and how I would react in a certain situation and how I would react to being in those adventures. It’s not necessarily Jack Keegan, that is my go-to guy. It’s more the opal character that I’m a more sympatico with as far as reacting to a situation the way I would react. And I found that quite interesting. It was quite educational as I approached writing the story, which characters actually were easy to write. They were more like me.

Leigh Chalker (50:45):
Yeah, yeah. Well I am glad you chose that. The Jackaroo and Opal were a bit more similar to you than Morton because I’d hate to see you turn up to the Adelaide. We’re expecting Gary in works in walks Morton

Gary Chaloner (51:03):
With my golf eyeliner on and

Leigh Chalker (51:07):
Mate, that’d be cool. Why not? Hey,

Gary Chaloner (51:14):
Morden allows me to do and say things that I wouldn’t normally do or say. So he’s very kind to me that way. So he allows me to be outrageous while the Jackaroo ticks off a whole different set of other boxes. So yeah, it is interesting. But those two sets of characters I really enjoy. And if they’re both hanging off cliffs and I had to save only one of them, I dunno which one that I would save, I’d probably join them on the cliff and we’d all go over together.

Leigh Chalker (51:50):
That’s a lovely sentiment, but comic book characters come back, man, so ’em go kid Gary, because we can have more of the Jackaroo and Morton that just adds to the flavour when they go over the cliff. Man. Hey Don, Tio, gday Don sent, put a thing up just a minute ago and interesting point, you should pitch Jackaroo and Morton Stone to Netflix for Australian content and not even, you can answer it for yourself, but I’m interested to get your two Bobs worth on. I guess what would people do yourself like to do things like that from your experience?

Gary Chaloner (52:40):
Yeah, well funny that Don should mention that because there is a thing that I can’t say too much about, obviously, where that could very well be the case that there are things in train and there have been contracts signed, but I can’t say too much more than that as far as that’s concerned. But again, you’re pushed to try and get these characters out and about. I’ve been talking to people about doing certain things with certain characters in a certain way at a certain time. That’s not a long way away, it’s a little way away, a little something here and there. So thanks Don for putting me in it.

(53:25)
He wasn’t a no, but there are a whole swag of Australian characters that I think would be fantastic adapting into the streaming and movies and animations and things like that. But I think there is coming ahead, a bit of a shaking out of the good days are over with. And I think the streaming services are scrambling for content, as you can tell by a lot of the shows that are getting cancelled and budgets being realigned and things like that. So I think the creative services, the live action and animation services are always looking for good ideas, but it’s not going to be as easy as it has been over the last five or eight years of being able to get a deal. It might be a little bit harder as these streaming services like Netflix start to become a little bit more fussy about what they pick up.

(54:24)
So one may be able to sell an option for your character, but getting that option picked up by a streaming service or by a production company is going to be harder. Again, with the amount of superhero films and science fiction films that are based on comics and stuff these days, that opposite the fact that a lot of these streaming services are cancelling like crazy and realigning budgets and we even had fully made feature films like it was a Bat Girl, bat Woman, that whole movie was made and almost ready to be released and they pull the plug on the whole thing. We’re going to see more of that drastic decision making happening more and more as the streaming services, the dust settles on them. There’s so many of them out there now, paramount Plus and Disney plugs. So the competition is fierce and even they don’t have bottomless pits of money, but there’s still opportunities there to be had and I think they’re always looking for strong original content and the best stuff will get picked up. So hopefully that’s the case for the Australian characters as well.

Leigh Chalker (55:39):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, that’s exciting. Whatever snippet of news that we may or may not find out in the future for you. Good on you, Dawn, for throwing that one out there mate. That was a gem ha. You never know what pops up on a chinwag, mate. I tell you, you’re in, you’re out, I’m in, you’re out. And then suddenly that gem gets thrown out there and it’s Tuesday,

Gary Chaloner (56:08):
I could be pulling your leg.

Leigh Chalker (56:10):
Well, I’m prepared to have a leg pulled, man. I just feel good that if something cool that’s happening, man, it’s happening. It’s excellent. I look forward to hearing more and more about that over the upcoming

Gary Chaloner (56:33):
Me too. I’d love to hear more about it.

Leigh Chalker (56:36):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Positive vibes to you man. Positive vibes. Cool. So yeah, no, I really like that. That’s great. Couldn’t happen to a better bloke if it does happen, mate, because your characters, they’d look damn good up on a screen, they look damn good on a comic book. So that that’d be ripper. Have you always, because very open to any sort of conversation and discussion about all facets of Australian comics. You’ve been an open book of information to me when I’ve had questions and stuff, and not just about comics, but about things in general. Have you always, I would say that I guess you’re a positive spirit that seems to draw people together, man, you’ve always had, even back to your cyclone days with the original crew and then even through your cyclone days when you’re in WA and stuff like that, you’ve obviously never had difficulty in teaching and helping people along the way and building groups together. Have you found that’s just gravitated to you or has that taken some work, like you are the enthusiastic one that brings them all in?

Gary Chaloner (58:07):
Yeah, formally teaching has always been, I’ve tried it in the past, but formal teaching has been always a bit of a self-conscious struggle. But I just try and move forward with what I want to do and try, if people come and want to run alongside, I’m quite happy to run down the road with ’em and I’ve had people run with me for a long way and then jump off the road and then come back on again or go their own way. So yeah, I just try and it’s a marathon and not a sprint. Australian comics as you are finding out as well. And yeah, truer words have never been spoken no matter what aspect of the industry, even if you are a highly in demand international creator, even that is a really hard slog that the industry could take a lot out of you over a very short period of time.

(59:13)
So in the American industry, there seems to be a high turnover of creators that move in, spend five, 10 years in the industry and then move out again doing other things or leave the industry or go into storyboarding and animation or movies, blah, blah blah. So to stay the course in something like the creative field of comic books, I think it’s a very hard thing to do, but that is also once you get in your blood, it’s hard to get it out. So I think once you start bumping into people of minds and desires, even if they’re very new or if they’ve been around for a while, you talk a common language to a certain extent. And I’ve been lucky enough to bump into a lot of people that are quite happy to come along for the ride. And I’ve come along for the ride on other people’s journeys as well. It’s not as if I’m there by myself. I’ve sought out my own friends and associations and team building exercises as well. Some have failed, some have been more successful than others, but that’s the story. But the common denominator is the language of comics and having ink for blood and I think that is more common and that’s a binding force more so than a force that pulls people apart.

(01:00:45)
Yeah, a nice strength of comics.

Leigh Chalker (01:00:49):
Well as mate, I agree with you. So yeah, S kay has just put up there. What about the comic medium excites you mate?

Gary Chaloner (01:01:04):
The language of comics, I’ve been thinking about this a lot while I’ve been hunched over a drawing board trying to get a certain project finished. And you get to think about the whys, a lot of why you keep on doing it. And it’s the fundamental appreciation of what you can do with the language of comics, the world building, the storytelling, the beats of emotion that you can create on the page, the way the panels can be structured. I’m actually finding the older I get, the less fancy I want to be with my storytelling with layouts and the use of the toolbox of comics, the language of comics. And that’s fine as well. There’s a time and a place to be fancy and the language of comics allows for that and there’s a time to be reserved or less fancy or more straightforward and the language of comics can take that as well. So I think having that toolbox of word balloons, panel structure, page layout, the turn of the page pacing of a story, whether you’re trying to do it for an eight page story or a 48 page story or a 230 page graphic novel, it’s all the same toolkit that you get to play with. And once you understand what that is like to use that tool and what the tools do and how you can and can’t use them appropriately or successfully, I think that’s golden in telling a successful story.

Leigh Chalker (01:02:47):
Did you find yourself coming, well, I guess we’re all learning and I would assume that you, we’ve had conversations where you still feel like you’re learning and stuff, seeing different things along the way to help you establish your basic language. Did you, of the story flow and stuff, did you have someone there that would like, Hey Gary, think about it this way, think about it that way. Or did it just come about and just drawing mate, just that pure love of drawing and then this works, this doesn’t work. Were you more self-taught than anything else?

Gary Chaloner (01:03:29):
Yeah, I was largely self-taught that there was a certain amount of sponge action going on with the Cyclone gang in particular where you got to see how they approach things and how they, and I might not necessarily have agreed with the solutions that they reached, people like Dave and the way he draws and Tad and the way he tells a story and Glen, the way he drew and constructed his stories as well. But it was a learning process that I saw very close and it was a learning process as well. But essentially self-taught, reading a lot of comics and again, appreciating a lot of, luckily I had exposure to some very high quality stuff. But yeah, also taking in and I think a lot of creators are the same way that they do. I’ve been talking to Glen Lumsden quite a bit about style changes over the years.

(01:04:34)
And here’s a perfect example and I hope he doesn’t mind me saying this, of a style that he has changed over the years. Over the last 20 years he’s turned from essentially a Paul Glacey, Brian Boland clone, not clone, but stylistic similarities. He’s now getting quite a lot of enjoyment out of reading some classic Alex Raymond and Leonard Starr newspaper strips and you’re starting to see that kind of soap opera and classic golden age newspaper strip artwork starting to influence his work as well. And that’s not a bad thing, that’s just a guy who’s very good at what he does already, still learning and going, oh, I really like the way that Leonard Starr does women’s dresses and fabric. And I just love how classy that all of the women look in the strips and applying that to your own artwork and it changes. I said to him over the last year, he sends through artwork when he finishes it and I was very lucky to be one of the few people that he asks opinion of I suppose.

(01:05:47)
And I actually said to him, the last message I said to him was, your art file’s changing again. And it’s not a bad thing, it’s just for me, someone who’s followed his visual style over the years, it’s noticeable. And that just proves your point that people are learning all the time. And even someone who has masterful as Glenn, who has taken great pride in utilising the toolkit of the language of comics so well is able to still absorb stuff that he’s still got a curiosity and an interest to not just look sideways at what other people are doing, but also look backwards to try and take what he can learn from the masters as well. And Glenn would be very hard to beat as far as technical proficiency, as far as being an Australian artist is concerned with that kind of skill level. He matches anyone around the world, but for him to be able to still looking wonder at other creators and be able to try and apply certain aspects of inking or certain aspects of storytelling and apply that to his work as well is the mark of someone who’s still growing and hopefully he’ll keep on doing that until he gets hit by a bus.

Leigh Chalker (01:07:08):
Yeah, that’s the second time you’ve mentioned people getting hit by bus Gary tonight. I’ve taken note of that man. Alright, so hey, we’ve got a Facebook,

Gary Chaloner (01:07:22):
I think I’ve just written the way the Jackaroo dies.

Leigh Chalker (01:07:26):
Yeah, yeah. Alright, see Chinwag. It all happens man. There you go. The end. So we have a comment from Facebook user, I apologise, we dunno your name, it hasn’t come up so let us know. Gaz is the real thing, one of the few guys who can both write and draw to a high standard. He like Bruce Tard is a homegrown double threat. There you go. Well, sounds like a pretty big compliment to me, mate. Thank

Gary Chaloner (01:07:58):
You very much. Yeah,

Leigh Chalker (01:08:01):
Well yeah man. I know you are like a double threat. Your writing’s fantastic, your artwork’s fantastic. Oh it’s Chris Sequeira, how are you mate? Thank you for watching. Nice comments too for Gary. I can tell you bud, I can speak for Ryan here too. We are often talking about your artwork and stuff man, and how you do things and Glen as well, we keep a close eye on Glen too and see what he’s doing. But it’s always cool man. Even I guess writing, I probably don’t do as much of that as I do artwork these days, but I think it’s, as you said, it is healthy to change or not change but adapt. Get little bits and pieces in from other people’s stuff and I dunno, it is strange that you do go back and as far back as you can because I like all that Alex Raymond stuff as well and a lot of those earlier books, there’s a definite beauty to that pen work and stuff, man.

(01:09:05)
And they certainly wrote things a lot differently back then too. It was very classical sort of stuff. So I, I’d say Gary has frozen there because he’s not moving and I haven’t seen a bus come through, so I’m going to assume he’ll pop back on shortly, but until he does basically, yeah, do apologise about the internet this evening. There’s not really much we can do about that, but we just keep trudging on because it is what it is and we just do with what we can. So it’s how the cookie crumbles. But just getting back to a couple of things until Gary pops back on. Don’t forget the Comex Shop. This show Chinwag and Friday Night Drink and Draws are sponsored by the Comex shop and there’s over a hundred titles of Australian independent comic books all for a flat rate of $9. And you can get as many as you want really.

(01:09:59)
I would recommend jumping on there and checking it out Friday night, drink and draw with Spie and Quick. And Ciz is back on Friday. The topic this week is Pirates. So as we said earlier, and we say every week, encourage people if you can’t draw on Friday nights and you’ve got a bit of time on a Wednesday or Thursday, whip one up, send it into the emails, Shane, Rob Comex, and it’ll get shown and put out there. There you go. Art at Comex Studio. So that’s where all people want to contribute to Pirates on Friday. Don’t forget to and subscribe the channels because all those likes and subscribes, all that technical baloneys be far beyond me. But look, it makes you go up. So that’s the best thing. One thing I do want to do tonight is I do want to give a special mention and a thank you to Mr. Peter Wilson because Pete’s the dude that puts all the banners together for Tuesday. And I was sitting here the other day and I thought to myself, what a champion he is. And I just don’t say thank you to him enough. So I just wanted to say thank you to Peter Wilson for all the help with the chinwag stuff. And Gary, are you back mate?

(01:11:23)
Are you there? I haven’t seen a bus. We were worried. I was worried about that. Yes. But now that you’re back,

Gary Chaloner (01:11:30):
Sorry about that. I was just a total Yeah, blackout.

Leigh Chalker (01:11:36):
Look man, it happens. Hey, I wouldn’t call that stress man. I think we’ve both been through stress. This isn’t stressful. This is just fun. And it’s just Tuesday night. So It is what it is. Hey. And yeah, so when you are still there man, or you’re lagging a little bit, just so I know when I can hit you with these questions. No lagging still. Well, we’ll give Gary another couple of minutes mate and we’ll see how we’re going.

(01:12:22)
Alright, well I’m going to give you say something now man, and we’ll see how long you are. Oh, gone. There we go. That was easy. My finger’s magical. So look, what I might do is other than say thank you to Peter Wilson is while we’re waiting for Gary is next week’s episode is episode 27 and that’s with Mr. Beau Roth from the Aussie verse. The Aussie verse is another comic book pop culture livestream that pops up during the week. He’s a very interesting character that man, so I’m really looking forward to having him on next week. Alright, so while we wait, it’s important to understand that one of the greatest practitioners of comics was the late Will Eisner and Will personally endorsed significant works of Gary’s, something not many creators can say. And thank you Chris mate. I say that’s pretty much the highest honour that anyone could possibly get. So there you go, he’s back. He’s popped in. So Chris was just telling us, mate, that Will Eisner gave you the thumbs up. So tell us about that.

Gary Chaloner (01:13:45):
Oh wow. Hopefully I won’t disappear again. But yeah, I was lucky enough again through a bit of perseverance to strike up a relationship with him and Dennis’s Kitchen back in the early two thousands, I was doing a spirit story for the Spirit, the new Adventures for Kitchen Sink Press. And I developed a relationship with Dennis Kitchen. He was going through a period where he had sold kitchen sink press, and so he was winding all of his titles down or some of the titles down. And I actually put to him, well if the spirit title is going to stop publishing, is there another Will Eisner character that maybe I could have a run at? And I suggested John Law, which is a character that Will Eisner had done some material on back in the late forties, 1948, but it hadn’t really gone ahead with, so I said, I’ve got some ideas to develop this character that’s been sitting dormant for 30, 40 years already.

(01:14:49)
And so Dennis said, okay, well leave it with me. I’ll have a chat to Will. And so the next day there was an email saying, Hey, yeah, Will’s quite interested, so have a chat. So he put the two of us together and we started developing the John Law character for a web comment with the idea of updating a page a week online and then having the end result finally packaged in print down the track. And that’s how that happened. But again, will is the kind of guy that was always open to new opportunities and to new creators as well. And he was interested in, back in the early two thousands, the whole web comic scene was totally different to what it is now. It was a little bit more raw and bumpy, but he could see the potential in releasing stuff online first and getting it printed after the fact.

(01:15:45)
So he was quite keen on seeing that experiment with one of his characters. He was quite open for me to develop his characters as a creator myself, that wasn’t going to be, he was more concerned about it being too similar to the spirit. So he didn’t want me to slavishly try and copy what he had done. He wanted to develop the character in its own way. He allowed me to do that and the opportunity to work with Will of course, it was amazing. And he gave me the opportunity to help out with creating content for the online, the web comics section of his textbooks as well, that he was getting republished at the time. He was getting all of them redesigned and new content updated and things like that. So he got in touch to say, seems how we’re doing his web comic for John Law, you want to write and construct a few chapters for me on online comics and what was then the norm for web comic production and digital production. So I was lucky enough to help in his reissue of his three textbooks, which are now fairly standard teaching tools for people who are getting into cartooning overseas as well. So yeah, it was pretty interesting times. I dunno whether I would have the balls to approach approach someone like that now, but I was young and stupid and it all worked for me. So it was a really interesting project

Leigh Chalker (01:17:20):
That would’ve just blown you out when you got the go ahead to do that. That would’ve, that would’ve knocked me out of my shoes, mate.

Gary Chaloner (01:17:30):
Yeah, I think it did. But again, you’re young and silly, so you sort of take it in stride and sort of think, yeah, yeah, I can do this, and away you go. And I dunno. So you can be a shy and retiring cartoonist, but really at the end of the day, there’s a little bit of a healthy ego there of yes, I’m good enough to do this and to have the faith in your own skills as they stand even back then in telling a story. And of course you’re getting feedback from someone like Dennis Kitchen. You’re getting feedback from Will Eisner, you’re getting feedback from the kitchen sink press editors that are professional editors. So it is not as if you can get away with anything too much because these people have been in the biz for decades longer than I’ve been around even. But it was nice to know that I was taking steps that they approved of, and I knew the field and the toys that I was playing with and I had enough knowledge and self-preservation not to do anything too stupid. So

Leigh Chalker (01:18:52):
Did you find that in your early days, one thing that was a big step in the right direction for you? Improvement and stuff like that just with your storytelling, not even your art, but I’m including the whole Gary package, man, the writing the lot.

Gary Chaloner (01:19:09):
Are you talking about my package again?

Leigh Chalker (01:19:13):
No. Oh damn. We’re on. We’re Alive nine.

Gary Chaloner (01:19:18):
It’s almost nine.

Leigh Chalker (01:19:20):
Oh wish should be right then if there’s any stray people out there. Oh, well it is what it is. Hey, the comic community is close men, we talk about lots of things. Did you find that a proper editor was someone when you were, because you get to a point where you’re feeling good about your art and what you’re pumping out. You know what I mean, to a certain extent. And you get momentum and you just keep going for it. And then someone comes along and just goes, think about this, this take that, do this and gives you a whole different road of thought. Did you find, I guess who was the person in your career that was the one that was just like, bang, open that door for you to take the next step to be better?

Gary Chaloner (01:20:15):
It would have to be someone like Dennis or Will. I haven’t had too many formal editors edit my work in the traditional sense. There have been some experiences when I did a filling issue for the Badger way back before John Moore, so it was in the 1990s at some stage there was an editor for First comics that he and I didn’t gel. So that was a very unpleasant experience in trying to get a job that was already under a lot of pressure getting finished. But editors, I think play or the role of the editor or not an editor with a capital E to someone who you can run a story pass and get advice from is very valuable. Indeed, and I’m just reading this from Danny as well. Have you ever considered that you had the same effect upon creatives as Eisner had on you? That could very well be the case.

(01:21:19)
I hadn’t considered front of brain, but yeah, that’s the thing. When you’re working on stories with other writers and other artists, how you do have that conversation with them, again, it’s running along that road and you have things in common and the story is what you’re trying to develop and bring the best out of for the story. So I think I probably have served that purpose in the past, but just not in a legit editorial role. But I remember back in the day, do you remember the American magazine? I think it’s still going to Comics Journal back in the day actually, there was a whole, this is I would assume in the two thousands if not earlier, a question about the role of editors in American comics and the different kinds of editors that you have and whether they’re an obstruction to telling a story for writers and artists or whether they’re a corporate necessity as well.

(01:22:25)
And I remember writing a very, very long, we need good editors letter to the editor for the comics journal that actually got published. And my take was that corporate comics, the superhero comics of the world need a corporate editor to keep things on track. And so some stories and some writers and artists can take these corporate characters and do some fairly bizarre things with ’em, but you need a strong editor to be able to bring the best out of the kernel of the idea that the writer and artist are trying to put together. So editors play a very important role. Having said that, I haven’t had any personal experience that much in my career with editors with a Capital E, but there have been people mentors like Dennis and Will that have served that purpose on certain projects that, and again, even co-creators and friends that you’re working with like Tad and Dave and Glen, they’ve served the same role as well when you say, Hey, is this work or not?

(01:23:34)
And they give you advice and opinions, you take it or not take it, but they’re serving the role as an editor. So it’s healthy not to work in a dark room by yourself with your creative property. It’s good to get feedback from someone that you trust. And I think that’s the key to have someone that you actually trust their opinion. And even when you disagree, you are able to workshop and pull the thread of what you’re trying to get the best result out of. And that’s so valuable about things like the comic art workshop that has been held over the last three or four years is that you have these people that go away with their babies of an idea at different stages of completion and they spend the weekend or the week workshopping and pulling their idea apart and getting other creators to put their 2 cents worth in.

(01:24:27)
And it’s very much like building a Frankenstein monster of different parts to make it stronger. And the Comic Art workshop has been very successful in having graphic novels workshop through that process, sold on to publishers and then released to much acclaim a lot of the projects. And that again, serves the role of the editor, the creator who is usually working away by themselves, actually has their projects, their ideas and their concepts workshopped literally in front of other creators and pulled apart and put back together again. So there is a need for editors that’s not on my projects. I know what I’m doing.

Leigh Chalker (01:25:16):
You just disappeared again. But if you can hear me, the next question I want to ask you is something that I recently discovered and wanted to confirm with you is do you find that chemistry is, I guess a necessity when you’re working with people? Like you were just mentioning before that you came across someone that you just butted heads with a little bit and you found that that project wasn’t as enjoyable as what you were hoping. So obviously in your case with chemistry, you like that person, you know what they’re doing, you meet, you can talk about these things. I mean the way, I don’t know man in my time, in my limited time in comparison to everyone else and yourself, I’ve sort of come to the conclusion that we are not eradicating diseases like we are making comics, so there’s no point having major arguments and fallouts with each other, it you just talk.

(01:26:21)
And I found that I came from one of those backgrounds of small town by myself, covid hit, put a comic book out, very nervous, but had an ego that I thought I had everything sussed out. And it was very quick along the lines of meeting yourself and even some of my mates and our friends, but along the lines like the SPS is, and Ryan Vals and Dave dies and people like that, that you soon realise that talking ideas with people and letting those creative juices flow, I’ve often found has added when you’ve got the right chemistry to what you are working on and improvements and stuff. And I like the fact that you’ve said that, told us all about that. It is important too, do you think to collaborate with other people? Don’t be that mushroom sitting in their room, get out there. It’s scary to show people your stuff, but the only way you’re going to improve is to show it and once

Gary Chaloner (01:27:37):
Yeah, that’s right. Yeah. And chemistry plays into respect as well. Using this first comics editor as an example, it really was at the end of the day that he didn’t respect me and I didn’t respect him much either. So the work was going to always, what he wanted from me and what I was prepared to give him was always going to be, there was a bit of tension there. Luckily it was just a fairly minor thing that was inconvenient at the time, but it was only a filling issue. So we did the best we could. We shook hands, said goodbye, and it was all fine. But having people that you can work with that it doesn’t have to be a front of brain conversation about deconstructing a story or seeking advice, it comes back to the whole sponge thing again where what you’ve been working on with Ring Around the Rosie, that project where you are working with other writers and other iners and other pencils and what you are seeing them producing is sort of lifting you as well.

(01:28:48)
You are soaking in what’s right in front of you as you’re working on a project that’s going to get published as for real. And everyone’s game is being lifted because of that sponge factor of collaboration. And that project would be totally different, probably less if it was just one person doing it themselves in a room and then releasing the book. So there are some projects that benefit from the collaborative energy that gets created, but there are some projects that really just are totally fine with one person chugging away. They know what they want to do and they know the end result and they’re quite happy to chug along without the collaboration factor. So yeah, the sponge element is quite good of absorbing information left and right and centre. And I think most comic creatives, whether you’re a writer or an artist, has that antenna out all the time of soaking in information and soaking in influences and information.

Leigh Chalker (01:29:58):
Oh man, that’s one thing I love most about the comic book community. Everyone that I’ve met is, I haven’t honestly met anyone that while there are people you mean, look, there’s people out there. We are people, some people like each other, some people don’t. But that’s cool. But the one thing I will say is no one has ever been unapproachable or not willing to share things that they’ve come across and what they’ve learned. You know what I mean? Along the lines because man, it is weird where you can learn stuff. Hey, it’s like I can think of so many things that already along the traps that certain things I never would’ve thought I would’ve sometimes, Gary, it’s like the most basic stuff, man, you go, why I’d never think about that. I mean, what? Oh, you idiot. And that’s the

Gary Chaloner (01:31:07):
Same road we’re all walking on though. It’s the same road as the same toolbox, it’s the same language we’re trying to talk and master. It’s just that we’re all at different sort of levels. And sometimes you walk faster and sometimes you jog and sometimes you sprint and sometimes you stumble and fall, but it’s on the same road of learning. Learning that mastery of how to tell a story and mastering your art style, mastering the way you write a story and construct things and what a certain project calls for. It’s all the same road and we’re just all at different stages of running along the marathon.

Leigh Chalker (01:31:47):
Have you ever got one of those projects that, have you ever got something in your career that you’ve gone like, wow, this is going to be the best of me, man, I might’ve bitten off more than I can chew here through your enthusiasm. Do you ever recollect anything like that that brought something weed out?

Gary Chaloner (01:32:16):
I dunno whether the feeling was exactly that, but when I worked on Proud Heart for Geal, which was the love of Achilles, and it was talking about the Trojan War and the artwork that I was producing for that was, the subject matter was so different to what I was used to that I thought that was, I was pretty trippy. Some of the pages I was releasing for that, the amount of detail and the armour and the horses and the Trojan environment for that story really, really did push me a lot. It’s not something that I would’ve normally gravitated towards. So that was a challenge for me. And I think the artwork still stands up. I look at the artwork occasionally, you go through your archives and it still stands up for me as, oh yeah, that wasn’t bad. That wasn’t bad. Everything else I’ve done has kind of been in my gatehouse wheelhouse, whatever the saying is. But Proud Heart was a bit of a stretch as far as the subject matter was concerned. And it was an interesting project. Gary proudly was amazing to work with is the writer. But again, it was a period of time where I was trying to refocus on my own characters, so I just wanted to get that project done and it was a difficult thing to get accomplished and finished, but I was proud of the finished product. But yeah, it was challenging. Yeah.

Leigh Chalker (01:33:57):
Did you want to challenge yourself at that time?

Gary Chaloner (01:34:04):
In hindsight, no. There’s a part of me that’s going, yeah, I’d like to do another issue of that at some stage. And then the other part of me going, Gary, you idiot, go and lie down until the feeling passes.

(01:34:25)
That first issue is it was meant to be a series and the first issue was a self-contained statement. And just after that I was pretty much done. So I just needed to do something that was a bit more me and the whole concept of doing eight more issues or 10 more issues of the Trojan War, I think take me out the back and shoot me. It was just one and done that one. But it was interesting, again, learned a lot about myself and about not only what I’d like to do, but what I don’t necessarily want to do as well. So when it comes to drawing horses, Dave die, where are you? I’m going to,

Leigh Chalker (01:35:10):
Yeah. Yeah. Dave dies the ringing for the horses. He’s got a life, he’s got dinky off to the left there, or could be the right studio out the window. Life

Gary Chaloner (01:35:21):
Drawing sessions with the horse.

Leigh Chalker (01:35:23):
Yeah. Yeah. That’s it mate. That’s it. Because the other thing is you often often say to me sometimes when I talk to you about different things, follow where your creativity takes you if you’ve often, because I come up with lane brain ideas everywhere, but particular ones I get keen on, and you’re always like, well, if that’s where the fuel’s burning man, that’s what you’ve got to look at. Did you find that out for yourself? You obviously, because what you were saying before is when you start, you do take on heaps because you can’t, you know what I mean? You want to get out there, so you’ll do a cover or you’ll do this or I’ll contribute to that and sometimes over the, and you feel like, yeah, I’ve got this, I can do it, I can do it. And then it snowballs and you start freaking out a bit and you start like, whoa. Getting a bit like, oh man, I’ve taken on too much. Steady pull the reins. Did you ever get to a point where you just went like, no, I’m going to go with the flow here where I want to take myself?

Gary Chaloner (01:36:47):
Yeah, two points. There were several or many times in my career where I’ve taken on more bitten off more than I can chew, and that wasn’t a very good place to be. But there’s also times in my career, and I’m going through one now where you’re creatively burning in a certain direction. For me it’s the Jackaroo and Morton Stone and anything else that comes along is I’m probably going to say no to because I’m burning to do this certain thing. I’m focused on this now. But in the past, as you’ve said, you’re a young guy who wants to work on Spider-Man, work on an American company, stories, do this and do that, say yes. And sometimes it can be to your detriment because I’ve always wanted to, from the early cyclone days, just produce jackaroo material. But then you get distracted by the shiny thing of, oh, there’s an overseas gig going, or there’s another team up with another character, or there’s another story that features characters that you’re not really interested in, but a lovely team up with a creative that you wanted to work with.

(01:37:53)
And all these yeses take you away from the main game. And as an artist, that probably was to my detriment that I can only imagine how many pages of Jackaroo material I would’ve produced if I’d said no to a lot of that stuff. But the projects like the Breckenridge Elkins and the John Law, they all allowed me to have a certain amount of profile that when I do get back to doing my own thing, that’ll all work out in the end. But at the time, all I could think of was, I want to do Jackaroo, but this is a good idea. I should say yes, I want to do, but this is another good idea, I should say. Yes. And it sort of tends to split your creativity in two, and you never get to do what you really want to do, although you’re applying everything you can to the projects you say yes to.

(01:38:49)
In hindsight, looking back now, sometimes depending on what mood you’re in, you can see it as a good thing or a bad thing. But now I’m burning focused on a certain thing that, and if I was to get an email from someone tomorrow wanting me to do a feeling issue of, I’ve done an astro city for Kurt Busick, if he was to ask again, I would say no. I would recommend other people to do it because I’m focused on getting this stuff done now, and I’ve done my Astro City issue, I’ve done my Patman story, I’ve done my John Law, all these things that have been ticked off my list, and that’s because I’m a senior citizen. I can do that. But of course, if you’re young and you’re burning to do those things, but of course there are different kinds of creators as well. There are creators that have their graphic novel or their short story in them, and that’s all I want to do. Or there’s creators that are burning to get a professional gig as the next Spiderman artist or the next ghostwriter artist or the next person that gets picked up by Marvel or DC to do something for them. And that’s just the process of creative decision making as you carve a career for yourself. There’s no right or wrong in that. That’s just different.

Leigh Chalker (01:40:08):
Yeah, I can understand that. Yeah, totally. I guess you choose your lane, you do, you know what I mean? What you’re comfortable with, and you sort do it because we mean spoken because a lot of people that aren’t, I guess, doing comics, just see comics as comics. But when you start getting into comics and when you’ve got a career, you do, you realise there’s so much more to comics that it’ll blow your mind, the bits and pieces and the help that you’ve got to get together and gathering the strengths of people to work on a project and stuff. But I can, I don’t know, man, I’m glad that I get the opportunity because 12 months ago, man, I was going off in crazy directions, trying to take on way too much and had that bit of burnout and stuff, and I’m thankful that you gave me that to think about, just steady, you know what I mean? Pick your targets. The other thing I’ve learned too, to a certain extent is there comes an element, and I like art. I’m pretty free with my art. Everyone knows that they can see it and stuff, but when you getting away from that, you have to come into a strategic element, don’t you? To a certain extent. You know what I mean? You do have to stop that enthusiasm for a minute and go, hang on a minute, dude.

(01:41:47)
Is that the right step for where you want to go? You know what I mean? And the step for taking it could be to learn or it could, as you said, to tick off that box that you wanted to do when you were young. You know what I mean to say? Yep, she’s done in the back door. But yeah, man, you’ve always given good advice. I would second from my limited time here, what you’re saying is if you’re strong and want to do something for yourself, follow it through especially, and then

Gary Chaloner (01:42:20):
That’s counterbalance by real life situations that affect your decision making as well. I mean, you may have a plan to do a graphic novel within five years, or it might be within five years you’re getting your first gig at DC or Marvel Comics, whatever that might be. But then real life throws you so many curve balls that you’re going to have to absorb that in amongst your creative decision or career building as well, whatever that may be. And no one ever said that being or carving a career in comics is easy. There’s a lot of hard work, almost like having a certain set of skills of how to write a story and how to produce a piece of art on the art board sort of gets you on the starting blocks of the swing pool. But as soon as you start diving in, that’s when the race really begins, and that’s where you need to show your metal by how you handle yourself in the eight lanes of other people trying to get a career as well, vying for publishing deals or the eyes of an editor overseas or anything that takes for you to get a career together or to stay the course of, I’m not saying yes to anything because I’m halfway through doing this 300 pages and I’ve got to finish this 300 pages.

(01:43:40)
It’s like again, a marathon swimming race. It’s the same thing. And then as I said, you get the vagaries of real life coming in, which we both experienced over the last couple of years that have thrown plans out the door, and you have to start from scratch, basically rebuilding yourself and making decisions on what you want from comics and how they’re going to fit into your life.

Leigh Chalker (01:44:03):
Yep, yep, a hundred percent. And asking the question, because as you know, mate, because you’ve got the hunger, you were talking about that earlier. Anyone that does this sort of stuff, we must be crazy. Sometimes you wonder what the reward is and sometimes being creative and being, I guess by yourself, a lot of the time you do collaborate with people and talk, but the majority of the time is by yourself and you’re making decisions where you’re at at that point. Things can change too. I’m going to do this. And you can be halfway through that. Something will just come out of nowhere and then you veer off down a totally different line, and then you look back and you go, hang on a minute. I’ve still got half of this sitting back there. But you’ve already finished that, which you’d never thought you’d finish, and you’ve veered off over here. That seemed like the way to go at the time. And then somehow years later, you come back to what you’d left behind. How many you reckon there’s more projects that you’ve left behind on the ideas board than there is that have actually come to fruition?

Gary Chaloner (01:45:24):
Yeah, I’d say yes. There’s a mad scramble to try and get all these ideas on paper before. There’s been a couple of times where I’ve had just a purer of an idea and Hollywood’s come along, or another publisher has come along and just stomped all over it, and I’ve gone, oh, let’s save myself a lot of work. Don’t have to do that anymore. Someone’s already thought of it and been faster to the gate than me. So that happens quite a lot. But just alluding to what you were saying then about going off on different pathways and then turning back and looking at what you were trying to finish before. The other magic thing about comics is that golden moment where you’re working on a page or a sequence of panels or a sequence of pages, and they just work that they’re actually, they represent what you had in your head or close to it, and your mastery of the skills involved to tell that story, to create that scene, to create the pacing on a page.

(01:46:24)
And it’s kind of close to what you had in mind, and it’s just between you and your drawing board and the pen in your hand, and it actually works that can’t be beaten. And that’s what it’s a little bit druggy, I suppose. That’s the drug that you’re trying to repeat all the time, is getting what’s in your head on the page successfully. And that’s even before you market, what you’re doing to any perceived audience that’s out there is that you’re pleasing yourself first. You’re trying to solve those problems that you’ve got of putting that story that’s in your head onto the paper or onto the computer if you’re a digital artist. And when it works, when you have that mastery, even if it’s a little bit of a mastery of a sequence of three panels, that creates a timing measure between panel one and panel three with something that happens in the middle and it works.

(01:47:18)
That’s miraculous that you’ve created that life. You’ve created time, you’ve created sound, you’ve created a big budget movie in three panels because you can draw that much information in it that is great when it works. And I think that’s the secret that a lot of creators are trying to achieve. And it’s just between you and the blank page really, and your ability to carve that out and have that golden moment, time and time and time again. And the best of us get to do that a lot. But that’s the struggle, and I think that is a great, not a price to pay, but a thing that it gives you that flies in the face of all a lot of the adversity that comes along with the creating a comic as well. The payoff is the term I’m looking for. That’s the payoff, is that little golden moment between you and the art board that you’ve actually told that scene or told that story to the best that you had in your mind, and you can actually do it.

Leigh Chalker (01:48:17):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I would agree with you that it is like a drug in that regard. Yeah, it is so much so that for me, this is just me talking personally. I found that chasing that hit sort of stopped me. There’s great sides to artwork and stuff, but certain elements of romanticism aside, you also can’t forget about life because while you’re chasing that hit, you can forget to people around you and friends and things like that too. That is the downside, I will say that. But that’s where, as you were saying, Gary, it’s like it is about balance mate, isn’t it? And that comes down to not taking on too many projects so that they are manageable, not just from an artistic and creative perspective, but also from a personable perspective with the people that are around you and stuff too.

(01:49:30)
I often have a laugh, everyone I meet, oh, what do you do with yourself? I do this and that. I don’t tend to tell people draw and stuff very often. It’s not until they come over or just comes up in passing that this is sort of what you dabble in and all that. And they all think it’s so cool. And I sit there and I think to myself, yeah, it is. But then I think to if only they knew, you know what I mean? Just the time that takes and I guess the madness. But there is nothing like it. There’s no doubt about that. There’s nothing storytelling meant, but you do leave a few. There is a little bit of collateral damage in the background as you strive for these goals, but that, I think that’s anything creative or sporting or anything like that you want to do and you want to do well and you’re driven for it, there’s nothing wrong with that.

Gary Chaloner (01:50:27):
And the other thing is the joy of not only creating it yourself, but reading someone else’s work on recommendation that someone that you had never heard of before. I just recently bought a digital book of a couple of sisters who did a graphic novel, something to do with Summer is the title. Anyway, I just finished reading it and it’s spectacular. Absolutely beautiful joy to read all the way through. Very inspirational as far as the artwork. And the story was very just very sedately told. It was about a couple of friends that get together every school holidays in America and a little bit of not an adventure as a quiet growth as a young teen novel. And so it was a story about them overhearing what was going on with the older teens that were on holidays as well. And it was really a gentle, lovely, but beautifully illustrated work when you see someone else hitting that mark of excellence, and you can sit back and you don’t know them. You’re reading it like any other book you’d read on the shelf, but as someone who knows the secrets to the language of comics that, oh man, these ladies, they know their stuff. They page after page after page and it really lifts you up. So that’s the other side of the coin of the heartache of producing your own material to the joy of reading a really successfully produced project is amazing.

Leigh Chalker (01:52:00):
Yeah, yeah. Oh, well, I think there’s an element of beauty in everything that everyone does. I mean everything, man. Some people are better swimmers than others and that sort of stuff, but it’s the effort too because yeah, there’s a lot of effort. It’s a lot of effort on the course of self fear, overcoming that you sit here, you’re thinking, because I dunno about you, man, but one of those sort, I mean obviously your appreciation for Bruce Springsteen and the who and all that, and you like to play them in the background while you’re drawing. Do you drop into the zone when you’re doing your pages and suddenly a few hours can just be gone in the blink of an eye? Or are you one of those people every line you are drawing, you are thinking about something your brain’s just going about? It could be anything, man. It may not even be the artwork.

Gary Chaloner (01:53:07):
Yeah, no, I think I’m pretty focused on what’s in front of me once I define what needs to be done. I quite enjoy the process. If you would ask me what I enjoy most in this different stages, I enjoy the whole process for different reasons, but when it gets down to grabbing a pencil and workshopping what is supposed to be a figure on a page, I try to enjoy that for what it is itself. The east stage has its pleasures there. I don’t think there’s a stage of comic production beyond deadlines that I detest or dislike or have a problem approaching. Even producing this second issue, adventure Illustrated, as pressured as I felt to get the project finished and done, I was at the point of rationalising that, look, it’s so late now, I might as well do a good job and enjoy it as much as I can. So although it had the weight, oppressive weight of being so late and all of that entails, I was still trying to maintain a certain amount of joy in finishing the book. And I don’t think there’s anything that’s been necessarily rushed about it. So it’s about as good as I can get. But I was in the zone there trying to get each page and each panel and each figure as joyfully executed on the pages as I could.

Leigh Chalker (01:54:38):
Well, it shows man, because the artwork looks slick. Like slick, I reckon. But I’ve always thought, yeah, artwork was slick. There was, I would say also, just to go back to something that came up earlier that I can, I won’t speak names out of school, but for myself anyway, I can definitely tell you that you were someone as a young fellow influenced me for this sort of thing. Mean I guess we are wildly different, I suppose, in how we put our stuff out there. But you and just seeing it done, because that was an awesome spark to me. And I know a lot of my other mates, and you’d know ’em too out there as well, are grateful for you for giving us a creative nudge when we were younger, mate, in that period, could we do, it could. Because at the time, there was a lot of Marvel in DC on the newsstands and they’d poke up cyclone and burying other stuff at the time. I mean, I was a huge GI Joe fan when I was a kid. I think that, man, look, I went through phases, all right? I get a bit obsessive about stuff for a long time. Transformers were three or four years and then whoop, then I came across Snake Eyes. Snake Eyes is I think one of the great comic book characters ever. Really.

(01:56:28)
I think that’s a mark in storytelling, how you can have a dude that never says a word for hundreds and hundreds of issues, man, but me is one of the greatest coolest characters ever done. And I remember getting really tripped out when I was a teenager, going to the news agents and seeing Cyclone Comics was doing Australian reprints of GIJ. That blew my mind at the time. I just wanted to tell you that that was happy memories, man. And I remember actually that was one of those stages too, where I just started getting into black and white artwork because everything up until that point had been colour at a similar time and a similar time, 2000 ad when it was like 65 cents a copy was rolling through and a lot of that stuff, Bly and oh God, man, there’s so many 2000 Mike McMahons, like I can think of so many from 2018 that were black and white.

(01:57:31)
That used to blow my mind too. So yeah, thank you for kicking me on. And me mate, Ryan, Valerie out there would probably give you a double thumbs up too, mate. Yeah, no, it’s good stuff. But mate, so you’re pretty, you sort of spun me out a little bit earlier too by how busy you are. Like I’m real excited for you, man. I think things like the Jackaroo are definitely a staple of Australian comic books, mate. I think you’re right with what you said as well earlier, and this falls back, I guess to people like me who do these shows as well, and I hadn’t thought about it in this perspective. I do focus on the creator and because I like to tell their story or let them tell their story of how they got there and how they were motivated and how they got to where they are.

(01:58:38)
And everyone has different levels of where they want to want to be. Some people want to own a house, some people want a dog mate. You know what I mean? There’s nothing wrong with whatever level you want to be, so not here to judge in that regard, but you’re a hundred percent correct about there isn’t enough conversation about characters and what their landmark impact was at certain times, you know what I mean? And even now, and there are that eighties period of you guys like the cyclone guys, yourself and Dave and Glenn and Tad and Jason Paulo when he was a young fella coming in later and different things like that. Those comic books and characters in particular should be looked at in the highest regard because you were coming out of a dry patch there too in the seventies, really. I mean, there was only Gerald car and a couple of dudes trying to push through at that stage.

(01:59:39)
This always, because coming from the digital age, I don’t claim to understand the digital age, it’s just I’m as good as turning on, turning off. That’s about as much as my extent of knowledge of the intricacies of all this stuff, and it’s intimidating in that regard. But being young fellas, you guys were setting up not much to go off only each other, I guess to a certain extent. Yeah, you come on, man, the like-minded, the hive sort of comes together and creates these things, a whole different kettle of Fishman, like printing presses a whole different way of getting together. And then you’ve told a story in the past of that flood that wiped out a whole heap of common stuff. The storm? The storm, yeah. It would’ve just been absolutely devastating. Wouldn’t have been able to turn around and go, oh, just belt me out another thousand. You know what I mean? And have it shipped to you in two days that would’ve been Nelly shipped. How did you come back from that, your mind? I mean,

Gary Chaloner (02:01:04):
Well, one of the great false starts of cyclone comics that was, and each time that blockage happened, it gave you the opportunity to either run at it again, and we did changing things and absorbing what we’d learned, and each time we approached it, so it was the early Adventure Illustrated was a magazine sized comic, and it got flooded out and got destroyed. So we tried it again and we changed the title from Adventure Illustrated to Cyclone, but it was still a four sized magazine. And then that was a promotional issue as well that didn’t get distribution very wide. And then we decided to change the format from magazine size down to us comic size because we got the feedback from all the retailers that, oh, it’s not going to fit on our shelves where we’re building all of our comic shops to house American comics.

(02:02:00)
So you need to fit into that. So the decision was made to change that. So every time that there was some sort of impediment in those early stages, and this goes with me developing characters as well with the Jack Ru in particular, that every false start allowed an opportunity of growth or change as well. So it was pretty crazy. Some of us were more developed and centred in their creations, like Tad had always a pretty firm idea on how he wanted a dark nebula to be. But obviously with my changes in those early days, we’re still trying to find my way with the character, which is evident on the page. And that’s interesting about picking up those early issues is you can see the different stages. Each of us was that in development as writers and artists as well. So it’s fascinating to have that marked as historical documents or documents that could be tracked down and followed was our development as young creators.

Leigh Chalker (02:03:04):
I see the other day you’ve got a couple of your comics in the national library.

Gary Chaloner (02:03:10):
Yeah, I think,

Leigh Chalker (02:03:12):
Yeah, because I saw that popped up somewhere and I was sitting there and I thought like, man, that’s a really awesome thing. I’d never even occurred to me that comic books go to the National Library.

Gary Chaloner (02:03:30):
Most publications are required to, which isn’t really common knowledge, but you should really send a couple of copies to the National Library to be archived in the National Archives, I dunno what it’s called, trove or whatever, but there is a requirement or a recommendation that for every book, every comment that’s published, that you just bang it an envelope and send it to the national library and they’ll accept it and catalogue it for you and put it on permanent record there. And the whole bit that’s above and beyond the library being willed collections and things like that as people pop off and they have great archives of personal collections that they bequeath to certain archives or libraries. But I think right up until Adventure Illustrated, number one was I’ve been sending copies to the library, and I think a lot of other creators do that as well. So if you haven’t all the stuff that you’ve done in the past, bun an envelope and put it through it and send it through to the library, they’ll take it on board and catalogue it for you. But yeah, it’s great knowing that archivist stuff is there, whether it’s straight from the publishers or someone has bequeathed one of their collections to the libraries as well. Yeah, yeah.

(02:04:51)
Send stuff to the libraries.

Leigh Chalker (02:04:53):
Yeah. Yeah, because that’s something I didn’t even know. So I mean, another beautiful thing out there for anyone listening, do what Gary said, send it to the library and get it in the archives. A pretty amazing thing, man. I reckon that sort of stuff. There’s so many little simple things you can do too that people don’t know, hey, to get yourself into those sorts of places and things like that too. Man, I had no idea about that until I read that the other day and I sat there and I hung on that thought for a little while. I thought that just to me, I do. I like those sorts of things, man. Like the libraries and stuff. I dunno, look, I’d take a million bucks for one of my characters, no doubt it’d be a deal, but, but if I couldn’t manage to get there and I was sitting down old, old man somewhere like having a cigarette and a cup of coffee, I think I’d be proud to know that a piece of work that I did at one point in time or all of them were in the archive of the National Library.

(02:05:57)
That’s just me.

Gary Chaloner (02:06:00):
The other thing is it makes it very easy for researchers and educators to get a sense of what has been published. If it’s all been, or a lot of it has been archived by a library who knows how to look after the collection, that would be most researchers port of call. If they were coming in cold to Australian comics, chances are they would get in touch with the state libraries or the national library to say, right, if I was to put in a search term Australian comics, what am I going to get if I was a researcher coming in cold? That’d be one of my first things to get a sense of what the libraries have before you go through the maddening job of trying to find individual publishers and getting in touch directly to try and get archive copies or research copies for any project. So it’s a thing to keep in mind. You make sure that the libraries get some copies, not only for your own preservation of work, but for anyone else doing research on the industry or the art form that your stuff is there to be found.

Leigh Chalker (02:07:05):
Yeah. Oh, it makes you wonder what’s in there too though, man. Imagine if someone gave you the keys to the car and said, we’ll give you 12 hours. Go in there and have a look, and you’re like, hell yeah. You know what I mean? There’d be some pretty amazing stuff because yourself and even Daniel, and there’s plenty of people out there know a lot more of the history of Australian comic books than me, but it’s certainly the more I learn, the more I realise how long it’s been going and how many people and great characters have come out of Australia and they’re well worth the look and yeah, no, I’m really happy for you that you’ve got all this stuff coming out. I know know you’ve been tro on behind the scenes and stuff.

Gary Chaloner (02:07:54):
Well, that’s the plan. Some projects may fall along the side of the road, but that’s the path that I’m heading down and hopefully it’ll all get done, and the old wonky right hand will stay true to itself for a little bit longer and we can get the job done.

Leigh Chalker (02:08:10):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I’ve got faith in you, mate. I’ve got faith in you. Hey, now as we wind down our evening, I am going to ask you in particular, I do always like to ask this question, but I guess I’ve sort of forgotten it this season of Chinwag because see, just so people know, I don’t take notes or bring notes in. I just do all this sort of stuff. So in my mind I’ve got a circle of things that I want to say, and much like the internet connection tonight, sometimes my connection doesn’t work as well on some days either, and I forget things. So that’s just how it is. But I’m okay with that. So I hope you are as well. We’ve got Young Lee sitting in Townsville, 14 years old. What would you say to that person? Someone comes to you at the festival you’re going to in Adelaide, Mr. Chana, what do I do? Where am I heading with this comic book? What would you say to ’em?

Gary Chaloner (02:09:23):
It’s always difficult. You need to have a conversation with ’em. I think if you were talking to a young creator, I was talking to you when you were 14, I’d say Get your feet off the lounge.

Leigh Chalker (02:09:35):
But

Gary Chaloner (02:09:36):
If someone was to come up to me at a convention or a trade show or something like that, you have to try and define what they’re trying to achieve in some way, shape, or form. It’s not necessarily a portfolio review where you dive in and tear them all to shreds. You need to at least get a sense of what they’re trying to get out of the path that they’re walking. Again, it’s the whole analogy of the marathon, and you have to be able to get a sense of what they’re trying to achieve so that you can advise ’em properly. But again, there’s so many resources around now that I probably rely on getting them to get in touch with the Comex crowd and to talk to, listen to some of the videos that have been here, that scissors is sponsored and put forward and let ’em know that there is a community and a group of people there that can help new and young creators learn.

(02:10:29)
And it’s whether they have the fire in the belly or not really. And you can tell when you’re talking to someone with a mind and with a burning, and you can certainly tell from a portfolio showing whether they have the ability to persist as an artist, but when you talk to ’em for five minutes, chances are you’ll probably be able to define whether they will be able to take criticism, be able to dig deep to improve, and that one chat will you see them the following year at the same convention and have a product to show or some art pages that are a vast improvement as to what they’ve started. But you need to invest a couple of minutes to talk to the person first and get a bit of a sense of what they want to achieve out of it. As I said, there’s a high turnaround of people in this industry. Comics is a hard task master, but you find that the people who really want to do it will just jump over as many hurdles as put in front of them, and that can be quite dogged. And as long as they know that they’re not doing it by themselves and that there is advice and help to be had there, they should be fine.

Leigh Chalker (02:11:45):
Yeah, I can definitely, I love what you said because I can definitely tell you from having people like yourself that I can reach out to and talk about, talk to things with, and it is just really, it’s a no-brainer. Reach out and just talk to people. You never know. You never know what you’re going to learn. That’s the whole thing. It’s like someone may tell you something you don’t like, but then somewhere down the track, it all makes sense. Some of the best lessons I’ve had in doing this are, believe it or not, a kick up the bum here and there that I’ve got a bit of the about, and then two years later you go, that’s exactly what I needed to hear at that time to keep me on track and that. But do you often find from a creative perspective, and I know that you’ve said that you’re not a teacher, but the strange thing is, man, from my perspective of my dealing with you as you are a teacher, you’re just a very gentle one.

(02:12:47)
No, but you are. You’re encouraging, but you have your way of, I can walk away. I’m just speaking for me here too, just from my interactions with you, mate. So I’m not talking for anyone else. This is just me to you. And I have walked away. Absolutely, 100%. This is what I’m doing. I’ve spoken to you about it, and you’re so encouraging. Yet I have still walked away and gone. He’s right. I need to focus on what’s, I need to focus on this. You know what I mean? I think that makes a great teacher, whether you realise it or not meant Oh,

Gary Chaloner (02:13:28):
Good, good, good. Yeah. I remember a couple of those big conversations that we’ve had over the past, and there were real forks in the road for you one way or the other, and I would’ve supported which way you would’ve jumped either way. But just talking from a little bit of experience and the bad things that have happened to me over the years of a bit of warning flag. You can go down that road if you want. Watch out for this, and if you go down this road, watch out for this. But it’s your decision. You do what you need to do.

Leigh Chalker (02:14:00):
Yeah, no, well, I definitely appreciate it, man, because where I’m at at the moment creatively is I’m happy within myself, calm with what I’m doing and my goals that I’ve got set. And if it wasn’t for people like yourself and Ryan Valour and Spie and Dad di, and people that I can have a talk to about things, might’ve still been a little bit and not realised some of the hurdles that are out there. Yeah. So thank you, mate. Thank you. Pleasure

Gary Chaloner (02:14:39):
For a solitary occupation. It’s not really a solitary occupation if you don’t want it to be. So that’s it in a nutshell. There are good friends and good people to be able to learn from, so take advantage of that if you need to. If you don’t need to, great. You go on in that room and you produce your 300 page graphic novel all by yourself, but if you need some human contact and talk to someone who is travelling the road with you and knows what you’re talking about, there’s plenty of people out there that’ll be there for you

Leigh Chalker (02:15:11):
A hundred percent. And well said. I totally agree. All right. Well, Gary, we might roll on the show there buddy. Man, thank you. I haven’t seen you since the last one. We speak a lot, but it is nice to see you again tonight, mate. You’re a champion to me, and thank you very much. I probably wouldn’t have got as far, I’m probably going to throw the towel in probably two or three times along the way, but with your gentle way you

Gary Chaloner (02:15:45):
Tonight or with your career or just tonight with the internet?

Leigh Chalker (02:15:48):
Oh, no, no. I was going to stick it out like, man, hey, like I said, I can’t remember who the curricular was, but it was like back in the second World War, it might’ve been like a Colin McNeil or someone like that, if that’s his name, someone famous, but I can’t remember the name. And it was during the body line period when England were bowling bounces and taking heads off and it was real vicious stuff. And this one Australian dude was the one out there hooking and pulling and not having any dramas and getting hit and said the radio said to him like, but you show no fear. And now this dude had been a pilot in the Battle for Britain. And he said, it’s just a cricket ball mate. It’s not a meh schmidt up your ass. So I guess it’s just the perspective of how you look at things, man. So yeah, no fear, mate. What did you tell me? Once? No regrets. So you just stick it out and you deal with what you got and just keep plugging away. And

Gary Chaloner (02:16:48):
All projects reached a finishing line. Just persist and stick with it and it’ll get

Leigh Chalker (02:16:53):
Done. A hundred percent. Alright, well thank you very much sir. You are a champion and yeah, it’s always a pleasure to have you on the show and you’re welcome back anytime you like, mate. So always feel free. I wish you the best with all your upcoming projects and stuff too, man. I hope you hit your cyclone history comic book or book because that’ll be a doozy. So everyone should keep an eye out now if you are in Adelaide to go and see Gary if you’ve got the opportunity because yes, he’s a very nice man. I can’t speak more highly of him. Alright, so now just to go back over a few things as we end the show. The show was sponsored by the comic shop. There’s over a hundred titles of Australian independent comic books in that shop. So you can get lots, there’s heaps of creators.

(02:17:45)
Jump on the website and have a look. Alright, I would recommend it. You’re not just supporting the Comex shop, but you’re also supporting Australian creators do what they love and giving them a couple extra bucks so they can keep buying their pens and inks and paper because man, that stuff is expensive, especially if you whip through it the Friday night drink and draw is back on Friday with pirates as your main topic. So as I said before, if you want to get your artwork in there sizzle, probably pop up the website. There it is, art at Comex studio. Send everything in. It’ll be shown on the Friday night drinking draw. And you’ll get your work shown out on a live stream, which is up to episode number 92, I think. So it’s gearing up for the 100th episode, which that’s pretty well too like and subscribe to channel please so you can get all the latest news and gossip and these shows and stuff like that and content.

(02:18:40)
Again, a special thank you to Peter Wilson for all the work he does in behind the scenes with the banners and all the artwork and stuff for me and says with the chinwag. Thank you very much mate. It’s greatly appreciated. Next week’s episode is from the Aussie verse, which is another Australian live stream. It’s pop culture and stuff like that. Is the head honcho there, Mr. Bo Roth? Now he’s a character, so I’m definitely looking forward to that and his perspective on a few things. And look, the one thing that I would like to say as well is I’m going to try and say this and remind people, mental health is a battle for people that do things by themselves. Some people are okay with it, some people aren’t. Everyone fights their own battles, but look after your friends and family. If you haven’t heard from someone in a while, drop ’em a text or a line because you never know. They may just need someone to talk to. You might be the person that helps ’em out of the hole. And you may find inadvertently that you yourself find a little bit of joy and reconnecting with that person and spread the love and get it all around man and look after each other. So anyway, for tonight, thank you for watching. Thank you for all the comments. Thank you for everything and we’ll see you next Tuesday night, seven 30. And always remember, community is unity. See you.

Voice Over (02:20:02):
This show is sponsored by the Comex Shop. Check out comex.cx for all things Comex and find out what Comex is all about. We hope you enjoyed the show.